Death and Retirement

[Patlin]

Concerning your example, if a party encounters a Bodak, I would hope they are high enough level to ressurect the target of the gaze attack themselves. What is a party without a 9+ lvl cleric or 7+ lvl druid doing on a chaotic evil-aligned plane anyway? Or even worse, fighting someone with the capability to create and/or summon a Bodak?

If I recall corectly, a Bodak is just another form of undead. I've encountered tons of them right here on the prime material plane. And most parties I've seen in LEW are *far* from balanced. In Faerie Woods (I'm the DM) and Dance of Souls (I'm a player) the "party healer" is a wand of cure light wounds wielded by a Paladin on the one hand and a Ranger on the other. (OK, the Paladin can also lay on hands once a day, I exagerate only slightly.)

My comments about the need for ressurection in D&D weren't intended as a critisism of where the thread seems to be going, and were merely intended as a friendly counterpoint to some of the posts suggesting that a significant death penalty adds to the flavor of the game.

 

[El Jefe]

Maybe there's a 9th-level cleric in the local village. It seems like this proposal would make that a no-no.

LEW is supposed to be fairly player-centric, once the players get up around medium level. Having a throw-down 9th-level cleric in the next village pretty much defeats this.

As per the proposal, the north tower (spire) is pretty much the only place that you're guaranteed to find a cleric who can cast the spell. Not to say that you might get lucky and find one somewhere else, but 9th-level NPCs are just hard to find in LEW.

 

[Rystil Arden]

My comments about the need for ressurection in D&D weren't intended as a critisism of where the thread seems to be going, and were merely intended as a friendly counterpoint to some of the posts suggesting that a significant death penalty adds to the flavor of the game.

Your comments are a good argument as to why it shouldn't be so hard to find a Raise Dead in a D&D game, which in my opinion is apt. I do still think that the penalty once you do find the Raise Dead should be as significant as usual for D&D (level loss plus diamonds in GP).

 

[Rystil Arden]

LEW is supposed to be fairly player-centric, once the players get up around medium level. Having a throw-down 9th-level cleric in the next village pretty much defeats this.

As per the proposal, the north tower (spire) is pretty much the only place that you're guaranteed to find a cleric who can cast the spell. Not to say that you might get lucky and find one somewhere else, but 9th-level NPCs are just hard to find in LEW.

Orussus seems like a pretty big and important city, and so it only makes sense for Raise Deads to be available there. Now True Resurrection? OK, you probably have to go to the spire. But if you refuse to have a cleric who can Raise Dead in the large central city, sooner or later, you will wind up with a PC cleric who can cast the spell and suddenly has a huge monopoly on free gold from fellow PCs. Want your character raised? Don't worry, the PC will do it, for a fee of course, and with no competition unless they are willing to go on a long trip to the spire...

 

[El Jefe]

Orussus seems like a pretty big and important city, and so it only makes sense for Raise Deads to be available there. Now True Resurrection? OK, you probably have to go to the spire.

No, really, you might not be able to get a Raise Dead in Orussus. Check back on the first page in this thread. The highest level NPC that is public knowledge is 8th level and can cast 4th level spells. There might be a 9th level cleric in Orussus, but we don't know that.

On the other hand, it is known that Raise Dead (and possibly Res and True Res) are available at the Spire. Just bring diamonds.

 

[Manzanita]

I have a couple points here.

1. In response to Paitlin's question about having a ressurection scroll as treasure. I would like to see micromanagement of DMs kept to a minimum. I would support a DM's right to run his/her adventure as he/she sees fit. Inserting an unbalancing item as treasure would be an issue the judge should wiegh in on, but such a scroll, used in the course of the adventure itself, wouldn't unbalance any future adventures.

2. I'm opposed to saying that there are virtually no NPCs over 8th level in LEW. I just don't think it makes sense. We have all these prestige classes out there. How are they there if NPCs don't advance beyond 8th? How did all these magic items get created? Who are the professors at the The Academy of the Chromatic Order? How does humanity survive in a world with dragons, liches, ogre magi & such w/o exceptionally powerful individuals? How do we keep PCs from behaving in arrogant and overbearing ways once they advance beyond 8th?

