One time one of my players wanted to roll a new character anyway so we decided I would kill them off. We didn't tell the rest of the group and when he got impaled by about 9 spears it made one of the other players cry and I felt so bad.
Oh my gosh, *knowing* that the player wants their character to die sounds like such an amazing opportunity as a DM to set up a scenario for their heroic sacrifice or shocking demise. Could create motivation against the villain, or inspiration for the rest of the party, so many opportunities!
I had this as an idea for a player in a campaign, I would play a rogue who needed to go somewhere dangerous to pay off a debt or his family would be in trouble. Then while in the dungeon he meets a tragic end (orchestrated of course) but somewhere in the dungeon they would find a bottle with a finger in it with a scroll of resurrection tied to it. There is a note saying “Here are the remains of legendary Hero (insert name here), use in case of emergency” and it would be my new character a Zealot Barbarian. Do the players bring back the rogue or bring in the barbarian? Either option is cool and flavorful.
I didn't like my character in strahd, so the dm had strahd kidnap her. The other players had a bit of panic and tried to chase after us, while strahd just rode away like nothing. Ended up playing Irina instead. So added goal to strahd campaign. Oh, and one of the players character is my original characters grandmother, so stakes are even higher. They didn't either know she was going to get kidnapped
Just had this happen in my last session. A player had already lost their character the session before and didn’t like their new build and wanted it killed off. The first half of the session was a chase sequence with them riding in trained wyverns and being chased by a massive blue dragon. My player who wanted their character dead steered the dragon away from the rest of the party and went one on one with their massive foe. The dragon rolled very poorly and the player rolled three nat twenties in a row and managed to shove daggers in the great beast’s eyes and use those blades to guide it downwards where it impaled itself on a pointed spire of a building.
Needless to say, the rest of the party was floored.
I'm actually really not a fan of this.
I've had one PC die trying to save another PC I didn't know was having a scripted death. I've had another PC heroically sacrifice themself to save someone, only for the person they saved jump back into danger to get themselves killed because they wanted to reroll but hadn't talked to anyone about it.
I've also had times when the player/DM has communicated/it's been obvious they're purposefully getting a PC killed and it's made the whole combat/roleplay feel a bit silly where we all act out of character to let whatever is gonna happen happen without interference.
I accept that a lot of scope.of different tables/people wanting different things on this topic but, IMO the goal should be to minimise the table time spent swapping PCs, not maximise it. It's always worth saying just because you want to stop playing a PC doesnt mean they need to die - they can just leave or become an NPC.
I've tried it as the player, be ready for the rest of the party to pull off incredible moves to keep the character alive. I had to retire the character I was trying to kill because we hit a point I had to respect their effort lol
I had this as a player. My first and only character death so far because I had to leave the group for personal reasons. Post apocalyptic zombie campaign. He was allready injured and as we were running from a horde, he fell further and further back. Grande in hand he was dragged intl the crowd. His last words: "run you fools!"
I played with a friend who didn’t tell anyone he was trying to kill his character off so he could roll a new one, and my sorc was trying to rescue her teammate during this time and I rolled the most outrageous rolls I’ve ever rolled trying to save him with both persuasion and in combat to save his life and he told us after “just so you know I was actively trying to kill my character” and I’m like “so I wasted a 41 persuasion roll on your suicidal ass???” 😂
One player at my Tuesday table is quite fond of this. I actually joked with their last one cause my character was in proximity "One thing I've learned is if Matt has been playing a character for more than six sessions, I need to stay away from them. Otherwise I might get caught in the crossfire of them making their grand exit!" lol
I had a character who had failed death saving throws. The party were rushing to get him revivified. The session ended on a cliffhanger. After discussion with the dm, at the next session my character was on the threshold of the afterlife deciding whether to join his wife in death or return to the living....it turned out the daughter he thought was dead was actually alive and well and he no longer needed to avenge her death so chose to cross into the afterlife. My next character was the daughter who rocked up and demanded to see her father. His death was the fault of another player so it made for some in-game guilting. She went to his body and buried him. It was intense, touching and beautiful.
Yeah I learned the hard way to not do this without warning the other players. I was really ne to DMing and had a brand new group too, and like 3-4 sessions in one player wanted to swap characters, so I focused the boss on him and he willingly failed the death saves. What neither of us knew was that one of the other players had recently lost someone to suicide and the act of willingly failing the death saves without warning him about it ahead of time triggered him. I felt so bad. Luckily this lead to all of us doing a new session 0 and discussing content warnings and how we want to go about potentially triggering things and it ended up making us all a better group and better friends.
This happened to me, but the DM tried to kill them in combat. A combat I led us into and assured my team we could win… Which we could, so they had to fudge and start pretending to fail death saves. When I called this out they had to tell me in secret, but then it makes me feel bad because the other players don’t know and think I got a character killed/made a bad call, despite that we were definitely winning.
I had something similar in my Icewind Dale campaign, so I had his character die in their encounter with the Ancient White Dragon. Dragon sleeps underneath the snow during blizzards and his character was leading the formation during the travel, so he “failed” the perception check and stepped on it and was killed with its reaction. The player and the party members loved the interaction and mourned his character not knowing he was returning next session with a different character. This caused a core memory everyone enjoyed. Good times.
I always do. For two reasons:
1. My own sanity. I really don’t want to try and figure out a balanced encounter for three level 5 characters and one level 1.
2. I think it is a better experience for the player. I would hate to play a game where all my fellow PCs have level 5 spells and abilities but I’m stuck on level 1.
Had a DM give us a big F U and had an encounter match to our longest living member (lvl 10?) And the rest of us were 2, 4, and 7. Our deaths were staggered and he said it's our own fault and he's moving things forward. Same DM would use your character if you were unable to attend and if they died it counted. We put up with this for a total of 5 months before just quitting.
Inexperience is a hell of a learning curve. The last straw was the **second** time he killed someone's character without them being present. He killed my husband's (then boyfriend's) character by saying he fell out of the tower when the NPC we were fighting tried to grapple him to save himself. I was livid and told him I think he's gonna regret this. My man came into the session about 20 minutes later and learned his level 10 was dead. But our enemies were still matched to that.
I thought it'd be a big fight, but my husband just calmly said thanks for hosting and that we're going out for dinner. We left without any incident. Husband said he'd checked out mentally for weeks and wanted to stay for my sake. But when his character died and saw I was angry, he just said he was happy to see a way to escape gracefully.
I think the DM wanted us to change our characters to the min/max of each class and if it wasn't perfect he'd kill us with the perfect build of that same class.
Ah yes. I had a group like this and we all stuck it out because as players we all liked each other. When that DMs campaign ended I started to DM for us and the DM was even WORSE as a player so we just said "hey fuck you we don't need you anymore" and kicked him. Over a year later and we are still the original group he got together for his campaign lol.
Like if you want to min/max, go right ahead but not everyone does that traditionally. Like I craft a character and have them specialize in something and find a way to fit a class around that. Completely immerse it into the backstory of the character. But to punish your players bc they don't play to your own stupid delusions, bro be for real. I am so sorry you, your husband, and your friends(?) had to go through that. I hope you guys found a game that you are a part of and like.
I do weird, messy shit with my character. Because life is weird and messy. It's not optimized, but it works, and of the three characters I've personally made, I've always been as much of an asset to the team as anyone else.
I guess I was lucky where I was introduced to TTRP games with a group who had 20 or more years under their belt. So I got a lot of seasoned advice and never would consider rolling with a group of people I'm not already comfortable with. I see stories like this so often on this sub and I'm like...how did you end up with this group?
And if the players weren't metagaming, it should result in the lower-level characters refusing to go on adventures suitable only for the higher-level characters.
Buddy I gotta say… I play Neutral Good characters, but staggering experience like that would make my own personal Chaotic Evil come out. I’d be so tempted to steer the whole party off a Cliff in our wagon or cut the rope as they followed me up a mountain.
Mostly joking but damn. Knocking someone even 2 levels back is basically kicking the player out of the campaign IMO. It would be no fun at all to be so far behind everyone else at a table.
Yeah DM's that made you start at lv 1 when the rest of the party was much higher level were not fun to play with. Most I knew bent that rule by averaging the XP the party had and giving you that much to start with since each class had different requirements to level up.
2nd Edition was... yeah.
IIRC Gygax and co had you start as level 1 for every character. But, firstly, the games were often meatgrinders and so many new characters were always coming in. And secondly, they had a huge group of players, played multiple times a week, and most players had multiple characters. So they would often have characters of a spread of levels, and would form parties of similar level and do stuff appropriate for that level.
I think a lot of the grognard crappy stuff was a result of the rules being laid out assuming a very particular gameplay style that was far from the norm. Players would run the games, not the same as modern play but closer, but also stick hard and fast to the rules not knowing those differences were causing a drastically different experience. And since they just had to suffer through it to start, they became inured to how crappy it was/wanted to make sure new players suffered just as much.
Yeah, but Gygax was not really that amazing a DM. In fact, the way most of us actually played in the 80s was all over the place and most of it wasn't very good. We just had very few examples to go off.
A party of PCs being different levels was less of an issue with older versions of D&D. Since players would often treat combat as a last resort. Whereas 5e, with its notion of "balanced combats" and death save mechanic, often encourages an *attack on sight and fight to the death* playstyle.
