Resurrection implications

[uzirath]

Two important considerations for this thread, here:
1) OP didn't specify D&D, so "raise dead" should probably also be considered as "resurrection."

Yeah, I put the thread in the general forum to broaden it beyond just D&D, though I'm fine with D&D as a baseline. I'm running my current campaign using the Dungeon Fantasy RPG (GURPS) rules. In it, PCs can't get any sort of raise dead spell themselves, but most temples can raise someone for a donation of $15,000 (call it 15,000 gp in D&D). You need to have a body with its head. Crippled limbs and whatnot will be restored.

This implies a number of things, including the fact that assassins must at least make off with the heads of their victims.

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...

This is an interesting angle (also mentioned by @MarkB above). It's a straightforward way to reduce the total number of raised people and gives the GM a way to block the option of raising NPCs who need to stay dead.

If it is truly a choice, it does seem like the folks headed to more negative afterlives would be more likely to want to return. This could be mitigated by @MarkB's idea that souls in the lower planes might not be free to go... they are enslaved or held by infernal masters. Otherwise, you might end up in a setting where it's more likely that evil people are successfully raised, which may further incline the wealthy and powerful toward evil.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

The answer to your question is fairly simple:

This is a game, not a coherent system to explain a reality. The game is player-facing and player-centric, and designed to be fun for players. In addition, over time it has been designed to be more fun for players, with the assumption that "fun" is the same as "not dying" or otherwise being sidelined.

Viewed in this light, resurrection creep makes more sense. Not only are players harder to kill in 5e (whac-a-mole, death saves, no save or die), but coming back from the dead has never been easier. Revivify is a third level spell! That means it comes on-line when a party hits 5th level, and any 5th level cleric in the world can "bring someone back." But that's got a huge temporal restriction. So raise dead is effectively a get-out-of-death free card, and is available not just to any 9th level cleric, but to 9th level bards as well (you can also cast reincarnate, if you're feeling frisky or need to hide out from those who killed you).

By the time you have 13th level Bards and Clerics in the word, they can literally go around graveyards and resurrect anyone who has been dead for up to 100 years. And ... this is a rechargeable resource.

(Contrast this with 1e, where it was easier to die, and Raise Dead was a weaker spell that came on later because it took longer to level, and you both had a limited number of times you could be raised, and you a chance, each time, of never coming back).

So to answer your question- the world doesn't account for this. Just as it likely doesn't account for armies and AoE spells. Or mending cantrips. Or easy continual flames and lights to keep the lights on everywhere. Or all sorts of other things. This is about the players.

Which means that, if you want, you can accentuate an aspect of this and incorporate it into the campaign world Make it interesting! A world with an easy way to never die would be wildly different (and probably cause a lot of different choices). On the other hand, a world like that is also one where people might want to try and control that. All sorts of ways you could go with that.

 

[nevin]

In my homegrown campaign a soul for a soul to come back anotherhas to pass early. Thing about ressurection is it doesnt extend lifespan. I suspect reincarnate would be a bigger thing for rich people. How much in a fantasy world would you pay druids to kill and ressurect you till you came back as an elf that could live for a very long time? Millions id guess.

Like it being harder to bring back evil souls. If you applied it globally it could be fun. Players have to negotiate with an outsider from the appropriate afterlife to get them back. Or sneak into the plane and free them physically and then theyd be an outsider

 

[nevin]

In my homegrown campaign a soul for a soul to come back anotherhas to pass early. Thing about ressurection is it doesnt extend lifespan. I suspect reincarnate would be a bigger thing for rich people. How much in a fantasy world would you pay druids to kill and ressurect you till you came back as an elf that could live for a very long time? Millions id guess.

Like it being harder to bring back evil souls. If you applied it globally it could be fun. Players have to negotiate with an outsider from the appropriate afterlife to get them back. Or sneak into the plane and free them physically and then theyd be an outsider

Imagine how afraid of anyone who could cast banishment they would be, or summoners who might summon something that knows they dont belong.

 

[Umbran]

This is a game, not a coherent system to explain a reality. The game is player-facing and player-centric, and designed to be fun for players.
...
So to answer your question- the world doesn't account for this. Just as it likely doesn't account for armies and AoE spells. Or mending cantrips. Or easy continual flames and lights to keep the lights on everywhere. Or all sorts of other things. This is about the players.

Mind you, making it work out so that the players have relatively easy access to it, but it doesn't impact the world, is simple:

Stop assuming that the casting of the spell is a simple monetary transaction. Yes, the spell has a costly material component, but that doesn't mean if you hand over 500 GP, someone automatically casts the spell for you. PCs are doing things in the world that the gods will have interest in. Most others... aren't. Most people, when faced with a vaguely pleasant afterlife, will not want to come back. Those souls who are in unpleasant afterlives may not be "at liberty" to come back - "I'm sorry, Johnny can't come back to play. Lord Pazuzu is ripping out his spleen right now..."

So, if you don't want it to, the existence of the spell in the book does not necessarily have a major impact on the world.

