Remove Death in BG

[Planehopper]

While I agree that down-playing death is (and increasingly so) an immersion-breaker, I am not sure it needs any mechanical changes, or a DM ruling, or whatever.

It comes down to role play, and the quality of it that we want here. I think that has shifted over time, and the only way to shift it back is through modeling, inclusion, and good ol fashion peer pressure.

Seriously though, this is just an acute symptom of an overall malaise in regard to our rp culture, and I dont think that can be fixed with mechanics.

[Hoihe]

While I do believe that that Raise Dead / Resurrection have their place in the event of an actual RP'd death, I default to the "knocked out / unconscious" camp as well.

I'm not sure how feasible this is, and not without a general consensus, but...

"Raise Dead" as a name for example at face value implies jist that: raising the dead. Maybe a name change of said scrolls in the loot table to "Smelling Salts", "Revive / Raise Dead", or something along those lines can kind of "nudge" the culture of a downed PC in the direction of being knocked out or unconscious as the standard expectation (while still allowing the exception).

As for the spells themselves, maybe a note can be placed within their description to enforce the clarification.

I have next to 0 knowledge on how doable this is and understand that it would take some added work, which I'm always hesitant to suggest. Maybe it's not needed at all.

Suppose the point I'm driving at is if there's a "simple" way of shifting to this understanding, it's laid out right from the get go with every scroll and spell.

The spells should be left untouched. Any change introduced to the spells will inevitably lead to abuse by DMs and players to enforce their will on others.


If the spells remain as they are, with no changes to their descriptions stripping players of the ability to raise one another -

then reframing dropped raise dead scrolls as smelling salts is a good idea, and framing pve/pvp death as knockouts.

Perhaps we could add a level 3 spell that does what Raise Dead does, but called "Revitalize." So knock-outs don't get Raise Dead'd.

[DM All Father]

Opinion not ruling:

We need most PC downs to reset most into “knockout” blows, with a minor gold loss. Raise items will work mechanically on all PCs, with items being renamed to “Smelling salts, slap to the face, or what ever else works”. ((Everything past this point requires script))

If the same PC gets x amount of deaths, maybe 3 or 5, they then “die” and require a raise dead spell. The stacking penalties clearly need to reset ona time frame. Which there are ZERO items for actual raising, because healers need a job people. So barring a player, you need a temple and suffer a heavier XP loss. The punishment is higher because you chose to roll the dice willingly.

More over, I’d love to see cleric caster level= to or higher then dead character level. Making powerful clerics a role play aspect instead of a build aspect alone. Anything less would up the exp penalty.


This would add a facet to RP, bring the server back into a believable position, AND give clerics a name in the game.

[Kitunenotsume]

I am a fan of:
1) providing non-death options.
2) increasing the cost of raise dead
3) factoring a caster-level check into the success


1) I think having access to items and perhaps even the Heal Skill could be used to bring back KOed characters. Being KOed too many times in a given duration, or Death effects could force actual death and actually require the caster-level check in #3.
I think I've said my part on that system and severity before, but this isn't that conversation. I can elaborate if requested.

2) I definitely think increasing the cost is reasonable, since we have reagent costs for spells that don't in P&P under the auspice of making it more exclusive (IE: Teleport), but have dropped the cost in spells that do have reagent cost in P&P, under auspice of making it lower cost on newbies. I am still a proponent of scaling the cost to the level of the target, which links into ...

3) CL VS Target Level is a great gate, I think. This doesn't even need anything particularly special for items, as by default the spell Raise Dead is CR 9 and Resurrection is CR 13. These options would always be available for lower level characters, at known and consistent prices regardless of being 'dead' or simply KOed, and provides the accessibility suitable for introduction, while higher levels would benefit from true casters.

[c2k]

In PnP, in order to cast Raise Dead, you had to sacrifice diamonds in order to appease the gods to bring someone back.

So, you could always apply a cost to it much like Teleport.

