House Rule: returning from the dead. Opinions, please?

[Kweezil]

Something I've been tinkering with for my own game has been the rules for raise dead etc. Personally, I've always found it a little bit of a cop-out, that it cheapens death in-game. However, totally banning all such spells would ruin something of the feel I want for my world.

The rules are based on some I saw here a few weeks back, but after an hour or so hunting, I couldn't find the original. THe concept's roughly the same. The fluff is there to show the reasoningbehind the rules. Critique on either would be appreciated.
Apologies for the rotten attempt at a table

Death and Revivification in Tenaebrys

After death all intelligent beings must stand before Morr in his Grey Halls. There he weighs the life of each deceased soul in the balance and decides their fate and dispatches each to an afterlife befitting their deeds on the mortal plane. A man who spent his life lying and cheating without thought of the cost of his deeds to others would be sent to Banthak’s realm where he is the victim of every deceit. A murderer becomes prey in Kaela’s realm, a career soldier joins Selekhar’s legions and a valiant hero continues to quest in Marthric’s name.

Some souls are of special importance to the gods. Most often these are the god’s own clerics and holy warriors, but some other souls single themselves out for attention through their deeds or their faith. These are the souls who have a place set aside for them, and these are the souls for whom the gods must argue their case before the Lord of Endings.

Returning a soul to life is a disturbance in the order of Morr’s courts. Very few souls return from his grim halls and even less from the afterlives that lie beyond, and all of them only with his express permission. All who seek this boon must plead their case before Morr and only those rare few he feels have a truly compelling reason to return are permitted to do so.

Once a the soul has moved on to his afterlife any attempt at revivification is now hindered by his keeper, the god in whose realm the soul now resides. Only at with their permission can a soul even approach the Grey Halls to plead his case, and this only happens if it is in the keeper’s interest that the soul returns to life. Some powerful clerics can request that their god simply take the deceased from the keeper, but this is seldom done as the repercussions can be terrible.

To complicate matters, the attempted revivification of any soul attracts the attentions of the gods. Depending on the life of the soul, and the reason for revivification, some may petition for their return to life if it suits their schemes, or if the soul is one of their favoured. Others may petition against it for the same reason, or for some blasphemy or slight the soul committed against them.


Game Mechanics

For the first few days after a character dies (the casting window of raise dead) the deceased soul is still within the Grey Halls and may easily return to life if Morr permits. Once the spell is cast, the deceased soul is immediately aware of the attempt to return him to life. As usual, the soul knows the name, alignment and patron deity of the caster and may refuse to return to life. If the soul chooses to attempt to return to life, he must first plead his case before Morr. The details of this are up to the DM, but Morr is extremely strict and only permits revivification on the proper grounds, such as a significant unfinished duty or a life’s quest unfulfilled.

Once the deceased soul moves on to their afterlife the matter becomes more complicated. Resurrection and similar spells only work if returning the deceased to life would benefit the keeper in any way, or if the spell is cast by a cleric of the keeper, who can argue the case to their god. True resurrection can simply steal the soul from the keeper, bypassing their permission entirely, and presents them in Morr’s Halls to plead their case.

The deceased soul must make a check to determine whether or not the petition is successful. This is a d20 roll against a DC of 15 with the following modifiers:

The character has a worthy reason to return to life* +1 to +5 (DM’s discretion)
Character has 5 or more ranks in Diplomacy +1
Revivification spell cast by a cleric of Morr +3
Character has died before -2
Support/opposition of a demigod ±2
Support/opposition of a lesser god ±3
Support/opposition of a intermediate god ±4
Support/opposition of a greater god* ±5
Support/opposition of Morr or the Triad Automatic success/automatic failure

*Note that a character that does not, in the DM’s opinion, have a worthy reason to return to life automatically fails.

Because of the complexities of the deceased soul’s petition before Morr, all revivification spells are highly ritualistic spells. While the rituals vary from faith to faith, the core remains the same. The body is properly prepared and anointed and allowed to lie in state for a night while the caster maintains a vigil of prayer throughout the night. If the petition was successful, the deceased awakes with the first light of dawn, as if from a long sleep.

