Ressurection and Drama "Don't worry, we'll rez you after this"

[lexoanvil]

I just gave the PCs a Raise Dead scroll at 8th level and kind of wished i hadn't. For 500 gp, they have no fear of death now. The -1 penalty to rolls for a few encounters is a paltry penalty, and a difficult one for a DM to enforce if a player decides to "forget" it, or really does forget. Of course, they could always just pay an NPC to do the same thing, but at least then the whole raise dead thing was at least relegated to an outside source they had to hunt down. Now, it is completely in their hands.

What i'd like to change is the penalty to dying, so sure, it can be easy to come back, but there are some changes to your mind/body/soul that have a lasting effect.

I'm not talking about losing a level like in 3e, that was friggin demoralizing, and i don't want to really lose Ability scores because of the ripple effect.

Just a flat penalty. Maybe -5 permanent HP loss, or -5 to a Skill, player choice. Something to reflect you've come back different. And getting raised 10 times over the course of your life will have a dramatic effect on your character instead of something just hand waved "yeah, i died again, big deal..."

Or a story-based penalty for coming back, something died to the Death God in whatever campaign setting we use. I dunno.

wouldnt raising the cost get you the desired effect without permanently crippling a players ability to function in a group and as a result have a good time? as dms its not your job to punish players( granted when they do something incredibly stupid i tend to give considerably less leway) if you feel the scroll has become a deterrent in the game put them in a situation where they are near forced to use it on an npc and raise the cost of futre scrolls to reflect their power. if this fails simply explain much like an overly powerful magic item this scroll has become a game breaking component and take it away but give them something of equal or greater value to reflect you adding it into the game was your mistake not theirs. a permanent loss of 5 hp or of a skill is basically incentive to meta game and feel little attachment to their characters and treat them as non living things.

 

[Loincloth of Armour]

One possible way to limit (but not totally remove) the posibility of rez magic is to pull that little bit that also happened when Buffy was raised... "We brought something else back with her."

Some kind of cosmic balance, so when you give life to death, you must also give death to life.

Raising a heroic level character means somewhere in the world, a wraith is brought into existance.

Raising a paragon means a nightmare rides the phyiscal plane.

Raising an epic brings a nightwalker to stalk the lands.

So people can be brought back, but the person casting the ritual will be asking, "Is this worth it? Will bringing this one person back be worth all the death and devastation that will follow?"

Heroes? Sure: they kick hinny and will at some point probably get around to killing that beast that was brought back with them (ie: DM sends it after them). That fat noble, or that rich merchant both who can pay for the ritual but would contribute nothing? Not so likely. The king? Woo... tough one.

As an added bonus, gives the bad guys greater access to rezzing mojo, 'cause hey, most of them are selfish enough not to care about a few extra undead running around murdering folk.

 

[Dzyu]

All the raise dead/ressurection spells have a material component. If you want to limit these spells just inform the players that diamonds that big are very rare. Even more so because they've been spent ressurecting people for ages.

I always thought this was the best logical choice for controlling ressurection myself.

 

[Derren]

A fantasy world where anyone can be brought back at minimal cost would be bizarre and as the OP points out, would take away much of the drama and pathos of dying.

Only if you expect the fantasy world to be the normal cliché one. Why not make it a real fantasy world and roll with Ressurection and the the other spells.

So yes, people can come back from the death. That means Romeo wouldn't commit suicide, people would not get the death penalty and assassines are likely a legitimate business (And if you play 3E diamonds become the ultimate source of power, might be highly regulated and wearing them as jewelry is unthinkable).
That would be an interesting world.

 

[KidSnide]

I use a system where the likelihood that resurrection will succeed depends on whether or not the deceased has "fulfilled his destiny".

In particular, powerful people who have achieved great things are much harder to resurrect, which makes a "the king is dead" storyline all the easier to run. This also connected to why high-level characters are more expensive to raise than low level characters.

Also, people who died while they were doing great things are also unlikely to return, which means that players can choose to sacrifice their characters for something important and have that sacrifice be an actual sacrifice. It also allows me, as a GM, to declare climatic battles as "fulcrum events" in which death is more likely to be permanent. That lets me increase the stakes exactly when I want to. Also, *unimportant* events are less likely to result in permanent death which means that a random series of bad luck in a tough but otherwise unimportant battle doesn't result in permanent character loss.

