XP Debt, death, and Piety

You're fighting some nasty horde of monsters, taking their loot, and having an all-round good time. Then one of the little beasts pokes a big hole in your hide and you're dead. And death has consequences. Namely, XP debt.

The amount of XP debt you incur for dying depends on your level, at the rate of 200XP per level. When you end up in the great hall of zolaras after dying, you start to lose XP due to the debt (If you have enough XP to pay it. You will not lose XP beyond what you need for your current character level). For levels 1-20, this debt drains away your XP at 100xp per round, until you have paid off the debt, or your XP has gone down to the minimum for your current level. For epic level characters, the rate of XP debt deduction is 500 per round.

A very important note about XP debt pay off. With the way it's set up, you must move into a different zone for your debt to be correctly entered into the database. If you let your XP debt of 5K pay off while taking a breather in the sleeping dragon inn, and log-out without moving to a different zone, when you log back in, you will have to pay that debt once more, as the XP you paid previously was not entered into the database.

Now... there are ways to cut down on how much XP debt you need to pay for dying.

Ressurection, Gifts of Zolaras, and Piety.

When possible, carry scrolls of ressurection on your character. Not only does it allow you to ressurect others, but they can also check your corpse when you die, and take a ressurection scroll of you to bring you back to life. Likewise, Gifts of Zolaras are like scrolls or Raise Dead that you can use on yourself. When you use the gift in the Great Hall, you will return to life where you died, as if Raise dead was cast on you.

Your piety can also help with XP debt from death. With a sufficient piety score, when you come back to life by walking to the dias in the great hall, your patron diety will give you XP to cover your XP debt, the amount depending on your piety score. You won't get much, if anything with a piety score of 5, but with higher piety, you get back more XP. You can check your piety level with the VC command "info piety". There are various ways to raise your piety score in game.

Now....

You've died, and either been ressurected, used a gift of Zolaras, or had sufficient piety to get some of that precious experience back.

So why are you still losing XP from XP debt?

Because your debt isn't canceled out instantly with the means explained above. You still incur the debt, and must pay it off, but you are given the various amounts of XP from ressurection/gifts/piety to cover that debt.

For example, you die and your debt is now 1000XP. When you are ressurected, you will be given 750XP upon returning to life (75% of 1000XP). After your debt counts down, you will in the end have only lost 250XP to XP debt.

Keep a gift of Zolaras, and a few scrolls of ressurection on your character, and boost your piety score whenever you get the opportunity. Use the sacrificial flame on the remains of enemies, pray at your patron's altar when you come across one, donate gold to that altar.

Good post, MannyJabrielle.

A couple of other minor notes on this:

Your piety score will go down when you walk across the dais in the Great Hall to return to life.

Your piety score will also go down if you ask for a favor from your deity when praying at an altar. Having a high piety before doing this can lead to a nice little bonus for a while, and the bonus is more powerful and lasts longer the higher your piety score.