Rezzing

[Branduil]

You can resurrect the dead... however, what comes back isn't the person you wanted.

 

[Banshee16]

QFT.

No gameplay death + no gameplay resurrection. This is how SWSE handles the issue, and I hope it's another improvement 4e will incorporate.

I don't like that at all...where's the risk, the danger? If characters can never die, players won't feel that there's any form of cost to their decisions.

And it's just, unrealistic.

Banshee

 

[Wormwood]

I don't like that at all...where's the risk, the danger? If characters can never die, players won't feel that there's any form of cost to their decisions.

By that logic, there is no risk or danger in *any* D&D game after True Resurrection becomes available.

And it's just, unrealistic.

I prefer D&D as heroic fiction, not fantasy wargaming. Thus, realism can go hang.

 

[M.L. Martin]

I don't like that at all...where's the risk, the danger? If characters can never die, players won't feel that there's any form of cost to their decisions.

And it's just, unrealistic.

Banshee

There can be cost without death . . . but most of the methods doing so either require injuring a character without easy cures, which can be damaging to concepts, or require a major shift to the D&D paradigm by anchoring characters more deeply in the campaign world.

 

[2WS-Steve]

There's already a mechanism for not having most NPCs come back from the dead. They have to be willing to. Most NPCs live lifes according to their faith, and wind up in an appropriate after life, and don't have a compelling reason to come back, even if someone has the magic and material components to bring them back. Only NPCs which have some unfinished business (i.e., whichever ones the DM wants) would choose to come back. PC heroes are some of those rare exceptions - they typically die leaving lots of stuff unfinished (such as the adventure they are on when they die, companions who are still alive and need their help, etc.)

This one works in some cases -- but not that often I think.

For one thing, pretty much anybody who's getting assassinated is getting assassinated because they're in the middle of doing some important business that the bad guys don't want them doing, whether that's fairly running a kingdom or what-not.

I also figure there are a fair number of afterlifes that people would rather put off going to if they could possibly avoid it.

The way the rez rules have worked feel like they've always required a lot of DM hand-waving to make it work anything like the kinds of stories we're trying to emulate (how many rezzes even in Order of the Stick?) or see an awful lot of house-ruling. Those are the sorts of rules it's good to do some work on.

 

[Doug McCrae]

stuff that you almost never see in the fiction we're trying to emulate, including D&D fiction.

We're trying to emulate fiction?

Also we shouldn't be judging D&D the game on how well it emulates D&D fiction. It should be the other way round.

 

[Sun Knight]

If my character dies then he is dead. Our group doesn't use action point debt so if you are out of action points then you are screwed. Death should mean you are dead. The story is over, finito, time for a new character sheet. I just don't understand why people want to play with the kidgloves on. Without the thrill of death, the threat of danger, where is the fun in playing?

 

[Treebore]

If my character dies then he is dead. Our group doesn't use action point debt so if you are out of action points then you are screwed. Death should mean you are dead. The story is over, finito, time for a new character sheet. I just don't understand why people want to play with the kidgloves on. Without the thrill of death, the threat of danger, where is the fun in playing?

Yep. Even when Raise Dead, then Ressurection, become options, all the players I have seen over the years still hate their characer dying. It is still a big disappointment. Plenty of "punishment" to keep the tention going. Only someone who metagames and doesn't get into it would not be affected. To me, thats not "playing" anyways, and makes me wonder why they do play.

 

[Sun Knight]

I know I hate it when my character dies but then that is the risk when going adventuring. Without risk, there is no fun.

 

[shilsen]

I know I hate it when my character dies but then that is the risk when going adventuring. Without risk, there is no fun.

Actually, that is one of many risks.