Death exp condensed

[stevebarracuda]

Not wanting to derail this thread, however...

It actually seems that as one progresses in level of, say a fighter, at level 1, it is very challenging to fight, and gaining level 2 (more experience in your class), would be the most challenging.

At level 20 fighter, you are so experienced (having attained feats such as Combat Expertise, Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialization, etc), it would actually be easier to level, from all the experiences (re: levels), and not how it is now, based on the XP system.

Essentially, although it might take 20,000 XP to reach lvl 20, it shouldn't be that monsters provide you with 1 XP point for 50% + of the server at this stage in your PCs development), because just because your toon is more skilled at killing, why is the XP payout somehow less, yet the death penalty somehow greater? Wouldn't your higher level skill make one more efficient, and to stay "in shape," you need to keep active.

Instead of arguing about less of a Death XP hit, it seems more "realistic" that dying should incur a -2 CON or STR or CHA hit, temporarily, that adds/accumulates each time you die, per 24 RL hours on this server. That way, you suffer for your toon's follies, and that increases each time you fail (by dying), yet you don't get less "experienced," which is just an arbitrary penalty/spanking. Yes, my thoughts of this subject have changed from the past.

Anyway, pertaining to this quote:

This makes me question what exactly does a level represent in a nwn2 server. I've always been of the belief that my level one PC should not see the world the same as when he hits ten, twenty, twenty five, and thirty.

I would like to suggest that for every level a toon earns, they age a year, or 1/2 year for levels 1–10, one year for levels 11–20, and two–three years for levels 20–30.

A sense of "growing" on this server would be a welcome addition to realism (ha!).

When I read some peoples bios and they are lvl 30 but age 22, I just have to chuckle, loud.

[Aelcar]

I agree when you say the Server does not provide RP-mode as a style of playing: it's a sandbox ultimately providing exploration and combat situations. In fact, the PW is the ultimate RP tool for DMs and players. Death penalties arent harsh, exactly because of what you said about "technical" deaths: it happened a couple of times to me that while moving through an area, a monster spawn appears EXACTLY where I am walking, crashing me and killing my character while I (painfully slowly) relog, or getting killed while I transition for 10 minutes in a moment of high traffic on the server (with someone who fled the enemies and dragged them to the transition point). That's why you cannot delevel, the penalties are only 100 XP/level, there is no permadeath, priests can resurrect people endlessly and quests give you low-risk XP every week (more or less).

If you die and get the penalty, you didnt "lose" 20 mins of your life. When you play a game, you're supposed to have fun, whether you progress in the specific gaming session or not. If you dont have fun doing somehting, then DONT do it. Fight in groups if alone is boring. RP and avoid grinding if that's what you like best. Use quests. Player-driven events (I do it all the time), DM events, guilds...If you want to make your character grow in power, you have the options. Removing the death penalty (which is already low) is not one of them, according to me. It's just further cheapening the achievements you are aiming for.

[Catam]

XP penalty for Death:

1,000 xp per level which would delevel the character.

Why:

So many players drive their characters into the fray without a respect for their lives, expecting to get raised or take the 100 xp per level hit. A penalty more attuned to PnP would hopefully inspire many players to party up for their dungeon crawls or giant hunts. Seeking groups creates more opportunities for role play. Along with this, the price for actually reviving a dead character would be:

Raise Dead        =  5,000
Resurrection      = 10,000
True Resurrection = 25,000

This cost would be both at temples and as a gold loss to a caster representing the components needed to cast the spells.

Why this would never happen:

Because so many in this player base simply do not understand one of the fundamental aspects of the game, which is simply sharing with each other the growth of rich characters and creating the stories that many players enjoy. To some, D&D is more than a hobby or game. It is a place to become the character in a book or movie, either the epic hero or infamous villain. Instead, they play this game to win, tweaking builds and running the lands of the coast alone to gather loot. Is either good or bad? No... but when both types of players share a server, there will always be these endless debates about death systems or exploits or power builds. In the end, it is the decisions of the staff on how to properly balance the needs and wants of all that share this community. There will always be someone disappointed. My final suggestion is to simply log in, pick a character and enjoy the challenges that either give xp and gold to help level up and get good gear or develop the character as he or she grows into the hero or villain of legends.

[MercTroop]

Actually if you die your suppose to lose appropiate amount of time that experience loss reflects as a character.

