@Shallowsoul
For someone who complains about player entitlement a lot, you seem pretty entitled yourself here.
If the DM puts any semblance of a video game to your TTRPG, do you flip the table and roar at him for his heresy?
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If he wants to be dead then his dying isn't a bad thing. It would be selfish to keep him alive or bring him back to life. I would have just killed him myself to accomplish that.
'Wants to be dead' and 'doesn't want to come back' are similar but different. Do you randomly kill friends and coworkers on the off chance they will like the afterlife better?
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@Shallowsoul
For someone who complains about player entitlement a lot, you seem pretty entitled yourself here.
If the DM puts any semblance of a video game to your TTRPG, do you flip the table and roar at him for his heresy?
Are you actually reading what I post?
Entitlement has nothing to do with this at all.
If I want to taste an apple I don't reach for the orange.
Do you just not get it?
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Again, I'm arguing extremes because that honestly seems to me like the position being put forward when you remove all penalty for death.It's not the argument I'm putting forward. You have a tendency to view the other side in a discussion as the polar opposite, instead of just as a different point of view.
It does functionally remove all penalty for death, if you include removing the gold cost for restoration.
A proposed middle ground.
Step 1: Cut a hole in a box...no wait...wrong plan.
Real Step 1: Removed the gold costs for Raise Dead (and restoration too, probably)
Step 2: Remove the negative level penalty (What?!?! Are you mad!?!?!)
Step 3: Replace both with a 5% xp lost for the raised character. If that XP loss lowers the character below their current level, they have a negative level until they reach their current level per the XP chart.
Problems solved.
1. Is is a real and permanent penalty to be feared? Yes
2. Is it level proportionate? Yes
3. Is it a party penalty? No
How about that for a solution that addresses all concerns.
Edit: We could have this be the penalty for removing permanent negative levels as well, if we remove the gold costs.
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@Shallowsoul
For someone who complains about player entitlement a lot, you seem pretty entitled yourself here.
If the DM puts any semblance of a video game to your TTRPG, do you flip the table and roar at him for his heresy?
I just shake my head and don't come back.
I have an X-Box and a Wii, both hooked up to a projector. love Syrim, Mass Effect, etc...Marvel Alliance and Mario Cart are group video games I enjoy playing on the big ass projector wall.
That is as different an experience to me as when I take the game board off the pool table to play pool instead. And aside for occasionally using the bridge to reach a far away piece, and occasionally thinking about going Indiana Jones with a pool ball, I don't look for ways to incorporate pool into my RPG.
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I found some extra irony in the fact that I disagree with SKR's notions 95% of the time, yet here I agreed with his view.Just houserule it and stay away from Society play. I mean seriously, the designers aren't going to change the way it works.The irony is, this is pretty much exactly the attitude Sean K Reynolds was advocating back on page 2. People felt it necessary to tell him his playstyle sounded horrid :D
I rest my case.
I think some people here just lack perspective.
Some people have deaths in TTRPGs different from the "norm", while some video games have deaths different from the "norm", the norm here being some abstract term for the latter case at least while RAW can be seen as the norm for the former. What I wonder here is why is one better than the other all of a sudden? It just smells of accusing people of having "badwrongfun", whether they play video games or TTRPGs.
Sure, but if you're doing it for some asinine reason, don't expect any sympathy from others then.
And if you hadn't discussed how things worked beforehand with the DM, it's your own fault for joining such a game.
Btw, compared to video games with respawning mechanics, most games have harsher penalties than highlevel characters suffer in d&d. Apart from single life games and modes, penalties are usually heavy in xp. In diablo 2 you lost about 1/3 level at higher difficulties ( havent played d3), in minecraft you respawn at level 1 with 0 exp. Thats a fair bit harsher than two percent of wbl.It sounds like you haven't played many video games in the last 5 years. Most AAA games either have you spawn at a checkpoint or reload last saved game. Its very rare for there to be a penalty with either.
