Dealing with Death

[Axel]

If your players are mechanic-heavy, and it sounds as though they are, a mechanical penalty may be the most appopriate. I'd say that for every re-roll they make you reduce their point-buy by 1 or 2, or rule that the most expensive starting magic item is worth 2000 gp, or your wizards only get the same known spells as a sorceror of their level or... The options are as endless as the game!

 

[Rakusia]

Exactly anyone can write down on a sheet that they've done this or that but actually doing it living through the adventure and killing the Orc Warboss whose battle ax you now wield is infinitely more satisfying then just saying that you did it.

know its off topic but im hyjacking the thread for a sec. every time you triumph at lower levels its a great feeling you beat the odds you survived and earned your loot. the higher level you get, especially with a power gamer things take on an epic proportion but they kinda loose the legendary feel.

personally i dont like starting out at higher levels maybe two-4 levels just so i dont leech from a group but usually ill start at lvl one and hope not to die and know ill lvl fairly faster due to the extra xp from higher lvl enemies.

when you start at lvl 6-10 your character is just that a character and a sheet of random numbers.

well thats my rant sorry but idk if ur guys are more nuts and bolts than rp then its kinda a moot point. id make an equivilent downside to rerolling. maybe not as harsh but close

 

[Dandu]

when you start at lvl 6-10 your character is just that a character and a sheet of random numbers.

Fistbeard Beardfist would disagree!

 

[Rakusia]

Fistbeard Beardfist would disagree!

as would rodarick the fifth but you know i just cant seem to find his char sheet anywhere

 

[Icyshadowlord]

I would say that if you really want the players to get more attatched to their characters, you might as well throw the XP penalty away. If I were DM, I would let them ressurect without such things in the way, though I would not make it so that dying is never a problem.

Last time a team I was running had their druid killed off (that game was last summer IIRC), I let them ressurect him after two not-so-easy quests just to make the ressurection be more than just walking up to a random Cleric and asking to bring the friend back (Thankfully they had that spell to keep his body from rotting...I forgot the name...)

Either way, it's up to you and the way the players feel about the whole issue. I myself tend to like my characters a lot (I even get inspiration from my D&D characters when I write things. Yes, I write as a hobby) and as such I usually wouldn't want to reroll a precious character unless they died in a fitting way (like a Paladin dying to save a village or such)

 

[Dargon]

Give the charectors a role in the world so they become a part of it, reward charecters with presige, fame and influnce and tie it to the single charector and not the party. Make sure that new charecters never start with any of this, but have to be earned. That way they have more to lose if they make a new charector.

 

[jasper]

I have to disagree with John about player rerolling and bring clone characters. Aka Bob brings in Fred the Fighter with a great sword clone number 113. Some players like playing the same class with the same load out. Do not try to force a change on these players.
As some stated, are the players treating their characters as thrown aways? If so just thrown away the story lines and pretend the game play is movie of the week type.

 

[Noctos]

Players not wanting to be revieved never had that issue. soundrather stupid to me. but my players had stuff had people that worked for them they have a name they have friends and everything. why would people want to reroll i mean making a new person should be reserved for players at the begaining with out the resources to get revieved. however if it's a cost thing then you have the priest send them on a quest to pay for the cost.
in my longest running world it wasn't a thing of not wanting to be revived it was a thing of forced to be. as in the later months of the game players had so many enemies and powerful foes that death just happened. and players accepted and found ways to revive each other. but as i say it was a rather long going world and the players had built up there people from 1 to the high teens and low 20's.

 

[udalrich]

If your players are mechanic-heavy, and it sounds as though they are, a mechanical penalty may be the most appopriate. I'd say that for every re-roll they make you reduce their point-buy by 1 or 2, or rule that the most expensive starting magic item is worth 2000 gp, or your wizards only get the same known spells as a sorceror of their level or... The options are as endless as the game!

I'm rather agreeing with this. A simple option that is difficult to game is this. You start with the wealth your previous character had, less the cost of a Raise Dead/Resurrection/True Resurrection and any items that were not buried/lost with the previous character. You start at the level your character would have been after being raised with the corresponding spell.

At this point, there's no mechanical benefit to building a new character beyond the fact that you can rearrange anything. You essentially pay for the spell, regardless of whether or not you use it. You don't get to buy a set of new stuff with your new wealth and divide the wealth of the old character.

In theory, at this point, whether the player makes a new character or gets resurrected should depend mostly on whether he was tired of the old character. If you want to "encourage" them even more to stay with the old character, add a penalty like 200 xp/level or 20% expected wealth gained at the current level.

 

[Rakusia]

or if they want to make a new character they can have nothing and have to go on a quest to get the stuff of their previous char.