[Blackman D]

It is so. absolutely game breakingly stupid when people just wander up with a cart load of corpses and dump them in front of another group with a "Res please" kind of attitude.

The School of Necromancy, who has several carts of dead people on hand to "raise please" "res please," is thoroughly offended by this statement which suggests that it should not be a normal thing to animate raise the dead by the cart load!

[Arn]

If I find a corpse, I tend to OOCly ask the player if they want to RP it as a KO or an actual death. Because OP is right about the immersion-breaking quality of easy resurrections. But on the other hand, the player may want to RP out the death as a harrowing experience. So I'll go with whatever they want to do.

[Azroth]

death is traumatic, not to be taken lightly, the value of life is important - unless you are that self-destructive and selfish with a willingness to throw your own life away and others as if it was cheap.

That said, I don't think mechanics have anything to do with it, it's largely based upon the player's mentality, all one can do is encourage a change-out of one's outlook.

And if worried about like a KO vs Death just ask them then, but still taking a sword by a goblin can bleed out not knock out.

[Wolfrayne]

Ok so ill clarify what i meant by taking away death. because im not saying remove it completely.

1. Change the name and text of Raise dead to Revive or Spare the Dying. So that People arent actually dead they are "ALMOST DEAD"
2. When you "Die" you dont go to the fuge plane, instead you go to an empty room or something and you are given a text option "be found by NPCs" which ports you to a town nearby with the same XP/Gold loss as you would normaly get or "Lay and wait for help"
3. Ressurection stays the same but has a gold cost involved in it since you are actually Raising the dead.

Mechanically nothing changes all that much, just instead of being killed every couple of minutes people are instead unconcious, if they CHOOSE to be dead then by all means RP being dead but for the rest of us we dont have to put up with your stupid "lol i died again" bullcrap or people dumping bodies at campfires hoping for a freee escape from the XP penalty.

[Arn]

I can't speak for others, but I understood what you meant. And I am all for it. I would also suggest that when a character goes down, the game can ask the player if they want to RP a death or RP a KO. I think players should have the option to RP their death if they choose to.

But I just have doubts as to whether these ideas will actually be implemented. So until then, whenever I find corpses, I'll just keep asking players if they're dead or KO'd. Best I can do! *shrug*

[Deathgrowl]

I would caution against changing the in-character function and description of spells, as it messes with the natural laws of the setting.

As I mentioned in my previous post, if someone dies from a Finger of Death spell, they are dead. They're not dying. And I don't think it's then fair for people not to be able to in-character Raise Dead by then changing how the - again in-character - name is changed and spell is described not to actually raise the dead.

That said, I have no issue with adding mechanical duplicates of raise dead scrolls that in-character only should function on the dying-but-still-alive.

On your third point, wolfrayne: Gold cost to spells has never been an effective gold sink. It's not going to be an effective deterrent for people to take risks unless you make it such a high cost that only those who grind can afford it. And at that point, it becomes a great problem for new players. And honestly just outright unreasonable. I've never been a fan of the teleport cost either (but I also rather object to its accessibility, almost as much as I object to the accessibility of Sending. Sword Coast telecommunications service. I'll stop here, before I go off on longer tangent).

I'll reiterate what I said before: This is better done with an encouragement to change the culture, than a forced mechanical change. A cultural encouragement you admittedly are contributing to by the very act of posting this. But lets be patient with people who aren't as experienced with the server culture around mechanical death as us.

[Almarea90]

I understand there are people who don't want to change the existing spells And that's a fair point. An alternative could be to add the spell "spare the dying" which is a cantrip in PNP if I'm not wrong and change the consumables into smelling salts or something like that. This way the divine casters still retain the ability to raise who is truly dead.

[Shadowspinner70]

I'm not sure if everything is all that impossible. I'm familiar with a server where a person needs salts, but said salts only work until ten minutes after someone falls. After ten minutes, they need DM intervention, a resurrection spell, or what have you. However, I have yet to see how it works with death spells but let's work this out.

