Just curious to see what peoples thought were on the subject. Just seems like with every edition of D&D, the penalties for dieing and being brought back are being reduced to the point where there is almost nothing to fear from death.
Now, this is assuming the players have access to be able to rez (through whatever means), but the penalty nowadays is what, -1 or 2 to all your attack and skill rolls for 6 encounters (3 milestones)?
Before it was level loss and way back when , it was a system shock roll and potenial CON loss.
I just hate to see the threat of death lose it's teeth, so I'm curious to see what other players and DMs thoughts on the subject are and if anyone has done anything to add a penalty or punishment for being dieing and being rez'd.
I don't allow Ressurections in my games. It solves the whole thing.
+1. That's the penalty for dying: you're dead.
+1. That's the penalty for dying: you're dead.
Death shouldn't have teeth. Dying isn't fun, so PC's shouldn't suffer from death.
Right?
Death shouldn't have teeth. Dying isn't fun, so PC's shouldn't suffer from death.
Right?
We enjoy death as part of a characters life/story/development, and give the character the sendoff they deserve. After the funeral arrangements(if any depending on the PCs) we work to integrate the new PC as quickly and seamlessly as possible.
We find death to be quite fun, some of my favourite D&D moments involve character deaths(both mine and others).
No suffering involved.
- No resurrection / raise dead at all.
- Fort save to survive the process (similar to old system shock in 1e)
- Lose 2 points of Con permanently.
- Perform a quest in service to the deity granting the raise.
I also hate the idea that a Ress spell can cancel out terrible losses. Many of my stories center around using NPC's as fodder to involve characters. When you attempt to do that with a level 12+ character... the invariable response is not to chase after the culprit, but instead to get a Ress Dead ritual cast as soon as possible.
I don't allow Ressurections in my games. It solves the whole thing.
and that is a bull- solution.
why NOT let your PCs come back from the dead? this is Fantasy, not real life. Death works differently here.
the penalty is weaker than it used to be, true, but it isn't negligable.
While death might not be fun its a fact of life. If a character can just comeback after any encounter then the point of surviving becomes futile. Sure it cost an exuberant amount to come back and you get a couple of penalties, but if you can come back then why can’t your enemies do the same.
This is Dungeons & Dragons, not Luncheons & Laptops.
Now, this is assuming the players have access to be able to rez (through whatever means), but the penalty nowadays is what, -1 or 2 to all your attack and skill rolls for 6 encounters (3 milestones)?
Nit pick, 3 milestones is not the same as 6 encounters. A milestone comes from 2 consecutive encounters, not 2 encounters. So if your group decides they want to rest, that last encounter did not help you any at all towards getting rid of your penalty.
Biggest penalty I usually give is standard loot, possibly with a "I get to roll your low level item which you can keep or sell for 1/2 value" clause. Generally I give slightly above average loot, and usually try to make sure it is marginally useful or if not at least cool.
It always seemed to me that the magic worked well enough to bring them back so they should be at full. If the mage was really crappy or something, then I could see being at a penalty, but not for something as minor as "I want to disrupt the plot, and go through introducing a new character for some bizzare reason known only to me, the DM".
In the end, D&D is just a game. PCs will "respawn" whether you allow generous raise dead, or just have the player roll up a new "dwarf fighter mark II".
Death shouldn't have teeth. Dying isn't fun, so PC's shouldn't suffer from death.
Not exactly. Extended penalties for dying aren't fun, particularly when they make it more likely that you'll die again in the future.
I have very little experience with D&D before 2000, but at least in 3.x, death was a heck of a slippery slope. Dead characters came back with worse saves, worse attacks, and worse HP than they had before they died--but the encounters didn't get any easier. If you died again, you were at least 2 levels behind the rest of the party, making it even more likely that you'd die yet again.
I've seen this happen multiple times, and it happened to me in one game. Believe me, it's no fun to adventure two or three levels behind the rest of the party.
I just hate to see the threat of death lose it's teeth, so I'm curious to see what other players and DMs thoughts on the subject are and if anyone has done anything to add a penalty or punishment for being dieing and being rez'd.
I've also used the "no rez" rule, primarily because most campaign worlds don't satisfactorily account for its effects on things like political killings, disease, etc. I actually call this Final Fantasy Tactics Syndrome; in the Playstation game, a major plot point requires the dramatic on-screen death of one character's relative, regardless of how many ways the player's party has to resurrect her.
What I like better, though--because occasionally PCs die in ways that aren't fair and aren't their fault--is attaching serious RP consequences to death. Maybe the party has to go retrieve the dead character's soul, maybe the resurrected character and his friends owe a serious favor to the god or angel that permits the rez, or maybe both.
The only trick when you penalize resurrection harder is that you don't overprioritize bring in a new character. Some people don't mind the chance to play a new character, but some get really attached, and I've found it's pretty easy to generate friction between the two camps if you penalize one more than the other.
Is it perfect? No, not at all, but it works well for my group.
and that is a bull- solution.
why NOT let your PCs come back from the dead? this is Fantasy, not real life. Death works differently here.
It should be possible, but very, very rare. Death needs to have meaning in order for the rewards to have meaning. With death not occurring or just being a speed bump, there's no point to fighting at all.
the penalty is weaker than it used to be, true, but it isn't negligable.
Yes it is. A -1 for a few fights is ::yawn::
Put too large a penalty on raising dead, and your players will just make new characters. If your players know that PC death is final (or bringing someone back is too costly compared to making new ones) they'll have less attachment to their characters.
I've found the opposite to be true. Without permanent death, the game and characters have no meaning. With true death, the attachment to a character with meaning grows.
The misconception is that death in a game had any teeth at all in the beginning. Unless you're kicking a player out after his character dies, the player is still going to keep playing in the game somehow.
But not with his beloved character. He'll make a new one, but it won't be the same, or as good. Most groups I've played with start new characters out a few levels lower than the party.
In the end, D&D is just a game. PCs will "respawn" whether you allow generous raise dead, or just have the player roll up a new "dwarf fighter mark II".
Er, no. Re-spawning means the same character. A new character is NOT a re-spawn, and if the player actually roleplays, the new character will be completely different.
While death might not be fun its a fact of life.
Taxes are (currently) also a "fact of life." I don't play D&D to teach my players about the "facts of life." I play it to have fun. If one of my players loses a favored character, then who am I to disallow resurrection based on some notion that since death is unavoidable in real life, then it must carry a huge penalty in D&D? I'd rather he have fun.
Sure it cost an exuberant amount to come back and you get a couple of penalties, but if you can come back then why can’t your enemies do the same.
Resurrection is a plot device. Enemies can come back to life if the DM sees fit.
In one of our recent adventures, we came to a village where someone had been killed accidently by their "clerics". Evidently the town had gathered enough materials to pay the "clerics" to raise him. (We killed the clerics before they had the chance though... We're not evil, just prone to miscommunication)
Later on, we killed a hunting party (again miscommunication). And since we don't have rituals ourselves (or at least the fighter and rogue, aren't letting on they can), we burn bodies. We were chastised in the next town for not bringing the bodies back to be raised.
So as far as I can see, unless your a few miles deep in enemy territory. Mortality is not something you should fear. Death penalty could be a standard form of punishment, since we can raise them if we think the punishment was too harsh. I find it harder for my character to care about danger, if it only puts me out of commission for a couple hours.
I'm in the camp of death seems pointless. I can't see any hero making a noble sacrifice for a cause. If he'll be back on his feet in a couple hours.
Yep. You can't be the hero who risks his life running into a burning building to save the kids if someone is just standing around to raise you if you die. All you get to be is some guy who risked nothing to save some kids. That's not being a hero.
When you die and are brought back to life you leave behind some of what is 'you' in the other-realm. This piece of 'you' is really like spiritual flotsam, but in the wrong hands it can give the entity that finds it control/leverage over you in unforseen ways.
The more powerful and renown a person was in life, the more noticable their essence strands are in the other-realm.
This is one reason great leaders are not ressed.For players it is a potential chracter hook down the line. Especially when they become more powerful.
I don't allow Ressurections in my games. It solves the whole thing.
+2. Yeah, it really is not required. We've had two PC deaths so far and both had to make new characters. It sucks, but nothing can replace a fear of death like, well, permanent death.
That said, I actually like the way the new ritual works. -1 for 3 milestones is actually a fairly significant penalty. That can be 2-3 entire game sessions, and it serves as a constant reminder of the parties’ failure, while not causing permanent suffering. It lasts just long enough for the DM to get chuckles out of reminding the player of the penalty, but not so long that his character falls behind or the joke gets old. And the cost is only insignificant towards the end of each tier. It is a far better system than level loss or con penalties as those merely set your character far behind the rest of your party when the real blame for your death probably falls on everyone.
If you want it to have bigger ramifications, while making a return more possible, you can increase perhaps the requirements for it. In my setting, you have to sacrifice someone to bring someone back to life (you aren't raising the dead so much as transferring life force from one body to another). At paragon and epic level, the cost of life increases just as the component cost increases (10 people must die to bring back a paragon character, 100 people must die to bring back an epic character). Through this, the consequences of resurrection can be HUGE (does your party have the stones to effectively annihilate a small village solely to bring you back from the dead?).
Mechanical penalties associated with death only give the player more reason to cease playing that character, and there's no reason for that. There are ways to create an aftershock from character death that don't necessarily involve penalties, and there's no real logical reason (other than "this is how I feel magic should work") that these penalties necessarily have to exist. Roleplay it, folks!
I don't allow Ressurections in my games. It solves the whole thing.
-1. If players can roll up new characters, then a no-rez policy is about as meaningful as the Profession skill.
Bah. If players can roll up new characters, then a no-rez policy is about as useful as the Profession skill.
Losing a character you have invested with time and emotion is a heavy cost of death. That you can bring in a different character doesn't remove either of those costs.
