Too harsh a punishment?

[agentnone]

Ok, so I'm running a core rulebook Pathfinder campaign and have a player in our group that has done this in the past in another DM's campaign: intentionally killing his character. Knowing this, I put a house rule in effect before the campaign started regarding this. The rules states: "If I (the DM), and the other players, feel you intentionally killed your character for the sole purpose of making a new one, the new character will be made at 3 levels lower than the lowest character in the group, with only 25 gold to buy equipment. Other characters will not be allowed to give/lend any of their gold/gear until you gain at least 2 levels with them. If you kill your character off a second time, you will not be invited back."

Now, the players were informed of this well in advance, and have able access to this and my other house rules. They also know that if they wish to play a new character, they can easily retire their current one and make a new one. The new character will be made at 1 level lower than the lowest character in the party, but isn't restricted to starting gold based on WBL or other characters hooking them up with extra stuff. The player knew this, as well as the other players. But, he decided to do it anyway. My question is, is my house rule too harsh? They all knew about it before hand, so there's no excuse, or viable reason, to kill off their character as opposed to just retire them and make a new one. It's kind of insulting to the DM and other players (everyone was mad at him for it, except me since I knew I had that rule in place) and kind of ruins the fun for everyone. But I'm also a believer of everyone gets a second chance. Any suggestions from other DMs out there about other ways to resolve this or keep it from happening in the future? Thanks.

[ClothedInVelvet]

That penalty is extremely harsh.

That said, I would also say it's entirely fair. If you told him about it and it's having a noticeable negative impact on your other players and the game experience, I'm find with it. Heck, I probably wouldn't invite him back after that either.

My question is, what would possess him to do it? Did he think he could get away with it? Or did he just want his character to burn?

Alternatively, you could get the rest of the party to res him (selling some of his gear to pay for it) and foil any plans he had.

[Godskook]

Its not a punishment. Its an option, and he chose it rather than retiring his PC. Stick to your guns, and if he complains, remind him both that he chose this, *and* that xp is a river, and he'll eventually be able to swim back up into the party's average.

[Ashram]

Its not a punishment. Its an option, and he chose it rather than retiring his PC. Stick to your guns, and if he complains, remind him both that he chose this, *and* that xp is a river, and he'll eventually be able to swim back up into the party's average.

This. You had informed everyone that if they want to make a new character, their old one can walk off into the sunset. I have a feeling the player did this just to test the waters, to see if you would stick to your guns and bring the hammer down.

Could you relate as to how his character killed himself?

[agentnone]

That penalty is extremely harsh.

That said, I would also say it's entirely fair. If you told him about it and it's having a noticeable negative impact on your other players and the game experience, I'm find with it. Heck, I probably wouldn't invite him back after that either.

My question is, what would possess him to do it? Did he think he could get away with it? Or did he just want his character to burn?

Alternatively, you could get the rest of the party to res him (selling some of his gear to pay for it) and foil any plans he had.

The problem with being brought back from the dead is the soul has to be willing to come back. The party tried to bring him back and he declined it.


This. You had informed everyone that if they want to make a new character, their old one can walk off into the sunset. I have a feeling the player did this just to test the waters, to see if you would stick to your guns and bring the hammer down.

Could you relate as to how his character killed himself?

Of course. The party had recently traveled to a land where magic is about 99% outlawed. So all their gear was stashed and held by a trusted ally (and no, not a secret evil NPC, was one of the PC's parents). So they were given a small chunk of gold to buy new, non-magical gear. The CG Cleric (character in question) chose not to buy armor and instead bought a bunch of oil flasks and alchemist fires. Pathfinder has a thing in the equipment section saying putting these together makes a pretty nasty bomb. I had told him that because he's carrying all this flamable stuff and if he failed a save on a fire-based attack he will require a second save to resist setting these things off. He understood and chose to buy them anyway. He had them separated into 5 separate bags hanging off his person. He was hit with a fireball later in the evening. Failed his save. Failed his second one and all 5 of them detonated. We calculated the total to be about 100d6 explosive damage in a 10 foot radius. 337 damage later, his character was a smoking pile of ash. He didn't have an hero points, tho I'm convinced he erased them prior to all this starting since he rarely spent them anyway. I told him what would happen if he walked around with all this stuff and he still chose to keep them instead of "selling them back and getting armor."

[agentnone]

That penalty is extremely harsh.

That said, I would also say it's entirely fair. If you told him about it and it's having a noticeable negative impact on your other players and the game experience, I'm find with it. Heck, I probably wouldn't invite him back after that either.

