You should try La-Mulana.Yes. Yes I should.
It is a beautiful catastrophe.
Mother is waiting.
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When did I ever say it wasn't easier? I'm arguing that easier is not necessarily worse. My game is not your game, and that, despite your opinion, is just fine.
You have continually posted things I have not said. Now you are angry about things you think I have said, I think because with all the stuff you and others are making up that I am saying, you have no idea what I have actually said.
You don't like how I play, but I'm not sitting here screaming "how dare you" at you.
I am asking why are we trending away from the old way the game was. I am asking why are we making the game easier.
Am I arguing that makes it more boring. YES.
Are you arguing that it makes the game more fun. YES.
Do we disagree? YES.
But at least have the courtesy to disagree or agree with what I said rather than making stuff up and asking me to defend it.
Let me try a different approach: have your players ever reacted positively from the lasting impact of character death?Have you ever reacted positively when you've played a game with a group of friends and you were not the one who won on a given evening?
We have a game night on Wednesdays at our house (generally not RPG as it is during the week and we all work). We played Settlers of Catan and my wife won despite me being a 9 for like 5 rounds (you need 10 points to win). Was I happy I lost? No. Did I enjoy the challenge of the game? Yes.
It isn't about that specific moment of failure. It is about that moment actually mattering so that when you don't die (which happens much, much more frequently) you are that much happier and that much more relieved something bad didn't happen.
It is about how my wife felt winning, about how the rest of us felt challenges, and about how now I want to play again so that I can try and win next time.
Focusing on the bad ignores that most of the time you don't die, and it is that much more of an accomplishment when the negative outcome could have been catastrophic.
You don't remember the times you almost stepped on a piece of paper, you remember the times you almost fell off a cliff.
I concur. I also concede that I remember the time I almost fell off that cliff just as well as that time as I almost fell off that cliff filled into a ravine filled with permanent level draining rocks.
If you die, that sucks and it has an impact. If you die, and come back HOORAY! You had a lot of money, access to high level magic and all the other things that already took to happen. If you die, your party jumps through all the hoops and WHOOPS! you failed a roll and are now permanently dead or HOORAY, you're back but slightly less powerful and less able to help with the demon that's already killed you once when you were more powerful...that seems to not have the same postive impact.
I don't want my characters to die. Not b/cause I don't want the level drain, but b/cause I don't want them dying. If they DO die however, and the GODS permit me another shot at making it right, I don't want to come back at the villain any stronger OR weaker than I was before. And if I didn't die, I certainly wouldn't be celebrating b/cause HOORAY, I DIDN'T die/come back/lose a level and get one rez closer to permanent irrevocable death. I'd celebrate b/cause...I'M ALIVE and DIDN'T DIE!
Now if I dided in Settlers, I'd just hope someone had the good sense to save the wood from my coffin to instead win Longest Road and name their road after me...
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I had longest road but I maxed out settlements and couldn't get rocks for a City because no one would trade and they kept blocking me with the robber...then they took longest road...5 person games with the expansion, takes forever to get back around to your turn and so much can happen along the way...love that game.
Smallworld next week I think, with a short "Cards vs Humanity" game after we put the baby down.
Your argument seems to be that players whose characters don't die won't feel sufficiently superior to players whose characters do die unless the latter are mechanically punished for it in-game. Playing Pathfinder isn't like playing Settlers of Catan; for someone to win, someone else doesn't have to lose.
Personally, I have no issue with a 5% XP penalty, for games in which I track individual XP, which isn't all of them. (I'm still a little nostalgic for everyone leveling up at a different time, but I like having one less set of numbers to keep track of when I'm DMing, too.) Despite the fact that our group has pretty much always allowed any character to be raised without a mechanical or monetary penalty, I've never seen a given PC die more than once; that is, it isn't a case of someone running Bob the Failbot but of the fickleness of the dice. But I do find the reasoning behind your proposal somewhat repellent.
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Back in the good old days, the DM would hit us with a chair every time we took damage in combat. If you died, you had to write on a chalkboard, "I am a bad player who loses at D&D," while the rest of the group lashed you with their belts.
We filed sharp edges on the dice to cut up the hands of the weak and the stupid. Anyone who complained met with a hunting "accident" during one of our IRON MAN Weekends.
Now that's how REAL MEN game!
