In a blog on the Lords of Xulima website death in party based RPGs is discussed including an explanation on how this is handled in the game.
More information.The group DOES NOT automatically recover at the end of combat.
Every fight counts, every trap activated and every wound inflicted. Actions, of whatever type, should have consequences, good or bad. Every encounter should be engaging and meaningful and require strategy on the part of the player to obtain the best possible outcome.
If ALL characters die, the game is OVER!
This can happen in combat, through traps or if the party decided to try to walk through lava and didn’t make it…
There is no death and resurrection of individual characters
If a character loses all his hit points he remains in a state called “defeated” and his portrait will turn gray. This character can walk and talk, but cannot engage in combat or perform actions such as lock picking or spell casting, until their hit points have been restored to a positive number. The game is novel in this aspect; the characters can have negative hit points (up to their maximum value of hit points). So, it will be more costly to revive seriously damaged characters (it will require more spells, potions or rest).
Defeated characters will suffer penalties
When a character has lost all of their hit points they are then assigned the condition “Fatally Wounded”. Even when they recover their hit points through rest, magic or potions, they will suffer penalties to defense, combat speed, attacks and skill actions. The effects will last until the condition has been cured. To recover from this condition, characters need to rest for an entire day, drink a special potion or be cured by a grand cleric (the cleric may be part of the group or the party can use the services of a temple if they are able to provided sufficient donations)
The Player Decides…
In Lords of Xulima you will frequently have your characters fall defeated in combat or other dangerous situations, but that’s not the end of the game, far from it. The player has many options, like resting in the wilderness (a dangerous risk), seeking refuge in a town, curing party members with spells and potions, or continuing on with the survivors. Each player will be able to develop their own strategy. There may be many situations where characters being defeated is inevitable. You may decide to walk across lava to obtain an ancient artifact, or run through a poisonous cloud to escape a giant serpent, the choice is yours…the only thing truly fatal is losing all of your characters at once.
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