Resurrection changes a man...

[Planeswalker Maloran]

I've been getting fed up with how casually players (and DMs) tend to treat Raise Dead and similar spells. After reading a few articles on the topic (most notably http://home.earthlink.net/~duanevp/dnd/resurrection.htm) I have decided that making them harder to get, or penalizing resurrected characters beyond just the loss of a level, is not the way to fix this. However, I disagree with the author that NO game-mechanic change is an appropriate fix. What I propose (and intend to use in my campaigns from this point on) is as follows:

1) If a creature is brought back after being dead longer than 1 day (or more if Gentle Repose was cast), its type becomes Abberation, and it gains the Augmented (whatever it was before) subtype. Otherwise, its game statistics are unchanged. I haven't decided if this will replace or stack with the level loss.

2) Any NPC who is aware the character has been resurrected will treat him differently. Not necessarily with suspicion; that will depend on the individual NPC. Druid or ranger types will often react more negatively than others to someone who has defied the natural order by coming back from the dead.

3) If the soul is unwilling or unable to return, the spell does not fail. Instead, another soul 'comes back' in its place. This seems to fit with all the stories of people who were resurrected but 'came back wrong', which seems a popular theme in fantasy and horror stories involving the possibility of resurrection.

Spells like Reincarnate (which works with, rather than against, the natural order) and True Resurrection (being a 9th-level spell) might not be subject to these changes. However, NPCs for the most part won't differentiate between spells they know little about. What's more, a creature who comes back in a different body might seem even more unnatural than one who comes back in his own body.

 

[Quartz]

How does this increase the fun of the game for your players?

 

[The Levitator]

I would think that would depend on the players. We don't have resurrection in my campaigns and my players prefer it that way. Granted, I don't have a single player under 30 and all of them have gamed in different systems and like the lethality aspect of RPG's. Now with that said, I should elaborate. Resurrection is a myth, but I'm not going to let a mid-to-high level character die in my game as a result of dumb luck. That's not fun for anyone, unless it's a temporary condition.

Here's the quote from our houserules:

Resurrection is a myth in this world and is not known to be possible without gruesome consequences. Please remember though, that you are the heroes and if your mid-to- high level character dies as the result of terrible luck, there is always the chance that the party will find the old hermit who lives in a cave who pulled off a resurrection or two in his day.

Resurrection, IMO, should be used very sparingly and only if the character's death was a result of bad luck. As a GM, I feel it's very important to build an escape hatch into every encounter. I am also very clear with players that I don't really use CR's to determine encounters, and that our world is a savage one and sometimes it's just better to live to fight another day. Here's my #1 houserule:

• I, as the DM, do not care if you live or die. Your survival is completely up to you. Not every encounter you will face will be winnable. I will not put the PC’s in a completely unwinnable situation, but I will allow the PC’s to do it to themselves. Every encounter will have an escape hatch, but ignoring the escape hatch at the wrong time can mean the painful end of a character. A party whose strategy is, “hey look, it’s breathing, let’s kill it!” will not live long in this campaign. All random encounters are exactly that, random. A 1st level character has a chance (albeit a miniscule one) of meeting up with an ancient red dragon. A good player who wants to advance his/her character as far as possible will choose their battles carefully. In game terms, encounters are created based on the world around you and the environment, not necessarily the creatures CR rating. Remember that this is your story, and you are the heroes. But as heroes, please remember that decisions have consequences. I think of myself as the storyteller and eyes and ears for the party. D&D is not Players VS DM to me. Our goal is that everyone in the group has as much fun as possible.

My players know up front that it's a world designed to have a real-feel to it, and that every decision they make has consequences of some kind. For my players, that is what makes the game fun. Having unlimited healing like power-ups and easy resurrection that acts like video game extra lives is not fun for the 2 groups that I run. They want the game to be challenging, not easy. My houserules were made around my players, so it was with their gaming style that we built these campaigns. If I had a group that wanted a more video game feel to their experience, I would do whatever I could to accommodate them. While I don't really understand this type of gaming, I would ask the players lots of questions and try to make a game that they will enjoy. It's just been my personal experience that most players want a challenging game with the chance of character death. I've been playing since around 1981, and I can't really think of more than a couple of people I've ever gamed with that wanted uber healing and easy resurrection. I don't think it's an age thing because I started playing when I was 12. Maybe it's an "old school" "new school" kinda thing. If that's the case, then it's just important to know what kind of school you are in so that you can give the players what they want.


I know it's easy to just say, make it all fun for the players, but I think that is sometimes unfair to the GM's. We are trying to have fun too. And as the person who has a 10:1 investment (time and money) in the game, I would like to hope that my players would want me to get some enjoyment out of the game as well. I'm fortunate to have 2 groups of players who do want me to have as much fun as they are having. So we all work together to build a game that is fun for everyone, including little 'ole me!

 

[Phlebas]

I think a lot of this depends on how the players / DM treat raise dead. If its like any other medical procedure, just more expensive, then you're not going to get any impact. If you turn it into a life altering experience then people take it seriously. IMHO i don't think you need to do this with rules (Though i quite like the idea that sometimes something else comes back btw) but with story and Character Development

example 1 (IMC).

