Game Administrivia

[BSF]

Death and all that stuff.

I try to make death a real fear in the game. There are stories to gtell and I try to integrate different aspect of all your characters because it is important to me that you have an impact on the world. How can you feel like a hero if it doesn't seem like your choices and actions have any value? But back on track here - it does occasionally create inconveniences for me when a PC dies. Sometimes I have to set aside stuff I had been working on. But that's OK really. I want you to have an impact and that impact can also be felt with the sudden absence of a PC.

So the possibility of PC death is important to me. Besides, I don't want you guys thinking your PCs are invulnerable. That being said, it is also important to me that dying be an inconvenience. While computer games are fun, I don't want PC death to be a video game experience around the table. So dying has to hurt in some way.

Previous editions used Con drain to limit PC death. If you died and were brought back, you lost a point of Con. I always hated that. At some point, it hardly seems worth it to bring the PC back.

There is also the level loss mechanic to 'punish' character death. This one isn't as bad. Sure you temporarily lose power, but you do get it back. Still, level loss has always left me with a bit of a bad taste as well. I just haven't had any alternatives to consider.

Recently a discussion came up in the rules forum regarding alternatives to level loss for death. A few links were also posted to Sean K Reaynolds' and Andy Collins' sites. I found these interesting and they gave me something to think about.

Within the confines of my campaign, we have a lot of alterations to the rules. Most notably with Experience. With 3.5, the designers codified a way to reduce the long term impact of death. Lower level PCs in a mixed group get more experience for defeating challenges. Over time, this will catch the lower level PC up with the group. This is a decent idea, but it is negated by my choice of awarding exp.

I wanted to use a codified way of awarding exp for non-combat events. By doing that, we reduce the urge to move on to combat all the time. It is quite possible to gain exp by peacefully interacting with NPCs. I like the system, but it does negate the scaling exp mechanics presented with the standard CR system. So we need to recognize that this is an inherent weakness of the system. This does exaggerate the punishment of PC death.

That brings me to the next issue I have. Death shouldn't always be a punishment. Sometimes death can be a noble sacrifice. I have enough world specific reasons in place to avoid any of you squandering life. First of all, casting the spells to bring you back is expensive. Secondly, you need to find somebody that is willing to do it. Especially in a group that is multi-fath (or lack thereof), it is much more difficult. Priests don't cast raising magic for anybody that has the cash. You also need to prove that they have an interest in bringing you back. (If none of you have thought about it, this type of 'favor' is another form of 'treasure'. Helping a temple or something out of a bind will make them more inclined to help you come back from the land of the dead. Again, if none of you have thought about it, the clergy at the Ternell Complex hold many of you in high esteem for what you did bringing the relic back.) There are also ways to die in which you cannot be brought back. Finally, your soul might not be free to return if you die. There are a lot of ways in which calculated risks might still backfire. Death should hurt, but we are talking about a world of miracles, you can come back from the dead.

If I reduce the long term impact of PC death, it provides a little more incentive for you to think creatively with your roleplaying. Experience is hard earned and I don't much like taking it away. So, how about an alternative to the impact of character death?

D&D has a mechanic for handling level drain. It is called 'Negative Levels'. If you haven't read it in the books, or in the SRD, I will post it here.

ENERGY DRAIN AND NEGATIVE LEVELS
Some horrible creatures, especially undead monsters, possess a fearsome supernatural ability to drain levels from those they strike in combat. The creature making an energy drain attack draws a portion of its victim’s life force from her. Most energy drain attacks require a successful melee attack roll—mere physical contact is not enough. Each successful energy drain attack bestows one or more negative levels on the opponent. A creature takes the following penalties for each negative level it has gained.
–1 on all skill checks and ability checks.
–1 on attack rolls and saving throws.
–5 hit points.
–1 effective level (whenever the creature’s level is used in a die roll or calculation, reduce it by one for each negative level).
If the victim casts spells, she loses access to one spell as if she had cast her highest-level, currently available spell. (If she has more than one spell at her highest level, she chooses which she loses.) In addition, when she next prepares spells or regains spell slots, she gets one less spell slot at her highest spell level.

Negative levels remain for 24 hours or until removed with a spell, such as restoration. After 24 hours, the afflicted creature must attempt a Fortitude save (DC 10 + 1/2 attacker’s HD + attacker’s Cha modifier). (The DC is provided in the attacker’s description.) If the saving throw succeeds, the negative level goes away with no harm to the creature. The afflicted creature makes a separate saving throw for each negative level it has gained. If the
save fails, the negative level goes away, but the creature’s level is also reduced by one.
A character with negative levels at least equal to her current level, or drained below 1st level, is instantly slain.

Depending on the creature that killed her, she may rise the next night as a monster of that kind. If not, she rises as a wight. A creature gains 5 temporary hit points for each negative level it bestows (though not if the negative level is caused by a spell or similar effect).

The premise I am proposing uses this mechanic. Though there are a couple of differences.

If you die, you are afflicted with a Death Negative Level when you are returned to life. This negative level remains with you until it is earned back. You earn it back as you advance in levels.

Let's suppose that a 6th level character, Fred, dies and is brought back.

Fred is now a 6th level character with 1 negative level. He otherwise functions as a 6th level character. He might still have iterative attacks, but he takes penalties to hit. He still has his skills, but he has a penalty to the checks. He is the same, but has the pain of the shadow of death hindering him.

So how does he get it back? Well, that requires some tweaks to existing spells. True Resurrection does not leave you with a Death Negative Level. So that doesn't change.

