Raise Dead now costs 5000 GP!

[Destil]

You know, if we had a nice 2 to 4 page section in the DMG discussing the issues, costs and such with raise dead... how to adress it and mantain the degree of drama & vermisilitude you wanted and simply had the spell require * as a component, I think I'd be a lot happier...

Then again, a big sidebar in the DMG with optons for adjusting the game to how you want to play it is my solution to everything.

*The components of this spell are highly up to the DMs discression.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

In this case, however, the sidebar would be very useful. I think that, of all the houserules I see in action on story hours and in games I've actually played, house rules on raising dead are probably the most common.

The reason is probably because death is one of the ultimate facts of our existence and what happens after death is a huge portion of any cosmology or metaphysic. And the reactions of people to death are a very large component of culture--from ancient egypt with its mummification rituals to viking societies and their adulation of a warrior's death, to modern societies which are arguably defined in part by the great lengths to which they go to avoid seeing or thinking about death.

And resurrection or the lack thereof, to make the understatement of three millenia, also has very large implications for real world religions--an understanding of significance which I think is often carried over into role playing games.

So, with good reason, raise dead policies are one of the easiest ways to define a campaign world.

Then again, a big sidebar in the DMG with optons for adjusting the game to how you want to play it is my solution to everything.

*The components of this spell are highly up to the DMs discression.

 

[Celtavian]

In this case, however, the sidebar would be very useful. I think that, of all the houserules I see in action on story hours and in games I've actually played, house rules on raising dead are probably the most common.

The reason is probably because death is one of the ultimate facts of our existence and what happens after death is a huge portion of any cosmology or metaphysic. And the reactions of people to death are a very large component of culture--from ancient egypt with its mummification rituals to viking societies and their adulation of a warrior's death, to modern societies which are arguably defined in part by the great lengths to which they go to avoid seeing or thinking about death.

And resurrection or the lack thereof, to make the understatement of three millenia, also has very large implications for real world religions--an understanding of significance which I think is often carried over into role playing games.

So, with good reason, raise dead policies are one of the easiest ways to define a campaign world.

Good point EB. I agree, the cost doesn't change the attitude. I just have to work on a way to make bringing back the dead palatable to my players given the lethality of D&D.

Not many folks like to lose their favorite PC. That conflicts with my view that if you lose your favorite PC, it better be meaningful. The Hero Points help quite a bit in our campaign for death avoidance, but now I want to come up with a reasonable way to come back from the the dead that creates a sense of drama.

 

[jasper]

Interesting I don’t any one who plays Wheel of Time or Star Wars. D&D is made with Raise Dead etc being the reset button.

Raise Dead will only hurt a little bit more. Most DMs who do use it will gladly hope the players sell donate extra magic items to get Bobby The barbarian raised.

Style of play comes from a cheap re-loading of Diablo II saved games. Hmm I guess AD&D was far seeing as it had cheap reloading of characters when Pong was the only computer games.

 

[HeavyG]

If they wanted to make resurrection special, increasing the monetary cost was the wrong thing to do. It's easy to get money, and you don't even have to be an adventurer-- you can levy taxes or run a business or sell your grandma into slavery. A monetary transaction feels too commonplace, and doesn't make the event any more dramatic.

Yes. A far better cost would be XPs. Even though the PHB says a XP is worth 5 gp, my NPCs are always very reluctant to spend them on a stranger's behalf. Especially non-adventuring types who have trouble levelling as it is.

I would also not be adverse to a raised PC being out of action for a while. But making it difficult to raise the dead will lead to cowardly adventuring or a gung-ho "I'll just create a new set of numbers" attitude, IMO.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

Originally posted by Plane Sailing
Interestingly, games like d20 Wheel of Time and d20 Star Wars manage OK without raise dead at all

Needed to be repeated, in bold. Here are two very epic, very cinematic games with larger than life heroes that don't rely on the crutch of resurrection to keep things intereesting. They are also two games that use the same core system - one of which has far deadlier combats (Star Wars - blasters, grenades and lightsabers) with even deadlier combat rules.

No complaints yet.

- Ma'at

actually I find star wars far less deadly than D&. The VP/WP mechainic can kill someone in a shot sure, but crits are less common since the treat range is basically 20. And weapons, well there just less deadly at mid to high levels. And I'm sure someone can dish out some absurd combo character in star wars I have yet to see the 100 points of damage a round monstrosities I regularly see in D&D.

