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How do you handle player character death in your games? Of course, a lot of games probably do it by the book, but based on my personal experiences (outside of PFS), I get the feeling a lot of DMs out there have house rules for handling death.
Here's the one I use: When a character takes enough damage to reduce them below their negative Constitution score, regardless of how much damage was done, there is always a one round grace period during which they can be saved by some form of healing. It's worked out really well so far.
It's not too lenient; characters still occasionally die in my games, but when this situation comes up, there's a really dramatic round of combat where everyone is like "Oh, crap, he's about to die! Quick, on your turn, throw me a healing potion, I'll tumble through these orcs and give it to the wizard, and if the ranger holds his action and kills that orc right there, the wizard can 5' step and feed our buddy the potion before he dies. All right, go!"
If you guys have clever, fun, and fair house rules regarding character death, let's hear them!
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I use a tiered system of Fate Chips (white, red, blue), which function similarly to hero points, but is conceptually borrowed from Deadlands RPG.
Basically, at the beginning of each session, they draw a random chip from a hat, and can stack them between Scenes but not between Acts, or spend them to get bonuses on die rolls or take additional actions in combat.
As they begin to accomplish great deeds, I will start to drop Legendary Chips into the pot (yellow). These alone may be used to Cheat Death.
When a PC would die, unless it's in such a way that this simply isn't possible (like falling into lava or something), the player can choose to have his PC stabilize at negative CON, but suffer some kind of serious injury, like the loss of a hand or eye or leg, based on the nature of the attack. Then we break out the prosthetics alternate rules.
Alternately, I do also use Hero Points, but sometimes you just don't have 'em when you need 'em.
Beyond that, though, dead is dead. There is literally no coming back from death in my games.
I have all my players pick a Patron for their character at creation. Usually it's a deity that matches their alignment but ultimately it's not strict. This is the force they appeal to when they die or when they want to call on deific intervention. Upon reaching what would normally result in death I have them roll me d%. This is modified by their non magic enhanced base charisma modifier (adds +5%/+1 mod), their proximity to their deities alignment (+10% if matching, -5% off of that per step away), how devout they were (up to a +5% bonus) and their Great Deeds (+1% per significant act through the game) as viewed by their Patron. Finally they add their character level x2 to the % total and roll the dice.
If they roll under 5% (a crit) I usually come up with something special and revive them the following turn, sometimes in combat.
If they roll under their score I usually deduct some percentage (their success) from the cost to raise them or make it much easier to find someone to perform it. It makes it more feasible to actually bring back characters at lower levels rather than have a player abandon an idea that they like for fluke happenstance.
Failing the roll (over their %) isn't penalized, treat it as you would in a vanilla setup.
Crit failing (95% and up) allows me to get inventive as well. Something on the other side actively tries to keep them there. Costs go up or quests must be done. Sometimes they come back incomplete or wrong. Occasionally there are hitchhikers that try to free themselves from the afterlife. Depending on a lot of factors in the campaign I tailor it to the character and what would fit for the players.
Each PC starts with a Fate token they can use to cheat death with once or use to auto natural 20 once.
I also use Hero points which can allow them to cheat death.beyond that it's usually permanent.
This hasn't been something that occurred yet in my campaign. However, I considered that once a character drops to hitpoints at negative Constitution, the character's fate is sealed, but they can still remain conscious and perform actions, like make a last stand before death.
I experimented with having petrification be a gradual process represented by Dexterity bleed where you turn to stone at 0 Dexterity. This resulted in a very dramatic fight with two characters using the remaining seconds of their life to aid the party before succumbing.
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I like the idea of giving a player the choice between going out in a blaze of glory or suffering a permanent wound. Actually, there's also the third choice of hanging on for one last round to see if the rest of the party can pull together and save you.
For the permanent wound thing, why not just roll a d6 and subtract one point from that attribute. The flavor could be anything associated with that attribute.
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My group has always run death by the book. At -CON, you are dead. Thanks for playing. Resurrection is rare in our group too, since we don't often play at high enough levels for it.
OTOH, we don't roll for hit points at each level like you're supposed to-- everybody gets their full HD+CON every level.
It hasn't really caused any problems-- characters don't hit -CON very often at our tables. Most of us have just learned to play conservatively, like a real adventurer would if he wanted to make it out alive. Also, nobody dumps CON.