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PC Death: How do You Handle It?
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<blockquote data-quote="iserith" data-source="post: 7638599" data-attributes="member: 97077"><p>How PC death is handled varies by campaign with me.</p><p></p><p>In most of my campaigns and adventures, it's run as normal. If you die, you die, and the standard methods of bringing your back are available. In these campaigns, I encourage the players to have a backup PC at the ready so they can tap in a new characters (one that has already been "written in") and continue playing. My main concern here is that the player gets to participate in the game after a PC dies. Having a backup character at the ready deals with D&D's iteration problem when the PCs don't have ready access to <em>raise dead</em> or the like.</p><p></p><p>In my current campaign, however, which is billed as a sort of "serial hero" pulp action concept set in Eberron, PC death is taken off the table unless the player decides the character dies. In a situation in which the PC is killed (which has happened twice in this campaign so far, in 17 sessions), the PC is considered "taken out." Her is she may no longer participate in this scene, but comes back in the next scene a bit worse for wear, essentially bearing the penalty as if he or she were raised from the dead. The player describes the circumstances that caused the PC to be taken out based on what is unfolding. The first PC taken out in this campaign, for example, was a warforged who was taken down with a big critical hit. His chassis completely fell apart, requiring a subsequent montage scene of the party's wizard (an artificer type guy) to weld him back together. Later, that wizard was taken out by a living fireball spell that he himself accidentally created in the Mournland. The heat effectively knocked him out of the fight, but he came back in the next scene with no eyebrows and a substantial penalty he had to carry forward for the remainder of the adventure.</p><p></p><p>So, overall, my advice is: Don't limit yourself on how you handle death. Change it up as it suits the campaign concept.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="iserith, post: 7638599, member: 97077"] How PC death is handled varies by campaign with me. In most of my campaigns and adventures, it's run as normal. If you die, you die, and the standard methods of bringing your back are available. In these campaigns, I encourage the players to have a backup PC at the ready so they can tap in a new characters (one that has already been "written in") and continue playing. My main concern here is that the player gets to participate in the game after a PC dies. Having a backup character at the ready deals with D&D's iteration problem when the PCs don't have ready access to [I]raise dead[/I] or the like. In my current campaign, however, which is billed as a sort of "serial hero" pulp action concept set in Eberron, PC death is taken off the table unless the player decides the character dies. In a situation in which the PC is killed (which has happened twice in this campaign so far, in 17 sessions), the PC is considered "taken out." Her is she may no longer participate in this scene, but comes back in the next scene a bit worse for wear, essentially bearing the penalty as if he or she were raised from the dead. The player describes the circumstances that caused the PC to be taken out based on what is unfolding. The first PC taken out in this campaign, for example, was a warforged who was taken down with a big critical hit. His chassis completely fell apart, requiring a subsequent montage scene of the party's wizard (an artificer type guy) to weld him back together. Later, that wizard was taken out by a living fireball spell that he himself accidentally created in the Mournland. The heat effectively knocked him out of the fight, but he came back in the next scene with no eyebrows and a substantial penalty he had to carry forward for the remainder of the adventure. So, overall, my advice is: Don't limit yourself on how you handle death. Change it up as it suits the campaign concept. [/QUOTE]
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