For multiplayer PvP games that is true, though you do lose your gear and often teammates can't pick it up, but not as much for single player or cooperation games, especially not RPG's.
- In diablo 3 there's a gold penalty in that monsters are reset and you lose 10% durability. It's a gold piece cost much like the one in D&D. Has single life mod.
- In torchlight 2 you lose 10% of gold regardless of how much gold you have. Comparing to D&D, that's as if raising a level 17 character cost 53000 gold. Has single life mode.
- In torchlight 1 (2009) you lose a percentage of gold (don't know exact sum). Has single life mode.
- In minecraft you lose _all xp_, and often all your items are destroyed so even if you have teammates close by they may be lost due to fire or lava. Has single life mode.
- In neverwinter nights 2 you can't get killed unless TPK, but when you do, there's no resurrection, just loading from saves.
- Neither Dragon Age nor Mass Effect has respawns and work similar to nwn2.
- In Oblivion and Skyrim I think there's some way to raise the dead but it's not easily available and if you die, there's no respawn, just save loading.
Btw, compared to video games with respawning mechanics, most games have harsher penalties than highlevel characters suffer in d&d. Apart from single life games and modes, penalties are usually heavy in xp. In diablo 2 you lost about 1/3 level at higher difficulties ( havent played d3), in minecraft you respawn at level 1 with 0 exp. Thats a fair bit harsher than two percent of wbl.In almost every Paper and Dice roleplaying game outside of the D&D family, your character only gets one spin around the wheel. Dead means dead. Ressurrection mechanics are the norm in roleplaying games only if your "norm" stops at TSR/WOTC/Paizo.
Yes, agreed, and I've stated so upthread. It's the statements that easy resurrection is the domain of computer games I'm opposing; rather, I'm saying that D&D by default has rather easy resurrection and that most computer RPG games has similar access or harder access.
A game like counterstrike or CoD of course does not have this, but that's because you don't play a single character, rather you "possess" new ones all the time.
If one is playing "video-gamey" by having easy access to resurrections, does that mean whenever I play hardcore minecraft, diablo 2, or play ToME, ADOM, or Nethack - I play "table-topey"?
If one is playing "video-gamey" by having easy access to resurrections, does that mean whenever I play hardcore minecraft, diablo 2, or play ToME, ADOM, or Nethack - I play "table-topey"?
Apparently that's a fact around here.
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Imagining save and reload everytime you rolled badly is exactly what I am trying to avoid becoming the standard.
If in your game, you are trying to create a world, unless you are specifically trying to create a setting where dead is inconsequential, why would you make death inconsequential?
Could that kind of setting be fun? Sure. Is playing that way wrong? Not if everyone is having fun. Do most people think that is a way to describe the settings of most RPG games.
I don't think so.
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How are ressurection spells in any way comparable to the save and reload mechanic?
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But it really has no bearing on the overall conversation. Also the implied condescension is just that. I know you're trying not to be, but it still is.
There's no more implied condescension in his post than there is in yours. After all, you broke out the "I'm not a clueless noob" card...he just upped the ante on what the requirements to be a "clueless noob" were.
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I consider save reloading to be a form of Resurrection. Probably the friendliest and most common form too if you save frequently.
It's not though, since it's a reversal of time. When someone dies in pathfinder, things continue to happen.
Imagine in Pathfinder if you could reload every time...
Which has NOTHING AT ALL to do with this thread.
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How are ressurection spells in any way comparable to the save and reload mechanic?Because they both lower the penalties for screwing up.
So does having saving throws. That doesn't make saving throws similar to resurrection.
If you can undo the consequences of your actions, then its comparable to a save and reload mechanic.
Then diplomacy is comparable to a save and reload mechanic since you can improve the attitude of someone you insulted.
