Hardcore: Punishments for Death

[Porchdrinker]

I've been following BigWooly's HriskarIII journal for a while now, and I'm a huge proponent of his hardcore rule set. For those who don't know, one of his rules iis about what to do if your in-game character dies. His current rule is to sleep at an inn for seven days and seven nights, then buy enough food/drink to cover seven days of room and board. While I think it's a great idea, I have been thinking of other alternatives for when a character has a bunch of gold and the inn/food expense is close to meaningless.

One alternative I've thought about recently is forcing your character to train a skill point in his/her highest ranked skill. Another option is to voluntarily discard the most valuable (septim-wise) of the following: weapon, shield, or chest armor. This forces the character to take some time to either a) retry the battle with a piece of equipment inferior to what was used previously, requiring an alternate strategy, or b) spend time trying to craft or procure an item of similar value to replace what was lost.

While I came up with this idea while thinking in terms of a pure warrior, there are other applications and variations of it. An alchemy-centric character could be forced to drink or discard all of his/her potions and start from scratch. A mage character could be forced to revisit the College of Winterhold to train a skill point in their most advanced school of magic, which could cost a few thousand in gold.

What do you guys think? Would any of you consider one of these types of punishments for death in a "hardcore" roleplay? Do any of you do any other sort of "punishment" when your character dies?

 

[Soulcano]

I was also inspired by the Hriskar journal, but I found the process of resting/sleeping for an entire week takes a long time on PS3. Like you, I was looking for alternative punishments. And, like you, I found voluntarily discarding a piece of my armor to be a good option.

RP wise, I imagine that the attack destroys a piece of the armor. I still rest and eat, but only for one day since it takes so long to repeatedly wait 24 hours at a time.

This method works well for me. My looting is very restricted due to the Hriskar weight limits. So it is nice to be on a constant search for replacement armor that I would otherwise be ignoring.

 

[Psiberzerker]

Restart another character from Helgen. What, you're not playing DiD? Not very "hardcore" if you ask me.

 

[stagnant94]

pretend you were taken prisoner by the person who killed you or if it wasn't a person who killed you, a person found you and took you prisoner. you then have to work in a mine and collect a certain amount of an ore before being allowed your items back so you can continue

 

[Psiberzerker]

pretend you were taken prisoner by the person who killed you or if it wasn't a person who killed you, a person found you and took you prisoner. you then have to work in a mine and collect a certain amount of an ore before being allowed your items back so you can continue

Good idea, run to the nearest town, punch a guard in the face, surrender, and cool your heels in jail...

 

[lvillefan]

Where would one find said journal?

Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Soulcano]

Where would one find said journal?

Skyrim General Discussion:
Nord Refugee Character Diary - Hrisskar III

 

[stagnant94]

Good idea, run to the nearest town, punch a guard in the face, surrender, and cool your heels in jail...

um, that doesn't work, i punched the guards in whiterun and there just like "boy, what are you doin?" in an eddie murphy accent

 

[Psiberzerker]

( .)( .) What you talkin 'bout, Willis? Then try stealing a sweetroll, or something. Do I really need to tell you how to get arrested?

 

[AS88]

In theme with the Hrisskar thing, I tend to wait and sleep for a week, 12 hours sleep, 12 hours wait for seven days. Although in this time, I find the nearest alchemist and buy a load of potions corresponding to what put me on my a** for a week, as if my follower got them for me - eg;

Warrior with an unenchanted weapon - healing potions
Mage with lightning spells - resist shock potions
Knevel the Tongue - healing and resist frost potions
Falmer/Chaurus - resist poison potions

Also, due to most of my characters having expensive tastes for Honningbrew Mead or Alto Wine, a week load of potions, food and drink mount up to between 1000-1500 gold depending on the circumstances. One time a character of mine left his bed after a week with a grand total of 2 septims to his name, and no food.

 

[Gore gro-Gijakudob]

I'm with Psi on this, you wanna play hardcore? Die and you start over. That's it. Or even better, ultra-hardcore (if your character dies, you can never play the game again). Or even ULTIMATE hardcore, if you die you have to kill yourself.

 

[Neriad13]

While I am a huge proponent of BigWooly's gaming style, I have yet to ever implement a death penalty. I have yet to find one that I really like yet. It's just about the only rule that I don't implement, though I am sure that it would add to my game.

 

[Soulcano]

I'm with Psi on this, you wanna play hardcore? Die and you start over. That's it.

Fine, DID is the only "Hardcore" mode out there. That doesn't mean there aren't other metagaming options worth discussing.

 

[Gore gro-Gijakudob]

Fine, DID is the only "Hardcore" mode out there. That doesn't mean there aren't other metagaming options worth discussing.

