Coming back from the grave in FR

[Hammerhead]

Not exactly a catch-all... since the cleric can always be raised by his patron church, or somesuch.

Not necessarily. At higher levels, the adventuring cleric will be one of the mainstays of the patron church. So even a group of alllied churches might only be able to put together a double handful of true res capable individuals. Losing one of those people would be a big loss.

And anything that can take Mr. Adventuring High Level Cleric with his friends (almost his equal in might) around can probably take out a non adventuring cleric surrounded by weaker allies.

 

[Donatello]

Bump

Any more opinions?

 

[Tiberius]

The system I use for my group is thus: a character gets three "free" deaths. On the fourth resurrection, they must pull from a dice bag containing nine dice of the same type and color (and hopefully manufacturer) and one die of the same type, but different color. If they pull out the different die, then they are permanantly dead. With each death, one "good" die is removed and one "bad" die added, until there are no "good" dice left.

The following spells do not necessitate bag pulls, nor do they count toward your total:

Reincarnate (the risk of coming back as a race unfit for your class is risk enough, IMO)
True Resurrection (It's a 9th level spell. It's entitled.)
True Reincarnate (ditto)

I've been toying with the idea of having those three not count only the first 5 or 10 times you use them, though. YMMV, of course.

-Tiberius

 

[Tewligan]

Re: alter the spell...

perhaps, instead of simply *poof*, the character is alive, set it up such that the spell opens a portal to the City of Bones. The PCs must go in and find the soul, then get back to the portal before it closes, all the while dodging the bad things that can smell the blood of the living...

Just a thought.
Mark

Oops, forgot to mention in my post that I do something like this in addition to the "one comeback" rule. Where someone goes upon death is determined by their piety, or possibly the faith of whoever killed them. When the rogue in my campaign was killed by a cleric of a Chardun-like god, he ended up in a world constantly at war under the command of devilish generals. The rest of the party was sent to retrieve his soul by the power of the resurrection spell.

 

[Tewligan]

Once you've died a number of times equal to your Con/Cha/Wis, your body/personality/soul is just too frazzled and worn to return to life.

What do you guys think?

Seems like a lot to me - death doesn't seem too frightening if you can probably come back 12 or more times. Maybe a good compromise would be to total the bonuses from those 3 stats (including negative mods), and make that the number of possible comebacks.

 

[Jeremy]

I like the "True Ressurection can only be performed on certain holy days sacred to the god granting the life when he has direct enough connections to the prime to recreate life from nothing."

Don't remember who's idea that was, but it's a fun one. Adds depth and versimilitude to your game while adding all kinds of plot hook ideas.

 

[Donatello]

Seems like a lot to me - death doesn't seem too frightening if you can probably come back 12 or more times. Maybe a good compromise would be to total the bonuses from those 3 stats (including negative mods), and make that the number of possible comebacks.

I thought about that...

Given my campaign, we've had people die 6 or 7 times and have never really broken a sweat. Since they're now 18th level, and often fighting things that can kill one or more of them per encounter, if they only had 5 or 6 left, they'd be sweating.

Combining the bonuses will usually only yield 3-6 deaths, which really isn't that many. It's a more hardcore way of doing things, which I don't think really fits the FR feel. FR is more loose and free.

 

[Deadguy]

Well, for the Shattered World, my own camapign setting there are two approaches to raising the dead (the game world doesn't include Druids and thus I haven't needed to deal with Reincarnation). Firstly a little setting information. The spirits of the dead pass to the Realm of the Dead on a great supernatural river of negative energy; this helsp account for the debiitating effects of coming back from the dead. The Realm of the Dead is overseen by the Lords of Undeath, who ever crave the lands of the living.

When a Raise Dead or Resurrection is cast, the spell reaches out along the River of the Dead and draws the spirit back into the world of the living. However, in doing so, it creates a limited opportunity for the servitors of the Lords of Undeath to reach this world, and powerful undead may well materialise nearby; occasionally a weaker incorporeal undead simply possesses the returnee, trying to disguise its presence to the attending priest. Thus the act of bringing someone back from the dead requires the attendance of guards and wizards to deal with the possible consequences of the spells.

True Ressurrection (which has not been used by any PCs yet) works differently. With it, a priest and an attending party can transport themselves into the Realm of the Dead in order to seek out and claim the spirit of their fallen comrade. However, the Lords of Undeath have a sense for the presence of the living in their realm, and the party can expect to have to deal with being hunted by reall powerful Undead, in a place where they are bolstered. However, retrieving a spirit this way avoids the debilitating effects of the River of the Dead.

In the game world, the effects of these spells are such that people are reluctant to perform them: they might really want their loved one back, but the must also think of the risks to themselves and the remainder of the family. Some untimely deaths can be undone, but the chance to inherit brings out the greedy side in all too many people*.

True Resurrection has the advantage of making a story out of the event and putting other characters on the line for their comrade. Sometimes it is better for the fallen to simply stay that way.

* I used to work as a civil servant collecting inheritance tax. I got to hear a lot about just how mean, petty and vindictive relatives can be when there's a whiff of an inheritance. As they say "where there's a will, there's a relative!"

 

[Oni]

I don't know, it's so easy to die in higher level DnD just because of one bad die roll. It would be a real shame to loose a loved character permanently in such an essentially random way. I would suggest doing something to perhaps make it more of a hassle. If they are going a temple somewhere to get their friend raised, make them sidetrack from whatever they are doing to perform some service for the temple. If it is a party cleric doing all of of the raising then perhaps his god or goddess should visit him in a vision wanting to know why he has raised people with such abandon, and give him some sort of quest to make amends for drawing overly much on their power. But I am of the opinion that you shouldn't take away their ability to be raised completely, you will change the nature of the game from heroic to mind-numbingly cautious.

 

[Psion]

Combining the bonuses will usually only yield 3-6 deaths, which really isn't that many.

That's really a matter of perspective, I think. I think more than 2 or 3 res's is a lot.