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Consequences are not supposed to be fun and maybe you forgot that you were playing a game that can't guarantee you will win.Consequences themselves are not fun, nor are they meant to be, but being part of the overall game is what makes the entire game, as a whole, fun.
Serious question time here, and I think the answer I get will help me understand a lot more about where all of your current threads/posts are coming from.
How do you 'win' D&D/PF? How do you 'lose'?
I have never felt that TTRPGs were games with winners and losers, ever.
I think this disconnect may explain many, many things.
You don't "win" at Pathfinder but some people here like to think you are supposed to so if you get rid of more and more ways to lose then that means they have better chances to win.
Personally, I see success and failure as all part of the game. I dont expect any of my characters to make it to the end but I hope they do.
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In computer game, there's generally two types of death mechanic. In one, you experience a few seconds of delay before you respawn / reload. In the other, it deletes your save file and you have to start over from scratch.
The former are much more popular.
I as a dm have it that the gods do not allow casual raising of dead, it is for a reason. heroes with a great destiny are allowed to return and finish their work, bob the farmer goes to the afterlife.
This.
The PCs are the stars of a grand adventure, fraught with danger and the real risk of a grisly death: A quest so great, that even the gods might notice.
You generally need a high-level priest and a big diamond to raise someone from the dead. Bob the farmer would have neither. The PCs, on the other hand, have access to that sort of thing. Whether they can do it themselves or find a powerful ally sympathetic to their goals, they're important in the grand scheme of things, and they get goodies most people would never see.
Frodo got healed up by Elrond. Gandalf got a mulligan because he just wasn't finished, yet.
The way it is now, death will cost you plenty, but it doesn't have to be the end.
I also like to make resurrecting/raising people a lot harder, because otherwise it makes killing wealthy NPCs impossible. What good is it to be the most skilled assassin in the world, if your targets are just going to be resurrected the next morning? (because a high level character would probably go after high level targets)Because this:
At 10th level, the assassin becomes a master of death. Once per day, when the assassin makes a successful death attack, he can cause the target's body to crumble to dust. This prevents raise dead and resurrection (although true resurrection works as normal). The assassin must declare the use of this ability before the attack is made. If the attack misses or the target successfully saves against the death attack, this ability is wasted with no effect.Sure they could pay for it, but at the least it would take about a sixth of their grand total wealth (Heroic NPC= 159,000). Assuming they've not bought anything with their money of course.
Deep down inside i knew i shouldn't have used the word assassin, because somebody would think I'm referring to the Assassin prestige class. But I mean any kind of assassin, from the prestige class, and sneaky ninjas all the way up to a raging barbarian/mammoth rider, who just Ragelancemammothclawpounces his victim during a public appearance and mauls it to death with his +5 Keen Flaming-Burst Speed Lance of Humanbane.
Also I'm pretty sure lords and kings have a little more money at their disposal, because not every NPC follows the guidelines for making an encounter NPC.
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I as a dm have it that the gods do not allow casual raising of dead, it is for a reason. heroes with a great destiny are allowed to return and finish their work, bob the farmer goes to the afterlife.This.
The PCs are the stars of a grand adventure, fraught with danger and the real risk of a grisly death: A quest so great, that even the gods might notice.
You generally need a high-level priest and a big diamond to raise someone from the dead. Bob the farmer would have neither. The PCs, on the other hand, have access to that sort of thing. Whether they can do it themselves or find a powerful ally sympathetic to their goals, they're important in the grand scheme of things, and they get goodies most people would never see.
Frodo got healed up by Elrond. Gandalf got a mulligan because he just wasn't finished, yet.
The way it is now, death will cost you plenty, but it doesn't have to be the end.
I sort of enjoy just being able to walk around in a world and see how different characters (concepts or personalities) might interact with people.
I do not agree with the foundation of your argument.
I quite like Werecorpse's solution.
Anyone else come up with a house-rule to address some poster's concerns?
In a homebrew, I added a lower level spell I generally refer to as the "CPR spell." After a character dies, you have their constitution in rounds to heal them above 0 and cast the "CPR spell." This is basically simulating the amount of time the "soul" lingers before true death occurs and CPR to restart the heart.
This partially comes from my liking of the Vlad Taltos series by Steven Brust where the soul doesn't leave the body for 3 days, resurrection can be done at any point during that time, after that time death is permanent. Destruction of the brain, or severing the spinal cord causes permanent death also.
It also comes partially from a Champions Super Hero game, where a civilian was bisected by a sword and then healed within seconds. The "Wizard" hero also summoned the soul back and reinserted it into the body. My thoughts at the time were that while the body was "dead," there was no way the brain had died yet and the healing should have been enough.
