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For future games, I am considering totally nixing the idea that a player whose character is killed is greatly penalized. To this end, here's some things I am considering to make this happen.
Party XP instead of player XP. All characters have the same XP, and level at the same time. This will necessitate using something like craft points or Pkitty's action point variant to replace XP costs for spells and magic items.
Will have to negate level penalty for being recalled from death. There are a few ways I could go about this:
- Different penalties (action points, quest on character, etc.)
- Only make available magic that restores life without level loss (revivify, true ressurection)
- No raising magic. Make a new character at the new level.
Magic items - as characters have the potential to come into the game frequently, will have to address the problem of magic item influx if full magic items are granted to each character. E.G.:
- hard limit per player
- reduced starting magic
- items linked to characters, so some or many are destroyed when they die and are not raised.
The idea here is anyone can make a new character at any time... and any PC can die at any time.
Anyone do anything similar or have any other ideas to the effect?
__________________ "This game requires no gameboard because the action takes place in your imagination..." - Cover of Dungeons & Dragons Basic Rules Set 1.
How about a party XP bonus for the number of PCs who survive each fight? Like, as though survival were one of the challenges present in each encounter.
So instead of a "death penalty", give PCs a "survival bonus"
Cheers, -- N
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How about a party XP bonus for the number of PCs who survive each fight? Like, as though survival were one of the challenges present in each encounter.
So instead of a "death penalty", give PCs a "survival bonus"
Hmmm... has potential.
__________________ "This game requires no gameboard because the action takes place in your imagination..." - Cover of Dungeons & Dragons Basic Rules Set 1.
On consideration, it seems like the bonus couldn't be enough to really count as a penalty, if done per-encounter. So instead, make it a survival bonus per story arc.
Only if the number of PC deaths exceeds the number of PCs does the bonus turn into a penalty.
Cheers, -- N
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I use a negative level penalty instead - It can't be removed by magic, but disappears with time - ie 3 weeks (based on HR calender signifigance) it could be 1-4 weeks, or even as long as a season.
The penalty also vanishes if the character gains a new level.
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Yeah, I always hated this. 2 weeks ago, I had my character die in a surprise round before I even got to roll initiative (finger of death--I needed a 7, rolled a 4...). The crappy part was that, in the same surprise round, the cleric (who had revivify prepared, of course) was paralyzed for 7 rounds or something by the second enemy, so he couldn't bring me back. We were pretty deep inside a dungeon, and our cleric was only 14th level, so no true res.
Honestly, I thought about just letting my character stay dead and making another, especially because as an evoker 5/incantatrix 9 (arcane thesis: scorching ray, metamagic school focus: evocation; no lower than original level metamagic cheese, but still often good for 600+ points of damage with one spell), he just had a huge red "x" painted on his forehead. Every single monster had scryed on us and knew what I could do, everything had ray deflection, etc. Ultimately I came back, but the whole level loss thing just left a bad taste in my mouth, especially because I was essentially railroaded into dying in the first place (it was bound to happen sooner or later, as I was saving versus finger of death in almost every surprise round--probably the third or fourth time I'd died under similar circumstances in a month, actually). Of course, the cleric being paralyzed was random chance, but still... Putting one character a level behind everyone else because of a death that was a load of crap in the first place is an even bigger load of crap, IMO. I mean, I didn't even get a slim chance of acting before I was dead... I was just dead before anything else happened.
I don't really blame the DM--he has to find a way to neutralize or severely limit my character to have any chance at challenging us. However, our group generally encourages powergaming in the first place, and the DM (often a player) is no exception. If a character isn't significantly above the curve, he's going to be outshone by the rest of the party at every turn. Even if the DM decides to hit me with a "save or die" spell, which I accept as a reasonable means of attempting to neutralize a threat which must be neutralized in order for any encounter to go 2 rounds, having him just point at me and basically say, "You lose a level," is pretty frustrating, particularly because I was on the advent of a really big level gain...