Raise dead used to involve Russian Roulette rather than a D6 to see if there was an autofail.
I miss those guys...if only they had missed themselves
Single. Manly. Tear.
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Why the trend? I'm not sure it's a trend moreso than balancing game mechanics to keep players invested and interested.
I recapped in the "raise dead" thread the 4th Edition Designers reasons why - credit James Wyatt and Rob Heinsoo in 2008. In much shorter form:
Returning from the dead in past editions was so punishing players preferred rolling up new characters, disrupting campaign continuity. At the same time, knowing that character death is inevitable, the game needs a mechanic that keeps a threat of failure to make players worry about dying but not so much they roll up new characters or are forced to sit out from play.
After trying old-school and even no-death rules, they concluded character death has to come as a natural and even expected consequence of combat, and the system needs to roll you toward that endpoint.Take away a plausible threat of death and failure, and heroes become boring automatons. Even so, players want a glimmer of hope, not crushing despair, when the worst happens.
The penalties are meant to make a player wish their character hadn't died but not so much they are severly hampered from future play and/or just desire to roll up a new character.
I would say you are making the mistake of thinking an increase in skill is a decrease in difficulty. And being lower level is a decrease in skill.Of course it makes it easier. You are given more opportunies to do it so you are more likely to do it.
Would you not agree it is harder to do it with only 1 opportunity rather than with a thousand?
As to CR, you are correct that they don't change. However if you are a lower level because of dying in the past (as you would have been in 3.5) that will be more difficult for you, won't it?
I believe you are arguing the encounters will adjust up or down to the level of the party, and I get that.
But if Bob died 5 times and Bill only died 1 time in the course of an AP, and they are both in the same encounter. Bill gets no benefit for having played much, much, better than Bob throughout in pathfinder, but in every other incarnation, Bill would.
You say I am punishing Bob, I say I am giving Bob what he earned. I say it is punishing Bill to have him not be rewarded for playing better than Bob.
I know this is a bit tangental, but in this ex you state that bill is a better player and bob gets what he deserved, or "earned" as you put it. What if one of bob's deaths were just that he opened a chest with a phantasmal killer? He has a sound build, has done phenominally well for the party, and was at full health...the die just came up 14 when he needed a 15 to detect. Then when his save came up as an 11 when he needed a 12, you're saying he EARNED a permanent penalty?
He didn't do anything wrong. Poor bob just opened a box and death popped out. He is now out the rest of the adventure, sucked up the money that Jill was saving for the final gem of disintegration to kill the demon which, now that she's put that on hold he's eaten ANOTHER village full of children, and because of a 2 pt difference of random chance he's coming back weaker and thus less capable of making that SAME roll.
How is that what bob earned?
As a separate post to several of you
NO ONE IS ARGUING RAISE DEAD SHOULD GO AWAY OR YOU SHOULDN'T BE ABLE TO BRING BACK PLAYERS WHO DIE.
Put that strawman away, no one is interested in fighting it.
The question is why are we removing any and all long term effects from death, and therefore making death have the same impact as a generic status effect. Why that trend.
Actually, you want to make death a generic status effect, you just want it to be harsher.
I think it should be a story choice of whether to come back and continue or start a new character.
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As a separate post to several of you
NO ONE IS ARGUING RAISE DEAD SHOULD GO AWAY OR YOU SHOULDN'T BE ABLE TO BRING BACK PLAYERS WHO DIE.
Put that strawman away, no one is interested in fighting it.
The question is why are we removing any and all long term effects from death, and therefore making death have the same impact as a generic status effect. Why that trend.
Actually, you want to make death a generic status effect, you just want it to be harsher.
I think it should be a story choice of whether to come back and continue or start a new character.
Actually, I want to to be basically what it used to be in 3.5, which is what Pathfinder is based off of. Or actually, given I'm ok with losing the gold, somewhat less harsh.
Define "story choice" as it sounds more like "personal choice"
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Why the trend? I'm not sure it's a trend moreso than balancing game mechanics to keep players invested and interested.
I recapped in the "raise dead" thread the 4th Edition Designers reasons why - credit James Wyatt and Rob Heinsoo in 2008. In much shorter form:
I remember, and I believe I commented saracastically how well that worked for 4e.
Death is part of the game. I think dying is going to happen, and at higher levels it is almost expected. But there is a relative element as well.