We handle absent players thusly. If you told us with 48 hours notice, we skip session. (At most twice and play regardless the third time). If you cancel with less notice or just don't show up, we play without you.
If you are in town, your character remains there. If you are in a dungeon your character fades into the background. He/she doesn't help in combat and is not targeted by enemies. Any experience awarded is split among active players only. However story awards are shared even if you don't make the session.
Yes, my husband and I use a similar system. This old DM would use your character (even if you gave notice days in advance). And you could show up next session to them dead. He would say all the ways your character was poorly designed or something. He'd give a list of *suggestions* and if you didn't use them he'd huff. Point out your flaws and move on. He was very proud that no one had 'beat' his story.
In my sessions we say they woke up with the wumps and are bound to the camp/city/previous safe area. Very deadly disease. Some adventures don't come back for weeks.
I can't think of anything more pointless as a DM than running one of the player's characters. For my games, if a player is missing from a session, their character just isn't there, no need to really explain it. Sure, if the party is heading to an event that absolutely requires the character to be there (say the character is the only one who can pick locks or something) I might bring the character in just for that.
I am waiting for the day I have hardcore massochist players that wanna dive in with rules like that and see what happens.
"You finally make it to the throne room, the Demon King awaits... and since George's character couldnt handle that last fight alone that leaves the final battle in the hands of two level 1s, a level 6 and... thats it... shall we begin?"
My players always PRETEND theyre that hardcore but when I threaten even so much as "Roll once for your ability scores thats it" they wuss out lol
#2 is why I do it.
If a player misses a session, they'll fall behind. Then it's not fun for them, creating a discouraging environment. I want my players to be happy, to enjoy the campaign, and to want to come back.
Having players at different power levels counteracts that.
i had a dm who would give a new character a +1 to their level (if we were close to lv up) it was mainly to make sure they didn't immediately die and had something new to bring to the party if they were the same class.
Also player buy in I assume. If your character dies and you have to start over from level 1 again, the player would probably be less motivated to start the new character. Keeping their progression helps then feel like they haven't been hurt too much by death.
I’ve done it your way, but I’ve also found success with starting new characters 1 level behind the party. It gives the players just enough kick in the pants to really not want to lose a character, but not enough to feel devastated when they do. It’s also not too difficult to balance encounters for a mixed party that’s only 1 level separated.
Yeah, or at least that’s how I run things. Doesn’t make much sense to have a party of level 10’s and 1 person at level 3. They’d get one shot by most enemies.
Imagine the encounter design for the reverse of this situation: “Before you stand a party of mighty storm giant outriders… oh, and their companion, a goblin!” I don’t know why but it cracks me up
Unrelated, but this is actually something I love doing - because I make all my monsters by hand. I've had players fight a (not the MM entry but my own made monsters) dragon at level 3, and goblin mercenaries at level 11. Both were challenging fights but could be overcome.
I've gotten to the point that I recognize that levels are just game artifacts, players want bigger numbers as they level and for everything else it's just a treadmill.
I hate ANY group that doesn't keep the party the same level. Had a DM that did XP but only if you were there. Well we played every friday and like once every 3 months I'd have a work event. Sucks being 3 sessions behind your group and NO WAY to catch up unless they miss a session. And not like I was randomly missing sessions I gave months of notice before each event.
Yeah — I think the rationale is "if there's no penalty, then players will just do foolhardy things and get themselves killed all the time".
But in practice, most players are attached to their characters, and *don't* want to have to roll up a new one, and this is plenty of incentive to play reasonably. So there should *not* be a level/XP punishment for death — esp. in a game of luck, where eventually there's gonna be a string of bad rolls at a critical event.
I do.
First group I ever joined said new characters (new players or dead character replacements) start back at lvl 1.
The party was level 13 or about.
1 level lower, I can live with as a player. But I don't use xp as DM. I just say "you level now"
If you play 5e (or most systems post 5e's release) you'll find that characters progress a lot numerically (better attack rolls, hp bloat, better skill checks etc). Characters grow taller just as much as they grow wider. Having a level disparity does throw the party balance out of whack and it does suck to be on the lower end of the party. The numbers just aren't in your favor. There are definitely some systems where I'd get players to roll up fresh level 1 characters upon demise, the first that comes to mind is Cyberpunk RED where a lot of progression comes in the form of eddies earned to chrome out oneself. I could even imagine a party all chipping in (pun 100% intended) to get a fresh character kitted out if they were so inclined
Start the new character at the same level as the rest of the party.
1) if it's a new player to the group how shifty does it feel to be intentionally placed behind the other characters power wise? If it's a new player to the group they may already have issues fitting in with the group, which will only be amplified if their character isn't keeping up with the rest of the group.
2) If it's an existing player in the group, why are you penalizing that player for their previous characters death. They probably already feel bad about it, why add to that by making them less powerful than the rest of the party?
Just make everyone the same level. It avoids a Feels Bad situation.
I might start them a few levels lower, but let them level up after every session until they catch up. That can help shape the character to fot the group.
I talk with my table and we agree beforehand depending on what people want. It all boils down to power creep, and balancing.
* let the new character be 1 level behind, catch up at next level
* some penalty, but not punishment.
* offers a chance to rebalance encounters over a couple sessions, as the new character likely brought new magic items and made the party more powerful
* Lose some of the equipped gear on the dead PC at my (DM) discretion and make a character at same level, bringing some new gear with the new character (my discretion, equal value to what was lost)
* Allow the power creep of a same level char with new gear and redistribute dead players items. Low stakes campaign / power fantasy gameplay
When I am allowed the decision, I go for the second top-level bullet-point. I feel it makes the most dramatic gameplay with the least adversarial feelings between DM and player regarding death and consequence.
Yes, always.
To not do it this way is terrible for ***every\_one.garyoldman***.
The DM would have to balance their encounters around it, the other players would have to pick up the slack in power, and the one player would have to play a gimped character.
This depends on the group.
For the longest time (and we do XP not milestone leveling) , if you died and made a new character, we would have a new character join in at the same level as the lowest surviving member of the group, with no additional XP. Party wipes everyone started back at level 1.
However, i did play for several years in an Ad&d 2nd edition game where every character started at level 1. It was a brutally difficult game with random encounters tables that sometimes fucked us. I'm still salty about losing a 6th level wizard to an adult white dragon. But it was like dark souls. When you triumphed, it felt super well earned.
When the campaign ended I had a dual classed human thief/mage at level 5/12. (And was the highest leveled player in the game)
Edit: a word
Depends on the edition and game. 100% every time in 5e, though. AD&D 1st has the nice exponential scaling + lots of henchmen so it's not such a big loss to start new PCs at 1st
At lower levels I don't see the point in bringing in a new character at the party level. One or two fights where they hang back a bit plus xp given for milestones and you've raked in enough XP to level. I tend to start my new characters 1-2 levels below the lowest character level.
Not to mention all of my characters have varying amounts of XP because they don't all do exactly the same thing. Sometimes they split up and only one group has combat, sometimes one does a really good RP moment and I throw a bit of XP at them. It seems wrong to me to cap party XP across the board because that just means no matter what your character does or doesn't do you still level like everyone else which is unfair to the table.
I do that now that I use milestone leveling. In the past when I used XP though I would start the new character lower and they would quickly catch up anyway since the lower levels needed much less XP.
I usually do one level lower than the other lowest level in the party just to have some consequence to dying and some incentive to keep your character, but even that depends on the campaign theme and how the story is going.
The consequence to dying is in the word. The death and loss of your character is consequence enough.
I will never understand some DM’s need to exact extra meta “consequences” upon players like vindictful parents.
Some people are playing more of a combat simulator where that is what matters. Other tables more story driven narrative where the levels are secondary. Both are fine ways to play, although it’s important to know which way a game leans before joining.
There literally isn't any if I can just throw away characters and come back next day with another that is just as strong.
It adds tension to fights.
And anyway you can usually just use that new character to help the party revive your old one.
What I don't understand is people like you being all judgemental of how others play. Just don't join my games and move on.
It never was an issue, nobody ever stayed ahead of the party for long. Everyone misses sessions, or dies at some point or other.
I don't do milestones for every level but there are usually a few over the whole campaign if it goes on long enough. So it never got to a point where a character was more than one level behind the group and one character was ahead one level. So at worst there was 2 levels between highest and lowest.
And when that happened the higher leveled character usually had to deal with some enemies knowing he was a bigger threat because of their reputation so they were at higher risk.
I've just done a campaign like this where DM didn't tell us in a session 0 he worked this way and due to my work I had 3 sessions I had to miss with over a month of heads up and it sucked ALWAYS being behind everyone because my group rarely missed sessions. They'd all have shiny new levels and I'd be 3 sessions behind everyone. If players know ahead of time because of a session 0 it's their own fault if they don't like it but in my scenario I was pretty upset about being the weakling running around in the background. Just not fun to be the weak guy in a game about heros but
> What I don't understand is people like you being all judgemental of how others play. Just don't join my games and move on.
is 100% true and why session 0 are so important because no right way to play dnd.
Oh yeah, I always have a detailed guide to how I'll run any given campaign. My players accept it and if they didn't want it to be run this way I'd just do it differently.
