If your players are out to 'win D&D' and throw themselves onto swords to roll better characters, get new players, it's not a video game. If your players are not invested in their characters ask yourself why? If they genuinely end up playing a character they don't like, don't punish them for it, shit happens. If there's another reason, ask them why. The whole point is to collaboratively create a story with your players and if they're not invested in their characters and the story, then something isn't right. Hell, if you find you need to punish your players (that kind of sounds like the opposite of fun...), again, I suspect there's something wrong in the balance of expectation between the DM and the players. More than anything else I think this is just incompatible play styles. The only real solution for that as a DM, is to find people on the same wavelength as you as players.
As for the bad stats thing. Standard array then the playing field is level and their zero advantage to starting again, or home brew it a little. I personally use the Colville method: roll 4d6 drop the lowest, and if two of their scores aren't 15 or over, throw all the rolls away and start again. It guarentees two decent stats so their hero has an actual chance of being a hero. It tends to leave you with happy enough players.
If a player's character dies, let them create a new character at the SAME LEVEL as the other characters of the party. It's simpler if all characters remain at the same level. A huge level gap will make it entirely unfair. Losing their current character is enough of a punishment for dying, so don't add insult to injury.
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Brains over brawn? Mind over matter? These canny warriors rightly answer, "Why not both?" - Tasha
I would point out that XP thresholds and adventuring day XP budgets are set such that one full adventuring day would bring the level 1 character to roughly half of the groups level. If the rest of the group is level 10, then a single day of adventuring will bring the new character up to level 4. Another day and they are level 5. So starting at level 1 may be a huge gap at first, but the gap quickly closes.
Still, I don't think anyone needs to suffer that one level 1 day.. which is why what I do is this compromise:
New character starts at half the group's level
New character gets an XP boost of x2 until they caught up with the rest
When they are only 1 level behind, they get an extra boost after a few sessions so that they are in sync with the rest of the group again
With this system players can catch up
To their level 2-3 party in 1 day
To their level 4-6 party in 2 days
To their level 7-8 party in 4 days
To their level 9-11 party in 6 days
To their level 12-16 party in 7 days
To their level 17-19 party in 6 days (seeing how the party reaches 20 before they can catch up)
I don’t level everyone at the same time. They all split the XP from fights evenly among all participants, but if someone misses a session, and therefore a fight, then they don’t participate and therefore don’t get any XP from that one. I also award XP instead of giving Inspiration. So not all of the PCs in campaigns I DM are always the exact same level, but usually within 1-2 levels of each other. I always start them at the minimum XP required to be the same level as the lowest level PC in the party. If the lowest level PC is halfway between 7th and 8th levels, then any new PC will start at the minimum XP for 7th level. If the lowest level PC just hit 12th level, then the new PC will start at the minimum XP for 13th level.
Punishing players for not making optimal choices might have the undesired effect of the DM appearing adversarial and the game having the illusion of choice. It's not a tactic that I'm fond of or that I condone. This tactic might force your players to not enjoy your game.
That said, do what you will at your table. If your players are happy with the idea that their 10th level PCs are going to allow a level 1 PC tag along and they have to keep this newbie alive, the so be it. This should kinda point out the problem with this Old School tactic. The new PC is not able to survive with the others, unless the party is in the same tier.
Parties should, in theory be able to have different level PCs in it, so long as they are in the same tier. If you want to set your sub par players back to the low end of the tier that the rest of the party is at, that might be a compromise.
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“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
Like SwiftSign said, a character dying is enough of a punishment. The player can't play that character any more. Also, if they want to switch their character, let them switch without penalty. D&D is all about having fun, and players will have the most fun when they get to play the character they want to play. At higher levels of play, a player cannot meanfully contribute to the party in combat when they are like five levels behind their friends. They won't have very much fun, as the rest of the party would basically be "carrying" them. A lvl 1 character would easily get burped to death by a monster that would be a fun challenge for a group of 4th-level characters. Essentially, the character would keep dying again and again repetitively, halting the character's advancement.
