D&D General Reincarnate is and has always been, weird.

[Stormonu]

Which is cosmologically weird to have alongside 2e afterlife things like evil souls turning into larva in MC8, and and the Blood War fiends wanting mortal souls to turn into fiends for their armies in Planescape, along with the whole afterlife petitioner setup of Planescape.

It is possible to syncretize such stuff, but it takes a significant effort to make such things work together.

I kinda see it like "What Dreams May Come" - you spend some time in the afterlife and if you've been "good" (or escape your hellish prison afterlife) you get the chance to come back and try it again.

 

[Voadam]

I kinda see it like "What Dreams May Come" - you spend some time in the afterlife and if you've been "good" (or escape your hellish prison afterlife) you get the chance to come back and try it again.

D&D cosmology is kind of all over the place.

A bunch has afterlife where you actually go to an afterlife where you go and become a petitioner or an outsider on the outer planes. But there is also oblivion and reincarnation.

2e Planescape has it where if a petitioner dies outside their outer plane they are gone, oblivion, if they die on their outer plane they merge with the plane, and they are otherwise existing or working to attain some ultimate union with the powers on their plane.

"The majority of bodies on the planes are petitioners, which are departed spirits of primes and planars whose bodies reformed on the plane that matches their previous alignment or devotion. A petitioner retains the mannerisms, speech, even general interests of his or her former self, but all memories of the past are wiped completely away. At best, a petitioner has a shadowy recollection of a previous life, but little or nothing useful can be learned from these fleeting images. Petitioners mostly desire to attain some ultimate union with the powers of their plane. This can be accomplished in a number of ways: good works, serene contemplation, steadfast faith, or vile notoriety, depending upon the petitioner's alignment.
Petitioners hate leaving their home plane, as "death" outside that place results in oblivion. Fact is, they can't be resurrected if slain at home, either; once dead, the petitioners' essences are merged with the plane, but they figure that's better than nonexistence."

2e also has the Legends & Lore different cosmologies so natural cycle reincarnation for all from Chinese and Indian cosmologies, alongside non reincarnation full permanent destination afterlife cosmologies. You could syncretize the reincarnation cosmology with the Planescape one and have souls eventually recycled back into the world, it just never says that that happens.

4e afterlife does its own thing in ultimately it is all a big unknown. Souls go to the Shadowfell after death then onto a mystery even the gods do not know.

And on top of all that, reincarnation as a spell is completely separate from a cosmological natural cycle reincarnation. From 3e on it is explicitly creating a full new adult body on the spot for the dead person. Spell reincarnation is just a weird form of raising the dead which works whether there is natural cycle reincarnation or not.

 

[Maxperson]

What kind of animal do you reincarnate into? ¯\(ツ)/¯

 

[Voadam]

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Perry the Platypus? You kept your rogue and monk levels?

 

[Maxperson]

Perry the Platypus? You kept your rogue and monk levels?

And as a Rogue/Assassin, he can use his poison bite to great effect.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

Sounds like a terrible thing to do to someone you don't like.

"I kill you, and then I cast Reincarnate and you end up as another species. Now, you have the choice between actively choosing to stay dead and spending the rest of your live as another species. Oh, btw, did you know aaracockra regurgitate pellets?"

 

[Frozen_Heart]

ngl I am fine with reincarnate no longer turning you into things like beasts.

That's just having to go make a new character with extra steps, as the old one is now int 3, unable to use equipment, and the size of a cat.

 

[TwoSix]

Perry the Platypus? You kept your rogue and monk levels?

I'll always upvote a Phineas and Ferb reference.

 

[Laurefindel]

One of our characters died in 2e (PC death was a pretty rare occurrence in our group) and we didn’t have access to her body for a raise dead spell. I can’t remember how but we got her reincarnated. I think the player rolled « Bugbear » and said « hell no! », rerolled and was reincarnated as a fox. Or was it another animal and she change it to a fox? Can’t quite remember.

At any case, we went on a huge side-quest to Wish the character back to her original body, playing at least a douzain sessions with the player playing as a fox. I think the DM let her keep her ranger’s Hide in Shadow and Move Silently scores but otherwise had the crappy stats of a fox (or perhaps a wolf), participating in the game and combat in myriads of small but inventive ways, especially scouting/spying/stealing.

These were among the best games of that campaign. When she got her old body back, we were almost disappointed…