Qunbraxl fight and player death
So my party of 4 fought Qunbraxl last night. It was a tough fight as it should’ve been, and our rogue ended up dying to Qunbraxl’s brain extraction. It was shocking and emotional, especially since the mind flayer only had 13 more hit points. The one thing to note is that I believe the rogue was not incapacitated, only grappled, which was a mistake on my part. Though I didn’t say anything about it.
I messaged the rogue player after the game to check in on him because obviously we were all attached to his character. He said he was fine but wasn’t super happy about building a new character this late into the campaign and was hoping I’d let the party find some way to bring him back. Then today I was messaged separately by our bard saying that I got the ruling on Brain Extraction wrong and that he felt given that, he felt we could come up with a creative way to bring the rogue back. This wasn’t said accusatorily or judgmentally, but it still frustrated me.
I see where they’re both coming from, and obviously, I made a mistake with the mechanic, but I also don’t like being pressured into reversing something like this. Should I just stick to my guns on this, or should I let them find a way to bring the rogue back? If so, how?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.