Player death

How do you dorks tend to go about this? Is the new character a level lower than previous?
is it level 1? do they have to sit idle until they are revived somehow?
In our group we start the new character off at the current level of deceased PC but with no XP because it just seemed natural.

Isn't it rude to punish the new player for the previous player's mortal frailty by downgrading the new player's character? I mean, we all die eventually.

>Character dies
>Gets knocked back a level
>Character is now weaker and more easily killed
>Keeps happening until they're level 1
>Dies again

Fuck it, guess they're playing a Wight now

Death is permanent, make a new character at the current XP of the party.

I have parties gain experience at the same rate because it discourages them trying to one-up each other and a character lagging behind punishes the whole group (in a good group) rather than just the lower character.

It depends on the style of your campaign. For example, if it's one where PC death only happens if you're ridiculously stupid, it makes sense to penalize players for it. Likewise, in a grimdark war campaign for example, it could make sense to have replacements start with a level penalty, to simulate how the war situation is getting increasingly desperate, new recruits are being rushed into combat without adequate training, and more and more of the veterans are being killed off, all of which causes the average level of combatants to drop. It would also make those who are fortunate enough to survive stand out, and make their deaths more meaningful, which I think would fit the genre.

On the other hand, if you're playing a fairly realistic but not grimdark campaign where player death is possible by the roll of the dice, it makes sense not to punish the player if they were just unlucky, so they should be the same level as the rest of the party as long as it makes sense.

>How do you dorks tend to go about this?

I like to do a couple of things:

>Dead players become spooky ghosts.
>Spooky dead players can either subtly or more directly assist living players using spooky ghost powers. (mostly just very simple cantrips or minor physical interactions.)
>Abusing Ghost powers will make it MORE EXPENSIVE to resurrect player, in fluff reasons, "You're getting too used to being a ghost and run risk of forgetting how to be alive."
>Players can eventually be resurrected, but will suffer rez-sickness and minor-stat-penalties for a fraction of the time they spent dead.
>Rez-Sickness is explained as, "You spent some time being died and now are mildly to wildly annoyed about everything due to developing a more contextualized opinion on life."

+Optional+
>Players with very 'high' intelligence will, "not believe in ghosts" and must roleplay how all of the spooky stuff is coincidental despite the contrary.
>Players with very 'high' wisdom must, of course, roleplay the opposite.

oh man, this actually seems pretty fun.

I've been a fan of "Only named/plot-important NPCs can kill PCs"

i.e. if they die to a monster/mook, they get carted away to the Temple Of Doom or whatever to be sacrificed/offed by the big bad's lieutenant or somesuch, and the PCs have to rescue them

I don't know about you guys but in my group even the most obnoxious players find ways to save or stabilize downed characters so there's no real threat of death.

BUT this one page adventure is my ace in the hole. If players die I run this lil post death mini adventure. This is their second chance, their opportunity to save their ass and I'm willing to favor the player over the situation. If they fuck up here then its Game Over.

FPBP
Player death is no joke.

As far as new characters go, it really depends on how much it matters in the system if there's a difference between the party's levels.
I usually do what you do and keep the PCs all on the same level as much as possible.
Theoretically, someone could creep ahead or fall behind, but in practice, it hasn't happened enough to make a difference.

I always like the idea of a character doing and staying dead, with no way to revive them.

The first character they make is hand made while the new ones are the same level but with randomized stats/abilities.

I've found that if players are sufficiently attached to their character, having the PC die is punishment enough. I prefer if they are attached to the character for roleplay reasons, but some are attached to whatever build they are trying to run. So they get to make a new character with approximately the same XP and value of gear to the rest of the party.

The only rule is that they must make a different character. No making a similar character and playing it like it's the dead PC.

If the setting has resurrection in some form, that is an option. But if it's an option that requires the remaining PCs to help resurrect the PC and they don't want to, then there is no resurrection.

The exception is when playing Dread. There a dwindling group of PCs is part of the experience, so I stick with the intent of anything that removes a PC from the game* also removes the player.


*Usually death, but insanity is another example of what could happen when a player knocks over the tower.

My group plays OCs and they're really, really attached to their characters so much so that dying might ruin it for them. I've made it so that dying is harder, but the threat of death is still there to discourage dumb gaming.

On 3 failed death saves, they stay unconscious for the rest of the day and can't join the party until a long rest (the rest of the party have to drag their bodies in an environment that allows proper rest; otherwise, they stay unconscious).

After that long rest, they're in "recovery" mode for X days (X being their level), during which they actually die on 3 failed death saves.

Problem is, we're new, me included, and I think what I made might be needlessly complicated?

>Player Death
>Not Character
>Player
Guys....

This.

>After that long rest, they're in "recovery" mode for X days (X being their level)
>higher level players have to rest more
To me, that doesn't make a lot of sense desu senpai

I allow it, but for an extreme cost. Like, 10k gold, AND you'd have to find a very powerful healer to do it so good luck rezzing Ol' Zimbo the Wizard when you're in the fucking sticks. When it comes to player rezzing, raising knocks my players down a level, just flat out. The only exception is revifiy, which I find to be alright since the spell description states that's it's essentially a defib to fix the body and give it a shock to bring it up to the brink before the victim goes braindead.