The DM's guide states that a new character would start at the same level as the lowest level character in the party. In most published adventures, all the characters remain at the same level. It's designed to keep things simple.
If you are worried about them "min-maxing," "power-gaming," or whatever you want to call it, you don't need to discourage players from switching characters to prevent that. My suggestion: if your players use OP builds that they got off of the internet, let them be. Buff your monsters if you need to. My DM allows us to switch whenever we want (within reason, and not in the middle of combat), and allows us to get as creative as we desire with character building. Since most of us have gotten pretty powerful builds, he decided to bump up the hit points of all of his monsters. That's all he changed though, because the DM doesn't want to modify official content too much, probably to keep things simple. This works well, because it allows us players to play whatever we want, and change our characters if we aren't satified, without one-tapping everything or feeling nearly invincible.
Another point: Many OP min-maxing builds depend on feats and multiclassing. Those are optional rules that you don't have to allow. You can also ban certain options you feel are broken, but just don't overdo it. Be cautious when restricting character options, because some players may have a certain character concept they want to play. Rather than restricting character options, maybe you might decide that a player's specific build is too OP, so you may just make them play a new character. Don't restrict feats and multiclassing, but if you need to, maybe ban some of the infamous "min-maxing" builds, like Sentinel-PAM or Witch-Knight, or just ban GWM or Sharpshooter. The key takeaway here is preventing characters from bringing in a new character at the same level their old character left off isn't nessasary to prevent min-maxing. At the start of a campaign, have your players show you their characters, then you can decide if they have to make a new one. You don't even need to do that. As a DM, you have all the power you need to scale combat encounters. Simply give your monsters more damage dice or hit dice.
Answer to your first question: Yes, you are too harsh (no offense). I explained multiple other ways to deal with min-maxers. At higher levels, a character dying could mean a player dying as well (the player leaves the campaign). If you want players to care about their characters, their characters should always have plenty of moments to shine. Being at level 1 means that they can't do anything meaningful, which means they won't enjoy playing their character (which will inevitably lead to them stop caring about their character). If a player stops caring about their character, allow them to switch, because they likely aren't having fun playing that character.
As a DM, you need to change the way you run a campaign to the players' interests. Your job as a DM is to make the game fun for everybody. If a player isn't enjoying their character and wants to switch, let them, as it will restore their enjoyment. Then again, if the player whose character died is fine with restarting at level one, then do it. When it comes to rules, you need to make sure you have your players' consent, otherwise they won't want to play.
Punishing players for not making optimal choices might have the undesired effect of the DM appearing adversarial and the game having the illusion of choice. It's not a tactic that I'm fond of or that I condone. This tactic might force your players to not enjoy your game.
That said, do what you will at your table. If your players are happy with the idea that their 10th level PCs are going to allow a level 1 PC tag along and they have to keep this newbie alive, the so be it. This should kinda point out the problem with this Old School tactic. The new PC is not able to survive with the others, unless the party is in the same tier.
Parties should, in theory be able to have different level PCs in it, so long as they are in the same tier. If you want to set your sub par players back to the low end of the tier that the rest of the party is at, that might be a compromise.
Don't do that, because all tiers are five or six levels long. The minimum for downgrading a character should be two, and that should be the minimum. Just one level of disparity can make a huge difference, especially for spellcasters. At lower levels, that one level difference could be a difference between life or death.
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Brains over brawn? Mind over matter? These canny warriors rightly answer, "Why not both?" - Tasha
I will echo what others have said, because it needs to be said again, there is no need to punish a player further, after a PC death. What is gained by making a player start their new character at a lower level? Nothing, nothing is gained. There is no mechanical reason to do this. It only serves to punish the player further. It is also detrimental to the party as a whole, not only has the party lost a member, but now they have to pick up the slack of a lower level character? Why? for what purpose?
Is every new NPC that the party meets lvl 1? Is every new antagonist in the plot lvl 1? Unless it is an entire world of lvl one monsters and NPCs then there is no reason to make a player start a new character at lvl 1. New PCs should start at the lvl of the rest of the party.