Btw, compared to video games with respawning mechanics, most games have harsher penalties than highlevel characters suffer in d&d. Apart from single life games and modes, penalties are usually heavy in xp. In diablo 2 you lost about 1/3 level at higher difficulties ( havent played d3), in minecraft you respawn at level 1 with 0 exp. Thats a fair bit harsher than two percent of wbl.It sounds like you haven't played many video games in the last 5 years. Most AAA games either have you spawn at a checkpoint or reload last saved game. Its very rare for there to be a penalty with either.I remember an RPG maker who was looking to reach out more toward the video game crowd with their new version. I believe it was WOTC.
How did that work out, I forget?
Lol, ciretose!
As for the earlier comment about the person being considered a "newer player" who has been playing since 1992, obviously someone with 18-20 years experience is a very experienced player so it is not meant as being condascending, but to those of us that have been playing for 30+ years you kinda are. And here is why. Missing the early days you come to the game with a different perspective that us. This is neither good nor bad, just different. Does this make any sense? I think that is part of the heart of the discussion here and why it has been going for 650+ posts.
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Btw, compared to video games with respawning mechanics, most games have harsher penalties than highlevel characters suffer in d&d. Apart from single life games and modes, penalties are usually heavy in xp. In diablo 2 you lost about 1/3 level at higher difficulties ( havent played d3), in minecraft you respawn at level 1 with 0 exp. Thats a fair bit harsher than two percent of wbl.It sounds like you haven't played many video games in the last 5 years. Most AAA games either have you spawn at a checkpoint or reload last saved game. Its very rare for there to be a penalty with either.I remember an RPG maker who was looking to reach out more toward the video game crowd with their new version. I believe it was WOTC.
How did that work out, I forget?
Depends. Do you mean when they published 4E or 3.X ?
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I consider save reloading to be a form of Resurrection. Probably the friendliest and most common form too if you save frequently.It's not though, since it's a reversal of time. When someone dies in pathfinder, things continue to happen.
Imagine in Pathfinder if you could reload every time...Which has NOTHING AT ALL to do with this thread.
Well...if you are arguing the mechanic of video games has taught us this mentality, it actually does have a lot to do with this thread.
Your description of reversal of time ninjaed me. That is the mechanic in play in most video games that allow what others are describing as a mechanic similar to raise dead.
Only it isn't. As you correctly point out, that is a "do over" mechanic, and adding that type of mechanic to Pathfinder everyone agrees would be a mistake.
My arguement is death without any penalty is too similar to a video game do over.
Relative to other games (and, well, reality) death does not have to be permanent in D&D and Pathfinder. It is a huge boon, and no one is trying to take that away.
What I, and others, are arguing is that it should still have some sting to it when you die.
In a video game, you aren't generally coming back from the dead. The functional equivilent in Pathfinder would be redoing an encounter if it goes poorly. In game sotry continuity terms, it never happened.
Something I don't think is being advocated for becoming the norm.
Any comment on the 5% suggestion?
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You can have a penalty for dying that isn't necessarily tied to a death tax of a diamond and restoration spell.
Even if you reduce the physical cost of raising the dead there is still an inherent time cost associated (most clerics aren't necessarily going to have a raise dead prepared every day and spell scrolls of raise dead do cost a good big of money) which means that the PCs are hampered by at least a day in terms of raising the dead.
You could extend that time even by mandating that raise dead needs to take place in a space hallow (or unhallowed) to the PC's diety of choice. That means you'd still need to return to town or find a local shrine to the god in order to cast the raise dead spell.
This would give the BBEG a good amount of time to reinforce their lair or advance their plots.
You could also do some other materially significant penalties (like being raised from the dead ages you a year or more) or pure cosmetic effects (your hair is now bleached white). Another idea would be to have your diety of choice charge you with a quest that you must accomplish (like a geas). This would actually add some storytelling complications to the spell effect.
What I'm trying to get at is that there are times that there should be a penalty for failure but that penalty for failure shouldn't result in the most efficient and effective choice by a party being leave the PC dead and loot the body.
