Houseruling Raise Dead spells

[Arkhandus]

Umm. Why would clerics who worship Death want to bring people back to life? Whyever would Nerull want people to go back to living after he's reaped their souls, unless the individuals are his own followers and were busy trying to spread his influence/evil/death in the first place?


And your friend should keep in mind that the D&D rules, such as the spells and Challenge Ratings, are designed with the expectation that spells like Raise Dead will be fairly well available most of the time beyond, like, 6th-level or so.

 

[Imp]

Mostly I've made the spell even costlier, but I'm currently considering revoking that and instead making it so the spell has to be cast within (10 minutes? an hour?) of the character's demise, and of course (as already in the rules) you need all the vital pieces in a hurry, so if the enemy's run off with or eaten your wizard's head, you're outta luck.

This way it sort of allows high-level parties to recover more easily from save-or-dies while keeping resurrection from becoming ubiquitously handy, letting kings actually be vulnerable to death, and sort of preserving a little mystique to the whole mortal coil business. (There are zero clerics in my setting capable of casting resurrection or any other 7th-level spells for that matter.)

 

[Nifft]

Umm. Why would clerics who worship Death want to bring people back to life?

Well, exactly. If the guy who is in charge of something is usually opposed to that thing happening, it will occur rarely.

I don't use this type of restriction in my games, but I can see how it would set the tone for a setting.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Plane Sailing]

Hmm...

Did you give any thought to doing 4/2, rather than 2/1? That would keep it in line with other stat modifiers in the game, and would also ensure that everyone raised actually sees a mechanical effect. (Since anyone with an odd Con, and no intention of raising it, doesn't suffer much from a 1-point loss.)

Granted, 4 Con might be way too much, though.

How has it worked for you?

It worked pretty well - I typically gave people the choice of losing a level or losing the Con, and it is pretty rare for anyone to be raised more than once; since the rule was introduced, all have gone for the Con loss IIRC.

The main benefit was that when x reached level 12 and got a cohort via his new leadership feat (and the cohort was a natural development from the campaign setting and roleplay over the previous six months) we didn't have to come up with some silly explanation why the cohort went away again after he was raised, potentially to come back *again* when he got the level once more. Could have been explained, but it would have been clunky.

Cheers

 

[Asmor]

I hate raise dead spells for one simple reason: it makes death less of a concern to anyone that can afford a raise, not just PCs. Sure, it can be handy when the BBEG's henchman raises him, but it also means that a good king's not going to be as worried about being assassinated if he knows the kingdom will just spring for a raise.

So what I do is have the concept of "fated" people. Certain people are just fated, and they have special destinies which the cosmos actively work to keep them on track for. And hey, it just so happens that all PCs are fated. Whenever someone who's fated dies, they get a draw from the Deck of Many Things and in most cases are returned to life, with special effects depending on the card drawn. For example, one of my PCs came back to life with 10,000 exp more than he had when he died, because of a good card draw.

Of course, a bad card draw can still screw you... For example, if you draw the void, you still technically return to life but you're basically a vegetable. So death doesn't entirely lose its weight.

 

[Midknightsun]

I'm not a big fan of raise dead spells either, largely because of the campaign implications it often has, and as others have mentioned I think it cheapens death. I just finished running an Arcana Evolved campaign where Raise magic was pretty rare anyway, but the characters could spend a Hero Point to auto stabilize, and instadeath spells were extremely rare. In my 3.5 campaigns, I make the caster sacrifice 200xp per level of the character raised/reincarnated in addition to other costs. Additionally, the raised character accumulates a "Karmic Debt" for basically cheating death, which allows the DM to force him to roll twice on any d20 roll and take the worst once per session until he gains a level. It makes most clerics or spellcasters who are powerful enough think twice before doing so. Between the addition of action points, and changing save or dies to "save or dying", it all works out pretty well and diminishes the whole "add another quarter to continue" feel.

 

[robberbaron]

Granted, 4 Con might be way too much, though.

I'd much rather lose a level than 4 Con.
Even at 2 Con it is a difficult decision.