Death Changes - Discussion

[P Three]

I DIDN'T SAY YOU WEREN'T FABULOUS JESUS.

[Swirling Stars]

Already happens with shameless 30s.

^She has a point. Shameless epics do this all the friggin time.

I'm a guy ;c

He*

Sorry!

[Tashalar]

I must beg you for your source- every bit of lore I've ever read on FR gives zero indication about forgetting things in death (for specificity, in the Fugue Plane). There is nothing to indicate this is the way of things in Forgotten Realms or even core D&D. Death is, as indicated, a largely inter-planar matter devoid of major memory lapses.

I suppose I'm in the minority that don't really care about xp loss in terms of time invested. I used to play a lot; now I play less, and it still doesn't matter to me. I'm enjoying the RP, the character development, so on and so forth, that comes with that time, instead of how much closer to level 30 I am. I've never Made It to 30, but it doesn't bother me. It'll be a nice change if I do.

If I get turned into a pincushion telling some paladins to "get orf mah lawn!" then it happens. I play a more diplomatic Bad Guy, but it still happens. I've been involved in some amazing RP (both myself, and that involving the deaths of others) from people being beheaded/etc.
I am keenly aware that that's a minority of cases, though. Most people are upset at their XP loss (which is why I always ask if they want to respawn or be revived/are okay with being revived for nefarious/trade/ransom purposes).
I used to be the same, so it's understandable, and wasn't the point of my objection


And as for your request for sources. As ever, various FR Canon sources contradict themselves, but I tend to fall upon the side of Ghostwalk in that my characters don't remember anything, because it sounds less ridiculous ICly that way, but for the sake of balance and transparency I have included it here too.

[quote="Ghostwalk, pgs 124/125, "Returning To Life""]Any creature brought from the True Afterlife to the world of the living immediately loses all memories of time spent in the True Afterlife. Any spell effects, negative levels, or conditions affecting the creature vanish when this transition is made.[/quote]

The dead character doesn’t perceive anything at all, doesn’t think, and has no notion or memory of events beyond the moment of death.

Respond to Resurrection Magic:
Some souls don’t linger for long in the afterlife, and their final destination turns out to be not so final after all. When someone among the living casts a reincarnation, raise dead, resurrection, or true resurrection spell, the contacted soul knows the name, alignment, and patron deity (if any) of the character attempting to revive it. But the soul doesn’t know - and can’t find out - the circumstances of its return to life. The soul might be coming back in the midst of a great battle, or the caster may be a dupe of the deceased creature’s enemies, for example. The soul has a general sense of how long it’s been dead, but doesn’t keep exact track of time.

The soul also has a sense of which spell is bringing it back to life; it can tell how painful the return journey into a living body will be. It can differentiate between resurrection magic that causes Constitution or level loss and magic that doesn’t.

When you come back to the world of the living, you remember in general terms what the afterlife was like, but your memories have a vague, dreamlike quality and you’re unable to recall the specifics of events. Whether the afterlife was torment or bliss to you, you have a good idea of what to expect should you die again - unless you alter your behavior markedly enough to change your alignment.

[Xerah]

None of those three books are FR source/cannon books.

[Tashalar]

He said he'd never found it in D&D books, either.

[The GrumpyCat]

Historically it's always been my belief that we were supposed not to recall anytihng that happened in the fugue. If that policy was ever changed, I was never informed either as a DM or a Player.

Now the policy has been changed, we have an area that is recallable in death.

Whilst I don't know if it is In Cannon or not, it was the tactic that was taken. Sometimes we stick close to cannon, sometimes we do not. This is because as nice as cannon is, sometimes it must take a back step to game play balence, fun, and other factors.

[Tashalar]

Oh, I know GC! My point in referring to canon was that that was the response/subject Irongron resorted to for justification. It is, as SSoS says, a wait-and-see situation now.

[Durvayas]

What I like:

- Lower respawn cost makes losing PvP much less punitive.
- Less incentive for OOC raising of enemies.
- New death area.
- Stat damage on respawn.


Ideas for improvement:
- Revert the respawn penalty for being killed by (Non-summon)NPCs in dungeons back to high to preserve their mystery and danger. A token system might be able to differentiate between dying in PvP and dying adventuring.
- Have the stat damage last for RL time so logging cannot be used to escape it.
- if the following is too harsh, simply prevent the character from getting combat xp for a duration of real time following death.