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Death already is trivial for adventurers after a certain level, so I don't see what would be so bad about taking out the last vestiges of what is making it difficult for them to come back. I, as a GM, find it personally much more important that a character story can continue rather than getting some cheap thrill of sending a PC to his permanent demise.
Also, making return from death easier means that I can throw bigger challenges at my players, so it's a win-win. ^^
The way it is now, death will cost you plenty, but it doesn't have to be the end.
I have to pretty much agree. And I'm not convinced by the argument that 5,000 gp and a couple of negative levels is too high a price to pay or too much of an inconvenience for a power as significant as raising the dead. Nor am I convinced that it's more advantageous to roll up a new PC because you get an appropriate WBL amount rather than suffer the 5000 gp hit. That's really playing metagame heavy and the groups I hang out with simply don't do that. Maybe we just have more respect for the PCs as characters rather than tokens and the story over the combat mini-game to push exploit that particular metagame.
The way it is now, death will cost you plenty, but it doesn't have to be the end.I have to pretty much agree. And I'm not convinced by the argument that 5,000 gp and a couple of negative levels is too high a price to pay or too much of an inconvenience for a power as significant as raising the dead. Nor am I convinced that it's more advantageous to roll up a new PC because you get an appropriate WBL amount rather than suffer the 5000 gp hit. That's really playing metagame heavy and the groups I hang out with simply don't do that. Maybe we just have more respect for the PCs as characters rather than tokens and the story over the combat mini-game to push exploit that particular metagame.
You can do it either way. I'm also the sort who likes some drama. To mine the LOTR thing again, when Gandalf went over the cliff, all the others were absolutely crushed.
Of course, he came back, but they didn't know he would. I hope that the PCs have been through enough together that they'd miss their friend and want him back, not some new guy who turns up out of nowhere and joins them with full gear and levels, perhaps a little more optimized for the task at hand.
Winning...
How do you win at Pathfinder?
My players can enjoy a Monty Haul style campaign with little to no challenge or character development. I simply do not enjoy running that style of campaign. Yay, players are having fun, but someone please kill me IRL.
I love the idea of running a Grim and Gritty style campaign where permanent player death lurks around every corner, and a single misstep spells doom. My players? Not so much. Can't we just play the game as it is written?
Winning is about balancing player and DM interests to create a campaign where everyone has fun.
The resurection rules are balanced at a certain point, if that doesn't work for the story you want to tell, change it. If your players don't like the change, you won't have anyone to tell the story to.
I agree with the notion that death should not be trivial. I never allow characters I play to be raised or brought back. If I wanted to be able to re-spawn I'd be playing a computer game. As a matter of fact, I never made the jump from MUDs to MMOs because there was no penalty for death.
The act of not dying signifies a good player (IMHO). Now sometimes the GM sets you up on purpose but 90% of the time character death and TPKs are a result of poor role-play/tactics "roll" play.
This is all based in our current society with the trophies for 8th place, anti-bullying, etc. These days its almost a crime to have a situation where someone might "lose"
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This is all based in our current society with the trophies for 3rd place, anti-bullying, etc. These days its almost a crime to have a situation where someone might "lose"
LOL!
1: The Olympics give medals for 3rd. 2:Bullying is A-OK in your book? 3: Sounds like you listen to too much Rush Limbaugh.
This is all based in our current society with the trophies for 3rd place, anti-bullying, etc. These days its almost a crime to have a situation where someone might "lose"LOL!
1: The Olympics give medals for 3rd. 2:Bullying is A-OK in your book? 3: Sounds like you listen to too much Rush Limbaugh.
1. I meant 8th place which in Little League is usually last place. so that's my bad.
2. I don't think bullying is ok, but I don't think it requires public service announcements by celebrities either.3. I've listened to Limbaugh 5 minutes of my life and that was when I was getting a ride from some random stranger to get gas for my friends car.
MY whole point was that people are so afraid of offending someone's sensitivities, that they dumb down everything to the point where they are over simplifying the matter or not accomplishing anything at all.
By allowing characters to die and easily come back, usually you are just rewarding the bad "behavior" that got them killed in the first place and may be even encouraging them to do it again. It's amazing what tactics I've seen by people to avoid character death when they know the consequences are truly dire.
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As you get to higher levels, the buffer between "unconscious" and "dead" functionally shrinks (and in some cases, like Barbarians, completely vanishes) as damage and HP constantly scale up but -CON really doesn't - and that's not even accounting for the low-level "save or be debuffed" spells being replaced by high-level "save or actually die" spells. Meanwhile, combat lasts less and less time, and it's easy to not even get a turn in which to react to a development before being taken down - there's a reason high-level play is often described as "rocket tag".
