come back or reroll?

[big teej]

greetings playgrounders,

as an adventurer, death is nigh inevitable. (or common at the very least)


magic exists that is capable of returning a slain companion to life.


when it is YOU that have fallen in battle with the un-numbered hordes of evil (or the snobbish forces of good)

do you opt to return to life? a shadow of your former self (level loss, con drain, etc.)

or does a new companion appear to take your place?


tl;dr
when you die, do you opt to reroll, or get raised?
why?

[MesiDoomstalker]

I've had little expierence in PC death, as any campaign I partake in doesn't last long for various, out of game reasons. But I guess it would depend on the character and my expeirence with it. If I die on the first level on a quickly made charcter with a simple background, re-roll. A character with a well thought out background that I've progressed several levels and enjoy playing, beg for a rezz.

[Diefje]

I usually shut up for a while and see what the party does. Since I'm dead, I don't really have input. If they just bury me, I'm donezo. If they actually do take me to get rezzed somewhere (we generally don't get to the point where we could do it ourselves easily), I usually accept the rez. Firstly because the character usually has some unfinished business (how cliche), secondly because my fellow adventurers cared enough to do it for me, and thirdly so the DM doesn't have to worry about new chars.

I'll drop some subtle hint if i really want to reroll.

[Ravens_cry]

If they pay for a resurrection, I am coming back.
If I have played the character for several levels, most likely I am going to want a resurrection of some nature unless circumstances force otherwise.
If, for some reason, I don't want to play the character anymore and they insist on resurrecting them, the character will come back. pay the other characters back for the raising. and explain that they are getting "too old for this <expletive redacted/>" and wish to retire.
I can't think of many circumstances where a character would refuse to come back, though it could happen I suppose.

[Zaq]

Depends on the character. If my current character croaks, he wouldn't come back even if the party tried to rez him. The reason he's adventuring in the first place? He's searching for his husband's body so he could give him a proper dwarven burial. If he's dead, he'll be with his husband anyway, and he ain't coming back.

That said, generally speaking, how willing I am to bring in a new character is inversely proportional to how high-level we are, just because making a new high-level character takes so frickin' long. It also depends on how long my queue of backup characters is. (What? Optimizing is fun, and just because a character will probably never see the light of day doesn't mean it's not fun to sketch out the important parts of the build.) I've currently got something like four characters I could swap in with, oh, let's say a weekend's notice (item shopping. Just . . . item shopping. That's at LEAST an evening if you want to do it properly. Without items, I could do it with maybe a day or two's notice), so that kind of makes a difference.

[Calanon]

One time when we were all level 18 my DM demanded that i re-roll a character and decided to play a Cleric... True Resurrection on my old character (The Cleric joined 5 seconds after the Necromancer died) xD my DM was annoyed but allowed it :smallwink:

I prefer to come back from the dead :smallbiggrin:

[Ravens_cry]

Your DM demanded?!
Wow, personally, I would say that is not the DM's call at all. Spending the resources to get raised is both an IC surviving PC decision whether to spend the resources to do so as well as a OOC player decision on whether you want the character to be raised.
The DM really has no say on it unless in-game circumstances dictate otherwise, like being in a haunted castle where dying will suck your soul into the wall and potentially prevent you from being raised from the dead.
True story by the way.

[Kol Korran]

i played but a few characters (i usually DM) but i tend to get attached to the characters i play, and i prefer to get raised if possible (though i'm a bit iffy about Reincarnation... :smallannoyed:) this was even true for my blind wooden legged (a messy story with lots of poison and a vicious DM) halfling rogue, who then promptly, at the party's request, was asked to retire.

[Calanon]

Your DM demanded?!
Wow, personally, I would say that is not the DM's call at all. Spending the resources to get raised is both an IC surviving PC decision whether to spend the resources to do so as well as a OOC player decision on whether you want the character to be raised.
The DM really has no say on it unless in-game circumstances dictate otherwise, like being in a haunted castle where dying will suck your soul into the wall and potentially prevent you from being raised from the dead.
True story by the way.

Well I've been with this group for a few months before i started in there campaign so he knows how i am as a player... My DM and I have always been at odds for a while but its mostly just us pointlessly butting heads

So far I'm not allowed to play the following classes anymore

Archivist
Factotum
Paladin
(Various other Prestige classes)

Its not a problem since I don't play most of those classes anyway and only optimize when Its a short game... (for a Campaign i just play with flavor in mind :smallsmile:) which was why I can play a Wizard for the campaign (Yes, 20 levels of Necromancer) :smallbiggrin:

EDIT: btw can i see that castles map? :smallbiggrin:

[Ravens_cry]

I wasn't DM, but I can say it was from Curse of the Crimson Throne, a mostly enjoyable experience, though personally I found it to be the worst part.

[Tr011]

It depends on some things:
1. How are new characters made? If they get as much gold/wealth as the old characters and as much XP as the old ones, I would only resurrect with level loss when I really liked my old character and had no opportunity to do some things that I wanted to do (like a wizard/rogue who never killed a bunch of people with greater invis).
2. Do I have some idea for a new character that looks more cool than my old one.

Depending on these two things I either reroll or get raised, but with true resurrection I would get almost ever raised.

[panaikhan]

The last time I had a character croak, I rolled a new one. Three reasons.
1, I'd seriously missread Illumians (getting Caster Level and Casting Level mixed up).
2, the party had also lost another character and couldn't afford both of us.
3, we were in the Underdark and it gave me the perfect excuse to play a Drow :)

If I am honest, PC death doesn't happen in our group very often. If it happens to me, I take a look at what the party is 'missing', and roll something to fit the gap.