The Gaming Den

In a world of magic that brings the dead back, you'd bring anyone even mildly interesting back.

For example: I'm a 10th level LG cleric, os why am I not bringing back a 3rd level CG Ranger I find dead in the woods?

Money? Heck, thats easy to get back.

Alignment? Good guys are benevolent, and even evil guys are like "hey, I could totally intimidate this guy into doing favors for me".


So here is the fix: level mins for certain kinds of resurrection magic. Make it like two levels from the min caster level for the spell used (Raise Dead wouldn't bringf back anyone weaker than 7th level).

Great heroes come back easier; chumps, not so much.

Does it matter for PCs? Nah.

Is it better for your setting? yep.

Is this actually a problem? I don't think I've ever seen or even heard of indescriminant raising and ressurection in any game, even in campaigns where emphasis is eased away from resource management.

In fact, the problem with Death Reversal Magic isn't the fact that too many low level idiots get brought back, it's that it takes the genre-appropriate theme of sacrifice, ties it to a dirty mattress and takes a dump in it's face, and turns every BBEG into Doctor-Fucking-Claw. Every stupid BBEG comes back for seconds and goes down screaming "I'll get you next time, Gadget! Next Tiiiiiiiime!"; and meanwhile people have no problems throwing their life away on bad strategies because they'll just get rez'd by the survivors and try it again until it works.

-Desdan

Desdan_Mervolam at [unixtime wrote:1187591906[/unixtime]]Is this actually a problem? I don't think I've ever seen or even heard of indescriminant raising and ressurection in any game, even in campaigns where emphasis is eased away from resource management.

I think the point K was making was that it should be a problem. It's one of the dumb things about DnD worlds: If the world was like that then this would occur.

Death Reversal magic has more pressing problems without inventing new ones.

-Desdan

In my games I limit the Life restoring spells by time rather than level, while also removing the level loss normally inherent in anything other than True Resurrection.

Raise Dead needs to be cast within the target's Con or Cha mod in rounds since death or fail. Resurrection needs to be cast within 1 day per caster level of the caster or fail. True Resurrection is unchanged though.

I think there should just be a relatively easy way to prevent a corpse from being resurrected, like a ritual or something. That way you can just have Plot Device prevent the king from being resurrected.

I've always found a god going "STOP WASTING SPELLS" ends clerics indescriminantly raising people.

D&D needs a complete overhaul. Resurection magic needs to go away, and save or die effects also need to go away.

Yeah, I agree with the Count. While I totally understand that if anyone has SoD effects, then everyone needs them to stay competitive, I regret the fact that they exist at all. If there was going to be an overhaul, the removal of "You die now. Instantly. HA!" effects would be high on my priority list.

But changing the fundamentals is a very big step.

Anyway, there are all kinds of things that prevent various degrees of Resurrection:

Raise Dead: Practically anything. Seriously. Like Death Effects. Or just mutilating the body.

Resurrection: There are still some spells that stop Res' from working, and other spells can be cast on corpses after the fact to prevent this.

True Res: Only a few block this, and those ones can almost always be undone with a Wish or Miracle, sometimes a Limited Wish.

So there are ways, just, I don't know of any surefire 100% guarantee of no return.

I generally delete Raise Dead and all variants from the spell list. I don't play at super-high elvels, os maybe you need them eventually, but not at the beginning.

It's not that I don't think the dead should come back, because they totally should. But it shouldn't be a spell. It should require a special ritual, a place fo power, an audience witha god, and interview with the vampire, or whatever.

It's always, always a multi-session quest.

I also have one XP total per player, rather than per character. So if your character dies, you lose a level, and then make a new character at that reduced level. The new character adventures and gains experience and goes up levels until you get a chance to raise the old character, who comes back at the same level your newer character has reached. Some plot device related to the resuurrection gives you at least one cool item to make up for lost treasure.

I generally disagree with any form of level loss associated with character death. Because it punishes you further for not optimising, thus teaching you that the way to not be punished is to pull out every trick you can. On the (very few) occasions where PCs have died in games I run, if they want to create a new character I just let them use the same XP total the previous character had.

Well, thats just as important for not punishing the rest of the party just because the dead character's player was an idiot or the DM's dice rolled well.

Forcing dead characters to start over at first (or more than a level below) just means that you are initiating a sort of horrible death spiral that leads to more death because people can't pull their weight.

The thing is, I'm not sure how the rest get punished when the new character is brought back at the same XP. Granted, you could argue that organic characters are weaker than "Built at level X" characters, but I doubt it's that much so - particularly with retraining rules (and with the Tome stuff that generally means something good at level 1 is also good at levels 10 and 20).

