framed|right Death naturally occurs when something kicks your ass hard enough your health goes into negative. A death penalty is enacted when this happens.
The death penalty takes form in the shape of experience debt. This debt is a certain percentage taken from your level. When you rack up an experience debt, all combat experience earned is halved, and the experience taken away is used to reduce your experience debt. When you fully repay your experience debt, then only do you start earning experience as per normal. The amount of experience debt is indicated on your character’s scoresheet, right under the experience pool.
The death penalty is dependent on the level of the mob that you had gone up against. If you lose to a mob that is equal to your level, you get penalized 5% of the total experience of your level. If you were embarrassingly humiliated by a very low level mob, you can penalized up to 10% debt. However the converse is also true: If you take on a much bigger, badder mob, you are less likely to be penalized debt, or the amount of debt lowered.
However, to prevent people tackling big mobs all the time, if a player is greater than ATL 20, a minimum debt of 2% will be enacted should you die to a larger mob. This makes dying very inconvenient. Watch those health levels!