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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Wonger" data-source="post: 1815634" data-attributes="member: 17516">I wish I knew!In my campaigns (which I consider to be in line with the "standard D&D" amount of magic and treasure), I've wanted to make raising the dead more of a big deal than just casting a spell and forgetting about it, but not wanting to alter the spells themselves.  At lower levels, when the party has less wealth and no one able to cast powerful spells, the problem takes care of itself...kind of.  Meaning, to my players, nothing is worse than losing a level!  That alone is enough to make it a big deal, but does little to make death seem to be more traumatic and "literary" in game - it's more of a meta-game consequence.Once they get access to True Res, either because they have tons of cash or a 17th level cleric, the problem gets a lot worse.  Now, there is almost no consequence either "in game" or meta-game wise.  However, the material component of the spell is pretty expensive...though at that level, they may gain enough loot in one adventure to cover the cost.  As expensive at it is, it's still a problem that money can solve.  One thing I've considered recently is making there be a finite and nearly exhausted supply of  the types of gems required for True Res.I like Malhavoc's Book of Hallowed Might idea of only allowing certain spells to be cast on hallowed ground.  That makes death more of a problem and more of a big deal without forcing huge side quests that the dead PC has to sit out on.  Only allowing spells to be cast on certain days though, seems to leave the dead player out of the action.None of these observations and tweaks does much to address the "literary style death" problem.  Particularly, the problem gets worse when you take the rest of the world's NPC's into account - all those kings, nobles, wizard guild officials and so on...I like to have adventures where such people have been killed and the PCs must solve the mystery or  avenge the death or choose sides in the coup that follows...but then, that NPC would just be raised if you are playing in the "standard" D&D world.  Any king would be stupid not to have a will with a Raise Dead scroll attached!  This is one that I have had to resort to using Soul Bind if I really want to do it...and using Soul Bind against every NPC I want dead seems awful cheesy.I've just realized I wrote this whole post with almost no further progress on the topic.  Poop.</blockquote>

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