DTs

[Gulnyr]

Sure it can happen now that a character waits around to be raised, but there's not point right now (DM'd quests excepted); strands are lost at death, not at respawn.  If they were lost at respawn, there would be a point to waiting longer than necessary.  

Three days is a long time to wait dead.  I think a couple of hours is a long time.  That's plenty of time to find someone to trek out for a raise.  

Enabling windowed mode and Alt-Entering out of the game allows access to the forums and IRC without logging out.  

Maybe it's a great idea, but we seem to be in agreement it doesn't fit the current lore.  Systems that maintain the world rather than bend or break it will always tend to win in my book.  And I am not saying people would metagame it, but it wouldn't be hard to do and the temptation would be great.  I cannot honestly say that I wouldn't try to get a raise if Jennara were on her last strand.  I like to think I wouldn't, but I really don't know.  I'd have to be there to test myself.  

As to the RP aspect, there have been other posts in this thread about the system breaking the mood, and there have been discussions of the RP benefits of body-hauling.  But I say that RP is not caused by the system but by the players.  We make the RP happen, the background systems just help guide us, or not, as we permit.  If we want good RP, we have to bring it ourselves.  The game won't deliver it for us.  The RP is what we make of it.

[Stephen_Zuckerman]

Ah, I see the post from Dorg now about the strain being on death, rather than respawn... However.

Are the Raise and Res spells not -specifically designed- to ease the strain of coming back from the dead?

Perhaps there could still be a chance of losing an SS - even a significant one. However, perhaps that roll should be made when the person is being brought back to life... Hear me out.

Let's say John Adventurer dies. Yeah, that's rough. Being brought back - wow. That's rough, too. However. John has one SS left; it's all in the dice, now. Now, if John was out on his own, he'd be forced to respawn, as there's noone to come and raise him. Sure, he could wait a few minutes, to see if anyone came along, but... Tick, tock. If he waits too long, the curtain falls.

But let's say, lucky John, he's out with his adventuring buddies. Now, he's level 20, not too bad... Meaning that, on a normal respawn, he has a 20% chance to lose an SS. However, he gets killed, ouch... And Jane the Priestess is here to raise him.

Perhaps she doesn't have Resurrect prepared. So, Raise Dead - and John rolls a 10% chance to, lose a Soul Strand, and, in this case, perm.

Or perhaps she does! Instead of half the chance, a quarter... 5%.

Now, maybe John's lucky, and he gets out of this intact(ish).

But what if he's not?

Perhaps John chooses to Respawn, and finds out... Oh, dear... That he rolled too low. Wherever his body-item is, the Perm animation triggers, the body-item disappears, and John is gone.

Perhaps he's raised by a spell... But, aw rats, when Jane tries to call his soul back from the ether, it slips away - the final Strand which she could have used to pull him back, snaps. The animation triggers, the body-item disappears, and John is very, very dead.

Does any of this make sense, and seem reasonable?

Edit: The "three days" I mentioned were in-game days - amounting to a couple of hours, and fitting with the lore about characters whose souls are not claimed by a deity being eaten.

[Lalaith Va'lash]

Maybe it's a great idea, but we seem to be in agreement it doesn't fit the current lore. Systems that maintain the world rather than bend or break it will always tend to win in my book.

In my book, nothing break immersion worse than an OOC event (lag, disconnection, ect.) causing the loss of a SS.   If bending the lore a little allows for a system can alleviate some of that stress, then I think its worth a look.

20-30% loss of a SS on every death when your with a prepared group and those ooc things creep up?  Ouch.

I'd be behind the current system 100% if it was purely IC.  But I do not think it ever can be.  I guess I'm aware that this is more a product of NWN ect.  than something that can be fixed.  But being with a prepared group, in a known danger, and having your network go down to lose a SS, well, it stings.

At least in the suggested system if that happens with your prepared group, then there is less of a chance of that bite.  I actually like SZ's last suggestion too.  Now we are thinking

(As a final note somewhat unrelated note - if you still want to make death scary, it could have an XP loss even if you are raised for every death. *Hides* I could bare those happening for OOC reasons - but not permanent loss for OOC reasons. - big difference is that one of them you can get back on your own... the other is gone for good)

[EdTheKet]

Soul strands are not part of the soul itself, the way I understand it, but some sort of means of holding the soul and body together.