If experience points is a measure of character development and learning, then losing twenty minutes of experience should translate into a twenty minute loss of RP.

It's not said in the server that experience loss works like this, so experience points are either a OOC punishment or it fails to make people realize RP ramifications of dying. Which from a design stand point either one would be a failure if RP is suppose to be supported. If you die and RP that you died, then server would want to reward you not punish you.

People saying experience penalties are not harsh need to compare it against other games. Other nwn2 servers are rebuilding MMO, they are using the time drawn out method to keep players invested.

I pretty much agree with what Steve said. Death should result in a ability stat decrease that accumulates based on level not based on experience. Given what we know about how exp and death is handled a stat debuff would make more sense OOC and RP side. Would more likely get RPed which would mean the system works better than the current one.

Of course no penalties would be preferable if RP is truly left to the players to decide.

[Xanfyrst]

You want to get rid of people, Catam? Because that's what will happen. BG is such a popular server because it's less tedious than those more hardcore RP servers out there.

[Simian]

Alright... loose one point of Constitution per death...
I suppose I could agree to it, if we throw away the point buy system and allow our players to roll for their ability scores instead.

I suppose that with 6 x 18 starting ability scores it wouldn't be so bad... (And yes, I would keep on rolling untill all them are 18.)

Oh and I died again... That means I am going to loose 500 points of experience from my UD character. I guess I will not log into the UD for couple of weeks or a month more.

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The loss of constitution ability score could be understandable would our monster give us 100 x "Current amount" worth of experience points.

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And I honestly do not see any merit in role-playing the 48th death on my Quin Waynn.

[Snarfy]

I think the death recovery sickness/temporary stat damage is a great idea and have seen it work on other servers. I'd like to see it even longer than 2 minutes though, more like 5 or 10. It would certainly dissuade the zerglings from running straight back out to grind away after getting fugue'd, and might even encourage some people RP recovering from getting whalloped.

[Catam]

The system as I detailed is very close to PnP as it would actually cause a character to lose a level... point loss from the CON ability only happens to 1st level characters. The reason D&D uses a system like this is that when a pc dies, he loses a part of himself... past experiences, training, etc. AND it keeps players from being stupid. In an online RPG, stupidity happens.

You want to get rid of people, Catam? Because that's what will happen. BG is such a popular server because it's less tedious than those more hardcore RP servers out there.

Only the weak ones would leave!

And if there was a truly hard core server, I'd enjoy that challenge. But, I am in no way saying we should use the system I described, just saying I personally like it. Below the death system there were more words that were written trying to make my point so let me summarize my post to help make it more clear:

Just get in the server and play within the current rules and enjoy the challenge of it, no matter what style you play.

And to further the point:

If you find you die too often, adjust how you play. Running head long into a mob while running solo isn't exactly wise. Glitches and lag happen... it's a game... take the hit and keep playing. So often there are players hanging in the Fugue hoping for a rescue (or sending meta-gaming tells... for shame!) when they could have hopped right back in and gotten back to their grind session, making a large portion back by the time they might have even been noticed or rescued.

Yes, I prefer a hard core system. I like challenges. When I play a new game I set the difficulty as high as possible and lower it if I continuously die. I do not use cheat codes until after I have beaten a game. We live in a time where the help-desk mentality of "help me cuz I am too lazy to figure it out myself" and the god-mode mentality of "look at me! I win cuz I'm uber" is so prevalent. Development through both success and failure leads to true personal growth no matter what you do. So... that might have been overly philosophical, but, hey, is it wrong to embrace all challenges this way, even if it is just a game?

I completely understand that a harsh system would lose players and would never be used here, especially since donations run the server. It is vital to BG:TSCC that a larger player base is maintained for that very fact. it doesn't stop me from dreaming though!

I think the death recovery sickness/temporary stat damage is a great idea and have seen it work on other servers. I'd like to see it even longer than 2 minutes though, more like 5 or 10. It would certainly dissuade the zerglings from running straight back out to grind away after getting fugue'd, and might even encourage some people RP recovering from getting whalloped.

And the stat reduction or sickness effect is cool. Most of those that run solo might just log out but within a group many players RP these very effects. And perhaps if the loss of xp dips below what your current level requires it would actually delevel you... would make all those level 30s think twice.