Back to 5 dead Bob vs 1 Dead Bill, one of these builds (or players) is better than the other one. They both died, they were both brought back, but one dies 5 times more often.
Why should the game give them the same outcome?
Which gets down to the root of the problem, the neutering of GMs.
This in particular is what I was trying to make a point against. Look a bit deeper than this root and you'll find a new root I believe. The PERCEIVED change of the game is nothing more than subjectivity. A set of rules and guidelines does NOT define the grit or difficulty.
Take for example the role-playing game Call of Cthulhu. I have a group of friends that have been playing the same game for seven years and have never had a character death. In most fans eyes of this particular game, the rules dictate a high death rate and extreme grit. Well, fan opinion seems to mean absolutely nothing to my friends who have not played in this manner.
I believe some older role-players are being defeated by their own perspectives. If you want death to have meaning, all you need is a group of role-players who agree with you and it will happen. The rules don't create atmosphere, merely give the impression of an atmosphere that you have the power to overcome with a fresh mind.
Have you tried talking to your GM and players about adding more meaning to character death? If they simply raise you without shedding a tear or worry about resources, that's not always a fault of the resources, but a lack of role-players shedding the tear. The GM can also create more dire circumstances if he so chose.
It is not outside of Pathfinder rules to say that characters who originally thought they would accept a raise dead are so overcome by their afterlife that they change their minds. The players can either choose to create this or the GM can do what your group find adequate to supplant this.
Once again, this is just ONE way. I can add more and more examples of how to add consequences to Pathfinder without breaking Pathfinder rules infinitely, but eventually examples are not helping. You have to personally decide to make Pathfinder work for you, or you'll never get what you want out of it.
It's possible and it's there. All you have to do is quite convincing yourself that "the rules are making all these kids get on my lawn". Convince yourself and your group that Pathfinder does exactly what you want, and you'll realize that you are correct.
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It's largely a question of tone rather than factual disagreement.
The tone only bothers you from the side of the argument you disagree with.
The tone is born out of frustration of misrepresentation.
As to "training wheels", it is an easier playstyle with less negative possible outcomes. We are both on the same functional machine, only your version has less risk.
I don't think it is an inaccurate metaphor, even if you don't like the implication.
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@GrenMeera - It isn't the theoretical. There is less effect for death in Pathfinder than any previous version. There are literally no long term effects, if you agree with SKR's interpretation of WBL (specifically it should be self correcting over time) and even that cost he indicated he thinks needs to be removed.
The trend is to make death have no long term consequences. Currently it is functionally gold and two removable negative levels, one can be removed immediately, one in a week.
In 3.5 it was a permantent lost level that could not be restored by any means, period.
That is worse.
I agree that the level loss was a problem, if only because it was a huge pain to figure out, but I don't think you can argue the new is much, much, less of a penalty.
Particularly in the long term.
Do you disagree with any of this? Because this is the actual argument I am making. What you are saying is not what I am saying.
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But I do find the reasoning behind your proposal somewhat repellent.If that were my reasoning, I would find it repellent to.
My reasoning is failure should have consequences. Not failing should be rewarded.
Anything else you are adding to that, you are adding to that.
Perhaps, but you're the one who keeps using loaded and derisive terms like "builds that fail" and "Bob the Failbot."
Competely apart from the fact that most PC deaths have nothing to do with defective builds but with poor dice luck (and considering that your argument in the other thread was that the ultimate struggle wasn't 'GM vs. player' but 'table vs. dice,' it's odd that you've now locked onto a player with a poor character build as your poster child for why the PC should suffere consequences), Pathfinder is already a game in which the system mastery bar is set at a very high level, due to the complexity of builds and plethora of options. Do we really want to enforce another hurdle for new players wherein their inexpertly-built PCs are continually weakened? When you've made poor decisions in putting a PC together, you're already facing the consequences of being less effective than your more experienced party members. Do we really want the "You suck at this" message like a drumbeat echoing throughout gameplay?
Or, what thejeff just said while I was typing. :)
Or Bill hides in the back, avoids threats and generally doesn't accomplish much, while Bob holds the front line and saves the whole group on a regular basis, but dies doing it since he's carrying Bill's weight as well as his.
