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

[mmadsen]

Have you added any remedies? (e.g. raising or lowering the level of the spell?)

Rename dead to be mortally wounded. Rename raise dead to cure mortal wounds.

Characters will lose fights, but we want them to come back. The problem is treating death as a small problem easily fixed with spell.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Yeah, FFZ values character life so much it's almost done away with the possibility of random permanant character demise. You gain so much with "immortal" characters, as mentioned above: more heroics, better characterization, better stories...

You do loose verisimilitude, on some level. In other words, you need to take the fact that people don't die very often into consideration when designing the world. In FFZ, this is dealt with in the category of necromancy, which is suitably high level: it can disrupt, distort, and destroy people's souls, prohibiting them from coming back to the waking world. There are spells to counter-act them, but it is all significantly high-level, epic stuff.

Raising a dead companion should be a legendary quest, accomplished only once in any character's lifetime. Also, it should only be available by using major artifacts or by dealing with greater powers. I actually feel the same way about wish, miracle and many similar spells.

I would say that the availability of resurrection magic should rise with the likelihood of death. Kind of like the power of healing magic rises along with the damage monsters can do, and the power of destructive magic rises along with their hit points.

In other words, if characters can only rarely die, if it only happens when facing truly vile villains at the cusp of dramatic quests, then, yes, raising magic should be rare and special, just like death. But if characters can drop dead with a few failed saves, then it shouldn't take more than a few won saves to bring 'em back.

From a story perspective, this puts equal drama on life and death. From a game perspective, this keeps things "fair" -- you're only ever in as much danger as you can recover from, if you're skilled and lucky.

While entirely realistic to play in a world where death is common and raising is rare, for me and for every person I've played with, it's not that much fun. It's also entirely realistic to play a party of commoners, but that's not much fun, either.

 

[Mouseferatu]

I can't answer the poll, because my answers differ based on whether we're talking aesthetics/hypothetical preference, or the reality of game-play.

In a vacuum, where we're just talking about aesthetic preferences, yes, I feel that coming back from the dead should be legendary. It should be the subject of entire adventures if not campaigns, something that will spawn legends people will recite for generations.

But in game-play, I've seen too many characters die to feel that my preferences would actually function as a rules set for the average D&D game. People want the option of bringing back their characters; DMs want to know that they can run an encounter fairly without stripping a player (or an ongoing story) of a character. In play, even though it rubs me the wrong way as a writer/world-builder/storyteller, I find that the relative ease of raise dead is actually a feature, not a bug.

 

[Psion]

I think it's too easy. I like there to be a lingering consequence for character death, to make it more meaningful.

Heroes of Horror and a recent Dragon issue had some ideas to help correct this.

 

[MerricB]

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

I subscribe to the Dragarean school of magical world.

Cheers!

 

[Gundark]

I said usually no. Not that the spell IMC isn't availible. It's just that my group hates the loss of one level so they barely use it. I have a house rule that they can come back with a new character that is the only a little behind the group in xp. This keeps death a bit more final as it should be IMHO. However now they're high level they have their hands on true res. However the 25,000 gp keep them from doing it all the time.

 

[delericho]

My answer is "no", for the rules as they stand at the moment.

Personally, I would prefer True Resurrection (and perhaps Reincarnate) be the only way to restore characters to life, and for character death at high levels to be correspondingly more rare, but that change is actually fairly significant to the ruleset as a whole. Plus, of course, it is just personal preference.

 

[el-remmen]

Depends on the setting.

 

[Ciaran]

Usually no, because DMs who don't consider it appropriate will usually create house rules to minimize its use.

 

[Yair]

While entirely realistic to play in a world where death is common and raising is rare, for me and for every person I've played with, it's not that much fun. It's also entirely realistic to play a party of commoners, but that's not much fun, either.

QFT

The gameplay benefits usually tramp the dramatic benefits, IMO.