Death penalty, beyond simply re-rolling

[Ualaa]

In our last campaign, there were a lot of deaths; to a degree, that is expected for a place like Rappan Athuk, and with a group that basically had little experience in the dungeon setting.

The one player who died the least, had 6 deaths over the course of 72 sessions.
Of these, 3 were avoidable... except that he let the rest of the party talk him into an obviously almost no chance to succeed battle.
1 of the 6, was the result of a Natural 100 teleport mishap.
And 2 of them were not the fault of the player, through his own actions.
This player likes to take a class he has never played before, to research the mechanics on his own (reading all the books we have), and taking it as far as he can mechanically based on his own ability.
He gets attached to his characters, plays to survive, makes tactically smart decisions as much as possible, and believes the group can overcome any challenge with appropriate preparation and teamwork.
We've been playing for a little over 25 years, and somewhere around 20 years ago, he's saved the character sheet of every character he's played.

Another player, who plays very recklessly, had 27 deaths over the course of those same 72 sessions.
Initially, his characters covered the scouting role.
He would be two minutes (20 rounds) of movement ahead of the party, far enough that they couldn't even hear if he were to holler for assistance.
He had some knowledge skills, but even if something were completely unknown to him, his tactic upon seeing 11 unknown mobs was to charge into the middle of the pack, as that was his only straight line legal charge, to inflict his extra 1d6 sneak die.
The 11 mobs surrounded him, eight of them getting a flanking bonus after their first turn of combat.
That kind of thing was extremely common for him throughout.

Overall, we had: 6, 8, 11, 14, and 27 deaths, between the full time players.
With 2 and 3, for those who played off and on, throughout.



Our rebuild rules have been, that the next character has the same experience as everyone else (experience is tracked on a group basis).
There were no restrictions or losses in terms of point-buy, races allowed, classes, etc.
The one catch was wealth.

Initially, a character would come in with 300gp of equipment (which is what the group started with, each).
A replacement would have half of the average of the party members.
This was based on the loose assumption that on average, one in four deaths would result in an irrecoverable corpse and therefore reset the wealth for that player.
Mathematically, that would result in close to average/expected wealth, as per the WBL table in the Core Pathfinder book.

The flaw in the system, hit when the group had it's first total-party-kill, and the average value of the survivor's gear was zero, and so they got 300gp each.
That is pitiful gearing for a 6th level group.

At this point, we ran with it, and the group went up a few levels or investigated previous quests upon the surface level to acquire some gear.
The level progression slowed a bit for half a dozen sessions, as the group was tackling challenges for level 2-3 characters but they built up their wealth and then proceeded back into the depths of the dungeon.

Twenty of so sessions later, we had another total-party-kill, and having no gear... the party decided to suicide on everything, since there was no consequences to dying.
Just scratch off Bob and write in Dan on the character sheet and try again.
Attack anything with magic items, be they clearly good or not, too high or not.
No consequences from death, since they had nothing already.

I altered the replacement rules, so that characters would come in with average wealth by level, but that the maximum that could be spent on a single item was 1/2 of that total, and thereafter 1/4 of that total was the maximum for other items.
This did not remove the suicide tendency, as the same two players who figured there was no penalty for death without items, reasoned since items were guaranteed now, there was no potential loss but a very real potential for gain.

Then two of my players came up with the idea that they should repeatedly suicide, and each time come in with the best possible three items for the other players in the group.
And then do the same, so that each character would have the best possible 40k (or less valuable item) in every magic item slot.
So I added the caveat, that the formula was average wealth by level multiplied by number of players in the group. If the party had less gear value than this number, the replacement could come in with up to WBL until that cap was hit, but if the party was at (or above) this threshold the new guy came in with a masterwork weapon.

This worked for a while, but the flaw was when a player who normally plays reckless 2H melee types that run into swarms of mobs without any party support, was playing a caster type and his replacement was someone with totally different gearing choices.
And the party had all of the items on his corpse still.
He didn't want a resurrection.
And would be pretty useless with the gear we had...



Anyway, new campaign starting in a couple of Saturdays.

I'm looking for a death penalty, beyond re-rolling.
I don't want, scratch off the old name and write in a new one, no penalty away we go.

I also don't want an ongoing penalty, where a character cannot catch up to the rest of the group over time.

So far, I have:
- a replacement character has a non-cumulative -3 penalty to all d20 rolls
- after surviving two (start to finish) sessions, that penalty goes away
- in the case of a TPK, this penalty is waived for everyone

And:
- a replacement character cannot be the same race or class, of that player's previous three characters
- a replacement comes in with a percentage of average WBL; but this percentage decays with each death to a minimum of some percentage.

Thoughts or suggestions?

[Vizzerdrix]

How about just telling the party that gear chaining will result in reduced treasure finds and equipment targeting to untill average wbl is hit.

Then refresh yourself on rust monsters and filtchers.

[Crake]

If players are coming in expecting to get the gear of their old characters, or expecting handmedowns, that gear should be taken out of their starting wealth, easy solution. Personally, as a DM, I hate revolving door characters, and unless the players are incredibly low level, I often encourage players to find a way to resurrect existing character rather than have players re-roll. As a side note, I have, in the past, told players re-rolling that they will either a) start at level 1 despite the party level, or b) have much lower level starting gear, usually restricted to mundane gear, depending on level and campaign type, so I'm a bit on the opposite end of this extremity.

[Einselar]

I personally have been dreaming up a campaign that is Soulsian in nature, with Bonfires as the respawn point, or something similar. Then again, I've wanted to run an absurdly hard brick wall campaign for awhile now, so having a way to respawn from a TPK is beneficial there.