My question is, what would possess him to do it? Did he think he could get away with it? Or did he just want his character to burn?

Alternatively, you could get the rest of the party to res him (selling some of his gear to pay for it) and foil any plans he had.

The party fully intends on selling his stuff. And then splitting up the earnings without his new character in the mix. What possessed him, I have a few things in mind, though none of them are bad enough to kill the character.

I had a part of my game where there was a permanent wild magic zone infecting an entire dungeon. When the characters left, there was a small chance they would permanenlt be cursed to have a small chance to cause wild surges when they cast spells. His character did not get cursed, however, the player wanted it so I gave it to him. He was the only one to get cursed. A few sessions later, he caused a surge that aged his character to the next age category (he's a cleric btw). His character is now a 50-something CG Cleric. So it was either the surges or the age that drove him to it. Thing is, the surge curse can be removed by a wish, which they got a few of those after he was cursed that he could have used and didn't. He chose to intentionally put his character in a position to easily die instead of just retiring him to a life of pious luxury.

[bloodtide]

Your rule looks down right crazy to me. But maybe you can explain this whole death thing?

How is the player having the character 'intentionally dying' and why does it matter? Does the character just 'intentionally' jump into battle and 'intentionally' loose all there HP? Is the character just doing like 'I put my sword on the ground and sit on it and die'?

And why does it matter to anyone if the character dies?

It can't be the character creation, right? You don't stop the game or anything and say ''well we will play again next week after Bob has made a new character''. And if a player 'retires' a character, how is that different from dying game wise?

[ClothedInVelvet]

For the sake of argument:

These actions don't really seem like suicide to me. Being cursed like you describe might be a cool RP feature that would make his character more fun to play. And carrying a lot of oil and fire doesn't seem suicidal so much as dangerous. They do have legitimate uses.

Rejecting the res is evidence to the contrary. Is he protesting that he didn't want his character to die?

[agentnone]

Your rule looks down right crazy to me. But maybe you can explain this whole death thing?

How is the player having the character 'intentionally dying' and why does it matter? Does the character just 'intentionally' jump into battle and 'intentionally' loose all there HP? Is the character just doing like 'I put my sword on the ground and sit on it and die'?

And why does it matter to anyone if the character dies?

It can't be the character creation, right? You don't stop the game or anything and say ''well we will play again next week after Bob has made a new character''. And if a player 'retires' a character, how is that different from dying game wise?

If you're playing Monopoly and you buy Park Place, but someone else buys Boardwalk, do you pitch a fit, storm off and never play again? Or do you keep playing hoping to get your hands on that piece of property? By him intentionally killing his character, in the middle of battle, as the only healer, without putting any effort forward and screwing the rest of the party was done in bad taste. Instead of retiring a character that can be used as a trusted NPC ally later, he chose to make a crater out of him, in the middle of an already difficult battle. You might not have a problem with it, but our group does. As well as many other groups out there as well I'm sure.

[agentnone]

For the sake of argument:

These actions don't really seem like suicide to me. Being cursed like you describe might be a cool RP feature that would make his character more fun to play. And carrying a lot of oil and fire doesn't seem suicidal so much as dangerous. They do have legitimate uses.

Rejecting the res is evidence to the contrary. Is he protesting that he didn't want his character to die?

No. In fact when we told him that he wanted his character to die, he said "Yeah, I know." So he also admitted to putting his character in position to die without even trying to salvage him.

[ClothedInVelvet]

No. In fact when we told him that he wanted his character to die, he said "Yeah, I know." So he also admitted to putting his character in position to die without even trying to salvage him.

So is he protesting your punishment? What is the issue here?

If the rule is "if you intentionally kill your character, X happens." And he intentionally kills his character, and admits it, the punishment will occur. Right?Do you feel bad about crippling him so badly?

[bloodtide]

If you're playing Monopoly and you buy Park Place, but someone else buys Boardwalk, do you pitch a fit, storm off and never play again? Or do you keep playing hoping to get your hands on that piece of property? By him intentionally killing his character, in the middle of battle, as the only healer, without putting any effort forward and screwing the rest of the party was done in bad taste. Instead of retiring a character that can be used as a trusted NPC ally later, he chose to make a crater out of him, in the middle of an already difficult battle. You might not have a problem with it, but our group does. As well as many other groups out there as well I'm sure.

Um...what?

You don't want a player to kill their character so you can steal the character from the player as an NPC? That's crazy. Um...why not just make your own NPCs. DM's are allowed to make NPCs you know(you do you think that only players can make characters?)

