A less frustrating deathsystem?

[Big Orc Man]

Death should be horrendous.

Survival should be difficult.

Pain should be legendary.

[FanaticusIncendi]

Death should be horrendous.

Survival should be difficult.

Pain should be legendary.

SO SHALL IT BE WRITTEN. SO SHALL IT BE DONE.

[Cerberus]

Death should be horrendous.

Survival should be difficult.

Pain should be legendary.

So what you're saying is each and EVERY time we find ourselves in the fugue we should RP that we died?

[Howlando]

I got bored of this discussion several years ago, but no when you respawn it's not some incredible miracle that you've come back to life. It's definitely more appropriate to RP it as being knocked into unconsciousness. Losing abilities, losing levels, losing XP is generally a necessary OOC mechanic that is essential to make accomplishment meaningful in EFU.

As for Cerberus' concerns about how to RP "losing abilities," some reference to being injured or their spellbook being damaged is surely sufficient, if not even necessary. Our characters don't live in a strictly rational world, there are lots of things like server crashes/resets/etc. that can be easily RP'ed around. Just use your head.

I don't see a truly decent alternative to the death system, at any rate.

[Cerberus]

Though I don't understand the logic of forgetting things by being knocked out, the XP loss system doesn't really faze me actually. As my signature states, we all play by that rule so it's fine with me. I simply offered an alternative to the OP with my first post and questioned the statement of death being painful made by a DM in my second...

Another alternative to the OP is to not get fugued and then you don't have to worry about it. I measure my PC's worth by how often and how they were fugued to decide if they are a failed build. I perma them after only a few legit visits to the fugue not counting crashes and transitioning into full blown Orc invasions, etc...

[Jayde Moon]

Cerberus, don't box it in to a single thing:

"Oh, I got knocked out, I forgot how to called shot people in the arm."

That is, of course, ridiculous and certainly makes little sense.

But we're an RP community of fantasy enthusiasts.  You'd think we might be able to get a bit creative with how we define various meta-realities into our RP (without resorting to an utterly cheesy explanation).

"Yes, I know this particular maneuver, but in my battles with the H'balan forces yesterday, I suffered an injury to my shoulder.  Until it heals, I cannot extend my arm in the manner that allows me to perform the maneuver that will disarm my opponent."

That's a single, simple example.

Clerics may have their faith somewhat 'shaken' after suffering a defeat, thus not being able to call on their divine abilities with the same zeal as they were before until they have regained that confidence.

Mages suffer from damaged spellbooks or a minor concussion not allowing them to focus as hard in their studies to memorize their full spell complement.

ETC ETC ETC.

[NecroDude]

lol im annoyed by the fact i was sixth lvl and got owned by failing two experiments and lost two levels this is brutal for only failing alchemy

[Thani]

Well, on my martial character I can explain it as getting brutally beat up and needing time to recover properly. On my wizard... uhm, dog ate a part of my spellbook? Either way I find that when I die I spend more time trying to recover what I lost rather than actually focusing on RP.

[Aethereal]

lol im annoyed by the fact i was sixth lvl and got owned by failing two experiments and lost two levels this is brutal for only failing alchemy

"I am an Alchemist, I do not fear death." - Quote from in-game dialogue, as a certain alchemist sets up a laboratory, mixing up volatile reagents during a break between quests, inside a cozy cave.

It is actually not too difficult to avoid deaths via alchemy, at least if you're a wizard with all the appropriate counters. Its always going to be risky though, and so it should be, with some of the awesome craftable items available!

Wizards are easy enough to explain: damaged spellbook.

Sorcerers posed a bit of a quandary for me, originally I presented it as a side effect of significant blood loss, then adapted the idea of the reduced magical potency being caused by the trauma of the near death experience.

It's actually not a bad opportunity to get creative, trying to come up with a unique yet plausible excuse for lost power, as Howland and Jayde Moon suggest.

As to the desire to rebuild what was lost, well, I find that to be a meaningless pursuit which detracts from the satisfaction of playing and would much rather advance narrative! It just opens up chances to roleplay with the new characters and join them on a quest and possibly make new allies or enemies in the process.

With that said though, it might be something restricted to my playstyle: I'm usually the victim in any PvP engagement and though I would want to have a chance in such conflict, I tend not to concern myself overly about it.

Of course, it would be quite ICly justifiable to avoid engaging risky situations after suffering physical / mental setbacks, which might act as an IC dampener of a bandit's desire to engage in banditry, for example.

[Egon the Monkey]

I think this has gone way, way off why I thought this up in the first place. It's not about how you choose to RP an injury. That's always been trivial to me as I can choose from "Broken wrist screws up my casting" "Damn, can't aim with this swollen eye" "Mental trauma" or "Too pummeled to fight well" as I see fit. It's that the response to a respawn isn't to react to to this trauma, but to cut a bloody swathe across the isle and Get Dem Levels Back.  

