If there's no way to 'buy' a campfire without leaving the city, then yeah I think there should be.

Don't feel like this needs to be a feytouched.

@Cojak81

I agree and I've been there. It sucks to lose level 9-10 especially on a caster, but not losing levels or barely losing XP isn't an alternative. There needs to be a failure state and something to add risk to attempting the most difficult content.

I am open to alternatives to flat XP loss.

Suggestions like sharing XP penalties are good, because it means the party must retreat to make it happen. Adding consumables that lessen XP penalties for respawning are also fine, because they give value to gold and trading as they're mostly relevant to high levels. In this case you are spending your gold instead of losing a lot of XP.

But you need to spend something for dying and it can't be inconsequential.

Because I totally agree with what you're saying - but still feel the "niche" of your armor falling off in Ghosts and Goblins and you die with the second point of damage you take, wasn't even a fun niche when I was growing up - it was just designed to get another quarter out of me. :)

Yes, there's a reason the more obtuse or annoying mechanics are no longer around. Remember when you dropped your entire pack when you died? However that doesn't mean everything that inconveniences a player is bad. But I recognize that these days there's less time and patience for many more ''hardcore'' mechanics in games.

Personally I prefer the older style of game, and I think many here are the same. You're still playing Neverwinter Nights after all, right?

Even if death just tossed you back to the beginning of your current level, or to 9th level if you die at 10th level. That's a lot less suck, but still with consequences. But "consequences" honestly suck when you're trying to play a casual game; so what about adding fun or interest?

Is it 'fun' to lose your progress in a Dark Souls game? No, but that game is popular because it offers a sense of achievement, it isn't afraid to be challenging. I'm really just parroting myself now, but I stand by my previous points. If there's no penalty for losing, then all challenge is meaningless.

If my character can't de-level below 9 then nothing stops me from respawning until I win. I'll just stay level 9 I don't need 10. You know those dangerous ruins with the rare lore hidden behind scary foes? It won't be rare anymore because there's nothing to give me pause.

If players won't lose their levels there need to be other failure states preventing them from 'cheesing' the game.

I could disable respawning at your corpse so you're forced to run all the way back, or lock you out of a quest when you die. I could enable a growing 'wound' debuff that makes you so weak you're forced to stop playing until it's gone.

These are also not ''fun'' alternatives, but I am of the opinion that if you can't lose you also can't win.

Beyond that, there are ways to make death "meaningful" that encourage roleplay or a character to stick around as 'marked for dead' in the Fugue rather than a "consequence" of some bad die rolls .

What follows is a some brainstorming, but many of the ideas I think came from a "what if there were things to encourage death, give it meaning, and even encourage folks to hang out in the Fugue a little".

Permanent Consequences:

Player Reflection:

Memory Preservation:

Shared Pool Consequences:

Soul Transfer/Transformation:

Fugue Raid:

Respawns Matter:

Death Powers

The Power of Mourning

There's a lot of cool stuff here, and many of them are similar to stuff that's crossed my mind before.

But I'm giving a bit of a blanket response.

They are not appropriate for our setting or narrative.

At least not the current setting of Arabel. There's a lot worth discussing for the next chapter, and we'll be looking at creative suggestions like these.

Neverwinter Nights is a classic game with a niche audience, many of whom are fans of older RPGs that weren’t afraid to challenge and inconvenience players through their mechanics. Servers still running today I feel were mostly created by fans of that older era, when overcoming challenging was difficult by satisfying.

In contrast, most modern games have streamlined their mechanics for the sake of convenience. There are no penalties for dying, checkpoints are abundant, inventories are limitless, and progress is often inevitable. While these changes make games more accessible, they also risk making victories feel shallow and unsatisfying.

"There need to be consequences for death," is often repeated—and mostly refers to taking death seriously in-character, something that's encouraged by death penalties but in the end not something that can be enforced. However it's still preferable to no penalties, just look at how people treat death without penalty in Arelith, barely an inconvenience.

But beyond enforcing RP I feel it's important to have milestones like reaching and retaining level 10, getting the best loot or overcoming the hardest content feel meaningful.

If players can sit at max level without risk or effort, those accomplishments lose their significance. Without the possibility of failure or setbacks, the stakes vanish, and the game world begins to feel like a hollow sandbox. Players will throw themselves at the hardest quests or monsters without tension, turning them into exercises of persistence rather than tests of skill or strategy, and any mystery in the game will soon vanish.

Risk is, after all, what gives a sense of achievement for overcoming a challenge.

I think there's some great suggestions in this thread and we'll surely consider them. But regardless of anything a failure state will always be necessary for anything you do to feel meaningful.

So this post is a little bit confusing so I'll summarize how I understand it.

Ceak wants to play a minor noble whose house fell out of favor after the rebellion. They'll follow their view of Malar's dogma which means that the poor/non-nobles should be hunted down if they don't bow to nobility.

Their ultimate goal is to dethrone the Queen and insert their own household as the new ruler. I presume this will translate into trying to make their own house more prominent for the most part.

To jumpstart that they'll latch onto whichever noble house faction will suit them best.

The part about the Fire Knives seems to be a bid for NPC sponsorship from an assassins guild. I don't know what they're expecting from this, but it's EIG I guess so that's fine?

To get attention they want to start a semi-secret ''gentleman club'' with anti-queen sentiments to promote themselves over the more established nobles.

The actual on-creation application distills down to ''Minor Nobility.''

Which they'd need for any of their motivations to make sense and have at least a little bit of sway.

Half Elf / TBC / NE / 4/ Fighter

What specific perk(s) (faction, special background, etc)

Minor Noble Background, Specialist Background (Fire Knife Assassin & Malarite Heresy)

A few sentences on how you plan to make the server more fun to play on for everyone, through your characters actions/story.

A snobby hybrid of elf and man, he absolutely believes that he is the epitome of elegance, grace and brilliance.
He follows a twisted Malarite heresy where the poor and the destitute must be hunted like game and removed, as they tarnish everything beautiful about the world. They steal from the rich and mess up expensive shoes by shitting and vomiting in the street.
He believes above all that nobility should rule, absolutely and final. His grand plan is to remove the Queen from her position, and see his own family ascend to the top of the tree, even if it’s on fire and covered in blood.
Will latch on to Delzuld or Braerwinter and attempt to form a “noble council” of sorts (Gentleman’s Guild), sew some anti-monarchy sentiment and try to “catch the eye” of a Fire Knife NPC. Nothing will be off the table with regards to claiming power!

If you're not applying on your normal log-in or handle, what accounts have you played under?
N/A

Brief background as relevant to the application.

From a minor noble house in the Hullack region that was thrown out during the rebellion, with grand plans to see it rise to prominence. He will use a double bladed sword and be very swashbuckling. He will not be a ranger.
Other

Happy for feedback / suggested adjustments!

@Strife-and-Discord
Fix it please, no sense taking the increased CL feat if it didn't give you the benefits.

If we can add Feytouched that'd be sweet.

We don't have fey-touched but this story can still be told without that subrace.

Instead the Wintercourt could be worked into the background and we could give them something like a trinket or mark to represent those ties.

However if the point of the app was more that they wanted to play a White Dragontouched then my feedback is to rewrite the app to focus more on roleplaying that.