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Consequences can be hard to swallow, especially when it comes to xp loss. That said, the fear of loss is a very real thing that characters should be aware of. Many things that the paragons of the server have done would have been cheapened if there wasn't a possibility of loss. Is it heroic to fight against demons or undead if failure doesn't effect your character at all?
Losing xp is rough, but xp or character level alone shouldn't define your character.
Removing an aspect of consequence in the game ultimately robs everyone of the feeling of accomplishment one might glean from taking risks.
Player cleric raises should be cheaper though, I agree. That seems perfectly ic and makes clerics feel more like divine patrons than anything else.
Ever since I hit 15 I haven't died to anything save for things that were incredibly unfair (mid-DM event surprise implosion), bugs, and the one time very recently I suicided my character because I was having a RL emotional crisis and took it out on the game.
I used to RP build on this server until I realized that I was spending my entire time playing recovering xp from previous deaths. This was at LEVEL 8. Why did I keep dying? Because I wanted to play a goofy half-orc for the RP and went with a build that wasn't as popular because it seemed fun and within character theme. All it took was a stray fireball during a DM event, a careless spell from backline friendlies, or just looking at something with enough to-hit ALONE to tear through my not-bad but imperfectly built AC and it was right back to the grinder hoping I wouldn't die because of my choice to stay RPure.
I know how to powergame. I'm really good at it. I can enjoy it too but I also like playing goofy RP builds because those are fun too. I play to fit the game I'm in and was hoping that with Netheril I could bust out an old character that was sub-optimal but not awful build wise. Hope didn't work. I was frustrated, rebuilt for power and ever since it has worked. I never even played NwN until EE came out on steam, so I read the hell out of the wiki and looked for every possible edge I could find to get my numbers more buff. I don't even want to say how many hours played I have clocked but I can assure you that I am NOT an example of typical play.
The secret to maintaining higher levels? Don't die, don't take risks, and scrape the bottom of the barrel to accumulate as much stored power and advantage as you can. Every single combat I enter I am staring at my numbers, waiting for buffs to be replaced if they fall off my stack, looking at to-hit numbers, save DCs and alternating through different combat stances to optimize damage and AC balance. Even after all of that there is still a numerical cap to what you can and cannot take on. Retaining higher levels is NOT something I expect people to be able to do unless they've studied the game like I have, play religiously, and even then all it takes is one mistake to wipe away all of that. I can't even count how many times I've gotten to near death because I made a single error (like getting feared because Prot Evil dropped off and getting 10 consecutive fireballs thrown at me) and what for? 300 xp during a DM event? I lose 25 TIMES that assuming I get a full resurrection.
And then there are times you just lose. I have a screenshot of a battle log from the Oggron fight where I died in one round because there were three giants there with +38 to hit that weren't even the boss and crit for 115 damage. I ate that xp hit because it was a big battle despite WTFing the entire time.
TLDR: There will always be people who beat the odds, but that doesn't mean the odds are anywhere close to good. I got where I am because I game the system, am super lucky, and have ABSURD amounts of time to burn. I can do just fine in a game like this, but that is not and has not been the case for everyone else. Too much risk, not nearly enough reward.
People aren't asking for the removal of death penalty, just something that doesn't make you want to rage quit when you die to something meaningless or overstatted. I'm also talking about top end, not the bottom reduction that was 25 to 15% total xp loss. That helped lower levels, and was great, but it still scales awfully at the higher end when 5% of your TOTAL xp is like 6000
Not to mention if XP was cut off for a set amount of time be it a few days or whatever, many people will just not play until it's back, which is thd last thing we'd want. Personally I am pretty happy where it is now, amd watching everyone play it seems most people have no problems retaining those higher levels.
