RAISE DEAD: get rid of it and make D&D better

[Harmon]

Role Playing is how we make it more difficult.

Our Cleric bit the dust a while back (turned to stone then smashed to bits). We had to gather a finger and find someone capable of True Resurrection, then explain to the cleric why she would want to come back, and vouch for her ethics and such. (As a fall back we had purchased a Scroll, through another source, if we used that I am not sure, but the scroll was a little over DMG price). THe GM made it clear that- "be more careful, cause this isn't gonna go as easy the next time."

Had it been someone other then the Cleric, we would have been just as screwed, because she's only a Cleric 11/Rogue 1.

Should your cleric not be the one that is dead then perhaps make it a brief role playing experience, place a Gaes on the Raised character, placed on them by the patrons of the cleric.

Getting rid of Raise Dead will only make the Players make up new characters, and when they do those characters will be made with a focus. Characters that start at 1st lvl have a different feel and effect in the game then those that are made at 10th and are coming into a group that is established.

Good luck

 

[Sol.Dragonheart]

Raise Dead is a failsafe. Consider a person putting hours upon hours developing a characters history, mannerisms, background culture, friends, enemies, and then further detailing this through play. He builds his character well, uses intelligent tactics, and is generally very efficient and cautious. Then, at one point in the campaign, X enemy casts a Save Or Die spell on this character, a spell that can he easily avoid, and should, yet, he rolls a 1.

The end, of everything that the character was, all the effort behind the character, and all that the character could have been, merely on a 5% chance on a dice roll. When this happens, it can be extremely frustrating to players, and occassionally DMs who have been working with the player on developing said character.

This can easily lead to players quitting games, player burnout, DM frustration, or every new character that comes into a game having a tenth or less of the effort put into the initial character, since the player does not want to put so much work into a character that may die in such a trivial manner.

Raise Dead solves all of the problems with the above, and that is the reason it is in the game. If you believe that you can remove the spell to increase verisimilitude and magnify the sense of risk the PCs feel when entering into dangerous situations, without causing them to be overly cautious and act like something less than adventurers (another possible issue), go for it.

But, in most cases, the above issues are reason enough to leave the spell in, as the reduction in the feel of the game, if any, is far outweighed by the difficulties that may enter into the equasion in the enjoyment of the game itself when the spell is removed.

 

[Greg K]

Raise Dead is a failsafe. Consider a person putting hours upon hours developing a characters history, mannerisms, background culture, friends, enemies, and then further detailing this through play. He builds his character well, uses intelligent tactics, and is generally very efficient and cautious. Then, at one point in the campaign, X enemy casts a Save Or Die spell on this character, a spell that can he easily avoid, and should, yet, he rolls a 1..

I would still continue to make and develop pcs backgrounds (although I do think for 1st level characters, some players try to have had their character have done way too much) . Still, as for saves or dies, I would like them to be staged effects by how much a person fails the save- would still suck to roll a one, but that's the breaks of being an adventurer

 

[Greg K]

Some other possiblities.
- change the level of the spell or cover it under miracle (effectively changing spell level)
- restrict it to clerics of a specific deity
- both of the above

 

[Griffith Dragonlake]

No Death = Beer & Pretzels game

I dropped Raise Dead and Resurrection sometime in the Spring or Summer of 1978, shortly before the AD&D PHB came out. This was done with full support and approval of the players at that time. Over the years not a single regular player complained about this. Not a single one. By 1984 I had dropped or changed the Save or Die spells as well as the disintegration coridors and other save or die traps.

For the last seven years, myself and some of my grognards have been playing Diablo 2. We always play Hardcore Ladder (no respawning and the duration bound season reduces the amount of hand-me-down magic items).

My players and I believe that without death, we're playing a Beer & Pretzels game. Fine for others but not what we want.

 

[Crothian]

No more calculating the amount of gold, spell components, or whatever.

This part of the raise dead spells is pretty minor.

No more whining about the loss of level.

If you r players whine, then that is the problem not what they whine about.

MORE players using their noggins knowing that they're not going to be able to run back to daddy to get resurrected.

I doubt getting rid of raise dead spells with get people to think more. My own players think quite a bit even with the spell in the game.

MORE players having to come up with more than one character concept in their lifetime.

Evidence points to this not ever being a problem. I've never heard of someone only have one character over a players lifetime. Plus I don't see how that would even be bad.

LESS worrying about death.

I'm pretty sure that if death is the END of that character there will be more worrying

 

[JustKim]

I can't remember the last time a PC was brought back to life. It's much more tempting for players to create a new PC, put the sourcebooks that've come out recently to use, and avoid the cost and level loss that raising involves.

If anything, I'd like raising to be more accessible and less expensive, so that we could actually get through a campaign with the same characters we started with, and have the unfolding story mean something to the characters currently involed in it.

 

[phindar]

Personally, I think part of the problem of the Raise Dead/Resurrection family of spells is that death is too common. If Death is Final, it should be more rare. Every conflict doesn't have to be potentially fatal, that's just the default setting.

Its hard to say something should or shouldn't be in D&D, because D&D is a lot of different things. There are some games where Death as a Temporary Setback works, and a character may be Raised or Res'd several times in the course of a campaign, and there are games where Death as a Dramatic Ending works better.

 

[Greg K]

I can't remember the last time a PC was brought back to life. It's much more tempting for players to create a new PC, put the sourcebooks that've come out recently to use, and avoid the cost and level loss that raising involves.

I suppose that depends

a) if you use a lot of sourcebooks
b) you don't enforce the level loss on the new character

 

[Shining Dragon]

If you remove Raise Dead from the game then you have to figure out how to inject Common Sense into some of the Players.