[Simian]

Well, in the countless topics before I have told my view on this. It is a terrible, terrible idea. I've spend the past hour and half going through my 3000~ posts and quoting each and every instance I could find... I gave up after the 19th. If not one of them got through, why bother writing a new one?

So let us of focus on the two sentences below:

If you find you die too often, adjust how you play. Running head long into a mob while running solo isn't exactly wise.

What a brilliant piece of advice, if you happen to be the one on the right side of the image below:

If you happen to be the one of the left, it is not so brilliant advice. Hence, I've come up with a better one: "Stay away from areas with things that highlight with the colour red." It is a wonderful piece of advice as it also fixes many of the issue caused by poor internet connection or outdated hardware.

Now, if there are people who find themselves lacking in chalenge, I whole heartedly recommend sending your character builds to me so that I can "fix" them and send them right back at you. Now, the only thing you need to do is to follow the fixed build and you will find the game almost as chalenging as I do. The builds I suggest publicly to others aren't the ones I play on the server with.


And there is one more thing... playing dead doesn't work in NWN2. It can save parties in PnP, but in NWN2 it is trip to the Fugue plane.

[Kenshin]

I am agnostic in this debate. Loss due to death could perhaps be tweaked, but most of the suggestions here do not strike me as an improvement on the current system. In this case the medical principle "primum non nocere" (first, do no harm) seems most appropriate. It certainly seems to me that a change in the death penalty will result in complaints, one way or the other.

Oh, and Catam, I am with Xanfyrst on this, your recommendation would most certainly result in an exodus. It would also further cement the inherent advantage of established players with capped out characters and immense stores of gold and equipment as they have the least need to take significant risks and are, in any case, in the least danger when they go out on "adventures".

[Catam]

Well, in the countless topics before I have told my view on this. It is a terrible, terrible idea. I've spend the past hour and half going through my 3000~ posts and quoting each and every instance I could find... I gave up after the 19th. If not one of them got through, why bother writing a new one?
So let us of focus on the two sentences below:

If you find you die too often, adjust how you play. Running head long into a mob while running solo isn't exactly wise.

What a brilliant piece of advice, if you happen to be the one on the right side of the image below:

If you happen to be the one of the left, it is not so brilliant advice. Hence, I've come up with a better one: "Stay away from areas with things that highlight with the colour red." It is a wonderful piece of advice as it also fixes many of the issue caused by poor internet connection or outdated hardware.

Not quite sure where you're going with this one, Simian... the way you have it

if you happen to be the one on the right side

running headlong into a mob is a bad idea.

If you happen to be the one of the left, it is not so brilliant advice

meaning if you are a weak build (?), it is wise to run headlong into a mob while running solo...? I can see it the other way around... if you're level 30 in the mino ruins running for some loot.. run head long... if you are level 12 trying to gather resilient troll hides in the Troll Claw Hills... don't run head long. But I do agree that even the best of characters die from lag or a connections issue.

Now, if there are people who find themselves lacking in chalenge, I whole heartedly recommend sending your character builds to me so that I can "fix" them and send them right back at you. Now, the only thing you need to do is to follow the fixed build and you will find the game almost as chalenging as I do. The builds I suggest publicly to others aren't the ones I play on the server with.

Why does this scare me??? Just messin!

[Catam]

Oh, and Catam, I am with Xanfyrst on this, your recommendation would most certainly result in an exodus. It would also further cement the inherent advantage of established players with capped out characters and immense stores of gold and equipment as they have the least need to take significant risks and are, in any case, in the least danger when they go out on "adventures".

Um... the death system I posted is not actually a recommendation... just an example of what I would love to see in any server. Reading below the death system I mentioned, one would read this:

Why this would never happen:
Because so many in this player base simply do not understand one of the fundamental aspects of the game, which is simply sharing with each other the growth of rich characters and creating the stories that many players enjoy. To some, D&D is more than a hobby or game. It is a place to become the character in a book or movie, either the epic hero or infamous villain. Instead, they play this game to win, tweaking builds and running the lands of the coast alone to gather loot. Is either good or bad? No... but when both types of players share a server, there will always be these endless debates about death systems or exploits or power builds. In the end, it is the decisions of the staff on how to properly balance the needs and wants of all that share this community. There will always be someone disappointed. My final suggestion is to simply log in, pick a character and enjoy the challenges that either give xp and gold to help level up and get good gear or develop the character as he or she grows into the hero or villain of legends.

