Bleys Icefalcon
First Post
One of my personal frustrations - as a DM yes, but also as a player - was the high magic involved with the demise of a character. If we were low level, and any of us survived the fight, just gather up the dead and head to the nearest temple - bammo, somehow in the middle of nowhere, in this 3 horse hick town 170 leagues from anywhere the one, lone priest was somehow powerful enough to Raise the Dead. And if we were high level - the threat of mortality didn't exist. The players would actually get pissy about who got to raise said person and how. Battles, and dying became non-threatening, to the point that they didn't care if they died. Why? pop some Pheonix Down!
So I had to do something... and do it fast. I brought the old System Shock/Ressurect Survival % back from 1st/2nd Edition. And the 1st time they died, that's what they rolled on. Pretty high chance of survival, right? How I closed the rotating door is this: Each Subsequent death, the residual percentile is HALVED. So, 99% survival that first death, lose a point of con, the next death ISN'T 96% - it's 48%!!! Assuming they survive that - lose another point of con, not 93%, but Q U A R T E R E D - 23%!!! and so on. All of a sudden people started thinking about combat and in many cases avoiding it. They became a little more careful with that trapped chest instead of just attacking the damn thing with a mace.
I understand it's a fantasy game, and yeah, in fantasy, if you're powerful enough, you get to come back. But - in a high level campaign I was running a few years back we had character's with in excess of 50 deaths. Wishes, deals with demon lords, gods, high priests, items - etc - all allowing loopholes in the loss of constitution. Much of the damage wrought long before I took the reigns. I had to reign it in.
Initally there as resentment. But, afer a period of adjustment, the thrill of battle returned. There was passion instead of trying to see who could make the biggest mess jumping face first of of the cliff to the rock below. the PC's at the top of the cliff trying to see a pattern in the blood and gore...
So I had to do something... and do it fast. I brought the old System Shock/Ressurect Survival % back from 1st/2nd Edition. And the 1st time they died, that's what they rolled on. Pretty high chance of survival, right? How I closed the rotating door is this: Each Subsequent death, the residual percentile is HALVED. So, 99% survival that first death, lose a point of con, the next death ISN'T 96% - it's 48%!!! Assuming they survive that - lose another point of con, not 93%, but Q U A R T E R E D - 23%!!! and so on. All of a sudden people started thinking about combat and in many cases avoiding it. They became a little more careful with that trapped chest instead of just attacking the damn thing with a mace.
I understand it's a fantasy game, and yeah, in fantasy, if you're powerful enough, you get to come back. But - in a high level campaign I was running a few years back we had character's with in excess of 50 deaths. Wishes, deals with demon lords, gods, high priests, items - etc - all allowing loopholes in the loss of constitution. Much of the damage wrought long before I took the reigns. I had to reign it in.
Initally there as resentment. But, afer a period of adjustment, the thrill of battle returned. There was passion instead of trying to see who could make the biggest mess jumping face first of of the cliff to the rock below. the PC's at the top of the cliff trying to see a pattern in the blood and gore...