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DivisionByZero.620: Usually, there's no balance problem with death removing all ailments because it's generally harder to resurrect a character than clear ailments. In most classic RPGs, any healer who's able to raise the dead was able to remove ailments several levels ago.
Surprisingly, your claim about being able to remove status ailments before reviving the dead is often not true.
* In Wizardry 1-5, clerics can revive the dead before they can cure petrification (assuming the player didn't get strange luck with spell learning). In Wizardry 8, a few conditions can't be cured with a spell other than Restoration (level 7), but Resurrection is 6th level.
* In Final Fantasy, petrification requires a 6th level spell, and paralysis a 7th, but resurrection can be done with a 5th level spell. In FF2, reviving characters can be done more easily than curing many status ailments (Life 1 can revive, but you need Esuna 5 to cure petrification, and you need to be lucky or have high spirit if you want it to work during combat.)
* In many Dragon Quest games, you can't ever remove effects like Dazzle/Surround and Fizzle/Stopspell with a spell, but you can revive the dead. (There's also cases where a character learns Kazing/Revive but not Fullheal/Healall.)
* In games based off Dungeons and Dragons, Raise Dead is 5th level, but some status ailments require Heal, which is 6th level, to cure.
* In the NES version of Ultima 3, you can revive a character with a spell, but there's no spell to cure the common cold.
* In classic Bard's Tale, you can't cure Old as easily as you can revive the dead; furthermore, except in BT3 petrification is harder to cure than death.

I have a hard time thinking of any classic RPGs where curing all status ailments is easier than reviving a dead character. The Might and Magic series is the only example I can think of.

(Note that I exclude single character RPGs from this discussion, as well as RPGs that lack status ailments.)
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DivisionByZero.620: Usually, there's no balance problem with death removing all ailments because it's generally harder to resurrect a character than clear ailments. In most classic RPGs, any healer who's able to raise the dead was able to remove ailments several levels ago.
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dtgreene: Surprisingly, your claim about being able to remove status ailments before reviving the dead is often not true.

(snip)
A lot of what you mentioned is special cases regarding conditions. IIRC most of the examples you listed involve magical aging and petrification. It's debatable if aging would be considered a "condition" on the same lines as being poisoned, diseased, or blinded.

A lot of classic games treat petrification as being on par with (and sometimes worse than) death. In Might and Magic 6-8, you need a top-tier potion to reverse petrification. In the Exile/Avernum series, being petrified is just another way of dying for all practical purposes - and the character in question will annoyingly drop its equipment on the floor as well.

Usually, the standard status ailments (weakness, poison, disease, blind, slowed, paralyzed, cursed) are easier to reverse than death.

My views might be somewhat biased due to the classic RPGs I grew up with - mainly Might & Magic and Exile/Avernum. I've never had a console (which probably explains why I know next to nothing about JRPGs), and I was never into D&D - partially because I couldn't afford the critically acclaimed D&D classics back in the day at their price point, and partially because the rest of them showed me just how bad, imbalanced, clunky, and inconvenient D&D mechanics are compared to combat systems designed for video gaming from the ground up.
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DivisionByZero.620: A lot of what you mentioned is special cases regarding conditions. IIRC most of the examples you listed involve magical aging and petrification. It's debatable if aging would be considered a "condition" on the same lines as being poisoned, diseased, or blinded.
In the Bard's Tale series, aging is treated as a status condition. There is a bitfield in the character data structure with each status ailment being assigned a bit, and Old is one of them. (I believe the list is Pois, Nuts, Poss (possession), Dead, Ston, and Old; I am guessing the other two bits are unused.) (The fact that it's a bitfield is important to the discussion, as it means the game can keep track of multiple status ailments on one character; Wizardry, by contrast, uses a single 8-bit value for non-poison statuses, so only one can be present on a character at a time.)

(This handling of aging is unlike how Might and Magic handled it; MM1 and MM2 simply represent the character's age as a byte, while MM3-MM5 store the character's birth date and have an 8-bit value for the amount of magical aging (I know it's 8-bit because, in Swords of Xeen, there's a glitch that can cause it to underflow).)

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DivisionByZero.620: the character in question will annoyingly drop its equipment on the floor as well.
Yes, that is a bad mechanic, particularly since it encourages players to reload rather than accept the death; reloading is less of a hassle than picking the character's equipment back up and remembering what was actually equipped on the character.