I find taking resurrection out entirely too strong medicine, and stiff death penalties are no good either. Not only is the player miserable because they're so far behind, but I'm miserable because I have to do even more work trying to write encounters that will challenge the party but not necessarily decimate them, since I now also have to consider the handicapped player's penalties, and balance accordingly.
Of course, light penalties simply make death a non-issue.
My solution thus far is that in the Jon-gotten Realms is to make resurrection magic a reality, but a very scarce one. To raise a player, the party will have to do some serious thinking and role playing.
Death shouldn't have teeth. Dying isn't fun, so PC's shouldn't suffer from death.
Without the threat of deadliness or suffering a major loss, the combat loses any intensity it once had. If I don't care about my character, the game gets boring. If my character can't die, I wouldn't even bother with marking damage.
My players have to reroll, usually. Once or twice in the past I've made the resurrection mandate such a long, arduous quest that it became a story arc in itself. They are told about this at the beginning of my campaigns, if they didn't already know.
Also, Fenris_Lathiin, thats a neat little rule you have there. Maybe I'll try something similar in mine. Not sure about the # of rounds, but it's be basically the equivilent of performing CPR and reviving them.
Also, Polyhedral, I like your idea of the "piece of you left behind". That's kinda neat, makes some sort of "fantasy sense" and provides for potentail adventure hooks.
Thanks again all, some excellent feedback there!
On the other hand, I have traditionally DM'ed groups that refused to bite the cleric bullet, and thus did I rarely preside over games that featured PC's able to raise the dead (unless you mean as skeletons and zombies). I have had a number of druids in my games, though, and who can resist the fun of a reincarnate spell?
In my 4th edition game, death has been taken very seriously, especially since the group has no cleric, they are nowhere near a temple with priests high enough in level to perform the Raise Dead ritual, and they couldn't afford it even if they were. We've already had one party death, and the players quickly arranged a solemn funeral, not a trip to the nearest cleric. I like this trend. Hopefully, by the time they can afford a trip to the cleric, they'll still treat death with the same respect.
I treat raises/ressurections as follows.
When you die and are brought back to life you leave behind some of what is 'you' in the other-realm. This piece of 'you' is really like spiritual flotsam, but in the wrong hands it can give the entity that finds it control/leverage over you in unforseen ways.
The more powerful and renown a person was in life, the more noticable their essence strands are in the other-realm.
This is one reason great leaders are not ressed.For players it is a potential chracter hook down the line. Especially when they become more powerful.
I actually like this a lot.
Without the threat of deadliness or suffering a major loss, the combat loses any intensity it once had. If I don't care about my character, the game gets boring. If my character can't die, I wouldn't even bother with marking damage.
I take it you're not a fan of action movies then.
My solution thus far is that in the Jon-gotten Realms is to make resurrection magic a reality, but a very scarce one. To raise a player, the party will have to do some serious thinking and role playing.
This is my position as well. Raises are possible, but rare.
Now, this is assuming the players have access to be able to rez (through whatever means), but the penalty nowadays is what, -1 or 2 to all your attack and skill rolls for 6 encounters (3 milestones)?
Before it was level loss and way back when , it was a system shock roll and potenial CON loss.
And thankfully it is not anymore. Dying is a pretty big penalty in and of itself. It shouldn't have lasting, "gotcha" type effects.
Personally, my games are very gritty. I recently put the PC's in a position where Knights from a Neighboring Kingdom invaded their castle while they were away. The Knights simply charged and started cutting down everything in their path (PC's live in a no-man's land, so to the 'cultured' knights they're no better than animals and don't have any form of rights). The Knights believed themselves on a crusade to rescue a lost Duchess. The PC's arrive just in time to charge through their castle and find the last few knights still fighting and kill them. Three Knights survive, wounded. Now comes the fun part, the PC's need to choose; Do they help the Knights to better their relations with the nearby Military Kingdom but lose their followers, or give their remaining followers the blood they want by executing the Knights but chance the Kingdom coming down on them for it. There is no good choice, only 2 bad ones.
Now, this situation has a ton of bite to it. The PC's lost friends, NPC's that I had crafted and worked into their campaign for months. If I allowed resurrections, then the temples they had already done amazing things for could be summoned. Some/most of the dead could be raised - at least a few. The Knights could be forced to pay for it. Where is the moral struggle? Where is the anger and hate, that I want to inflict on the characters - to fuel the future of this storyline?
If you play your game like episodes, then resurrection is foolproof. I run mine like a story. The PC's determine the direction and paths, but if they could bring anyone back from the dead - even for huge cost and loss - it would destroy much of the climate of the game.
Losing a character you have invested with time and emotion is a heavy cost of death. That you can bring in a different character doesn't remove either of those costs.
What you're failing to understand is that if death is permanent, I won't invest any emotion in my character. Time isn't an investment either, play with this character, play with that character; I'm playing with some character.
I've played 1e for decades, I don't even bother referring to my character by name or talking in character until I have at least 20 hit points and I primarily play Magic Users. In one case, due to a low Con, I kept expecting death with every single encounter right up until he finally died in a fight with hill giants in the very first round of combat after more than a year of playing the character. Two hits by thrown rocks and I was instantly killed.
Total emotional investment zero: I pulled my replacement character sheet out of my notebook and announced "I don't want to be raised. I'm getting a soda, let me know when they meet my new Magic-User" Said Magic User also didn't have a personality or roleplaying voice for another nine months, when he finally got enough hit points to be nearly certain of surviving the first round of our combats.
It's very common in our gaming group to act like this due to the incredibly over serious way 1e treats death. One player even made a joke about it by having a succession of ever younger Clerics "Biff, son of Jeff, son of Greg." after having his first two cleric characters die in two months of biweekly sessions. On the same side of the coin it was annoying as hell when I missed one session in a three year campaign and the DM used that as an excuse to kill my character with poison as a plot hook, making me lose a point of Con and requiring a System Shock roll before he let me get raised.
1) Don't allow ressurections.
2) Do some temporary, marginal penalty.
Those are really the options. Anything in-between is bad, because they lead to highly unfun death spirals and make your character worse than the rest of the party unnecessarily, and make the game less fun for everyone because you end up being a load on the rest of them.
What you're failing to understand is that if death is permanent, I won't invest any emotion in my character. Time isn't an investment either, play with this character, play with that character; I'm playing with some character.
Not really. That is you and how YOU do it. I've played with dozens of people who feel the same way I do about death and we still invest in our guys.
I've played 1e for decades, I don't even bother referring to my character by name or talking in character until I have at least 20 hit points and I primarily play Magic Users. In one case, due to a low Con, I kept expecting death with every single encounter right up until he finally died in a fight with hill giants in the very first round of combat after more than a year of playing the character. Two hits by thrown rocks and I was instantly killed.
Total emotional investment zero: I pulled my replacement character sheet out of my notebook and announced "I don't want to be raised. I'm getting a soda, let me know when they meet my new Magic-User" Said Magic User also didn't have a personality or roleplaying voice for another nine months, when he finally got enough hit points to be nearly certain of surviving the first round of our combats.
I tend to play in groups that roleplay, so the experiences are different. I'm not saying your way is wrong, just different. When people roleplay, they tend to get into their characters.
There are two possibilities:
1) Don't allow ressurections.
2) Do some temporary, marginal penalty.
Those are really the options. Anything in-between is bad, because they lead to highly unfun death spirals and make your character worse than the rest of the party unnecessarily, and make the game less fun for everyone because you end up being a load on the rest of them.
You're wrong. There are many ways to do it, and those are only 2. A third way to do it is to have raises be rare, and for the penalty to be temporary and small OR a fourth way is to make them rare and have no penalty, OR...
>> of death.
>
> What you're failing to understand is that if death is permanent, I won't invest
> any emotion in my character
And I'm going to +1 this. In the circumstances described, I'll be giving my character all of the emotional investment that I would give my pawns in chess, because that's more or less what the character has been reduced to.
>> Losing a character you have invested with time and emotion is a heavy cost
>> of death.
>
> What you're failing to understand is that if death is permanent, I won't invest
> any emotion in my character
And I'm going to +1 this. In the circumstances described, I'll be giving my character all of the emotional investment that I would give my pawns in chess, because that's more or less what the character has been reduced to.
Not everyone plays D&D as a roleplaying game. Some treat it as a fancy board game, and that's fine if it works for you.
For those of us who create characters to roleplay, and give them depth and meaning, there is an investment in the character. Of course, it usually takes very poor game play and tactics to die in the first place, so it isn't like we die often, but when we do, the character is done.
Not everyone plays D&D as a roleplaying game. Some treat it as a fancy board game, and that's fine if it works for you.
For those of us who create characters to roleplay, and give them depth and meaning, there is an investment in the character. Of course, it usually takes very poor game play and tactics to die in the first place, so it isn't like we die often, but when we do, the character is done.
I take offense to your implication that those groups who choose to have resurrection as an option are less interested in roleplaying and interesting storylines.
Not everyone plays D&D as a roleplaying game. Some treat it as a fancy board game, and that's fine if it works for you.
For those of us who create characters to roleplay, and give them depth and meaning, there is an investment in the character. Of course, it usually takes very poor game play and tactics to die in the first place, so it isn't like we die often, but when we do, the character is done.
I find as a player it's a difficult balance, my DM will sometimes deny being res'd in certain situations and I can't blame him, perhaps the spell could not locate the soul or something. but there's been a few to many times in the past where something random happens and he totally annihlates a PC without actually trying to.
Case in point one of my sorcerers got snuck up apon right after a battle, one of the lesser BBEG's was suppose to attack and start up another quick encounter to move on the story but instead pulled a critical on me with a scythe doing some horrendous amount of damage and utterly destroying the entire storyline. (evidently we needed my greater dispel magic to gain entry to the keep we where about to attack)
Another just random but not story breaking event was a very looong adventure that lead to a battle against Tchazzar (FR Dragon) I don't think we where really suppose to fight him but he tossed out a breath attack and took my sorcerer from full to -30 when I needed a natural 20 to dodge the breath attack. It was kinda like a "woooah" moment at how powerfull he was but there was really nothing I could of done to prevent it from happening and it was pretty crappy
edit: these are 3 and 3.5 encounters and I find damage a little less spikey in 4th, but it's still deadly
However killing the whole group and such is expected, Though i dont want insane mood activeated.
