Death and Retirement

[Knight Otu]

What do we do with dead PCs?
In a world where brave adventurers fight against monsters, death can be all too common. Many accept this as their destiny, as priests powerful enough to return a deceased one to the world of the living are rare, and even the good-aligned ones are not always willing to perform that task.

Only one method is certain to bring back someone killed, which is sometimes referred to as "the northbound path" - a trek or pilgrimage to the Tower of Positive Energy, to the far north of Enworld. There, any character willing to return to the living can be revived. People who would be unwilling to be resurrected usually state so to their companions, saying that they wish to "travel south" without interruption. Others carry tokens often associated with that desire.

(At least two possible options exist here:
a) Around the Tower, temples can be found with clerics willing to raise or resurrect any character, at the normal price.
b) The area surrounding the Tower is so infused with positive energy that raising or resurrecting is possible without the need for costly materials needed elsewhere on Enworld)

When your character dies, and he either cannot be resurrected or would not want to be resurrected, leave the character sheet intact, but preface it with a note that the character is dead, and at what level that has happened.

A permanently dead character obviously does not count against the number of PCs a player can have. (If a character of 4th level or higher has been killed, the player can mark him as permanently dead, and replace him with a character of a level higher than 1st. This works the same way as retiring such a character.)

How do we deal with retiring PCs?
Not every adventurer stays one until his death. Some may want to retire before meeting an untimely end, or because they feel they achieved their goals and have no reason to further embark on quests. As such, a player may decide to retire one of his characters, possibly to make room for a new one, since the number of PCs a player may have is limited.

Retirement is permanent. You cannot choose to return from retirement.

When you decide to retire a character, keep the character sheet intact, but preface it with a note that the character has been retired, and at what level that has happened. If you decide to retire a character of 4th level or higher, you may start a new character at a higher level than 1st. If you do so, add a link to the post of the new character.

The new character starts two levels lower than the retired one, and has the appropriate starting wealth for that level. However, the character may not buy items that cost more than 1/5 of his starting wealth, with the exception of equipment found in the PHB (the Equipment file of the SRD) and potions (in the Magic Items IV file of the SRD).

For example, a new character started at 2nd level has a starting wealth of 900 gp. He may not buy items that would cost more than 180 gps.

Retiring a character this way opens up the possibility of playing a character of an availabel race with more than one Racial Hit Die and/or a Level Adjustment of +1 or higher.

(If you wish, you can mark your retired PC as public, effectively turning him into an NPC that DMs can use in their adventures, and possibly develop further.)

[GnomeWorks]

I think that adding a cost to resurrection, in addition to the required northward trek, is a little overkill.

I think we should go with Plan B for bringing back dead characters.

Other than that, looks good to me.

[nimisgod]

I'm not sure that it should be free, though. I guess the trek in itself is trouble enough, but there should be a small fee to compensate the priests. The cost of the raise dead spell without the material component (450 gp, I think) would be kewl.

Do the priests revere any particular gawd or do they worship "positive energy"?

[Knight Otu]

Raise Dead has a 5000 gp component, in diamonds. Resurrection is 10,000 gp, True Resurrection is 25,000 gp. No components would be quite a saving.

Without components, Raise Dead is 450 gp, Resurrection is 910 gp, and True Resurrection is 1530 gp, assuming minimum caster level.

As for the deity that the priests would revere, I believe Creamsteaks original draft of the Towers included a gem at the top of each tower. A philosophy dedicated to the tower and the gem could be it.

Ah, here's Creamsteak's original thread on the Towers.

[Manzanita]

I'm uncomfortable with free resurections for any who make the trek to the north tower. This is because then anyone in Enworld who died from a reason other than old age would be eligible for this. I'd prefer to keep this limited to adventurers and exceptional NPCs only, although I don't know how. Perhaps Joe at the Red Dragon offers to pay part of the price as part of his 'free drink' offer to potential adventurers.

Perhaps the cost should be 50% of the stated cost to adventurers who found adventure through the Inn. (Thus 2500 for raise dead, etc.) Given that it's not necessarily 'worth it' to raise a PC who is under 3rd level (as opposed to creating a new one), this cost is probably managable by the surviving members of the group. Or perhaps this 50% cost resurection would be availble at a temple in Orussus, and would be even cheaper if the trek were made to the tower. Say 25%.

Just throwing this out for discussion. If ressurection were easy, I think it would require a lot of thinking about how that would affect the world's culture.

I'm really glad we're discussing this. Does anyone have ideas about what the trip to the North tower would be like? Pretty soon, a party would be doing this, and we'll need a DM to handle it. Unless we set it up so no DM is necessary.

[Creamsteak]

Don't forget, this isn't just a discussion of resurrection prices. We need to determine availability of both Clerics that can and the material components necessary.

I, actually, don't want there to be any clerics of that high of a level right now. I'd prefer it if followed a bit of Eberron's design, and keep things at a lower level in general.

My reasoning for the tower was that it could fulfill those sort of spellcasting needs. How it does it though, I never really decided.

A couple options:

1) You must bring the proper amount of wealth and the proper material components, and the body, and then it can act to cast a ressurection.

2) As one, but reduce the costs however you want to.

3) Instead of a material cost, you face a "challenge." I thought that might work under certain circumstances.

4) One idea was to have one person give there life for another as the only method.

5) Perhaps the alter only works once, but there is no cost? Sounds a bit much like "one extra life", but it's another way of handling things. You could also change that number.

I'm not sure how people want to handle it though...

[nimisgod]

Another alternative to a "cost" would be a cost to a character's "soul". Something along the lines of "Ever since he came back from the north, he's been acting funny...".

