Do You Kill off your PC's.

[Dannyalcatraz]

In 28 years of play, I've averaged about 1 PC death per year...even if the death is only temporary.

Most of my high-level PCs get brought back, only 1 or 2 of my low level ones have.

As a DM, I strongly encourage character trees (anyone remember DarkSun?) both during PC generation and by the way I run the game. While I have fudged rolls to have PCs survive, I only do so when it fits the campaign. If you insist on fighting when you should be running, you're gonna die.

 

[airwalkrr]

I kill players all the time... I mean I kill characters all the time. Never players. No, not a one. And you have no reason to examine the trunk of my car, officer.

But seriously, character death is part of the game, as is irrecoverable character death. I have played several characters who died never to return. And guess what, the game goes on. I made new characters and kept playing the game that I and my friends love. I think one of the best things that can ever happen to a player is to have one of his or her characters die and unpreventable, irrecoverable death. It forces the player to reckon with the idea that the game is not just about your character. I think players have grown too attached to their characters with the advent of MMOs and the 3rd edition of D&D where the focus is on creating a character you can never lose! It is for this reason I played the hardcore setting in Diablo II. If you got a level 99 character in hardcore, you were really HARDCORE. (I never did it, but I died trying, literally, a number of times.)

 

[delericho]

I was just curious how many of you DM's or GM's or however you want to put it, actually kill off your PC's.

It's been known to happen. I don't set out to kill them (since I'm not into adversarial play), but I'll not pull any punches.

In previous campaigns, I've had a House Rule in place that hit point damage could never take a PC from positive hit points to less than -1. (The rule only applied to PCs, not allied NPCs, animal companions, familiars, or any character on 0 or fewer hit points.) This had the effect of cutting down on deaths a great deal. I've recently decided to eliminate it from future games.

 

[Engilbrand]

I'm still rather new to DMing and play with a group that's rather new to playing. 2 parents, their son and his friend. The kids are about 14. The parents haven't died at all. The kids have each rotated through a few characters. I killed one kid last session because it's what would happen. They came upon a battle. He decided to go off and saw a large hobgoblin giving orders to a little goblin. The player, a ninja, decided to shoot him with his bow. He took him by surprise, so the hobgoblin used his bow. The ninja was dropped to a couple of hit points. He then decided to move up. He moved closer to the big bad guy! Thwip. No hit. The bad guy just smiled and walked forward, pulled out a little throwing axe and chucked it at him. The ninja was in the negatives. The Favored Soul tried to get to him, and he did rather quickly, but the bad guy just coup de graced him. He used a ninja that he had made weak and tried to solo a powerful boss. It was stupid. I even told him that I was being nice in what I was doing having him slowly walk up. The worst thing that the ninja could have done was start moving closer to the hobgoblin. In situations like this, I have no problem killing characters. I do it often. If you're stupid, you deserve it. The new character isn't usually of a lower level, though. My group's not very good as it is. Weaker characters would not be a good thing. Mind you, I gave them a 36 point buy this time instead of rolling. Their characters aren't as powerful as they're use to.
Characters I've killed with this group in the last campaign and this new one: Shifter Ranger, Warforged Barbarian, Changeling Ninja. That might actually be it. Some of them I could have done a little differently, but I don't roll behind a screen, so they know exactly what happens.
I do like the idea of Revivify and using action points. I'll have to look up Revivify. As we play Eberron, I already use action points.

 

[Kid Socrates]

I have a pretty character-specific campaign, so I haven't killed a character off permanently. That said, I've knocked them down into the negatives more than once and dropped them to single digits repeatedly. I would have killed one player had he not completely outsmarted me and the dragon he was fighting (and gone through every potion in his bag, rolled incredibly well, and I rolled incredibly poorly). I've gotten a bit soft, but they don't see it that way, which is key.

Granted, I have plans for if a character does die, but I haven't gotten to use them yet. They are -incredibly- resourceful.

 

[ruleslawyer]

I'm roughly in the same boat as shilsen. PC death's not the only thing that players risk in this game. Moreover, IMC (I play Iron Heroes), death is simply not reversible except under the narrow condition of being resuscitated by a character with certain difficult-to-obtain feats, and then only within 2 rounds of death. I prefer to give PCs mechanics to avoid death (glory points, which are IH's version of fate/action points), rather than ways to "counter" death (resurrection).

That said, PCs have had to burn their entire glory point totals to survive a few recent encounters... and they're only 4th level. It is likely that a good thematic chunk of the game will center around taking heroic enough actions to acquire enough glory points to survive.

 

[Wik]

Mind you, I gave them a 36 point buy this time instead of rolling. Their characters aren't as powerful as they're use to.

I want your dice.

DAMN.

 

[DestroyYouAlot]

I had something to add from last night's game, but it turned into a whole story - check HERE if you're interested.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

When I am the DM, I am willing to let the PC's die, but I also give them every reasonable chance I can to survive. About the only time I choose to contrive a way for them to live when they should have died is when I deliberately overwhelm them with something they should have no chance of killing.

Still, PC's are hard to kill, and like most DM's, I am inclined to be forgiving to low level player characters.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[Melan]

On the average, I kill about one PC every four sessions or so. Sometimes multiples. It's a bit like a revolving door - characters come, characters go, but the door keeps on revolving. Since the PCs are usually nobodies trying to earn a living (and get rich) in a hostile world, it fits the theme, too.

Although my latest campaign was far less bloody. And less fun - go figure.