I dont like super kill mood, But however You know level one characters fighting level 14 Monsters and such constently.
I wouldnt ***** to much if the boss battle was level 1 characters fighting the level 6 Solo guy or w/e.
Ive had worse (Like the 14 monster with pretty much instent KO) and yes you can beat the level 6 monster if your smart enough (Half the time we use grapple and other ideas and such to help out)
But I dont think it makes the game More or less enjoyable to fight differnt things and such.
Kill off the party = No big deal for me.
The thing thats a big deal for me is when another player starts *****ing about it or starts bragging how much more powerful his character is agest others.
Thus i rather agree it is offensive that people beleve it would be less enjoyable for all.
Death loseing its teeth? No,
Just dont use as many "Well i killed off a Player Character but a party death? Na"
Just make sure they have a way to run away from it,
That way if they want to stay and fight the monster thats 10 levels or higher **** em let em burn. If they want to run away ... GOOd for them, Dont kill em for the smartness.
I always run games that allow resurrection precisely as the rules detail. My findings have been:
For the players who don't get invested in their character enough to care if they die, the availability of resurrection is irrelevant because they can just create a new character and not give a damn.
For those who really care about their characters, available resurrection is good because I'm not destroying their investments. If I play a "hardcore" game with no resurrections, those players will become distraught if their characters die. Possible permanent death in no way makes them "roleplay better." That's totally self-motivated.
I think we're all giving ourselves too much credit as DMs. Motivation to participate in a plot is something the DM can influence. Motivation to roleplay (or love your character) is not.
The character dropped a level when they were raised from the dead, but their rate of experience gain increased (I wasn't using the XP system as written.I was handing out levels when it felt appropriate to the story) such that the character caught up after about 10 encounters.
I had decided early on that there were few clerics who could raise in the campaign world. I the party met only one who was 9+ (and thus had Raise Dead, and one other who had Ressurection. Of course, it became a moot point after the party cleric got to a high enough level to cast Raise Dead. Most people preferred him to use Revivify (miniatures handbook) though. I think there were 3 PC deaths in that campaign, and I wouldn't want the players to roll up new characters. After investing as much as they did into roleplaying, party dynamics, and storyline, forcing them to roll up new characters late in the game would have been terrible!
Heck, two of the players in that campaign weren't very into RPing, but they loved their characters, and eventually gave them unique and interesting personalities. Forcing them to roll up new characters would have shattered that.
In my opinion, ressurection is right for some campaigns, but not all. It's really the decision of the DM and the players as to what types of ressurection magic are available, if any. And certainly, the availability of ressurection magic has no bearing on the amount of RP it is possible to do in a game!
In 4ed I haven't had any deaths come up yet, but there have been some close calls. I don't see a big problem with the current Raise Dead setup. The -1 amounts to about the same thing as 3.5's penalty but is a little nicer in that you don't have to worry about de-leveling your PC for a session.
Honestly, death is only meaningful if the players/DM make it meaningful. Some kind of harsh/semi-harsh "death penalty" isn't going to make death meaningful, just more annoying if a Raise Dead type spell is available. Eliminating the Raise Dead option also doesn't make death meaningful, just permanent...for that character.
Sacrificing yourself by standing your ground to buy time for your companions to escape with the prisoners your party just rescued in order to prevent a war may be a memorable and meaningful death for a character.
Basically, i'm not going to let my guys die, i'll always step in at the last minute and either save them or revive them, but there will be story consequences for doing so. They lost one battle and almost died, i had the town guard arrive early and save them, but as a result they were unconscious for a later fight and thus their rivals did it for them and stole their glory, so they lost out on some XP and gold.
>> board game, and that's fine if it works for you.
> I take offense to your implication that those groups who choose to have
> resurrection as an option are less interested in roleplaying and interesting
> storylines.
Don't worry, he's just roleplaying his ad hominem attack...
...and rolled a miss.
I make death important by expanding upon the resurrection skill, I've even made a paragon path called "Deathtouched" that can only be taken by characters who have died and been resurrected. The important thing to me is that the end and new beginning should both be dramatic.
Hey Anthrok, can you post your Deathtouched? I'm curious to see it.
Man, lots of great chat on this subject, and almost all of it intelligent and civil. I'm really liking that.
Thanks again for making this a great thread to read through all!!
I take offense to your implication that those groups who choose to have resurrection as an option are less interested in roleplaying and interesting storylines.
I never said that. The fellow I was responding to said that if he didn't have the ability to bring his guy back at his whim, then he'd treat the his characters like a pawn in chess. That shows that he's in it for kill 'em and hack 'em up part of the game. A "roleplayer" will make characters for the world, however ressurection is handled.
How does the character know his companions will drag him around until they find someone to resurrect him? He doesn't, but the player has a pretty good idea.
How does the character know that there is an afterlife? He doesn't, but the player has a pretty good idea.
How does the character even know that resurrection is possible? He doesn't, but the player has a pretty good idea.
The indisputable fact of the matter is that this is all just presumption based upon an absolute knowledge of the relevant facts (legitimacy of resurrection, existence of the afterlife, actions of companions that you have no control over) coming from a rulebook and social contract that the character has absolutely no knowledge of.
Skepticism is just as valid among PCs in a fantasy world as it is among us now, rendering every roleplaying-based complaint factually unfounded. As for the effect of resurrection on the player's mindset, those effects are a matter of the player's mindset that would be present regardless of the existence of resurrection.
I find as a player it's a difficult balance, my DM will sometimes deny being res'd in certain situations and I can't blame him, perhaps the spell could not locate the soul or something. but there's been a few to many times in the past where something random happens and he totally annihlates a PC without actually trying to.
If the DM screws up, it's incumbent oh him to fix it. If that means bring back a character he killed through a gross miscalculation, then he needs to do that. I'm not talking about exceptions. I'm talking as a general rule.
Case in point one of my sorcerers got snuck up apon right after a battle, one of the lesser BBEG's was suppose to attack and start up another quick encounter to move on the story but instead pulled a critical on me with a scythe doing some horrendous amount of damage and utterly destroying the entire storyline. (evidently we needed my greater dispel magic to gain entry to the keep we where about to attack)
There are a several ways to handle that. If it was just a very lucky roll that killed you, the DM could have fudged it from behind the screen(assuming it was rolled in secret). If he couldn't fudge it, he could bring you back somehow. However, if that wasn't really an option, then he could EASILY have removed the greater dispel requirement or provided it another way without you ever being the wiser. In no case did the storyline have to be destroyed.
Another just random but not story breaking event was a very looong adventure that lead to a battle against Tchazzar (FR Dragon) I don't think we where really suppose to fight him but he tossed out a breath attack and took my sorcerer from full to -30 when I needed a natural 20 to dodge the breath attack. It was kinda like a "woooah" moment at how powerfull he was but there was really nothing I could of done to prevent it from happening and it was pretty crappy
Heh. I'm a fan of putting in encounters that the group is not intended to fight. The players SHOULD know what they can handle, and what they can't, and if they attack something that can demolish them, I won't pull any punches or provide ways back for the characters.
You BS the issue.
Put another way, when I run the game, anyone who fails their stability rolls enough is "mostly dead", in the Princess Bride sense of the word. They're broken. They're motionless. They're looking at a bright light and wondering if they should go check it out. And they aren't coming back unless the party is there to drag them back kicking and screaming.
Thus, the Raise Dead ritual becomes an Emergency Surgery sort of event, one that can revive the nearly dead, the mostly dead, the pretty well dead, the one-in-a-million-survival-but-most-likely dead. But not the DEAD dead.
Meanwhile, as plot demands, I can create a bigger, more dynamic ritual for reviving the DEAD dead. So normally, the PCs can revive a fallen friend if they have his body, and he'll awaken alive but sickened by ye olde penalty. If the friend has been mutilated, bathed in acid, devoured, and then expelled in tiny little pieces, then I can demand my PCs quest for a greater ritual to revive him. The aforementioned massive deaths, however, tend to simply not happen, except when the PCs do something incredibly unwise.
Why? Because I like the notion that the party's survival is what matters. If the wizard takes a lucky crit from the orc, but everyone else lives, they can perform Instant Surgery to get him back. If everyone falls, the game is over, or I pull something out of my arse to continue the story, probably with a prison scenario. But if the same mage sacrifices himself by engulfing himself and the BBEG in a pillar of fire, he's probably not coming back, allowing his death to actually seem heroic.
Put another way, when I run the game, anyone who fails their stability rolls enough is "mostly dead", in the Princess Bride sense of the word. They're broken. They're motionless. They're looking at a bright light and wondering if they should go check it out. And they aren't coming back unless the party is there to drag them back kicking and screaming.
Thus, the Raise Dead ritual becomes an Emergency Surgery sort of event, one that can revive the nearly dead, the mostly dead, the pretty well dead, the one-in-a-million-survival-but-most-likely dead. But not the DEAD dead.
I like this idea, and am hereby placing an option on stealing it.
All my players are extremely intelligent tacticians, and they know it's better to expend consumable resources - healing potions - than put yourself at risk. I see absolutely no way that death could enter into the game, unless I were to pit them against absurdly overpowered enemies - and that would be ludicrous.
In any balanced encounter, if the PCs use good tactics, they cannot die, anymore. Whether this is good, or not, is up for debate. Yes, bad rolls can make a difference, but there's no roll involved with drawing a potion, or shifting and then action pointing to move away - retreating, etc.