Well...if you are arguing the mechanic of video games has taught us this mentality, it actually does have a lot to do with this thread.
Which mentality?
What I, and others, are arguing is that it should still have some sting to it when you die.
Sure, you know I too argue that. We have in some ways stricter handling of death in our games as no-one that's been dead more than half an hour has any real chance to come back. That's not the argument people make when they drag video games into it as an argument.
The functional equivilent in Pathfinder would be redoing an encounter if it goes poorly. In game sotry continuity terms, it never happened.
But that's rarely an option. I know few encounters from AP's or home games where it's just "oh well so we died, let's come back later". In most cases, there's severe cases of bad for failing an encounter (though most encounters are of course quite hard to fail at, with only the important ones being really hard).
As an example, just look at the first encounter of the RotRL, which is extreme "easy mode". Should you fail that we're probably looking at a torched building or two and even people dying due to the party's failing. And there's no redo - you fail, you fail.
Any comment on the 5% suggestion?
I prefer alexandrian HP and then it isn't really necessary, as death is less of an absolute. Storywise, we view it as the soul leaving the body at death and beginning it's journey towards the afterlife. Healing the body can allow the soul to return if it hasn't gone too far on it's journey (that is 1hp/round). There's no real need for an additional penalty as if the soul goes too far they're beyond reach, and that happens quite quickly - anytime you die, you're at a severe risk of not coming back.
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2) and 3) contradict each other. If you are bending the rules back and forth to keep the story flowing as you want it, you are constantly introducing deus ex machina in your games.
If something irks me is playing with a GM that want to tell a tale in which I am a passive participant.
"You have done X and the consequence should be Y, but as the story should go on you get B." Sorry, I prefer to suffer for my mistakes and bad rolls to be the actor in pre written play.2 is a concept called "failing forward" sometimes. Here are some games I would recommend checking out, they all advocate it's use explicitly in their text (might not use the term "failing forward" but the concept is present):
13th Age
Dungeon World
Pretty much all the FATE games
Burning WheelI can tell you, the concepts do not contradict each other. And I am not advocating the thing that irks you. That irks me as well. The part with Perception is from a game called Trail of Cthulhu. The game is designed to be a detective game, not a dungeon crawl. If the players don't find the major clues, they can't advance the plot. So the game tells you to just give them the major clues. These aren't necessarily beneficial clues (it is a Cthulhu game after all), but rather just a means of telling the players where they might have to go next.
If the players want a benefit from the clues they find, they have to expend resources in that game. In PF terms, I'd do it like this:
Scenario: party comes across a caravan slaughtered.
Automatic information: they find a corpse of an orc, maybe a couple arrows, the caravan was definitely attacked by orcs.
High Perception Check: they'd learn something valuable, like evidence that the orcs used magic, or a common tactic that they need to be prepared for. Same with high skill checks in knowledge, or survival for tracking, etc.The automatic information is so that the players have enough information to advance along the story if they choose....
If a player fails a climb check, instead of having the fall, I might have a piece of gear come lose, or there's an ambush waiting at the top. I don't want to sit and have them stare at the wall for 5 min coming up with another solution, I want to get to the action.
Your words. You change the outcome of my actions to keep the story going as "it should go".
What you describe in your later post is very different, it is placing the pieces of a puzzle in a way that allow me see them.
The first version is you playing the game while I am a semi passive participant, the second is giving a accessible image of what is happening.
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SKR argued way back in the early days of the thread that in the age of people growing up with video games, etc, etc...which is the mentality I was referencing.
As to your Alexandrian, I also prefer a chance of not returning being the "solution" to removing the gold (Remember, I agree with Sean that the gold cost isn't the way to go) but I am trying to come up with a compromise.
I have no problem with "Sometimes dead is dead" but others seem to think this is unacceptable, so I'm looking for a middle groud.
"Hampered for a day" is not a cost in any way worthy of death.
Hey all!
Just popping in to see if Sean posted yet.
