Death? What Happens Next?

Gamer gives some suggestions on how to deal with character death:

A friend and I were tossing around ideas on handling death in our campaigns, here’s what we eventually came up with: When a player dies, he will be given the choice of losing on level of experience or loose all of their stuff, including gold, and their party cannot loot the corpse. I’m just wondering if this will be possible and if it will, will it be too strict or lenient?

like to arrange things so the highest level (which has always been 20 for me) averages 80% of the most powerful items… leaving a 20% reserve so that even they will find something special in the most powerful of items.

I.e. High level characters will average +2 items, Heroic +3 and Legendary (20th) 4+… but only a very few will have one or possibly 2 +5 items (Vorpal counts as a +5 item).

OTOH, This is one of the economic controls we have on the players. If my death is too harsh, I can increase the items availability to soften it, since they can pass their heirlooms on. The heirloom mechanism will require players to name their items, if they are not already named, which should promote additional um, materialism.

So, yeah, I am usually pretty stingy with permanent magic items (less so with consumable). They should be wondrous items, not everyday appliances. Even so, this is one *handle* I will have on the overall economy and player satisfaction. I can throttle back or put the pedal to the metal. 🙂

Rolo Kipp – Moderator

I will intercept casting with a script that checks to see whether they have a Phoenix feather (raise dead) or Phoenix heart (resurrection) in their left hand. Reincarnate will be limited to animal reincarnations, save for evil people willing to destroy another intelligent life to bring back their friend. Reincarnate will require a new body be targeted for the spell.

>What’s currently required?

Raise dead – Diamond worth 500gp
Resurrection – Holy water & Diamond worth 500gp
Reincarnation – A prepared, young adult body

>Will the aging have to be
>manually done?

I will have aging effects in my world, this effect would call that script and add 10 years to their age (for humans).

>With such a
>high price, it seems unlikely
>many players would cast such a
>spell, even on a friend,
>unless that character was
>already a very high level and
>the group couldn’t stand
>losing them.

That is the goal. Do you utmost not to die, rather than become complacent with the ease of returning from heaven.

>To an Elf cleric
>10 years might not be much,
>but to a human…

Aye, my mistake there; I was imprecise, the age is actually 10% of lifespan which for my purposes is 100 years for human.

Dwarf – 400 years
Elf – 700 years
Gnome – 350 years
Halfling – 150 years
Half-elf – 180 years
Half-orc – 75 years
Human – 100 years

Aging in Amethyst takes on a special emphasis when you learn of the Path of the Everwise… At the age of 500, humanoid races may attempt a second adolescence, one that transforms them into an awesome immortal. I have to admit, the odds are not good for succeeding. Currently, out of a history over 100,000 years long there are only 16 elven High Ones and one human High One. 17 out of untold millions…

Too bad half of those are evil…

Rolo Kipp – Moderator