Dark Souls 'Gameplay': Death is not the end

[Spore]

Greetings playground,

I am thinking about reviving my campaign (played 2 sessions) and I really liked the gameplay of Dark Souls. One of our players aches for a bit of unforgiving combat as well as challenging encounters (which I enjoy, too). Basically I want them to visit a Shaman after some time who makes them unkillable and respawn at the last place where they meditated or rested. However I want penalties for dying, and they shouldn't be too harsh but they should hurt. I also won't make unfair traps that are found in the game. If they fail, they should have plenty of time to react.

What are you guys thinking about:
1) A death resets your XP to the minimum needed for the current level. I.e. a fast progression 3rd level character will reset down to 3.000 XP. (Dark Souls style, unspent experience or soul power can be recollected in a one minute ritual at the place where they died) which is good because one PC is a shadow summoner (and I can easily tie her powers into some fluff regarding the Shadow Plane).
2) A death damages equipment (after all, an impaled chest should somehow ruin even magic armor) which is good because one PC is a blacksmith.
3) A death makes them quasi-undead (pale, no body temperature) but still affect as normal by positive/negative energy. Their life is hanging on a tread.
4) Personal suggestions are welcome.

The group is a Ranger Mercenary (Freebooter), Bard Courtesan(Dervish), Magus Blacksmith(Black Blade Hexcrafter), Summoner (Shadow Caller) and a Noble Oracle (Wind, Haunted Curse). I have offered full skills in a craft, perform or profession skill because i wanted them to have a skill to reflect their past profession, hence the job titles. The fights should be challenging and I want the system to allow dying without completely removing heroes or the need of divine magic.

[Florian]

Greetings playground,

I am thinking about reviving my campaign (played 2 sessions) and I really liked the gameplay of Dark Souls. One of our players aches for a bit of unforgiving combat as well as challenging encounters (which I enjoy, too). Basically I want them to visit a Shaman after some time who makes them unkillable and respawn at the last place where they meditated or rested. However I want penalties for dying, and they shouldn't be too harsh but they should hurt. I also won't make unfair traps that are found in the game. If they fail, they should have plenty of time to react.

What are you guys thinking about:
1) A death resets your XP to the minimum needed for the current level. I.e. a fast progression 3rd level character will reset down to 3.000 XP. (Dark Souls style, unspent experience or soul power can be recollected in a one minute ritual at the place where they died) which is good because one PC is a shadow summoner (and I can easily tie her powers into some fluff regarding the Shadow Plane).
2) A death damages equipment (after all, an impaled chest should somehow ruin even magic armor) which is good because one PC is a blacksmith.
3) A death makes them quasi-undead (pale, no body temperature) but still affect as normal by positive/negative energy. Their life is hanging on a tread.
4) Personal suggestions are welcome.

The group is a Ranger Mercenary (Freebooter), Bard Courtesan(Dervish), Magus Blacksmith(Black Blade Hexcrafter), Summoner (Shadow Caller) and a Noble Oracle (Wind, Haunted Curse). The fights should be challenging and I want the system to allow dying without completely removing heroes or the need of divine magic.

Tough. Very tough.

Going with the established PF paradigm, I´d actually do it a bit differently. You want a hard game, you expect increased lethality/dying to a certain degree. There´s no need to punish the characters further for dying when expected to.
Instead you want to implement a reward cycle for surviving the odds.

[ComaVision]

There's actually a campaign log on these forums that is Dark Souls-esque. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?436134-The-Curse-of-Artaith-(a-3-5-Campaign-Journal)) It's in 3.5 D&D but should be helpful to you. IIRC, the thread talks about how death works in their game. The gist is, there's no punishment to death (and they return to their most recent bonfire) but too many deaths and you eventually lose your soul (become a hostile NPC).

It's a good read, too. :smallbiggrin:

[ATHATH]

Ok, first, what's stopping this shaman from selling usages of his immortality-granting powers and becoming a millionaire? If he "doesn't want to", what's to stop the PC's from Mind-Controlling him and becoming millionaires themselves?