The suggestions made so far are pretty good. If this is a new campaign, the universe itself can be changed. Perhaps a Wizard Did It and the earth has been altered such that anything that dies is immediately swallowed up and buried 20 feet under. All gear is lost and the only loot you're gonna get is in chests. If the monster had really good loot you can go dig and get it, but that's going to take time and energy that one doesn't have unless you operate in a vacuum.

If they start digging for loot every time, maybe a den of Carrion Crawlers and Rust monsters have made their den down where the corpses end up, giving you a tough encounter or at lower levels, a very good reason not to want to dig something up unless it is worth risking death and loss of party gear.

[Twurps]

First off, I would have a serious conversation with these players about the rules lawyering. The rules are there to facilitate a fun game for all. Spending this much energy to find the loopholes is fine for a RAW discussion on forums like this, but nobody wants that stuff at the table. (unless pun-pun and drown healing are fine at your table. In that case: disregard my entire post)

Explain to them they need to act in the spirit of the rules, and have a discussion what the spirit of the rules should be if need be.

[jdizzlean]

maybe there's a need to dumb down the difficulty level a bit so they aren't constantly dying?

or make them play a bard on resurrection... that'll stop the stupid dying quick, everyone hates bards.

[exelsisxax]

Every time they die, give any magic items they have to monsters that can use them. Suiciding eventually results in nigh-untouchable mobs. Smart play eventually gets the gear back. Additionally, don't let them grind XP. Dead monsters stay dead, so eventually they will run themselves into a corner where enemies are simply too high above normal CR for recently returned characters to have a chance against. Rare deaths can be handled, but an intentional TPK will screw them badly.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Personally i give new characters WBL and any gear of the previous character can be bought off with that, otherwise it gets destroyed/lost in whatever caused the death. A bit heavy handed maybe, but my players accept it for balance reasons.
But that's besides the point for your dilemma.

It should be obvious that trying to exploit the rules on new character wealth should lead to the new character not getting any gear at all. And possible the player in question getting a DMG to the face.
You don't have to try to come up with ironclad wording. If your players try stuff like this because "your rules don't say i can't" then the answer isn't law school, it's "I have altered the rules. Pray i don't alter them further.".

D&D is not a computer game where you can exploit a loophole like that without consequences because the computer doesn't know any better. You're the DM. You're right there.

[Ualaa]

Rule Zero works fine.

I have one player who likes to say, your rules say this so I can...
I just changed the buy-in, until the bull**** stopped.

In the future, I'll stay vague.
That way, the general idea is understood.
But there will be less options to try to work a system.

Overall, we have a lot of fun.

Our group has played 8-12 hours a Saturday, for 25 years.
Predominantly with the same core players.

I want a system that is fair.
But that also discourages reckless play, because the next guy is too weakened (and therefore has no value in being kept alive) or because the next guy is as strong as the last (so losing the current guy is fine too).

Suggestions on what others have done.
Or on what you'd do in my position...
Are very appreciated.

[Erit]

or make them play a bard on resurrection... that'll stop the stupid dying quick, everyone hates bards.

Well that's a boldly generalizing statement to make.

[WarKitty]

or make them play a bard on resurrection... that'll stop the stupid dying quick, everyone hates bards.

My DFI and Imperious Command/Never Outnumbered bard says :smalltongue:

[Roog]

How about announcing that you will not decide how much wealth any new character has (between a minimal amount and WBL) until after the death occurs.

Then assign an amount flexibly, based on the new circumstances. Following a TPK or reasonable death they can get all/most WBL, if a single party member dies and the replacement will be equipped by the party they get a medium amount, and if they suicide they get a sack and a pointy stick ;)

[Extra Anchovies]

Taking a certain percent of the party's average wealth is a lot of pointless arithmetic. Alternately, consider giving replacement characters the equipment of a pregenerated NPC of their level and class (or of the thematically closest class if they're a non-PHB class), using the tables in the DMG. They come in with at least some basic +numbers items to keep them alive, but they're definitely less well-equipped than if they had player-character WBL.

If you want, let them "purchase" items from their last character's corpse with the few spare thousand GP they get from the DMG tables. Only consumable items (potions, non-eternal wands, scrolls) and "purchased" items can be salvaged from the last character's body; any other stuff (e.g. non-"purchased" continuous or daily-use items) was destroyed by the same attack(s) which slew the late PC.

[Hurnn]

I have had this very issue, I run a tiered level penalty, 1-5 1 level 6-10 2 levels 11-15 3 levels and 16+ 4 levels and they only got npc wealth by level or 1st level wealth if they were 1st.
Even with this they often wouldn't resurrect their dead companions and the wealth by level was just destroyed.
My current e6 campaign i hit them for 10 k exp.

[DarkEternal]

In my settings, the first death is free if they reroll. They get a new character with a slightly modified starting gear, because I am fairly stingy with loot and make the people work for it, so a new character starting out in full bling is a no-no.


After that, if they die again and want to reroll, and not invest in resurrecting the character, they can do it, but they start a level lower than the rest of the party and with fairly poor starting gear. Unfair? Very much so, but I don't like people when they kill off their characters for stupid reasons. If it can't be avoided, that's fair. But most deaths in DnD can very much be avoided.

[Powerdork]

So the big question that nobody's asked is: why are they not rerolling?

[Quertus]

So, the problem is, you have players who want to game the system. There are two reasonable approaches: make the system difficult/impossible to game / not worth gaming, or make the players not want to game the system. Given the amount of attention that the former had received, let's start with the latter.

I was in a low-treasure game once, where the party was truly struggling (I hear that, after I left, after failing and running at pretty much every juncture, they ultimately failed to save the world). In this campaign, I quickly realized that the easiest way to solve this problem was via suicide PCs.

Why did I want to game the system? Because we were low wealth? Because we were obviously not up to the challenge? Because the game was on hard mode? Because we always failed?