And in 2e games, I saw a lot of this. The rogue who checks for traps, knows he's failed the roll, says, "Hey, guys, why don't you go ahead and open this while I go back out in the hallway?" The ranger who climbs a tree and fires arrows while the cleric and wizard end up in melee with a cyclops.
It's no more a sweeping generalization to say that if you penalize death, you can expect the party to start playing selfishly to maximize their own survival at other characters' expense than it is to say that if there's no penalty for death, people will just rush into suicide mission after suicide mission because they don't care if their PC dies.
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I know you don't think it's inaccurate. I've been trying to explain why I don't agree. I'm giving up now though, since you seem completely uninterested.
I will go back to enjoying my training wheels games, despite them obviously being so boring due to lack of risk of real death that no one could possibly enjoy it for long.
1. It is easier. I don't think there can be any reasonable disagreement on this.
2. I think it is less interesting, you do not, hence the point of conflict and this is a point of debate and discussion.
3. The issue isn't me not liking your game. You can play your game however you like. The issue is "the" game drifting away from the historical playstyle toward one that has no penalties for death.
For all the complaints from your side of the argument about me attacking your playstyle, what exactly are you all doing in reference to the playstyle that existed prior to Pathfinder?
Have you read some of the descriptions of cruelty and unfairness attributed to my side?
I am glad you like your playstyle. It is easier.
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Back to 5 dead Bob vs 1 Dead Bill, one of these builds (or players) is better than the other one. They both died, they were both brought back, but one dies 5 times more often.
Why should the game give them the same outcome?
Or Bill hides in the back, avoids threats and generally doesn't accomplish much, while Bob holds the front line and saves the whole group on a regular basis, but dies doing it since he's carrying Bill's weight as well as his.
Or Bob just has terrible dice luck.I'm also generally opposed to rules that are designed to work like: "You suck, so we're going to penalize you even more."
You can get on a death spiral that way faster than you can learn how to improve.
Or more likely, Bob's character is worse than Bill's.
I didn't lose to my wife at Settlers because I am a bad person, I lost because she played better than I did.
Theoretical Bob died more than Theoretical Bill because Bob played worse than Bill.
Could those other things be factors? Sure. And my wife kept getting all those 4 rolled for her damn sheep for her sheep harbor.
Losing sucks. Death sucks. Which is what makes it that much better to not die and to not lose.
I am perfectly entitled to be annoyed that the game rules changed and to not like the new rules or the new trend.
You are entitled to like to play an easier style of game.
@Joana - Someone who uses the word "Repellent" to describe an an opponents view is awfully bold to complain about "derisive terms"
A build that dies more often than anyone at the table is a build that is worse at staying alive.
Would you disagree?
I do disagree. It doesn't matter how well a character is built if they get into a dice funk where they can't roll out of single digits round after round after round. There are a lot more factors that contribute to PC death than incompetence.
And I do find repellent the concept that for a person to feel good about their PC succeeding, the player of a less well-built or well-played PC has to be made to feel bad about failing. It is a game philosophy which serves to drive me away. I would have no interest in playing at your table, as it seems hypercompetitive and focused on tactical combat in relation to mine. No doubt you find my philosophy, which is that everyone should play what they want and have fun with it, no matter how "gimped," equally repellent from your point of view.
As a separate post to several of you
NO ONE IS ARGUING RAISE DEAD SHOULD GO AWAY OR YOU SHOULDN'T BE ABLE TO BRING BACK PLAYERS WHO DIE.
Put that strawman away, no one is interested in fighting it.
The question is why are we removing any and all long term effects from death, and therefore making death have the same impact as a generic status effect. Why that trend.
Actually, you want to make death a generic status effect, you just want it to be harsher.
I think it should be a story choice of whether to come back and continue or start a new character.
Actually, I want to to be basically what it used to be in 3.5, which is what Pathfinder is based off of. Or actually, given I'm ok with losing the gold, somewhat less harsh.
Define "story choice" as it sounds more like "personal choice"
You are still arguing for it to be a status effect. You just want to more harshly define long term penalties and costs for dealing with it.
A story choice is something that fits the story and pushes the game into interesting directions. All choices are personal choices, including whether someone wants to deal with the harsher penalties that you are proposing, so "personal choice" applies to anything that you're leaving up to the player, whether you assign costs to it or not, as long as you let them decide, it's a "personal choice".