Someone gets smacked with a Finger, or Wail, or save or die spell, and fail that save, that person's immediately shunted into the dead category, because there has to be some kind of coding that differentiates between the barely alive and the dead. An item can be made for the salts or new spells without otherwise touching Resurrection and Raise Dead.

This situation is complex and I do not believe it can be solved without either a ruling or mechanical change. The culture is deeply ingrained. As Deathgrowl mentioned and Planehopper alluded to, new players will have to be informed and informed quickly. There's also the matter of veteran players who handwave the fact that a, death is traumatic, and b, resurrection measures don't always work. Characters laugh that no one ever dies here, now with the exception of, "Unless they're dating Aunrae" (which was hilarious btw, she loves you too Keeshe).

New players can be taught but will be handwaved by our veterans. Veterans can be taught and newer players learn with them.

[WobbleTop]

Do keep in mind I speak from the perspective of someone who plays on the server, as it is with its real mechanics and with the players that play on it, and not PNP.

Any death that happens outside of DM supervision is almost always ooc deaths. In fact, true death never happens outside DM supervision.

I RP it as such that most mundane things (grouping, adventuring) cannot kill you powerfully enough to prevent ressurection.
Even in PVP, where death must be of cyclical nature, you should expect your enemy to return, somehow, no matter what you do.
(Due to all of these rules and confusions much of true IC conflicts and combat seems to have stagnated, because people are too afraid to start anything.)


As an example, I tried now and then to fully RP while adventuring, and when my character saw his teammate die I gave the suggestion that she would not ressurect him, perhaps dump him on the road for someone else to.
Due to how the grouping and adventuring is an ooc affair to begin with, such and action would be seen as an ooc slight to the player, with good reason.
He either had to wait there, oocly, for hours for someone to ressurect, or just dock experience when any other player/group would have ressurected him without a thought.
In the end I did ressurect him, inevitably oocly, because I noticed my "true" RP would not work, either mechanically, or for the sake of any kind of storymaking.

What was my point?
Death is cyclical on the server. That "is" the wound and the knockout comparison to the real world. Be it by powerful magic,ressurection from other players or Myrkul strange fetish to constantly put them back into the realm of the living.

Powerful Death that would prevent ressurection is the real death. And a true rarity too for the prepared adventurer.

Perhaps this is wrong, but this is how I have played and I cannot see how it could be otherwise at this time.

Edit: I would like to add that the character itself is not entierly aware of this, due to all the trauma and memory loss death causes. Every ressurectable death might as well have been a non-ressurectable one, for all the character knows. This would keep things IC still, I think.

[Steve]

I agree with the sentiment that likely nothing can and will be done, mechanically or by Rule, to change the situation.

There could be some “restrictions” added that might alleviate those “cringe” moments for players, like making a Raise only possible in a Temple, so one won’t be accosted at the campfire. But literally any mechanical change, again, would require the work, and that’s unlikely to be ordered.

I’d argue that those “in a hurry” to get raised are the player that is not interested in immersion RP, but plays BGTSCC for the mechanical challenge, and, because they paid their quarter, they want their 3 lives, and now, dammit.

Can anyone really change their mind? Does another player really want to deal with the OOC push-back that is likely when one says either IC or OOC that flash-rez-mobs just aren’t cool?

A server can’t cater to all types and not rub the other half wrong, at times. Truly, the only way to deal with ye Death situation is OOC ignore it, and find that clique that supports the way you think RP should be.

That said, I do also think you could change the paradigm if the game rewarded more for RP, and the RP of “the state of dying,” or the moment in purgatory, as it is defined in the FR lore. However, nothing rewards more than “getting back to the grind asap” in literal terms.

Unless that fact is somehow changed, why bother to take death or even knockout that seriously when the m.o. is “fastest to 30” wins?