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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The_Warlock" data-source="post: 3242079" data-attributes="member: 21215">So, as part of my story arc in my campaign (now entering it's 12th year in real-time), I had to count up all the dead PCs, henchman, and other party members of some form or another, since their spirits would be called back by a ritual to invest a set of armor and weapons to assist/allow the defeat of the BBEGroup. Seven of the dead over the past 12 years were cohorts, henchmen, NPCs helping the party, etc. TWENTY THREE (23) were PCs. So, no,  I have NO problem killing a player's character. Players are informed of this up front. I can be brutal. In my world, heroes take the risk - and sometimes, heroes die. Previously, I made new characters come in one level lower than the party current (so there was no metagame benefit vs being res'd), they got 3 random magic items approprpiate for their race/class (like any starting character in my campaign), any basic equipment they wanted which fit their race/class and that they could carry, and a base sum of "pocket change". If their character died in the pursuit of or completion of their personal or backstory goals, or at least in the idiom which they set themselves, they got bonus "cash" to spend on magic and gear above the basics.The bodies of the fallen could be looted by the party, though invariably, much of the magic wasn't easily distributed due to specialization. Since 3rd ed. and a lot of insight into leveling and death mechanics, I've upped the level of new characters coming in after a death to the lowest current character level, but otherwise retain all of the other gear and gold restrictions.As for dying, I have one lenient bone in my body, and that states that if a character is killed by some method which doesn't completely discorporate their body, anyone with magical healing has until the dead character's initiative count to get to them and get them to a positive HP number. If they do, the character was literally a last breath away from death. If nobody gets to them with magic healing by their init count after reaching dead HPs, they are completely dead.I also use a variant Raise Dead mechanic inspired by The Game Mechanics article/spells, which lays on temporary negative levels rather than permanent level loss. However, if a character is recovering the temp neg levels after being raised/res'd, and dies again, they can't be brought back if the temp neg levels applied by another casting + their current temp negative levels would make them level 0 or lower.In the twelve years of running, I've never had a player get mad at me about a character death, and I've killed quite a few characters. I've had player's curse the name of NPCs who had a hand in their character's death, but never my name. And they know I won't hold back and keep their character's alive, that's their job. chuckle.</blockquote>

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