I'm hoping there's some merit in what I'd listed in my previous post.
I'll stop back soon! I'm most curious to see if I'd hit on any of the elements Sean had in mind, and if not, curious about the answer to Sean's seemingly simple, yet sublime question.-Pax
I'm also popping back in hoping the Pax Veritas post has grabbed the attention of SKR. I thought at first it was an unanswerable question, but Pax Veritas surprised me and quantified the seemingly unquantifiable. Is this the game mechanics reason SKR has asked for?
The game mechanics question is "Why would it unbalance the game if raise dead didn't cost 5,000 gp?"
If 2nd-level characters could have +2 armor for 450 gp, it would unbalance the CR system, which expects characters of that level to be hittable by a certain range of attack bonus. If 2nd-level character could have a wand of cure moderate wounds for 450 gp, it would unbalance the expectations about how many encounters could be faced in the day due to the extra healing resources.
If a 2nd-level character who died could continue playing for 450 gp instead of being replaced by a character of equal power, how would that unbalance the underlying math of the game?
EDIT: I'm assuming that this is SKR's point, btw, since he favorited this post of mine asking the question earlier in the thread.
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It kind of looks like SKR bowed out, which is probably the smart move considering who he is and the impact of what he says (another good reason for them to have an alias).
I think Pax explained well why the numbers were the numbers, but it seemed to me the issue was why have a penalty to the party for bringing back an ally at all.
Which I think everyone more or less agrees with.
What we are left with are some people who are saying death doesn't require any special penalty, and some saying it does.
Obviously, I fall on the later side of the debate.
The "video game" argument falls apart when you realize that the narrative of most video games isn't that the hero you are playing dies and is brought back from the dead, but rather that they never died, because you went back to a prior save point and never did the thing that made you dead.
That isn't a narrative flow I think anyone would argue is the default for Pathfinder.
So what is the argument for removing all penalty from death. This whole argument has been backwards from the start, IMHO, since the status quo is that it has a significant penalty, the history is it has a significant penalty, so removing this penalty is the change being requested, not the other way around.
In other words, the onus is on those seeking the nerf.
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The game mechanics question is "Why would it unbalance the game if raise dead didn't cost 5,000 gp?"
If 2nd-level characters could have +2 armor for 450 gp, it would unbalance the CR system, which expects characters of that level to be hittable by a certain range of attack bonus. If 2nd-level character could have a wand of cure moderate wounds for 450 gp, it would unbalance the expectations about how many encounters could be faced in the day due to the extra healing resources.
If a 2nd-level character who died could continue playing for 450 gp instead of being replaced by a character of equal power, how would that unbalance the underlying math of the game?
How would it change the underlying math of the game to have all, NPCs and enemies brought back for those same costs?
"It was tragic, the goblin came and killed my baby! Although, you know, it was cheaper to bring her back since she was so young and low level, so we had that going for us..."
Or if we remove all costs, risks and penalties
"It was tragic, the goblin came and killed my baby! So many people died that day, we had to wait weeks with her in the gentle repose line..."
That doesn't change the math of the game, the relative power of PCs and enemies or the level at which certain buffs and power-ups are available. That's a setting concern. I can imagine a world in which raise dead is available only to the very wealthy and I can imagine one in which wandering clerics raise people at will; both could use the Pathfinder RPG ruleset, although the feel of the campaigns would be very different.
Honestly, if there are enough 9th-level clerics around to raise NPCs, the verisimilitude question becomes "Why, in a world with so many high-level characters do 1st-level adventurers have to spring into action to save the day at all?"
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The question you asked is exactly my point.
Death is the end of your career UNLESS you are able and willing to do something to change that outcome. And the thing should not be easy to do, given the reward.
If your party really cares your 2nd level character, there are things you can do to bring them back, currently in the game. These are generally going to be hard things involving difficult choices, sacrifice, possibly even the death of another character. But it can be done. In nearly all discussed options and scenarios, this is true.