Whatever the reason, consider what is driving your players, and whether you can - and would want to - change this aspect of the game.

As to changing the cost / benefit of gaming the system...

Personally, I find that, unless you're just building the same character again with the serial numbers filled off, hand me down equipment is rarely as good for the new character as it was for the old. And look how well it served the old character: they're dead. :smalltongue:

Similarly, giving someone a penalty because they weren't powerful enough to survive? :smallconfused: Let's think about that logic for a minute. You're not tall enough to reach, so I'm going to chop your legs of at the knee cap? How does that make any sense?

So I advocate starting all new characters off at full level, with full WBL.

But how, then, do you discourage suicide?

Use something completely unrelated to WBL. Integrate the characters into the plot. Have NPCs recognize & interact with them. Give the characters cool, custom items that aren't transferable. Give them an artifact that provides fairly fluffy bonuses / abilities based on how many levels you have gained in its presence.

Make accumulating extra treasure off dead characters pointless. Say that items are only foci, and characters can only "power" WBL worth of items. Set the game in a culture where such "grave robbing" is consisted worse than whatever the BBEG is doing.

Make accumulating extra treasure impossible. Have the party only face monsters that destroy all treasure as they kill. Have the party "protected" by a powerful but insane wizard, who teleports all living party members to safety whenever someone dies*.

Make resurrection attractive - or even mandatory.

Or, you know, talk to your players, and see if y'all can come to an arrangement that makes everyone happy.

* that won't actually work, in any variant I've developed, but I included it anyway for completeness.


First off, I would have a serious conversation with these players about the ules lawyering. The rules are there to facilitate a fun game for all. Spending this much energy to find the loopholes is fine for a RAW discussion on forums like this, but nobody wants that stuff at the table. (unless pun-pun and drown healing are fine at your table. In that case: disregard my entire post)

Explain to them they need to act in the spirit of the rules, and have a discussion what the spirit of the rules should be if need be.

Precision of language! This isn't rules lawyering, it's metagaming.

[P.F.]

Similarly, giving someone a penalty because they weren't powerful enough to survive? :smallconfused: Let's think about that logic for a minute. You're not tall enough to reach, so I'm going to chop your legs of at the knee cap? How does that make any sense?

In all fairness, the OP strongly implied that the characters (some moreso than others) were dying due to poor decision-making rather than being under-powered. After this behaviour acquainted the players with the extremely lenient new-character policy, they discovered that dying on purpose was often more effective than trying to survive.

Imagine an arcade game (like Gauntlet Legends) where you have to put money in to continue if you run out of time, but, if you die instead, you get a continue for free. How does that make any sense?

[jdizzlean]

I have had this very issue, I run a tiered level penalty, 1-5 1 level 6-10 2 levels 11-15 3 levels and 16+ 4 levels and they only got npc wealth by level or 1st level wealth if they were 1st.
Even with this they often wouldn't resurrect their dead companions and the wealth by level was just destroyed.
My current e6 campaign i hit them for 10 k exp.


came in to add that maybe a cummulative xp/level penalty might be a good idea for stupid deaths. eventually the repeated throwing of ones self off the same cliff would result in permanent lvl 1's, and then you just start your campaign over again.

occasional death will happen, but it can be mitigated by roleplaying.

whatever is happening in your game is simply abuse one way or the other.

Have you been the DM this entire time? perhaps it's time for the ones needlessly dying nth number of times to take a turn at the helm..

[Pex]

Your real problem is having so many character deaths. D&D is not that lethal. Either the DM is making things too difficult, the players repeatedly do stupid things and refuse to learn from them, or both. Penalizing characters for the previous character dying just make its that much harder for the new character to survive. Fix what is causing the slaughterfest and most of your problem will go away.

[daremetoidareyo]

In all fairness, the OP strongly implied that the characters (some moreso than others) were dying due to poor decision-making rather than being under-powered. After this behaviour acquainted the players with the extremely lenient new-character policy, they discovered that dying on purpose was often more effective than trying to survive.

Imagine an arcade game (like Gauntlet Legends) where you have to put money in to continue if you run out of time, but, if you die instead, you get a continue for free. How does that make any sense?

The problem here is that videogame logic is being employed where Tabletop RPG logic should reign. What needs to happen is the players need to finally capture that feeling of being awesome not constantly poor and playing catch up. The incentive system that is set up might not be that toxic, it might just be intellectual sparring. But if the DM is unhappy with the player behavior, the DM needs to change the incentive system.

[Ranged Ranger]

You could use your original rule, but add special case rules for tpk and suicide... ex. on a tpk everyone gets 80% of the average wealth form the beginning of the session, while suicides get 20% of average wealth. suicide rule overrides tpk rule.

[Ualaa]

I don't mind a slight necro of the thread.

I've gone with:
- A replacement character has a non-cumulative -3 penalty to d20 rolls, until it survives two full sessions.
- In the case of a party wipe, the -3 is waived.

New Buy-In:
- The starting wealth of a replacement character is determined by a floating percentage of 'average wealth by level', core rulebook pg 399.
- This percentage decays with each death (a lower percentage for each new character).
- This percentage increases by a percentage for each start to end session your characters have survived (a reward for your character surviving).
- Whatever gold your 'buy in' is, 50% of that is the single item cap, and 25% of that is the cap for all other items.

Lockout:
- The first character is Tier 1, the second is Tier 2, the third is Tier 3, ad infinitum.
- The race and class (or classes) of the previous three tiers are locked out.
- Once you're on Tier 5, the Tier 1 restrictions don't apply, but the three previous 2, 3, and 4 still do.

