Raising the dead: get over it, you babies.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Holy shit, are people still whining about resurrection?

I don't have strong feelings to it either way. I do not understand the idea of resurrection being this golem that will destroy your pwecious game if implemented.

[erik]

The only instance I observed here was more directed at in combat healing since it encourages monsters to finish things before moving on.

[edit: nm, I see RC stepped up his objection beyond that now to suggest that raise dead has downsides to a setting etc.]

[Ganbare Gincun]

Wait, what? Who is "whining about resurrection", and why?

[Maxus]

I know some people who don't use any form of raising the dead, because they think death is supposed to be final and important and all.

[ubernoob]

I know some people who don't use any form of raising the dead, because they think death is supposed to be final and important and all.

In those kinds of games, my characters tend to have a lot of brothers.

[Caedrus]

Wait, what? Who is "whining about resurrection", and why?

Ditto. I am sick of people making threads to shout at some overgeneralized straw man. Specific instances, please.

[Heath Robinson]

Good point. How about a [one minute] action?

The thing is, there are seriously stories of Cauldrons that would revive dead men when placed into them; the Irish and Scotts fought a whole battle where the Irish had such an item. The Scotts couldn't win until one of their [Named] characters snuck into the Cauldron with a mortal injury, and flexed out as much as possible to force the Cauldron to give and break apart.

You probably don't want to have raising the dead at all actually. I would just have people get mortally wounded or something and be healable from that with some special effect that takes a minute.

Raising the dead often just causes more setting problems than its worth, and isn't a big deal for PCs anyway, where you can just define 0 hp as being mortally injured instead of dead anyway. Have it so that monsters require a CdG to kill a PC entirely and if no effect brings PCs back, there's really no reason to CdG them until after battle (and this would be a TPK anyway)

From 4uccess!

[Lago PARANOIA]

Ditto. I am sick of people making threads to shout at some overgeneralized straw man. Specific instances, please.

I need a specific example? Honestly, people hating on Raise Dead is like people complaining about fighters being underpowered. It should just be taken as a given.

Here's a thread!
http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-3rd-ed ... ation.html

Here's another one!
http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/co ... Own&page=2

You don't even have to look very hard. That took me 5 minutes of lookin'.

[rapa-nui]

My original problem with Rez was that it was used by stupid assholes as an argument for why 3e Rocket Tag gameplay wasn't retarded.

Resurrection magic is fine, but there has to be some reason somewhere for why it doesn't work sometimes.

Otherwise, why does the king worry about assassins? How do you stop the evil cult of the dragon if their clerics just resurrect each other all the time? Do you have to kill all 500 of them at once? If Tharizdun can use his divine power to resurrect his followers all the time, how can the PCs win? If Moradin can resurrect his champions all the time, how can the PCs lose?

There are several ways to rule resurrection so that it doesn't strain believability too much (and yes, believability is an issue, even in games where you play as an elf with a wand).

1. Components are limited.
2. Need body. (I hated 3e True Resurrection because it circumvented all need for anything)
3. Need sanction of divine being, which gets progressively harder or uses are limited. ("The Grand Arbiter of Death only allows you to be raised seven times, and only if you are worthy!")

Furthermore, whichever of the above reasons you use shouldn't hose certain classes. It would suck to play a group of fighters, get to high level and then realize: "shit we can't ever win against the BBEG because none of us can cast Soul Trap." That's retarded, and probably more related to overall suckage of non-magic characters in a high fantasy RPG.

So, that covers resurrection magic in a staple D&D game.

Now, if you're playing in a different kind of RPG, resurrection can completely ruin the flavor and grit. It doesn't belong in survival horror, Cthulhu mythos, modern era, espionage, and probably not in most sci-fi RPGs, except in a very limited sense.


If the greatest story ever told (*coughnotcough*) invoves a Jew rising from the dead, that should tell you how dramatic and astonishing most people want a resurrection to be.

[MGuy]

Why would anybody care strongly about resurrection? I have, to this day, never had a problem with its implementation whether its there or not. As a DM and as a player It doesn't seem like that big of a deal. If you like it keep it, if rainbows taste better without it get rid of it. Short and simple. There;s really no strong reason that there SHOULD be a way for people to come back from the dead. In fact in most stories people are looking for a way to avoid death and those bad guys that DO come back to life find it a pain in the ass to do so.

[Ganbare Gincun]

It really depends on the campaign in question and level of magical power in the world. Resurrection may be a big deal in an E6 game, but it's likely to be commonplace in the average Forgotten Realms game. But I do concur with the points that rapa-nui made - if it's going to be in your game, there should be some consistency regarding how it is used. That being said, if your party has to keep raising people from the dead every couple of adventures, I think you have bigger issues on your hands then carving out conceptual space for resurrection spells...

[RandomCasualty2]

If you're just playing beer and pretzels, resurrection is fine. If you want to tell a coherent story, it honestly sucks, because no major NPC or PC should ever die once they get over like 10th level.

It just turns the game into a total standstill and it turns into FR, where you can never kill any major NPC, and they can't kill you. Especially if you assume people can conjure infinite cash with wish. There's really no reason why high level clerics with true res wouldn't do that for free on everyone of even reasonably high level who is on their side.

[Caedrus]

Ditto. I am sick of people making threads to shout at some overgeneralized straw man. Specific instances, please.

I need a specific example? Honestly, people hating on Raise Dead is like people complaining about fighters being underpowered. It should just be taken as a given.

Here's a thread!
http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-3rd-ed ... ation.html

Here's another one!
http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/co ... Own&page=2

You don't even have to look very hard. That took me 5 minutes of lookin'.

