D&D 5E How common is resurrection in your game?

[DaveDash]

I've had five deaths and three permanent.

Once the characters get to a certain level death becomes somewhat trivial. The cost of raise dead is quite small, unless you want to do a de beers and control the flow of diamonds in your campaign (or house rule the cost).

My next campaign will be Curse of Strahd however and I think it's going to be quite difficult for them to get the required spell components.

 

[Horwath]

1. Loot the body.

2. Bury it if yours/theirs religion demand or you just liked them.

3. Wait for deus ex machina to wander to some stranger that will become your best friend in 3 days or 3 battles

 

[clearstream]

I've had five deaths and three permanent.

Once the characters get to a certain level death becomes somewhat trivial. The cost of raise dead is quite small, unless you want to do a de beers and control the flow of diamonds in your campaign (or house rule the cost).

My next campaign will be Curse of Strahd however and I think it's going to be quite difficult for them to get the required spell components.

Looking back I can see that I may have been naive, but going in I expected this sort of ratio to be typical

 

[merwins]

Once the characters get to a certain level death becomes somewhat trivial. The cost of raise dead is quite small, unless you want to do a de beers and control the flow of diamonds in your campaign (or house rule the cost).

This is where I break from RAW. For my game, it's not just about money and materials.

1) I've never understood people who treat their characters in a cavalier fashion, taking comical risks because it's "just a game."

(Don't get me wrong, it can lead to hilarious situations. I'm not denying them their fun.)

But I'm trying to get to the point where I can let go enough to do it myself. I haven't been able to yet. It's too difficult to not "bond" at some level with my character. It's a protagonist. Even if I want comedy, I want my protagonist to survive more.

2) This is a character. And there is a religious structure to the game. When your character dies, your soul presumably heads to whatever god you've pledged yourself to, or your character's parents worshipped.

Revivify is the only "back-from-the-dead" spell that appears to NOT require a free and willing soul. That means it takes longer than a minute for a soul to reach some deific containment system.

Everything else demands that the soul be free and willing, which means there is a risk that is either not free or not willing. What happens if the soul is willing, and the god says no? There seems to be a tension there, and the ability for characters to defy their afterlife.

What is the relationship of the character with their god after that? Does the god capitulate every time because hey, this is how GODS make deals.
God A says, "Hey God B, I gave you cred and released one of my dead followers back into the Prime Material when they have no business running around now. Now you gotta do something for me on earth through your organization."

As a GM, you can certainly treat death at high levels trivially. Should you? There's a reason the characters are shaking the world up at high levels. Resurrection may just another mechanism, or it may be something much more.

 

[Zipster]

Mervinci brings up points I was hinting at earlier.

To my knowledge there is little written about what actually happens after death. By rules standards, mervinci is right in with the revivify soell.

In my game, the PC who was disintegrated almost did not accept the true ressurrection. His character was in Paradise. Why come back? He had done his part, death was part of the natural order, and now he was in his goddess's Grove. The Player loved his character but said that he wasn't sure if the character would actually want to come back. He ultimately decided to.

Revivify and raise dead is easily stopped, though. You just add another caveat to the death - the character is beheaded, or blown to bits, or is missing a huge chunk of their body. At that point, raise dead and revivify are matters of cruality (not sure if I've been the only one in games to have an enemy rasied from the dead just to rekill and torture him).

Secondly, at high levels the monetary value of components might not mean anything. 1000 good isn't a lot.

But I've never been in a game where I can walk into Joe Schmo's weapon shop in gerneria and purchase a dwarven thrower and armor of invulnerability.

These items aren't just in stock and I see no reason why the diamonds and rubies of the higher level spells would be so easy to come by. A diamond worth 1k gold would be very rare in my book. And that in itself isn't going to just be readily available at the nearest Temple

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[jasper]

I'm curious how common resurrection is assumed to be. Out of every N deaths, how often can characters expect to be raised? Does it vary for you by tier?

