The really affected players have a single low level character that was previously revived by Revivify
You have to be tier 2 to cast revivify, so those characters aren't going to be instantly dead once they start the new season -- even a level 5 wizard with 10 Con has 22 hit points.
Also, note that revivify isn't currently on the list of spells that automatically fail due to the Death Curse (that's just raise dead, resurrection, and true resurrection); so it's possible there will be clarification that characters brought back by revivify aren't actually considered to have died, despite the spell's text ("You touch a creature that has died within the last minute.")
The second worst group are new players with one or two Level 3 and below characters for whom D&D just became a perma-death game. Even if a particular adventure offers a "you can get revived despite the rules saying you can't" ability, the hp loss will kill them in a few days anyway.
Well, if you're that low-level, you can take advantage of the rule that allows you to play a pre-gen for the rest of the adventure, then apply your rewards earned by the pre-gen to a new character and very likely return to the game at 2nd level.
I get that you're not a fan of the rule, but that doesn't automatically mean it's a bad rule. It could use some more clarification, though:
- The phrase about "this reduction [to hp max] can't be increased or restored" seems sloppy. I get that it means that the Necromancy Wizard's class ability that prevents his hp max from being reduced doesn't apply to the Death Curse, and that a spell like Restoration wouldn't restore the character's hp max, but would it also prevent an Aid spell, even though Aid is an increase to the character's hp max and not technically a removal of the hp max reduction of the Death Curse?
- Previously noted absence of revivify from the 'spells that automatically fail' list; intentional?
- If you're running a DDAL adventure, and one of the players has a character who died in a previous Season 5-7 DDAL adventure (and thus was affected by the Death Curse when he died), do you have that player roll for Soul Devouring for his other character, even though that character didn't participate in the current adventure?
My understanding, before I even started writing my first post, is that the AL admins have already gotten a ton of feedback (probably including all the points above) and are already working on revisions -- so I won't worry about the answers to the above until I see those revisions.
Again, you're welcome to dislike the rule -- just don't assume that because you dislike it that it therefore must be a bad rule.
--
Pauper