But if your party doesn't care enough to do those things, why should it just happen?
Even video games generally don't bring back the dead as part of the general narrative flow, at least none that take story even half way seriously. And those that do, invariably either make it something next to impossible to do, or something that fundimentally changes how everything works in the setting.
Making return from the dead a simple operation cheapens the game. Making it impossible is not what anyone is arguing for, what we are arguing against is making it basically a speedbump.
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Full disclosure: last post I read.
I've no idea what's going on today, but the forums ate my post the first four times I tried to make it. There might have been several answers to these things already. I'll catch up later. Sorry.
Starting off with a response to ciretose's question about the 5% thing.
REPOST SAVED POST GO!
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I don't know that I particularly like the 5% auto-fail rate... but then again, I'm the kind that (in-game anyway) tends not to like things beyond their control (I'm actually pretty cool with not being in control in real life).
That's one of the reasons I offered the 1+1d6 negative levels idea with (CON penalties taking the place of negative levels and an optional 5k value to minimize), because that way a person comes back substantially weaker for a while, and more susceptible to returning to death (thus the 'sting' of death), but slowly refreshes to life thereafter.
Personally, of all the suggestions, I like the concept of negotiating with a spirit to raise the dead the best. But that's not going to suit all play styles.
The 5% isn't a bad idea, for certain play styles, but it's not mine. I can definitely see how it would be a great idea for groups like yours, though, ciretose!
The 1+1d6 negative levels (or CON drain) for death <with optional 5k for minimize> is harsh at low levels, but surmountable (barring extremely low CON to start with).
The "familiarity"/"mishap" rules for raise (like those with teleport, etc) are actually really compelling story-wise, though they'd potentially be extremely frustrating mechanically.
The "no cost rez" that Sean suggested is actually a perfectly fine solution, if you adjust your perception of what it is we're talking about: fifth level spell slots represent insane power over reality. That bears out with what's going on there.
The 5k cost that's the current standard makes sense as a kind of default/'compromise' presumption that everyone generally agrees on as being 'not ideal', but it kind of sort of scratches the itch of those who need death to sting and those who need death to be surmountable.
The lower-level-raise-dead is also a perfectly fine option, but you've got to be careful about it for, like anything, it can break verisimilitude, if you're not.
Speaking of verisimilitude: video games. Video games come from a large, broad, and extremely diverse array of production ideas, basic concepts, and situations. Accusing something of being videogamey can be quite honoring (to me), if you take something like Ico, Shadow of the Colossus (which, incidentally, allows limitless re-raises and pretty much has no penalty whatsoever for failure except for time/hassle, and still manages to be one of the more emotional and impacting stories I've witnessed), or several other video games.
But there is a mentality, generally found on forums, which seems to equate video-gamey feels with negative and poor choices in game design.
Just to clarify: that's not a real argument.
Do TTRPGs take cues from video games? Yes, absolutely. Do video games take cues from TTRPGs? Yes, absolutely. You know what else informs TTRPGs and video games? Comics, movies, music, real life, fantasy and scifi books, myth, legend, religion, science, fun, economics, and serious thought (all of which, by the way, have represented somewhere within their corpus both the concepts of 'dying' and being 'raised', and a 'reset' button). Certain ones influence certain things more than others, sure, but just using "like a video game" doesn't really tell me (or anyone) anything other than "I like video games to never influence my TTRPGs" which... isn't really valid.
If a TTRPG presents me with the option to reset something that I can start up in advance and play through again with additional knowledge (which did exist in certain 3.5 and psionics with careful allocation of resources): okay. That's still not "video-gamey" (at least not equivalent to me) because the world created by playing TTRPGs is dynamic, ever-shifting, always changing, and deeply interpersonal. Playing PF or D&D is not a thing you can do by yourself well. Playing many video games is. Playing with a responsive GM is never even close to playing with an unresponsive set of predetermined rules mechanics that are completely inflexible and highly limit your potentially attempted actions.