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DivisionByZero.620: Usually, the standard status ailments (weakness, poison, disease, blind, slowed, paralyzed, cursed) are easier to reverse than death.
I just remembered a strange example: In SaGa 2 (Final Fantasy Legend 2), death goes away on its own when the battle ends, but there are other status ailments (blindness, I think curse, and petrification) that do not.
Post edited February 15, 2019 by dtgreene
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Tauto:
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DivisionByZero.620:
Yes,I never used Divine Resurrection and thought it was a waste of time and then having the aging problem.Lloyd's Beacon was okay in my books as it helped in fast travel from more than one character and I made sure I trained a couple in this spell,otherwise I had no problem with any of the games.I still prefer the cure death and then pay to remove curse or disease way of doing things as it seems more accurate/sensible to me.But we are talking about a game and anything is possible in them,just some make sense and some don't.
It's a bit of a complicated matter; depending on the system, the ritual, the actual problem, and many other things.

A blind man from birth being rezzed, should not have restored sight unless a divine matter is involved and their sight is a granted boon.

Now the matter of poisons, some diseases and so on, that's a different matter.

With video games, there's the complication if death is actually dead, fainting, critical/mortal wounding, and so on. (Especially for translated games subject to guidelines.)

The Exile and later Avernum games took varying approaches to death. Exile games had two to three levels of resurrection, and it was basically on you to do the revival, as revival services were expensive; plus you had to haul the items of the deceased as well. This continues into the first three remakes (Avernum 1-3), except there's no spell to raise, if I recall. The later Avernum games switch to the Nonlethal KO, while keeping items held but inaccessible.

Also, the Exile games had nastier deaths; stoning and dusting. (Stoning due to balisks and the like, dust due to the chunky salsa rule.)
Is like to see a game that can handle death differently. RPGs often are built of of the broken DND system. It's not a bad game at all, but if death or a status ailment added depth to the story, it would be quite amazing.
Red Dead Redemption 2 bounty system actually carries over even when you die. Go on a killing spree and get a huge bounty on your head and even if you're killed and respawn then you still have the bounty on your head (outside of main missions).

I like games where death becomes part of the actual gameplay like Dark Souls, System Shock 2 and roguelikes. But in the end it's all about the fun. Does a specific mechanic make the game more or less fun and balanced? But Iron man runs in Xcom can increase the intensity tenfold and it's great.
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jepsen1977: I like games where death becomes part of the actual gameplay like Dark Souls, System Shock 2 and roguelikes.
I like having death as part of the gameplay, *provided* that it is a mechanic that the player can take advantage of. In particular, the way roguelikes usually handle it, where death is the end of the game (and therefore can't be used to the player's advantage), is not something I like.

Rogue Legacy had an interesting way of handling death, as having it be the only way to actualy improve your characters and unlock new classes; that's the sort of mechanic I would rather see. (One thing: I wish Rogue Legacy had a way to choose a specific class, perhaps for the cost of a sizeable chunk of money; this would help on later New Game + runs, and would give all that useless money *some* sort of use.)

There's also games with strategies like death warping in some games.

Going back to the topic, some RPGs have mechanics that make it sometimes worth killing and reviving a character. The case mentioned in the topic title is one example; another is Final Fantasy 5 having a few effects that can restore MP, but only if the target is already dead.

There's also abilities that kill the caster in order to produce a useful effect, like healing (and perhaps reviving) the rest of the party.
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dtgreene: Rogue Legacy had an interesting way of handling death, as having it be the only way to actualy improve your characters and unlock new classes; that's the sort of mechanic I would rather see. (One thing: I wish Rogue Legacy had a way to choose a specific class, perhaps for the cost of a sizeable chunk of money; this would help on later New Game + runs, and would give all that useless money *some* sort of use.)
Thanks for the heads up with Rogue Legacy. It sounds like a cool game I want to try some day.
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dtgreene: Rogue Legacy had an interesting way of handling death, as having it be the only way to actualy improve your characters and unlock new classes;
That's actually a pretty standard way most rogue-like and -lite handle "unlocking" things.

ToME certainly does that. Dungeonmans (probably the best rogue-whatever I've ever played) absolutely does it. In fact, you can't achieve certain things there without killing off your initial character.

For that matter, there are some "missions" in the Secret World (Funcom's awesome "single-player" MMORPG before they went and completely redone it to appeal to casual crowd, therefore destroying most things of value in it) actually require you to figure out that dying itself can be a tool. It makes sense within the settings ;)

That aside, an interesting discussion, but I think one major point missing from the general consideration is that there isn't really one "good" way of handling character death in all games.

