Death and the Fixing of It

[Jeremy]

I hate the Raise Dead mechanics as written. In all the story hours I've really enjoyed, in the D&D fiction I admire most, a death is an event to be mourned. But I find in my game it tends to just have my players complaining about the diamonds they are going to have to buy.

I began to change this and add more depth to the game and the organizations and levels of power in various doctrines and beliefs and churches by making it so that only a priest of the god that a person follows can bring them back on the spot.

Priests of other gods can reach into the afterlife and return the souls of the fallen, but only with preparation and on a day holy to their god when their god's power is at an apex and they can reach into the domain of another god and pluck up a soul to return to the living.

And this is on the Faerunian calendar, so believe you me, there are a LOT of holy days.

But this isn't enough in my game and sparked some serious out of game friction when due to the fact that travel was limited by Faerzess in the Underdark it actually took well over half a session to get a Player back into the game because she didn't want to take over as the NPC and she didn't want to retire her current character upon her death.

It's gotten to the point where I absolutely have to change the rule. Anyone else out there feel that insta-rez's cheapen the game or lessen the loss of death? I mean, sure, you lose a level, and I guess you can equate that a little to the in-character play of it. But that's not what tends to happen, despite intentions. If someone in your party is walking around with a Raise Dead prepared at all times, and you wake up after a battle, how do you react to that in-character?

Better yet, what is some alternate system (besides encouraging the players to prepare for battle a little better) that would make resurrection something other than the first choice, but still ensure the highest level of player uptime without cheapening the story?

 

[GSHamster]

I like immediate Raising effects. Something that has to be cast within a few rounds or minutes of a character's death.

It's more like emergency first aid, than actually messing around with the spirit world or gods.

 

[Crothian]

Valus, a campaign book, has it that the god marks anyone ressurcted in a certain way.

One thing to do is turn the resurcetions into adventures, the person can come back but the PCs have to go in the Realsm of the Dead and guide him back.

 

[Silveras]

I like immediate Raising effects. Something that has to be cast within a few rounds or minutes of a character's death.

It's more like emergency first aid, than actually messing around with the spirit world or gods.

Along that line, there is a spell in the Miniatures Handbook that I was rather surprised not to see in Complete Divine: Revivify. Basically, it is like Raise Dead with no level loss, but it must be used IMMEDIATELY (next round).

For my homebrew world, I removed Raise Dead, Resurrection, and True Resurrection from the general Cleric spell list. These spells are now only available as part of the Life domain.

My own concerns with the spells were twofold: 1) the issues of players treating death as a minor inconvenience instead of a major event, and 2) the social consequences of being able to raise the dead.

 

[Delemental]

How about the following:

1. The resurrection ritual requires the participation of several people who knew the dead character in life and can advocate for the need to have them returned to the world of the living. They demonstrate their desire by pledging to perform a service for the god who is bringing back the dead character, or by expending some of their own life-force (read: xp).

2. Raise dead and similar spells work immediately, but the return to life is only temporary. Unless the newly-revivified person can prove their worth to their patron deity, after a certain period the magic ends and the person dies again. How the person proves their worth is up to the DM to provide as a plot hook...

3. Death is a traumatic experience. A character raised from the dead will develop a minor phobia or compulsion related to the manner in which they died (they might become acrophobic if they died after falling off a cliff, or insist on checking and rechecking the locks on all doors if they were killed by an assassin that snuck into their room and slit their throat).

 

[Afrodyte]

Better yet, what is some alternate system (besides encouraging the players to prepare for battle a little better) that would make resurrection something other than the first choice, but still ensure the highest level of player uptime without cheapening the story?

If you don't mind your campaign taking a detour, go the mythological route and treat bringing back the dead as a journey to the underworld (prime example: Orpheus and Eurydice). Your typical raise dead spell is enough to get you there, but the actual retrieval of the departed spirit depends upon the characters' abilities and determination, as well as the deceased character's willingness to return. I'd even venture a guess that if your campaign has something like heaven and hell, then it'd be a lot easier to convince neutral and evil characters to come back than good characters. In addition, part of the difficulty of bringing back the dead is likely to be finding them because they don't remain at the place of their deaths for long, especially if there are other things more important to them. If the party is a group of true friends who know each other well, it would be much easier than if the party is just a group thrown together for mercenary reasons, it'd definitely be harder.