I see that you want resurrected characters to have no XP penalty, and you're wondering if you should give other penalties or no penalty at all.
But then you also talk about making resurrection more difficult or impossible. Do you want characters to be more or less easy to resurrect? Do you really have to address these 2 questions at the same time, or can you address first the penalty issue and then the resurrection facilities?
About penalties, if we forget about XP, then would you use only temporary penalties as a replacement or would you consider also permanent penalties (only not XP)?
If you use temporary penalties, you can really use anything... Ability damage for example would make it harder for the character to adventure for a while, and so would negative levels. However note that you face a dilemma here: use small penalties, and effectively they won't matter much; use large penalties and the character is likely do die twice in a row.
I actually prefer permanent penalties, such as a permanent decrease in one or more ability scores (random). This is a serious penalty that screams "don't get killed" to the player. It doesn't make the character unplayable even after a few deaths, but when the random decrease affects the PC's primary ability, the player has indeed a price to pay.
Just let us know what really you don't like about the current situation A few weeks ago I was musing about resurrection and what I don't like about it, and I have found out that what I really don't like is the IMAGE of it. The whole idea of saying "ok you're dead, we just get you back" like it's a normal thing is what I dislike. Not the penalties, not the quests or bargains to get someone cast the spells, and not even the fact that a character rarely stays dead. I just hate to trivialize death. So I came up with this: MORTALLY WOUNDED: Death / Raise Dead flavour change (not really what you're looking for, just to show what happens when I try to think of stuff in a different light ).
__________________ "There is no survival without order, there is no evolution without chaos." "You have to see past the RAW to understand the rules of the game." "And rules are OVERRATED by the way!
For future games, I am considering totally nixing the idea that a player whose character is killed is greatly penalized.
Everything else is a "how" to that end, how to bring it about in the game and deal with the consequences.
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Originally Posted by Li Shenron
I see that you want resurrected characters to have no XP penalty, and you're wondering if you should give other penalties or no penalty at all.
But then you also talk about making resurrection more difficult or impossible. Do you want characters to be more or less easy to resurrect? Do you really have to address these 2 questions at the same time, or can you address first the penalty issue and then the resurrection facilities?
Obviously, the existing resurrection facilities implicitly have a persistent penalty against the character, which is against the intent of the proposed house rule. So I either need to get rid of low level life restoration spells or replace the limitation in some way.
I want:
1) Character death to be less of a pisser to the player.
2) Bringing in new characters to replace the old one to be a viable (but not necessarily preferred) option.
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About penalties, if we forget about XP, then would you use only temporary penalties as a replacement or would you consider also permanent penalties (only not XP)?
That would make raising markedly inferior to bringing in a new character, which is not what I want.
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I actually prefer permanent penalties, such as a permanent decrease in one or more ability scores (random). This is a serious penalty that screams "don't get killed" to the player.
That's sort of directly at odds with what I am after here.
Somewhat like you, I don't want life restoration magic to be the implicit option when someone dies, and think it should be a more rare event. But at the same time, I don't want to penalize players for wanting to bring their character back.
Find me the magic solution that fulfills those goals, I'll be pretty happy.
__________________ "This game requires no gameboard because the action takes place in your imagination..." - Cover of Dungeons & Dragons Basic Rules Set 1.
Somewhat like you, I don't want life restoration magic to be the implicit option when someone dies, and think it should be a more rare event. But at the same time, I don't want to penalize players for wanting to bring their character back.
Find me the magic solution that fulfills those goals, I'll be pretty happy.
A random resurrection chance?
Like, if you want to come back, you can without any penalties, but you have only a 20% chance (or whatever). It's the only way I can think of reducing the amount of resurrections in the game, besides making it penalizing to come back.
It's not what you want, I am sure. You want to guarantee the option to someone who want to use it. But then you can never lower the frequency if you don't make it more convenient to choose not to resurrect. Unless you beg/bribe the player maybe
Then there was my weird idea in that link, that basically "lowers" the frequency of death-resurrection by pretending the character was never dead in the first place. But I guess you want something more solid, that doesn't rely on such a strong suspension of disbelief to work.
