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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Conaill" data-source="post: 2294967" data-attributes="member: 1264">An excellent point, and one that is often overlooked. We tend to immediately start discussing medieval justice systems, without considering how magic will upset the entire balance of society.So how much is a human life worth, really? I'd say the minimum would be 5450 gp for a Raise Dead spell (including spellcasting cost for a 5th lvl spell). Of course, that will still leave the victim with the loss of one level or some CON. So for full restitution, you'd have to look at true Ressurection: 26530 gp. Add to that some other minor costs like compensation for business losses, pain and suffering, court expenses etc.Also keep in mind that for anyone but the richest members of society, even Raise Dead is exorbitantly expensive. So if you kill a poor field laborer, his wife and children would be vastly better off getting the cash rather than having their husbandand father raised from the dead - and the laws of the land may very well reflect that! So, don't force the killers to actually get the victims resurrected, just have them fork over the cold hard cash. Those who are rich enough to afford their own Raise Dead or Resurrection can stipulate so in their will. Otherwise, it's up to the heirs to decide whether or not to bring back the deceased or to use the money for other purposes...Some combinations of this are possible as well, of course. The penalty for killing a peasant may only be 1000 gp or a Raise Dead spell - which might come into play if the party is short on cash but has a scroll of Raise Dead. After all, the peasant's widow would probably still be better off with 1000 gp than with a live husband. And medieval-type laws may very well provide much less than full restitution for the victim, especially if the crime was commited by a person of higher class on one of lower class. After all, it's the higher class that makes the laws.So where does that leave your party? For five minor dignitaries plus 4-5 guards, I think the party would be looking at around 100,000 gp at the minimum. And that's just for the restitution part, not including any actual punishment or deterrence!Of course, in the end it's pretty much up to the BBEG to decide the party's fate at this point. He's holding all the cards now, and is in an excellent situation to be able to mold events towards his ends. If he's got even half a brain, he should be able to figure out a way to remove the party from action until it's too late for them to do anything. Having them rot away in prison for two weeks while the judges "prepare for trial" would be a good start.As I see it, you essentially have three options for where to go from here:1) BBEG wins, the even bigger BBEG is released and you pick up the threads after the apocalypse. The world is not really destroyed, because the EBBBEG realizes there's worse things than death and he enjoys seeing humanity suffer. How would you feel about playing a dark Midnight campaign?2) The BBEG imposes some crippling penalty on the party but doesn't totally remove them from the picture. Considering how much power he holds over them right now and how tight the deadline is, it seems almost impossible the party would be able to stop his plan now. Trying to set up a situation where the party vanquishes the BBEG in this scenario may very well stretch the bounds of credibility.3) The party manages to get away without the BBEG being able to impose any crippling penalties (with or without any outside help to allow them to escape). They would still have to deal with being outlaws and trying to fight the BBEG from hiding, but this shouldn't be quite as difficult as in the previous scenario (but much harder than where they were a week ago).Good luck, and keep us posted!</blockquote>

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