D&D 5E Who raises the dead?

[Ashrym]

He didn't succeed in the end, but he clearly had the ability. Sure, not as convenient or everyday or certain as the spell in D&D, but it's not like it ever is...

Isn't Lleu's resurrection by Gwydion a better example?

 

[Tony Vargas]

Isn't Lleu's resurrection by Gwydion a better example?

It's at least from a Celtic culture, which is where D&D swiped the Bard concept.

Orpheus just popped into my head first, and I could spell it.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

You're expected to stop the campaign, or at least stop using the same characters, shortly after they reach level 20. By reducing the time spent at high levels, you hit the end of the game more quickly, so you can all move into the next campaign with low level characters again.

I always thought the reason the levels higher than the previous "sweet spot" levels picked up speed was to answer the common issue of "I'd love to get a campaign to 20th level before ending it and moving on to the next, but it just takes too long."

Personally, I like that the last few levels kind of zip right along and then you are at the plateau of 20th level because that is what I consider the 2nd "sweet spot" of the game - the characters are capable of nearly anything, and you can tell stories with them as long as you'd like without the mechanics of the game continuing to change and introduce new potential issues (at least not change drastically, since you can use epic boons and such to continue advancing in a way that has lower system-stress).

 

[Ancalagon]

To me the implications are more for "world dynamics" than for the PCs. So a PC is level 17 and is now an archmage... well archmage powers the PC has!

I was thinking that the nobles would have to be friendly with the clergy, at least one religion, to have easy access to healing and raise dead spells (makes assassinations are lot easier to counter, and handy when there is a plague). I now realize that an anti-clergy noble could make due without one with a powerful enough mage on retainer... a transmuter can raise the dead *and* heal at level 14 so he would be ideal for that role...

 

[Ashrym]

It's at least from a Celtic culture, which is where D&D swiped the Bard concept.

Orpheus just popped into my head first, and I could spell it.

One of the nice things about 5e bard mechanics is that the high level of customization allows for the bard equivalents from other cultures easily enough. D&D drew heavily on the Celtic bard but I can go with a biwa hoshi or kahuna without too much difficulty, as examples. Orpheus is an obvious choice for inspiration from Greek myths so it tends to be one of the first concepts which springs to mind.

Bit off topic anyway. Bards are a potential cleric alternative, much like druids, so the ability to fill those shoes would include things like raising dead, simply from a mechanical perspective; the ability to act similarly is kind of important. It's a bonus that it's not forced and simply an option. I think that there can be a match for at least some folklore in the spells available. The topic looks to me like the OP believes raising dead is the purpose of a cleric and letting someone else do so impacts the clerics' ability to contribute or something.
[MENTION=6684551]devincutler[/MENTION]
Don't forget that a cleric or druid (or possibly a bard) can cast true resurrection using the same 9th-level spell slot for better effect than the wish spell emulating the resurrection effect, and that a cleric can call on divine intervention as an action with 100% chance at 20th level to be capable of replicating true resurrect with an action and no cost. That beats the wish spell with which you seem to have a concern. Revivify is more likely the answer even though it's unlikely anyone got to that point when they were more likely healed while in the death rolls stage.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Why should that matter?

Well, in one sense, it doesn't matter at all. But in another sense, it might. Much of what Devincutler has said centers on Raise Dead (etc.) being a defining element of the Cleric class, something that only they can bring to the table. But Reincarnate has (AFAIK?) been around as long as there have been Druids as well as Clerics, so "restoring the dead to life" is hardly a Cleric-exclusive mechanic, even if theirs has the easiest-to-handle costs. However, if we focus solely on Raise Dead, it was true that (relatively early on) it was exclusively for Clerics, but as additional classes and options got added, it wasn't hard to find other classes that could do it, especially when it was added as a domain spell to the Restoration domain (which meant a single feat could get it for a variety of classes).