Unhappy Clause:
- If after a session of play, the class isn't fun or the mechanic isn't working as they thought it would, or it's boring or whatever... the character can be retired, no penalties aside from being an extra lockout at the same tier.
- So if they make a Human Fighter, and the other party member goes Human Warder (Path of War)... and they see that PoW just blows them away in every regard... they can drop Human Fighter and make a (not Human, not Fighter); whatever they make is on the same Tier/Restriction as Human and Fighter. So Tier 'x' might be Human & Elf, Fighter & Wizard.

[Stealth Marmot]

In our last campaign, there were a lot of deaths; to a degree, that is expected for a place like Rappan Athuk, and with a group that basically had little experience in the dungeon setting.

The one player who died the least, had 6 deaths over the course of 72 sessions.

...

Overall, we had: 6, 8, 11, 14, and 27 deaths, between the full time players.
With 2 and 3, for those who played off and on, throughout.

...

Thoughts or suggestions?

6 + 8 + 11 + 14 + 27 + 2 + 3 = 72

72 character deaths, 72 sessions. One. A. Session.

I used to play in a First Edition game with a harsher than average DM who actually rewrote the rules to be HARSHER than 1e, and we still only averaged 1 death per 3 sessions. I considered that to be huge overkill and when that number got on the forums it raised a hell of a lot of eyebrows.

You tripled his number.

Your problem isn't you need a penalty for character deaths, your problem is you need to figure out a way for these deaths to STOP HAPPENING SO DARN MUCH!

Or did you intend to make what appears to be a Tabletop Roguelike game?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roguelike (Games like Rogue Legacy and The Binding of Isaac)?

[zergling.exe]

6 + 8 + 11 + 14 + 27 + 2 + 3 = 72

72 character deaths, 72 sessions. One. A. Session.

I used to play in a First Edition game with a harsher than average DM who actually rewrote the rules to be HARSHER than 1e, and we still only averaged 1 death per 3 sessions. I considered that to be huge overkill and when that number got on the forums it raised a hell of a lot of eyebrows.

You tripled his number.

Your problem isn't you need a penalty for character deaths, your problem is you need to figure out a way for these deaths to STOP HAPPENING SO DARN MUCH!

Or did you intend to make what appears to be a Tabletop Roguelike game?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roguelike (Games like Rogue Legacy and The Binding of Isaac)?

You and Pex didn't thoroughly read the thread. Both of you are blaming the DM for all the deaths, but missed the fact that after two tpks (roughly 20 sessions apart!) the players started suiciding since they lost nothing. Then the new character rules were revised to give higher wealth, and the players started abusing the new character rules, suiciding for profit rather than because they lost nothing. The objective was to prevent the suicides, which clearly made up a large portion of the deaths.

[Ualaa]

It was 76, in 72 sessions.

A lot of the deaths were easily avoidable.
If the players wanted to avoid them.

For example...

You are the scout.
While stealthed and undetected, you observe eleven monsters which you cannot identify and know nothing about.
You've asked the party to wait in a safe point, and are now 25 rounds of movement away from them.
Do you choose to charge into the middle of this group, so that you can apply your extra 1d6 sneak attack damage by striking while they're flat-footed?
The guy with 27 deaths chose to do just that, at level 1.

How about the scout can sneak about and make almost no noise... +27 stealth check.
The warrior isn't horrendous at stealth, but his stealth bonus is only +8.
The things on this level were consistently detecting guys with +15 stealth (on take 10s), but have not been noticing the scout (on his take 10s).
So the warrior decides he wants to get some extra action and accompanies the scout.
They make enough noise that they're observed by the first set of intelligent ghouls on a level, the ghouls attack 8 ghouls (as per the adventure), on two PCs.

How about... we encountered this absolutely nasty anti-paladin four levels ago.
He wiped our group entirely, because at that point we were kicking in doors and assuming everything would be easy.
And the idea of running from a combat was not something the group had even considered at that point.
The group decides on a pact, he might be almost dead when we give up and run away, so to make it a fair attempt we should fight to the last man.
The battle is going poorly.
The Incanter (Wizard like Spheres of Power class) starts to cast his AoE group evac (Warp Sphere, assorted talents), but the rogue interrupts his casting (friendly fire interrupted his own Incanter), and states we agreed to fight to the last man, not run away like chickens.
The group wipes entirely, but would have survived without a man down.

Or... we've encountered three basic levels of ghouls.
Those close to the surface are trivial at this point.
The slightly deeper ones are a very hard fight, but on full resources we can, at this level, handle 4 consistently but 6 is pushing it and 8 requires we either flee or die.
We know there are others that dwell deeper, that are roughly twice as hard as the medium guys.
The room we discover, at the depth of the medium guys, has more than 20 of them in it.
The scout leaves the room very quietly and is not detected.
The group figures the dungeon would not put 20 (there were 24 actually) of the medium guys together, so these have to be the weaker ones, which should be good experience...
Lets all move into the room and into a corner with the ghouls between us and the only exit, so they cannot flank us (this was pre-Dimension Door/Teleport levels).

Or there is a demon bound within a circle.
It says that it has been there for a long time, and if the party breaks the binding circle it will reward them.
Just getting close enough to the circle requires a saving throw, which virtually every time causes a character to be nauseated.
The casters test it's defenses and are not able to breach it's spell resistance even once, on twenty or so castings between them.
Would you as a player break the binding circle for something that you know is Chaotic and Evil, but you don't have the relevant knowledge check for specifics?

