Kill All the Hostages! (We'll bring them back...)

[Bob Aberton]

I disallow ANY form of ressurection in my campaign (unless you're Jesus or something), death is permanent. It makes the characters a lot more afraid knowing that when they lose a character, thats it. Although with a good argument I MIGHT allow that character to come back as a tortured ghost, but then only rarely...

I find if the characters can just Raise Dead, they're just not afraid enough, you know? mUch better knowing that the next encounter could be the end of their beloved character...

 

[Darkness]

Why don't good Clerics raise everyone? A spell a day takes the pain away. For that matter, why don't evil Clerics? They're getting new converts to the religion, always a good thing.

Raise dead requires a diamond worth 500+ gp as a material component, for one. (BTW, resurrection has similar costs, and true resurrection requires a 5,000+ gp diamond.)

If the kidnapper kills the girl and Animates her as a skeleton, she can't be brought back even with True Ressurection until the skeleton is found.

True res would do the job; you don't need the body for it to work. And the soul is accessible, too, since you don't need it to create a skeleton. Now, if you had a ghoul or wight turn the hostage girl into one of its kind, matters would be different, of course...

BTW, Monte Cook has posted some interesting thoughts on related topics on his page. Here's the link.

 

[LostSoul]

Raise dead requires a diamond worth 500+ gp as a material component, for one. (BTW, resurrection has similar costs, and true resurrection requires a 5,000+ gp diamond.)

Which gets strange when you look at the price as affected by supply and demand. If I'm not wrong, as supply remains constant and demand increases, price increases; thus, a 500 gp diamond 1 year is probably going to be worth more the next. Sooner or later diamond "dust" is all that is going to be necessary (even if it still costs 500 gp).

 

[Darkness]

Agreed.

 

[hong]

Which gets strange when you look at the price as affected by supply and demand. If I'm not wrong, as supply remains constant and demand increases, price increases; thus, a 500 gp diamond 1 year is probably going to be worth more the next. Sooner or later diamond "dust" is all that is going to be necessary (even if it still costs 500 gp).

Thinking too hard about D&D is bad.

I concur with Jordan's post; the fact is that challenges in D&D at high level are not the same as those at low level. You can't assume that the same things that give a 1st level party pause will have the same effect on a 10th level one. That said, the finality of death is one of the universal aspects of the human condition, and tampering with it could lead to all sorts of icky world design questions.

Resurrection does have a role to play in a _game_, because it gives players more freedom to do all sorts of hair-raising, death-defying stunts with their characters. This is good, if you like lots of swashbuckling action in your game (as I do). The problems only crop up when you start asking why other people besides PCs can't be raised as well. Assuming you don't ban resurrection altogether, the solution I suggested in another thread applies here: assume that resurrection magic only works on a select few -- call them "heroes" or "chosen ones" or "masters of fate", or whatever you like. This means that PCs (who are heroes by definition) and important NPCs (who are heroes/anti-heroes by DM fiat) can continue to be raised. It also ensures that death isn't taken lightly, nor is the threat of being killed.

 

[Gnarlo]

Don't quite see it as the evil act everyone is jumping all over it for. Yes, they killed the hostage, but I didn't get the impression that that was what they were intending to do. And they did the caring, "gosh, I feel really bad about what happened" thing and did their best to make amends, etc. Poor tactics probably, but not evil. Negligent homicide at worst, not manslaughter. Now, if they start thinking in future encounters "hey, that didn't work half bad, you know, why don't we try it again and just raise them if we need to", then you have an alignment creep problem....

IMC, they'd have to consult their clergy in a contrite fashion and ask how they could make ammends, perhaps doing some service for the locals as well as part of it to demonstrate the sincerity of their apology. Just [in a true metagame fashion] to let them get the idea that accidents happen, but not to start considering it a viable tactic.

 

[Corinth]

Even the weakened revived girls can be fixed with the right spells to restore their lost points of Constitution, so a sufficiently resourceful group of PCs can completely fix any damage that they cause due to things getting FUBAR.

 

[hong]

Even the weakened revived girls can be fixed with the right spells to restore their lost points of Constitution, so a sufficiently resourceful group of PCs can completely fix any damage that they cause due to things getting FUBAR.

Not the Con/level loss due to being raised. You can't restore that. I suppose they could give the girl a permanent endurance spell, or an amulet of health.

