Character Death from DM perspective

[Cullain]

If the level loss isn't enough to deter the characters, maybe increase it a little bit. 2 levels for resurrection and raise dead, 1 level for true resurrection. Or even more.

The other thing, which has been mentioned by a previous poster, is that perhaps the soul doesn't want to come back. 'Call of the Elysian Fields' or something similar, player makes a will save with a DC of 10(or 15) +1(or +2) for each time he has been resurrected previously. Failure means the soul is unwilling to come back to the body.

Cullain

 

[Tewligan]

In my campaign, a character can only come back once - the soul can't take the strain of being jerked back to life more than that. Also, the raise spells don't bring the soul back all nice and tidy-like. Instead, the spell is used to send the stiff's companions to whatever plane he's wound up on so that they can retrieve him. The character may not have gone to a place matching his alignment, either - one character in my campaign who showed no particular religious inclination went to an eternal battlefield of the dead after being slain by a zealous cleric of an evil war god. Not a pleasant place, and he was quite pleased when the party fought their way to him.
Plus, clerics who can cast the raise spells are probably going to expect a big favor or quest, in addition to a hefty buncha gold. The prospect of coughing up lots of cash, undertaking two (probably treasure-light) adventures, and knowing that they only get one second chance tends to make my players properly respectful of the Grim Reaper.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Ok, in the game I DM in, we've had 2 characters (3 if you count the mage dying twice) die in the last month, mainly due to their own stupidity & poor planning (party cleric killed one of them). Anyways, as I head into games, I keep seeing stupid actions made by parties, solely based on the fact that they can always get their character res'd at some later point in the game. How do I get them to see the world as .. threatening? I'd just go and put some house rules on the number of times you can be res'd, but that justs seems cheap.. anybody have any ideas on this?

The first thing to ask, is why is it a problem? Are you trying to get them to fight better or act more mature? Based on your post, you don't like that they do what they feel like based on the ease of ressurection. Don't forget the experience point penalties. Eventaully someone is going to rise to the top of the crop here and when something that can challenge that character comes along, have him wipe out the lower characters to set the tone and mood.

The second thing to ask, is do you want to permanently punish them? For example, disintigration and other high level spells that don't allow for an easy come back.

The third thing to ask, is banishment enough. For example, portals to other planes that suck up the offending character or put them in some type of statis until objective X has happened.

 

[Mista Collins]

if you want the characters to "die" and not have a good chance of being "raised" just have someone cast imprisonment on them. Very very nasty spell .

 

[Norfleet]

I'm a fan of the all dead/mostly dead resurrection system, and reverse the "death spells result in no raising" rule: A character can be raised or resurrected as long as his condition is "mostly dead", which means that all of his important bodyparts are present and physically attached. He's permanently gone if he's "all dead". Characters who are raised while mostly dead begin with with a Str and Dex of 0, and must recover these attributes through rest or more spells.

 

[CombatWombat51]

In an alternate spell system I created, I only included one spell to bring back the dead. It was the equivalent of a 9th level spell, and... well, here it is. I'm sure you can figure it out =)

Resurrect
Light II [Good]
Circle: 10
Components: V, S, M, F
Casting Time: 1 hour
Range: Touch
Target: One dead creature
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: Will negates
Spell Resistance: No

You take a soul from Heaven and reunite it with its body on Earth. The person must have died from unnatural causes, and their body must be in a livable condition (usually be casting restoration (basically a make whole/regeneration type spell) on the body before casting resurrect). Only souls in Heaven can be resurrected; souls in Hell are immune.
The target fails to return to life if they make a Will save, and they may not choose to fail this save on purpose, as with other spells. The splendors of Heaven are unparalleled and returning to Earth can be a frightening proposition.
A person can only be subjected to resurrect once. All second attempts (even if they’ve died a second time) automatically fail.
Material Components: An offering of 100-gp per hit die of the target must be made in silver, rubies, food, or wine.
Alternatively, you can replace up to half the value, but at least a quarter, of the offering by prayer. Every person who sincerely prays for the duration counts as 100-gp worth of offerings.


