No "death penalty"

[ShaggySpellsword]

How about a number of points equal to the number of times you've died.

Roll 1d6 to determine which stat is hit, check the total number of deaths you have and subtract that number from that stat.

Character death will definitely hurt, and a pattern of character death will hurt a lot. EVentually characters become unplayable. Heck, eventually, you won't come back (Con to 0) or you'll come back and be in a coma (Cha, Int, or Wis 0) or you'll be trapped inside a paralyzed body (Str, Dex at 0).

That way death could EVENTUALLY be permanent, and it will ALWAYS have a down-side.

 

[BluWolf]

As much as I rail against MMORG mechanics influencing the table play, I have always liked how they handle defeat by assigning an XP "debt" to be overcome.

Raising is pretty uncommon in my games but I like the idea of the PC having to "shake" the chill so to speak from having crossed over into the next world and returned.

I was thinking 10% of whatever you need to hit the next level. So if your character dies at lvl 8, you have to work off 3,600 XP before you start advancing again. Your character is not gimped but you are slowed.

I still do individual XP awards as I have never had an issue with PCs advancing at different rates.

I also liked King-Panda's idea about fighting somehting to get back. I may use this. In my world all souls wander in the Ethereal for awhile before they reach final destination.

In this instance, Raise Dead would essentially be like sending a message to the wandering soul and shwoing them a way out of the shadowy ether. Once they realise they can go back its a foot race to the closing door as "something" attmepts to keep them there.

I likey a lot!!

 

[Nifft]

These suggestions are all of the "stick" nature.

Nobody else likes carrots?

Cheers, -- N

 

[skelso]

I use the optional rule that if Raise Dead or Reincarnation is used to bring a PC back, they come back with enough Constitution damage that they are at a Constitution of 1. No restoration, they just have to rest and recover.

If they are brought back with Resurrection, they come back with Constitution damage such that they are at half Con, rounded down.

If they use True Resurrection, no Con damage.

 

[carborundum]

These suggestions are all of the "stick" nature.

Nobody else likes carrots?

Ehhh, what's up doc?

(Sorry, couldn't resist.)

I like the idea - and per story arc is certainly doable (I'm currently running Savage Tide - that's 12 'arcs' right there.) What kind of bonus were you thinking of?

Maybe something like this...

With my 5 players:
No deaths: +10% total xp - for the whole party
1-3 deaths: +5% total xp
4-6 deaths: 0 bonus/penalty
7-9 deaths: 5% xp penalty
10+ deaths: 10% xp penalty

 

[Li Shenron]

[*Raise thread*]

I've been thinking of a permanent stat penalty instead of xp loss. A random stat seems a good system, but how much of a penalty?

I think a good compromise could be to roll 2d6, and each die causes 1 point permanent drain to a random ability score. This way, you get a fixed total of -2, and you have 5/6 probability to get -1 to two different abilities, and 1/6 probability to get -2 to a single ability.

This is a significant penalty IMHO. Even if the two -1 don't always give you a real -1 penalty to all rolls using that ability.

IMHO the important things are:

1) don't make it too penalizing if the character dies and comes back ONCE. Because this may happen for a number of reasons including back luck and bad playing by other characters.

but

2) characters should definitely not come back from the dead over and over and over...

It's hard to write a simple rule that achieves both. For my taste, coming back from the dead more than once should almost never happen.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

It is my assertion that Resurrection magic exists in D&D for PURELY meta-game reasons - to allow PC's to suffer SOME penalty of death, but not to let it screw up the entire dynamics of an ONGOING game by either forbidding return of dead PC's or making it too undesireable to do so. It has never, EVER been intended that Resurrection magic should be applied as a commonly available resource beyond what the PC's can access. The very fact that game worlds logically collapse if death is effectively erased shows that it SHOULDN'T be universally applied across a campaign world.

IMO, the current penalties associated with Raise Dead are sufficient incentive for players at least to not IGNORE the possibility of death of their characters, and yet allow them to resume play with those characters should they actually die. This is the meta-game purpose of allowing it to happen at ALL - to allow PLAYERS to continue play with THEIR characters. It's purpose is not now, and never has been, to apply that availability logically to an entire civilization in a game world. The way to prevent that is via a roleplaying perspective.

The spell descriptions of resurrection magic state that the recipient must be willing. The perfect excuse then, is that the afterlife being experienced by EVERY NPC the DM wants to remain dead is preferrable to that NPC than the life they lost.

The question really is then if the DM does in fact WANT to allow players to bring characters back from the dead - at THEIR choice - and if so at what cost. The rest IS, and always has been, within the DM's power to restrict useful application of it to the rest of the game world. They just DIDN'T because they were too afraid to exert that power of fiat - even though it was their right and IMO their job to do so.

YMMV

 

[UrsusTas]

I have always had severe penalties apply for death above and beyond the 'core rules' but I normally make it available in game at an early stage. I typically want to make it fierce enough that a low level player (say character 1-3) would prefer to start again because the penalties for resurrection are so great .. not that may low level characters could afford the service (most charge alot of gold in addition to other requirements .. though it is situational).