 

[uzirath]

Which means that, if you want, you can accentuate an aspect of this and incorporate it into the campaign world Make it interesting! A world with an easy way to never die would be wildly different (and probably cause a lot of different choices). On the other hand, a world like that is also one where people might want to try and control that. All sorts of ways you could go with that.

Yes, exactly. I'm hoping to hear from people about decisions that they have made in their campaign worlds regarding this aspect. (Lots of great ideas in the thread so far.)

I'll back up and riff off a few of your other excellent points.

Revivify is a third level spell! That means it comes on-line when a party hits 5th level, and any 5th level cleric in the world can "bring someone back." But that's got a huge temporal restriction.

Revivify is a staggering spell! If I had something similar in one of my game worlds, I would presume that a prerequisite for employment as a bodyguard or nanny for the rich and powerful is that you are a cleric with that spell. (Or maybe you have a magic item or scroll.) One minute is tight, definitely, but could save a life in many circumstances. I also like the idea, floated up-thread, that this spell interrupts the process of death such that the soul hasn't fully crossed over to the afterlife. That's good fluff to explain why it always works.

So raise dead is effectively a get-out-of-death free card, and is available not just to any 9th level cleric, but to 9th level bards as well (you can also cast reincarnate, if you're feeling frisky or need to hide out from those who killed you).

Love the thought of reincarnated criminals starting a new life. I could see organized crime keeping such spells handy.

By the time you have 13th level Bards and Clerics in the word, they can literally go around graveyards and resurrect anyone who has been dead for up to 100 years. And ... this is a rechargeable resource.

I wonder how this might change funerary practices. In my current campaign, you need a relatively intact body to successfully raise the dead. Thus, cremation makes it impossible. If you lost a child to an illness or accident, would you cremate them to prevent any necromantic shenanigans, or would you want them buried intact in case you could eventually raise the money to hire a cleric?

So to answer your question- the world doesn't account for this. Just as it likely doesn't account for armies and AoE spells. Or mending cantrips. Or easy continual flames and lights to keep the lights on everywhere. Or all sorts of other things. This is about the players.

In my experience, though, some of those other elements get more focus than the idea of raising the dead. (Not always, of course... Abydos, in the GURPS Banestorm setting, turns a lot of this inside-out.) I've played in many a fantasy city with enchanted streetlights, magically skilled tailors, otyughs processing the city's sewage, and physical defenses modified to be more effective against the magic of the setting (anti-invisibility gates, no-fly zones, etc.).

I have never yet been sent on a quest to recover the Duke's lost child so that they can be resurrected.

 

[Lanefan]

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.

If it was a TSR scenario it'd be old enough that the Resurrection Survival roll was still a thing; you could always have the merchant fail the roll.

That said, if all you need from the merchant is information Speak With Dead is far cheaper than a Raise.

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.

I did this to my crew once: they'd sent a PC corpse by unescorted cart up to a city 5 days away for revival, along with the funds to pay for such. En route the cart was waylaid, the corpse switched out, and the driver paid handsomely to make his delivery to a different temple in the same city.

Did that ever take some sorting out once the remaining PCs realized their friend's corpse never got where it was going...

 

[nevin]

I also do things like that for all high level spells that have a significant effect on reality.
I think DM s get so stuck in thisr track they forget that every high level cleric spell say 8 and 9 at least is a noticeable use of power to thier diety. Ive had player clerics lose access to certain spells and un one case all spells tull they atoned for using thisr gofts of power in ways thier god didnt approve of. That should really be the limiter on divine magic. A player could cast resssurrect and thier god may deny it or another god may block it or worse be offended you tampered with life and death.

I relly think gods should have something that they can individually control that other gods cant. Then say in a greek campaign you have to deal with Hades to bring a soul back. Maybe Gaea gets offended if you cast earthquake and sends one or more of her children after the cleric

 

[Sir Brennen]

IMC, in addition to the idea others have mentioned that the soul has to be willing to return, the gods also have to be willing. But since many gods might have machinations in the mortal realm, they may be a little over-eager to get their agents back in the fight. So they have to present their case to the goddess of death, who has final say on who can leave the afterlife. This goddess has the most powerful divination abilities of all the gods, and can tell if a mortal's journey has ended or not, or what far-reaching consequences their return to life will have. If the soul's patron god makes a strong enough case, she may let them return because they won't change things in any significant way. But neither the other gods or the soul will know this.

Of course, most of this can be handwaved as a foregone conclusion for PCs, but it can be fun to roleplay through for the player and DM.

I also played in a game where resurrection required one's patron god's approval. One character, human, who was brought back had to make a deal with their god, a new deity of machines, and was resurrected as a warforged. In our current game set in the same world but 100 years later, he's now a patron saint of that deity.

[EDIT]: Practically ninja'd by @nevin on the ideas in my post

 

[Voadam]

I have never yet been sent on a quest to recover the Duke's lost child so that they can be resurrected.

Iron Gods from Paizo, the first adventure's no spoiler starting quest is rescue the town's missing prominent citizen wizard or bring back his remains with a reward of X gold for just the body. If you rescue him alive you get X gold and the raise dead scroll they were going to use too.