Do you allow resurrection-type magic in your campaign?

[GoodKingJayIII]

I tend to ignore this part of the rulebook for one reason: How much does Cure Light Wounds cost to be cast at the temple of her most merciful? How much does CLW cost to be cast at the temple of his most money grubbing-ness? The same amount? Pish-posh. A temple to her most merciful should give away CLW to anyone who is brought in. Free. No hint at a donation being in order.

I think it's a rather good guideline, actually. The clerics of the temple of her most merciful aren't just sitting around waiting for someone in need of a healing to drop by. They're probably busy people with lots of things to do. And if you consider actual PC classes like clerics rare, then you're not going to find many priests able to cast curative spells. It becomes an issue of time, and as they say "time is money." I might increase or descrease a price by 10% depending on circumstances, but I'd never completely eliminate it.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I re-work it to be more of a hassle, but not because there's anything WRONG with the PHB version...just because I like to yank around my PC's when possible.

IMC, the soul lingers around the body for 1 rd/level after death, and then (usually) departs to the realm of the dead. This is the duration that resurrection works in...after this point, in order to raise someone, you need to physically contact their soul in the realm of the dead, bring it back to the place of death, and THEN cast the spell.

It's not nessecarily bad, it's just a hassle that prevents everyone who could from being brought back to life if someone wanted it....let's face it, if I were a peasant in a city and some great evil were attacking, I'd raise that 100-year-dead hero before I'd spend the same or more to hire some adventurers who might not even do the job.

 

[The Lemon Merchant]

I chose "Yes, with strings attached" I posted my reasoning in another thread (I believe it was titled Raise Dead), but I've copied it over to here since this thread is actually discussing the issue instead of discussing the cause of character death. Anyhow in my upcoming Greyhawk campaign I am being quite restrictive on the source of return from death spells. I won't go into the campaign details, but as it stands only 3 gods have absolute control over death, in particular returning from it to your previous form (Reincarnate is not restricted). Only Nerull, Wee Jas and Pelor provide their clerics with the possibility of casting the Raise Dead, Resurrection and True Resurrection spells. Of course if the party can find a cleric (or has a cleric) of the proper deity capable of casting such a spell they can't just cast the spell. Nerull isn't going to grant the spell to just anyone, he's pretty happy with keeping the dead, dead. Wee Jas is also not terribly likely to grant the spell without reason, though said reason won't have to be as convincing as with Nerull. Finally Pelor is the most likely to provide the needed spell and even then the party is going to need to have a good reason and at least be of good alignment (if not outright followers of Pelor). I'm not a killer DM, so if there's a death in the party something went wrong ("stuff" happens) and that's just the way it is, bury the dead and move on. This may sound a bit tough, and some in my group think so, but I've never been a big fan of the return from dead spells, though I think Reincarnate has some interesting value. I also don't think that every deity should be able to grant these spells leaving it in the power fo the gods of Death (and in the case of Pelor, Healing) to manage who can and cannot return from the dead. Of course, in the event that the party wants to travel to the planes (a likely possiblity in my upcoming campaign) to negotiate for the return of a dead character's soul, I'd be willing to work with that.