Eliminating "Raise Dead" and "Resurrection"

[shadow]

In designing my homebrew I've come across a major problem-mainly what to do with the "raise dead" and "ressurection" spells. I never liked spells that restored life to a dead character, mainly because they seemed too "meta-game", grounded more in game rules, than in the fantasy and mythology genre. (The worst example of this was when a friend was talking about a character taking out an enemy in a suicide attack, unconcerned because he could be raised later.)

The irony is I'm not usually too concerned with game rules intruding into the setting. However, characters unconcerned about dying because of resurrection spells just crosses the line for me. It really seems reduce death to a minor inconvenience and invokes almost light hearted atmosphere. (I really am reminded of Miracle Max from The Princess Bride, "He's only mostly dead.")

Death should be something permanent, not some short stay until a character is resurrected. In fantasy liteature and mythology, characters rarely come back from the dead. When they do, there is usually some high price to be paid; making a pact with a dark power, petitioning a god, making some extreme sacrifice. Losing a class level really doesn't seem like that high of a price. (Especially when characters are a high level, and gain levels really fast.)

The problem is, how do I eliminate resurrection spells without really unbalancing the game? I like to play high powered and epic games where PCs are heroes. If I eliminate such spells it could really alter the tone of the game making characters a lot less epic and increase the lethality of the campaign.
Also, could eliminating resurrection spells could really hurt clerics. Taking away some of the most valuable spells could really hurt the balance of the classes.

So how should I eliminate or modify resurrection spells without effecting game balance? Should I just eliminate them as they are and risk unbalancing the game? Should I let "dead" characters come back under the cliched soap opera excuse "I wasn't really dead"? Or something else? What are your suggestions?

 

[Darkness]

Play Exalted instead of D&D.

- Voila! Darkness

 

[Nightfall]

Use AU's "truename" to ensure that if they don't know the character real name, or spiritual name, they can't come back.

 

[Goddess FallenAngel]

Perhaps leave the spells in the game... but require the character being brought back have one of the experiences you were speaking of? Such as, perhaps eliminate Raise Dead and Res, leaving only True Res in. Then, have True Res only give the character a chance to come back - the cleric beseeching his/her god to raise this character. Then, have a seperate roleplaying session with the dead PC, acting out the god, dark power, etc. Basically, allowing the dead PC to negotiate with the power the cleric worships. This could lead to whole new plot hooks.

 

[Threedub]

If you want a mechanic that is easy to deal with but still have a "sting" you could require the raising cleric to loose a level for casting the spell or drain 1 permanent point of constitution (not even Wish could bring it back) from both the cleric and the dead.

 

[Wombat]

First up, tell your players straight up there is no resurrection.

I did that and the players were good with it. We still have a heroic campaign. We are at a lower level at the moment (we are at about 6th level) but we are progressing nicely. The major point is that they know that death is death, it is the end.

We had one character die and a couple of near-runs. No one has complained, no one has done more than toast them on a sad and heroic death.

We have had no other major reprecussions. Go for it. It works.

 

[Herremann the Wise]

Hi everyone,

Here are a couple of ideas:

- Take them out of the Clerical spell list. Have them only castable by deities or possibly an artifact that is connected to one of these deities. Leave them as truly "sacred spells".
- Similar to the first but allow PCs to gain this spell through some sort of bizarre and difficult quest or circumstance.
- Increase the material and/or personal costs involved to slow down the resurrection revolving door. A time component between castings or alternatively, a strict number of castings based upon wisdom bonus only is also an idea.
- For a more role-playing orientated group, make it of cultural significance that it is bad luck to return such a soul back to this world. Alternatively or as well, have it as an act of cruelty to the soul concerned. Forcing a soul to return to the Material Plane instead of the Divine "place" where it now resides, is considered to be a major affront to "The Gods" and their judgment and wisdom. As such, the consequences of such an action can be quite severe.

Personally, I prefer the latter and encourage such thinking in my players. It adds a lot to the story, particularly when they choose to go against "convention" and use such spells.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

If you don't want raise dead to exist, but want the game to still play similarly you have two options:

1. Make the game less deadly. You could keep it challenging but keep it less deadly by allowing characters to go to lower negative hit points than normal D&D does. If you let them go to - (10+constitution) for instance, characters will be less likely to die. You could also give hero points that let characters reroll a failed roll (or make you reroll any particular roll).

2. Alternately, you could allow replacement characters to come in at average party level. That could get kinda silly when a new "Great Champion of the People" or "Previously Unknown Archmage" shows up to take the place of the old guy. On the other hand, it works pretty well at low-mid levels and allows players to keep playing at the same level even after their characters die. If you want a grim and gritty campaign where life is cheap and you don't come back from the dead, this is probably the way to go.

2a. You might want to have players build their PC's replacement when they build their PC. We did this in a Call of Cthulu game I played once. You created your PC and then you created a backup and a description of the how the backup connects to the main character.

 

[Buttercup]

I don't think removing resurection unbalances the game. As long as you tell your players ahead of time that those are the rules, then it's fine. I have never allowed it in my games, and haven't seen any balance issues. It does have an impact on the way the players handle their characters, in that they are *sometimes* a pinch more careful.

 

[Skade]

Play Exalted instead of D&D.

- Voila! Darkness

Or play in the Iron Kingdoms and still be DnD. - Voila!
Skade