Dealing with raising the dead

[Zerovoid]

Why does eveyone want to make it so hard to bring back the dead. The rules already say you lose a level, and when you can die from one unlucky die roll, that seems like enough of a penalty to me.

I generally want to keep PC's with built up motivations and backstories around, and making raise dead easily available helps promote this. I can challenge the PC's, and if a few get killed, its no big deal. Otherwise, you have to make all combats really easy, or else deal with a continually rotating cast of characters, that never see any real development.

Also, I don't understand why clerics would be so unwilling to raise people for the right price, or cast any spell really. I mean, if the cleric isn't an adventuring cleric, he probably isn't going to memorize any combat spells with his 5th level spot. Why not be willing to cast raise dead on any good aligned party that can provide the 1000gp diamond. Its like not clerics gain anything by saving their spells from day to day.

I don't really understand the pricing scheme for spells as presented in the PHB either. Why would clerics or wizards charge outrageous prices for their spells, when they can cast tons of spells a day, at no cost to themselves? If I always had almost my full complement of spells at the end of the day, I would think about lowering my prices. And how can a good aligned cleric possibly justify denying his god's healing powers to those who need it, just because they can't afford it? Its not like he needs to make a certain profit per spell to be able to buy more, they come for free, as long as he serves his god. What god wouldn't want his followers healing as many people as possible to try to gain new converts?

 

[LostSoul]

Regarding roleplaying restrictions imposed by Churches:

What if a god decided to waive all restrictions in order to gain more followers? If gods actually do want more followers the most enterprising god would grant raise spells left and right. Those who didn't would be seen as hard and callous and, all other things being equal, soon lose all but the most devout worshippers.

After speaking with those raised from the dead (or even seeing the True Power of the Gods) might kill themselves at the slightest provocation. Knowing that it will send them to a better place. Good Clerics would be known for this. (Evil ones would probably avoid death all they could.)

It always bothered me that D&D made it known to the people that gods existed. It removes faith. (Although you can tell how much your god likes you, based on how much divine power you have...)

 

[Numion]

I usually go by the book on this one. I'd like to also remind that:

1) Resurrectee must be willing to come back.

2) Resurrectee knows the resurrectors alignment (or was it something else?) and religion.

Those two things keep peasants from being ressed or evil priests creating a following by ressing everyone.

As for PCs, the availability of such magic has hardly lessened the impact of death. Although it is a bit metagamey, the loss of level is enough of a punishment for ressed PC. True Resurrection might have some impact beoynd this, but I don't have experience of it in-game, so I can't say anything about it.

 

[LostSoul]

I generally want to keep PC's with built up motivations and backstories around, and making raise dead easily available helps promote this. I can challenge the PC's, and if a few get killed, its no big deal. Otherwise, you have to make all combats really easy, or else deal with a continually rotating cast of characters, that never see any real development.

This isn't true. Trust me. I've DMed a game for years now with no raise or resurrection spells. I challenge the PCs and they usually fear for thier lives each adventure. But none of them have died.

 

[jasper]

One idea I had (but haven't tested) was to make raised characters an offense to the local death god. Once or twice, all undead in 60' became aware of your presence. Three or four times, they gain a +2 morale bonus to hit you. Five or Six, powerful undead come for you at least once a week, usually in the middle of the night. Might work for a campaign with the right flavour.

NODWICK is in trouble!

 

[Agamon]

Here's what I do. Note that the economy of my game is a tad different from the base game, so the costs might seem a bit low, when they are actually quite high:

Being Raised from the Dead

Getting raised in Elivone is not automatic (or as automatic as described in the Player Handbook).

First, the various resurrecting spells have a cost for the various material components needed to attempt the spell, rather than just a 500 gp diamond. Raise Dead has a cost of 300 gp + 50 gp/lvl of the cleric casting the spell. Resurrection costs 750 gp + 50 gp/lvl of the cleric. True Resurrection costs 2500 gp + 200 gp/lvl of the cleric.

Second, there is no guarantee that the spell will work. The cleric often casts a Divination (or similar) spell before casting the resurrecting spell to determine the chances of it working. The cost of the casting of this extra spell is included in the raise attempt if the response is positive, or just 5% of what it would have cost if the raise was cast, if the response is negative and the raise is not attempted. The chance of being raised is based on a Charisma check by the deceased using the following DCs:

• Devout follower of cleric's god (cleric, paladin, acolyte, etc.)
  DC 10
  Follower of cleric's god (but not especially devout) DC 15
  Follower of god with non-opposed alignment of cleric's god DC 20
  Follower of all gods equally DC 20
  Isn't a follower of any gods/not religious DC 25
  Follower of god with opposed alignment/doesn't want to be raised N/A

Certain circumstantial modifiers can be applied to the die roll or DC, such as being extra-devout, less devout, on an uncompleted mission for deity, age, type of death (accidental or not), etc. Each applies a modifier of +/- 2 to 6. True Resurrection automatically gives a +4 to the roll, and the roll is further increased by +1 per five levels of the cleric casting the spell. You cannot Take 10 or Take 20 on this roll.

If the roll ever fails, the deceased is forever dead and no further attempts to bring him back will work.

