Character Death from DM perspective

[Gizzard]

Although, from reading your story I'm not sure restricting access to Ressurection spells will change your partys fatality rate very much. I get the feeling that the Cleric is going to be problematical -- will someone who casts fire spells into the middle of the party and purposely ignores his healing abilities learn some sort of lesson from another player having difficulty getting raised? It doesnt sound like it, the lesson is too subtle.

It might be better to approach this from another angle; does the Clerics god approve of chaotic pyromania and disapprove of healing? If not, the Cleric is going to have trouble getting the spells he wants. "Oh Great St. Cuthbert, grant me this day a full rack of Firey Burning Finger spells so that I may slay your enemies and all that generally stand in my front arc." "Um, I dont think so, pumpkin. How about some Create Waters and a Mend or two? And try and stay out of trouble today, OK?"

 

[~Joseph~]

That's a great idea Gizzard *takes mental note to use later*
I suggest forcing them to retrieve the body for resurrection and them destroy the bodies, have the dragon after biting him in half swallow him whole, or start causing major penalties for being resurrected ie: loss of level, loss of ability score, side effects like loss of ability or something like that. Have a botched resurrection and have the PC come back as undead.

If worst comes to worst, kill off the cleric and make the player role up a new character and restrict him to monk, ranger, barb, fighter, or rogue. No more Blasty Fire Death Ray Burst Destruction Kill Attacks for him.
Did I mention hot?
good hunting

 

[birdboy2000]

I like quests for ressurection. Though I think every character should be required to have a background and a good roleplayer will have his characters life mean a lot. My character will go to almost any length to preserve his life and that of his healer and closest friend. Though neutral and leaning towards good, he will do anything to preserve himself. Most players I know care a great deal about the character, and only the best of the good alignment will not act in self-preservation

 

[Ravellion]

-1 to charisma related checks, I could understand, but an actual -1 to charisma... harsh and illogical... "some physical wound just caused me to lose a 5th level bonus spell guys"... quite.

Rav

 

[Lothaire]

May I suggest having monsters drag away the players body to eat. Or having evil wizards / clerics turn them into undead. Or simply not letting the high level cleric raise someone who the fates so obviously want dead.

 

[hellbender]

In my homebrew world, when anyone dies (PC or NPC the party wants to come back) there is a process of arbitration with intermediary beings that help send petitioners off to their prospective reward whenever anyone wants to have them resurrected. The resurrection spell itself (in my campaign) is a summoning spell that sends one of these beings to the caster to build a case for the resurrection. Nothing is automatic and roleplaying is key to convincing the event to occur.


hellbender

 

[LostSoul]

-1 to charisma related checks, I could understand, but an actual -1 to charisma... harsh and illogical... "some physical wound just caused me to lose a 5th level bonus spell guys"... quite.

Rav

I'd imagine that the experience of death could quite easily damage the ego.

 

[Ace32]

Well, the players all do have extensive backgrounds and such.. they just don't care about dying.. even the cleric has a good background, and from a roleplaying perspectiving is doing nothing wrong by being a pyro (he worships a CN god of fire) ... but it always seems to work out poorly for my other players.

 

[Black Omega]

I generally don't like PC deaths but it happens. I rarely ask how many HP's a PC has during the combat, I run the bad guys and they do what they would do. Death has a more negative impact in my game since I'm running Rokugan. No such thing as Raise Dead or Resurrection spells, unless you count coming back as a zombie. So the players try pretty hard not to die, since there's no coming back.

 

[Nightfall]

Simple, have the character had temp damage to main scores, like Str, Con, Int, Wis. This way, they understand, as they manage to SLOWLY come back to life, they understand Death is meaningful to that character

Failing that, have lots of undead come looking for their "brethren"