This kind of DMing forces players to play very conservatively and not take risk. Players taking huge risk and succeeding, or failing, makes for epic role playing, why would a DM enforce rules that would hamper that?
The idea that a player would intentionally "suicide" thier PC because they are not having fun with the character, or because they want to role a better one points to a much bigger issue. Why is a player playing a PC that they don't like? If one of my players was not having fun playing their character, as a DM i would hope that they were comfortable enough to tell me out of game so we could try to find a way to work it out, it just takes a tiny bit of creativity to fix issues like this.
Honestly I think this points to a bad DM to Player match up. There are only certain kinds of players who are going to enjoy playing in a campaign where you play the character you rolled (one roll per stat, take what you get) no matter how bad their stats are, and that's fine, there is room for all kinds of styles, players and DMs in DnD, that's one of the things that is so great about the game. If you want to run a campaign like that, or you run every one of your campaigns like that, that's fine as long as you as a DM are upfront with the players about it, and the players want to play in that kind of campaign, then there should not be any issues like this, the fact that it is a concern indicates a lack of pre campaign communication. Remember that the campaign is just as much the players campaign as it is yours, and you all need to be on the same page about stuff like this prior to the start.
Take away the players loot, start them back up with minimal amount of gear and let them continue with a new character in a different class. So they can't play barbarian anymore they have to pick another class as well.
Take away the players loot, start them back up with minimal amount of gear and let them continue with a new character in a different class. So they can't play barbarian anymore they have to pick another class as well.
How do I take away the player's loot? Except for very specific circumstances (they fell down a pit, got carried away by a monster, etc..) the other players will just loot the dead character. And in most parties, they'll probably just give said loot to the new PC. Bill the Bard gets all of Jill the Bard's gear and it's like nothing happened.
So you start them at 1st level, they still don't like their stats, and they suicide. Or more likely, a random AoE effect kills them outright.
So they roll a new character, and they don't like their new stats. They suicide again.
So they roll a new character. They LOVE their stats. A random AoE kills them.
Let's just break this down really simply:
The Problem: Your players will suicide characters if they don't have high stats. This is really bizarre, and indicates that they have no real investment in roleplay, only combat mechanics.
The Cause: Rolling randomly for stats
Solution: There is only one solution, and that is to use a Points Array system.
Why is it the only solution: Because for the game to run effectively, for all the players including the DM, the characters cannot have huge level discrepancies. Combats cannot work out effectively if you have a level 9 party with a level 2 tagging along, because the CR13 creature they fight will one shot that level 2 with a single swipe in its multiattack.
"Punishing" players is bad DM'ing. As DM, your principal role is to ensure that the players have a great time playing the game.
Wow, I let my players straight in at the level they exited and also select magic items to suit what the rest of the party have. i’m not sure why I’d penalise them for dying. And as a DM, it would be hard going to manage encounters to suit the rest of the party without instakill for the level 1 character.
Take away the players loot, start them back up with minimal amount of gear and let them continue with a new character in a different class. So they can't play barbarian anymore they have to pick another class as well.
How do I take away the player's loot? Except for very specific circumstances (they fell down a pit, got carried away by a monster, etc..) the other players will just loot the dead character. And in most parties, they'll probably just give said loot to the new PC. Bill the Bard gets all of Jill the Bard's gear and it's like nothing happened.
The loot goes to the dead guys family and other players don't use it. If you want a game with no consequences for the death, then allow the player to create a new character, same name, same class and the party gives him his former gear and they move on like death has no consequences in the campaign because it doesn't have any consequences. I find removal of gear enough of a penalty for dying. And when you look at 5E, from 5th level and higher, players can face tank and its just about impossible for them to die on a hard encounter and from 10th level and higher they can face tank deadly encounters and live with no worry of dying.
