Alternate penalty for raise dead? Instead of level loss?

[Cartigan Mrryl]

And given that most of the benefits of resurrection are for a DM (ie - he can keep stories going despite deaths), it seems stupid to try to get rid of it.

I'd like the point out 2 things.
1) Firstly, originally (and to this day for serious DMs) it is both the DMs job and duty to logically kill off the characters, not necessarily to tell a story. That view might be different for others, but I've had WAY too many close encounters (Read: "Oops... PCs are TOO strong." for more details.) to be merciless and allow a dead 23rd level Cleric who can take out nearly EVERYTHING I've thrown up against him (Except Tarrasque, whom he ran away from due to my older brother (who had recently died and way playing as a level 15 Ranger) telling him to move it.) SO I could care less if the little BAS loses a level.

2) I like the idea of being "beholden" to a God who raised you. I like that idea alot. My only pet peeve would be when to make the character DO it, and it might not exactly be that big of a deal. I.e. - I had a group of players (5 PCs) who were all already serving the same God (2 Paladins, 1 Purple Knight (See the Complete Warrior handbook) and 3 Clerics who all served Callagha [ a God of Honor I made up for the campaign... I'll post up my House Rules Gods sooner or later] Anyways, if I ever killed off one of them, and used this rule, it wouldn't matter, I mean, they're already doing Callagha's work. Anyways, Maybe an idea could be that you do this quest on your own, or with your group, but you cannot be resurrected again until you finish it? Or maybe you have to make a sizable (i.e See: Huge) donation of GP or goods/equipment to a temple of said God? As for my group of 5, none of them needed to be rezed, since all of them had healing (a purple Knight is a prestiged Paladin... more or less.) I know that the second said thing was confusing... I confused myself. So if you need anything clarified, just ask.

 

[genshou]

Well, there's this variant rule by Andy Collins that I've been using in my games and so far it's turned up quite nice.

That one's nice, but I prefer JD Wiker's alternate system.

 

[Drowbane]

You could give them an XP debt that they have to pay off. They don't actually lose their current level, but takes them longer to get to their next level.

this is actually worse than the normal version. You lose XP, but unlike normal you don't get extra xp for being lower lvl than the rest of the party.

 

[genshou]

this is actually worse than the normal version. You lose XP, but unlike normal you don't get extra xp for being lower lvl than the rest of the party.

*points at own post above* With JD Wiker's rules you take a semi-lingering negative level but this never results in permanent level loss, so you suffer the trauma of being revived without any permanent hindrance. It sucks so much to lose XP that many players just want to make a new character if the DM will let them play at their dead character's previous level.

 

[harmyn]

As for as replacement characters go for me. If they want to bring in another character, normally that character has to come in at a level 1 lower than what they would be if the old character were raised and they have exactly the needed experience to attain that level. But I also no longer use level loss, my method is much worse.

Each time you die, you have to lose 2 points of 1 attribute of the player's choice, however if you come back again, then you must take the penalty to a different attribute. Only after you have for some reason died and been brought back 6 times can you take the -2 penalty to the same attribute again. A general feat can later be spent to remove the loss of points, but it does not remove the prohibition about duplicate penalization. This generally is something my players hate worse than level loss, and since death is supposed to be the worst thing that can happen to you, then to me it makes good sense.

 

[genshou]

As for as replacement characters go for me. If they want to bring in another character, normally that character has to come in at a level 1 lower than what they would be if the old character were raised and they have exactly the needed experience to attain that level. But I also no longer use level loss, my method is much worse.

Each time you die, you have to lose 2 points of 1 attribute of the player's choice, however if you come back again, then you must take the penalty to a different attribute. Only after you have for some reason died and been brought back 6 times can you take the -2 penalty to the same attribute again. A general feat can later be spent to remove the loss of points, but it does not remove the prohibition about duplicate penalization. This generally is something my players hate worse than level loss, and since death is supposed to be the worst thing that can happen to you, then to me it makes good sense.

This to me presents even worse of a penalty than level loss. A level lost can be replaced; XP is something that simply goes up and down as encounters are won and good role-playing occurs. When a character's ability score drops permanently, making a feat to negate it only means you are allowing the character to take something that sucks and turn it into something else that sucks. I would never take a feat to negate an ability penalty; I would just keep my character dead and go with a new character of (perhaps much) lower level. Like I said earlier, XP gaps can be bridged. Permanent loss in ability scores or the sacrifice of a feat can't.

My point remains the same. Why create a permanent form of penalty that can never be recovered? That only permanently hampers PCs and causes players grief, and if it makes the game stop being fun, it needs to be changed.

 

[harmyn]

This to me presents even worse of a penalty than level loss. A level lost can be replaced; XP is something that simply goes up and down as encounters are won and good role-playing occurs. When a character's ability score drops permanently, making a feat to negate it only means you are allowing the character to take something that sucks and turn it into something else that sucks. I would never take a feat to negate an ability penalty; I would just keep my character dead and go with a new character of (perhaps much) lower level. Like I said earlier, XP gaps can be bridged. Permanent loss in ability scores or the sacrifice of a feat can't.

My point remains the same. Why create a permanent form of penalty that can never be recovered? That only permanently hampers PCs and causes players grief, and if it makes the game stop being fun, it needs to be changed.

I understand what your saying, but isn't death a bad thing that heroes are supposed to avoid? Isn't it supposed to be the very worst thing that can happen to you? When you make the heroic sacrifice and there is a no win situation, well, the DM shouldn't be throwing on penalties. The Kobayashi Maru is the severe penalty that no player likes anyways.To inflict level loss or attribute loss would be wrong.

But, if you have died three times and no one else has died once in your party, maybe its time to rethink tactics. If you want to wade into wreckless combat, maybe an wizard with a martial streak is a mistake (to make an absurd example). Players need to use common sense and know that sometimes they are supposed to retreat. DnD is NOT supposed to be a video game with a Save/Restart button. If thinks are getting bad, try and retreat, change your tactics, develop new strategies.

I don't mean to put words into your mouth or comments, but to me it seems that your asking the following, "Is there a way for a character to die and come back to life without a lasting penalty w/o having to use a 9th level divine spell. To me the answer is no, there should not be. BUt if you are DMing a game and it works for you or if your DM agrees to it, well more power to you. The whole point of this hobby whose source material dwarfs the some collection of human knowledge found in the Encyclopia Britannica is to have fun. And if that is what works for you and your group. I tip my hat happily to the continuation of a hobby I love.

 

[Angel Tarragon]

You might want to take a look at this:

 

[genshou]

You might want to take a look at this:

Exactly the same as the article I posted a link to. These rules are excellent in that they do cause a setback, but you can eventually get over it.

 

[Shin Okada]

If I were to use a house rule, I will just get lid of any ill-effects. Just money will be enough.

But at this moment I don't feel much need for the ill-effect change. Dead PCs are catching up in campaigns in our play group. And no one have wasted his old characters due to XP loss.

Our play group had more problem on the fact that True Resurrection can resurrect characters without dead body. It makes PCs virtually indestructible. Unless the entire party dies at once, no PCs will go. Also, in our first 3.0e campaign, PCs have confronted against an evil religious order. The order have high-level clerics (some of them were liches). If we play by the rules written, no Medium-class or upper villain have been dead permanently unless PCs kill all the high clerics in the order at once. So we made a house rule, no-corps no-resurrection. It has been applied to both PCs and NPCs since then. And working fine for us.