D&D 4E 4E respawning?

[chitzk0i]

...it was infact hard to believe enyone in the world could actually dye once and for all.

I know, right? If you're mucking about with blueberries and snail shell powders, how can you expect any fabric to stay the color you want it?

On a more serious note, it does cost 5,000 gp worth of diamonds to come back from the dead in 3.5. Even reincarnate costs 1,000 gp worth of rare incense. I'm sure you're exaggerating, but jeez. Not everyone can afford that. In my brother's campaign, various churches keep tight control over diamonds to make sure they're used to bring back heroes who'll save the kingdom, not some random Joe.

 

[hong]

I know, right? If you're mucking about with blueberries and snail shell powders, how can you expect any fabric to stay the color you want it?

 

[Pale Jackal]

What I'm most concerned about is the lack of any resurrection-penality in 4E. No CON lost, no negative levels (at least from what we heard from the devs). This is actually more of a trouble than any crazy-epic power, since it basicly means resurraction doesn't really have a cost, in the end.

Should resurrection have a cost? Your PCs never lose a limb or an eye from combat, or if they do, it can simply be Regenerate'd.

If you apply a penalty to resurrection it becomes better, mechanically, for the player to simply roll up a new character. I suppose some DMs force players to roll up a new character at a lower level, etc. etc. but I see no need.

Why do we need to punish players for death? Dying (permanently) is great, as far as I'm concerned, but it seems rather... gritty... for a character to die, possibly in some heroic, for-the-greater-good fashion, and then come back lessened somehow. I like gritty, I really like gritty (c'mon, Dark Sun!) but gritty isn't what WotC is going for in generic 4E.

Now, being gritty could be cool if the character came back with a missing eye or was terribly scarred or was missing a few digits. However, the other problem is that the rules (if WotC wants to avoid grittiness and the ramifications of having died, i.e. scars, missing digits, or having your soul tainted because you touched the Underworld) would simply say "-2 con" or "-1 level" and most players would simply mark the penalty, and continue playing. Not that there's anything wrong with that, mind you, but my point is: what is this penalty adding? Unless it's adding cool story/role-playing opportunities (which the Arch Mage's ability already does) why are we bothering?

 

[Nytmare]

Is it the norm that epic lvl characters are just assumed to die a lot and have magic ways to basically "respawn" or come back to life?

That's nothing, the original version of Arcane Spirit was:

"Once per day, when you die, insert 1 credit to continue."

 

[D.Shaffer]

Is it the norm that epic lvl characters are just assumed to die a lot and have magic ways to basically "respawn" or come back to life? The wording of Arcane Spirit seems like this is the norm for higher level play. Isn't this exactly what we DON'T want to copy from MMOs?

This is why people are taking you to task. It seems to imply that 4th ed is the first DnD ed to include 'revolving door' death and that it's taking it directly from MMO's. You have, yourself, admitted that 3rd can be just as bad, so it's incredibly misleading and seems to be blaming MMO's as the SOLE influence rather then a continuation from 3rd's revolving door policy.

 

[AllisterH]

There's a huge difference in that Enkidu, Theseus, Gandalf, et al. returned from the dead ONCE, not once per day. I'm not saying I necessarily think this ability bad, but I don't think your argument is particularly applicable.

That's interesting...Looking at Gandalf in the book (not Gandalf the Maia), I always considered the characters of LotR as mid-point of the Paragon Tier. Same goes for Theseus (Enkidu I give you, is weird though...Gilgamesh I consider Epic and by rights, Enkidu should be Epic as well)

That said, what do you consider Epic characters? I've always considered Heracles as the prime example of an Epic character. Able to literally beat down Death itself, singlehandely smash the leader of the Gigantorachs who to get to Olympus actually used Mountain Ranges as stepping stones.

That's what I think when I hear Epic (throw in the Hindu deities as well, "carrying an entire mountain on their back and jumping across the whole of asia"? People think anime is over the top, but people REALLY, REALLY need to read some mythology to see "over the top" actions)

 

[Mort_Q]

There's a huge difference in that Enkidu, Theseus, Gandalf, et al. returned from the dead ONCE, not once per day. I'm not saying I necessarily think this ability bad, but I don't think your argument is particularly applicable.

As was pointed out by others, per-day powers are the most powerful powers that we've seen in 4e. There is no need to read more into it than that. Sure they could add per-level powers, but why? Not worth the extra paper in the handbook in my opinion.

 

[ThirdWizard]

And I'm not saying 3E or previous editions never had "easy access rezzing" available. I am saying, "I was hoping 4E would not continue this route."

Then you chose a particularly bad way of wording it.

"I wish 4e had gotten rid of 3e's revolving door of death." = acceptable
"I wish 4e had not added WoWish respawning." = not acceptable

 

[malraux]

What I'm most concerned about is the lack of any resurrection-penality in 4E. No CON lost, no negative levels (at least from what we heard from the devs). This is actually more of a trouble than any crazy-epic power, since it basicly means resurraction doesn't really have a cost, in the end.

Well, there likely will be an actual cost, as in some value of diamonds or expenditure of time. But I strongly disagree with the idea that the player who's character dies needs to be punished long term. All this does is makes a player who is attached to a particular character be less effective in combat. What does that accomplish? The reason to avoid death is because you want to avoid death. Its the closest thing to losing in DnD aside from TPKs. Are you saying that without the level loss, players will send hordes of characters into lava for no reason? That's a player problem, not a character one.

 

[CleverNickName]

The part that made me laugh out loud was "once per day, when you die..."

Because, damn....how often is death supposed to happen to your character?! If you find yourself dying more than once per day, you are probably playing Halo.