In my games the "punishment"... no, I don't like that term, I'll say the "Negatives" of dying are:
Losing a character you're invested in
Having to spend time making a new one whilst the game continues
Having to wait for a reasonable time for the game to allow their character to re-enter
Missing gameplay is the detriment to character death. If they weren't invested i ntheir character, them making a new one is probably the best thing for the game. If they had a character they really wanted to play, then them being able to use them is probably the best thing for the game.
Punishing people harshly for dying on the off-chance that they did so on purpose to play a new character is like punishing them for saying "My character is retiring, but I have a new one ready for the party to meet". They are doing what's best for their enjoyment, and thus the happiness of the table as a whole. dropping them to level 1 is an entirely unreasonable response, and is basically saying "you don't enjoy playing as this character? Well suck it up, because you're playing as them. Deal with it.", which doesn't strike me as fun!
I do like the idea of enforcing some means by which to make their characters different - but this can be softly enforced rather than rigidly - just say "when you make a new character, please try to make one who is new and unique, rather than a carbon copy of your previous one with a few minor tweaks!". That way you're not stopping Joe the horny bard who tries to seduce everything from being replaced by Avantor the creation bard who likes to make the furniture dance around the room when he's drunk. Same class =/= same character!
Well, I like random points and so do most of my player so I will discard that option.
I will also don't let any players to re-roll their random hit points, my players would have to force me at gun point to re-roll their character statistics.
Still, I heard your feedback, every new character will have the same level as the lowest level of the party (wich will be likely less xp than the party).
And BioWizard, most of my players love their characters, but there are some that don't, still, even between those who love them, many tend to think "my next character is going to be awesome", instead of focusing on the current.
I am joining this conversation way late, but I am unsure why you are here? You are clearly not looking for advice, but rather answers you already have in mind, and are just looking for someone to parrot them so that you can have some sort of justification. Whatever pride you are trying to hold onto when you say "my players would have to force me at gun point to re-roll their character statistics." I would put aside. This game is just as much about your players having fun, which, they can't do if you are this strict about something as simple as stat generation. If the difference between a player having fun is a stat reroll. JUST LET THEM DO THE REROLL. It won't change your game at all and it'll allow them to possibly have more fun. Enough about why you are actually here, and let me address some points.
1) You asked how can I make my players feel like they didn't roll up bad stats, the clear answer is, choose a different stat allocation option, but if you HAVE to have rolled stats, having a couple sets of rolled stats to choose from IS that answer. This isn't something you would do after a character has been alive for 7 sessions, but something you would do to fresh made characters.
2) No one is asking you to re-roll hit points, in fact, there is the average hit point allocation you can do in replace of rolling for hit points.
4) If your players are just focused on the next character, there is nothing you can do about that. No matter how much work you put into trying to get them to care about that character, they just won't if they have already given up. The answer to this, maybe get a new player.
EDIT: Starting a character at level 1, no matter what, is a VERY bad idea. If you think players don't like their characters now, just wait until your party is level 7, and your level 1 player can't stand getting hit once and is making a new character every session. They really won't care about their characters then.
I totally respect people's choices to play that way, I just won't be playing with them. :)
Having a long, drawn-out penalty for death means you are more likely to die again. It also means the party is weaker and your teammates are also more likely to die. This results in a death spiral where every failure increases the chance of the next failure.
I would wager that these campaigns tend not to last very long, or if they do it's because the players begin to act extremely conservatively to the point where they get very little done. I can see the appeal from the DM's perspective of how they want their world to function, but I can't see how it makes an entertaining game to actually play. Some mechanics are exclusively "old-school" because people have since realized that they are simply not good mechanics for an enjoyable game.
I totally respect people's choices to play that way, I just won't be playing with them. :)
Having a long, drawn-out penalty for death means you are more likely to die again. It also means the party is weaker and your teammates are also more likely to die. This results in a death spiral where every failure increases the chance of the next failure.
I would wager that these campaigns tend not to last very long, or if they do it's because the players begin to act extremely conservatively to the point where they get very little done. I can see the appeal from the DM's perspective of how they want their world to function, but I can't see how it makes an entertaining game to actually play. Some mechanics are exclusively "old-school" because people have since realized that they are simply not good mechanics for an enjoyable game.