That's because the designers knew Raise Dead was a thing when they wrote the game and high-level play assumes some sort of access to Raise Dead is available. Make all death permanent without reducing the power level of threats and/or making other system changes, and you pretty much guarantee that some people's beloved characters will receive pointless anticlimactic permanent deaths for no particular reason, abruptly cutting off their stories.
Oddly enough, people who consider this a good thing and consider "player skill" the most important part of any RPG also have a tendency to describe themselves as the real roleplayers and like to say anything else is just a computer game on paper.
Winning...
How do you win at Pathfinder?
My players can enjoy a Monty Haul style campaign with little to no challenge or character development. I simply do not enjoy running that style of campaign. Yay, players are having fun, but someone please kill me IRL.
I love the idea of running a Grim and Gritty style campaign where permanent player death lurks around every corner, and a single misstep spells doom. My players? Not so much. Can't we just play the game as it is written?
Winning is about balancing player and DM interests to create a campaign where everyone has fun.
The resurection rules are balanced at a certain point, if that doesn't work for the story you want to tell, change it. If your players don't like the change, you won't have anyone to tell the story to.
Best explaination:
"Whatever your character is, whoever they are, they have goals. Desires. There will be those that oppose or obstruct those goals and desires, and either you are able to deal with those obstacles or you are not.This is the very definition of both winning and losing, as if Bob the Barbarian dies to the first Orc he encounters he can forget about ever saving his sister from the chieftain, and likewise if he not only succeeds but so impresses the survivors with his might that they end up helping him later out of respect for a fellow warrior both he, and his player are winning. "
So yes, my dear Charender, it is elementary.
"Everyone wants to win D&D, because no one wants to play the guy who dies without accomplishing anything even though random chance dictates that this might occur. Everyone wants to be that badass hero, and thereby win.
The only difference between player types is you have some that are willing to work for it... some that will cheat for it, and some that just want it handed over for free. The last tends to involve a great deal of cognitive dissonance of course. "
Game examples:
"When there's a door in the way and whatever you try to open it works? Winning.
When a Balor attacks you and you kill it? Winning.
When the Commoner wants to be Noble guy gets made a Lord? Winning."
Personally, making raise dead free just ends up destroying a lot of fantasy tropes. BBEG dead? Won't take anything at all for one of his lieutenants to just bring him back! BBEG lost all of her lieutenants to the PCs? She'd be stupid not to bring them back. Just go to the nearest Large Town and get that 5th level spell casting and now she's good to go.
Honestly, being dead and coming back with negative levels isn't even that bad. Sure, it's a bit of a pain until you can get rid of them. But having played a cleric and a fighter that died and came back with two negative levels, I was still kicking ass and taking names and being helpful to the party. I was very happy to finally be rid of them, but I still didn't let it stop me from rocking face.
Bad things happen to adventurers. It's kinda our schtick. Things like death, ability damage and drain, negative levels... they aren't really fun for the player, but it adds that sense of danger and excitement to the game that I play it for. In our Jade Regent game, my bard got poisoned to 5 Con. To me, yeah, that kind of sucks. I can't quite skirmish anymore with 18 HP. But instead of whining about how unfair life is, I just pulled out my wand of scorching ray and am being much more careful in fights. That fear of death is keeping me much more careful and analyzing my risks before jumping into the fray. And honestly, I like that.
Winning...
How do you win at Pathfinder?
My players can enjoy a Monty Haul style campaign with little to no challenge or character development. I simply do not enjoy running that style of campaign. Yay, players are having fun, but someone please kill me IRL.
I love the idea of running a Grim and Gritty style campaign where permanent player death lurks around every corner, and a single misstep spells doom. My players? Not so much. Can't we just play the game as it is written?
Winning is about balancing player and DM interests to create a campaign where everyone has fun.
The resurection rules are balanced at a certain point, if that doesn't work for the story you want to tell, change it. If your players don't like the change, you won't have anyone to tell the story to.
Best explaination:
"Whatever your character is, whoever they are, they have goals. Desires. There will be those that oppose or obstruct those goals and desires, and either you are able to deal with those obstacles or you are not.This is the very definition of both winning and losing, as if Bob the Barbarian dies to the first Orc he encounters he can forget about ever saving his sister from the chieftain, and likewise if he not only succeeds but so impresses the survivors with his might that they end up helping him later out of respect for a fellow warrior both he, and his player are winning. "
So yes, my dear Charender, it is elementary.
