Dungeons & Dragons Online Q&A #2
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Q: How will the death system be implemented so as to stay true to Dungeons and Dragons without being too harsh for online play?
A: When a character dies in D&D Online, a few things happen. First, their body falls to the ground and soon vanishes. In its place the character drops a stone on the ground, what we call a soulstone, onto the ground below. Meanwhile, the character himself becomes a ghost that is invisible to living characters. The ghost can't affect things in its state, and it can't wander very far from the soulstone that is its anchor in the world. Moving too far away automatically leashes the ghost back to his soulstone. Another character, however, can pick up the soulstone, in which case the ghost is now leashed to the player, and can stay with his living companions, though not interact with them. Finally, an XP penalty is assessed.
As a ghost, a character has three ways to return to life and resume their play. Their first choice is to leave the dungeon or outdoor area they died in, and return to life within the confines of the city. The ghost can also be resurrected by a sufficiently powerful cleric. Finally, if the ghost reaches a resurrection shrine a magical shrine found in most, though not all dungeons he can be resurrected there.
As far as the XP loss goes, our goal is to encourage player skill and problem-solving, without making the occasionally loss of life actually debilitating. The amount of XP lost is far less than a total level as it is in the pen-and-paper game. XP loss can also be mitigated through a variety of spells and certain resurrection shrines.