Beyond these I cannot help... I have never seen the problem solved in any RPG, and I'm certainly not the one who will find the miracle cure
__________________ "There is no survival without order, there is no evolution without chaos." "You have to see past the RAW to understand the rules of the game." "And rules are OVERRATED by the way!
It's not what you want, I am sure. You want to guarantee the option to someone who want to use it. But then you can never lower the frequency if you don't make it more convenient to choose not to resurrect. Unless you beg/bribe the player maybe
Actually, Bribe is the way I am leaning, along with short term penalties. I'm toying with the idea of "karma bonuses" that apply to your new character if your old one elects to stay on the fields of Elysium / hang out with his new buds in the Einheriar / etc.
__________________ "This game requires no gameboard because the action takes place in your imagination..." - Cover of Dungeons & Dragons Basic Rules Set 1.
Find me the magic solution that fulfills those goals, I'll be pretty happy.
... I like Evilhalfling's idea:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Evilhalfling
I use a negative level penalty instead - It can't be removed by magic, but disappears with time - ie 3 weeks (based on HR calender signifigance) it could be 1-4 weeks, or even as long as a season.
The penalty also vanishes if the character gains a new level.
... Though personally, I'd make it last until a new level is gained, but let magic remove it after a week or so...
I'm just starting out as DM after being a player for quite some time, and I've decided to make a few large departures from the way things have been going up to this point. We've made changes to make death penalty much less than the loss of level and whatnot, but we've also developed a bit of an attitude where "I've got a 5000g diamond in my pocket, so I can go ahead and charge that monster with no preparation or planning before hand."
The difference I intend to impose is that in the new world, resurrection spells are very rare and slightly against the law and would entail a minor quest of sorts to even find someone who could (and would) cast one. I'm hoping to instill a slight sense of reality into our fantasy world where death is scary and to be avoided.
With that said, I'm thinking of giving each character a "fate" point that can be spent to "avoid" death (really...immediately bring back from death for free with no penalty). They can earn another one on 3rd or 5th level (going to play that by ear for now...want to see how many times they actually need it) if they've spent theirs. If they still have theirs then it upgrades to a "greater fate" point that can be spent to survive any saving throw and then it turns back to a regular "fate" point.
Anyway, not sure who posted it but I like the Karma idea. Sounds like it could have some really cool affects.
That would be me.
It's been a while since I visited this thread, but this has evolved into a unified solution along with my "xp-less level tracking" solution. I'm sort of not addressing the issue of magic item accumulation because for the purposes of the current game, I am considering keeping magic items low.
But what I do is now:
All characters have same level and XP total
I split action points into fortune, essence, and karma
Fortune is the base 5 points per level, "use or lose", have standard action point functions.
Essence points are 1/2 character level, also "use or lose", but in addition to standard action point functions, can be used to pay for XP draining spells and item creation (at rate of 1000xp/point) AND can be used to defray lost levels, at 1/point. This includes lost levels from energy drain or raising. If you have no essence points, you still don't lose levels; you gain a persistent negative level until you can pay it off.
Karma points are awarded by the DM and are not "use or lose"... they remain after you gain a level or even when you make a new character. Other than that, they have the same functions as essence and fortune points.
__________________ "This game requires no gameboard because the action takes place in your imagination..." - Cover of Dungeons & Dragons Basic Rules Set 1.
I have a few ideas that aren't really what you're looking for, but something I think I'm going to try soon in my own campaign.
If someone dies, they must win a duel with something in the afterlife to be rezzed. Perhaps an outsider, a radically different NPC of the opposite alignment, or maybe a opposite-alignment version of themselves. Whatever the case, the duel should be challenging, and if they win the duel they are eligible to be brought back from the dead. If they lose, perhaps they can try again sometime later, or maybe they can't be rezzed ever again. Storyline wise, this could take place on a neutral plane, or perhaps under a god related to death, balance, duels, or something else.