Its an opinion piece for yourself not for everyone else.
A lot of people like the game aspect of D&D and don't go with the story teller aspect that Wotc is pushing now that Winninger took over. The story teller is where the DM writers up a nice railroad, the players never die and they have to listen to poorly thought out fan fiction. They stick around because they are in a Monty Haul campaign where loot flows like water and they never have to worry about death because its not on the plate.
A lot of people believe the DM sets up the world and the player sets the story. The player decides if they are going to kill the captured bandit, will they save the town or ignore it to go after phat lewtins. Of course killing the bandit could cause problems when they enter town and there is a wake for the bandit by his family or when the party comes back to the town they realize the lewts they got is nice, but the town was burned to the ground by the BBEG they bypassed, as does their access to a number of shops, spells and services. Consequence Free D&D isn't D&D its a poorly wrote out fan fic novel that a lot of players have chosen to trap themselves in. Death is a consequence. The CR will be adjusted down if they lose a player. It also makes players fight smarter. No DM worth their salt likes playing a game where the wizard face tanks and doesn't use any defensive spells, the rogue gets swatted by a hill giant because he's not using his cunning action and the fighter is wearing leather armor discussing morality with a hill giant as it kills the party. Oh, forgot 5E, the DM would come up with a convoluted reason why the Hill Giant left the nice party alone.
If your players are out to 'win D&D' and throw themselves onto swords to roll better characters, get new players, it's not a video game. If your players are not invested in their characters ask yourself why? If they genuinely end up playing a character they don't like, don't punish them for it, shit happens. If there's another reason, ask them why. The whole point is to collaboratively create a story with your players and if they're not invested in their characters and the story, then something isn't right. Hell, if you find you need to punish your players (that kind of sounds like the opposite of fun...), again, I suspect there's something wrong in the balance of expectation between the DM and the players. More than anything else I think this is just incompatible play styles. The only real solution for that as a DM, is to find people on the same wavelength as you as players.
As for the bad stats thing. Standard array then the playing field is level and their zero advantage to starting again, or home brew it a little. I personally use the Colville method: roll 4d6 drop the lowest, and if two of their scores aren't 15 or over, throw all the rolls away and start again. It guarentees two decent stats so their hero has an actual chance of being a hero. It tends to leave you with happy enough players.
I do a one level hit for the reroll and little if any magic items.
If a player's character dies, let them create a new character at the SAME LEVEL as the other characters of the party. It's simpler if all characters remain at the same level. A huge level gap will make it entirely unfair. Losing their current character is enough of a punishment for dying, so don't add insult to injury.
Brains over brawn? Mind over matter? These canny warriors rightly answer, "Why not both?" - Tasha
My Homebrews: Monsters, Magic Items, Spells, Races
Rhulg- Hobgoblin Gunsmith
I would point out that XP thresholds and adventuring day XP budgets are set such that one full adventuring day would bring the level 1 character to roughly half of the groups level. If the rest of the group is level 10, then a single day of adventuring will bring the new character up to level 4. Another day and they are level 5. So starting at level 1 may be a huge gap at first, but the gap quickly closes.
Still, I don't think anyone needs to suffer that one level 1 day.. which is why what I do is this compromise:
With this system players can catch up
I don’t level everyone at the same time. They all split the XP from fights evenly among all participants, but if someone misses a session, and therefore a fight, then they don’t participate and therefore don’t get any XP from that one. I also award XP instead of giving Inspiration. So not all of the PCs in campaigns I DM are always the exact same level, but usually within 1-2 levels of each other. I always start them at the minimum XP required to be the same level as the lowest level PC in the party. If the lowest level PC is halfway between 7th and 8th levels, then any new PC will start at the minimum XP for 7th level. If the lowest level PC just hit 12th level, then the new PC will start at the minimum XP for 13th level.
