D&D General PC Death: How do You Handle It?

We've always played "let the dice fall where they may" campaigns, so if a PC ends up dying he's dead until the rest of the party can do something about it.

In my previous campaign, I set it up such that each player had two PCs and they decided each adventure which one they were sending on that session's mission; this resulted in everyone having a "spare PC" available in the case of PC death.

In my current campaign, I gave the party an NPC cleric so if anyone's PCs got killed in an particular adventure they ran the NPC cleric for the rest of that session. (Resurrections generally happened between adventures.) Of course, they then managed to get the NPC cleric perma-killed, so that was no longer an option; fortunately, one of the PCs had already established that he had a sister who was a druid, so I statted her up and she now serves the same role: party healer and backup PC for whoever gets their own PC killed in an adventure.

Fortunately, the occurrence of multiple PC deaths in a given adventure are extremely rare - in the one or two times it's happened we let the second player to get their PC killed run a familiar or animal companion for the rest of that session.

Johnathan

Aebir-Toril said:

So, my question is this, how do you handle PCs dying? Do you prevent PCs from dying?, do you have them come back as ghosts? Or does something else happen when PCs are on the brink of death?

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This is my philosophy. If they do something dumb or use bad tactics and things go badly, they can bury the dead. If things are evenly matched and they just don't get the die rolls, they can bury the dead. If the dice gods show up and they can't roll higher than a 5 and I'm rolling 20 after 20, I will fudge things to even up the score and then go with "If things are evenly matched and they just don't get the die rolls, they can bury the dead." I'm not going to let extreme bad luck(which very rarely happens) destroy PCs that are doing everything right.

When I DM, fate rules the table. I let the dice determine the outcome and if the character dies, it dies. If a random encounter is beyond the the PCs, they either learn to run or die (and the players learn that the world is not catered to their level).

However, while this thread has people talking about characters dying, do they stay dead? We've had some PCs die, but thanks to Revivify, we have yet to have a character stay dead until our current situation (Death and 0 Max HP).

I would be more interest to learn how many tables have had character die and NOT come back somehow. I know a player can decide, "Eh, just let them go, I have a new concept I want to bring in." but otherwise how often, honestly, do character stay dead?

dnd4vr said:

When I DM, fate rules the table. I let the dice determine the outcome and if the character dies, it dies. If a random encounter is beyond the the PCs, they either learn to run or die (and the players learn that the world is not catered to their level).

However, while this thread has people talking about characters dying, do they stay dead? We've had some PCs die, but thanks to Revivify, we have yet to have a character stay dead until our current situation (Death and 0 Max HP).

I would be more interest to learn how many tables have had character die and NOT come back somehow. I know a player can decide, "Eh, just let them go, I have a new concept I want to bring in." but otherwise how often, honestly, do character stay dead?

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Almost all the time in my campaigns. The one time in the last three years that didn't happen, the PCs threw the dead PC in some kind of infernal machine they found in the dungeon and turned him into something like a revenant (and we used the UA rules for that).

dnd4vr said:

I would be more interest to learn how many tables have had character die and NOT come back somehow. I know a player can decide, "Eh, just let them go, I have a new concept I want to bring in." but otherwise how often, honestly, do character stay dead?

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My players and I like death to mean something. I don't even have revivify in my game. As for raise spells, we hearken back to the 1e and 2e days when a PCs soul went on to the afterlife and gave a bit of power to his god. If a priest of Mystra raises someone who worships Torm, that priest is indebting Mystra to Torm, since he's using her power to take power away from Torm. That's not something a cleric does lightly.

Unless the PCs have done some great service for the church, give some magnificent gift, or done something else on that scale that would persuade a cleric to put his god in that position, a PC is just not coming back.

dnd4vr said:

I would be more interest to learn how many tables have had character die and NOT come back somehow. I know a player can decide, "Eh, just let them go, I have a new concept I want to bring in." but otherwise how often, honestly, do character stay dead?

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Of games currently running:

My Runelords game has had 2 perma deaths in 3 years, 87 sessions.
My Primeval Thule game (no raise dead magic except revivify) has had 2 perma deaths in 7 months, 31 sessions.
My Princes of the Apocalypse game has had 0 perma deaths (& 1 temp) in 7 months, 7 sessions.
My Stonehell games I can recall two perma deaths in about 18 months of play, games about 1/week.

My 5.5 year, 103 session 4e Loudwater campaign had a first session level 1 TPK with I think 5 perma deaths, later on around level 8 there was an all-but-one-TPK with I think 3 perma-deaths, but then level 10-29 I think no one died at all; 4e gets a lot kinder after Heroic Tier.