Factually it is. Factually not having a penalty in a game is easier than having one.
This is only true in a world of fully encapsulated limits. The logic you use is generally sound, but there is an incorrect assumption which led to a leap in logic. Essentially, this is not a provable fact because you are dealing with a non enclosed system. A penalty is therefore immeasurable, particularly when stacked against the limits of the human mind.
The penalty being removed just leave room for different kinds of penalties. Also, the impact of a penalty were always filtered through the eyes and minds of the players, who also drastically change how it is felt.
When the penalty is measured subjectively and "ease" is a subjective concept, I can say with some confidence that you are not stating facts.
To some, that penalty created grit. To others, that penalty created absolutely no additional grit yet built up frustration and lessened the fun of playing their character.
When the penalty to being raised was so high that you no longer would enjoy the experience of being that character, the penalty did not add "grit" to you. I can even go on to say that the typical sociological effect of an unhappy player does not add the type of tension you are discussing to the concept of death either. It all is a matter of the "mood" of the table.
It isn't the theoretical. There is less effect for death in Pathfinder than any previous version. There are literally no long term effects, if you agree with SKR's interpretation of WBL (specifically it should be self correcting over time) and even that cost he indicated he thinks needs to be removed.
You perhaps misunderstand me. You are correct when you say that the RULES are not theoretical. I am saying that the IMPACT of the rules are theoretical. Once again, this is not a closed system limited by known values. This is literally a set of guidelines pertaining to the imaginative cooperative creation process. I am saying that a change in mindset has so much more impact than the rules as to make the rule impact negligible.
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Adding to what thejeff said, it isn't a "You suck" message in my opinion. Rather the 99 time out of 100 you don't die, you get a "You Rock!" message.
Using Toz defeat of Elvis as an example, he doesn't remember that victory because it was easy. He remembers it because it was hard.
You lose something from the game when the cleric pulling off the breath of life in the middle of combat only means that you aren't going have a negative level for a week rather than it meaning you aren't going to lose a level forever.
Stepping on a piece of paper vs stepping off a cliff.
The loss isn't in the deaths, it is on the not-deaths.
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@Grenmeera - No, it simply is true. If failing has no penalty, that is easier than if it doesn't.
Are you going to be more proud of a difficult accomplishment or an easier accomplishment.
@Joana - Stop projecting things I haven't said. It isn't hypercompetitive, everyone at our table is rooting for the players to win. The GM wants us to win, the players want to win. We all want to save/get/kill the MacGuffin and escape unharmed.
But if that is a given to happen for all of us, that takes a lot of the juice out of the process for us. If "We have to save Bill!" becomes "We should save Bill so we don't have to burn a spell." saving Bill is less urgent.
And less urgent, for me, is less fun.
The world doesn't collapse for an easier playstyle. If that works for you, great. But I don't like the game drifting toward that direction and making things less exciting.
And I'm sorry Bob the Autofail keeps dying. But bringing back Bill over and over isn't exactly fun for the rest of the party and the table (unless he becomes a running "Kenny" joke, which could be awesome!) so why aren't we moving on to some other character than might not be such a fail machine? Why aren't we exploring other possible stories that aren't so full of "And then Bob died"?
You want to project this concept of this deathmatch game on me, and it ain't accurate. We have very little death in most of our games. It is rare, and we don't look forward to it. Everytime it is close, the whole table stands up, all on edge, fearful. GM included.
That is what I don't want to lose.
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I am perfectly entitled to be annoyed that the game rules changed and to not like the new rules or the new trend.You are. And I suspect if you had titled this thread "Problems with new Raise Dead proposal" or "Raise Dead too easy?" instead of "Why easy mode?" and some of the other inflammatory rhetoric, regardless of whether you think it's justified or not, you might have gotten better response. Or maybe not. It is the internet after all.
But what fun is that :)
C'mon, I've seen you in the politics threads, don't act like you don't like pokin' :)
No, it simply is true. If failing has no penalty, that is easier than if it doesn't.
Are you going to be more proud of a difficult accomplishment or an easier accomplishment.
Failing is a subjective idea defined by metrics of success. Difficulty (and ease) are also completely subjective.