More or less, I was wondering if Devincutler was coming into this with a more "old school" mindset, where certain things are just very very siloed and that's part of how it keeps things on the level, or if he was coming to it with a different mindset. It sounds like it's sort of a hybrid, given his own reply (which I'll respond to shortly). D&D has been moving away from "you NEED a Cleric if you want X effect!" for a while now, at least since 3.5e and possibly earlier. Both 4e and 5e have that baked in; 4e made Raise Dead a ritual, so almost anyone could do it with the proper training, while 5e has put it on multiple class spell lists.

My previous edition I played was 3.5. It was my favourite before 5th, until I DM'd a game that got to higher levels and saw how broken it was.

I have played all editions but 4th since 1974.

My favourite edition is 5th.

I run long term campaigns lasting years of real time and tend to take my players from 1st to 20th level. This is why higher level balancing is a concern for me while, it seems, most players never get that far and are willing to just brush off such things. My campaigns tend to involve things other than pure module hopping, and so issues of inter-world logic, magic economics, and the like matter more to me than most. While the idea of a 17th level wizard using Wish to spam Symbol spells may not be an issue for most people, it is for me. I have to eventually deal with PCs doing it all over their strongholds, and, by internal consistency, I have to figure out why enemy wizards of 17th level or higher don't have symbols over every 5 foot square of their strongholds.

Inter-world consistency is a big deal for me. I want the world to make sense as much as a fantasy world of magic and demons and a rule system overlaid on top of that can be. If continual flame costs 50 gp per casting, I will want to know why every city and town in a world is not fully lit by such spells. I won't just hand wave that (and my players, all smart adults and players who have played for more than 30 years, won't either). So either my cities and towns are all fully lit with continual flame spells, or I have to nerf the spell, making it last 7 days, or make it where you have to cast it X times in a row to make it permanent...something to explain away the lack of continual flame spells everywhere.

I do understand that 17th level wizards don't grow on trees, and that 14th level transmuters do not as well. However, 14th level is not all that rare in a world like Forgotten Realms. There are enough so that transmuters can run a business providing youthful appearance to pretty much any noble who wants. I don't want a world were every rich person or person with a title looks like a 20 year old. But given its availability, how does one explain otherwise? Why aren't these nobles paying to look 20? I would think most of them would want to, and could find a transmuter willing to do it since it costs the transmuter nothing except 8 hours of time. So you pay for the time and you get 3d10 years back. For inter-world consistency, I have to either decide every nobleperson or wealthy merchant looks 20 years old, or I have to come up with some reason why this youth is not given to everyone willing to pay for it.

I've had to, in 5th and 3.5, nerf Fabricate so that finely crafted items cannot be made no matter how skilled the caster is. Why? The spell destroys any economy in which it exists otherwise.

It is interesting to me that Wish cost 5,000 XP in 3rd edition and that was considered acceptable as a balancing issue for the spell, but in 5th edition no one has a problem with essentially the same spell doing the same thing for no cost at all.

Well, to be honest, you're expecting a level of consistency and realism that D&D has never been particularly good at, and has--pretty conclusively--gotten worse at modelling over time. Speed, movement, and rate of attack (especially with things like bows vs. crossbows) is incredibly wonky. No D&D economy has ever made sense, with vast riches buried underground and no meaningful evidence of the industrial and mining capacity necessary to make all these fortifications or the tools and valuables that fill them. Religion--specifically, theology and philosophy--are so paper-thin and ill-thought-out, it's painful. Spells like Continual Flame, beings like zombies (undead which need neither rest nor sustenance), and items like Decanters of Endless Water, are effectively power sources for perpetual motion machines, yet no one has ever considered USING them for that purpose? Highly experienced people can fall out of a five-story building and keep fighting? Rings of Sustenance, Purify Food and Water, and Create Food and Water should nearly eliminate hunger; Wands of Cure Light Wounds (in 3.x, anyway) should almost completely eliminate death by injury; death by disease should be almost unknown (assuming the large numbers of Good-aligned 6th-level Clerics are taking their jobs seriously and have some way to receive payment/compensation for the service), and death by poison should be fairly rare (Delay Poison and Neutralize Poison are on like five different class lists)...

