If you play Diablo 2 Resurrected then you know, everything eventually dies. Monsters fall to the blades of the Heroes. Heroes fall to the claws of the monsters. But what happens when something dies in Sanctuary? This article covers everything that happens upon death, for Characters in Softcore and Hardcore, and monsters alike.
Character Death
When a Softcore Character dies, a number of things happen that have varying degrees of severity.
You Have Died
The Player is informed by text that covers the screen that they have died. You are instructed to hit the Escape key to continue. The amount of Gold you lost upon death is calculated. You are informed that you've lost Experience (in Nightmare and Hell Difficulties).
Gold Loss
The Character's total Gold from their Stash and Inventory is summed. If the Character Level (cLVL) is <21 they lose a percentage of Gold equal to their cLVL. For cLVL >20 they lose 20% of the summed total.
If there would be Gold remaining from the Inventory after the 20% summed total is removed, the remaining Inventory Gold is dropped at the location of the Character's corpse.
Anyone can pick up this Gold. It's considered bad taste to pick up another Character's Gold when they die.
In Multiplayer games, if the 20% total exceeds the Gold in Inventory, the remaining is deducted from the Stash total.
In Single Player excess Gold loss is not deducted from the Stash and an amount of Gold in the Inventory is considered exempt.
The exemption = 500 * cLVL Gold. If cLVL = 50 then the amount of Gold exempt is:
500 * 50 = 25,000 Gold
Experience Loss
In Nightmare and Hell Difficulty, Character Death causes a loss of Experience.
The amount lost equals a % of the total Experience required to reach the next Level.
In Nightmare the loss = 5% of the total Experience required.
In Hell the loss = 10% of the total Experience required.
Example: If the total required to reach the next Level is 20,000,000 then -
In Nightmare you lose 1,000,000.
In Hell you lose 2,000,000.
75% of the lost Experience can be retrieved if the Character's corpse is recovered before the Player clicks Save and Exit (S+E).
The Experience lost cannot cause a Character to lose their current Level. With enough deaths, you can be reduced to 0% Experience gained in the current Level.
If a Character dies before retrieving their corpse, additional corpses are created that can be recovered.
Corpse
The Character's body, along with all of its equipped gear are left where they died. Any Potions from the extra slots a Character's Belt affords them, attempt to empty into their Inventory. If there are insufficient spaces in the Inventory, the additional Potions drop to the ground.
This corpse cannot be targeted by Skills such as corpseexplosion.
If the Player were to S+E, upon joining the next game, the Character's corpse appears in the Act they enter upon arrival.
A Character may equip pieces of Gear before retrieving the corpse. If they then die and S+E, the corpse that appears in the next game is the corpse with the highest sum value of Gold.
If a Character dies more than 15 times without retrieving their bodies, then any equipped items are dropped onto the ground on the 16th death.
When a Player retrieves their Character's corpse, the items attempt to equip in a specific order:
Helm
Amulet
Body Armor
Main-Hand
Off-Hand
Right Ring
Left Ring
Belt
Boots
Gloves
Main Weapon-Swap
Off Weapon-Swap
If any pieces of Gear cannot be equipped due to Attribute requirements, that item is skipped and the next piece of Gear attempts to equip.
If any item could be equipped with Attributes given by items further in the order, then the game rearranges the order to allow these items to be equipped on pick up as well.
Example: Stealskull Casque requires 54 Strength to equip. Enigma Breast Plate gives +xx to Strength when equipped. The game skips the Helm slot and goes on to equip the Body Armor, and then equip the Helm slot.
Any unequipped items attempt to place into the Character's Inventory. If the Inventory is full, the items remain on the corpse until space is made in the Inventory. The Character says, "I can't use this yet.".
Upon picking up all items, the Character's corpse disappears.
Mercenary and Summons
Upon Character death, your Mercenary and any Summons also die immediately.
Their deaths trigger any On Death effects from gear equipped to the Mercenary, or the base item an irongolem was summoned from.
Your Mercenary and Summons leave behind visual corpses, but they cannot be targeted by Skills such as corpseexplosion.
If you rehire your Mercenary, they retain any gear that was equipped to them at the time of death.
Hardcore
Death for Hardcore Characters causes the Character to become permanently unplayable. For this reason, Hardcore play-throughs are recommended for more experienced Players.
You Have Died
The Player is informed by text that covers the screen that they have died, and that their Deeds of Valor will be remembered. You are instructed to hit the Escape key to continue.
Corpse
The Character's body, along with all of its equipped Gear is left where they died. Any Potions from the extra slots a Character's Belt affords them attempts to empty into their Inventory. If there are insufficient space in the Inventory, the additional Potions drop to the ground. This corpse cannot be targeted by Skills such as corpseexplosion.
If the dead Player has enabled another Player in the Party Menu, the enabled Player is able to loot the body, retrieving any equipped gear the Character's body has equipped. Items from the Inventory, Mercenary, and summoned irongolem are lost permanently.
This is set to disabled by default and must be done manually at the beginning of each game.
If the Player leaves the game before their body is retrieved, then the gear is lost forever.
Menuing
An ethereal version of your Character is visible in the Character Select Screen, memorializing their final Level obtained and Character name. Selecting this Character allows you to enter Chat and review the seasonal leaderboards.
Monster Death
Monsters that die have a chance to drop loot, and leave behind a corpse.
Mechanics
Monster corpses can typically be targeted in interacted with Skills found in the table below:
Monsters that die while Chilled have a 20% chance to shatter on death, becoming untargetable by Skills or abilities.
