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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Pbartender" data-source="post: 5635979" data-attributes="member: 7533">Agreed.Agreed.Agreed.  But that's not what I was suggesting, anyway.Whereas, a game in which the DM is always fudging to save the lives of the PCs is no fun, likewise, a game wherein the DM is constantly stacking the deck to kill the PCs is just as unfun.But, as you said, that wasn't exactly the point of my original post...Right, but...  My point was that that particular situation exacerbated and highlighted the problems of a "Death Tax", as you so eloquently put it.  Think about what happens when you implement the "Death Tax" upon a character's death:One player-character falls marginally, but noticeably behind in experience, power and wealth.  Likewise, the party's experience, power and wealth take an equivalent hit.The DM now has to take the disparity into account with regards to encounters...  Either taking it easy on the higher level PCs or having monsters avoid the new PC.  Either way, then it stands to reason that he'd always arrange the EL of the situations to be slightly below party level so as to insure the new PC's ability to survive the encounter and live to catch up to the power level of the other PCs.So, what's the point of having a "Death Tax" at all?  If you use it and don't adjust encounter levels to compensate, then you risk running into the sort of extreme level stagnation death spiral that my group experienced.  If you use it and do compensate, then there's really no point to it.We've had between one and three character deaths per year, playing weekly 4-hour sessions.  In recent memory, that includes a four-characters-dead near TPK.  We have "near death experiences" (a character goes down and survives, but would not have without active help) perhaps once a month.So, while character death (or the threat of it) is not exactly common in our group, neither is it rare.That, I certainly won't argue with.Look, I'm not saying that there shouldn't be any risk of death in D&D.  As a DM, I'm all for killing a character, should that be the way things work out, I play each of the PCs' enemies with the appropriate amount of cunning and ruthlessness, and I'm utterly against pulling punches.I just no longer understand the point of the "Death Tax"...  What does it accomplish, that couldn't be done better using means more positive and entertaining for the players?</blockquote>

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