Loosing items on death

[Thief Of Navarre]

Lol, nice bit of topic digging!

I lost my Composite +3 longbow despite having over 5k gold on hand, Why does the death system take 5k worth of item as WELL as 5k worth of gold is what Im wondering..

If Peligir loosing his rapier; The Hand of Etria.. he is going to be really pissed, expect an alignement change and possible banning

[joker]

There was another thread about this. It stated something about only losing items that are sold in stores. So, if you have something made and enchanted, it should be safe. Not quite sure.

[Thief Of Navarre]

If that is so; that is fine by me! Dont mind losing even extensive items as long as its not unique ones

[Product of Void]

Very true.

[Kaeldorn]

Keep in mind that most crafted items are still standard material that can be bought in stores. Enchanting does not change the way an item is identified by scripts. They aren't in any way unique unless they are made by a DM, or custom created for the server. Your best bet is to just travel in groups and have the survivor (usually some sissy rogue stealthing/invising out) resurrect you. Or not die at all

[Phantom Lamb]

Joe Smith goes out to kill some Cartel on the mountain. Why? They're bad guys, and he'll learn to fight better. Might get some gold from them. Help out the city. You know...

Joe gets jumped by more than he can handle. Joe dies.

The Cartel stand around the vigilante, who is laden with gold and magical gear. They decide to:

a) Leave the corpse alone. He might be trapped!
b) Steal everything he has of value, then ditch him where no one could find and ressurrect the body. They don't want him coming back.
c) Take a few things, then bail. By luck, the god returns Joe to life in a safe location, still holding everything that wasn't taken.

What's the most realistic situation? B.
You're lucky you get anything on ressurrection

Seriously, it's not going to change, and this is a dead horse. Even unique items are subject to loss.

[Verrath]

Best way to avoid it is not to die

[Mattachine]

Why do CRPG players look at death this way?

In my PnP games, this sort of thing is a non-issue. If you die, then, well, there are consequences. Losing items might be part of those consequences, and, more importantly, that is part of the game.

In a CRPG, many folks view PC advancement, wealth, and item acquisition as a sort of work, and losing an item means, "losing all the work that went into it". I must say, I feel that way, too.

Why is it that losses in CRPG come to be viewed as a loss of work or loss of investment, whereas those same losses are more likely to be looked at as another part of the story in PnP?

[Phantom Lamb]

Excellent way of phrasing it Matta.

I think many of us strove for a PnP feel when we first heard about NWN1. We were excited the game would allow us to recreate our stories with excellent visuals and automated die rolls. It never translated perfectly, and instead, RP servers are left somewhere between a campaign feel and MMO.

I think MMO's have tainted how we view our characters. We want to play one single dude and make him as powerful, rich, and pimped out as possible. If he dies, we know it will have minimal impact.

I think the primary cause is the amount of DM time you see. In a PnP campaign, you always have a DM. We're always special, involved, and doing something... even if we wind up losing, we're still participating. In NWN, you don't always have a DM. There is "downtime," so to speak. When your character has been weakened, you notice it in the downtime the most.

It's hard to change players' expectations without also increasing how often they see a DM. Increasing DM's quickly generally leads to a decrease in DM quality... blah blah blah. I think we're just stuck with the middleground.

Regardless, in THIS DM's opinion, players should be happy that they don't lose everything when they die, or that they can come back to life at all. There are many other options we have on the grey scale, and I think the current system is fair for strict roleplayers and those who enjoy playing one, powerful dude.

[Product of Void]

Umm.. just a few points.

1. I like a little realism with my Big overflowing bowel of fantasy.
2. NWN is not PNP never will be its a different beast.

Realistically how many folks would ever adventure? 1-2 in thousands? Most of us would be farmers, or merchants. And that would make this the sims.

Realistically the Vertias, Cartel, goblins, orcs, and every other creature would either all be dead by now or all adventures dead by them by now. As often as they are sacked and killed they would all be using wooden spears, with loin clothes.

We play games
1. TO relax
2. TO get away from reality

I doubt death penalities will change, And I am not seeking them to change. (would like it :P).

Just understand that if a player spends a month aquiring gold, gems and hires a crafter to make something special. Then while having fun during a time of few folk hunting you perish and loose it. The player might feel a bit urked.

Maybe it could be changed that the creatures that robbed them keep the item so adventures could retrieve it. That has some realism to it.

[Phantom Lamb]

I can appreciate the frustration, but it won't change. Players should change expectations for our server. There are other servers that are more / less severe.

We don't spell out our death penalties explicitly, because we don't want people to toe the line. Just understand they exist on our server and that won't go away, no matter how much time you put into acquiring something.

[Fezzik]

Honestly, the biggest problem with loosing items is at lower level.... then something happens, you start to get terrified of dieing for a whole new reason. Once you get over the little hump in the middle, if you die, you have the potential of loosing a level's worth of experience. I would rather have most of my magic items be swallowed up at that point than loose all that time invested in experience personally, but that is just my humble (and terrified) opinion.

[Phantom Lamb]

I've lost my ability to lock threads for now. While everyone is welcome to vent to a certain extent, we won't be changing the system. We at Sundren like system, and it's staying.