When the first character death occurred in my campaign (Chapter Three), I made an unconventional decision: the PCs had to pay the reagent costs for a <i>raise dead</i> spell, but the character did *not* suffer level loss when he was brought back to life.
Why did I make this choice? At the time, I felt a bit guilty because the character died while his player was absent (another player was running him). But I was also concerned about level equity; I didn't want individual characters lagging behind in XP when the ELs were going to keep climbing steadily.
For better or worse, I stuck with this policy when the next wave of character deaths rolled in. Since Chapter Three, <i>raise dead</i> has effectively functioned as a cheaper version of <i>true resurrection</i>.
The good news is, my PCs have managed to keep up with the campaign's ELs. The bad news is, our cleric can now cast <i>raise dead</i> herself, so now party death is merely an inconvenient expense. No XP penalty seems to mean no role-playing trauma -- they fall down, they get raised, they bounce right back up again.
Recognizing my error, I tried to slap some restrictions on the cleric. I told her that, as a follower of Wee Jas, she shouldn't run around resurrecting everyone willy-nilly. When that didn't work, she got a special visit from Wee Jas, telling her she had a limited number of "get-out-of-jail" cards. In other words, I've heavily implied that resurrection is going to stop being an option altogether.
However, this could be even worse. Now I'm afraid the PCs will take cravenly precautions to preserve their lives, instead of the bold heroic deeds they're supposed to commit.
My players and I all relish the idea of making it through the whole AP with a single group of characters. What can I do at this point to make PC death a reasonable threat, or cost, but not a game-wrecker?
Thanks!
Imply that the gods are requiring greater sacrifice on the parts of souls being raised, and reinstitute the penalty to XP.
Require a holy quest of the characters in order to raise someone.
Put a geas on the raised character that influences them in some way that fits in your campaign.
Just a few ideas.
- Ashavan
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A couple things I've heard DM's do instead of forcing level loss:
1. Don't lose the level, just the XP (I do this). The downside is that you actually recover your XP slower this way because you would get more XP if you defeat creatures as a lower level PC. But, once every one else raises and you start fighting harder stuff, you'll get more XP that way because you'll be a level behind them. I leave it up to the player. And no, this doesn't mean you can consume all your XP making magic items. You must have an in-level pool of XP to spend.
2. Death = 1 permanent negative level. When this negative level is removed varies, I guess raising a level also removes one of these negative levels, so eventually, PC's do restore to full working order. A couple possible problems with this approach is that attack rolls, saving throws and skill checks in some cases might suffer more than if the PC just accepts a lost level. But they keep more spells. Most of the time, I think DMs that use this alternative just remove the negative level on a level-up and the PC is still the same level - they do it to save themselves the trouble of de-levelling the PC.
If you want to allow a certain number of free raises, go ahead, but you'll need to start imposing penalties eventually. Death shouldn't be a mere inconvenience. If you want to implement Action Points in your campaign, a PC could spend one to prevent level loss, I suppose. The remaining action points might help them be a bit braver once you set the limitation.
1. Don't lose the level, just the XP
That's also the path that I follow, having played in games where the XP/level penalty was abolished only to find that it indeed had a negative effect on the players, the PCs and thus the game.
Sometimes losing a single level can quickly make the PC's progression an uphill struggle in certain games, from which they might never recover (and also, why should they have the opportunity to change the class/feats/stat/skills for the level that they eventually regain? It has never seemd quite right to me).I also give the PCs one round after reaching -10 and greater (yes, even at -23 and beyond) to be brought to -9 or better, in effect quickly pulling the body and soul back. After that, Death.
When you decide what you want to do, or how you want to change the death rules, inform the players about this and set down the new rules clearly before them, explaining why you are changing them from this point onwards, and I am sure that you'll find that the majority of your players will agree with you. If not, well they've had it easy for a little while and now things are reverting to how they should be, so they have little reason to complain.
Good luck ;-)
It may complicate figuring XP, but you could start with the following: a dead character does not gain XP while dead. Any XP awards from challenges/encounters only go to the characters who participate.
Unless the party immediately teleports back to Cauldron or casts raise dead after a character death, the dead character will start to lag behind the rest of the group. Also, the monetary drain will start becoming significant when it comes to upgrading equipment.
If you don't like the level loss, you could institute a house-rule of gaining a negative level until the character performs a divine geas/quest imposed by the deity of the cleric casting the raise dead. This geas/quest should not be too difficult for the character alone to accomplish and should not take up a significant amount of time, but would allow you to flesh out the campaign setting and give the party additional reason to take "down-time" between adventures.
Also check out "The High Cost of Dying" http://www.andycollins.net/Theories/dying.htm at Andy Collins' web site. I use it in my SC campaign, and it seems to be working well.
(The basic idea is to replace XP loss with negative levels (which are removed only by further XP gain).)
--Steven
My players have been really pleased with the Andy Collins method. It is a set back worth avoiding, but it doesn't permanently hose their character.
The only change I made was that they don't gain the level back at level up, but when they gain (level at death) x 1000 xp. This way they are out about the same amount of time all the time. If you do it at level up, then character death in the period that gets you to the next level isn't really a penalty.
