Eliminating "Raise Dead" and "Resurrection"

[Durifern]

My problem with the resurrection particularly True Resurrection is that you can be braught back no matter what, which makes it very hard for players and masters alike to ensure that the dead stay dead.
That´s one of the things I changed and together with the slow level progression no ones risks willingly death of any kind.
But I think I have to make an example of it...

 

[Planesdragon]

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?

I used to think exactly like you. And then I watched the "Buffy" episodes dealing with her death. (Watch the first half of Season six--it's almost all her coping with "damnit, I was dead and you bastards brought me back to life!")

My suggestion is to treat RP problems with RP solutions. Make it _hard_ to raise someone back from the dead; instead of diamond dust, require specific material components that take time and energy to make.

If you want a rule change, I'd suggest imposing negative levels (DC 15 + raised person's level) on the caster, and giving folk "just back from the dead" something that stays with them--a geas, a template, a spirit from beyond that keeps tabs on them, etc.

 

[Valiantheart]

I had a similiar problem IMCW. My solution was to set a hefty xp requirement to the casting cleric. You will find a cleric, particularly of a different faith, much less willing to cast a raise spell if it costs them a big chunck of personal power.

I also had a percentage chance that a servant of the god from the realm they were being raised from take a personal interest in the raising and often come to extract an additional price both from the caster and the character to be raised. Typcially that price was some kind of quest or adventuring hook.

Raise Dead
XP 1000
Resurrection
XP 2500
True Resurrection - can bring people back even against their will
XP 5000

The percentage was usually something like 5%+1% per character level.

 

[Arken]

a way of very nearly getting rid of it altogether whilst still leaving the option there is to have a 'universal balance' concept. This appears in a number of fairy tales (Ivan and the firebird for example). It means that only Gods can restore life (and even then shouldn't do it often) with the only exception being taht ressurrecting someone means tehre is a 'universal life' and the trade of a willing life. I.e. a cleric can give his life to another to bring them back but dies himself. this makes for good villains too who have no qualms against developing evil artifacts or epic spells forcing people's lives to be lost in 'eternal life schemes' (TM).

 

[fusangite]

One could keep the spells and up the casting time and material component requirements to a very high level at the discretion of the DM. Thus, the casting time might be "as long as it takes to get to the summit of the Encircling Mountains" and the material component might be "the heart of the Lone Hart of the Gods' Meadow."

I think if you choose unique, irreplaceable, hard-to-find material components and require a lengthy quest, you've got what you want.

Another possibility is that the spell can be granted by the deity but instead of getting it automatically when praying for it, the deity refuses to grant to spell unless the cleric carries out some special task/quest for him.

 

[Trickstergod]

I run what I like to think of as a low to mid-magic game, yet one without altering the classes or spells overly much. How might this be done, you say?

By allowing the PC's to be the earth-shatterers, the giants amongst men, the miracle-workers and heroes (or anti-heroes) they should be. It's not the PC's I screw around with, so much as the world they live in. They're the exception, not the rule. Which means, in relation to handling the raising and resurrection of the dead:

If the PC's can't do it themselves, then they'll have a particularly hard time trying to find someone who can. As such, if the party lacks a 9th level cleric, death is a big deal, and if they get hit with a death effect, it becomes a bigger deal. It either allows for a death that actually means something, as opposed to a mere inconvenience, or it allows the characters to come off as truly heroic and special when, miracle of miracles, they breath life back into the dead, a feat few are capable of.

Of course, there are those figures who are simply powerful beyond compare as well, antagonists few could hope to stand up to, foul monsters that dwell in places where men fear to go, and all manners of horrors which are nigh unstoppable by all but the most stalwart of champions, so the characters do have challenges worthy of their level when most of the world around them caps out at 5th level. Keeping the world at large as fairly low-magic, low-level, while reserving true power for the PC's, and the challenges they face, helps to get rid of some problems, such as dying just being another inconvenience. Even if the PC's can whip out a True Resurrection like it weren't no thang, then at least it's in the PC's hands, and therefore, something special in light of the fact that there are very few else in the world who could hope to do that, and others will recognize that fact - possibly looking to the individual as a saint, or as someone that really needs to die, die, die.

Of course, if you prefer running a bearings to the wall high fantasy game, where a 9th or 17th level priest is readily accessible to the people, or commonplace, maybe that's not the route to go. But that's the route I go, and thus far, it's worked fairly well for me.

 

[Voadam]

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?

Clerics will be fine power wise without being able to raise the dead.

If your cosmology allows for it, eliminating resurrection but allowing reincarnation fills the same role. Take the Wheel of Time fantasy novel setting where heroes are born back into the world and a few come back forcibly ahead of their time.

With reincarnation the old character is gone, the new character has some memories but is a new character with a built in connection to the old party, so they can be a new race and class and have an in game reason to join the party. This works well.

If you want characters to just die, then just tell everybody that you have removed all returning magic (and think if you want undead in the camaign, they can still be there as animated corpses or as evil spirits that enter and use old bodies).

 

[ruleslawyer]

So basically, there are five options you have here:

1) Play by the rules as written.