Second, what's to stop the players from just repetitively suicide-charging into enemies? Sure, they'll lose out on XP, but until the enemies become so strong thst they can kill the PC's before they can harm them, they'll eventually die a death of a thousand cuts.

[Spore]

That's why I wanted better restrictions than the ones I have written. Also, selling quasi deific powers? Who says he hasn't?

@ ComaVision

I like that system except I feel that Attribute/2 Vita is far too much to start off with. I would start with 1 Vita (and one Vita Crystal attuned to each player).

[dascarletm]

Second, what's to stop the players from just repetitively suicide-charging into enemies? Sure, they'll lose out on XP, but until the enemies become so strong thst they can kill the PC's before they can harm them, they'll eventually die a death of a thousand cuts.

I imagine the damaged equipment would be a good deterrent.

[ComaVision]

I imagine the damaged equipment would be a good deterrent.

Naked wizards everywhere. :smalleek:

[Platymus Pus]

Greetings playground,

I am thinking about reviving my campaign (played 2 sessions) and I really liked the gameplay of Dark Souls. One of our players aches for a bit of unforgiving combat as well as challenging encounters (which I enjoy, too). Basically I want them to visit a Shaman after some time who makes them unkillable and respawn at the last place where they meditated or rested. However I want penalties for dying, and they shouldn't be too harsh but they should hurt. I also won't make unfair traps that are found in the game. If they fail, they should have plenty of time to react.

What are you guys thinking about:
1) A death resets your XP to the minimum needed for the current level. I.e. a fast progression 3rd level character will reset down to 3.000 XP. (Dark Souls style, unspent experience or soul power can be recollected in a one minute ritual at the place where they died) which is good because one PC is a shadow summoner (and I can easily tie her powers into some fluff regarding the Shadow Plane).
2) A death damages equipment (after all, an impaled chest should somehow ruin even magic armor) which is good because one PC is a blacksmith.
3) A death makes them quasi-undead (pale, no body temperature) but still affect as normal by positive/negative energy. Their life is hanging on a tread.
4) Personal suggestions are welcome.

The group is a Ranger Mercenary (Freebooter), Bard Courtesan(Dervish), Magus Blacksmith(Black Blade Hexcrafter), Summoner (Shadow Caller) and a Noble Oracle (Wind, Haunted Curse). I have offered full skills in a craft, perform or profession skill because i wanted them to have a skill to reflect their past profession, hence the job titles. The fights should be challenging and I want the system to allow dying without completely removing heroes or the need of divine magic.

You also need to take in account hallowing.

Each death suffered will reduce the player's max HP in increments of 5%. This will continue until it caps at 50% of maximum HP.
The player's appearance visually degrades with each death.
http://darksouls.wikia.com/wiki/Hollow

[Spore]

I was thinking about the hollow mechanic of the first game. Though the HP reduction simply makes me want to use permanent negative levels (as each death then costs 1k on top of lost Vita).

[Fizban]

My current thoughts (spread across a few piles of notes) are: start with the taint system (Heroes of Horror). Every time you die, you gain X points of depravity (crazy taint), which cannot be recovered by normal means. Set X based on how many extra lives you want people to start with/how long they have before gaining taint problems, include "humanity" as desired, customize the tainted effects so they're less swingy and more Dark Soulsy (the default penalty tables range from laughable to unplayable). For hollowing effects, gain a negative level when you come back, which could last for a day or until you make the save or be removed with magic, important thing is it doesn't cause level loss but does make it harder to just zerg rush without resting. Tainted areas and monsters can still exist (DS2 has plenty), but in this case there definitely need to be humanity drops. Eventually you can gain enough depravity to hollow and become a Tainted Raver, but it's more the madness penalties you should be worried about.

When you die, you fall to dust along with all your worn and carried gear, which reforms with you at the appropriate place. You count as Undead in addition to your normal type when targeted by offensive effects such as Bane weapons, but gain no beneficial effects this way.

