Resurrection and Revive Dead

[candidus_cogitens]

These spells influence the "feel" of a campaign, and I'd like to hear your opinions about what that effect is.

In my experience, they make the entire game less exciting, because most fatal errors can be undone, with little lost. I always hated hearing other players say, "Oh well, if I die, I can always get raised." How boring! Death should be a real possibility!

I am inclined to eliminate both of those spells from my campaign, or at least restrict access to a few specific religious cults. For those who had access to the Revive Dead spell, I'd make it a ninth level spell, for druids and clerics. I would eliminate Resurrection and True Resurrection altogether. Even in the biblical stories, the body was needed! Raising somebody from nothing is just hokey, IMO.

I would not allow Wish to do the job, since it cannot duplicate ninth level divine spells.

But my main concern is not so much with coming up with a House Rule. I just want to hear your ideas about how you think these spells influence the feel of a campaign.

 

[CRGreathouse]

If a player wants to bring in a new character, what level do you have the playr make it at?

 

[Orryn Emrys]

Actually, it was the prolific use of just such spells that inspired me to stage my next campaign in a 'low-magic' setting. It doesn't really seem to matter how realistic the role-playing is... characters who can't bring themselves to properly fear the event of death become quite jaded and are prone to suicidal attitudes. I guess I was fortunate that, at the very least, each of the players who benefited from such magic injected a certain amount of introspection into their characters' views concerning the experience.

After the high-level game with so many religious characters, no one even elected to play a cleric in my current campaign. Which is just as well... powerful magic is definitely at a premium in this setting.

 

[candidus_cogitens]

If a player wants to bring in a new character, what level do you have the playr make it at?

Approximately one level lower than the rest of the party. I start them with the minimum XP necessary to be at that level. I do this because I think it is appropriate for the longest-surviving PCs to be the strongest PCs.

 

[Joseph Elric Smith]

Well in my game raises and resurrections are rare and , almost always involve a quest or two in order to lay for them. SO my party would much rather survive then die.
ken

 

[candidus_cogitens]

Actually, it was the prolific use of just such spells that inspired me to stage my next campaign in a 'low-magic' setting. It doesn't really seem to matter how realistic the role-playing is... characters who can't bring themselves to properly fear the event of death become quite jaded and are prone to suicidal attitudes. I guess I was fortunate that, at the very least, each of the players who benefited from such magic injected a certain amount of introspection into their characters' views concerning the experience.

After the high-level game with so many religious characters, no one even elected to play a cleric in my current campaign. Which is just as well... powerful magic is definitely at a premium in this setting.

My sentiments exactly! I am trying to go for a low-magic feel to my setting, but I don't feel like I really know how to pull it off. One problem is that even if you make potions and scrolls more scarce, a spellcaster PC is still as powerful as in any other setting, unless you modify the class. Arguably, the more scarce magic becomes, the more powerful the spellcasters become, due to higher demand for their unique talents.

 

[candidus_cogitens]

Just to take this tangent about low-magic settings a little further . . .

I just got an idea. One way to control the usage of magic without plain outright elimination of certain spells is to simply modify the material components and XP costs of certain spells (such as Revive Dead and Wish, etc.) In the same way, you could not only limit the quantity of magic items, but make them more dangerous or more costly to use by giving them cursed properties, side-effects, or other requirements and limitations.

 

[Wormwood]

Taking a cue from "Book of Hallowed Might" (which adds gp costs to some Divine spells), I added xp costs to the Raise Dead chain:
Raise Dead: 200xp
Resurrection: 400xp
True Resurrection: 800xp
(Note that this adds quite a bit to the cost of having an NPC raise you as well)

That was in my last campaign, and it served it's purpose well. Namely, dying became even more of a headache than it currently is. PC clerics were less willing to cast revivification spells, and parties were increasingly reluctant to incur the extra expense of hiring NPC clerics. Less fun was had by all, simply because I wanted to micromanage character death.

So I took a deep breath, counted to ten, and decided to just relax and play the game already.

Now I run everything by the book. Less 'realistic'? Maybe. Less 'exciting'? Not a bit. Dying still sucks up a lot of resources, and this only gets worse as you get to upper levels of play where Save or Die spells are increasingly commonplace.

The point of this rambling? That it's possible to handwave away the 'campaign repurcussions' and instead focus on the 'game play' involved with character death.

 

[drnuncheon]

We need a FAQ - this comes up every couple of months. Or at least an archived thread!

There are a lot of ways to minimize or alter the effect that the 'second chance' spells have on your game. Here are just a few:

* They not only cost the revivee a level, they cost the reviver one as well. Clerics won't be too anxious to bring people back if that's the case.

* Gods are jealous of their domains. If you're asking your god to bring someone back from the dead, you are asking your god to owe a favor to the god of the dead, and possibly the god that the revivee venerates. So it better be worth it.

* Not all priests need to be clerics - many of them could be Experts with skills like Diplomacy and Knowledge: Religion. The spellcasting priests could be a small subset of the clergy - which means that there might be a 15th level "high priest" in charge of the temple, but that doesn't mean that there's someone there who can cast raise dead.

J

 

[MerakSpielman]

Ooo! Oooo!

No, wait, I'm already arguing in the other thread. Nevermind.