Death timer (3 mins) on Non-pvp kills as well?

[Dark presence]

I don't really like the idea of this. The problem is mostly with the mechanics of the game. As someone else said, it is completely impossible to retreat if you get in over your head. Monsters pursue you persistantly. Goblins will chase you from near their cave right into the camp with 5 guards ready to jump them. Thats suicidal and nonsensical. Of course anyone running from a goblin that far won't make it anyways, because the goblin will constantly be getting AoOs on that person.
Then theres the separate issue of how to heal bleeding people. Its really a pain in the butt with healing spells completely unusable, and I have trouble even getting healer kits to work. Everyone I try to heal ends up bleeding to death because of that.
And no matter what you do, you can't protect the lower HP party members, unless you kill the monster first. If the monster goes after them, there isn't much they can do about it.

So the point is, people die far too often based on mechanics issues, and AI nonsense. Unless theres a DM, theres no way to use non-combat skills to overcome an encounter. There are also no PC clerics I know of that can raise the dead.
Telling people just to lay there for 3 minutes doesn't make any sense to me because of all that. If theres a DM quest going on and they respawn, well thats their problem. But if its not apparent theres a DM nearby, and theres no way to raise them, why should they wait? Waiting doesn't make a good RPer or a bad one. It doesn't change the fact that they have to respawn anyways.

[Ithildur]

I don't really like the idea of this. The problem is mostly with the mechanics of the game. As someone else said, it is completely impossible to retreat if you get in over your head. Monsters pursue you persistantly. Goblins will chase you from near their cave right into the camp with 5 guards ready to jump them. Thats suicidal and nonsensical. Of course anyone running from a goblin that far won't make it anyways, because the goblin will constantly be getting AoOs on that person.
Then theres the separate issue of how to heal bleeding people. Its really a pain in the butt with healing spells completely unusable, and I have trouble even getting healer kits to work. Everyone I try to heal ends up bleeding to death because of that.
And no matter what you do, you can't protect the lower HP party members, unless you kill the monster first. If the monster goes after them, there isn't much they can do about it.

So the point is, people die far too often based on mechanics issues, and AI nonsense. Unless theres a DM, theres no way to use non-combat skills to overcome an encounter. There are also no PC clerics I know of that can raise the dead.
Telling people just to lay there for 3 minutes doesn't make any sense to me because of all that. If theres a DM quest going on and they respawn, well thats their problem. But if its not apparent theres a DM nearby, and theres no way to raise them, why should they wait? Waiting doesn't make a good RPer or a bad one. It doesn't change the fact that they have to respawn anyways.

I'm not sure why you'd be having such a hard time with all these things.

Retreating is hard, but it's supposed to be a risky proposition to turn your back and run away from fairly quick monsters, especially if you're heavily armored. If you're running a lot from the monsters in Sundren, I wonder if you're really not grasping certain aspects of the game; the goblins and gnolls here are not that tough, honestly... unless you're trying to solo everything, with a low lvl wizard, for example.

AOOs btw, if you have a nimble PC with tumble ranks, aren't as bad.

Healing spells not working is a known issue which for some reason seems to have gotten overlooked with all the pile of other things GBX has on his plate I'm sure. But using a heal kit to revive someone is simple if you have kits hotkeyed; I don't understand what's so hard about it.

Protecting lower HP party members... try having the melee/beefier types in the party draw the attention of the enemy first, before the low HP people start to cast damage spells on them and draw their aggro. Smart wizards won't cast MM at a mob unless it's already engaged and likely that the MM plus one hit will finish it off. There are disabling spells that are often far more effective than dmg spells, and don't draw aggro. It's not foolproof but it will make a big difference, and it's combat, sometimes if you're not careful the mobs will see a caster and attack them; maybe the stupid AI isn't totally stupid after all. If people aren't able to grasp basic concepts like this, well... sorry, I don't think we should make the mod easier just because people can't grasp stuff like that.

Honestly, I don't understand why people think survival is so difficult here. If people expect to charge into 5 goblins including a defender and a banite alone repeatedly with alvl 3 and kill everything in sight, well... I'd recommend that you try something different... a different kind of PC, a different tactic, different party, maybe a different game for a few minutes? Not trying to be rude, but just genuinely puzzled why all those things you listed are so hard for you.

[Zoberraz]

Maia's tactic for surviving at low level (and this could work with anyone with decent stealth skills working on his own) was to stealth and walk in a room with opponents. One or two would eventually come to notice her and grow hostile while the others would just stand still.

I would retreat away, enduring the swings down in my back and pull away from the main group. Once properly positioned, dealing with two goblins instead of 5 or 6 opponents proved much easier.

Having the animal companion introduced another variant to this idea which had me hide and go in the room with the badger tailing me. The enemies would immediately fall on him, which gave me the opportunity to attack them without myself being in personal danger. If all goes well, the animal companion soaks up the damage and survives until the end of the battle. If the animal companion seems near death, unsummoning him makes it so that it can be resummoned 20 seconds later with full HP (instead of being forced to rest to acquire access to the companion again).

Also, bear in mind that dual wielding at low levels might not be such a good idea due to the -2 to attack the dual-wielder gets. It's also generally better to have your offhand weapon be smaller than your main weapon (ex.: warhammer/mace, longsword/shortsword, battleaxe/handaxe). Fighting with two longswords/scimitar will result in a hefty -4 penalty to each hand... which is NOT GOOD(TM).

For classes unable to access weapon specialization, but wanting to do more damage in melee, the feat exotic weapon proficiency gives access to two of the best one-handed weapons in the game: the katana and the bastard sword (identical statistically, different appearance). Doing 1d10 might not be as good as a weapon specialist fighter doing 1d8+2, but you still rack up a bit more damage than you would with one-handed martial weapons.