2) Make raising the dead mechanically harder. One way to go is to use Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed variant resurrection spells, which are high level, difficult to learn, and take literally days to cast. Another is to make the resurrection spells higher level. Another is to eliminate the more powerful resurrection spells and allow only raise dead, meaning that a character who doesn't have an intact body isn't coming back. Finally, a last option is to eliminate the spells entirely, but rule that a wish or miracle can raise characters from the dead, meaning that you just make it harder and more expensive to raise PCs/NPCs.

3) Put RP restrictions on raising: Deific involvement, cultural taboo, selfish priests, etc. I'm not fond of this approach, because I have a hard time suspending disbelief to the point of thinking that high-level PCs, who should be THE prominent, divinely-graced heroes (or villains) of their campaign world, would be barred from access to assistance that admittedly, by the rules anyway, does exist.

4) Eliminate raising the dead and install no compensating mechanism. IMHO, bad idea, unless you want a gritty, realistic dark fantasy setting rather than a heroic fantasy setting. The PCs are supposed to be the "heroes" of the story created by a successful RP campaign; storybook heroes don't often get recycled in favor of new heroes constantly.

5) Eliminate raising, but install compensating mechanisms. This seems to be what you've asked for. I think this is a fine way to go, and the solution I'd suggest is to use a hero points system. Such systems give PCs a nice cushion of plot immunity, which fits the heroic fantasy style rather well. One system is to allow a hero point to accomplish the following:

a) Add +20 to a single attack roll, save, or check if spent before the check is made;

b) Allow a reroll (with no bonus) if spent after an unsuccessful die roll;

c) Allow an additional round of actions outside a character's normal initiative turn;

d) Allow a character to reduce an effect that causes the character's death to one that merely incapacitates the character in some way.

This is the system used IMC, although I also allow characters to be raised within 24 hours of death using the raise dead spell (which is 7th level IMC) or brought back from the dead using a wish or miracle spell at any time and under any circumstances, subject to the substantial XP costs of those spells and at the cost of a character level. Typically, well-played PCs in my games earn about 4 or 5 hero points by 10th level.

 

[jester47]

Another way to get around it is to actually roleplay the priests meditation for preyers. The priest knows what he wants, the god knows what he needs. Have the cleric (if its a character) give reasons for the different spell requests. If the reason is not good enough for a resurrection, the god denys it.

For raise dead, the body pretty much has to be intact. If the character died from anything that would destroy the body, then this spell cant bring him/her back. So, if the guy fell down a deep crevice, the party has to find the body, and get it to a cleric that can cast the spell. And then there is the time limit. 1 day per level of the caster. Beuracracy can work wonders. Not to mention that the characters need to have 5000gp worth of dimonds. (getting these can be hard, esp if the jeweler or appraiser is over valueing the diamonds he is selling to the heros.) Of course the heroes can go and find thier own dimonds, but if you look at the treasure table the chances of finding a diamond in a random treasure horde is pretty slim. And you only have at most 20 days.

Ressurection is more expensive. 10,000gp worth of diamonds. And you still need a part of the body. At most you have a time limit of 200 years.

True resurrection operates the same way is more expensive, and you don't need body parts. However that does not mean that the character appears where the spell is cast. Most likely it would be where the characters body ceased to be, or if there are remains, where the remains are.

So we have several factors working in the rules as is method:
caster availability
spell availability
high unique cost
time limit
body condition
location and transport of remains

The other thing about the dimonds is that they are ussually prised. You don't get the dimonds back when you are done. They are gone. Most people will not give up that amount of wealth without some compensation. Also, what if someone gets to the body first and destroys it?

No, I leave those spells in there, because if the party thinks the character that died is so important that they essentially have to drop everything to get him back then, I think it should be allowed. I leave it up to the players. If the quest is too important to them, then they say no bringing him or her back. Taking a big time out to get someone brought back to life can cause major problems, especially if the characters are saving the world.

Also, what if the character had enemies who don't want him to come back? They might do everything in their power to stop the party. Also it is a great way to get the party to do really rash things. Normally the party would not raid the temple of the stargod, but its has the only 5000gp diamond within ten days ride... Or, there once was a dimond that would work, but it was stolen by a dragon years ago, but everyone knows where the dragon's lair is...

Basicly, the way I see it, if the party can get through all these hoops, and feels that they should abandon missions and do what is necessary then yeah, your character can come back.

Aaron.

 

[alaric]

I DM a game, and I play in another, and in both we decided against using the standard raise dead. In my campaign I add an xp cost to all the raise dead spells, this prevents them from being used casually, or in mass. Secondarily, since this is possibly one of the most powerful spells (conceptually) for a cleric, and as such it is one of the churches most powerful politcal weapons. So it is often used as extortion (although "good" churches wouldn't think of it that way). You don't just drop 10k gp and get a raise dead. For most player characters (and most churches) they enter into service of the church for a year and a day. That doesn't mean they leave the campaign, or even that the campaign has to turn into a church focused campaign (although if you were looking for something different.....), just that they now have added responsiblities, and someone else to boss them around. That way they don't take death lightly, but death doesn't have to be final.

In the game I play in the DM simply removed the raise dead spells, and so far it's workign out fine. I don't see any unbalancing aspects to it.