Making it easier to return from the dead

[3d6]

I've never liked using the various save-or-die spells as a DM. They never seemed like much fun, and they make having a high Fortitude save much more valuble than a high Reflex save. I think the big problem I have with them is that they cause a much greater expenditure of party resources than other spells of the same level. For example, if a character fails a save against a firestorm, the character is probably pretty badly hurt, but that can be fixed with an expenditure of less than 750 gp (for a wand of cure light wounds). If that same character fails a save against destruction, repairing the damage requires an expenditure of 25,000 gp or more (for true ressurection and, depending on the party's level, paying for someone to cast it). If the party doesn't have access to true ressurection for whatever reason, the damage cannot be repaired for any amount of gold (you can't buy back a level).

Because of this, I want to remove the material component for the raise dead line of spells in order to bring finger of death and their ilk more in line with other spells in terms of resource expenditure. However, I don't want to trivialize PC death, so something else needs to be added to give the impression that raising someone from the dead isn't easy to do.

How do people thing the following versions of raise dead et al. address my concerns? Is there a better way to deal with my problem?

Raise Dead
Conjuration (Healing)
Level: Clr 5
Components: V, S, DF
Casting Time: 10 minutes
Range: Touch
Target: Dead creature touched
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: Yes (harmless)

You restore life to a dead creature by performing a sacred ritual. This ritual must be performed in an area consecrated (or desecrated) to your patron deity or ideal. To perform the ritual requires a character to cast raise dead and two assistants, each of which must be able to cast at least one 3rd-level divine spell and share the same faith as the primary caster. Each assistant expends a 3rd-level divine spell slot (as though the spell had been cast) in order to complete the ritual.

You can raise a creature that has been dead for no longer than one day per caster level. In addition, the subject’s soul must be free and willing to return. If the subject’s soul is not willing to return, the spell does not work. You must possess the majority of the dead creature’s body for this spell to function.

A raised creature has a number of hit points equal to its current Hit Dice. Any ability scores damaged to 0 are raised to 1. Normal poison and normal disease are cured in the process of raising the subject, but magical diseases and curses are not undone. The target is exhausted for one day and fatigued for one week after being raised from the dead.

A creature that has been turned into an undead creature can’t be raised by this spell. Constructs, elementals, outsiders, and undead creatures can’t be raised. The spell cannot bring back a creature that has died of old age.

Resurrection
Conjuration (Healing)
Level: Clr 7
Components: V, S, DF
Casting Time: 10 minutes
Range: Touch
Target: Dead creature touched
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: Yes (harmless)

This spell functions like raise dead, except that you are able to restore life and complete strength to any deceased creature.

The condition of the remains is not a factor. So long as some small portion of the creature’s body still exists, it can be resurrected, but the portion receiving the spell must have been part of the creature’s body at the time of death. (The remains of a creature hit by a disintegrate spell count as a small portion of its body.)

The creature is healed of all hit point and ability score damage. The subject is exhausted for one day and fatigued for three days after being raised from the dead.

You can resurrect someone who has been turned into an undead creature and then destroyed.

True Resurrection
Conjuration (Healing)
Level: Clr 9
Components: V, S, DF
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Close (25 ft + 5 ft/2 levels)
Target: See text
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: Yes (harmless)

This spell functions like resurrection, except that you can bring back creatures whose bodies have been completely destroyed. Casting true resurrection requires no assistants. A creature returned to life by true resurrection is not fatigued or exhausted.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

IMO resurrection magic has vastly more to do with meta-game issues than in-game issues but it is always only approached via in-game rules alterations rather than altering meta-game expectations.

Players liike their characters and even if they die in combat - as they inevitably must - they want to have resurrection magic included in the game to be able to resume playing with the same character. DM's also want to see players continue to play their favorite characters as well, rather than an endless parade of short-lived PC's who don't live long enough to even develop personalities beyond a superficial base. Trick is that in-game, the DM doesn't want the player to have his character react as superficially to death and it's consequences as the player often does.

How a player has his character react to death and resurrection is not something that can really be dictated by changing in-game rules. It has to be achieved as a change in roleplaying attitude put forth by the player through his character - and that's a meta-game issue.

IMO, as I said.

 

[Jack Simth]

Another option: remove them, then change the nature of death. Dead isn't dead it's stuck on another plane with no equipment (no spellbook, no spell components pouch, et cetera) and with your entire daily allotment of spells stripped from you until you can rest/prepare spells. The people in charge of whatever afterlife plane the formerly living happens to land on don't like it when their newfound "friends" leave. Getting out on one's own is very tricky, and can only be done by the most advanced spellcasters (have to find someplace to rest up, prepare spells, and Gate out - little else will do, unless you can find a spell components pouch with focuses for the prime material or some such.... assuming you don't rely on a spellbook). A Cleric can fetch you at the same time they get Raise Dead (Plane Shift is Cleric-5), but they still need to find you somehow (hope they studied well enough to tell what plane your soul will wind up on; someone who fakes their personality and religion is in deep dodo). Once back on the Prime Material, you can retrieve equipment and continue on as normal, none the worse for wear... assuming nothing too terribly bad happend while you were out, and nobody wants you back....

