Perhaps they "happen" to find a hermit who is a high enough level cleric to raise him and who offers to do so in exchange for them helping him?
They find a scroll of Raise Dead.
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OK, so here's the deal. (First, you didn't kill a "player" I hope, but a "player character" or "PC". If you killed a player you should probably be talking to an attorney, not a bunch of gamer dudes on the interwebz.)
This is not necessarily a problem. In fact it could be an opportunity.
Here's an old time GM secret that I'm going to tell just you. Keep it to yourself, because if this secret gets out, lots of people will freak out. Here it is.
You don't have to bring the dead character back.
No, you really don't. Seriously. Characters die in this game all the time.
In fact you could make a strong argument that they don't die frequently enough!
And here's why this is potentially an opportunity. This might give you a reputation as a killer GM! That's not a bad thing really. Then when players make it through future campaigns they can brag about how they made it through "killer gyainmaster's dungeon of doom!"
So before you just bring the dead character back, go to the refrigerator. Grab a beer. Relax. It's just a game after all.
Now you and I know that this wasn't what you wanted. But that doesn't mean it was all bad.
So after all the advice you'll get about all sorts of Deux ex machina things you can do, like miraculously find a scroll of raise dead, or some hermit happens along who just happens to have a staff of resurrection.....
You can be that GM, you know, the one whose players learn to respect because you won't pull punches.
Then, when you DO pull punches, they won't know it or suspect it and it will make them feel so much more awesome.
Just something to think about.
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If you killed one of your players you're going to need a plastic tarp, bleach, a shovel, a fast car with lots of trunk space and a map to Mexico. Travel at night. Only use cash. Good luck friend.
Spoken like the voice of experience Dudemeister... remind me to be careful who I game with...
If he did something reckless like pick a fight with an enemy of unknown power with 0 strategy, frankly he deserved it. Nothing keeping him from making a new character that is similarly built, except he's more tailored to beating that type of enemy next time around.
How strongly attached to the PC did the player seem to be?
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What Adamantine Dragon said. I have a new respect for my GM since two games ago he mercilessly blew up my sorcerer standing too close to the fighter who flipped a table full of explosives. Used to be I didn't fear anything under 5 CR over my level as he'd Deus Ex us out. Now I know the kid gloves are off! I nearly had my witch ripped to shreads by shades last week...and we're only level 3 at the time! I CAN'T WAIT till next week and love my character because I fear to lose him, where previously they meant nothing more to me than video game avatars.
DO NOT REZZ. IT WAS HIS OWN FAULT
If you reward incompetent thinking, you only reinforce that kind of gaming.
I hate killing characters - I actually feel bad. But you might want to just let it ride, lest you set yourself up for expectation in the future. They should dig a shallow grave and says a few kind words.
If he did something reckless like pick a fight with an enemy of unknown power with 0 strategy, frankly he deserved it. Nothing keeping him from making a new character that is similarly built, except he's more tailored to beating that type of enemy next time around.
I dunno how it is for other players, but I'm not a big fan of dead characters being replaced by essentially the same exact character.
Another issue here is: If they're in the middle of nowhere, where does the new character come from. It might end up seeming as random as putting in a rez option. But either way you want to get the player back in the mix ASAP.
Did the character have any hook in his backstory that might offer a life line? Perhaps a guardian angel, or a favor owed by a devil. I'm a fan of supernatural flavor.
Definitely talk to the player and see how he feels about the death, and how he wants to move on from it. Just as you would collaborate on how to introduce a new PC he made, you could collaborate on how to bring his character back from death. Maybe something like Gandalf the White.
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I think you are going to get as many answers as there are playstyles (i.e., nothing really helpful).
I think you are going to get as many answers as there are playstyles (i.e., nothing really helpful).
LOL, that certainly qualifies...
I think you are going to get as many answers as there are playstyles (i.e., nothing really helpful).LOL, that certainly qualifies...
Self-referential coherence is a value of mine.
Anyway, for me, if a character dies and it is their fault, there is no reason for the DM to help bring that character back to life. Makes for a boring game with no risk. Of course, some people like that kind of a game.
If it was the DM's fault, I would rather allow the player some boon for their next character (such as allowing a race I wouldn't normally) as an apology rather than try to bring them to life in some strange way in-game.
I say rez him then a game later ask him if he feels any need to become a better player based on whether or not there was any serious, lasting consequence for being brought back.
...
Sorry; burnout from 2 other threads. I wasn't there and don't have all the facts, but if he DID do something stupid to get killed, let him rot.
Perhaps they "happen" to find a hermit who is a high enough level cleric to raise him and who offers to do so in exchange for them helping him?
yeah...they stumble into Obi-Wan Kenobi.
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Suddenly the twin brother of Gon the barbarian Fon the the barbarian arrives with an urgent message for his brother. Then he decides to stay and hang out with the guys.
