Here's how I understood it: When you die, your memories start to decay, translation: all your ranks in skills slowly decay away down to zero. If you don't have a cleric repair your memories, if you die you loose all your memories that have decayed away when you depart, or auto-depart. If you had 150 ranks in a skill and you decay to the point that half your ranks are gone, when you depart instead of 150 ranks in a skill you might have half that, or about 75 ranks. This damage to experience/ranks is permanent that can only be recovered through retraining.

This is what I've always believed.

However after a recent discussion I'm told that in fact damage to ranks are not permanent, but temporary, that no matter how much in ranks you loose on departing, eventually, with time your ranks will return without need to retrain and this is death's sting?

Which is true?

Your ranks do not decay all the way to 0. I'm not sure of the cap because I have never really wanted to test it. But in all reality your soul will lose bonding with your body long before you hit zero ranks. This would actually be an odd thing to test: if you keep the soul bonded, kept the spirit from decaying, but didn't protect mems could you get someone all the way to 0 ranks?

As for the memory loss. The mems you do lose are only able to be retrieved via training. If you depart without a cleric restoring your mems you are in fact taking a hit. If you depart right away, the hit is very minimal. In fact, I'm beginning to wonder if you don't lose more field exp getting the 10th favor than you do just departing every time.

Death's sting I believe refers to two things... the 10% lost to stats and an overall "penalty" to doing anything. This sting is based on the ratio of the number of favors you have when you die and your circle. The goal being around 1 favor per 10 circles. This penalty to stats and "all" is temporary and does go away with time. You even get a message about it.

Elanthipedia explains more.

Hopefully I'm not giving bad info.

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Player of Diggan, Ranger & Halfing of Aesry

<<If you don't have a cleric repair your memories, if you die you loose all your memories that have decayed away when you depart, or auto-depart. If you had 150 ranks in a skill and you decay to the point that half your ranks are gone, when you depart instead of 150 ranks in a skill you might have half that, or about 75 ranks.

Its nowhere near as large as this. Your rank determines the cap on how much you lose in that skill, and the number of ranks you actually lose is based on that maximum potential lost if you decayed fully. For example, if you would normally lose .54% in a skill if you decayed fully, but departed when you had decayed 50% you will end up losing .27% of a rank in that skill.

<<I know, a necromancer can't be helped by a cleric and with my understanding of death my thinking was if I died, departing one way or another ASAP is important whether you're a necromancer or not, to suffer the least amount of loss. I was told not to worry too much about hurrying a depart and that confused me. And no, he didn't know I was/had/have a necromancer.

For your first 20 circles or so, if you're careful about casting DO spells sparingly, and are willing to take the risk of a potential outing, a cleric can help you. I don't recommend it, but it is possible. Once you get Spiteful Rebirth, which can happen at 20th at the earliest, you will no longer need the memory service of the clerics. Even before that spell, however, the memory loss from a quick depart is negligible at those ranks. Even decaying fully would mean only an hour or two of catching up, so a cleric's help isn't worth the risk.

-Evran

[16:15] Chatter[Xxxxxx] just died while mining in prime - good times
[16:17] Chatter[Xxxxxx] Did a beisswurm getcha?
[16:17] Chatter[Xxxxxx] I hear they're pretty mean

>>I'm not sure exactly what determines the length of death's sting in the case of a forsaken necromancer, as favors obviously don't fit into the equation.

Favors. It's why forsaken necromancers suffer that max effect of death's sting.

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TG, TG, GL, et al.

having used it fairly often, it doesn't seem as if it takes more than 10 minutes or so.

Favors: 0 Deaths: 65 Departs: 15

>>For reference, at approximately 600 ranks, departing immediately, I lose about 0.04 of a rank.

Along those lines, has anyone figured out "which" skills exactly you lose from; or do you lose equally across ALL ranks?

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Player of Diggan, Ranger & Halfing of Aesry

>believe you lose from every skill an amount proportional to its rank.

This.

And I have tracked it.