Now for the kicker: you want souls? We got souls. Instead of cash, you find crystalized souls. Defeated foes that don't drop their equipment drop souls equal to the gear/treasure/cash they would have had. There's a feat that lets you break down items into souls. Crafting feats let you use souls to create magic items without need for anything other than simple tools (crafting feats already work with simple tools, +cash in "materials", but souls=cash/materials). Anyone can use a rare crafting component and souls to create items (boss drops or otherwise dangerous to get), or use a DMG2 style ritual to bond with their items. Bonded items are of course non-transferable so you can't sell or trade or lend them. People using bonded equipment drop an equivalent value of souls on death-if they stay dead.

Souls can be transferred to someone else in discrete quantities by effort of will, and non-hostile parties can feel out the appropriate equivalency or use a crystalized soul/measuring stick of some sort. When anything dies it drops all souls it was carrying, if any. PCs/classed NPCs (those with the curse) leave a "bloodstain" containing their carried souls (bonded items reform and thus are not converted), which can only be seen by the cursed, at either their point of death or where they started their last turn if they died during their own turn. The bloodstain can be absorbed by any cursed with a standard action, but since it cannot be seen by non-cursed or hollows it generally can't be spawn-camped to extreme player detriment.

You could also make them drop xp on death, but since my setup lets surviving NPC cursed swipe your souls the same way you'd swipe theirs that'd let them swipe xp too. You still have to save up souls for item upgrades, so losing a pile of souls is just as bad or worse than losing xp. As has been said, you don't actually want to make things harder, since the difficulty is already in the fights and the penalty is already having to do the same fight over again, which can take hours of game-time. The Curse of Artaith game might be a little too comfortable with death so far with no definitive penalties given and having zerg rushed a couple fights, which is why I recommend a much more immediate taint based system with breakpoints that make you really want to avoid dying. But in the end the taint penalties shouldn't actually cripple the party, death is expected and shouldn't actually make a character unplayable or there'd be no point.

[Spore]

These are excellent thoughts, Fizban. I figure for the sake of "at least we got XP" I will keep XP loss out of my game. And since dying but not being dead is certainly an experience, failed fights will still yield experience. Making absorbable souls a currency for crafting will certainly make the Magus happy. I am not sure if I want these souls to grant bonus XP because it can be hard to determine the amount a level-up is worth compared to an additional or better magic item. If I didn't have a T2 caster in the group I might just try it. But a levelup is worth so much more for oracle

As for taint penalties: I don't like that very much. I might hand out boni for surviving a streak of fights (tangible immaterial ones like ongoing slight buffs) but killing someone and then rubbing it in with additional penalties is too harsh. I will use a single negative level that should force them to rest and if resting is impossible, they at least have time to rethink their strategy.

The setup should go as follows: They get hired to escort a tradeship of the Oracle's father. Said ship gets sinked by a kraken, the PCs get killed and wake up by a campfire on the coast of a tropical island. They will have to investigate the island to survive and meet said shaman that introduces them into the ritual of kindling. After that they will have to enter a forbidden tomb on the island in order to bring an important McGuffin to the shaman. In exchange they receive a smaller ship and some charts to sail back but forcing them to pick up supplies in a pirate bay close by.

This way I can try out several difficulties of combat in the tomb and mix up NPC levels afterwards. If they want and use the system cleverly they can kindle on the pirate island and challenge a pirate captain for their ship.

I am a tad afraid that they use that system to "vanish" in self-provoked situations since it teleports them to the bonfire.

[Platymus Pus]

I will say that as far as hollowing goes they should have a limited amount of deaths allowed before they lose themselves.

[Fizban]

Suicide-teleporting is exactly why you need long term penalties. I recommend the gradually increasing taint problems since they can happen early without crippling and get the point across, while still leaving room to go further. You can make up your own effects of course, but if the only risk is time lost then you'll need to have lots of NPC cursed around to guarantee they'll lose everything they drop if they want to death warp.

[Spore]

I think a penalty on will saves will suffice for the start. They don't know how many things will attack their minds yet. :)