D&D 5E Need a safety net for 1st level characters -- it's complicated

[Sword of Spirit]

I'm trying to figure out a safety net to keep PCs from disappearing from the campaign for a long time if they die at very low level. First, some background.

The players are starting with 1st level characters and, for a few different reasons, there isn't any possibility of a PC being permanently removed from the game (unless the player chooses so).

However, I'm running things rather gritty and simulationist (in 5e), and I'm slowing down level advancement significantly. Basically, they are going to be running around as 1st and 2nd level characters for quite some time.

Plus, I've increased the cost of raise dead to 5,000 gp. (I've also made it take a month for each reduction in the penalty, rather than a long rest.)

So you might see the dilemma. It's entirely likely that someone is going to die before they have any way of paying such an enormous price to get them back.

I'm looking for ways to deal with that possibility with absolutely no fudging or pulling back.

Oh, and they'll also be traveling around to different worlds, so might not have access to any contacts from their past (definitely not their pre-adventuring past).

As I said, it's complicated.

Suggestions?

 

[hawkeyefan]

Are you looking for a way for the party to cast raise dead? If so, perhaps an item...a staff of some sort? Perhaps it is a gift, or perhaps it is more central to the story, like the PCs are entrusted with it?

Maybe something as simple as a scroll with 5 copies of raise dead on it?

Or are you looking for a story element or something like that? Maybe the god of death is trapped in some other planar location, and so souls are not properly departing?

What kind of way around it are you looking for?

 

[abirdcall]

This is tough, I am all for slowing down progression and playing for quite a while in the low levels.

I would suggest starting that at 3rd level. Characters don't have many abilities related to their class and they don't have very many HP at 1st and 2nd level.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Simply be careful what challenges you throw at them. I assume the players know what you are doing, so hopefully they won't be excessively foolhardy if they face something that is likely beyond their power to defeat.

 

[Imaculata]

I don't understand the dilemma here. You've purposefully made it more difficult to raise the dead. I assume this is to make it gritty and make death matter. And I get that, it builds suspends. Heck, you could even remove resurrection entirely if you want.

And yet you want a safety net? You want no safety net, but you want a safety net? Make up your mind.

If you want to run a campaign that doesn't hold any punches, then don't hold any punches. If they die, they're dead, end of story. Tough luck, make a new character.

 

[Li Shenron]

I'm trying to figure out a safety net to keep PCs from disappearing from the campaign for a long time if they die at very low level.

...

I'm looking for ways to deal with that possibility with absolutely no fudging or pulling back.

These two are directly blocking each other.

Sound like you have the quite typical problem in RPG, everybody wants death to be a real threat but nobody wants it to happen. If you are not willing to fudge the dice or pull back (I guess by this you mean give only very easy encounters?) then the only other 'safety nets' I can think about are these:

- replace death with another penalty (captured, injured/disabled for some time...), at least the first time or two
- have some in-story protection from death (e.g. characters are given temporary immortality), something that reverses death (e.g. free/discounted access to Raise Dead) or something that makes death not a problem (e.g. come back as undead characters)

My favourite is the first, because with the second you are altering the story quite significantly (and especially Raise Dead trick gets stale and boring quite quickly), but replacing death with other penalties can be seen as 'fudging' by some people.

But having death possible and impossible at the same time is not merely complicated, it's itself impossible by pure logic. You can decrease the probability as low as you want, but you can't make it zero and non-zero at the same time.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

Two idea. First, you could rework the meaning of hit points. They're not health, they're ablative plot armor. (Okay, you can make a case that that's what they actually are, but let's not have that argument again.) If you reach zero, or whatever "dead" is, you don't die but you're removed from the encounter, e.g. unconscious, captured, hysterical, on a carriage galloping off in the wrong direction, whatever. After the encounter, the party regroups and you're back in.

Second, each PC has 6 clones. If one dies, the next comes in. Call it PARANOIA redux.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Oddly enough, even though this dilemma has been bumping around in my head for a while now, an answer suddenly hit me not long after I posted this.