As an aside, there is also a rule which says that it takes a while for a child's destiny to develop, so the death of a child is commonly an unfixable tragedy.

-KS

 

[MarkB]

You see to me this is illogical. Most people would not want to die and if they did and had the opportunity of being brought back, would more than likely say "hell yeah", particularly considering the minimal expense. The gods intervening is another matter...

Certainly, people who aren't dead yet generally don't want to, but it doesn't necessarily follow that someone who has died, and now exists as a spirit upon some higher plane of existence, necessarily wants to crawl back into that cumbersome meat-sack he left behind.

It's trivially easy, in gameworld-design terms, to conceive of a setting in which the afterlife is as far beyond the mortal realm as normal everyday existence is beyond that of an unhatched tadpole in a clump of frogspawn - and only the most stringent sense of obligation would ever coax any spirit to willingly return to it.

 

[Treebore]

When I run a D&D type game I accept that Raise Dead, Resurrection, True Resurrection, etc... are a reality in the game. It is a world full of miraculous things. Not only do you have people brought back from the dead, but you have meteors pulled out of the heavens to devastate a battle field, you have people moving from one location to another that is 1,000's of miles away, or even a different world, in the blink of an eye.

Is the bringing back the dead common? Depends on how many people capable of doing so are around.

The problem in higher level D&D games is the person who can bring back the dead travels around with the group. So they have being brought back for the dead on tap.

Now is that good or bad? It depends. Do you want players to roll up new PC's every time a PC dies? Even if its a PC who has been played for the last year? 2 years? A PC the player would really like to keep playing? Or do you want to say to them, "Sorry chum, but that PC you really like and have spent the last year or two of your life playing is now dead, suck it up and create a new PC." Typically one that is less powerful and less well equipped than the PC that just died.

So not only does the player lose a PC they may really enjoy playing, but they usually get rewarded with a weaker and less well equipped PC. Why? Because the DM killed their PC and isn't willing to let their PC come back to life, AND to keep with such "verisimilitude" the new PC must also be a "Lesser" character because it is new. Never mind the player is still the same, and they have put just as much time in at the tale as everyone else. Maybe even more time.

So what is fair? Whats more fun? That is what is important. So decide. I let my players decide if they can be resurrected or not. Why? Because it is they who matter. The story only matters if they enjoy it. So I let them decide. Do they want verisimilitude based on the world we live in, or do they want to embrace the fact that they play in a world full of miraculous events and allow themselves to come back?

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

Certainly, people who aren't dead yet generally don't want to, but it doesn't necessarily follow that someone who has died, and now exists as a spirit upon some higher plane of existence, necessarily wants to crawl back into that cumbersome meat-sack he left behind.

This. Well said.

It's as easy to assume death is a grand, liberating, glorious experience, as it is to assume it's a cold, dark, dismal one. Indeed, this is precisely why it's treated so differently in different settings (or, more generally, in different cultures, I imagine). Heck, this is probably why it's treated so differently between different souls! Some are doomed to eternal misery, others to power, still others to eternal contentment. Only those with a Very Good Reason to come back are allowed to even try.

I'm really digging the ideas presented here that require some sort of cost to be paid before one can return. The notion of balance is a powerful one: a dead soul against an unborn one; a rezzed soul offset by an undead. Tough choices and struggle = better game, imho.

 

[fuzzlewump]

Now is that good or bad? It depends. Do you want players to roll up new PC's every time a PC dies? Even if its a PC who has been played for the last year? 2 years? A PC the player would really like to keep playing?

( . . . )

I let my players decide if they can be resurrected or not. Why? Because it is they who matter. The story only matters if they enjoy it.

Interesting. I agree with you for the most part, but also feel that it's not so... I don't know, black and white. As a player, I want the possibility of failure so that success feels sweeter. But I don't want to fail! And when I fail, or in the process of failing (dying,) I want to use every tool at my disposal to avoid that failure, and would probably start advocating the existence of raise dead even if I was against it as the beginning.

The ideal situation and what would really happen is certainly different for me, I'm willing to admit.

 

[Engilbrand]

I like the idea of it "tearing the veil" and "bringing something else back". I go with the idea that very few people can actually have it done.
Personally, I would love to run a game where the enemy gets a hold of a PC's body as the rest are running off. The BBEG then resurrects the PC. The other PCs would be very confused when they discover that their ally has already come back. Insert major plot hook.