I could go on but that's probably overkill already. The point is, magic is deeply unrealistic and doesn't make much sense if you try to apply rigorous logic to its use. If you want to play in FR, you're pretty much always going to have to deal with some kind of crud like this, because the setting is TEEMING with high-level spellcasters who apparently love to sit on their butts, do absolutely nothing (except, like, look through telescopes or whatever), and hate getting paid exorbitant sums of money to do advanced magic for rich people.

So, yeah: either there's some extra cost to making lots and lots of people look really young, or it's a Thing that happens in this world, or it doesn't work quite as advertised. Perhaps it removes wrinkles, paunch, etc. but cannot alter your hair or scars? That would make it more like an expensive "touch-up" than a true "Everyone looks 20 years old" situation--and many nobles might not consider it worth the bother. Alternatively, maybe it only removes like 5 years at a time, so it makes only small differences unless you get 6-10 treatments? Or it can only be done once every 20 years, and someone so affected will return to their "proper" apparent age over that time, no matter how fast that means they appear to age, so a 60-year-old noble can appear to be 20, but will look 80 when the spell finally wears off?

I dunno. I honestly don't care about this sort of thing too much myself...IMO it leads to a never-ending obsession with fixing every little detail so the world is "realistic" and "rational." An obsession which, from my experience, gets in the way of experiencing/telling a good story, opening a can of whoopass on some nasty baddies, and/or examining a situation and understanding/solving/manipulating it.

As for Wish? Well, it's (slightly) nerfed compared to its 3.5e version, for one thing; if you do anything other than duplicate a spell, you're basically giving up magic for the day, and giving up adventuring for almost a week. ("Slightly" because your ability to duplicate spells is much improved, and now has no costs at all.) For another, no spells cost XP in 5e, IIRC, so it would be a little odd for just one spell to do so, even if Wish is the best candidate for it. You only get one Wish a day, too, which is a relatively big limiter even before you account for needing a 17th-level Wizard; by comparison a high-level 3.5e Wizard might cast four or five a day if it weren't for the XP cost, whereas it would take a 5e Wizard that many days to cast all those Wishes.

 

[Fanaelialae]

My previous edition I played was 3.5. It was my favourite before 5th, until I DM'd a game that got to higher levels and saw how broken it was.

I have played all editions but 4th since 1974.

My favourite edition is 5th.

I run long term campaigns lasting years of real time and tend to take my players from 1st to 20th level. This is why higher level balancing is a concern for me while, it seems, most players never get that far and are willing to just brush off such things. My campaigns tend to involve things other than pure module hopping, and so issues of inter-world logic, magic economics, and the like matter more to me than most. While the idea of a 17th level wizard using Wish to spam Symbol spells may not be an issue for most people, it is for me. I have to eventually deal with PCs doing it all over their strongholds, and, by internal consistency, I have to figure out why enemy wizards of 17th level or higher don't have symbols over every 5 foot square of their strongholds.

Inter-world consistency is a big deal for me. I want the world to make sense as much as a fantasy world of magic and demons and a rule system overlaid on top of that can be. If continual flame costs 50 gp per casting, I will want to know why every city and town in a world is not fully lit by such spells. I won't just hand wave that (and my players, all smart adults and players who have played for more than 30 years, won't either). So either my cities and towns are all fully lit with continual flame spells, or I have to nerf the spell, making it last 7 days, or make it where you have to cast it X times in a row to make it permanent...something to explain away the lack of continual flame spells everywhere.

I do understand that 17th level wizards don't grow on trees, and that 14th level transmuters do not as well. However, 14th level is not all that rare in a world like Forgotten Realms. There are enough so that transmuters can run a business providing youthful appearance to pretty much any noble who wants. I don't want a world were every rich person or person with a title looks like a 20 year old. But given its availability, how does one explain otherwise? Why aren't these nobles paying to look 20? I would think most of them would want to, and could find a transmuter willing to do it since it costs the transmuter nothing except 8 hours of time. So you pay for the time and you get 3d10 years back. For inter-world consistency, I have to either decide every nobleperson or wealthy merchant looks 20 years old, or I have to come up with some reason why this youth is not given to everyone willing to pay for it.

I've had to, in 5th and 3.5, nerf Fabricate so that finely crafted items cannot be made no matter how skilled the caster is. Why? The spell destroys any economy in which it exists otherwise.