Rogue / Fighter caught by poison trap died. PC had just started taking levels in shadowdancer (would have hit 3rd if she hadn't died...). Party had raise dead scroll so not perceived as an issue until the raise dead scroll went missing, the other rogue spotted that the dead PC didn't cast a shadow and a priest keeping vigil over the body was attacked and drained of strength - the party panicked as to who would have taken the scroll and eventually tracked down the scroll to the dead PC's house were it was being guarded by a shadow of the dead PC in a ring of candles with other shadows trying to steal the scroll.
Eventually the PC's defeated the other shadows, persuaded the dead PC's shadow to let them have the scroll, and fought running battles with shadows to get back to the shrine and raise the dead PC
Last week the Raised PC regained 3rd level shadowdancer and can now consciously animate her own shadow (my take on the Shadowdancers shadow) and i'm waiting to see how the rest of the group react to her now, especially the priests .....

anyhow - one death, one mini-adventure, a life-changing experience for both PC and allies, a nice twist on the PrC and no need to mess around with the rules

Exampe 2 (freinds campaign)

Warlock died, warlock came back taking new prestige class dedicated to good.
Not sure what he saw when he died but he decided not to risk it again..... Player admitted he'd totally changed the character concept after the death but worked with the ref and a bit of retraining to get the right PrC

 

[Jack Simth]

I've been getting fed up with how casually players (and DMs) tend to treat Raise Dead and similar spells. After reading a few articles on the topic (most notably http://home.earthlink.net/~duanevp/dnd/resurrection.htm) I have decided that making them harder to get, or penalizing resurrected characters beyond just the loss of a level, is not the way to fix this. However, I disagree with the author that NO game-mechanic change is an appropriate fix. What I propose (and intend to use in my campaigns from this point on) is as follows:

1) If a creature is brought back after being dead longer than 1 day (or more if Gentle Repose was cast), its type becomes Abberation, and it gains the Augmented (whatever it was before) subtype. Otherwise, its game statistics are unchanged. I haven't decided if this will replace or stack with the level loss.

For the most part, this is an advantage - you gain immunity to a lot of humanoid-only spells, such as Charm Person and Dominate Person (but also Enlarge person and Reduce Person, which can pose difficulties occasionally); you gain darkvision-60, and (if you don't already have it) and simple weapon proficiency. As such, I'd suggest you make this one stack with the level loss.

2) Any NPC who is aware the character has been resurrected will treat him differently. Not necessarily with suspicion; that will depend on the individual NPC. Druid or ranger types will often react more negatively than others to someone who has defied the natural order by coming back from the dead.

This is not a game-mechanics change.

3) If the soul is unwilling or unable to return, the spell does not fail. Instead, another soul 'comes back' in its place. This seems to fit with all the stories of people who were resurrected but 'came back wrong', which seems a popular theme in fantasy and horror stories involving the possibility of resurrection.

This will occasionally cause problems when certain spells or monsters are in play (the Soul Bind spell, or a Barghest, to name two). Of course, it also gives a perfect justification for # 2..... especially if you've got a couple of incorporeal self-replicating undead running around.

Spells like Reincarnate (which works with, rather than against, the natural order) and True Resurrection (being a 9th-level spell) might not be subject to these changes. However, NPCs for the most part won't differentiate between spells they know little about. What's more, a creature who comes back in a different body might seem even more unnatural than one who comes back in his own body.

Makes it easier to hide the fact, though, as there's less of a chance for someone to recognize you.

 

[Planeswalker Maloran]

How does this increase the fun of the game for your players?

Most of my players over the various campaigns I've run agree with me on this: Resurrection and uber-healing give the game a kiddie-playground sort of feel. You can't get hurt for long, you can come back from death easily enough, and there's just not much challenge.

I agree that an attitude-only change could do the trick, but I really like the idea of having something quantifiable about how a resurrected creature is "different" from one who has not died. I might rule that, unlike other Abberations, they do not gain 60-foot Darkvision.

Regarding level loss, I am hard-pressed to find a reason for that in the first place, beyond simply discouraging players from getting killed. Why exactly would someone who dies forget the newest tricks they learned? I agree that it's nice for game balance reasons, but to me it's always made the game less fun, because it just doesn't make sense from an in-game perspective. "I learned some new spells! Then I died and got raised, and they were no longer in my spellbook. WTF?" What I'd really like is something equally balancing to replace it with, that makes more sense.

 

[Jack Simth]

Oh, well if that's all you're after, you want the level 1-5 segment of play, where neigh-infinite healing is not a given, and resurrection-type spells aren't even possible without NPC help (by way of a scroll, or a higher-level character) and can thus be refused/tweaked by simple campaign settings and social rules.