The big thing I like about is the bit about the Will save. Note that Good and Neutral characters went to Heaven, and there was an opposing spell of Darkness conjure demon that could recover Evil characters, though they didn't have to make a Will save (who wants to stay in Hell?!) It worked well for the "we must stop the mad wizard before he resurrects Kinslayer, the Breaker of Worlds!" The character/demon still had to make a Will save, actually, but it was to determine if it was under the control of the summoner.

I think the simple Will save idea could be added to any spell that raises the dead, and should make perfect sense. Who wants to leave infinite wenches and brandy for muddy roads and dragon breath?

 

[kirinke]

hmmm

if the cleric is so gung-ho, penalize him if he's not thinking. Maybe make his god slap his wrists for needlessly endangering innocent lives and if he kills one of his own party members, let the god withdraw the cleric's ability to cast those nasty spells and make him only able to cast defensive and healing spells for a while. And if he continues, strip the cleric of his ability to cast spells until he atones for his actions.

 

[Talon5]

Well, the players all do have extensive backgrounds and such.. they just don't care about dying.. even the cleric has a good background, and from a roleplaying perspectiving is doing nothing wrong by being a pyro (he worships a CN god of fire) ... but it always seems to work out poorly for my other players.

In the campaigns I have played/GMed in in recent years we have made a great effort to avoid getting killed due to level lose and such. Also the GMs (myself and one other fellow) make it rather difficult to gain access to a Cleric that has the strength (level) to raise the dead.

Locating Diamonds is difficult because everyone that has the money and could ever consider doing a Raising of the Dead for themselves is collecting them. In fact I had a merchant sell a 500 gp diamond to the party for 1000 gp (which a Player told me made the Diamond worth 1000 gp now so they could cut it in half and have two 500 gp diamonds).

But the thing I wanted to point out was that- good role playing would point to something obvious here - "you friggin' blasted me again, you prick, I almost died!" which should bring down a lot of roleplaying issues.

(Yes, Bob I Play Alran and him yelling -"watch out Hruda/Dorga," (our Monk and our Rogue) before blasting the area with a Fireball or Lightning Bolt is the same idea. Each has good Ref saves and that little special ability called evasion. )

Something else- anyone that makes a habit of blasting my mage with a spell he is obviously gonna take damage from is gonna get very little or no help from my character/me in that fight or the next one, because they are quite obviously not my friend or someone that I want covering my back.

Any NPCs to suggest getting rid of the Cleric and hiring a newer one- one that is with a Good god (Pelor, Heironous, etc come to mind).

Good luck, and may your dice always roll well

 

[Cyberhawk]

What was that Boom?

There is an additional thing you may want to inflict..err..have happen to your party to help on this.

Ressurection takes 10 minutes to cast (according to my handy PHB3.5). I would imagine those are very important 10 minutes..kind of like spiritual heart surgery. You do NOT want the cleric interupted.

So consider the following things:

1.) Something happens during the casting. Earthquake, riot breaks out..something disrupts the spell. Hope you have another diamond! Admittedly this is a cheap trick, and not an option I would use, but possible.

2.) If the NPC who killed the poor PC survived (or minions of the NPC, or lord of or whomover) they aren't going to be too keen on him getting back up. They may very well send people to track the party and disrupt the ceremony. "And this time you stay dead..."

3.) My personal favorite but more for higher-level campaigns. During the casting the soul of the character is being pulled from the outer planes to the Prime material plane. Unfortunately a fairly powerful Tanari or Baatezu sees this happening and goes "Ahhh..a nice powerful soul..me wants it..".
The spell fails and the soul has been taken captive by a powerful demon. This has the benefit of kicking off a new adventure ~and~ is very dramatic in it's own right.
And remember this is a plot hook and as such is different than point #1.

Anyways, those are my 2 coppers. Have fun!

 

[Plane Sailing]

Ok, in the game I DM in, we've had 2 characters (3 if you count the mage dying twice) die in the last month, mainly due to their own stupidity & poor planning (party cleric killed one of them). Anyways, as I head into games, I keep seeing stupid actions made by parties, solely based on the fact that they can always get their character res'd at some later point in the game. How do I get them to see the world as .. threatening? I'd just go and put some house rules on the number of times you can be res'd, but that justs seems cheap.. anybody have any ideas on this?

What level characters are we talking about here?

Are they 17th+ level and able to cast true resurrection, or are you docking them the level every time someone is brought back from the dead?

Are you enforcing the expensive material component?