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?

 

[Mokona]

End PC Raising

The solution is to delete the "raise dead" category of spells from your game and take the danger level of your encounters down a notch.

 

[FireLance]

"Instant" resurrections I have no problem with - to me, there is no significant difference between dropping to -5 and being brought back after the fight is over with heal and dropping to -15 and being brought back after the fight is over with raise dead.

If it bothers you, you can reduce the chance of random death by lowering the "death bar" to -[Character level +10] or -[Constitution score] or -[Character level + Constitution score] instead of a flat -10.

 

[Liquidsabre]

You need to relax abit on the whole raise dead issue methinks. For an adventuring hero with access to other high-level heroes, a normal death may be a trivial thing. Such is the life of a hero! Instead it is the truly mortal deaths (being disintegrated, falling into a lava pit, soul sucked into a magic gem, etc.) that make for dramatic moments of sorrow and pain for our heroes.

With SO many spells and monsters that can kill a character in a single blow in the game, I consider a marked bias when someone houserules the raise dead spells and does not go about balancing the rest of the game system by scaling back the insta-death stuffs.

If you're not into epic-style heroic adventuring you should try a different system, as the core D&D3.x system is designed for this type of game play. However, it doesn't sound like your players may be interested in the style of play you desire for your games.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

"Instant" resurrections I have no problem with - to me, there is no significant difference between dropping to -5 and being brought back after the fight is over with heal and dropping to -15 and being brought back after the fight is over with raise dead.

Except that heal brings you back in much better shape!

I agree with the substance of this, but the cosmetics of calling it "raising the dead" still bother me. So when my next campaign starts I'm swapping out raise dead for resuscitate (brings a PC back if he's been "dead" for a number of rounds equal to his Con or fewer), and resurrection for greater resuscitate (as above, but minutes instead of rounds). In neither case will the PC lose a level or Con point. In both cases the PC comes back with all the other drawbacks to raise dead. True resurrection remains as normal.

One one hand, this is obviously more forgiving of "death." On the other hand, I intend to strictly enforce the "intact corpse" requirement. If your rogue dies beneath a "penitent man" trap, his corpse ain't intact. A quick-and-dirty way of judging this would be assuming "non-intact" status if the PC goes from positive to -10 or lower with no stop in between. The DM still has to make judgment calls, but my players trust me, so.

 

[rkanodia]

I would just like to say that I wish people would take dying more seriously in-character. When I was running the Forgotten Forge, one of my players was sent to negative HPs by a horrid rat. As soon as another player got him in the positives, he said "I head to the building and investigate it." I didn't want to be a jerk about it, so I looked at the player who had healed him and said, "Tough guy, eh? Six seconds ago he was bleeding to death for the first time ever, and now he just gets up and heads for the building without even looking around or asking what's happening or saying thanks." The first player kind of got the hint. In future sessions, I think I'm going to rule that anyone whose character is unconcious or dead has to leave the room.

 

[Aaron2]

I have a bunch of rules based on my cosmology (I have one massive spirit world instead of multiple outer planes) and some of the rules from Ghostwalk.

When a character dies, his soul stays in his body for 1d6 rounds. During this time, the dead character can be raised with no level loss. After the sould departs the body, the character can make a Wis check (or Spiritwalking skill check if he has that skill) to remain in play as a disembodied spirit roaming the ethereal plane under player control. If the character failed the check, his spirit will wander around the ethereal plane for several day during which time he can raised with a level loss. After a while, the soul goes to the Spirit World. To raise such a character requires a quest to the spirit world to A) find the soul and B) convince him that he should return. Neither task is easy.


Aaron

 

[Aust Diamondew]

In my current game I've finally decided that you cannot be brought back from the dead. If you die thats it, roll up a new character.

If you can be brought back then death sorta loses meaning, which makes sense.

Imagine the affect on todays society if you could come back from the dead.
If I could be brought back after death in real life I'd proably do alot more stupid things (even though it'd cost a butt load of money I would still take more risk in general). We could bring back soldiers who died in combat, at a great cost to tax payers of course. Assasinations would mean nothing (unless one found a way to trap the soul of the deceased). Probably the penalties for murder would be lessened and less people would murder in general (because the guy you just killed wouldn't stay dead).
Etc...

I could go on and on listing what would happen if we could raise dead in real life. The point is death would lose meaning, so why wouldn't it also lose meaning in d&d.

 

[Liquidsabre]

If you die thats it, roll up a new character.

With death permanent and the lethality of D&D remaining intact, the detailed creation of characters with depth of personality and background may lose meaning. Be cautious, some players spend quite a bit of time into character generation, from concept to page. This sort of game (without many modifications for a death-permanent, nitty-gritty setting) will likely only produce carbon copy cut-outs and generic born-to-be-PCs without a care in the world or setting, just numbers.

 

[Clay_More]

Simply add an XP cost to cast Raise Dead and all other bring back to life spells, for the caster in addition to the raisee (er..)

Clerics and temples will become far more reluctant to raise anyone, players would need to perform quests or pay through the nose to have anyone raised. If the spell costs 500 XP per HD of the person being raised.... even the group Cleric would think twice about raising a dead comrade. The game would still allow for a few "numbers" of deaths, but it would be far, far from inexpensive.