Overview
As we’re constantly striving to adapt the server and create new ways to improve upon age-old problems with certain systems or features in Neverwinter Nights roleplay servers, we have devised a new system we believe will help make player vs player conflict feel much more impactful with permanent death scenarios while not impacting the enjoyment of those who potentially may not want to worry about such situations.
Violation of any of these rules should be reported to a DM immediately or sent as a PM via the Forum to Aschent_. If you have any questions, please ask us!
Opt-in or Opt-out
When a character is first created, its player will be given the option to opt in to permadeath or not. If their player chooses to do so, they will become susceptible to permadeath at the hands of others who have opted in. Permadeath is confirmed or avoided by a roll-based system, meaning that each time a player opted into permadeath is reduced to -10 hp (referred to as ‘Downed’) from another player that’s opted into permadeath, they must make a D100 roll which decides whether or not they permanently die.
An opted-in character’s first Downed state received from PvP with another opted-in character will require their player to make a relatively easy roll. A roll of 21+ will be required for that character’s survival, giving them an 80% chance of escaping permadeath. For each subsequent PvP death, the difficulty of the roll is increased by 20, decreasing the probability of their survival by 20%.
Thus, after being Downed 5 times from PvP with another opted-in character, even the luckiest opted-in character who has escaped death on all previous occasions, against mounting odds, will inevitably die permanently with a 0% chance of survival.
For clarity, a table of the necessary permadeath rolls and percentage chance of survival for an opted-in character after being Downed a certain number of times from PvP with other opted-in characters is shown below:
Being Downed from - or Downing - other player characters who have not opted in will not result in a permadeath roll for either player. Instead, they will not gain any experience from dungeons and receive a debuff to their stats that lasts one week in real-world days as their character recovers from the wounds they suffered. During this time, they can still gain roleplay experience. Therefore, the stakes are always somewhat high in PvP engagements, even between characters that have not opted in.
At any time, a player can choose to opt in to the permadeath system*. However, once a player is opted in they can never again opt out, making this choice an extremely important decision that must be considered and made carefully.
*Footnote: If you don’t choose to opt in at character creation and wish to opt in at a later time there will be a way to manually opt in without DM assistance, however this will take roughly 48 hours to process from the time you initiate it.
Why Opt-in?
Because we want The Dragon’s Neck to feel like it has realistic consequences and an evolving storyline, we have made the decision to link higher authority player roles into this permadeath system. This means that unless you opt into permadeath, you cannot attain a position of authority or power, such as a noble, a high priest of a temple, an NPC-faction leader (Alchemist Guild, Swords of Darromar, etc), or any other notable position in which you are able to influence major decisions in the overarching narrative of the gameworld.
How will this happen? Well, when you’re close to reaching a position of authority such as the aforementioned roles, you will be approached by a DM to remind you that if you wish to continue, you will need to opt in. The choice will ultimately be yours, however if you do not opt in then it will be up to you to decide why or how your character no longer wishes to pursue the role they were aiming for.
If you have set up a player faction, you will not immediately be asked to opt in. However, if your faction/group/organisation starts to become a major factor in the storyline, DMs may approach you to decide upon and concrete a formal structure for your faction whereby the leader and the higher ranks must opt into permadeath. Again, if you wish to avoid this you can, but your faction will need to step away from influencing any important decisions made within the gameworld. This will be handled on a case-by-case basis as staff will need to determine whether there is a requirement for the group to be made ‘official’ by Permadeath.
Roleplaying Death & PvP
The Dragon’s Neck takes the approach that resurrection magic is an almost entirely lost art. Therefore, whenever you mechanically die on the server it will be treated as if you were badly wounded and a mechanical debuff will be applied to you after you ‘respawn’ which symbolises this. Only permadeath will be considered actual, in-character death as far as the server is concerned.
