Raise Dead now costs 5000 GP!

[Al]

But it is not "gentle" by ancient, mediaeval, or even early modern standards.

Church Tithes = 10%. Nuff said. We could discuss the nature of the tension between the church and secular authorities at this juncture, but I'd rather talk about the cost of raise dead. Incidentally, one of the reasons secular taxation tended to be was because of serfdom- the time was 'taxed', in effect, by the lord demanding a certain number of days worked, which equates to a tax on income (since you lose a number of days which could otherwise have been spent in your fields).

Anyway, back on topic...

If I have to guard someone for a long journey/quest

Big deal. Long journeys past 9th level...should we ban teleport? Long 'quests' can be made easier through the use of Otiluke's Resilient Sphere and other protective magic. If he dies and you raise him- so what?

By and large, it is rather tough to get killed in D&D

Now you must be joking. A high-level fighter can take out a wizard in one full round's worth of attacks. High-level invisible rogues can annihilate characters in double-quick times. A single crit from the barbarian's greataxe could mean curtains. By the time instakill spells are taken into account (let alone mega-damage blast spells) mortality rates are huge. Mechanically, characters *seem* more durable than in other types of setting, but D&D is far more combat-orientated. I'm going on a limb here, but I'd argue that in my experience of GURPS, there is actually a lower mortality rate. Part of this is due to mindset and setting, but I think that an *average* D&D campaign probably has a higher mortality rate than an *average* GURPS campaign, for example.

Death is such a huge part of life, our stories, myths and legends

One problem. The storyteller, myth-writer and legend-maker have total control over what happens in their stories. DMs cannot account for bad rolling or PC imcompetence unless they heavily rig the rolls. Death is only cinematic if it happens at cinematic occasions. Dying because Orc 85 got a lucky crit and rolled max damage is not heroic, legendary or mythical.

Being raised from the dead isn't heroic

Nonsense. Watch Buffy . Seriously, it all depends on campaign parameters. There is nothing 'unheroic' about being raised.

Because it disrupts the versimilitude of my game? Because none of the other examples listed actually cause any player expectations as to how ordinary people live their lives? Because there is then no logical reason why even the moderately wealthy die young? Because so many plot devices and adventures become completely pointless, or at best contrived and ludicrous, after a certain level.

On versimilitude, why should it disrupt the game? High magic can incorporate it perfectly well. Versimilitude can only be disrupted if you allow it to be disrupted. Obviously, parameter conflict should be avoided, but if 'easy raising' is a campaign parameter, how does this damage credibility? As for expectations, this, again, is a campaign parameter- just mull over attitudes to easy raising. As for plot devices, work around it. If the prince is assassinated, have the assassin take the body, or use a barghest, or Trap the Soul, or something. Work with the system, not against it.

You can't have a murder mystery, without involving magic in the murder, and once you involve magic, any use of logic flys out the window. Thus the solution of the murder relies not upon the use of logic (as a good detective story) but on how well the player can manipulate the PHB spell section

Again, no. This is because you're applying a real-world paradigm to a fantasy setting, so there will obviously be conflicts. Adapt the situation for a magical setting. Elder_Basilisk expertly outlines the shifting assumptions in an increasingly magical scenario. Just work with it- use counter-divinations such as Undetectable Alignment and Nondetection. Use Dimensional Locks to thwart Teleport. Use Trap the Soul, barghests or whatever to thwart resurrection magic. Hide the body to prevent Speak with Dead. To really confuse the players, have a dead servant polymorphed into a prince, then kidnap the real one. Then all the fancy Communes asking 'Did X kill the prince?' will go up the creek. Remember, work with the system, not against it.

in my homebrew, returning from the dead is not an option.

Fine. That's your prerogative. My problem was the core rules changing. Sure, I can just reject the change, but that's not really the point.

