Dealing with raising the dead

[Atticus_of_Amber]

Someone brought this up in another thread about killing just killing an enemies hostages and raising them later. A similar issue came up with the infamous "baby shields" in Piratecat's Defenders of Daybreak story hour campaign.

I've posted this before, but I thought I'd do so again in case anyone found it helpful.

Here's my solution to resurrection problems in D&D. The first half is "by the book" and the second half is a house rule.

Firstly, the PH clearly states that a person can only be resurrected if they want to be resurrected. In my campaign, there’s something of a catch-22 working against resurrection: good characters go to a paradise afterlife and thus do not want to be resurrected; evil characters, while they would very much like to leave their afterlives, tend not to have the sort of devoted friends who would go to the time and expense of raising them. Neutral characters tend to have either or both these troubles (either they like their afterlives, or they don’t have devoted friends, or both).

(Of course to solution to the no friends problem is a kind of “resurrection insurance” taken out with a lawful church.)

Second, and this is the house rule, being resurrected, in addition to reducing your level by one (or causing you to lose one point of CON if you are only first level), also causes you to age to the beginning of the next age category. Your appearance changes to correspond with your new age category during your resurrection. This “aging of the soul” effect can radically change your ability scores, as well as shorten your life.

I haven’t decided yet whether you can be resurrected once you are in the venerable age category or whether you just extrapolate the penalties (i.e. -4, -5, -6, etc to the physical ability scores (minimum of 1) and +1 to the mental scores with each further resurrection). The former option puts an absolute cap of four resurrections. The later would allow spell-casters with polymorph (or druids with the aging immunity ability, though I might rule this only applies to nature ageing) to avoid the physical penalties. (Another option might be to say resurrections after venerable cause an absolute decline of -2 to all ability scores.)

 

[Lucias]

Here's what I'm considering...

That's a good idea you got there!

In a game I'm planning for this summer I was thinking of how to handle the same thing. I think I've decided on doing the following...

Every time a cleric casts resurrection that cleric ages 1d4 years. This makes sure that resurrection is used with a little more consideration.

It's simple and can lead to some good roleplaying/negotiating. Just my thoughts.

 

[jollyninja]

personally, i would not be giving the bonuses to the mental stats. I allways thought that they were meant to reflect the life experience of the character. of course, you could justify it with the fact that they have seen things that no mortal was meant to see and achieve some sort of premature enlightenment, thus the stat raises. I tend to play in a low magic, low money campaign so ressurections have really not been a problem unless someone takes the time to get a cleric to high levels, in which case, i consider raising the dead one of the main perks of getting a cleric up to high levels.

also, finding a cleric who is willing to bring back the dead and capable of doing so should not be as simple as going to the local temple and shelling out the money. how many times is a church going to bring back the same guy? make them do quests to get their companions raised let alone ressurected. if that does not deter them, make the quests unpleasant. you know low treasure, high difficulty, make them gather magical components like dragon blood and vampire dust.

 

[Black Omega]

Basically, Raise Dead and other similar spells exist so players can have a character die and not lose it. Not so they can kill the hostages and bring them back. I think keeping in mind people often would not want to come back is an excellent idea for making it less of an easy out. My own game is Rokugan d20, which has no raisedead spells, so it works out pretty smoothly at the moment.

 

[Trellian]

In my campaign, raise dead are as normal, but if you want a resurrection or true resurrection, you have to be particularly devoted to your deity, and visit the largest church of your patron deity (Forg. Realms).

In addition, you have to accomplish a fairly difficult quest (usually an adventure with recommend levels of 1-2 levels above the current party level). ANd, of course pay the steep fee of 5000+ gp

One had to bring back the ENTIRE treasure from Into the Dragon's Lair (basically a HUGE dragons treasure) and deliver it to the church of Tempus (who needed it to fond some skirmishes). It lasted FOUR sessions, killed two characters and two others lost all their magical equipment.

They now think twice about resurrection, and maybe prefer losing a level..

 

[S'mon]

I'm looking at XP costs for raising the dead, in line with magic-item creation et al. Currently thinking:

raise dead 1000
resurrection 3000
true resurrection 5000

So important people may be brought back but the mass of the population rarely will be. If the deity _really_ wants someone brought back they can bear the cost themselves from their Worship Points (qv WPS threads in House Rules) instead of the cleric losing XP.

 

[LostSoul]

What about suicide? Anybody put any thought into this?

 

[hong]

As a compromise, you can make resurrection magic work only on "heroes" -- ie, the PCs. Since "heroes" is a rather vague definition, there's plenty of handwaving room to let NPCs come back as well, if the DM wants it so.

 

[shilsen]

Besides the XP loss, I'm having raise dead & resurrection spells automatically drain 1 point of Constitution from the raised character. And 1st lvl characters can't be raised. I'm actually considering upping that to something like 1d6 Con for Raise Dead, 1d4 Con for Resurrection, and 1 Con for True Resurrection. That would ensure that someone might survive a couple of raise spells, but that's it. Plus there's all the usual stuff about the spells not alwys working, the trouble of finding someone both powerful enough and willing to cast one, etc.

 

[Errant]

IMC, Raise Dead (etc) works as normal except: such spells typically require the cleric &/or recipients companions to make a pledge of service &/or accept a geas, to further the mission of the cleric's deity.

I figure in any camaign where there are gods giving out such spells, they don't want their missions/portfolios to suffer because of indiscriminate use. A lawful deity is likely to take a dim view on raising a chaotic individual & so forth.

This doesn't alter the mechanics or "rules", but adds roleplaying considerations & plot-hook opportunities.