The Death Penalty

No, we are not discussing capital punishment here. But we've found a few interesting things that happen when your character dies. So what is the penalty for death in "Diablo II: Lord of Destruction?"

Hardcore characters: In Hardcore, dead is dead. When you die, your character is done ... you'll have to start or use another one. Your character will appear as a ghost in your character area when you sign in next. You cannot access this character any longer and all your gold and items are lost forever. Bottom line ... don't die when playing Hardcore (easier said than done, I know). If you are playing with friends, allow your party members to loot your corpse. Why not? After all, your character is dead and can't use anything it once owned anyway. Remember, too, that no other player can access your stash for any reason. Therefore, if your hardcore character dies, everything in your stash is lost forever ... regardless if you allow your party members to loot your corpse.

Ladder or Normal characters: In these two modes, death is a nuisance but it is not permanent. Hit the "Esc" key to regain your character back in town. Your corpse will remain at the location where you died. This is why it is not a bad idea to periodically open up Town Portals throughout your adventure. In the event of your character's death, it makes it much more easy and quicker to attempt to recover your corpse and items.

Gold Loss: When you die, you will lose some gold. How much depends on your level - you will lose a percent for each level you have attained with a maximum cap of 20%. The gold will first be lost from any amount you are carrying in inventory, and the remainder will be taken from your stash. If you are carrying more than the gold penalty amount, the remaining gold from your inventory will be dropped near your corpse, accessible by anyone.

When recovering your gold, remember how the gold splitting works. If other members of your party are within your zone when you pick up the gold, it will be evenly divided among these party members. If the other party members are back in town, or on an entirely different part of the map when you pick up your gold, you will get back all that was dropped.

Experience Loss: Yes, you will also lose some experience points when you die if you are playing on Nightmare (5% penalty) or Hell difficulty (10% penalty). The good news is no matter how many times you die, or how big your experience penalty, you will not move backwards in terms of your character level. If you have recently attained a level, or have been penalized due to your character's death to such a degree that further penalties will not harm you ... feel free to keep attempting to recover your corpse. If you are close to attaining a higher level, you may want to consider leaving your corpse behind ... if it is unlikely that you will recover your corpse before dying again, it may be worth it to just walk away. If you want to leave well enough alone, hit "Esc" and then select "Save and Exit" from the menu, and then rejoin or restart the game. Your corpse will appear in town when you sign in.

If you can successfully recover your corpse, you will regain not only your lost items and gold, but also 75% of the experience you lost due to your character's death. Sometimes it is worth it, sometimes it is not.

Item Loss: It is entirely possible to lose items when your character dies. When your character dies in Diablo II LOD, a new corpse is created and any items you were carrying at that time will be on that particular corpse.

What happens if you die multiple times and cannot recover your corpse, or even find the corpse with your items? It depends. You can have up to 16 corpses. If your character dies and you already have 16 corpses, any items you are carrying will fall to the ground and be accessible by anyone.

If it appears that you will not be able to recover your corpse(s), then exit the game and rejoin or restart and your character and ONE of your corpses will appear in town. Which corpse? The one that contains the most gold value (gold plus the value of the items). So, be careful when equipping back-up items in an attempt to recover your corpse(s). If the items you equip are of higher value than what was on your original corpse, it is entirely possible that you will never regain these items should your character die again in an area too difficult for your character. There is little to fear if you do not equip other items when attempting to recover your corpse (of course, if you died the first time when you were equipped with your best stuff, it may be more difficult if not impossible to recover your corpse equipped with nothing).

Items that are in your inventory and not equipped will not be lost and will remain in your inventory. Same thing holds true with items in your stash.

*** IMPORTANT DIFFERENCE ***

Open characters and item loss: If you are not playing a Realm character, only the most recent corpse is saved. In this case, all bets are off and you will want to recover your original corpse if you have multiple corpses lest your items and equipment be lost forever.