Death Penalty Guide

I'm sorry to say that everyone faces this at some point in the game, occassionally for being less than observant, or filled with hubris, and at other times through no fault of your own. This guide is designed to help you understand the death penalty system, and ways to mitigate the penalties.

Bind Stones

Scattered throughout the home zones are bind stones that allow you to anchor your spirit should an untimely death befall you. You anchor your spirit to one of these special stones through use of the /bind command. Then, when you die and type /release, you will appear back at the last bind stone you anchored at. The benfit to binding is that you can save yourself a long run by binding near where you hunt. If you forget to bind though, you can find yourself a good 40 minutes away from where you were hunting... spoken from experience.

There are anywhere from 0 to 3 bind stones in any home zone, all with guards nearby, most with healers also. Any home zone that does not have a bindstone is neighbored by zones that do, though that can still make for a long run back to where you had been fighting.

Initial Levels

At level 5 and below, just type /release and run back to where you were fighting. If you have repeated deaths at that spot, go fight elsewhere or find some friends to help you get your revenge. There are no penalties at these intial levels.

Advanced Levels

At level 6 and above you will lose experience when you die. The amount lost is a percentage of the experience needed to complete your current level. The experience loss for the first death at any level is one-third the normal amount for that level, and the experience loss for the second death at any level is two-thirds the normal amount for that level. The experience loss upon death can only be offset by new hunting.
.....6th level loss is 1%
.....7th level loss is 2%
.....8th level loss is 3%
.....9th level loss is 4%
.....10th level and higher loss is 5%

You can never lose your level. You never lose items. You never lose skill. The older bug about being able to have negative experience (while retaining the level) has been fixed, so you cannot drop below 0% experience in any level.

Upon release, you will lose that percentage of experience again, as well as constitution points. The first /release each level will cost one constitution point, the second /release will cost two constitution points, and all subsequent /releases that level will cost three constitution points.

Getting a resurrection from a cleric/healer will prevent the constitution loss and second experience loss from happening, as well as keeping your body where it fell (preventing a potentially long run back from your last bind point). Praying at the headstone will return all of the experience lost during the second stage of the penalty, but you must a) run back to your grave costing time, and b) you must pay for your con (which is why healers are located near most bind stones).

Please note that if you quit or go linkdead while dead, you will automatically release when you log back in. There is also a level-based timer for how long you can remain dead before autoreleasing. Gravestones will remain for several days before disappearing if you don't pray at them, but you can only have one gravestone at a time. On subsequent deaths, any previous headstone disappears (sucking your lost experience from releasing with it) and a new one is created.

Realm vs. Realm

I need to get confirmation of the finalized plans for RvR penalties before I want to publish anything here.

Restoring Experience and Constitution

Return to your headstone if you choose, target it, and /pray at it to get back the experience lost upon /release. Note that you will only gain back the experience you lost upon release by praying at your headstone. The experience penalty for dying in the first place will remain, but you can recover even 5% of your level's experience with about 40 minutes of solo hunting green-con mobs, half that with solo hunting blue-con mobs, and reduce it down to about 10 minutes worth of fighting in a good group.

The lost constitution can be bought back by paying an NPC healer for each point. You can also perform a task or quest for the healers as an alternative to cash donations for con restoration. The price goes up as you level (and can get very expensive, buy back your con before you level), but each point should be in the neighborhood of two or three loots from a blue con mob.

And as mentioned above, a resurrection will prevent part of the experience loss and all of the constitution loss from happening. So keep your healer's happy.

Making Friends

Clerics cannot self res (dead issue, but still taken out and whipped periodically by those with great hope), so if you receive a res, be kind to the cleric and pay them for it. Clerics in a party often die, release, and run back to try to resurrect everyone else before the timer runs out, which means they get hit with constitution penalties every time. Paying them will offset their costs, and make them happy to group with you and save you time, experience, and money in the future. As well as making your realm stronger by fostering teamwork.