D&D 5E Revivify - where did that come from?!?

[RotGrub]

2e Ravenloft had the Grim Reaper

"The chance that any mortally wounded individual (one reduced to 0 or fewer hit points) will attract the attention of a death spirit is equal to 5% per character experience level. Thus, a 15th level character on his death bed has a 75% chance of being visited by a grim reaper."

We had to fight the Grim Reaper off a few times in our campaign. Then we started casting negative plane protection and made use of amulets. Of course, driving him off granted the victim 10% of his original hit points back. I lost a few characters to him, but I can't say it didn't make us worry like hell when we went down.

 

[Khisanth the Ancient]

True Resurrection typically bypasses missing body parts. Regular Resurrection usually gets past some body parts.

Still, at high levels, it's probably better to just steal the target's soul.

In 3.x, Resurrection could return you from disintegrated dust. You only needed True if you had nothing at all left.

On a more serious note, D&D originally didn't have a functional definition of "Down" distinct from "Dead" because of its war gaming roots. Casualties were casualties

Interesting ... never thought of that as the reason, but now that you say it, makes perfect sense that it would be that.

In that regard I only put Revivify in the same category as Raise Dead for meta-game organizational purposes. In a role-playing situation it wouldn't be significantly different from reviving someone who drowned or had their heart stopped by modern medical means.

I agree - Revivify doesn't have the "cosmic" implications of Raise Dead or Resurrection. The soul hasn't really departed yet, at least not fully.