Death Penalty as "Transformation": Alterations to Raise Dead

[Garthanos]

I would also argue in the ORIGINAL context raising the dead was a repair for a system that was massively swingier and prone to meaningless character death ... and in that sense is not really needed, just as with a DM who pays attention to a characters wish list results in a game where disenchants and other things giving player control over development are not needed.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Kind of beside the point .. ie this is 4e context where the main loss of dying and replacing the character with a new one is likely just a bit of time where the DM and you come up with story for how the new replacement of heroic caliber shows up.... which you build to match your intent are you arguing the DM is recommended in 4e realm to have the replacement be lower level than the party and less well equipped? I suspect you are just flash backing when we are talking 4e.

No, the point was just to explain why you pay 500gp to res your 4e character, and then all that happens is you get a -1 to all your checks for a while. Its not a very elegant implementation, its just TRAD.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I would also argue in the ORIGINAL context raising the dead was a repair for a system that was massively swingier and prone to meaningless character death ... and in that sense is not really needed, just as with a DM who pays attention to a characters wish list results in a game where disenchants and other things giving player control over development are not needed.

Oh, I totally agree. 4e doesn't need it for that. OTOH 4e doesn't QUITE go as far as what you might go if you follow the logic all the way. When you go there, then dying is a PLAYER CHOICE, and coming back is simply another path through the game. One that opens up certain 'doors' that might not open other ways (or at least provides some cool explanations for it, nice lampshade).

Its like the discussion over in the 'Worldbuilding' thread where some people are still trying to wrap their heads around Story Now play, where there really IS NO REASON why your character is in place X doing Y, EXCEPT because you, the player were interested in being there and doing that! Its kinda the same thing, dying is what you chose, so have fun!

 

[darkbard]

I appreciate the irony of a discussion about alternate ways to ameliorate unwanted character death being addressed in a (mild) instance of thread necromancy! (That said, with the serious decline in traffic concerning 4E in this subforum, I wonder if responding to a thread from a couple of months back even qualifies as mild thread necromancy! )

 

[Garthanos]

I appreciate the irony of a discussion about alternate ways to ameliorate unwanted character death being addressed in a (mild) instance of thread necromancy! (That said, with the serious decline in traffic concerning 4E in this subforum, I wonder if responding to a thread from a couple of months back even qualifies as mild thread necromancy! )

2 months... shes not dead yet jim...

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Seems to be quiet here now, but it can easily perk up. There are clearly still plenty of people who respond to posts here if they're interesting.