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

[Jarloch]

I have no prob with raise dead, but to me DnD is a game, not a way to group-think a novel. Of course, if people have fun playing that way, more power to em.

But I don't think that even if raise dead were available in real life for grandpa it would get used very often. It might restore grandpa's life, but will it reverse 50 years of slowly hardening arteries? Probobly not. Will most people bankrupt entire families assets to give one more year with grandpa...it might sound hardhearted, but probably not. Hell, would grandpa want to give himself another year or two of marginally acceptalbe quality of life in return for draining his grandkids college fund...almost certainly not.

Raise dead is not "restore the body to how it was in their twenties". Most old people die for a reason. That reason is not negated by a raise spell. Adventurers who die on the other hand are otherwise hale and fit, with many years remaining on their natural lifespans.

Besides, modern day trauma centers are darn close to approaching a raise dead spell, with the exception of the duration a person can be dead. But yes, modern trauma centers can keep a person alive when they have no biological right to be, giving the body time to heal because a heart and lungs machine is mechanically forcing life to sustain itself. Wealthy people use these services all the time to extend life and it hasn't caused society to go upside down.

How is this really that different from raise dead?

Wouldn't cure spells (to an admittedly lesser degree) pose the same problems for verisimilitude? Would characters be willing to take tremendous amounts of damage from the red dragon if a cleric wasn't on hand to take it all away before they tried to get all the back to civilization? I dont think heal spells are prominently featured in myth and legend either, but there is little problem with those from many who have stylistic issues with raise dead.

Just debate positions though. We each can run our campaigns how we see fit.

 

[The Human Target]

Its just not that fun to me.

I'd rather PC death was mildly rare, but when it happened it was a big deal.

Plus, as mentioned in this thread and a billion times in a billion other threads, its a logical nightmare.

 

[molonel]

Absolutely perfectly well said. It makes the whole fantasy stop making any kind of sense, even as a fantasy. In 2005 my grandfather died (not of old age). I'd do anything reasonable to get him back. How much does a Raise Dead cost... as much as a house? Fine, we'll sell the house. As much as a ranch? Fine, my aunt (his daughter) will sell her ranch. Who would not do such a thing? Nobody would let their loved-ones die, and everyone would liquidate whatever it took to get them back. Within a decade the vast majority of wealth in the entire nation would concentrate in the hands of those who could bring back the dead. If it's clerics, then every nation would be a theocracy, bar none. Nobody would even spend money on other things... everybody would be sitting on the biggest bringing the dead back to life, can you believe it!!!?? fund they possibly could. It absolutely turns any world upside down.

You're forgetting one vital element of Raise Dead or Resurrection, and one that completely undermines your point from a story perspective:

You assume that everyone who enters the afterlife will be just as eager to return as those they left behind want them back.

In light of every mythology and religious portrayal of heaven or the outer planes, why do you assume this?

 

[Numion]

Plus, as mentioned in this thread and a billion times in a billion other threads, its a logical nightmare.

Whenever an NPC is required to stay dead, they'll stay dead. The spells require that the target be willing to return. Who's to say how they enjoy the afterlife? It's up to the DM to decide whether any NPC actually wants to come back.

 

[William drake]

It doesn't resemble most myth, legend, fantasy literature.

IT does more than that. It breaks laws of good story telling: once someone's dead, leave them dead...if you bring them back, there has to be a point, a plot. If it's just because you can, and the power is out there, then, like everyone else has said. Death becomes a mater of the coin, and both heros and villians would never die.

Any good hero, or villian, is worth their death; if they dont die at some point, then I say they were never trully in the mist of greatness to begin with.

 

[karpomatic]

You can always make stipulations for the raised character. I think there was an article in a Dragon Mag a few years ago about how various D&D cultures view raising the dead. I've not had to deal with it in 3rd edition but in 2nd, it got to be annoying. I was in a DL campaign that had a Solamnic Knight in the party. He was clumsy and kept dying. We would raise him with party treasure. After a few times we had his noble family foot the costs. Throughout the campaign, he died so many times that the party and his family were bankrupt and had to forefit their lands.

