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

[Shroomy]

Out of curiosity, who else was brought back?

Joyce presumably came back, but very, very wrong. Darla ended up alive again, but not through any kind of resurrection. Angel was thought dead, but was just trapped on another dimension. (Besides, vampire.) Other than vampires and zombies, who else came back?

Death was pretty damned final in Buffy ... so much so that probably the most powerful witch in the world couldn't bring back her lover.

Buffy and Darla are definites. They both died and came back as humans. Then there is a bunch of gray area like Spike, Cordelia Chase, Holland Manners, Lilah Morgan, and a bunch of minor characters.

I have another resurrection from pop culture: Aeryn Sun from Farscape.

 

[Malhost Zormaeril]

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?

This is a downer on that theory. Of course, Sumerians were just plain depressed about everything anyway.

Personally, I have no problem with Raise Dead/Ressurrection. I just assume that it's an ability that's held by very few people anyway -- but I assume also that level progression is an inverse exponential: broadly speaking, there are only about half/a third as many people of a given level as there are people the level below it. By that reasoning, for every 9th-level character (PCs excluded), there are 510/9840 characters of lower level. And since 90% of anyone on a given world is a Commoner (according to the DMG), you need a city with a population of 5,100/98,400 to find any 9th-level non-commoners. How many of those are clerics? Good luck.

 

[Korgoth]

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?

Every? That's a pretty amazing claim! How about this one:

"'Say not a word,' he answered, 'in death's favour; I would rather be a paid servant in a poor man's house and be above ground than king of kings among the dead.'"
- Achilles, Odyssey Book XI

Looks like I "smoked you", as you say.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

It's kind of odd, I guess. I have a "mental stumble" at the other option -- Hey, here's another 8th-level character in the neighborhood who just happens to be completely willing to join your group without reservation.

Except its not quite like that for people who ditch raise dead. Most of the time they have safety valves in place to lower the number of deaths.

In the game I'm running now, set in oathbound, the ursurper gods arent true divine beings. They have to constantly devour parts of souls that go to them in order to maintain their power, and keep the true god imprisoned in the forge (a fact that is hidden from their worshippers). Raise dead, speak with dead, etc, dont make any sense in this campaigin setting, in order to preserve the mystery.

Not wanting a parade of random dudes filling in whenever someone bites it, I need another solution. Somthing to delay death, but still cause a sting in an instance where death would occur. Enter the Luck score.

Like any ability score, you generate through normal means (modded point buy in this game). If your score yields a bonus, you can apply that result to any die up to twice per session after its rolled. If its a penalty, the Dm can apply up to twice the penalty to any roll you make once per session (or as a bonus to someone targetting you). You can permanently burn a point of luck to be reduced to -9 HP instead of killed, or to do some crazy wahoo heroics.

The penalty effect leads to a spiral where characters with negative luck tend to need to use mroe luck to survive. Eventually your luck runs out, and you die when you cant save yourself.

Its worked out about the same as if I had res spells. Characters perma die about as often. The flavor of the campaign is preserved, dogs and cats - living together and all that good stuff.

I've run plenty of games with normal rez spells as well. This does, IMO have the advantage of not having one of your player sit on their thumb for 2-3 sessions as they truck back to the resurrection shack if they botch a save.

 

[Numion]

Except its not quite like that for people who ditch raise dead. Most of the time they have safety valves in place to lower the number of deaths.

The main argument against raises seems to be that it lessens the risk of death. Risk is probability times the consequences. Raise dead reduces the consequence, savety valves (action points, no random deaths) reduce the probability.

So I'd say that the risks are balanced in both types of games. With raises you'll be dying a lot more, but can sometimes come back, and without raises the DM is fudging for you.

I prefer the DM not to pull punches or make the game wussy, so I'll take my chances with the raises.

 

[molonel]

Now who's being cocky?

Allow an old man his ironies, sometimes?

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.

I was asked to find examples. I found those. I was asked to find more specific examples. I found those, too. And now, those examples are being nitpicked. I'm shocked.

Sooner or later, someone is going to reframe the question as, "Okay, Molonel. Find me an example in the oral storytelling of the Indians in the lower southeast section of Alaska where a 5,000 gp gem is required to bring a mortal hero back from the dead. Ha! Can't do it, can you?"

I freely confess: I cannot.

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.

Okay, the efforts required are more striking.

It still happens.

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.

He asked for a mortal example. Hercules was not yet a god. Ergo, he qualifies. He's dying, nothing can save him, and divine power rescues him. This qualifies as an example.

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.

In your opinion.

