Monte on Life and Death (And Resurrection)

[Scribble]

Here is Monte Cook's latest Blog about Resurrection spells

Latest Bloggy Blog Blog


Have any of you actually used a resurrection/raise dead type spell as written?

 

[Thalionalfirin]

Here is Monte Cook's latest Blog about Resurrection spells

Latest Bloggy Blog Blog


Have any of you actually used a resurrection/raise dead type spell as written?

"He's not dead. He's just MOSTLY dead..."

 

[Andor]

Odd that the poll failed to address his central question which was "Is this a campaign style issue and thus up to the GM?"

To which my answer is yes, yes it is.

 

[Savage Wombat]

I think some nod to flavor is necessary, like the suggestion that most deceased souls (read: NPCs) simply don't want to come back under normal circumstances.

But yes, it's really up to the DM's game style, and should be spelled out in the book as such at some point.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Have any of you actually used a resurrection/raise dead type spell as written?

Many times, though a lot less lately than earlier. I've always required some jumping through hoops (in game) for even a relatively simple "raise dead". But I prefer metagaming, narrative options for the "not actually dead" part. Every character has got so many "Hero Points" or whatever that can turn dead into not quite dead. It's more tense than the cleric using a spell, because the resource feels more finite.

Plus, it addresses the gaping hole in the idea with the cleric doing something last minute and quick--what happens when the cleric is the one that bought it? (Hint, some BECMI items were invented solely to answer this question.)

That is, I don't like circuitious simulation of resurrection abilities to address what is clearly a metagaming, narrative concern. The only style of game where I find that the complicated simulation options make sense is a old school operational resource dungeon crawl at higher levels. In those, "raise dead" stings because you don't want to come out of the dungeon, but you've only got so many resurrection options.

Outside of operational play, if you didn't want "Hero Points" or the like, I think it would actually be better to say something like: "Look, you are a hero. This means you get 5/7/9 lives. But when those are gone, they are gone. Use them wisely." Then let each table decide what losing one of them means in the game fiction.

 

[I'm A Banana]

There's more middle ground than he's considering.

What he refers to as "revivify" -- get to your ally in a round or two and light off some magic and they might come most of the way back -- isn't a bad way to deal with the "I'm at 0 hp! Blargh!" kind of death. It's good combat medicine. It's sort of why the "bleed 'till your -10" rule was introduced. It's a good idea.

A slightly more powerful ritual -- though one not quite as exotic as he's talking about -- could be used within, say, a day. Enough time for you to drag your ally's corpse (assuming there is a corpse) back to town and hire a healer, or enough time to perform some exotic rite. It takes time for the spirit to pass completely beyond the body, even when it's not showing any "signs of life" (which fits most pseudo-medieval mythography: people were buried because no one actually dies, and when the Second Coming happens, they're going to get right back up again whole!).

Then you have the more exotic stuff, the legendary kind of magic that brings back forgotten kings and heroes, and that stuff can be rare, exceptional, one of a kind, unique, and special. Not everyone can come back like this, but maybe a few people can, and maybe the PC's can be some of those few people, if they play their cards right.

Traditional resurrection magic in D&D has been mostly of the latter part in power. I don't think there'd be anything wrong with making them more the former part.

There's also a much broader context about failure in D&D. You don't need death to have challenge in the game. If death can be undone with magic, what about the consequences for failing the other three pillars? What happens when you fail an exploration challenge or a social challenge? And can a magic spell simply undo that?

That all plays into the "challenge" of the game -- what happens when you don't overcome the challenge you're trying to overcome? Or, at least, when SOMEONE on the team doesn't?

And that's pretty subjective.

There's also a lot of ways to handle death that don't make an orc's sword swing the one thing standing between you and a new character -- death flags and nonlethal damage and the like all mean the story can go on, even if there's no death, even with a failure and a high challenge level.

I dunno. Lots of things get conflated in these discussions. It's probably useful to tease out a lot of the tangled threads to see what you want from each one, rather than reducing it to the old "Resurrection in D&D MAKES NO SENSE and everyone who likes it is STUPID!" madness.

 

[Dausuul]

Odd that the poll failed to address his central question which was "Is this a campaign style issue and thus up to the GM?"

Sorta kinda.

The existence of "resurrection on demand" is indeed a campaign style issue and up to the DM. At the same time, it's a question that deserves more consideration from the designers than your average DM quirk; whether or not RoD should exist is a) a large split within the fanbase with lots of people on each side, and b) a decision with big consequences for the game, especially in high-level 3E where the save-or-die effects come thick and fast. The game should be built to support both approaches out of the box. One of the things I like about 4E is that it readily accommodates the no-rez option, where older editions tend to have such high body counts (when played by the book) as to make no-rez untenable without extensive fudging or a rapidly rotating cast of PCs.

I voted "no resurrection" simply because I want that to exist as an option, and it's a lot easier to take a game built on the assumption of no resurrection and add resurrection to it than to do the reverse.

 

[Andor]

Sorta kinda.

The existence of "resurrection on demand" is indeed a campaign style issue and up to the DM. At the same time, it's a question that deserves more consideration from the designers than your average DM quirk.

True. But given that the modular approach of 5e is in theory the solution to this very issue I would expect to see two or three bundled 'ressurection option' modules in the DMG with a discussion of how each one impacts campaign style and world building. In fact that approach is sufficiently obvious I'm not sure why discussion is needed. Just pack 'em all in.

 

[avin]

My vote was "No raise dead".

With that said, in my D&D games id depends on the faith of the deceased.

If he doesn't believe in afterlife it's done. Oblivion. No raise dead.
If there's a purgatory in his faith, he could come back.
If there's eternal life in his faith, but no comeback, he does not.

And so on...

But gods are distant entities that you probably won't find in a try to some heaven or hell, because there are layers of reality on them.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

(Hint, some BECMI items were invented solely to answer this question.)

Which ones are thinking of.