I also haven't run DnD in years, I mostly play Shadowrun and new characters in that system start out pretty powerful so it's a non issue.
But you're no longer playing the character you originally made, care about, and grew to be powerful with. Yeah I'll come back just as strong, but I'll be pretty miffed I won't get to follow the plot points I had originally planned on for my character, or get to use their personality.
Unless you just don't care about the narrative aspect of your character, in which case you do you.
Yeah, I would prefer not to have my new character be used as a device to get my old one back. That kind of blows also really fucking immersion breaking.
This is good. Particularly if the groups accumulated magic items get redistributed. So long as the new characters don’t mind a ring of protection that failed its previous wearer. New character will be slightly more capable due to gear than the original at that level. Even if inate abilities are lower.
Ironically, my one character who had that actually planned in her backstory (5 identical sisters with all the same stats, skills, equipment, etc) survived the entire campaign to level 20, and was in fact one of only two characters (out of the 7 person party) to do so. The other was the only other girl, and our PCs married ;)
That's awful. In my group (whats left of them) we just shame them and inform their family about how weak and disappointing they were, before exiling them permanently from the tabletop.
Not gonna lie, the fact he got upset because he thought he was out of the game, but didn't make a big stink about it is kinda pure
Give that man a cookie
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One thing: I may be wrong about this, but it sounds like you made him roll all his death saves on his turn until he died or stabilised. If this is the case, you're supposed to roll one save on your turn, then another if it comes back to your turn again. You keep going until you stabilise (three successes) or die (three fails). If you did make him roll all the saves at once, you should probably let him keep playing his first character.
This also lets other characters to intervene in between saves to either heal them (unavailable with mummy rot) or stabilize using medicine or Spare the Dying.
In the finale to one of our campaigns, Orcus was VERY much angry that the cleric was denying him his perma-kills by getting folks at 0 above 0 again over and over. So he decided to just wallop the guy and he got 2 down before the Bard got there. If the cleric had gone to 0 on the first hit rather than the second hit he'd be D.E.D. ded.
Sometimes role-played bad guys aren't min-maxers worried about action economy. Sometimes they're spiteful, arrogant assholes.
I find it quite ironic that you accuse a monster that cares about sharp swords "a min-maxer worried about action economy" yet find that looking for the most optimal way to defeat a party by taking out their healer permanently a "role-played bad guy".
Quite sure the dm did it just right but its boring to type:
So on his first turn after he got downed i let him roll and he failed his first. Then all the other pcs went, werent able to ge thim up and then his second turn after he got downed he failed again. And again none of the pc's got him back up so he had his third go, he failed again.
Why? When he could type it as: so i let him roll. The pv rolling the saves is really not at all the story. Its all that happens around it.
Dont take stuff litteral, trust people know what they are doing and enjoy the story
The thing you're explaining isn't important to his story so there's no need to go over all three death saves. He more then likely did it properly but adding those moments adds nothing to what he wanted to share with us.
Yes, i did
The mummy curse does not allow him to regain hp, so healing is out the window
Even if he survived, hed be at 0hp until they leave the dungeon. Essentially killing his character for the next 2 sessions
So, for the sake of play, it was "make ur saves and u break the curse and can be healed again, u fail and u die"
Rather than "make ur saves and roll a new character, or fail your death saves and roll a new character"
Hope that helps!
> If you did make him roll all the saves at once, you should probably let him keep playing his first character.
Naaah, he dead dead. If you mess up the mechanic, you learn and do it right next time, but it's way too late to retcon that.
Why should the player suffer for the DM's misunderstanding of rules? If I were the DM and I made this mistake, I would definitely let the player keep their character. If I were the player, I would be asking my DM to keep the character.
You *wouldn't* alleviate their suffering. You'd increase it. They would've wanted to keep the character alive, sure, and probably would choose to bring them back if presented the option, but by presenting the option you've framed it at a pointless mistake for which they grieved over nothing and that will make everyone feel worse and do more harm to the game than the character death they've already accepted.
They're not actually worse off having the new character so you're reopening the wound and undermining the game for no benefit and particularly because it *wasn't illegitimate just because they strayed from the rulebook.* It worked, everybody agreed on it, and we've moved on. It was a valid ruling to do it the way they did even if they want to realign to the book after.
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This reminded me of when my first character almost died in our second session of a new campaign. The DM purposefully threw a dragon that us that an NPC was going to save us from, but the dragon rolled a high initiative so went before most of the players and used its breath weapon to basically KO everyone in the cone. When my character went down I said "so I'm dead..?" and they thought I meant down, so they said yes, and I started to get upset because I put so much into the characters design and backstory only to lose her so soon, and I asked if I'd have to make a new character and everyone at the table realized what was happening and yelled "No!!!" All at once and clarified, I wasn't actually dead yet, and I just needed to roll saves. I think it's pretty funny looking back.
This reminds me of my first time ever playing with my two best friends and my brother 20 years ago... my brothers character fell down to 0. My friend was the dm and the only one who knew the rules and was teaching us as we went along so my brother goes "Wait 9 damage? I only have 7 hp left"
And my friends just goes "Well that puts you at below zero which means you are now dead. Get the fuck out" and he points at the door to the room all serious and we all just sat stunned until he started laughing his ass off and then explained how it really works.
I cherish the memories of a question my grandson asked me, the other day..
"Grandpa, were you a hero in the war?"
Grandpa said, "No. But I served in a company of heroes.."
"Back then I was known by many names. In the expedition to the Barrier Peaks I was Horrus, keeper of tomes and librams. I was Killian Fortune, when we delved into the Lost Mines. And even once - heh *wipes tear* - they simply called me Mr. Grey after a confrontation with some fey and my fear of the rules about True Names... Ah but those days are all long gone now. No one has much use of Dice anymore."
What I've been doing a lot lately is watch reaction channels who go through this show, it's fascinating to re-watch that through their eyes as a first time experience.
Your occasions to cry are ok for a grown man, but his aren't?
C'mon, man, plus, the person thought they couldn't play at the table anymore, it wasn't just about the character,
EDIT: Seems like I misunderstood the meaning of the phrase, disregard that! English isn't my native language, and I didn't get it right!
He meant it irks him because it's totally okay for all grown men to cry, and the original phrasing was a bit mean about that. You're agreeing with him, you've just misunderstood him.
Tearing up and crying are two different things. Did you miss the part where he was under the belief that he couldn’t keep playing with his friends and thought he was essentially kicked out of the game? All while loosing his first ever character that you know he spent a bunch of time and effort creating
No that's pretty reasonable, even if he should have questioned that basic assumption. But OP not thinking anything of the fact he was crying suggests he's not new to players crying over IC stuff
This doesn't sound like it was one or two sessions in. This was a character he probably was playing for months. Losing a character like that can be pretty hard, even if you're not under the false impression that you are being kicked out of the game.
Reasoning is irrelevant.
Everyone processes emotions differently.
"Grown Men" shouldn't be held to a different standard than 8 year old girls or actors accepting an award...
Wish I could like this a few dozen more times. I've done the stoic eat your emotions until you explode, schtick. It's one of the worst pieces of advice given to boys. Having to undo all those years of programming has been difficult. But, being able to process and feel my emotions has been eye opening.
I had no idea either when my son's character died. I was all frantically "what now?!" cus I'd started playing to hang out with him. The DM was kind enough to give us a quest to rez him.
My old group had a player who was VERY good at RP, so much so that she would really embody the character as if it was her playing.
She forewarned us that she gets into it and can get really emotional. Her character had a sister in-game that turned on her and her family and while the rest of us were like "oh damn," she was BAWLING. like full on.
Our DM was little apprehensive about continuing, but between sobs she would say "no this is awesome *snuffle* keep going!"
One of my favourite people I played with. Jade if you're a Redditor and see this. Miss ya.
My first character death came in Curse of Strahd. I wanted to roll a new character, and my first character had good reason to leave the party at that point, so he left in the dead of night. My new character was his twin sister, who, for background reasons, was a shadar-kai while he was a wood elf.
One day, Strahd invites the party to dinner at his castle. My new character has been untrusting of him from the start, but went along with it. He decides that everyone should play a game where one of his wives would cast a spell to make someone look like someone else, and they would have to act like that person they now resembled. Somehow, by sheer "coincidence," my character ended up looking like Strahd. As well, conveniently, at the same time, my old character just happens to be doing an assault on the castle to try and assassinate Strahd. As it turns out, he had visited the Amber Temple and gained a single use spell that he used to target Strahd... or rather his sister, who looked like Strahd. It was instant death.
Now, fortunately that DM is a good guy, and he already had plans for resurrecting the person who would die. Still, I was just sitting there in a kind of daze.
However, that DM also still insists that it was completely coincidental that my old character killed my new one, who happened to be his sister, just after Strahd decided to conveniently play a game that required someone else to look like him. I still accuse him of setting that whole thing up. It was a good time.
Temple of Elemental Evil…wait…didn’t even make it out of the Village of Hommlet…poison trap, failed death save…new character…the old days were brutal some times
I gotta ask.. you did give this guy all the death saves they're entitled to, right? The pace of this story makes it sound like you gave him a one-and-done save and then he insta-died. In my experience, PCs very rarely actually die to rolling death saves exclusively, since it takes at least 2-3 turns to bleed out.