How about you descend down a shaft, from a level which you could handle (but not easily), to a depth which is consistent with going down seven levels (as measured by number of 50 ft. ropes needed to climb down), with each level being progressively harder (often going up in average CR of encounters by 2.5 per level).
Having gone down 7 levels, the average things are probably 12-15 ELs higher, but there are also consistently 1 or 2 things on a given level which are 5 CR/EL higher than the average for the level.
You find an egg, which is 30 ft. across on the shorter dimension and 50 ft. across on the longer dimension.
The creature within is close to hatching, as the egg shudders and shows signs of slowly cracking.
Your move is to help the process along, by smashing the egg shell.
Should this be bad, no one has teleportation type magic, and the method of escape is to climb a rope several hundred feet straight up.

Your character has dumped his STR down to 7.
He is a DEX based build, but is weak enough that his two light flails or his crossbow is his limit, if he wants full AC.
He has to drop his backpack and crossbow to dual-wield without limiting how much DEX he can use.
During the course of a battle against a spider, he takes 4 points of Strength damage.
At this point, he's in rather poor shape.
Do you sneak off from your party, and then try to repel down a rope off the side of a tower that is sixty feet above ground level?

Another guy fell to his death.
We're descending down a shaft, with ladder rungs along one side.
Some of the ladder rungs snap when more than 40 lbs of weight are placed upon them.
The party is aware that the ladder rungs are not to be trusted.
The smarter player, who died the fewest times, suggests using two forty foot lengths of rope and to stagger them, so one is tied off and you descend 20 feet and tie the second off, climb up and untie the first, then descend 20 feet below the new lowest point, playing leap frog and never being able to fall more than 20 ft at one time.
He decides that will take too long, estimates that he is 200 feet up (cannot see the bottom, with 60 ft. vision range) and ties four lengths of rope together.
A rung snaps very shortly thereafter, and he falls 90 feet to his death... with a safety line that won't catch him for another 100 feet.
Some of the rest of the group want to loot his corpse, but he is too heavy to pull up.
They climb most of the way down, spot some four nasty monsters which they know are too hard for our level, as a five PCs on one monster was a very hard fight.
The ladder rungs descend most of the way down, but end with a hole in the ceiling and then a 30 ft. drop to ground level.
The rest of the group, want to pull the anchored corpse (with gear and four bad guys, where two of them is clearly too much) high enough up that they are now on the rung level and free to climb up after us...
They're in the process of pulling their death up, when the smart player cuts the rope on them.

LOTS of deaths due to reckless play and stupid decisions.

[lord_khaine]

The system i have always used, and had a lot of success with, is that if you die, you either accept a ressurection that leaves you one level lower, or reroll, still one level lower.
Its a penalty that initially can be felt, and at least in some way encurages people to be a little careful not dying. But at the same time its a penalty that goes away on itself, since being lower level means you will get more XP from the encounters.

And as for gear, i just simply enforce that characters are burried with their stuff, and come back with apropriate WBL.
It is less of a hazzle that way, and i have seen how things spiral out of control when players are allowed to loot their own corpses.

[Stealth Marmot]

It was 76, in 72 sessions.

A lot of the deaths were easily avoidable.
If the players wanted to avoid them.

For example...

You are the scout.
While stealthed and undetected, you observe eleven monsters which you cannot identify and know nothing about.
You've asked the party to wait in a safe point, and are now 25 rounds of movement away from them.
Do you choose to charge into the middle of this group, so that you can apply your extra 1d6 sneak attack damage by striking while they're flat-footed?
The guy with 27 deaths chose to do just that, at level 1.


At that point you ask for the player's wisdom score. If it is greater than 6 you would say "You know, your character believes that charging several characters by himself is probably suicidal. Are you certain that you want to do it anyway?"

One thing that DM's often forget is that player knowledge and character knowledge being different IS a two way street. If a CHARACTER knows something a PLAYER does not, then it is the DM's job to point it out if the player clearly shows they do not know it.

It also is a DM's job to point something out that is seriously counter to a character's alignment, background, or otherwise part of their character. A rogue with a wisdom over 5 charging several creatures by himself is as much of an eyebrow raising as a Paladin running away from a fight first, leaving his party behind.

You can't stop him of course, but you can make sure that certain factors are at play. If he insists on charging anyway, play it out, let him get killed then ask the player why he just suicide ran at the 11 monsters, and be serious. At that point it is an OOC problem.



How about the scout can sneak about and make almost no noise... +27 stealth check.
The warrior isn't horrendous at stealth, but his stealth bonus is only +8.


Have the scout make a perception check, or even just check the scout's perception bonus. Either way, unless it is terrible tell the scout:

"You sneak about noting that the only sound you can hear from yourself is your own soft breath and heartbeat, yet you can definitely make out the clanking of the armor from the fighter, and notice that his footsteps clop loud enough to hear. You suspect that if he were to accompany you, your stealth would not be as effective. Being trained in stealth you would know that it would be best if he stayed back a ways, far away enough that people won't hear him, but close enough for you to call him if things go bad."

Training in a skill is not necessarily limited to the physical aspects and muscle memory. Being trained in a skill also means you understand how it works and how to use it properly. Someone trained in Acrobatics knows more than how to flip themselves, but also can look at terrain ahead and how to stand to properly get the most out of a leap. A character trained in ride would know the proper method of mounting a horse and how to tell if a horse is tired, or fresh.



How about... we encountered this absolutely nasty anti-paladin four levels ago.
He wiped our group entirely, because at that point we were kicking in doors and assuming everything would be easy.
And the idea of running from a combat was not something the group had even considered at that point.
The group decides on a pact, he might be almost dead when we give up and run away, so to make it a fair attempt we should fight to the last man.
The battle is going poorly.
The Incanter (Wizard like Spheres of Power class) starts to cast his AoE group evac (Warp Sphere, assorted talents), but the rogue interrupts his casting (friendly fire interrupted his own Incanter), and states we agreed to fight to the last man, not run away like chickens.
The group wipes entirely, but would have survived without a man down.