Ultimately, raise dead only affects versimilitude if you allow it to. Adapt the campaign setting to fit high magic. A nation IMC uses prolific necromancy to bolster its workforce with zombies- and sells them on the open market. One nation bans raising since it feels like necromancy, but permits reincarnation, since this creates a 'new person'- but with none of the old person's property or legal rights. Work with the system, not against it.

 

[Chimera]

Substitute "Joe Rich Merchant", then. Same thing.

Furthermore, your insight is lacking. "Joe Commoner being raised" covers a bunch of problems, foremost among them being "the guy we were supposed to capture/guard/keep alive got killed? No problem, we raise him."

I guess that's because my homebrew religion rules and setup make this kind of thinking difficult.

Besides, it's D&D. It's a fantasy world in which people can be raised from the dead without great difficulty. I've never had a problem with that. Sure, it makes 'murder mysteries' and so forth a bit harder to plot out, but it *can* be done.

 

[green slime]

Posted by Al

One problem. The storyteller, myth-writer and legend-maker have total control over what happens in their stories. DMs cannot account for bad rolling or PC imcompetence unless they heavily rig the rolls. Death is only cinematic if it happens at cinematic occasions. Dying because Orc 85 got a lucky crit and rolled max damage is not heroic, legendary or mythical.

Nor is waving staff 2B over the stiff, to bring back the unlucky deceased, for the umpteenth+1 time.

Heroes can die ignoble deaths. But their heroic deeds live on. I'm not asking for cinematic deaths, just that death be more serious than "hohum, bring back the dead".

I wasn't referring to the actual dying part of legends, but more the avoidance of death. The search to cheat death. WIthout which, Gilgamesh, Persephone and others just seem laughable.

Elder-Basilisk had some good points, but they are only valid if the players are into using the PHB spell section. Most players sort of stumble around, and don't really know half of their spells well enough. As soon as magic is involved in the murder, the possibilities for misdirecting information are endless. So it becomes pointless to seek a logical explanation. And the extremes to which a killer must go to eradicate someone, as well as the precautions nobility must take to avoid such extreme measures... It becomes real messy, real fast.

 

[green slime]

This is hardly a problem unique to Raise Dead.

Never said it was. But I think that they way in which it combines, to screw with plots, campaigns, and the fact that it is too easy to raise the dead, all place it on my dislike pile. I'd much rather have a device for avoiding character death (even at low levels!), than need to constantly raise the dead.

Detect Poison

Not a problem really. I expect this information to be fairly obvious, if you have a relevant skill.

Endure Elements

Not a problem. Still needs to be memorized aforehand, or prepared ahead somehow. Doesn't really meddle with plots though. I can still make enough of an environmental hazard that they'll feel the squeeze.

Detect Evil

No problem for me. Evil has to be like EVIL. Not just your average goon/drugdealer. At least, that is the way I read it.

Zone of Truth

To a certain degree. Truth is subjective, and you are allowed to be evasive. And there is no way to tell if the creature made its save or not.

Invisibility

Again to a degree. It is such a staple of the genre that it is expected.

(Our boat has a hole in the bottom; how are we going to get off this island now? Make Whole....

Make Hole? Or warped? Doesn't mend warped wood...

Locate object

Has an escape clause, whereby the object must have been experienced first hand.

Augury

Which is just a method to provide further information should the players be at a loss of what to do next. And then the players spend 30 minutes arguing about the validity of the prognosis, as there is after all, a chance for failure.

Speak With Dead

Yes, but I can cope with this... This is just another witness, after all, and is brief, cryptic or repetitive as it is needed to be.

Discern Lies

Yeah but it is also available as a skill sense motive, which you mentioned, and so is hardly breaking the mold. Just liek a good detective "knowing" when a witness is lying.

Scrying

Well... sort of. It can be protected against, detected, the scryer can be revealed, I don't see it radically changing anything in the way ordinary people live, or how nobles live their lives. At best it is good information, at worst, misinformation.