[Dinosaur Space Program]

The only thing this changes in a way I have to ask on is memory of death/dying, can you now finger your killer?

I believe it was always kosher to recall everything that happened up until you entered the fugue plane. You could've always fingered your killer, but a lot of players choose to "forget" for the sake of a more involved and convincing story. Coming out on the Docks of Cordor shouting "This guy just killed me!" is a good way to get sent to the loony bin.

It is admittedly by rule allowable that you remember everything up until you hit the fugue. I don't really know if I would call it kosher though as realistically no one has ever gone along with the RP that it spawned to my knowledge. Which to me, speaks of a rather distinct lack of backup on if it's IC valid in the eyes of characters. After all, if it was accepted as valid, people would through RP be aware of this from their Own experiences and go 'Yeah well maybe you do know who killed you. What did he look like?"

I, and many people, have always used this Giant memory lapse as a point of confusion, throwing death and related things into sharp contrast as to if it really happened.

If you have full memory access from death and to respawn, that changes a lot of things and implications. I can only take away from this that 'It's all free game' now when it comes to recall and memory, likely with a heavy reliance on decent disguise to make up the difference.

Small edit for clarification: Pretty much I see this as open game on an IC shift on how death is viewed and that is what I am asking about. After all, if everyone now remembers it and what happened there, few people are going to go 'Oh you're crazy' and therefore these accounts have worth and weight when it comes to fingering killers, places you died, etc. It's a Very big IC point of view shift.

[God In Action]

Whoah whoah WHOAH. I never thought I would live to see the day that death was overhauled in Arelith. Who knows what other longstanding and cliched suggestions we shall now see introduced that have been rejected since the days of yore.

[Full Moon]

I like the reduced xp penalties.

The new plane looks better if you care about that sort of thing.

The stat penalties after are just annoying. I died, I lost gold and xp, why do I have to be crippled for 20 minutes afterward ? Just makes me want to log off and switch pc's rather than the "glory" of rping a reduced charisma and wisdom. Is it supposed to be comedy relief hour after we die ? Other stats are reduced to even discourage barter...so it's stagger around like an idiot killing time or log off....

Do not see the point at all.

[Cortex]

I like the reduced xp penalties.

The new plane looks better if you care about that sort of thing.

The stat penalties after are just annoying. I died, I lost gold and xp, why do I have to be crippled for 20 minutes afterward ? Just makes me want to log off and switch pc's rather than the "glory" of rping a reduced charisma and wisdom. Is it supposed to be comedy relief hour after we die ? Other stats are reduced to even discourage barter...so it's stagger around like an idiot killing time or log off....

Do not see the point at all.

Would you rather lose 10x XP?

[The Rambling Midget]

Do not see the point at all.

Just makes me want to log off and switch pc's

I think you found it.

If it was business as usual after death, it wouldn't matter. You could just ignore it and go get your XPs back. Now it's an actual inconvenience.

[Full Moon]

Do not see the point at all.

Just makes me want to log off and switch pc's

I think you found it.

If it was business as usual after death, it wouldn't matter. You could just ignore it and go get your XPs back. Now it's an actual inconvenience.

Yes but it's also an inconvenience to rp, defeats the purpose. Changing the stats would make the average pc not inclined to be comedy relief avoid people until it's past.

I'm not a grinder so if the goal was to stop me it misses the mark. I would rather see just put 8s in strength, dex and con so at least you could do normal rp.

[Thake]

Then make it so one could pay 10x XP and not be crippled


( I hear there's people around who want to pay 10x and be crippled anyway.. so a 3rd option maybe? )

[Cortex]

No system will ever make everyone happy.

[Ellaari]

No system will ever make everyone happy.

+1

[lordsterling]

Do not see the point at all.

Just makes me want to log off and switch pc's

I think you found it.

If it was business as usual after death, it wouldn't matter. You could just ignore it and go get your XPs back. Now it's an actual inconvenience.

Why not add in the ability to remove the stat loss via interaction with a PC or NPC? It would potentially generate RP this way if your PC needed to find a cleric who has heal domain with the ability to remove your affliction through prayer or something.

I mean, if we're serious about death consequence facilitating or enhancing more RP, why not this?

