Death and the Fixing of It

[Jeremy]

That's along the lines of what I went with. I left in the original two options for free (or at least, core rules) resurrections at certain times or locations or by certain people, but added a pair of options for what happens if you attempt it in an anytime or anywhere situation.

The other options I was considering were the no death without coup-de-grace for PC's and ressucitation options, but this is what we're going to playtest for now.

Not that it was met with any more enthusiasm.

The Raise Dead and Resurrection spells cannot be cast. In their place divine spellcasters have the following special abilities:
Spirit Reintegration (Sp): A divine spellcaster of 9th level or higher may undertake a spiritual journey to recover the departed soul of a fallen friend. This task is not to be taken lightly as it challenges the will of the gods and presumes to tell them when a mortal's time is up. The dangerous journey requires significant personal sacrifice on the part of the channeler and is quite taxing. A number of diamonds valuing 5,000 pieces of gold are the required toll for entrance to the afterlife and should the soul of the departed choose to return, the divine spellcaster must expend 50 XP per hit die of the spirit to be returned. This process requires 1d4+1 hours to complete.
Should this ceremony be held in a formal temple upon a holy (or unholy depending on the target) altar, the journey is eased and the XP cost is halved.
Should this ceremony be performed by a priest of the patron god of the departed, or performed on a holy day of the patron god of the priest performing the ceremony, the journey is further eased and entails no loss of XP for the divine spellcaster.
All other limits and requirements of the process are as the Raise Dead spell.
Body Regeneration (Sp): A divine spellcaster of 13th level or higher may perform a rite which from the smallest portion of a fallen ally's body rejuvenate a body capable of receiving a Spirit Reintegration. Sacrifices worth no less than 5,000 pieces of gold must be made in the form of incense and blessed (or profaned depending on the target) materials for the body to regenerate completely. This process takes 1d4+1 minutes. After the body is complete, a normal Spirit Reintegration may be performed.
The True Ressurection spell functions as defined in the Core Rulebooks.

 

[D+1]

My $.02:

What, in your perception, is the ACTUAL problem? Very few people actually have any issue with the core concept of players being allowed to bring their characters back from the dead and resume play. Therefore I suggest that your annoyance really isn't with how the SPELLS handle death and resurrection. What I suspect is that it is the PLAYERS that really bother you, and how their characters behave so brazenly casual about so immense a concept as D*E*A*T*H. They give it no respect. Their characters do not fear it, treating it instead as more of an annoyance. The players may even treat resurrection as something that they have to unnecessarily put up with because you, the DM, are a bit of a jerk for killing their characters AT ALL.

It's my thinking that going out of your way to make death and resurrection even MORE of an "annoyance" by making it even harder to deal with is not going to do you any good. Short of simply telling your players, "Look, if your character dies he's DEAD FOREVER. Roll up a new character," your players WILL - very reliably - drag themselves over all the NEW obstacles you put in their path to resurrection, change their attitude and character's behavior not a whit, but grumble all the more. They do not perceive it in the way that you wanted them to. You think perhaps it will "teach" them to be more respectful of the event, but you're not looking at it from their perspective at all. They see it from THEIR point of view - as yet another obstacle you INFLICT upon them when they're already annoyed and just want to get back to playing their character like before.

Players do not TRY to kill their characters. It's not like it's fun for them. "Oh boy, I'm REALLY looking forward to going out in a blaze of glory again today. Hopefully this time I can die early so that I can sit and do nothing for even MORE of the game session and then jump through all the hoops that the DM can throw in my way. I love paying XP penalties, suffering permanent ability score and hit point losses, paying more GP than my character actually has in equipment value, and being bound by Geas to a quest for the priest before I can play my favorite character again." Every new condition or penalty you tack on to death and resurrection will only make the problem worse because you and your players are almost undoubtedly NOT on the same page.

Have you talked to the players about it? I'll bet they don't see easy resurrection as a problem, and therefore they see your "solutions" as unnecessary. Have one or more players come to you and said, "I think it's WAY too easy to get Raise Dead cast for our characters. You really ought to change that?"

Unless I miss my guess your goal is not to stop resurrection altogether. Players want to bring characters back from the dead so they can continue to play them. Who wouldn't? It's probably not your goal to prevent it even ONCE for a PC. What probably IS your goal is to simply change the way your players act about it. What I'd recommend is that you firstly just use resurrection magic as written. Secondly, talk to the players about why they way they treat it currently bothers you. Third, have your NPC's treat it as YOU think it should be treated because THAT is where it should come to be addressed.

YOU are the DM. You are NOT ALLOWED to tell the players how to roleplay their characters. Only bad DM's would think they have the right to play a players character FOR them. That's what THEY get to do by playing the game in the first place. This includes attempting to coerce them into changing how their characters treat death and resurrection. You can ASK them to change it of course. But are you going to do anyone much good if they simply don't WANT to and you insist on trying to change their attitude by forcing them to jump through new rules hoops? Especially if you don't explain to them the real reason why you think the new rules are even needed.

