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A bad roll of the dice. A plan doomed to fail. An epic showdown with the Big Bad. Character death is a natural part of Dungeons & Dragons. And while spells like revivify can undo a tragic swan dive off a cliff, your party may at times find themselves short of a diamond or spell slot to bring a dead character back to life.
But there’s value in letting characters fail, and death doesn’t have to be final. You can use death to drive the narrative forward and facilitate great roleplay. Here’s how:
Don’t Force Death Onto Your Players
Players experience the game through the lens of their characters. So, they should have a sense of control, especially in cases where their characters can die. Consider, for example, how a player may respond if a monster killed their character in one blow. Such a death can be anti-climactic and even bring the game to a halt. For players who have labored over character creation, a sudden and meaningless death could leave them feeling detached from the story.
That’s why it’s important for DMs to carefully consider encounter difficulty when planning a session. The threat of death should be present in games to create tension, but if player characters can’t walk two steps without fatal consequence, you may find them taking a 10-foot pole to each tile along their path. Instead, seek to use traps and similar dangers to wear down the characters. Save the truly deadly dangers for remarkable moments, such as when the characters are trying to destroy a lich’s cursed phylactery.
In the same vein, when it comes to creating combat encounters, avoid having a deadly-level encounter each time. An encounter with a deadly difficulty may best be reserved for pivotal combats in the adventure, like when the characters track down the cult leader terrorizing their town or come face to face with an adult red dragon as they’re looting its hoard. Dying to a random beefed-up owlbear that has no bearing on the story may not make for an exciting end to a character.
That isn’t to say that the characters shouldn’t face consequences. If a player refuses to have their character ever retreat in combat, even when low on hit points, the DM shouldn’t necessarily have the enemies change behavior in order to spare them. The point is, if a character should die, the player should feel as though they could have avoided it, or that at least their death was meaningful.
Running a Deadly Adventure
If your table has agreed ahead of time to a deadly challenge, then slay away, DM! High difficulty games such as the meat grinder adventure Tomb of Annihilation can be rewarding for players who like a challenge. When run as a one-shot, a meat grinder can also be a hilarious way to pass an evening. What’s important to understand, though, is that players enter these sorts of games with the expectation of dying. An instant death to a trap isn’t so common of an experience in your typical D&D game nowadays, so it could be an unwelcome surprise for players who weren’t given a heads up during the session zero.
Improvising With Your Players
When the dice fall and that final death saving throw turns up in failure, DMs should consider giving the player whose character died more narrative control over the scene. Say, for example, that a character dies at the hands of a ruthless orc chieftain. You might ask the player to:
- Explain what their character did just before falling unconscious
- Describe what it looks like when they take their final breath
- Say any last words
Don’t be afraid of rewinding the scene in order to give your player an opportunity to write a death that’s satisfying to them. Perhaps their character got in one last quip before falling unconscious. As a DM, I’ve even allowed characters to fire off one last spell or make a debilitating attack. Though such actions could tip the scales of combat in favor of the players, it can make character death more memorable and cinematic.
Giving Characters a Second Chance
Death doesn’t have to be final, not when you’re the DM, at least. Whether by divine intervention or pure mystery, you can bring a character back to life. However, you should only do so with purpose and sparingly. The threat of death is a great source of tension in D&D. You don’t want your players to start expecting a free resurrection anytime their characters go down.
Bringing a character back from the dead can introduce new conflict and mystery to your game. Below are ideas for resurrecting a character while pushing the narrative forward. Just make sure you have the go-ahead from the player before giving their character a second life.
A Deal With a Patron
Powerful adventurers draw the eyes of all manner of entities throughout the multiverse. Should one of them die, it stands to reason that someone—or something—will step up to strike a bargain. The warlock class offers all manner of ideas for otherworldly patrons that could bring a character back to life in exchange for services. Perhaps Asmodeus seeks out a hero who could help free him from the influence of the Ruby Rod, which forces him and his devils to adhere to law. In exchange, he could offer resurrection and perhaps a modicum of his power.
A deal with a patron need not be one-sided or force a character to do evil. Their heroic acts may have caught the attention of a celestial who asks the character to help them destroy an evil that has breached the Material Plane. This evil could be working in cahoots with the campaign’s overarching Big Bad. Such a deal would allow you to move the story forward while giving the player the opportunity to keep enjoying their current character.