Cannot target Minion of Destruction, Oblivion Knight, Putrid Defiler, Leaper, and Suicide Minion.
Nihlathak can select other monster corpses to cast his own corpseexplosion.
Fallen and Flayer Shaman type monsters can resurrect Fallen and Flayers respectively.
Greater Mummy type monsters can resurrect lower quality Undead.
Reanimated Horde type monsters can resurrect themselves.
Regurgitator type monsters consume other monster corpses.
When a corpse has been targeted by any of these skills, that same corpse cannot be targeted by any other Skills.
Static monsters listed below leave a visual body, but not a targetable corpse.
Monsters
Inanimate Objects
Animated Objects
Act Bosses Quest Bosses Coldworm the Burrower Hephasto the Armorer The Ancients Shenk the Overseer The Countess The Smith Festering Appendage Flying Scimitar Fetish Shaman Frozen Horror
Barricade Barricaded Door Barricaded Tower Evil Demon Hut Mummy Sarcophagus Prison Door Window
Catapult Fire Tower Lightning Spire Sand Maggot Egg Trapped Soul
Bone Fetishes, Suicide Minions and Fire Enchanted Unique monsters explode, similar to corpseexplosion, damaging legal targets, but unlike corpseexplosion is leaves a targetable corpse behind.
Chance to Cast When You Die / When You Kill an Enemy
There are multiple sources of Skills which trigger upon the death of a Character, Mercenary, irongolem, or when killing an Enemy.
Chance to Cast When You Die
With a Rainbow Facet Jewel socketed into any piece of gear that is worn, upon Character, Mercenary, or irongolemdeath, triggers with the corpse as the point of origin. Wearing different facets causes each Skill to trigger according to the order they were equipped. This is true for a Mercenary with multiple facets, as well as an irongolem made from a piece of gear with multiple facets.
Having multiple instances of the same triggered Skill from facets is redundant.
While these trigger on a Hardcore Character's death, it's usually not recommended maximizing this effect. Unless you're looking for an awesome way to end a Character.
poisonnova
nova
chainlightning
meteor
blizzard
Rainbow Facet Jewel
Medusa's Gaze
Rainbow Facet Jewel Death
Rainbow Facet Jewel Destruction Hand of Justice
Rainbow Facet Jewel
Chance to Cast When You Kill an Enemy
Triggers the listed Skill when the weapon is used by a Character, Mercenary or irongolem to kill a monster.
Skills are triggered if the monster is killed by Poison Damage or Open Wounds applied by the weapon.
Skill
decrepify
poisonnova
enchant
chainlightning
Source
Executioner's Justice
Breath of the Dying
Obedience
Infinity
Target
Target's Location
Attacker's Location
Targeting the Attacker
Target's Location
Life or Mana after each Kill
Adds Life or Mana to the Character, Mercenary or irongolem equal to the total sum on gear, when they kill a monster.
Mechanics
For the Character:
Does not apply if the monster is killed by the Mercenary or Summons (Including Traps and Hydra).
For Mercenary and irongolem:
Only adds Life, Mana after each Kill does nothing.
Only counts for kills they make, independent of the Character.
Does not apply for kills made by bladeshield, and Paladin Holy Aura radial damage.
Does not apply to Attacker Takes Damage and thorns type effects.
There is a specific Stat for Life after Each Demon Kill, which works the same way, but only applies to Demon type monsters.
Example: Ethereal Edge
Slain Monsters Rest in Peace (SMRiP)
Prevents slain monsters from leaving a targetable corpse.
Mechanics
The lack of a corpse stops any Character or Monster Skills from being able to target or benefit from the existence of the body.
Only applies to monsters killed by the Character, Mercenary, or irongolem that is equipped with the source of SMRiP.
If two Weapons are equipped, and only one of them is a source of SMRiP, only kills made with that Weapon apply the effect.
Does not apply for kills made by bladeshield, and Paladin Holy Aura radial damage.
Does not apply to Attacker Takes Damage and thorns type effects.
Reanimate as: Returned
Grants the Character, Mercenary, or irongolem equipped with a source of this Stat, the ability to reanimate a slain monster as a Returned (A special summoned Skeleton type monster).
Mechanics
Only triggers when the Character equipped with the source kills a monster, either through Attacks or Skills.
Does not trigger if the Character's Mercenary or Summons cause the death of the target monster.
Cannot trigger if the monster would shatter from being Chilled or Frozen.
Cannot trigger if the monster would be redeemed by SMRiP.
Does not apply for kills made by bladeshield, and Paladin Holy Aura radial damage.
Does not apply to Attacker Takes Damage and thorns type effects.
Returned are not moved if the Character uses teleport. They roam in the vicinity of the Character, targeting potential enemies.
Returned last for one minute before expiring.
Returned cannot be targeted by enchant, but benefits from Auras and Buffs.
The Stats of the Returned are based on their normal scaling as it would spawn in the Area Level and Difficulty.
No Skills affect the Returned's Stats when summoned, and Player Settings also does not.
Summary
Whether it's a Player Character's death, or a monster's, Diablo II: Resurrected has a plethora of interesting and powerful effects that can be triggered.
Many Skills need valid corpses to target for their powerful effects. An equal number of Skills can destroy corpses, and deny their availability. Use this to your advantage.
There are a few ways that a Player Character's death can lead to toxic in game behavior. Make sure to avoid stealing Gold or even worse, dropped items!
Hardcore Characters cannot continue playing after death. Make sure to have your teammates pick up your body to retrieve your items!
This in-depth look into Death mechanics for Diablo II: Resurrected proves that Diablo is right when he says, "Not even Death can save you from me."