"The Art of Dying Nicely"

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The Art of Dying Nicely -- a BatMudder's Guide to Death 



One oft-asked question is "what's the difference between pray, ress, raise, 
and new body?".  Here's a quick reference guide, to make you a happier, 
friendlier corpse for the tarms to deal with.


Pray - 95% of the time you pray, you lose 100% of your carried exp. 5% of 
the time, you lose 0%. When you pray, you risk ill effects -- the primary 
risk is that of losing a level. I believe this can only happen when you have 
a free level on you (an open level that could be applied to a guild).  
Because the risks are great, NEVER pray if you can avoid it.

Raise - This spell takes away 75% of your exp. It has no ill effects, other 
than that it reduces your cha. This is the cheapest (~139 sps), quickest, 
and least risky Hell-exit for tarms to cast. Take a raise when you have 
little exp on or when your cha is low.


Ress - Ress takes away 50% of your exp. It carries a penalty of reduced 
stats for a few minutes; repeated deaths increase the duration of the stat 
penalty. Ress takes longer for tarms to cast and is more costly (~278 sps). 
Ress also carries a greater risk to the caster if you have low cha.  Fumbled 
resses have nasty effects (lost exp, lost stats, lost level for EITHER the 
target or the caster). Take resses only when you're carrying a significant 
amount of exp (for newbies, this would be perhaps 50k or more exp). 

New Body - New body takes away 25% of your exp.  It takes approximately 6 
real-life hours for the death effects to wear off.  It costs the caster a 
great deal of time and sps to cast (~510 sps). Reserve the use of New Body 
for when you are carrying a great deal of exp (200k exp or more). 
Fumbles can be nasty.

In case you didn't pick up on this, I'll restate: all of the life-restoring
spells carry some risk to both the caster and the target.  To minimize this 
risk, keep your cha near 100 and take raises rather than resses/new bodies. 
TIP YOUR TARM WELL (500-2k gold per raise, 5k+ per new body). The caster is 
taking quite a bit of time and risk to get you out of Hell, and they deserve 
something in return. 


Once you're out of Hell, don't expect heals/scar removals.  If the healer is 
kind enough to heal/scar remove, be sure to tip (500-1k gp). Should you 
(heaven forbid) cause a fumble that hits the caster, compensate in some 
fashion and get surgery immediately since your cha is usually to blame. 
Keep your cha over 80 at all times, if you plan to take resses or new bodies.


- Dryad

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