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5 years ago ::
Sep 30, 2008 - 12:19PM
#21
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Date Joined:
Oct 28, 2007
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While death might not be fun its a fact of life.
Taxes are (currently) also a "fact of life." I don't play D&D to teach my players about the "facts of life." I play it to have fun. If one of my players loses a favored character, then who am I to disallow resurrection based on some notion that since death is unavoidable in real life, then it must carry a huge penalty in D&D? I'd rather he have fun.
Sure it cost an exuberant amount to come back and you get a couple of penalties, but if you can come back then why can’t your enemies do the same.
Resurrection is a plot device. Enemies can come back to life if the DM sees fit.
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5 years ago ::
Sep 30, 2008 - 12:21PM
#22
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Date Joined:
Jun 13, 2008
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I'm in the camp of death seems pointless. I can't see any hero making a noble sacrifice for a cause. If he'll be back on his feet in a couple hours.
In one of our recent adventures, we came to a village where someone had been killed accidently by their "clerics". Evidently the town had gathered enough materials to pay the "clerics" to raise him. (We killed the clerics before they had the chance though... We're not evil, just prone to miscommunication)
Later on, we killed a hunting party (again miscommunication). And since we don't have rituals ourselves (or at least the fighter and rogue, aren't letting on they can), we burn bodies. We were chastised in the next town for not bringing the bodies back to be raised.
So as far as I can see, unless your a few miles deep in enemy territory. Mortality is not something you should fear. Death penalty could be a standard form of punishment, since we can raise them if we think the punishment was too harsh. I find it harder for my character to care about danger, if it only puts me out of commission for a couple hours.
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5 years ago ::
Sep 30, 2008 - 12:25PM
#23
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Date Joined:
Mar 22, 2008
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I'm in the camp of death seems pointless. I can't see any hero making a noble sacrifice for a cause. If he'll be back on his feet in a couple hours.
Yep. You can't be the hero who risks his life running into a burning building to save the kids if someone is just standing around to raise you if you die. All you get to be is some guy who risked nothing to save some kids. That's not being a hero.
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5 years ago ::
Sep 30, 2008 - 12:30PM
#24
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Date Joined:
Jun 29, 2008
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I'm in the "it depends on what the players feel is the most fun" camp. Ressurection is in the game for a reason, and I see no good reason to take it out. If they want a rez, they can wait for the party to rez them. If they dont, they can roll up a new character.
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5 years ago ::
Sep 30, 2008 - 12:34PM
#25
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I treat raises/ressurections as follows.
When you die and are brought back to life you leave behind some of what is 'you' in the other-realm. This piece of 'you' is really like spiritual flotsam, but in the wrong hands it can give the entity that finds it control/leverage over you in unforseen ways.
The more powerful and renown a person was in life, the more noticable their essence strands are in the other-realm.
This is one reason great leaders are not ressed.For players it is a potential chracter hook down the line. Especially when they become more powerful.
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5 years ago ::
Sep 30, 2008 - 12:36PM
#26
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Date Joined:
Mar 16, 2007
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I don't allow Ressurections in my games. It solves the whole thing. 
+2. Yeah, it really is not required. We've had two PC deaths so far and both had to make new characters. It sucks, but nothing can replace a fear of death like, well, permanent death.
That said, I actually like the way the new ritual works. -1 for 3 milestones is actually a fairly significant penalty. That can be 2-3 entire game sessions, and it serves as a constant reminder of the parties’ failure, while not causing permanent suffering. It lasts just long enough for the DM to get chuckles out of reminding the player of the penalty, but not so long that his character falls behind or the joke gets old. And the cost is only insignificant towards the end of each tier. It is a far better system than level loss or con penalties as those merely set your character far behind the rest of your party when the real blame for your death probably falls on everyone.
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5 years ago ::
Sep 30, 2008 - 12:37PM
#27
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You can make bigger ramifications without resorting to level or constitution loss if you want. A "death is the finite end to life" scenario means cutting out resurrects altogether, making it so that death has the ultimate teeth (nothing's more painful than losing a character that you've invested a lot of story and personality into).
If you want it to have bigger ramifications, while making a return more possible, you can increase perhaps the requirements for it. In my setting, you have to sacrifice someone to bring someone back to life (you aren't raising the dead so much as transferring life force from one body to another). At paragon and epic level, the cost of life increases just as the component cost increases (10 people must die to bring back a paragon character, 100 people must die to bring back an epic character). Through this, the consequences of resurrection can be HUGE (does your party have the stones to effectively annihilate a small village solely to bring you back from the dead?).
Mechanical penalties associated with death only give the player more reason to cease playing that character, and there's no reason for that. There are ways to create an aftershock from character death that don't necessarily involve penalties, and there's no real logical reason (other than "this is how I feel magic should work") that these penalties necessarily have to exist. Roleplay it, folks!
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5 years ago ::
Sep 30, 2008 - 1:22PM
#28
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Date Joined:
Dec 12, 2005
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I don't allow Ressurections in my games. It solves the whole thing.
-1. If players can roll up new characters, then a no-rez policy is about as meaningful as the Profession skill.
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5 years ago ::
Sep 30, 2008 - 1:24PM
#29
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Date Joined:
Mar 22, 2008
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Bah. If players can roll up new characters, then a no-rez policy is about as useful as the Profession skill.
Losing a character you have invested with time and emotion is a heavy cost of death. That you can bring in a different character doesn't remove either of those costs.
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5 years ago ::
Sep 30, 2008 - 1:36PM
#30
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Interesting discussion.
I find taking resurrection out entirely too strong medicine, and stiff death penalties are no good either. Not only is the player miserable because they're so far behind, but I'm miserable because I have to do even more work trying to write encounters that will challenge the party but not necessarily decimate them, since I now also have to consider the handicapped player's penalties, and balance accordingly.
Of course, light penalties simply make death a non-issue.
My solution thus far is that in the Jon-gotten Realms is to make resurrection magic a reality, but a very scarce one. To raise a player, the party will have to do some serious thinking and role playing.
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