That is definitely a player problem that needs to be addressed. That player was being a jerk. Unless his alignment was seriously lawful (which I doubt seeing as he was the rogue) then he should have allowed the retreat.

This one wasn't your fault, unless the battle was WAY over CR, in which case spiking the challenge was a bit much. If I were you, I would definitely mention that they should consider retreat as an option.

It may seem like lecturing, but you need to make it clear to your players that there could be challenges that go bad or are intentionally above their CR, and that running should always be an option since you will be considering that option in your encounters. Establishing expectations from players is key.



Or... we've encountered three basic levels of ghouls.
Those close to the surface are trivial at this point.
The slightly deeper ones are a very hard fight, but on full resources we can, at this level, handle 4 consistently but 6 is pushing it and 8 requires we either flee or die.
We know there are others that dwell deeper, that are roughly twice as hard as the medium guys.
The room we discover, at the depth of the medium guys, has more than 20 of them in it.
The scout leaves the room very quietly and is not detected.
The group figures the dungeon would not put 20 (there were 24 actually) of the medium guys together, so these have to be the weaker ones, which should be good experience...
Lets all move into the room and into a corner with the ghouls between us and the only exit, so they cannot flank us (this was pre-Dimension Door/Teleport levels).


And here you have to remind the players that they are using out of character assumptions and again, make your intentions clear that they CANNOT assume such things, that you might intentionally put in things that could be too hard for them or might require them to use discretion.

Your players are operating in a very video game mentality that everything they are going to face is something they should be able to beat with brute force somehow. They figure if it exists, they should be able to kill it. You need to communicate that this is not the case and you are playing a much more survival based D&D game. If they don't want to have to use discretion on what they try to kill, then adapt the game or tell then that they are going to die a lot.

Also, the wisdom check thing I mentioned before. ("Yeah you guys all figure it would be suicidal if you are wrong and there is actually no reason to think they are the weak sort.")

Not to mention they are using the OOC idea of XP anyway. Be sure to bring THAT up as much as you can.



Or there is a demon bound within a circle.
It says that it has been there for a long time, and if the party breaks the binding circle it will reward them.
Just getting close enough to the circle requires a saving throw, which virtually every time causes a character to be nauseated.
The casters test it's defenses and are not able to breach it's spell resistance even once, on twenty or so castings between them.
Would you as a player break the binding circle for something that you know is Chaotic and Evil, but you don't have the relevant knowledge check for specifics?

If they didn't have the knowledge checks, they wouldn't necessarily know it was Chaotic, and they may think that demons as such may be bound by their offers.

A DEVIL would actually be bound to such a contract since it was lawful. If they didn't know the difference because of lack of knowledges, that explains their decision.

That said, they're still fools for taking the chance anyway. Not your fault.

Of course, why did you even HAVE the demon there in the first place if you didn't want the players to possibly choose freeing it?



How about you descend down a shaft, from a level which you could handle (but not easily), to a depth which is consistent with going down seven levels (as measured by number of 50 ft. ropes needed to climb down), with each level being progressively harder (often going up in average CR of encounters by 2.5 per level).
Having gone down 7 levels, the average things are probably 12-15 ELs higher, but there are also consistently 1 or 2 things on a given level which are 5 CR/EL higher than the average for the level.
You find an egg, which is 30 ft. across on the shorter dimension and 50 ft. across on the longer dimension.
The creature within is close to hatching, as the egg shudders and shows signs of slowly cracking.
Your move is to help the process along, by smashing the egg shell.
Should this be bad, no one has teleportation type magic, and the method of escape is to climb a rope several hundred feet straight up.

Your character has dumped his STR down to 7.
He is a DEX based build, but is weak enough that his two light flails or his crossbow is his limit, if he wants full AC.
He has to drop his backpack and crossbow to dual-wield without limiting how much DEX he can use.
During the course of a battle against a spider, he takes 4 points of Strength damage.
At this point, he's in rather poor shape.
Do you sneak off from your party, and then try to repel down a rope off the side of a tower that is sixty feet above ground level?

The levels being an odd gradual increase in power is pretty much OOC info there, and of course I wonder what the hole was doing there. Still, they were foolish for dangling a character with little climbing kill on a rope like a worm on a hook.

Never expect players to perform a certain action. If you have a hole, expect a player to jump in it because sometimes players are dumb, presumptive, or bored.



Another guy fell to his death.
We're descending down a shaft, with ladder rungs along one side.
Some of the ladder rungs snap when more than 40 lbs of weight are placed upon them.
The party is aware that the ladder rungs are not to be trusted.
The smarter player, who died the fewest times, suggests using two forty foot lengths of rope and to stagger them, so one is tied off and you descend 20 feet and tie the second off, climb up and untie the first, then descend 20 feet below the new lowest point, playing leap frog and never being able to fall more than 20 ft at one time.
He decides that will take too long, estimates that he is 200 feet up (cannot see the bottom, with 60 ft. vision range) and ties four lengths of rope together.
A rung snaps very shortly thereafter, and he falls 90 feet to his death... with a safety line that won't catch him for another 100 feet.
Some of the rest of the group want to loot his corpse, but he is too heavy to pull up.
They climb most of the way down, spot some four nasty monsters which they know are too hard for our level, as a five PCs on one monster was a very hard fight.
The ladder rungs descend most of the way down, but end with a hole in the ceiling and then a 30 ft. drop to ground level.
The rest of the group, want to pull the anchored corpse (with gear and four bad guys, where two of them is clearly too much) high enough up that they are now on the rung level and free to climb up after us...
They're in the process of pulling their death up, when the smart player cuts the rope on them.

Was there an expected course of action in this situation, and if so was the staggered 40 feet lengths of rope it? Awfully specific.

It really seems like the challenges here required a very specific set of skills for players to have in order to navigate them at all.