I run gritty games, but in my experience, there's no teeth to death in 4E because there's no *threat* of death. The only way to die, now, is to use *poor tactics.*
All my players are extremely intelligent tacticians, and they know it's better to expend consumable resources - healing potions - than put yourself at risk. I see absolutely no way that death could enter into the game, unless I were to pit them against absurdly overpowered enemies - and that would be ludicrous.
In any balanced encounter, if the PCs use good tactics, they cannot die, anymore. Whether this is good, or not, is up for debate. Yes, bad rolls can make a difference, but there's no roll involved with drawing a potion, or shifting and then action pointing to move away - retreating, etc.
I call shenanigans. As a DM I've had players come within a hair's-breadth of dying in 4e games (all potions, second winds, and magical healing expended, an unconscious PC with two failed death saves, and the surviving three party members trying desperately to finish off the last monster), and as a player I've already lost a character (the cursed Irontooth encounter from KoTS). I've also been playing pnp RPGs and wargames for eight years, have played turn-based tactical videogames since the release of X-COM, and have been a competitive chess player for even longer than that--so you can't hang it on bad tactics.
When you run out of potions and action points and dailies, there are still enemies around, and they still really like hitting you. A string of bad rolls can still kill you, or take out a tactically important PC, and you can't always just run away. Death is as much a part of 4e as it has been in any previous edition.
Losing a character you have invested with time and emotion is a heavy cost of death. That you can bring in a different character doesn't remove either of those costs.
While i see some peoples need for cutting out rez, then I don't understand this argument. Are you actually saying that it is good that players loose something they have grown to love, because having fun is supposed to come with a price?
I generally don't understand the need to penalize the player. The character? sure! But the player? What if it aint even his fault? What if it was a GM error? Or something another player might justify as "good roleplaying"?
While i see some peoples need for cutting out rez, then I don't understand this argument. Are you actually saying that it is good that players loose something they have grown to love, because having fun is supposed to come with a price?
Nope. I'm saying that without that risk, the rewards have no meaning. In order for it to mean something to defeat the BBG at the end in that close fight, the possibility of death needs to be there. Otherwise, that fight gets reduced to..."Whew! We almost had to pay some of the gold we just found to raise Joe Wizard."
In reality, death is just plain rare, even in 3ed. Unless the DM doesn't know how to use SoD effects properly and throws them in willy nilly, players will only rarely die to anything other than stupid moves or tactical mistakes. When that rare death happens, though, it shouldn't be easy or even expected that the characters will return.
What if it was a GM error? Or something another player might justify as "good roleplaying"?
GM error I've already been over. Caused by another player's roleplay? That should be treated like any other death. Roleplay is a good thing, even if it sometime results in character(not player) conflicts.
"I have to kill you because (insert lame and / or inconsistent argument)..."
The worst was actually when this happened:
We were fighting this horde of dark elves. One of my friends tricked a Dark Elf into believing that my friend would help him. One dead dark elf... The response to this by one of the other players was "this is the last time you violate the law, Silverclaw!" and attacked, and in the end killed the Silverclaw character. The other player then excuses and said "I'm sorry, but I couldn't find an in-character argument NOT to do it...". Against the law? The city was under attack by dark elves! How could it be against the law??
This was a campaign with no rez. It also "killed" my character. My character was literally Joe Farmer, and he didn't need friends that'll kill you for nothing... And a third character also dropped because his only link with the group ingame was me and Silverclaw.
This might seem like an extreme, but we could have killed Melvanias who slew Silverclaw, but really, what was the point? Silverclaw wasn't coming back anyway...
Nope. I'm saying that without that risk, the rewards have no meaning. In order for it to mean something to defeat the BBG at the end in that close fight, the possibility of death needs to be there. Otherwise, that fight gets reduced to..."Whew! We almost had to pay some of the gold we just found to raise Joe Wizard."
In reality, death is just plain rare, even in 3ed. Unless the DM doesn't know how to use SoD effects properly and throws them in willy nilly, players will only rarely die to anything other than stupid moves or tactical mistakes. When that rare death happens, though, it shouldn't be easy or even expected that the characters will return.
While I agree that risk and reward should generally be tied, the question is whether or not death needs to be that risk. If the mission is "save the world" and the reward is "world saved, we are famous", couldn't the risk be "fail to save the world, BBEG rules all"?
While I agree that risk and reward should generally be tied, the question is whether or not death needs to be that risk. If the mission is "save the world" and the reward is "world saved, we are famous", couldn't the risk be "fail to save the world, BBEG rules all"?
That's too vague. Save the world included all of the adventures leading up to the culmination. All of the random encounters along the way. All of the social situations along the way. All of the rewards such as XP, treasure, and magic items along the way.
None of that means anything if there is no risk of death. You might as well just poof them to the proper level and items, and throw them in the fight with the BBEG. I want to feel like I earned my way to where I am, and I just can't do that if it just doesn't matter if I try or not. If I die, I'll just be back soon I can try again.
I'm in the "it depends on what the players feel is the most fun" camp. Ressurection is in the game for a reason, and I see no good reason to take it out. If they want a rez, they can wait for the party to rez them. If they dont, they can roll up a new character.
I agree. Generally the group I play with has a rule that any new character has to have a good background story. So most of us spend a good amount of time writing up background stories for our characters, including what they are hoping to achieve and such. So a death in our group usually means we'll try to rez the character unless they say they want to make a new character. I could see the opposite of that too, if a person didn't put much effort into creating their character then dying and creating a new character isn't that much of a big deal.
Ultimately it boils down to opinion so I don't think there really is any "perfect" answer to this question.
What you're failing to understand is that if death is permanent, I won't invest any emotion in my character. Time isn't an investment either, play with this character, play with that character; I'm playing with some character.
Very similar to what I've seen from players - though not quite as extreme, other than with old basic D&D, which really did encourage characters that were no more than chess pieces. I've known lots of players who really want to roleplay and get a really involved character, but don't want to do so in an environment where it doesn't feel like the story and development can be snatched away on a whim or bad die roll.
I know some players like the 'risk' element. I find it mostly an illusion; there is no real risk or reward in the game at all. Its all just scratchings on paper. I know many players who feel the same way.
In fact, we've often found that by definetively removing death from the system, we make battles much more exciting, because the GM can really not hold back and its far more of an exciting test of ability.
As an analogy, its watching your team in the Superbowl that gives you a thrill - not whether they get a big endorsement afterwards.
Of course, the CHARACTERS do not have the same metagame perceptions that the players do. The characters don't know that they aren't going to die unless the player decides that its more interesting that they do. I had one player who's character at some point was nearly killed by a surprise attack from a certain monster. The CHARACTER spent many game years later in utter terror that type of monster, long past the point that the PLAYER knew perfectly well they were no longer even a credible threat to the character.
The way I handle ressurection in D&D is that its frowned upon by most religions, it unreliable, it sometimes has terrible consequences (you might get back something...but it might not be what you intended), and it can be traumatic and a huge ordeal even if someone is brought back successfully.
Mechanics changes? Zilch.
Not that I've ever yet had anyone be resurrected other than as part of a specific plot that involved it.
You're wrong. There are many ways to do it, and those are only 2. A third way to do it is to have raises be rare, and for the penalty to be temporary and small OR a fourth way is to make them rare and have no penalty, OR...
Okay, fine, I didn't include a third way:
3) You have a limited number of "lives" (say, 2). If you die that many times, you cannot be raised.
Raises being rare? Doesn't work. At all. Because let's face it - if the PCs are those rare individuals who can be raised, they aren't rare as far as they're concerned. If only one PC can be raised, and the rest cannot, that's favoritism, save in very rare circumstances, and those rare circumstances are not general game rules. (Generally, those rare circumstances involve DM screwups and plot-specific things, like sacrificing yourself to seal some portal and travelling to the outer planes to find his soul).
I run gritty games, but in my experience, there's no teeth to death in 4E because there's no *threat* of death. The only way to die, now, is to use *poor tactics.*
I disagree. If you're finding that to be the case, at least in heroic tier, then you, the DM, are doing something wrong.
A level +3 encounter has a strong threat of PC death, and I've killed PCs in them before.
Its all about using good tactics and having monsters punish mistakes.
That's too vague. Save the world included all of the adventures leading up to the culmination. All of the random encounters along the way. All of the social situations along the way. All of the rewards such as XP, treasure, and magic items along the way.
None of that means anything if there is no risk of death. You might as well just poof them to the proper level and items, and throw them in the fight with the BBEG. I want to feel like I earned my way to where I am, and I just can't do that if it just doesn't matter if I try or not. If I die, I'll just be back soon I can try again.
Not necessarily. All those random encounters and social situations act as a lead-in. If they fail to avoid letting the spy escape the random encounter to warn the army, or they fail to coerce the guard in the social encounter to tell them how to get into his sanctum, then they may never get the chance to get to the BBEG. Worse off, if they fail to get to him in time to foil his plans and he succeeds in achieving godhood or immortality, then the fact that they never had any real risk to die sums to beans now that they can't harm him. The world is doomed, they have failed, and all is lost. There's your risk.
You might as well just poof them to the proper level and items like what happens when I bring in a replacement character, and throw them in the fight with the BBEG like how it happens if I need to bring in a replacement right before a fight with the BBEG. I want to feel like I earned my way to where I am which I didn't with a brand new character, and I just can't do that if it just doesn't matter if I try or not. If I die, I'll just be back soon I can try again wit a new character.
Death is very rare in a game with a good DM and good players.
Very similar to what I've seen from players - though not quite as extreme, other than with old basic D&D, which really did encourage characters that were no more than chess pieces. I've known lots of players who really want to roleplay and get a really involved character, but don't want to do so in an environment where it doesn't feel like the story and development can be snatched away on a whim or bad die roll.
If they're so terrified that the DM is bad and will kill them on a whim or bad die roll, or that they suck as players and can't use decent tactics to keep themselves alive, then that's a personal issue, not one with death and raises.
I know some players like the 'risk' element. I find it mostly an illusion; there is no real risk or reward in the game at all. Its all just scratchings on paper. I know many players who feel the same way.