I agree that if death is trivial for a PC, then taking heroic/villainous risks goes from awesome to par for the course, and that would make a dull game.  I mean, other servers death systems just don't put in enough fear to make you wary of the mobs. I like feeling that I've got to be careful, I just find it goes far enough to be infuriating rather than atmospheric. What I see killing a PC is  DM or player action far less that it's pure dumb luck. Bugs, lag, transition cubes, 'hilarious' crits. If it was harder to die but harsh penalties, fair enough. I've played systems where it takes a couple of minutes to bleed out, 30 seconds to FD a character, no res. Characters don't really die to poor luck there unless it's the sort of Epic Bullshit that's cool in itself.

 When you've reached the lofty heights of L8-10 and you get walloped by that, there's a definite desire to think "Ah, screw it, I quit" because you don't want to put your nose to the quest-grindstone to get back up there. You want to plot or you want to fight your rivals. And at this point, your levels are what's keeping you alive against your foes or letting you make those plot-pushing skillchecks. So you quit, and a story ends in a sad little way. It's never good to find your big rival died to an assassin vine before you could stage a showdown.

Pain should be legendary.

Joking aside BoM, getting repeatedly flattened by something is frustrating. You end up playing the game for the sake of other people's plots (because they really need your PC alive), wondering why you bothered logging on today, and thinking you should go play something else. I play games because it's fun. I roleplay because it's fun. Knowing that to keep my plot or rivalry going at the same speed is going to involve some training-montage level powergaming? Eh, not fun.

Just make sure people do this next time Egon, instead of taking the instant gratification / long term pain of respawning to corpse that everybody does.

Thanks for putting the idea along. Generally on the rare chance I've got the cash this is exactly what I do, and I appreciate the introduction of candles of life over static res NPCs for this reason. Generally though I spend 1500 on consumables to avoid dying as it's a better investment. A res is in fact even easier than your example if you send a runner to get a candle. And a good thing too, because my major worry to do with resurrection is "aw crap I hope the server doesn't crash", and it's faster to move a Candle than a body. You can still crash though. You can still TPK.

I might be pulling it right back off topic again, but would it be possible to sell some sort of "insurance" item as well as candles? A Raise Dead item that will only work on a specific PC and doesn't go on reset? It would stop people from feeling like wanting a res is being selfish because you're going to keep players on when they want to log out, feeling like you just gambled 1500 gold on the server being stable, etc.

Finally, I actually do see an improvement to the death system that could work, Howland. If you store the highest level a PC reaches, you can adapt the Character Advancement Bonus to allow characters to passively regain their lost levels while going and doing cool stuff as opposed to "Quest-Based Physiotherapy".

[putrid_plum]

Death system is fine, it's been fine for what 6-7 years?  Questing is part of EFU, part of NWN, part of DnD.  You can get XP from not questing, RP, DM love, whatever else.  I see no need for any change.

[EfUA_undercover]

I don't see the problem to be honest. I am pretty sure 95 % of deaths occur on quests. So if you are brave or greedy enough to quest for loot and xp, you should be fine doing it again if you die for it.

I really don't see any high lvl character dying to some random spawn alone in the wilds (atleast if you aren't doing outright stupid stuff). It doesn't happen. So, if your precious lvl 8 or somesuch is so important why just don't stop and push the plots you are talking off.

[StevenMaurer]

Perspective of a non-EFUer

I stopped playing EFU a little more than a month ago. This was for a number of reasons, but to summarize, I just found the ratio of fun to grind too low for me to spend the miniscule amount of game I have available on this server. However, I freely admit that the death system (and the ever-grind of building back from the last death) was the proverbial "straw that broke the camel's back".

That said, please understand that this is just a personal preference. EFU does so many things right, that it does not seem reasonable for me to whine too hard. Different people have different feelings on what is "fun" and what is "grind" after all, so just because this didn't work out for me, doesn't mean that others aren't having a great time. And the EFU team absolutely deserves all the accolades it receives for maintaining such a compelling world, especially considering how many other servers have effectively died for wont of players.

So let me put in suggestions for a few tweaks, they are all tuned towards my idea of "fun" which is "self-consistency/realism inside the game world, so that it remains as immersive as possible". Let me also mention that almost everything I mention here has been done on one server or another - this is kind of a "best practices" summary.

((Yes - I'm well aware that this is mostly Off Topic.  So sue me.))


AI changes - Monster AI is problematic, in that many hostiles will target someone who is bleeding on the floor rather than a different PC who is trying to take off their head. This is one of the primary causes of DeathPlane-ing on EFU, so quite a cause of frustration. But it's also completely unrealistic.  AIs should lose interest in killing any fallen PCs at least until all PCs who threaten them are put down.