Divination

Well, to a certain degree... There is that chance of failure (causing discussion amongst the players again...) And it is not necessarily going to be understood in time to do any good... But it could have an affect, if you wanted it to. If you have the time.

And none of the above spells are really above and beyond what we see in Legend, myth, folklore. Oracles, Scrying, knowing things about people / places / objects.

Raise Dead

And here is my beef. I dislike it because it changes too much. It is too cheap, available for many. It makes some stories utterly rediculous. It premotes metagame thinking on scale unlike other spells. It disrupts the game because, all of a sudden lowly priests of a major temple are expected to be raised by the church

Teleport

Scry, buff, teleport works for the bad guys as well... which explains why the PCs are constantly getting raised...

There are so many ways to thwart this strategy it isn't funny, and I find it amazing that it is constantly coming up. Sure it works. For a while, against some foes, but not all. It isn't going to work against the general leading an invading army, thats for sure.

My players detest using teleport due to the chance of failure. At least one player does. Surprisingly, his characters are the ones that have managed to stay alive. He is such a coward.

And, incidentally, as long as the DM actually gives thought to how the NPCs did what they did, it's not true that "once you involve magic, any use of logic flys out the window." If you make sure that the NPCs have the ability to do what they did, your players may end up saying things like, "Well, the dog was barking outside but the neighbor didn't see anything smash the window. So we know that, whatever killed the merchant was probably invisible. Now, as far as we know, many wizards, priests of trickery gods, bards, and skilled assassins from the Greyhawk guild can do that. So can more ordinary thieves with scrolls. Now, in the Theocracy of the Pale, all arcane spellcasters must register with the church and, when we checked we know that there are only 20 registered arcanists in the city of Holdworthy (present company excepted) and they were all at the Arcanist's guild last night. It could have been an unregistered arcanist, but since Griswold was killed by some kind of shortword--and it was a very precise strike right to the carotid artery, the unregistered arcanist would have to be some kind of dilletante skilled with weaponry and sneak attacks as well. There was no indication that Griswold was involved with any cults and there was no indication of religious ritual on the body, so it probably wasn't an evil priest. From the markings on the window, the murderer wasn't able to pick the lock so it probably wasn't the Greyhawk Assassin's guild--they'd be more competent. So our best bet is probably some kind of unregistered dilletante wizard or a rogue using scrolls of invisibility. Let's head out to the city and find out who might have been buying scrolls or spell components recently--probably from the underworld since the Arcanist's guild storehouse only serves its members. We might check the jewelers' too--if he can cast spells of the third circle, he might well ward himself from divinations with nondetection and that requires Diamond dust."

Or it could be an illusion of a dog barking, and the window was smashed after the fact. Perhaps the window isn't really smashed, it is a permanent illusion...

Could be an illusion of a dead body, could be cut after being held, could be the religious trying to fob it of on to some rogue, needn't be a local, they could have scry-buff-teleported in from the darkside of the moonn. So no local knowledge of illegal purchases. Nor registered arcanists. It is the job of the DM to drop hints, obviously, but paranoid players just sit there and go, "This is a set-up..."

You end up with such circle arguments from the players during this, that it becomes pointless (although it can be fun to listen into, for a while, but not an entire evening). Magic can do almost anything in the game.

Then you just cast raise dead get the stiff back to life, and carry on in the dungeon.

It seems to me that logic can operate quite well in conjunction with magic as long as the magic in the world operates according to a stable system that is relatively well known to the players. In fact, players can do CSI style analysis of magical and aligned auras and the spells used at the crime scene.

As magic is capable of almost anything, it can create demiplanes, slay from a distance, turn solids into gas, cause the blind to see, sow hate amongst friends, ... SO much so, that it becomes boundless. At high levels, "who killed the king" is unanswerable, as the king's enemies are all so powerful in their own right, that the capacity to decieve and delude any investigator are complete. Players, being aware of this, would rather go demon-bashing.

