Arelith

So bucky, you died. Congratulations you solo-leveling martial class that is JUST about to hit that power cap, you just know it!
So now that you're dead, you have a few options, sit around in the Fugue, kicking ghosts rocks and waiting for someone to maybe find your body and possibly bring you back, or they'll just steal your gold and leave you there.

But not to worry, there is another way out of the Fugue, you can rip your way through a soul gate and badda BING you're home! But wait, what's this? Multiple XP drains from death followed by the loss of your pocket change? How annoying, but surely it can't be worse!
Until it is, you see, since you were playing alone and no one brought you back up but you are above level five, you have various penalties applied that last an amount of time based on your level.

How long you ask? Well about an Hour of sitting around until you can fight and die again adventurer! Oh? You want to know why that wizard wearing nothing but the default clothes can go? He's a Summoner, he doesn't need stats. Oh that Warlock? Same thing, along with the Cleric and anyone who has the spellcraft skills to purchase and use Summon Creature Scrolls.

But you, as a stupid lil barbarian can't even read, let alone use a scroll, so you're outta luck, so you just sit there for a while until you're useful again. If you're lucky, some other people will sit and talk to you for a while, but healthy adventurers don't have that kinda time sometimes, maybe you try and talk to multiple groups while you wait for the timer to slowly tick down.

I however, find this less then desirable, they already take a good chunk of your XP and your gold, which is annoying and those XP penalties seem to be getting larger as I level so I believe it is becoming less fit and fair and fun and all that.

But I bet you are asking, "But Myphic, I imagine they have those systems in there to avoid SOMETHING", and you know what, I thought the same, so I asked the Discord about it, after a while none of the answers really seemed to be very good until User Zavander pointed it that it was so you didn't try and get revenge on players immediately, despite the 24 hour rule, and thus they suggested a longer Fugue time for PvP which seems like it would just aggravate the situation more but they defended it saying it would be so people couldn't organize a party to go get their revenge, but still no defense on the death penalties.

Now, myself and a few other discord users seem to agree (And if they aren't agreeing I hope they let me know so I can edit this bit out), that there is a better way to handle death.

Memory Loss.

Memory loss would prevent you from holding an IC grudge, would prevent you from knowing the exact circumstances of your death, and would really make it impossible for you to ICly justify causing problems with the person that killed you, it would make it harder to explain a lot of "coincidences" that would happen after your revival, you wouldn't be able to form a party of friends to avoid the 24 hour rule and target someone because you don't remember who it was, or exactly where it was. The RP consequences of being dead would now be a gap in your memory and minor physical strain of doing the equivalent of reconstituting at your chosen point.

The TL;DR
I think the Death Penalties would be unneeded and you get could back to having fun and enjoying yourself much faster if instead of stat penalties, you ICly didn't recall the exact details, leaving you unable to enact revenge and not need mechanical reinforcement!
Or I'd like to at least see you only get penalized in PvP so you can continue playing alone if that is what you were doing.

If you have any ideas or opinions on how death should be handled, I'd love to hear them! I'm not a fan of the current system and couldn't seem to find any real defense for the current system, so any input at all would be nice so I can understand this situation more and see it from other angles!

The death penalties are actually pretty invaluable for maintaining some observation of death and returning from the fugue.

While I agree that, death needs a bit more permenance, I think we need to work on the roleplay a bit.

Roleplaying as respawn points being hospitals and medical clinics would be better than death.

Roleplay regarding extended convalescent time following a major defeat, scars that endure, disabilies acquired though injuries, they add a realness to a character that is easily ignored in this ragnarok style world we play in.

This really is a tale as old as time.

Memory loss used to be the rule back in the day. But how do you as a DM police that? You can't. So they got rid of that rule and left it an optional thing for players.

Ah, I see we are having this conversation yet one more time for good measure.

I've really said my piece on this topic enough times already, so I'll just post my favourite quote from the big man IG on the subject of remembering or not remembering details about your death.

I want to leave this to character to decide, and doing so might even impact their RPR.

This rule was never totally clear, and even then, people who RPed not remembering, absolutely adjusted their behaviour as if they did - it was very hard not to in some cases.

Nitro wrote: Fri May 14, 2021 4:30 pm Ah, I see we are having this conversation yet one more time for good measure.

Now while I see what you are doing here, a lot of these are just discussions about Death and resurrections usually, a lot less about the death penalty.
And again, I'm just asking why it does exist, I'm just genuinely confused as to the point of it if the 24 Hour rule DOES exist.

I don't disagree on that part (Just about memory loss), I think the stat penalties are just a tedious "Guess I'm done playing for the day" if you don't get rezzed.

I'm curious; how do death penalties affect your ability to roleplay, get crafting done, work on descriptions or outfits, sell or buy items, or things like that?

By all means, you're not required to just plunk down in the middle of Cordor and hope for people to interact with you. Or is this hopelessly naive of me to think?

If you've already done all your upkeep. Have your outfits sorted, don't own a store and other such minutiae and you're simply on in a timezone where population is really low so the only thing to actually do is roam around and adventure and meet people out in the open, yeah. Personally I think campfire and tavern "Let's just sit down and talk about nothing" RP is dull as bricks.

Drogo Gyslain wrote: Fri May 14, 2021 3:55 pm The death penalties are actually pretty invaluable for maintaining some observation of death and returning from the fugue.