To this end, any time a player assaults another player with the intent of killing and triumphs they will be required to roleplay the ‘killing’ with as ambiguous an ending as possible. This means that you cannot emote severing limbs, the head, or otherwise dealing any kind of unequivocal fatal blow to your opponent unless a DM expressly gives you permission. This is to allow other players to roleplay surviving the attack. You can roleplay that you stabbed the other player or gave them what you believe was a fatal cut, but a degree of believability must be offered to allow for players to explain their survival - this also applies even when you know that you and your victim are both opted in, because you don’t know if that person will make their death roll.
Furthermore, there are no convoluted rules regarding attacks. Your character is allowed to remember one distinguishing feature about the attacker (clothing / eye colour / skin colour / hair colour), the choice of which is up to you. If you’re found to metagame knowledge of the attackers identity for revenge and this turns into a back-and-forth of revenge attacks then DMs will step in and enforce opt-in for both parties. It should also go without saying that if such situations clearly go beyond IC animosity there may be harsher consequences for the offending player(s).
Finally, you must not - under any circumstance - linger around too long after you win an assault to see if another player has survived unless the other player gives you permission. You can take a few moments to emote moving the defeated enemy or disposing of evidence if need be, but that is the extent. Any players caught griefing other players or repeatedly killing them to ensure they are permadead will be promptly banned from the server, permanently and with no chance of an appeal.
Peasants, Blighters & Dread Necromancers
We have made the decision to have the above three classes opt-in only. This means that from the moment these characters are created, they will be opted in without any say in the matter. We feel this is the correct choice because this offers the previously one-life permadeath peasants a little more leeway with the new roll system, giving them a few more chances before they are permanently closured*.
In regards to Blighters and Dread Necromancers, we feel that due to the antagonistic nature of the class and the extra power they wield, along with their potential impact upon other players roleplay that it only makes sense for this to happen. That said, these classes are also subject to the same opt-in rules, meaning that other players will need to be opted in before they can force the Dread Necromancers and Blighters into a permadeath roll and thus they will be equally be susceptible not only to the mercy of the Dread Necromancer / Blighter, but any other potential player enemies they encounter who are opted in.
*Footnote: Peasants are in the unique position that they will also be put into a permadeath roll from a PvE death.
Assassins & Assassin Contracts
Although assassins are not required to opt-in, for those who are looking to hire an assassin who is opted-in to kill an opted-in player, the person who hires the assassin will first need to notify the DM team of their intentions. Until they receive a response from the DM team in the form of a discussion about the intent, they will need to wait. There is a potential for the character hiring the assassin to have to opt in. This rule applies to any hired slaying and not just those who operate under the label of ‘assassin.’
DM Events & Realistic Consequences
Regardless of whether a character is opted in or not, these rules apply only to Player vs Player engagements. This does not mean that actions will not have consequences, nor does it mean that a character is unable to potentially permadie in a DM event if the situation calls for it. TDN is striving for realism, and while we are aiming to allow everyone a good end to their journey, it will still to some degree rest on the players shoulders as to the actions they take and the dice rolls they make.
Furthermore, there may be situations where DMs deem that character engagements are leading towards a point where a character’s closure may be inevitable. While we expect to intervene like this very rarely, if a situation becomes so volatile that it proves disruptive to the integrity of the server not to have some final resolution, we may need to enforce an opt-in scenario for both (or all) player characters involved.
Permadeath Rewards
In the event a player character is perma-killed, the player with the dead character will receive a portion of the dead character's XP, GP and CXP (Crafting XP) that can be used for a new character -
If there are any frequent questions that arise following the announcement of this new system, we will update this section of the post to address them for anyone curious.
As we’re constantly striving to adapt the server and create new ways to improve upon age-old problems with certain systems or features in Neverwinter Nights roleplay servers, we have devised a new system we believe will help make player vs player conflict feel much more impactful with permanent death scenarios while not impacting the enjoyment of those who potentially may not want to worry about such situations.
Violation of any of these rules should be reported to a DM immediately or sent as a PM via the Forum to Aschent_. If you have any questions, please ask us!