"Everyone wants to win D&D, because no one wants to play the guy who dies without accomplishing anything even though random chance dictates that this might occur. Everyone wants to be that badass hero, and thereby win.
The only difference between player types is you have some that are willing to work for it... some that will cheat for it, and some that just want it handed over for free. The last tends to involve a great deal of cognitive dissonance of course. "
Game examples:
"When there's a door in the way and whatever you try to open...
I got a very Charlie Sheen vibe from this. I approve :)
When it comes to raise dead, I always look at the metaphysics. The spell implies that you should with the clause that someone who doesn't want to be brought back is unaffected by the spell.
The world the NPCs and PCs live in is a world of pain and suffering. When someone dies they go to a place that is a perfect place for their soul. Who would want to leave "perfection" to come back? Most likely someone who is really special and strong of will, most likely the PCs. In my world when an NPC dies, they mostly stay dead. (I roll a D20, if it is equal to or less than their level/HD, than they except the res, if higher they don't. Of course motivation of the NPC trumps die roll at times.)
I thought Buffy the Vampire Slayer explained this well.
When Buffy dies and is brought back it is a horribly traumatic experience. She was in heaven, at peace, and suddenly forced back into a world of pain. I can't think of people who would choose to do that, it sounds like if it was left to Buffy she wouldn't have chosen to come back either.
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The solution...
The brave heroes, who suffered many an inconvenient and embarrassing death on their quest, return to their homes after having defeated and killed the BBEG who threatened to destroy the world.
One week later, the world ends. Because the BBEG got resurrected 10 minutes after the heroes bugged out of town. Laid low for a bit, then completed the Ritual of the McGuffin.
Personally, making raise dead free just ends up destroying a lot of fantasy tropes. BBEG dead? Won't take anything at all for one of his lieutenants to just bring him back! BBEG lost all of her lieutenants to the PCs? She'd be stupid not to bring them back. Just go to the nearest Large Town and get that 5th level spell casting and now she's good to go.
Look, not that I want to accuse you and those other fine gentlebeings of strawmanning, but those problems you enumerate for a BBEG to get raised/raise his lieutenants are no real problems, IMO.
1.) A BBEG can always oppress some peasants or whatnot to get the necessary 5k gold to raise whomever needs to get back to work. Likewise for his lieutenants, if they choose to raise their boss.
2.) High level priests of most towns outside of Cheliax and Nidal will not look too kindly on some evil dude come knocking at their door. Contrary to the normal peasantry, they actually have powerful magic to turn that kind of riff-raff away.
3.) Raise Dead has an actual expiration date. In case that the BBEGs little brother doesn't arrive in Hit Die/days, he suddenly has to get a willing level 13 caster to do the works for the BBEG. Those are few and between, as far as I remember. And you just try to coerce a level 13 cleric to do anything he doesn't want to do.
4.) And, not to forget, Raise Dead needs a fully functional body to work. I heard decapitation and subsequent burning of the head does wonders to deter all kinds of subversive "walking-around-while-being-formerly-dead" shenanigans. Also makes Speak with Dead impossible.
SKR actually addressed some of your concerns in the relevant thread, btw.
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One thing I constantly had to remind my players back in high school: we are NOT actors.
Let that sink in. I played D&D, then Marvel, back to D&D, and finally now I'm on to PF. None of those are about acting out a drama specifically - that's either acting or at least White Wolf games. I did my time in the World of Darkness btw; it was too maudlin for my tastes.
So...we are not actors. As such we do not have Dramatic Death Scenes, unless we WANT them. I trivialize death every time I put a goblin in a scene. It is a sentient creature - one that thinks and feels (albeit differently than the heroes but still...) and thus in modern terms has a developed life. In come the heroes and "LOP!" off goes the goblin's head. And we LAUGH about it!
So in a game where thinking, feeling beings are routinely obliterated for our entertainment, why make anything more than a game out of the death of one of your characters? If you WANT to make it a big deal though, you can, regardless of mechanical changes to the game.
Deep down inside i knew i shouldn't have used the word assassin, because somebody would think I'm referring to the Assassin prestige class. But I mean any kind of assassin, from the prestige class, and sneaky ninjas all the way up to a raging barbarian/mammoth rider, who just Ragelancemammothclawpounces his victim during a public appearance and mauls it to death with his +5 Keen Flaming-Burst Speed Lance of Humanbane.
Also I'm pretty sure lords and kings have a little more money at their disposal, because not every NPC follows the guidelines for making an encounter NPC.
