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

[Numion]

Raise Deads are okay with me.

As to the OPs specific grievances with RS, I can tell you for one thing that removing it doesn't at least make players consider new concepts automatically. In our RoleMaster campaign one player made a fighter names Berg. Then came his brother Barg. Then Burg. Then Borg (sadly, without mechanical enhancements).

The lethality of the system combined with no resurrections just made us play real .. um, I don't want to say carefully (because we still died a lot), but cowardly, rather. I don't like that.

BTW, DMs usually fail to fully grasp the non-mechanical 'penalty' of dying. For a competitive player, a character death means failure. They've made something they enjoy for a while, put effort into it, and it's a failure. Like if you made a drawing and it turned all crappy, that would really suck. That's why my players sometimes don't even want to a raise if the character dies; just like you'd throw a crappy drawing away without trying to fix it with an eraser.

 

[phindar]

Spells like Raise Dead, Regenerate, and such gives me, the player, a chance to know that a 11 year investment doesn't need to end in one missed die roll.

For me, the flaw in the system is that a character's fate (at the level R&R's become an option) is routinely put on one missed die roll. If that didn't happen, Raise Dead wouldn't be as necessary. I'd agree that as written now, you have to have the R&R's. Without them, D&D would be unrelentingly grim. But that doesn't mean you have to have R&R's, it just means you have to fix the problems the R&R's are meant to counteract.

 

[Remathilis]

For me, the flaw in the system is that a character's fate (at the level R&R's become an option) is routinely put on one missed die roll. If that didn't happen, Raise Dead wouldn't be as necessary. I'd agree that as written now, you have to have the R&R's. Without them, D&D would be unrelentingly grim. But that doesn't mean you have to have R&R's, it just means you have to fix the problems the R&R's are meant to counteract.

To do that, you'd need to first of all remove ALL save-or-die effects. Goodbye Slay Living, etc. After that, I'd recommend Saga's Death and & Dying rules.

You have hp, but you also have a threshold (= to your fort defense, D&D would be 10+ fort bonus). Every time a single blow breaks your threshold, you are moved one step on the condition track. The track roughly goes: (fine, -1, -2, -5, -10, unconscious). The numbers represent penalties you take to die rolls until you rest or recover (usually a full round to recover one step) If you are unconscious but still have hp, your just out, but very much alive. If you lose all your hp, you automatically drop to unconscious and are dying. You will die if you don't get help OR you take your threshold in damage again. If you take damage equal to your remaining hp + threshold, your just dead on your feet, so to speak. Lastly, anyone trained in first aid has 1 (one) round to get you and roll a 25 treat injury check. If they do, you don't die but remain at 0 hp and unconscious. If they fail or don't get to you in that round, you officially die and the spirit leaps out the mouth and escapes the body (ok, I made the last part up).

Something like that in D&D makes it less likely that one bad roll (a bad save, a crit, or a failed search check) is going to make your character dead, but death from real events (falling 200 feet) still is lethal.

But you are right, as D&D stands, too many ways to die bypass your hp pool and instead rely on a single die roll (usually a save) or attack your con score (which is pretty much finite, barring stat bumps). Something closer to Sagas Condition Track/Threshold would make death real, but would give PCs lots of chances to reverse it before the PC dies.

 

[Aeric]

Which brings us back to...why have any "problems" at all then? If raise dead flows like wine, why not just make all damage subdual? Why have a death option at all if it can never possibly occur?

Raise Dead takes a 9th level cleric to cast; they're not exactly common in any campaign world I know of. It also takes 5,000gp worth of diamonds. I doubt that the local jewelcrafter just has those diamonds lying around. Most likely, they're bought up by the temples in the big city or by the wealthy/nobility, both of whom are saving them to use on people they deem important enough to raise (the D&D equivalent of insurance ). Unless your characters are famous world-saving heroes, it's doubtful that either of these groups is going to give up their rare and expensive spell components to Raise some schulb off the street, gold or no gold.

The problems escalate when the whole body isn't available. Missing parts, disintegration, dissolution by acid, destruction by fire, digestion by monsters, teleportation to other planes of existence...all of these situations remove the "simple" Raise Dead spell from the table and forces characters to go higher up the food chain.

Death is kind of silly in D&D. It doesn't ACTUALLY happen..you don't even need to put in more quarters to continue playing

Quarters, no. A ton of hard-earned gold and a lot of sweet talking, questing, and other hard work, yes. There are times when I'd rather give the DM a quarter and keep on playing!

 

[bowbe]

You know, even with "death off the books" vis a vi the Raise Dead spell and it's ilk of feats and spells that allow the raising of outsiders and what not, there is still permanent death in the game, especially at higher levels.