I think I made that clear in another post here... so, in case anyone else missed it:

Only the weak ones would leave!

And if there was a truly hard core server, I'd enjoy that challenge.
But, I am in no way saying we should use the system I described, just saying I personally like it.

Hope that gets everyone believing I posted the harsh death system as a recommendation up to speed.

[MercTroop]

Telling people to change their play styles is kind of like a slap in the face. It's not always that easy especially at a low level when resources and abilities are extremely limited. ECL races especially have some of the hardest starts in servers.

Saying people die because they run head long into mobs is a bad theory. I'm sure some people do that, I've seen it. Most of people I've seen die due to unlucky mob spawn or unlucky dice rolls. Latter happens allot in Nwn2, nothing more annoying than being level five and rolling all ones, while all monsters seem to keep hitting twenties on you.

Ideas like aggro pulling, kind of go against the RP spirit. If three minotaurs are together and run at all three it would make sense logically if one see's you they all come for you. Pulling one away at a time is going into iffy area, I would never blame any player for doing this given server design. People shouldn't be yelling at people for drawing allot of aggro for running in.

Some of the mechanics in DnD are not very good, even for PnP. Mechanics are dated. New mechanic systems have come out that tweak, stream line, and improve on the over all system.

Catam what you suggested doesn't address the issue, again I'll say this making experience hit harder does not fix the core issue. In the current state no one RP's the experience loss, at most people only RP that they died or got knocked out. People get deleveled so what, they are just keep on RPing as they were before. Just like other people who keep suggesting harsher experience hits, you have not explained how making it harsher will make people RP the exp loss more than they do now. It's harsh for the sake of harsh, not for the sake of making RP better because it really doesn't.
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Server should remove experience penalties on death and add a death system based on SteveBarracuda idea. Where you take a temp stat debuff for a few game in game minutes, I'd suggest doing 20 seconds per a level at -4 all stats. Then tweaking after testing to see if that's too short or too long.

First if you took a stat hit on all types of deaths, it would address DM concerns that people are getting out death free from player resses.

No one RP's experience loss, so a stat debuff would reflect what people actually lose and are RPing. It adds a logical punishment that people can look at and under stand how to implement into their own RP.

If a member of the party gets taken out while in the middle of a dungeon it would give more meaning to the party. Do they go on with the weakened member, or go back to safety to recover for a bit.

[Blackbird]

I have to say, I really like the idea of a stat debuff on death and return instead of the xp loss.

It's a pain to have to go out and get the exp back and not in a way that allows for RP; you can't really RP something that makes little sense in an RP context (exp; "Oh, I suddenly forgot how to swing my sword!"). And as mentioned, ECL characters have it even worse when they die (I play one and the amount of grinding I am doing right now is kind of blah, but every once in a while I get a group that likes to RP as they kill and that's a lot of fun). What an exp loss encourages me to do usually is to get out of Fugue as quickly as possible and run back to solo my lost exp for the next 30 minutes. And there's level-capped characters who basically have a death immunity with the experience penalty we have now. Level 30? Death can't stop you! Make that deal for 0 xp loss and get out there and fight like it never happened.

Debuffs would make for some really interesting RP opportunities as well with parties having to guard their recently raised members if they are, say, in the middle of a labyrinth underground fighting something. And rather than running out solo to grind, I know with debuffs I would probably sit down to do some "rest" RP if not in a party somewhere.

[Catam]

Telling people to change their play styles is kind of like a slap in the face.

1) The Death System I posted was not a suggestion for this server as it would cause many of the action/power-builder/non-rpers to leave. Even some of the light to medium RPers would find it tough to handle. Why I like the system has already been stated in previous posts here, feel free to read up. If you need clarifying, feel free to PM me.

2) I am not here to slap anyone in the face... if someone finds my posts as offensive as that, well... no comment.

3) No death penalty... I mean, seriously... forgive me for laughing but... well... I can't help it! ok.. ahem... are you posting here after 6 weeks since the last post because a character of yours has been taking too many xp penalties from dying recently? For the sake of argument, how many times has the character in question (Razlo Tigerbush/Treescream is it?) been to Myrkul in the past two weeks?

