D&D 5E Are there any penalties from coming back to life in 5th edition?

[Sunseeker]

That's why new characters should come in at level 1. You can either stick out the resurrection penalty for a few sessions, or you can spend several sessions getting your new character up to that same level.

I'd rather deal with houseruled experience and leveling than deal with houseruled death penalties. At least with the former I know I'll be earning it by participating at the table, even if only at level 1. With the latter I have only to guess at when the DM will let me "get better". So if you're offering me the choice of two mechanical penalties, I'll take the one which is only a variation of what is explicitly stated in the books, as opposed to the one that is entirely made up.

Beyond that, by saying "you have to play gimpy or you have to start as little timmy" isn't a gameworld event that generates good story. It's a punishment for the player, not the character in order for strongarm them into doing what the DM wants.

One of the biggest things I like about a game is knowing how it works. Now, if your homebrewed mechanical penalties are crystal clear and not reliant on DM whimsy, okay I'll probably play along. Especially if they're interesting and help generate good story. But overall I HUGELY dislike mechanical "mystery" and "surprises" in mechanical forms. If I don't know how something works, I'm likely to just not mess with it.

 

[Sunseeker]

Ouch, that's harsh.

Especially if you play the virgin!

After thinking on it, I'm thinking this is how I'm going to run resurrection when I get my Ravenloft/Domains of Dread campaign going.

 

[Psikerlord#]

Works for some tables. Others will just refuse to do anything because they don't want to lose their characters.

Yeah I can appreciate the playstyle difference. I also am happy enough with a permanent injury, or -1 Con, or an incurable madness trait - something tangible that says: there is a permanent price that must be paid if you are brought back from the dead. Not just -4 on hit rolls for 24 hours.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

You know what I saw then that I don't see now? Players quitting a campaign when their character dies, waiting to join back in at the start of the next campaign (which usually wasn't too far off because of the natural consequences of not being able to "fill" the "hole" left in the team without being entirely unfair to the players whose characters have, or might in the future, die).

Bounded Accuracy might help in this case. If character death is more frequent, then one player won't be the only one singled out, and you'd get to cycle through who is the "best" at any given moment. It's not so bad when your level 7 Wizard dies, if the party is otherwise comprised of a level 11 Barbarian and a level 5 Rogue and a level 3 Cleric.

Beyond that, by saying "you have to play gimpy or you have to start as little timmy" isn't a gameworld event that generates good story.

I would argue that it makes for a better story than one where characters are constantly dying and coming back to life. At the very least, it should feel like your choices actually matter, because you can't just sleep off all of the consequences from making a bad decision.

 

[Sunseeker]

I would argue that it makes for a better story than one where characters are constantly dying and coming back to life. At the very least, it should feel like your choices actually matter, because you can't just sleep off all of the consequences from making a bad decision.

Not all deaths are the result of bad decision, but you saying so emphasizes my pervious point that you are punishing players, not characters.

But I'd rather not discuss this further.

 

[Psikerlord#]

Dying sucks without anything worse than "it costs a lot of in-character currency and your character needs to take some time off" as consequences. No reason to make it suck and also make continuing to play less enjoyable.

This is the tricky part though. If raise dead is no big deal, the game is less challenging, and less enjoyable (for some folks, like me). I like injuries in the game, provided they are not toooo permanent or there is a path I can work towards removing it. It is a mark that my PC just made it through some horrible scrape! Eg; say your PC loses a leg beneath the knee - no worries, peg leg, movement penalty, maybe dex penalties for some things - cool beans, keep on adventuring man till you get hold of a regenerate spell a few levels later. Or lose an eye? Ok, maybe 33% miss chance till you train to fight with only one eye next downtime (maybe disad on some perception checks is permanent, or until eye restored via magic, possibly quite a few levels later, or by quest, or whatever).

I genuinely prefer these injuries/setbacks in the game - to mark coming back from the dead, certainly - than no lasting penalty. With no lasting penalty, it all seems, I dunno, too easy. Your guy died. No worries he's back tomorrow good as gold.... yeah, not my cup of gritty adventuring tea.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

This is the tricky part though. If raise dead is no big deal, the game is less challenging, and less enjoyable (for some folks, like me). I like injuries in the game, provided they are not toooo permanent or there is a path I can work towards removing it. It is a mark that my PC just made it through some horrible scrape! Eg; say your PC loses a leg beneath the knee - no worries, peg leg, movement penalty, maybe dex penalties for some things - cool beans, keep on adventuring man till you get hold of a regenerate spell a few levels later. Or lose an eye? Ok, maybe 33% miss chance till you train to fight with only one eye next downtime (maybe disad on some perception checks is permanent, or until eye restored via magic, possibly quite a few levels later, or by quest, or whatever).

I genuinely prefer these injuries/setbacks in the game - to mark coming back from the dead, certainly - than no lasting penalty. With no lasting penalty, it all seems, I dunno, too easy. Your guy died. No worries he's back tomorrow good as gold.... yeah, not my cup of gritty adventuring tea.

I agree, and the injury thing seems like a good idea. I'll give that some thought. But losing a level or even better a point of Con works good enough for me. I feel there should be some negative impact to having ones PC die, be it from player stupidity or just bad luck. The player ran into just about the worst possible outcome, his PC got killed. Learn from it and figure out a way to avoid that outcome by making better choices, ones that minimize the impact of bad dice, or just accept that adventuring is a high risk profession. I don't run into issues with character death turning off anyone in our group though.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Not all deaths are the result of bad decision, but you saying so emphasizes my pervious point that you are punishing players, not characters.

Only if you consider playing a low-level character to be a punishment, rather than just part of the game.

But that's fine. I won't push the matter any further.

 

[jodyjohnson]

I'm trying to think of a 5e mechanic that would prevent a group from using a previous edition's 'raise' mechanic. We still use levels, experience, Con scores, and the Injury table is a decent starting point for some kind of maiming table.

As always you can add or exclude any spells that you want. Change spells and rewrite the the cosmology.

The hard part is if you want to change stuff in someone else's game.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

Bounded Accuracy might help in this case. If character death is more frequent, then one player won't be the only one singled out, and you'd get to cycle through who is the "best" at any given moment. It's not so bad when your level 7 Wizard dies, if the party is otherwise comprised of a level 11 Barbarian and a level 5 Rogue and a level 3 Cleric.

Bounded accuracy does help alleviate some of the problems of mixed-level parties, but it does not do anything to alter the fact that whoever dies first becomes most likely to die second, third, fourth, and so on.

Of course, if after the first character dies and is replaced by a lower level character the entire party is then scaled back to face challenges more appropriate to the new character's level than their own (whether that is because the DM tailors challenges to particular levels, or because the players are in direct control of what level of challenge they face) so that the lowest level character can contribute more noticeably to the party effort - then it might not be as significant a problem as I have seen it be.

I just don't see what is gained by a forced mixed-level approach that is supposed to outweigh the potential feelings of "my character can't hold their own to meaningfully help the rest of the party" or "now we have to carry this liability around with us".