Throughout the discussions we've had on this subject, Reincarnation was right there alongside Raise Dead, Resurrection and True Resurrection as an option to bring a character back. It wasn't the preferred option, but it was there.

Heroes and lives cycling back from the dead is a fundamental part of world mythology. My analogy is not 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.

Well, people keep acting like it's some foregone conclusion that Rez, True Rez and Raise Dead have never appeared in literature, myth, fantasy or legend. That is absolutely, positively and demonstratably false.

You can keep refining the question until you get the answer you want.

But it is a valid tool in a DM or GM's toolbox, and every bit as valid - no more, no less - than other tools people use to continue the story when, by all accounts, characters should be dead. It has precadent, and it is valid.

Every? That's a pretty amazing claim! How about this one:

"'Say not a word,' he answered, 'in death's favour; I would rather be a paid servant in a poor man's house and be above ground than king of kings among the dead.'"
- Achilles, Odyssey Book XI

Looks like I "smoked you", as you say.

Except that the assumption that everyone wishes to return from the dead was not mine. In Greek mythology, Hades was a place of dust, loneliness and silence.

Nice quote, by my clothes aren't even steaming.

Keep trying, though.

 

[shmoo2]

The PCs in my game are running into other people and other storylines constantly. They meet NPCs all the time, help deal with (or become one of) their problems, and then move on. The only difference with a new PC is that they stick around for longer. New PCs in my game never just show up and ask to join without motivation. I weave them into the storyline, just like I do all the NPCs.

I don't feature raise dead/resurrection IMC.

To keep new party members from being random people met at the inn, I plan ahead and have several NPCs, ready to go as potential party members.

In our Shackled City campaign, the party mage enrolled his little brother at the city's magic academy. The party has allied with the Striders, and their members have gone on missions with the party already. Members of the town guard are friendly with the PCs and have fought alongside them on occasion. Any of these NPCs could become permanent replacements to fallen comrades with no suspension of disbelief at all.

 

[Korgoth]

The main argument against raises seems to be that it lessens the risk of death. Risk is probability times the consequences. Raise dead reduces the consequence, savety valves (action points, no random deaths) reduce the probability.

So I'd say that the risks are balanced in both types of games. With raises you'll be dying a lot more, but can sometimes come back, and without raises the DM is fudging for you.

I prefer the DM not to pull punches or make the game wussy, so I'll take my chances with the raises.

Here's my approach: I have methods in place and ahead of time for the introduction of new characters. For example, the starting town I've been drawing up for "generic fantasy" Classic has several established low-level NPCs as well as a subtable of my Random Inn Patrons table for several 1st & 2nd level NPCs who are doing various things in and around this town. Since the town is on an old and established road (but in a wild/borderlands area), travelers may come through fairly regularly. So if somebody's character buys it in the local dungeon there are actually several different options: they can start with a new character once the party gets back to town, they can take over one of the hirelings promote him to PC status, they can even take the role of an established NPC (nobody is higher than level 2 in this burg), although if they want to take on, say, the crusty Dwarven smith (Dwarf lvl 2) and get him killed, then things will change in the town for a bit until his apprentice learns the ropes or somebody new comes in and takes over the operation. This could also sour the town on the party a little bit, and so on.

Playing B10? Plenty of towns and settlements to introduce a new character. Playing X1? You can roll up a native Fighter or Cleric (shaman), or be a shipwreck survivor or an escaped pirate captive or an exiled pirate or anything. In the depths of a megadungeon? Again, hirelings, escaped captives, lost newbies, etc.

Though I prefer to have people start over at 1st level, or 2nd level at most. So that gets around the notion of "there just happens to be a 14th level cleric in the woods!"

 

[Korgoth]

Except that the assumption that everyone wishes to return from the dead was not mine. In Greek mythology, Hades was a place of dust, loneliness and silence.

Nice quote, by my clothes aren't even steaming.

Keep trying, though.

I just thought you'd want to qualify your use of the term "every"... to something like "not every", just for the sake of accuracy or even civility.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

jeez folks are snippy today. Lets have a group hug or something.

I don't mind the occasional resurrection, but it should have a price, the idea of a permanent con point loss and the resurrection survival chances from 1e help a lot. Just the idea that there is a 5-10% chance that no matter what they won't be able to be brought back is a nice reminder not to just say, "Screw it! I can be resurrected so lets just do this stupid thing anyway." and the con point lost will make future resurrections more risky as the chance of not survivng goes up. Level loss isn't a very good idea for a resurrection mechanic in my book. I'm thinking of house ruling that out of the game entirely.