Pick a damn outcome for your battles.

[Roy]

Pretty simple really.

Introduce players to Revivify.

Introduce them to immunities (specifically the things Revivify cannot bring you back from).

That's enough to eliminate most character death on the spot (well technically they still die, but also get revived immediately).

And by the way, CdG is absolutely pointless. No really. If they're already down, well they're nearly dead. And by nearly dead I mean 1-9 damage will finish the job. Hitting is not a problem since their base AC is 1 instead of 10 (0 dex, -4 for being prone). And even at level 1 doing 9 damage isn't a problem. So smack the downed enemies one more time to be sure. Use the last attack for it since it probably wouldn't hit anyways. Now if they're down for some other reason than negative HP like say, Sleep or Color Spray that's different. Bring out the scythe, and enjoy it at low and mid levels because at high levels everything competent is immune to CdG because of Heavy Fort.

[Username17]

CdG is a big thing in 3e, and even more so in 3.5 when holds gave you a chance to break out every round and thus made you a high priority target for CdG. D&D rules simply cannot be split from returning from the dead, because character death happens a lot and happens more and more as players rise in level.

-Username17

[Roy]

CdG is a big thing in 3e, and even more so in 3.5 when holds gave you a chance to break out every round and thus made you a high priority target for CdG. D&D rules simply cannot be split from returning from the dead, because character death happens a lot and happens more and more as players rise in level.

-Username17

Ok. What exactly are you responding to? Because if it's CdG situations that don't involve negative HP I covered that.

[Ascalaphus]

I've had experiences that sort-of fit a full set of ABCD; it was a three-year D&D campaign, biweekly. My character was the only one to survive the entire campaign (and only go <0 once). Some players had several PCs die, but character death became rarer as the power level grew and people grew more attached to their characters. Our enemies were frequently a lot more powerful than we were, and we spent a lot of time hiding and running from them. We've had "resurrection" happen once, that PC came back as a sort of ghoul, and eventually had to be.. put down..
We never quite got to Raise Dead, but it would have been possible.

I think I generally prefer to have no "anticlimactic" deaths when I GM, meaning you're not very much at risk in smaller skirmishes meant to lead up to the main event. During the main event though, death ought to be a real possibility.


As for resurrection, I think I've got two things that I don't like;
- It's story wrecking potential, as told by people above
- Repeat Resurrection. I particularly don't like the idea of a Resurrection spell that people can cast more than once, even if it does cost a little.

I like the idea that only the unquiet dead are available for resurrection, and that those ghosts are in danger too. I also think there should always be some price to being revived; something of death should always cling to you. The GM should consider together with the player what would be most fitting; a permanent decrease in some stat, generally. Not something that makes the character unplayable of un-fun. But the character should be marked by the experience of having been dead.

There should also be a cost to whoever causes the Resurrection to happen; also some permanent dramatic loss. Reaching past the shroud to draw back the dead should leave the [necromancer] marked, perhaps much less pleasant company.

This cost, both on the [necromancer] and the patient, is permanent, beyond Restoration-like powers to cure.


There might be a place for a different, more perfect resurrection, but that should really be a matter of divine intervention. Mostly I think resurrection should be a plot device, not a power or service you talk about buying.
Like above, even if the princess was resurrected, she'd still maybe lose 2-4 Charisma, enough to make her angry, very very angry.

[RandomCasualty2]

This death thing is something I have been struggling with lately. Has anyone considered a mechanic like that seen in the Neverwinter Nights games? For those that do not recall/never played, when a character is "killed" they are down for the rest of the battle, their icon turns to a gray skeletal thing and they are no longer helping your group. If at least one person survives the battle, these "killed" characters are restored to the group with minimal HPs.

That's pretty much what I'm doing now. I let people survive down to -bloodied, similar to 4E and death effects just reduce them to -1 HP and prevent them from being able to act in combat.

There is also a wound table that people have to roll on to get some penalty for getting dropped, which ranges from small ability damage to loss of limbs.