[P Three]

Add it in as an -ability for clerics? Some aren''t of a level that they have Restoration etc but would like to do the RP?

[Swirling Stars]

The stat penalties after are just annoying. I died, I lost gold and xp, why do I have to be crippled for 20 minutes afterward ?

This is an ic thing, not an ooc thing. After a body has literally had it's soul forced back into it's body, both the body and soul are likely exhausted if not still a little hurt. Therefore the stat penalty is an ic opportunty to rp the whole ressurection process and afterwards of said character with mechanical things to back it up.
Now you can't just have a mass heal cast on you and say you're all better! Nope. It's realistic and there to encourage rp of said ressurected character... It is not to penalize a player oocly for dying.

Edit:
Now granted, not many may actually like this. They may prefer that they just pretend for five minutes that their character is disoriented and what not... and that's perfectly fine!
However, as Cortex said:

No system will ever make everyone happy.

So in conclusion. What I think we should be doing instead of hyperanalyzing and complaining about it for the most part, is to just look on the bright side of things. Sure there are some sour points about this change but... A lot of good came out of this change too... and I think it's awesome that we're lucky enough to have hard-working people taking time out of their day and personal play times to code these things and work on the server.

[dirza]

Do not see the point at all.

Just makes me want to log off and switch pc's

I think you found it.

If it was business as usual after death, it wouldn't matter. You could just ignore it and go get your XPs back. Now it's an actual inconvenience.

No, it is not, you log out and go play other char, return in hour or so and all is fine. Becaue you dont need to actually spend time to recover your character, the death has even less of meaning than before.

[Full Moon]

The stat penalties after are just annoying. I died, I lost gold and xp, why do I have to be crippled for 20 minutes afterward ?

This is an ic thing, not an ooc thing. After a body has literally had it's soul forced back into it's body, both the body and soul are likely exhausted if not still a little hurt. Therefore the stat penalty is an ic opportunty to rp the whole ressurection process and afterwards of said character with mechanical things to back it up.
Now you can't just have a mass heal cast on you and say you're all better! Nope. It's realistic and there to encourage rp of said ressurected character... It is not to penalize a player oocly for dying.

Edit:
Now granted, not many may actually like this. They may prefer that they just pretend for five minutes that their character is disoriented and what not... and that's perfectly fine!
However, as Cortex said:

No system will ever make everyone happy.

So in conclusion. What I think we should be doing instead of hyperanalyzing and complaining about it for the most part, is to just look on the bright side of things. Sure there are some sour points about this change but... A lot of good came out of this change too... and I think it's awesome that we're lucky enough to have hard-working people taking time out of their day and personal play times to code these things and work on the server.

Do you know how many time I have been told realism doesn't matter and it's fun that counts ?

Can you seriously say anything is realistic after you have been magically returned to life ?

It is an arbitrary thing, let's not kids ourselves. It's also not that big of a deal one way or the other.

I do not think it is anyone's intention to steal the thunder of the Dev team for all their efforts and hard work. However it is silly to have a "discussion" about anything and expect only things you want to hear. It would also be a disservice to them if we did not express our concerns .

I personally do not die enough for this to matter much and when I do 80% of the time it is due to lag/mechanical issues or illegal pvp. Neither is an occasion that inspires a desire to do a 20 minute performance on my death, a topic that will no doubt become very common very fast .

While some will argue it adds weight to death I can counter that now death could very much be in everyone's face with countless tales of the other side. So while ooc death became more meaningful IC it could become much less so because every 20 minutes there is a new death tale in the nomad.

Maybe that is a good thing but I do not see the appeal of that narrative.

[Flameborn]

Seems that if 20 minutes with reduced stats is such a massive trauma to you full moon, would Cel not be more inclined to stay alive?

Seems that not dying solves all your issues, and can be taken care of IC.

[Full Moon]

Seems that if 20 minutes with reduced stats is such a massive trauma to you full moon, would Cel not be more inclined to stay alive?

Seems that not dying solves all your issues, and can be taken care of IC.

It's funny how my disagreeing with something became "trauma" with a very insulting tone.

When all else fails in a discussion, sling insults...I guess if you had bothered to read my post before commenting you might have read the line "it's not that big a deal one way or the other".

[Flameborn]

Im not going to take it, this is a trap.