Raise Dead now costs 5000 GP!

[Chimera]

Gee, I might have to raise my price?

I use a completely different economic system and scale in a moderately low-magic, low-money world. A Raise Dead costs about the same as a +2 magic item, quite a bit for a lower level party to come up with, quite a bit more than 500gp in normal economic terms.

But I also limit Raise Dead through the various religious sects and their practices. Most will only raise their followers. Some won't raise Adventurers. Some (more of the evil ones) won't raise anyone but an important follower. Some simply can't do it. (I do spell lists for each sect)

Of those who do, the price varies wildly, depending on a lot of different variables, such as the sect, the cleric you ask, your reputation, etc.

Depending on the religions of the characters in the group, they may be all fired up waiting for their own (PC) cleric to be able to cast it.

 

[Willtell]

10%?

And 10% of a character's wealth is hardly punitive. It doesn't even reach the level of hardship if you spread it out amongst all the party members. And since, as DM, you control the level of wealth in a game, you control the rate at which the party would recoup their losses.

The pc's we usually play with typically have only 500gp in coin each, the rest is in armor, weapons and other magical items. To raise a character "we" would need an extra 3950gp, which we would have to raise by selling 7900gp worth of goods - bringing the cost to 9900gp.

That assumes the pc's body has not been looted before it was recovered, or that in raising the cash pc's are not selling +2 (or more) items like armor or weapons which they need to replace with +1 items before they go adventuring again.

As for the "Everyone goes back to town and gets True Resurrection cast." reason. When one character dies we always leave and get the pc raised or get a replacement pc. A 5000gp component for raise dead won't change that.

 

[rhammer2]

Re: 10%?

I always treat magic items as commodities, so the players can usually get 80-90% market price if they sell quickly. Full value if they take time and find the right buyer. I just can't imagine treating a magic item like a used sword.

The pc's we usually play with typically have only 500gp in coin each, the rest is in armor, weapons and other magical items. To raise a character "we" would need an extra 3950gp, which we would have to raise by selling 7900gp worth of goods - bringing the cost to 9900gp.

That assumes the pc's body has not been looted before it was recovered, or that in raising the cash pc's are not selling +2 (or more) items like armor or weapons which they need to replace with +1 items before they go adventuring again.

As for the "Everyone goes back to town and gets True Resurrection cast." reason. When one character dies we always leave and get the pc raised or get a replacement pc. A 5000gp component for raise dead won't change that.

 

[Agback]

Heck, I pay the government 35%, and that doesn't buy me a 'get out of the afterlife free' card.

And that's just Federal direct tax. Add in indirect taxes, state and local taxes, and it comes to quite a sum.

But: that's a tax on your income, not a tax on your wealth. If I had to pay a 10% tax on my wealth (with the interest rate where it is) it would be the whole of my income for more than five years.

Regards,


Agback

 

[Numion]

IMO resurrections are good for the game. If a player is attached to his character, he should have a way to play it, regardless of deaths. From another POV, I don't see much advantages in permanently destroying characters.

Of course some players would abuse this, and start to act recklessly, but luckily my players have avoided that. Strange, since they aren't great roleplayers. But they are very pissed when their characters bite the dust. In this way we have it good - players can keep playing their characters (if they want to, which they don't generally after 1 or 2 raises) and death isn't cheapened greatly.

In general I guess the change is pretty neutral for me. More expensive resurrections make it harder for players, but also make the world more believable by answering most of the questions "why this or that wasn't resurrected?". Because it would cost the royal treasure chamber.

 

[Celtavian]

Re

I was contemplating changing the requirements for coming back from the dead for a long time. It was to the point in our campaign that everytime someone died, they would want to go to a big metropolis and obtain True Ressurection since all in all it was only about 7 k gold. Not to much when you are looting everything in the dungeon, hauling it out on horses and in magical carrying items and selling it.

This is a great change. I am glad someone finally pulled the trigger on making coming back from the dead more difficult and costly. This is one of my favorite 3.5 changes.

 

[Fenes 2]

I don't have raise dead, resurrection etc. in my game, at least not as spells accessible to clerics and other mortals. It really facilitates my campaign since I can have assassination plots etc. without having to consider the "lets just raise him" solution, and that my campaign world makes a little bit more sense to me.

It only works though because I don't kill off PCs in my game, at least not without a clear warning and a way out ("Do that and you will/may die - want to reconsider?").

As far as the reason of this change is considered, I could not care less about Andy Collin's view. Only my and my group's views matter for my campaign, not his ideas of what should be special or not. I have never liked Dungeon Crawls, and don't follow the "Back to the Dungeon!" cry, so balance in my campaign is not centered on dungeon campaigns anyway.

I have to agree with Rodrigo Istalindir that it is easier to take a strict, limiting game and cut the players a bit slack than to reign in a too-loose campaign, although I still hate the "it is not special enough" reason.

 

[green slime]

I like this change too.

5,000 gp is a reasonable price.

OTH, what I'd like to see is some action points, so that the avoidance of death is easier. Some players just cannot seem to avoid death on nearly impossible to miss saves.

1) Dwarven Priest failing Poison save TWICE by rolling 1.
2) Multiclassed Fighter/Ranger/Barbarian doing the same.
3) Failing to tumble away from lethal attackers (needed 4 or better, after level drain)
and the list goes on.

But once dead, I like it to be more "special", more permanent. With no risk of permanent death, the game loses some tension, IMO. YMMV.

 

[Jeremy]

I like Andy's rationale.

 

[Yeoman]

I like the change quite a bit. I'll be using this in my 3.0 games until we change over.