Dissatisfaction with Your Gaming Group?

[fusangite]

Penalizing a player a level or two to bring back a new PC has been a practice in every DnD game I've ever played in (I've never had this situation when I ran a game, so I haven't made this decision.)

Is this an actual rule in DnD? It seems too prevelent not to be.

Yes. All of the spells that raise the dead except True Ressurrection cause the target to lose a level when he comes back to life.

 

[WizarDru]

Yes. All of the spells that raise the dead except True Ressurrection cause the target to lose a level when he comes back to life.

And True Resurection is a 9th level spell (i.e requires a 17th level cleric) that consumes 25,000 g.p of diamonds when cast. Not something you see that often, generally speaking. Each spell (Raise Dead, Resurection and True Resurection) requires increasing costs, but also can affect longer durations of death. Raise dead requires the body of the deceased, 5,000 gp of diamonds and that the subject be less than 1 day/level dead. Resurection requires a part of the original body, costs 10,000 gp and requires the subject have died within 10 years/level. True Res needs no body and costs as above, given that you can explicitly identify the target.

 

[billd91]

I still don't understand why a player has to penalized for brining in a new character, unless he does it constantly and it's a pain to readjust the adventure for the "character of the week" flavor.

Personally, I wouldn't feel slighted if some one switched out PCs at the same level. If anything, I'm not held back waiting for the new character to catch up.

And if the original character is permanently retired, I generally don't penalize. It's switching back and forth between characters that I don't like. I don't agree with advancing more than one character the same when they don't get the same play time.