Some time ago, I played Left 4 Dead at a friend's place and then noticed that I had left my d20 Modern Core Rulebook there. I brought back home and started rading through it again, because it was a while since we had played this modern version of Dungeons and Dragons 3.5e.

That's when it hit me: I could try to do something similar to the PC game on tabletop.

I already have figured out many, many things, but one aspect has yet to be determined: Death.

In D&D, it's fairly straightforward. If a character dies, you carry its corpse around with all of his or her equipment until you get to a temple and cough up the cash to resurrect the slain ally.

In d20 Modern, only a high-level Field Medic can attempt to bring a dead character back to life, but there are so many checks, and the DCs are so high there's no real point to it.

So this is where I have a sort of dilemma here. Should I just let them die and roll a new character - which I could somewhat easily incorporate into the game - if they lose? Our group tends to get attached to their characters, and I'd hate for them to get mad because they've been working on a great build for a few levels. It could also allow them to re-shape the party, by choosing another class, and screw up future scenarios I may have planned.

Neverwinter Nights does something that I though was rather cool. Even though I never used it, the game gave you the option to repsawn back into action if you died, instead of reloading, at the cost of 10% of your gold and 50 XP per level.

We won't be using money - that much should be obvious in a post-apocalyptic zombie invasion - so maybe I could make the XP penalty a tad higher? Even a level 10 character could easily make up for a 500 XP loss. 150 or 200 XP per level? Or maybe a set percentage of XP already acquired? And even then, they'd only be able to play once they're at the next scenario, so they don't pop back to life in the middle of a fight.

What I'm looking for here is a reasonable penalty for dying; it shouldn't discourage people from playing if it happens, but it should be enough to keep them playing smart.

Any ideas out there?