D&D 5E Exploring the economics of Raise Dead

MarkB

Legend
There's still that pesky "soul must be free and willing to return" clause. If someone's gone on to the realms of Elysium, do they want to go back to mortality? And if they're in the Hells or the Abyss, will their tormentors let them go?

This whole gig only works as a life insurance system if it provides consistent results. If people are spending out 500gp for merely a possibility of successful resurrection, it becomes a lot less viable.
 

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FitzTheRuke

Legend
I'm Galandris in thinking that 10% of the population being adventurers is off by an order of magnitude. I've always thought of adventurers being pretty special. The vast, VAST majority of people would be commoners, and nearly all the rest NPCs (with the usual, lesser stat-blocks that come with that - though possibly a few capable of the ritual. A very few.)

I agree that Clerics would be more common than many other classes, but still... I think you wind up with FAR, far less people being able to cast Raise Dead than your math suggests. (I also think that the number of clerics of level 10 and 11 would be drastically lower when compared to lower levels).
 



the Jester

Legend
Given your assumptions, you make a good case. However, I have to point out a couple of things.

First, any stats on cause of death in the modern world are going to be out of line with those in a D&D setting, where you not only have magic and monsters as potential causes of death, but you haven't got things like vaccinations, cars, or firearms. OTOH, you have magical healing, and weapons are typically far more prevalent and worn just about everywhere in a D&D setting compared to the modern world. But this is just a quibble.

But my real objection is this: you assume infinite diamonds. Except for revivify, the raise dead spells consume their components. In my campaign, the pcs have actually used up all the diamonds in their home city.
 

I agree that Clerics would be more common than many other classes, but still... I think you wind up with FAR, far less people being able to cast Raise Dead than your math suggests. (I also think that the number of clerics of level 10 and 11 would be drastically lower when compared to lower levels).
Well, for the levels 9-11, I'm already at 0.35% of all clerics, so I'm working at a tiny fraction of all clerics. Definitely much, much less than the number of low-level clerics. Note that the numbers scale such that 97% of all clerics (or any other class) never make it past level 5.

I'm Galandris in thinking that 10% of the population being adventurers is off by an order of magnitude. I've always thought of adventurers being pretty special. The vast, VAST majority of people would be commoners, and nearly all the rest NPCs (with the usual, lesser stat-blocks that come with that - though possibly a few capable of the ritual. A very few.)
The more I think about it, the more I agree that it's too high a number. For scale:

A town of 500-1000 might have one to three adventuring parties. This does not seem unreasonable. Having 10 adventuring parties is way too many for such a small community.

A small city of 10,000 could have a couple dozen adventuring parties. It wouldn't have hundreds of adventuring parties.

So on that end of things, 1% definitely seems more reasonable. But that still leaves the question of how many adventurers have retired to normal jobs? What is the rate that adventurers leave that specialized population?

The metrics I'm using have half the adventuring population drop out every year — sometimes through death, sometimes through retirement. Basically, given a stable 1% of the population being adventurers, 0.5% of the population transitions from normal to adventurer each year, while 0.25% moves back from adventurer to normal. The difference either continue advancing as an adventurer, or die off.

Most of that 0.25% each year are going to survive for long periods of time, just like anyone else. If you start adventuring around the ages of 15-30, you probably drop out in your 20's or 30's. With a life expectancy of even 50 to 60, that's 30 years of accumulated dropouts that are fairly likely to still be around. At 0.25% per year, that's 7.5% of the population that's likely a retired adventurer, though I could see that dropping down to 5% just from normal death rates.

So I end up with 1% of active adventurers, and 5% of retired adventurers. There might be more than 5% retired, but the 5% is something I'm fairly confident about. This is actually a useful division, since active adventurers are unlikely to be working the resurrection job, so I can just work from the 5% number alone.

So: 5% (retired adventurers) * 10% (cleric proportion) * 0.0035% (level filter) * 50% (chance of accepting job) = 1/115,000.

A population of 115,000 would have an annual death rate of 1,978, of which 659 are assumed to be rezzable. So we don't have as much wiggle room, but it's still within the boundaries of viability. The upper limit of viability would be 1 rez cleric per population of 125,000.

Is it reasonable to think that there are at least 8 clerics capable of casting Raise Dead in a city of 1 million? Personally I don't think it feels out of line, but it's certainly something that could be argued.


