D&D 5E An additional component for Resurrection

[KahlessNestor]

Maybe check out Matt Mercer's resurrection rules for a good RP and mechanical alternative. He has also written up a "post death" character class, complete with 3 subclasses, that you can find on DMs Guild.

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[Blue]

[MENTION=6792361]cthulhu42[/MENTION], in your campaign, what's the penalty for leaving a character dead and coming in with a new character?

If they are coming in at-level and same as any other PC, what you are encouraging is players to abandon existing characters to avoid a penalty. If new characters come in sufficiently disadvantaged vs. returning characters, that's not an issue.

As another concern, what happens if a PC caster declines to cast it? Especially after several deaths in the party so the caster is already down on CON? There can be some real player vs. player anger and that is is a dealbreaker on proposed rule changes. It could end up with a player sitting out a session or three until they can get somewhere with a high enough level NPC caster to bring them back.

Finally, it discourages players from playing clerics, since they know that they will sooner-or-later get tasked with this and they will pay for the sins of the other players. Now, there are other healing options that don't get the raise spells so at least it's not discouraging all healers, but still.

 

[Wulffolk]

Character dies.
Party uses Revivfy in time and all is well.
If the character is not saved by Revivify then the spirit moves on to appropriate afterlife.
If somebody wants to Raise or Resurrect the deceased character later on then they must deal with the divine power that controls that afterlife, or the minions that the power has delegated authority to.

At this point you must decide how valuable that spirit is to the power that controls it, and what would make it worth while for them to return the spirit. Failing that, what would it take to free the spirit from it's afterlife, and would that spirit even want to leave.

All of this is assuming that there actually is an afterlife, and that dead is not simply dead. As an Atheist I have a different and more complex view than peacefully passing on to some glorious afterlife, but it would take too much effort for me to explain right now.

 

[ad_hoc]

The traditional way to do it is to have the Con drain come from the one being raised, not the caster.

 

[cthulhu42]

[MENTION=6792361]cthulhu42[/MENTION], in your campaign, what's the penalty for leaving a character dead and coming in with a new character?

If they are coming in at-level and same as any other PC, what you are encouraging is players to abandon existing characters to avoid a penalty. If new characters come in sufficiently disadvantaged vs. returning characters, that's not an issue.

As another concern, what happens if a PC caster declines to cast it? Especially after several deaths in the party so the caster is already down on CON? There can be some real player vs. player anger and that is is a dealbreaker on proposed rule changes. It could end up with a player sitting out a session or three until they can get somewhere with a high enough level NPC caster to bring them back.

Finally, it discourages players from playing clerics, since they know that they will sooner-or-later get tasked with this and they will pay for the sins of the other players. Now, there are other healing options that don't get the raise spells so at least it's not discouraging all healers, but still.

Currently the only penalty is RAW, so, none, really. But so far there has only been a couple of close calls. One PC is currently playing his own clone, and later on he was saved by a Revivify.

The party is 12th level and all of them are quite attached to their characters. I highly doubt any of them would elect to start a new PC just to avoid loss of a level, or whatever else one might do to penalize the new PC.

As for bad PvP feelings, you're right, that might be an issue at some tables. I don't think it would at mine.

Also, if they have to deal with "several" deaths, then one of us is doing something wrong. I'm not out to kill them, and death is fairly rare, with lasting death even more so given Revivify. 5E PC's are pretty tough to kill, so I'm guessing the cleric wouldn't have to deal with it more than once or twice (although time will tell), and even if he does, Raise Dead only costs the loss of a con point for one year. Plus, there is always the option of seeking out an NPC cleric to do the job for a significant price, of course.

Discouraging playing clerics. I thought about that, but my table is pretty role-play oriented. I don't think it would keep our one player that usually likes to play clerics (and is playing one now) from taking it on.

 

[Satyrn]

I'm already inclined to just create a new character when mine kicks the bucket. This would have me telling my fellow players to do the same if they expected my cleric to cast raise them.

 

[cthulhu42]

The traditional way to do it is to have the Con drain come from the one being raised, not the caster.

Yep, played that way for years.

 

[Charlaquin]

In my Ravenloft campaign Resurrection (and similar spells) require a living sacrifice equitable to the soul requested back, ie: a fair trade.

In those days, we really believed that to be the world’s one and only truth.

 

[WayOfTheFourElements]

In my game, the only way to raise dead is to venture down into the underworld, find the soul of the deceased, convince it to return to the mortal realm, and then to smuggle it out under the Lord of the Underworld's nose.

 

[Blue]

In my game, the only way to raise dead is to venture down into the underworld, find the soul of the deceased, convince it to return to the mortal realm, and then to smuggle it out under the Lord of the Underworld's nose.

How do you deal with the player of dead character during those sessions? Do they sit idle? Are they play an NPC that they will discard?

How do you deal with a player wanting their character brought back but not all of the other players are on-board with derailing what they are doing? In other words, which players do you penalize to do the bidding of the others.

This sounds great for a book, but I don't see how this works out to be consistently fun in game. At best it would either happen once with everyone on board, have no deaths where the player wants to continue playing the same character, or the DM never kills a character so it never comes up. Just about every other combination penalizes players, and often ones that are not the player of the character that died.