And what about him being the only healer, tank or whatever......so if your a 'nitch' in the group you can't die? Why would anyone want to be say the healer if you would punish them if they die.

And Monopoly is not a good example. How about Chess....would you not like it if your opponent intentionally got a piece taken off the board?

[agentnone]

So is he protesting your punishment? What is the issue here?

If the rule is "if you intentionally kill your character, X happens." And he intentionally kills his character, and admits it, the punishment will occur. Right?Do you feel bad about crippling him so badly?

No I don't feel bad. I was just wanting oppinions on whether everyone thought the punishment fit the crime. That's all.

[agentnone]

Um...what?

You don't want a player to kill their character so you can steal the character from the player as an NPC? That's crazy. Um...why not just make your own NPCs. DM's are allowed to make NPCs you know(you do you think that only players can make characters?)

And what about him being the only healer, tank or whatever......so if your a 'nitch' in the group you can't die? Why would anyone want to be say the healer if you would punish them if they die.

And Monopoly is not a good example. How about Chess....would you not like it if your opponent intentionally got a piece taken off the board?

No, I don't want a player to kill their character off because it's insulting and disruptive. Like I said in my original post, he's done this once before, hence the rule. No one in our group likes it when someone else kills off their character intentionally. And yes, I'm well aware I can make my own NPCs. You don't have to insult my intelligence. You're obviously not understanding the whole purpose of this thread, so you can kindly leave. Thanks anyway.

[ClothedInVelvet]

No I don't feel bad. I was just wanting oppinions on whether everyone thought the punishment fit the crime. That's all.

If you spelled everything out beforehand, and the culprit isn't challenging the rule, I would say it's fine.

[Coidzor]

Ok, so I'm running a core rulebook Pathfinder campaign and have a player in our group that has done this in the past in another DM's campaign: intentionally killing his character. Knowing this, I put a house rule in effect before the campaign started regarding this. The rules states: "If I (the DM), and the other players, feel you intentionally killed your character for the sole purpose of making a new one, the new character will be made at 3 levels lower than the lowest character in the group, with only 25 gold to buy equipment. Other characters will not be allowed to give/lend any of their gold/gear until you gain at least 2 levels with them. If you kill your character off a second time, you will not be invited back."

Yes, that's way too damn harsh and rather silly to boot. Why not just let players retire their characters if they really don't like them? A level below the lowest level person in the party is rather harsh in and of itself, depending upon how you award XP and whether anyone's lost levels recently. Don't really want a gap of 3 or more levels where they might as well be playing the cohort of a cohort.

Do you play with people who are practically strangers and remain so or something that you feel you have to come up with a whole bunch of rules for kicking people from the group?

If you're so convinced that he's intentionally killing his characters, have you tried talking to him and figuring out why he's doing it?


It's kind of insulting to the DM and other players (everyone was mad at him for it, except me since I knew I had that rule in place) and kind of ruins the fun for everyone. But I'm also a believer of everyone gets a second chance. Any suggestions from other DMs out there about other ways to resolve this or keep it from happening in the future? Thanks.

How exactly is this insulting to the DM and other players? He's the one dissing his own ability to create a character by saying that this character is too dumb to be allowed to contine theoretically existing.

How exactly does this impinge upon anyone else's fun? It puts to bed any rivalries their characters might have had with his and frees them up for interacting with different characters in new ways. The only way I can see it negatively effecting the other players is if the character died in such a way as to inconvenience the party mid-fight. But, then, any death in the party is going to inconvenience them in the fight if the character isn't a waste of space, so you might as well say that someone who hasn't quite mastered character building is ruining the fun of everyone else at the table while he learns and gets better.

[W3bDragon]

Edit: Right, if he actually admitted that he was killing his character off, then you're fine it terms of the punishment.

[agentnone]

Yes, that's way too damn harsh and rather silly to boot. Why not just let players retire their characters if they really don't like them?

Do you play with people who are practically strangers and remain so or something that you feel you have to come up with a whole bunch of rules for kicking people from the group?

If they want to retire their character, they can. The second part of my original post mentions this. But the player chose not to retire his character, and instead opted to disrupt the game and upset all the other players by doing what he did.

No, the people I game with I've known for awhile. Some a year, some longer. And I'm not trying to kick people out of the group. But if they're going to be disruptive and cause problems I don't want them there. It's a fairly simple rule. Retire your character, don't intentionally kill him off. If they can't follow that rule, why should I trust their die rolls or that they're following the other rules of the game?

