Death penalties

[roddybug]

Penalties for dying. I'm in favour of that providing that they are not extreme. Gold is plentiful in EfU and xp can be regained via quests, even from a distant level. I've seen people use death as a way of getting round curses/diseases etc. I also know that some players xp farm, create a "build" and head down to lvl 11 for the quests, if they die who cares - hit re-spawn. I try to create my characters with the idea of remaining vertical, I miss a lot but I'm still standing. Others just go for the insane ab and opt for the horizontal approach to gaming.

EfU is a good and fun module, having a death penalty will give it an edge. People should be scared. Discuss...

[Garnet FalconDance]

I think a lot of the problem is - if you don't have just the right build with very high AB and decent AC to match, you canNOT succeed in Undermountain unless you're babysat in a group of others. Now, that's a shame, but there ya go. The "no DP" aspect at least gives the less-than-perfect builds a little wiggle room to still try to play without constantly fighting penalties as well as impossibly outfitted foe.

Just my two pence.

[robertthebard]

Another thought, too, is what penalty? Is it just xp, and respawn there, respawn to a certain spot, the tavern, etc. The standard is 10% xp and gold, if I remember correctly, and there are days where I have my doubts about that, but it could get extreme. Especially if it's respawn on the spot. What ever killed you is still there, waiting to do it again, and with no banking system, if you end up in a string of deaths, you could find yourself back to the beginning of a char level, and broke.

Not that gold is all that hard. If one knows where to look, one can be a multi millionaire before one ever goes down the well. But I hate working hard to achieve something to have it taken away due to bad luck, or, as Garnet pointed out, a mediocre build, and yes, I do have one or two of those. The price I paid for experimenting.

While RP is possible in Undermountain, it is more suited to power builders, and all of us with truly successful chars are just that, we've learned to be, because we didn't want to die. Also, let's not forget the Implosion spam that some of the minor/major bosses have. It would suck to work your way to the last battle on lvl 7, only to die and be sent back to the tavern, if that was what happens.

That being said, I have a death portal system written up for my module, that spawns a portal when you die, and destroys it when you use it, that takes you back to the place you died.