You also seem to have formulated your response by completely ignoring the point I was making, which was the impact of a penalty is felt, ignored, or supplanted in various ways and therefore not a metric. So once again I say that you cannot state it as fact. Fact is a dangerous word and when you believe that your opinion is fact you close yourself down to educated growth.
I will answer your question though. Yes, I would personally be more proud of a difficult accomplishment compared to an easier one.
My question to you is: Why would you remotely think that difficult and ease are such stable concepts that my answer has any bearing to your point? I define difficulty in various ways that are not the same as you. Some of the most difficult situations I've ever been in where in fact in Pathfinder and not in my old 1st edition games.
I hear you that bad play s/be penalized. Also I've had many a talk w/my non-optimizing players when they ask "why is this mission so HARD?" but I want to teach them to get better. I feel that the best way to teach this is not to slap their hands w/the proverbial ruler of permanent and irrevocable consequence (sorry, catholic education) but rather to work with the builds they have, suggest improvements and let whatever bad DOES befall them be the lesson to not go there/do that/play that way, etc. I feel like a permanent darkside point on the character would just lead to disappointment, anger, and ultimately a sith lord running a 4th level wizard.
But seriously, that's my opinion. You all have your opinions, and that's a good thing.
However to say bad luck at dice is a symptom of bad play...that seems off. I have a buddy, that tactical guy, that made one of his brothers a solid finesse fighter. Great dex, decent skills, excelent to hit for level 1. He missed a pair of die rolls by 1 and 2 points respectively - fell through a crumbling bridge section and plummetted into the river below. He technically died, but his party managed to stabilize him at -10, so I ruled him in a coma. They blew the resources to heal him and moved on.
Then he single-handedly took out 3 fire beetles. Redeeming, no? A couple rooms later they are fighting a an insect swarm in a crumbling ruin and he purposely shatters the floor but then also fails his own Ref save; the insects are dispersed for the moment but he plummets again. No death this time, but he sucked up more of the party's healing resources.
Now in the instances I'm describing he just rolled poorly. It's not a bad build; the fire beetles and other fights have proved that. He's not a boat anchor on the party or anything...he just had some bad luck. Is this then to be punished? Is this bad luck just a symptom of a failure build, despite multiple successes to the contrary?
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So does anyone actually have these games where a single character dies regularly, but keeps getting raised? It's all very well to talk about, but if it doesn't happen is it really an issue?
Especially since Bob the Autofail has to have lived long enough without dying to reach a level where Raise Dead is reasonable possibility.
Ah, but you are forgetting that SKR was advocating removing the cost as well.
What is an issue is having death not be feared because it has no impact or meaning, and how that changes how much you care if in a given encounter you live or die. How that effects retreating vs sacrifice, etc...
As is, it is at least some bite finanically (although I don't go by SKR's rebalance of the WBL approach) but the trend is going to less and less, with a call for no effect at all.
That is what I am unhappy about.
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@Mark - In Pathfinder that guy isn't dead, without GM fiat. Pathfinder already made dying harder by making it your Con mod rather than 10, giving the weaker classes more hit points, everyone more ability points, and nerfing the SOS.
And I think all of that was great. I think death should be rare.
But when it happens...
This is why I am getting frustrated with what is being projected on me. I am not calling for a bloodbath. On the contrary, I think without consequences, death becomes a strategic choice rather than something to be feared and avoided at all costs.
Avoiding/minimizing costs is part of a strategy though. Your proposal doesn't remove the strategic choice, it just makes the accounting different.
Philosophy major?
You've actually asked me this once before. I am a professional game designer (yes, with published work) with a severe undertone in sociology.
Before it comes up, I work with video games and not specifically tabletop games, but as Dave Arneson (my game design instructor and fairly famous enemy of Gary Gygax) once told me, "If you think there is a difference you aren't looking hard enough at the core elements".
I will add that in my professional experience, when writing a design proposal or a game bible, you cannot remotely state that atmosphere or player experience is a metric. You can get fired for doing that too often. The game system is defined very rigidly in one section of the game bible, and the intended atmospheric elements and artistic intent are in another. There are reasons for this.
In fact, realize that James Jacobs and Sean K. Reynolds have drastically different job titles and there is a reason for that as well. It is true that they will compromise with one another in meetings I'm sure to achieve the goals of their job title, but that does not mean that grit and atmosphere are part of the rules. They are merely implied by them.
