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I dont use xp so where does that leave me? I'd prefer every time a being is raised they should come back as irrevocably evil. Kind of like pet cemetery. That way only the crazy or terrible people of the world would attempt it. That would make RP death so much more entertaining.
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If you want everyone to be rerolling characters because they're too low level to be useful anymore and just keep dieing, go right ahead. For reference, watch The Gamers: Dorkness Rising. Truly permanent level loss promotes character disposability. If that's what you're going for that's fine, just be aware.
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Seems a bit harsh. I like the threat of character death to be present. But actual level loss is really unfair and not fun.
Yuck. Differential XP is a pain.
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I don't allow any kind of coming back from the dead (except Breath of Life), so I've never had to worry about this.
But I agree with the others--everyone should have the same level. It's lousy to be a lower level than anyone else--I'm not sure I'd want to play in a game where someone else had a higher level character than mine.
I wouldn't penalize PC's with XP disparity, Like Blueluck, I say yuck to that.
If PC death (the ever revolving door to the after-life) is a problem for you, then talk to your group about it. You might be surprised at the responses you get. Making death a permanent proposition is a real game-changer. I'm very interested in giving it a spin in our next campaign.
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When I game, I like to think of my PC as one of the main characters in his own novel. Sure, there's the possibility that he might die, but unless it's the final chapter of the novel, it's not likely to be permanent. I do not enjoy playing revolving-PCs. I like investing in one PC's story/background/development over the course of a campaign.
As such, I am strongly against penalties for death. They discourage heroism and risk-taking in general. They discourage forming strong attachments to your PCs. For me, at least, they take away a lot of the fun from gaming.
I can understand that perhaps in some games folks are so cavalier about PCs being revivable that such penalties start to look attractive to the DM. Luckily for me my experience has been that players see death as enough of a failure already, without tacking on additional penalties.
Here's a scenario I'd worry about Saltmarsh. You have a party of four PCs. One's a cleric. The other three can be whatever. They get into a tough fight and the dice don't like them that day. They win...but the only survivor is the cleric. Now he's 10th level, so he spends the next day or two raising everyone. The rest of the party is now 9th. So now they're less suited to fighting whatever is ahead of them. But they gamely go on. I could now see those 9th level PCs getting killed again, dropping down another level...and being even more useless. Or maybe the cleric gets killed next time...and the whole party is now down a level as a result of a day's adventuring.
What better plan? Their only "plan" would be to go farm some conveniently placed Orcs in "That area we never heard of before". No amount of planning will change the fact that they are now irreversibly set back two or three session's worth (or more) of EXP and they still have to move on with their quest.
It was like that. You need one shot adventures and stand alone dungeons for the characters to train back up to where they are ready for the adventure path.
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Here's a scenario I'd worry about Saltmarsh. You have a party of four PCs. One's a cleric. The other three can be whatever. They get into a tough fight and the dice don't like them that day. They win...but the only survivor is the cleric. Now he's 10th level, so he spends the next day or two raising everyone. The rest of the party is now 9th. So now they're less suited to fighting whatever is ahead of them. But they gamely go on. I could now see those 9th level PCs getting killed again, dropping down another level...and being even more useless. Or maybe the cleric gets killed next time...and the whole party is now down a level as a result of a day's adventuring.If the dungeon is so tough that almost the entire party dies, and they are now weaker but decide to continue on instead of going home to try to recover and come up with a better plan, I could see why that party is dying.
If that's the only adventure option the GM is giving them, they can either push on into the death dungeon or retire from adventuring (equivalent to quitting the game). The level loss in this case means that their first attempt is their most likely to succeed attempt, and if they failed at it they likely have a spiral of de-leveling ahead of them, with the end result being either a full party reroll or the end of that campaign.
permanent penalties for death, whether they hit the XP or the wallet, make the ressurected character far more likely to die, which encourages a spiral of accidental deaths because you forgot that you had the 6th level PC in the 10th level party. and no matter how intelligently the level 6 guy plays, it will never fully compensate for his noncontribitution.
permanent penalties for death also discourage heroism and risk taking, they discourage the forming of attachment, the writing of backstories, and even the idea of giving their character's names. when you start seeing names like "Bob Axebeard the 6th" or "Slave #24", you can tell 2 things, that death is too frequent, and that they penalties are too harsh.
and XP should go the way of the Dodo, as should Gear dependency. the thing is, that requires a new system to be written.
XP might have been good in 1e where different classes had different advancement tracks, and classes could be balanced by a difference in advancement tracks.
but the concept of XP is so outdated. do we really need a mechanism for rewarding certain playstyles? do we need to forever penalize the wallflowers for their innate shyness? do we need to continually reward the guy who comes up with the same angsty monologue about his dead parents he used for the last 5 campaigns because he went to theater class in college?
It was like that. You need one shot adventures and stand alone dungeons for the characters to train back up to where they are ready for the adventure path.
Which utterly shatters any sense of urgency in the plot and derails the interesting part for anywhere from 3 weeks to 3 months (depending on your frequency of meeting).
It's a silly mechanic.
so Saltmarsh.
how do you deal with the issues caused by level loss?
list of issues
- the cold blooded slaughter of random orcish encampments (or other low level threats) to gain missing levels and replace missing gear
- the removal of attachment to a character
- the windfall gained from looting the dead Ex PCs
- the noncontribution of lower level PCs
- the increased investment in allied resources to keep the lower level PC alive
- the derailing caused by frequent death
I think that when a character dies if they are brought back to life that they should lose a level
And this should be permenant and they would only be able to get it back by earning xp
Your thoughts please
Warning! Old guy alert!
That said, back in AD&D that is exactly what happened. Plus you lost a permanent point of constitution to boot. You could get a very pricy restoration at the time of ressurection to restore the lost level but there was nothing you could do about the constitution point at all, aside from the Wish spell to increase your constitution, which was much harder back then than today since there were no cash guidelines on what folks should have at what level and wish was usually treated as super rare with the GM's I played with.
Sure as hell made near death events a lot more scary. You went to a lot of lengths to make sure you did not die. Really heightened the tension in combat during close calls.
It is one way to run the game. Honestly with how powerful characters are now and how plentiful healing is in the game, I don't see a problem with it if they players agree.
This is actually how we do it in our home game. We have a cleric in our group who has died 4 times and as a result she is about 2 levels behind he rest of the group. As we all level the gap gets smaller due to the needed XP to level getting bigger. She does just fine, although I do admit she is a heal cleric by preferance.
I was there in first edition, and there are a lot of adventure opportunities outside the adventure path. Making magic items used to involve going out and ripping the componants from nature and monsters. Scrolls are written with feathers from Stirges or Perythons and giant squid ink didn't come from giant squid farms. I used to DM guard duty adventures where the rest of them rolled up new 1st level character mercs, who went on to become main characters later.
Another option was special books that gave the reader a level after a week of special training, then the book dissolved.