As mentioned before, a player with ranks in climb should also know techniques for climbing so if anyone had ranks, they should have been able to help. Still, climb is not a skill taken too often when Spider Climb is often available.

Either you, or the dungeon designer really do seem to have an almost Early Sierra Games level of expecting a specific course of action. And you have the death rate of an Early Sierra Game. (Kings Quest, Space Quest, etc.)



LOTS of deaths due to reckless play and stupid decisions.

http://img13.deviantart.net/e5de/i/2013/026/e/a/vaas___insanity__far_cry_3__by_aeroxhd-d5rheoq.png

At this point you seem to be simultaneously unwilling to adapt your DMing style to accommodate their lack of strategy, which is understandable, but you are also not communicating your expectations. (Killing the player's characters over and over is not communicating anything since they will just figure it was bad luck or a bad skill selection.

I mean at this point I can hardly blame them for random suicides.

"Oh crap we have a hole that will be hard to climb down."
"Well, no one took the climb skill and we don't have enough rope."
"Well Jeff, it's your turn. Kill yourself and roll a character with the climb skill and a lot of rope so the rest of us can pass this challenge."

I get it, DMing is hard and players can be unpredictable and it's frustrating when they just try to bulldoze their way into every fight acting like chumps, but they aren't going to change how they act unless you make it clear what you are expecting them to do. And if you make it way too hard to figure out or expect them to follow a very narrow sequence of events, or constantly present challenges that are impossible for them and they are supposed to ignore, then the players are going to get frustrated and just give up on trying to figure everything out and instead just send wave after wave of characters until they finish it.

The players are not going to change their methods unless they are both given insight on potential methods, and given motivation.

I've played with DMs who killed off PCs because they didn't follow randomly expected courses of actions or presenting a problem without a solution and expecting us to pull one out of our collective posterior cavities. I've been in games where I felt like no matter how we prepared the situation would jerk us over, making me feel like the DM just wanted to feel smarter than the crowd.

You need to make sure that you tell the players when you think they are clever. They need to know that you are encouraging them to get into the game, and treat their characters like they matter.

You need to make sure each challenge is something that the players can handle and are in some way prepared for. If no one has ranks in climb, don't throw a climbing puzzle in there, or at least don't make it mandatory. Putting a climbing puzzle in with a crew that doesn't have the ability to climb is a way of punishing them for their character builds. Making players hate their builds makes them want to discard them.

I realize I probably sound like a pompous ass for throwing all this advice down, and it sounds like I'm being mean and overly critical, but I think that trying to punish character deaths like this is not going to help your players stop dying, they are just going to figure out different ways of gaming the death system, all the while players who do nothing wrong could be punished as well.

Putting those debuffs on characters makes it so the next time a player character DOES die, the player will feel even more discouraged and disinterested as their character is handicapped for a while, so why even bother TRYING to play?

You're trying to fix OOC problems with IC solutions. And I think that it will only end poorly, and I want to stop that.

[Elkad]

The climbing one.

A. Be on 3 rungs at once (4, but one limb is moving). Standard ladder safety. If one breaks (or you slip, or it rolls if it's a cylinder), you still have 2 more points of contact.
B. Are these rungs all freestanding, or are there vertical rails? You could hang onto those if a rung broke. When I'm on a ladder I tend to use the side rails for my hands anyway. It allows you to slide one hand along while holding something in the other. Yeah, it isn't as safe, but it keeps a hand free to hold tools/weapons/lights. But if one foot rung broke while I was moving the other foot, I'd automatically have a (difficult one-handed) chance to hang on. If both hands are doing that, it isn't difficult at all, and worst-case (all the rungs start breaking) you just slide rapidly, but with a measure of control, to the bottom.

[John Longarrow]

Very old school, but one that can work wonders.

In game you don't let the party just take "Time out" to find another member. This is often done by ending a session where they will need to play their way back to the surface from the depths of the dungeon.

Player who's character died needs to wait till you can work their new character in.

This often means they loose one to two sessions playing while you get them back to where they can meet the new character.

[Ualaa]

The adventure is Rappan Athuk.
It is store bought, not designed by me.
Everything encountered, is in the adventure as written.

It is advertised as first edition feel, 'abc' edition rules.
They've sold it for several editions of the game.
Our edition was Pathfinder.
And I had/have the expansion volume as well.

It is also advertised as extremely challenging.
And very hard to finish.
The group wanted the dice to fall as they may, no fudging for their benefit or against.

Since I figured there was a potential for a high death count.
I used a semi-cheese method for replacement characters.
An arch-mage is doing a challenge, where he's built a dungeon.
The objective is to get as far as you can, there's great loot within.
There are large crystal balls, where you can observe the action as it unfolds.
If a character dies and is not resurrected, a new person from the crowd (that player's new character) is selected as a replacement.
They arrive the next morning, near the largest clump of surviving characters.
Or in Zelkor's Ferry (a nearby small settlement, on a wipe).
Since they've seen the action all the way through, they're aware of everything that has happened previously.
Anything the player can remember (campaign ran for two years of real time), the character could.
If the player wanted to take notes, a spectator could have done that.
One of the players was assuming his guys were map makers, so each of his replacements would be too; he took numerous smart-phone pictures of the battlemaps, as they were drawn on the tact-tiles.

The charging guy, at level one.
After he declared he was charging in, for the sneak dice.
I asked him... you want to attack eleven guys by yourself?
He said yes.
I asked him... and you're charging into a flank...
He charged anyway.

The noisy guy... with the silent scout.
Two party members pointed out, we can hear you so they can hear you.
The scout didn't really want him to tag along.
But he was faster than the scout.
And he basically doesn't have any attachment to a character.
If it dies, there will be another.
Hence the initial post... what kind of a penalty can I attach for dying, that is both large enough that dying is not a good idea, but small enough that the new guy is not hampered into uselessness.