[Coidzor]

If they want to retire their character, they can. The second part of my original post mentions this. But the player chose not to retire his character, and instead opted to disrupt the game and upset all the other players by doing what he did.

Now I'm really curious, how exactly did his character get offed that it caused such distress?


No, the people I game with I've known for awhile. Some a year, some longer. And I'm not trying to kick people out of the group. But if they're going to be disruptive and cause problems I don't want them there. It's a fairly simple rule. Retire your character, don't intentionally kill him off.

Well, there are certain times where the character fighting to the death to cover a retreat or against a clearly superior foe fits thematically/dramatically, so I can see a bit of room for why someone might think it a good idea, but that's a minority of storyline purposes anyway and doesn't really seem like it'd fall under the purview of the rule.

Definitely sounds odd.


If they can't follow that rule, why should I trust their die rolls or that they're following the other rules of the game?

Well, that is one small component of why it's a fairly common given piece of advice to have a copy of the most relevant part of their characters' stats and skill ranks for passive skills and the like. Though, really, they should be rolling in the open in general unless this is through some form of teleconferencing, and those also have ways of having public rolls.

[agentnone]

Firstly, I agree that you should stick to your guns. If he's guilty of getting himself intentionally killed, then you should penalize him accordingly.

That said, I'll play devil's advocate and try to defend the PC's actions and see what we get.

* A quick look at the wild magic variant shows that none of the options include getting aged, which is a rather drastic effect. None of the options listed are permanent. It may seem to him to be punishment for asking to get the wild surge.

* Since the PC was put in a non-magical setting, where he should not use his magics, it seems like its an interesting idea to try to become a grenadier instead of just another subpar melee. As for the risks, it required two back to back failed saves. Its entirely reasonable to feel that two back to back failed saves in combat usually meant death anyway, so this wouldn't be too much of a risk. Besides, he's going into a place where magic is outlawed, its not like he'll run into things like fireball, right?

* It makes sense for him to refuse the resurrection, since he just lost all his items and he might not want to play his character further handicapped like that.

* Unless you are 100% sure that he had enough hero points and knowingly didn't spend them, you can't hold that against him.

So umm... yup. You need to be 100% sure he really did kill his character off intentionally.

The wild magic effects are of my own creation. I have 1000 random effects that are all over the place. Some give characters 1d8 permanent hit points, some turn the moon to a cube. Some are bad, some are good. Very, very few are down right nasty, and the same amount are freaking amazing. The players all knew about the effects and were all fine with their use. The player that was cursed with them had to roll a 1 or 2 on a d20 every time he cast a spell to see if a surge happened. They very rarely happened, and when they did, most of the effects were temporary anyway.

Magic was outlawed, yes. But the sorcerer and himself were given special rights to be able to cast spells if they needed to. So long as they didn't go on a casting spree, they would have been fine. It was mostly aimed at their gear and to give them a slight challenge. They were going to get their stuff back at the end of it and they knew this. The items were being secured by another character's parents.

(See last 2 sentences of paragraph above)

I'm about 92.7% sure he had enough hero points. He never really spent them and he had the hero feat to be able to hold 5 instead of 3. It's not "evidence" but I'm still suspicious about it.

He admitted to intentionally killing his cleric off, knowing what would happen. I even told him a few weeks ago that since his guy was older, he could retire him if he didn't want to play him anymore. He said he was fine with it and kept going.

[agentnone]

Now I'm really curious, how exactly did his character get offed that it caused such distress?

Well, there are certain times where the character fighting to the death to cover a retreat or against a clearly superior foe fits thematically/dramatically, so I can see a bit of room for why someone might think it a good idea, but that's a minority of storyline purposes anyway and doesn't really seem like it'd fall under the purview of the rule.

Definitely sounds odd.

I explained how he did it above. And like I said, he agreed to doing it all on purpose to kill his character off.

The certian time you've mentioned has happened in the campaign a couple times already. Earlier in the game, they went snooping where they shouldn't have and ran into a dragon beyond their capability. It was asleep. Instead of leaving it alone, they poked it with a stick. The dwarven druid (or was it cleric?) saved the group by killing himself. He stuck behind to keep it occupied while the rest ran away. That I had no problem with. He actually tried to fight back, casting spells and swinging his weapon.

Oh, and the rolls are rolled in the open. He chose to decline resurrection and said a few minutes later than he did in fact try to kill his character, and succeeded.

[Coidzor]

It seems like a private interrogation might be more effective than the punishment in ascertaining what happened and if it was going to keep on happening.

Definitely is an odd choice of behavior though....

