Death in game

As I mentioned in another post, death in NwN in general isn't as big a deal as in RL. What I want to know is how should we approach death from an IC point of view and from a practical OOC perspective.

ICly we have magic that can bring back the dead, dieties might 'rescue' certain devotees and other supernatural phenomenon that prevents death from being a real problem- for most folk.

Obviously, magic like that isn't readily accessible to most folk. You need powerful spell casters willing to help you, and they're not only rare, they're probably expensive. So for the typical NPC, death is permanent and something to be feared. More powerful NPCs and NPC factions might have access to such spellcasters, however, so you killing that 'big bad' might not be the end of it- something to keep in mind for DM events.

However, PC's get a lot more leeway when it comes to shaking hands with the grim reaper.
We have access to the OOC stores, which currently are the only reliable supply (that I know of) of raise dead and resurrect scrolls- which almost any spellcaster can use.
On top of that, we can get hold of rods, wands, staves- all sorts of high level gear that can bring back the dead.
Even more strange, we have soul runes, which are partially ooc and partially IC, that allows us to pay the psychopomps to let us go back to the living world- which no NPC seems to have, along with Deities seeming to like us more and occasionally bring us back for free. I haven't seen an NPC get such consideration yet.
And of course, we have DM's, who are occasionally nice and bring us back.

In some DM events, my character has died so many times, it's more an annoyance than anything. Not the huge misfortune it should be. I kept getting killed and brought back and I had no idea how to RP that. Should my character be traumatized by being killed and brought back so many times it went into double digits? Or is it just 'brush it off like any healed injury'?

In another event, an NPC was holding a PC hostage, and my character had to come to the rescue. They threatened that if I came any closer, they'd slit her throat. My character just continued forward and said she had raise dead scrolls.

So Death isn't as big a deal.

But from an ooc perspective, death is too much undermined. Sure, eventually we might run out of soul runes, but I've never seen that happen yet (although that might change after beta, when soul runes are handed out less).

I can't help but feel that death should be a bigger deal, even for PC's. Certainly DM's should avoid killing PC's so easily (not that they shouldn't kill PC's at all, but that they shouldn't do it so often, otherwise it cheapens the effect of dying- and also it isn't all that fun for the player ).

But on the other hand, I also dislike strictly enforced PMK. It's too easy to accidentally loose a favourite character that way.
Perhaps we could have it so that:
1) You're not allowed back into the area where you died (if respawned), for at least an hour, if killed by another player. Possibly extend this to killed by NPCs but a shorter time limit.
2) Risk of consequences- temporary effects like lowered stats, or injuries.
3) Dying multiple times within a certain timeframe takes XP as a penalty.
And of course:
4) Running out of soulrunes means you're permanently stuck in limbo, (this needs to be reinforced so that resets don't 'free the dead') unless you decide to accept your fate (Perma-dead) or someone brings you back.

A great idea.

We need the consent of everyone on this... And on another note. It is a bit awkward to bring this up again but; vampires, lycons and other 'special' PC's.

We all know how they're hated and stuff. So anyone so accepts to RP a character like that, any undead character, should be prepared for the worse. The same applies to lycans. 'Special' PC's are always interesting to RP with, but hey, we like to keep it real.

Usually, me and other players "replay" our actions, but avoiding the path which would take us to our death sentence. Or we RP it as we 'barely avoided' it, as you can't quite erase from one's head his/her memory.

I don't think we had any case of a real permanent death in all events we've been through, altough there was once a DM that asked us that, 'before we enter this part of the event, I need everyone's consent and knowlingly that from here now, perma-death is on.'

Yes it can be a distraction if your pc dies several times during a DM event.  It is a fine line to walk upon.  I am sure they do but dm'd need to be a bit mindful of the levels of characters if it is an open and surprise. It would be nice if players could fight a bit and not get killed right off the bat si having to sit out until time enough to get raised.

Raising someone who has died in an event needs to be done with care whether pc or dm.  Before doing so check and see. Is the person who died in a safe enough area to aleast be raised with a raise dead scroll which is one hit point I believe and would be able to get away and drink potions and or use bandages?  The same thing if you use a rod of ressurection or scroll.

As for permadeath there are a couple of ways to do this.  If an event lets say will take place over a period of few months you can give players the options if either making a brand new character and should only be used for the event and will either need to be retired or if killed in the final battle permadead.

If someone is using an established character and they agree to retire or have them permadead maybe a reward would be they would become an npc.  

Like if they were a druid or cleric a priest of the temple of their god or maybe an npc in one of the taverns that could maybe give quests.

Or allowed to make a new level at half the level their character ie if they died a 20 a 10, etc.

Regardless I do believe permadeath should be the players call after discussion.