 

[GuardianLurker]

Well, you've provided a quantified mechanic for resolving the "recall contest" that's implied in the rules, but other than that, I don't see a whole lot of change from the core resurrection/raise dead mechanics. Unless I missed something?

Also, since any attempt to raise a character not deemed worthy automatically fails, why even bother with the rolls? Why not (just like the core rules) do a hand wave that amounts to the GM leaning back with a look of "Convince me" on his face?

If you're instituting this to protect against player hissy-fits, aren't there better solutions? And if you're not, shouldn't this decision be left solely up to the whim of the dice (worthy or not) under your proposed mechanic?

 

[Kweezil]

I don't remember anything in the core rules about whether or not a soul is able to return, besides spells like trap the soul and of course finding a cleric able and willing to cast the spell.

The mechanics and the roll are there for several reasons:
- To illustrate to players the difficulties of raise dead etc (nothing against my players, but some of them get caught on "this is the rules, the rest is fluff.") Simply making it DM fiat could lead to ill-feeling and thoughts of DM favouritism.
- To show players that their actions can have far reaching consequences. Repeatedly assault the faith and destroy the temples of an evil god and that god will probably argue against you. His enemy, the god whose name you probably did all that it, will probably aregue for you.
- A character without a worthy reason to return and a character with the most compelling and worthy reason to return are extremes. What about the rest? The dice are impartial, once I've set the modifiers.
- Players like rolling dice

The reason for the touch of DM fiat (setting the modifier for worthiness of reason), is to protect me from anyone attempting to ruleslawyer their way through. Thankfully my current group has no-one like that, but I've had to deal with them in the past, and this gives me adefence against such problems.

 

[Kweezil]

Bump

No other comments?

 

[Bauglir]

Well first off pros

- Love the flavour
- A mechanic for it is DEFINITELY a Good Thing. Too much DM fiat and you end up with players feeling they have no control over their own characters.


Potential problems/questions

- Firstly just a general opinion on the whole "resurrection is too easy" situation. In a lot of games, death isn't too difficult either. It's difficult to keep a good storyline going when the players are constantly rolling up new characters. In a lengthy adventure it's a disaster as you end up with a party that are missing vital information which was picked up on previous characters, etc etc..

- Do you get to 'appeal' the decision?

- If yes, then it's little different to 'normal' resurrection scenarios. The party will just try again and again until the roll succeeds.

- If no, then it's perhaps a little too much to invest into a single dice roll. (After all Murphy's Law dictates that any roll THAT important will fail.. always)

Perhaps they get a certain number of appeals (say.. 5) for their entire life? That might work..

- One other thing. (Assuming a good party) ANY higher level adventurer will have annoyed any number of evil gods. It's inevitable. On the other hand if the character isn't religious they may not have the favour of the good gods.. (also any cleric or paladin will pretty much automatically have the favour of at least one good god, for obvious reasons) - Clerics, paladins etc will have a pretty huge advantage in the Judgement

 

[shivamuffin]

I tried to simplify the affair, and came up with this for my setting...
This is of course dependant on the player and their class...Clerics and Paladins would be involved in some near death roleplaying to add some flavor to the situation.

Ressurection & Raising the Dead

Being dead is a traumatic event, and it will cost the PC not only money and resources, it will cost physically. 1 Con point will be lost per resurrection or raise dead performed. ONLY a wish spell, used for the purpose of bringing back the dead PC will negate the loss of the Con. A PC can only be resurrected or raised as many times as they have Con points.


A simple paragragh, and the players know that their is hope, but at a price. I usually charge in treasure for such services as well...The going rate being 1000 gol. per level of the deceased...Rationalizing that the more powerful the target, the more power and labor it takes to return them to the world of the living.

It's just a simple suggestion to avoid complex formulas and paperwork.