Correct.

When a character loses a soul strand, the soul hasn't lost any pieces and hasn't gotten weaker; there are simply fewer strands available to hold the soul to the body.

Correct.

SMD is not a strengthening of the soul but strengthening of the bind between soul and body.

Correct!

[lonnarin]

I love Stephen's Idea.  What if the Soul Mother roll happened only after the *respawn* and not the death?  If it is the bindstone's use that causes a soul to risk losing a strand, then why does one still risk them when a cleric raises somebody from death?  The character doesn't owe the SOul Mother for that, he owes the cleric and his god who raised him.

The pros: would be that clerics would be much more useful since they could effectively save people not only from death, but from the soul mother herself.  They could charge an arm and a leg to people who were on their last few strands, and there would routinely be survivors running back to cities and towns calling for priests to help them, instead of everybody taking the "bindstone express".  People would stay dead as a corpse form longer, hoping to be raised, vs just running back to town and sitting there "reflecting on their death" all the time.  People would take EXTRA care to keep their clerics safe, and those with few strands left wouldn't be likely to leave the house without a cleric handy.

The negative: would be that there might be some meta-homing beacons at work where tells are sent and the cleric in town "senses a disturbance in the force".

I don't know, it just makes sense to me that if you don't use the bindstone in a given death, that you aren't subject to its taxes.  If I avoid the toll road and drive inner-city, it might take longer but I don't have to pay the toll.

This would also fix any bugs where people are dead, and they lose a soul strand, the server crashes, they log back in and they die again to lose another soul strand.  In this method, people who died again on login would only risk the soulstrand loss to the bug once they hit the respawn button.  The death itself isn't what gets taxed, but using the bindstone to let your soul travel to safety and avoid the soul mother.  If somebody else does that for you, you shouldn't owe her for that.

And keep the XP-loss keyed to the number of deaths in the allotted time, so it's not just a case of weakling following around a raising cleric for XP.  If you need to be risen 3 times an hour, then you really haven't been learning much battle tactics other than the proper death screams.  that system already in place would prevent a raising system from being abused.  Large parties in areas they really shouldn't be would start losing more xp than they were gaining and head back, even if their cleric was safe.

As it stands now, I have a cleric who really doesn't bother memorizing raise dead, since if anybody dies, it's not that much difference to him to let them respawn and have them run back to their grave invisibly... which breaks immersions and cheapens the powerful nature of the spell.  Most people just respawn and sneak back to the gravestone marker because its faster than letting the cleric rest and re-memorize/pray anyhow.  But if respawning ran the risk of the stone loss, you'd better believe that MANY fallen adventurers with a cleric in the party would at least stay down long enough for the cleric to take a look at them with the eye for the soul.

How many clerics here have sent somebody a tell that says "aw, I could have raised you."  and gotten a repsonse along the lines of "I can get the stone myself, brb", or "That's ok, after that DT, I might as well call it quits for tonight anyway"?

[jrizz]

Soul strands are not part of the soul itself, the way I understand it, but some sort of means of holding the soul and body together.

Correct.

When a character loses a soul strand, the soul hasn't lost any pieces and hasn't gotten weaker; there are simply fewer strands available to hold the soul to the body.

Correct.

SMD is not a strengthening of the soul but strengthening of the bind between soul and body.

Correct!

LOL ok ok so the soul does not get weaker. The bond that hold the soul to the mortal shell gets weaker. Now my proposal is:

Proposal: The bond that holds the soul in it mortal shell grows stronger with the PC.
At 4th level you get 4 SS then you earn 1 every 2 levels. That will be a total of 12 by 20th level. Keep SMD at 21st level, but make it 2 or 3 not 5 and have the earning go to one every three or four levels after 21. This method keeps the SS loss system as is and still keeps your PC afraid of death. Also this method shows that the PCs bond to it soul grows in strength as she gains in experience instead of getting weaker. I feel it is the best way to go since it keeps the number of SS finite and thus makes permadeath still a real thing. But it also gives a way and reason to keep playing your PCs as they have evolved even when they get to high SS loss counts. Furthermore it promotes better group play in a more spread out fashion. It also does away with the "only one SS left" syndrome and the "I will never see level x" syndrome even though both of those things will still be possible. PC's will still get to the only one SS left state and many will still not see level x but by giving a goal that can be reached to "make it" for a while longer PCs will be thinking to that point in the future instead.

