D&D 5E Exploring the economics of Raise Dead

[Kinematics]

As for the value of the diamond, I think that's more of a meta-rule than an in-universe rule. It's a rule for the player, not the character, because what it's really there for is to be a resource sink to use up and stress the gold supply of the characters, which is what all wealth translates to.

The rules could have said, "This spell requires a 2 carat diamond, which is consumed on use", but then the question becomes, "How much does a 2 carat diamond cost? How many of them can I get? Do I need a gemcrafter's toolkit to appraise the diamonds?", and then you need to put in a rule set for scaling gem sizes to gold costs (for all types of gems), and it's just a lot of extra overhead for no real gain. Instead, you just have a 50 GP onyx, or a 500 GP topaz, etc.

... Hey, did you know that diamonds aren't listed in the 5E DM's guide's gem tables, in the 100 GP – 1000 GP range? The only one listed is for 5000 GP. Curious.

Personally, I'd guess that the 300 GP/500 GP/1000 GP costs for the spells really translate to 1 carat/2 carats/3 carats (it's a non-linear curve). Once you do it that way, then the Ragnar scam doesn't really work (though a scam with cubic zirconia would likely still be possible, but without it still working for spells).

 

[Davinshe]

Some have commented that clerics wouldn't agree to resurrect people outside their faith. I tend to think a sort of mutual contract is likely to arise among those capable of resurrection. Clerics certainly want the members of their faith to be resurrected -- but there's no guarantee that a cleric of their specific faith will be available. Therefore it makes sense for faiths that can minimally tolerate each other to all agree to resurrect each others followers. If a faith decides to go it alone and not be included in this arrangement, then followers of that faith have a pretty tangible reason to find another faith they can follow, since it's literally life and death. Beyond such pragmatic reasons, the very presence of readily available resurrection might cause it to be seen as a right, and clerics might thus feel morally obligated to provide it in most cases.

 

[Davinshe]

Also, I don't believe anyone else has pointed out that raise dead also appears on the bard list in this edition. This doubles (assuming the population of bards and clerics is roughly equal) the number of resurrections available and also provides an easily available secular avenue to receive a resurrection if your local temple decides to exclude you (which just provides incentive for them NOT to do so; no one wants to look foolish by having some traveling minstrel outshine your deity)

 

[dave2008]

Then if we figure 1/10th of all adventurers are clerics, and 1/10th of the adult population is adventurers, and 2/3 of the entire population is adults, we're at 1 in 40,000 population is a cleric who can cast Raise Dead. We'll also say that only 1 in 2.5 clerics in that level range are actively taking up this duty. That means each such cleric covers a population spread of 100,000.

I am sure this is a very interesting analysis; however, this (the bold part) to me is a ridiculous assumption and stopped me in my tracks. Obviously everyone will have a different starting point for this, but when my assumption is that 1/100,000 of a population is adventures (or 1/66,000 adults as you put it) than I now we are not dealing with similar world views.

How would an economy even work if 1/10th of the adult population was adventurers?

 

[Davinshe]

How would an economy even work if 1/10th of the adult population was adventurers?

1/10th seemed very high to me too. It might be a little more reasonable if we change it not to people who are actively adventuring, but simply all the people in the world who could feasibly have levels in player's classes. Wizards researching in towers, bards in the court of kings, veteran commanders with levels in fighters, seasoned cutpurses in the major thieve's guilds. These could all be included in that number despite not being adventurers as we normally understand it.

 

[dave2008]

I'm also in the 10% is too high.

If you look at artists, musicians, actors, athletes as the modern day equivalent that number might be 3%

Closer to 0.3% from my quick internet searching

 

[dave2008]

1/10th seemed very high to me too. It might be a little more reasonable if we change it not to people who are actively adventuring, but simply all the people in the world who could feasibly have levels in player's classes. Wizards researching in towers, bards in the court of kings, veteran commanders with levels in fighters, seasoned cutpurses in the major thieve's guilds. These could all be included in that number despite not being adventurers as we normally understand it.

Yes, that would be closer, but I think it is still high

 

[dave2008]

A more serious issue is our thread from last year which found that perhaps 1 in 10,000 people are likely to be adventurers, rather than the 1 in 10 assumed here. If you change that assumption, how much less affordable does resurrection become?

I assume 1/100,000 people are adventurers that make it to 5th, 1/1,000,000 reach 10th, 1/10,000,000 reach 15th, and 1/100,000,000 reach 20th.

So in my setting, if I assume 25% clerics, that would be 1 cleric capable of raise dead per approximately 4 million people. That is 2x the population of England in 1066. So pretty rare.

 

[jgsugden]

Nentir Vale and Forgotten Realms would have vastly different answers to these questions, as would Krynn at the time of the War of the Lance or any version of Athas. These are campaign specific questions that would need to factor in a vast array of criteria not considered here.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

That's a tricky one. It takes some high-level magic to pull that off for real (Speak With Dead doesn't do it - you get to talk to a semblance of the creature, not their departed soul) - about the lowest-level spell that's likely to get you a reliable answer is Commune.

So the question is whether people are aware that this is the case, so that they won't fall for it if a charlatan tries to pull it off. Hopefully, the religious orders who issue these policies will be informative on the subject

Keith Baker discussed some of this subject recently. He mentioned the use of Augury before a resurrection attempt.