Resurrection implications

[Lanefan]

Hiya!

...and this is why I use my 1e/HM book for the "System Shock" and "Resurrection Survival" chances. If you fail that Resurrection roll...you're done for. Make a new guy.

Oh, I also, casting Resurrection ages the caster by "3 human years" (re:...'the equivalent of 3 human years'...about 1/25th of a races very old age). Lastly, the Raised/Resurrected person's CON score is reduced by 1. Permanently. If it hit's 2 or lower, they are impossible to bring back to life...even with a Wish.

I don't have the aging-the-caster bit but the revived person does come back down a Con point.

 

[Khelon Testudo]

Resurrection won't give anyone eternal life, by RAW. Something like a Death Prayer would be good for assassins to have - what's the point of killing someone if they're only coming back short a diamond?

There are other things you can do to the resurrected: have their hair go white, or they go bald, or their eyes become strange... they change handedness, or have recurring dreams/nightmares of the experience they had when they were gone. These dreams may leave them with random days in which they have a level of exhaustion for the day.

 

[D1Tremere]

Continuing from what DemoMonkey said, the impact of resurrections (as well as accessibility to gods and godlike powers in general) on a society is a very cool topic to explore. Most settings state fairly directly that such magics are not common enough, and the wealth necessary to utilize them is not avalible to any but a tiny percent. That limits the impact outside of the mechanical necessity for player characters and story based plot devices, so that most societies do not need to take this into account.
That said, it is avalible in just about every campaign setting as a plot device, so a DM could build a rare society based around the impact of such powers without it throwing the larger campaign world into disarray if they wish. What such a society may look like largely depends on the role such power takes in that society. It could be used to ensure fanatical loyalty from a people, to justify greater levels of in-group/out-group behavior, or to serve as a currency in a society. How a DM decides to use it as an influence on societal development is the perfect backdrop for a unique quest/location/NPC/Setting/Etc.
So ya, great question in my opinion.

 

[Goliath Coins]

Wow, never thought of this way. Good food for thought.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

I don't have the aging-the-caster bit but the revived person does come back down a Con point.

I should have clarified.
This is what we did when we first started 5e.
About a year and a half ago...I "5e'ified" the whole idea of "as you die more often, you have less and less chance of survival and more and more a chance of never being able to be raised again" (basically, the whole reason for the -1 Con and ResSurvival Chance).
..
My current house rule is simple: When you get Raised/Resurrected, you immediately make a single "Death Save" (as if you had gone down to 0 hp). If you succeed, you are back to life, easy peasy. If you FAIL, you are back to life, but you PERMANENTLY FILL IN one of your "Death Save" circles. This means you have only 2 'saves', with one being an automatic failure (as it is filled in already).
..
In a nutshell, eventually a person is going to fail three times when Raised/Resurrected, and that fills in all 3 Death Save circles...meaning they will never make a Death Save. Meaning as soon as they hit 0 hp, they're dead. Period. Forever.
..
While the 1e/HM style worked fine, the "simplified" version I came up with a year and a half or so ago is more "5e Feeling" and works great (maybe it was a bit longer ago at this point?...I have no idea...time gets all wonky when you have no job and sleep at completely random times over years and years...and age doesn't help either! ).

EDIT: Wow...late edit, but figured I'd point this out; Major NPC's, Henchmen, etc get 3 Death Save Circles (DSC's). Semi-Major NPC's (Mayor of a town, the prominent Blacksmith, a well-known travelling merchant, etc), they get 2 DSC's. Everyone else (the majority of the worlds population), only have 1 DSC. This is to rationalize why every noble or 'rich person with contacts' isn't, effectively, immortal...and why they don't just "come back" later on in the game.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Raduin711]

The important element is not whether Resurrection is POSSIBLE, but how COMMON is it.

"Any 9th level cleric can do it", you say? Ok. Outside of the PCs, how many 9th level clerics are there in the world? The implications are very different is the answer is "6, anywhere, period" vs "1 in every village big enough to have a blacksmith".

I think the base assumption of D&D is that Resurrection is fairly common. I say this because it is treated like a non-issue, just something PC's might need to spend their treasure on. Also, I think most DM's want to continue to provide reasonable opposition to the players at 9th level and beyond. Saying such things are so rare suggests 9th level PC's are among the most powerful beings in the setting.

I think having fewer 9th level clerics will have less of a normalizing effect on the setting than might be expected. If there were only 6 9th level clerics in the world, you had better believe those clerics have NAMES. Raising the dead would be their job and their resurrection-capable spell slots would be used for that purpose only, because NOT using them that way meant the loss of a life. Why? Because rich and powerful people don't want to die and they want to ensure that if something happens, that a cleric will be there to bring them back to life. To that end, they can lend considerable power to the church so it can further it's goals. How much can the powerful lend? Well, how much do they not want to die?