Now, if said reset button was easy to do, well, I could understand the argument against it. But unless you literally went up to a save point, selected the "Save" option, and had a file detailing exactly where you are, what your level is, and all that, I would hardly call "respawning" in TTRPGs similar to "respawning" in video games... and even then, it's a much larger hassle to respawn in TTRPGs because, daggum the paper work!
So, can we please, please, please drop the "video game" argument. It's not relevant to this discussion. It may make some feel like a 'video game', but that's hardly actually turning the TT-game into a video game. I get the idea behind it. We all do. It's still not a valid argument.
Making return from the dead a simple operation cheapens the game. Making it impossible is not what anyone is arguing for, what we are arguing against is making it basically a speedbump.
Actually, you've been arguing for a different height of a speed bump. Your XP suggestion is literally a speed bump in that it slows progression down.
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Making return from the dead a simple operation cheapens the game. Making it impossible is not what anyone is arguing for, what we are arguing against is making it basically a speedbump.Actually, you've been arguing for a different height of a speed bump. Your XP suggestion is literally a speed bump in that it slows progression down.
Don't confuse what I think is a fair compromise for my position.
If it were my decision there would be no gold cost, but it would have a 5% chance to fail, failing would require a fort save or you die permanently, and you could only be raised a maximum of 9 times.
The reason I want either something like the %5 or what I propose is I think the game needs a point where you go "Sorry, you're adventuring days are over and it is time to hang them up."
In 3.5, if you kept dying, you feel to far behind your party. Weaker characters were weeded out, and it made sense why all 1st level adventurers never made it to higher levels.
That is a good thing, in my opinion. It rewards not dying.
I think the gold is kind of silly, and I also think if you aren't going to really lose a level (understandably since that was a pain to calculate) you need to lose something to separate survivors from those who failed to survive.
So my position would remove cost in exchange for a constant true failure risk and a max number of times you can die.
The 5% is just a compromise I can live with that seems to meet the criteria set forth by the other side.
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So, yesterday was odd.
GAH FRIGGIN' FORUMS. I can access literally any and every website I want except for Paizo forums. WHY. Originally, this was written at something like six? seven? something like that. Then I tried posting it. That... didn't work.
So today it seems to be functioning well. Yay!
So, the video game thing is apparently done. Cool.Now as to...
I'm also popping back in hoping the Pax Veritas post has grabbed the attention of SKR. I thought at first it was an unanswerable question, but Pax Veritas surprised me and quantified the seemingly unquantifiable. Is this the game mechanics reason SKR has asked for?It kind of looks like SKR bowed out, which is probably the smart move considering who he is and the impact of what he says (another good reason for them to have an alias).... actually, I'd tend to think he's a bit too busy with Superstar to bother focusing on the other threads right now. He'll probably become more active after this again.
So there's my day-long delayed post that I saved into a document.
EDIT: just to be clear, it probably wasn't worth saving, but, bother it all, I wrote it, so it's finally posted. :P :)|
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 8
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Making return from the dead a simple operation cheapens the game. Making it impossible is not what anyone is arguing for, what we are arguing against is making it basically a speedbump.Actually, you've been arguing for a different height of a speed bump. Your XP suggestion is literally a speed bump in that it slows progression down.Don't confuse what I think is a fair compromise for my position.
If it were my decision there would be no gold cost, but it would have a 5% chance to fail, failing would require a fort save or you die permanently, and you could only be raised a maximum of 9 times.
The reason I want either something like the %5 or what I propose is I think the game needs a point where you go "Sorry, you're adventuring days are over and it is time to hang them up."
In 3.5, if you kept dying, you feel to far behind your party. Weaker characters were weeded out, and it made sense why all 1st level adventurers never made it to higher levels.
That is a good thing, in my opinion. It rewards not dying.
I think the gold is kind of silly, and I also think if you aren't going to really lose a level (understandably since that was a pain to calculate) you need to lose something to separate survivors from those who failed to survive.