Video games are closed systems. Tabletop role-playing games are not. The design differences to a designer are often reflected in what my primary point is: The audience still has more power than the game designers do. You are not held hostage by the rules.
I feel you C-span and I don't think anyone thinks you're calling for a blood bath. I think people just aren't getting that you want death to have consequences when a lot of us seem to think that death is a consequence in and of itself.
Not a lot of players die in my games anymore, except out of suiciding or pure bad luck. When they do something stupid or suicide their character, I usually make sure they're irrevocably gone the first time - turned one guy into a ghoul and another one his body was consumed by fire at low level so no chance of raising the ashes.
When it's just bad luck though, I'm a softie and usually make them teeter on the edge in a coma or what not. I've only had one rez in my games in the last 7 years. I guess that's why this rule hasn't really been a problem for me.
Removed some unhelpful posts. Please be civil to other posters, thanks!
Heck, even my summoner's eidolon will look for alternatives to "Go ahead, I'll hold them off!" because death is painful -- but she will do it if there is no other alternative.
On the other hand, when my summoner and eidolon both fell victim to a Confusion spell, the only "solution" turned out to be for the summoner to spend a hero point to act out of turn so that the eidolon would attack the summoner on its turn -- thus eliminating one major threat when the summoner lost consciousness.
I haven't the time to read the whole thread, but I agree with Ciretose that later editions of the game have made various adverse circumstances (such as death, level drain, being hit while casting a spell, or even being the target of a hold person spell) easier for the players. Whether this is good or bad is a matter of opinion, of course. IMO, the overcoming of adversity is a big thrill of the game, so I prefer the older ways.
In my experience in running an AD&D campaign for 30+ years I've never seen the problems that Mark Hoover reported (e.g. campaigns always ending by 4th level with fist fights among the players). I don't think that was a common result. ;)
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Avoiding/minimizing costs is part of a strategy though. Your proposal doesn't remove the strategic choice, it just makes the accounting different.
It changes the equation. If you die, you will always be behind the rest of the party who did not die.
The difference will be marginal as time goes on (5% of 9th level XP is very different than %5 of 15th level XP) and will balance if you die roughly the as often as the rest of the party, but it will be a real and permanent penalty that a player would only risk as a very last resort.
The fighter isn't going to block for an extra round rather than retreating if the outcome is loss of 5% of XP and the gain is only an extra round of holding the monster in that spot unless that is the difference between a TPK occuring. But if isn't long term...maybe I take the risk and the raise later.
Why not?
As I described way back on page 1, I sacrificed a character because it made logical sense for the build AND because it was that or a seeming TPK. It was an important moment in the campaign we all still remember and that has become a major point in the story.
It has far less importance or value if bringing them back was easy and without consequence.
That isn't where we are at (although SKR argues it is where it should be) but it is a bit step closer than 3.5 was.
And I don't remember that being a big complaint in the 3.5 system, aside from it just being difficult to calculate loss of a level.
And as Jiggy pointed out before he decided to stop contributing to the thread, it's far worse to die in PFS.
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Why would a player ever fear death anyways? You make the punishment for death too extreme and I'll just roll up a new character. I'll even make a stack of them, Bob I, II, III, and IV.
Death mechanics can't be so draconian that players won't try to salvage a character. Constantly rolling up new characters equates less personal investment in the continuity of the campaign. 2nd Edition made death suck so royally (in addition to 1 day of helplessness per day dead, which wrecks the ongoing adventure, it added losing 1 CON a pop) that folks wouldn't bother getting invested in their character because they knew they'd be better off rolling up a new one.
3E & 4E have the same goal and mechanics: financial punishment plus temporary drop in effectiveness (which in 4E cannot be fixed by gold). 4E even went old-school by upping the cast time to 8 hours, effectively punishing you if there's a press for time.
I believe I commented saracastically how well that worked for 4e.
It wasn't that they got their Raise Dead mechanics wrong since they're very similar to Pathfinder; it's that they made the characters near impossible to kill, an inconsistency for game designers who said that combat is supposed to lead to a natural consequence of threat of dying.
So again, I don't think the trend is making death less consequential, it's edging to that fine line between suffering penalty to keep a character versus abandoning the character altogether for Bob 2.0, and all the while walking that tightrope of keeping players anxious, excited, and thrilled with each roll of the dice.