If you really want to make players see death as something more than a minor inconvenience, instead of level loss and ability score loss, have other brakes to constantly breaching the barrier between life and death. Here are some ideas:

• Raise dead and similar spells can only be used one time, ever, on any given character.
• Being brought back from death places a metaphysical mark on characters that can act as a magnet for undead, ghosts, and similar beings. They may gain abilities that help them communicate with or influence these beings, but at the price of privacy and peace.
• Higher powers may demand payment for the favor of returning someone to life by requiring them to perform a task or live by a certain code of behavior. In effect, this is like a permanent geas that cannot be removed by mortal means, not even by wish or miracle. Only powers more potent than the one levying the geas can remove it.

 

[Felon]

Ah, returning from the dead...another area where D&D takes more cues from video games than fantasy novels.

Some things you may find handy:

Check out WotC's Unearthed Arcana. UA provides an "Incantations" system which turns powerful spells like resurrection into elaborate and often dangerous rituals. Also take a look at the section on Action Points. These keep characters alive, if only by the skin of their teeth. That goes a long way to reduce the headaches over PC casualties.

Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed has an alternate magic system that's similar to the core d20 magic system, but has some marked differences--one being that not just any 9th-level schmoe can bring his friend back from the other side and prop him back up on his feet immediately.

Even if you're sticking with the core rules, you may want to open your DMG and refer to the section on cities and their purchase limits. You can't get a rez in just any old one-horse village.

 

[Crothian]

THere's also this great group from Atlas' Touched by the Gods that actually can detect ressurected people. They do so becasue they consider them the worst type of "undead" and can actually turn them like undead. They make a new bad guy especially if the group runs into them before anyone dies and learns they are actually Good people.

 

[Herpes Cineplex]

Anyone else out there feel that insta-rez's cheapen the game or lessen the loss of death?

Actually, I'm starting to feel the opposite.

One of the things I like about RPGs is players getting attached to their characters. I like it when I'm a player, and I like it when I'm a GM. Raise dead and similar effects help to encourage that kind of play, I think.

When death is common (which it often is in D&D) and permanent (which it is when you make raise dead and similar spells unavailable), there is absolutely no incentive to ever get attached to your character. Sooner or later, you'll blow a saving throw or the bad guy will roll a natural 20, and then your carefully-crafted character with the backstory and the plans for the future is a rotting pile of meat and you're throwing more sets of d6s for another character because you can't possibly bring that one back.

Forget character development, forget making plans: make your PCs to be disposable and effectively interchangeable, so you can get back to the game quickly after calamity takes down another of them. Getting attached to them is pointless, and giving them anything more than a rudimentary personality and history is likely to be wasted entirely when they catch a bad roll in their third game session and you never get to play 'em again.


Besides, we're playing the game to have fun. We're getting together because we all want to play, not because we want the guy who got terribly unlucky in combat to sit on his hands for the rest of the evening because his PC is dead and he should be punished for it, rather than "cheapen the game" by giving him a way to get back into it. Lord knows there are enough WTF?-inducing features of your typical D&D setting already, adding in reasonably-available resurrections isn't going to strain our credulity that much more.

--
but i'm sure that this is not a widely-held opinion
ryan

 

[Savage Jim]

Besides, we're playing the game to have fun...Lord knows there are enough WTF?-inducing features of your typical D&D setting already, adding in reasonably-available resurrections isn't going to strain our credulity that much more.

Both of these points are subjective. That is, while any fantasy setting is guaranteed to have other-worldly residents and events, the scale of how much and of what sort varies widely from table to table. And what one person finds fun a second thinks is intellectual drivel, with what the second thinks is fun is viewed by the first as mindless monster bashing.

Thus, where you say the spells are there as part of the fun, others (like myself) see it more as a detrimental to the fun. For instance, I've found it quite boring to play any game after reaching the point where anything other than a TPK is simply a minor set-back or inconvienience since the intensity of the game (i.e., the risk of PC death) is no longer a part of the game.

We're getting together because we all want to play, not because we want the guy who got terribly unlucky in combat to sit on his hands for the rest of the evening because his PC is dead and he should be punished for it, rather than "cheapen the game" by giving him a way to get back into it.

Having lost a few characters in my time, I've never viewed the situation as being "punished". I've most often had other things to do. One resourceful GM actually had me in the spirit world for nearly three sessions, where I actually interacted with ancestors, hero spirits, and other entities. Other times, I've been creating my new character while the party continued on their way.

Anyone feeling "punished" simply didn't keep busy during the interim of his return to the game.