Pros
1. Keeps the SS loss system as is and still keeps your PC afraid of death.
2. Keeps the number of SS finite and thus makes permadeath still a real thing
3. Does away with the "only one SS left" syndrome and the "I will never see level x" syndrome
4. Gives a goal that can be reached to "make it" for a while longer

Cons

1. Permadeath is still part of it and thus will result in some unhappy people
2. Will take reconciliation and equalization in a sweeping event.
3. Will need to be implemented.

I also like the carry type system. It can also be done without the carry part. Here are my thoughts on it:

2. Death means loss of play time.
In this method when you die and respawn you go right to the eye of the storm and you cannot enter the world again for 24 hours (could make it 30 so that it would really mean missing a lot) RT. With that there is no chance of SS loss. If you chose to wait for a RD or R spell then you risk the loss of a SS (resurrect would have the current % chance and RD would have some modifier so that the risk was higher). This way you would have to let your party know before setting out if you wish to be "helped" by a cleric if you die.
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[Gulnyr]

To clarify my position, I'm not at all opposed to a system that reduces the losses from lag and other OOC causes.  That would be great.  I do think altering established lore, for that purpose or any other, is not something to be taken lightly.

More importantly, I remember things - nice things, things that were far less important than soul strand loss - that have been removed from Layonara because they were abused and exploited by a few.  I don't want to be negative, but it is unrealistic to believe that a few would not exploit the system to avoid any strand loss if things were changed to have the chance only occur on respawn.  If a few cause the team to remove emotes at the crafting tables because they were unfairly exploiting the delay to save CNR, how much sooner should and would a soul strand avoidance exploit be yanked out?  

EDIT:  I didn't specifically cover the drop in chance from Raise Dead or Resurrect because the basis was covered in not changing established lore lightly; since death is the cause of the strain, it doesn't currently matter how the soul and body are reconnected.  I do think such a reduced cost system is more biased than the current system, favoring players in high-traffic time zones over low-traffic time zones and wealthy characters over the poor and/or generous ones (you can't buy a scroll if you don't have any money).  I know it can be argued that everyone is wealthy, but that isn't exactly the truth.  To a lesser extent, it also disadvanatges characters of certain faiths who have fewer friendly and allied Clerics to do the raising.  It seems unfair to punish players with characters of certain faiths because there are few (or no) Clerics on good terms with their god.  :END EDIT

But I'm not the boss.  If things change in that direction, they do.  I wouldn't like it, but not everyone is going to like everything.

[Lalaith Va'lash]

While I'm intrigued by Jrizz's option #2, the system would make it so that nobody would ever Perm.

If you were on your 9th or 14th SS, you would *always* choose to respawn, and just have to sit out of game for 24 -30 hours.  While the loss of play time is a bite, there is no risk for those on their last soul strands at all. Merely respawn, sit out a bit, and get to keep your character.  Wash, rinse, and repeat next week.

[jrizz]

While I'm intrigued by Jrizz's option #2, the system would make it so that nobody would ever Perm.

If you were on your 9th or 14th SS, you would *always* choose to respawn, and just have to sit out of game for 24 -30 hours.  While the loss of play time is a bite, there is no risk for those on their last soul strands at all. Merely respawn, sit out a bit, and get to keep your character.  Wash, rinse, and repeat next week.

Well yeah that is the case but think about what a real pain it would be to have to sit it out for 24 hours EVERYTIME you die. Now that will give the fear of death. Oh and it would also to the complete end of the refund program

[Stephen_Zuckerman]

I don't like the idea of sitting out of the game for X number of hours, to not risk a Soul Strand.

I -like- the Soul Strand thing. I just think that a few shifts might be in order.

[jrizz]

well there are more then a few proposals that keep permadeath as a real thing.

Of course you can bring together the random unknown number of SS and my above idea

[EdTheKet]

I don't know, it just makes sense to me that if you don't use the bindstone in a given death, that you aren't subject to its taxes. If I avoid the toll road and drive inner-city, it might take longer but I don't have to pay the toll.

