In 3.5 dying was a really big deal. If you got hit with a raise dead spell you lost 2 levels. You didn't gain a really bad staking status effect that was expensive to remove; you lost xp. Because of this even though resurrection cost more people would still opt for it if at all possible because you lost one less level, and of course even though true resurrection cost as much as a wish in gold you lost nothing else on coming back to life. Everyone would consider this a good investment. This was the sort of thing a party would spend their one really big marker to get cast (even if they had to fork over the material cost).
Now? So long as the person can be raised with raise dead that's the go to option. Always use the least expensive option. The only time you wouldn't go with raise dead if it could apply is if you couldn't afford the week between restorations.
I don't know. It's like as if wish suddenly lost it's clause that says you can do anything within gm discretion. Suddenly it's just a really expensive universal spontaneous casting ability.
I don't think characters should lose levels on death, I feel it's good that that was removed. My entire group is on the same page: no matter what happens the party is all always the same level. However I feel there should be some reason to use resurrection and true resurrection when you can; other than the lesser spells don't work.
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It would be nice if they had a shorter cast time - instead of using miracle and limited/wish to do in combat revival, you could use the spells that actually provide the function.
Isn't that already built into the spells? Raise Dead is the cheapest, but has the least functionality. If you need more capabilities or can't afford the penalties associated with it you use the higher level spells, if you can deal with the drawbacks and don't need the extra capabilities you use the simpler version.
That's basically how it is in 3.5 too.
You are completely wrong. Let's say Pathfinder: you are offered the choice of true resurrection or raise dead, you are currently level 10. Obviously choose raise dead, it will cost you 7000gp to get back to where you are and a week of time (raise dead 5000, restorationx2 2000gp), if you chose true resurrection you would be set back 25000.
3.5? Well given the same choice lets say you chose true resurrection 25000? You will probably need to sell some gear to repay whoever fronted the cost for you... Raise dead? Well now you are level 8 no spell will restore your levels. Personally I'd prefer to pay 25000 by selling gear.
It would be nice if they had a shorter cast time - instead of using miracle and limited/wish to do in combat revival, you could use the spells that actually provide the function.
True, that would be nice, or like if there was like an option to rush the spell at a penalty of some kind. Of course there is breath of life, limited as that is, it is an in combat raise dead essentially, without the material cost.
True resurrection doesn't need any remains from your body, that's why you would choose to have it cast. It's hard to Raise Dead someone who gets plane shifted into a sea of negative energy.
If you re-read my first post you will see that I said the same thing (worded differently) you use the lowest level spell that will work. Always. If the lowest that will work is true resurrection, then that's what you use, but only if you must.
However lets say there is a group of level 18 adventurers
Bard: Well the fighter is dead, but we killed the big bad.
Cleric: Worry not my friends I knew one of us might fall so I was sure to leave one of my greatest slots available so I might pray for the highest magic to raise our fallen friend. Tor's will will be heard and this great warrior will be resurrected to his full vigor within the hour, and we will return as Heroes, together!
Rogue: Wut? Bro Raise Dead is cheaper... Lets not forget the bottom line.
Cleric: -stops what he was doing- Oh yes of course, what was I thinking, good thing I can prepare petty magics in higher level spell slots! I'll just prepare a restoration tomorrow and another in eight days and he will be fine! This is totally in keeping with my character!
In 3.5 dying was a really big deal. If you got hit with a raise dead spell you lost 2 levels.
1 Level.
Just bring back a XP loss, instead of a Level Loss. Like 10% with Raise Dead, 5% with Resurrection and 0% with True Resurrection.
This way you wont have to go through the work of de-leveling a character, but still have a meaninful loss that is still more then boring coin.
In 3.5 dying was a really big deal. If you got hit with a raise dead spell you lost 2 levels.1 Level.
It was just one level for raise dead? I thought that was resurrection, or were the two the same level loss? Still I'd prefer to pay...
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I run it that every day that you wait on Raise Dead, the amount of Negative Levels you get hit with upon getting raised increase.
Basically, 2 Negative levels + 1/Day spent waiting.
Resurrection doesn't have this clause and no longer has the Negative level clause at all for us.
True still has that niche advantage of not requiring any part of the hero, which does happen.
Eventually, Resurrection becomes cheaper (after 5 Days, plus the Restorations); though you still have to keep the idea in mind of finding someone who can cast it.
Sometimes the party doesn't have the time to wait and restore the Levels. And time is a very good motivator for stories when the BBEG is marching and the machinations are in progress.
