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In which yours truly attempts to gather more information about the subject.
The other night, when this happened I had to pause and take inventory.
Five characters, all of whom I really enjoyed having in the group, snuffed it in a single combat round. Specifically, two of these characters were newcomers to the group and the adventure was really intended to highlight them and bring them on par with some of the more senior members. *pout*
To simplify, and for my own sanity, I'll just use character names for this post.
Aika Coppergate - Fighter/Astral Deva (hybridized from Savage Species)
Brother Joshua Haverson - Elven Paladin
Klavya Githame - Githyanki Fighter
Sheba - Medusa Oracle (Blind/Lore)
Gnimish - Gnome Illusionist/Rogue/Arcane Trickster
Regardless, the group had a pair of wishes in the form of a luck blade and with great agonizing over the decision my player requested that two of the five be restored. And so Gnimish and Sheba are returned. Aika and Joshua were an item, and were shining paragons of their deity - in whom the deity had a personal investment after they pulled Her bacon out of the Abyss during the events of For Duty and Deity. Klavya was not integrating well with the group (He's a GITHYANKI!!) and that was that.
I waffled and had a Bad GM, No Biscuit moment where I wanted to wave my hand and restore the party. But my Beloved Spouse (Kobold Chorus: "We love you!") - who is the player for Aika, Klavya, Gnimish and Sheba, told me to avoid the velvet glove and make death mean something.
I knew the wishes were there, the party's captain knew the wishes were there and that there were only two. As the deity that Aika and Joshua both serve is a Prime Material based deity, they didn't have any transit time through the Astral and just appeared in the company of their Goddess without further ado. I played this as cut scenes, cutting between the main party, and Aika and Joshua.
As the wishes were spent and Sheba and Gnimish restored, the Goddess smiled and advised Aika that her life's goal (to ascend from Aasimar to Angel) was accomplished. With a gesture, Aika ascended to a full Planetar. Joshua joined the ranks of petitioners and this was satisfactory.
Klavya, well, nothing's really been done about him to this point, but I expect something might be Real Soon Now.
Shortly after this, when the full impact of the deaths became full party knowledge, the team's master thief, Ismek Vanagas, decides to tamper further. He pulls his Deck of Many Things (yes, High Magic is the order of the day) and draws two cards. I granted a Key - a mace that was designed to go well into the rest of the adventure, and a Moon - with one wish. Time passed quickly as he realized he had ONE wish, not TWO and definitely not THREE. He couldn't bring everyone back.
He wished that Aika and Joshua were returned.
Now, as they'd gone to their Reward, this complicated. But, well, not too much. I ruled that Aika was "On Loan" from Goddess to the party (the next bit of the adventure is a real pain) and Joshua was brought back as a Risen Martyr using the class from Book of Exalted Deeds - his mission was to finish the adventure and then be returned to the court of Goddess.
And so, most of the party is back. Some only for a 'farewell tour', others permanently.
So, as a GM and as a player, how have you, my beloved audience, handled making death matter?
In our campaign, death has been handled several ways.
1) Our halfling shadowdancer died to a trap. I cast a breath of life spell and brought him back. Repercussions are currently unknown.
2) My character died in her backstory. This was the focal point of her story; in mechanics, she died as a 1st level expert, but had a long chat with Death, agreed to perform a task for her and serve her, then came back as a 1st level cleric with many missing memories of her past life. She knew she was a widow and that she'd died messily, not much more. Those memories are now for the most part returned. But since she was revived by divine will, there have been some unusual interactions with other people. When people have heard about her death, they sometimes wonder if she's undead, or wonder that she isn't undead. And so on.
