He's Dead Jim!

Unlike a lot of RPGs, D&D (and Pathfinder) feature characters returning from the dead fairly often. Indeed, so common is this, especially in 3e, that "the revolving door of death" became something of a joke.

Conversely, characters returning from the dead has generally been quite rare in D&D-related fiction. In the original Dragonlance trilogy, Riverwind was returned in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it scene. In the Drizzt saga, Wulfgar returns from the dead in a long-teased development, and Salvatore has recently reincarnated all of his old heroes for a new edition. And one of the most recent Pathfinder Tales saw a lead character dying and coming back (in what was actually quite a clever plot development, I though - a curse that lasted as long as the character lived).

As time and the editions have gone on, the effects of dying and coming back have become progressively less extreme. In 1st and 2nd Edition, death reduced your Con score by 1 point permanently (in an edition where boosts to ability scores were vanishingly rare), and there was a percentage chance you wouldn't survive. In 3e you automatically came back (unless you chose not to), but lost a level. Because of the way the XP rules worked, at least in 3.5e, you would eventually catch up, but could spend some months behind. Pathfinder changes this to apply permanent negative levels (which can be removed, so not really 'permanent', although that is costly). 4e introduces a non-permanent penalty that gradually reduces as you reach "milestones", while 5e has a non-permanent penalty that reduces through resting.

None of which I actually have a problem with - being dead (and so out of the game) for the time involved should really be punishment enough, without also permanently being behind the rest of the characters in ability. And dealing with mismatched PC levels was a major pain for the DM in 3e, PF, and 4e anyway. So better to avoid the issue, IMO.

However, from a storytelling point of view, I really don't like the notion that character death is little more than a speed-bump, easily dealt with and then forgotten. I'm very much in favour of its handling in the "Star Trek" movies, or even "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", where a character can come back but they are inevitably changed by the experience. Note, though, that 'changed' doesn't have to mean 'weakened'.

So...

Step One: Roleplay It

Just because the character is out of the action doesn't mean the player is out of the game. When a character dies, the group should discuss the next step - does the player bring in a new character, or will they seek to bring the old one back? In the latter case, the DM and the player should play out a few 'afterlife' scenes, interspersed with the action of the majority of the group. There shouldn't be many of these scenes, since it's one PC versus the rest of the group, and because you don't want them to be dead for very long (real-time) anyway, so just a few: maybe an introduction to the afterlife, some meetings with old friends/enemies/ancestors, and then the call to go back.

Step Two: The Character Rebuild

When the character returns, he doesn't have to come back as-is. Instead, the player should be given the chance to do a rebuild of the character, with almost everything up for grabs. As far as I can see, the following items should remain unchanged:

• The character's race, unless the character was reincarnated rather than raised/resurrected.
• The character's background, unless this is changed to a "post-death" background.
• The character's ability scores should remain broadly the same - a minor adjustment is fine, but not more than 1-2 points in any direction. (And if the ability scores are to be changed, he should use the point-buy system to do it.)

But pretty much everything else should be up for grabs. If the player decides the change some feat assignments, or his sub-class, or even his class, that's probably fine - the character has just gone through a life-changing trauma, so maybe his Paladin is now suddenly a Fighter (or the reverse), or he now has a different Bond or Ideal.

But there is one caveat: the player should be required to change something.

Post-death Backgrounds

5e has introduced an interesting new customisation option called the background, representing what the character did before he became an adventurer. (Actually, it was 4e that introduced the mechanic, and of course they're not exactly a new development. But 5e brought them into the D&D core for the first time.) Which is all to the good.

What the "character rebuild" step above allows for, though, is the option of introducing some new backgrounds, for characters who have died and been reborn. It's not unreasonably, after all, to assume that for some characters their "back from the dead" moment might come to mean more to them than their long-ago background as a rat catcher or whatever.

I propose, therefore, the introduction of at least one new background for characters who have died and returned. (I'm not sure if it's better to have one background with a choice of features, or several backgrounds each with a single feature.) This would reflect the character's post-life experience, and his reaction to coming back: maybe he's now world-weary and wants to die again, maybe he was compelled to return by unfinished business, maybe he's horrified by what lies in store and will now refuse to die (again), maybe he realises now that life is sweet, or whatever.

Problem is, now I need to write up this background, which may then never be used...