Too much incentive to stay dead

[hong]

Biography......sorry, I just had to laugh. I hope you were kidding.

"Please insert two more coins to continue..........." you can't just upload one persons impact from the story into someone new just for convience, if you want that, play a videogame.

Aw d00d, I was hoping to make the least substantive contribution to the thread, but you had to go and ruin EVERYTHING.

 

[Hussar]

-10 is not much of a buffer. It's very easy to go from marginal +ve hit points to -11 or lower in one hit.

What I'm doing ATM is: if you die, you have the option of reviving at the end of the fight, at -9 hp. Effectively it's like you never died at all. However, a TPK means it's all over.

To keep death a significant factor, have a -2 penalty to all d20 rolls (and AC) for a specified period after being knocked out. Say a week.

Taken from NWN2, where anything short of a TPK is recoverable from.

This and RValle's ideas are sweet. Yoinked. Thanks.

 

[Edgewood]

In that case, I'd campaign for an out of game gentleman's agreement that no one would agree to be raised, whether of the relevant faith or not.

It would be an excellent way of saying "shove off" to a rules-based attempt to turn the party against each other.

Interesting response. Considering that my players love this set up, I think it works well for them. Of course if anyone would have a problem with this idea, I of course would come up with a compromise that works for everyone. I suppose that I should quantify the statement of party tension. It's not tension between members, it's just the general tension that rises from the fact that having a cleric not of your faith makes you bit more careful in some of your decisions if being raised is something you would wish.

 

[MarkB]

PCs can buy items in D&D so there's no reason why the DM should pick them.

At any one time, PCs are more likely than not to be carrying around at least some stuff that they would not, ideally, have bought for themselves.

How about compromising - the player gets to spend 2/3rds of his wealth, the rest is accounted for by rolling randomly on an appropriate-level treasure table until you've generated items/coinage to match the remaining wealth. That would lead to a somewhat more realistically randomised assortment of possessions, while still letting the player define the majority of his character's gear.

 

[Mighty Veil]

I know what you mean. I tend to use Negative Levels instead of the level lost rule. Much easier when you are a DM and your player's PC is now weaker on you and your planned EL's.

I've been thinking though. Maybe a simple XP penalty is all that is needed instead of the Neg. level. Like, you now need 25% more XP to finish this level before you reach your next one.

The money lost is what hurts as a player. Not always does the dead guy have 5000 gp. Everyone else loses gold. If only the rules said: the gods demand a gift for life of either of you or of riches. Either lose a level (or Neg level, in my games' case) or sacrifice 5000 gp worth of wealth (could be gold, magic items, gear). If you don't have enough gold, then... I dunno? I guess you beg the other PCs for their's.

 

[James Heard]

Um, maybe I'm missing something, but the solution seems fairly obvious.

Change the bit where new PCs start at the same level with wealth according to the DMG wealth by level tables. Make new characters start a level behind and the DM picks their items, not the player.

That should settle that.

Personally, having the GM pick my items would pretty much "settle me" out of the game. If the GM wants to enter character creation then he get off his behind and start playing. I don't mind people telling me what I can't have on my character sheet, but I think it's dangerously rude once they start dictating what goes on there unless it's a one off.

Come to think of it, pushing characters a level behind automatically seems pretty rough too. A few missed saving throws and you're playing a guy completely unable to contribute along with the rest of the party. Since contributing and participating is part of the fun of the game, I'd say that's not something you're aiming for.

I like the penalties for "dying" for a period of time (though personally I think that it would be better to somehow work it out to be measured in encounters so the PCs don't just go "sleep it off" in the Inn)

If raise dead is made cheaper it leads to the problem of it being too easy to obtain in the world at large. For instance if it only cost 100gp many people could afford it. No one would be dying, except of old age.

I think tying the "number of times you can die", with the caveat that I like the idea above for ditching rez magic entirely, to character level works pretty well. That would mean that, even if it didn't cost anything except a penalty in an encounter or six, you still wouldn't get "immortal commoners" because only the most heroic and experienced would get the nod of fate to continue on fighting another day.

Even if you didn't use the "dying penalty" method and stuck with Raise Dead and such, if you push for character level maximums for dying you're still giving a ticking clock and decreasing timer for living another day. It certainly seems like it would be more fair than attaching it to Constitution and other methods I've used myself in the past, and it's not that hard to implement in 3E compared to AD&D where you had wonky experience/level issues.

 

[Yalius]

Just replace resurrection with reincarnation, but let the reincarnated character's player pick the race and class. Same effect as bringing in a new character, but the psyche and memories carry over, along with the campaign history.

 

[robberbaron]

IMC replacements for dead PCs come in at -1 level (with a minimum of party average -1, so unlucky players don't keep losing levels until they become no more than camp followers). Same for new characters by choice.
I give full kit with 100% player choice.
Levels are lost from Raising/Resurrection/Reincarnation.

A little while ago, one player was unhappy with the way his original character had turned out and wanted to change. A couple of others seemed interested as well. What I did was to offer a One Time Only opportunity to change character with no penalties.

Only the unhappy player took up the offer, so I'm not expecting any more complaints.

 

[kelson]

coming back from the dead should be hard. after all its not any fun if you cant lose anything by failing...

 

[ruleslawyer]

"Left for Dead" exists in so many house rules and even OGL games by this point (Conan for instance) that I'm surprised it hasn't been suggested as a variant in at least one WotC D&D book.

I much, much, much prefer spending fate points/glory points/whatever to avoid death to spending resources to bring people back from the dead. IMC, there are three ways to come back from the dead:

1) Getting treatment from someone with Healing Lore 8 within 2 rounds of being killed (I play Iron Heroes; HL 8 is basically a feat that can only be taken by a 13th+ level PC with lore-type abilities, like a spellcaster). This is basically a fancy way to end-run around the "-11 and you're dead, right now" problem.

2) Coming back as the undead.

3) An epic-/deity-level intervention.

Basically, #1 means you didn't really die at all; it's sort of a defibrillator approach. #2 has its obvious problems; and #3 is unlikely to ever happen unless the PCs are obscenely high-level and have earned the requisite favor.

I prefer shilsen's approach of making it really, REALLY hard for my PCs to die. However, if people die in my world, I prefer to keep them dead. Against this, having to incur the minor penalty of being disadvantaged against someone who gets to choose their gear is a mere inconvenience.