Death

[Badmojo]

Permadeath/crippled is pretty useless because people will just reload. I honestly prefer character to get knocked out, as long as one party memeber survives they will all come back. However, I can see a few interesting possiblities.

 

Being brought back by different ways.

 

Necromancer

Low level - can create a gate to the deadlands, a small dimension where you can fight weak monsters to bring the soul of your companions back. You can get loot and XP along the way.

 

High Level spell - trade a captured soul (or human sacrifice) for payment exchange of a soul of the dead. You can also try to bring them back without paying, but there is usually a consequence. For example, a random person the character have interacted with dies in the world and the characters will know, Someone else comes back to life someone (usually an enemy) possibly as a vampire/zombie, the character comes back wrong and is a vampire/zombie/ghoul/etc

 

Demonologists/cult/priest

Call up a demon/being of power/worshiped being - ask for them to be brought back, the being will do so, but you have to do something for that being at a later date. The price is usually high

 

It could make death interesting.

[teknoman2]

i think a "temple of elemental evil" style system would work with the proper variations

 

when a party member gets to 0 hp falls unconscious. then he can get up to -x hp without dying, where x is his constitution or what other similar stat they will use in the game. if the battle ends before he dies, he can be cured, but will still have a semi-permanent penalty due to injury, that can be healed either by a doctor or by the party's healer with the use of the highest level healing spell of the game (that means only at very late stages you can be "safe" from injuries).

 

if he drops to -x-1 hp, he dies and will have to be resurected, but that will require more than just casting a spell. since the magic system is based on souls, the resurection magic will require for one of the party members to send his own soul in the afterlife to retrieve the soul of the dead guy. that means a party member will have to solo brave a dungeon of increasing dificulty as the level of the deceased gets higher.

he can abbandon the attempt at any time and will have to wait a day before trying again, but if he fails he will have to be brought back along with the other guy by another party member. if the last member fails, then the game is over (of course you can save before trying the first time and load if you fail, unless they implement a no save hardcore mode and you play that). the time one can remain dead and resurectable would be as many days as his wisdom or intelligence and after that he's gone for good

[celtois]

This is an idea I've been kicking around in my latest pnp creation that I thought might be applicable here.

 

What if you place the risk of perma-death entirely on the players side. What I mean by that is the player gets to choose when he or she wants to put it on the table.

The way I would envision this system working is, when a character goes down, he or she is badly wounded, and out until one of the characters who survived the fight is able to revive him or her, however the player may force the fallen character to get up again, fighting until they can go no longer, if they take a certain amount of damage while forced to go on, they die permanently.

 

This would allow the player to keep going despite early setbacks and in challenging circumstances risk his characters lives to win an encounter. However it also mean characters don't die, unless the player is willing to risk their lives for the result her or she wishes to achieve.

[Shadenuat]

I think it would be interesing to see some ruthless enemies doing coup-de-grace move to fallen player's character/companions when he is at -X HP.

[^Rayne^]

I think it would be interesing to see some ruthless enemies doing coup-de-grace move to fallen player's character/companions when he is at -X HP.

 

While I agree with you there, I would like to have some warning that is what he's planning on doing, ie. see him doing the same thing to other fallen NPC's so you know that if one of your companions goes down you better push this guy back and try to keep your companions from getting attacked while they're down. That would make the strategic part of combat that much more interesting and increase the value of something like a "knockback" ability.

[FreezingShock]

While we definitely need to be penalized for letting our characters die, as it prevents us from just fighting battles KotOR-style and not caring what's going on as long as one person is still standing, I would very much like it if we were not penalized for it in the same way we were in Baldur's Gate. Yes, having a companion just die and not getting him or her back after the battle is definitely a suitable punishment for carelessness. But dragging all of their equipment and such back to a Temple and resurrecting them there was just a chore. It wasn't difficult, it wasn't interesting, it was just something you had to do. I found myself reloading simply because I didn't want to bother doing so. And at later levels you could just resurrect them yourself at a moments notice, which made the whole thing a bit pointless. So I'd like to see some kind of creative penalty for death which isn't just some kind of boring inconvenience.

[^Rayne^]

While we definitely need to be penalized for letting our characters die, as it prevents us from just fighting battles KotOR-style and not caring what's going on as long as one person is still standing, I would very much like it if we were not penalized for it in the same way we were in Baldur's Gate. Yes, having a companion just die and not getting him or her back after the battle is definitely a suitable punishment for carelessness. But dragging all of their equipment and such back to a Temple and resurrecting them there was just a chore. It wasn't difficult, it wasn't interesting, it was just something you had to do. I found myself reloading simply because I didn't want to bother doing so. And at later levels you could just resurrect them yourself at a moments notice, which made the whole thing a bit pointless. So I'd like to see some kind of creative penalty for death which isn't just some kind of boring inconvenience.

