From Dying to Death: why -10 hp?

[Lothoir]

Rather than die when a character reaches -10 hit points as is it is now I'd like to suggest a very minor tweak from Pathfinder.

A character dies when their negative hit points becomes equal to their Constitution score.

A 20 Con Dwarven Defender would still be knocked unconscious and begin bleeding out at 0 hit points but would not die until reaching -20 hp. Conversely, the 8 Con wizard goes down at 0 and is gone at -8 hp.

[Kaeldorn]

Might be helpful to last a little bit longer.. up to about level 10.

I personally favour more scaling with levels, like SoZ did.

[Raksha]

Even 'equal to CON' is a tiny amount when monsters hit for fifty and stat-boosting doesn't happen very much.

Negative half, as SoZ showed, seems like a much better alternative. Especially when monsters don't turn from a person who is down, and just keep beating on them, which has happened several times that I've witnessed. ^_^

[Dragor]

it wouldnt be as severe a problem is when you fell over 'dying' the critters stopped hitting you as they are supposed to

[Root]

I wonder if it could be made that when you got hit to 0hp or lower, you got affected with one round of Etherealness equivalent to the spell. Since NPC's couldn't target you for that round, they'd find another.

Then after the first round it's dispelled (using something like the Doomguide's affect).

[Doubtful]

The death and dying system as it stands, and its future, is being discussed behind the scenes.

Don't worry, it's being looked at

[Pllow]

Since this is a thread about death is the xp penalty being looked at? It's so unfairly high at the moment I find. Mobs around my level give minimal xp, the quests are only good for one shot and I have to spend all my gold on potions just to stay alive (which I burn through fast because of the attack of opportunity negating them half the time,) yet if I lag once or someone comes along and spawns more than I can handle I lose a third of a level for ressing, seems completely disproportionate. I mean it's been hell for me to level up to 5 even playing it ultra conservative and safely because if I die once I lose 2-3 hours work easy. Grouping doesn't really help because one run in a dungeon is nowhere near enough to level and cuts your xp and gold too.

I.e. last time I died was because someone came into the dungeon behind me which triggered a spawn I'd already dealt with, now I have to fight two lots and died. Ok that was bad luck, but losing a third of a level and now having to kill 100/200 mobs just to get my xp -back- seems -way- too harsh for such low levels imo considering all that fighting carries the risk of losing even more xp and there's no way I can afford better gear since you have to buy supplies and also lose gold when you die. I find that it's more the problem with the xp penalty just piling on itself, there's no aid if you die twice in a short time, and I can't help but feel that 90% of the time I'm not working toward my next level instead I'm working off a penalty because of one lucky crit then mobs kept hitting my corpse, or some lag, or some other frustrating reason (it's not as if I'm trying dungeons that aren't recommended for my level here either.)

This is only my experience of the early game, but it has been an absolute nightmare solely because of the death penalty being so harsh compared to the xp you are given for fighting mobs that are challenging.

[Saulus]

No this is not an opportunity to discuss the XP deduction from death. If we intended to make it easy to level up there wouldn't be an XP cap and monsters would hand out hundreds of XP each.

If you haven't read it I recommend reading coming mechanic changes under general discussion.

[Kaeldorn]

Grouping doesn't really help because one run in a dungeon is nowhere near enough to level and cuts your xp and gold too.

This is not true. In fact, you get more xp per kill if you group with 3-5 people, and you kill faster as well. You only get less xp if you group up with characters that are higher level than you.

XP penalties are also much less harsh if you get resurrected by someone else (PC or NPC). An NPC resurrection (which is available to anyone) costs 800 gold. Of course, someone needs to bring your corpse to a priest.. so grouping up helps.

[Pllow]

Alright, I guess it evens out more at higher levels I was just having a lot of trouble with death setting me back so much in the earlier levels because it took so long to recover from one death. Thanks for the answer!

[Root]

This is not true. In fact, you get more xp per kill if you group with 3-5 people, and you kill faster as well. You only get less xp if you group up with characters that are higher level than you.

XP penalties are also much less harsh if you get resurrected by someone else (PC or NPC). An NPC resurrection (which is available to anyone) costs 800 gold. Of course, someone needs to bring your corpse to a priest.. so grouping up helps.

There is, however, this small issue with grouping:

[Thief Of Navarre]

This is not true. In fact, you get more xp per kill if you group with 3-5 people, and you kill faster as well. You only get less xp if you group up with characters that are higher level than you.

XP penalties are also much less harsh if you get resurrected by someone else (PC or NPC). An NPC resurrection (which is available to anyone) costs 800 gold. Of course, someone needs to bring your corpse to a priest.. so grouping up helps.

Yeah, you get a grouping xp bonus with parties up to five people in NWN2 dont you? At least thats the party size I try to aim for. (like the campaigns usually have)