Dying and level loss

[The Souljourner]

One of my characters just died and it got me thinking... if you're barely 5th level (exactly 10,000xp) and die, you go down to the midpoint of the next lowest level (8,000xp and 4th level) for a loss of 2,000xp. If you were almost 6th and die (14,999xp) you go down to the midpoint of the next lowest level (8,000 xp) for a loss of 6,999xp. If, however, you had gained just one more xp and made 6th (15,000xp) you would go down to 5th and 12,500xp for a loss of just 2,500xp. Why on earth does ONE xp less cause the xp loss to be more than twice as much?

This seems a little ridiculous to me. It basically penalizes you very very heavily for being almost up to the next level.

My guess is that the game designers were just trying to make the math simple, since they could have easily made a much more fair system for xp calculation after level loss.

I could suggest some here, but that's not the point (not to mention not appropriate for this forum). Just wondering if anyone else thinks like I do.

-Nate, aka The Souljourner

 

[AuraSeer]

In most campaigns, you need to spend time training in order to advance a level. Gaining that last XP doesn't instantly make you more powerful.

If you reached exactly 15,000 XP and then immediately got killed, you would still drop to the same 8000 upon being Raised. It's only after the days or weeks of training that you would become level 6, and be able to die and raise at that 12,500 XP.

The obvious next question is, why can you train to level up at exactly 15k, but not at 15k-1. The answer is that D&D has discrete levels, so there has to be a hard cutoff someplace. There's no such thing as being "level 14.9"; you're either on one step or the other.

(I've been thinking about this too, because my PC just died for the second time since Christmas. First a black dragon, then a white dragon... I really need to quit my "getting eaten by lizards" habit.)

 

[Kaji]

As to the training thing, that is one way to do it, but I don't agree at all. I assume that you have been training all along, and that that final xp gives you that last bit of experience you need before you can access new powers. As to dying and level loss, that's a real problem in the campaign I DM. It gets easy to fall behind if your PC gets caught once or twice. As to the math, I'm fine with keeping it like it is. Sure, when you mess around with the numbers it finds some unfair points. And as a DM, I sometimes House Rule how many xp's are lost depending on circumstances, but I don't see a problem with the base rule.

 

[ConcreteBuddha]

The dying rules suck for two reasons:


1) The reason you mentioned.

2) Subtracting levels from your character is a pain in the arse.
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[HOUSE RULE]

When you die, you do not actually lose levels, but incur "XP debt". This is equal to your (current level) * 1000 - 500.

So if you were L5 when you were eaten by a dire bear, and then raised, you would lose 5*1000 - 500 XP, or 4500 XP.

L2=1500
L3=2500
L4=3500
L5=4500, etc...

All of your abilities stay at L5, and you still need a total of 15,000 XP to reach level 6. You just are 4500 XP behind.

(Special case: if you die so much that you would have negative XP, you would instead have 0 XP and lose a Con point.)

[/HOUSE RULE]
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The above house rule is derived from taking the halfway point between each level, and then subtracting them to normalize how much XP you lose.

Benefits of this system:

1) Characters don't have to be remade after each death. (Especially a pain with rogues and wizards.)

2) Characters are still effective after dying since they are not lower level than the rest of the party.


Downfalls:

1) If a character dies multiple times in a row, they lose more and more XP when compared to what they would have lost using the normal rules. Example: If the L5 character used above dies 4 times in a row, he loses 4500*4 XP, or 18000 XP. Which is more than enough to lose a Con point.

 

[Maitre Du Donjon]

That, Concretebuddha, is a great idea. One way you could resolve the die-several-times-in-a-row problem would be that the XP penalty you incur upon dying is of the level at which you would normally be with your current xp. So a 5th level character that dies loses 4500XP (which brings him under 10000xp). If he dies again, he'd "only" lose 3500xp.

One other thing, the second benefit you mention, well, stays true for the adventure being played, but usually isnt true once the adventure is over, since characters who didnt die will be more likely to level up that the ones that "owe" xp.

But in my opinion, benefit 1 is the most important one. Its too much a pain leveling down...

This will probably be moved to house rules?

Maitre D

 

[dcollins]

My guess is that the game designers were just trying to make the math simple, since they could have easily made a much more fair system for xp calculation after level loss.

One of my very few house rules is to pro-rate XP lost from death: www.superdan.net/housrule.html

However, the rule as written is completely not surprising and even defensible. Most people in the world have great difficulty dealing with percentages. The D&D designers made the very defensible choice to never require arithmetic of that level. For example, consider that they felt they needed to present an approximate procedure for calculating a cohort's "half share of XP" (DMG p. 147, last paragraph).

What's "easy" for most of the people on this messageboard is not so easy for the public at large.