Give the players a chance to raise him. But at a cost - players should be afraid of death - but since it's possible to be raised players know that, and will be a little more reckless than in real life...
If the party can't afford to have the player raised - make them borrow money - then future loot must be spend paying of the debt - and the party will feel that you don't cheat death without paying a price...
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Fun factor, that's the most important thing. Will the player enjoy having a new character (maybe with a backstory tied to his old character), would he prefer to have him back (even if it looks like being set up)? In a home campaign you can do as you like, and that's how I'd approach it.
Is it a new group, geared up for a full length campaign where people put a lot of effort to create their PCs? Is it a newbie or a veteran player?
So many things play into it (Bigtuna's approach could work, death is costly and the free way out of death with finding a scroll might not be the best approach), but the most important thing is: FUN in whatever way you resolve it.
We calculate cost for raise dead into WBL - if people die they have to be raise/reincarnated unless they really don't like their build/char - but my player normally like what they have...
At low levels this normally puts the party a bit behind normal WBL - but then they tend to be more carefull - nobody wants to be the guy who cost the party money - again...
As a GM I tend to press the party - some encounters have to potientially deadly, what fun is it to walk right through a dungeon with a REAL fight?
In my next campaign I intend to keep my players alive and well equipped with some friendly NPC support...then start murdering said NPC's in brutal, nasty fashion.
What's that, Party? You want to go hunt that big bad guy down instead of plundering dungeons and looking for hookers? Well, I guess...
Try and work out a way the dead character is to your advantage. Have a wandering Oracle granted a vision come rezz him because his spirit has seen some plot relevant information while watching the world from above. Or keep him dead and have his soul in torment, if the player wants a fresh character untainted by previous fail.
If the player died for a bad dice roll, try to help him.. if he died for a bad stupid tactic or other stupid things.. the next time he will play with more caution :)) If you want to help him for some reason (as i read atop in other threads) there are a lot of way to do so use fantasy. But I agree with the idea that a dead player gives other players something to think about before launching their pg in every combat without tactic, without a knowledge check and with the metagame idea that a master MUST create challanges for your level so you can kill everything.. Death exists.. and if you respect her she cheers at you :)) this is one of the first thing i try to explain when i start a new campaign to all my players, experienced and newbies.. the same.
/sign @ Adamantine Dragons
If you bring back every dead character the game has no thrill anymore, dying is part of Pathfinder (and every other RPG), there is no "Save / reload" in PPRPGs :D
On the other hand: If the player is really attached to his character give him the chance to get back (especially if it was your fault (rule error, overestimate the parties poweretc.)). But if you do, give the players something to do for it (e.g. an avatar of his god will bring him back, but only if he does something). Also if you do it, use the chance to show the players what will happen with their characters if they're dying (Tartarus, the Soul Wall etc.), sometimes this creates intressting character/story twists. :)
Step 1: Watch "The Gamers"
Step 2: Watch "The Gamers 2"
Step 3: Ruminate until the next session.
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"Yes, this is 911, how can I help you?"
"We are out hunting, and my friend got shot! He's dead! What can I do???"
"Calm down, sir. First, we need to be sure he is dead."
*BLAM*
"Okay. Now what?"
Here is a new PC sheet. Make new guy. And the story gose on.
Huge oppertunity for a plot hook.
BBG is a litch, sounds like he could rez up your fallen PC through any number of ruses (planted scroll that is is actually a different scroll etc) and exert some sort of control over that PC. you could even pull the player aside and let them know what is going down so they can play along.
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I had thought that the tone of my initial response above was such that readers could see my tongue planted in my cheek. But this is the internets and all that, and such subtleties are difficult to get across.
So let me be a bit more serious here.
Character death deserves serious consideration, and there are definitely situations where a character death might be something the GM should hand-wave in some fashion to "keep the fun" going.
But having said that, I want to address this whole idea I see constantly promoted on these boards about "it's all about the fun!"
Let me relate the story of my first experience with character death. I was, at the time, playing with a notoriously lethal GM, and sure enough, my carefully created fighter, upon whom I had spent hours laboring over his backstory, creation, tweaking, drawing an illustration of and tracking his history, that fighter was stung in a relatively mundane encounter with a giant scorpion. He failed his save, and was dead on the spot.
I was crushed. I was angry. I was not having any fun! I threatened to never play again. I stormed out of the room and pouted in my bedroom for a few minutes.
In my defense I was still a kid, but it's still embarrassing to remember how badly I reacted.
But the GM was unmoved. The character was dead. We were way, way below any level where we had any hope of raising him. So I brought in a new character to replace him, one I had already created and whose backstory intertwined with the fighters. The two were childhood friends who had grown up together and who met between adventures to swap stories and compare notes. This "new" character was introduced as wanting revenge for his fallen friend, and he went back into the same dungeon and single-handedly slew the giant scorpion, and recovered the fighter's remains.
