D&D 5E The revival economy

I was thinking over how characters at a certain point start looking toward revival (Gentle Repose, Revivify, Raise Dead, Resurrection, True Resurrection). How is revival "gated"? What are the consequences of choices about that in terms of world, story and character motivations?? First here is my current thinking (costs are component + cast e.g. True Resurrection costs 75k)

Spell.......................Component.................NPC Cast (includes Speak with Dead)
Raise Dead.....................500gp......................1000gp
Resurrection.................1000gp......................2000gp
True Resurrection.......25,000gp...................50,000 gp

Why these numbers, and what are the expected (or desired) consequences? First we know that the component cost can't be the whole story. The queue to be revived must be long! And the number of casters capable of reviving few. Depending on how we construct our world, perhaps fewer than 1/50,000... or 1/500,000 for True Resurrection. So setting aside personal friends who have no other calls on their relevant spell slots, anyone want to be revived is bidding for a place at the front of the queue. That is, I suggest this is a demand driven economy with a very narrow supply and numerous bidders for that supply.

At the prices above, untrained labor - earning 2sp/day of which half goes to lifestyle - essentially cannot afford revival. Skilled workers might be able to afford it using their whole savings over the better part of a decade. Still, what price a loved child or loyal husband? Regardless, their bidding power for places in the queue will be weak. The wealthier classes, and especially aristocracy, will be able to afford to bid for a Raise Dead or Resurrection, but even they will struggle to pay for True Resurrection which must surely be the reserve of powerful heads of polities. Kings, Archbishops, etc. That is to say, the bidding prices are assumed to reflect affordability. They're guessed to float to the level where the number of people who can afford them completely consumes the number of casts available. For example, if 100 casts are available per period, then the costs should be such that only 100 people can afford those casts in that period. I guess this implicitly assumes demand is absolute: every available cast of revives is always consumed. So the price moves to the maximum.

Gating revival by cost in turn impacts what heroes should be expected to do for one another. If revives are difficult to afford, a funeral pyre and hearty send off may be best. After all, your friend is now at the side of their deity. If revives are cheap, then it would be a callous friend who didn't lug corpses from settlement to settlement to find a caster! Players may find it easier to engage with a replacement character, if they aren't in the back of their mind hoping for a revival. Curiously, the existence of the "Resurrection" spells possibly also causes people to keep relics of friends for decades - perhaps a finger - preserved in case happy chance gives an opportunity for revival.

Finally, for me this sort of thinking pushes me toward favouring Gritty Realism due (in part) to the controlling effect that will have on some of the economic implications of spell casts.)

(Undeath plays and interesting role in this, in that if a necromancer animates your friend, only a True Rez will bring them back! No doubt ensuring necromancers have few friends and many enemies! I have an idea that undeath involves a twisted soul from the Shadowfell being summoned to possess the corpse, defiling it. Perhaps relating to the Prime Material as a source of souls that then migrate out to other planes: hence no revive will bring back those dying of old age.)

I think this is a useful exercise in terms of pricing these services for PCs, but in terms of worldbuilding, the raw economics of raising the dead will tend to be overshadowed by less straightforward factors - subjective ones that will vary from setting to setting, and from DM to DM.

For a start, these purveyors of life are not mere contract workers offering a specific service - they are the devout and respected senior practitioners of major established religions. In most cases, their primary consideration in determining who can claim their services should not be a simple "can they afford it?"

They are, after all, being asked to retrieve a soul who has gone to join their god, to reverse the natural order of life and death - not something a person in their position should undertake lightly.

They also have their own duties to perform, which extend well beyond providing spellcasting services.

Then there's the whole "soul must be free and willing to return" clause. How many souls who have moved on to a heavenly afterlife truly have any interest in getting stuck back inside a piece of meat again? And how many who are trapped in eternal hellish torment have the freedom to simply choose to leave?

How much shorter does that queue for expensive clerical services become as the percentage of successful castings goes down?

If revival of the dead really is a standard industry within your gameworld, how does that impact things like inheritance law? Is there a statute of limitations on how long someone can be dead before they lose all claim to their titles, belongings, etc? Is there a minimum grace period before a person's will can be executed, to allow for possible revival? If a person 'wills' a portion of their wealth towards their own revival, does that require their estate (and remains) to be held in escrow until their lawyer reaches the front of the queue?

MarkB said:

For a start, these purveyors of life are not mere contract workers offering a specific service - they are the devout and respected senior practitioners of major established religions. In most cases, their primary consideration in determining who can claim their services should not be a simple "can they afford it?"

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This was something I considered in my most recent campaign (PotA). I didn't want a world where anyone with a bit of gold could get raised from the dead, but I didn't want to forbid it either. So I made it about more than just money.

A beloved NPC died fighting alongside the PCs, so they went to Waterdeep to get him raised. They were quoted an exorbitant sum (20,000 gp), and even then, the temple made no promises. The party learned that a merchant prince in the city was willing to use his influence on their behalf to get the raise dead cast at a far lower rate, but only if the party helped the merchant with a difficult problem.