There's other options, too - "Every time someone is untimely brought to life, another untimely dies." Basically, make a few changes that don't overly impact the mechanics... but cause some serious hesitation on using them (at least, for Good characters) and some consequences of use:
Whenever you bring someone back by Reincarnation, Raise Dead, Resurrection, or True Resurrection, some nearby person (random, what the DM thinks would be funny, or what the DM thinks will further the plot) with whom caster, subject, and those knowledgeable of the casting don't know about dies in some manner (that is, you can't control who gets it - just who doesn't, by knowing about them - and to bring someone back is thus random murder; you can't even hedge your bets by stocking a prison somewhere, as you know something about the people inside - they're all convicts). Clone is a partial exception; someone still dies, but you get to choose who.

Different spells do this in different ways:
Reincarnation removes a young adult's spirit, and shoves the soul of the returnee in it's place (this can, optionally, Summon the new body to the location of casting, or not). Of all the forms of Resurrection, this will always take a young adult - never an infant, never someone of middle age or worse. The returnee is walking around in somebody else's body, and the only way to find out who was the previous owner is to glean the information from others.
Raise Dead inflicts the cause of death on the random individual (so when you raise the Wizard who was killed by a Fireball, a wife somewhere wakes to find her baby a blackened and burned corpse - or her husband, or her friend, or whatever).
Resurrection reduces a random individual to a pile of ash, in a ten-minute (the casting time) burn that cannot be quenched, and will set fire to flammable objects if contact is made (damage per round to things other than the spell-doomed individual of 2d6 per round of contact). The spell-doomed is in conscious agony until the end - and able to move about in a futile attempt to end the pain. The one returned from the dead gains a faint resemblance to the newly deceased (not enough to have any game mechanical effects - just enough that someone would say "you remind me of..." on first meeting).
True Resurrection causes the spell-doomed individual to die in an inexplicable inferno that consumes even the stones around him (10d6 Fire damage to everything within 20 feet of the spell-doomed individual). The spell-doomed is in conscious agony until the end - and able to move about in a futile attempt to end the pain.
Clone lets you pick who dies - a living, healthy, intelligent creature of the same race as the one to be cloned becomes a material component (and is killed by the initial casting; this sacrificed individual must be helpless, or willing to die, in order for the spell to work; Eschew Materials doesn't help with this, of course). The grisly remains are consumed by the growing clone over the course of 2d4 months (the normal time for a clone to reach maturity).

These effects are always known by at least the higher-ups in power (who occasionally run across it), and always at least rumored by the peasantry (it is a very rare occurrence; if heard of at all by the peasantry, it's basically rumor). Depending on the area, this will be officially acknowledged (and such magic made illegal), officially denied as existing (as those in power want to be able to take advantage of it themselves), or simply not addressed.

 

[Planeswalker Maloran]

The problem I have with that is, it makes resurrection simply not an option for a good-aligned character. I do want the option to be there, and not just for neutral or evil characters; but I want it to be taken seriously, and have possible in-game consequences for the resurrected character. A random person's death means nothing if you don't know about it, and very little if you know it happened but it wasn't anyone you knew/cared about (unless you're a particularly good person, at which point it isn't even an option).

 

[Jack Simth]

Well, there's a fundamental dichotomy with any form of resurrection.

Players grow attached to their characters, and want to continue playing them - thus, the desire for the ability. Additionally, there's a slight stretch of credulity involved in a tightly knit group, that's been together through thick and thin, suddenly accepting a new person, and trusting him/her with their lives, in a world where dopplegangers, charms, and so on are known to exist. Answer? Bring people back (resurrection magic - solves both issues).

1) If bringing back the dead is difficult to do in-game, it interrupts the quest. You're in the middle of a huge dungeon, off to destroy the lich that's been raising an undead army and raiding the countryside for "materials" to do so. And now you have to go to the mountain of Pain, past the Sea of Blood, and through the Forest of Ghosts to retrieve your buddy's soul to reunite it with the body.

2) If bringing back the dead is too "costly" (however cost is measured - be that alignment, stats, or what have you) for the character, it defeats the point of the exercise - he's no longer an enjoyable character, which was the point of bringing him back in the first place.

3) If bringing back the dead is too easy, death loses its sting. It doesn't mean anything. It's a loss of "points", nothing more (which is your current objection).

You cannot make a system that everybody will like. You can relieve #3 by upping the "cost" of coming back (which increases the risk of #2). You can relieve #3 by up the inconvenience of coming back (which increases the risk of #1). About the best you can hope for is something that works for you, and for those at your table. For that, though, you don't want to be asking a bazillion strangers on the internet - you want to be checking with the players at your table, and yourself.

 

[Planeswalker Maloran]

Valid point. And I did talk with my players about this before posting it here. I just like getting feedback from as many sources as possible. Also, I was hoping someone might have a suggestion for a game-mechanic penalty (maybe temporary) to replace level loss.

Something I'm considering now is experience loss; meaning loss of experience equal to a level, without losing the level itself. That way the character doesn't lose any abilities, but still takes longer to gain new abilities. Your experience goes below the minimum for your level, but you don't 'level down' from it, you just need to gain that much more experience before you level up again. That seems kinda awkward, though... Any other suggestions that might work instead?