[.11] Time to Get a New Life

I've said this before and I stand by it. I think the Life solution is to change the mechanics of death and dying.

I think the bleed out period should be 5 minutes total and then you resurrect. During that five minutes, any healing effect brings you back to positive health, but leaves you in a comatose state (new status effect) that lasts for 1 minute. This effect can not be removed by any effect except for those that specifically remove comatose effects.

Life would now simply be a 9th level healing spell that heals 25 body (or some other appropriate number lower than 45) and also takes someone out of the comatose state or prevents the comatose state if they were bleeding out.

With that approach, Life is still important because it brings back dying people quickly, but it isn't absolutely critical because any healing effect can prevent a death. Part of the reason I like this is because it removes the massive increase in survival rates that exists for characters before they have access to 9th level spells and after they get access.

-MS
 
I originally wanted a change to death mechanics, but let’s be honest, it’s extremely unlikely that enough support for it would exist, either amongst players or rule makers to really gather any momentum.

So, instead, I’m trying to propose and gain support for a change that would be more likely to actually succeed, because it would be minor, work relatively within existing mechanics, and be far easier to grasp as a change.

Additionally, since a Life effect would move to 7th level and be potionable under my proposition, it would be achieved pretty early on into an E Scholar’s development (43 XP in spells, 7 in pre-requisites, plus whatever additional skills the character picks up, like a weapon). That means E Sch characters can reasonably expect to access it by 6th level, while starting off at 2nd. That’s pretty fantastic. Some communities may even provide them with access to a Life potion early on, too.

So, I like my proposition, and I hope it gets the support it needs, because I genuinely believe it will be a major QoL improvement for groups that are Earth caster light, potionmakers, and Earth Scholars in general who just don’t want to memorize 9th level Life spells, but feel forced to because it’s the only way to prevent a Death from becoming a rez outside of some expectedly rare rituals.
 
The problem I see with this is that it absolutely trivializes character death. I feel that there will be less fear as you can just get a potion (which are way more plentiful) and poof it's taken care of. You will also need a reversal at 7th to keep the earth/chaos paradigm.
 
Since Revive would effectively replace Destroy Undead, the reverse would be Create Undead.

Culturally speaking, under .11, Death will remain trivial for the “haves,” and will become a rez for the “have nots.”

This is absolutely terrible for the culture, and will definitely impact the retention of newer players, who will feel non-valued the moment someone chooses not to Life them because they’re only 2nd/3rd/4th level.
 
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Then the have nots will rise up and knock the haves down a couple of pegs (In theory)! Not sure how it's done elsewhere, but in Calgary, it's a 'First Dead, First Served' kinda thing. Nobody saves life spells (that I am aware of).

But, that is the point of the playtest. We will see how things shake out with less life spells to go around.

I know personally, I'm excited. Death should be feared, not a minor inconvenience. More characters should hit the circle.
 
Ruki said:
I know personally, I'm excited. Death should be feared, not a minor inconvenience. More characters should hit the circle.
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I’m not exaggerating when I say this; the only time I’ve seen increased danger result in resurrections, it’s absolutely lopsided in the direction of low-level people.

The singular exception I have ever seen to this was when it was a mod that only highbies participated in, and something like 10 deaths occurred from Shatter Spirits.
 
That's crazy that it's only the low levels that are hitting the circle in your experience. THis summer in Calgary has been a little deadlier than usual, and the deaths are happening everywhere (two high level perms plus another high level death, a bunch of mid level hitting the circle, and I think two low-levels)
 
Maybe that’s just NW thing or high lvl play in general. From the sounds of it death/Rez have completely different feels in EC/WC/Midwest/Mountain

In MN/Chicago, we’ve seen it spread everywhere to every level. If it’s all lowbies who are rezzing then maybe it’s not stated right or too many Voice Radius effects are going off. It could be 100s of issues.

We were all given 2 free lives to start. Does that mean lowbies shouldn’t be lifed because of a freebie, no. Does it happen, yes.

Let’s see how it turns out for the playtest. Personally, I’m fine being a lvl 9 potion, but keep it 9th circle.

