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I think a small financial penalty is fine, especially for repeat offenders. Why? Well, story time:
I am playing in a 5 player game where we've suffered relatively high casualties(but the DM allows a free raise when you die at the end of the encounter if it's your first death to offset this) and honestly I'm happy when another player dies(their 2nd time) because it's a massive influx of GP to the party. We're currently 6th level nearing 7th, so when someone dies we suddenly have roughly 20k gp go to upgrading allies gear or upgrading ships, donating to the nearest church, etc. However, when 2 characters die in a relatively short time span, it's a lot of gold to inject into the party, even if you can only sell some of it for 1/2 value. And being better geared effectively raises the apl and then encounters get harder and more people die. It's a vicious cycle, potentially.
Long story short, penalties like this are needed. Level, xp, and other penalties? No, those ARE punishing the party. GP values though are an attempt to prevent WBL getting out of hand.
1) A GM should have a handle on the party, if the amount of gold gathered is going to be a "problem," adjust it. This is nothing new, and why it only happens at lower levels in our group (and less of an issue as we tend to use the gold gathered for the party, not an individual).
2) If wealth is going to break the game, the GM is probably not the person who should be running the game. A certain amount of system mastery is necessary and expected if you are to perform that role. Wealth is something that the GM pretty much has complete and total control of, there is no excuse to let it ruin the game.
3) Repeat offenders are a completely different and probably unrelated issue. That is an issue of abusing the standing rules vs wealth issue typically.
Tell him he can either make a new character at 1st level or use the scroll to bring his 3rd level character back. That should straighten him out quick.they have tools at their disposal to resurrect said character in the form of a scroll of resurrection.
The player would rather make a new PC
That's ridiculous. The game is supposed to be fun, not a punishment.
On our table we have the penalty of paying the cost of Restoration to offset the negative levels.
Yes, dying is a penalty on itself, but getting to create a new character it can has the effect of getting into a party with all the items you ever wanted.
Sometimes campaigns have settings where getting items is hard, others there's a crafter and you gotta wait for items to get done, and such.
So, we die, pay 1-2k for Restoration of negative levels and we come back with our items and our new PC.
That always seemed good enough for me and not that unbalancing.
1) A GM should have a handle on the party, if the amount of gold gathered is going to be a "problem," adjust it. This is nothing new, and why it only happens at lower levels in our group (and less of an issue as we tend to use the gold gathered for the party, not an individual).
Not necessarily true for the dozens of DMs who run APs, which is a big part of Pathfinder like it or not. It's loads easier to adjust their new GP than tweak an AP, if the are even allowed unlike PFS DMs. Now I'm sure that PFS players don't get to keep their buddies gear when they die, but that's a system that closely regulates GP in a different way than a regular game.
2) If wealth is going to break the game, the GM is probably not the person who should be running the game. A certain amount of system mastery is necessary and expected if you are to perform that role. Wealth is something that the GM pretty much has complete and total control of, there is no excuse to let it ruin the game.
Also I'd argue that a DM givng you 2K less GP because you're just gonna wear the cloak that your old dead PC wore totally falls into the "complete and total control" of PC wealth you're talking about. And I think that's a completely frank thing to talk to a Player about when creating a new PC, especially if you and they assume that you're going to incorporate their old gear in with their new.
3) Repeat offenders are a completely different and probably unrelated issue. That is an issue of abusing the standing rules vs wealth issue typically.
Yeah, but as I said otherwise it can be a big deal to APers and at higher levels it just gets more and more nuts. I agree repeat offenders are more of a corner case, but why not discourage it a little?
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1) APs include notes that the GM can adapt things, and should keep an eye on party wealth, right in them. Indeed, the problem my Rise party is having is low wealth, not too much wealth.
2) How does the new PC get the old PC's stuff? The party just gives it to the unknown guy? And that doesn't even go into stuff from an archer going to a sorcerer, or tank-type. Right.
3) Repeat offenders is a different issue than the initial poster was asking about. This was about a PC dying at 3rd level, the party has the resources needed to bring him back, but the player doesn't want to keep playing the same PC. Understandable.
So, the question is what to do with the old PC's stuff, and what, if any, penalty the new PC should accrue.
Without knowing how the old PC died, and whether his stuff as kyped, it is hard to say. At 3rd level, he wouldn't have had much stuff, anyhow.
And, at 3rd level, the PCs are still so fragile that no penalty should be levied. Unless you really want to lower the number of players at the table, or replace him, which is a whole different issue.
And, seriously, there are already plenty of things available in Pathfinder that break the whole wealth by level paradigm, anyhow, from crafting to Blade Bound and its analogues.
RE1: AP's are written with certain expected criteria (point buy, level range, group size), they also follow WBL for that criteria. Sure it might be a +1 Longsword vs +1 Bastard sword, but that is the type of adjustment any semi competent GM is supposed to make (giving appropriate treasure). And it might even be figured into as part of the AP ("wrong" items being sold and appropriate items bought).