It's not an illusion. It's a game, and with it comes game risk and game reward.
In fact, we've often found that by definetively removing death from the system, we make battles much more exciting, because the GM can really not hold back and its far more of an exciting test of ability.
I can play board games for that. I cannot play a roleplaying game and have that. It becomes meaningless.
As an analogy, its watching your team in the Superbowl that gives you a thrill - not whether they get a big endorsement afterwards.
No. As an anology, it's like watching your team play the regular season knowing that they'll get to the Superbowl no matter what, even with an 0-16 record. All the games become meaningless. I won't watch regular season baseball for just that reason. There are so many games played, that you can have a 10 game losing streak and still easily make the playoffs. The individual games don't matter.
Of course, the CHARACTERS do not have the same metagame perceptions that the players do. The characters don't know that they aren't going to die unless the player decides that its more interesting that they do.
After the 20th time that one of them comes back from the dead when no one else in the world does, they'll figure it out.
I had one player who's character at some point was nearly killed by a surprise attack from a certain monster. The CHARACTER spent many game years later in utter terror that type of monster, long past the point that the PLAYER knew perfectly well they were no longer even a credible threat to the character.
That's very cool. As a player, though, if no creature had any chance of killing my character, I would find combats to be boring and worthless.
Okay, fine, I didn't include a third way:
3) You have a limited number of "lives" (say, 2). If you die that many times, you cannot be raised.
Raises being rare? Doesn't work. At all.
It does work. Just because it doesn't fit your play preference, doesn't make it unworkable. It fit all the criteria you listed.
Because let's face it - if the PCs are those rare individuals who can be raised, they aren't rare as far as they're concerned. If only one PC can be raised, and the rest cannot, that's favoritism, save in very rare circumstances, and those rare circumstances are not general game rules.
It's not favoritism in any way, shape, or form. It is ONLY favoritism if the DM raises someone for out of game reasons. If only 1 person gets raised due to roleplay/story reasons, it's not favoritism.
Not necessarily. All those random encounters and social situations act as a lead-in. If they fail to avoid letting the spy escape the random encounter to warn the army, or they fail to coerce the guard in the social encounter to tell them how to get into his sanctum, then they may never get the chance to get to the BBEG. Worse off, if they fail to get to him in time to foil his plans and he succeeds in achieving godhood or immortality, then the fact that they never had any real risk to die sums to beans now that they can't harm him. The world is doomed, they have failed, and all is lost. There's your risk.
It's not a personal risk. If I'm guaranteed to make it to the end, why play the beginning and middle?
No. As an anology, it's like watching your team play the regular season knowing that they'll get to the Superbowl no matter what, even with an 0-16 record. All the games become meaningless. I won't watch regular season baseball for just that reason. There are so many games played, that you can have a 10 game losing streak and still easily make the playoffs. The individual games don't matter.
Okay, now you've gone way out there. There is a difference between eliminating failure and eliminating death. Death is a form of failure in tabletop games, but is not the ONLY form of failure. In your analogy of football, does the losing team get sacrificed when they lose? No, because a fail scenario occurs when the clock runs out and they have the lowest amount of points. Death isn't necessary in football to have risk and reward, nor is it necessary in roleplaying games.
It's not a personal risk. If I'm guaranteed to make it to the end, why play the beginning and middle?
And again, if a chance to fail at the beginning means the inability to reach the middle or end, what does that tell you about your success?
Death is very rare in a game with a good DM and good players.
with
After the 20th time that one of them comes back from the dead when no one else in the world does, they'll figure it out.
As for most of the other statements, summed up with:
then that's a personal issue, not one with death and raises.
Would it be better to just be up front and say "Anyone who doesn't play the game in style B is wrong?"
There are lots of ways to enjoy playing role playing games. No one style is right for all people. Enjoying a different style and different elements does not make them wrong.
That's very cool. As a player, though, if no creature had any chance of killing my character, I would find combats to be boring and worthless.
I indicated that she was afraid of ONE type of creature that was no longer a threat. That's far from meaning that NOTHING is a threat. Its just illustrating what you can do by disconnecting player knowledge and character knowledge.
This is the fundamental problem with no-raise. Storytelling doesn't have the protagonists randomly die in the middle of things. If they *do* die at some point, it's because that was scripted to happen, not because the character had a bad die roll.
D&D does involve die rolls, and resurrection is an insurance policy against that completely scrambling the story and the character interactions.
As for the "you must not be a roleplayer because you won't care about a character" - I say that because I remember that being exactly what both Basic and 1E were like; you didn't care about a character and even Gygax at the time suggested that you not even bother naming your character until he'd hit about 5th level or so. Why? Because death-to-die-roll happened all the time and there was usually no recourse (because the game rarely got to the point that resurrection was a practical possibility, and even if it did, you were often better not trying). So you rarely bothered putting any effort into characterization at all.
I don't want to go back to that, and taking resurrection out of the game pushes it in exactly that direction.
Okay, now you've gone way out there. There is a difference between eliminating failure and eliminating death. Death is a form of failure in tabletop games, but is not the ONLY form of failure. In your analogy of football, does the losing team get sacrificed when they lose? No, because a fail scenario occurs when the clock runs out and they have the lowest amount of points. Death isn't necessary in football to have risk and reward, nor is it necessary in roleplaying games.
You clearly don't get it. If the party dies(loses 16 games) 16 times, they still make it to the BBEG(Superbowl). There was no point in fighting(playing) those 16 encounters(games).
And again, if a chance to fail at the beginning means the inability to reach the middle or end, what does that tell you about your success?
It doesn't. The story will adapt if something like that happens. Very few DMs will just scrap an campaign just because the party had a mishap.
Do you see any problem in saying both:
with
Not really. It doesn't happen in games that I play, but given the responses here, it either happens in other games or people here are lying. One fellow here spoke about dying and coming back multiple times in one night.
Making raises a dime a dozen simply encourages sloppy game play and a mentality that you can do whatever you want with no regard for the consequences because you will just come back if you die.
Would it be better to just be up front and say "Anyone who doesn't play the game in style B is wrong?"
There are lots of ways to enjoy playing role playing games. No one style is right for all people. Enjoying a different style and different elements does not make them wrong.
I have already said that. If people like playing this game as some sort of board game where death doesn't matter and if you die, you just come back in time for the next tactical fight, more power to them. Some of us want things to matter, though.
I indicated that she was afraid of ONE type of creature that was no longer a threat. That's far from meaning that NOTHING is a threat. Its just illustrating what you can do by disconnecting player knowledge and character knowledge.
Oh, I know. However, if raises are a dime a dozen and guaranteed to happen, NOTHING truly is a threat.
So, since you know that the protagonist will make it to the end of the novel, there's no point in reading anything but the last page?
Books are different. D&D isn't at all like a pre-planned novel. Or to put it another way, D&D is like a choose your own adventure novel, and you often failed to make it to the end of a choose your own adventure novel.
This is the fundamental problem with no-raise. Storytelling doesn't have the protagonists randomly die in the middle of things. If they *do* die at some point, it's because that was scripted to happen, not because the character had a bad die roll.
We don't play in something that is purely story. If we did, we wouldn't roll up characters, roll dice, or anything else. We'd just show up to the weekly session to hear the DM speak to us about what happens.
D&D does involve die rolls, and resurrection is an insurance policy against that completely scrambling the story and the character interactions.
Die rolls almost never kill you, and if some spectacular run of bad luck is happening, the DM should alter the encounter in some way to equalize things. Simply allowing a run of bad luck to kill characters is bad DMing.
As for the "you must not be a roleplayer because you won't care about a character" - I say that because I remember that being exactly what both Basic and 1E were like; you didn't care about a character and even Gygax at the time suggested that you not even bother naming your character until he'd hit about 5th level or so.
I named all of my characters at first level in both basic and 1ed.
Why? Because death-to-die-roll happened all the time and there was usually no recourse (because the game rarely got to the point that resurrection was a practical possibility, and even if it did, you were often better not trying). So you rarely bothered putting any effort into characterization at all.
See above regarding how I view death-to-die-roll.
I don't want to go back to that, and taking resurrection out of the game pushes it in exactly that direction.
Then don't. Taking resurrection out only brings that back if you have a bad DM or bad players. Without one or both of things present, death is a rare thing indeed.
You clearly don't get it. If the party dies(loses 16 games) 16 times, they still make it to the BBEG(Superbowl). There was no point in fighting(playing) those 16 encounters(games).
He never said one way or another if his players can succeed or fail at a fight, only that they cannot die. Death and failure are not inclusive... you can die without failure (sacrificial heroism) and you can fail without death.
It doesn't. The story will adapt if something like that happens. Very few DMs will just scrap an campaign just because the party had a mishap.
This isn't an issue, but you have complaints with DMs that avoid killing players? Don't you realize that these are effectively the same scenarios. A DM that refuses to fail their players when they don't do well at a quest is just as bad as a DM that refuses to kill their players when they don't do well at combat or trapfinding.
He never said one way or another if his players can succeed or fail at a fight, only that they cannot die. Death and failure are not inclusive... you can die without failure (sacrificial heroism) and you can fail without death.
I get that. I just view no possibility of lasting death as trivializing most of what failure is in D&D. Most fights in a campaign don't have any lasting consequence if you don't beat the monsters, so death becomes the only real way to fail.
This isn't an issue, but you have complaints with DMs that avoid killing players? Don't you realize that these are effectively the same scenarios. A DM that refuses to fail their players when they don't do well at a quest is just as bad as a DM that refuses to kill their players when they don't do well at combat or trapfinding.
The DM is there to provide a campaign/story, and he cannot foresee everything. If something happens that will topple the campaign early, rather than start over with a new one(and all the work that entails), he should just alter things slightly so it's still doable. At the END, if they fail with the story, then nothing should be done to correct it, unless the world is riding in the balance. If the existence of the world IS in the balance, then the DM should already have a backup plan for if the PCs fail that doesn't include them succeeding.
