Balance and Character Death

[jgbrowning]

Ok, the idea behind D&D classes is that they should be roughly balanced to increase gaming fun. Now, when you die you lose a level. This disrupts the concept of balance. In higher level games, it's possible to have one character die several times while another doesn't die once leading to even more power discrepancy. I'm trying to justify a death penalty involving level loss, when the holy grail of 3E is character to character game balance.

Thoughts?

joe b.

 

[Crothian]

Get rid of raise dead and such spells, or have a cost that is shared by the party involved in them.

 

[harmyn]

Or optionally, just go slasher flick on them and kill each one off individually in various greusome and graphic ways when they least expect it. Once they have all died you have achieved perfect balance again.

Sounds reasonable, right?

 

[was]

You could always go with the loss of a Constitution point.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Due to the extra experience points a lower level character earns, level balance is quickly restored, especially if fighting high xp value monsters. The differences are significant.

 

[Crothian]

Death needs to have some penalty or else there's no reason for character to try not to die and things get silly and if I'm going to do that I'll pull out peranoia. Sure, it will weaken the character and can make him unbalanced compaired to the other players, but that's the price he pays for dieing. And I'm of the firm belief that death should have a price.

 

[Oryan77]

I'm probably getting into the realm of causing this thread to be in the house rules forum, but I don't do the level loss because it makes it more of a hassle for me to balance encounters & it is more annoying to start all over in XP when you spent so long playing to get to the lvl you're at. Instead, I just use the rule of losing 2 points of your Con score permenantly.

This is just enough to keep players afraid of dying and if it happens so much that the PC is ruined by a low Con, then it's time to just make a new character 1 level lower. It just helps cut down a few hassles like CR balancing, time dumbing down the PC, & wasted time regaining those levels back.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

Ok, the idea behind D&D classes is that they should be roughly balanced to increase gaming fun. Now, when you die you lose a level. This disrupts the concept of balance. In higher level games, it's possible to have one character die several times while another doesn't die once leading to even more power discrepancy.

Actually, the situation is worse. It's closer to what happens in the Everquest game (or at least when I played it in 2000). The game has since changed, but here's how things used to be:

At the very start death has no penalty. We won't worry about that part overmuch as that was the period people would just be getting used to the game.
At slightly higher levels you would lose exp and you would have to hunt down your old body to get your gear back.
At higher levels, clerics could ressurect. You would lose some exp, and you would reappear in your starting location.
At much higher levels, paladins could ressurect and clerics could ressurect more efficently.

See what was going on? Low level characters suffered the most from dying. High level characters were meerly inconvienced.

Anyway, how would I deal with this? I'd simply put the exp penalty in direct relation to level and the number of time the character died. The guy who never dies should be ahead of the guy who kicks it every other adventure. But at the same time, you don't want the dude with Frequent Dier Miles to come out so low in level that the player is better off making a new character. So put a cap on that penalty.

Or just give them a number of "lives" to use up. Like in a video game. Let them take a feat to gain two extra lives back. Yes, it's silly. But with enough flavor text it could be cool.

happy gaming!

 

[interwyrm]

Death needs to have some penalty or else there's no reason for character to try not to die and things get silly and if I'm going to do that I'll pull out peranoia. Sure, it will weaken the character and can make him unbalanced compaired to the other players, but that's the price he pays for dieing. And I'm of the firm belief that death should have a price.

Is that really you Crothian? paranoia... compared... dying.. You are usually much better spoken.... get some sleep man.

 

[fusangite]

Joe, I think you are defining "balance" like a Swede instead of an American. Balance is about equality of opportunity not equality of outcome. Balance merely serves to place players on a level field of play with one another; it is not designed to harmonize character power.

If people play equally well, they have equally powerful characters. But if people play badly by
(a) not showing up for games
(b) not playing well enough to earn bonus XP (if such is awarded in a game)
(c) multi-classing inappropriately
(d) getting killed
(e) playing a powerful character inefficiently or incompetently, failing to make effective use of the XP/levels he or she has
they get to be less powerful and do less stuff. That's balance; now I think you can distort balance into equality of power but that entails some minor rule changes.

EDIT: As to the dying several times problem, my typical solution to major XP disparity is to let the player introduce another character at close to the average party level. Dying that many times and surviving starts to hurt the story; at that point, the mechanics should pressure a player into retiring their character, whether it's his fault or simple bad luck.