While I think any game with "permadeath" as its intended mode should also offer "casual" difficulty that allows re-loading (or whatnot), I personally don't mind games which are designed, balance-wise, around the concept. Although that's often easier said than done, and titles like Battle Brothers or The Darkest Dungeon, despite supposedly being designed around inevitable losses, often make them an extremely difficult event to recover from.

Not to mention that it's also a matter of simple time investment. When you have precious little time to play as it is, you're that much less likely to "enjoy" a setback ultimately removing a significant time investment you put into a current play session.

It also depends on the scale of things - a character in a game like Rimworld is that much more valuable than Urist McUristsson in any reasonably-lengthy session of Dwarf Fortress.

To veer back more on topic, though - I think the handling of death and resurrection should depend on internal consistency of the world presented, if we dismiss with the meta-consideration of player preferences altogether. A fantasy setting would easily allow hand-waving things like limb restoration (much less disease), but might on the other hand assure that any potent enough curse would stay in effect. A cyberpunk setting would probably demand some sort of hard currency to accompany full body restoration, and might be limited in the scope of work that can be performed by specific places offering such services.

As another aside, I played for quite a few years a MUD where your character did not stop at death at all, but rather became a pawn of various deities after expiry (there were specific reasons it was that much more difficult to do with the living). Which may or may not have been final, though in general resurrection by any of the "deities" (MUD administrators) came with so many hooks you might as well had been renamed Pinocchio. My own character ended up exploiting the advantage of non-corporeal form (that could still observe the living world) and the in-game existence of living people capable of communicating with the "not-quite-dead" spirits to much personal enjoyment and merriment. Which resulted in a big enough of a wrench thrown in the ongoing plans for continuity of the "divine" campaign that he ended up being the only player character forcibly retired (in all other cases it was the decision of the player). Apparently getting all the gods angry at you is not healthy, even if you're already dead... but it was also so worth it from in-game perspective. Good times, even if his ultimate "retirement" left me with no motivation to continue playing there (not so much because of any negativity but just sheer investment in that specific character making every attempt at a new one fall flat).

Basically, there are plenty of ways to handle "dying," and it hardly needs to be something standardized for all the games. As long as it follows the settings, and even better, if it's something used in a creative way, the only issue can be that of internal balance, and that one is on the designer of the mechanics, not the players.

Personally, I'd like to see more creativity there.
Post edited February 17, 2019 by Lukaszmik
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dtgreene: Do you think this mechanic makes sense, or should such effects remain on a character even through death?
There are different ways to answer the question depending on what angle you approach it.

From a coding perspective, I imagine it can serve as a final option to remove incurable afflictions, that either the player can't cure ingame, or for which there's a bug that isn't disappearing. For example, the modders for Temple of Elemental Evil found that sometimes characters would get permanently stuck with spell glitter, the sparkles that appear while a spell is affecting someone and which should disappear when the spell ends. Sometimes the spell would end but the visual would stay, and there was nothing the player could do to remove it. So the modders made a work-around where an NPC would kill and rez you, as this finally removed the spell visual. So it may be that death as a cure-all is useful for devs for technical reasons.

From a role-play perspective, people have different ideas of how magic works, how afflictions work, how cures work, etc, so you can't find consistency in this area. For example, I myself separate hit point malus, physical malus, mental malus and spiritual malus into different categories, so while coming back from the dead should absolutely cure hit point malus, it might or might not be suitable to cure physical maluses (blindness, disease, poison, etc), and shouldn't help at all with mental or spiritual maluses (insanity, curses, etc).

Ultimately I can't help but look at video games from a real-world perspective, and believe that since they are products made to make money, and many young, newb, and unskilled people will play your products and most people don't like losing and/or can get easily frustrated, the Power of Reload is provided, and coming back from the dead is an extension of that, so one can feel they aren't "cheating" by using an in-game option to "undo" that last battle. People are EXTREMELY quick to badmouth or complain about anything, so offering many ways for people to keep enjoying your product and hopefully buy more is in a company's best interests.

Permadeath and other restrictions can give a game more culture, more "coolness" at being different, but ultimately the harder you make it for gamers to continue, the more likely your sales will suffer, so IMHO games tend to make it easier, not harder, to recover from various maluses.

One idea I liked was MIght and Magic 6's option of the Guardian Angel spell:

Guardian Angel: Costs 8 spell points. Sets up a compact with the Higher Powers to resurrect the characters and return them to the last temple they visited upon their deaths. The price for this service is half of the gold the characters have with them at the time of death. Guardian Angel lasts for 1 hour per skill point.