So append an extra step to killing your target.
Steal the corpse. Take it somewhere, and burn it.
If you don't have time for that, decapitation and then stealing the head will, at the very least, mean they are FORCED to use the more resource intensive revival.
And also, I'm not so sure. PCs are so much more wealthy than normal people because they go out and adventure and find lost things that nobody's ever found and stuff. I believe they are richer than most kings by level 20. Heroic NPCs are the NPC equivalent of that, and while most kings might have a bit more, I can't see them owning more than 200-250k gold at any one time. That gold has to be spent fixing roads and other such government-ly things.
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My old favorite GM once said.
"My world (game I run) does not center around the PCs. You are merely playing a character who exists in this world and living/creating his adventures. You might die and be a chump or you may become the greatest adventurer to ever live. I guess we will find out"
That to me was the best way to describe the perfect game (personal preference obviously). Death depended on the event. Getting swallowed whole and dying was permanent, but maybe not so much a melee hit that happened to drop you to -CON
Personally, making raise dead free just ends up destroying a lot of fantasy tropes. BBEG dead? Won't take anything at all for one of his lieutenants to just bring him back! BBEG lost all of her lieutenants to the PCs? She'd be stupid not to bring them back. Just go to the nearest Large Town and get that 5th level spell casting and now she's good to go.Look, not that I want to accuse you and those other fine gentlebeings of strawmanning, but those problems you enumerate for a BBEG to get raised/raise his lieutenants are no real problems, IMO.
1.) A BBEG can always oppress some peasants or whatnot to get the necessary 5k gold to raise whomever needs to get back to work. Likewise for his lieutenants, if they choose to raise their boss.
2.) High level priests of most towns outside of Cheliax and Nidal will not look too kindly on some evil dude come knocking at their door. Contrary to the normal peasantry, they actually have powerful magic to turn that kind of riff-raff away.
3.) Raise Dead has an actual expiration date. In case that the BBEGs little brother doesn't arrive in Hit Die/days, he suddenly has to get a willing level 13 caster to do the works for the BBEG. Those are few and between, as far as I remember. And you just try to coerce a level 13 cleric to do anything he doesn't want to do.
4.) And, not to forget, Raise Dead needs a fully functional body to work. I heard decapitation and subsequent burning of the head does wonders to deter all kinds of subversive "walking-around-while-being-formerly-dead" shenanigans. Also makes Speak with Dead impossible.
SKR actually addressed some of your concerns in the relevant thread, btw.
I'm not sure where you are getting Level 13 caster since you can cast it at level 9.
Reading through his thread, yes, I can't think of a game mechanic reason for not removing the money pricing. But I feel that it's incorrect to ONLY have game mechanic reasons for not having rules. For me, a bad guy oppressing peasants to get 5K for raise dead makes sense and makes for a great adventure. Oh his lieutenants forcing a level 9 caster to bring their bad leader back. Having a 9th level cleric just able to bring people back to life without any consequence to me just doesn't feel right. It feels less like I'm in a breathing world with repercussions and more like I'm in a video game* where I'm just waiting to respawn. I personally don't like that, nor do I think it's all that great for the game.
To me, I enjoy the challenge of adventuring and escaping death for another day. I'm alright with 5K and negative levels. Could it be cheaper? Yeah. I actually wouldn't mind the price scaling with HD, so it's not as hard on lower level people but is still a bit of a bank breaker at higher levels. Could we remove the cost and make the negative levels more penalizing? Perhaps, but I feel that making the character so useless after being raised isn't healthy for gameplay.
Note that this isn't some need to have death be dramatic or significant all the time. I'm a believer that there are so many things worse than death in PF, especially at higher levels. I just feel removing the sting on a scorpion makes it less dangerous and fulfilling for me. I don't very much like fudging or hand-holding. I'd rather keep it as is (maybe a little cheaper) and just deal with the consequences.
*Not ragging on video games. I like them and they are fun.
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4.) And, not to forget, Raise Dead needs a fully functional body to work. I heard decapitation and subsequent burning of the head does wonders to deter all kinds of subversive "walking-around-while-being-formerly-dead" shenanigans. Also makes Speak with Dead impossible.
SKR actually addressed some of your concerns in the relevant thread, btw.
Actually SKR said raise dead works if you reconnect the head before the spell is cast.
Burnings might help though.| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I think it's relevant so I'll post a house rule I once used in a campaign for Resurrection. This particular campaign had a planar power struggle among powerful outsiders with the intrigue centered on the material plane. Each time a player died they were allowed to make a deal with one of those forces. The nature of these deals would change depending on the force they were negotiating with (angels, devils, archons, demons, etc.). The player would weal and deal until a contract could be written. Once the contract was signed the player would be brought back to life. Each time they had further obligations. This meant that death had both a meaningful AND an interesting impact on their character.