3) I died again in the same temple my character had died in before, during our attempted assault on said chapel. The party revived me by taking me to another temple. There was a scene in the afterlife where my character actually saw her dead husband and he was doing well, though she didn't interact with him. Death gave her a word of advice and when the raise dead spell went off sent her on her way. In this case, it let the GM give us a clue and served as a story element. My character knows her husband went to a good place when he died, which does make her happy. There are still occasional jokes made about her demise though, go figure, the cleric of Death died and went in for her annual review;)
No resurrection - and you can't wish anyone back from the dead.
so - Death matters
(but we have *one* D10 *per play session* which the players can use to add to, or subtract from any roll - mine or theirs, except for rolling for HP when going up a level)
Works for us,
GRU
Character death sucks. I mean, it just does. While I too have a hard time with the revolving-door afterlife, I also understand why the game has methods for bringing souls back from the grave. If the party has the resources, and the player wants their character back, then that's what we do.
In the end, it's about having fun. If bringing a character back, within the framework of the rules, will preserve the fun, then I don't see any other choice.
I get what you're saying. Death needs to have finality. Some players can handle that, others can't. I, personally, wouldn't bring my character back without some major plot device mandating it. Not everyone feels that way.
I'm contemplating adding to my homebrew games a goddess of life and death, who ceaselessly patrols the veil between the two, preventing dead souls from crossing back for some reason known only to her. She abhors undead (in the fluff of my world, undead require a tiny piece of soul to animate and do things, a skeleton filled with negative energy just lays there, but with a tiny fragment of soul contained in the onyx, it can fight and move) and hates rez spells. However, all the other gods fight her to allow some to cross back, and she has finally allowed exactly three rezzes for very important people (above level 5 who die adventuring, no bringing the king back if he dies of malaria).
I find that character death just isn't a big deal if it's just a few measly gold and they are back. Should be either a big reason, or a limited ability imo.
I'm contemplating adding to my homebrew games a goddess of life and death, who ceaselessly patrols the veil between the two, preventing dead souls from crossing back for some reason known only to her. She abhors undead (in the fluff of my world, undead require a tiny piece of soul to animate and do things, a skeleton filled with negative energy just lays there, but with a tiny fragment of soul contained in the onyx, it can fight and move) and hates rez spells. However, all the other gods fight her to allow some to cross back, and she has finally allowed exactly three rezzes for very important people (above level 5 who die adventuring, no bringing the king back if he dies of malaria).
I find that character death just isn't a big deal if it's just a few measly gold and they are back. Should be either a big reason, or a limited ability imo.
but being brought back already does sting quite a bit
raise dead is not cheap, and nowehre near trivial
heres why
the costs and time spent finding a willing sufficiently skilled cleric of a sufficiently accepting god who condones this particular case of ressurection. a priest of Zon-Kuthon may be willing to raise a fallen priestess of Shelyn on account of thier patron gods being brother and sister, regardless of alignment. a priest of Heironious would not *EVER* ressurect a champion of Hextor on account of thier divine patrons being outright enemies.
the loss of a whole level, this causes you to fall behind in the power curve and only die faster the next time. being even a single level behind is bad for you as it will screw you over.
almost always, the ressurection will almost always come out of *YOUR* pocket. if you have to borrow money, expect to be forced to pay them back. because they had to bring *YOU* back. this will be a humongus expense of which most pcs won't be able to reliably afford for several levels. and since most parties divide wealth evenly among the survivors who attended the session. you may not get a share at all. new characters tend to not get a share either.
it is often cheaper and more beneficial to make a new character. it may take more time but most dms will not only let you start around the party's level, either average or lowest. but you will most likely get an amount of starting gold equal to your wealth by level entry for that particular level. and since you had more starting levels under your belt, you can optimize yourself as better for that given level than the organically grown pc ever could. and creating a new pc at a particular level has the advantage of the party splitting the gear of the deceased while saving *YOU* the ressurection costs.
ressurection is already an inferior option to filling in another blank sheet. i beleive that well played heroic sacrifices should be greatly rewarded. maybe starting a new pc a level or few above the party average with better gear. but at the same time, this benefit should apply to drastically the player writing up drastically different pcs from his dead character. as to reward not playing yet another carbon copy.
I don't give one copper for the whole "it better to make an new character than continuing". If you start that argument, you've already moved the purpose of the game from being about telling a great story (or stories) into the sad realm of mechanics/optimisation.
