I think a pw called Thay has a good system, when you die you have certain amount of 'saves' that are decided upon creation upon certain factors, some random, some based off stats and other things, this way death would be uncertain, but also not neccersarily permanant.

I dislike.
Thats why here comes my counter-sugestion. Instead of loosing an item randomly (that could be totally devastatingly harsh), you choose your item(s) to be sacrificed. Say, you need to sacrifice 1% of your total inventory value (which can be alot still).

The reaper can bring you back, but it won't be cheap.

Dialog: "You still need to pay things worth xyz coins until I bring you back."

I'm still not entirely convinced by my suggestion, but its better than loosing the rare crafted item. The main reason I'm not convinced is, because beginner chars could get into trouble.

The Fixed Level thing will be, I think, temporary, as they go for an "E9 System," where you start off at like level 6 and wind up going to level 9, which is the max level, but can still gain XP for other perks. I'm not sure on that, though.

I'm fine with losing items so long as the items don't just magically disappear into nothingness. If they drop next to your body, so that others can recover them and give/ransom them back to you.

Having equipment lose a hefty amount of charges so that they need to be repaired if you die repeatedly would also be a good system, as in some cases, it's even harder and more an inconvenience to repair equipment than to get back experience.

i think there's a lot more to do before they start penalizing death...

i have a vague memory of walking through the nearby caves and encountering 9, count them, ~9~ adult red dragons. at once.

couldn't even run, as 3 of them spawned right on the entrance. i was dead before i realized what had happened.

I agree that something needs to be done about death, but the question is "what?" If you penalize people too heavily, like if you impose a lives counter, it'll be a dead server in no time, as most people don't want their characters being killed off permanently when their RP is promising. Similarly, if you take no penalty for dying, you can literally walk into the most dangerous place you can manage, kill what you can, take the equipment, die, and respawn back to safety and sell the loot.

My proposal lies somewhat along the lines of increasing the respawn time to 24 in-game hours. This makes people cautious about death, and remember to bring both buddies and Raise Dead scrolls with them. However, as easy as it is to die randomly in the desert (I've had 6 succubi jump me simultaneously as I transitioned into an area. I didn't have a popsicle's chance in hell), people might get kinda mad about that. It's a thought, at least, to be considered.

Edit: Although, 24 in-game hours is a long time. Most people will probably just log off. These are thoughts, not arguments! We're all trying to make a better game, here.

24 hours in game thats like 2 and half hours real time i think..... maybe 15 - 20 minutes but thats it.

Maybe that'd be better. 2 hours, 24 minutes is a long wait. I do think that making death more frightening is just a matter of increasing time, though.

well here is my suggestion since it is a rp server and i would even like to see this happen on arelith but know it probly wont. Once apon a time there was a server called Escape from the Underdark it was a succesfull server with a 50-60 people on it a day but this was a 1-20 lvl server low low magic and stricly enforced rp like Arelith gaining xp was incredibly hard but the server was one of the best to date ive seen reguardless on to the point when you died you didnt die right away but you money and you equiped weopons dropped to the ground and if you bled out you would go to death and the xp loss was extreme but if you could manage to respawn and make it to your body you could pick up your stuff. but If you body was ever bashed you dropped everything your equiped armour and items and your entire pack of equipment alot of people used this to perma there character and as exstreme as it was people loved it.. it realy Gave you the sense of dieing it realy intenseafied the rp i have a feeling most people wouldnt like this on Arelith from the sound of it but think about it if you loose your stuff well you can always get it back you got it in the first place didnt you , Also theres equal risk asmuch as gain if you can loose you can surely Take.
but you ask wont this Draw people to pvp well in some cases yes but i also beleave Pvp is an important part of rp but with such a harsh death toll there would have to be things set in place for example no one realy evert tried to kill anyone of the server this system is from because the town laws and such would make it exstremely hard to survive so those who did kill anyone did it in exstreme secracy but thats my TWO BIG Sense.. Sry for the lack of puncuation!

Some suggestions:

Death area as a maze or a puzzle or event maybe different layers you must travel through ala the divine comedy collecting soul fragments or some such.

You can only die X amount of times in a 24 hour setting before you respawn.

When you die and respawn you come back severely weakened for X amount of time. All stats bottomed out, can't cast spells, slowed. etc. Because you "died" you must heal recover your health.

The suggestions I present below are related to another post regarding the E6 system where players can select a bonus feat on reaching maxlevel +1. Feel free to give it a quick read and then return here. Suggestions follow.

Death - Lose feats on respawn:
Besides possibly dropping gold/equipment, instead of losing xp characters lose all their max level bonus feats on respawn (resurrection prevents feat loss). By losing all their bonus feats, players will feel increased risk as their character gains more and more feats. Low level characters have no such bonus feats to lose so they would only lose gold/equipment on respawning.

Death - Respawn at corpse:
Respawning within 12 minutes forces character to respawn at its corpse at reduced health. Respawning after 12 minutes have passed since death allows the character to respawn either at their corpse at reduced health or at their respawn point with full health. Possible respawn points could be 2nd floor tavern rooms leading nowhere or a bed in the character's personal/guild quarters (revert to tavern if quarters no longer available). Thus characters won't simply pop up in the town temple fifty miles away right after dying, which might break immersion after a PvP kill. They CAN respawn instantly but they wake up at their corpse with reduced health, at the mercy of enemies likely to still be in the vicinity.

The numbers and details suggested are merely examples of course; it would be up to developers and iterative server update feedback to tweak them to their correct settings. The E6/E9 system's bonus feats allow for some feeling of character progression, while losing all bonus feats on respawn as suggested above gives death without resurrection some consequence.