Making death change characters

[atom crash]

Perhaps the most obvious change is that having died might change your personality/behavior. "You know, Uncle Bonespur hasn't been the same since that displacer beast mauled him. He just don't act like his old self anymore."

IMC I allow a character the option to voluntarily adjust his or her alignment by one step following a brush with death.

It might also be appropriate to use the Sanity rules in Unearthed Arcana and give them some form of mental disorder.

"Yeah, I know what you mean about Bonespur. He can't seem to sleep at night and he can't stand to be left alone."

 

[Shard O'Glase]

I have mixed feeling about changes from death. Roleplaying effects, I definetly think should be left up to the player. Its his/her character let them decide how there characters personality was effected.

Minor physical quirks or feats sure I guess, but I'd want to be comunicating with the player enough to make sure that whatever mods happened they didn't deminsh there enjoyment of playing there character.

I could see an optionali list of negatives which give you "points" to buy from an optional list of positives being a cool idea though.

 

[Aaron L]

Some kind of ECL +0 template could be effective. Some balancing bonuses and penalties along with some cosmetic alterations. Id take a whack at making it up but Im horrible with crafting rules.

 

[Dog Moon]

There's also a few things in the Iron Kingdoms Player's Guide. I like the fact that it gives you penalties, but you can also go through rituals and whatnot in order to reverse the effects of the change. The only thing I didn't like about that was that to reverse the effect, everything costs a fair amount of XP.