Oops! Not rest. The ones in recovery play as normal with the rest of the party except that they die on 3 fails. I'm guessing being at higher level would make them less likely to die provided they play cautiously (and by then they will have learned to play smarter)... but we're still level 3 so I admit I don't know for sure

Obligatory

Holy crap, that monster demanding a tpk.

>Players with very 'high' intelligence will, "not believe in ghosts"

what

I mean, fine, it makes sense in mundane settings, but in setting with magic, monsters and confirmed afterlife?

Welcome to Veeky Forums!

Player death means they're the snacks for the next few games.

What if they have both high intelligence and wisdom?

They experience inner turmoil and have to roleplay as Heinrich Faust

New PC at 1 level below party,
Scroll of True Resurrection Quest,
Afterlife Quest,

Not gonna lie, I like this a lot. I think I'll adapt it to my setting and use it when I get the chance.

Problem is I want to use it now.

Resurrection is a thing but enemies know this and will often try to keep you from being able to resurrect (Assassins tend to keep Bags of Holding with horrific acid inside for this purpose). In case of permadeath you make a new character at the level of old character and join in when I can figure out an excuse for it. If you join in same session, make your backstory by next session.

Low-lethality: thrown back to the lowest exp in group (rarely play level-based)

High-lethality: your spare characters get the same exp together with your current. When you die you just switch.

It makes perfect sense! With a hundred confirmed afterlives, there's no point for ghosts to even happen. A 'ghost' is nothing more than an ectoplasmic lifefork that feeds on the immaterial essence of its prey creatures. The idea that a ghost is the soul of a departed creature chained to this realm is preposturous. With that established, we can easily infer that I am not really, but have been trapped in a tangent dimension that is close enough to our own (cosmologically speaking) that what little power I have access to here still allows me to someone interact with our native plane.
t. A ghost wizard.

>not really dead
Curses, this imprisonment is effecting my speech. Get me out of here you bungling baboons!

Most often for games that really care about levels, I have the party the same level instead of individual anyway, so a character there would have as much exp as the party.
In OSR games where exp gained = gold returned to town I've been toying with a mechanic where characters spend money in life partying, living lavishly, and generally spending wealth without gain and have exactly that much gold -> exp for their next character.
Systems without levels like Burning Wheel use the same creation rules everyone followed at the beginning.

>Player is gone for extended period of time
>"Hey, I can't really think of an IC reason for it, mind if I roll something up current level?"
>Seems fair, old character was trash anyway. Allow it.
>Rolls up a crafter with over 100K in items
>He's not even the only crafter in the group
>Fuck it, maybe the items will make him good, they all look good and he's made a lot for different situations
>First session with the new character, party is heading into an area that's said to be highly-lethal
>HEY GUYS I JUST MET YOU I'LL TAKE POINT
>Dies upon entering the doorway to the dungeon, failed the fortsave to a Symbol of Death
>"Well that sucks. Guess I'll just go roll up a wizard or something lmao"

Did they not check for traps?

I'm under the assumption that the character was built to die. Having double the net value of any other character (Probably closer to quadruple considering I had to keep them somewhat loot starved due to the designated crafter) and then immediately asked to roll up a Vampire Wizard.

It turned out for the better, since they paid the price for their template with all starting gold and a -2 level cost.

Depends on the game type and system.

> Is the new character a level lower than previous?
Never.

> is it level 1?
NEVER EVER

> do they have to sit idle until they are revived somehow?
Give them control over an NPC if there's one tagging along with the PCs. Let him co-DM some monsters if there isn't and there's a lot of combat ahead.

>In our group we start the new character off at the current level of deceased PC but with no XP because it just seemed natural.
If a system breaks down xp into levels. Don't ever do this. Completely ignore whatever the system says about tracking xp and assigning bonus xp.

Everybody has the same xp total. Everybody levels up at the same time. When you have defined levels between players you get too much disparity in power between PCs. Penalizing the dead player just makes it more likely he's the one who's going to die again. He's already upset he died, not he has to be less useful than everyone else for the rest of the campaign or till every else has died once.

The exception to this is point buy systems. There's no level plateaus to worry about in point buy. Points are immediately useful and characters in these systems don't tend to be drastically out matched by a higher point character. Giving out bonus xp in these kinds of systems isn't too terribly punitive to the others. You give player of the dead character the points he would have earned normally to make a new character. Even more than the others if his character went out in a cool way.


As for character death itself happening. Depends on the kind of game. Dungeon delve? Whatever. But I've been in roleplay heavy games with sessions every week that lasted years. I REALLY REALLY cared about my character. I'd be extremely upset if my character got offed permanently for something dumb.

Dying sucks. Death is it's own punishment. Having to bring the session to a stop and have one character go to the corner and roll a new character is no fun. There's no reason to punish it further.

I usually pretend they are still there while I play DnD, alone, sad, in my room with their freshly unburied bodies.

Confused why you're asking this when the most likely answer will vary depending on the system being played, not the DM's or player's preference.