This is because while the base blaster does more than a bow, it does far less than a magic bow with magic arrow and feats and prestige classes etc boosting it. 5 shots at 2d8+2 with my blaster=55 points of damage 5 shots at 1d8+12+2d6=112.

And then there's no save or die spells to worry about, its overall just far less deadly.

 

[mmu1]

actually I find star wars far less deadly than D&. The VP/WP mechainic can kill someone in a shot sure, but crits are less common since the treat range is basically 20. And weapons, well there just less deadly at mid to high levels. And I'm sure someone can dish out some absurd combo character in star wars I have yet to see the 100 points of damage a round monstrosities I regularly see in D&D.

This is because while the base blaster does more than a bow, it does far less than a magic bow with magic arrow and feats and prestige classes etc boosting it. 5 shots at 2d8+2 with my blaster=55 points of damage 5 shots at 1d8+12+2d6=112.

And then there's no save or die spells to worry about, its overall just far less deadly.

It's even less deadly than you make it sound...

If you have a SW hero with 10 CON, wearing the lightest armor out there (padded flight suit or blast vest, for example), he still needs to get critically hit for 22 points of damage to die outright.

That's 2 points shy of max damage from most blaster-rifles, and more damage than an average shot from a blaster-cannon.

Assuming non-dairy characters, you'll only see that sort of damage regularly from thermal detonators, crew-served weapons, melee specialists with high strength and vibro-axes, and very high level Jedi Guardians. The fact that 90% of SW characters don't have access to any sort of magical bonus to damage and don't have high strength (a definite dump-stat in this setting, Dex is king) really makes a huge difference in damage output.

 

[Anubis]

Well my biggest gripe with raising dead is losing a level, mainly because it screws up the whole campaign. If the party is doing adventures for Level 11, and someone gets energy drained or killed down to Level 9, the character basically has to retire because he or she can no longer compete. Losing levels is ridiculous.

I pretty much replace all instances of losing levels with XP loss, and XP loss can never result in losing levels even if you go below the minimum for your current level. Another important note is I do the same thing for item creation.

When people go below their minimum, until they have enough XP, they basically get penalties as if they had negative levels.

 

[Al]

I like this change, seeing as I already house ruled the following:

Raise Dead: 1000 gp/level of raised character
Resurrection: 5000 gp/level of raised character
True Resurrection: 10,000 gp/level of raised character

I don't think coming back from the dead should be easy, otherwise everybody would be doing it all the time! King dies? Bring him back! Major villain executed? Bring him back! People already come back plenty enough . . .

However, once again, this hurts PCs much more than it does plot NPCs. As I have already said, the king can easily afford 20,000gp. Heck, a castle costs 500,000gp, so raising the king at 20k is probably a deal. At 5k, it's almost definitely going to be performed unless there are roleplaying or mechanical restrictions- which block raising at whatever the cost. Look at the amount that supposedly ransomed King Richard I when he was captured by Leopold of Austria...

To PCs, however, these costs are punitive, and players are far more likely to just introduce new characters- which creates all sorts of problems (see pp.1-5 of this thread, especially Lord Pendragon). Especially since PCs tend to die reasonably often (at high levels, every 3-4 encounters is probably not an unreasonable estimate- see hong's account of RttToEE), this is extremely harsh: kings tend to only get assassinated once or twice. Assassinating a king enough times until the royal exchequer runs out of money is probably unfeasible unless the state is impoverished, or, once again, roleplaying blockades are implaced- even at 20k. Sure, you could jack up the prices until no nation could afford it at a reasonable rate (say, 500 billion) but then it's probably out of the PCs' league.

So it creates lots of problems, whilst solving very few. It hurts PCs far more than it does NPCs. Either low-cost raise dead or high-difficulty raise dead works, since PCs and important plot NPCs can keep in step with accessibility of resurrection. High-cost, low-difficulty raise dead just screws over the PCs without necessarily adding the much-vaunted low-resurrection verisimilitude.

 

[Henry]

On the other hand, in our games I would like to see people bring in more new characters than simply get their character Raised. In addition to the verisimilitude of it, it also reinforces my game preference for caution in playing, and gives real heroism meaning, if a player sacrifices his character for the lives of others or others in the group, it has more "bite" than knowing that you can "throw your life away for fun" if you have the cash.

In real life, would I skydive, if I knew I could be resurrected if the chute failed? Absolutely! But because there's that .01% chance that the person who packed the chute ed up, you aren't getting me off a plane in midair anytime soon.