During our "final battle" in a 21-22nd level campaign one of the two party clerics managed to get himself imploded 3 times. Of course he was resurrected 3 times.

I love save or die spells. I also ove raise dead, because I know that there are other ways that characters may "permanently" end their sojorn.

Epic or Deity Level Curses: were the soul of a PC becomes the snack of some demon lord/devil or god that they were cursed by is an example. PO Set and get his black mark then die in combat later, no amount of weasling keeps you from turning into a mummy under the command of Set. Thats a "campaign choice" but it works. They have the chance to "remve the curse" through quest, but if they die in the meantime... woops... very very un-dead.

Bad Draws from the Deck of Many Things. We had a guy draw fool, dunjon and void in that order. For intents and purposes his PC is utterly destroyed or requires a VERY high level campaign to get him back, one that in my group, wasn't an interest factor for the OTHER PCs who were tired of his power gaming hijinks.

Denying One's Faith: This works depending on your campaign. If a cleric, paladin or what have you fails their deity, they may not recieve a raise. They died, soul-less and without the grace of their god. This works very well in a ton of campaigns. If a GM chooses to make a faith based campaign where worshipping a god is important and paying tithes, observing rites is important to all classes, PCs who greedily fail in their observances may find themselves outside of grace and truely dead. Sure that could require some book keeping or a "grace scale" to accomplish but it works well to keep the amount of cheeseball reasons to raise to a minimum and focuses the PCs on the campaign world.

The above works for all alignments and styles of play.

Case

 

[Arkhandus]

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

No.

To both getting rid of it, and any notions that it would make D&D better. You're free to play Midnight, Conan d20, or Shadowrun if you want PC death to be permanent and adventurers' lives to be really grim. But don't force that feel onto core D&D for the rest of the D&D players.

 

[Virel]

As said above, "What I *do* have a problem with is the revival being automatic once the spell is cast. There needs to be some small chance of failure...1e's resurrection survival roll mechanic handled this perfectly"

R&R was not automatic, fail the roll and the character was gone forever. There was also a limited to the number of times a character could get Raised. In my 1e campaign which is still running, characters really do their best to avoid getting killed. The fact that R&R isn't automatic means they really don't want to take the chance.

It is nice to have R&R when a player wants a well loved character back. I don't think there is anything worng, with have a good chance of getting the character you like back. Some of the characters we have, have been played for years. My newest characters, were rolled up over three years ago. We play about every two to three weeks.

Action points are little more than a "cheat" IMO but each to their own.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

As said above, "What I *do* have a problem with is the revival being automatic once the spell is cast. There needs to be some small chance of failure...1e's resurrection survival roll mechanic handled this perfectly"

R&R was not automatic, fail the roll and the character was gone forever. There was also a limited to the number of times a character could get Raised. In my 1e campaign which is still running, characters really do their best to avoid getting killed. The fact that R&R isn't automatic means they really don't want to take the chance.

It is nice to have R&R when a player wants a well loved character back. I don't think there is anything worng, with have a good chance of getting the character you like back. Some of the characters we have, have been played for years. My newest characters, were rolled up over three years ago. We play about every two to three weeks.

Action points are little more than a "cheat" IMO but each to their own.

So, instead of losing a character to a bad Search check, you lose the character to a bad Resurrection Survival roll. How is that an improvement?

 

[Steel_Wind]

I have run no-raise campaigns for over 20 years.

My current campaign is, by definition, a RAW campaign with no house rules. If it's in the rules - we use it.

So we have raise dead.

Is it annoying? In ways, yes; in others, no.

I can certainly see the OP's point of view. If you don't want raising of the dead - then don't permit it. Period. It's the easiest rule to institute by DM fiat. Say it - and it is so.

What others may do is up to them. If the OP is saying as a default assumption, that raise dead ought to removed...whatever. It's a judgment call and the OP's is as valid as everybody else's.

Whether it's a default rule on or off - the OP wants it off. He is entitled to that view. More than that? I don't know how it is a useful discussion.

 

[Midknightsun]

I don't think the OP was trying to force people to agree with him (which is a pretty silly idea when you think about it). He's proposing that Raises aren't needed and even break versimilitude. Personally, I agree even though I allow it in my campaign (under Arcana Evolved rules). If you don't like the idea, fine. No one is telepathically forcing the community to comply with the OP. So what, you wanna keep raises? Good, go for it. Wanna get rid of it? Hey, have a blast. I've done it both ways in 3.5. With a little tweaking (less than you think) it works just fine to take it out. Nobody ran away crying or screaming. Nobody became super cowards. Rocks did not fall and kill everyone. But do what works for you. And even if you want to discuss why you think one way is better, that's cool too, but there's no reason to give birth over it. As long as your group is fine with it, than great, have fun.