There's still that pesky "soul must be free and willing to return" clause. If someone's gone on to the realms of Elysium, do they want to go back to mortality? And if they're in the Hells or the Abyss, will their tormentors let them go?

This whole gig only works as a life insurance system if it provides consistent results. If people are spending out 500gp for merely a possibility of successful resurrection, it becomes a lot less viable.
It certainly doesn't work if most of the population is adamant about getting to the afterlife. It just doesn't feel like that sort of population would work out very well as a civilization, particularly with respect to accidental deaths or deaths by injury or stupidity. Likewise for children.

As for the "possibility" of success, well, that really depends on the person being resurrected, doesn't it? If they definitely don't want to be rezzed, then they shouldn't be paying in the first place. If the success rate is low, then, yeah, the entire plan fizzles. And that would certainly explain the lack of common use of those spells, if that were the case.

But still...
 

How much does it cost per day to live a wealthy lifestyle?
4 GP per day, or about 1500 GP per year. An aristocratic lifestyle has a minimum of 10 GP per day, or 3650 GP per year.

First, any stats on cause of death in the modern world are going to be out of line with those in a D&D setting, where you not only have magic and monsters as potential causes of death, but you haven't got things like vaccinations, cars, or firearms. OTOH, you have magical healing, and weapons are typically far more prevalent and worn just about everywhere in a D&D setting compared to the modern world. But this is just a quibble.
Note that I'm using stats from 1900, where vaccines and cars and such aren't a factor. It is a point where child mortality rates had started to go down compared to historical levels, though (sitting at about 36%, compared to 40%+ for pretty much everything pre-1860).

But yeah, there are tons of other things that I just have no way to model.

But my real objection is this: you assume infinite diamonds. Except for revivify, the raise dead spells consume their components. In my campaign, the pcs have actually used up all the diamonds in their home city.
Definitely a real concern. Google tells me the world of the Forgotten Realms has a population of 68,000,000. That population would burn through 400,000 diamonds per year.

My own estimations of the equivalence between GP and real world money would estimate a 500 GP diamond to be about 2 carats. So we need 800,000 carats of diamonds.

Google again tells me:
According to Bain & Company, about 133 million carats of rough diamonds are produced each year.
So with modern tech, we produce just about as many carats of diamonds (after cutting) as might be needed each year for resurrections. Getting that much in a fantasy setting seems... unlikely.

Dumb math brain. 133 mil, not 1.33 mil. With that scale, if the fantasy world can mine even 1% of what the modern world can, then it's feasible.
 
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jsaving

Adventurer
I'm not sure "being willing to come back" would be as much of an issue as some are saying. Those who are evil would almost certain want to return because even a tough world would beat where they ended up, whereas those who are good would almost certainly feel a duty to return so they can help their friends and family handle a tough world.

A more serious issue is our thread from last year which found that perhaps 1 in 10,000 people are likely to be adventurers, rather than the 1 in 10 assumed here. If you change that assumption, how much less affordable does resurrection become?
 

Level 10ish characters are in the "national heroes" league. How many national heroes does the United States currently have? Do you think there are 300 millions * 1 in 115 000 = 2600 clerics (you can lump doctor with church leaders) that would have this level of notoriety to be acknowledged as nationwide heroes? My country is supposed to have 565 of them and I'd have trouble naming even one...

The assumption that half of each population of hero reaches the next level could be too ambitious. I'd wager that most (95%)people with class level take part in ONE adventure in their life (and it becomes the story the whole village is speaking about, when Steve the Local Hero charged at the three terrorists and disarmed them before they could shoot people), a few might have several but very few would be consistently having adventures and gain XP. Among them, the "one in two" rule could stand... but the availability of clerics would be significantly less if you had 0.05*0.05*0.05 as the proportion of people going through level 1-3 before switching to 1 in 2.
 

Hopefully there is no such precise math about population in the DM guide.
of course I understand the temptation of doing « global sandboxing » of the world,
but doing so may mess up things more than it helps.
For me, basic rules is enough.
A major temple is run by a high priest, and a high priest is at least level 9.
A minor temple is run by a priest, somewhere between level 5-8.
Level 5-8 guys are confirmed professionals in their field of business, while level 9+ are elite, and 17+ hall of fame guys.
base on those simple rules you can solve any situations.
 

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