My House Rules Reference List

[Hashmalum]

The "death insurance" idea is quite amusing, but where would the clerics get the steady stream of diamonds that will be used up to raise all these people? Just because they have the money doesn't mean that many diamonds are up for sale in the area. Maybe this idea would work in an area immediately adjacent to a large diamond mine, but I really can't see it happening anywhere else.

 

[seasong]

The "death insurance" idea is quite amusing, but where would the clerics get the steady stream of diamonds that will be used up to raise all these people? Just because they have the money doesn't mean that many diamonds are up for sale in the area. Maybe this idea would work in an area immediately adjacent to a large diamond mine, but I really can't see it happening anywhere else.

1) As rarity goes up, price goes up. Smaller and smaller diamonds will satisfy the requirement.

2) That's not really an issue, however. The clerics of a D&D-based setting are hardly going to ignore the plane of elemental earth. In fact, small mining mission-teams, who spend a few weeks to a few months cut off from home, would be expensive... which just ensures the price of diamonds stays high.

3) Not everyone has to buy this insurance for it to be feasible. Out of 2 million people, if a mere 7,300 people want and can afford this insurance rate, it is a profitable enterprise for the two clerics who start up the business. My problem with it is that it is video gamish, that the PCs will buy this insurance and problem solved for their natural lifespan. I don't want save games in my campaign.

4) Even with the expensive raise dead that I'm going for, this kind of insurance will be possible. But it won't be AS possible, and it will be expensive enough that the PCs can't afford a revolving door.

Mind you, this would be a cool rule to build a culture or setting around, but I'm interested in building a campaign, and the ability of PCs to buy cheap death insurance just torques me the wrong way.

 

[Technik4]

Doesn't 3.5 make the death insurance less viable? Theres also the gods themselves that may be upset by these upstart clerics, 7,300 raise deads a year is noticeable if its from the same town...

Technik

 

[seasong]

Doesn't 3.5 make the death insurance less viable?

The insurance costs 500 GP per year instead of 50 GP per year. That is significant, but still does not limit the supply - it merely raises the bar on the lower class.

The change I intend to make is to give it an XP cost. That gives a hard limit on how many people can be brought back from the dead, and makes clerics more choosy about who they will help (as opposed to, "you pay for the components, gotta pray to my god, and gimme a day to prepare it").

Theres also the gods themselves that may be upset by these upstart clerics, 7,300 raise deads a year is noticeable if its from the same town...

There's two possibilities: First, that the gods will be the type to get upset about this, and second, that the gods won't be the type to get upset.

In the first case, the cultural shift would be towards abstract forces that provide the same domains. There's no reason, in the rules, to worship a god who isn't on YOUR side. People worship gods because they believe that it is in their best interest, with a few rare exceptions, and a god who isn't interested in letting his clerics USE their spells to further the faith will lose that faith.

Think of it this way: Athena gets mad and tells her worshippers off. Aphrodite continues to offer up the raise dead insurance. Who loves ya, baby?

In the second case, what's the prob?

And it wouldn't be 7,300 raise dead per year - that's just how many people are buying the insurance.

My thought is that if the gods want to prevent it, they will put it into the culture-shaping paradigm (i.e., what it costs to cast) rather than after-the-fact slapping the hand. People as a general rule respond MUCH better to established rules from the beginning than to being punished for overusing a gift they were given initially.

 

[seasong]

I have added a new thread to discuss the feats. Woo hoo!