Also people forget this line here:
A creature who has been turned into an undead creature or killed by a death effect can't be raised by this spell.
Death effects do exist afterall.
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The problem with making Raise Dead have a significant cost, such as losing a level, is that an even cheaper alternative exists.
Party member Roland dies during the party's successful quest to stop Lord Foul. They gave Roland a hero's funeral, rather than casting Raise Dead, because Roland would have wanted it that way. At the funeral, they meet Roland's childhood friend Orlando. It is obvious why Roland and Orlando were friends, because they were almost identical. The only difference is that Orlando lacked Roland's Rich Parents trait, and instead had a trait from his impoverished childhood that gave him a bonus on initiative. Roland had regularly written to Orlando; thus, Orlando knows all the adventured of the party and hopes to join them.
The party readily accepts Orlando in Roland's place.
The problem with making Raise Dead have a significant cost, such as losing a level, is that an even cheaper alternative exists.
Party member Roland dies during the party's successful quest to stop Lord Foul. They gave Roland a hero's funeral, rather than casting Raise Dead, because Roland would have wanted it that way. At the funeral, they meet Roland's childhood friend Orlando. It is obvious why Roland and Orlando were friends, because they were almost identical. The only difference is that Orlando lacked Roland's Rich Parents trait, and instead had a trait from his impoverished childhood that gave him a bonus on initiative. Roland had regularly written to Orlando; thus, Orlando knows all the adventured of the party and hopes to join them.
The party readily accepts Orlando in Roland's place.
Ah yes, the carbon copy/revolving door character.
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Even if you don't carbon copy your characters, making resurrection too painful does encourage people to make new characters. I'm one of those players who always seems to have at least one backup concept I wouldn't mind running if my current character gets killed off.
With the profusion of classes/builds, it's not too hard to make a nicely different character even if you need to fill the same overall party role. Bob the fighter gets replaced with Joe the Barbarian, who is then supplanted by Ted the Paladin, and so on.
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The problem with comparing to 3.5 is that losing a level was fixed before long because the xp you got was level dependent. If you lost a level from being Raised, you'd get more xp than the rest of the party and catch up nicely.
So in other words, that drawback you're basing this on isn't really much of a drawback.
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I find Pathfinders costs just fine. I find being behind the rest of the party in levels very un-fun, especially when re-earning a level I just earned. At this point if a GM wants to run a house ruled game with xp loss, I will find a new GM.
I currently run all the adventure paths using the level up points, so losing a level wouldn't work real well.
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Why would you ever want xp loss and/or losing actual levels to be brought back?! I mean, this is the single biggest reason I never saw someone actually crafting magic items in AD&D 2nd Edition or 3.5. To craft anything, you had to actually pay experience points. That xp was flat out gone. This delayed leveling, and if you weren't careful would cause you to lose a level.
In 3.5 I had to keep careful records of what level I gained any given stat point at, and what level I took feats at. What skill points I assigned to each skill at a given level too. Why? Because there were ways you lose experience points and levels.
XP loss is a mechanic that got removed from almost all MMOs I've played, if it was there to begin with. Why? Because a bad day could potentially take you from the level cap to level 1. In one game I watched someone hit level 10 fifteen times in a row. In DDO xp debt could make it impossible to level your character if you died too often. But at least you weren't actually losing experience.
In short, removing experience points and/or earned levels is a horrible thing to do. The whole neg level mechanic was made to fix this.
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In our groups back in 3.5, the level lost was such a big deal that most players just opted to stay dead and bring in new characters or just leave the campaign.
Actually, I can't recall one time any player I played with took the level loss.
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In our groups back in 3.5, the level lost was such a big deal that most players just opted to stay dead and bring in new characters or just leave the campaign.
Actually, I can't recall one time any player I played with took the level loss.
This wasn't an option for some of the groups I played in. GM would only allow new characters at level 1. Lots of fun being level 1 hiding in the back while the level 11's fought.
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In our groups back in 3.5, the level lost was such a big deal that most players just opted to stay dead and bring in new characters or just leave the campaign.
Actually, I can't recall one time any player I played with took the level loss.
This wasn't an option for some of the groups I played in. GM would only allow new characters at level 1. Lots of fun being level 1 hiding in the back while the level 11's fought.
Its fun once just to try but its novelty dies out quickly.
Wasn't there also that rule where the most XP you could gain would only bring you to a full level up and then 1 away from another? Or was that a house rule I played with...?
In our groups back in 3.5, the level lost was such a big deal that most players just opted to stay dead and bring in new characters or just leave the campaign.