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So from what I have heard you put them a level bellow the lowest level charecter
Punishing players for not making optimal choices might have the undesired effect of the DM appearing adversarial and the game having the illusion of choice. It's not a tactic that I'm fond of or that I condone. This tactic might force your players to not enjoy your game.
That said, do what you will at your table. If your players are happy with the idea that their 10th level PCs are going to allow a level 1 PC tag along and they have to keep this newbie alive, the so be it. This should kinda point out the problem with this Old School tactic. The new PC is not able to survive with the others, unless the party is in the same tier.
Parties should, in theory be able to have different level PCs in it, so long as they are in the same tier. If you want to set your sub par players back to the low end of the tier that the rest of the party is at, that might be a compromise.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
Like SwiftSign said, a character dying is enough of a punishment. The player can't play that character any more. Also, if they want to switch their character, let them switch without penalty. D&D is all about having fun, and players will have the most fun when they get to play the character they want to play. At higher levels of play, a player cannot meanfully contribute to the party in combat when they are like five levels behind their friends. They won't have very much fun, as the rest of the party would basically be "carrying" them. A lvl 1 character would easily get burped to death by a monster that would be a fun challenge for a group of 4th-level characters. Essentially, the character would keep dying again and again repetitively, halting the character's advancement.
The DM's guide states that a new character would start at the same level as the lowest level character in the party. In most published adventures, all the characters remain at the same level. It's designed to keep things simple.
If you are worried about them "min-maxing," "power-gaming," or whatever you want to call it, you don't need to discourage players from switching characters to prevent that. My suggestion: if your players use OP builds that they got off of the internet, let them be. Buff your monsters if you need to. My DM allows us to switch whenever we want (within reason, and not in the middle of combat), and allows us to get as creative as we desire with character building. Since most of us have gotten pretty powerful builds, he decided to bump up the hit points of all of his monsters. That's all he changed though, because the DM doesn't want to modify official content too much, probably to keep things simple. This works well, because it allows us players to play whatever we want, and change our characters if we aren't satified, without one-tapping everything or feeling nearly invincible.
Another point: Many OP min-maxing builds depend on feats and multiclassing. Those are optional rules that you don't have to allow. You can also ban certain options you feel are broken, but just don't overdo it. Be cautious when restricting character options, because some players may have a certain character concept they want to play. Rather than restricting character options, maybe you might decide that a player's specific build is too OP, so you may just make them play a new character. Don't restrict feats and multiclassing, but if you need to, maybe ban some of the infamous "min-maxing" builds, like Sentinel-PAM or Witch-Knight, or just ban GWM or Sharpshooter. The key takeaway here is preventing characters from bringing in a new character at the same level their old character left off isn't nessasary to prevent min-maxing. At the start of a campaign, have your players show you their characters, then you can decide if they have to make a new one. You don't even need to do that. As a DM, you have all the power you need to scale combat encounters. Simply give your monsters more damage dice or hit dice.
Answer to your first question: Yes, you are too harsh (no offense). I explained multiple other ways to deal with min-maxers. At higher levels, a character dying could mean a player dying as well (the player leaves the campaign). If you want players to care about their characters, their characters should always have plenty of moments to shine. Being at level 1 means that they can't do anything meaningful, which means they won't enjoy playing their character (which will inevitably lead to them stop caring about their character). If a player stops caring about their character, allow them to switch, because they likely aren't having fun playing that character.
As a DM, you need to change the way you run a campaign to the players' interests. Your job as a DM is to make the game fun for everybody. If a player isn't enjoying their character and wants to switch, let them, as it will restore their enjoyment. Then again, if the player whose character died is fine with restarting at level one, then do it. When it comes to rules, you need to make sure you have your players' consent, otherwise they won't want to play.
Brains over brawn? Mind over matter? These canny warriors rightly answer, "Why not both?" - Tasha
My Homebrews: Monsters, Magic Items, Spells, Races
Rhulg- Hobgoblin Gunsmith
Don't do that, because all tiers are five or six levels long. The minimum for downgrading a character should be two, and that should be the minimum. Just one level of disparity can make a huge difference, especially for spellcasters. At lower levels, that one level difference could be a difference between life or death.