[Greymane]

Well, simply put, if everybody knows the rule, understands the rule, and accepts the rule, it's fine.

That said, I think it's ridiculous. For a couple of reasons.

Retiring characters can be fine and good, but sometimes you need to look at dying and retiring as the same thing. What if the player wanted his characters' story to end that way? Remember that D&D is group effort at storytelling, and players make quite a contribution in time-spent to it. Not always as much as the DM, but they've got cheeto stains on their fingers, too. Even I like to have a character go out with a bang at times, rather than ride into the sunset.

The punishment for the rule is pretty nasty. Three levels below and no magical gear is pretty bad. So much so that many characters in 3.5 D&D will not contribute properly at all. If they manage to survive, yes, they will catch up in Experience, but do you intend to give a metric ton of gear to make up for their starting with no wealth? Otherwise they might just be playing cheelearder the rest of the game. Or their gear comes out of the party's wealth.



The certian time you've mentioned has happened in the campaign a couple times already. Earlier in the game, they went snooping where they shouldn't have and ran into a dragon beyond their capability. It was asleep. Instead of leaving it alone, they poked it with a stick. The dwarven druid (or was it cleric?) saved the group by killing himself. He stuck behind to keep it occupied while the rest ran away. That I had no problem with. He actually tried to fight back, casting spells and swinging his weapon.


Well, that sounds like a fitting, dramatic end to a character's life, to be honest. Maybe he's getting praise from his god in the afterlife for it and getting his proper rewards? Maybe feels he's done what he could for the party? This is all speculation, but there's definitely a good reason why he might not want to be resurrected at this point.

Again, that said, if he's cool with the penalty you guys put up front, everything's probably fine.

[agentnone]

Well, simply put, if everybody knows the rule, understands the rule, and accepts the rule, it's fine.

That said, I think it's ridiculous. For a couple of reasons.

Retiring characters can be fine and good, but sometimes you need to look at dying and retiring as the same thing. What if the player wanted his characters' story to end that way? Remember that D&D is group effort at storytelling, and players make quite a contribution in time-spent to it. Not always as much as the DM, but they've got cheeto stains on their fingers, too. Even I like to have a character go out with a bang at times, rather than ride into the sunset.

The punishment for the rule is pretty nasty. Three levels below and no magical gear is pretty bad. So much so that many characters in 3.5 D&D will not contribute properly at all. If they manage to survive, yes, they will catch up in Experience, but do you intend to give a metric ton of gear to make up for their starting with no wealth? Otherwise they might just be playing cheelearder the rest of the game. Or their gear comes out of the party's wealth.



Well, that sounds like a fitting, dramatic end to a character's life, to be honest. Maybe he's getting praise from his god in the afterlife for it and getting his proper rewards? Maybe feels he's done what he could for the party? This is all speculation, but there's definitely a good reason why he might not want to be resurrected at this point.

Again, that said, if he's cool with the penalty you guys put up front, everything's probably fine.

You're right, it is ridiculous. And that was kind of the point. I put that rule in place to keep the players from killing their characters just to play something else. If he wanted to go down in a blaze of glory, then he should have done something like the dwarf did and go toe-to-toe with a dragon to save the rest of the party. Instead, he chose to strap himself up with a bomb vest, knowing that magic is really limited but there's those out there in the lands abusing it that the group was sent to hunt down. He went out of his way to get rid of his character like he did and didn't do anything to prevent it. He even said he killed his character off intentionally to play something else. He knew the rule was there. We all did. I was just surprised he'd choose to do that instead of retire the character and make something else without any problems. And then declining the resurrection was further proof of this. I put that rule on there to keep it from happening and hoping that player wouldn't do that in my campaign (he'd done it before in another campaign I was a player in). Each group is different, I get that. Our group hates it when someone does stuff like this. We consider this his first warning. He does it again, he's out. I'm not trying to justify my rule. I honestly didn't think he would go and do it anyway. So yeah, he might have been trying to see if I would stick by my guns. Guess it sucks to be him. But I'm also not a stupid DM. I know he's lower level and I'll be taking that into account as the game progresses.

[Wings of Peace]

Too harsh and universally detrimental. Even if it weren't harsh on the player himself, a teammate 3 levels below the group's minimum is going to drag performance down as a whole.

[Andreaz]

Your ruling's fine.
I'm curious about the reasons of your Pen&Paper-Suicidal friend, though.


If it gets out of hand, do play Puppies & Pawprints with them. Good luck killing a character in that one :p

[molten_dragon]

Personally I do think it's too harsh, and you're kind of screwing yourself over here too, because now you've got a big level gap in the party to deal with, which generally causes problems.