It is interesting to me that Wish cost 5,000 XP in 3rd edition and that was considered acceptable as a balancing issue for the spell, but in 5th edition no one has a problem with essentially the same spell doing the same thing for no cost at all.

Remember that transmuters can only cast raise dead. That's a significant limitation, since raise dead cannot bring back someone missing essential organs. To assassinate someone who is friends with a high-level transmuter, one need only take the head, or heart. In fact, in a world where being raised from the dead isn't a rarity, I would expect this to be standard operating procedure, unless the death was simply a warning. At that point a philosophers stone is useless unless you can recover the missing organ within 10 days. You need at least Resurrection (or Reincarnate, but that has its own innate drawbacks).

As for high-level transmuters running a rejuvenation service in FR, I'm skeptical. Sure, FR is pretty high magic. However, 14th level casters aren't exactly a-dime-a-dozen even there. On top of that, transmuters would presumably make up roughly 1/8th or less of all 14+ level wizards, given an equal distribution among the schools of magic. I could see the occasional transmuter offering these services to a noble when that wizard needs a bit of extra gold for some endeavor, but I can't see a wizard choosing to spend all day, every day making new philosophers stones so that spoiled little nobles don't have to get wrinkles. That wizard has power undreamt of by most mortals; I would think that he has better things to do than be a manufacturer of cheap tricks.

A lack of Continual Flame lights is easy to explain. Either there is a shortage of casters in general, or the cost is too great. Since the former is setting dependent, I'll focus on the latter. 50 gp is a non-trivial cost for most NPCs in D&D. It can pay for almost a full month of comfortable lifestyle, and is more than half a year's upkeep of a poor lifestyle. A torch costs 1 cp. Granted, it only lasts an hour, but it is cheap. So cheap, that you can continually light an area for more than half a year using torches for the same cost of a single Continual Flame spell (and that's assuming that the caster is selfless and doesn't charge anything more than the material components). More if you don't need the torches during daylight. Additionally, no one is likely to steal a torch, but a Continual Flame spell is a different matter. It's worth multiple months of pay for a poor NPC even if they can't get its full worth on the black market, so stealing one would certainly be tempting. You can make them hard to steal, but at a certain point it becomes far more trouble than its worth to save a few gold down the line.

Lastly, 17+ level wizards probably wouldn't spend their time layering their lairs in Symbol for one simple reason. They might need that 9th level spell slot for something actually important. That wizard is one of the most powerful beings in the world, and he probably didn't get that way without making a few enemies. If one of those enemies sends a cadre of assassins to your home, do you think he wants to be caught with his pants down, or does he want to be able to wish he was someplace safe right now? Better yet, forget Wish and use that 9th level spell to cast Foresight so that the assassins can't surprise and kill you before you can even utter the Wish. I mean, sure, if you tell your players that they have a year of downtime where nothing bad will happen to them, they might try putting Symbols everywhere. That kind of foreknowledge isn't at all realistic. By all means give them that downtime, but don't ensure them that they don't need to be prepared for the worst. Remember to throw them some curve balls.

 

[devincutler]

ReAt that point a philosophers stone is useless unless you can recover the missing organ within 10 days.

Gentle Repose. Infinite time to recover the organ. Just sayin'...

As for high-level transmuters running a rejuvenation service in FR, I'm skeptical. Sure, FR is pretty high magic. However, 14th level casters aren't exactly a-dime-a-dozen even there. On top of that, transmuters would presumably make up roughly 1/8th or less of all 14+ level wizards, given an equal distribution among the schools of magic. I could see the occasional transmuter offering these services to a noble when that wizard needs a bit of extra gold for some endeavor, but I can't see a wizard choosing to spend all day, every day making new philosophers stones so that spoiled little nobles don't have to get wrinkles. That wizard has power undreamt of by most mortals; I would think that he has better things to do than be a manufacturer of cheap tricks.

This is a service a given person needs only once every 3d10 years. I think a given transmuter can easily tend every single noble in a 500 mile radius in a given 16 year period without breaking a sweat and certainly without having to be doing it every day.