I get that. I just view no possibility of lasting death as trivializing most of what failure is in D&D. Most fights in a campaign don't have any lasting consequence if you don't beat the monsters, so death becomes the only real way to fail.
Wilderness encounter: Players fail to stop monsters in forest, forced to flee, monsters head to nearest hamlet and kill everyone. There's your fail.
Dungeon encounter: Players fail to take on dungeon monsters, forced to flee to nearby room or leave dungeon, monsters run contingency plan and move all treasure out of the dungeon while bringing in bigger nasties to keep them trapped in the room they are currently held in or watch the dungeon entrance. There's your fail.
It's still possible to have a fail scenario without actually killing the players. Things change, and the players have to make do.
The DM is there to provide a campaign/story, and he cannot foresee everything. If something happens that will topple the campaign early, rather than start over with a new one(and all the work that entails), he should just alter things slightly so it's still doable. At the END, if they fail with the story, then nothing should be done to correct it, unless the world is riding in the balance. If the existence of the world IS in the balance, then the DM should already have a backup plan for if the PCs fail that doesn't include them succeeding.
With a little tweaking, that same statement can be used with character death. "If something happens that will kill any of the players early, rather than making them create a new character, he should just alter things slightly so they survive." In the case of a world conqueror elimination quest, player failure means that the world is doomed... and now instead of stopping the BBEG, they have to fix the damage done. Just because they have more gameplay doesn't mean they didn't fail, and it's more than possible to reflect that in the setting itself.
Not really. It doesn't happen in games that I play....
]Making raises a dime a dozen...
No. These two things do NOT fit together. If raises are not happening a dozen times, then raises cannot possibly be a dime a dozen.
If someone was dying several times a game session as you commented, that would be incredibly problematic if they were bringing in a new character each time.
I have already said that. If people like playing this game as some sort of board game where death doesn't matter and if you die, you just come back in time for the next tactical fight, more power to them. Some of us want things to matter, though.
Wow. Again. "My way or its wrong."
No, some people enjoy DEEP IMMERSIVE ROLE PLAYING GAMES where PC death does not occur unless the player feels its appropriate. You don't. We get that. SOME PEOPLE DO. Some people are of the opinion that "If I wanted to play a game with risk and challenge, I'd play a board game where I've got real opponents and I can really win or lose".
Oh, I know. However, if raises are a dime a dozen and guaranteed to happen, NOTHING truly is a threat.
A) See above on raises being a dime a dozen.
B) Even in games where PCs only die by player choice, its very rare for a player ot NEVER choose to have a character die, and the characters still don't know they only die by choice. Thus, nothing is ever guaranteed.
C) There are lots of possible threats besides death.
Wilderness encounter: Players fail to stop monsters in forest, forced to flee, monsters head to nearest hamlet and kill everyone. There's your fail.
First, I said most encounters. Second, they would have to know in advance that the village is threatened. If it's something they didn't know about, it really isn't their failure.
Dungeon encounter: Players fail to take on dungeon monsters, forced to flee to nearby room or leave dungeon, monsters run contingency plan and move all treasure out of the dungeon while bringing in bigger nasties to keep them trapped in the room they are currently held in or watch the dungeon entrance. There's your fail.
You're grasping at things, now.
It's still possible to have a fail scenario without actually killing the players. Things change, and the players have to make do.
I will agree that it's possible to alter a scenerio negatively, but to just outright shut it down only works on minor adventures that are a sub-part of the overall campaign.
With a little tweaking, that same statement can be used with character death. "If something happens that will kill any of the players early, rather than making them create a new character, he should just alter things slightly so they survive." In the case of a world conqueror elimination quest, player failure means that the world is doomed... and now instead of stopping the BBEG, they have to fix the damage done. Just because they have more gameplay doesn't mean they didn't fail, and it's more than possible to reflect that in the setting itself.
I disagree.
No. These two things do NOT fit together. If raises are not happening a dozen times, then raises cannot possibly be a dime a dozen.
:::watches the point go sailing clear over your head:::
Wow. Again. "My way or its wrong."
No, some people enjoy DEEP IMMERSIVE ROLE PLAYING GAMES where PC death does not occur unless the player feels its appropriate. You don't. We get that. SOME PEOPLE DO. Some people are of the opinion that "If I wanted to play a game with risk and challenge, I'd play a board game where I've got real opponents and I can really win or lose".
Wow. Do you really think you understood what I said? I've said many times that other ways are okay. Never said "My way or it's wrong", not once.
First, I said most encounters. Second, they would have to know in advance that the village is threatened. If it's something they didn't know about, it really isn't their failure.
By that statement, being caught by a trap that kills you isn't your fault if you didn't know in advance that the trap was there. Being killed in an ambush isn't your fault if you didn't know in advance that the monsters were there. It's the same thing.
You're grasping at things, now.
What, monsters in your dungeons just stand around waiting to get killed?
I will agree that it's possible to alter a scenerio negatively, but to just outright shut it down only works on minor adventures that are a sub-part of the overall campaign.
It doesn't have to shut it down, just change it. If a series of failures leads to your inability to stop the ultimate villain, then your job should cease to be "save the world" and become "fix the world" instead. That's the cost of failure. Avoiding such a thing is just as bad as refusing to kill players.
By that statement, being caught by a trap that kills you isn't your fault if you didn't know in advance that the trap was there. Being killed in an ambush isn't your fault if you didn't know in advance that the monsters were there. It's the same thing.
No, it's different. You ought to be smart enough to look for traps. You don't have any possible reason to be responsible because a creature you lost a fight with just happened to go towards the village instead of 7 other directions that would have caused it bypass the village that you probably didn't even know about. How is a party supposed to know every village in a bloody forest just because they are passing through it?
What, monsters in your dungeons just stand around waiting to get killed?
No, but it's not at all on the same level. They'll just come back better prepared(which counters monster preparations) and start off at the same balance point they left at.
It doesn't have to shut it down, just change it. If a series of failures leads to your inability to stop the ultimate villain, then your job should cease to be "save the world" and become "fix the world" instead. That's the cost of failure. Avoiding such a thing is just as bad as refusing to kill players.
I agree. I've been saying that just stopping the campaign is bad. A DM should be able and willing to adjust the campaign, and in my opinion, be willing to kill characters if the situation warrants it(ie. stupid actions by the characters, tough boss fight where rolls weren't bad, etc.)
I don't allow Ressurections in my games. It solves the whole thing.
This actually became a problem in my campaigns (back in 3.5). I allowed the option of permanently leaving a PC dead and re-rolling a new one (albeit 1 level lower) and what ended up happenning was that the players would build a fun time PC until around 7th lvl and then build the PC they had wanted to play... druid at 5th, wizzy at 9th, start in on the uber prestiges at 14th, etc.
Essentially i ended up with more of a justice league feel at the end of 15 level campaigns than one in which i felt a "party" of heroes had actually worked the problem. This also really made the Players jaded, because they built 1 trick pony PCs and when they got bored, they just didnt care at all...
The milestone penalty is one in which the DM doesnt have to work harder (con loss made players angry because it was HP loss, which in 1E was harsh anyways, in 2E and 3E the lvl loss was actually a situation where you had to balance the party exp so that the PC caught up, which was downright annoying). It puts the impetus on the PCs to actually get rid of the penatly which is a nice feature. The ritual is also not foolproof (given a scroll handy) you need 5 minutes to perform, and as someone mentioned it drains the party resources... That much gold is enough to buy a nice neck item that offers +1 to each save defense... but instead ole Jimmy Hammerhead has to learn tactics with a -1 penalty attached to a great many things. Given that the game is mathematically balanced on these very subtle number enhancements, it can be akin to losing 2 levels.
Giving death too much bite takes the fun out of the game for the DM, cause you have to be too careful about killing off PCs, you have to monitor much closer. With a simple penalty that can be overcome in 2 sessions, the PCs are more likely to face death without all the groaning and whining that their PC sucks and they want to reroll, etc.
Death in the real world sucks. Not only do you have to bury your paladin, but you are also going to have to pay for the lot, headstone, and lawsuits from the goblin matrons and cheiftain who can prove that your party didnt have any warrants to enter the warren, nor proof that any of the NPCs killed therein were even evil, or in any way connected to Farmer John's crop theft and family massacre. Plus the fact that John had been killing gobbie children for years in true kneejerk reactionary fashion (the guy would shoot his Xbow first and ask questions later... is a turnip worth a life?). Next of kin must be notified, sobbing grief stricken siblings demand explanations for why WHY OMG WHY!!!! All the while blaming you and your party for the death of a beloved friend. "All Jonny every wanted was a fair shake, to go to college, maybe become a magistrate... but then he runs off with you to fight evil??? You should all be jailed!"... etc.
death isnt pretty, so why bring it into your campaign? A simple ritual? don't mind if I do.
This actually became a problem in my campaigns (back in 3.5). I allowed the option of permanently leaving a PC dead and re-rolling a new one (albeit 1 level lower) and what ended up happenning was that the players would build a fun time PC until around 7th lvl and then build the PC they had wanted to play... druid at 5th, wizzy at 9th, start in on the uber prestiges at 14th, etc.
Essentially i ended up with more of a justice league feel at the end of 15 level campaigns than one in which i felt a "party" of heroes had actually worked the problem. This also really made the Players jaded, because they built 1 trick pony PCs and when they got bored, they just didnt care at all...
This wouldn't be fixed by removing death as a penalty, either. Rather, it SEEMS that you were either too harsh and killed them too frequently, or they deliberately got themselves killed to bring in new characters. The first, if it existed, is easily fixed by you. The latter would take more work. Basically, if it were me, I would inform the players that if I thought they were killing off their PCs for the reasons you stated, I would start inflicting hidden penalties to their characters, and if it continued, that player would be asked to leave the game. That level of metagaming/abuse is horrible and should not be tolerated.
