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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Theo R Cwithin" data-source="post: 5217866" data-attributes="member: 75712">In a world where death is easily countered magically, I see the death penalty is not really such a penalty.  In such societies, perhaps having all assets seized and the criminal shunned and permanently exiled would be equivalent to death.  Alternatively, maybe longterm torture or "reprogramming" are valid punishments for heinous crimes.  Ring of Regeneration + acid drip/rat swarm/etc?If death is the way to go (since, practically speaking, the living criminal may yet seek revenge-- possibly with an army), then it likely becomes be illegal to raise the convict (just as it's illegal to harbor a criminal), at least for particularly bad crimes.  Keeping the body for a long time; or reincarnating, animating or destroying it, all complicate the raising process.  Maybe punishment of the soul is outsourced to Hell for a specified duration to ensure quality suffering.Or maybe it's possible to "mark" the body somehow, so even if the criminal is raised, the convict bears, for example, a scarlet "M" for "murderer" upon his forehead until his (next) death.  In this case he'd be due all the natural shunning and demerits that come with the crime, possibly things that would be codified into law (eg "No raised murderer shall be provided room and board by any licensed business, under pain of revocation of license for a duration not less than 1 year, and a fine of not less than  500gp.")A powerful government could commission magics to counter even things like True Resurrection.  Why not just introduce an expensive and jealously guarded spell called "Utter Death" that the government would use to eliminate the worst offenders, a spell that foils True Rez X% of the time? (Of course you have to keep that last little % uncertainty for dramatic effect ;-)</blockquote>

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