A lack of Continual Flame lights is easy to explain. Either there is a shortage of casters in general, or the cost is too great. Since the former is setting dependent, I'll focus on the latter. 50 gp is a non-trivial cost for most NPCs in D&D. It can pay for almost a full month of comfortable lifestyle, and is more than half a year's upkeep of a poor lifestyle. A torch costs 1 cp. Granted, it only lasts an hour, but it is cheap. So cheap, that you can continually light an area for more than half a year using torches for the same cost of a single Continual Flame spell (and that's assuming that the caster is selfless and doesn't charge anything more than the material components). More if you don't need the torches during daylight. Additionally, no one is likely to steal a torch, but a Continual Flame spell is a different matter. It's worth multiple months of pay for a poor NPC even if they can't get its full worth on the black market, so stealing one would certainly be tempting. You can make them hard to steal, but at a certain point it becomes far more trouble than its worth to save a few gold down the line.

You are coming at this from the perspective of some poor peasant schlub trying to do this. Nope. I am talking about the city streets. Presumably the government would pay for them. In a city the size of Baldur's Gate, for example, I am positive over the course of, say, 10 years, enough revenue could be set aside to light up every street and alleyway in the place.

Lastly, 17+ level wizards probably wouldn't spend their time layering their lairs in Symbol for one simple reason. They might need that 9th level spell slot for something actually important. That wizard is one of the most powerful beings in the world, and he probably didn't get that way without making a few enemies. If one of those enemies sends a cadre of assassins to your home, do you think he wants to be caught with his pants down, or does he want to be able to wish he was someplace safe right now? Better yet, forget Wish and use that 9th level spell to cast Foresight so that the assassins can't surprise and kill you before you can even utter the Wish. I mean, sure, if you tell your players that they have a year of downtime where nothing bad will happen to them, they might try putting Symbols everywhere. That kind of foreknowledge isn't at all realistic. By all means give them that downtime, but don't ensure them that they don't need to be prepared for the worst. Remember to throw them some curve balls.

Really this one's a BIG stretch. Does he need that 9th level slot every single day of the year? Probably not. You mean he can't get away with his 1st - 8th level slots? Really? And in a pinch he could cast the Wish right before he goes to bed, so he is only without the spell for 8 hours,. Sorry, I don't buy it that a high level wizard is going to feel the need, in his sanctum, to have his Wish slot available every single hour of every single day. Even if he does it once a month, inside of a couple of years his place is saturated with Symbol spells.

The problem is that permanent affects accumulate over time, eventually to unmanageable levels, unless the cost is sufficient to ameliorate this effect.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Gentle Repose. Infinite time to recover the organ. Just sayin'...

That's IF there is someone around to cast Gentle Repose. It's certainly not a guarantee if the one who is supposed to rez you is a transmuter. Also IF the assassin doesn't simply render the organ unrecoverable, by burning the heart to ash or tossing the head into a bag of devouring. Plus, if the caster is sticking around to cast GR every 10 days, he's not chasing after the assassin. A clever assassin might just double-back and dispel GR, then let the caster reacquire the organ just as the 10 day time limit runs out.

This is a service a given person needs only once every 3d10 years. I think a given transmuter can easily tend every single noble in a 500 mile radius in a given 16 year period without breaking a sweat and certainly without having to be doing it every day.

There are probably hundreds, or more likely thousands, of nobles in that 785,398 sq mile area that you just described. I don't see a high level transmuter wanting to spend that many days creating philosophers stones even if he does have the time. As a high level wizard, he probably already has more money than he knows what to do with. Even then, are they willing to pay what he thinks his time is worth? Can they afford it? Do all these face lifts come at the expense of the common folk, who the nobles now tax to death to afford these treatments?

You are coming at this from the perspective of some poor peasant schlub trying to do this. Nope. I am talking about the city streets. Presumably the government would pay for them. In a city the size of Baldur's Gate, for example, I am positive over the course of, say, 10 years, enough revenue could be set aside to light up every street and alleyway in the place.

