What do you do about PC deaths?

[Crothian]

A PC death is just another adventure. The party can try to breach the lands of the dfead to retrieve their friend or the dead person can make a deal to come back....

 

[Dagger75]

For raise dead and resurrection I let the PC choose if he wanted to lose a level or a con point. You would be surprised how often they would rather lose 1 point of con than the XP.

True Rez you didn't lose either.

Thats how I did it.

 

[Buttercup]

There isn't any resurection in my game, so dead is dead. However, the only time characters die in my game is when they catch a terminal case of stupidity. If it's just a case of the bad guys getting exceptionally good rolls, or of me creating an encounter that was too tough, then I fudge, fudge, fudge.

But really, I've found that eliminating resurection has a salutary effect on the PCs. They think things through and sometimes they even remember that running away is an option.

 

[DM_Matt]

I guess I'm pretty lenient. We have a Death at -Con instead of -10 rule and very little save-or-die magic, which severely cuts down on deaths. Also, the way my group divides trasure gives an equal share to a "party fund," which is used for shared/mutually beneficial items as well as ressurrection. The few deaths since I took over the campaign at L11 were all rectified by the party fund buying a true res. Additionally, since the party is the main team in a large mercenary organization with some well-defined NPCs and retired PCs, players always have the option of bringing in a new character at the level they died at who can be said to have been promoted from another team.

 

[VirgilCaine]

So... what do you guys do when a PC dies?

IMC, anyone can get resurrected, if you want to deal with demons or efreet, etc. If you were a hero or a good king, you'll probably get resurrected. Not for free, far from it, you'll have to pay twice the value of the component and do some favors for the church too.

 

[Zweischneid]

How does it benefit you as the GM to kill off a character anyway? I mean sure if someone does something stupid that deserves that they be killed (like leap at a well guarded emperor with a poison dagger) then by all means, but if some ogre in a forrest somewhere simply does a critical that kills the character, whats the point? All it does is create hassles for you as you now have to think of a reason for this new character to be there because the party is a week into the forest with no real intentions of returning to town any time soon.

Where's the thrill of sneaking through an Ogre-infested wood if there's no danger to die? I don't go off to do fool-hardy, chancy or deadly things in real life (mostly), I'll simulate it in an RPG. But if your afraid to get killed Pen & Paper, to put your life at stake for your cause (as heroes often do), it kinda kills the whole point of gaming (i.e. simulating all the adventurous and brave action most people tend not to attempt with their own real-life at stake).

I'd also wonder why you'd go through all the trouble of calculating all those hitpoints, BAB, levels, initiative, movement per round, Armor Class, etc.., etc... if the outcome of a given fight is clear from the beginning anyways? Seems like quite abit of unnessecary work.
Just leave the dice at home, sell your Rulebooks on Ebay and move to a free-form tale of brave adventurers in the wood, like in a camp-fire tale or fantasy novel.

 

[Capellan]

It seems to me that the rules for both raise dead and creating a new character kinda suck for the player in question. Both of them cause you to lose a level which hurts a lot in DnD.

Haven't found it a problem. D&D has a built in means of reducing differences between the levels of PCs (at least, if you use the standard XP table or a multiple thereof). I've seen characters who were 3 levels lower than anyone else (due to missing sessions rather than dying, but the principle is the same) come shooting up to within 1 level of the other players in only a few sessions ... give it a little longer and they'd be caught up with the rest of us.

 

[Evilhalfling]

I reduce level as per book rules, but also still award that sessions xp -
lower level charaters get +20% xp (as I use standardized awards)
Raising the dead isn't free, and different cultures think about it in different ways, most have some cultural barrier. Many players have chosen to make new characters instead. My games usually run from 3rd-12th so finding an allied cleric is sufficent time is an issue.
Culture barriers include - (one per area)
Hero's who die but were sucessfull, have moved on to just reward, they arn't needed.
The church now owns your life, and society sees you as their pawn.
Only people of sufficent rank are worth of rasing. (military campaign)
A council of judgement decideds if you are worthy.
Only raise members of MY race, unless racial/national intrests are at stake.
If done by a party member, the cultural bias can be avoided - but many clerics will be reluctant do do so.

also 5,000-15,000 diamonds are not common, the party was overjoyed to find one in a mages treasury. Basically it was an insurance policy.

 

[fusangite]

There isn't any resurection in my game, so dead is dead. However, the only time characters die in my game is when they catch a terminal case of stupidity. If it's just a case of the bad guys getting exceptionally good rolls, or of me creating an encounter that was too tough, then I fudge, fudge, fudge.

But really, I've found that eliminating resurection has a salutary effect on the PCs. They think things through and sometimes they even remember that running away is an option.

Buttercup, we are on exactly the same page here -- although I fudge a little less than you do perhaps, though, given an extreme situation I have yet to encounter, perhaps I'd fudge just as much. I use this approach in part, as you do, to make people take death seriously but also because I think there are real problems with D&D conceiving of raising the dead as a form of healing. In most worlds I run, people would think of raising the dead as a form of necromancy and would not associate it with healing at all.

 

[Wombat]

Our group uses Arcana Unearthed, so raising the dead is very, very difficult

And we like it that way

For the most part, dead stay dead, unless there are some pesky undead around looking for allies...