So my position would remove cost in exchange for a constant true failure risk and a max number of times you can die.
The 5% is just a compromise I can live with that seems to meet the criteria set forth by the other side.
I'd argue it rewards not growing attached to your character rather than not dying. So long as I can replace Mack the Paladin with Zack the Paladin, his mechanically identical twin brother, then you're not penalizing death at all. You're only penalizing roleplaying.
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 8
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I'm also popping back in hoping the Pax Veritas post has grabbed the attention of SKR. I thought at first it was an unanswerable question, but Pax Veritas surprised me and quantified the seemingly unquantifiable. Is this the game mechanics reason SKR has asked for?It kind of looks like SKR bowed out, which is probably the smart move considering who he is and the impact of what he says (another good reason for them to have an alias).... actually, I'd tend to think he's a bit too busy with Superstar to bother focusing on the other threads right now. He'll probably become more active after this again.
Probably a combination of Superstar and getting punched in the neck...
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You do realize that the gp cost becomes irrelevant after a while?
Not because characters can afford it, but because the WBL system means that if you spend X gp and drop below your WBL, the GM is supposed to award extra treasure in later encounters so that when you hit the next character level, your WBL is about where it should be?
So even if everyone coughs up a share of the 5,000 gp to raise the dead paladin, the GM will award them extra treasure to compensate for being under WBL. Which means the 5,000 gp cost is just a temporary obstacle—basically an interest-free loan that you're borrowing from your future self.
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... whoa.
:(
Glad he's okay!
EDIT: What a curious sensation to get ninja'd by someone that I was writing in response to a third-person post about.
Glad you're okay, Sean!
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You do realize that the gp cost becomes irrelevant after a while?
Not because characters can afford it, but because the WBL system means that if you spend X gp and drop below your WBL, the GM is supposed to award extra treasure in later encounters so that when you hit the next character level, your WBL is about where it should be?
So even if everyone coughs up a share of the 5,000 gp to raise the dead paladin, the GM will award them extra treasure to compensate for being under WBL. Which means the 5,000 gp cost is just a temporary obstacle—basically an interest-free loan that you're borrowing from your future self.
Or, as I refer to it, WBL fairies. If you're too poor, WBL fairies put money into your wallet while you sleep. Likewise, if you're too rich, WBL fairies take money out of your wallet while you sleep. I'm not even sure why adventurers bother to actually load the treasure they find up, since they could just leave it in the dungeon and go home to find the "appropriate" amount of gp under their mattress.
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As long as Mack the Paladin has no penalty for death, Mack the Paladin has become an immortal.
Mack the immortal Paladin doesn't fear death, because death is nothing to fear. No matter how many times he dies, he is a free spell away from trying again.
Why wouldn't every player make it to epic levels? Why wouldn't the world be populated by tons and tons of fearless, high level adventurers.
If your GM lets you replace your character with a twin, you have a GM and a player who don't care about verisimilitude anyway, so it is a moot point to discuss how it might effect "roleplaying", isn't it? How attached is someone willing to disrupt the setting by just creating more and more twins.
Unless done comically in a way the whole table enjoys, the guy that does that sounds like "that guy"
Part of the reason I am arguing for a penalty is so that if a character keeps dying over and over again, eventually they will have to hang it up so we can get new blood into the game. Hopefully blood that dies less frequently.
Currently the incentive to not have a player die all the time is financial cost. We all agree this penalizes the wrong party.
Level loss made a lot of sense, but it is difficult to implement. It let you bring back a beloved character to keep them "alive", but if they couldn't cut it, they were left behind.
If you don't care about your character, you let them die and bring in a twin who gets his loot plus your new WBL. Zack is then better than Mack and your GM is fail.
Immortality doesn't encourage improved roleplaying any more than a Red Bull encourages sleep. It basically means it doesn't matter what happens, we'll just bring you back and try again.