(8 yr E scholar speaking)
 
Evan is right about that culture in the NW. There are a multitude of reasons for it, which I won't get into here because it's a local culture thing, not a rules mechanic thing. It's slowly changing in Oregon, and I think that's a good thing.
 
Darkcrescent said:
Maybe that’s just NW thing or high lvl play in general. From the sounds of it death/Rez have completely different feels in EC/WC/Midwest/Mountain

In MN/Chicago, we’ve seen it spread everywhere to every level. If it’s all lowbies who are rezzing then maybe it’s not stated right or too many Voice Radius effects are going off. It could be 100s of issues.

We were all given 2 free lives to start. Does that mean lowbies shouldn’t be lifed because of a freebie, no. Does it happen, yes.

Let’s see how it turns out for the playtest. Personally, I’m fine being a lvl 9 potion, but keep it 9th circle.

(8 yr E scholar speaking)
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I don't remember the last time I saw a Voice Radius with a lethal effect in Seattle (I'm infrequent at Oregon this year, so I can't comment on that with confidence).

Most of the time that we see the Dead status in Seattle, it's because of Death being delivered (via spell, carrier, or recently, Arcane), or someone just bled out in the dark. KBs don't often happen, and I generally only witness them on higher-level characters, though it's entirely possible that it happens to lower-level players as well, and I just don't see it happen.

The issue I have with this being only tested at the playtest is because, frankly, if Plot underpowers the playtest (intentionally or unintentionally) and thus we don't get a good feeling as to how many Life spells are reasonable.
 
Respectfully this isn’t a game of us vs plot. Plot isn’t the bad guys, they just play them. We are all trying to have a good time. Plot is going to have to lean on the learning curve as well. They will need your help to find out where the sweet spot is. If we compensate right out the gate for a perceived and unproven problem we are likely just making more problems for ourselves.

That said I’m not saying this isn’t a valid concern. Plot needs to be just as involved with it as much as the players are.
 
Seabass said:
Respectfully this isn’t a game of us vs plot. Plot isn’t the bad guys, they just play them. We are all trying to have a good time. Plot is going to have to lean on the learning curve as well. They will need your help to find out where the sweet spot is. If we compensate right out the gate for a perceived and unproven problem we are likely just making more problems for ourselves.

That said I’m not saying this isn’t a valid concern. Plot needs to be just as involved with it as much as the players are.
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If it came across that I'm concerned about Plot being too aggressive/not being aggressive enough, that is certainly not my intention and I apologize that it was interpreted that way.

I know that statting an event with the rules system that we're familiar with can already be difficult enough, and as a result, I genuinely don't expect the playtest to have the regular level of "danger" the environment that we would normally experience once the new system goes live. Put differently, I don't expect the need for Life to be accurately portrayed at the playtest, in one direction or another.
 
I personally like this suggestion. I think that it will not make death trivial since that balance is in the hands of Plot.

First off it requires someone to dip in "Craft Potion" 7 times or 4 times and pay for a WorkBench. Either way you are looking at an investment that will not be to everyone's interest.

But beyond that if plot is seeing frequent use in their chapter of people having an excess of "Revive" potions then all they have to do is have then next couple of waves or creatures spawn as Killing Blow Active. Or have a create of Chaos summoned shortly after the fighting seduced by all the Earth magic being poured into people's faces and attempt to create some more "balance."

Realistically there are a number of ways that games can be designed for retention and when it comes down to it while lower level players will likely not be facing Doom spells, Killing Blows, or other AoE excessive damage effects there are still frequent enough times when characters are out of their depth or higher level characters misjudged the challenge that they were going to face and the tax on their resources. I am uncertain if most chapters are full of saintly earth casters who apply a first come first serve approach to ALL their Life spells but my experience has been that there is certainly some weighing of the options if someone is out of group or lower level.

As a game about "Be all you can't be" it is an awful feeling to be passed over for Life because your character isn't valued.
 
I find that to be a valid concern. I wasn’t trying to sound accusatory. Apologies.

Still I feel starting with damage and slow ramping into dangerous territory during the play tests will at least create some kind of road map for plot to follow to get to the mythical “sweet spot”.
 
Ko the Wizard said:
I personally like this suggestion. I think that it will not make death trivial since that balance is in the hands of Plot.