Normal: Restored to life with 1 hit point.
Expert: Restored to life with half their hit points.
Master: Restored to life with full hit points.

While I don't agree with the specifics, only costing gold on death, and varying your end hit points, the basic idea of casting a rez spell IN ADVANCE was something I liked a lot. You're about to go into a tough situation, maybe a boss fight? Cast the spell and pay some resources, and you're protected for a time. That to me makes a logical in-game sense, and can reduce/ negate the need for reloads or rezzes.
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BlueMooner: While I don't agree with the specifics, only costing gold on death, and varying your end hit points, the basic idea of casting a rez spell IN ADVANCE was something I liked a lot. You're about to go into a tough situation, maybe a boss fight? Cast the spell and pay some resources, and you're protected for a time. That to me makes a logical in-game sense, and can reduce/ negate the need for reloads or rezzes.
Final Fantasy 6 also used the "rez spell in advance" concept, though in a very different way. When you cast Reraise (Life 3 in earlier translations) on a character, and that character dies during the same battle, the character will be brought back to life (notably, this happens *before* the game over check, so it can prevent a game over). One use for this spell was against a certain boss who, when killed, casts a powerful spell that will most likely wipe out your party; by casting this spell, you can survive it. This spell would go on to appear in Chrono Trigger and later Final Fantasy games (at lest 9 and 10, but not 7 (though that game has Final Attack) and 8). It also appears in Rudra no Hihou, albeit with the game over check occuring first (so it can't prevent a party wipe).

Related, Dragon Quest 6 and 7 have one item (the Kerplunk Bracer) that will, when its wearer dies, revive and heal the rest of the party (but not the wearer), and then break.

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BlueMooner: Ultimately I can't help but look at video games from a real-world perspective, and believe that since they are products made to make money, and many young, newb, and unskilled people will play your products and most people don't like losing and/or can get easily frustrated, the Power of Reload is provided, and coming back from the dead is an extension of that, so one can feel they aren't "cheating" by using an in-game option to "undo" that last battle. People are EXTREMELY quick to badmouth or complain about anything, so offering many ways for people to keep enjoying your product and hopefully buy more is in a company's best interests.
Actually, I see resurrection, and in particular mid-battle resurrection (which is what's most relevant to this topic, I would argue), as more of a strategic option rather than something similar to reloading. Basically, if a companion dies during battle, do you try to bring the character back to life (and risk having the character die again, especially if the resurrection effect leaves the character at low HP or is unreliable), or is it more important to try to kill the enemies ore heal the survivors?

Also, I am of the opioning that people should get rid of the notion of reloading as "cheating".

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BlueMooner: While I don't agree with the specifics, only costing gold on death
Personally, I would prefer it to not cost anything except your position on death. (Losing your position is enough of a penalty for death when it is unwanted; allowing its intentional use I don't see being a problem, especially since I think allowing players to take advantage of the death mechanic is a good thing.)
Post edited February 17, 2019 by dtgreene
It´s a matter of phrasing. It is not death, that cures everything, but the resurrection spell itself. But at the end it depends on the game lore, I guess.
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Oddeus: It´s a matter of phrasing. It is not death, that cures everything, but the resurrection spell itself. But at the end it depends on the game lore, I guess.
If a game has a lot of different resurrection spells, it becomes a bit harder to believe that *every* resurrection spell wiould cure everything.

I have actually seen games (The Dark Spire being one example I believe) that actually have a spell that behaves like this:
* If the target is alive, the target is fully healed; status ailments are not cured.
* If the target is dead, the target is revived and fully healed; the character won't be subject to any status ailments that were in effect at the time.

(I've also seen a couple games, namely Final Fantasy and Final Fantasy Mystic Quest, that have a spell that fully heals and cures status ailments if cast during battle, but won't cure the same status ailments if cast outside of battle (but will still heal).)
I remember playing old RPGs where you could resurrect a dead character, but it brought him back to life with just one hitpoint, which was not very helpful, because you had to strip that character of all its equipment (or divide its equipment amongst the other characters, if possible), then bring them to the next healer where you had to pay for getting them their full HPs back.

And after that you had to go back to the position where the character died to pick up its equipment again.
Always risking to run into a fresh encounter, of course. Which was pretty much a guarantee to get your freshly resurrected character killed again.

And there was one other RPG where you could resurrect a dead character, but that character was basically a zombie afterwards - with the same stats as the other zombies in the game.

Also not very helpful.