I generally find random death rare in 4e & 5e, it tends to be more the result of a death spiral. 3e/PF was notorious for randomly killing PCs with crits.

I get player consent before killing PCs. If they don't want to die then they don't. This was in Mutants & Masterminds. There were two PC deaths over the course of a 17 session or so campaign.

Not sure how I would play it in D&D as D&D has more of a 'you can be randomly killed by an orc' ethos. Depends what style I was going for.

EDIT: In the last rpg I played in, Tales from the Loop, PC death is impossible by RAW. It played pretty much the same as any other rpg (except that Mark, the most powergame-y player, give his PC a deathwish).

My players' characters have reached the level where permadeath, short of a TPK , is not likely. However, the rallying cry of 'protect the cleric!' is often heard around my table.

I let the dice go. In my experience in 5e killing characters only matters in the lower levels when character attachment is not quite the same. It stinks, but generally folks are good natured about it.

I have not TPKed a party over 9th level though. That would be pretty painful these days. My only hope is it would happen with the background and action being epic and memorable.

Typically, in games at our table, raise dead isn't readily available unless someone within the party has the capability. As such, permanent death is more common than resurrection. This is because players without immediate access to such spells will need to find someone to cast it for them, and spellcasters of that caliber are rare.

In one of my current campaigns, we've had two deaths. One was permanent (the player frequently alluded to some tragic backstory that this character had, though he never explained it to me, and said that the character would refuse to be brought back as he was now at peace). In the other case, an NPC ally was willing to bring the character back, but asked a quest of the party in exchange (recovering an evil oracular magic skull from a dungeon, for safe keeping).

In my friend's campaign, resurrection type magic is hard to come by as well. It is a post apocalyptic setting, and one important element is building up surviving settlements. There are these magical talking birds in his game worlds that are capable of casting raise dead in exchange for gold (which they prize in a draconic sort of way). While normally reclusive and hard to find, if a town is rendered sufficiently safe, one of these birds may settle there. As such, it's a very significant perk for engaging with the settlement fortification aspect of his game.

In my group, a TPK often results in the end of the campaign. My friend and I were playing a solo game on weekends when the other guys couldn't make it. I had a fairly tough character with an NPC companion. Unfortunately, this past weekend they faced off against a water elemental and we're killed (it was so close; the elemental only had 5 hp left at the end). So we started a new solo campaign, set in an unexplored corner of the aforementioned post apocalyptic campaign.

While it's always a possibility that the DM will decide there's no coming back from a TPK and call the campaign, there's usually a point of no return as the game approaches the endgame. At that point, the DM will outright tell the players that if they TPK, the campaign will be over.

As a player, I'm bored if there is no risk. It cheapens all the rewards, takes away tension, etc. I apply that to how I run.

(I've had a character death in a Superhero game. That should tell you something about where I like my threat levels.)

As a DM, I often design encounters well beyond fair/balanced. "Deadly" would be common in 5e, though that's not the only game I run. But that's after playing with my group and understanding where their balance point is, and aiming a bit beyond it but not far past it (often). Sometimes it's battles where the players dominate to remind the characters they are heroes, other times it's multiple unconscious because they were over-matched and on hazardous/unfavorable terrain.

I roll dice in the open, use average damage for monsters. Players can pick up information from there that I think the characters could pick up - "oh shoot, it hit me on a 6!" is the character equivalent of "it poorly attacks, angle wrong and almost too far away, and still tags you hard"

I throw puzzles and challenges into battles as well, win conditions instead, or often in addition, to normal attrition. Often I go in with vauge or no idea how I expect the players to "solve" these, and see what the players do that makes sense.

Sounds kinda of killer DM, eh? I love leaving my players with a real fear of death. In the last campaign I had exactly one death, and it was a player purposefully being a martyr to save another from certain, non-combat death. On the other hand, I often littered the ground with unconscious PCs - PCs are hard to kill.

Because I'm also my player's biggest cheerleader. I design encounters that they need to pull out the stops just to survive, but then I am the first to say "Yes" (or more likely "Yes but") to their crazy attempts to survive.

I offer Faustian bargains where they can get short term advantage for long term disadvantage, like when they just barely failed destroying an evil artifact one round and another round would have been very hurtful - I offered the last attacked that if he could finish it's destruction - but doing so would also destroy his only magic item, the sword he was using to try and break it.

If PCs die, they die. The player can make a new one, usually same level but less stuff (items, contacts and connections, renown, goodwill, etc.) Or they can bring him back. I happen to like 13th Age where bringing back is hard and rare.