Actually, I can't recall one time any player I played with took the level loss.
This was a bit of a problem, but when we played with that, I made sure to run individual "side missions" to help them level back up. I don't have the time or mental focus to do that anymore...
This wasn't an option for some of the groups I played in. GM would only allow new characters at level 1. Lots of fun being level 1 hiding in the back while the level 11's fought.
... how old-school!
Its fun once just to try but its novelty dies out quickly.
Wasn't there also that rule where the most XP you could gain would only bring you to a full level up and then 1 away from another? Or was that a house rule I played with...?
Heh.
But the rule, as far as I know, was always "one full level, and up to halfway to the level beyond" - I don't think this was official, but artifacts never granted more than that, and even successfully killing a deity didn't do more than that.
But, as noted, I'm unsure there was ever an official rule written anywhere. If there was, I've forgotten by now.
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I don't think characters should lose levels on death, I feel it's good that that was removed. My entire group is on the same page: no matter what happens the party is all always the same level. However I feel there should be some reason to use resurrection and true resurrection when you can; other than the lesser spells don't work.
True resurrection is a none issue as most campaigns end far before anyone makes it to the level where a character can cast that spell, and high level campaigns are so idiosyncratic that relatively few general statements can be made about those not being run off a Paizo AP.
Resurrection comes into it's own when raise dead can't suffice or it's time limit has passed. What you have failed to express is any reason for the spell to be more commonly used than your own preference.
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This most likely fits in with the "can't use lower level spell" but not having that second negative level for a week can make a difference. There are some adventure paths where you can't just wait a week. Most campaigns that I've been in don't tend to want to wait a week.
So, how much is it worth to not have a negative level for the next portion of an adventure?
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Um just reading the spells tells you how significantly different they are. Truely improved versions at each tier. Why waste heal when cure light wounds would work.
raise dead: you have an intact body and it was not killed by a death effect or made into undead. Also does not work on elementals or outsiders.
Resurrection: you found some of the body, or it was killed by a death effect or was an undead. Also does not work on elementals or outsiders. if able to cast quickly, then useful in combat.
True resurrection: there is no body. It can bring back elementals and outsiders. if able to quickly cast then useful in combat.
I believe the official rule back in AD&D was that you couldn't gain enough experience to get that next level.
My experience with "more than one level" pretty much exclusively comes from house rules (for 2E/AD&D) and the 3.5 stuff.
For the latter, you have several artifacts (mostly those book artifacts) that, upon perusal, allow you to gain a level and push you up to half way beyond. That is the exact XP award suggested for killing a god in Deities & Demigods as well. I just don't know if there was a hard rule anywhere in the system.
EDIT: Correct
The AD&D game is intentionally very flexible concerning how slowly or quickly characters earn experience <snip irrelevant>
There is only one hard and fast rule concerning advancement. Player characters should never advance more than one level per time experience is awarded. If a gaming session ends and a character has earned enough experience points to advance two levels, the excess points are lost. The DM should give the character enough experience to place him somewhere between halfway and one point below the next highest level. <blah, blah>
In addition to starting replacement characters at 1st.
Which we never did, even back in the day.
I really don't doubt you. My "how old-school" line was more about the stories I've heard in a number of different places that talk about that as if it used to be common - ranging from places like Spoony (at least if I recall correctly) to recitations on the (now-vanished) WotC forums to some of the players I've played with ("We don't do that, these days...").
It seems that, at some point prior to my time, it became passe, though a lot of folk held onto that idea for a while thereafter.
I suspect it's much like psionics - a certain culture grew up with the a particular idea or sensibility about the thing, and a different culture grew up either along side or thereafter and clashes with the first.
For me, I've never heard of anything from the late 90s on running that way, but I've definitely heard things like "that's just how it used to be" so I'm guessing it was a 1E or even OD&D trope. But that's really all I know.
EDIT: Actually, perusing the old AD&D book, it notes that,
Letting players start at the beginning is fine when you first open a campaign, and all player characters can begin at the same level. As sessions are played, however, a disparity in character levels will develop. New players will join the game and old players will create new characters. Eventually, you'll reach a point where the original group of players has characters many levels higher than when they began. How, then, do you introduce new players and new player characters into your game?There are times when you should allow a character to start above 1st level. A newly created character should begin a campaign no higher than 4th level unless the group is very powerful. If this is the case, he should begin no higher than the lowest level character in the party (and it may be better to start a level or two lower).
<moar stuff>
I just add the PFS rule of there is no level loss on raise dead to all of the games I run. I see the cost of the spell being more than enough all ready.