On the other hand, if someone optimises poorly, and dies, and has to make a new character, even that one level difference is going to kick them into a Spiral of Doom (TM). Any more and they may as well play as someone else's cohort - at least that way they'll always come back at precisely 2 levels under.

Ah. You misunderstood- I was agreeing with you, but going a bit further than just 'disagreeing' with level loss, because *not* bringing them back at the same XP is such a horrendous punishment to everyone at the table.

Chuckles at [unixtime wrote:1187616781[/unixtime]]I've always found a god going "STOP WASTING SPELLS" ends clerics indescriminantly raising people.

Yep, I never let any clerics IMC cast more than three spells per adventure. Anything more would be totally unrealistic, as the gods have a finite amount of magical power to grant.

Count_Arioch_the_28th at [unixtime wrote:1187617576[/unixtime]]D&D needs a complete overhaul. Resurection magic needs to go away, and save or die effects also need to go away.

Yup. Characters shouldn't be dying so easily in combat, at least not PCs.

People coming back from the dead should be a plot device, not a common mechanic.

.. I disagre, that if a cleric wants to cast 10 or so spells, go ahead. If they want to raise the dead, go ahead. I'm not going to tell my players what they can't do, but I also generally have a "please be responsible" request.

K at [unixtime wrote:1187591040[/unixtime]]In a world of magic that brings the dead back, you'd bring anyone even mildly interesting back.

For example: I'm a 10th level LG cleric, os why am I not bringing back a 3rd level CG Ranger I find dead in the woods?

But remember, in D&D, no matter what your alignment is, if you stuck with it, you go to some outer plane and are happy forever. Why would you come back and risk losing that?

If you're a great hero, you could certainly return because "the people need you one last time" or w/e, but if you are joe schmoe the ranger, why would you come back when you could just stay in "heaven"?

Tokorona at [unixtime wrote:1187634623[/unixtime]].. I disagre, that if a cleric wants to cast 10 or so spells, go ahead. If they want to raise the dead, go ahead. I'm not going to tell my players what they can't do, but I also generally have a "please be responsible" request.

Right, cause why should a God care what they, the cleric, is doing, they are only their emissary on the prime material. And you certainly shouldn't have guidelines for your players, that might hurt there feelings, or help tell a story.

I've always thought the easiest fix for raise dead and the like was having the loss of XP come from the caster not the receiver. "You want him back so bad, you pay the XP." Is it worth the Clr17 a whole level to bring back the Bbn7? Hell, no. And the clr's god would probably agree.

This is only tangentially related, but has anyone here read a book called Sabriel by Garth Nix? It's got a lot of necromancy, with some fairly interesting rules to it.

Of most relevance to this topic, you can perform a simple magic ritual for the deceased that prevents them from returning as undead (you need their head for the ritual), and if you can perform the ritual, you usually do, because there are rogue necromancers marauding the countryside trying to amass larger armies (you need a mage for the ritual, but not a powerful one, and most hamlets seem to have at least one or two in residence). Undead also can't pass through, over, or under large quantities of running water, so bodies that end up in a river are also fairly safe from necromantic intervention. Bringing someone back to true life only seems to be possible for a period of minutes or hours after someone has died (and only if their body is essentially in tact), unless you take special measures to preserve someone in some form of magical stasis.

In fact, Garth Nix's Old Kingdom would probably make a rather awesome campaign setting (particularly during the Interregnum), but it doesn't even resemble a D&D setting, so you'd need an entirely different ruleset.

Sabriel was awesome. The sequels weren't as good, though. Garth Nix is actually pretty good at creating fresh, coherent fantasy settings.

Jacob_Orlove at [unixtime wrote:1187648306[/unixtime]]Sabriel was awesome. The sequels weren't as good, though. Garth Nix is actually pretty good at creating fresh, coherent fantasy settings.

IIRC the sequels were pretty good too. I actually once played a character modeled after the abhorsen, being a necromancer spellsword. In retrospect I probably should have just played a cleric, but it was a lot of fun.


And yes, Nix's would make for a great setting.

well, lets see...
Raise Dead: death effects, old age, trapped/destroyed soul, trophy taking....(ie, hey, we just killed a LG wizard.. let's take his head so he can't be raised...)

Resurrection: old age... maybe trapping/destroying a soul...

True Res:old age, and again, maybe trapping/destroying the soul.

Jacob_Orlove at [unixtime wrote:1187648306[/unixtime]]Sabriel was awesome. The sequels weren't as good, though. Garth Nix is actually pretty good at creating fresh, coherent fantasy settings.

I don't care to debate which book was best, but I have nothing bad to say about Lirael and Abhorsen.

And you could run entire campaigns without leaving the Clayr library.

But yes, the Old Kingdom is just one of several highly original settings Nix has written. Shade's Children would actually make a very good RPG setting, too.