Raise Dead and its Social Implications

[Silveras]

My society adapted. Refer to my earlier post to see how.

Great. You decided to think about it and changed society to reflect the effects. However, what I said was, if you are running a society that has not adapted, it implies that the spells can't be as common as the Players Handbook makes them.

On a related note, the Miniatures Handbook has an alternative spell that I find much more palatable because it has fewer social repercussions: Revivify. The revivify spell is a basically a raise dead you can only use on-the-spot (must be cast the round after the target dies, before the soul/spirit fully departs). No level loss, you wind up stabilized at -1 hp as a result of this spell.

 

[JimAde]

Two things in "standard D&D" that I'm not really fond of are Raise Dead (and its variants) and "save or die" effects. I alleviate both these problems by reversing the consequences of Death magic. That is, IMC, you can only be brought back from the dead if you are killed by a Death effect or similar magic. This lets me use high-CR opponents that tend to have these powers without changing them, but still eliminates the social upheaval effects of the spells.

There's a cosmological backstory that justifies it, but I won't bore you with it

 

[The_Gneech]

Consider another implications -- if you have found a mass murderer, you could potentially kill him one time for each victim...

Only if he was enough of a chump to let himself be resurrected again and again.

-TG

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

That's one of the issues I am trying to adress with Urbis.

Basically, the rich don't die permanently unless (a) someone goes to a lot of trouble to do something nasty to their very soul, or (b) they die of old age (no one has found a repeatable method of stopping ageing - though lots of people are trying...).

Assassinations still have their use, even if they cease to be permanent in some cases. Sometimes you just want to send a message - dying is a very traumatic experience. Sometimes you want to keep someone from being around at a certain time - after all, it takes some time until you can find the right cleric who can cast it, and he will often need to specifically prepare it, too...

And it's entirely possible to ruin someone by killing him - repeatedly, if neccessary. A raise dead costs 5,000 gp in materials (according to the 3.5 rules). If you hide the body for long enough, or destroy it throughly, the dead person's relatives have to pay a whooping 25,000 gp for the material components - plus whatever else the cleric in question demands (hey, it's a seller's market at these spell levels... ).

But ultimately, if you want to destroy a man, it is usually wise to ruin him first - financially, politically, and social. And of this are urban adventures made...

Two more points:

- Sometimes, one of the more mercenary churches is willing to case raise dead for poor people. But this will usually involve some sort of generational contract in which the family pledges to serve the church until the debt is paid off...

- The druidic spell reincarnate avoids the old age dilemma, as it actually creates a new body for the dead person. Unfortunately, most druids in Urbis absolutely hate the modern city-based civilization of Urbis for a number of very good reasons. Thus, there is a secret circle of druids that basically blackmails rich and influental people from the cities to disrupt the cities in exchange for an immortality of sorts...

 

[Agemegos]

True Resurrection would cost 3,160,960gp (it would cost 1,910,960gp anyway as the component cost for True Resurrection is 25,000gp x 50 = 1,250,000gp)

Sorry, I'm working from PHB 3.0, so I'm rather out of date.

 

[Agemegos]

Now spin that around. If the society is pseudo-medieval (the mishmash of fact and legend we all generally think of for D&D), the spells can't be as common as that, or the society would have adapted.

Just so. Either the presumed setting of D&D or certain salient features of the D&D rules has to go: the two are inconsistent with one another. Unfortunately hacking the setting-busting spells out and then restoring game balance is a lot of work. Which is why most GMs who bother to be consistent in the first place prefer to adapt the setting.

 

[JDJarvis]

In my campaign nobles must surrender holdings upon death to an heir, getting brought back doesn't change the fact that one did in fact die. In some kingdoms nobles may not be brought back from the dead in any manner. Folks lie concealing the fact they were dead or go on to reclaim properties or claim new holdings but folks that do such are bad guys.

The basic reasoning behind this: If someone is willing to kill you once for the throne they'd be willing to do it again and again, that'd be bad for society and property values.

 

[Agemegos]

The basic reasoning behind this: If someone is willing to kill you once for the throne they'd be willing to do it again and again, that'd be bad for society and property values.

Well, it is not uncommon for a bad law to encourage what it is aimed at suppressing, so perhaps this feature of your world is realistic. But note:

Under your law, someone who kills the king for the throne actually stands to get it, which encourages him to try. Whereas if the revivified king got to keep his throne, there would be no point in assassinating a king to get his throne, because it simply wouldn't work. People wouldn't even try.

Let's try applying your logic to burglary rather than assassination: "If a person is prepared to break into your house to steal you stuff once, he'll be prepared to do it again, which would be expensive in repairs. It is better to let him keep his ill-gotten gains so that he won't damage the locks again." Whereas I say: "If we take the goods back and hang, draw, and quarter the thief, burn his body, mix the ashes into a block of concrete and put it in the foundations of the building, the incentive to steal stuff will be diminished."

And I am just trying to imagine the political realities. Can you imagine that if Alexander the Great had been resurrected, his generals would have been able to pull his empire apart. Hell no! Law or no law, he would have had the prestige to simply resume command.

Similarly with Henry I. Do you think the barons of England would have elected Stephen of Blois king just because Henry had been dead for a few days? And do you think he would have let them if they had tried? Henry didn't let the law put Robert on the throne ahead of him, and he wouldn't have let it put Stephen or Matilda on it ahead of him either.

Succession to a throne (or other landed estate) is rarely law and usually war or politics. If a king or noble was strong enough (politically and militarily) to get and keep it in the first place, he would still be strong enough to keep it after a revivification. If not, he could always get it again.

 

[Treebore]

I have kind of adapted/adopted the old 1e/2e way of doing it. The person wants to come back (as per the PH/DMG for 3e) and then a Will save versus DC 15+2 for every time they are revived (equivelant to 1e/2e system shock survival roll). If either one is a negative they can never be brought back.

Plus, in my games, evil people can never be brought back from the dead, they can only become undead. Seems to serve the gods of evil better that way.

Plus I have a set of divine curses that factor into all of this as well, but i won't bore anyone with those.

I do like the poster (force something) who has all (most) of the social implications worked out. I think i will integrate them into my world as well.

 

[Janx]

bear in mind, some people build religions out of dead guys coming back...

It sounds like 3.5 raised the prices for Raise Dead and True Ressurection, compare to 3e. My assumption is WotC doesn't want it to be too common either.

When you also calculate population size to leveled cleric distribution, you have a control for how easy it is to get a high enough cleric.

The basic rule of thumb is 10% of population has "levels" and 10% of that is the next level higher, etc. So out of a population of 1 million (a really big city), you've got:
1st level = 100,000
2nd level = 10,000
3rd level = 1,000
4th level = 100
5th level = 10
6th level = 1

What level was Raise Dead, 5th? Don't you need to be like 9th level to cast that? And a city of 1 million would be considered max size for most GMs in a fantasy campaign. And there aren't any level NPCs higher than 6th as a general rule in such a city. Meaning ANY higher level NPCs are special characters the GM has made up, and are not "guaranteed" to be there. Thus, even in the largest cities, high level characters are rare.

Heck, I didn't even get into breaking down the leveled characters into classes (only a fraction of those leveled NPCs are clerics).

As long as my math is right, and most people use the 10% standard, I don't see a problem.

Janx