Dnd 3.5 penalty for dying

[Undertaker01235]

So my DM just instituted a new rule to dying where if you die and make a new character you a level below the rest of the party with half the experience needed to level up. I think it's the worst idea imaginable by making you play catch up for bad dice rolls or luck, I wanted to know other peoples opinions on the matter.

[clockworkjoe]

Death is seldom the sole result of bad luck. Most of the time, bad decisions cause death. Also, if there's no penalty for death, what's the point?

[Flawless P]

I go to great lengths to avoid pc death in D&D. That being said when it happens I tend to replace the character at the same level. Knowing that it's not likely that that player will lose another pc.

On the other hand a friend of mine has a different policy. You get one replacement character at your normal level. Possibly one more if the circumstances of your death were outside your control. After that you get the Game Over screen for that campaign.

[Vega Baby]

Honestly, I thing the answer to this question depends more on if your group places more weight on the 'roleplaying' or on the 'game' side of RPGs.

If you're getting together to tell a story, or just have some fun being goofy elves and dwarves, I see no reason to 'punish' someone for dying.  If you're telling a story and invested in your character, losing that character will be punishment enough.  And if you're just out to have fun, no one should be really punished for anything, as long as they aren't being actively disruptive to the fun.

Now, if you're playing the game as a more competitive endeavor, either as a tactical strategy game, or as a series of dungeon-crawling murderhobo adventures where you want to encourage player skill and cleverness more than anything else, I can see why you might want to punish death.  Then it's just a part of the competition, and gets you to think more tactically in order to make up for your relative weakness.

That said, I'm generally against punishing players by taking levels or experience from them in any game.  Especially in a game with levels, where the power scale is a bit more rigid and your skills and abilities are affected across the board, being behind the other characters can affect your power compared to the other characters pretty significantly.

Not only that, but if a player dies through bad decisions, lowering their level or otherwise punishing them isn't really going to fix the problem.  Death is already a significant punishment itself, and lowering their next character's level on top of that is going to just rub salt in the wound AND make it more likely that they would die in the future.

And really, if someone is acting out or being disruptive enough in a game that you feel the need to punish them?  You need to talk to them about the problems they're causing and see if they even want to play, or just kick them out.  Don't passive-aggressively punish them with the game mechanics to try and get them to change.

Additionally, I think death is about the most boring consequence a bad decision or a lost roll can have, but that's a different essay for a different time.   

[Ezechiel357]

Let's also not forget the consequence for the DM. If death is punished by a weaker character, the whole group might not be able to be as efficient, thus able to complete the adventure. Agree, half a level is unlikely to make a big difference. But if at the end, the group ends up being too weak, what can do the MD ?

Keep the same encounters, with the risk of butchering the remaining of the group. And then what ? start again ?
Or adjust the rest of the adventurem lowering the difficulty, which in this case means a lot of work for no real benefit - the players nor the DG will have more fun. Then what's the point of doing it.

On the other hand, I understand that death should come with a cost since it is rarely the only cause of one bad roll. But it is akward to talk about "punishement and rewards" for a hobby that we practice for fun (at least, that's my take on it).