A player with a problem: Death and level loss

[sjmiller]

Okay, so I have a player whose character, through a series of bad situations, ended up dying. The party used a charge on a Staff of Life to cast resurrection on him. That brings him back to life, but at one level lower.

Well, that's all fine and dandy, but now he's a bit, whiny about losing the level. He'll say things like, "well, it's harder for me to find those traps, because of the lost level," or, "I would cast that spell, but I don't get as many any more." I get the bad feeling that this is going to be an ongoing theme.

So, I was wondering if anyone has an in-game solution for restoring his level. If they can do something, find something, or even make something to restore his level, then I can stop hearing him complain. Any thoughts would be helpful, at this point.

 

[blargney the second]

From a rules perspective there's not much to do - he just needs to suck it up. *shrug*

If you're DMing, you might just throw him a bone by tossing in an encounter where he really gets to shine.

 

[Kalis]

The fact that he is lower level means that he gets more exp(iirc), which means he may catch up to(or even pass) the rest of the group.

 

[Graybeard]

In game, he could be given a task by a church. If he succeeds, the god (or goddess) rewards him with the lost level.

 

[Rechan]

Man, if my players were dieing, I'd have so many bigger issues at hand!

 

[Varianor Abroad]

We just went through this with an epic battle that killed half our group. Players who wanted to try out something new didn't want to return as the same character and suck up the level loss. I can't quite understand it. I mean, I can, but I can't. The closest thing I can liken it to is that you're dragging the group down by being less effective in terms of your numbers, so you feel bad. I tend to houserule that out or let the player earn extra XP to make up the difference quick.

 

[billd91]

I don't particularly like the level loss involved in coming back from the dead. Even though they make more XPs, it still takes a long time to make the level back. Characters in my Shackled City game took something like 8 levels to finally catch up.

Actually, I don't like level loss at all. So my solution, in one game, is to saddle the PC with a negative level for a month for the raise rather than actual level loss. It's mildly annoying and I won't let magic heal the negative level, but it's temporary.

In the Shackled City game, given the general body count the campaign usually generates, I have gone back to Old School AD&D and am charging a point of Con instead. Magic and level gain, as long as the raises aren't coming too often, can compensate.

 

[Blue]

I'm of a few minds abut this. They're rather contradictory.

1. It's a game. Everyone is supposed to have fun.

2. It's a game. You agreed to play by the rules, and this is in there. It's like a player in Monopoly whining fro the rest fo the game because they had to sell of some houses when they were Assessed by a Chance or Community Chest card.

I've got one player in a regular group who hates it and came up with some rather good rules for alternate debts to the churches and gods that we haven't tried. Of course, removing it there means you also need to remove level drain and all the other places.

On the other hand, in the same game we (at 3rd level) had a character death and he was reincarnated by the local druid who we were helping. So ended up at 2nd level ... erm, ECL 2. You see, they rolled a +1 LA race and the DM said they needed to pay the LA. So it was a 1st level character. Player just ran with it and had a good time.

There needs to be a risk at death. Otherwise it stops having meaning, and players won't care about it. (Which is one of my annoyances at very high level play - true res is too good; there is no risk when you die unless the entire party dies.)

When running, I never "reward" dropping an existing character by allowing a new character to come in with more experience then if they raised the existing character. But then again there are usually plots tied all over the characters, losing one permanently is a very big deal for the campaign.

I'd talk to the player offline. Not make a confrontation, but to talk to him about how he can have fun, without it being unfair to the others.

Cheers,
=Blue(23)

 

[pawsplay]

In my experience, when someone kvetches about level loss from death, they're usually upset about the circumstances of their death. There isn't much to complain about if it seems fair or deserved, so I would assume the player feels poorly treated.

 

[Slife]

They're a caster? They can make items?

Tell them about the one level xp gravy train.

Otherwise, well, they'll catch up if you're using the xp system right.