This singular event became the driving focus of the "new" character's motivation. He set out on a quest to raise his friend from the dead and restore their friendship.
Back then (this was AD&D) it was much harder to raise from the dead. So he ended up having to save every penny made and make all sorts of promises to get a "raise dead" spell cast on his friend.
The spell failed. Yeah, back then raise dead was not guaranteed. You had to make a check to see if it worked, and it failed. So all of that time and effort and gold was gone.
This happened twice more, each time with more powerful magic. The final time the failure reduced the remains of the character to dust.
That failure caused my "new" character to sort of snap. Originally a lawful good character he had already begun to perform questionable acts to try to gather the resources to raise his friend. The longer this went on the more he gravitated to the "dark side" and the more resentful he became about the universe. Upon the final failure he sort of lost his mind.
All of this grief, struggle and sacrifice ended up being this "new" character's story. He became by far the most complex, challenging and interesting character in my character library. Over the several years of his career I learned a great deal about the potential depth and complexity of role playing. And I realized eventually that all of that depth, complexity, moral quandaries, character evolution, character history and character party dynamics may never have been experienced had I not lost that first fighter to a random sting of a simple giant scorpion.
That afternoon of "not fun" ended up giving me an opportunity to learn some important life lessons and made me a far, far better gamer than I was before.
Had my GM just said "that sucks, a wandering cleric raises your fighter" and on we went, I would never have had the experience of what is still, by far, my most complex and entertaining character ever.
Just food for thought.
Why is it so hard to make them grab 4d6s and roll a new character...
Have nasty BBEG steal the corpse and animate dead!
Or Create Undead...but fail his control undead via DM fiat. Player now has a ghoul using the Libris Morris 3.5 rules. Up the stats a little to compete with PF though, as average PC is more powerful these days.
Undead PC escapes BBEG, joins party, swears revenge, and has to deal with a gnawing hunger for human flesh he battles internally.
Have nasty BBEG steal the corpse and animate dead!Or Create Undead...but fail his control undead via DM fiat. Player now has a ghoul using the Libris Morris 3.5 rules. Up the stats a little to compete with PF though, as average PC is more powerful these days.
Undead PC escapes BBEG, joins party, swears revenge, and has to deal with a gnawing hunger for human flesh he battles internally.
In my own experience, the percentage of players who I have played with that would hear this and say "cool! I totally want to do that!" would be in the range of 15% or so...
Are you kidding me? I'd turd a brick of pure happiness if my GM offered it.
edit - unless I was playing a wizard, sorcerer or witch...non combat is boned there.
I would totally do that!
(if I had a cha based build, or a 3.5 d4 caster, and I was created with deseceate+shine))
Are you kidding me? I'd turd a brick of pure happiness if my GM offered it.
Nope, not kidding at all. While there might be some potential for interesting role play in such a situation, the majority of players I game with would not turd a brick of happiness over it. In fact most would probably hand the GM their character sheet and roll up a new character.
Just out of curiosity greentea, what is it that you find so appealing about playing a decomposing, human-flesh eating character who would likely create problems with many standard PC and NPC types who find undead impossible to tolerate?
I like tragic heroes that overcome a darkness inherent in them to pursue a greater good. I wouldn't revel in flesh eating, it would be like fighting an addiction. Tieflings are my favorite race, for example. They are reviled and hated and have no reason to do good...so when they do its more meaningful.
I think it's a valid enough playstyle to decide "Okay guys, you get ONE free safety net", especially if you're playing a risky, gritty, low-level game. But thei mportant thing is you have to decide and then COMMIT to that decision.
Also, I think the willpower struggle can be really fun, as long as the player doesn't mind not being in complete control of their actions. I had a witch player once who found a powerful, intelligent magic artifact that could turn into virtually any weapon, but its goal was to slay all CG creatures and the longer she held on to it, the more paranoia and anger she felt toward the CG characters, but she needed to use the weapon, so... it got interesting.
Lemon... hmmm so you're suggesting something like a "PC mulligan" rule, where you can get one free "get out of death free" card you can play one and only one time?
I dunno, maybe it's the "old school" thing again, but I wouldn't use the mulligan even if the opportunity existed. Then again, I don't take mulligans in golf either.
There are plenty of ways to have a "dark, internal willpower struggle" without being turned into an undead, flesh-eating monster. My witch has serious addictive personality disorder, he's addicted to everything from tobacco to sex and fights those addictions every day. In my mind those things only really matter if they have in-game consequences. For example, drug addiction might require a fortitude save to overcome, and if you fail, you use the drug and suffer whatever mechanical effects are the result.
