Coming back from the grave in FR

[mayonnaise]

Does anyone have any guidelines they run by concerning players raising from the dead in their campaigns? We have 8 players in our Forgotten Realms campaign, and some of the characters have died as many as 1 or 2 up to 5 times, and come back from the dead via Raise Dead or True Resurrection. Our DM is kinda bummed out about because he sees no ultimate deterrent or threat to characters once they have access to those spells.

Does anyone else have any thoughts on this, does it affect your campaign as either a player or DM?

For Forgotten Realms gurus, are there any powers in FR that would object to people returning from the dead time and time again?

Thanks!

 

[Thebalor]

Kelemvor would probably get irritated. If you have a big rival deity, they might try to make a case before the council to have your capability to return removed. Or just use the old "trap the soul, sell to demons" trick.

 

[Maraxle]

In my world, only certain churches will raise people from the dead. Others do not believe in it. Those who do not believe in it do not have access to the spell. I also make the churches picky about who they will raise. If you're not an active, donating member of the church, it might take a bit of convincing to have the spell performed.

One religion in particular is very much against raising the dead. If you were to raise a believer of that religion, they would never forgive you, and will probably even go mad from the trauma.

EDIT: Oops, sorry. I didn't read the question fully and did not realize that you only wanted comments about FR. The part about "active, donating member of the church" could apply, though.

 

[Tiberius]

The easiest way is to develop spells or creatures that hand out aging penalties. Take, for example, the ghost dragon from Monsters of Faerun. Its breath weapon ages those struck by d% years, IIRC. There isn't any return from aging, and it will give those high-level druids and monks something to do with their anti-magical-aging abilities.

-Tiberius

 

[Numion]

I haven't yet seen any very negative consequences of True Rezzing people, so I have a rule of "anything goes". My campaign is at level 16-19 now, so they do have acces to True Resurrection.

People have characters that they like pretty much, so I've seen it as a good thing that they can keep playing them. Only limit to True Resurrection is that the 5000 gp ingredient gems aren't excactly common

 

[alsih2o]

1st time is free, next time and every after is a point of con.

as an alternative, age them a year for every day they are dead, not to bad on some classes, heckydurn on others

 

[Donatello]

One issue with "One year per day dead" is that it favors elves and dwarves while punishing humans and half-orcs. Not really a balanced approach.

The problem with "a point of con" is that it favors the healthy... and Con becomes a much more important stat than it already is.

Just being Devil's Advocate...

 

[alsih2o]

boy, i hope someone recognizes my moments of genius (rare) as quick as folks find the blatant flaws

 

[Donatello]

Heh, didn't mean to jump down your throat there...

This is just a topic I'm very interested in. I have found that unlimited resurrection is a serious flaw with 3e (so much so that we actually adopted a "lives" system in Twin Crowns), so I want to see what other people do to prevent it.

Look in the ELH; it points out that death isn't much of a problem, and in fact, isn't much more than a 10 minute delay. That's a design flaw, IMO. In an RPG the loss of a character should be the biggest deterrent, but the GM shouldn't have to have to hunt and scheme to make it happen.

It's impossible to lose a character (beyond a certain level) to luck. Either the GM conspires to be rid of someone permanently, or they're just a spell away.

 

[Gizzard]

Either the GM conspires to be rid of someone permanently, or they're just a spell away.

Although its not necessarily as grim as that sounds. The GM is playing a high-level villain who knows the ins and outs of Ressurection magic just as well as the players do - of course he is going to make as much effort as possible to make the good guys dead forever.

Its kind of like saying that the Lich wont ever die unless the PCs conspire to find his little magic jar. Darn right, that. ;-)