I'm not sure if the Positive Energy "Cult" is good or not, but Positive Energy itself (even the plane from where it originates) is neutral.

Just a thought.

[Manzanita]

In Nemmerle's Into the Frying Pan storyhour, which I love, one of the PCs die, and is brought back through an artifact of Osirus. In order to activate the artifact, four other PCs had to commit to performing a service for Osirus.

I like this concept (very similar to Creamsteak's #3). But to do this, we would have to give some thought to what the postivie energy tower 'wants' and someone would have to DM it.

Perhaps we could 'hire' a Positive energy tower DM, like how we have one for the Inn now.

[Creamsteak]

Well, first off, can I isolate the question of, "how powerful the most powerful clerics that are available" would be?

We don't have to pick a number, but I want to say that I'd prefer it if it was limited to around 4th level spells. That's my opinion at least, especially since I want LEW to be character centric once we have characters at 8th-9th levels.

[nimisgod]

I'm okay with 7th to 9th as an NPC cleric level cap. 5th level spells are of great magnitude and significance.

[Manzanita]

In general, I'm hip with keeping NPCs at or below level 8 in almost all cases. In fact, I've done the same thing with my homebrew world.

I wonder if we need to then address the dominion of the character races. How could humans, say, be the dominate power in the world if almost none of them are over 8th level? A single beholder or ancient dragon could wipe out an army. The existance of extremely powerful non-humanoid intelligent creatures should be somehow balanced. Perhaps we should mention that there are almost none of these out there. Or perhaps are held in check by good aligned 'monsters.'

I'm getting a bit tangental, though, perhaps. In general, I like this suggestion.

[Manzanita]

Unless some DM steps forward to handle individual quests/challenges/ trips North, I think we should keep the process somewhat mechanical.

Another thing to consider is debt. Perhaps part of Joe's deal with the positive energy cult is that his adventurers get a chance to pay the ressurection bill later.

[Creamsteak]

I still don't like all this talk about a positive energy cult.

[nimisgod]

How about a positive energy church? How would you like to put it?

How about instead of priests, we can have a group of grounded celestials (or outsiders) do the raising and the ressurrecting?

[Knight Otu]

If we have a group do the raising, we'll propably want it to be decidedly neutral - there are a few evil characters out there, and one or two evil NPCs might also try to use the tower.

[Zweischneid]

If we have a group do the raising, we'll propably want it to be decidedly neutral - there are a few evil characters out there, and one or two evil NPCs might also try to use the tower.

But there should be drawbacks to playing evil PCs, shouldn't there? After all, they can get away with alot of things that the good guys don't.
(including a bail out while leaving the rest of the party to die when it looks like it turns against them).

Besides (and I hope I'm not taking this off track), are there any official guidelines on interaction between good & evil PCs that might be counterproductive to a game (metagame wise, like good Clerics refusing to heal them, or Paladins outright attacking them)?

[Knight Otu]

Understand that this is just my gut reaction, and that the judges as a whole might decide differently.

Originally Posted by Zweischneid

But there should be drawbacks to playing evil PCs, shouldn't there?

Only if their number grows to an uncomfortable level. Openly evil characters do face a number of problems already - the problem to get into good groups, especially with clerics and paladins being a major one - there are not too many openly evil characters to form an all-evil group, so they have to join a differently aligned group.
Evil characters that do not "advertize" their alignment won't face most of these problems, but if found out, might be off worse.

After all, they can get away with alot of things that the good guys don't.

They cannot really get away with it - they are just more likely to do something like that, depending on alignment. They'll propably face the same problems for doing those things as anyone else in the same situation.

Besides (and I hope I'm not taking this off track), are there any official guidelines on interaction between good & evil PCs that might be counterproductive to a game (metagame wise, like good Clerics refusing to heal them, or Paladins outright attacking them)?

Apart from attacking other characters, all of these should be handled via roleplaying.
Attacking other characters - we've had one instance of that, and it prompted the creation of a rule that should be in the Guide to Living Enworld (though I can't currently find one). Basically, both players must agree that a combat between the characters is becoming inevitable for it to happen. My own advice to PvP action? Don't.
(And I could add a remark about paladins and attacking everyone who registers as evil...)

[Manzanita]

In general, given that no one has volunteered to be in charge of PC ressurecting, I think we should make it a mechanical operation. PC can be brought to tower. Cost: standard (per DMG, I would think). If PC (&/or PC's party) can't pay it, it will be assumed as a debt on the PC, per an agreement with those who work via Joe.

How's that?

[Zweischneid]

(And I could add a remark about paladins and attacking everyone who registers as evil...)

*shrug* There's a tendency with D&D Player (found frequently as well in LENWorld) to attack everything and anything in sight that shows the barest hints of aggression.. doesn't even have to be evil most of the time.

Why should a Paladin (or any plain Fighter/Ranger/Wizard/whatyou'vegot) show a different reaction to an evil Half-Orc (PC) than he would to an evil Orc or an evil Beholder (NPCs)?

There's only so much leeway you can give to metagaming without wrecking the whole suspension of disbelieve.

[Knight Otu]

Originally Posted by Zweischneid

Why should a Paladin (or any plain Fighter/Ranger/Wizard/whatyou'vegot) show a different reaction to an evil Half-Orc (PC) than he would to an evil Orc or an evil Beholder (NPCs)?

Because they most likely will meet in town, and the authorities would not look kindly upon unprovoked bloodshed? Because the evil guy has a good reputation among other good groups?
In the end, I don't think evil PCs will have it easier in Living Enworld than good ones, and possibly even harder, and that's what this little side thread was really about.