Why should we worry about the things they say on Enworld and Paizo? I don't give a shit what they think and I don't think many people here need to be convinced that they're dumb.

Basically, I think it would be really nice if we, you know, built stuff instead of continuing things that even vaguely resemble "threads that make us laugh, cry, or both."

[JonSetanta]

This quote from Gantz says it all concerning revival of the dead (which happens fairly frequently in the comic):

http://mangahut.com/manga/m=2LBn/gantz/247/pg9

[FatR]

Resurrection in the hands of PCs is fine, considering how lethal 3.X can become. Resurrection in the hands of NPCs? Breaks the game and the world, if using consistently. To take an example from my current campaign (where I use a published AP for general outline and NPC statblocks), one of BBEG's lieutenants has access to 8-th level clerical spells. Why any of the significant villains who directly work for BBEG and were dispatched in earlier adventurers should stay dead? For now, I have some setting-based stopgap measures implemented (but they won't work in a typical DnD game, where any sicko can find a cleric and a god willing to resurrect him), but I consider changing Raise Dead to "restore from clinical death, doesn't work once the soul departs, perhaps does not impose as much penalties on the raised" spell and banning True Resurrection in the future. Perhaps moving Resurrection to higher spell levels. Once again, raising people after combat is nothing particularly setting-changing. Problems begin wheh you - and quite a lot of people - can resurrect someone who died 100 years ago, and only a few high-level spells can prevent this.

Reincarnation is its own bag of worms, as it is perhaps the simplest, earliest way to functional immortality for standard races.

[JonSetanta]

RC's quote on this thread and page (http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=50059&start=50) seems to be what set Lago off.
I'm making an informed guess though, who else but Lago would know otherwise since it's pretty much a vague strawman directed at the gaming population at large.

[Josh_Kablack]

Raising the dead: get over it, you babies.

Well it really depends how high you raise them. 20d6 out of a 2nd level spell slot is a bit much for most games.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Why should we worry about the things they say on Enworld and Paizo? I don't give a shit what they think and I don't think many people here need to be convinced that they're dumb.

Basically, I think it would be really nice if we, you know, built stuff instead of continuing things that even vaguely resemble "threads that make us laugh, cry, or both."

You shouldn't, but the idea that resurrections wreck D&D is commonplace which is my point.

It's not a Paizo-specific thing, it's not a ENWorld-specific thing. It's a basic (if stupid) that's spread throughout people who play D&D. Basic as 'orcs should be a barbarian race!'.

I was not trying to start a thread invasion. You accused me of making a unfounded strawman. While I'll accept strawman since I made an enormous sweeping generalization, acting like I pulled it out of my ass won't do.

[Koumei]

Raising the dead: get over it, you babies.

Well it really depends how high you raise them. 20d6 out of a 2nd level spell slot is a bit much for most games.

I laughed. I shouldn't have, but damn it, that was actually funny.

[MGuy]

Iron Kingdoms has a setting specific measure for raising the dead AND even makes healing people a potentially dangerous venture.

[FatR]

Gah, these people in Paizo thread are whining about Remove Disease spells. How I hate bullshit arguments like "it ruins perfectly good story ideas and gains you more or less nothing in return." No, it ruins bad, anti-thematic story ideas. No one cares about being incapacitated by bloody flux in standard DnD, because all the people who do play WFRP or E6 already. What part of "you're goddamn superhumans who are supposed to do superhuman things four times per day and aren't supposed to care about most mundane problems" is so hard to understand?

[Fuchs]

Dieing from diseases builds character! Really. You can believe me cause I am the DM, and I'd not lie to you. It's good for you to have a character die from a disease, and it'll teach you to tell me you boiled the water next time! And maybe tell me that your character uses his blanket for the night, so he doesn't get pneumonia. By the way, Bob, your character dies from hunger, you did not tell me he ate anything for 22 days, which means you're dead now.

[sake]

Dieing from diseases builds character! Really. You can believe me cause I am the DM, and I'd not lie to you. It's good for you to have a character die from a disease, and it'll teach you to tell me you boiled the water next time! And maybe tell me that your character uses his blanket for the night, so he doesn't get pneumonia. By the way, Bob, your character dies from hunger, you did not tell me he ate anything for 22 days, which means you're dead now.

You forgot the part about Steve's character going blind and having his dick rot off from the STDs he caught from that one wench he just had to sleep with, and Jim's character suffering fatal bladder/bowel complications since he never relived himself once since the game started. Also Ron, the party was a round too late in saving you from that Mind Flayer, so you're going to have to roleplay having downs syndrome for the rest of the game... it's shame you were playing a wizard though.

[Kobajagrande]

Poisons and diseases should be made of arbitrarium anyways.

And I somehow have a feeling 99% of those "no resurrection, death should be final blah blah blah" people do not remove SoD spells from their games.

[JonSetanta]

You forgot the part about Steve's character going blind and having his dick rot off from the STDs he caught from that one wench he just had to sleep with, and Jim's character suffering fatal bladder/bowel complications since he never relived himself once since the game started. Also Ron, the party was a round too late in saving you from that Mind Flayer, so you're going to have to roleplay having downs syndrome for the rest of the game... it's shame you were playing a wizard though.

The first two I'd set up as diseases unto their own. They can be 'removed' and 'cured' perhaps with a side quest to each.
To derp around with a slaphappy DM declaration of "Nope! They're stuck with it" is sure to be met with either disgust or anger if the players don't want to roleplay that kind of thing, and it's downright grognard to do so.

Ron's condition is impossible since Down's is chromosomal. You can't get it from brain damage.