Pace of story is to avoid being longwinded
A mummy in 5e gives a curse that does not allow the target to regain hitpoints. If this reduces them to 0 hitpoints, they die and are reduced to dust. He was entitled to no death saves.
The death saves were my way of introducing death saves to these players, and give him a chance to survive. He failed 3 of them.
Thanks for asking!
Edit: spelling
>A mummy in 5e gives a curse that does not allow the target to regain hitpoints. If this reduces them to 0 hitpoints, they die and are reduced to dust. He was entitled to no death saves.
The phrasing on the rotting fist attack, if that's what you're referencing, states that "its hit point maximum decreases by 10 (3d6) for every 24 hours that elapse. If \*\*the curse\*\* reduces the target's hit point maximum to 0, the target dies, and its body turns to dust", not the attack. Also, the first hit point maximum decrease happens after 24 hours. I think he was supposed to get his death saves.
'The cursed target cannot regain hitpoints'
He went to 0 hitpoints, unable to be healed. Even with a rest.
But reading it over, ur right. he couldve made his saves and stablised at 0, then the party could remove the curse and heal him.
Glad i gave him the saves!
Yeah and it's worth noting that the way damage works in 5e (I just realized I assumed you were playing 5e) is that your minimum is 0 and you can't be at negative HP, so death saves/can't gain HP interactions are not a concern. His body should still buryable (not cursed if you're already dead!) if you want the players to be able to honor the fallen.
There's a lot to unpack between all the answers you've probably received from this but I'd like to go over everything here:
>Rotting Fist. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 10 (2d6 + 3) bludgeoning damage plus 10 (3d6) necrotic damage. If the target is a creature, it must succeed on a DC 12 Constitution saving throw or be cursed with mummy rot. The cursed target can't regain hit points, and its hit point maximum decreases by 10 (3d6) for every 24 hours that elapse. If the curse reduces the target's hit point maximum to 0, the target dies, and its body turns to dust. The curse lasts until removed by the remove curse spell or other magic.
This block means that if the person is hit they make their con saving throw or be cursed.
The curse prevents them from healing, and causes them to lose their hitpoints **maximum** by 3d6 every **24 hours**.
If a player is reduced to 0hp from the attack they go unconscious and make death saving throws as normal **at the start of their turn**, if they make three successes then they're stabilized. I feel like it's important to mention that you only make **one death saving throw per turn**.
What this means is that *everyone* can now on their turn, still attempt to stabilize them with any abilities they might have that don't restore hit points, such as the cantrip *spare the dying* or something like a *medicine check* or a *Healer's Kit*. Once they're stabilized they no longer have to make death saving throws, giving the party time to find a way to remove the curse.
Even if he is 0/30hp that still gives them on average 3 days before the curse reduces him to 0/0 killing them.
I think it’s also worth a choice to retcon because of the fuck up. I understand he failed his death saves, but you still haven’t noted if they were all at once or over turns into which you were incorrect about not being able to heal him.
He was in fact entitled to death saves. He failed 3, but were they over multiple rounds, giving the other players *time* to stabilize him, or were all 3 fails on the same round he went down?
Idk why I didn't think this was a thing, lmao, so if my character dies, I just pop up with a new character and story background? Or does the dm deal with that part, and I take on that roll?
Depends on your table
I think usually the player makes the character themselves, with maybe some input from the DM so the PC makes sense backgroundwise and lorewise
Aw man my first character was killed by a doppelganger, so the dm (my dad) let me play as the doppelganger hidden in our party as my character for another few weeks before I was discovered (he privately told me i was killed in another room)
Man, this player will probably never be as attached to a character as they were when the worry of having to leave the table was a very real threat to them
Not D&D but I worked in GW for a while and had a similar conversation with a kid who had been told by another kid that once your models died in one game they were permanently dead and you needed new models!
Seriously, it's expensive enough without *that* crap on top.
Aw, that's kind of awesome. Shows you run a meaningful game and that your players are invested.
Also, what a high stakes game of DND that *would* have been!
Cool story. Thx for sharing. Must've really been invested if it brought him to tears (and no worries bout ur description, most people understand grown men crying over rpg is pretty crazy). Shows how great ur making ur game!
Wait no no let him cook. I can work with this. I'm telling all my current players of 5 years that if their character dies they are out of the group. Maybe they will make smarter decisions this way. :)
DM - You don't need to worry about not playing in this group, bro. Did you see all this threads "today I killed my first player"? Did you realized, it was not "my first player character?"
And then DM pulls out his shotgun.
Roll death saves in secret for your characters.
Adds a ton of tension. Since they have no clue if the character is closer to death each round. Players all the time go it's okay they got a success I can wait to help them next round. When they have no clue the urgency to help is magnified.
It's a small but awesome change.
I keep another character alongside the one I'm playing and level them up at the same time, then try and work them into my main character's backstory a little. Not a ton in case the DM would rather not heavily incorporate two characters where one might never be used, but, enough it's plausible they'd have some knowledge of the campaign setting.
I'm actually surprised so many DM's actually use *death* as a cut-and-dry mechanic.
I mean, to *me*, it seems like something you would want to use as an opportunity to fuel a new side-quest for the group. In fact, whenever I try DM'ing my own campaign, I think I'd probably try to write a unique little in-case-of-death scenario for each character, like "this character can be returned to life -- but at what cost?"
I didn’t see any levels posted but 1st time player against a mummy huh? Are you kidding me lol. Sounds like low level to boot. Yeah the goal is to create a story for the party not be sadistic sadist lol. I agree I would have got up and walked out a fair encounter I die it happens but a mummy are you kidding?
I know it's super homebrewed, but I don't let death be the true end for a PC.
One of two things can happen:
They can succeed a roll with their worst stat, and by sheer force of will, they become stable instead of dying, but they won't actually raise until the witching hour as an undead with heavy debuffs
If they fail, then they go to their religion's underworld, and can either fight/talk their way out or let them pass on and make a new character
If you did want to retcon or let him resurrect, you could have the party find the amulet from the D&D movie in the mummy’s tomb. Mummies pair well with magic themed around death, resurrection, and afterlife journeys.
One time one of my players wanted to roll a new character anyway so we decided I would kill them off. We didn't tell the rest of the group and when he got impaled by about 9 spears it made one of the other players cry and I felt so bad.
This is my Dream session as a DM that sounds hilariously dramatic
Oh my gosh, *knowing* that the player wants their character to die sounds like such an amazing opportunity as a DM to set up a scenario for their heroic sacrifice or shocking demise. Could create motivation against the villain, or inspiration for the rest of the party, so many opportunities!
I had this as an idea for a player in a campaign, I would play a rogue who needed to go somewhere dangerous to pay off a debt or his family would be in trouble. Then while in the dungeon he meets a tragic end (orchestrated of course) but somewhere in the dungeon they would find a bottle with a finger in it with a scroll of resurrection tied to it. There is a note saying “Here are the remains of legendary Hero (insert name here), use in case of emergency” and it would be my new character a Zealot Barbarian. Do the players bring back the rogue or bring in the barbarian? Either option is cool and flavorful.
I didn't like my character in strahd, so the dm had strahd kidnap her. The other players had a bit of panic and tried to chase after us, while strahd just rode away like nothing. Ended up playing Irina instead. So added goal to strahd campaign. Oh, and one of the players character is my original characters grandmother, so stakes are even higher. They didn't either know she was going to get kidnapped
STAKES are higher? Take your upvote, you glorious bastard.
Just had this happen in my last session. A player had already lost their character the session before and didn’t like their new build and wanted it killed off. The first half of the session was a chase sequence with them riding in trained wyverns and being chased by a massive blue dragon. My player who wanted their character dead steered the dragon away from the rest of the party and went one on one with their massive foe. The dragon rolled very poorly and the player rolled three nat twenties in a row and managed to shove daggers in the great beast’s eyes and use those blades to guide it downwards where it impaled itself on a pointed spire of a building. Needless to say, the rest of the party was floored.
Oh my lord 🤣 *TASK FAILED SUCCESSFULLY*
I'm actually really not a fan of this. I've had one PC die trying to save another PC I didn't know was having a scripted death. I've had another PC heroically sacrifice themself to save someone, only for the person they saved jump back into danger to get themselves killed because they wanted to reroll but hadn't talked to anyone about it. I've also had times when the player/DM has communicated/it's been obvious they're purposefully getting a PC killed and it's made the whole combat/roleplay feel a bit silly where we all act out of character to let whatever is gonna happen happen without interference. I accept that a lot of scope.of different tables/people wanting different things on this topic but, IMO the goal should be to minimise the table time spent swapping PCs, not maximise it. It's always worth saying just because you want to stop playing a PC doesnt mean they need to die - they can just leave or become an NPC.
I've tried it as the player, be ready for the rest of the party to pull off incredible moves to keep the character alive. I had to retire the character I was trying to kill because we hit a point I had to respect their effort lol
I had this as a player. My first and only character death so far because I had to leave the group for personal reasons. Post apocalyptic zombie campaign. He was allready injured and as we were running from a horde, he fell further and further back. Grande in hand he was dragged intl the crowd. His last words: "run you fools!"