Limited Time Offer
To complicate matters for the player, the resurrection could be temporary. In exchange for completing a task for a patron, the character could be offered an indeterminate amount of time to live. This not only allows the player to say goodbye to their character but also adds tension to the game, as the players would be left wondering when the character would permanently die.
The Character Backstory Callback
When you’re looking for creative ways to bring a character back to life, you may not need to look farther than their backstory. If the character has been seeking to track down the monster that slayed their family, that unfinished business could be enough to bring them back, if only for a time. For DMs comfortable with homebrew solutions, you might have the character play as a ghost or other undead until their soul finds peace.
An Unnatural Return to Life
Some parties will do anything to bring a friend back to life. So, let them try! In a realm where undead walk the earth and quirky scientists stitch together flesh golems for fun, there’s bound to be an unconventional way to resurrect a player character. A series of Arcana and Medicine checks, some spell slots, and a sacrifice of sorts could be just what’s needed to bring someone back to life.
That isn’t to say there won’t be consequences. The Raven Queen or Lathander may not take too kindly to those disrupting the natural order of life and death. And who’s to say the resurrected character returns just as they were? They may have lost memories or their connection to their deity and bear the scars of their death. In such cases, look to the reborn lineage from Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft to modify the returned character.
Indebted to the Villain
Character deaths are a common threat during boss encounters. If you suspect that your players’ characters may be killed by a key villain, consider whether that villain would be forgiving of the heroes’ trespasses. Some enemies may even broker a deal with the surviving party members. In exchange for resurrecting their dead ally, the party must agree to leave the region, for example. An infernal contract would be an easy way to ensure the party keeps up their end of the bargain.
Journey to the Underworld
You may require the surviving characters to go on an epic quest to retrieve their deceased party member. Such a quest would allow you to switch up the pace of the game and take the players into new realms with unique monsters.
Don’t feel as though you need to take the characters to Elysium, the Nine Hells, or even the Ethereal Plane for such a quest. If the dead had ties to the Feywild, then perhaps their spirit was whisked away to that realm. You could even have the character’s soul be trapped in Mechanus, where they await judgement from the ultimate being of law and order, Primus.
Putting the Dead to Rest
The permanent death of a character can be just as impactful as a resurrection with a plot hook. In such cases, memorializing the dead creates roleplay opportunities and can offer the players closure before continuing on their adventures.
Planning a Funeral
Whether you bury them in an unmarked grave in the middle of the woods, throw a lavish party in their honor, or build a funeral pyre, you have a lot of options for putting a dead character to rest. Consider what makes the most sense for them. If the character was a boisterous barbarian, then an evening spent drinking and brawling could be a fun way to celebrate them.
At the burial, you may recommend that each party member bring an item they think the deceased character would appreciate or that signifies their relationship. Players may choose to give a short speech in remembrance of the character in or out of game, too.
Seeing the Character Again
After a character has been put to rest, you can occasionally hearken back to them. For example, if a druid who commonly used Wild Shape to take the form of a bird died, the party could more frequently encounter birds of the same type. The deceased character could also return as an NPC spirit that offers a quest or aid on a future occasion.
Be mindful of how frequently you call back to the dead character, however. Repeat visits or signs from the dead can quickly lose their emotional impact. At some point, you may even find that the players have moved on from the death.
What’s Your Approach to Character Death?
Death is a curious thing in D&D. It doesn’t have to be so final. You can bring the dead back to life through unconventional means and reshape the narrative around their return. Even if you prefer to let dead characters lie, there’s ample opportunity for roleplay. No matter how you approach character death, however, it’s important to be mindful of how a player can feel after losing their character. Be respectful of their needs and seek out ways to bring them back into the game, especially if they end up creating a new character with no ties to the party.
Michael Galvis (@michaelgalvis) is a tabletop content producer for D&D Beyond. He is a longtime Dungeon Master who enjoys horror films and all things fantasy and sci-fi. When he isn’t in the DM’s seat or rolling dice as his anxious halfling sorcerer, he’s playing League of Legends and Magic: The Gathering with his husband. They live together in Los Angeles with their adorable dog, Quentin.
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