Brains over brawn? Mind over matter? These canny warriors rightly answer, "Why not both?" - Tasha
My Homebrews: Monsters, Magic Items, Spells, Races
Rhulg- Hobgoblin Gunsmith
I will echo what others have said, because it needs to be said again, there is no need to punish a player further, after a PC death. What is gained by making a player start their new character at a lower level? Nothing, nothing is gained. There is no mechanical reason to do this. It only serves to punish the player further. It is also detrimental to the party as a whole, not only has the party lost a member, but now they have to pick up the slack of a lower level character? Why? for what purpose?
Is every new NPC that the party meets lvl 1? Is every new antagonist in the plot lvl 1? Unless it is an entire world of lvl one monsters and NPCs then there is no reason to make a player start a new character at lvl 1. New PCs should start at the lvl of the rest of the party.
This kind of DMing forces players to play very conservatively and not take risk. Players taking huge risk and succeeding, or failing, makes for epic role playing, why would a DM enforce rules that would hamper that?
The idea that a player would intentionally "suicide" thier PC because they are not having fun with the character, or because they want to role a better one points to a much bigger issue. Why is a player playing a PC that they don't like? If one of my players was not having fun playing their character, as a DM i would hope that they were comfortable enough to tell me out of game so we could try to find a way to work it out, it just takes a tiny bit of creativity to fix issues like this.
Honestly I think this points to a bad DM to Player match up. There are only certain kinds of players who are going to enjoy playing in a campaign where you play the character you rolled (one roll per stat, take what you get) no matter how bad their stats are, and that's fine, there is room for all kinds of styles, players and DMs in DnD, that's one of the things that is so great about the game. If you want to run a campaign like that, or you run every one of your campaigns like that, that's fine as long as you as a DM are upfront with the players about it, and the players want to play in that kind of campaign, then there should not be any issues like this, the fact that it is a concern indicates a lack of pre campaign communication. Remember that the campaign is just as much the players campaign as it is yours, and you all need to be on the same page about stuff like this prior to the start.
Take away the players loot, start them back up with minimal amount of gear and let them continue with a new character in a different class. So they can't play barbarian anymore they have to pick another class as well.
How do I take away the player's loot? Except for very specific circumstances (they fell down a pit, got carried away by a monster, etc..) the other players will just loot the dead character. And in most parties, they'll probably just give said loot to the new PC. Bill the Bard gets all of Jill the Bard's gear and it's like nothing happened.
So you start them at 1st level, they still don't like their stats, and they suicide. Or more likely, a random AoE effect kills them outright.
So they roll a new character, and they don't like their new stats. They suicide again.
So they roll a new character. They LOVE their stats. A random AoE kills them.
Let's just break this down really simply:
House Rule: When a player character dies they bamf out of existence possessions and all. Only Resurrection or Wish can reverse it.
Wow, I let my players straight in at the level they exited and also select magic items to suit what the rest of the party have. i’m not sure why I’d penalise them for dying.
And as a DM, it would be hard going to manage encounters to suit the rest of the party without instakill for the level 1 character.
The loot goes to the dead guys family and other players don't use it. If you want a game with no consequences for the death, then allow the player to create a new character, same name, same class and the party gives him his former gear and they move on like death has no consequences in the campaign because it doesn't have any consequences. I find removal of gear enough of a penalty for dying. And when you look at 5E, from 5th level and higher, players can face tank and its just about impossible for them to die on a hard encounter and from 10th level and higher they can face tank deadly encounters and live with no worry of dying.
In my games the "punishment"... no, I don't like that term, I'll say the "Negatives" of dying are:
Missing gameplay is the detriment to character death. If they weren't invested i ntheir character, them making a new one is probably the best thing for the game. If they had a character they really wanted to play, then them being able to use them is probably the best thing for the game.