I agree with those who say the party doesn't really need to be punished further, though. They've been up-front about the whole thing, and it sounds like they feel bad about what they did and have taken steps to rectify the situation. Just chalk it up as a learning experience and move on.

 

[Tzarevitch]

Don't quite see it as the evil act everyone is jumping all over it for. Yes, they killed the hostage, but I didn't get the impression that that was what they were intending to do. And they did the caring, "gosh, I feel really bad about what happened" thing and did their best to make amends, etc. Poor tactics probably, but not evil. Negligent homicide at worst, not manslaughter. Now, if they start thinking in future encounters "hey, that didn't work half bad, you know, why don't we try it again and just raise them if we need to", then you have an alignment creep problem....

IMC, they'd have to consult their clergy in a contrite fashion and ask how they could make ammends, perhaps doing some service for the locals as well as part of it to demonstrate the sincerity of their apology. Just [in a true metagame fashion] to let them get the idea that accidents happen, but not to start considering it a viable tactic.

The problem is that killing her was not an accident. The first time could be argued to be accidental. However, he shot her AGAIN! That is NOT accidental nor is it negligent. At best it is callous indifference for the girl's life, at worst it is manslaughter. (He fully intended to kill someone, he was careless and caught the wrong person.)

I am not saying that the rogue should be hanged for what he did because he did attempt to make amends but I believe the authorities should've demanded something more than a vague promise to help if the girl needed him.

I think what is being overlooked is that she had an arrow tear through her body TWICE. Getting hit by a barbed war arrow is not painless. They are designed to shred internals, stick inside and be very painful to remove.

The girl undoubtably was in shock and bleeding badly from the first hit and then she probably died very terrified and in great pain after she was hit again. How can being returned to life (which incidentally does not erase the suffering that she went through) possibly fully compensate her for the fact that she died painfully simply because the rogue couldn't be bothered to come up with a better plan?

Plus, if she only had one level, raising her would cost her some of her CON, leaving her health irreparably shattered. (And NO giving her an Amulet of CON or something does NOT make it better any more than someone giving you an artifical heart makes up for the fact that he shot up your real heart in the first place.)

-Long Story-
A lawful neutral PC in my old Planescape campaign did a similar thing. He kept insisting that the gnome npc that the PCs were sent to help pull his weight. The guy was a merchant with less than half the levels of the lowest level PC. The gnome was a 6th lvl rogue and he had no combat capability (compared to the PCs anyway). They were underground however and the guy was a gnome so the PCs decided that he could help. Also, PCs were being hard pressed and they decided needed whatever help they could get.

The PC gave him a magic weapon and some armor and sent him to swim across an underground pool since he knew the area. (The area was a flooded cavern and the PC actually pushed him into the water.) The gnome could swim better than the PCs but he was no match for the two 12HD giant crayfish that lived in the cavern. The gnome only got off a scream before dying horribly (the crayfish did more than 2x his total HP in one round and tore him to pieces.)

Now the PC did not strictly speaking intend to kill him. He thought the area was secure and the gnome actually was the only one who could swim. The effect however was that the PC tossed him into a situation that he didn't want to be in simply because he didn't come up with a better plan.

Afterward the PC had an attack of conscience (especially when he found out that the gnome was a ranking member of his own faction) and had the gnome resurrected. As you can guess, the gnome was happy to be alive again but was LIVID that the PC had callously sent him off to die. He was most certainly NOT going to accept the resurrection and a mere apology.

The gnome explained in no uncertain terms that the PC paying to get him returned to life did not BEGIN to compensate him for the suffering of having his life snuffed out. The gnome (I wish I could remember his name) then blackmailed the PC for the rest of the campaign with threats to let the Factol and the local Harmonium know what he had done. Since the PC was trying to rise in rank with his faction, having the information leak out to the Factol or getting arrested by the Harmonium for manslaughter would end his political carreer very fast. Needless to say the gnome made sure that he continued to do as he was told for the rest of the campaign.

Tzarevitch

 

[Wolfspider]

I agree with those who say the party doesn't really need to be punished further, though. They've been up-front about the whole thing, and it sounds like they feel bad about what they did and have taken steps to rectify the situation.

I'm sure the judge will take these things into consideration before sentencing them for the crime of manslaughter.