 

[S'mon]

This isn't true. Trust me. I've DMed a game for years now with no raise or resurrection spells. I challenge the PCs and they usually fear for thier lives each adventure. But none of them have died.

The silly thing is that low-level PCs who are truly vulnerable don't have access to resurrection anyway, by the time you can get it (through wealth or having a cleric PC high enough level) the PCs are extremely powerful anyway, and are only likely to need it in a typical ultra-lethal dungeon crawl game, which is lethal because it's built around the assumption of easy resurrection availability!

It's a vicious circle. You can escape the circle by making the dangers less ridiculously lethal at the same time as you remove resurrection as an option, if desired.

 

[Victim]

The silly thing is that low-level PCs who are truly vulnerable don't have access to resurrection anyway, by the time you can get it (through wealth or having a cleric PC high enough level) the PCs are extremely powerful anyway, and are only likely to need it in a typical ultra-lethal dungeon crawl game, which is lethal because it's built around the assumption of easy resurrection availability!

It's a vicious circle. You can escape the circle by making the dangers less ridiculously lethal at the same time as you remove resurrection as an option, if desired.

Who said anything about dungeons? PCs, in a sick sort of way, can be at an advantage in dungeons because they know they're going into danger. Therefore, they can use buff and protection spells in advance. If they aren't fully prepared, then the a normal fight is about equal to the ridiculously lethal dungeon fight.

And of course, a character can die even a relatively easy fight. All it takes is one blown save, or something that was meant to go off against the fighter getting a solid round of attacks in on a careless mage.

 

[Tzarevitch]

Why does eveyone want to make it so hard to bring back the dead. The rules already say you lose a level, and when you can die from one unlucky die roll, that seems like enough of a penalty to me.

I generally want to keep PC's with built up motivations and backstories around, and making raise dead easily available helps promote this. I can challenge the PC's, and if a few get killed, its no big deal. Otherwise, you have to make all combats really easy, or else deal with a continually rotating cast of characters, that never see any real development.

Also, I don't understand why clerics would be so unwilling to raise people for the right price, or cast any spell really. I mean, if the cleric isn't an adventuring cleric, he probably isn't going to memorize any combat spells with his 5th level spot. Why not be willing to cast raise dead on any good aligned party that can provide the 1000gp diamond. Its like not clerics gain anything by saving their spells from day to day.

I don't really understand the pricing scheme for spells as presented in the PHB either. Why would clerics or wizards charge outrageous prices for their spells, when they can cast tons of spells a day, at no cost to themselves? If I always had almost my full complement of spells at the end of the day, I would think about lowering my prices. And how can a good aligned cleric possibly justify denying his god's healing powers to those who need it, just because they can't afford it? Its not like he needs to make a certain profit per spell to be able to buy more, they come for free, as long as he serves his god. What god wouldn't want his followers healing as many people as possible to try to gain new converts?

I think many people make it harder to raise characters from the dead because the listed requirements make so little sense.

I agree that casting spells your deity grants you just because someone pays you a lot seems strange. My theory is that the god not the cleric is the final arbiter on who gets raised and it is very unlikely that a deity will consent to raise someone who does not worship him. After all, why go through the effort of raising an infidel?

My theory is that a worshipper pledges his immortal soul to the deity's cause when he chooses to follow him, so effectively the soul is the property of the deceased's patron deity. Once the person dies the soul passes into that deity's realm for his just rewards. The deceased's deity must approve and release the soul or no raising is possible. If you use cosmology where there is a particular god like Hades who is basically king of the land of the dead, (s)he too can simply refuse the soul permission to leave.

Lastly the cleric's deity must have a good reason why he should expend energy to raise someone who is not even his worshipper. I don't see why a deity would accept anything less than converion to his faith, unless the deceased is a member of an allied faith and following a path that the deity approves of. As I said before, what does a deity have to gain by returning a dead infidel from the grave? The infidel is better off where he is.

My theory is that it should be near impossible to get the priests of a deity who you do not worship to raise you. If you wish to come back from the halls of the dead ask your OWN god (and his priests). Even then you'd better be ready to provide a good reason why you want to leave your deity's side to go back to the mortal world.

Tzarevitch

 

[omedon]

.
Second, and this is the house rule, being resurrected, in addition to reducing your level by one (or causing you to lose one point of CON if you are only first level), also causes you to age to the beginning of the next age category. Your appearance changes to correspond with your new age category during your resurrection. This “aging of the soul” effect can radically change your ability scores, as well as shorten your life.

Sounds pretty good, but if they went up in an age category I would not give them the bonuses, just the penalties. It is easy to imagine that their body degenerates from the tramatic experience but it does not make sense that they would become more wise or charismatic. These things come only through experience. Also for many spellcasters, dying would be more of a reward than a penalty.

Also I think many characters would want to come back from death. Especially if they had a pending mission on the material plane i.e. saving their family from an evil necromancer, or stopping the destrucion of the entire world. If all they had set out to do was get rich and have a good time then It would make sense that they might want to stay on the otherside, but many adventurers have a different value system.

I am not positive, but my understanding about death in D&D is that you must be raised before you reach the after life. That is why after a certain amount of time. A low level cleric must cast the spell while their spirit is still close to the prime while a high-level cleric has the power to bring back a spirit that is on the brink of reaching the other side.