Story Fixes For Character Death

[mhacdebhandia]

Transcendence by Mike Mearls (a supplement for Monte Cook's Arcana Evolved) offers an interesting story fix for the death of a PC - though it's limited.

Background: the champion class is the Arcana Evolved replacement for/expansion of the paladin class. Each champion has a cause she fights for - either an abstract concept like Death or Justice, or a specific cause such as a nation or church or person.

Transcendence introduces replacement levels - they are similar to Wizards of the Coast's substitution levels (first introduced in the Planar Handbook and featured heavily in the Races series), except that substitution levels must be taken at specific levels and replacement levels can be taken at any time after your first level in the normal class progression, though some have prerequisites.

The champion gets a set of three replacement levels called the deathless crusader. If a champion who has performed five acts of true heroic bravery in pursuit of his cause (as determined by the DM) is slain, she can return to a kind of supernatural life (exchanging her highest level of champion for the first level of deathless crusader) in order to continue the fight.

It's intriguingly satisfying - it strongly reinforces the champion's raison d'etre, keys off a specific story requirement which cannot be predictably duplicated, and offers a flavourful and appropriate direction for the character to take in the future.

What other worthwhile story fixes for PC death have you seen?

 

[Mark Hope]

I used one years ago that was inspired by Tomas' armour in the Magician novel...

An ancient dwarven NPC warrior (called Keldon Tolgarak) was killed in a heroic battle against the undead. Rather than allow his soul to perish, his deity placed it in his magical armour.

Many years later, a PC dwarf (called Theo) finds the armour and uses it for many levels, assuming that it is nothing more than a suit of cool enchanted plate mail. Unfortunately, Theo winds up getting killed by a beholder's death ray. Keldon's soul emerges from the armour and takes possession of Theo's body, while Theo's soul winds up in the armour.

The player then gets to play this cool ancient warrior while the party figure out a way to give Keldon a new body and get Theo out of the armour and back into his own body (which involved a long, complicated quest and ritual of some sort).


Another idea was set up by the Ravenloft Feast of Goblyn's adventure. It features a shrine that curses PCs to come and serve at it as undead, after they have been killed. This happened to a cleric in the group. The party embarked on a mission to free her from Ravenloft and have her restored to life. The Dark Powers of Ravenloft agreed to let her go, so long as the PCs agreed to find someone to replace her (which, being noble souls, they of course did without further hesitation).

 

[sniffles]

Transcendence by Mike Mearls (a supplement for Monte Cook's Arcana Evolved) offers an interesting story fix for the death of a PC - though it's limited.

Background: the champion class is the Arcana Evolved replacement for/expansion of the paladin class. Each champion has a cause she fights for - either an abstract concept like Death or Justice, or a specific cause such as a nation or church or person.

Transcendence introduces replacement levels - they are similar to Wizards of the Coast's substitution levels (first introduced in the Planar Handbook and featured heavily in the Races series), except that substitution levels must be taken at specific levels and replacement levels can be taken at any time after your first level in the normal class progression, though some have prerequisites.

The champion gets a set of three replacement levels called the deathless crusader. If a champion who has performed five acts of true heroic bravery in pursuit of his cause (as determined by the DM) is slain, she can return to a kind of supernatural life (exchanging her highest level of champion for the first level of deathless crusader) in order to continue the fight.

It's intriguingly satisfying - it strongly reinforces the champion's raison d'etre, keys off a specific story requirement which cannot be predictably duplicated, and offers a flavourful and appropriate direction for the character to take in the future.

What other worthwhile story fixes for PC death have you seen?

Ooh, I like that replacement level concept. Very reminiscent of what happens to Gandalf in LOTR, or Captain Sheridan in Babylon 5. Let the character return without a level loss, but with some other type of limitations or compulsions to help guide the plot.