Ok. back in 1/2 E I had one PC come back from the dead 5 times. I had two people fail their system shock survival roll. They rolled 97+. The SSS roll was a buried rule which was basically a con save to fail to come back from the dead. Rod of resurrections were used often. And I think one was actually zeroed out before the campaign ended.
In 5E I have 11+ deaths running Adventure League. 1 TPK. 1 close to TPK. 2 deaths do double max hit pt damage rule. Most due to the players more concern about killing the monster instead of healing. 1 due to too many bodies on the floor.
I have always DM with death is on the line. I don't need a player's permission to kill their pc. The dice kill them. I also don't do side quests to raise the pcs. If you can get to the cleric soon enough, and have the gold; the pc is raised.
Oh. Consider my game play for Adventure league to be four hour sessions once a week.

 

[clearstream]

Ok. back in 1/2 E I had one PC come back from the dead 5 times. I had two people fail their system shock survival roll. They rolled 97+. The SSS roll was a buried rule which was basically a con save to fail to come back from the dead. Rod of resurrections were used often. And I think one was actually zeroed out before the campaign ended.
In 5E I have 11+ deaths running Adventure League. 1 TPK. 1 close to TPK. 2 deaths do double max hit pt damage rule. Most due to the players more concern about killing the monster instead of healing. 1 due to too many bodies on the floor.
I have always DM with death is on the line. I don't need a player's permission to kill their pc. The dice kill them. I also don't do side quests to raise the pcs. If you can get to the cleric soon enough, and have the gold; the pc is raised.
Oh. Consider my game play for Adventure league to be four hour sessions once a week.

Sounds like a campaign to get your teeth into

 

[jimmytheccomic]

In the game I run, it seems to be at about a mid-level of availability compared to what everyone else is doing.

-At low levels, "Raise Dead" can be purchased at some temples, but having enough gold to actually purchase it is a huge hardship. I keep it cost prohibitive throughout the campaign.

-Once they level up enough to cast "Revivify", that tends to be somewhat common. (The party tends to have two characters that can cast it, in case one of them dies!)

-Resurrection, True Resurrection, and Wish are nearly impossible to come by. (Players have to level up high enough to use them themselves, NPCs aren't powerful enough to have them.)

So, essentially, if characters are decapitated, organs are removed, they're disintegrated, crushed flat, etc, they are dead for good.
Also, there are some villain abilities that make the player turn into a zombie when they die. (Finger of Death, etc.) We weren't 100% clear on the book ruling, but we decided as a group that if a character becomes undead they are dead for good. Spirit moved on or was corrupted or whatever feels right.

 

[clearstream]

In the game I run, it seems to be at about a mid-level of availability compared to what everyone else is doing.

-At low levels, "Raise Dead" can be purchased at some temples, but having enough gold to actually purchase it is a huge hardship. I keep it cost prohibitive throughout the campaign.

-Once they level up enough to cast "Revivify", that tends to be somewhat common. (The party tends to have two characters that can cast it, in case one of them dies!)

-Resurrection, True Resurrection, and Wish are nearly impossible to come by. (Players have to level up high enough to use them themselves, NPCs aren't powerful enough to have them.)

So, essentially, if characters are decapitated, organs are removed, they're disintegrated, crushed flat, etc, they are dead for good.
Also, there are some villain abilities that make the player turn into a zombie when they die. (Finger of Death, etc.) We weren't 100% clear on the book ruling, but we decided as a group that if a character becomes undead they are dead for good. Spirit moved on or was corrupted or whatever feels right.

That's pretty close to what I am doing. I rule that undead are animated by drawing a corrupted spirit from the Shadowfell into the body, which makes it impossible to Raise. In my campaign, Necromancy isn't strictly evil but due to that side effect it is reviled by many creatures. Something that puzzles me is the reference to not fixing missing limbs for Revivify? Are they trying to say that a body with missing limbs can't be revived? Or...?

 

[Zipster]

A body missing limbs can be received, but that limb won't regenerate. Lose an arm and be revivified and you have no arm. Thus, lose a head and revivify will bring you back decapitated and that will re-kill the pc

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