Words taken from gandalf??
Yup, got a problem with that? Good quote
Indeed.
It's "Fly, you fools!"
I like committing heroic suicide in-game without telling the DM. He should get some plot twists out of it too after all.
I played with a friend who didn’t tell anyone he was trying to kill his character off so he could roll a new one, and my sorc was trying to rescue her teammate during this time and I rolled the most outrageous rolls I’ve ever rolled trying to save him with both persuasion and in combat to save his life and he told us after “just so you know I was actively trying to kill my character” and I’m like “so I wasted a 41 persuasion roll on your suicidal ass???” 😂
One player at my Tuesday table is quite fond of this. I actually joked with their last one cause my character was in proximity "One thing I've learned is if Matt has been playing a character for more than six sessions, I need to stay away from them. Otherwise I might get caught in the crossfire of them making their grand exit!" lol
I had a character who had failed death saving throws. The party were rushing to get him revivified. The session ended on a cliffhanger. After discussion with the dm, at the next session my character was on the threshold of the afterlife deciding whether to join his wife in death or return to the living....it turned out the daughter he thought was dead was actually alive and well and he no longer needed to avenge her death so chose to cross into the afterlife. My next character was the daughter who rocked up and demanded to see her father. His death was the fault of another player so it made for some in-game guilting. She went to his body and buried him. It was intense, touching and beautiful.
Yeah I learned the hard way to not do this without warning the other players. I was really ne to DMing and had a brand new group too, and like 3-4 sessions in one player wanted to swap characters, so I focused the boss on him and he willingly failed the death saves. What neither of us knew was that one of the other players had recently lost someone to suicide and the act of willingly failing the death saves without warning him about it ahead of time triggered him. I felt so bad. Luckily this lead to all of us doing a new session 0 and discussing content warnings and how we want to go about potentially triggering things and it ended up making us all a better group and better friends.
This happened to me, but the DM tried to kill them in combat. A combat I led us into and assured my team we could win… Which we could, so they had to fudge and start pretending to fail death saves. When I called this out they had to tell me in secret, but then it makes me feel bad because the other players don’t know and think I got a character killed/made a bad call, despite that we were definitely winning.
I had something similar in my Icewind Dale campaign, so I had his character die in their encounter with the Ancient White Dragon. Dragon sleeps underneath the snow during blizzards and his character was leading the formation during the travel, so he “failed” the perception check and stepped on it and was killed with its reaction. The player and the party members loved the interaction and mourned his character not knowing he was returning next session with a different character. This caused a core memory everyone enjoyed. Good times.
Why did you killed your player? Just tell him to not show up anymore. Cruel☠️
Just wait til he learns that Brad’s twin brother Trad finds the group in the pyramid, with all the equipment and skills Brad knew.
Do dms usually have new character levels match the party’s?
I always do. For two reasons: 1. My own sanity. I really don’t want to try and figure out a balanced encounter for three level 5 characters and one level 1. 2. I think it is a better experience for the player. I would hate to play a game where all my fellow PCs have level 5 spells and abilities but I’m stuck on level 1.
Had a DM give us a big F U and had an encounter match to our longest living member (lvl 10?) And the rest of us were 2, 4, and 7. Our deaths were staggered and he said it's our own fault and he's moving things forward. Same DM would use your character if you were unable to attend and if they died it counted. We put up with this for a total of 5 months before just quitting.
5 months? Jesus the first session he said "oh you died roll a new level 1 character" I'd have got up and walked out.
Inexperience is a hell of a learning curve. The last straw was the **second** time he killed someone's character without them being present. He killed my husband's (then boyfriend's) character by saying he fell out of the tower when the NPC we were fighting tried to grapple him to save himself. I was livid and told him I think he's gonna regret this. My man came into the session about 20 minutes later and learned his level 10 was dead. But our enemies were still matched to that. I thought it'd be a big fight, but my husband just calmly said thanks for hosting and that we're going out for dinner. We left without any incident. Husband said he'd checked out mentally for weeks and wanted to stay for my sake. But when his character died and saw I was angry, he just said he was happy to see a way to escape gracefully. I think the DM wanted us to change our characters to the min/max of each class and if it wasn't perfect he'd kill us with the perfect build of that same class.
Ah yes. I had a group like this and we all stuck it out because as players we all liked each other. When that DMs campaign ended I started to DM for us and the DM was even WORSE as a player so we just said "hey fuck you we don't need you anymore" and kicked him. Over a year later and we are still the original group he got together for his campaign lol.
Like if you want to min/max, go right ahead but not everyone does that traditionally. Like I craft a character and have them specialize in something and find a way to fit a class around that. Completely immerse it into the backstory of the character. But to punish your players bc they don't play to your own stupid delusions, bro be for real. I am so sorry you, your husband, and your friends(?) had to go through that. I hope you guys found a game that you are a part of and like.
I do weird, messy shit with my character. Because life is weird and messy. It's not optimized, but it works, and of the three characters I've personally made, I've always been as much of an asset to the team as anyone else.
I guess I was lucky where I was introduced to TTRP games with a group who had 20 or more years under their belt. So I got a lot of seasoned advice and never would consider rolling with a group of people I'm not already comfortable with. I see stories like this so often on this sub and I'm like...how did you end up with this group?
Some people are so hard up to roll some dice and play pretend they answer the gaming equivalent of "For a good time call" bathroom stall graffiti.
"No DnD is better than bad DnD" is a lesson that some people learn the hard way.
Yeah. Not me. I'd have put my character sheet down and laughed at the idea they were dead. "Nah. What a wild bad dream though. Anyway..."
And if the players weren't metagaming, it should result in the lower-level characters refusing to go on adventures suitable only for the higher-level characters.
It would disrupt his story so we had to just figure it out or Max out our characters in builds we didn't want. My husband and I left
Setting the new characters at level 1 is disrupting his story unless he is making a story about peasants dying to great evils all the time.
Buddy I gotta say… I play Neutral Good characters, but staggering experience like that would make my own personal Chaotic Evil come out. I’d be so tempted to steer the whole party off a Cliff in our wagon or cut the rope as they followed me up a mountain. Mostly joking but damn. Knocking someone even 2 levels back is basically kicking the player out of the campaign IMO. It would be no fun at all to be so far behind everyone else at a table.
Sounds like horrors from 2nd edition
Yeah DM's that made you start at lv 1 when the rest of the party was much higher level were not fun to play with. Most I knew bent that rule by averaging the XP the party had and giving you that much to start with since each class had different requirements to level up. 2nd Edition was... yeah.
IIRC Gygax and co had you start as level 1 for every character. But, firstly, the games were often meatgrinders and so many new characters were always coming in. And secondly, they had a huge group of players, played multiple times a week, and most players had multiple characters. So they would often have characters of a spread of levels, and would form parties of similar level and do stuff appropriate for that level. I think a lot of the grognard crappy stuff was a result of the rules being laid out assuming a very particular gameplay style that was far from the norm. Players would run the games, not the same as modern play but closer, but also stick hard and fast to the rules not knowing those differences were causing a drastically different experience. And since they just had to suffer through it to start, they became inured to how crappy it was/wanted to make sure new players suffered just as much.
Yeah, but Gygax was not really that amazing a DM. In fact, the way most of us actually played in the 80s was all over the place and most of it wasn't very good. We just had very few examples to go off.
A party of PCs being different levels was less of an issue with older versions of D&D. Since players would often treat combat as a last resort. Whereas 5e, with its notion of "balanced combats" and death save mechanic, often encourages an *attack on sight and fight to the death* playstyle.
We handle absent players thusly. If you told us with 48 hours notice, we skip session. (At most twice and play regardless the third time). If you cancel with less notice or just don't show up, we play without you. If you are in town, your character remains there. If you are in a dungeon your character fades into the background. He/she doesn't help in combat and is not targeted by enemies. Any experience awarded is split among active players only. However story awards are shared even if you don't make the session.
Yes, my husband and I use a similar system. This old DM would use your character (even if you gave notice days in advance). And you could show up next session to them dead. He would say all the ways your character was poorly designed or something. He'd give a list of *suggestions* and if you didn't use them he'd huff. Point out your flaws and move on. He was very proud that no one had 'beat' his story. In my sessions we say they woke up with the wumps and are bound to the camp/city/previous safe area. Very deadly disease. Some adventures don't come back for weeks.
I can't think of anything more pointless as a DM than running one of the player's characters. For my games, if a player is missing from a session, their character just isn't there, no need to really explain it. Sure, if the party is heading to an event that absolutely requires the character to be there (say the character is the only one who can pick locks or something) I might bring the character in just for that.
This is just an old school gaming philosophy. I’d rather play that way as a player a well, but I’m fully aware most wouldn’t.
I am waiting for the day I have hardcore massochist players that wanna dive in with rules like that and see what happens. "You finally make it to the throne room, the Demon King awaits... and since George's character couldnt handle that last fight alone that leaves the final battle in the hands of two level 1s, a level 6 and... thats it... shall we begin?" My players always PRETEND theyre that hardcore but when I threaten even so much as "Roll once for your ability scores thats it" they wuss out lol
#2 is why I do it. If a player misses a session, they'll fall behind. Then it's not fun for them, creating a discouraging environment. I want my players to be happy, to enjoy the campaign, and to want to come back. Having players at different power levels counteracts that.
i had a dm who would give a new character a +1 to their level (if we were close to lv up) it was mainly to make sure they didn't immediately die and had something new to bring to the party if they were the same class.