 

I agree with most of what you're saying as long as it doesn't lead to durability penalties to weapons. I hate that about Fallout and Skyrim. I really don't like seeing artifact weapons or armor take damage simply for being used and especially for being knocked out. If they want to add in durability they should at least give us spells and/or skills that allow us to repair the damage to our stuff with the right equipment.

[rohezal]

I like the Baldurs Gate 2 death system. And if characters die often, they should start to ask question like Minsk did in Baldurs Gate 2.

[Alweth]

If there is resurrection in the game at all, it should be an extremely rare, expensive, and difficult thing that only comes up as a plot point. There should be knock outs which can be easily remedied outside of combat (but maybe grant injuries), and death, which is harder to achieve. If a party member dies, it's game over. Or you could give the player a game over screen with the question, "Do you want to continue? So-and-So is permanently dead, and the game will probably be substantially harder for the near future or even the rest of the game."

 

The player should not be forced/allowed to run out to an inn or doctor to get injuries treated half-way through a dungeon without there being any consequences.

[Badmojo]

Like was mentioned, permenant death and crippling characters doesn't achieve anyting except having people reload. Few people will keep playing if they have to lug a body back to a temple/doctor, or reserection is too expensive/difficult, or some other thing.

[entrerix]

well if the game is all about souls, i could see the main character being immortal, like the nameless one, and capable of resurrecting his own companions. or maybe his companions are all immortals too and they are trying to discover the source of their immortality? the villain could be another group of immortals, a dark mirror of your own group seeking the same source?

[Treantsin]

I'd enjoy a run through hell to get back to my body, if such a thing is possible.

After a point, and up to one as well, come to think of it.

 

Something to make quicksaving pointless, save for replays.

[Sylvius the Mad]

BioWare was right when they said that the availability ot resurrection should have wide-reaching social effects. This is the justification they offered for why Dragon Age didn't have any resurrection magic in it, and that was a good decision.

 

But that is not a good reason to abandon perma-death. Death can be made less-likely through an extensive injury system, but if someone is dead (and what constitutes death should be well established by the combat mechanics) then he should be dead.

 

I'd also like to see the possibility of the PC dying and the party carrying on without him. No one character should be more important than the group in a party-based game.

Edited September 17, 2012 by Sylvius the Mad

[Tauron]

Ideally, a Storm of Zehir-like death (agony when at 0 HPs, if not healed, death). And no Resurrection spell at all. At all. Magics like that completely break the setting. After all, if you can get revived for a thousand gold pieces, everyone that isn't a poor beggar should be essentially immortal (until death of old age) - but somehow that doesn't affect the world at all. See Baldur's Gates. How many times an important persona died permanently? Where were those spells then?

 

I could agree to Resurrection if the world was created in a way that reacted to this. But it's pointless to shape it according to a little gimmick.

 

I like your arguments and some others. Death may seem cheap this way, if you are rich that is.

 

But I still perfer permadeath. It just adds to tension in combat and I acually care for characters even if I dont like particular companion, I need his/her skills. Even if I had saved game i was hesitatnt and carefull entering new areas. In DAO I basically rushed in most of time and no post combat experience was issue as opposed to BG early on gameplay If I spot goul or ghast I do my best to avoid combat if I cant take him from distance. Early on desease, poison and paralasis was quite an issue.

 

If you remove death with injury, than you cheapen the injury in similiar manner. Who cares if my arm is broken, just sprinkle some "remove heavy injury" and ready to go again.

 

Maybe you loose influence points with your companions if they get too many near death expiriences while you dont. Maybe both you and they can get some negative traits, flaws that reflect on 'permanent' attributes, abilities, skills etc. There need be some compromise.

[teknoman2]

the resurection method i described last page, is based on souls as the magic system of the game. resurrection should not be a widespread practice but a thing that can only be performed by people with extremely strong spiritual power and only on people with similar power.

[descalabro]

I think death rules should be kept as they were on Baldur's Gate 2, but the cost of resurrection should be raised.

[Suen]

As much as I appreciate the idea of in theory, I hate it when I'm playing.

So no perma-dead for me, and I'm favorable to auto res at the end of a fight.

Everything to avoid the tedious save, weak companion dies in 1 sec, reload, repeat the boring fight with the cobolds 10 times.

I welcome instead penalties, decreased abilities, and injuries getting worse if you don't find a doctor.

[Terror K]

To be perfectly honest and blunt, I think perma-death for you and your companions is one of those factors that should be left in the past. I do think there should be penalties for a character going down, but if whenever a companion dies I either reload anyway or have to just waste time and effort carting their remains to someplace to get resurrected, I don't see the point. It just becomes an annoyance and inconvenience.

