I recently started a campaign and on the first session some minor mistakes were made (both by the players and by me, the DM) and one PC died in their first combat encounter. I had safety nets in place, so a healer NPC managed to resurrect him, but now I'm afraid my players won't take death seriously in the future(I was only lenient this time because they are lvl 1 and it was their first session). The NPC will face trial in the story for using such dangerous and powerful magic willy-nilly. But I also want to give the player character a small "handicap" as a consequence of death and resurrection (mainly because some of his own mistakes lead to his death). I don't want to give him anything severe, they are only lvl 2. Maybe something more trivial but a good source of comedic relief.
For clarification is this the party's very first time playing DnD or are they experienced players? Because that makes a difference. If they have never played before then I wouldn't not add any punishment. Probably the best thing is to talk out of game and tell them the mistakes they made.... and acknowledge your own, and let them know that the free resurrection from the NPC was a onetime thing, and that moving forward PC death is a real possibility.
One a side note(and just my opinion) minor mistakes should probably not lead to player deaths, especially at level one session one. In my experience it is far more tricky to do encounters for a lvl 1-3 party then higher lvl groups just because of how squishy they are and generally they are not going to have accesses to things that will resurrect players. Generally speaking the only time one of my players characters is going to die that early in a campaign is if they do something incredibly ridiculous, like go looking for an ancient red dragon at lvl 1, or decide to attack the town guards, or something else that there has to be consequences for.
The player in question is not a beginner and their mistake was to not use their rage as a barbarian, so he died to a goblin (they were attacked by a group of goblins). And then he failed all of his saving throws, but that was just bad luck. Other members in the party handled that encounter poorly too, but 2 of them are newbies.
So I'm thinking of giving the barbarian some kind of side-effect that is minor and can be a source of jokes, while only becoming a slight problem in some specific situation. But I don't really have any ideas...
how exactly did he die? arrow? sword? maybe the weapon that killed him was magically enchanted/cursed and from now on when he rages he has to make a con check and if it fails he polymorphs into a goblin, Following normal polymorph rules so essentially you are giving him a free polymorph, and an extra 7 hit points. This idea is heavily dependent on how serious of players they are. i know some people who would love this and some players who would just get upset.
This could create a really fun side plot for the party trying to figure out why the barbarian is polymorphing into a goblin and and how to cure it. maybe a certain level of remove curse, too high of level for the party, they have to seek out a powerful mage, who can then send them on some quest as payment for removing the curse.
So some games don't necessarily belabor it, but if we're talking the spell resurrection it requires some not insignificant resources in your average D&D economy, as would presumably any other deus ex machina that would bring a dead character back. You mentioned the NPC being somehow prosecuted of sanctioned for using this magic, perhaps whatever authority is doing that can now claim some sort of indebtedness (like literal life debt) from the recipient of the resurrection magic. This authority becomes a sort of anti-patron or complication to the game. It need not completely derail or redirect the direction of the campaign, but it should be some sort of complicating burden to adventuring (side quests, maybe the character has to perform menial tasks while the other PCs have a window to train up on tools or languages etc). Maybe the PC is simply tithed. These are background complications as opposed to foregrounding the complication as polymorphing and penalizing the sheet would be.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Maybe instead of a direct penalty, they now owe the NPC a favour to replace that diamond used by the spell? I don't know if that fits with your campaign plans, but it serves as a sort of "collective punishment". Some groups might be ok with that, others not so much..
You could also add some kind of temporary insanity type effect like the character still having visions of being cut down the first number of x times they are back in combat with a right of being frightened for example. This isn't exactly RAW, but could work to make the player realise the effects of such a traumatic event had on the character.
Since you mentioned it is a barbarian, it could also be slightly more benign that instead of being frightened, there is a risk they cannot rage for a few encounters.
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Hello,
I recently started a campaign and on the first session some minor mistakes were made (both by the players and by me, the DM) and one PC died in their first combat encounter. I had safety nets in place, so a healer NPC managed to resurrect him, but now I'm afraid my players won't take death seriously in the future(I was only lenient this time because they are lvl 1 and it was their first session). The NPC will face trial in the story for using such dangerous and powerful magic willy-nilly. But I also want to give the player character a small "handicap" as a consequence of death and resurrection (mainly because some of his own mistakes lead to his death). I don't want to give him anything severe, they are only lvl 2. Maybe something more trivial but a good source of comedic relief.
Does anyone have any advice or ideas?
For clarification is this the party's very first time playing DnD or are they experienced players? Because that makes a difference. If they have never played before then I wouldn't not add any punishment. Probably the best thing is to talk out of game and tell them the mistakes they made.... and acknowledge your own, and let them know that the free resurrection from the NPC was a onetime thing, and that moving forward PC death is a real possibility.
One a side note(and just my opinion) minor mistakes should probably not lead to player deaths, especially at level one session one. In my experience it is far more tricky to do encounters for a lvl 1-3 party then higher lvl groups just because of how squishy they are and generally they are not going to have accesses to things that will resurrect players. Generally speaking the only time one of my players characters is going to die that early in a campaign is if they do something incredibly ridiculous, like go looking for an ancient red dragon at lvl 1, or decide to attack the town guards, or something else that there has to be consequences for.
The player in question is not a beginner and their mistake was to not use their rage as a barbarian, so he died to a goblin (they were attacked by a group of goblins). And then he failed all of his saving throws, but that was just bad luck. Other members in the party handled that encounter poorly too, but 2 of them are newbies.
So I'm thinking of giving the barbarian some kind of side-effect that is minor and can be a source of jokes, while only becoming a slight problem in some specific situation. But I don't really have any ideas...
how exactly did he die? arrow? sword? maybe the weapon that killed him was magically enchanted/cursed and from now on when he rages he has to make a con check and if it fails he polymorphs into a goblin, Following normal polymorph rules so essentially you are giving him a free polymorph, and an extra 7 hit points. This idea is heavily dependent on how serious of players they are. i know some people who would love this and some players who would just get upset.
This could create a really fun side plot for the party trying to figure out why the barbarian is polymorphing into a goblin and and how to cure it. maybe a certain level of remove curse, too high of level for the party, they have to seek out a powerful mage, who can then send them on some quest as payment for removing the curse.
So some games don't necessarily belabor it, but if we're talking the spell resurrection it requires some not insignificant resources in your average D&D economy, as would presumably any other deus ex machina that would bring a dead character back. You mentioned the NPC being somehow prosecuted of sanctioned for using this magic, perhaps whatever authority is doing that can now claim some sort of indebtedness (like literal life debt) from the recipient of the resurrection magic. This authority becomes a sort of anti-patron or complication to the game. It need not completely derail or redirect the direction of the campaign, but it should be some sort of complicating burden to adventuring (side quests, maybe the character has to perform menial tasks while the other PCs have a window to train up on tools or languages etc). Maybe the PC is simply tithed. These are background complications as opposed to foregrounding the complication as polymorphing and penalizing the sheet would be.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Maybe instead of a direct penalty, they now owe the NPC a favour to replace that diamond used by the spell? I don't know if that fits with your campaign plans, but it serves as a sort of "collective punishment". Some groups might be ok with that, others not so much..
You could also add some kind of temporary insanity type effect like the character still having visions of being cut down the first number of x times they are back in combat with a right of being frightened for example. This isn't exactly RAW, but could work to make the player realise the effects of such a traumatic event had on the character.
Since you mentioned it is a barbarian, it could also be slightly more benign that instead of being frightened, there is a risk they cannot rage for a few encounters.