Giving death too much bite takes the fun out of the game for the DM, cause you have to be too careful about killing off PCs, you have to monitor much closer. With a simple penalty that can be overcome in 2 sessions, the PCs are more likely to face death without all the groaning and whining that their PC sucks and they want to reroll, etc.
My feeling is that DMs SHOULD be careful about killing off PCs. It should be rare, and a thing the players want to avoid if it all possible.
If the party is 12th level and they decide they don't need a rogue and die to traps, is it my job to take all the traps out of my dungeon? Nope.
If the party is 6th level and surprised at night while encamped, the paladin on watch is wearing no armor and engages the enemy with the ranger 30' from the sleeping wizard and cleric, is it my job to say "you awaken to realize the watch has disappeared?" Nope.
If given a chance to parley with a powerful magistrate and instead the monk attacks him because he has knowledge that the government is corrupt, is it my job to save his life after he takes the magistrate (a 6th level aristocrat) down? Nope.
Etc.
The problem with PCs trying to die, is that once they are dead and you tell them they can't reroll, you now no longer have any players. Suddenly you realize that they are playing a new game somewhere else and you arent invited.
So yeah, easy solutions such as "Don't kill them!" take the challenge out of the game. Especially for my players. They look to me to challenge them, if they aren't afraid of death, then they just do crazy whacked out things.
No, it's different. You ought to be smart enough to look for traps. You don't have any possible reason to be responsible because a creature you lost a fight with just happened to go towards the village instead of 7 other directions that would have caused it bypass the village that you probably didn't even know about. How is a party supposed to know every village in a bloody forest just because they are passing through it?
If you're going to alleviate responsibility of the consequences of failure in other areas, you might as well alleviate the consequences of failure in death as well. You don't blame murder victims for being murdered. If a monster attacks a bunch of adventurers wandering through the forest and you call it the player's fault for dying, that's effectively what you're doing.
No, but it's not at all on the same level. They'll just come back better prepared(which counters monster preparations) and start off at the same balance point they left at.
But the secondary consequence could be the fact that while they were gone, the monsters moved the hoard to a different location, so the adventurers will not get as much money as they might have prior (and may have to resort in looting corpses and hawking everything that isn't nailed down to make ends meet).
I agree. I've been saying that just stopping the campaign is bad. A DM should be able and willing to adjust the campaign, and in my opinion, be willing to kill characters if the situation warrants it(ie. stupid actions by the characters, tough boss fight where rolls weren't bad, etc.)
But my point was that death isn't the only option to punish players out there. If it's not the only option, then there's no reason that DMs have to resort to killing players off as a punishment for severe failure. Remember that D&D is just as much narrative as it is gameplay, and much like any narrative you usually at least know some of the outcome. You don't read the first Harry Potter novel and place bets on whether he'll die by the end of the book.
Basically, to begin with you can be raised a number of times equal to your Con score--start with a 12, and the 13th time you die resurrection doesn't work. Every time you want to raise someone, roll d%; on a 0-10, you use up an extra life (meaning 1 rez counts as 2), on an 11-90, it works as normal, and on a 91-00 someone (or something) else is brought back in your body.
It adds a bit of suspense to resurrecting a character (Will this rez leave me with too few lives? Will I come back?) but doesn't cause a permanent or even temporary penalty noticeable to the character. If you use up an extra life, you can be raised one fewer time, but the PC doesn't know that; if a monster comes back in the PC's body, kill it and try to get the real PC back again. I wouldn't suggest this for a general rule, but it was a nice change of pace for one world.
It becomes more of a threat if you take away something from the new character (such as bringing him in at a lower level) but that can be (and was) applicable to resurrection as well. Personally, I never really cared for that solution, as it makes the character all the more likely to die, potentially leading to a compounded problem and a useless character. If you put a cap on the level loss, you simply delay the point where death becomes mostly trivial.
Of course, you can make death rare (or even impossible), but that makes death fairly meaningless as well. If I can only die if I screw up massively, then all I have to do is try not to screw up and I can play worry-free.
I've played in campaigns that had high death and some that had little threat of death. In some games there was no chance of death and in one in particular (a real meat-grinder of a campaign, though there was a lot of excellent role-playing despite that) raise dead was as easy as planting 100 gp at the base of a special tree.
As far as I'm concerned, unless the player of the character who died has to leave the game, death isn't much of a threat with or without the possibility of resurrection.
Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy investing depth and character to my characters. It's just that if a character dies, either the party gets him rezzed or I make a new character and invest in him.
Admittedly, recalling a few of those meat-grinder-esque campaigns that I've participated in, I'd say I invest less in a character if I expect that, likely as not, he'll be dead within two game sessions. Mostly just because creating an in-depth background is a significant (albeit enjoyable) amount of work, and doing so for a character who's just going to die two games from now is a lot of work for minimal reward.
Let's say the party is fighting the BBEG and has to make a tactical withdrawal after Eshram dies. Is there really much of a difference when they return for a rematch if they bring Eshram, returned from the hereafter, or his replacement Kundi? Aside from the fact that Eshram might hate good old BBEG even more than he did before, I'd say no.
I agree with those that say that the real threat of failure lies with the story. Admittedly, dying isn't fun regardless of whether or not you'll eventually be raised, but what players really hate is defeat, irrespective of death. If the PCs' hometown is destroyed because they couldn't halt the warchief's horde; if the cultists sacrifice the children because the PCs weren't strong enough to stop them- those players will see red and redouble their efforts not to fail again.
My experience is that, regardless of how death (and resurrection) are handled, they are a mildly unpleasant side-trek at the worst. I like the threat of death, but only because it is often the most direct way to allow failure to happen (the PCs are forced to retreat because Eshram dies, and now the BBEG is one step away from completing his evil plan).
The best example I can think of was our "Realms" campaign. The premise was that the core of our planet had gone dormant and needed to be restarted. After a long and arduous campaign, we faced the final boss: a planet devouring entity that had come to eat the core of our planet. The fight was extremely long and hard (the entity was MEAN as the 9 hells!), but for the most part we were excited and determined. Then, while we were still fighting the entity, a millenia-old vampire who had been our constant nemisis throughout the campaign showed up. When he realized we had the upper hand, he teleported down to the core (we were fighting on an island just above it). A sudden look of fear gripped all of us as we realized what was about to happen- if he couldn't have the planet he would make certain that no one would. Almost the entire party peeled away from the entity and we barely stopped the vampire in time to save the core. At no point during our battle had there been as tense a moment as that one. We all knew that our characters stood a very real chance of dying (and this was a campaign where resurrection, while not unheard of, was very difficult for PCs to obtain), but the only time that we all felt truly threatened was when the core, what we had fought so long and so hard to restore, was about to be destroyed. If that had happened, I have no doubt that we could have killed the entity and the vampire, and still felt utterly defeated because now the planet was going to die and there wasn't anything that we could do to stop it (the DM had already determined that this would be the last session of the campaign).
YMMV, as always, but I say if you want your players to feel the threat of failure, threaten them with failure. Death (permanent or otherwise) is a poor substitute.
I think I'll interrupt the debate about death and failure to interject one of the methods I've used to make resurrection different.
Basically, to begin with you can be raised a number of times equal to your Con score--start with a 12, and the 13th time you die resurrection doesn't work. Every time you want to raise someone, roll d%; on a 0-10, you use up an extra life (meaning 1 rez counts as 2), on an 11-90, it works as normal, and on a 91-00 someone (or something) else is brought back in your body.
It adds a bit of suspense to resurrecting a character (Will this rez leave me with too few lives? Will I come back?) but doesn't cause a permanent or even temporary penalty noticeable to the character. If you use up an extra life, you can be raised one fewer time, but the PC doesn't know that; if a monster comes back in the PC's body, kill it and try to get the real PC back again. I wouldn't suggest this for a general rule, but it was a nice change of pace for one world.
I still prefer penalties that don't necessarily affect character values, and instead have bigger ramifications on the game world itself. My newest mechanic has got to be my favorite so far (someone must be sacrificed to resurrect someone else) because the potential story and character consequences could be vast. I mean sure, you could theoretically capture a nearby goblin or something to do the job, but what if that's not a possibility? Do you sacrifice somebody from a local town to bring back another player? The fact that higher tier characters require more sacrifices to bring back to life enhances the consequences of it down the line as well. An entire village disappearing so you can resurrect a friend in the epic tier is going to attract attention.
Putting in character penalties creates a death spiral effect, wherein which death becomes easier and easier to occur until eventually you can't help but die. That doesn't really teach players to avoid death so much as tell them that it's going to become more unavoidable.
Death in the real world sucks. Not only do you have to bury your paladin, but you are also going to have to pay for the lot, headstone, and lawsuits from the goblin matrons and cheiftain who can prove that your party didnt have any warrants to enter the warren, nor proof that any of the NPCs killed therein were even evil, or in any way connected to Farmer John's crop theft and family massacre. Plus the fact that John had been killing gobbie children for years in true kneejerk reactionary fashion (the guy would shoot his Xbow first and ask questions later... is a turnip worth a life?). Next of kin must be notified, sobbing grief stricken siblings demand explanations for why WHY OMG WHY!!!! All the while blaming you and your party for the death of a beloved friend. "All Jonny every wanted was a fair shake, to go to college, maybe become a magistrate... but then he runs off with you to fight evil??? You should all be jailed!"... etc.
QUOTE]
Heh, can i use this for a quote elsewhere? It's funny and fits with the idea for a location in my campaign. I think im gonna have an npc quote this verbatim.
-SvD
1. Challenger: This player sees a big part of the game being a test of skill, a process of elimination, one that only the best of the best win. You are going for the gold. Success or failure is the name of the game, and the only real failure is death, because anything else can be overcome if you just keep trying.
2. Experiencer: This player sees the biggest part of the game being the overall epicurean experience of it. Risks are good if they support this experience; bad if they detract from it. Have character; will travel. The experience desired can be virtually anything, but permanent character death is rarely one of them.
