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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Nivenus" data-source="post: 6392539" data-attributes="member: 71756">Like a lot of people I think abstract and story-based costs are more interesting and more useful than simple numerical values like "x amount of gold" or "x amount of XP cost." I mean, those are valuable too, insofar as they do provide a baseline for what resurrection costs, but I think they're much more interesting and meaningful when they're backed up by narrative elements (though that may come from the fact that I prefer to play D&D as a story than a tactical simulation).Such potential costs might look something like this:1) The character has towant to come back. This is a fairly basic requirement and one that probably doesn't need to be mentioned for player characters. But for important NPCs a party might want to revive? Definitely a factor.2) If the character's revived with a divine spell (such as by a cleric) then the god the caster serves also has to be a willing participant. Again, probably not a problem in most cases, but a lawful good god might object to raising a chaotic evil character (or vice versa). In cases where a god might be less than willing the resurrection either fails or perhaps the god places certain restrictions on the raised character, such as a ward against their killing innocents or some kind of claim on their soul. The details, of course, should best be left up to the players and the DM. Alternatively, the party can seek out a different cleric (though that might be easier said than done).3) On the other hand, if the character's revived with an arcane spell (such as a bard) then the resurrection might have unintended effects. Possibly some of the ones that were mentioned earlier in the thread - lost weight, accelerated aging, invisibility to the undead, etc. Think of it as something like the wild surge chart.Those are just a few ideas that rolled around in my head. Others can (and already have) think of different ones, some of which may be better. But the point is that I don't really think death needs to have material consequences - they're generally boring and are either trivially easy to overcome or unnecessarily aggravating for players. On the other hand, there's a lot of potential to be had in softer, narrative consequences, especially if they're negotiated between the player and DM.</blockquote>

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