Handling character death in D&D
Character death is a tricky issue in any roleplaying game: On the one side players can feel an immense sense of loss if they really lose a character they got attached to; on the other side having death become too trivial leads to all danger being perceived as trivial as well. In a pen & paper roleplaying game the likelihood of a player death will vary a lot between different groups. It is up to the Dungeon Master of a D&D game to get the balance right. How do you make death significant, without it becoming frustrating?
In my campaign the first thing I'm trying is to avoid "random death". I handed out an improved toughness feat to my players as reward of their level 0 adventure, increasing their health by 6 points. While that is only a little more than the standard feat of 5 points of extra health anybody playing a level 1 D&D 4E character can take, it nevertheless led to everybody having this extra health, and there being less of a chance in general of somebody dying from a lucky hit of a monster.
What I'm also trying to avoid is "unfair death", situations in which traps or monsters are designed to kill characters with not much they can do about it. That does not mean players will never be overwhelmed by monsters; it only means that *if* they are overwhelmed by monsters it is because of a decision they took. For example if they split the party they can very well end up with just a part of the group facing an encounter that was designed for a complete group. And if they don't leg it, they could very well die.
I am quite okay with "tactical death". 4th edition Dungeons & Dragons is not *just* a roleplaying game, it is *also* a tactical game. It is up to the players to play their characters well in that tactical combat part. If they make tactical mistakes that lead to them getting into a bad situation, I have no problem killing a character off. I would try to avoid that the stupidity of one character kills off the whole party, e.g. by providing opportunities to retreat. By if e.g. the rogue thinks he is a front-line tank and dies in consequence, I would have no problems with that. There is no "playing well" if there are no negative consequences for playing badly.
On character death, one option in D&D is resurrection. I would allow that, but it would require some effort. There is a cost involved both in treasure and in time, and the resurrected character suffers from some resurrection sickness as a penalty for death for some time. This is a good time to check how attached the player is to his character: Does he absolutely want to continue playing his character? Then resurrection is the best option. Not so sure? Then consider the alternative.
The alternative is the player rolling a new character. I don't remember ever having read actual rules on that subject, but I would consider it not practical for the player to have to restart at level 1. For the group to function it is best if everybody has the same level, and in my campaign everybody always has the same number of xp anyway. That does not mean that there is no penalty involved in rolling a new character: While I would allow the new character to have the same level and xp as the others, he wouldn't have any magic items. As 4th edition adventures are designed to hand out around 1 magic items per character per level, a newly rolled character would in fact be and feel somewhat weaker.
While the situation has yet to come up in my campaign, I do think this way to handle character death will work well. While it would effectively enable a player to deliberately kill off a character he grew bored with to roll a new one of the same level, I do think that is not a bad thing. I'd always allow a player to quit a character and roll a new one without death anyway, if somebody really wouldn't like the character he has any more.
In my campaign the first thing I'm trying is to avoid "random death". I handed out an improved toughness feat to my players as reward of their level 0 adventure, increasing their health by 6 points. While that is only a little more than the standard feat of 5 points of extra health anybody playing a level 1 D&D 4E character can take, it nevertheless led to everybody having this extra health, and there being less of a chance in general of somebody dying from a lucky hit of a monster.
What I'm also trying to avoid is "unfair death", situations in which traps or monsters are designed to kill characters with not much they can do about it. That does not mean players will never be overwhelmed by monsters; it only means that *if* they are overwhelmed by monsters it is because of a decision they took. For example if they split the party they can very well end up with just a part of the group facing an encounter that was designed for a complete group. And if they don't leg it, they could very well die.
I am quite okay with "tactical death". 4th edition Dungeons & Dragons is not *just* a roleplaying game, it is *also* a tactical game. It is up to the players to play their characters well in that tactical combat part. If they make tactical mistakes that lead to them getting into a bad situation, I have no problem killing a character off. I would try to avoid that the stupidity of one character kills off the whole party, e.g. by providing opportunities to retreat. By if e.g. the rogue thinks he is a front-line tank and dies in consequence, I would have no problems with that. There is no "playing well" if there are no negative consequences for playing badly.
On character death, one option in D&D is resurrection. I would allow that, but it would require some effort. There is a cost involved both in treasure and in time, and the resurrected character suffers from some resurrection sickness as a penalty for death for some time. This is a good time to check how attached the player is to his character: Does he absolutely want to continue playing his character? Then resurrection is the best option. Not so sure? Then consider the alternative.
The alternative is the player rolling a new character. I don't remember ever having read actual rules on that subject, but I would consider it not practical for the player to have to restart at level 1. For the group to function it is best if everybody has the same level, and in my campaign everybody always has the same number of xp anyway. That does not mean that there is no penalty involved in rolling a new character: While I would allow the new character to have the same level and xp as the others, he wouldn't have any magic items. As 4th edition adventures are designed to hand out around 1 magic items per character per level, a newly rolled character would in fact be and feel somewhat weaker.
While the situation has yet to come up in my campaign, I do think this way to handle character death will work well. While it would effectively enable a player to deliberately kill off a character he grew bored with to roll a new one of the same level, I do think that is not a bad thing. I'd always allow a player to quit a character and roll a new one without death anyway, if somebody really wouldn't like the character he has any more.
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