 

I'm all for a strong RPG that has depth and tactics, but this is just one of those few things I think the more modern RPG has actually improved. Failure when your entirely party is down should equal death of course and equal failure, but I think merely dropping to unconscious or disabled is the better route personally. Either that or make death mean more than just "health = 0" and that's it. After all, in most P&P RPGs it takes more than that. You usually have to drop down a certain amount beneath 0 on the "killing" blow or have a certain damage threshold beaten, etc. for character death. If an enemy does a critical when you're incredibly low on health, then perhaps fine, but overall I just thought most of these old games were too punishing in the death department. Especially when there are so many ways to die in those games, and all it can take sometimes is wandering into one area unprepared where you suddenly come across a very strong monster with nasty abilities after just dealing with one-hit-kill plebeians prior to that.

[Pidesco]

The amount of people who are against losing in games aggravate me greatly. When punishment for being bad at playing a game is as light as in many recent RPGs, enjoyment is always curtailed. Victory should be hard to achieve otherwise it's meaningless.

[Amentep]

Maybe you loose influence points with your companions if they get too many near death expiriences while you dont. Maybe both you and they can get some negative traits, flaws that reflect on 'permanent' attributes, abilities, skills etc. There need be some compromise.

 

I've sometimes wondered playing games why some of my companions would stick with me when they died so often (well at least until I got the ropes of the game down...well sometimes, strategy's never been a strong point for me ).

[Terror K]

The amount of people who are against losing in games aggravate me greatly. When punishment for being bad at playing a game is as light as in many recent RPGs, enjoyment is always curtailed. Victory should be hard to achieve otherwise it's meaningless.

 

Well... I personally play RPGs more for the story, characters, choices and dialogue than I do for the combat, so I admit that I'm biased in that regard. That said, I like a challenge, and good tactical combat that rewards for playing well and punishes for playing poorly. I just happen to think that death was too often and easy an outcome during the likes of BG and IWD and didn't always come from poor playing, because sometimes you didn't know what you were getting involved in until it was already too late. There's punishing and then there's just being frustrating, annoying and tedious due to things being grossly unfair or merely too punishing. And then the game makes you just jump through too many hoops and have to do a lot of things just to get back to normal, which becomes a chore. In cases like that, it's not like you're generally failing or losing anyway, you're just going through tedious, repetitive motions to succeed that, IMO, ruin the enjoyment of the game.

 

I play games to have fun, not to repeatedly be lugging my friends' corpses to temples to keep resurrecting them. I'm generally against the dumbing down of the RPG genre lately, but some factors deserve to go. Not every aspect of the classic isometric RPGs like BG, IWD, Fallout 1 & 2 and PS:T were good ones, and I'm of the belief that the way player and companion death was generally handled was one of these. I certainly don't think it should be handled in the "simply get up and everything is fine" manner most modern games use, but nor should it be as punishing as the classic titles either.

Edited September 19, 2012 by Terror K

[Pidesco]

Well... I personally play RPGs more for the story, characters, choices and dialogue than I do for the combat, so I admit that I'm biased in that regard. That said, I like a challenge, and good tactical combat that rewards for playing well and punishes for playing poorly. I just happen to think that death was too often and easy an outcome during the likes of BG and IWD and didn't always come from poor playing, because sometimes you didn't know what you were getting involved in until it was already too late.

 

That's down to poor systems/encounter design rather than problems with death mechanics. If an encounter is well designed, death is always deserved.

[LordCrash]

I like the Baldurs Gate 2 death system. And if characters die often, they should start to ask question like Minsk did in Baldurs Gate 2.

I also like the BG 2 system because companions could die perminently (when turned to stone and the stoned get smashed or when imprisoned in the ground) and you need high level spells or items for resurrecting fallen companions. It's much too casual if companions only get knocked down until the fight is over, that's not how a "classic" CRPG should be. For sure, you can avoid permanent death in BG 2 by reloading the level but that is part of the gaming experience: reloading and changing tactics, attacks, spells, formations, timing etc. until the whole team survives a fight. That was quite a satisfying experience in BG 2 if you managend to smash Kangaxx or Firkraag without loosing companions.

[Amentep]

I liked the bit in the IE games - usually very early - when archers off screen could kill your entire party before you could react to the fact that there was a group of archers there killing you.

[Starwars]

I thought the Storm of Zehir system worked pretty well. I wouldn't mind something akin to that.

 

What I would generally like to avoid is if a knocked out party has one survivor at the end of a fight, and everyone magically gets up and regens to full health again because... hey, we won the fight! If you barely survive a tough fight, then it should be felt.