Punishing people harshly for dying on the off-chance that they did so on purpose to play a new character is like punishing them for saying "My character is retiring, but I have a new one ready for the party to meet". They are doing what's best for their enjoyment, and thus the happiness of the table as a whole. dropping them to level 1 is an entirely unreasonable response, and is basically saying "you don't enjoy playing as this character? Well suck it up, because you're playing as them. Deal with it.", which doesn't strike me as fun!
I do like the idea of enforcing some means by which to make their characters different - but this can be softly enforced rather than rigidly - just say "when you make a new character, please try to make one who is new and unique, rather than a carbon copy of your previous one with a few minor tweaks!". That way you're not stopping Joe the horny bard who tries to seduce everything from being replaced by Avantor the creation bard who likes to make the furniture dance around the room when he's drunk. Same class =/= same character!
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
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I am joining this conversation way late, but I am unsure why you are here? You are clearly not looking for advice, but rather answers you already have in mind, and are just looking for someone to parrot them so that you can have some sort of justification. Whatever pride you are trying to hold onto when you say "my players would have to force me at gun point to re-roll their character statistics." I would put aside. This game is just as much about your players having fun, which, they can't do if you are this strict about something as simple as stat generation. If the difference between a player having fun is a stat reroll. JUST LET THEM DO THE REROLL. It won't change your game at all and it'll allow them to possibly have more fun. Enough about why you are actually here, and let me address some points.
1) You asked how can I make my players feel like they didn't roll up bad stats, the clear answer is, choose a different stat allocation option, but if you HAVE to have rolled stats, having a couple sets of rolled stats to choose from IS that answer. This isn't something you would do after a character has been alive for 7 sessions, but something you would do to fresh made characters.
2) No one is asking you to re-roll hit points, in fact, there is the average hit point allocation you can do in replace of rolling for hit points.
4) If your players are just focused on the next character, there is nothing you can do about that. No matter how much work you put into trying to get them to care about that character, they just won't if they have already given up. The answer to this, maybe get a new player.
EDIT: Starting a character at level 1, no matter what, is a VERY bad idea. If you think players don't like their characters now, just wait until your party is level 7, and your level 1 player can't stand getting hit once and is making a new character every session. They really won't care about their characters then.
I don't have a signature.
I totally respect people's choices to play that way, I just won't be playing with them. :)
Having a long, drawn-out penalty for death means you are more likely to die again. It also means the party is weaker and your teammates are also more likely to die. This results in a death spiral where every failure increases the chance of the next failure.
I would wager that these campaigns tend not to last very long, or if they do it's because the players begin to act extremely conservatively to the point where they get very little done. I can see the appeal from the DM's perspective of how they want their world to function, but I can't see how it makes an entertaining game to actually play. Some mechanics are exclusively "old-school" because people have since realized that they are simply not good mechanics for an enjoyable game.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
Its an opinion piece for yourself not for everyone else.
A lot of people like the game aspect of D&D and don't go with the story teller aspect that Wotc is pushing now that Winninger took over. The story teller is where the DM writers up a nice railroad, the players never die and they have to listen to poorly thought out fan fiction. They stick around because they are in a Monty Haul campaign where loot flows like water and they never have to worry about death because its not on the plate.
A lot of people believe the DM sets up the world and the player sets the story. The player decides if they are going to kill the captured bandit, will they save the town or ignore it to go after phat lewtins. Of course killing the bandit could cause problems when they enter town and there is a wake for the bandit by his family or when the party comes back to the town they realize the lewts they got is nice, but the town was burned to the ground by the BBEG they bypassed, as does their access to a number of shops, spells and services. Consequence Free D&D isn't D&D its a poorly wrote out fan fic novel that a lot of players have chosen to trap themselves in. Death is a consequence. The CR will be adjusted down if they lose a player. It also makes players fight smarter. No DM worth their salt likes playing a game where the wizard face tanks and doesn't use any defensive spells, the rogue gets swatted by a hill giant because he's not using his cunning action and the fighter is wearing leather armor discussing morality with a hill giant as it kills the party. Oh, forgot 5E, the DM would come up with a convoluted reason why the Hill Giant left the nice party alone.