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Why penalize returning from death?
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<blockquote data-quote="1720x" data-source="post: 7931793" data-attributes="member: 7021345"><p>Honestly I would support this, But the issue I have is that level 3 Revivify (Basically a combat Resurrection where a healer pops this then either the PC drops their self heal, or a potion, or next round healer uses a big heal and the character is back in the fight) has no penalty, and is 2 levels lower. Then one level lower is Reincarnate, which has the minor drawback of Possibly giving you a less than optimal race, This can be undone a couple ways, but is pretty much an ignore death mechanic on all but possibly the worst one or 2 races. Raise Dead takes a short rest to cast, And has the same limitations of Revivify otherwise as far as missing limbs body parts or other maladies. But it takes the party out of commission for 97 hours, as you huddle in your resting spell. (Again Leomunds hut Mords Mansion all basically allow the bypass of the penalty relatively easily) Like I said I want to like the penalty, I really do, but it feels like it is an arbitrary remnant of editions past much like the ghost's aging powers or in a lot of cases resistances. (Face it blaster spells are kind of a waste and Spell resistance covers what damage resistance is doing anyway.) I think I would be fine if they allowed Greater restoration to remove the debuff (Basically saying you have to burn 2 5th level spells for walking in to something unprepared) or by nerfing Revivify to also impose the same penalty. </p><p></p><p>Looking at the anatomy of the spells themselves all return spells have high price tags as far as gold goes, and in 5E death is already cheap because of the bringing up a player from unconscious works. The real threat is the whole party dropping to dying, which happens most often due to AoE or hordes of foes. Added to this is that the average party size anticipated is 4-5 and any character going to deaths door really hampers the party's capability. Yes there is healing word, but a savvy GM with intelligent creatures will just pop the freshly healed PC again and knock them back down and if they really want have any other attackers on the downed character just stick them as well for good measure, causing them to quickly wrack up 3 death failures possibly before they even get to roll. So if Healing word is the problem then you are running your monsters in possibly a too forgiving way, which is fine for level 1-5 but beyond that, it is time to lose the kids gloves and let the PCs know that there is danger out there. </p><p></p><p>Basically I really think that there should be something to Raise, but it is hard to justify when only extremely niche cases actually require it's use (Not finishing an encounter fast enough, or at least not dragging the fallen off the field fast enough, Not having the correct spell to remove the specific debuff applied, etc), or it is fully outclassed by a lower level spell (Revivify). I also think that mechanics should not be needed to make death feel threatening, but players should be role playing that their characters have a sense of self preservation and are legitimately afraid of death on it's own merits, as technically as with all divine magic, a god at any time may choose not to grant the blessing on a specific character, for what ever reason (I usually save this illustration for NPCs and the god saying basically not my faith not my problem I will help your companions because they are nominally doing my work) instills a facet of faith that makes these mechanics not feel like a guaranteed thing. </p><p></p><p>Last is the fact that often character death is no fault of the PCs and simply a couple of lucky or crappy dice rolls, The rogue getting critted by a shadow or 2 is a good example. While this is part of the game, there needs to be error correction for this which is what the raise mechanics are there for. I as a GM feel totally justified in saying no to a raise/revivify/resurrection attempt to a PC who willingly jumps off a cliff.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="1720x, post: 7931793, member: 7021345"] Honestly I would support this, But the issue I have is that level 3 Revivify (Basically a combat Resurrection where a healer pops this then either the PC drops their self heal, or a potion, or next round healer uses a big heal and the character is back in the fight) has no penalty, and is 2 levels lower. Then one level lower is Reincarnate, which has the minor drawback of Possibly giving you a less than optimal race, This can be undone a couple ways, but is pretty much an ignore death mechanic on all but possibly the worst one or 2 races. Raise Dead takes a short rest to cast, And has the same limitations of Revivify otherwise as far as missing limbs body parts or other maladies. But it takes the party out of commission for 97 hours, as you huddle in your resting spell. (Again Leomunds hut Mords Mansion all basically allow the bypass of the penalty relatively easily) Like I said I want to like the penalty, I really do, but it feels like it is an arbitrary remnant of editions past much like the ghost's aging powers or in a lot of cases resistances. (Face it blaster spells are kind of a waste and Spell resistance covers what damage resistance is doing anyway.) I think I would be fine if they allowed Greater restoration to remove the debuff (Basically saying you have to burn 2 5th level spells for walking in to something unprepared) or by nerfing Revivify to also impose the same penalty. Looking at the anatomy of the spells themselves all return spells have high price tags as far as gold goes, and in 5E death is already cheap because of the bringing up a player from unconscious works. The real threat is the whole party dropping to dying, which happens most often due to AoE or hordes of foes. Added to this is that the average party size anticipated is 4-5 and any character going to deaths door really hampers the party's capability. Yes there is healing word, but a savvy GM with intelligent creatures will just pop the freshly healed PC again and knock them back down and if they really want have any other attackers on the downed character just stick them as well for good measure, causing them to quickly wrack up 3 death failures possibly before they even get to roll. So if Healing word is the problem then you are running your monsters in possibly a too forgiving way, which is fine for level 1-5 but beyond that, it is time to lose the kids gloves and let the PCs know that there is danger out there. Basically I really think that there should be something to Raise, but it is hard to justify when only extremely niche cases actually require it's use (Not finishing an encounter fast enough, or at least not dragging the fallen off the field fast enough, Not having the correct spell to remove the specific debuff applied, etc), or it is fully outclassed by a lower level spell (Revivify). I also think that mechanics should not be needed to make death feel threatening, but players should be role playing that their characters have a sense of self preservation and are legitimately afraid of death on it's own merits, as technically as with all divine magic, a god at any time may choose not to grant the blessing on a specific character, for what ever reason (I usually save this illustration for NPCs and the god saying basically not my faith not my problem I will help your companions because they are nominally doing my work) instills a facet of faith that makes these mechanics not feel like a guaranteed thing. Last is the fact that often character death is no fault of the PCs and simply a couple of lucky or crappy dice rolls, The rogue getting critted by a shadow or 2 is a good example. While this is part of the game, there needs to be error correction for this which is what the raise mechanics are there for. I as a GM feel totally justified in saying no to a raise/revivify/resurrection attempt to a PC who willingly jumps off a cliff. [/QUOTE]
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