Kill raise dead... dead!

[TwinBahamut]

I'm fine with having Raise Dead spells/rituals/etc, but I wouldn't mind some major changes to how they work and how they are presented. Honestly, because of the nature of both why some people like it and why other people dislike it, some compromise is possible.

The biggest advantage of Raise Dead is that it lets a character return to the game after dying, which a lot of people like because they don't want to give up on using a character just because of a failure or major setback.

The biggest disadvantage of Raise Dead is that is undoing a major event of a campaign like a PC death cheapens the game for many people, making it feel like there is no penalty for failure and nothing on the line if they fail. It also causes all kinds of problems if you think too hard about how such magic would change the way society works, which can be a big hit to things like verisimilitude.

If you ask me, the best way to resolve everything is to leave a Raise Dead effect in, but change its concept so it no longer is some effect that "heals" or "undoes" death. It would be an effect that lets a PC return to play as they were, but doesn't change the fact that the character died and must suffer the consequences of that. Instead, you could think of it as an ability that borrows the PC from the world of the dead, or merely delays the inevitable effect of death. Basically, a revived PC is still ultimately doomed, but can still fight as a member of the party in more adventures of the campaign.

The above probably sounds a bit like necromancy, which might be fair enough...

 

[Stalker0]

I wish 4e had kept the idea they talked about in the preview books.

which is raise dead only works on people with "unfinished destinies".

It gives perfect plausability to the DM. Why can the PCs be raised and this king npc can't?....unfinished destiny.

How come Joe could get raised at 10th level but now at 20th he can't be?....his destiny is finished.

 

[Wightbred]

Surely this is the easiest potential option in a modular system:
- Raise Dead spell is in or out; and
- spell level can be varied.

That said TwinBahamut's doomed option is pretty cool.

 

[Wormwood]

which is raise dead only works on people with "unfinished destinies".

Honestly, we always took that to mean, "plot-crucial NPCs and any PC who hadn't finished level 30 yet"

 

[Giltonio_Santos]

Like someone pointed earlier, people will want to use it, so let's give them good mechanics to work with.

On the other hand, I'd like the book to state very clearly that it's a giant "yes, BUT" in the rules, and entirely up to GM fiat to decide if the actual ritual works or not in his world (or even in a given PC/NPC).

On the implied setting, though, I'd like raise dead to be written as something that rarely, if ever, happens beyond the realm of divine intervention.

I say that because, in my own experience, it's hard to opt-out of it once players believe that the default assumption is that it's possible and desirable to bring a dead character back instead of creating a new one.

Cheers,

 

[Falling Icicle]

What if they reduced the amount of time a person can be dead and brought back to life with the Raise Dead spell? For example, maybe the spell can only raise a person who has been dead for a short period of time (like caster level minutes or hours) instead of weeks or years. That way, it explains why villains don't always come back (there was nobody there to raise them in time), and so forth. The spell would be more of a revival spell than raising the dead, but still accomplish the same purpose - it would let PCs keep playing their character despite making a mistake or bad luck.

 

[Vayden]

I agree with the OP that I don't play with Raise Dead in my campaigns, but I'm going to join the chorus and say that yes, put it in the rules for people who do want it. It's a very very easy thing for me to take out for my campaigns (unlike, say, stun attacks for 50% of monsters over level 9).

 

[nnms]

I'm against Raise Dead as being part of the default as well.

Unsurprisingly, my biggest issue with it is that it doesn't really line up with anything in the genre. I don't ever recall seeing any fantasy fiction where the characters can just come back from the dead if someone buys it for them.

It's also pretty jarring when it comes to any sort of cosmological ideas about a setting. Goddess of Death or Fate? Don't worry, she doesn't actual have any sort of dominion over death or fate. You can just pay a fine, have a headache for a little while and get on with things.

One time I have seen "raise dead" done right was in the first (least awful) Conan movie. In order for Conan to come back to life, someone had to die in his place to balance the scales.

 

[Felon]

This is one of those threads where I wish the OP was tackling the braod issue, not a specific peccadillo. Here's the real question: should D&D be a game where long-term or even irrevocable consequences can be imposed on a character?

Two schools of thought:

If D&D is intended to simulate the experience of taking part in an epic work of fiction, then there has to be stakes. There ought to the potential for tragedy. And tragedy can't be defined as "boy, that was an expensive spell".

If D&D is intended to function to be a game that moves at a fast pace and allows participants to feel invested, then it is problematic for new characters to be constantly generated or for characters to be saddled with crippling consequences.

Personnally, I think the best compromise is to make it easy to prop a dying character back up, make it hard for them to reach the actual "dead" condition, but once it's reached, then that's that. If an enemy takes the time to administer a coup de grace, that's the DM's discretion, but heroes are tough and bounce back from trifles like massive blood loss. The DM can throw out some quest or plot device to bring the dead back, of course. The DM can do anything, but we don't need a specific spell or rule for that.

 

[trancejeremy]

The trouble is, fiction is not a game - whether a character lives or dies is not decided by a roll of a die, but by the author.

While there are many examples of a main character dying at the end of a novel (or at a relevant plot point), very rarely does it happen 15 pages into the book.

Indeed, in long running series of novels, the main character's ability to escape death is generally taken to ludicrous levels. Being raised from the death actually is more believable...