Resurrection will leave you with a negative level until the next time you train and gain a level. At that point you gain your level and you remove the Death Negative Level.

If Fred were returned to life via a Resurrection spell, he would remove the negative level at the same time he gained level 7.

Raise Dead is a lesser spell and you need to gain two levels to completely remove a Death Negative Level.

If Fred were returned via a Raise Dead, he would completely remove the negative level when he reached 8th level.

This is just a general idea so I am looking for your feedback. Ultimately it is your PC that will be affected by this. But it does make the bookkeeping a bit easier for all of us. It could be a pain to keep track of a negative level for a long time. But I consider that a possible motivator for you guys to train when you have the experience.

Oh, in the context of the current campain, I would probably make it an additional two weeks of training on top of your normal month if you are buying off a negative level. So training time would also be lengthened a bit.

Anyway, what does everyone else think? Pros/cons and all that stuff.

 

[Russ]

I like this idea. It still makes it worth needlessly avoiding death but doesn't necessarily mean that I have a character die and be gone forever (I still miss Korliss). Sometimes it may still mean you're gone for good but probably not as frequently. I'm all for trying it out.

 

[Meowzebub]

Seems like a good approach. A penalty but not a punishment, heck not all PC deaths are from player mistakes, sometimes your charater just can't climb a rope. :\

 

[Eeralai]

I like the idea too. I guess it doesn't matter for the angels campaign though because you need a true resuraection to get them back anyway.

 

[Tormal]

I too like this idea simply because it makes more sense to me. Life force just doesn't disappear except by a few insanely unnatural events. Dying has it's grim effect but you can and will eventually over come it. I like it. My only question is in regard to the current campaign. (Yes, I'm still mourning) When would this take effect?

 

[Tormal]

Oh, one other thing. With this new rule death doesn't effect EXP in any way does it?

 

[BSF]

Nope, it doesn't affect Experience.

But that does bring up a few questions.
1 - When a character dies a permanent death, what level should the replacement character come in at?

Historically I run it 1 level lower. That is to accomodate the level loss for coming back anyway. I don't want to provide a disincentive to raise characters. But we are doing away with that issue so replacement characters should happen based on RP reasons rather than purely mechanical reasons. There is still the possibility that a player could try to build a new character that is much more efficient for the current aspect of the campaign and tend to overshadow other characters. Being able to focus a PC's abilities to deal with current threats is a nice advantage. Of course, constantly swapping out PCs, and convincing the group to accept new members, can be a challenge in itself.

2 - How should we handle experience awarded when a PC is in transit? If you guys bring Tormal back, does he benefit from the experience earned while Brandon was playing Gelvin? After all, he wasn't brought back because the group didn't want to turn around and lose all that time. Those types of decisions should occur again in the future. So how do you want to handle it?

Ultimately it is up to you guys to decide as a group. I do ask that we finalize this by the end of this week just so we can plan appropriately. So think it over and post your thoughts. Vocal majority decides by Friday October 14.

 

[Macbeth]

I like the idea of any character that's rezed having some way to get back to the group's level. If Tormal comes back, I don't want him to be a slacker compared to the rest of the party, but I have no idea of a good mechanic to implement it. Perhaps the rezed character immediately gains xp to bring him to one level lower then the 'replacement' character was? But this still doesn't work...

really, if we can find a good mechanic for it, I'm all for it. Any ideas?

 

[injuredwyvern]

I think that in a case like Tormal's, he should get to apply the experience that Gelvin has accumulated. I think in most cases players like playing a character that they've been forming for a long time - I know I do at least. If Ceru were to die, I would probably want him back and would hope that I could continue to contribute while Ceru was in limbo. This means that I'm still helping the party like Ceru would, but just in a non-ceruish manner. The negative level is the penalty for dying, but if we take away the in limbo experience, it's like getting penalized twice.

 

[Tormal]

Well - I do want to comment on this purly based on the mechanics and not based on my character's situation(s). Because I have percieved experience as a 'player resource' rather then a specific character's resource I would think experience to be more transitive in situations like this. Obviously this will benifit Tormal even though he was dead. Keep in mind the character's and player's consequence for dying is a less effective character for a bit of time. Do we really need another draw back?

On the other hand we have to look at it from an in-game perspective. Why and even how would Tormal gain experience for being dead? Logically it wouldn't make sense unless you consider his experiences as a lost soul in the land of the dead. Because even there (as we have recently learned) a character has problems and situations to deal with. If this were considered for experience we then have to ask ourselves how much experience should this be worth?

For simplicity we could say the same amount of experience the 'player' has gained since the character has died not really limiting the desire to replace characters regularly or that the character gains no additional XP since his death, ultimately punishing the player and character alike.

For in transit situations I'm all for making experience passable between characters.

But this still leaves the question of a permenant death or replacement characters. If we do this then there is obviously no drawback for replacing characters or (as if you would want to) dying regularly. For this perhaps we should accomadate the Negitive level rule and just change the RP perspective?

How about a character that is being replaced for some reason or another is affected by the NEG-Level rule for a period of time as well. Say until they've gotten a certain amount of XP based off of their current total XP or just a base number of generic level-ups.

From an RP perspective you could say this is because a character is having to learn and grow with a group of people he doesn't really know. He's going to have to learn how to fight and act in a unit not only with this group but possibly for the first time ever. Sometimes it's hard to cooridinate w/ people you don't know.

I feel this is something that would be fair only because it seems like reverse logic to apply a penalty to characters who have died trying to accomplish something and not apply a penalty to those who have done absolutley nothing for the group yet. Just my two cents!