My witch once failed a will save on an addiction test to smoke pot while on watch, and as a result the party was ambushed in their sleep.
So, yeah, real in-game consequences are what make these things matter.
A bunch of stuff...
Right on, brother. Actions have consequences and sometimes, funny enough, those consequences might have better side effects then one could ever imagine. Roleplaying, plot hooks, growth as a player, or whatever.
To the OP, let him lay. Direct the part to a place where it is easy to introduce a new member and call it a lesson learned. Perhaps for both sides of the table. You are all good, this might even turn out to make your game better.
When I ran my first D&D campaign I found myself avoiding killing my players since I knew how upsetting it could be, particularly the leader of the party.
I've since come a long way from those days and have not pulled punches so much. My last campaign was pretty bad in that if a player died not only did he have to make a new character, but that character started a level lower than he was (some characters had 9967/10000 xp). One reason I did this was because most of them were veterans and I felt they needed a challenge.
As much as it hurt when they died, it made them more cautious with characters they made from then on.
Another ocassion was when I nearly tpk'd the party in my current Kingmaker campaign (Random encounter shambling mound at lvl 1), killed everyone but the sorcerer who barely out ran the thing. This moment helped create a balanced party that works together rather than playing characters that did not.
Like everyone else has mentioned, allowing the character to die could move the campaign in a more positive direction than you think.
Also, I feel a sense of pride when my players tell others of the horrors they witnessed in my campaigns. Along with a little mix of shame...
@AD: your character death story was cool, meaningful. I think I'd be on the "death + consequences = cool" bandwagon too, had I not been scarred by it. I played with my brothers and character death occurred (I started out as a kid in 1e too) but we all died and no one really made up backstories then, so there was no shame in it.
Character death didn't really affect me, good or bad, consequences or not, until my first brush w/a "dark world" gritty GM. He killed me 3 times.
Now bear in mind we were in HS and this guy was into pathos, so he had us make up elaborate backtories, really encouraged immersion and a sense of attachment to the characters - a novel concept at the time. My first character was a female elf fighter/mage and she died stupidly from a fireball trap. When I was rez'd I lost con and was declared weak by my noble father; her backstory was all wrapped up in her family and she was all about being a protector to her future subjects after she proved herself. This went out the window and I was punished monetarily, physically, and then socially when I was exiled for weakness.
The second death; same character. I'd survived my own party signing on with the BBEG demon prince; his legions; now I wailed on him getting some phenominal rolls and he was unconscious. I hoisted my magic blade of demon slaying that my former teammates and I had labored for months on before they turned evil. Now in order to lop his head off on his own plane I also had to use an artifact rune and it activated right then...and I had to make a save or die. Not an easy save either. Predictably, I failed. He rez'd me with GM fiat but in a horrible, post-apocalyptic world where my failure had turned my homeland forest to a desert wasteland, flung me forward in time, and now all elves were hunted as parriahs.
The 3rd death was a long, slow march towards the end. I rolled up a 1/2 elf wizard. I wanted to be a thief mage but the GM said no, but he'd compromise. I spent weeks creating a gestalt unique pc, specialized barrier spells from 1st to 9th level, getting the balance right plus backstory. Game 1, round one, first sentence of the game; I need to make a save vs charm. I fail. A SUCUBUS charms...no, POST HYPNOTIC SUGGESTIONS me to be her slave. Level 1 now. Anyway, fast forward through a series of huge embarrasing failures where my party has to constantly save me as my spells either get saved against or flat out don't do what they're supposed to with amazing frequency, to a moment when we finally face the sucubus. She is also a vampire. She glances at me and my GM simply pronounces that I go in the other room with her while the party is distracted by the fight w/the minions; I'm turned into a vampire in 3 rounds.
I whined a little, he held firm, and then I just calmly packed up my gear and went home. I'm not embarrassed by my behavior at all. I found out afterwards that my vampire self rocked as all my spells were used AMAZINGLY and why didn't I ever play like that?
Now AD - I'm NOT saying your way is better or worse than mine, nor am I saying death w/out consequences is any better than with. I'm merely pointing out that consequence doesn't automatically mean awesome, nor vice versa. Anyone reading my post can take from it whatever they like but I mean no malice or disrespect at all. Just saying why I don't bother with hurting dead players any more than I have to.
Mark, at the time my fighter's dying didn't feel very cool. In fact it stung more than I'd like to admit. My brother, who was in the same campaign, told me that I was "too attached" to my characters and that I needed to learn how to accept character death since it was going to happen.
And it did. Not all of my character deaths ended up with a complex backstory and a solid life lesson. My rogue who died under a few million tons of boulders for missing a rock trap didn't feel very cool at all, and nothing ever came out of that.
But it can sometimes end up as a positive thing, even when it seems horribly "unfun" at the time. That was my point. :)