So the question to ask one's self then, is which is more important to your enjoyment of the game, risk of *losing*, or an overall type of experience that may not depend on that sort of risk? And this is purely a personal preference (although it can be nice to encourage people to try new things) so it's hard to have a meaningful debate over it. Might as well debate which is the more right way to enjoy one's self: playing chess or listening to Mozart.
Now, on to some points that can be productively discussed. Both types may be able to be perfectly satisfied with the same game, if there are ways of losing that are meaningful, but don't end the *character's* career--just like losing a Superbowl is pretty meaningful, but doesn't automatically cause all the players to retire.
One point of suggestion for the Challengers may be to consider looking at the "win condition" as being something else than "character still breathing." A character can live and lose. The meaningful wins and losses then become campaign events, ones that can have a lasting or permanent effect on the game world, which adds to the experience of the world either way, and provides a real sense of accomplisment or failure. It's also possible for each point along the way to be meaningful without death being the cost of failure. Each failure on the road to the Superbowl can increase the chance of losing the Superbowl, as well as having it's own campaign consequences. A point of suggestion for Experiencers may be to consider in-character losses as a valuable part of the experience. This seems to me a way of looking at the game that both types could enjoy.
Yes, by the way, I'm simplifying by assuming people are one type or the other. It's not really oversimplification because it does what it's intended to do and showcases two view points.
For my campaign, I'm still trying to work out a way to deal with raising the dead that allows for a bit more suspension of disbelief regarding the rest of the world. By the book, there is little to no reason for the rich and famous NPCs not to get raised all the time. They can afford it. They have reasons to want to be around. And you can sure bet that the evil villain isn't going to stay down if he has a group of devoted followers, until you hunt down every last one of them and erase his name from the collective memory of humanoidanity before some upstart villain-to-be decides to find a way to raise his famous "hero."
Okay, so the evil villain one isn't such a big deal. In fact, it adds to the story if the players have to find a way to make sure that his death is permanent, or trap him (or his soul) somewhere for just such a reason. Other NPCs are more problematic
I like the idea suggested earlier in the thread of some sort of nebulous mystical consequences to being raised that aren't represented in the game mechanics. I'm not sure exactly what they should be, but I want something that is going to make being raised from the dead something primarily experienced by adventurers and avoided like crazy by people in positions of rulership and responsibility (ie, the others in the world who could do it.) And whatever possible consequences are so dire (or socially detrimental) that PCs are way more likely to risk them than anyone else, should occasionally pop up for a fun adventure. :-)
To Rez or not to Rez? That is the question.
I have run a few campaigns with so many different ways of dealing with death and ressurrection. I have learnt not to show any favouritism... (made a few mistakes on that front). Whatever decision you make for your campaign keep it consistent and make sure all of the players agree to the consequences.
I am currently working on a concept that the 'Lord of the Dead' does not like having souls removed from his realm. He believes they are his possession and he does not like anyone stealing his possessions. If the party raises a companion from the dead then the 'Lord of the Dead' will send an apropriate undead creature to re-gather his possession and the creature will also slay anyone that was involved in stealing the soul from his realm.
As soon as the player is raised from the dead he/she will feel a dark shroud around him/her. A dark presence can see him/her all of the time and knows of their location. The creature will be a powerful elite undead creature and prove to be a very tough foe for the party to overcome. It will hunt them down and look for the best opportunity to do it's masters bidding. I am thinking of making the undead creature immune to the attacks of the soul that has been raised (too harsh??)
Most people are aware of the consequences of raising the dead so only the very brave attempt it. Stories are told of whole villages being slain by undead creatures simply because a rich noble could not bear the death of a family member.
If one of my players' dies and they get up, knocking over their chair and sweep the table clear of all papers, dice, pencils, and booklets in a fit of anger then I know I've done my job as DM.
Why bother with killing him? Simply rant on with the same insult over and over, or sneak under the table and punch him in the junk as hard as you can. If you really want to get the job done, vandalize his house in the middle of the night. When he shows up to game, tell him that you did it. If he doesn't get angry and start throwing things from that, then I doubt a character dying will do it.
I don't see why a DM would want to tick off his players. Remember that they always have the right to stop playing or go elsewhere to game. Giving them a reason to doesn't help.
> irrevocably changed about them
I don't like this sort of thing. Killing the character might make the player hate you, but mucking around with the character concept is liable to make the player hate the character - it's no longer the one he envisaged.
If one of my players' dies and they get up, knocking over their chair and sweep the table clear of all papers, dice, pencils, and booklets in a fit of anger then I know I've done my job as DM.
If one of your PLAYERS dies they do this? COOOOOOOOL! When my players die, they usually just fall over and stink up the kitchen until we call the coroner.:D
I'm toying with the idea of having a limited number of resurrections before a perma-death.
But I doubt it'll be a problem. For most players, once they've played a character for a while, they might be attached to the character, but they've also had enough time to dream up another concept. So if their character dies and it is a good ending to that character's story, there's a good chance they'll leave the character dead.
If one of my players' dies and they get up, knocking over their chair and sweep the table clear of all papers, dice, pencils, and booklets in a fit of anger then I know I've done my job as DM.
If one of your PLAYERS dies they do this? COOOOOOOOL! When my players die, they usually just fall over and stink up the kitchen until we call the coroner.:D
Note the apostrophe (enlarged and colored for clarity and humor). He was doing it right (not DM-ing, grammar).
No matter what any of you believe or say, 4e does indeed take the teeth away from PC death...
Since you declare that you won't be persuaded, and apparently don't care to provide any support for your own statement, why are you participating in the discussion?
That's not a rhetorical question; I'm genuinely curious.
No matter what any of you believe or say, 4e does indeed take the teeth away from PC death...
There is no way to actually give PC death any real teeth anyways. In most cases, the DM will simply let the player roll up a new character if he has no means to resurrect, and even if he does but doesn't wish to live with the penalties. Short of the DM telling a player with a dead character to get out of his house because he's been permanently removed from the campaign, death has never had any teeth to speak of.
My dark elf war mage who died managed to win a game of chess against the goddess of fate (dm and I actually played out the game) and not only did I come back I recieved some long lost spells to be added to my list, why because I talked her into it.
Our fighter once came back knowing exactly where something was we needed, but he was indebted to the goddess of love, and had to beat and spare his main rival instead of kill him.
> If the caster fails the check, the character comes back, but with something
> irrevocably changed about them
I don't like this sort of thing. Killing the character might make the player hate you, but mucking around with the character concept is liable to make the player hate the character - it's no longer the one he envisaged.
Well, it's probably not for every group. Mine have seemed to like it so far, with the PCs acquiring wierd quirks every time they visit the afterlife (like a hand that is perpetually clammy, or a change in eye color, or even relentlessly hunted down by a shadow).
I do like the idea of a challenge being part of resurrection, either in a side quest or a skill challenge (where the PCs, including the dead PC, psychically barter with whoever has the dead guy's soul). Success at these challenges grant XP, maybe treasure or other bennies, while failure means the resurrection occurs, but possibly with some negative circumstances in the future.
There is no way to actually give PC death any real teeth anyways. In most cases, the DM will simply let the player roll up a new character if he has no means to resurrect, and even if he does but doesn't wish to live with the penalties. Short of the DM telling a player with a dead character to get out of his house because he's been permanently removed from the campaign, death has never had any teeth to speak of.
Actually, this is correct.
However, my players do get upset when their character dies... even though they usually get to make a new one of same level.
Players do get somewhat attached to the character they put time and effort into...
Actually, this is correct.
However, my players do get upset when their character dies... even though they usually get to make a new one of same level.
Players do get somewhat attached to the character they put time and effort into...
It's still a bummer to die in D&D without resurrection penalties. There's still the fact that it's a money sink, and your fellow party members are likely to pull that cash out of your share. There's the fact that you have an extended period of downtime until they find a way to bring you back. All these things can be looked upon as a punishment that the players of dead characters have to sit through. Giving them one more punishment here and there isn't going to make them any more bummed out after a point. Eventually it'll be overkill, and the smart player will say "screw it, I'm just making a new character".
I feel it's the DM's job to alter and modify things as the game plays to make certain the PC's don't die. Unless it's something that's agreed upon ahead of time with the players (or they are spectacularly foolish - then you can kill them with impunity).
If death isn't a risk, the game loses some of it's excitement and the players get sloppy and make dumb choices, so instead of one character dying, a TPK becomes more likely. Now, I'm not saying that DM's should TRY to kill the characters, but if they make poor choices, it should be the consequence if that's the way the dice roll. the DM's job is not to keep the PC's from dying, the DM is supposed to provide a story that the PC's can affect, and to challenge them. If there is no risk of death, there is less challenge. So that means they aren't doing their job right. Just my two coppers. Now, the money cost is irritating, but the raised person pays the bill. (in my groups)
Note the apostrophe (enlarged and colored for clarity and humor). He was doing it right (not DM-ing, grammar).
LOL, I noticed the apostrophe right after I posted. I live in a region full of terrible spellers and I guess I'm just not used to seeing such things used correctly!
First, I find it amusing that people are saying that "real roleplayers" need the risk permanent death in order to have a realistic sense of failure. If anything, the good roleplayers are the ones who get invested in causes or issues in the campaign world to the degree that success or failure can be judged in terms other than personal well-being.
Second, I'm personally fond of my 3e ruling that actually rewarded death with plot hooks. First, unless they had the soul immediately at hand, the characters had find the soul in the afterlife and convince the appropriate deity that their friend was needed back in the world of the living. Second, the death penalty (a single, non-cumulative negative level) remained until the character undertook a pilgrimage to an appropriate holy place to clear out the remaining taint of death. Finally, the resurrecter and the resurrectee at the least, and probably the whole party, accept a geas of some sort from the deity. It's unlikely to seriously deter a player (who says no when god gives you a plot hook?), but does try to draw attention to the fact that it's a pretty major heroic undertaking.