Opt-in or Opt-out
When a character is first created, its player will be given the option to opt in to permadeath or not. If their player chooses to do so, they will become susceptible to permadeath at the hands of others who have opted in. Permadeath is confirmed or avoided by a roll-based system, meaning that each time a player opted into permadeath is reduced to -10 hp (referred to as ‘Downed’) from another player that’s opted into permadeath, they must make a D100 roll which decides whether or not they permanently die.
An opted-in character’s first Downed state received from PvP with another opted-in character will require their player to make a relatively easy roll. A roll of 21+ will be required for that character’s survival, giving them an 80% chance of escaping permadeath. For each subsequent PvP death, the difficulty of the roll is increased by 20, decreasing the probability of their survival by 20%.
Thus, after being Downed 5 times from PvP with another opted-in character, even the luckiest opted-in character who has escaped death on all previous occasions, against mounting odds, will inevitably die permanently with a 0% chance of survival.
For clarity, a table of the necessary permadeath rolls and percentage chance of survival for an opted-in character after being Downed a certain number of times from PvP with other opted-in characters is shown below:
| Number of times Downed | Roll necessary for survival (D100) | Percentage chance of survival |
| 1 | 21-100 | 80% |
| 2 | 41-100 | 60% |
| 3 | 61-100 | 40% |
| 4 | 81-100 | 20% |
| 5 | N/A | 0% |
Being Downed from - or Downing - other player characters who have not opted in will not result in a permadeath roll for either player. Instead, they will not gain any experience from dungeons and receive a debuff to their stats that lasts one week in real-world days as their character recovers from the wounds they suffered. During this time, they can still gain roleplay experience. Therefore, the stakes are always somewhat high in PvP engagements, even between characters that have not opted in.
At any time, a player can choose to opt in to the permadeath system*. However, once a player is opted in they can never again opt out, making this choice an extremely important decision that must be considered and made carefully.
*Footnote: If you don’t choose to opt in at character creation and wish to opt in at a later time there will be a way to manually opt in without DM assistance, however this will take roughly 48 hours to process from the time you initiate it.
Why Opt-in?
Because we want The Dragon’s Neck to feel like it has realistic consequences and an evolving storyline, we have made the decision to link higher authority player roles into this permadeath system. This means that unless you opt into permadeath, you cannot attain a position of authority or power, such as a noble, a high priest of a temple, an NPC-faction leader (Alchemist Guild, Swords of Darromar, etc), or any other notable position in which you are able to influence major decisions in the overarching narrative of the gameworld.
How will this happen? Well, when you’re close to reaching a position of authority such as the aforementioned roles, you will be approached by a DM to remind you that if you wish to continue, you will need to opt in. The choice will ultimately be yours, however if you do not opt in then it will be up to you to decide why or how your character no longer wishes to pursue the role they were aiming for.
If you have set up a player faction, you will not immediately be asked to opt in. However, if your faction/group/organisation starts to become a major factor in the storyline, DMs may approach you to decide upon and concrete a formal structure for your faction whereby the leader and the higher ranks must opt into permadeath. Again, if you wish to avoid this you can, but your faction will need to step away from influencing any important decisions made within the gameworld. This will be handled on a case-by-case basis as staff will need to determine whether there is a requirement for the group to be made ‘official’ by Permadeath.
Roleplaying Death & PvP
The Dragon’s Neck takes the approach that resurrection magic is an almost entirely lost art. Therefore, whenever you mechanically die on the server it will be treated as if you were badly wounded and a mechanical debuff will be applied to you after you ‘respawn’ which symbolises this. Only permadeath will be considered actual, in-character death as far as the server is concerned.