But you already are using it, because if you had not bound in the first place, your first death would be your last! And consequently, if you had not bound you would not have ten strands, you would have a single one.

would be that clerics would be much more useful since they could effectively save people not only from death, but from the soul mother herself.

This can never be, because that would mean clerics are stronger than the Soul Mother is. The deities are not stronger than her, so by consequence, neither can their clerics be.

Well yeah that is the case but think about what a real pain it would be to have to sit it out for 24 hours EVERYTIME you die. Now that will give the fear of death. Oh and it would also to the complete end of the refund program

It would probably also mean the end of the player base. Here you are, gaming on your Sunday afternoon, it's your only time you negotiated with your better half and your offspring, and then you die 20 minutes after starting your Sunday gaming session. And now you're out for 24 hours, which sucks, so you go play another game and don't bother to ever return

I do think altering established lore, for that purpose or any other, is not something to be taken lightly.

And I won't be

[lonnarin]

This just raises even more questions.

So raise dead and resurrection do literally nothing other than just reduce the anguish of death duration and keep you in the area?  That's pretty weak (spell balancewise) considering resurrection requires either a diamond or 3 eschew feats in order to cast.  What exactly is ressurection doing that a bindstone respawn and a few hours of rest doesnt do?  Essentially, a wee 2nd level spell combo of invisibility with gum arabic and Bulls Strength (only assuming they're encumbered) is even more efficient than a 7th level cleric-only spell requiring either 3 feats or a diamond to cast. That's not even counting the price of a soulstone, which is comparitively minimal.  This is why people don't bother waiting for clerics to raise them: it's just not cost effective unless they used almost half the feats they'll get from 1-20 lvls, and THEN they still have to worry about xp loss and such.  As a corpse, you have the option of escaping to a safe place to rest, or running around weakened on a battlefield gaining no xp until you can find a safe spot to rest, with consecutive deaths resulting in xp loss as well.  

Also, if resurrection completely mends and restores the body and brings it back to life, then why is the body still weak for any amount of time, rather than just 1/2 that of raise dead?  Considering the time still weakened, the soul stone and diamond material components or 3 feat eschew requirement for the spell and its high level, resurrection gets far less loving than it should.  The 5th level wizard with gum arabic becomes a better raiser than the 13th level cleric with a diamond or 3 feats and a soulstone.

As for an end to the player base due to being dead for 24 hours, they could always make up to 6 characters in their vault.  Variety.  And if sitting in time out is the end of the playerbase, then why have the resting period for the anguish of the soul in the first place?  Somebody logs into the server at 2 in the afternoon on a saturday and dies, they still have to wait several hours online or around 8 hours offline to play that character again, assuming he cant find a wizard to make him invisible and just grab the stone.  The current system already does this time-out, and from a gameplay perspective, there is little difference to me between sitting 8 hours for a cleric to raise me, or sitting 8 hours for the anguish of my soul to pass.  If this is time to be spent RPing, then the immersion is already lost because he's sitting on a bench in town talking to people after they watched him die.

//PS I'm not really sure whether Resurrection needs a diamond or not anymore because the Lore Description doesnt mention it, but I have heard some higher level clerics mention it.  Also, the duration of the time it reduces cyclical.  Raise dead says twice the time as Resurrection and Resurrection says 1/2 the time of Raise Dead, but the factors of the base wait aren't mentioned.  The Raise Dead entry also mentions that one gets full hp back from it, when I think this might be wrong.  Please crosscheck the Lore entries for both Raise Dead and Resurrection.

[miltonyorkcastle]

... i'll fix LORE if someone tells me whether Resurection does indeed need a Diamond. As far as the wait time, it's number of reflections, and one reflection is five minutes. That can be added to the description as well, though I'm also going to ask for a confirmation, as I never really think about it anymore. I'm pretty sure it's two reflections for Raise Dead and one for Resurrection. And yes, you do get full HP back on a Raise Dead.

.....as for everything else non-LORE related in this thread.... I'm staying out of it, heh.