While I agree that, death needs a bit more permenance, I think we need to work on the roleplay a bit.

Roleplaying as respawn points being hospitals and medical clinics would be better than death.

Roleplay regarding extended convalescent time following a major defeat, scars that endure, disabilies acquired though injuries, they add a realness to a character that is easily ignored in this ragnarok style world we play in.

Removing scars and disabilities/injuries is stupidly easy through magic. Cure Critical wounds, per IG description (or serious) returns bones to be good as new. (lesser) restoration restores the severe muscle damage fighting a rogue that got the drop on you brings (or being unlucky and facing a swashbuckler 1v1).

And we havn't even mentioned Regenerate.

You don't even need magic to de-scar yourself though. There is a compound known as Elf hazel which costs 5 gp, takes a DC 10 craft alchemy to make. Continuous application over a week removes disfigurements. Even assuming you use up a whole batch every day over the week, most it will take is around 35 gold to remove a large scar).

Myphic wrote: Fri May 14, 2021 3:49 pmMemory Loss.

Yeah, we used to do that, but it was impossible to police, so the rule was loosened up to "don't RP your respawn badly, mmmkay?"

Anyone who knows me knows that I've been beating this particular dead horse with the fury of a thousand suns for over a decade, with absolutely no results.

The mechanical death penalties are there to force players to give death at least some tiny mote of respect, whether they like it or not, because, in the past, too many have refused, sometimes up to the point of treating NWN like TF2 or Overwatch.

It's something you just have to make peace with.

As far as the mechanical penalties, it sounds like blanket spell failure from all sources should be added on as a gradually diminishing penalty, so that casters can join the suffering.

LovelyLightningWitch wrote: Fri May 14, 2021 6:12 pm

Drogo Gyslain wrote: Fri May 14, 2021 3:55 pm The death penalties are actually pretty invaluable for maintaining some observation of death and returning from the fugue.

While I agree that, death needs a bit more permenance, I think we need to work on the roleplay a bit.

Roleplaying as respawn points being hospitals and medical clinics would be better than death.

Roleplay regarding extended convalescent time following a major defeat, scars that endure, disabilies acquired though injuries, they add a realness to a character that is easily ignored in this ragnarok style world we play in.

Removing scars and disabilities/injuries is stupidly easy through magic. Cure Critical wounds, per IG description (or serious) returns bones to be good as new. (lesser) restoration restores the severe muscle damage fighting a rogue that got the drop on you brings (or being unlucky and facing a swashbuckler 1v1).

And we havn't even mentioned Regenerate.

You don't even need magic to de-scar yourself though. There is a compound known as Elf hazel which costs 5 gp, takes a DC 10 craft alchemy to make. Continuous application over a week removes disfigurements. Even assuming you use up a whole batch every day over the week, most it will take is around 35 gold to remove a large scar).

Look, not to piss all over the 'magic fixes everything' thing, but magic doesn't fix everything.

Not every character has access to a 9th Circle Cleric, not every Mundane injury can be covered over by a salve or balm.

For the sake of RP, it's good to have injuries, to have disfigurement. Loss of memory, loss of limbs, sight, hearing. Permenant scars that are memories of battles fought and reminders of lessons learned.

I hate, loathe and dispise the use of magic as a fix-all for everything, and in the effort to make and create good RP, it's good to have lasting consequences of actions and failures. Not everything should be fixed. Not everything should be covered over and made whole again.

Magic can build a building, but did Wharf town get rebuilt? Is benwick still a Devil-hive? Can you ressurect a rolled character from the dead?

Permenant consequences are a good thing, and being able to roleplay around them, and incorporate them without just pretending they are eas fixes and 'magic fixes everything' is better roleplay.

So take a limp for a week, use crutches, have your character have to get glasses, wear a cast or scream at the top of their lungs randomly "PICKLE".

Because if everything was just easy to fix with a simple spell, things just aren't that interesting. Convalescence and Injury Recovery should be represented that way too.

I think XP and gold loss are fair for PvE Deaths. Saying you lose a "big chunk" of it is nonsense. You lose the gold you're carrying which is usually about 1/5 the value of the loot you found and won't drop, and the XP is about ~10 kills worth?

Post-Respawn sickness, I don't see the purpose of for PvE. I'd happily see that go as it doesn't accomplish anything other than force you to afk.

For PvP, the most important thing is impact on the other players around you. If you're back after 10 minutes that utterly cheapens it for both allies and enemies. It makes death meaningless to roleplay in most ways, and leads to awful behaviour like daily PvP. I would say a 2 hour respawn timer, but also a tightening up of PvP rules and to make the 24 hour rule a 72 hour rule minimum. We really need to get out of the "You kill me, I kill you after 24 hours" mindset.

DangerDolphin wrote: Fri May 14, 2021 7:10 pm We really need to get out of the "You kill me, I kill you after 24 hours" mindset.

YES!

While under death effects, and without much else to do (I feel like I share your timezone), you can take melee classes into lower level areas while recovering. Likely you won't be disrupting anyone since few players are on, and if you run into anyone you can just leave anyway.

This lets you at least continue playing, and while the xp will of course be lower, you can still haul buckets of gold/resources out of any dungeon.

I wouldn't condone this during peak hours but then again there's much much more to do, plus you likely aren't soloing in the first place.

As others said you can't force memory loss as a death requirement because everyone defines it differently and you'd then have to police another indefinable metric which isn't very pleasant for all parties.