Originally posted by Cyseal:

Why don't you just play it safe and don't die...?

Most likely you and your friends died because they went to somewhere without preparing. Or in the night. Don't do that.

The skill penalty is pretty good for a game like this, otherwise it would just be boring. I do, however, want to sleep in my bed without setting it to my spawn point...

Well, so YOU have no problerms with the game difficulty.
And you think because of this it makes sense to make people that die a lot even weaker ?