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Message: <blockquote data-quote="BSF" data-source="post: 1060106" data-attributes="member: 13098">Boy, this is a tough situation.  Where do I weigh in?  What advice can I offer?  Interesting quandry.Permanent Death:I have permanent Death in my campaign.  So long as you have a soul, you can come back from the dead.  However, I do have some affects that can destroy your soul.  This is what my characters fear the most.  Though, it may be for different reasons.  Since I make my own homebrew campaign, I have my own Gods.  Including the favorite among Paladins:  Pter the Crusader/Pter the Protector.  Pter even invests some of his followers with additional powers.  They can take the High Knight of Pter PrC.  Now, HKoP's tend to have a short life expectancy.  As an involuntary Supernatural affect, all evil creatures tend to pick HKoP's as the favored target in combat.  (Now, this does not mean that all combatants immediately unload on the HKoP.  But, the strongest baddies tend to single them out.)  The character that is a HKoP keeps his ear out for any stories of the fate of other HKoP's.  If he hears that one has fallen, he tries to find out what happened to the soul.  Not to Raise it, to make sure it passed on to Pter's Realm.  The character's fear is that when he dies, his soul will be devoured/destroyed and he will not pass to Pter's Realm.  So, my version of Permanent Death has a ripple affect through your entire afterlife.  It is effective as the player's know there is permanent death and treat encounters as serious risks.Effectively Permanent Death:There are also situations in which death is effectively permanent.  When a character dies but nobody can afford to bring them back, they might as well be permanently dead.    When a character dies, but would not be willing to come back (You must be willing to be brought back.), they are effectively permanently dead.  When a character died and the party does not have the body and and is not able to "unambiguously identify the deceased in some fashion" death is effectively permanent.  Though a sufficiently motivated party can get around most of these limitations.  Divination spells, offers to perform quests, etc.  The big one is when the character would not want to come back.  I have had players choose that route because it would be consistent with the character ... regardless of the investment in the character.Adventuring Death:Hey!  It's a dangerous job.  People die and there are ways to come back from the dead.  Grab the deceased, head to town, bring them back.  A DnD staple and I support it all the way.  My players use it.  Heck, the Cleric can cast Raise Dead!  Less than heroic Death:  I will let bad die rolls stand for death.  That is part of the game.  Heck, in my current campaign, one of the characters has died multiple times from making himself the favored target at the wrong time.  (One example:  Big Baddie retreats to it's lair with a Mighty Composite Longbow and is pretty much going to attack the first PC that sticks his head in the cave.  The sorceror, who had previously lightning bolted the BBG, tosses a light stone into the cave while walking past the group of PC's discussing strategy, and enters as far as he can.  BBG has his init come up and rolls a 20.  A crit on the sorceror with 13 HP left.  End result, 23 damage and the sorceror is dead, arrow to the head.  Everyone else wanted to know why he rushed in while they were planning outside.) Missing the reflex save and falling down the obligatory pit can kill you.  Wearing your armor, while on a boat and falling overboard, and then drowning can definitely kill you!  If your buddies want to bring you back, so be it.  But, I avoid a permanent death for most of these situations.  In my games, the really stupid risks "just because you can be raised is not a problem".  The other characters don't like spending their precious diamonds on a dumb mistake.  But, they will do it for bad luck.  It's pretty much peer pressure.  "If you die because you are too stupid to take off your full plate while on a river boat, we won't bring you back."  Besides, anything less than a True Ressurection also slaps you with a level penalty.  So, I am not entirely sure why other people have problems with player's "taking stupid risks just because they can be raised and there are no consequences."  Does it make death "Cheap"?  Maybe.  But I do have a Permanent Death option and nobody has any idea how to get around that.  Not even the Gods will talk about it.  So, my players have a good dose of rational fear as well.So, that's how I weigh in on the Permanent Death question.  But, I will keep up my commentary in regards to rjmc64's specific situation, the TPK by a rather ignoble beastie.The death by Gelatinous Cube thing would kind of bug me too.  They were on the way out and a few bad die rolls made for a TPK.  Yeah, bad luck happens.  But, there is an unsatisfactory feeling to this particular type of death.  I don't want to second guess rjmc64, or even criticize.  The characters had completed the big challenge and basically died to an "attrittion factor".  I like attrition and my player's have learned to look out for it.  When they start to see signs of attrition, they get worried.  But, this is just a gelatinous cube.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />  They won the war and then lost the battle to a big square of jello.  So yeah, I can see where there might be some disgruntlement.  And that is the key right there.  The players might be disgruntled.  Do you like the characters?  Do you like the players?  Do you like the campaign?  If you are saying "yes", then you should probably "fix" this problem.  I suppose you could say that the encounter didn't happen, nothing to see here, please move along.  But, why not build on the story instead?  Right now might be a great time to try out the Ghostwalk rules if you have them.  Or, do as some have suggested and move the game to the spirit realm.  The characters may be dead, by they aren't gone!Maybe there is a spirit realm where the Tower of Life exists.  Normally the raising spells guide the deceased past the defenses.  Maybe the defenses are guardians that have certain demands to get past them.  One wants a bit of life force (the level sacrifice for being raised).  One might demand that you can prove you were alive (usually done by having the remains available for raising).  Now, the PC's have to get into the Tower and bypass the guardians.  Perhaps it could be through a spiritual combat, perhaps through wits and wordplay, perhaps sheer diplomacy and force of personality, whatever challenges you want.  Perhaps the characters have to agree to becomes servants of Death.  Reassuring those that are afraid that death is just part of the cycle.  How do they know?  Well, they were dead...    Or, maybe the characters are dead, but they can still communicate in dreams.  Maybe they can contact an important NPC and convince the NPC that they should be raised.  Perhaps in exchange for service to the NPC.  There are a lot of possibilities and I would probably pick one of these in this particular situation.  It could be a quick RP encounter over the course of a single night, or over several sessions.  Depening on what you and your players want.  The keys for me would be to not trivialize the accomplishment of "beating" the Lich, not trivialing the death (even if it came about from a Gelatinous Cube), and making sure that character growth and development can be worked into the process.  Of course, that is just me.  It's your campaign!  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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