On Death & Dying in Diablo 3

Diablo 3 community manager Bashiok has posted an interesting teaser about the death system. It seems that D3 will incorporate a 'checkpoint' mechanism so that, on death, characters are returned to the checkpoint most recently passed. Check the official word on the subject:

Before I get in to what we are doing let me go over some things we want to avoid with a death mechanic.

We want to separate being in town and being out on a quest/adventure/dungeon as much as possible. Leaving the safety of a town should not be a decision you take lightly. We don't want to remove the sense of suspense and danger by making town something you're always going back to pretty much whenever you like. The intent is to create a greater separation from being in town, and not, and to make your time away from town a lot more tense.

On that same note we also don't want to remove the player from the action. Throwing them back to town for every death really breaks up the action, and not in a fun, interesting, or necessary way.

So, with these things in mind we've found that a check point system works really well. Throughout your adventures, and generally at the ends of each "floor" of a dungeon your character is saved to a checkpoint. When you die you're dropped back at the last checkpoint with a small amount of health, and the rest regenerates slowly. It's obviously a very forgiving system as it is. It's just too early to put a ton of thought in to what penalties there should be, if any, added on top of it.
Regardless, potential penalties aside, this is the death mechanic we're currently using and it's working really well so far.

A great improvement. Now the question remains whether or not characters will reappear at checkpoints clothed or not. I have NIGHTMARES about the original Diablo and all my equipment spewed around Hell Level 3. *gasps with the memory*

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