[lonnarin]

Ouch, if that's true, then the only mechanical difference between Raise Dead 5th and Resurrection 7th is one extra feat or a diamond, plus or minus 5 minutes.  It usually takes longer than that to rest again anyway, so the difference is minimal in gameplay.  if somebody is waiting 10-20 minutes between resting intervals anyway, then that +/- 5 minutes is negated almost immediately.  Raise dead seems more cost efficient and just as powerful as Resurrection from a gameplay aspect, and there is little incentive to use the more powerful version.

Now if Resurrection only negated the chance for the Soul Mother roll, or at least reduced the % of chance by half, that would be better balanced, I think.  Then you would see people staying down and dead until the party could find a cleric to bring to their corpse.  So in the format suggested...

Suggestion 1: Make Resurrection negate the chance of recieving a DT/losing a soul strand.  Leave Raise Dead the way it is currently.

Pros:
1. Would help balance the two spells Raise Dead and Resurrection which seem unbalanced right now.
2. Would enhance the usefulness of clerics
3. Would make sense because the cleric and the god are responsible for reviving the person, not the Soul Mother
4. Would increase the immersion and RP of death being important, since the current system penalizes resurrection far more than bindstone hopping.
5. Raise Dead wouldn't reduce the chance whatsoever, so it would remain a "poor man's res" instead of "res +5 minutes"

Cons:
1. Using a diamond might actually sound like a good idea.  This could potentially hurt the "Elgon needs more diamonds" fund.
2. Would require changes to the code, time consuming
3. Would still not address the logical inconsistancy of why Soul Stones are crafted from diamonds yet only cost 300 true to purchase, and that some clerics still need a diamond with one already provided in the stone.

Suggestion 2: Make Raise Dead Reduce the Soul Mother roll by 10, and Resurrection reduce it by 20, OR just have the use of raise dead lower the roll by 25% and Resurrection lower it by 50%

Pros:
1. Would make raising/resurrecting more useful and people would want to be around clerics more often
2. People could still perm and get soul strand losses should they fail the roll
3. It would be a significant penalty to those who bindstone hop and invis back to life, vs. waiting for a cleric to raise them

Cons:
1. People would still perm, so some would still be unhappy
2. Would require changes to the code, time consuming

[Stephen_Zuckerman]

I like suggestion 2 the best, as there is still SOME chance of SS loss on death (representing, somewhat, the strain of death), but think that perhaps the lowering by 10 and 20 would be a bit much, while the % offered is too little.

Raise Dead can be cast at level 9, while Res can be cast at level 13.

Perhaps one could roll at 50% of the chance and 25% of the chance, respectively, which still leaves a significant risk for higher levels, but leaves it proportional to those of any other level.

[osxmallard]

You mean lowering the DC vs. the dice roll? (Or raising the dice roll by that value?)  Lowering the roll will increase the chance of losing a SS versus a fixed DC.

[lonnarin]

I like suggestion 2 the best, as there is still SOME chance of SS loss on death (representing, somewhat, the strain of death), but think that perhaps the lowering by 10 and 20 would be a bit much, while the % offered is too little.

Raise Dead can be cast at level 9, while Res can be cast at level 13.

Perhaps one could roll at 50% of the chance and 25% of the chance, respectively, which still leaves a significant risk for higher levels, but leaves it proportional to those of any other level.

Maybe make it like a miss chance secondary roll akin to displacement modifiers in combat.

So with Resurrection, it's still the same base chance of the Soul Mother roll, but then you roll again and anything above a 50% negates the strand loss.  Raise dead could work the same but it's only a 25% Soul Strand miss chance.  That would still make entirely possible to get a soul strand loss, but still make raising and resurrection attractive enough to stay down for a cleric to tend to you.

[Stephen_Zuckerman]

I rather meant for the Raise to give you half the chance of a DT, and Res to give you a quarter of the chance of a DT.

For example, a level 20 who got Raised would have a 10% chance, or if he got Rezzed, 5%.

[EdTheKet]

I thought I had explained why the roll happens when it does, but reading the above I guess I was not

So: Raise Dead or Resurrection will never have any influence on the Save vs. Soul Mother roll. A Soul Strand has a chance of snapping at the time of death, not at the time of raising/resurrecting/respawning so Raise Dead, Resurrection or Respawn is not in he picture yet at that time.

I am too much out of the mechanics of the spells to comment on the reflections, diamonds etc.