Handing character death

[tjoneslo]

Thom's poll of the week. In our campaign we recently had a character die. Now for some people this is a frequent occurance, and for others, it never happens. But this question is about how you would handle it in you group. How hard is it to raise the dead?

 

[Wombat]

This last session we lost two characters out of a 6 character party (and we almost lost a third).

In our gameworld, however, the various Raise Dead and suchlike spells, are very rare and only used under extraordinary circumstances, usually for valuable community leaders.

As such, R.I.P. for the party members.

 

[eris404]

Thom's poll of the week. In our campaign we recently had a character die. Now for some people this is a frequent occurance, and for others, it never happens. But this question is about how you would handle it in you group. How hard is it to raise the dead?

I hate to say this, but it just really depends. First, PC don't die often in our game, maybe one or two the entire campaign. But as far as raising or resurrecting them, it varies by DM. One DM ran a "low-magic" campaign and there just were too few NPCs who could cast those sorts of spells and so dead PC generally stayed dead. Another DM decided that in order to resurrect or raise a dead PC, the party had to go on a major quest to retrieve the soul of the departed - again dead PCs tended to stay dead. In another game, there were lots of NPCs that can raise the dead, but usually only if the party does something for them first (yet another quest). I should point out here that the DMs aren't being jerks, they just want to make sure that powerful spells don't get abused and remain special, campaign-altering events.

 

[diaglo]

i have played in campaigns with all of the above as options.

in the campaign i referee the option would be also depend. mostly it would cost just enough to cause the surviving members a hard choice. a very hard moral choice.

 

[The_Gneech]

Back in the days of HERO System, the only time a character died was when a player wanted to retire them. But there were many close shaves.

In my current D&D game, one character has died multiple times, mainly because the player insists on playing a rogue as if he were a fighter (and refuses to multiclass). In the character's favor, he was generally trying to rescue another party member who was in immediate danger, and as such I was lenient enough to let the character be raised when the characters got back to town.

"Dude ... these are orcs wielding battleaxes. You charge them anyway? Ouch, down he goes."

"Dude, if you go running through the Bleak Garden, all of those vampire roses will get AoO's on you ... ouch, there goes your Con. Why didn't you at least try to Tumble?"

The character has since been retired.

-The Gneech

 

[Altamont Ravenard]

It's usually easy to find a raise dead, if we still have the body. If we don't, then it's time to roll the bones.

 

[Darmanicus]

The campaign I'm in at the moment is the first in which we have managed to gain ressurection or raise dead. We still do our best to avoid getting killed though because there's no guarantee that the rest can retrieve the body/s, (when my mage copped it, me DM made a point that the BBEGs wyvern mount had me corpse for lunch).

In virtually every other game I've played in, we've never been high enough level and generally had to roll up a new character each time one of us died.

There has been the odd exception though due to, I think, good role-playing, (developing good relations with those who can raise the dead).

 

[ltclnlbrain]

In the games I run, it is mainly a decision on the player's part whether he wants to take the level loss and continue running his character or create a new character at a lower level anyway. At lower levels, the most popular choice is reincarnation since it is a lot cheaper than even raise dead. At higher levels, though, as long as they have the funds, I don't limit the spells they can use.

 

[Talmun]

In general I run a campaign where the magic to bring someone back is available...but expensive or otherwise difficult to get hold of, particularly at low levels.

When the current party was about 5th level they fought a large band of orcs (8, I believe, all standard); the primary fighter managed to get flanked two ways (that is, by four orcs) and went down hard. They didn't have the money or any other resources to get her brought back...off to the outer planes with her, a new character was rolled up.

The same party, the same player (new character) a few levels later: As the primary fighter, again, she steps out to battle with two Yuan-ti Abominations after taking quite a pounding from their guards...she goes down again. This time the party had the treasure (espesially after raiding the Yuan-ti) and was willing to spend it to have a cleric bring her back...something on the order of 20,000gp, if I remember rightly.

Character death is not too common in the games I run, but it does occur...when it does, I want the party to have the option, prohibitive as it may seem, to bring a character back. It is fantasy, after all.

 

[DaveMage]

In my games, dead characters ususally get resurrected at the local temple, either in exchange for a service (when the PCs are lower level) or payment.

I generally have allowed resurrection as a way to relieve the players of gold when they have acquired too much...