I know this isn't for everyone, and if it isn't, no sweat, feel free to move on to other threads.

But I was just looking at the Dead Is Dead thread on the General forum, and I was thinking, "That sounds cool, but a little extreme". And I was thinking about my recent playthrough of Dark Souls -- which, while a flawed game IMO, really nailed the sense of danger thing due to a credible and unavoidable death penalty. I'm not sure that the Dark Souls no-control-over-saving thing would be an option for Skryim, but there are ways to implement a death penalty for players who are willing to play through deaths rather than revert to previous saves. Some possibilities I can come up with off the top of my head:

1) Lose all your gold if you die. Only get your gold back if you then kill whatever killed you without dying a second time.
2) Lose a level and the most recent perk purchased if you die. Skills remain the same (i.e., lose a level/perk forever)
3) Lose your gear if you die. Gear gets picked up by a random bandit group somewhere in Skyrim. Chase down tips in inns/from beggars to try to locate that bandit camp to reclaim your stuff.
4) Weakened state until you gain another level or complete a quest if you die. You do 25% less damage and take 25% more damage until you reclaim your honor.

Just some thoughts. I know this isn't Dark Souls, and the convenient reincarnating undead backstory doesn't exist to lore this away. The idea would be more to create an additional challenge through mods for players who want it.

The One Life module in my Fallout Realism Tweaks does something very similar:

"You no longer die. Instead you now pass out and are left for dead. When you finally do come to again, you discover that you have been looted. This is my own unique concept, where your character's death becomes a major penalty, instead of just an inconvenient reload."

I'll eventually be including a version of the One Life module as part of my Skyrim Realism Tweaks.

If I remember correctly, a developer has mentioned an "immortal mode", in which reaching 0 health will not cause you to die.

I haven't tested it myself, but f I remember correctly it could be activated via "tim" in the console. It sounds perfect for mods like this.

Cipscis

Yeah with tim everything is the same except you can't die, unlike god mode.

That sounds like it's gonna make alternatives to death style mods WAY easier to make then in Oblivion. In Oblivion it was impossible to ressurect the PC or prevent them dying, instead the mods had to use tricks like keeping track of your health and the rate you were losing it and use math to predict if you were gonna die in the next frame and teleport you away from combat. Even the best of those mods could only save you roughly 80% of the time and they couldn't save you from instant death attacks and traps.

Arwen's idea would be pretty cool if implemented properly I'd say. Would make you think twice before putting yourself in danger, instead of like now where it really doesn't matter, 'cause of F5.

any chance of tracking down the looters? with radiant story, you might even be able to scatter the lost loot in different locations, creating it's own quest line

Well if you take into the theory that your guy really never actually dies throughout the whole game (unless I've yet to get to a reincarnation part) that isn't really necessary. (I like the idea, I would use it if it happened!) Because one would just save, die, reincarnate, load. Without the death penalty you're eliminating a step save, die, load. I for one would take that into consideration, I also for one would use the mod and turn the game into a serious non saving game. Only reason we save at all is because we might die, an important story altering moment we might want to redo, or want to go to bed anyways!

Thanks for confirming

Cipscis

Arwen, please make this happen!!!!

Dying kills immersion. Dead is Dead is an extreme form of maintaining immersion. I play Dead is Dead but would switch out for a death penalty mod in a heart beat. If you make it modular I see it being one of the most popular mods easily because I cant see anyone not using it, especially if its well done and configurable.

Tested out 'tim' cause I was curious, and yeah, works pretty much as advertised. You get down to a sliver of health but cannot die. You don't do the crouch yielding animation like followers (and NPCs) do, but I'd imagine that's easy enough to add in.

From what I have seen, there are one or two slight 'issues' with TIM however-- falldamage seems to do nothing at all (which may be a good thing for some), and NPC finishers have no effect (animation played, but no health damage done)... with a bit of modification, that could be quite a useful command.

So, how does tim differ from TGM?

What happens when you have no health?

From what I have seen toying with it, nothing-- it just does not seem to hit that point. The lowest I could get it was about 2.5, with the natural regen stopping it hitting 0. If anyone has stopped Regen, they might know a bit more about whether you can hit that point, however. As I said above, it seems Falls and Finishers have no effect now.

I like the idea of this...

I think it should still be possible to die. Under certain situations or against very tough opponents. But most the time you character survives... Depending on what killed you and where you were. You should awake several hours later and maybe in the nearest village/hunter camp with an NPC aiding to your wounds (great opportunity for quests).

As for losing a level/perk but not skill levels... i don't know... I think that would be too hard to implement properly. If i keep dying and losing levels but not skill levels then my skills will end up maxing out...

Maybe instead when u 'die' u are given a temporary Perk that reduces your effectiveness of all your skills by 25% or something. and only when you achieve the next level up do you then lose that perk...

I think i would like the idea of loosing all gear and gold. I also would like it to be very hard to get that stuff back

How about adding some more severe penalties to prison sentences as well ? Needless to say, that a few days for assault or murder are not enough.
I think that after getting released from prison, gold, gear and houses should be gone. I somewhat doubt that during the middle ages/renaissance some lower class citizen was getting his/her stuff back after a lengthy stay in the dungeon

I have no idea what will be possible. We'll have to wait until the Creation Kit has been released (and the scripting experts like Cipscis have a chance to figure out all the changes).

Darks Souls was one of the best games this year I loved the way you were forced to live with the consequences of your decisions through the auto save system.

Here is a wacky mod idea inspired by (stolen blatantly from) Dark Souls.

When you die, you awaken in the nearest grave yard as an un-dead. You lose all your gold/equipment which is placed in the inventory/containers of those that killed you, you lose X levels and X perks. While undead all NPC's are hostile and you are given a quest by the Aedra/daedra on completion of which you will be restored to your human form

Personally I'd love this, but only if it's possible to also make it so that instead of dying at 0 HP, the PC simply goes unconscious. That would alleviate the need to reload entirely, and coupled with a death penalty would be really cool (at least for me personally). Anyone know if it's possible to do?

This would be amazing for sure. Though it would also be nice if "Friendly" NPCs would show mercy depending on how much they like you, avoiding the gear penalty in those instances.