I actually had assumed the government would pay. However, there's a difference between CAN and WILL. In the short term, it's a very significant drain on revenue, even if it is spread over several years and saves money in the long term. Could it be done? Probably. Would it be done? IMO, probably not. After all, in a decade some other noble schlub might be ruling this place; let him deal with it.

Additionally, I don't think you'd actually save any money in the long term. You'd need to hire extra guards to make sure that the Continual Flames aren't stolen. Their pay is going to be more than the cost of a few torches. When (not if) some Continual Flames do get stolen (because the Thieves Guild presumably has some degree of competence, and the guards can't be everywhere) they'll expensive to replace. No one cares if someone steals a 1 cp torch.

Think about it this way. If someone needs a pencil and is given the choice between a normal 10 cent pencil, and a $500 pencil that will be good for life, which would the typical person choose. IME, the ten cent pencil will be the popular choice. It'll wear out sooner than later, but there's no stress about losing it. Eventually that $500 pencil might pay for itself, but that's a long ways off, especially if that's your rent money (or in the case of a government official, money for throwing lavish parties and building vacation homes).

I'm not saying that the local ruler wouldn't have a Continual Flame for his study, or even perhaps several in his dining hall. I just don't think he'd line the streets with them. That would require a very progressive leader at a minimum, IMO.

Really this one's a BIG stretch. Does he need that 9th level slot every single day of the year? Probably not. You mean he can't get away with his 1st - 8th level slots? Really? And in a pinch he could cast the Wish right before he goes to bed, so he is only without the spell for 8 hours,. Sorry, I don't buy it that a high level wizard is going to feel the need, in his sanctum, to have his Wish slot available every single hour of every single day. Even if he does it once a month, inside of a couple of years his place is saturated with Symbol spells.

The problem is that permanent affects accumulate over time, eventually to unmanageable levels, unless the cost is sufficient to ameliorate this effect.

The point is that the wizard shouldn't know when its a good time to waste his most powerful spell. If I were this guy's enemy, I'd do my utmost to find out when he casts the spell and use that as an opening to attack. Sure, his 1st - 8th slots are a threat, but if I'm also a 17+ level wizard, I want both surprise and knowing that my opponent's biggest gun is unusable.

He could use Wish to cast Symbol. It's perhaps a bit more practical to just use a 7th level slot to do so though. He can use all the money he made de-wrinkling those nobles to ignore the cost of the mats after all. That way he has his 9th level slot when he actually needs it. As the saying goes, "it's better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it".

EDIT:
What I'm saying is that cost isn't necessarily the best way to avoid the outcome of accumulating permanent effects. If the character has easy ways to generate large amounts of income (and most casters do) cost is fairly trivial.

Time is a very good limiting factor, since if you're rushing from adventure to adventure you're not pasting Symbol all over your tower. But that's not everyone's style of play and I get that.

Barring time, potential threat is another good limiting factor. It's much the same reasoning as not wanting to waste a fireball on three kobolds because you don't know if something more dangerous is in the next room. If the players know that the dungeon is static and they can take a long rest after this fight, then it's not much of a concern. Similarly, the PCs should have some level of wariness even in their downtime. If you give them the equivalent of a 5MW during downtime, don't be surprised if they make the most of it.

 

[Tony Vargas]

One of the nice things about 5e bard mechanics is that the high level of customization allows for the bard equivalents from other cultures easily enough.

It is nice, though I don't particularly see it any more so than in the other modern editions. Perhaps relative to 2e & earlier it's notable? Though, really, even 2e had Kits in the Complete books...

Well, in one sense, it doesn't matter at all. But in another sense, it might. Much of what Devincutler has said centers on Raise Dead (etc.) being a defining element of the Cleric class, something that only they can bring to the table. But Reincarnate has (AFAIK?) been around as long as there have been Druids as well as Clerics, so "restoring the dead to life" is hardly a Cleric-exclusive mechanic, even if theirs has the easiest-to-handle costs.

Yep, Clerics Raised, Druids Reincarnated, and the former was mostly preferable (except the latter worked on certain races that couldn't be raised, and could also conveniently/coincidentally turn you human when you bumped your head on that level-limit ceiling).