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Uh, you still have to pay for the diamond for the rezzing even if you do it yourself, which will hurt the groups wealth (or the player's wealth) so I'm not sure where you're GM is getting the "just buy" = cheapening death mentality from. The only way to get rid of that would be to remove resurrection spells entirely and instead make the process a ritual or item you have to quest for.
As for the paying I think it's great if the group wants to chip in. Key word being want, instead of have to. If the player goes through a lot of characters then I would be disinclined to help res them though.
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The Skulls and Shackles group I'm in has one character that dies. A lot. He gets Breath of Life'd at least every other session, and when we can't get to him in time, we raise him from the dead. Unless for reasons we decide not to Raise Dead, but Reincarnate instead, mostly for our own amusement (he's on his third race now). It's gotten to the point where we've actually, in character, not only incorporated that characters death into plans but based plans around that character dying.
Now, every single player has a backup character ready to go, in the advent of a death. So we don't NEED to keep raising him. He could just bring in the new character and save us all money. But the thing is, people play Pathfinder differently, and our group is in it for more than just the dice rolling and rules, we're in it for the story. And that story involves these specific characters, so the loss of one of them is much worse to us than the loss of money. There are so many connections and strings and plot points tied around these specific imaginary people that to us it would fall apart without them.
So to me, seeing someone talk about how they almost never raise dead and keep bringing in new characters is as strange and abhorrent to me as the idea of spending some cash to bring a person back seems to be for you. Which is fine, different strokes. But I don't see how a GM can complain about a "throw away character" for one session when all of your characters seem to be throw aways. And a GM that doesn't allow rezzing at all pretty much only encourages more throw aways.
What it seems like is that player who gets attached to their characters is playing Pathfinder a different way that the rest of you are, more like my own group. While both styles are equally valid, they clash when brought together and as you can see, create friction. So unless you, the rest of your party, and the GM can adjust a bit to allow them to have a character they are attached to, then likely they will need to leave the group and find a party who plays more in their style.
edit: The money for character rezzes for my group comes out of the group shared Big Pile O' Plunder. It is a pirate campaign after all. Without a Big Pile O' Plunder what's the point? :D
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Due to my love of random tables, I've always wanted to take craft staff as a druid and make a staff of reincarnate once a week. Sure you'd probably never have the 18 pc deaths you'd need to justify it's cost, but finding at least one NPC a week who is worthy of coming back seems likely.
How do we handle it?
Character deaths/resurrection are always paid for out of pre-distributed party treasure.
If no pre-distributed party treasure is available or is insufficient, all party members chip in with whatever cash they might have on hand.
If no cash is on hand, or funds are insufficient, gear from the dead character is sold on their behalf to cover the remaining costs of resurrection. Other characters may contribute by selling gear if desired in order to blunt the loss of gear on the deceased character.
If this still cannot be met, then the character is laid to rest according to his or her wishes, which the party is aware of (see contracts, below.)
Finding a caster capable of raising/reincarnation/what-have-you may be a bit of a sidequest, depending on availability of such casters. Depending on the nature of these casters versus the nature of the party may end up requiring additional donations/completing a quest/etc if there is any conflict between the party and the caster (for instance, a Good party negotiating a deal with a cleric of Asmodeus, who happens to the only cleric around capable of casting the spell.) For these reasons, sympathetic casters, especially party members are always far preferable, so no restriction on spellcaster availability is really necessary since *sympathetic* spellcasters are actually fairly unlikely to find.
Our adventuring groups are all assumed to have a basic contract in place that covers all of the above, which includes death, resurrection, burial wishes, etc as a matter of pragmatism. Kind of one of the very first things we assume any adventuring group has the basic foresight to go over.
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Most of our groups contribute a share or two of all treasure found to a 'party fund' that is used for consumables, raise dead, etc. Even if the GM doesn't want an NPC caster to do the rez (and I would love to see his argument for why the temple of Adabar, for example, would turn down that fee) the basic magic item availability means buying a scroll should be easy is Katapesh.
