Laws about death penalty and resurrection

[Man in the Funny Hat]

Raise Dead was originally put into the game and continues to remain there NOT for setting design reasons but for PURELY meta-game reasons of accomodating players. NPC's aren't supposed to be raised from the dead - PC's are and only so that the PLAYERS can resume playing without having to start a character over from scratch. All it takes to control the in-game influence of Raise Dead is to have the DM actually exercise the power that was put into his hands for this very purpose.

As DM YOU control what NPC's will and won't do, can/can't do, both before and after they die. The DM need make only two assumptions: that if an NPC's afterlife is SUPPOSED to be pleasant then they wouldn't want to return to the toil and struggles of mortality even though they have the choice - and REGARDLESS of whatever they may have said or felt about the idea when they were alive. If thier afterlife is NOT one of stepping off to paradise then whatever deity or supernatural forces control their afterlife forbid and prevent their return to life, again regardless of what the NPC may have desired or believed while alive. Not a single NPC - not one... NOT EVER - is resurrected without the DM's express desire that the NPC do so. PC's, of course are free to do as they like, but the DM has both authority and responsibility to control the influence of Resurrected dead upon his campaign. That influence need never extend beyond the PC's and rare, SELECT, NPC's that the DM wants or needs to bring back to life.

 

[Vaslov]

Great topic OP. It's always fun to play what if.

I agree with the posters above who say the result should match the style of the game for ease of access and approach. Who with the ability and planning wouldn't put some sort of plan in place.

The government, what ever form it might be, would likely look poorly upon those who usurped their authority and brought the condemned back to life. Likely there would be consequences for the family or organization who reversed their decision. That could lead to all sorts of nifty fighting between power groups. Maybe there is even a special police force to investigate such occurrences (New Law & Order: Rez Patrol!).

What leader is going to put them in a place where there is the potential to be disobeyed and undermine the perception of their authority? Can they really afford a fight? I would expect other forms of punishment would be more common as a problem avoided is easier than a problem created.

I liked the solution in Hollowfaust where once dead the state owns the body. I think citizens had about three days to turn bodies of the deceased over. Of course there are always those who try to break the law...

Finally there is always the gruesome approach of the government providing both the execution and raise. "You shall be hung, raised, quartered, raised etc for the next month."

 

[deadsmurf]

I like Eberron's take on resurrection - it's hard to do in the first place since there aren't a lot of high level clerics or haflings in Jorasco that can cast the spell/ritual in the first place, so they can ask for exorbitant alms/fees, and in the end it's hit or miss if it will end up working anyway since once a Soul has reached the plane Dolurh it begins losing memories of the world and any will to leave that dreary plane, and most souls will reject attempts to resurrect them - luckily PCs are important enough that their memories stay intact for the most part, and have enough left to do in the world in their destiny that resurrection isn't quite as difficult.
Because it is so rare, and because the law does not want to recognize the rights of the undead: "Once a creature has died, he no longer has any status in the eyes of the law." - you lose your property, criminal record, societal status such as nationality and nobility etc would all be forfeit. You might be able to petition a government to recognize you as a new person, but you likely would need to fight for it in court.

This gives me interesting ideas for a campaign actually

 

[Ed_Laprade]

I houserule that the destruction/removal of the head equals permanent death. Thus the PCs can usually be raised if they win, and the NPCs can't. If they lose...

(And, of course, executions are all by beheading.)

 

[pawsplay]

Raise Dead was originally put into the game and continues to remain there NOT for setting design reasons but for PURELY meta-game reasons of accomodating players.

How do you figure? Many clerical spells are based on Biblical miracles, of which resurrection is one.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

Raise Dead was originally put into the game and continues to remain there NOT for setting design reasons but for PURELY meta-game reasons of accomodating players.

How do you figure? Many clerical spells are based on Biblical miracles, of which resurrection is one.

Because no other possibility makes sense. The bulk of spells were created BY players for the use of PLAYERS. The spell lists were not created with an eye at any point towards widespread or habitual use by NPC spellcasters. No sane DM is going to sit down and think, "I need a cleric NPC to be able to bring anyone they want back from the dead," because of the obvious fallout of assuming that kind of magic is widely available to his campaigns population of NPC's. In fact, if you read the 1E DMG section on researching new spells and in areas talking about players acquiring spells from defeated NPC's you'll see plenty of advice to the DM to be VERY careful about what they allow in their campaigns and to consider ALL the ramifications of doing so.

It DOES make sense if you look at it as a PLAYER would look at it. "My PC's keep dying and I'd rather find some way to continue to play them than have to create a new PC and reinvest time and effort in him, only to have HIM killed randomly." And, of course, random, frequent PC death WAS a commonplace outcome in early era games. The player whips up a "Raise Dead" spell for use by a fellow PC cleric, the DM hangs on a penalty and limitation or two (no player is going to volunteer a resurrection survival roll, Con loss, etc.), and play proceeds with players happily now bringing their most favored and least fortunate PC's back from the dead on a regular basis.

It isn't until much later, after the spell is now in print and part of a standardized clerical spell list that DM's start looking at it from the NPC's point of view and with the assumption that it WOULD BE available widely and used regularly by NPC's. And THAT's where the problems came in. If it was never designed or intended to be used by NPCs upon OTHER NPCs the inclusion of the spell makes sense. If it HAD been considered in light of the possibility of the wholesale elimination of humanoid death, then the game would have developed VASTLY different rules regarding contraction and curing of disease, curing wounds, and MOST OBVIOUSLY - how raising characters from the dead actually works.

 

[knightofround]

Because no other possibility makes sense. The bulk of spells were created BY players for the use of PLAYERS. The spell lists were not created with an eye at any point towards widespread or habitual use by NPC spellcasters. No sane DM is going to sit down and think, "I need a cleric NPC to be able to bring anyone they want back from the dead," because of the obvious fallout of assuming that kind of magic is widely available to his campaigns population of NPC's. In fact, if you read the 1E DMG section on researching new spells and in areas talking about players acquiring spells from defeated NPC's you'll see plenty of advice to the DM to be VERY careful about what they allow in their campaigns and to consider ALL the ramifications of doing so.

Hmm...yeah sorry I don't buy this. Perhaps that would hold true with 1E & 2E, but that is no longer the case. In 3E and 4E, the spells (including rez spells) *do* have market values and component costs, and I think the game is better for it. I enjoy the complexity that it adds to epic level play; when death is just the beginning of truly defeating a foe.

One thing that has stayed constant throughout all the editions is that the spell has *always* had a DM-fiat in there. Whether its a metagame warning, or some fluff like "not all people want to be rezzed" the tool is there for DMs to use.

So much of D&D is boiled down to metagame nowadays. If you want to fuel that by further differentiating PCs and NPCs, go right ahead...but I wouldn't go as far as saying "rez spells were meant for PCs only".