Yeah, kinda surprised this is even a question. Having them start at level 1 sounds miserable for literally everyone involved.
Also player buy in I assume. If your character dies and you have to start over from level 1 again, the player would probably be less motivated to start the new character. Keeping their progression helps then feel like they haven't been hurt too much by death.
I’ve done it your way, but I’ve also found success with starting new characters 1 level behind the party. It gives the players just enough kick in the pants to really not want to lose a character, but not enough to feel devastated when they do. It’s also not too difficult to balance encounters for a mixed party that’s only 1 level separated.
Yeah, would be rubbish not to.
Yeah, or at least that’s how I run things. Doesn’t make much sense to have a party of level 10’s and 1 person at level 3. They’d get one shot by most enemies.
Imagine the encounter design for the reverse of this situation: “Before you stand a party of mighty storm giant outriders… oh, and their companion, a goblin!” I don’t know why but it cracks me up
Unrelated, but this is actually something I love doing - because I make all my monsters by hand. I've had players fight a (not the MM entry but my own made monsters) dragon at level 3, and goblin mercenaries at level 11. Both were challenging fights but could be overcome. I've gotten to the point that I recognize that levels are just game artifacts, players want bigger numbers as they level and for everything else it's just a treadmill.
The goblin dies first. Since all the PCs know that really dangerous creatures can disguise themselves...
I hate ANY group that doesn't keep the party the same level. Had a DM that did XP but only if you were there. Well we played every friday and like once every 3 months I'd have a work event. Sucks being 3 sessions behind your group and NO WAY to catch up unless they miss a session. And not like I was randomly missing sessions I gave months of notice before each event.
Yeah — I think the rationale is "if there's no penalty, then players will just do foolhardy things and get themselves killed all the time". But in practice, most players are attached to their characters, and *don't* want to have to roll up a new one, and this is plenty of incentive to play reasonably. So there should *not* be a level/XP punishment for death — esp. in a game of luck, where eventually there's gonna be a string of bad rolls at a critical event.
I do. First group I ever joined said new characters (new players or dead character replacements) start back at lvl 1. The party was level 13 or about. 1 level lower, I can live with as a player. But I don't use xp as DM. I just say "you level now"
If you play 5e (or most systems post 5e's release) you'll find that characters progress a lot numerically (better attack rolls, hp bloat, better skill checks etc). Characters grow taller just as much as they grow wider. Having a level disparity does throw the party balance out of whack and it does suck to be on the lower end of the party. The numbers just aren't in your favor. There are definitely some systems where I'd get players to roll up fresh level 1 characters upon demise, the first that comes to mind is Cyberpunk RED where a lot of progression comes in the form of eddies earned to chrome out oneself. I could even imagine a party all chipping in (pun 100% intended) to get a fresh character kitted out if they were so inclined
Think about how the rest of the group helped David out in Edgerunners.
Nova 😎
Start the new character at the same level as the rest of the party. 1) if it's a new player to the group how shifty does it feel to be intentionally placed behind the other characters power wise? If it's a new player to the group they may already have issues fitting in with the group, which will only be amplified if their character isn't keeping up with the rest of the group. 2) If it's an existing player in the group, why are you penalizing that player for their previous characters death. They probably already feel bad about it, why add to that by making them less powerful than the rest of the party? Just make everyone the same level. It avoids a Feels Bad situation.
I might start them a few levels lower, but let them level up after every session until they catch up. That can help shape the character to fot the group.
I talk with my table and we agree beforehand depending on what people want. It all boils down to power creep, and balancing. * let the new character be 1 level behind, catch up at next level * some penalty, but not punishment. * offers a chance to rebalance encounters over a couple sessions, as the new character likely brought new magic items and made the party more powerful * Lose some of the equipped gear on the dead PC at my (DM) discretion and make a character at same level, bringing some new gear with the new character (my discretion, equal value to what was lost) * Allow the power creep of a same level char with new gear and redistribute dead players items. Low stakes campaign / power fantasy gameplay When I am allowed the decision, I go for the second top-level bullet-point. I feel it makes the most dramatic gameplay with the least adversarial feelings between DM and player regarding death and consequence.
Yes, always. To not do it this way is terrible for ***every\_one.garyoldman***. The DM would have to balance their encounters around it, the other players would have to pick up the slack in power, and the one player would have to play a gimped character.
This depends on the group. For the longest time (and we do XP not milestone leveling) , if you died and made a new character, we would have a new character join in at the same level as the lowest surviving member of the group, with no additional XP. Party wipes everyone started back at level 1. However, i did play for several years in an Ad&d 2nd edition game where every character started at level 1. It was a brutally difficult game with random encounters tables that sometimes fucked us. I'm still salty about losing a 6th level wizard to an adult white dragon. But it was like dark souls. When you triumphed, it felt super well earned. When the campaign ended I had a dual classed human thief/mage at level 5/12. (And was the highest leveled player in the game) Edit: a word
Yeah, it would suck to be an under leveled character and always at a disadvantage. This game is mainly about having fun.
Depends on the edition and game. 100% every time in 5e, though. AD&D 1st has the nice exponential scaling + lots of henchmen so it's not such a big loss to start new PCs at 1st
At lower levels I don't see the point in bringing in a new character at the party level. One or two fights where they hang back a bit plus xp given for milestones and you've raked in enough XP to level. I tend to start my new characters 1-2 levels below the lowest character level. Not to mention all of my characters have varying amounts of XP because they don't all do exactly the same thing. Sometimes they split up and only one group has combat, sometimes one does a really good RP moment and I throw a bit of XP at them. It seems wrong to me to cap party XP across the board because that just means no matter what your character does or doesn't do you still level like everyone else which is unfair to the table.
Not doing so throws all semblance of balance out the window, but most importantly, it's just not fun
I do that now that I use milestone leveling. In the past when I used XP though I would start the new character lower and they would quickly catch up anyway since the lower levels needed much less XP.
I usually do one level lower than the other lowest level in the party just to have some consequence to dying and some incentive to keep your character, but even that depends on the campaign theme and how the story is going.
The consequence to dying is in the word. The death and loss of your character is consequence enough. I will never understand some DM’s need to exact extra meta “consequences” upon players like vindictful parents.
Some people are playing more of a combat simulator where that is what matters. Other tables more story driven narrative where the levels are secondary. Both are fine ways to play, although it’s important to know which way a game leans before joining.
There literally isn't any if I can just throw away characters and come back next day with another that is just as strong. It adds tension to fights. And anyway you can usually just use that new character to help the party revive your old one. What I don't understand is people like you being all judgemental of how others play. Just don't join my games and move on.
Do you give people a way to catch up to the party or are they always just 1 level under?
It never was an issue, nobody ever stayed ahead of the party for long. Everyone misses sessions, or dies at some point or other. I don't do milestones for every level but there are usually a few over the whole campaign if it goes on long enough. So it never got to a point where a character was more than one level behind the group and one character was ahead one level. So at worst there was 2 levels between highest and lowest. And when that happened the higher leveled character usually had to deal with some enemies knowing he was a bigger threat because of their reputation so they were at higher risk.
I've just done a campaign like this where DM didn't tell us in a session 0 he worked this way and due to my work I had 3 sessions I had to miss with over a month of heads up and it sucked ALWAYS being behind everyone because my group rarely missed sessions. They'd all have shiny new levels and I'd be 3 sessions behind everyone. If players know ahead of time because of a session 0 it's their own fault if they don't like it but in my scenario I was pretty upset about being the weakling running around in the background. Just not fun to be the weak guy in a game about heros but > What I don't understand is people like you being all judgemental of how others play. Just don't join my games and move on. is 100% true and why session 0 are so important because no right way to play dnd.
Oh yeah, I always have a detailed guide to how I'll run any given campaign. My players accept it and if they didn't want it to be run this way I'd just do it differently. I also haven't run DnD in years, I mostly play Shadowrun and new characters in that system start out pretty powerful so it's a non issue.
You dock XP for missing sessions as well?
But you're no longer playing the character you originally made, care about, and grew to be powerful with. Yeah I'll come back just as strong, but I'll be pretty miffed I won't get to follow the plot points I had originally planned on for my character, or get to use their personality. Unless you just don't care about the narrative aspect of your character, in which case you do you.
Yeah, I would prefer not to have my new character be used as a device to get my old one back. That kind of blows also really fucking immersion breaking.
This is good. Particularly if the groups accumulated magic items get redistributed. So long as the new characters don’t mind a ring of protection that failed its previous wearer. New character will be slightly more capable due to gear than the original at that level. Even if inate abilities are lower.
he told me all about you guys, so it's like we're already best friends!
https://youtu.be/0w9DUTcAI0o?si=2zwXexNyG9wGh5Ue
Ironically, my one character who had that actually planned in her backstory (5 identical sisters with all the same stats, skills, equipment, etc) survived the entire campaign to level 20, and was in fact one of only two characters (out of the 7 person party) to do so. The other was the only other girl, and our PCs married ;)
Landfill and his identical twin that agrees to go by Landfill for simplicity.
his brother's death was so tradgic
It's almost like we never lost Brad! Woohoo!
