Death Mechanics

As players fail to complete Dailies or fall into bad Habits, they will lose health points (HP). When players run out of health, they "die" and get the pop-up message showing the avatar with with black, closed eyes.

After death, the player is revived with full HP. They lose the following:


 * One level, plus all XP they had accumulated toward the next level
 * One attribute point from a random attribute, which is regained when they regain the level (it will have to be re-assigned)
 * All of their gold points (GP)
 * One piece of current class or non-class specific equipment

There are no other effect of death.

Since the game's inception, the concept of dying has been under active debate. Should it be easier or harder? More punishing or less punishing? Or should it be customizable? You can share your thoughts on the discussion thread on Trello.

Sudden, Unexpected Death
If you've died unexpectedly, here are some common explanations:


 * You're in a boss battle, and one (or several) of your party members' missed Dailies dealt a large amount of damage. You can check this by looking at your party chat page. Click the "Fetch Recent Messages" button next to the "Send Chat" button to see all the messages.
 * Your own Dailies caused more damage than you expected. Powerful bosses can cause missed Dailies to deal several times as much damage as usual. Dailies that have turned red or been marked as Hard deal much more damage than Easy or blue Dailies.
 * You clicked too many negative Habits.
 * You are using a browser extension that monitors your browsing habits and subtracts Health for lingering on bad websites (e.g., Chrome Extension).
 * The web page failed to sync with the server, causing you to take damage for some of yesterday's Dailies even though you completed them. Look at your streaks -- any Daily that doesn't show a streak of at least 1 was treated as if you missed it. Refer to Sync Errors for ways to minimize sync errors.

If none of those apply, you may want to file a bug report on GitHub. Please include your User ID.

Undoing Death
If your death was truly unjust, you can restore your level, GP, and XP using the Fix Character Values button in the Settings. You can also add enough GP to repurchase the equipment you lost.

Examples of unjust deaths include:

It's up to each player to decide what constitutes a fair death and to resist abusing the power of "Fix Character Values".
 * Sync errors that caused you to take damage from Dailies you actually completed, or prevented you from resting at the Inn.
 * Bugs, such as Cron occurring at the wrong time.
 * Medical or life emergencies or internet outages that prevented you from getting online.
 * Accidentally clicking on a negative Habit.
 * Boss damage caused by a party member for any of these reasons.

Lost Equipment
The piece of equipment that is lost upon death is randomly chosen from among the equipment that is specific to the player's current class and equipment that is not class-specific (e.g., the Enchanted Armoire equipment). Equipment from other classes and free items will remain safe.

Lost equipment can be re-purchased in the Item Store. This includes special and limited-time items that are no longer available to new players.

If the piece of equipment that is lost is not the ultimate gear (and is class-specific), then it must be repurchased before better equipment in that tier can be bought (or repurchased).

Free equipment cannot be lost because that would give an unfair advantage to subscribers who own many free Mystery Items.

If an item that is currently being worn is lost, then the starter item for that type of equipment will replace the lost equipment as the player's worn equipment.

History
The earlier version of the Death Mechanic had the player being visited by the Grim Reaper of Habitica.

Healing Options

 * The main way to heal is to gain a level, which restores all of your HP.
 * Players can purchase a Health Potion in the Rewards area for 25 GP. It immediately restores 15 HP. In most cases, this will cost less than dying!
 * Healers can restore HP using the skills Healing Light (for themselves) or Blessing (for the entire party).
 * You can purchase a Fortify Potion using gems, which restores all of your HP (as well as providing other benefits).

Skills
Certain classes possess skills other than direct healing that can help mitigate damage.
 * The Rogue skill Stealth allows you to avoid damage from some, or all, missed Dailies.
 * The Warrior skill Brutal Smash reduces the redness of a Daily/Habit, reducing the damage taken from missing it. The Healer's skill Searing Brightness has similar effects.
 * The Warrior skills Defensive Stance and Intimidating Gaze buff Constitution, reducing damage taken by missed Dailies and negative Habits.
 * Mages can obtain extra XP by using Burst of Flames, and Rogues can do so with Backstab. This can help you if you are close to leveling up, which will restore all of your lost HP.

Pause the Game
If a player needs to take a break (for example, during an illness or vacation), it is possible to avoid damage from all uncompleted Dailies by Resting in the Inn. It is also possible to manually disable some or all Dailies by changing their Start Date to a future date.

If a player is participating in a quest against a boss, their uncompleted Dailies will not cause any damage to them or their party members while they're in the Inn. However, they will still take boss damage caused by other party members' incomplete Dailies.

Build in Easy Points
Because a player regains all health upon leveling up, adding easy Habits, Dailies, and To-Dos can make the game easier. The extra XP increases a player's chance of leveling up before dying and the extra gold can be spent on health potions. A player who is very consistent about cleaning their home may not consider adding it as a task but doing so would help them avoid death.

Become, or Party with, a Healer
The Healer's primary attribute is Constitution, which reduces the damage taken by uncompleted Dailies and negative Habits. Their skills include solo and party healing as well as a party defense buff.

Because of the way character HP are calculated, a healer may also be able to revive "dead" characters before death takes them. For example, upon seeing that a party member has -5 HP, a healer can quickly cast Blessing to revive the party mate before that players' Cron takes effect (and kills their character).

Additional Strategies
Need more help to avoid dying? See Antidotes: Overcoming Obstacles.

Reviving
After death, the player can revive by clicking the Continue button on the site or the Revive button on the mobile app.

Altering the Death Mechanic
It is possible to organize your Habits and Dailies so that it is impossible to die. You can also set self-imposed rules that allow you to skirt some deaths, or partially restore your GP or stats following a death. Beware -- weakening the Grim Reaper may also reduce your motivation to keep up with your good Habits.

Optional Alterations

 * Make a rule that death costs a set amount of GP, rather than removing all your GP. This is especially helpful if you are saving up for a very long-term reward and don't want one death to undo weeks or months of progress. Use Fix Character Values to restore the GP that you shouldn't have lost according to your rule.
 * If you want to make sure you always have the opportunity to purchase Health Potions before you die, make all your Dailies into Habits (click + if you complete the daily and - if you do not).

Immortality
If the threat of death does not make your habits more fun or motivating, you can remove it:


 * 1) Disable the repeat feature on Dailies. Make sure all days of the week are disabled. You do not lose HP on disabled Dailies (this also means that you will never lose a streak).
 * 2) Use only positive Habits.
 * 3) Do not join boss quests, which can cause you to take damage from party members' missed Dailies.

You can replace HP loss with GP loss by creating custom rewards that correspond to bad Habits or missed Dailies. Use these to fine yourself GP when you falter.

Special Cases

 * A Level 1 character who dies will lose all their XP, but will remain at Level 1.
 * A level 10 character who dies after changing classes will retain their new class.
 * A character who drops below the level at which they gained a skill will lose that skill until they regain the level (e.g., Healers gain the Healing Light skill at level 11, and will temporarily lose it if they drop to level 10 or below).
 * A character who dies while affected by a buff will retain the buff when they revive.
 * A character who has never allocated any attribute points will not lose one when they die, but also won't gain one when they level up.

Mort