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Message: <blockquote data-quote="RainOfSteel" data-source="post: 5611168" data-attributes="member: 24460">Fluff text in many fantasy games has great difficulty in matching up with the game's capabilities.  The histories and dramas of such lands are largely built the way they are in the real world's histories, with similar events and tragedies, ones which would be rendered moot or immaterial due to magic.A whole slew of excellent ways around these issues was introduced in Steven Brust's Jhereg books.  First, the body must be healed up or it will just die again upon being raised.  If the body has been beheaded, suffered brain or spinal cord injuries that are too severe to be healed, the body had a raise block spell cast upon it (which must be more powerful than another can dispell), if the soul has been destroyed (with a Morganti weapon), or if the body has been made undead, then the raise won't work.  I believe there may be a time limit on it, too.In fact, raises are so common in that milieu, that crime syndicates typically send warnings to people by killing them but leaving them in a state where they can be raised.  (I think it was an in-joke even way back then about raises eliminating death in Fantasy RPGs.)None of that officially exists in D&D, though, so basically it's your elementary oversight during the process of imagining the progress of history in the Eberron milieu.In D&D milieus, killing people in high positions on a permanent basis should be very difficult.  For rulers of great nations and their families, True Resurrection will be available and so causing permanent death will be even more difficult.It would also, I think, be a source of substantial disaffection among commoners to see their rulers, their families, and high nobles and officials constantly brought back to life when they must all suffer permanent death.Raise Dead should be more difficult, costly, and be subject to a number of outside limitations that can render it useless.  The Con-loss limit only restricts the number of times a raise can be done.  If it is switched to the other limits outlined above, I think it would still be balanced (although with abstract hit-points, it would be impossible to determine brain/spinal cord damage directly).True Resurrection (along with Miracle and Wish) should be removed from the inventory of standard spells that are readily available to clerics.  They should only be special grants from the gods for exceptional services rendered or the fulfillment of prophecies.Raise Dead only requires a 9th level cleric.  That is not that high a level on a national scale, and certainly not out of line for the national scale of the Eberron setting.</blockquote>

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