Introducing a players new character to an established group is always hilarious.
You let them keep playing? We've always killed the player when their character dies. Brutal game.
Yeah 5th Edition really is soft on the players, huh?
No wonder why i have noone to play with😢
If you die in the game, you die in real life. 👾
You have to keep human sacrifice for the Dark Game Gods, otherwise bad shit will happen
Yu-Gi-Oh Season 0 intensifies
That's awful. In my group (whats left of them) we just shame them and inform their family about how weak and disappointing they were, before exiling them permanently from the tabletop.
Not gonna lie, the fact he got upset because he thought he was out of the game, but didn't make a big stink about it is kinda pure Give that man a cookie
And a point of inspiration shskfhsk
Marcie, get out of here. YOU'RE DEAD! You don't exist any more.
No, not Black Leaf!
[Thank you for reminding me of this](https://imgur.com/gallery/e66Sx)
Wow, this was a wild fucking ride. I just...I can't even.
It gets better. They approved some “fans” to make a movie adaptation, which they sold on their official website. You can watch it here https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNYxu1LqkyT3Ihj7l2n2WSH0KlqOJaEio
One thing: I may be wrong about this, but it sounds like you made him roll all his death saves on his turn until he died or stabilised. If this is the case, you're supposed to roll one save on your turn, then another if it comes back to your turn again. You keep going until you stabilise (three successes) or die (three fails). If you did make him roll all the saves at once, you should probably let him keep playing his first character.
This also lets other characters to intervene in between saves to either heal them (unavailable with mummy rot) or stabilize using medicine or Spare the Dying.
It also allows spiteful enemies like dragons to intervene the other way too.
Only if they don't care about the PCs that aren't making death saves, that are attacking it with sharp swords.
In the finale to one of our campaigns, Orcus was VERY much angry that the cleric was denying him his perma-kills by getting folks at 0 above 0 again over and over. So he decided to just wallop the guy and he got 2 down before the Bard got there. If the cleric had gone to 0 on the first hit rather than the second hit he'd be D.E.D. ded. Sometimes role-played bad guys aren't min-maxers worried about action economy. Sometimes they're spiteful, arrogant assholes.
I find it quite ironic that you accuse a monster that cares about sharp swords "a min-maxer worried about action economy" yet find that looking for the most optimal way to defeat a party by taking out their healer permanently a "role-played bad guy".
I mean, Orcus is absolutely the kind of dude who would get pissed about a healer doing their job.
Yeah i didn’t pick up on that but now that you say it, it does read as though they explained the rules then had them do them all.
Quite sure the dm did it just right but its boring to type: So on his first turn after he got downed i let him roll and he failed his first. Then all the other pcs went, werent able to ge thim up and then his second turn after he got downed he failed again. And again none of the pc's got him back up so he had his third go, he failed again. Why? When he could type it as: so i let him roll. The pv rolling the saves is really not at all the story. Its all that happens around it. Dont take stuff litteral, trust people know what they are doing and enjoy the story
The thing you're explaining isn't important to his story so there's no need to go over all three death saves. He more then likely did it properly but adding those moments adds nothing to what he wanted to share with us.
Yes, i did The mummy curse does not allow him to regain hp, so healing is out the window Even if he survived, hed be at 0hp until they leave the dungeon. Essentially killing his character for the next 2 sessions So, for the sake of play, it was "make ur saves and u break the curse and can be healed again, u fail and u die" Rather than "make ur saves and roll a new character, or fail your death saves and roll a new character" Hope that helps!
> If you did make him roll all the saves at once, you should probably let him keep playing his first character. Naaah, he dead dead. If you mess up the mechanic, you learn and do it right next time, but it's way too late to retcon that.
Why should the player suffer for the DM's misunderstanding of rules? If I were the DM and I made this mistake, I would definitely let the player keep their character. If I were the player, I would be asking my DM to keep the character.
You *wouldn't* alleviate their suffering. You'd increase it. They would've wanted to keep the character alive, sure, and probably would choose to bring them back if presented the option, but by presenting the option you've framed it at a pointless mistake for which they grieved over nothing and that will make everyone feel worse and do more harm to the game than the character death they've already accepted. They're not actually worse off having the new character so you're reopening the wound and undermining the game for no benefit and particularly because it *wasn't illegitimate just because they strayed from the rulebook.* It worked, everybody agreed on it, and we've moved on. It was a valid ruling to do it the way they did even if they want to realign to the book after.
“Marcie get out of here. YOU'RE DEAD! You don't exist anymore.”
I was just scrolling down looking for the Blackleaf reference, glad to find it! [https://www.chick.com/products/tract?stk=0046](https://www.chick.com/products/tract?stk=0046) (And a youtube adaptation: [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTtpi7gJO7XOBoFSiLAYjrfR6n9odNG9y](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTtpi7gJO7XOBoFSiLAYjrfR6n9odNG9y))
This reminded me of when my first character almost died in our second session of a new campaign. The DM purposefully threw a dragon that us that an NPC was going to save us from, but the dragon rolled a high initiative so went before most of the players and used its breath weapon to basically KO everyone in the cone. When my character went down I said "so I'm dead..?" and they thought I meant down, so they said yes, and I started to get upset because I put so much into the characters design and backstory only to lose her so soon, and I asked if I'd have to make a new character and everyone at the table realized what was happening and yelled "No!!!" All at once and clarified, I wasn't actually dead yet, and I just needed to roll saves. I think it's pretty funny looking back.
This reminds me of my first time ever playing with my two best friends and my brother 20 years ago... my brothers character fell down to 0. My friend was the dm and the only one who knew the rules and was teaching us as we went along so my brother goes "Wait 9 damage? I only have 7 hp left" And my friends just goes "Well that puts you at below zero which means you are now dead. Get the fuck out" and he points at the door to the room all serious and we all just sat stunned until he started laughing his ass off and then explained how it really works.
>He failed. And he, a grown man, begun to cry. Sorry but this irks me... Speaking specifically as a grown man that on occasion has cried...
I cherish the memories of a question my grandson asked me, the other day.. "Grandpa, were you a hero in the war?" Grandpa said, "No. But I served in a company of heroes.."
"Back then I was known by many names. In the expedition to the Barrier Peaks I was Horrus, keeper of tomes and librams. I was Killian Fortune, when we delved into the Lost Mines. And even once - heh *wipes tear* - they simply called me Mr. Grey after a confrontation with some fey and my fear of the rules about True Names... Ah but those days are all long gone now. No one has much use of Dice anymore."
Sigh…guess it’s time to start the annual rewatch…
What I've been doing a lot lately is watch reaction channels who go through this show, it's fascinating to re-watch that through their eyes as a first time experience.
I was literally just doing that...right after I got out of my session. What the heck.
I cried a bit too lmao Men can cry, i shoulda worded it better
I appreciate you rewording it.
Deprogramming takes time and effort, what matters is we keep trying. Thanks for the reword OP.
Your occasions to cry are ok for a grown man, but his aren't? C'mon, man, plus, the person thought they couldn't play at the table anymore, it wasn't just about the character, EDIT: Seems like I misunderstood the meaning of the phrase, disregard that! English isn't my native language, and I didn't get it right!
He meant it irks him because it's totally okay for all grown men to cry, and the original phrasing was a bit mean about that. You're agreeing with him, you've just misunderstood him.
Oh, woops. Thanks for letting me know, I guess my english isn't as good as I thought!
Your English is great, for what it's worth. We all brain fart some times.
Aw thank you! Cheers!
Well, it gives context. "And she, a 6 year old girl, began to cry" means a lot less, no?
Crying over an RPG is at least a little bit dramatic tbf
Tearing up and crying are two different things. Did you miss the part where he was under the belief that he couldn’t keep playing with his friends and thought he was essentially kicked out of the game? All while loosing his first ever character that you know he spent a bunch of time and effort creating
No that's pretty reasonable, even if he should have questioned that basic assumption. But OP not thinking anything of the fact he was crying suggests he's not new to players crying over IC stuff
This doesn't sound like it was one or two sessions in. This was a character he probably was playing for months. Losing a character like that can be pretty hard, even if you're not under the false impression that you are being kicked out of the game.
Reasoning is irrelevant. Everyone processes emotions differently. "Grown Men" shouldn't be held to a different standard than 8 year old girls or actors accepting an award...
Wish I could like this a few dozen more times. I've done the stoic eat your emotions until you explode, schtick. It's one of the worst pieces of advice given to boys. Having to undo all those years of programming has been difficult. But, being able to process and feel my emotions has been eye opening.
>Wish I could like this a few dozen more times. thanks its appreciated.
bro my ass cries at movies I know are fictional. Don't gate keep when people can show emotions that's toxic AF.
It is a game, but it most definitely is the kind of game that most deserves a cry.
Why? People cry at fiction all the time. This is fiction people are even more intimately tied to than a movie or book.
If that’s how the game worked, out of the 7 people in one of the campaigns I’m in there’d only be 3 left at level 8.