I get that death 'should matter' but fun should matter more. Replacing a character isn't in more 'meaningful' than bringing one back, less as far as the story is concerned, and if one can just 'clone' an old character for free, then death matters a whole lot less then if you were to allow resurrection.
I also don't believe in making death matter by imposing mechanical penalties (starting at lower level or with less cash or something like that for a new character) but I do try to make sure that all the characters a connected to the story, different NPCs, and things like that. If a character dies and is replaced, the old characters connections are lost to the PCs and the new character will have to make new ones. Typically, I find that if a PC is connected enough to the story, the group, and the player, wants to bring them back, and generally I want that too. The financial penalties to the group fund are sufficient to make them avoid death as much as possible.
For times when a PC dies and can't be brought back quickly, having an NPC available (usually lower level and only around for this purpose) can be useful, basically a cohort-like NPC whose usual job is to guard the camp etc. Some adventures are easier to arrange this than others, but I find it is a useful mechanism for any adventure where it is at all feasible. Even if the player is going to make a new character, I prefer to have them play the party NPC until they get to a place where it is feasible to recruit a new PC, rather than have someone just wander up and notice the 'gap in the marching order.'
One thing that I do ensure that that the party doesn't 'benefit' from the PCs death. Either it is assumed that all gear, wealth etc. of the dead PC will go to next of kin or the new PC will start with less wealth, you don't get to keep the wealth of the dead PC and also start with a new fully geared up PC.
It is up to the players, if they want a resurrection or not. If they want to make the effort of finding a willing priest or buying a scroll that is fine by me. If one of them can cast the spell himself, it is only the question of the component. Cost is either payed by the victim or everyone pitches in, sometimes as a loan - depends on the players. But they will help him to get a new lease on life.
One time a player asked me to kill his character off (in a spectacular way), because he wanted to play something else. So I introduced his future self as a NPC and he took him over later, when his old character bit the dust.
In one campaign I had resurrection removed. The players had to visit the underworld and play for the soul of their dead comrade to get him back. During that quest he played one of the NPCs known to the group, which was a change of pace for the player, too.
Occasionally I used random tables when people were resurrected for an unpredictable result. Like it is not the dead one who returns, but another dead soul or a demon who possesses the body. There were also some warp results, when your body takes the raising badly and suffers for a while, or a curse was inflicted on the PC.
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Rolling up a new character should have more penalties on the party than raising an existing character, because you get to know what the current situation is and can bring in a new character that fits what you're up against.
For me it sucks when I die because I've already planned out my character for the life of the campaign. But if I'm halfway through the campaign and die, then I can bring something in that'll be even better. If I can bring something in that's better without any cost (i.e. paying for a raise/restoration), where's the penalty in that? Should there even be a penalty?
Most games I have played in/reffed all the treasure goes into a central pot (barring anything people actually want to use), and when the party get to town loot gets sold and there is then a discussion about what to spend it on based on what will help the party most / what the characters are interested in. This probably plays havoc with the concept of individual WBL (e.g. 3/4 of the party's loot from book 4 of Crimson Throne was spent on tooling up one character for book 5), but it works for us.
Ressing dead characters is the first priority for spending that money unless the player decides that their character isn't coming back (this happened once because the player hated the character spend). Generally we try and build characters who have a reason to work together, so ressing a dead PC is about getting your friend or relative back, not just some guy who happens to be traveling with you.
My Skull & Shackles party have just learned how to cast Reincarnate, which has already changed the party dynamics a bit - the ex-Tiefling, now-dwarf has had to accept that he isn't evil because of his tainted blood - he's just evil.
my new group, we handle raise costs on a case by case basis, but for new characters, they come in at the APL and the wealth is calculated by whatever the party doesn't take from the corpse.
so if a character has their 150 starting gp, a potion of cure light wounds, and a 1,000 gp cloak of resistance, that character should come in with 1,200 gp.... unless the party takes the cloak (now 200gp) and the potion (back down to 150 gp).
in the old days though, my live group who actually played around a physical table, every new character came in at level 1 with 150 starting gold. it didn't matter if we were level 20 fighting balors.
