Suggestions: death and bleeding system

[Ithildur]

Just started playing yesterday, and overall as I've told a few staff people I'm very very impressed by the areas in the server and many of the features, and also have found some very good RP focused players balanced with challenging and interesting combat areas (especially kudos to the trapped and locked chests that require a rogue; any PW that encourages skill/finess PCs is doing something right imo). Add to that the impressive website and the things I'm reading are in the works for the server and I am really looking forward to what this server can become.

I did find some players running around talking ooc and having no interest in anything but grinding/killing mobs as well, but especially today I found some really good RP going on and had a blast.

One thing that is the most glaring area though that I'd like to make a suggestion on:

I'm finding the lack of/lightness of death penalty to be disruptive to the immersion/RP on the server. Now I tend to view death as being a rather big deal on RP servers and have played on so called permadeath servers and found that the seriousness of death there brings a new level of RP intensity and slows down grinding... I understand that's not the approach this server's going to take, but I'd still recommend a couple of things:

One: the bleeding script is a great idea and very well suited to a RP oriented server and encourages partying up. However it's nearly useless if mobs keep attacking you while you're down at 0 or less HP. Within one or two rounds you're dead anyway and no one will have a legitimate chance to revive the person. This I'm guessing is not the way it's intended to work and I'd recommend it be fixed.

Two, if you have a bleeding script system in place, that tells me that someone does take death seriously and is presenting a 'buffer/cushion' before actually dying by giving a fallen PC a chance to be revived... except that it doesn't really make that much sense if once you do bleed to death there is hardly any consequence to it at all. Why bother giving a chance to be revived when it might actually be less painful to die anyway and get revived with full HP, no disability, and little penalty anyway, as opposed to being revived in a dangerous area and possibly require costly spells/heal kits/potions to return to full strength?

The worst thing about death currently was amply demostrated by the PC who's been goin around stealing from everyone and ninja looting, until half the server population got sick of them and now this PC gets killed almost on sight or as soon as they try and steal something... the PC dies, respawns, and within two minutes they're at it again... and people are going, 'wait, didn't that person just die???'

Part of this might be the player's atrocious RP ettiquete/protocol handling death, but part of it is the death system; if you die, find yourself in town at the temple with full HP and completely good health, maybe your PC doesn't know exactly what happened, but they can say 'hey, I feel great, even better than I did halfway through that last level when I was badly wounded. Let's jump back out there right away'... completely ruining immersion for everyone that's involved/saw the PC die, just as much as someone walking around talking ooc or PKing without reason imo.


The lack of any serious penalty/disability means people can grind away without fear; take away fear and danger also translates into take away a huge element of good RP and good storytelling. This combined with being able to rest and heal up/regain spells at any given moment makes non stop grinding not only plausable but actually ridiculously easy to do.

[Paerin]

I don't know about you but losing 300+ exp at level 5 is a pretty hard hit. It took me at least an hour to get that.

[Ichbin]

yeah, Im happy with what it is. Besides, I think you'll be singing a different tune when you cant seem to run away from that god speed goblin in the hills

[qwerty06]

I love the system, *has died one too many times*. It makes you fear dying and in my case forces you to group with someone to acheive the desired result i.e kill a few goblins in my case.

That just adds to my individual roleplaying experience thus far.

[undeadsteak]

perma death for ^_^. Yes, i hate how people die and dont have a reason how they got ressurcted, perma death always makes it simpler. Some of the perma deaths only offer Clerical Ressurction, and you have to stay in the fungue plane until somone decides to find your soul and ressurct it, paying a heavy amount of gold as well.

[GodBeastX]

I'm not against a harsher punishment on death. However, I am against punishing people for PVP death, I'll explain why.

I already believe some players are trigger happy. They give a reason for PVP like "I don't like X" however, I'm only letting that slide right now because I can't worry too hard about it since other people need more serious attention. If a level 18 kills a level 9, why should I lose experience, why should they gain experience.

I'm also upset at how fast people are clicking the respawn button. I'm tempted to make the respawn button take five minutes to appear. Nothing more annoying than in a DM event where people are deep into RP, something happens that kills player X and player X respawns. Poof! The reason I'm reluctant to make the respawn button take five minutes is I was looking to reward people who die and actually remain in their dead state for a time. I especially reward people who RP out the brushes with death and take it seriously. I could probably reset people's levels or put harsh punishments on people who die and this is what would change.

Instead of IC fear of death there would be this in party chat "Shit! Anyone got a scroll? Go run and get a cleric, I saw Abigale in POrt Avanthyr!" And players would scatter to go revive the guy without anymore RP than they had. Or the person would revive and then throw a shit storm on the forums in opposite of threads like these.

One thing that I might implement is a tool that disables respawn for some people. Even after server restart. I click them before or while they're dead... "Hey where's my death screen?" Sitting dead in the dungeon alone for a few hours... hmmm...

Anyway, death will be discussed by the staff.

[Elka]

Instead of IC fear of death there would be this in party chat "Shit! Anyone got a scroll? Go run and get a cleric, I saw Abigale in POrt Avanthyr!" And players would scatter to go revive the guy without anymore RP than they had. Or the person would revive and then throw a shit storm on the forums in opposite of threads like these.

.

Very true.

Which is one of the reasons I dont support punishment that is too harsh for death.

Yes there is a need to make respawning carry a price, but you also have to balance it to the point where it's not going to make players so scared of it that they break RP in their attempts to avoid it, and also very harsh death penalty systems tend to scare alot of players away sometimes as well.