To this end, any time a player assaults another player with the intent of killing and triumphs they will be required to roleplay the ‘killing’ with as ambiguous an ending as possible. This means that you cannot emote severing limbs, the head, or otherwise dealing any kind of unequivocal fatal blow to your opponent unless a DM expressly gives you permission. This is to allow other players to roleplay surviving the attack. You can roleplay that you stabbed the other player or gave them what you believe was a fatal cut, but a degree of believability must be offered to allow for players to explain their survival - this also applies even when you know that you and your victim are both opted in, because you don’t know if that person will make their death roll.
Furthermore, there are no convoluted rules regarding attacks. Your character is allowed to remember one distinguishing feature about the attacker (clothing / eye colour / skin colour / hair colour), the choice of which is up to you. If you’re found to metagame knowledge of the attackers identity for revenge and this turns into a back-and-forth of revenge attacks then DMs will step in and enforce opt-in for both parties. It should also go without saying that if such situations clearly go beyond IC animosity there may be harsher consequences for the offending player(s).
Finally, you must not - under any circumstance - linger around too long after you win an assault to see if another player has survived unless the other player gives you permission. You can take a few moments to emote moving the defeated enemy or disposing of evidence if need be, but that is the extent. Any players caught griefing other players or repeatedly killing them to ensure they are permadead will be promptly banned from the server, permanently and with no chance of an appeal.
Peasants, Blighters & Dread Necromancers
We have made the decision to have the above three classes opt-in only. This means that from the moment these characters are created, they will be opted in without any say in the matter. We feel this is the correct choice because this offers the previously one-life permadeath peasants a little more leeway with the new roll system, giving them a few more chances before they are permanently closured*.
In regards to Blighters and Dread Necromancers, we feel that due to the antagonistic nature of the class and the extra power they wield, along with their potential impact upon other players roleplay that it only makes sense for this to happen. That said, these classes are also subject to the same opt-in rules, meaning that other players will need to be opted in before they can force the Dread Necromancers and Blighters into a permadeath roll and thus they will be equally be susceptible not only to the mercy of the Dread Necromancer / Blighter, but any other potential player enemies they encounter who are opted in.
*Footnote: Peasants are in the unique position that they will also be put into a permadeath roll from a PvE death.
Assassins & Assassin Contracts
Although assassins are not required to opt-in, for those who are looking to hire an assassin who is opted-in to kill an opted-in player, the person who hires the assassin will first need to notify the DM team of their intentions. Until they receive a response from the DM team in the form of a discussion about the intent, they will need to wait. There is a potential for the character hiring the assassin to have to opt in. This rule applies to any hired slaying and not just those who operate under the label of ‘assassin.’
DM Events & Realistic Consequences
Regardless of whether a character is opted in or not, these rules apply only to Player vs Player engagements. This does not mean that actions will not have consequences, nor does it mean that a character is unable to potentially permadie in a DM event if the situation calls for it. TDN is striving for realism, and while we are aiming to allow everyone a good end to their journey, it will still to some degree rest on the players shoulders as to the actions they take and the dice rolls they make.
Furthermore, there may be situations where DMs deem that character engagements are leading towards a point where a character’s closure may be inevitable. While we expect to intervene like this very rarely, if a situation becomes so volatile that it proves disruptive to the integrity of the server not to have some final resolution, we may need to enforce an opt-in scenario for both (or all) player characters involved.
Permadeath Rewards
In the event a player character is perma-killed, the player with the dead character will receive a portion of the dead character's XP, GP and CXP (Crafting XP) that can be used for a new character -
- XP: 1.75 Levels * Dead PC Level (Rounded Down)
- Examples:
- Permakilled Level 18 PC: New PC receives level 10 free.
- Permakilled Level 9 PC: New PC receives level 5 free.
- GP: 500gp/New Level
- Examples:
- Permakilled Level 18 PC = Level 10 New PC = 5,000gp
- Permakilled Level 9 PC = Level 5 New PC = 2,500gp
- CXP: 50% of all CXP can be redistributed as the player sees fit & within Profession guidelines.
If there are any frequent questions that arise following the announcement of this new system, we will update this section of the post to address them for anyone curious.