Which one do you prefer your character suffer? Death vs Rust Monster vs Level Drain

[Herschel]

Rust Monster: As others have said, it's just gear.

In most games dying was/is bad because new characters come in at 2/3 or 3/4 of the lowest character's xp. Raise and Res have their own drawbacks (although it was fun seeing all the elves get the celestial shaft ) And usually new characters got nothing for magical gear regardless of level. Time to search EVERY crevice in the module.

Level drain just suuuuuuuuuuuuuuucks. We had a guy in first edition going for the hard bard. When we were at the level he could finally be a bard, we were facing a lot of level drainers. He also had the party's thief skills. He never got to stay a bard long. By the time we retired those characters he was a bald, toothless, female, dwarven, level 1 bard.

 

[Voadam]

Rust Monster. It is just stuff, the character is more important. It can be fun to start from scratch and reboot with the same character occasionally.

Energy drain sucks unless it is for story purposes to bring an existing character into line with a given level for the party (I've volunteered for this to keep using an existing character in a new low level game).

Death is to be avoided, and I dislike pervasive resurrections.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

nothing of this

I say aging is the worst thing which can happen to you.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I say death, because it's either easily reversible or an excuse to create a new character (and character creation is the most fun part of the game). Also, death can be heroic/noble, while the other two are not. Level drain seems to be the clear loser, which I agree with, which is why I'm removing that from my 3.X game.

 

[jdrakeh]

Death and Level Drain are on pretty equal footing, assuming that Resurrection isn't off the table. So either of those. They're minor inconveniences at worst, while a Rust Monster can seriously screw you (there's no spell to instantly recreate destroyed items).

 

[Ariosto]

Remember, we're talking about the editions that specifically said there were no magic shops.

Really? A citation would be helpful, because I have no such memory (although I'm not very familiar with 2e peculiarities).

 

[Rechan]

I prefer death before all options. Because it means I get to make a new character and play something new.

 

[Ariosto]

(there's no spell to instantly recreate destroyed items)

How about a Wish?

 

[Betote]

Rust monster any day. It's the only option that doesn't involve part of my soul being sucked out by an undead abomination or having my guts spilled all over the floor of some random cave.

I've known about greedy people, but geez...

 

[jdrakeh]

How about a Wish?

True enough, but I've found that many DMs tend to restrict Wish spells moreso than Resurrection (in fact, I think I've only ever played in one D&D campaign where Wish spells were allowed).