So yeah, for a good murder mystery, perhaps I should go play something else

Anyway, thanks for some ideas, and the input and advice. Even if I stubbornly keep my head shoved into the sand, raving about seeing the dead walk again...

 

[DMauricio]

"Mostly dead"
"All dead"
Hong "because when they're mostly dead, there's only one thing to do!" Ooi

Unfortunately, Miracle Max and Prince Humperdink do not feature in any of the campaigns I'm involved in.

Its a pity though.


Dom

 

[Agback]

Church Tithes = 10%.

Well, no. They were often much lower. Tithes at 10% were only charged on the natural increase of land, ie. crops. Lower tithes were charged on things nourished by land (eg. herds), and personal tithes were lower still.

See http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14741b.htm.

Besides which, you were trying to claim that the king alone recieved 10%, not that the hordes of clergy had 10% distributed among them.

Regards,


Agback

 

[Agback]

Incidentally, one of the reasons secular taxation tended to be was because of serfdom- the time was 'taxed', in effect, by the lord demanding a certain number of days worked, which equates to a tax on income (since you lose a number of days which could otherwise have been spent in your fields).

That isn't a tax on income. People with high incomes did not pay more.

The work service owed by a serf to his lord was a form of rent on the land he leased. The amount of work owed depended on the number of virgates of land held, not on income. Merchants, tradesmen, and labourers did not do any service at all, no matter what their incomes were.

And besides, this work service was paid to thousands of different lords. It was not concentrated in the revenues of the King.

Regards,


Agback

 

[The Little Raven]

No, that logic really doesn't make any sense. I mean, make it cost whatever you like, I don't care, I can house rule all I like. But don't try to justify it with convoluted logic. "I get weaker, therefor I get poorer" doesn't make any sense. I can only marginaly stomach the "I get weaker, therefor I get dumber" bit that happens when you loose feats, skills, or mental ability boosts.

Then I guess you've never been in any type of near fatal accident.

I had to relearn how to walk when I was 15, even though I learned to walk when I was an infant. Funny how because of a simple injury (water skiing accident), I suddenly became "dumber" and had to relearn things.

I had a friend who was in a car accident about three years ago, and he is just now returning to complete fluency in English (which is his native tongue) and a 12th-grade reading level.

And remember... neither of us died and returned to life, so I'd say that our experiences were somewhat less harrowing and traumatic than DEATH would be.

So, in summation, it makes perfect sense for a character that is brought back from the dead to be weaker.

 

[Gizzard]

Tithes at 10% were only charged on the natural increase of land, ie. crops. Lower tithes were charged on things nourished by land (eg. herds), and personal tithes were lower still.

I'm not sure I see that, even in that link you gave. It seems like tithes have bounced around a bit, but the goal is to make them effectively 10% - hence the word tithe. For every potential discount there seemed to be an equal potential markup - the tri-annual tithe, the special Crusade tithe etc etc.

Sidelight: I think its more interesting to notice that local Churches seem to have traded their tithing rights away to local nobles with such frequency that a Pope was forced to get involved.

Anyway, the point is that an organization (a local Church) or a person (a local noble) would certainly collect enough money through tithing or taxation to be able to afford a Raise or ten every year at the 500G rate. Out of the small population of a locality, how many Raises are needed to keep everyone (everyone useful, popular or connected anyway) alive each year? Especially when a lot of the more powerful figures can afford their own 500G Raise.

--

But another approach: Basically, there has to be some economic cost to Raises to make the world make sense. Is anyone arguing that Raise should have a zero material cost?

And once we agree that there must be a material cost, then arguments can be made about whether the number should be closer to 500G or 5000G.

 

[hong]

I guess that's because my homebrew religion rules and setup make this kind of thinking difficult.

Not that I care.

Besides, it's D&D. It's a fantasy world in which people can be raised from the dead without great difficulty. I've never had a problem with that. Sure, it makes 'murder mysteries' and so forth a bit harder to plot out, but it *can* be done.

Who said anything about "murder mysteries"?