The fiend in the binding circle.
They didn't have the knowledge of what it was, as characters.
But from the token (Pathfinder Pawns) they knew what it was as players.
I made sure to describe a strong odor of brimstone.
The characters had Detect Good/Evil/Law/Chaos, and determined it was Chaotic and Evil, even if they didn't know what it was as a race or member of that race.
A Glabrezu is not a good fight for four gestalt level five characters.
This was before two of the players developed the... who cares we'll come in with similar to what we're already using... attitude.
The original post was in regards to that attitude.

The ladder rungs, on the side of a chute...
Since there was a chance that they would break.
I had one break immediately, to pass that knowledge onto the players and characters, as they were testing the rungs; at that point, another character was holding onto the tester.
I had him make the Reflex save to see if he caught himself, which he did (so didn't need the other character at that point).
So at this point, without risk, they're aware the rungs can snap off.
And they know there is a Reflex save to catch themselves.
I did not suggest the rope anchors at all, as I had given the players the knowledge that the rungs could not be trusted and that it was his poor saving throw that would prevent his death.
The one player suggests the two lengths of shorter rope, to limit fall distance... and to thoroughly test the anchors, to ensure they're solid.
The player climbing lowest/first, with no ranks in climb... but how hard is it to descend a ladder... is the one who disregards that, saying it will take too long climbing up and down to anchor/un-anchor himself, and then for the next guy to do the same... so he uses the multiple lengths tied together, as it turns out too long to catch himself.
Even if it were to catch him, who wants to fall 200 ft., and be 'caught' by a rope tied about their waist? The 40 ft. proponent pointed that out to him too.



The one player generally doesn't care if his guy dies.
Unless there is a mechanical reason, that makes the next guy worse.

He likes to 'game the system'.
He convinced one of the other players to not take a resurrection.
Because we had 'leveled up', and a new character would have more items than the existing guy did.

I do group experience; it is easier to track.
We also have a couple of guys who cannot make every session.
It's easier if everyone has the same experience.
I could do individual experience, but the one guy with a bi-polar wife and five kids would fall so far behind and probably never catch up or be a useful edition to a group; he averages 50% of the sessions.



I wanted there to be a mechanical incentive to stick with the existing guy.
To not just scratch off Bob and write in Tony as the character name.

I'm not sure if the new 'replacement character' deal is going to accomplish that or not.
The previous three builds are locked, as far as race and classes go.
So there won't be musical characters, no loss bring in the same guy... just rename him and done.
Each death is a penalty on the wealth of the next guy.
And each session a character survives, is a reward on the wealth of the next guy.

If the reckless guy uses five characters over the course of ten sessions of play...
His guys start to come in with very little gear.
The party generally loots a dead guy, so the replacement doesn't have much of the previous character's gearing.
But if he holds onto a character for several sessions, the next one will have more gear.

And flip it around... the guy who plays defense first characters, and plays as part of a team, and is not reckless... if he dies in session 7 and in session 29 and in session 31 - lets say combats beyond his control...
Having survived 6 sessions the guy will have more Wealth by Level than an average character of whatever level we are, at that point.
And if his next death is 21 sessions after that, he's going to come in very well off.

[John Longarrow]

I'd have to say this is an Out of Character problem that you are trying to deal with.

Talk to your players. If they know your not having fun with them doing revolving characters they may take character death more seriously. This gets especially true if you decide to cancel one session because "I'm tired of all these character deaths, I need a break".

It sounds like this is really not being fun for you.

[Stealth Marmot]

Ahhh I see, the setting IS set up like a Roguelike game.

It reminds me of Rogue Legacy specifically, a video game where you are playing a long line of knights trying to assail a castle, and each one's purpose is nothing more than getting loot for the next generation so that they can get a little further and get more lot in order to, in the end, kill the bosses in the castle.

You end up going through DOZENS of generations of children who get thrown at the castle just to die and let their children get the money and loot so eventually ONE of them can get to the boss at the end and kill them.

So yeah hearing about that setting, it advertises itself as being 1e style and feel. Well I can say for certain that they nailed it.

Which to me sounds like someone advertising that their brand new card steers and runs like a Model T.

I dislike 1e. I appreciate it's place and how if not for it the games we love would not exist, but the nostalgia some people feel for it confuses me. The game was clumsy, put way too much emphasis on DM fiat and DM whim, had an utter disdain for players as friends rather than rivals of the DM, and treated characters as nothing more than stats on a sheet, with no more value than the high score on an arcade machine.

1e was the transition stage from wargame to actual roleplaying game. It was still a wargame at heart, far more than 3rd edition was a miniatures game, and 3rd/3/5/Pathfinder are all miniatures games at their true core. (Any game with squares movement is going to be a miniatures game on some level)

Long story short, you're playing this setting as it was meant to be played, for the most part.

The question of the day is: Are you having fun?

If yes: Then I suggest having a very simple lives system. Give them a staff of resurrection. Have limited charges, say around 10 or so. Tell them that you have a couple more later in the dungeon, but if they run out of charges and a character dies, and they are not within close distance of finding another staff,(Within a session so a player isn't out of the game for more than a part of a session) then the game is over. Make the staff not cost a level each time someone is raised.

1e ran on the idea of tournament play. If the player characters died, then the game was supposed to essentially be over for those characters so they would go on to the next adventure. Failure was an option, one that you are going to have to reintroduce if you want your players to fear throwing Sir Havington the 23rd into the grinder just in hopes that after 50 Sir Havingtons the machine's gears will be rusted from all the Sir Havington blood and guts.

If no: Suggest a new game, or at least a new setting.