Are you looking for a way for the party to cast raise dead? If so, perhaps an item...a staff of some sort? Perhaps it is a gift, or perhaps it is more central to the story, like the PCs are entrusted with it?

Maybe something as simple as a scroll with 5 copies of raise dead on it?

Or are you looking for a story element or something like that? Maybe the god of death is trapped in some other planar location, and so souls are not properly departing?

What kind of way around it are you looking for?

The funny thing is that probably all I really need is an expendable magic item with a couple of charges of raise dead or resurrection. I think what really hit me is that the party needs a couple of "extra lives" just to get them started.

I have other ways of dealing with it, but that's the most basic one.

But having death possible and impossible at the same time is not merely complicated, it's itself impossible by pure logic. You can decrease the probability as low as you want, but you can't make it zero and non-zero at the same time.

Yeah, that is the theoretical problem. No matter how many extra lives you hand out, if they aren't infinite they still might not be there when you need them.

Fortunately I have more extreme ways of keeping the characters in the campaign, so there are "infinite lives" so to speak (though they have to pay for them). At higher levels this extreme method can add to the fun (and the characters can probably afford the normal raising spells anyway).

It's mostly a play quality dilemma. Just trying to set it up to go as smoothly and enjoyably as possible--because no one knows what happens once the game starts. If I have to use the extreme methods that early, I just don't think it's going to do what I'd like it to. So I basically want to reduce the likelihood to a small chance, but if it does happen it still isn't going to ruin the campaign.

The more I think about it, the more it seems like the best way to start is probably simply by handing out a magic item that will contain a very limited number of resurrection effects--enough to hopefully get them to the point where I don't have to worry about it (because they are less likely to die and more able to find a way to raise their dead party members).

Then, I should probably think of how to deal with an intermediate state, where they aren't quite to the level where they have the resources to handle it, but where they have gained a couple levels and may have run out of their free lives.

I'm going to have to design and interesting item for them now...

Also, keep the suggestions coming!

 

[Rya.Reisender]

I'm kind of with Imaculata on this one. Why make reviving harder than normal and then wonder how to prevent your PCs from dying?

Some ideas I could think of if I didn't want my PCs to die (because they are story-relevant):
- the PCs are chosen by god, so even if they die an angel descends and revives them
- the enemies in the world are no killers, maybe because of their moral or because of how murderers are dealth with, so even if they attack, they will never deal a finishing blow, they will just knock the PCs unconscious and steal all their stuff worst case
- if you already houserule the cost of raise dead, you could make the cost depend on level, maybe in your world reviving a strong person requires a lot more materials
- magic item idea above, there are plenty of items I could imagine here, you can make them work only up to a certain level/maxHP or give it a limited amount of uses

 

[werecorpse]

Give them treasure, make good guys good, make bad guys treacherous.

1. Give them a vial containing a few drops of a fluid that duplicates the effect of the spell Revivify and whenever it is used they roll a 1d4 on a 1 it was the last drop.
2. Have them save one or more people (farmer, merchant etc) who is related (sister, child) to a high level cleric - who then owes them a life or more.
3. Have them meet a group of relatively good guy mid level adventurers (knight followed by a veteran and a priest from the MM). This group you can then keep in your back pocket to turn up at anytime (even mid fight) when it looks like the party are in trouble. Of course in saving the party they will expect to get first dibs on any loot.
4. Be conscious that bad guys can turn on each other. If Bad guy 1 is about to coup de grace a player that's the time that bad guy 2 decides to surprise attack him for stealing his fancy belt.
5. The characters perform a help for a retired veteran who trains them how to perform the battlemaster parry manoeuvre or the rogue uncanny dodge once per long rest but only if the blow would kill them or reduce their hit points to 0. This training will be superseded by their other training when they reach 3rd level.
6. If all else fails when they do die, at deaths door they see in their mind a formless grey entity who offers them a chance at life for some unspecified debt in the future. This may be a fiend, a fey or a celestial but you needn't specify now - it's a future roleplaying opportunity.