And that would be it for 9th level cleric adventurers. Their abilities would be far too valuable to the church to go traipsing around the countryside, doing whatever they liked. Shirking that responsibility to the church would be foolish. They could do far more for their church by retiring to become a resurrection-bot than they could as a sword for hire. The culture of the church would be built around it, as well. Going against it would be against their beliefs.

Given the cost of the components and the desires of the mighty, the common people would be all but excluded from the practice of resurrection, but there would surely be a strong desire for it. And because there are sure to be days where spell slots could go to waste, (possibly even a daily occurrence) I could see the church offering such resurrections as a charity to the masses, the costs of which would be absorbed by the tithings of the wealthy in exchange for their "head of the line" privilege.

But D&D treats death and resurrection as just another condition that PC's might need to have cured at a temple, and not the center of some pretty heavy political implications, so I am inclined to treat it as more or less ubiquitous.

 

[Lanefan]

Hiya!

I should have clarified.
This is what we did when we first started 5e.
About a year and a half ago...I "5e'ified" the whole idea of "as you die more often, you have less and less chance of survival and more and more a chance of never being able to be raised again" (basically, the whole reason for the -1 Con and ResSurvival Chance).
..
My current house rule is simple: When you get Raised/Resurrected, you immediately make a single "Death Save" (as if you had gone down to 0 hp). If you succeed, you are back to life, easy peasy. If you FAIL, you are back to life, but you PERMANENTLY FILL IN one of your "Death Save" circles. This means you have only 2 'saves', with one being an automatic failure (as it is filled in already).
..
In a nutshell, eventually a person is going to fail three times when Raised/Resurrected, and that fills in all 3 Death Save circles...meaning they will never make a Death Save. Meaning as soon as they hit 0 hp, they're dead. Period. Forever.
..
While the 1e/HM style worked fine, the "simplified" version I came up with a year and a half or so ago is more "5e Feeling" and works great (maybe it was a bit longer ago at this point?...I have no idea...time gets all wonky when you have no job and sleep at completely random times over years and years...and age doesn't help either! ).

I always liked the idea that your absolute maximum number of deaths regardless of revival method used was set as your starting Con score.

 

[John Dallman]

Resurrection is among the reasons why I don't tend to use published settings for D&D family games. I prefer to play and run homebrew settings which at least attempt to adjust to the effects of magic on society (most of the people I play with are SF fans who find this more interesting than attempting to emulate genre tropes).

An example of a total failure to cope with this: a TSR-published scenario where the PCs are supposed to receive a vital clue from the dying words of a merchant badly wounded and left for dead by bandits. So we raised him: we had a PC who could do that, who was within the level guidelines for the module. The DM did not cope well with this, and the plot began to unravel rapidly.

A basic exercise in coping, from my fantasy city police campaign. An employee of a local lord had died in an accident. The lord liked him, so sent his body off to the relevant temple to be raised. The body vanished in transit, along with the cart that was transporting it. That was when the police became interested: the accident had been staged, and the murderer had not anticipated that anyone would try resurrecting his victim. He was forced to improvise, and left enough clues for the case to be solved.

 

[GMMichael]

I think the base assumption of D&D is that Resurrection is fairly common. . .

Given the cost of the components and the desires of the mighty, the common people would be all but excluded from the practice of resurrection, but there would surely be a strong desire for it. . .

Two important considerations for this thread, here:
1) OP didn't specify D&D, so "raise dead" should probably also be considered as "resurrection."
2) The "strong desire" for resurrection is likely to cease after a brief visit to the afterlife. Failing that, those who still desire resurrection are probably those who found their afterlives to be somewhere...warm...

One thing I haven't seen much in fantasy games is serious thought about the impact of resurrection on the world and its cultures. . .

How have you handled this in your games? Note that this is not the thread for discussing whether death should be final. Rather, presuming that death is not final, what setting implications should GMs be mindful of?

I don't run games in which resurrection is commonplace. Unless you count zombies, because those are cool.

What impact do those uncommon resurrections have? Coming back from death is A) proof of the might of the divine patron in question and B) a sign that the returner is veeeeery special. The effect on society is to have a new celebrity, more or less.

My players, to their incredible credit, found only one in an entire campaign and used it on their NPC henchman when he was caught in melee by accident.

They used a LEGENDARY RESURRECTION SCROLL on a HENCHMAN!? I guess that's what happens when you're stuck with a paladin in the group.

 

[DemoMonkey]

He was not only torchbearer and horse watcher, he was also the henchman who followed them around carrying a bag of holding sewed to the bottom of an ermine trimmed toilet seat.

They considered a legendary resurrection scroll a small price to pay for never having to locate a bathroom in the dungeon.