ZEITGEIST Resurrection in Zeitgeist Adventure Path

[Kelvor Ravenstar]

How do you use Raise Dead and other spell/ritual varieties in the Zeitgeist adventure path?

I'm running the campaign in 4E, up to the Dying Skyseer, and we haven't had any character deaths yet. In my experience with 4E, character deaths are bound to happen eventually, but my party and I don't have a plan of how to handle it yet. Players are spending almost all of their level-up requisition gold on items, so there doesn't seem to be enough left over for ritual components.

For those who have run it before, what did you do? Assume the player characters will have sufficient gold to afford a Raise Dead ritual? With a brief search of Act One I see that resurrection magic is used in the world, but rarely (Voice of Rot, references to extorting the recently raised by The Family, Recklinghausen's desire to make resurrection more available to the populace through science).

Would the RHC have some sort of Raise Dead insurance policy separate from the requisition limit? Is Raise Dead a ritual that could be gotten at no cost with a Risur Favor? The table in the player's guide suggests they can find a ritual caster (Level 3 Favor to get a caster capable of Raise Dead in 4E) but have to pay all costs themselves.

 

[hirou]

I warned the party from the start that straight Resurrection is almost impossible in the world. So far there were three times where near-death of a PC occured, which were resolved:
-by visually impressive visit of Crissiliri archbishop to Flint to re-bound the spirit of fallen to his body (done via Family connections, PC received some Clergy seals restricting his behaviour, e.g. lying, for a while)
-by search for Dr von Recklinghausen, found captive by goblin tribe of Ber (see adv 6, this lined up perfectly)
-by turning PC into a weretiger, which would bring him back from the brink of death (I was prepared to do this, but PC actually survived ~150 damage burst)

 

[Veril]

I had the RHC offer a group insurance policy where they would price match what the players put in, and so had the players contribute 50% of the total required. That made it attractive enough that they went for it. The RHC cares about it's operatives, it's not a faceless evil bureaucracy.

 

[Andrew Moreton]

I provided ressurection reincarnation strictly as per the pathfinder rules. So its rare with relativly few high level casters and would most probably have been reincarnation from a druid until the pc cleric hit 9th level, or calling in a favour from the clergy. I also use Heropoints which give players a get out of jail free every couple of levels opportunity which saved several of my pc's from death early on

 

[Echolocation]

As recommended by a player, I have been playing with alternative resurrection rules (from Use Critical Role’s Resurrection Rules in Your Own Campaign | Geek and Sundry):

If a character is dead for longer than 1 round, and a resurrection is attempted by a spell or spell effect with longer than a 1 full-round action casting time, a Resurrection Challenge is initiated. Up to 3 members of the adventuring party can offer to contribute to the ritual via a Contribution. Broadly, contributions require emphasising the fallen’s connection with the world. For example, players may offer a souvenir of a shared memory, or make a offering the to the god of the devout, fallen character. The DM will assess the effectiveness of each contribution.

After all contributions are completed, the DM then rolls a single, final Resurrection success check with no modifier. The base DC for the final resurrection check is 10, increasing by 1 for each previous successful resurrection the character has undergone (signifying the slow erosion of the soul’s connection to this world). For each contribution, this DC is altered from a range of -3 (highly effective contributions) to +1 (offensive contributions).

Upon a successful resurrection check, the player’s soul (should it be willing) will be returned to the body, and the ritual succeeded. On a failed check, the soul does not return and the character is lost.

If a spell with a casting time of 1 full-round action is used to attempt to restore life, no contributions are allowed. Only the strongest of magical incantations can bypass this resurrection challenge, in the form of the True Resurrection or Wish spells. These spells can also restore a character to life who was lost due to a failed resurrection ritual.

It should be noted that the dead can only be resurrected within three miles of their death. At least, that's my interpretation of Book 10's Mechanics of a Broken Age:

Spells that restore life to the dead are no longer limited by the body having to travel less than three miles from where it died.

 

[Gort]

I just removed death (and limb-loss and other dismemberment, incidentally, which 4e doesn't have rules for) from my campaign. Someone who "dies" is knocked out and captured, or left for dead, barely alive.

 

[Kelvor Ravenstar]

Thanks for the reminder about the three miles rule about Raise Dead. I think I will keep with that from the adventure path, and present Veril's insurance policy of half price for RHC members.
As good DM policy, I'll bring this up with my players too and see their preferences. Some will likely want to avoid any death chances, but I think D&D is sort of predicated on having resurrection in 4E. The Epic destinies mostly assume that characters will die regularly.