Is RAISE DEAD (etc.) too readily available in most D&D campaigns?

[tennyson]

With the loss of a level (or insert your favorite house rule here), death can still deal a pretty hefty blow without ruining the campiagn. If the story allows for it, I don't have a problem with it.

Now, as far as raising NPCs? That I tend to shy away from because it can really throw campaign plot lines for a loop, and make it really tough on a DM to create any drama around death.

 

[Nightfall]

NPCs all STAY dead.

That's just the way it is.

 

[ThirdWizard]

NPCs all STAY dead.

That's just the way it is.

I have to say there's nothing quite like the PCs being dogged by a guy and realizing that they killed him several adventures ago when they finally find out who's been after them.

 

[Treebore]

NPCs all STAY dead.

That's just the way it is.

I used to think that way until Flame came along. The "good" bad guys are just such a waste to keep dead.

 

[Hussar]

As far as the assassination thing goes, well, there's a huge number of ways around that.

Heck, if you're whacking a king, Trap the Soul becomes a pretty consistent option. I mean, anyone that's big enough to do in the king should have some pretty significant resources at his command.

Never mind using something like Barghest to ingest the victim, undead to level drain the victim, Rend the Sovereign Soul (Relics and Rituals), or any number of other means to keep someone dead permanently. Or, better yet, instead of assassinating the king, why not kidnap him? Kidnap+Flesh to Stone pretty much stops any sort of True Res.

People who complain about their plots being foiled by magic need only take a look at the plethora of options available to them.

 

[Jeremy757]

In the last 6 years of playing with my current group, it has only been used 5 times. I would say a spell getting used only once every year isn't too much.

 

[molonel]

I think Raise Dead is too harsh in 3.5e. I've made it easier to use.

Cheers!

I have a house rule that death costs 350 xp x the level of the character. Raise Dead, Resurrection and True Resurrection all give an XP hit, but the hit is less severe. True Resurrection is most useful because it can restore a person's body once it has been destroyed.

I don't mind Raise Dead because without it, if you run a high mortality or gritty campaign, players because less interested in developing their characters. It's hard to care when you're thrown into the meatgrinder whether your piece of paper is named Sausage, Pepperbits, or Baconflavor.

For all the folks who said that these spells make coming back from the dead less meaningful, I say horse puckey. One of my characters in a campaign I ran was raised from the dead, and all of my players remember the ceremony. It was just Raise Dead with some trappings on it. If bringing characters back from the dead feels like a video game, that's the DM's fault, not the game.

 

[Storyteller01]

I want death to be a real factor in my campaign, not a speed bump for the adventure. As a whole, clerics have to make Will saves to cast spells. On the flip side, I've used god roll rules (kind of like get out of jail free cards, once per game day) that the players can use to stay alive that much longer.

 

[Hussar]

I want death to be a real factor in my campaign, not a speed bump for the adventure. As a whole, clerics have to make Will saves to cast spells. On the flip side, I've used god roll rules (kind of like get out of jail free cards, once per game day) that the players can use to stay alive that much longer.

See, this is something I don't understand. "A speed bump"? 5k gp is nothing to sniff at for a very large chunk of levels. Plus, the level loss bloody well hurts. Never mind that finding a 9th level cleric who is willing to cast this for you should be a fairly decent method for grounding a group in the setting as well. You should need, at the very least, a large town where you might (1 in 6 according to the DMG) find a single 9th level cleric. In a city, it gets a bit easier, but, again, in a small city, you have a 50/50 chance (roughly) of having a single 9th level cleric. Note, finding a cleric that can cast 9th level spells requires a metropolis, and even then, you're not looking at great chances.

Easy? Not really. Not if the DM is actually paying any attention to where the PC's are within his campaign world.

 

[Nightfall]

*believes that only the GOOD PCs stay dead* The Evil ones might come back. IF they are worthy.