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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 6870194" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Well, in one sense, it doesn't matter at all. But in another sense, it might. Much of what Devincutler has said centers on Raise Dead (etc.) being a defining element of the Cleric class, something that only they can bring to the table. But Reincarnate has (AFAIK?) been around as long as there have been Druids as well as Clerics, so "restoring the dead to life" is hardly a Cleric-exclusive mechanic, even if theirs has the easiest-to-handle costs. However, if we focus solely on Raise Dead, it was true that (relatively early on) it was exclusively for Clerics, but as additional classes and options got added, it wasn't hard to find other classes that could do it, especially when it was added as a domain spell to the Restoration domain (which meant a single feat could get it for a variety of classes).More or less, I was wondering if Devincutler was coming into this with a more "old school" mindset, where certain things are just very very siloed and that's part of how it keeps things on the level, or if he was coming to it with a different mindset. It sounds like it's sort of a hybrid, given his own reply (which I'll respond to shortly). D&D has been moving away from "you NEED a Cleric if you want X effect!" for a while now, at least since 3.5e and possibly earlier. Both 4e and 5e have that baked in; 4e made Raise Dead a ritual, so almost anyone could do it with the proper training, while 5e has put it on multiple class spell lists.Well, to be honest, you're expecting a level of consistency and realism that D&D has never been particularly good at, and has--pretty conclusively--gotten worse at modelling over time. Speed, movement, and rate of attack (especially with things like bows vs. crossbows) is incredibly wonky. No D&D economy has ever made sense, with vast riches buried underground and no meaningful evidence of the industrial and mining capacity necessary to make all these fortifications or the tools and valuables that fill them. Religion--specifically, theology and philosophy--are so paper-thin and ill-thought-out, it's painful. Spells like Continual Flame, beings like zombies (undead which need neither rest nor sustenance), and items like Decanters of Endless Water, are effectively power sources for perpetual motion machines, yet no one has ever considered USING them for that purpose? Highly experienced people can fall out of a five-story building and keep fighting? Rings of Sustenance, Purify Food and Water, and Create Food and Water should nearly eliminate hunger; Wands of Cure Light Wounds (in 3.x, anyway) should almost completely eliminate death by injury; death by disease should be almost unknown (assuming the large numbers of Good-aligned 6th-level Clerics are taking their jobs seriously and have some way to receive payment/compensation for the service), and death by poison should be fairly rare (Delay Poison and Neutralize Poison are on like five different class lists)...I could go on but that's probably overkill already. The point is, magic is deeply unrealistic and doesn't make much sense if you try to apply rigorous logic to its use. If you want to play in FR, you're pretty much always going to have to deal with some kind of crud like this, because the setting is TEEMING with high-level spellcasters who apparently love to sit on their butts, do absolutely nothing (except, like, look through telescopes or whatever), and hate getting paid exorbitant sums of money to do advanced magic for rich people.So, yeah: either there's some extra cost to making lots and lots of people look really young, or it's a Thing that happens in this world, or it doesn't work quite as advertised. Perhaps it removes wrinkles, paunch, etc. but cannot alter your hair or scars? That would make it more like an expensive "touch-up" than a true "Everyone looks 20 years old" situation--and many nobles might not consider it worth the bother. Alternatively, maybe it only removes like 5 years at a time, so it makes only small differences unless you get 6-10 treatments? Or it can only be done once every 20 years, and someone so affected will return to their "proper" apparent age over that time, no matter how fast that means they appear to age, so a 60-year-old noble can appear to be 20, but will look 80 when the spell finally wears off? I dunno. I honestly don't care about this sort of thing too much myself...IMO it leads to a never-ending obsession with fixing every little detail so the world is "realistic" and "rational." An obsession which, from my experience, gets in the way of experiencing/telling a good story, opening a can of whoopass on some nasty baddies, and/or examining a situation and understanding/solving/manipulating it.As for Wish? Well, it's (slightly) nerfed compared to its 3.5e version, for one thing; if you do anything other than duplicate a spell, you're basically giving up magic for the day, and giving up adventuring for almost a week. ("Slightly" because your ability to duplicate spells is much improved, and now has no costs at all.) For another, no spells cost XP in 5e, IIRC, so it would be a little odd for just one spell to do so, even if Wish is the best candidate for it. You only get one Wish a day, too, which is a relatively big limiter even before you account for needing a 17th-level Wizard; by comparison a high-level 3.5e Wizard might cast four or five a day if it weren't for the XP cost, whereas it would take a 5e Wizard that many days to cast all those Wishes.</blockquote>

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