4) Debuff of stats - only if you revive yourself from Myrkul or have raise dead cast on your corpse. The nature of resurrection spells would cure any debuffs.

5) Sorry... still thinking about the platitudinal suggestion of no xp penalty

6) Some good info from the DMG, enjoy:

CHARACTER DEATH

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It happens. Adventuring is a high-risk enterprise. Characters in your campaign will die, sometimes because they were reckless and sometimes because luck was against them. Fortunately, D&D is a game, and death doesn’t have to be the end.

Raise dead, reincarnation, resurrection, and true resurrection can return characters to life. Bringing Back the Dead, on page 171 of the Player ’s Handbook, briefly discusses all four. Any creature brought back to life loses one level of experience, unless brought back with true resurrection. The character’s new XP total is midway between the minimum needed for his or her new level and the minimum needed for the next one. If the character was 1st level, he or she loses 2 points of Constitution instead of losing a level. This level loss or Constitution loss cannot be repaired by any mortal spell, even wish or miracle. Still, the revived character can improve his or her Constitution normally (at 4th, 8th, 12th, 16th, and 20th level) and earn experience by further adventuring to regain the lost level.

Raise dead has a number of limitations. The caster can only raise characters who have been dead up to one day per caster level. Casting time is a single minute. It does heal 1 hit point per Hit Die, but the body of the raised character must be whole. Raise dead doesn’t regenerate missing body parts. Paying someone to cast raise dead costs 450 gp (assuming a 9thlevel caster) plus 5,000 gp for expensive material components.

Reincarnate brings back creatures dead one week or less, but in entirely new bodies. The subject of the spell faces the same level loss or Constitution loss as with other spells. Paying someone to cast reincarnate costs 1,280 gp (assuming a 7th-level caster), making it the least expensive option. The drawback, of course, is that the player has no control over the new form and may not be welcome in civilized society.

Resurrection must be cast within 10 years per caster level of the time of death. It works as long as some small portion of the character’s body still exists. Casting time is a full 10 minutes. It heals the character completely when cast, but the character suffers the same level loss or Constitution loss as with raise dead. Paying someone to cast resurrection costs 910 gp (assuming a 13th-level caster) plus 10,000 gp for expensive material components. True resurrection, like resurrection, can be cast on a character who has been dead for up to 10 years per caster level. No part of the deceased is required for the spell. Casting time is a full 10 minutes.

True resurrection restores a character completely, with no loss of level or Constitution. This is the most expensive of these spells to have cast. Paying someone to cast true resurrection costs 1,530 gp (assuming a 17th-level caster) plus 25,000 gp for expensive material components.

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Now, in the next section, the "13.33 encounters to level" is based on PnP and in no way is my recommending that the server should consider this. I guess I need to add disclaimers on all my posts.

USING THE RULES BEHIND THE CURTAIN: EXPERIENCE POINTS

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The experience point award for encounters is based on the concept that 13.33 encounters of an EL equal to the player characters’ level allow them to gain a level.

Thirteen or fourteen encounters can seem to go by very quickly. This is particularly true at low levels, where most of the encounters that characters take part in are appropriate for their levels. At higher
levels, the PCs face a varied range of Encounter Levels (more lower than higher, if they’re to survive) and thus gain levels somewhat more slowly. Higher-level characters also tend to spend more and more time interacting with each other and with NPCs, which results in fewer XP over time.

With this information in mind, you can roughly gauge how quickly the PCs in your game will advance. In fact, you can control it. You are in charge of what encounters happen and the circumstances in which they occur. You can predict at what level the characters will reach the dark temple and prepare accordingly. If it turns out that you predicted incorrectly, you can engineer encounters to allow them to reach the appropriate level or increase the difficulty of the temple encounters as needed.

Published adventures always provide a guideline for which levels of characters are appropriate to play. Keep in mind that this information is based on character power as well as expected treasure. Table 5–1: Character Wealth by Level gives a guideline for about how much treasure a character of a certain level should possess. This guideline is based on the (slightly more than) thirteen-encountersper-level formula and assumes average treasures were given out. If you use a published adventure but tend to be generous with experience points, you might find that the characters in your group don’t have as much treasure as the scenario assumes. Likewise, if you’re stingy with experience points, the characters will probably gain treasure faster than levels. Of course, if you’re stingy or generous with both treasure and experience points, it might just all even out.

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