Also unrealistic are living creatures attacking and fighting to the death even when severely injured. I know this is a computer-RPG trope, but it still doesn't make sense. Undead, by contrast, should be extra scary because they simply don't stop pursuit even when they're falling to pieces.

If this warrants raising the HP on certain monsters to compensate, so be it.

Bottom line: If "death is horrendous", then have the NPC AI respect at least somewhat as well.


Area Changes - Some areas are set up so that hostiles are right next to the transition. I remember one game in which Gurdal (my PC) entered last behind a full party of people who were higher level, and transitioned directly onto the death plane (my PC is old and slow - loading takes a while). Setting up areas like this to add difficulty is not realistic and not fun for the players.

Also, consider changing the standard quests on a routine basis, so there is less of a newbie-to-EFU-penalty. Many old-hand EFU players start off new PCs, but because they know exactly where everything is, every quest, every danger, every treasure, they're suddenly level 8 before you know it. (Either that, or provide some in-world explanation for the effect, like "knowledge of the mist" or something.)

Also, try to widen out corridors so as to keep the dreaded NWN "bump" effect - pushing backliners suddenly up into the front, sometimes 10 to 20 game meters ahead depending on the crowding.


Economics Changes - As your primary gold-sink, consider having trainers who "sell" of XP (time limited, certain trainers train only for certain classes, more gold for XP at higher levels). This allows you to let Merchants start buying goods for which there clearly is a market. (The whole "charity chest because I can't sell anything" thing seems completely OOC to me, especially for borderline evil PCs.)

This also allows Resting to not be an unrealistic gold-sink. Resting should not be a function of whether a PC builds a fire which costs an unrealistic amount of gold, but whether they feel safe. To establish safety, PCs should be able to "guard" each other via a special tool or function, allowing the guarded PC to rest. This encourages groups. Nature-based PCs should also "be safe" in normal wilderness.

Let PCs build campfires, but make their special function to be a trashcan, rather than a resting mechanism.


Injury System - Consider use a CON/HP based negative value, rather than a straight -10, and slow bleeding down. Basically, no one should bleed out instantly. If real life was like the current system, hospital ERs would have little to do - everyone would be dead by the time they arrived.

Potentially as a slight gift to players, make it so that excess damage from a blow below zero gets divided by three. Example: a wounded fighter has 10 HP left, and is hit for 20 pts of damage.  The first 11 points drop him to -1, but the remaining 9 get divided by three for an additional (9/3=3), setting him to -4.  Not insta-dead.

Don't strip unconscious players of their equipment, armor, and bags.  Not until they're completely dead.

Unconscious players should be immune to mind spells. Also, as a gift, make them immune to Evards.

As a balance, consider adding a temporary -1 to all characteristics "severe blood-loss" 'curse' to PCs who fell, since even magical healing can't put the blood on the floor back into a PC's body.  This should go away after some real world time, maybe sped along by food.


Add a "Delete My PC" mechanism into the death plane.


I could add more, but it would get even more off-topic, so I'll leave it as is.

[Bearic]

...
Also unrealistic are living creatures attacking and fighting to the death even when severely injured. I know this is a computer-RPG trope, but it still doesn't make sense. Undead, by contrast, should be extra scary because they simply don't stop pursuit even when they're falling to pieces.
...

 
 In Baldur's Gate almost all living creatures would have to roll a morale save versus fear after taking a critical hit hard enough, or falling towards near death; however, the same thing would happen to ones own characters too - as you can probably imagine, going into a fear effect where your character simply runs around cowering to get bashed into pieces isn't much fun, though it can be quite nice when it's the enemy.
 
 I think it's much easier the way it is in NWN, though, if less realistic.

[Pool]

Death for me within my two day stay has been odd. Part of me is  irritated because I lose progress while everyone else gets stronger, but  another part is uncaring. I'm more of a roleplayer than I am a stat  player, despite my approach with making Jorgah as a muscle-headed  half-orc that got into all sorts of trouble.

All of my deaths have either been DMs punishing my character for being  stupid and hot headed as can be, or NPCs I can't fight at such a low  level. I knew the dangers, and I knew I wasn't going to get much from  it. But I have fun knowing I'm being brought along, so I was never vocal  about the situation.

But enough of my babbling, onto the subject at hand. If they kept it in a  comfortable thresh-hold of where I wouldn't drop to the very bottom  every time my character made a mistake, I wouldn't complain too much.  But at the same time, there really isn't much you can do without  slapping someone across the face in some manner.

If you advanced too much in the withering, you'd be PK'd by other means than a player.
If you try to take gold, chances are someone'll get it back.
If you try to take all their equipment, chances are someone'll never get that great of gear ever again.
If you try to give them some sort of death sickness, they end up not  able to play for the rest of the day for getting floored by a army.


My suggestion, just keep the bottom level to drop to 5 with a XP debt  every time you die, while going past that makes it so you'll start to  drop XP and lose a level.