StalkingBlue
First Post
No Raising / Rezzing in my Midnight game. With an average of one PC death per two sessions so far, that's getting a bit heavy on the losses for my taste. 
Handing character death
- Thread starter tjoneslo
- Start date
Hemlock Stones
First Post
Only Characters Die?
GREETINGS!
I've always felt in my humble opinion that spells that ressurrect characters are too damned powerful. Many of the folks I game with invest a long time developing characters and back stories for them. Seeing one of them get offed is unfortunate. Yet too often the group gets to be too old and predictable, alliances are formed that are hard to role play off of.
Characters dying keeps thing fresh and new. One of things that I will implement in the next game I am DM'ing will be the Bag of Life. A black velvet bag with those glass beads at your local hobby store. One blue one for each level a character has attained. One red one for each charcter. And an equal number of clear ones. If somebody dies and a resurrection spell is cast, the player of the dead character draws a glass bead from the bag. If they draw a blue bead, they come back missing a level. A red bead the character comes back intact. A clear bead, well, they're dead, an ex-character, a character that has gone on to meet its maker, one joining the choir invisible....
Heh Heh
So Sayeth the Bone Daddy
GREETINGS!
I've always felt in my humble opinion that spells that ressurrect characters are too damned powerful. Many of the folks I game with invest a long time developing characters and back stories for them. Seeing one of them get offed is unfortunate. Yet too often the group gets to be too old and predictable, alliances are formed that are hard to role play off of.
Characters dying keeps thing fresh and new. One of things that I will implement in the next game I am DM'ing will be the Bag of Life. A black velvet bag with those glass beads at your local hobby store. One blue one for each level a character has attained. One red one for each charcter. And an equal number of clear ones. If somebody dies and a resurrection spell is cast, the player of the dead character draws a glass bead from the bag. If they draw a blue bead, they come back missing a level. A red bead the character comes back intact. A clear bead, well, they're dead, an ex-character, a character that has gone on to meet its maker, one joining the choir invisible....
Heh Heh
So Sayeth the Bone Daddy
Hjorimir
Adventurer
That's actually a rather interesting mechanic, Hemlock. When you say an equal number of clear stones, are you saying equal to the blue or the red? What is your reasoning behind that decision?
In my campaign, as designed, death is permanent. This was a choice I made so players would never just look at death as being a minor inconvenience. Your proposed system has merit, however.
I think I would add a single black bead as a wildcard. They come back...but something is different or maybe even wrong. Hrmmm...
In my campaign, as designed, death is permanent. This was a choice I made so players would never just look at death as being a minor inconvenience. Your proposed system has merit, however.
I think I would add a single black bead as a wildcard. They come back...but something is different or maybe even wrong. Hrmmm...
Hemlock Stones
First Post
Hjorimir said:
AHH YES,
I apologize for not being clear about the clear beads.
The number of the clear beads has to be equal to the sum of the red and blue beads. Balance is important, a fifty-fifty chance to come back seems fair to me.I actually thought about the wild card option too. I could see coming up with a random table to consult or even linking it to a quest/vendetta for the recovered character having to hunt down his killer within 1D4 levels or die outright.
So Sayeth the Bone Daddy!
Doc_Souark
Explorer
How my players handle it
They shoot the owlhoot that shot their friend, dig a hole and say a few words over the body, then ride on. Life's hard in the West Pard.
They shoot the owlhoot that shot their friend, dig a hole and say a few words over the body, then ride on. Life's hard in the West Pard.
Djeta Thernadier
First Post
Everyone in my current game has died, except me. Usually when they die, they are taken to a temple and raised. We then end up paying or owing a favor. The dead come back less potent (ie. they lose a level). Once it was used to add a prestige class to a character (ie. he suddenly changed after he'd been dead).
Treebore
First Post
I find it better for role players if their characters can come back from the dead. Roll players usually don't care one way or the other. Actually they tend to want a new character, since there old one has become so boring and meaningless to them.
So if they want their character back i make sure it happens, whether from a local temple or friendly wandering high level cleric and their retinue. Otherwise, they start off with a new one 2 levels lower than the rest of the party, or at first level, whichever is higher.
So if they want their character back i make sure it happens, whether from a local temple or friendly wandering high level cleric and their retinue. Otherwise, they start off with a new one 2 levels lower than the rest of the party, or at first level, whichever is higher.
StalkingBlue
First Post
Treebore said:
I used to think the same. Strangely my current Midnight group has gone through some of the most intense roleplaying sessions I've ever seen, while at an average one PC death per two sessions the death toll is the highest in any game I've run yet, and death is final. I'm still concerned that if the PC death rate doesn't drop in the long term, it may end up having bad effects on character development and emotional investment of players into their PCs, but that sure hasn't happened yet - it's almost as if the opposite is true. Maybe it's the Midnight setting that does this, dunno, maybe it's just the incredible group of players I'm blessed with. It's certainly the first time I've ever experienced this phenomenon.
Evilhalfling
Adventurer
Raising depends on the parties relationship with powerful priests. The world is moderatly low in magic so even nearby cities only have 1-2 priests that can rasie the dead. The chances of PC's being worshipers of that particular god are fairly small.
On the other continent there was a legend of the everdying knights, a powerful group trying to stop a demonlord & army they died multiple times only to be raised and return to the war. In the last battle the high priest was slain and all the dead were burried. This precedent means that hero's are only brought back if their tasks are unfinished, and the task has to be seen as very important, and possible to accomplish. So moral dilema do you push on and finish quest or do you save your friend & allow enemy to regroup.
as a soft/fuzzy dm I average 1-2 kills per campagin, and about the same number are retired various reasons.
On the other continent there was a legend of the everdying knights, a powerful group trying to stop a demonlord & army they died multiple times only to be raised and return to the war. In the last battle the high priest was slain and all the dead were burried. This precedent means that hero's are only brought back if their tasks are unfinished, and the task has to be seen as very important, and possible to accomplish. So moral dilema do you push on and finish quest or do you save your friend & allow enemy to regroup.
as a soft/fuzzy dm I average 1-2 kills per campagin, and about the same number are retired various reasons.
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