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

[Numion]

Good thing I'm not you then.

Sooo ... it's a good thing when players say it?

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Sooo ... it's a good thing when players say it?

All I was implying was that the rule did help my games, where you said it would be useless to you.

 

[Numion]

BTW, I just now wondered how does this "resurrections == no risk" jibe with the other 3E accusation that the magic items are more important than the character?

Wouldn't that mean the greatest risk in adventuring is losing your gear, and not dying? And thus that the resurrection issue isn't that important, since a man without his gear isn't up to snuff anyway?

 

[Numion]

All I was implying was that the rule did help my games, where you said it would be useless to you.

Okay, I don't get some of the subtleties in English.

Still, I'm surprised the 5-10% chance would affect that much. If the PCs are embarking on anything so stupid that would elicit that quote, I think there would be some similar probability of a TPK, in which case there's never going to be a resurrection anyway.

 

[Quasqueton]

A- Character does something “heroic” and dies. If the party is low level, the surviving friends carry the hero’s body to a friendly temple and arrange a raise/resurrection for some expense. If the party is high level, they might can perform the raise/resurrection themselves, still at some expense. The revived hero character can return to the adventures, and the player has a grand story about his character.

B- Character does something “heroic” and dies. The party buries the hero. They then accept a new character into their adventures, and the player has a grand story about a previous character.

My character dies in a fight with the party against a terrible red dragon to protect the capital city. Taking on that beast saved thousands of people from death by fire, and kept the king and army alive and intact to hold the civilization from falling to barbarians. Are his actions in defense of the kingdom lessened because he can be raised? What about the characters who didn’t die – are they less heroic than the one who fell?

How often do PCs die in heroic actions? In my experience, PCs more often die in non-heroic actions (unless you count as heroic stuff like fighting orc raiders in the wilderness).


Or…

A- Character gets caught by a crit and dies. If the party is low level, the surviving friends carry the character’s body to a friendly temple and arrange a raise/resurrection for some expense. If the party is high level, they might can perform the raise/resurrection themselves, still at some expense. The revived character can return to the adventures, and the player has a story about his character.

B- Character gets caught by a crit and dies. The party buries the character. They then accept a new character into their adventures, and the player has a story about a previous character.

There’s nothing definitively heroic about dying. Doing a great deed and living is no different than doing a great deed, dying, and then being raised. The deed was still heroic.

Quasqueton

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

You know, mate, your question has been asked and answer, right? No offense, but what's the reason for starting this again?

Because it's a discussion, and not a survey?

 

[Ourph]

BTW, I just now wondered how does this "resurrections == no risk" jibe with the other 3E accusation that the magic items are more important than the character?

Good point. I think the equipment issue actually supports the idea that resurrections don't actually "hurt" that much. If equipment is more important and you've got the money to pay for a Resurrection, you're dropping a level but coming back with the same equipment. (ex: 5th level fighter with 5th level equipment comes back as 4th level fighter with 5th level equipment). If equipment is more important than level, then the penalty for Resurrection doesn't hurt much.

Of course, if you play in a campaign where new PCs come in at the same level as the other PCs and with equipment appropriate to level based on the DMG table, you might actually be better off dying and making a new character. Getting to choose your equipment from scratch rather than getting only what you find in the campaign can be a major power boost if the DM doesn't have any restrictions on your choices. However, I've rarely seen a game where the DM is that lenient about new PCs. Usually, equipment, level or both are limited for new characters to prevent them from being min/maxed too much.

 

[molonel]

The precise *point* is that the efforts required are "more striking." I don't think anyone's objecting to the idea that the direct intervention of a deity or actual immortal status would be an appropriate means to allow resurrection. The idea that a reasonably-available spell that qualifies as a common character option allows it is a different bag altogether.

And we've also argued over what everyone means by a common character option or a readily available spell.

The means to make it less readily available are easily changed in the game, and we've discussed several ways to do so.

But making it so changes the flavor of the game. It doesn't make the game better in any objective fashion.

No it doesn't. Herakles/Hercules was not raised from the dead. He never died, period. This is not an argument about the availability of deific ascension, neutralize poison, or conditions governing immortality, so this is not an appropriate example.