First off it requires someone to dip in "Craft Potion" 7 times or 4 times and pay for a WorkBench. Either way you are looking at an investment that will not be to everyone's interest.

But beyond that if plot is seeing frequent use in their chapter of people having an excess of "Revive" potions then all they have to do is have then next couple of waves or creatures spawn as Killing Blow Active. Or have a create of Chaos summoned shortly after the fighting seduced by all the Earth magic being poured into people's faces and attempt to create some more "balance."
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Depending on the enemy, Shattering the potions is also an option, *edit: and would also affect high level groups as well as low-level groups*. I also suspect that the amount of potionmakers in Alliance varies wildly from chapter to chapter.
 
Significantly simpler solution is just to change the Doom spell back into Death, so we preserve the thematic. If you want to make life potions a thing (which I object to) have it be an Artisan thing, something such as requires 5 ranks in each production skill to craft. That way it would give Artisans a unique trick.
 
I'm all for anything that promotes use of craftsman skills (says the 20 rank alchemist), so, I think the idea of making some kind of life potion to counteract the lack of life spells would be interesting. Maybe even make it a high enough production cost that only people who have gone journeyman or higher (with a workbench, and high enough that only masters could craft it without one) it would make them quite resource costly, keep them in fairly low supply, and give extra value to people who could produce them.

Item Lifes are basically the only ones you see in lower level adventuring groups, or groups that tend away from earth casters. That's not a problem for big town mods, when everyone is looking after everyone, but it means that any group that goes off to do something on their own (either as part of a hooked mod or a lair card), if someone gets dropped by completely normal means -- I'm taking straight damage, not special effects -- and they can't be got to in time, that person is boned. It limits group build flexibility and does disproportionately effect low level groups (who will have to basically get a high level earth casting safety net to go with them).

That's my take on it anyway.
 
Amber-Rose said:
I'm all for anything that promotes use of craftsman skills (says the 20 rank alchemist), so, I think the idea of making some kind of life potion to counteract the lack of life spells would be interesting. Maybe even make it a high enough production cost that only people who have gone journeyman or higher (with a workbench, and high enough that only masters could craft it without one) it would make them quite resource costly, keep them in fairly low supply, and give extra value to people who could produce them.

Item Lifes are basically the only ones you see in lower level adventuring groups, or groups that tend away from earth casters. That's not a problem for big town mods, when everyone is looking after everyone, but it means that any group that goes off to do something on their own (either as part of a hooked mod or a lair card), if someone gets dropped by completely normal means -- I'm taking straight damage, not special effects -- and they can't be got to in time, that person is boned. It limits group build flexibility and does disproportionately effect low level groups (who will have to basically get a high level earth casting safety net to go with them).

That's my take on it anyway.
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If we move in the direction of making a potion-able Life spell, I like the idea of it having higher requirements than normal. Plus, makes it a special thing that artisans can do (since I imagine most PCs don't have 20+ ranks in a craftsman)!
 
I got linked in to page two of this and didn't actually see Draven's original post. Now that I've read it before, I do have to say I like the idea of a "wake up 3-count", just in general. Not necessarily as something that needs to be said out loud, but something that could be roleplayed or just taken into consideration. Getting Lifed back from death should be kinda big deal and not something we just get up and sprint away from. (I think the amount of consideration / RP it gets right now is based a lot on how deadly / fast paced the situation they woke up in is, this would just kinda reinforce it?) Having some kind of timer afterword, like a weakness effect, sounds thematically great to me too.

I'm super on board with a higher level version of a life spell that would negate the negative effect of being lifed too. "Live!" vs "LIVE GODS DAMN IT!"
Plus it would make the spell versions of it higher value?
Basically, I'm on board.
 
Seabass said:
What if there was a lower level life spell that was necromantic? Something that could force you back to Life but took time to heal from? Something like Unlife, get up at 1 body but you are weakened (cursed with destruction, can only be cured with a Life spell) until next logistics (or sundown/sunup the next 6pm whatever). It certainly would be much more tempting and powerful if something like that was available, AND could be placed in a potion, when a Life spell wasn't.
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Yessss, add temptation of the dark side.
Also the element of "what situation is so dire that you'll compromise your morality?"
 
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