The bigger issue here is that you're dealing with an out-of-game problem in-game, which nearly always goes badly. Talk to the player outside the game and ask why he felt the need to kill off his character. If you determine his reasoning, maybe you can stop it from happening again.

[agentnone]

Too harsh and universally detrimental. Even if it weren't harsh on the player himself, a teammate 3 levels below the group's minimum is going to drag performance down as a whole.

True. But you also forget the XP scaling for taking on challenges above your level. He'll be fine. Behind the curve a little sure, but he'll be fine. I'm not going to ostracise him for it. His punishment has been dealt out. He knows that if he does it again (not like the dwarf did, or just bad rolls gets him killed) then he won't be invited back. Hopefully, he'll look at his bard's sheet and think about that every time.


Your ruling's fine.
I'm curious about the reasons of your Pen&Paper-Suicidal friend, though.


If it gets out of hand, do play Puppies & Pawprints with them. Good luck killing a character in that one :p

I'm curious about him too. He's done this before and I figured he would again, so I put that blanket rule in there to try to prevent a reoccurence. Man was I wrong. We asked him why and he couldn't give us a good reason. We asked him why he didn't retire his character instead. He just stammered and mumbled and never really said anything. But he definitely owned up to the fact that he was intentionally trying to get his cleric killed.

[Wings of Peace]

True. But you also forget the XP scaling for taking on challenges above your level. He'll be fine. Behind the curve a little sure, but he'll be fine. I'm not going to ostracise him for it. His punishment has been dealt out. He knows that if he does it again (not like the dwarf did, or just bad rolls gets him killed) then he won't be invited back. Hopefully, he'll look at his bard's sheet and think about that every time.


Other people have already commented on the importance of gear. If gear matters very little in your campaign then I'll agree he might catch up even if he will be somewhat of a detriment to the group. However, if gear is well disbursed in your campaign and being armed with non-magical gear is a serious weakness, then I'd say that xp scaling won't be enough to help him.

[agentnone]

Personally I do think it's too harsh, and you're kind of screwing yourself over here too, because now you've got a big level gap in the party to deal with, which generally causes problems.

The bigger issue here is that you're dealing with an out-of-game problem in-game, which nearly always goes badly. Talk to the player outside the game and ask why he felt the need to kill off his character. If you determine his reasoning, maybe you can stop it from happening again.

The why was asked, but he never gave an answer. Maybe what I'll do is have him remake his character a level under the rest of the party, with full WBL, and tell him that if he does that sort of thing again, he's gone.

And just so everyone knows, it wasn't just up to my interpretation. It was a total group duscussion and decision, and everyone agreed equally that he was playing in a distasteful manner that wasn't in the spirit of the setting or group we had in place. Even he agreed to that. This campaign's been going on since mid-June and so far this is the first major problem we had. We had a monk issue, but that's because the class itself sucks and we got it fixed.

[agentnone]

Other people have already commented on the importance of gear. If gear matters very little in your campaign then I'll agree he might catch up even if he will be somewhat of a detriment to the group. However, if gear is well disbursed in your campaign and being armed with non-magical gear is a serious weakness, then I'd say that xp scaling won't be enough to help him.

Right now, where they are, magical gear is impossible to get. The characters that are still in the game have their gear stored someplace safe and the entire party is currently using basic gear from the equipment chapter. They will be in this area for awhile so they can gain a few levels to press on with the core story and face the BBEG. So right now, and for the next couple months, magical gear will be all but impossible to find. Once they're out of the nation, then everything will be back to normal and he should be back within their level range.

[FearlessGnome]

The punishment is ridiculous. Yes, he should have just retired the character, but making him 3 levels below the currently lowest and not giving him any stuff is just going to make sure he has no chance of enjoying his next character. It will be weak, poor, and the rest of the party will be extra rich from selling his old gear.

Let him make a new character same level as the currently lowest level PC, give him full WBL, and tell him that if he does it again he's out. But don't go out of your way to sabotage his next character. He'll resent you for it, and he'll resent the other players if they're fine with your way of handling it. Don't be a ****. That's rule number 1.

[ILM]

I wasn't convinced it was intentional but OP seems to be, so let's go with that.

On one side you called things out beforehand, so applying the stated penalty is fair. However, 3 levels and naked seems like you're just trying to kill him the next session and doesn't really seem appropriate. If that behaviour really aggravates you, maybe a deterrent such as this wasn't the best choice: you could make it a case of your way or the highway. "Doing that screws up the game for everyone, do it and you're out." Something like that. Cause now you're stuck with a stupid penalty and everyone's going to hate it, including you. Generally speaking, you're trying to solve an obviously OOC problem with IC penalties, which is usually not advisable.