I'm not sure where you are getting Level 13 caster since you can cast it at level 9.
I was talking about Resurrection in that particular paragraph.
I think it's relevant so I'll post a house rule I once used in a campaign for Resurrection. This particular campaign had a planar power struggle among powerful outsiders with the intrigue centered on the material plane. Each time a player died they were allowed to make a deal with one of those forces. The nature of these deals would change depending on the force they were negotiating with (angels, devils, archons, demons, etc.). The player would weal and deal until a contract could be written. Once the contract was signed the player would be brought back to life. Each time they had further obligations. This meant that death had both a meaningful AND an interesting impact on their character.
Nice, I am totally stealing this.
Best explaination:
"Whatever your character is, whoever they are, they have goals. Desires. There will be those that oppose or obstruct those goals and desires, and either you are able to deal with those obstacles or you are not.
This is the very definition of both winning and losing, as if Bob the Barbarian dies to the first Orc he encounters he can forget about ever saving his sister from the chieftain, and likewise if he not only succeeds but so impresses the survivors with his might that they end up helping him later out of respect for a fellow warrior both he, and his player are winning. "So yes, my dear Charender, it is elementary.
"Everyone wants to win D&D, because no one wants to play the guy who dies without accomplishing anything even though random chance dictates that this might occur. Everyone wants to be that badass hero, and thereby win.
The only difference between player types is you have some that are willing to work for it... some that will cheat for it, and some that just want it handed over for free. The last tends to involve a great deal of cognitive dissonance of course. "
Game examples:
"When there's a door in the way and whatever you try to open it works? Winning.
When a Balor attacks you and you kill it? Winning.
When the Commoner wants to be Noble guy gets made a Lord? Winning."
My point is that it is important for both the players AND the DM to have fun.
The players might like simpler requirements for raise dead, but it would be me a lot more headaches as the DM. I might enjoy restricting it a bit more, but my players would hate it.
Creating and/or playing in a campaign where everyone has fun. -Winning
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My old favorite GM once said.
"My world (game I run) does not center around the PCs. You are merely playing a character who exists in this world and living/creating his adventures. You might die and be a chump or you may become the greatest adventurer to ever live. I guess we will find out"
That to me was the best way to describe the perfect game (personal preference obviously). Death depended on the event. Getting swallowed whole and dying was permanent, but maybe not so much a melee hit that happened to drop you to -CON
I approve of this message.
After reading SKR's thread on Raise Dead I created this thread to discuss why the push to essentially trivialise death.
In my opinion, death should not be treated like a condition that is easily taken care of. Death should be something that is costly and is hard to come back from. I don't really understand this push for death to become so trivial. Well to be honest, I believe it has something to do with lessening the impact of death because some people find death "not fun" and because theplayer has spent a lot of time creating their character so they feel like they need more protection for their investment. I don't think anyone finds death "fun" but that's the whole point, death is supposed to be unfun and a bad thing.
If the game gets to the point where you have to go through mountains of red tape just do die while a quick snap of the fingers brings you back then I will just stick with what is printed before that and not buy anything else in the future.
Yes, you are correct. Once a Player’s PC dies he should never be allowed to ever play again. That’ll teach him.
OTOH, why does 5000 gps suddenly make death non-trivial?
Why do you start so many threads complaining about this game?
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I never understand why in a game of great heroics there should be severe penalties for death. Missing a some moeny and a good portion of a fight even at high levels (which can mean a good portion of the game-evening) and likely even more game time in lower levels is penalty enough for me.
If you want a gritty, "one wrong step and your done for good" approach, then make a houserule.
The great thing about Pathfinder is that supports different playstyles and one of the playstyles is playing a hero but there are also games whete you're not a hero.
I never understood the whole "hero cannot equal death" but I'm assuming people are calling themselves heroes before they've done anything. Your legendary status as a hero is written after your adventure ends.
Wrapping yourself in "heroic" plot armor shouldn't be used to trivialise death for the default of the game. 4th edition did that and it is horrible.
1. I don't recall having this plot armor when I played 4e.
2. Stop talking as if your opinion was somehow a fact, cuz it isn't.
Then maybe you should brush up on 4th edition. Go and take some time to read through the DMG 1 & 2.
