My only issue with all this would be that players might try to use reincarnate as a cheap and easy way to overcome poor decisions/bad luck.
Yeah, in hindsight the thing that bothers me about Reincarnate is there is no penalty or need to recover like there is with Raise Dead and even Resurrection do which both have the -4 penalty.My only issue with all this would be that players might try to use reincarnate as a cheap and easy way to overcome poor decisions/bad luck. If the players role played it well--making it obvious how much of a dangerous and frightening ordeal reincarnation is--I don't see it as much of a problem.
As far as ability scores for the reincarnated form, I like the idea of taking existing ability scores (before racial adjustments) and letting the player assign them as he sees fit to the new form. Also, for anyone except an elf (because they naturally reincarnate to a new elven or fey form when they die--at least in my world) being in a new body would be terribly unsettling. The human might be more or less OK as an elf (or maybe not, depending on the human viewed elves before hand), but the half-orc would probably have a lot of problems being trapped in an elf (even a drow) body.
This is all based on my concept of the races of the world and how they view each other. Your world might be different. If there were issues with the new forms, it creates great incentive for a new quest to get their old bodies back--possibly seeking out someone who can cast wish. Simply finding out what spells need to be cast might be a quest in itself.
LOL It is! In case you haven't followed, the campaign was set to end after we escaped as the other players were interested in trying new characters and were disheartened by the defeat and loss of the elf. But, by the time the session ended, they were gung-ho again and ready to fight on to rescue their captured friend.By the way, sounds like a great campaign.
Well, a bit of backstory:
We encountered the drow (a priestess, wizard, two elite warriors) in conference with some giants (2 hill giants, 2 ogres, and a cave bear). Now, I am the only real experience player, so I cautioned the others against it, but even after the DM emphasized this was about a 50/50 chance of success or TPK, the others out-voted me. Honestly, he gave the others about as much warning as he could and they decided to risk it anyway.
We nearly won, even after a yochlol and shadow demon joined the fight, but in the end the last character standing (the captured high elf) was forced to drop her weapon after the drow threatened to kill the downed characters.
After torture and such, we managed to break out of prison, orchestrated an uprising, and freed ourselves. However, the high elf was taken by the wizard as a sacrifice to Lolth for the death of the priestess we killed. Now, we are hunting after them to rescue her before she is sacrificed.
So, in a very real sense the DM didn't "punish" us after he warning us about the risk, but played out the drow was he felt they would be, maiming and torturing us. We accept that as part of the game and know it was our fault for trying to defeat a force so clearly equal to us in strength. Like I said, we nearly won out... but the adventure goes on.
What i do not get is, how died the drow priestess know that your downed PCs were still alive at all, to me this requires an action and a successful medicine check with disadvantage, since she still is in combat. I mean, do not retcon the situation because i said so, but ask your DM about my view, i would like to know how he sees these things.
I could definitely see giving the PCs the option of really odd solutions. Like there's someone who can graft on temporary body parts but he doesn't have great supplies at the moment. So slug eyes on the end of stalks, maybe a tentacle for the arm. They aren't permanent, but enough to get by until they can be regenerated.
But ... physically disabling a PC, especially if the player did nothing wrong would not sit well with me as a player. I get it, different strokes for different folks and all, life is not fair. That doesn't mean a game can't be fair; if I take a gamble and I lose and the penalty is appropriate that's on me. But if that's not then I'm not going to enjoy the campaign.
We use lingering injuries from the DMG as well (two characters have scars).Linguring injuries don't come up often for my groups, fortunately. Only twice for anything permanent, one of which was to a bad guy (which they still love talking about two years later and completely changed a fight in which they were in over their heads); the one for the good guy was the wizard got his leg chopped off.
For us, when a natural 20 happens, the attacker rolls a d20, and if its 11 or higher, then you roll on the lingering injuries chart. So, it doesn't happen often.
However, I will say that we've been using the same system (with minor changes to wording and such) for going on five years, so we may just be used to it.
By all means, though: if its not right for your group, don't use them. Maybe the @OP should have a chat with the DM over email or text or whatever (away from the table, in other words) and see if there's a "is there an NPC that has a little quest for us in exchange for a magic prosthetic from the Eberron book?" option.
My issue with straight suicide becuase your character has a disability now is a personal one, however.