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I don't understand how the one player in the OP campaign has had to replace five or six characters already due to death. Clearly that player is not building characters correctly or is not playing them smartly or the DM is just out to kill characters.
There is no fun or sense of ROLL play if you constantly have to recreate a new, exciting character...that dies in one session only to be replaced by another new, exciting character...that dies. Over and over and over.
Maybe one of them should roll a healer?
I'm curious as to how character deaths typically are handled in other groups. Our group has currently had a bit of a stir-up due to a character death.
As background, we are playing through Legacy of Fire (WARNING: potential spoilers throughout).
** spoiler omitted **One of our players has died 3 or 4 times since we started, amounting to about 5-6 different characters since the very beginning of the first book, since he started with a different character when we picked it back up recently. He has just gotten kind of unlucky with being critted and the unfortunate target of some high rolls in combination with playing squishier characters. All-in-all, it's been kind of a rough time for the player, making a new character every week, only for them to die after half a session. To top it off, he normally likes to play characters that fit the theme of the setting (arabian or desert-themed) and he's starting to run out of ideas that haven't been done between all the other players and all the characters he has been through.
On the other side of this, we have one player who has been playing a shocking grasp Magus since we started back up (he was not in the original group that played through the first chapter). Who made it all the way through this chapter but then died at the very end, on the way to the big city (forgot name) due to a ** spoiler omitted **.
Now the first player has been understandably glum, and I feel for him, and would be perfectly understanding if he was frustrated. However, he has handled it pretty darn well, other than being kind of lost for what to play next.
The second player (who got to see what the first player was going through) was extremely upset about his character dying. More so than I've ever seen a player upset about a...
Res magic is assumed to be a part of the the game, and while the GM gets final say I think any deviation from the norm should be stated before the game starts.
In the spirit of fairness I would allow the rez to be used since it was not mentioned beforehand, but I would also let the party know that paying for a rez going forward would be either be not allowed or not likely depending on the stance.As for who pays for the rez, that is tricky. The party should definitely not be obligated to pay it. If the GM wants to be nice he can work something into the story that puts the character in debt to someone(maybe the cleric who does the rez), and whenever the party gets loot that character can lose 25% of his pay until all of it is pay back to ______. Why the cleric would take that gamble on a high priced spell is hard to imagine though, unless he has some connection to the character that died.
Considering the GM's stance on rez's and death though, I doubt he will do this.
In our groups we try to think of how the character would see it - would the character accept it or not? If the character would come back, then all party members, living or dead, chip in equally.
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Maybe one of them should roll a healer?
No tanks, no healers, no AoOs, and I'm guessing no buffers, and they won't even chip in for a rez. Glass cannons all. I highly doubt it would occur to any of them to 'take one for the team' and play something that would help the party as a whole.
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The difficulty I have with irreversible character deaths in a static campaign like an AP is that the story is ultimately rooted in the characters. Once a character dies, it is hard to bring in a new character with the same level of attachment to both the story and the other characters.
This has been somewhat of an issue in my current AP campaign. We have one player who is onto their 5th or perhaps 6th character since the start, and those characters naturally don't have the same level of connection to the story line or to the rest of the characters. By consequence, I think that has lead to less attachment to the replacement characters, making them feel more expendable, which may be part of the reason why the same player has had so many deaths (though the player does have a somewhat reckless style in general).
Fortunately, that player is actually the only one who has had a character death, so we still have a core group of three characters from the beginning to hold the plot and group cohesiveness together. Also, we are now at the point where we could conceivably bring someone back if we needed to, and I think we would go to great lengths to revive any of the core characters at this stage.
As for how that would happen, I expect we'd likely agree to pay for it from group loot, if we had sufficient funds. Though it could be that there would be some question about that if it was the "new" character, because of the reduced in-character and out-of-character attachment described above...
When I DM I insist players have an adventuring contract and will's that spells all this out.
As DM I have final approval on all contractual clauses and wills.
Generally, all treasure is split x+1 where x is the number of players and the +1 is the 'party tresure" for raise dead, party expenditures etc.
All that said! I hate player death in AP' after the second book, it throws all kinds of monkey wrenches into the plot, economics, balance of play etc.
