What's the problem with bringing PCs back from the dead?

[PeterGirvan]

I don't find anything wrong with the idea of raising PCs from the dead--it's an important mechanic that allows me to run combats without worrying how the campaign will get "back on track" if a PC is killed.

In the games that I have played in that have removed raises in order to be more "literary," the DMs go to embarassing lengths to avoid PC deaths (making TPKs dreams, declaring that lethal damage was actually nonlethal (but we just didnt realize it, etc)--or they make sure to ask how many hps you have before announcing damage that will bring you to -10, etc). It's a play style I don't enjoy one bit--and, in the end, comes off as way more contrived and artificial than any resurrections.

 

[molonel]

In the games that I have played in that have removed raises in order to be more "literary," the DMs go to embarassing lengths to avoid PC deaths (making TPKs dreams, declaring that lethal damage was actually nonlethal (but we just didnt realize it, etc)--or they make sure to ask how many hps you have before announcing damage that will bring you to -10, etc). It's a play style I don't enjoy one bit--and, in the end, comes off as way more contrived and artificial than any resurrections.

Absolutely. This is simply a conversation about what flavor of fudge we all prefer. Heroic luck, fate points, dream visions, Raise Dead, Resurrections, whatever. It's all part of one large spectrum of choices to ensure story continuity.

 

[Valesin]

Because it turns RPGs into video games, where you can 'save' a character or get more lives or any of that crap.

(And Stephen Brust has it because he is a talentless hack).

 

[Numion]

If you want D&D to resemble myth, legend and fantasy literature, you have a lot more that needs to be hacked away than just raising the dead. I'd go so far as to say you probably want a different system entirely.

I thought molonel was being sarcastic. Isn't coming back from the dead pretty damn common theme in myth, legend and fantasy?

 

[Mouseferatu]

(And Stephen Brust has it because he is a creative, talented author who has developed a fascinating setting in which such things have already been taken into account).

Fixed your typo for you.

 

[Sejs]

1) It significantly reduces the risk of adventure. Normally you revel in overcoming odds - you put your life on the line and come out victorious. Easy resurrection dulls that edge significantly. Now it's not do-or-die, it's do-or-be incovienanced.

2) It creates, or exacerbates, level discrepency amongst the party and it does so in big chunks. Same problem with level drain from undead and the like. A level - a chunk of what you knew and had earned - is just gone now. It's a very hamhanded penalty, and very difficult to translate into in-game terms. The usual explaniation is you've lost some of your life force... but wouldn't that be represented more by Con? In the case of resurrection, it's not even a penalty you can really recover from. You've just got to grit your teeth and bull ahead, hoping to grind out more exp to get your level back. And all the while, those lost levels make you more vulerable to dying again.

 

[molonel]

Fixed your typo for you.

Quite.

 

[Storyteller01]

I thought molonel was being sarcastic. Isn't coming back from the dead pretty damn common theme in myth, legend and fantasy?

Resurrection is, yes. Usually at some great cost or via divine intervention. Resurrection at every major church available with a donation of x coins, not so much.

 

[Kelleris]

1) It significantly reduces the risk of adventure. Normally you revel in overcoming odds - you put your life on the line and come out victorious. Easy resurrection dulls that edge significantly. Now it's not do-or-die, it's do-or-be incovienanced.

2) It creates, or exacerbates, level discrepency amongst the party and it does so in big chunks. Same problem with level drain from undead and the like. A level - a chunk of what you knew and had earned - is just gone now. It's a very hamhanded penalty, and very difficult to translate into in-game terms. The usual explaniation is you've lost some of your life force... but wouldn't that be represented more by Con? In the case of resurrection, it's not even a penalty you can really recover from. You've just got to grit your teeth and bull ahead, hoping to grind out more exp to get your level back. And all the while, those lost levels make you more vulerable to dying again.

Did you just argue that the penalty for being killed isn't big enough, and anyway being raised from the dead is too big a penalty?

Anyway, My biggest problem with raise dead is verisimilitude - the whole "assassinations don't really matter" thing. I solved that by adding thinaun weapons to the game, which is great because they're a built-in adventure waiting to happen in addition to being thematically cool. I even reduced the price a bit and allow them to capture a soul the round after the person is killed (while it's still escaping, you know), if you make a coup de gras against the dead body.

 

[Gothmog]

Honestly, for me and my group, easily available raise deads and resurrections are cheesy and take away from our enjoyment of the game. We love our characters, but to the players in my group, raising dead is a lot like loading a save game on a video game- it cheapens the death and the risk the PCs take to achieve their goals if they are pretty sure death is just a temporary setback.

Not to mention you run into the whole gamut of social problems MoogleEmpMog detailed previously. Kings can't be assassinated or poisoned, and death for the movers and shakers of the world is meaningless. In order to prevent resurrections, various sides have to engage in an arms race of weapons that prevent raises, except when they are countered by this artifact that allows a raise dead, unless this ritual was used to trap the soul, but the soul can be freed by shattering the ritual component with a sacred doohickey....you get the idea- infinite layers of cheese. Death SHOULD be scary and uncertain- mere mortals shouldn't be able to hop back and forth from the afterlife to live again, and what happens after death is a question that has driven theological tenants and debate since the beginnings of history. Taking away the "magic" of the afterlife and death as it were by resurrections seems to me to make the world nothing more than a videogame where characters have a certain number of "lives" before they are done.