About Death and Resurrection

[The Shadow]

This is a standard misinterpretation of what a WOTC employee is saying, going from a generality to an exact rule. This is why we have people wandering around who think there will be rules constraining combat encounters within the points of light. Just because a WOTC employee is trying to give you a feel of how the new system should generally run does not indicate that there is a rule that prevents the opposite.

Quoted, as they say, for truth.

Reynard, what you're referencing isn't a rule text. It is not a rule. It is a general description of how things are more or less intended to work.

Your logical mistake, since you ask, is that you are making a category error. You're rules-lawyering on something that isn't a rule. Cadfan's example in this respect was right on the money, not at all the 'ridiculous extreme' you make it out to be.

(And just for the record, I have to agree with Counterspin's other point too - that some people are waaaay overinterpreting PoL.)

 

[Reynard]

(And just for the record, I have to agree with Counterspin's other point too - that some people are waaaay overinterpreting PoL.)

There's a gulf of distance, as the PoL thing is explicitly stated as not garaunteeing safety.

The text that I quoted is very direct. There is little or no ambiguity in it. The logical way to interpret it is to simply read it. But that's less the point than this: everyone who has argued against this interpretation has done so by either a) invoking 3E (which fails because the entire section in which the text is found is describing how 4E and 3E differ) or b) inventing or adding elements that are not, in the slightest way suggested in the actual text.

Again, I am not saying that I cannot be wrong on this. What I am saying is that the clearest, simplest interpretation of the text is that Heroic tier PCs cannot be raised from the dead. That idea has a great number of interesting implications for the game overall, and quite frankly, would produce far more interesting discourse than much of what has happened here so far (namely, people who have attacked others for letting biases color their interpretation of "teasers" and adding/inventing their own elements doing exactly the same thing here).

 

[Cake Mage]

In my 3.e current game, the players are all from the same clan which is cursed to come back to life when they die. however, whenever they die, the become more and more mad. eventually slipping into complete insanity and evil.

I liekt he idea that death changes someone when they come back to life. Not always bad like the example above, but character changing things. Like maybe they come back to life and decide they don't want to be an adventurer anymore; life is too precious so they retire and marry the woman that hes had his eye on.

 

[S'mon]

Personally I'd happily get rid of raise dead as a campaign tool; with only a few demigods and such having that kind of power, and any attempt by mortals to raise a dead individual involving a quest into the underworld or similar.

Edit: A reasonable exception would be for casting within say 1 minute of death, to draw the soul back into the body before it departs for the afterlife.

 

[Jhaelen]

Did I wake up in bizzarro world today?

The text says exactly three things:

1) Death will be different in 4e than in 3e.
2) If a player's heroic tier character dies, he rolls a new one.
3) #2 is not true of Paragon or Epic tier characters who can be brought back to life.

How in the hell is my interpretation "dubious logic"?

EDIT - in fact, "interpretation is entirely the wrong word. it is a logical conclusion based on reading the words that are there, in the oder they appear, with the meaning they have in the English language, without adding new words before, after or among them.

Well, obviously my reality differs in certain ways from yours. For example I am always careful to make logical conclusions about sources that were never intended to be interpreted as actual game rules.
If today's newspaper states in an article that everyone gathered in the park because of the sunny weather, I don't logically conclude that this means that EVERYONE gathered in the park.

It's been stated from the start that the book just contains fluff, no crunch. Your interpretation (sorry: logical conclusion) seems to purposely ignore this (in?)significant detail.

If item 2) was literally true, I'd never touch 4e, because as a player I'd be forced by the overwhelming magical power of its rules to roll up a new character as soon as my heroic tier character died. I wouldn't even have the choice to stop playing - I'd be totally doomed!

 

[FabioMilitoPagliara]

I must say that I am reading (like Reynard) this as to be quite impossible (short of artifact or other out of the norm magic) for heroic characters to be resurrected

maybe (and this would tie nicely with the ring thing) there are certain object or magic that can be used (or that character can control, like the ring thing) only on character that have at least one Paragon Feat (that you take at 11th level) or one Epic Feat (that you get at 21st level)

so from what I am reading and deducing

1st to 10th level: you cannot control a ring, you quickly leave the shadowfell and cannot be resurrected/rescued

11th - 1 Paragon Feat - you can controll one ring, you can be rescued from the dead (shadowfell fun)

21th - 1 Epic Feat - you can controll two ring, you can be raised from the dead (just cast the spell or have a contingency ready)

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

Uh... are you guys just arguing with Reynard out of habit on this one? Because it seems pretty darn likely, from the W&M text, that even if it is mechanically possible to resurrect a heroic-tier character in 4e (without DM intervention), they'll be going out of their way to make it very rare.

Yeah, in 3e it was technically difficult to get a low-level character ressed as well, but 3e didn't have the heroic/paragon thematic divide like 4e will, so it was hard to reinforce that. My guess is that they'll also try to shift some of the burden to the dead guy, so you really have to be a paragon (or higher!) to win out over the forces of death, rather than just being a dude with connections in the church.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Two things:

1.) I think Reynard is, even if he cannot make an absolute reading, making a pretty good reading here.

At the least, I think it's worth exploring. Afterall, if the choices are

a.) it's super-difficult to get low level characters ressurrected and
b.) the reason why it's super-difficult is because it's a law of the world

aren't we close enough to have a decent conversation about what the difficulty means without yelling about it?

2.) It's worth pointing that characters below 11th level can't use their ring slot on top of their glove slot.

We don't yet know that this means they can't use rings, we just know it means they can't use rings and gloves at the same time.

 

[FabioMilitoPagliara]

2.) It's worth pointing that characters below 11th level can't use their ring slot on top of their glove slot.

We don't yet know that this means they can't use rings, we just know it means they can't use rings and gloves at the same time.

I read it differently, the magic item article says:

Rings: This slot has changed quite a bit. A starting character isn’t powerful enough to unleash the power of a ring. You can use one ring when you reach paragon tier (11th level) and two when you’re epic (21st level). And before you get started about how Frodo sure as hell wasn’t epic, let's be clear: the One Ring was an artifact, not a magic item any old spellcaster could make. Artifacts follow their own rules. 3.5 Equivalent: Rings.

so it says quite clearly that a character of less than 11th level hasen't the power to use a ring, it's not a question of slot, you can still put a ring under a glove (or over a glove)

furthermore the example character have

Hands: Shadowfell gloves
Rings: None right now, sadly

and are listed as different slots (hands and rings)