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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sunseeker" data-source="post: 6862706">The -4 penalty lasts for 4 (potentially more) days, per the rules, reducing by one each long rest.I don't think the point of death "penalties" should be to "increase the challenge", but to increase flavor.  A -5 to movement speed doesn't increase the challenge of the game in any substantive way.  Now, halving the speed of a player, that does.  But there's a fine line between increasing "challenge" and making a game unplayable.  For some classes, even halved movement speed isn't much of a burden, for others its HUGE.  A gimp leg that gives disadvantage on dex checks could take a rogue off the board, for good.  A gimp leg that gives disadvantage on dex checks could mean little to a strength-based sword & board fighter who is perfectly content to stay in one spot and hold off the enemies.  This is why "standard" penalties tend to be bad ideas because the impact of the same penalty on different characters is naturally, different.  So when in that 4E game out DM told us "good stuff happens on a crit, bad stuff happens on a fumble, everything in between is made up as I go" we were fine with that, because it meant the DM was giving some level of consideration to each situation.I don't think there should be "rules" for this sort of stuff.  Guidelines?  Sure.  I think the -4 penalty is a little bland but I also feel it is a reasonable compromise between people dying and "getting better" and people coming back so mangled that they can't even function (which sort of defeats the whole point of resurrecting!)Guidelines are HARD though, real hard.  You can't code them into a game without some DMs thinking they're absolutely useless or "not getting it" or thinking that they're absolutely mandatory and that everyone who comes back to life is a twisted wreck.  And with that some people are going to see the Madness chart as a limit to the types of madness one can suffer from, or merely suggestion.  Some people may include new things that may not be table appropriate, some people might remove things.  Some people will think it's 100% on the DM; I don't think anything is ever 100% on one side or the other.  The game is a conversation and input from players, especially when "things happen to them" is important.  A DM unwilling to accept input, even on things the characters have no say over can make for a very bad game.So, long story short: it's very hard to code "guidelines"I don't play D&D for the "challenge", as I don't find D&D very challenging.  I never have, it's a fairly simple game with simple rules that are easy to master.  I want to have a good time with friends, beat up some bad guys, take their stuff and come away with a story I can tell later.  Whatever adds to that is something I'm cool with.  Anything else I'm largely ambivalent towards.</blockquote>

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