Save or die are gone, you go down to - hp total before you drop, healing starts you always at 0
and works from there so it doesnt matter if you are -200 and someone heals you for 10, you are now at 10 hp. You also have to fail three death saves.So yeah, 4th edition is designed for playing heroes and having plot armor.
So others that are less experienced with 4e aren't lead astray by a clearly biased opinion...
-PF you remain standing when you hit zero hp. 4e you drop and start dying. Pretty sure that makes PF "safer".
-You die in 4e after 3 failed saving throws, instead of bleeding out 1hp per round that you fail you Con check until you reach your Con score. This means in 4e you could be dead in 3 rounds, where in PF you could be...
I've been playing since 4th edition came out so let's break it down, shall we?
1: You start off with, and get per level, more hit points than any in other edition.
2: Healing Surges. Everyone has healing that they can use to heal during and after battle.
3: Second Wind. Everyone get's this ability once per encounter which allows them to spend a healing and gain + 2 to their defenses.
4: All healing begins at 0 no matter how far in the negatives you are.
5: Three death saves per short rest which is only 5 minutes.
6: You have to get to negative your bloodied value before you die.
7: Every class has a power than will enable them to spend a healing surge.
8: Spend your healing surges after every encounter and 5 minutes later you are back to full health.
9: "Everyone" use the Raise Dead ritual and it only costs 500gp.
10: Lot's of powers grant temporary hit points.
11: A natural 20 on your death save actually allows you to spend a healing surge.
Look, in all seriousness I know how the game works. The designers have even talked about making the game less lethal because it is a game designed around heroes, not adventurers. All you have to do is go and read the DMG and it tells you this. It also tells you, as a DM, to avoid telling your players no.
If I feel my character is not in danger, I lose interest. I don't play to levels where return from death is casual.
6: You have to get to negative your bloodied value before you die.
Which pretty much means, if you go to -200, you are dead, which is exactly what everyone has been saying. I have two PC's in the high teen's of 4th ed, and they'd die LONG before -200.
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As you get to higher levels, the buffer between "unconscious" and "dead" functionally shrinks (and in some cases, like Barbarians, completely vanishes) as damage and HP constantly scale up but -CON really doesn't - and that's not even accounting for the low-level "save or be debuffed" spells being replaced by high-level "save or actually die" spells. Meanwhile, combat lasts less and less time, and it's easy to not even get a turn in which to react to a development before being taken down - there's a reason high-level play is often described as "rocket tag".
Amen, sister!
In my opinion, death should not be treated like a condition that is easily taken care of. Death should be something that is costly and is hard to come back from.
I agree.
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When I run a published adventure path, I stick pretty close to the published game rules. When I run my own campaigns, I make a two-fold change to death and resurrection.
1) Dying is ain't easy.
Whenever a character is killed (dropped below 0 HP) they're at -1, bleeding 1 HP per minute, and die at -CON. This gives the character a few minutes to get aid before being dead.
2) Coming back ain't easy.
You can't simply raise someone from the dead. Raise Dead and similar spells are a BIG DEAL to the gods. The spell must be cast at a site holy to the deity providing the power (generally a temple to the caster's god or the deceased's god, but other possibilities exist) and the material components of the spell are unique, usually requiring some amount of adventuring or deal-making to acquire.
- Raising a dead character takes roleplaying.
- Raising a dead character is comparable in complexity and effort to rolling a new one.
- If you die in a fight, it was because you were defeated, not just a lucky crit or someone being one round too late with the Potion of CLW.
- More fights are won and lost "by the skin of our teeth" because:
. a) There's room for a single standing party member to finish a fight by killing the enemy while his companions are "down".
. b) Retreat is more reasonable, because a "downed" party member lives long enough to be evacuated.
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I don't understand; how is making raise dead easier trivializing death. At least, how does it trivialize it any more than it already is, considering its a fictional game about fictionals in a fictional world that no one outside the players at the table will ever care about.
If you're saying death has no impact...make it have impact. I don't care how you do it: houserules, roleplaying, mood music, whatever. But there's nothing in the RAW that says "character death has/does not have impact." That is an additive the participants bring to the table in their dice bags.
And this is now the 3rd thread I've been in that people are split about the impact that raise dead or other such spells, and their ease of use, may potentially have on the game. However I'd like it pointed out that never in those three has anyone shown me a game they're in where people are dying LEFT AND RIGHT where this is actually a problem. I've been running campaigns for years and played lots of low level games where PCs have died. Never once have any of those players just simply hit reset 50 times like is suggested by these threads.
