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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Planeswalker Maloran" data-source="post: 3778345" data-attributes="member: 55061">I've been getting fed up with how casually players (and DMs) tend to treat Raise Dead and similar spells. After reading a few articles on the topic (most notably <a href="http://home.earthlink.net/~duanevp/dnd/resurrection.htm" target="_blank">http://home.earthlink.net/~duanevp/dnd/resurrection.htm</a>) I have decided that making them harder to get, or penalizing resurrected characters beyond just the loss of a level, is not the way to fix this. However, I disagree with the author that NO game-mechanic change is an appropriate fix. What I propose (and intend to use in my campaigns from this point on) is as follows:1) If a creature is brought back after being dead longer than 1 day (or more if Gentle Repose was cast), its type becomes Abberation, and it gains the Augmented (whatever it was before) subtype. Otherwise, its game statistics are unchanged. I haven't decided if this will replace or stack with the level loss. 2) Any NPC who is aware the character has been resurrected will treat him differently. Not necessarily with suspicion; that will depend on the individual NPC. Druid or ranger types will often react more negatively than others to someone who has defied the natural order by coming back from the dead.3) If the soul is unwilling or unable to return, the spell does not fail. Instead, another soul 'comes back' in its place. This seems to fit with all the stories of people who were resurrected but 'came back wrong', which seems a popular theme in fantasy and horror stories involving the possibility of resurrection.Spells like Reincarnate (which works with, rather than against, the natural order) and True Resurrection (being a 9th-level spell) might not be subject to these changes. However, NPCs for the most part won't differentiate between spells they know little about. What's more, a creature who comes back in a different body might seem even more unnatural than one who comes back in his own body.</blockquote>

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