If we're going to make such an assertion, there should be some reason for it. Some godly edict implemented in the fairly recent past. Some catastrophy. Something. And if we don't limit NPCs to level 8, and we want to make raising the dead a special thing, then we need to justify why NPC clerics don't have access to the spell.

Personally, I don't see what's wrong with 'buying' the spell when needed. That's how virtually all games I've been in have been run, and seems to work pretty well. There are still ways to permanently die, despite raise dead and ressurections; PCs still have to keep on their toes.

I guess I'm still waiting for someone to spell out an alternative in detail.

 

[Rystil Arden]

2. I'm opposed to saying that there are virtually no NPCs over 8th level in LEW.

I completely agree with Manzanita's second point (in fact, I've already broken the silly "no NPCs over 8th level" thing in my head while planning my adventure on numerous occasions). The most interesting thing from my perspective would actually have to be when Manzanita mentioned liches--believe it or not, the arbitrary 8th-level rule means that there can't be any liches at all in the world because they have to be 11th-level spellcasters.

For now, I'm personally just going to ignore this 8th-level thing. That means that for my PCs, you can expect to see a cleric who can Raise you or a druid who can Reincarnate you every once in a while--if you're willing to pay the full price, including diamonds of course--until someone cracks down on a proposal like this one that says I can't do that.

 

[Patlin]

I'm not 100% sure without consulting my notes, but I doubt the mage Rilithorn from Burning Tower was 8th level or less. He's bookish, of no adventuring spirit, and content to twitter away his time selling minor potions and scrolls, but the experiment that went awry to create the adventure seed speaks of a certain amount of power.

THe point of the 8th level and lower rule is mostly that if the world needs saving, the PC's are the ones that need to do it. There is no Elminster hanging about inexplicably leaving such things to the PCs when he could solve the worlds problems without effort.

Rilithorne, on the other hand, would probably turn pale and start shaking if he thought he would need to stand up and face a few armed but inept orcs. Where saving the world is concerned, he's not a viable alternative to the folks frequenting the Red Dragon Inn.

Of course, he's also utterly incapable of helping with a ressurection, so my DMing transgression is fairly tangential to this discussion... just wanted to say I've had some problems obeying that rule allready.

 

[El Jefe]

2. I'm opposed to saying that there are virtually no NPCs over 8th level in LEW...If we're going to make such an assertion, there should be some reason for it. Some godly edict implemented in the fairly recent past. Some catastrophy. Something.

The short answer is ask Creamsteak, it's his idea and (to a lesser extent) his world. I agree with Patlin that this was done purely for metagaming reasons, pretty much as he described.

The long answer is that there aren't active high-level nasties or powerful allies of good to oppose them. The lands around Orussus were once full of dragons, they were hunted down centuries ago and another hasn't been seen since (unless you count the baby in Treasure of Tierra Padre). Why is that? There probably should be a backstory for that, but if it exists, it exists only in Creamsteak's head. I wouldn't be surprised if there aren't a bunch of "hidden", "secret", or "sleeping" high-level powers, all biding their time for...some event to happen.

Likewise, if there's a lich out there, he's keeping a low profile. At least until there's a party of high enough level to do something about him or his minions.

 

[Rystil Arden]

The short answer is ask Creamsteak, it's his idea and (to a lesser extent) his world. I agree with Patlin that this was done purely for metagaming reasons, pretty much as he described.

The long answer is that there aren't active high-level nasties or powerful allies of good to oppose them. The lands around Orussus were once full of dragons, they were hunted down centuries ago and another hasn't been seen since (unless you count the baby in Treasure of Tierra Padre). Why is that? There probably should be a backstory for that, but if it exists, it exists only in Creamsteak's head. I wouldn't be surprised if there aren't a bunch of "hidden", "secret", or "sleeping" high-level powers, all biding their time for...some event to happen.

Likewise, if there's a lich out there, he's keeping a low profile. At least until there's a party of high enough level to do something about him or his minions.

I think that Living ENWorld has also become our world too, and it will be massively frustrating to me at least as a GM if someone tells me that I can't put in 9th-level NPCs if I want to have 9th-level NPCs for my plotline just because they don't want to allow them. It seems to me, though, thankfully, that the Judges are pretty reasonable about these kinds of things (mostly because I've only seen things that struck me as silly and terribly restraining mentioned by a variety of non-Judges, and when I've asked, the Judges have been helpful about letting me have control as the GM).