When the PC's are seeking to get another character resurrected and their conversation is only grumbling about MONEY, then have your NPC's react accordingly. Such player characters will be reacted to as if they are callous, shallow, disrespectful, profane, etc. - because they ARE callous, shallow, etc. That is how you, as DM, can best alter how death and resurrection is handled in your game by the players.

In my first campaign using the 3E rules the PC's were something like 3rd or 4th level when the first PC death occurred. They began to extricate themselves from the dungeon while the player in question worked up a new character. He'd decided to make him a long-lost half-brother to his first character and intended to replace one with the other. Now, the other players were being typically disrespectful and callous in their treatment of their fallen comrade. That player then decided to react APPROPRIATELY to seeing his new-found, newly-dead brother being tossed around like so much meat and being joked about. Even if he hadn't been intended to be related to the deceased character, ANY new PC who witnessed such barbarism should have reacted with shock and disgust. The other players INSTANTLY changed their tunes and I don't remember it being an issue ever again in that campaign. In fact, the entire incident became a key event for the remainder of the campaign. Had the player not taken that step, the tone for the campaign would have been demonstrably different. I'd have taken it in stride but I'd probably still be doing just what you're doing - trying to use the rules to browbeat the players into treating death differently.

That incident made me realize that death and resurrection is FAR less a rules issue than it is an issue of player attitude. Rules cannot change player attitude. The ways to change player attitude is not to beat them upside the head with rules, but to talk to them about what you want to see from a roleplaying perspective and WHY you want it, and then to handle it in-game as much as possible as what it really is - a roleplaying problem, not a problem of inadequate rules.

 

[The Goblin King]

That incident made me realize that death and resurrection is FAR less a rules issue than it is an issue of player attitude. Rules cannot change player attitude. The ways to change player attitude is not to beat them upside the head with rules, but to talk to them about what you want to see from a roleplaying perspective and WHY you want it, and then to handle it in-game as much as possible as what it really is - a roleplaying problem, not a problem of inadequate rules.

Normally, I don't do Me Too posts but in this case: Testify, my brother!

 

[CRGreathouse]

Imagine the affect on todays society if you could come back from the dead.
If I could be brought back after death in real life I'd proably do alot more stupid things (even though it'd cost a butt load of money I would still take more risk in general). We could bring back soldiers who died in combat, at a great cost to tax payers of course. Assasinations would mean nothing (unless one found a way to trap the soul of the deceased). Probably the penalties for murder would be lessened and less people would murder in general (because the guy you just killed wouldn't stay dead).
Etc...

I could go on and on listing what would happen if we could raise dead in real life. The point is death would lose meaning, so why wouldn't it also lose meaning in d&d.

While I agree with you about assassination, I think the cost would be too prohibitive for this to have a truely major impact. Associating a commoner's earnings with a modern laborer making $10,000 a year, the *cost* (not price) of a raise dead would be $1.4M. What kind of mark-up do you think could be expected for most people? 25%? It would cost easily $1.7M, and possibly as much as $3M or more.

How many people do you know who'd be willing and able to drop two million dollars for that? It would be like expensive modern medical techniques -- interesting, but until the price drops not useful for most people.

Frankly, even if I had $2 million, I wouldn't want to be raised on the event of my (accidental, not natural) death.

 

[Jeremy]

My $.02:

Good Lord! I should fear to see what would be your 10 cents.

What, in your perception, is the ACTUAL problem?

The reaction to a character death as a bother, instantly waiting for the next resurrection. The fact that allowing a character her eternal rest is the last option. The fact that by and large even organizations do not employ raising spells even half so much as a single band of adventurers. The expectancy of priests to bring the dead to life without consideration to race, creed, religion, predisposition, or consequences. The fact that the party priest is walking around with Raise Dead prepared just incase some fool god thinks someone's time is up and the pc needs to show the world better. The fact that an earned reward and rest holds no value.

I don't know, there are a number of factors. So I sought to alter the system while at the same time bringing more involvement to the different churches, dogmas, and holy days of the priests (both PC and NPC) in our Faerun.

Boy did that flop. Actually, it seemed to fly pretty well until these latest two players joined up. Over half the campaign really.

It's my thinking that going out of your way to make death and resurrection even MORE of an "annoyance" by making it even harder to deal with is not going to do you any good.

Well, at this point, I'm not trying to tack on more annoyances. I'm actually adding more ways to do it and options for performing the raisings with different situations.

Have you talked to the players about it? I'll bet they don't see easy resurrection as a problem, and therefore they see your "solutions" as unnecessary. Have one or more players come to you and said, "I think it's WAY too easy to get Raise Dead cast for our characters. You really ought to change that?"

Yup. Talked to them extensively. Especially one of the vocal new ones. He thinks I'm nuts. But one or more of my players (and sometimes DM's as we all rotate) HAVE in fact come to me about this. One was absolutely disgusted with the raising of the dead and wanted it banned outright and the other is trying to find his own way of limiting it for some of the reasons I listed a ways up in his own upcoming campaign.

But talking is being done, talking wasn't enough, they wanted action. Action has been taken, but its sounding like compromise isn't enough and only full repeal will work.