My lvl 2 character died yesterday and lost 200xp, now for a lvl 2 character and on a Role Play server that is quite a big deal.

If people feel there is a need for a little more sting to be added, perhaps as well the xp penalty there could be an after death 'sickness' system used, where if someone respawns, for the next 5 minutes their stats are temporarily lowered. Then after the time has passed the sickness wears off.

[marmic]

Why not the old 50xp/lvl?

[Ithildur]

The thing is, if you're dying that much, I have to ask what you're doing for that to happen. If you spend a good portion of time logged on RPing and hunting in parties, it should not be that deadly or else caombat would be off balance wise; I've died once in the past 3 days and I'm not saying that to brag, just can't understand why people are dying that much unless they're being careless/running around with solo wizards and/or grinding... my pc has a grand total of 23 hp and AC ranges from 12 to 18 and his BAB is 2!

I'd say rez via a cleric PC should be a very viable option as long as people RP it; rez scrolls should not be that common unless a cleric has the scribe scroll feat and even then he should not destribute them to just anyone imo.

[Ithildur]

Some additional thoughts: I don't watch Southpark, but I do know there's a character named Kenny on the show that's known for dying once every episode. It's a running gag supposedly that's funny because it's so ridiculous that he dies so often and always comes back to life.

Now that's funny as a gag in a cartoon; unless death is the one element of a PW that's supposed to be tongue in cheek, it doesn't strike me as funny but rather immersion breaking when people are running around 'playing Kenny' on a RP server. This is the reason why I have a hard time with lite penalty death respawns, not just because I like to make people not have fun.

On another server I played regularly you lost 10% of xp and all gold (no items however) and respawned with penalties that made it impossible to return to combat for 8 ingame hours, like spell failure, severely reduced stats and movement (16 RL minutes, not very long at all for a PW where you could take a break or log in with an alt PC) which made people slow down, stop and think a bit, and didn't allow them to jump right back into combat. I still felt that was a rather light penalty for a supposed RP server, as some people still ran around carelessly and died and respawed multiple times; it's one of the reasons I don't play there as much anymore - it got to a point where some people don't really care if their PC died because it was such a non event, not to mention the hated RP/dancing around the fact that yet another 'divine intervention' took place where a PC was miraculously returned to this plane of existance while other PCs hemmed and hawed and pretended to be amazed by that happening for the 4th time that day.

That's fine on an action oriented server, (I came to realize that server btw was effectively more an action/Faction vs Faction/RP server than a RP server) but it's really not a good fit for RP oriented servers-it's like all other elements are RP oriented except when it comes to one of the most important elements, death.

[Ethereal Edge]

Hm... a thought... not all player-versus-player is, "I hate that guy! He should die!" I think the lack of penalty for player-versus-player will make a lot of people jumpy to go into the fray and start hacking up each other because the only thing on the line is pride. Also, it means for me playing Dan as a guard killing someone means absolutely nothing if extreme force is needed. Eh, just an observation.

[Tlantl]

Here's an idea. You die, you wait one real hour to respawn, you lose 1/2 a level in experience points, and a point of constitution. You can only die as many times as your innitial constitution score. If a party member raises you befor the hour is up that's fine. This way death is something to avoid. you get in trouble you need to run. This would give players a reason to think out their adventures, find others to help, and make jerks running around griefing stop.

I know this is really harsh and I expect the flames, but a wimpy solution to the situation is a waste of time.

[GodBeastX]

For PVP, I am half tempted to deduct 200 exp from the killer instead of the victim. Then we know the killer had a good reason for attacking

[GodBeastX]

Alright, honestly, while you all make valid points about death, what you are suggesting is not going to fix the problem. The problem being that people aren't RP'ing death. You're not making people RP death any better by putting huge losses. I don't like the idea that the server has to turn into a mario brothers with extra lives based on constitution because some ninny thinks death is alright.

If this was pen and paper I'd be fine with harsh things like that because I can guide each round of play, but I know I'd be really upset if I lost half a level of exp because I crashed in Obsidian's mesh of bugs and logged in dead. I would also hate to be punished with huge losses when I RP top notch and really fear death as a character.

I think DM's punishing people for neglectful dying and respawning is alot more balanced. If people don't fear death and pull the "I died, but I'll be RIGHT back", then they'll at least fear me, that's my motto.

[Ethereal Edge]

My views on this:

1) Yes, death is made petty by people who simply don't care to roleplay it. Worse yet, this is the same situation as the powergamers. There'll always be people who just 'get up' after being stomped to death by a dragon and go to kill it again, or someone who gets slaughtered by goblins and simply gets into a party to exact revenge without even making note that they needed to click the respawn button. Either harsh penalties need to be there so that they fear death for their powergamer reasons or they need to be punished for an apathy about death. I think there needs to be less fear for punishing roleplay like that. And don't forget in real Dungeons and Dragons death either is permanent or means an entire character level. The current system is rather kind.

2) I think you're a little phobic of player-versus-player, GodBeast. Eh, I just say because the server seems to be slowly developing factions. Factions clash, and if there's no reason to actually fight other than to send someone to the Helmite temple this is going to feel very plastic at times. I don't say this because I want to go around and be able to kill everything as Dan; rather, I like also feeling that there's some sort of danger when I actually have to fight a PC, just like fighting any monster. If a level 18 slaughters a level 9 then the active dungeon master on at the time can find out if it was really justified or end up punishing the level 18, else there can be a script that works off of difference in levels that prevents XP loss. Either way, part of my concern with player-versus-player is related to how badly death is roleplayed as well. Perhaps if that issue is fixed, not having penalties will be more acceptable in my eyes.