Of course, once they found out how much trouble it would be to raise their friend, they decided their "beloved" NPC would actually be happier in the afterlife.

Pope were having a huge impact on kingdom just being able to allow divorce or not.
Imagine now to be able to raise from dead a king or or his heir.

The impact is huge, or maybe not.
Society may react to the capacity of raise dead.
A raised person may be seen as a paria, a cheater and thus loss all authority.
Or the raised person may be seen as blessed by gods. And thus gaining more respect.

I have seen a DM who add a component to raise dead. A life for a life.
And dont think of a rat! To raise a dead you have to sacrifice another people.

But for players I think the access should be possible.
But it is a good occasion for roleplay, politics, honor....

MarkB said:

For a start, these purveyors of life are not mere contract workers offering a specific service - they are the devout and respected senior practitioners of major established religions. In most cases, their primary consideration in determining who can claim their services should not be a simple "can they afford it?"

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Are you suggesting here that bards, of all people, get to run all the world's religions?!?

MarkB said:

I think this is a useful exercise in terms of pricing these services for PCs, but in terms of worldbuilding, the raw economics of raising the dead will tend to be overshadowed by less straightforward factors - subjective ones that will vary from setting to setting, and from DM to DM.

For a start, these purveyors of life are not mere contract workers offering a specific service - they are the devout and respected senior practitioners of major established religions. In most cases, their primary consideration in determining who can claim their services should not be a simple "can they afford it?"

They are, after all, being asked to retrieve a soul who has gone to join their god, to reverse the natural order of life and death - not something a person in their position should undertake lightly.

Click to expand...

I very much agree with this. As you put it "devout and respected senior" clerics are not going to revive people willy-nilly. I envision the costs applying in conjunction with the willingness. And in rare cases, probably the materials alone are payment enough. What should the price be for an arbitrary PC from a cleric in principle willing to resurrect them, but with no special connection to the party? That's where guide prices can be useful.

MarkB said:

They also have their own duties to perform, which extend well beyond providing spellcasting services.

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Also agreed. They have other calls on their time and spell slots. In fact, my hunch is that the game overall will work in a more reasonable way using Gritty Realism from the DMG, along with my Extended Short Rests suggestion (in another thread). So rather than X casts per day, I envision a campaign world working more successfully with X casts per week, per high-enough-level cleric. That doubles down on your point.

MarkB said:

Then there's the whole "soul must be free and willing to return" clause. How many souls who have moved on to a heavenly afterlife truly have any interest in getting stuck back inside a piece of meat again? And how many who are trapped in eternal hellish torment have the freedom to simply choose to leave?

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Well, that's why the price includes a Speak with Dead. The cleric consults the dead prior to wasting the component. I assume they return the price of the unused component if the cast is refused.

MarkB said:

If revival of the dead really is a standard industry within your gameworld, how does that impact things like inheritance law? Is there a statute of limitations on how long someone can be dead before they lose all claim to their titles, belongings, etc? Is there a minimum grace period before a person's will can be executed, to allow for possible revival? If a person 'wills' a portion of their wealth towards their own revival, does that require their estate (and remains) to be held in escrow until their lawyer reaches the front of the queue?

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Good point and actually quite relevant. One of the loose ends is the question of when it is okay to treat the dead as dead and buried. At present my players are hauling around two corpses in a Bag of Holding under Gentle Repose. There's a certain degree of moral confusion about when to let their friends go. Worse still, they sought a Speak with Dead and both dead characters wanted to be revived if possible. It would make sense for there to be some kind of "year-and-a-day" rule for the relief of obligations and transfer of possessions. How many months or years do you think is right? Or is there another way to handle that?

Speak With Dead is of at-best ambivalent use here. It doesn't allow you to speak with a person's soul, it basically just provides an animating spirit for the body which has access to its knowledge. In particular, the spirit knows nothing of the soul's experience after death, and cannot speculate about future events.

At best, it can tell you whether that person wanted to keep on living before they died - something which any sensible group of adventurers should clarify between each other before they go haring off into mortal peril.

Hemlock said:

Are you suggesting here that bards, of all people, get to run all the world's religions?!?

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What, you've never seen a televangelist before?

Maybe something like this...

Revival and Duty
There is no legal obligation to preserve or revive the dead, although private contracts and wills sometimes demand it. If Gentle Repose is in effect on the dead, heirs cannot claim their estate until the eleventh day after it lapses. The eleventh day is also significant as in many places it marks the end of moral obligations to seek revival.

MarkB said:

Speak With Dead is of at-best ambivalent use here. It doesn't allow you to speak with a person's soul, it basically just provides an animating spirit for the body which has access to its knowledge. In particular, the spirit knows nothing of the soul's experience after death, and cannot speculate about future events.

At best, it can tell you whether that person wanted to keep on living before they died - something which any sensible group of adventurers should clarify between each other before they go haring off into mortal peril.

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My thought was more for the benefit of the casting cleric, who might not know the dead creature. They can confirm their desire (at least while they were alive) to be revived. And other details that may be relevant to the cleric's willingness to revive them. Seeing as there are no costly components and it could save some expense it seemed like a reasonable cast.