A few thoughts ..

Firstly those that can give life (be they gods or those with god patrons) want to further their cause and ensure they do not hinder it .. the good god will not resurrect the evil king for all the money in the world and woe be it the foolish servant who does it in the god's name. You can potentially trick someone into resurrection however by the time they have that power they are usually not easily fooled.

Assuming you have access to someone with the arts who is willing to resurrect you (you cannot buy goodwill after you are dead) .. say you attended the church and offered aid in the past, attended days of faith and observed the rituals (ate a rabbit on the hopping day), did an act of charity (or other act) that was observed, etc ..

Then it comes down to a burden of debt (often financial and nearly always services owed ie. serving 'the cause')

AND something extra that I like to add given whom resurrected you and the nature of how you died .. always a penalty .. perhaps being resurrected by one person results in you loosing a few charisma as the wounds that you sustained burning in the fire were not fully healed and you are horribly scarred now, a scarring that magical healing cannot fix, or perhaps your mind is weaker and more susceptable to enchantment/illusion/mind affecting magics after the horrible experience, or perhaps you have nightmares every evening, and there is a 20% chance they are so bad that you do not get the benefits of rest for that day (spells or hit points, etc).

Some players hate these things, other players seem to love them .. either way it makes them respect death as something significant .. the character that risks sacrificing himself for a small chance of saving a fellow party member is not just doing what he has to .. it's a choice and a risk.

 

[Jerrand Redband]

maybe a little late

might be writing this way late as last post is over a month old but what i do is the old fashion lose a pt of Con it is sometimes a severe penalty (losing hp) and it limits the amount of times you may be raised keeping things balanced

 

[Scurvy_Platypus]

Personally, I've only played one game in the past 20 years where coming back from the dead was a possibility.

The current group I'm with decided they didn't want to be able to come back from the dead, they'd just make new characters. So I haven't had a chance to try the rules that I was planning on using. But this is what I was thinking:

There's dead, and then there's Dead. If a person has their brain destroyed or their spinal column severed (like what happens from a broken neck, or by a weapon), there's no coming back. There's also no coming back if the person was killed using a soul sucking weapon. If a person dies because of age, there's no coming back. There's certain spells that can be employed to prevent a person from coming back. The only way to deal with that is to find the person that's cast the spell and either have them remove it or kill them and cause the enchantment to fail

A person can stay dead for a number of [your time preference] equal to their level. Once that time has expired, it's all over. I personally think [days] is good.

When a person comes back, they're at a penalty for all their actions equal to the amount of time they stayed dead. They penalty is reduced by one for every day of recovery, until the penalty is completely eliminated. Nothing can speed this up, and if the character is doing "strenuous" activities it delays the recovery by another day.

For example, in my game I'd use [days] as the time delay. Say a character that's 10th level was killed. The brain and spine are still intact, so there's a total of 10 days they've got to have the character brought back. For whatever reason the character is brought back on the final day possible (day 10).

When the character is brought back, they're at a -10 for all activities. They can putter about doing very light stuff and that's about it. The next day, they're at a -9. And so forth until the penalty is eliminated. If they're off doing combat or whatever else the GM deems is "strenuous", then they don't get that day as a Recovery day.

I don't see a need to try and mechanically limit the amount of times someone can be brought back, other than the ways I've outlined above. It means that someone can die, and someone can be made permanently dead if there's a reason to do so. The world effectively has coming back from the dead be an option for everyone, but it doesn't mean that people can't be assassinated permanently.

Deliberately making someone unable to come back from the dead is going to be a Big Deal and you'd better have a good reason for doing it if you're caught. Being able to get someone brought back from the dead is really just a matter of money. Money up front of course. In gods we trust, all others pay full cash.

As I see it, the nobility don't have a problem being able to pay the fee. For them death is mostly a matter of an inconvenience. A potentially serious one, but still nothing too bad. If someone made them dead, it was either part of a duel or it's a message. Duels are for honor, and a message means they'd better seriously reconsider whatever it is that they're doing.

For the middle class it's a more serious business. Chances are they're not doing anything to really piss someone off enough to have them killed. So it's probably an accident of some sort or another. Cost-wise, it's going to hurt but it's doable.

Poor people... *shrug*... they get screwed over as normal.

Important note: Coming back from the dead isn't a clerical thing. Yes, that's right. Clerics don't have anything to do with bringing people back from the dead.

Why?

Because the gods aren't exactly keen on it. They collect souls for their own reasons. The last thing they really want is some hairless monkey coming up to them and whining "We really like Bob. Could you please give him back to us?" Screw that. They lose a soul, it could be gone permanently. The person might take to worshiping another god, some soul sucking thing might get hold of the person brought back, or whatever. Gods don't like the fact that an end run can be made around death. Even in a limited fashion. Once they get hold of a soul, they're not planning on letting go of it.