D&D 5E What to do when Pc's die? What then for that player?

[transtemporal]

I'm coming to this thread a little late but I thought I'd throw my 2 cents in. That player helped the group level up so you're effectively punishing them for helping the team (as if losing a cherished character wasn't punishment enough) and reducing the power of a group in a campaign that already sounds deadly. That sounds like a bad idea to me.

 

[77IM]

I haven't done the math on this, but it looks like starting a new character at half xp costs more levels as you go up. At heroic tier you lose about a level, at epic tier you could lose up to 5 levels. I like that, as it allows the player to keep some of the xp they've earned, while still being a setback, but no so bad that it makes the PC useless.

 

[Talmek]

Deleted

 

[Talmek]

A few questions:

1. Do you mean unrevived deaths where a new character is required, or any death whether revived or not?

2. How do you handle retirements, whether by player choice or not? For example, if player A decides to retire her 9th-level Fighter and at the same time player B's 9th-level Cleric gets captured by the enemy, do these instances each get treated the same as a perma-death? IME these sort of things generate as much character turnover as perma-deaths once the party has decent access to revival capabilities and can afford such.

Lan-"the answer, of course, is to always play two characters at a time"-efan

Hi Lanefan,

In response to your questions:

1. Yes, only in the event that the party chooses not to (or for some reason cannot) revive the PC, then the rules above apply. If revived then the PC suffers PHB standard penalties.
2. This is an interesting question, and causes me to stop and wonder why I've never had a player "retire" their characters. I've run a good number of campaigns and never had someone come up and say "I don't want to play 'X' anymore. Can I make a new one?" This could be because I ask my players before the game ever begins whether or not they are happy with their PCs or if there's anything they would like to change prior to beginning (usually during session zero). Since I've never had a PC get captured that wasn't willing (or at least patient enough) to be a part of the plot for rescue I would suppose that I would treat it as a PC death that was elected against resurrection.