We can agree to disagree on that. You see "neutralize poison" but there weren't any mid-level clerics running around casting a readily available spell. He sat down on a funeral pyre to die because nothing could save him and he was burning to death with the poison inside him.

You seem to require grand statements, and then dismiss a very dramatic death experience as trivial and easily solved. It must be nice to have your cake, and eat it, too.

Otherwise, I listed several examples, most of which fit. So I'm not going to quibble.

In my understanding as a Sanskrit-proficient Hindu who has done more than his share of theology study, yes. Reincarnation qua Hindu/Vedic/Buddhist philosophy is vastly different from reincarnation via spell. It's a condition of being, not something a mortal can do to another mortal. And memories are *not* retained, ever. A reincarnated life is a new life, not a reset button.

It's not exactly the same, and I never argued that it was.

Let's get something straight: D&D is a game. It has its own mythology, and it does not reflect anything EXACTLY except itself. I am constantly being asked to find examples, and I find them studded throughout world mythology and stories, and then spend the rest of the time hearing people say, "Oh, but it's not EXACTLY the same."

But the point is: the soul returns, and is reborn, and continues. It happens.

Arjuna, when a man knows the self
to be indestructible, enduring, unborn,
unchanging, how does he kill
or cause anyone to kill?

As a man discards
worn-out clothes
to put on new
and different ones,
so the embodied self
discards
its worn-out bodies
to take on other new ones.

Weapons do not cut it,
fire does not burn it,
waters do not wet it,
wind does not wither it.

It cannot be cut or burned;
it cannot be wet or withered;
it is enduring, all pervasive,
fixed, immovable, and timeless.

Not when you rephrase the issue that way, maybe. The question is not whether there is a mythic precedent for "heroes and lives cycling back from the dead" (and I would argue that's not quite correct either, since no mortal escapes death's clutches in *any* of the examples you give; the story of Orpheus and Eurydice is usually taken as an example of how mortal impetuousness and frailty prevent us from cheating death), but whether returning from the dead should be available for mortals as a common, hardwired-into-the-campaign option. By gods and for gods, yes. For mortals?

You answer that question your way, and I'll answer it mine. Both your way, and mine, have imaginative precadent.

Mortals cannot raise anyone from the dead in D&D. That is a divine power.

The point that I would make is a different one. In myth, legend, and much fantasy literature, death is an insurmountable barrier for mortals; it's one of the essential elements to making heroic deeds heroic. Gilgamesh battles death in a struggle that's directly metaphorical for mankind's attempts to stave off mortality. Odysseus visits Hades to be reminded of the importance of living life to the fullest. Balder dies to show that even the mightiest and the most beautiful cannot escape death (and, as I said, he doesn't make it out until after the world itself is remade; even Odin, All-Father of the Universe, cannot "raise" him). Only beings of supreme power or divine immanence can either resurrect or be resurrected. Raise dead inverts that paradigm, allowing mortals to bring back mortals as a matter of routine, and it IS without precedent in mythic traditions for this precise reason.

Raise Dead is a divine spell granted by the gods.

Nuff said.

 

[Quasqueton]

But if I tell you that I don't allow Pegasi in my world because I think they're dorky... what is there to argue about?

Well, someone could explain why they think pegasi are cool. Would you get all worked up over that discussion? Would you feel personally assaulted at having someone disagree or find confusion at your reasons for thinking a flying horse is dorky? (And we could use “myth, legend, and literature” to support the coolness of the flying mount.)

I’m not saying anyone should run their game the way I run mine. I’m not even saying your game is wrong, or my game is right. I’m just saying I don’t get your reasonings.

If your reasons for thinking pegasi are dorky was based on the concept that they are not aerodynamic, and their bodies are much too heavy for their wingspan, and that a horse brain could never accept flight, then someone could point out all the other non-aerodynamic flying creatures of D&D, other large flying creatures of D&D, and the intelligence score of the creature in the D&D MM. Would you take offense at this discussion?

I’m not even being argumentative – I’m just discussing. I’m pointing out where I see problems for me to agree with your reasonings, and where I don’t see problems in the concept of raising the dead. You should not take personal offense at this.

Quasqueton

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

In the RAW gods are not necessary for clerics, thus is raise dead necessarily a divine action?