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==Death Penalties==
The "Death Penalty" is the term used to describe the negative consequences imparted to the player when they are killed by monsters or other players. The most current info came from D3 CM [[Bashiok]], [http://www.diii.net/n/696684/bashiok-on-death-penalties on September 29, 2008]. According to him, there will be no actual death penalty in D3. Just a few seconds of downtime while a player runs from the respawn point back to the scene of the crime:
::''...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. '' Another comment by Bashiok mentioned these checkpoints in relation to the [[BlizzCon 2008 Demo]]:::''We had a [[checkpoint]] system in the BlizzCon demo we showed, where you would die and pop back up at the last chekpoint you came across. Some of that was for the convenience of the demo, but we do like the checkpoint system and intend to carry that forward in the same or similar form. We're not looking toward corpse retrieval currently.'' ::''Any death system we do have needs to allow players to get back into the action quickly, but not be so meaningless that you’re just flinging your corpse against a wall of monsters over and over until you finally get through.''
It's not known if this non-penalty will be increased to something with some more teeth on higher difficulty levels, or if any of the "staying alive bonuses" players have proposed will be implemented as well, to reward players for not dying, since the game isn't going to punish them for the failure that is death. One thing we do know is that there won't be any substantial death penalties (outside of Hardcore mode), since that's something D3 Lead [[Jay Wilson]] has stressed on several occasions.[http://www.diii.net/n/687801/jay-wilson-from-leipzig-5]
::''"We have not actually decided on the final death mechanic. I can guarantee that you will not lose experience. We are not urging to big penalties for death. But we want enough of a penalty to be there, so that death has meaning! Like to lose a little bit time, some kind of detriment... We do not currently have a durability loss (to equipment), but some kind of ... a gold cost is actually not so bad. And having the player to waste some time, that is certainly an element. Generally we kind of rely on the effect that players do not want to die. You know, you just do not want to. So there is no real reason to add a further "ding" to them for something happening that was already unfavorable to them. But we have not got our final mechanics on that, yet.''
This is the penalty for death in standard, "softcore" character mode. If there is a Hardcore mode, it will come with permanent death, as was the case in Diablo II.