 

[Agamemnon]

Also, anyone who's ever been raised more than once would be a big help. Thanks.

Well, Captain Jack dies multiple deaths during the first season of Torchwood. That probably wasn't quite what you had in mind, though.

The problem I have with revivification magic is that in most settings, it's pointless from the character's point of view. They're dead, in heaven, indulging in sherbet and harpistry, so why the heck would they want to go back to the world just to die again?

Sure, a few exceptional people would, such as characters on a quest to save the world, or someone who's sold their sold to Mephistopheles for a jelly donut, but your average king / noble / sage / rich bugger? "Heck no, pass me another bowl of grapes, thank you very much."

 

[senodam]

Rend the Sovereign Soul from Relics and Rituals makes Res virtually impossible.

[Nitpick] That's Shatter Soul you're thinking of isn't it? [/Nitpick]. Sorry 'bout that.

Anyhoo, death has never been a minor inconvenience in my games, and I wonder how many people play up the consequences of ressurection in games?

Fr'ex, in my Age of Worms campaign, one PC has been raised twice. Not only has the miracle of resurrection inspired the former rogue to abandon his previous ways and take the holy vows of Pelor, but it has also marked him as a target for the Inevitables. He's not quite a priority yet, but once more and the Maruts will come a-calling. That's what they're there for, and it's a pretty cool plot hook IMO.

There's also the question of where the PCs can go to be raised- not every cleric is going to be willing, and often there's a question of piety and belief. When the LG cleric of Lathander is asked to raise a LN fighter who follows Tempus and has often mocked his faith, is he likely to bring him back? Heck, is Lathander likely to actually allow him to use the spell?

Not really, at least not In My Campaign. I sometimes think that players tend to overlook the rp and ic requirements of being brought back, and it is up to the DM to enforce that.
Other than that, I'm in full support of PCs being raised when it's appropriate.

 

[Hussar]

There's also the question of where the PCs can go to be raised- not every cleric is going to be willing, and often there's a question of piety and belief. When the LG cleric of Lathander is asked to raise a LN fighter who follows Tempus and has often mocked his faith, is he likely to bring him back? Heck, is Lathander likely to actually allow him to use the spell?

Shhh, quiet. Dontcha know that actually playing priests as if they had a faith behind them is counter to how the game is played? All clerics must cast any spell as soon as cash is rendered.

 

[ruleslawyer]

First of all, let's get one thing straight.

You said "myth, legend and fantasy literature."

I totally smoked you on that one. So you have no room to be cocky.

Now who's being cocky?

In myth, legend, and fantasy literature, coming back from the dead is a big deal. Aesclapius is punished by the gods for bringing a dead man back to life... and is half-divine to boot in any case, being the son of the god of healing, no less. Isis's resurrection of Osiris is central to Egyptian mythology, in the same way that Christ's resurrection from the dead is central to Christian theology.

In Norse mythology, the efforts required are even more striking. Even the king of the gods, Odin, cannot bring his son back from Niflheim without an effort that proves impossible until the end and remaking of the world.

Hercules,

Please cite that one for me. Hercules is brought to live among the gods after he dons the poisoned robe, but a) is a demigod, creating the annoying problem of being unable to die despite the fact that he's in great pain, and b) doesn't really "die" in the first place. Rather, he gets DvR 1, in a sense.

As Arjuna rides his chariot between the two approaching armies, he worries about the state of his soul. His chariot driver, who turns out to be Krishna in disguise, tells him not to worry. None of the warriors who face each other will actually die. They will instead be raised again, and live again.

In a fundamentally different form. Reincarnation is absolutely, positively NOT "raise dead," any more than the Christian concept of the resurrection of souls at the Rapture is. That analogy is fundamentally flawed.

I think the point that Delta is trying to make is that waving one's hands and raising someone from the dead without real consequences *is* antithetical to the vast majority of mythological and legendary themes. Most resurrection myths exist precisely to suggest to us how important and vast death is, and to promise something greater and more mystical that endures beyond the body. Raising the dead is a lot more like the super-EMT situation mentioned earlier.