Negative Levels from Resurrection

[AlexandraNelsen]

I've personally never been a fan of having the players gain permanent negative levels when they're returned after death. While I definitely agree there should be consequences to returning from the dead I very much don't like having PCs end up at a lower level than the rest of the party. At least with my players I feel it would detract from them having a good time playing the character.

Recently I've just been letting my players ignore the negative levels when they're brought back, but it definitely detracts from the impact of a character dying. Does anyone use alternate consequences for coming back? I considered just increasing the cost of the reagents needed, but I don't feel like that's nearly as much of a reason to avoid dying as negative levels are. Does anyone here use their own house rules on this?

[Pugwampy]

The player just died , he feels bad enough . There is no need to punish him beyond making him pay lots and lots of gold to RES him .

Negative levels are a rubbish idea . Party is probably already semi unbalanced and this makes it even worse .

I do not believe negative levels threat makes players more cautious
dungeon bums . Sooner or later everyone dies in this game and full consequences for death will force Dm to nerf himself and players to run at the drop of a pin . Who wants that kind of game ?

[Doctor Despair]

You could make it more roleplay-ey. Roll a d20 and add all sorts of modifiers. Make it so they definitely succeed the first one or two times. Then, raise the DC slowly each time they come back. Say something like, "You take a deep breath and feel warmth flood into your body, but even as you feel the cloying tendrils of death rescind into you, you somehow feel like something is missing: like something has been taken from you, but you can't quite divine what." After a few times, if they fail the check, or if you do it more story-oriented and just wait to see if they abuse it, have the ress fail; tell them that the soul was too weary to return and didn't heed the call, as the rulestext for ressurection often includes. After all, isn't the primary concern for those harms from negative levels simply that players might abuse it?

[Psyren]

Just use Pathfinder negative levels; They never convert to true level loss and can be removed via Restoration+ (1/week.) Thus you get the weakened feel of someone who came back to life recently, but without the wonky math of having to try and calculate XP when everyone in the party has a different CR.

[Zombimode]

I've personally never been a fan of having the players gain permanent negative levels when they're returned after death. While I definitely agree there should be consequences to returning from the dead I very much don't like having PCs end up at a lower level than the rest of the party. At least with my players I feel it would detract from them having a good time playing the character.

Personally I'm not opposed to Level loss as a consequence of death.

What I don't like about the current rules is that the severity of the Level loss is dependent on your XP total at the Point of death.
Because you are ALWAYS be set at half way through the previous Level XP-wise, dying after you just leveled up is much less severe that dying just before leveling up. In one case you lose about half a Level, in the other case you loose more like 1,5 Levels.

This is rather unfair and has the potential to create "feel bad" Moments - for no gain.

For my next campaign I plan to alter the rules on that to reflect your XP total at the Point of death. I haven't worked out the Details yet, but a flat XP penalty is likely (the same would apply to other instances of Level loss like unhandled negative Levels).


but without the wonky math of having to try and calculate XP when everyone in the party has a different CR.

This doesn't concern me since there is no reason not to use an encounter calculator.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Personally I'm not opposed to Level loss as a consequence of death.

What I don't like about the current rules is that the severity of the Level loss is dependent on your XP total at the Point of death.
Because you are ALWAYS be set at half way through the previous Level XP-wise, dying after you just leveled up is much less severe that dying just before leveling up. In one case you lose about half a Level, in the other case you loose more like 1,5 Levels.

This is rather unfair and has the potential to create "feel bad" Moments - for no gain.

For my next campaign I plan to alter the rules on that to reflect your XP total at the Point of death. I haven't worked out the Details yet, but a flat XP penalty is likely (the same would apply to other instances of Level loss like unhandled negative Levels).

I woulnd't say -no- gain. The cost of being raised isn't so exorbitant (depending on how the cost is split) that you're not still much closer to the WBL of a character two levels higher than you, should you die just before leveling, than of a character of your current level after being raised.



To the topic as a whole, I can't offer much help since I actually like the penalties as they are. The level loss and financial ding (I said it wasn't exorbitant, not that it wasn't substantial) make death something to really worry about while the XP system corrects for a lower level PC so that they don't get -way- behind. If you die too often and do get way behind, it's probably a good idea to retire the character anyway since he's clearly not up to par or you're playing him way too recklessly because "it's what the character would do."

[Segev]

You could make it a flat XP cost paid by the target. If it lowers your level, it lowers your level. If it doesn't, great.

[Red Fel]

Or you could make it an RP hook. Take the player aside, and concoct a limbo scenario where some supernatural being has to agree to allow the soul to return. Perhaps it's the PC's deity, or an agent thereof. Perhaps it's the deity of the spellcaster raising the PC. Perhaps it's an intervening Devil. Perhaps it's some other powerful being whose attention the PC has drawn. Perhaps there are three beings there, and the PC has to choose which one he trusts to help him.

Perhaps the being neither asks nor demands anything, and simply ferries the PC along. Perhaps the being nods approvingly, wanting the PC to go back, because the PC is already serving the being's agenda. Perhaps the being demands some sort of favor or tribute. Perhaps the being gives no sign, but simply takes something. Perhaps the PC must answer a question, and whether he returns intact depends upon his answer.

In a game where death can be a revolving door, there's no need to punish the PC for dying - death is already a penalty. Instead, turn it into an opportunity. Maybe something good. Maybe something bad. Rarely something you'd like to repeat.

[Malimar]

I have resurrection add [1d20 minus the character's constitution modifier] years to the character's physical age. (Reincarnate adds these years to base young adult age, true resurrection and true reincarnate don't come with this drawback.) Not a huge thing, but it means that you can't pass through the revolving door of death an indefinite number of times.

I do also enforce the subtract a level rule, but I use 3.5's sublime lower-level-people-gain-more-XP rules so you catch up eventually.

[Segev]

I have resurrection add [1d20 minus the character's constitution modifier] years to the character's physical age. (Reincarnate adds these years to base young adult age, true resurrection and true reincarnate don't come with this drawback.) Not a huge thing, but it means that you can't pass through the revolving door of death an indefinite number of times.

What does raise dead do?

[Malimar]

What does raise dead do?

Adds [1d20 minus the character's constitution modifier] years. All resurrection spells (not just resurrection itself) except reincarnate, true resurrection, and true reincarnate do the same thing.

[Crake]

The heros of horror book has a whole section regarding making death and resurrection more difficult to help cater a horror game on pages 78-80, but it could also be adapted for general use. Suggestions range from increasing casting time, requiring a specific location, requiring that resurrection include a sacrifice (balancing the scales so to speak, for one to live, another must die), requiring a quest of some sort into the underworld to recover the soul of the dead, or a "coming back wrong" thing.

The last one requires the caster to roll a spellcraft/religion check with a DC the scales by the number of days the target has been dead (for raise dead or reincarnate) or number of decades (for resurrection and true resurrection). Considering some of the hilarious methods for raising skill checks out the wazoo, I would probably recommend that the check be unmodified by items or spells. Either way though, a 1 is always a failure, unlike with normal skill checks. If the check is a failure, the resurrection suffers a mishap, and is rolled on a table with a bunch of different things. Some are pretty simple effects like fingernails and hair becoming brittle and colorless, while others are more roleplay affecting, like the subject is phobic of things that represent death, to full on antagonistic, with a shadow creature stalking the character and all those involved in his or her resurrection.