Alternate penalty for raise dead? Instead of level loss?

[genshou]

If I were to use a house rule, I will just get lid of any ill-effects. Just money will be enough.

But at this moment I don't feel much need for the ill-effect change. Dead PCs are catching up in campaigns in our play group. And no one have wasted his old characters due to XP loss.

Our play group had more problem on the fact that True Resurrection can resurrect characters without dead body. It makes PCs virtually indestructible. Unless the entire party dies at once, no PCs will go. Also, in our first 3.0e campaign, PCs have confronted against an evil religious order. The order have high-level clerics (some of them were liches). If we play by the rules written, no Medium-class or upper villain have been dead permanently unless PCs kill all the high clerics in the order at once. So we made a house rule, no-corps no-resurrection. It has been applied to both PCs and NPCs since then. And working fine for us.

This is minor thread hijacking, but I'll comment on this anyway. Although I can see it's working well for your group, I as DM would be blacklisted for even attempting this, as much of an RBDM as I am. I would abuse the rule horribly, killing the PCs and THEN having their bodies taken away in addition. Considering a 9th-level spell is on par with such wonders as meteor swarm or energy drain, I hardly think resurrecting a PC who fell into lava or whose corpse was otherwise unrecoverable is unbalancing. By the time you have PCs capable of these kinds of wondrous feats, why does it matter that they should be so easily recovered from beyond the grave? In low-magic games I would certainly understand this... but as a player I feel robbed if my level 17+ Cleric can't bring back his comrade just because their body was eaten by the latest Colossal monster.

 

[Shin Okada]

Considering a 9th-level spell is on par with such wonders as meteor swarm or energy drain, I hardly think resurrecting a PC who fell into lava or whose corpse was otherwise unrecoverable is unbalancing. By the time you have PCs capable of these kinds of wondrous feats, why does it matter that they should be so easily recovered from beyond the grave? In low-magic games I would certainly understand this... but as a player I feel robbed if my level 17+ Cleric can't bring back his comrade just because their body was eaten by the latest Colossal monster.

It is not about game balance. It is mainly for story aspect.

As already said, our first 3.0e campaign involved an evil religious order, which was planning to begin a large invasion. It was a rather big and resourceful religious organization, and also very calculating and well-organized one.

So, if True Resurrection works by the rule, we (I mean both DM and players) could not imagine any med to higher level members of that organization not being resurrected. They can't instantly get a new experienced-loyal servant of the order. It is much easier to just resurrect the dead Blackguard. It is just 5,000 gp (though it is 25,000 gp now. It is still cheaper than to train a blackguard).

If this happens, virtually, almost all the "bosses" of the each adventures never die in the campaign. PCs fight the same bad guys agin and again and again and again and ...... that seemed really silly for us.

Also, as I said before, it makes virtually anyone to be resurrected by money. So, there will be no "a hero die in the middle of the story". Some PCs who have slain while the party is in low-level may be dead at that time. But PCs are good guys (well, at least about a half of them are). Who don't resurrect his old friend when he got the power to do it?

We really don't like "there will be no death" rules, even for our own PCs.

After adapting that house rule, the first to meet the "true death" was my own character (under another DM of our group). His body could not be retrieved (actually, eaten by giants). But while I really miss him, I am feeling right about it.

 

[Majere]

You could give them an XP debt that they have to pay off. They don't actually lose their current level, but takes them longer to get to their next level.

Actually we houseruled this along time ago in our group.
When you are raised via raise dead or ressurection you lose 500xp*(level).

We did this because we noticed that there is a massive unfairness in the penalty to character whoare maybe only 100xp from there level compared to character who are only 100xp over there level.

Majere