This is anecdotal to me. You folks do with that what you will. But please don't suggest that the rules trivialize anything; that's what WE do or don't do as the participants through our own experiences. "We are the music makers and the dreamers of dreams"
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I think a large factor in making death more trivial is the search for challenging content. Generally the more challenging content is the more satisfying and enjoyable the gameplay. The caveat to that is that challenging content leads to death!
This is exactly my experience.
I ran 3.5 Eberron (and switched to PF Beta) in the game prior to my current Jade Regent game, and I had house rules that made death somewhat less likely, but much more difficult to recover from.
I liked it that way ... but it required walking on a knife-edge of encounter balance if I wanted fun, challenging encounters that didn't constantly result in death. I put in the work, and it worked out, but it was hard. I spent at least as much time prepping for that game -- including running the math of encounters -- as I did playing it.
After a long stint of Mutants & Masterminds, with its incredibly simple prep, we again got the hankerin' for D&D (under its new name of PFRPG), and I decided to run Jade Regent. But M&M made me reluctant to go back to the amount of work I did for Eberron, so I scrapped my house rules against raise dead ... and now the encounters are fun and challenging, but PCs are dying much more often.
They get better now, though.
So for me, the balance is "lots of work and preferred play-style" versus "much less work and 'meh' play-style." I don't like the cheapness of death in baseline PFRPG, but I live with it.
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I don't understand; how is making raise dead easier trivializing death. At least, how does it trivialize it any more than it already is, considering its a fictional game about fictionals in a fictional world that no one outside the players at the table will ever care about.
The reason so many fantasy novels make death something you can't come back from even with magic, or make resurrection a super big deal is because when death is trivialized then there is no sense of excitement or danger to the reader. And then whats the point of your big scary dragon? Death needs to not be trivial, ESPECIALLY in fantasy settings where adventure is the plot if you expect people to care that you characters are in life threatening situations. The same is true if you are playing a game. If this were a game about social structures and romance it wouldn't matter. At least not as much.
However I'd like it pointed out that never in those three has anyone shown me a game they're in where people are dying LEFT AND RIGHT where this is actually a problem. I've been running campaigns for years and played lots of low level games where PCs have died. Never once have any of those players just simply hit reset 50 times like is suggested by these threads.But please don't suggest that the rules trivialize anything; that's what WE do or don't do as the participants through our own experiences. "We are the music makers and the dreamers of dreams"
Challenge accepted. For me, it's a problem because this is a game. The easier it is to come back to life more the game trivializes ITSELF. It removes excitement, danger, and the sense of accomplishment gained by overcoming challenges by granting you infinite extra lives. Actions are less daring, brave or wreckless when you have literal life insurance. The more readily available resurrection is the less meaningful the players actions are. And the rules do trivialize death by making it incredible easy to obtain repeatedly. Not for the first few levels. But for most of your career as an adventurer.
The reason so many fantasy novels make death something you can't come back from even with magic, or make resurrection a super big deal is because when death is trivialized then there is no sense of excitement or danger to the reader. And then whats the point of your big scary dragon? Death needs to not be trivial, ESPECIALLY in fantasy settings where adventure is the plot if you expect people to care that you characters are in life threatening situations. The same is true if you are playing a game. If this were a game about social structures and romance it wouldn't matter. At least not as much.
This is where the big difference between active and passive media comes in.
Challenge accepted. For me, it's a problem because this is a game. The easier it is to come back to life more the game trivializes ITSELF. It removes excitement, danger, and the sense of accomplishment gained by overcoming challenges by granting you infinite extra lives. Actions are less daring, brave or wreckless when you have literal life insurance. The more readily available resurrection is the less meaningful the players actions are. And the rules do trivialize death by making it incredible easy to obtain repeatedly. Not for the first few levels. But for most of your career as an adventurer.
How so? Just because resurrection is easy doesn't make the game challenge-less. In fact, I'd argue that the fact that you died in the first place points towards the opposite. And I'd also argue that you're MUCH more likely to take chances and do reckless and daring things if resurrection is easier too, players tend to be more careful when a tiny slip up kills them and it's a great difficulty to reverse.
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I approve of this message.My old favorite GM once said.
"My world (game I run) does not center around the PCs. You are merely playing a character who exists in this world and living/creating his adventures. You might die and be a chump or you may become the greatest adventurer to ever live. I guess we will find out"
That to me was the best way to describe the perfect game (personal preference obviously). Death depended on the event. Getting swallowed whole and dying was permanent, but maybe not so much a melee hit that happened to drop you to -CON
There's a balance to worry about with this as well. We have a local GM that is otherwise great, but all of his player's get frustrated because their essentially puppets to his narration. It doesn't make for an engaging game. I think there needs to be a balance between the two.