I definately think being brought back to life should cost something more than just a small bit of gold. If you do something special, it can provide a lot of different plot and story hooks, or simply just make some challenges, which forces the character to evolve in one way or the other.
I don't give one copper for the whole "it better to make an new character than continuing". If you start that argument, you've already moved the purpose of the game from being about telling a great story (or stories) into the sad realm of mechanics/optimisation.
I definately think being brought back to life should cost something more than just a small bit of gold. If you do something special, it can provide a lot of different plot and story hooks, or simply just make some challenges, which forces the character to evolve in one way or the other.
compared to the rest of my group. i have the second highest mortality rate. and my corpses are never in raisable condition. try being disentigrated to ashes, beaten into a pile of indiscernable scraps of flesh that are too small to piece together and stuff like that. it makes ressurection impossible. every time one of my pcs dies (rarely, but still frequent enough to have second highest mortality rate) it is never in ressurectable condition.
I definately think being brought back to life should cost something more than just a small bit of gold.
It does. Read the rules on bringing folks back, it ain't cheap.
constant pc death leads to a harder time developing a sense of immersion. as one could be afraid that character will just die as well. a dm pulling a few punches can work wonders for immersion but at the cost of suspension of disbelief. it's easier to immerse yourself into a pc you are more familiar with.
You're making Death-matter? Can I borrow some?
The best approach I've had is to just limit the availability of high level spells. Players need to find a person to reverse death with magic, or at least a scroll (which in my games never exist unless there's someone around to scribe them).
Paizo has given GMs an awesome tool with the expanded city statblock in the GMG. If players can't really find scrolls of higher than 5th level because the rules say so, then at the very least they have to go looking for a powerful cleric.
Now, in my games, any NPC over 9th level is rare indeed, and this had been announced as such. The players (with 10th level PCs) are okay with this, it mean they are the elite badasses with precious little competition — but! It can be hard to find powerful magic without tapping known allies or trying to make new, powerful friends.
I'm okay with the dead coming back to life if it is a crazy amount of work, that's mythologically sound. When in doubt, just remember that most high level clerics can cast plane shift and so they probably take the express to (their version of) heaven and don't come back unless they're told to. That seems like the kind of trip you might have to take to reverse death.
If you have a cleric in the party, and the above solution doesn't work for you, consider changing the spell level of the offending spells.
constant pc death leads to a harder time developing a sense of immersion. as one could be afraid that character will just die as well. a dm pulling a few punches can work wonders for immersion but at the cost of suspension of disbelief. it's easier to immerse yourself into a pc you are more familiar with.
Once you take away the option of a quick res, notice how your characters play more cautiously. :)
I definately think being brought back to life should cost something more than just a small bit of gold.It does. Read the rules on bringing folks back, it ain't cheap.
I know the rules, thank you. It cost the sum 8010 gp for a raise spell as well as having the negative levels removed, while a reincarnation can be done for 1840. Both figures of course assuming that you do not have the relevant spellcasters in the party.
I am not really interested in a discussion on whether or not that is large amounts of gp, or at which levels it is (or not). The point is, when ressurections are easily availiable for a (small or big) amount of gold, death stops to matter much. It devalues the characters life to loot, which in my opinion removes the danger of situation.
Dying shouldn't be something your character wants to avoid, because it means that you have to wait a bit longer to get your +2 sword made +3. Dying should be a b&!!& to avoid, because well... your dead.
Adding some unforseen consequences can (sometimes) do just that, because it removes the expectation of just automatically continue from last save point, for you as a player, and as a result for your character as well.
Ravenloft has a nifty mechanic for limiting player resurrections. The spells Raise Dead and Resurrection have an added stipulation; the target must make a Fort Save, DC = 30 - The caster's level. If the target fails this save, they become an undead of the DM's choice(target cannot be made a Lich in this manner).
