Wow, I have never seen anything like this before.
It's a bit nostalgic really.. kinda reminds me of Diablo II on Hell difficulty all the times I died in a screenful of monsters and had to run around like an idiot with no armor and resistances further in the negatives than Enron, and somehow manage to grab my stuff while avoing a Multishot Lighting Enchanted... but I digress.
In spite of the fact that this may be a bit unrealistic for 1st level characters, the more I think about this, the better I like it.
IMO, a -4 may even be a bit harsh, although considering the PCs don't need to supply their own resurrection magic, this may be justified. A -2 may be enough though.
I want to run a campaign soon and this problem has plagued me for a while. I want the characters to meet with gods at some point, but it should be extremely special and happen later in the campaign when the characters have done enough to be noticed.
I think with some changes though, this may work for me.
How about this:
When a character dies, the appropriate spell must still be cast (raise dead, resurrection, true resurrection) and the appropriate costs/offering must be made (in gold, gems, magic items, whatever). The spell would be as scarce and as costly as the DM wishes.
When the character is returned from the dead, he or she gains The character gets a "penalty" with an XP "debt". XP gained during this time still leads toward advancement, but also reduces the debt at the same time. When the debt reaches 0, the penalty is removed. The penalty cannot be negated in any way while a debt exists (although perhaps a wish or miracle could allow the recipient to ignore the effects of the penalty for a short time). If a character dies several times, a separate debt is kept for each, and each is paid for one at a time, with the oldest debt always paid first.
For a default penalty, I would recommend negative levels. Reason? The mechanic is already there in the game and it's easy to use, and it makes sense because dying is not completely unlike being drained of life force. Probably 1 negative level would be enough, 2 or more negative levels if your players need a stonger incentive under this system.
As for the debt, you could use a certain value based on level, or you could have the raise dead assign a larger "debt" then true resurrection since the magic is less powerful. Probably a range of anywhere from 100 XP per level to 1000 XP per level would be reasonable. As a starting point, maybe have True Resurrection use 200 XP * level, Resurrection use 400 XP * level and Raise Dead 600 XP * level.
The DM can adjust the "penalty" to be as severe as desired, and have the "debt" be as large as necessary to provide a real penalty for death without wrecking advancement and having party members at greatly unequal levels.
The DM can make debts cumulative. For example, for every death after the first the debt increases cumulatively by 50 XP * level. Example: A 10th level character dies 4 times on an adventure and is resurrected using the resurrection spell each time. The first debt would be 4000 XP, the next 4500 XP, then 5000 XP, and then 5500 XP. The cumulative penalty can be reset to 0 (the normal value) at level up, or after two levels up, or even by completing a quest.
If a player gets too far in the hole, the DM may allow the player to create a new character instead, but it should start at least a level below the old character to provent abuse this way.
The more I think about this, the more I like it. And the DM can customize it to his or her wishes.
What do you think?