I can see how character-ADD is a problem and how people committing suicide just because they want to try another build hurts the storytelling and possibly the other players. At the very least, is shows the player in question has little attachment to his characters, and you might want to try and find out why that is.

Rather than outlawing character suicide altogether though, I'd try to work with the players. If they want a new character, talk about retiring it with them (I understand you're already doing that). If they say they want him to die, for some reason, you as a DM can then work to integrate this in the campaign. Blaze of glory, selfless sacrifice, plot-compatible warning to other players ("As Pointy McEars the elf steps towards the gate, his skin is suddenly torn from his flesh and he topples, lifeless." "Oh," the remaining players say, in a display of astute intellect, "maybe we should take another way then."), there's any number of ways to make a death count, or at least to not make it like a plot-centric character suddenly gave up on life for no apparent reason. It also lets you plan a little earlier for another character to the party.

[agentnone]

Let him make a new character same level as the currently lowest level PC, give him full WBL, and tell him that if he does it again he's out. But don't go out of your way to sabotage his next character. He'll resent you for it, and he'll resent the other players if they're fine with your way of handling it. Don't be a ****. That's rule number 1.

That's what I was thinking about doing as this thread moved along. I don't go out of my way to kill characters. I run encounters as realistic as I can. Like the rogues I had hiding, in waiting, that had previous knowledge of the party. One snuck up and attacked the sorcerer, the other attacked the cleric. It was smart on the enemy part but man did the cleric and sorcerer take a beating. They didn't die, but go close. Then I had the rogues only use the d20 roll for their initiative. No one died but the rogues. Sometimes an encouter might focus on a character, but that's only if they show themselves as a serious threat. I've even had the T-Rex's they fought run away after the PCs that were swallowed cut themselves out. I don't care what you say, that would hurt and any non-intelligent animal would get the hell out of there to nurse their wounds. I'm probably one of the most fair DMs out there. Hence the reason I came here for advice on how to handle the problem player. Didn't want to do something that would make me be a ****.

[agentnone]

Rather than outlawing character suicide altogether though, I'd try to work with the players. If they want a new character, talk about retiring it with them (I understand you're already doing that). If they say they want him to die, for some reason, you as a DM can then work to integrate this in the campaign. Blaze of glory, selfless sacrifice, plot-compatible warning to other players ("As Pointy McEars the elf steps towards the gate, his skin is suddenly torn from his flesh and he topples, lifeless." "Oh," the remaining players say, in a display of astute intellect, "maybe we should take another way then."), there's any number of ways to make a death count, or at least to not make it like a plot-centric character suddenly gave up on life for no apparent reason. It also lets you plan a little earlier for another character to the party.

See, I'm ok with this. But he made no mention of the sort that he wasn't to play something else. If he were to text or call me and say, "Hey, I don't want to play my cleric anymore and I don't want to retire him. I want him to die a heroic death." Then I'd work with him to make it work since he's taking the effort to make it a good death, and not a stupid one based on the player's decision. The Dwarf I mentioned earlier did this. He fought toe-to-toe with a dragon so the rest of the party could escape. He didn't talk it over with me before hand, but I knew what he was doing and the character knew it was his fault it was awake and angry to begin with. But he fought, hard too. But died in the end. I'm just gonna make him remake his character at lowest level with full WBL and let him know that if he does it again he can stay home.


I wasn't convinced it was intentional but OP seems to be, so let's go with that.

Oh, and I'm convinced it was because he said it was. He outright said he was intentionally trying to kill his character.

[horngeek]

It seems pretty harsh to me, maybe too much so...

But you said it, so I'd say 'stick to your guns'. Especially if he did it just to see if you would.

He outright admitted it, knowing the rule you had set down.

[sonofzeal]

I'd generally ease off. Yes you warned him and it can be a bit disruptive, but it's a relatively minor offense all things considered. Starting his next character that low seems needlessly cruel. Honestly, just talk it out with him. If you two are at such loggerheads that you can't work it out by talking, then perhaps one or the other should find a new group.

[agentnone]

I'd generally ease off. Yes you warned him and it can be a bit disruptive, but it's a relatively minor offense all things considered. Starting his next character that low seems needlessly cruel. Honestly, just talk it out with him. If you two are at such loggerheads that you can't work it out by talking, then perhaps one or the other should find a new group.

