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General Discussion / Re: Death penalties

« on: December 02, 2018, 07:47:36 am »

Changing the terminology will do nothing to address the issues with the system as it stands. Whether you die or come within a sliver of death doesn't change the fact that most characters bar the most mentally unstable will be shaken.

As to the stat malus; I said to replace the XP penalty with it, not add it ontop of it.

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General Discussion / Re: Death penalties

« on: December 02, 2018, 06:22:01 am »

Being that I've been around and seen quite a few systems surrounding death and permadeath, I'd suggest a system that is an alternative to the current system; the penalties to XP loss to high level characters in conjunction with the inability to gain XP outside of DM events and limited availability quests makes it quite a heavy burden. The system that I would like to see also ties into the nature of seeing PCs dying and being revived with seemingly no long-standing consequence from an IC behaviour perspective; a lot of people that die and come back simply jump right back into the fight and ignore the fact that they came close to being dead, forever.

I would suggest replacing the loss of XP with a stat malus system that applies a hefty penalty to all stats which cannot be removed by any means for a pre-determined period, or perhaps a server reset. As an example, coming back from death as a Wizard with a malus of -6 or 8 to all stats means that the character in question is heavily influenced by their recent death and gives them a gentle nudge to step away from the harrowing ordeal of life and death combat whilst they recuperate.

During DM events DMs could always remove the malus in the event of an unintended death or an encounter they feel was overtuned for those present; for those that die and retain these stat maluses however it would represent an extreme difficulty for the character to overcome if they intended to keep fighting onwards. Replace a possibly long-term penalty to XP with a shorter term one that precludes continued combat; a mistake brought on by charging in wildly would result in a shorter term penalty to the ability to fight on. In addition there could be penalties to the witnesses of a dying character; an aoe check versus fear for a round in witnessing a valued comrade fall in the heat of battle or such.

I've seen other systems with far harsher penalties for death in the long and short term that, admittedly, bring great roleplay but also heavy hits to the players behind the characters. At the end of the day we are not only roleplaying but playing a game and mechanics becomes a part of that; players are less likely to enjoy their time if they lose days or even weeks of what they view as progress in their character to a spur of the moment mistake or happenstance.