The Death Penalty and YOU!

[msterswrdsmn]

Competely unrelated post:

As I started adjusting creatures in the module, chielfy adding those rare, and often deadly encounters, I often heard people complaining that they DIED while adventuring.

YOU. You're the one that made that giant sand crab, aren't you? I thought it was hilarious, believe it or not, when it popped out right under me and one-shotted my character with an attack of oppertunity. I'm weird like that, I guess. It certainly taught me not to run in that area.

[Irongron]

...it would help avoid the awkwardness of seeing someone decapitated and then walking around again.

My current adventures end in my character being killed at the end, a good portion of the time. At first the other members would act with disbelief when seeing me walking around a few days later, now they'e learned to stop saying 'I thought you DIED!'

I'm really just a terrible, over confident player, with randomly assigned hot-keys, a terrible build, and almost always set out on adventurers without any healing kits.

YOU. You're the one that made that giant sand crab, aren't you?

It was me!

[Aelryn Bloodmoon]

Off the cuff, you could double the duration of the stat drains but decrease the magnitude of them, such that players will still be able to hunt and play, but they'll have to wrestle with the consequences of their loss a little longer.

Lately we've been on the opposite end of discussions in threads, but I wanted to highlight this idea right here. I like it.

Also double how long each point of drain takes to go away, and cut said drain in half, maybe? That way if your group wants to move somewhere for RP you aren't necessarily obligated to spend half your penalty walking.....so..............sloooooooooowly....

[Brolosipher]

For the "PvP death should mean something" camp, while you're crafting suggestions/ideas, here are some thoughts...

1) Death should be an IC penalty
2) It should be a RP device (aka: not an OOC penalty)
3) It's got to fit in the world of people getting brought back from the dead on the regular.

[Irongron]

Also double how long each point of drain takes to go away, and cut said drain in half, maybe? That way if your group wants to move somewhere for RP you aren't necessarily obligated to spend half your penalty walking.....so..............sloooooooooowly....

Actually I've been intending to remove STR (and maybe WIS and INT) from the penalties almost entirely.

[dicerollings]

That'd be real nice. The CON penalty will still prevent you from running right back out there, anyway, without being an OOC annoyance to the spellbook.

[Cortex]

In the rare occasion I die in PvE, the first thing I do after reviving is getting back to grinding them mobs for more EXP

NO PENALTY WILL STOP ME.

[Scimiter]

I've admittedly written off PvE deaths. As Iron said earlier it's a realm where raise dead and the Gods are very real so I generally play the EXP loss as memory loss, as described in the PHB for a long time, a few minutes before death and play them a little confused for a tick before moving on.

But PvP death on the other hand has always been an opportunity to make a new arc in their story. I remember once Celub was captured in the Orc Cave and sacrificed to Lloth (long night and great RP from everyone involved on both sides) and from that I spent the next two and a half months with him terrified of the dark of the caves and jumpy in general.

It took Ania in her kind but no nonsense mode to snap him out of it and get on with his life but in that time he was some of the best RP I had experienced to that point. It forced him to talk to people he might not have and created meetings and plot arcs for others in return.

To speak to the topic directly I think the system that the team have created is fine as far as mechanics of death. It's up to the players to make death meaningful.

[Stath]

My current adventures end in my character being killed at the end, a good portion of the time. At first the other members would act with disbelief when seeing me walking around a few days later, now they'e learned to stop saying 'I thought you DIED!'

Rofl, I've done that/had to do that alot too. I'm not sure if it's snowflakey but if the whole Party gets wiped in Kholingen or something, generally for my characters I prefer to explain it away as them being on death's door-step but being dragged away by their companions/somehow managing to avoid actual death, but still suffering something very grisly. Kind of prefer more low key concepts that don't get brought back to life by their diety or what have you.