I'm going to. I'm going to talk with him before I let him make his guy back to the same level as the rest of the party. But at the same time I'll let him know that if it happens again he's gone. This is the second time he's done it in my group, first time in a campaign I've ran. It pissed us all off last time, and did so again this time. I got over it a few minutes after and got back to running the game while he worked on a new character. So I'll let him jump back up to the rest of the party's level and let him know not to do it again.

[FearlessGnome]

Aaand, thread complete. Quite often with thread a massive two pages long, you'll get people posting after only having read the OP and a post or two on page one, so... Yeah, expect a fair few more people to say what's been said and/or agreed about before.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

I've been more than three levels back in a party for the crime of joining the group a couple months too late. Trust me, as long as you go by the XP tables and have a decent amount of combat (and he doesn't get killed or suicide again, obviously) he'll catch up. WBL is an issue, but if he plays nice I'd start letting him catch up after a level or so. To those saying he's going to drag down the party, as long as he stays in back he won't be worse than no one being there, other than leeching XP, which the DM can handle via RP awards or a slight change of pace.

You set out the punishment to deter this sort of behavior; if you ease up he'll just think you're going to ease up next time. Then again, it sets up a solid reason to kick him out next time this happens, since that might be the best end result either way.

[Coidzor]

I've been more than three levels back in a party for the crime of joining the group a couple months too late.

So? The existence of even more unreasonable houserules doesn't justify other unreasonable houserules just because they're not as severe. :smallconfused:

agentnone: If you have observed a serious pattern from this guy doing this in other games, he repeatedly insists he actually does want to play with you, and you've impressed upon him and explained to him why you and the other players interpret such actions as personal insults and grievances against you. And you're still worried about it, even after pulling him aside and having a private conversation to try to figure out what's going on and what can be done about it then a punishment is not the answer. It's not going to help, it's just going to delay the issue.

Especially since he is unable or unwilling to give you the truth about why he did it in the first place and yet admitted to doing it as such. Though the presentation of that has been a bit iffy, such that just from the data presented there's a possibility for the angle that he just went with that because he figured you'd all end up there anyway after arguing over it, so he'd save time and breath, since you already were angry at him for having that stuff in his possession even if he was going to use it as a legitimate bomb.

So, put him on an indefinite hiatus from the game until such time he can come up with an explanation for himself, show he understands your explanation of your position and the positions of your fellow players (which, I admit, I don't quite grok), and explains why such won't happen again. If he really wants to play, the introspection should do more to solve this than hitting him with the nerf bat (unless it's a literal one, but, generally, letting things devolve into an IRL melee is probably a bad idea in general, even if it is just boffing), and if he doesn't want to play, then, well, you've provided an out that's not exactly like forcibly kicking him from the game.

Best of a bad set of options that seem open to you, since just talking it out seems to have failed or been too abortive.

[Strormer]

No. In fact when we told him that he wanted his character to die, he said "Yeah, I know." So he also admitted to putting his character in position to die without even trying to salvage him.


He admitted to intentionally killing his cleric off, knowing what would happen. I even told him a few weeks ago that since his guy was older, he could retire him if he didn't want to play him anymore. He said he was fine with it and kept going.

These two do not seem to fit. From what you've posted, he bought potentially dangerous substances to be used as impromptu demolitions during combat, a clever play technique. They were introduced as dangerous, but so is a pair of battleaxes on your back when you think about it. You could easily fall down the stairs and land on a sharp blade.
Secondly, it is above stated that the group told him he was doing something dangerous, which he declined to deny. He never announced an intent to kill his character, just that he was accepting the potential for death such weapons entailed.
Then you claim he admitted to intentionally killing his character. Which was it? Did the group accuse him of taking potentially deadly actions and he didn't deny it, or did he admit to suicide? These are two different things.
Now, that all being said, if he did obviously choose to blow himself up in a potentially party disrupting, fun ruining way, then punish away, but if he was merely taking a risk for a character choice then he was not committing suicide.
The only thing I can say is that, while your punishment is exceedingly severe, he did agree to it beforehand, so he's bound to the agreement. If this is a real issue though, for your group as a whole, then perhaps the group should find out why he wants his characters to die. Given the option of retirement there might be another reason why he feels they should die.
I had one time where I let a character die because it fit his personality to go down with the ship as it were, but that was a very specific set of circumstances. Every other character that I've had die did so because that's what happened, not effort on my part at all.
Ask why he killed him or if he really wanted to. It might be rough dealing with consequences of the question, but social interaction is a valuable part of the game, so as DM it's your responsibility to see to your players.