As the amount of gold in the AP is approximately appropriate for the criteria... Gold shouldn't ever be a "problem." Significantly more likely, the "problem" is actually going to be found in other areas (not playing within the criteria, optimization of characters, etc), where adjusting gold isn't a fix, but actually a lazy/uneducated delaying tactic to the real problem.
Again, see point 2, GMs having a clue... If they don't, no premade adventure or AP is going to go well, as they aren't aware of nor following the expectations/rules of the game. It'll be even more apparent if they try to run a game from scratch. The ruleset isn't at fault here.
RE 2: I don't see how what you said has anything to do so with my statement or the OP talking about penalizing the incoming character for the player changing characters. I gave an example of how our party deals with it, to show how death is a penalty without actually penalizing the party. At lower levels the cost of a raise dead is a financial burden on the entire party if they are being cooperative, and pretty much either has to be hand waved or rely on the GM just handing out "free deaths" to PCs to keep it from decimating a single character's finances.
Either way I guess we agree that how death will be handled should be discussed, ideally before it has to be practiced.
RE 3: Discourage player choice and impose limitations on character creation if it happens to die? Why? That is like saying "Yeah sorry your character died, now to make it worse you can't play with or make these choices..." Not only did the player "lose" something by having a character die, you think you should impose more limitations and restrict those choices further... Making an already "un-fun" time worse. That is bordeline asinine honestly, and can impact the game much further than just death.
"You died, so you lose. And on top of it I'm going to penalize you more, so you lose even more. Hope you are enjoying my game!"
Really crazy solution to character wealth by level abuse: Party wealth by level. If character WBL at level 3 is 3,000, then Party WBL would be 3,000*#ofCharacters. So if a character dies, and the party keeps 1,500 GP of that character's wealth, then the incoming character would only receive 1,500 GP to keep the party's wealth in the appropriate area.
Also, I recommend you use a scroll of raise dead instead of the scroll of resurrection next time.
That's ridiculous. The game is supposed to be fun, not a punishment.Tell him he can either make a new character at 1st level or use the scroll to bring his 3rd level character back. That should straighten him out quick.they have tools at their disposal to resurrect said character in the form of a scroll of resurrection.
The player would rather make a new PC
No no no, Pathfinder isn't a game about having fun. Where did you get hat idea. All Real Gamers that Pathfinder's about the GM crushing the spirits of those foolish, inferior players until they acknowledge his superiority.
It's late, out by me anyways, so I just wanted to say this before I crash: You guys are way dramatizing the situation. Adding 1 whole share(or equivalent) wealth is a lot of extra loot, but tweaking WBL isn't evil nor deriding choice. Yes, maybe not at a lot of wealth at 3rd level as the op was talking(I'm also looking at things from a grander scale here though), but for the same reason you guys are mad a portions "gone" makes it's worth considering taking it from a different angle.
For instance, why can't the new member get (some) of the new gear? It would be weirder to NOT let someone use it, especially if their last character had something they'd find useful. Say Bob the Monk has just signed on with the party, the party has Bob's old PC's(Carrl the Druid's) Amulet of Mighty Fists. Why add a redundant expensive magical item into the parties wealth when you just talk it out outside game that no one in the party needs it so when Bob Signs on he gets it. Now, if you're keeping it at full WBL, then that's a major item that Bob the Monk doesn't need to buy now and Bob has significantly more gold effectively than the rest of the party. Why shouldn't you remove it from his remaining WBL to compensate the party to bridge the gap or spreading it around? And if you're generous you could even sell it at coat rather than charge Bob full price which seems to me to be a net win for everyone. And it certainly doesn't limit their WBL or choice in gear in a meaningful way, but avoids adding a huge influx of extra wealth to a party.
As for the RP question of why would the party gear up a strange new adventurer, there are so many possible answers to that very question that make sense(better geared means more likely to contribute, it could be how they meet, the new guy was destined to succeed the old guy, or hundreds of other possible reasons frankly). Plus, looking at a gamist perspective, you just could just handwave it. Bob shows up with a AoMF, Carrl' s happens to get destroyed when he died, funny how that works. All these are options that work, don't limit choice in any way, and stem the book keeping later on. Seriously, why wouldn't this work?
The way I do it, is when one of the characters dies, if they want to create a new one, they create it at the average level of the party, and with no gold, the party has to use their existing resources to outfit the new member, this way there is no real penalty for dying, but the party doesn't get a monetary advantage either
1) APs include notes that the GM can adapt things, and should keep an eye on party wealth, right in them. Indeed, the problem my Rise party is having is low wealth, not too much wealth.
Is that party wealth or character wealth? In a large party you expect the character wealth by level to be below normal, since it is being split into more parts.
2) How does the new PC get the old PC's stuff? The party just gives it to the unknown guy? And that doesn't even go into stuff from an archer going to a sorcerer, or tank-type. Right.
It's cleaner to just have the stuff go to some family member npc. The new character should just start with stuff of equal value. Note that no singular item should be worth more than the 25% of the new character's total wealth.