Dedekind
Another way of looking at it is to reward the players who DON'T die.
This could be done every level, at the end of an adventure or even at certain level milestones (ie every 3/5/10 levels).
Every character who has not died could recieve -
1 Action points
2 A bonus skill/feat/ability/item
3 A reward from their organisation/guild/order such as rank, a keep, followers or a cohort.
4 A blessing (allows an additional action/save/attack etc)
5 A wish!?
By rewarding not being killed then all of a suddening dieing does seem a real loss and you still keep the parties level even also.
Just another take
Delvesdeep
Thanks for all the great suggestions, folks!
I think I will implement a variation on the Andy Collins method: the negative level penalty will remain in effect until the next level-up, except in cases where the deity in charge of the resurrection dictates otherwise. If the god or goddess has a quest to assign, then the penalty will disappear when the character completes their quest.
The severity of the quest will depend upon the characters' relationship to the god; if their alignments are opposite, then the challenge of the quest will go up considerably.
Thanks again!
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Thanks for all the great suggestions, folks!
I think I will implement a variation on the Andy Collins method: the negative level penalty will remain in effect until the next level-up, except in cases where the deity in charge of the resurrection dictates otherwise. If the god or goddess has a quest to assign, then the penalty will disappear when the character completes their quest.
The severity of the quest will depend upon the characters' relationship to the god; if their alignments are opposite, then the challenge of the quest will go up considerably.
Thanks again!
The quest/geas should also be attributed to the religion/god of the cleric who performed the Raise Dead.
Another option: remove Raise Dead as a viable spell.
I do the negative level until they've earned xp totalling 10% of their current total xp. I also play with a modified Time Unit system as the RPGA does, and death actually costs the PC 5 TUs for the year.
Robert
I have the players loose xp to the start of the current level, and they roll a d6 and permenantly loose one point off a random stat (each number on their roll correspondes with one of the six ability scores). Thus if you are getting near leveling up you don't want to die because you'll be back to the xp you had at the very start of the level. On the other hand you still get penalized a little even if you are near the beginning of the level and don't loose much xp because you loose an ability score point.
I know a lot of this helps with continuity, but in my experience it cheapens the subject of death and makes players not fear it.
After using the -ve level method for a while, I'm going back to the RAW death rules, as well as the RAW energy drain rules. It makes the players fear death and the dreaded undead. That fear makes particular situations more real IMO.
As for what to do when a character dies and the player wants a new one, I think the DM has to make a call based on the situation. If the PCs are low enough level, it can be at level one. If not, then having a high powered PC just become available for play will need a thorough explanation and background. It means making more of an effort, but worth it if you want to make death a more real experience that players want to avoid.
I played in a campaign where the DM required that you get raised if you were level 13 or higher. I hated the rule, but, as a DM for SC, I can see where it helps with the continuity.
However, a lot of these things depend on the group. We've been playing together for years so we have negotiated a lot of our house rules on dying across the different people who DM. It's funny how you are more thoughtful about your adjudication because you may have to obey the same rule next week! :) At least, that's us.
You could always give them a +1 level adjustment that they could "buy off" when they level instead of actually advancing a level.
You could always give them a +1 level adjustment that they could "buy off" when they level instead of actually advancing a level.
Do you mean a -1 level adjustment? I thought of that, but I'm concerned that it would lead to permanent imbalances in the party.
An update:
When the last character was raised, I imposed a -1 level penalty, and also gave him a quest, courtesy of Wee Jas (the goddess who raised him). He was supposed to assassinate a Cauldron noble -- which I thought would provoke all sorts of moral dilemmas, since he was chaotic good, and generally opposed to cold-blooded murder.
Not so much. He rolled a knowledge (local) check, and asked if the nobleman in question was "a bad guy." When I said yes, he was widely known to be involved in illegal activities, the PC cheerfully drew up his assassination plans, with nary a twinge of conscience to be had.
But this is, of course, a whole other problem -- encouraging PCs to behave according to their alignments. I'll just be more careful with my vision quests from now on.
I actually want to make death less of an obstacle. My players will make new characters at the drop of a hat. It makes it really difficult to have any running character centered subplots.
I am currently using the XP Debt version of death penalty and add to that, any spells cast in a shrine consecrated to the casters deity gets a discount based on the size of the shrine and the deity. Its complicated, sure, but it boils down to; Raise Dead cast by a Wee Jas cleric on the alter to Wee Jas cost only 10%gp
Even so, My players will only accept 1 rez, refusing the rez if they die a 2nd time.
I've never much liked level loss in general, certainly not with coming back from the dead. I now give players a choice: take the level loss or lose a point of Con. So far, since I've added the change, players have chosen to lose a point of Con.
I went with the negative level that will disappear the next time they level up. That way there is a negative to going down, but it isn't permanent enough to mess up my level equity in the group. I think it has worked well so far (though only one death so far and the bigger issue for her was she went with a reincarnation and came back as a dwarf... which her beautiful elf self didn't like, so she paid for a Polymorph Any Object to go back... more expensive than raise dead... makes me laugh).
Sean Mahoney