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Today we are wrapping up a campaign in which I tinkered with a few house rules, the major one being how to deal with character death. I know this is a kicking a dead horse topic but I'll bore you anyways =).
It started off with a huge debate on how to handle character death. There were many opinions and frustrations. Some didn't mind making new guys, and others thought that newly made characters had a distinct advantage over the ones that slugged it out from the beginning.
In the end I came up with this little gem that worked extremely well for our table and eliminated all conflicts.
The "Not Quite Dead Yet" Rule
Any character reduced to a point where they are dead is immediately raised to the minimum point of living and must subtract 1 Con (this is not drain but permanent). Characters who are "not quite dead yet" are then immune from any damage while they remain in this state (A character can thus ride out combat without being in danger of being again reduced to near death). If the "not quite dead" character is willingly revived by a fellow player they are again subject to the Con loss if they are reduced to death.
We ran a Rise of the Runelord campaign to test this and a few other minor rules out and the effect was amazing. On one hand, one player, the party paladin, never died. On the other, another player, the party sorcerer, was found "not quite dead yet" three times in one game =).
Today we are wrapping up the AP and the sorcerer has an anemic 6 Con but the cohesion of the group and the unbroken flow of the storyline has been truly impressive. While I am aware many circumvent this by fudging rolls or creative storylines, I found this had the right balance of carrot and stick to keep everyone at my table content.
That seems like a pretty good idea.
Back in my college days if a character died we'd have it's replacement start at 1 level lower than the surviving characters.
These days, my personal GM stance on character death is that I simply don't kill PCs unless the player wants to make a new one. Making new characters, especially at higher levels, can be a pain, and can be a bit demoralizing to a player, especially if they actually liked their character.
Are there repercussions for "dieing? Sure, and I think losing a point of CON is a good example of what might happen. Personally, I try to be a bit more creative. Typically what happens "dead" characters varies from situation to situation, but can range from being captured, losing a limb, becoming a ghost or some other horrible yet dramatic outcome that adds flavor to the campaign without totally screwing over the player.
,Matt
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This could also be a way of allowing the DM to build more challenging encounters without worrying too much about murdering his/her own story arcs. I like it - but I'd personally combine it with some material losses - such as looters taking weaponry, coinage and the like. I'd also want to combine this with a 'no resurrection magic' rule to keep verisimilitude in the story.