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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Man in the Funny Hat" data-source="post: 5226320" data-attributes="member: 32740">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.</blockquote>

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