Another possible rule would involve a more abstract penalty, perhaps something like not coming back with your soul. It's awkward, yes, and would require a lot of rules, but it might be an acceptable penalty for dying.
In theory this is cool but in practice its not terribly pratical. I tried something similar and it just led to a bunch of problems:
-Your first idea of other penalties is promising, although you have to be careful to not penalize the whole party for one character's death. I did something similar, using a PARTY XP rather than individual and ran into the problems of "What about when someone misses the game for a week, they don't get our xp do they?" and "My character was the spokesman, the diplomat and disarmed every trap in the place and I get the same xp as everyone else?" Bottom line, whatever you do, make sure its fair and no one else feels slighted by it
-The idea of only making magic that restores without level loss I also tried and that created its own problems. For one, they knew the town priest was 17th level (since he had true res) and kept going back to him for spells like heal and divination and scrying, etc, all spells I didn't want them to have access too. They became dependant on him - so he died in the next adventure as part of a murder mystery.
Also, if its very expensive, they aren't likely to want to come back. Whats the point of having my fighter back if I had to sell all my gear to bring him back. Now I have a MW sword and no way to hurt anything with damage reduction magic. This also hurts the rest of the party since they have to pony up some serious money (25k!) to bring back a friend. And at levels like 9th or so when raise dead becomes available, they don't even have that kind of gold for their own gear. And that leads to my last point:
-No raise dead makes for an unhappy group, believe me. If I've been playing a character for almost a year and love him and his abilities to the core and you kill him off with no chance of bringing him back, I'm going to be mad. I know it sounds silly, but players like playing the same character. Also it creates a sense of togetherness and unity that a constantly changing group doesn't. If two players have characters that are friends for a long time that makes for more interesting adventures later on, "this is just like the time we took down the warlord of Argmath on the Isiam peninsula, remember?" Where as, "Whats your name again" pretty much sucks.
Character death is a VERY tough thing to balance since its not even fair to the party roles - the up front fighter is more liekly to die than the wizard and priest casting spells in the back. I made my peace with it after several times of getting it wrong. I let it go knowing that eventually the lower xp player will catch up eventually since they get more xp for each encounter.
I suggest encouraging the priest of the party to be a Favored Soul and learn the spell Delay Death, that has slowed the character death rate by alot!
When I tried this out in my campaign, no one was afraid to die since there was no substantial penalty for it. It was like a video game and there was no sense of drama to the combats because no one cared if they died. Now, knowing they'll lose a level, they fight tooth and nail to survive as anyone in those kind of situations should.
To make a long story short (too late, I know) I stopped trying to "fix" the raising system and made my peace with it since everything I tried made for a much more pointlessly complicated system. Does it suck? Yes, but it should, you died and you're brought back from the dead, that can't be (and shouldn't be) easy.
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I also like the Karma thing. I'll show that to my DM when I get back to school.
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Originally Posted by useridunavailable
Every single monster had scryed on us and knew what I could do, everything had ray deflection, etc.
Props to your DM. One of mine right now is a story teller dealing with a whole party of powergamers and doesn't know what to do. I'm ... the only player who knows how to RP as well as #-crunch, and so I've been side-tracking the party to let the DM shine.
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Originally Posted by airwalkrr
Getting rid of the death penalty huh? Sounds like a violation of ENWorld posting guidelines. Seems a bit too political.
Ah, that's too bad. I just gave out my last four internets yesterday, otherwise you'd win one. You totally deserve it more than the last guy, too.
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I've been thinking of a permanent stat penalty instead of xp loss. A random stat seems a good system, but how much of a penalty?
1 point? 1d2, 1d3? Our current house rule is the loss of half the xp needed to hit next level. How much of a stat penalty seems fair then? I'm inclined to keep it at one point, as it's kind of a high magic campaign. (Savage Tide in the Forgotten Realms).
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