With this house-rule variant, regardless of level, dead can be Dead, as one might not make the appropriet check to note the deceased's alignment, true religion, and where that means for retrieving a fallen ally. Requires study. No loss of level. Spawns new adventures. TPK's are recoverable without dues ex machina (sp?) dream scenarios. Death is quite bothersome. A might more work for the DM, though....

 

[anton1066]

Why dont you just add a high cost material component to Finger of Death????

 

[Aust Diamondew]

Why dont you just add a high cost material component to Finger of Death????

Brilliant idea imo.

 

[poilbrun]

I agree with the Man in the Funny Hat on this, I have DMed quite a few campaigns since 3e came out, very often until high levels, and I find that I have more problems with the in-game interpretation of death than I have about the rules themselves. IMO, it has even become too easy to come back from the dead. My best experience happened when one of my players refused to resurrect her character, saying that a cleric would be only too happy to have joined with her god to wish to come back to life.

In reply to Jack Smith, I like the idea and think that I will steal it the next time a TPK occurs. However, when the group is in the middle of an adventure and one character has to go to all that trouble to come back to life, do you really want to do such a side adventure and interrupt the rest of the group? And if it's just a question of plane shifting, scrying, teleport, plane shift again, that's just increasing the number of spells necessary rather than fundamentally changing death.

 

[Rhun]

The biggest issue I see with making it easier to return to life is that the players will lose any fear of having their character die. That fear is important for roleplaying, especially once a player becomes attached to his character.

 

[WhatGravitas]

Brilliant idea imo.

No, because it contradicts the OP's intent (helping your PCs).
You NPCs who cast the spells use the material component = less treasure for the PCs and your PCs cannot use the spell effectively anymore.

A possible solution (besides banning save-or-die spells) could be the introduction of another condition than "dead": Finger of Death and similar spells don't kill you, but instead, they disrupt your lifeforce, removing it from your body, but they don't "snuff out" your lifeforce (like normal killing), so the body begins to rot (perhaps 1 Con damage per day/hour/whatever you want), and someone must cast a spell to "reintegrate" the lifeforce, thus every save-or-die spell has a specific spell who undoes its effects - this solves the save-or-die problem, but death still remains a real threat (so tactical combat is still rewarded).

 

[Jack Simth]

In reply to Jack Smith, I like the idea and think that I will steal it the next time a TPK occurs. However, when the group is in the middle of an adventure and one character has to go to all that trouble to come back to life, do you really want to do such a side adventure and interrupt the rest of the group? And if it's just a question of plane shifting, scrying, teleport, plane shift again, that's just increasing the number of spells necessary rather than fundamentally changing death.

In such a variant, you have complete and utter control of where characters go when they die, and thus exactly how difficult it is to get someone back. Perhaps you're in a hurry, so they went to a mostly wild aligned plane that's not particularly specially protected; which is just a scry/plane shift/teleport/plane shift to get back (minimal adventure interruption). With that, you've traded expensive material components for multiple spells needed. Perhaps you want to draw it out a bit (emphasizing that death is not easy to return from) and they landed smack dab on the center of the Concordant Domains of the Outlands (have to go over five hundred miles from him before that fifth level clerical Plane Shift will work to get you back, over seven hundred for the 7th level Arcane Plane Shift), and none of your spells work within a hundred miles of the center. There's two extremes, before getting dieties involved.

With dieties, they get to control entrance and egress to their home plane. Perhaps anyone of non-evil alignment can come in, but the only way out is from the inner sanctum of the temple .... and you have to have permission to get in there. What do you use to bribe a diety? Soooo many plot hooks, potentially.

Edit: And you can have the region / current ruler / mood of the population / alignment of the stars *officially* have a hand in determining where one goes, so it can be a completely different one in dungeon A, forest B, and city C, or from year D to year E, so they don't just go to the same plane each time.....

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

The biggest issue I see with making it easier to return to life is that the players will lose any fear of having their character die. That fear is important for roleplaying, especially once a player becomes attached to his character.

My experience is that it is almost entirely ineffective to make it more difficult to resurrect a character because it doesn't make PLAYERS fear the death of their character, and therefore does not impart roleplaying a fear of death BY the character. What it does do is irritate and frustrate AFTER the fact. Players will put up with insane amounts of added requirements, rituals, costs, and general hoopla for resurrections, but they WILL still get their characters resurrected every time if they would have done so prior to making it more difficult.

Players will almost always deal with rules on a rules basis, not on a roleplaying basis. In particular adding MORE rules naturally sends a signal (despite whatever else you SAY to player) that you want it dealt with on a rules basis, not by roleplaying. If failure of players to roleplay a respect for death by their character is the problem then ROLEPLAYING is the problem, and it should be dealt with strictly on a roleplaying basis. Means you can't force roleplaying by making it a "rule".