So, unless you somehow found one of the only mid-teens level Clerics in the entire plane, you're looking at a stiff DC to try and come back. I've seen this used in game and it's made for some really tense situations. One time, an innocent townsfolk got killed in a zombie attack, and the party cleric tried to bring them back. The target failed their save, and lunged at the cleric's throat as a zombie! The party had to drop the poor victim.
Another time this was used, actually made for a pretty interesting plot twist. The group was traveling with a female elf archer. She was struck dead in a battle against some barbarian Caliban, and so the cleric again tried to raise her. She rolled her save but failed by 1 point! In game the characters saw her lean forward, open her eyes, and become joyous of being alive again, except, her wounds weren't closing... She had retained complete awareness, and she herself didn't know what was wrong, but as time went on she began to decompose and become gaunt. She eventually had to wrap heavy bandages around her mid-section where the killing blow landed, as her insides would begin to spill out. The rest of the party knew something was wrong, but didn't have the heart to slay an ally. The cleric was wracked with guilt since it was his spell that made her this way. Eventually the party confronted her, and she had to decide whether to stay with the party and risk turning on them, or leave and make her own way. After an episode where she lost control and attacked a party member, she left. It was pretty dramatic!
I should mention that the elf was an npc, as we had a very small group and the players had asked me to include an extra npc or two to help balance things. I would never put a player in a position where they had to leave the party against their own will.
Ravenloft has a nifty mechanic for limiting player resurrections. The spells ... have an added stipulation; the target must make a Fort Save ... If the target fails ... they become an undead of the DM's choice (target cannot be made a lich in this manner).I'd say that's "nifty" and appropriate—for Ravenloft. In a more conventional setting, if my character possessed the power, attempted to resurrect a cherished companion and was blindsided by the fact that he or she had instead "become an undead of the DM's choice," it would be this player's choice to tell the DM what a [insert gender appropriate genitalia] he or she was. God knows I've done it before.
[Of course, if this had been made clear as at least a possibility beforehand, well, that's entirely different: You rolls the dice, you takes your chances ... and you keep various means of quickly dispatching undead on hand until it's confirmed that they're happy (and not hungry) to see you.]
Neat bit of DMing with the elf NPC, by the way, Jandrem.
The player's cleric was not native to Ravenloft, having come from Greyhawk essentially, so in the case of the townsfolk npc, I didn't tell him ahead of time. Had it been an actual PC, then yes, I would've given him the full run down. This moment was reserved for more of a frightening realization of the realm they were in. I would never spring a mechanic like this on a player had it been thier actual PC, and not a npc commoner.
In the case with the elf archer, they knew the side-effects of the spell(this was many levels higher, they were around level 14), and discussed it for a few rounds before attempting it.
And thank you for the compliment! It was actually a lot of fun to play a support character in the story, and affect the PC's in a story-based way, without derailing any goals or tasks. I game with several other DM's, and so far I'm only the DM to have players actually ask me for npc party members to tag along.
First, I'd like to say that I really do like the hero points from Advanced Player's Guide for exactly this reason. If the player has two of them, and they are willing to save them up, they can avoid unfortunate demise without having to come back from the dead.
Second, I did like the options that Dragon Magazine had in issue 342, expressly the option where you have to have a feat to cast spells that raise the dead, and magic items that do so cost three times as much. For some reason I liked the idea that, even if a PC can take the feat, its a subset of a subset of priests that can actually raise the dead, reinforcing its rarity.
The above actually reminds me of A Storm of Swords (spoilers for anyone that hasn't read the Song of Ice and Fire books):
All of the above aside, I've run campaigns with no mechanical differences, but when characters die, I've usually spent time, often over e-mail, explaining what the character sees in the afterlife, so that they have some reason to consider if they are or are not willing to come back.
I do think that the next time that I fire up a campaign to run, I'm going to use only the option from the Core Rulebook where a new character doesn't get any new gear, but has to equip themselves from the wealth that's still floating around the party from the last character. That's almost counter to the "make death mean more" concept, but I'd rather people be invested in the character, and try to reinforce through RP that the character has died, and as such, them still being alive and in the campaign is a big deal.