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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jack Simth" data-source="post: 4263290" data-attributes="member: 29252">Calighis,Yes, the cheapening of death is annoying.  But at the same time, it is the way it is for reasonably good reasons.1) Players have a tendency to get emotionally attached to their characters, and get upset if they can't play them anymore.  From that perspective, getting them back is more fun than not - and when it boils down to it, the point of the game is to have fun.2) It strains verisimilitude that a group that's dealt with shape-shifting monsters will simply accept a new member.  Putting the previous member back together is, in that regard, more "realistic" than is simply suddenly taking in a new random person.3) Permanent negative changes to a character (Stat loss, primarily, but also several other possible methods) slowly make the character unplayable, mechanically - which isn't fun if you've gotten emotionally attached to the character (see 1, above) - so the 3.X D&D approach doesn't do that (except for 1st level characters); just a GP and XP hit (which isn't permanent, and doesn't generally make a character unplayable, mechanically).4) Long and/or difficult side-quests tend to interrupt the main plot.  This has a particular tendency to break verisimilitude when there's a timer of some kind or other to keep the players from simply taking a 24 hour nap after each battle.5) Long and/or difficult side-quests either leave the player of the dead character sidelined, doing little, or playing a character they're less inclined to play.  This is generally less "fun" for the player.6) Short and/or easy side-quests simply don't do what you want.That's a long way of saying that resurrection more or less needs to be part of the game, and that it can't be too difficult.  Hence the current incarnation of resurrection - 1,000 to 25,000 gp (depending on spell), one spell slot, a ten minute casting time, and one lost level later you're good to go.  There's some penalty of significance (lost level, lost gold), but it's not crippling (you can regain xp and gold without too much hassle) and it doesn't generally interfere with the plot.  The only issue is the old "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" bit - but then, that's been around for about 2000 years.</blockquote>

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