What happens when a character dies in your campaign?

[Krieg]

The other characters loot the corpse.

 

[Piratecat]

and Morrus the player is required to commit sepaku ala Blackleaf. we don't ever shoot them.

Blackleaf died of poison, and her player hanged herself. Diaglo, you're squandering all of your credibility with this sort of misinformation!

 

[Henry]

Blackleaf died of poison, and her player hanged herself.

What a bummer! And here I was thinking she was trying to break the world's record for hanging from a lightbulb with her teeth!

I'll never look at that cartoon the same again.

 

[Goobermunch]

Well, once the PC has died, the party hangs out for about 10 minutes. Then, the character's ghost reforms on the ethereal and makes the decision whether to proceed into the True Afterlife or continue on as ghost.

Of course, since we play Ghostwalk, most of the time it's option two.

--G

 

[Goobermunch]

My baseline is the average party level, but that's entirely variable. Someone who started at a lower level, or is choosing this option because it'll net them a higher level character than the one that died, is probably going to be dissapointed.

My only other rule is that you don't ever start lower than the level you would have come back at, given the nearest reasonable raising magic for your parties APL.

On the whole, it hasn't been a huge problem.

So really, it's not average party level unless you started out above the average, right?

--G

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

Our general rule is one level below the party average. Whether by death or voluntary change. We had one player change her character not as a result of death. Her old character got pregnant when we switched bodies with a bunch of marionettes (I hate Ravenloft). She decided to give up the adventuring life to care for the baby. Speaking of which, the baby should be coming any day, we'll need to find that Rattle +5 vs. Monsters Under the Bed.

 

[Arnwyn]

New characters come in at 1/2 the level of the lowest level surviving party member (round up) if the lowest level surviving party member is less than 10th level, and 3/4 the level of the lowest level surviving party member (round up) if the lowest level surviving party member is 10th level or higher. In either case, the new character cannot come in higher then his/her level that he died at minus 2.

Yeah, it's tough and complicated, but it works for us. I probably don't recommend it for anyone else.

 

[Psion]

Some of the poll choices are close but not quite.

I let new characters come in *at one level below* *the party average*.

(Not one level below the original or the lowest).

 

[CrimsonTemplar]

Raise Dead or Resurrection or a new PC @ 1st.

 

[d4]

other -- i've never had a PC die in one of my campaigns.

if a player voluntarily retires a character, the new one will come in at the same level as their old character, or at most one level lower.