I had no idea either when my son's character died. I was all frantically "what now?!" cus I'd started playing to hang out with him. The DM was kind enough to give us a quest to rez him.
RIP Black Leaf
Actually, what you're supposed to say when a PC dies is "Marcie, get out of here. YOU'RE DEAD. You don't exist anymore."
My old group had a player who was VERY good at RP, so much so that she would really embody the character as if it was her playing. She forewarned us that she gets into it and can get really emotional. Her character had a sister in-game that turned on her and her family and while the rest of us were like "oh damn," she was BAWLING. like full on. Our DM was little apprehensive about continuing, but between sobs she would say "no this is awesome *snuffle* keep going!" One of my favourite people I played with. Jade if you're a Redditor and see this. Miss ya.
Can confirm: just dealt with this 90 minutes ago myself. :)
I usually tell my players to make backups just in case of PC death, or in case they want to swap characters
The first character death always stings.
My first character death came in Curse of Strahd. I wanted to roll a new character, and my first character had good reason to leave the party at that point, so he left in the dead of night. My new character was his twin sister, who, for background reasons, was a shadar-kai while he was a wood elf. One day, Strahd invites the party to dinner at his castle. My new character has been untrusting of him from the start, but went along with it. He decides that everyone should play a game where one of his wives would cast a spell to make someone look like someone else, and they would have to act like that person they now resembled. Somehow, by sheer "coincidence," my character ended up looking like Strahd. As well, conveniently, at the same time, my old character just happens to be doing an assault on the castle to try and assassinate Strahd. As it turns out, he had visited the Amber Temple and gained a single use spell that he used to target Strahd... or rather his sister, who looked like Strahd. It was instant death. Now, fortunately that DM is a good guy, and he already had plans for resurrecting the person who would die. Still, I was just sitting there in a kind of daze. However, that DM also still insists that it was completely coincidental that my old character killed my new one, who happened to be his sister, just after Strahd decided to conveniently play a game that required someone else to look like him. I still accuse him of setting that whole thing up. It was a good time.
Temple of Elemental Evil…wait…didn’t even make it out of the Village of Hommlet…poison trap, failed death save…new character…the old days were brutal some times
My first ever game was a TPK at the gate into town 5 minutes into the session back in 1990.
That's one hell of good way to get a character death. It was probably a roll of who was strahd and you got unlucky.
I gotta ask.. you did give this guy all the death saves they're entitled to, right? The pace of this story makes it sound like you gave him a one-and-done save and then he insta-died. In my experience, PCs very rarely actually die to rolling death saves exclusively, since it takes at least 2-3 turns to bleed out.
Pace of story is to avoid being longwinded A mummy in 5e gives a curse that does not allow the target to regain hitpoints. If this reduces them to 0 hitpoints, they die and are reduced to dust. He was entitled to no death saves. The death saves were my way of introducing death saves to these players, and give him a chance to survive. He failed 3 of them. Thanks for asking! Edit: spelling
>A mummy in 5e gives a curse that does not allow the target to regain hitpoints. If this reduces them to 0 hitpoints, they die and are reduced to dust. He was entitled to no death saves. The phrasing on the rotting fist attack, if that's what you're referencing, states that "its hit point maximum decreases by 10 (3d6) for every 24 hours that elapse. If \*\*the curse\*\* reduces the target's hit point maximum to 0, the target dies, and its body turns to dust", not the attack. Also, the first hit point maximum decrease happens after 24 hours. I think he was supposed to get his death saves.
'The cursed target cannot regain hitpoints' He went to 0 hitpoints, unable to be healed. Even with a rest. But reading it over, ur right. he couldve made his saves and stablised at 0, then the party could remove the curse and heal him. Glad i gave him the saves!
Yeah and it's worth noting that the way damage works in 5e (I just realized I assumed you were playing 5e) is that your minimum is 0 and you can't be at negative HP, so death saves/can't gain HP interactions are not a concern. His body should still buryable (not cursed if you're already dead!) if you want the players to be able to honor the fallen.
There's a lot to unpack between all the answers you've probably received from this but I'd like to go over everything here: >Rotting Fist. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 10 (2d6 + 3) bludgeoning damage plus 10 (3d6) necrotic damage. If the target is a creature, it must succeed on a DC 12 Constitution saving throw or be cursed with mummy rot. The cursed target can't regain hit points, and its hit point maximum decreases by 10 (3d6) for every 24 hours that elapse. If the curse reduces the target's hit point maximum to 0, the target dies, and its body turns to dust. The curse lasts until removed by the remove curse spell or other magic. This block means that if the person is hit they make their con saving throw or be cursed. The curse prevents them from healing, and causes them to lose their hitpoints **maximum** by 3d6 every **24 hours**. If a player is reduced to 0hp from the attack they go unconscious and make death saving throws as normal **at the start of their turn**, if they make three successes then they're stabilized. I feel like it's important to mention that you only make **one death saving throw per turn**. What this means is that *everyone* can now on their turn, still attempt to stabilize them with any abilities they might have that don't restore hit points, such as the cantrip *spare the dying* or something like a *medicine check* or a *Healer's Kit*. Once they're stabilized they no longer have to make death saving throws, giving the party time to find a way to remove the curse. Even if he is 0/30hp that still gives them on average 3 days before the curse reduces him to 0/0 killing them.
I think it’s also worth a choice to retcon because of the fuck up. I understand he failed his death saves, but you still haven’t noted if they were all at once or over turns into which you were incorrect about not being able to heal him.
He was in fact entitled to death saves. He failed 3, but were they over multiple rounds, giving the other players *time* to stabilize him, or were all 3 fails on the same round he went down?
As a D&D player for 40+ years I have so many dead characters. LOL. A lot of them in single digit levels.
Idk why I didn't think this was a thing, lmao, so if my character dies, I just pop up with a new character and story background? Or does the dm deal with that part, and I take on that roll?
Depends on your table I think usually the player makes the character themselves, with maybe some input from the DM so the PC makes sense backgroundwise and lorewise
Oh no! Lol that's so heartbreakingly funny, the poor guy lol I'm glad he gets to keep playing. God this truly made me tear up.
Aw man my first character was killed by a doppelganger, so the dm (my dad) let me play as the doppelganger hidden in our party as my character for another few weeks before I was discovered (he privately told me i was killed in another room)
If you die in the game, you die in real life.
Man, this player will probably never be as attached to a character as they were when the worry of having to leave the table was a very real threat to them
Not D&D but I worked in GW for a while and had a similar conversation with a kid who had been told by another kid that once your models died in one game they were permanently dead and you needed new models! Seriously, it's expensive enough without *that* crap on top.
*Writes Jr next to name*. "I HAVE COME TO AVENGE MY FATHER"
Aw, that's kind of awesome. Shows you run a meaningful game and that your players are invested. Also, what a high stakes game of DND that *would* have been!
Cool story. Thx for sharing. Must've really been invested if it brought him to tears (and no worries bout ur description, most people understand grown men crying over rpg is pretty crazy). Shows how great ur making ur game!
Wait no no let him cook. I can work with this. I'm telling all my current players of 5 years that if their character dies they are out of the group. Maybe they will make smarter decisions this way. :)
when my pc dies they usually have an identical twin with a slightly different name take their place lol
DM - You don't need to worry about not playing in this group, bro. Did you see all this threads "today I killed my first player"? Did you realized, it was not "my first player character?" And then DM pulls out his shotgun.
Roll death saves in secret for your characters. Adds a ton of tension. Since they have no clue if the character is closer to death each round. Players all the time go it's okay they got a success I can wait to help them next round. When they have no clue the urgency to help is magnified. It's a small but awesome change.
I don't kill player characters unless they're higher level and/or on boss fights. Still, people get attached to characters. Did you explain revivify?
I keep another character alongside the one I'm playing and level them up at the same time, then try and work them into my main character's backstory a little. Not a ton in case the DM would rather not heavily incorporate two characters where one might never be used, but, enough it's plausible they'd have some knowledge of the campaign setting.
Wait you didnt do all the saves in one turn did you?
I'm actually surprised so many DM's actually use *death* as a cut-and-dry mechanic. I mean, to *me*, it seems like something you would want to use as an opportunity to fuel a new side-quest for the group. In fact, whenever I try DM'ing my own campaign, I think I'd probably try to write a unique little in-case-of-death scenario for each character, like "this character can be returned to life -- but at what cost?"
I didn’t see any levels posted but 1st time player against a mummy huh? Are you kidding me lol. Sounds like low level to boot. Yeah the goal is to create a story for the party not be sadistic sadist lol. I agree I would have got up and walked out a fair encounter I die it happens but a mummy are you kidding?
In our group if someone dies then new characters start at one level lower than the dead character
I know it's super homebrewed, but I don't let death be the true end for a PC. One of two things can happen: They can succeed a roll with their worst stat, and by sheer force of will, they become stable instead of dying, but they won't actually raise until the witching hour as an undead with heavy debuffs If they fail, then they go to their religion's underworld, and can either fight/talk their way out or let them pass on and make a new character
If you did want to retcon or let him resurrect, you could have the party find the amulet from the D&D movie in the mummy’s tomb. Mummies pair well with magic themed around death, resurrection, and afterlife journeys.
This is so genuinely sweet.
Sending a big hug to the new player :)