I know, it just seems a bit silly to me. If you die, your dead, why is selling your stuff or doing things you don't want to do fun? In what way does it make any sense at all? I can understand players making challenges for themselves by limiting their equipment etc, but punishing themselves for dying? Meh, each to their own I suppose. If onlymaking your life slightly more inconvenient for a while could really defeat the grim reaper!

 

[Neriad13]

I know, it just seems a bit silly to me. If you die, your dead, why is selling your stuff or doing things you don't want to do fun? In what way does it make any sense at all?

"Death is a learning experience." is what I say to myself all the time.

 

[bulbaquil]

I always thought, for DiD in Skyrim on a PC version, you should have to COC to Sovngarde and overwrite your save.

That being said, if you want a reasonably realistic death sequence that isn't DiD:

- If a bandit/Forsworn killed you, drop anything you have that's worth at least 100 gold, and divest yourself of all your money. If you're charging yourself a recovery fee, you have to make up any debt through labor (farming, mining, smithing/alchemy and selling what you made, or (if you allow it) chopping wood).

- If a mage, necromancer, or other magic-type killed you, drop all enchanted weapons and armor, all alchemy ingredients, all potions, and half your gold.

- If a guard killed you and you're on the PC, console-command the bounty to 1.5 times whatever it should have been right before you died, and submit to arrest/pay the bounty. (Works best if you're playing with a longer-jailtimes mod). If on PS3/Xbox, divest yourself of the appropriate gold somehow and get arrested, working off any debts as appropriate.

- If anything else killed you (e.g. bear, commoner, dragon, Thalmor justiciar), drop your main chest armor, shield, and weapon (they were irreparably damaged in the fight).

 

[Psiberzerker]

Fine, DID is the only "Hardcore" mode out there. That doesn't mean there aren't other metagaming options worth discussing.

That was my 1st suggestion (Tongue firmly in cheek, at that) the other option is go to jail, godirectly to jail, do not pass go, do not collect 200 $eptims. It's got it all, loss of time, experience, reputation, and fast travel to the nearest spawn point. Either that, or save once per day, and rather than returning to the latest autosave, (turn this setting off) go back to that morning's hard save. That's right, lose that whole day's experience, loot, money, and game advancement.

I play for fun, whether it's Hardcore, Cherry Tapping, OPage, or balanced for Adept. How is spanking yourself with convoluted rules in any way enhancing your entertainment experience? That's three ways to penalize yourself, quickly, and get on with playing. If not, go ahead, potion shop, rent a room, and indeture yourself to crafting, if that's your idea of fun. But first, ask yourself, "Why am I playing hardcore?" Then, "Is this death penalty really adding to that, or subtracting?" They should answer themselves.

 

[Soulcano]

or save once per day, and rather than returning to the latest autosave, (turn this setting off) go back to that morning's hard save

I agree, that is a fine way to add consequence to death without the tedium of some of the other suggestions. If it makes you feel better, you can always RP the failed day as a nightmarish vision or something along those lines.

 

[Psiberzerker]

I agree, that is a fine way to add consequence to death without the tedium of some of the other suggestions. If it makes you feel better, you can always RP the failed day as a nightmarish vision or something along those lines.

Right, you wake up in a cold sweat, and tell yourself it was all a bad dream...

Another thing I don't do in HC is actually sleep, in game that is. I find a bed, pay for an Inn if necessary, then wait 8 hours instead of lying down so I don't get any Rested bonuses. (Then Save, once per "day"/session.) The whole idea is to increase the challenge without adding buffs, right? To me, fast leveling breaks the whole spirit of it. All of my self imposed restrictions are set up likeat to Enhance the experience (In the sense of stimulus, not XP) instead of making it more boring, and annoying. Rest only next to a (usable) bed, no crafting, nor other exploits, eat, keep a realistic schedule, and inventory. (No spare sets of Armor, caddy bag of weapons, and pharmacies of potions/ingredients. The only alchemy I do is eating raw ingredients.) I also jump/squat around to warm up after swimming if there's no fire available. (Old survival trick, Jumping Jacks.)

 

[theoperation]

I agree, that is a fine way to add consequence to death without the tedium of some of the other suggestions. If it makes you feel better, you can always RP the failed day as a nightmarish vision or something along those lines.

That's exactly what I do. Dead is Dead is just too much for me and stops making the game fun, mainly because I don't want to do the Helgen tutorial over 9000 times. However with the current system of just going back to the start of the dungeon I always just charge in like Leroy Jenkins without caring, which doesn't contribute to good role-playing. So hard-saving before you sleep is a great way to keep it in role-playing.

Other good systems have been proposed too, like dropping all your gold and valuable jewellery and the likes if you were killed by a bandit, as they would probably rob you then leave you for dead. It's all about finding out what is the most fun for you while still remaining true to HC role-playing.