What are YOUR house rules for raising a dead character?

[Bladesong]

In short the one being raised pays the EXP cost of the spell and carries a non-removable negative level for the remainder of their current level and the one following unless they make a fortitude save in which case the negative level only remains until they reach their next level.
Saves are 25 for raise dead, 20 for resurrection and 15 for true resurrection.
Example: 10th level character dies and is raised. He has pays the exp of the spell and has a negative level until he is 12th level unless he makes his save in which case he loses the negative level when he reaches 11th.

 

[airwalkrr]

So, they're far more common than their price suggests but there's a manipulative, monopolistic corporation artificially shrinking the market and raising the prices?

I don't see why not. It's an adventure waiting to happen.

 

[Someone]

In one homebrew i had once, death wasn´t seen as death, but as a very serious wound or illness. The soul lingered in the ethereal plaen for some time, eventually evaporating (for atheists) or departing for their final resting place (for theists) after a few days. You had to cast the raising spells before that.

 

[Presto2112]

The only house rule my DM has is that a character can only be raised / resurrected by a divine caster of the deceased's patron deity. All well and good, except there have been three characters (one non-theist, one nature-as-a-whole type druid who followed no specific god, and one character who never divuulged their patron deity) who were SOL in the resurrection department.

 

[reanjr]

My house rules require that the priest be someone of your own faith and the services are never purchased with cash but in trade (not explicitly, but by doing things for the chrch) by the character who died. You can't go to the priest after the fact and expect a raising.

On the other hand, if you want less severe rules, try taking away XP, but NOT dropping level. That way, they don't lose power but it takes time to catch up with what happened.

 

[Nifft]

Thanks. Though either could work. 20th level experts and aristocrats can artificially manipulate markets as well as a 20th level wizard can, though the non-mages need to put a lot more effort into it.

Right, but a bunch of Gnome Beguilers? Total cinch.

"What's my favored class? Upper."

-- N

 

[Thurbane]

In my own homebrew campaign the gods don't take people being snatched back from the afterlife too kindly, unless there is a very good reason.

In game terms, I rule that Raise Dead doesn't exist*, therefore meaning Resurrection and Reincarnation are the only two real "back from the dead" spells - even then, the gods may become angered. Generally, if someone has died a heroic or noteworthy death, the gods may allow him a second chance. Sometimes they may require a large favour to persuade them.

* Some less than scrupulous clerics of evil deities can cast a form of Raise Dead, but it often carries a curse along with the spell, which can range from a Geas to perform a quest for the cleric or deity, or may end up in the character coming back as a Revenant, Half-dead or worse...

 

[Prophet2b]

In an upcoming campaign, there will actually be no Raise Dead spell, and possibly no resurrection spell*. I know it's just a game, but in no fantasy story is death treated as "nicely" as it is in D&D. People who can bring the dead back to life are the most powerful in the lands, if they exist at all. The Raise Dead spell just feels like too much of a video game, too. "Shoot, I died, now I have to be reset at the save point and play through everything again just to get that experience back."

I'm also going to work on the reincarnation spell (just haven't gotten around to it, yet), so that there will be levels of reincarnate. One level will be simple animals, next will be a mix of animals and humanoids, and the next most powerful level will be just humanoids.

Coming back from the dead ought to be something special, I think.

* There will be True Resurrection. If you come back, you come back whole and without penalty - but that takes powerful magic.

 

[Lanefan]

I have no problem with the existence of revival effects; as characters are expceted to now and then get unlucky and die, the game kinda demands them.

The 1e mechanic for handling such was, I still think, far more useful than the 3e version. A revived character lost a point of Con., and could never be revived in total more times than its original Con. score. That, and there was a small % chance of the revival effect failing, dependent on one's Con. before the latest death, and *that* is a roll people sweat over, because if you blow it the death is permanent. In my game, there's about a 5-7000 g.p. cost for raise (but it needs the whole corpse in somewhat-reasonable condition), more like 12K-ish for resurrection (only needs a part of the corpse e.g. tooth, finger, etc.).

I have it that someone raised is effectively bedridden for a day, then is ready to go at full h.p. *unless* the corpse was not in good enough condition to be raised in the first place, in which case it'll die again shortly after revival unless other curings are done quickly. A resurrection gets you back completely, and after about a 5-minute readjustment to the land of the living you're as good as new. And a well-worded wish can bypass everything, including penalties.

I'm not enamoured of the lose-a-level penalty in 3e; in fact, I've had the occasional bizarre instance where a character has *gained* ExP while dead! (don't ask, it's a *long* story...) I'm also not fond of there being no chance for the death to be permanent; that the revival might not work, and the only limit to the number of times you can come back being the number of levels you have to burn...levels, after all, are a renewable resource.

The one thing I did do to make death a bit more serious was to increase the chance of failing the revival if you had died more than once before, and that seems to have worked out OK.

Lanefan

 

[airwalkrr]

The 1e mechanic for handling such was, I still think, far more useful than the 3e version. A revived character lost a point of Con., and could never be revived in total more times than its original Con. score. That, and there was a small % chance of the revival effect failing, dependent on one's Con. before the latest death, and *that* is a roll people sweat over, because if you blow it the death is permanent. In my game, there's about a 5-7000 g.p. cost for raise (but it needs the whole corpse in somewhat-reasonable condition), more like 12K-ish for resurrection (only needs a part of the corpse e.g. tooth, finger, etc.).

That is basically what I do (see above). I use a hyrbrid mesh of 1e/3e. It has the feel of the 1e rules with the mechanics of 3e rules.