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Hunta Talna Kortok, built by Gor'Togs, for Gor'Togs
http://www.angelfire.com/rpg2/caraamon/home.html
Weapons for Sale:
http://www.elanthipedia.com/wiki/User:Caraamon#Wares
Combat Balance List:
http://www.angelfire.com/rpg2/caraamon/balance2.xls

<<How I read this is (using the .27%), if you have exactly 300 ranks in a skill and you auto-depart from full decay, you'd ultimately loose .27 percent of the skill, leaving you with 299.19 ranks in the skill after the auto-depart?

The example I used was not a percentage of your total rank, it was the percent of a rank lost. So for example, you might go from 50 00.00% to 49 99.73%.

That said, the concept in your statement is correct, however. I doubt its much more than 1% of your rank for a fully decayed depart, if even that.

-Evran

[16:15] Chatter[Xxxxxx] just died while mining in prime - good times
[16:17] Chatter[Xxxxxx] Did a beisswurm getcha?
[16:17] Chatter[Xxxxxx] I hear they're pretty mean

>I can easily live with that. In fact, now that I see this, makes me wonder why so much value is put into getting raised by a cleric, or having memories repaired, or having favors even, aside from the fact that having favors gives you the option of departing and keeping everything you are wearing, and coin. I used to panic when I died. No more.

1: Because no matter how well, clearly, or simply it is explained, some people just don't 'get' the system. (No, this is honestly not a shot at anyone in this thread, only a general comment)

2: I suspect it's at least partially a holdover from days when walking was possible.

3: No, really, people just don't understand the system.

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Please remember: just because a post is 'new to you' doesn't mean we have any idea what you're responding to. Quotes is your friend.

>>In fact, now that I see this, makes me wonder why so much value is put into getting raised by a cleric, or having memories repaired,

4: Because at very high levels of ranks, that 27% of a rank can take hours to gain.

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TG, TG, GL, et al.

>>4: Because at very high levels of ranks, that 27% of a rank can take hours to gain.

This, and then times that by 20, 30, 40, 50+ skills whatever you train. With that said I just depart as soon as I hit the ground in most cases cause there's no clerics around. But it DOES set me back some no doubt.


Forged Weapons:
http://www.elanthipedia.com/wiki/User:Codiax#Codiax-Forged-Weapons

>By my best estimates if it takes me an HOUR to find a Cleric just to restore memories, I'm better off waiting for the Cleric. Probably much longer than that, but it never takes that long anyway.

Should this read 'if I sit for an hour and decay, I'm better off waiting...', or should it read 'I'm better off looking for a cleric whenever I die, even if it takes an hour or more'?

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Please remember: just because a post is 'new to you' doesn't mean we have any idea what you're responding to. Quotes is your friend.

<<>By my best estimates if it takes me an HOUR to find a Cleric just to restore memories, I'm better off waiting for the Cleric.

There's more stuff to the equation of time lost dead than just bits lost. In the time spent regaining lost memories you're potentially earning money and building pools to 34/34, none of which would happen while waiting for a cleric.

-Evran

[16:15] Chatter[Xxxxxx] just died while mining in prime - good times
[16:17] Chatter[Xxxxxx] Did a beisswurm getcha?
[16:17] Chatter[Xxxxxx] I hear they're pretty mean

At what point, ranks-wise, do you think it becomes worth it to wait for the raise/mems?


-- Player of Eyuve

<<There's more stuff to the equation of time lost dead than just bits lost. In the time spent regaining lost memories you're potentially earning money and building pools to 34/34, none of which would happen while waiting for a cleric.

It is much easier to find a cleric than it is to deal with the loss of ranks when the majority of your skills are 700+.

<<I've taken this into account. If I were going purely by bits lost vs. pulses, the estimate gets up to 12+ hours when you're talking about ranks over 1000.

I missed that you were talking about your situation explicitly. I had incorrectly interpreted your statement as saying if it takes an hour to train back memories to where they were you'd still be better off finding a cleric even if it took most or all of that hour to do so.

-Evran

[16:15] Chatter[Xxxxxx] just died while mining in prime - good times
[16:17] Chatter[Xxxxxx] Did a beisswurm getcha?
[16:17] Chatter[Xxxxxx] I hear they're pretty mean