Would love to read suggestions on how other groups handle it!
I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned the old "rules don't say being dead stops you from doing anything" cheese.
While I run a homebrew world and not an Adventure Path set in Golarion, I try to make sure that if death is a risk, there is also an out.
Primarily, in-universe there are very few people capable of resurrection magic, so death is important and meaningful. More than once, an NPC has died that the party would seriously have preferred live. The act of revival from the dead is the work of miracles, so there's a heavier weight on it than just scrounging a diamond from somewhere.
If a party member falls in combat, and circumstances somehow lead them to taking overly lethal damage in excess of their Constitution score, then even then I put them at the brink of death's door, requiring urgent medical attention, giving the party at least a chance to save the individual before it's too late.
Only once things are simply too far for recovery is the individual dead dead, which usually means a side quest for one of those miracles (and likely giving the player the pilot seat of an NPC in the interim).
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Would love to read suggestions on how other groups handle it!
As a GM and a player I'd much rather put up with 'death's revolving door' than 'insta-buddy' who has little to no connection to the plot.
Making a player miss out on much more than half a session without a damned good reason* is, in my eyes, simply bad sport. Some sacrifices have to be made so the whole group can enjoy themselves. And making death "meaningful" at the cost of anyones fun is about as meaningless as it gets.
That means in my games raise dead etc. are always available by the book.
I have also (as recommended elsewhere)changed breath of life to 'cure deadly wounds' so that it can be cast spontaneously by clerics.
As to funding, there has always been a full party share (5 payers - divide wealth by 6) put aside that funds transport, healing and other group expenses including raise dead.
* as you can probably guess I don't consider 'making death matter' a good reason :)
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One of the recent campaigns, which was quite long ago, I played in had only one death before it ended. It was my character. I loved this character. He was a pirate who had a silver tongue. Oh his crazy adventures! Paid a group of Paladins to cross a mountain and then robbed them blind right before they departed on friendly terms. Anyway, he ended up blowing himself and the villain up as a last resort.
The GM asked me what I wanted to do, or I should say, what my character wanted. I wanted to continue to play, so the rest of my party gathered my parts, stuffed them in a bag of holding for burial and headed out of the dungeon. Along the way the GM introduced an NPC that offered resurrection through his mistress and wove a whole story to bring me back as a side mission.
I gladly sat out from playing my character, I think it may have been two six hour sessions, while the party quested. The even cooler part, was that I got to play an NPC that helped the group but also had hidden agendas.
It was an epic quest and was handled wonderfully. I never once missed out on the campaign. But that is assuming you have a GM who can work on the fly and is understanding. :-)
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I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned the old "rules don't say being dead stops you from doing anything" cheese.
Presumably because most of us know that the Pathfinder ruleset isn't built on "don't"s or "can't"s, but on what the system generally allows and exceptions to those allowances.
And presumably because the OP was asking for DM guidance as opposed to recipies for Linberger.
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We've buried a lot, brought back two as undead and turned one into ooze.
I think we've even raised one character a few times after stuffing her body into a bag of holding.
That is just in the past year.
I'd probably say no new characters are to be brought in.
If someone's not having fun with their guy then look and see if some small tweaks are enough or major re-haul is needed. Explain major changes as being tied to the death something like "The events of your death left you lame, but your mind has been expanded and you've been blessed by great powers of the divine" remake any character into a lame oracle.
I use a hero point variant that is similar to the one provided by Paizo with a little house ruling. It allows everyone to die once, and perhaps even twice. I do prefer death to mean something and raise/rez is very rare in the game I'm running. I do however make this very clear before anyone joins the campaign to avoid unnecessary confrontations.
How do we handle it?
Character deaths/resurrection are always paid for out of pre-distributed party treasure.
If no pre-distributed party treasure is available or is insufficient, all party members chip in with whatever cash they might have on hand.
Good system. Our group always splits loot on a who needs what basis. Anything untaken gets sold and the cash split into shares of 'the party +1". That +1 is the party fund that is open to anyone in the group should the need arise.
So if someone is short and needs cash to buy an item - party fund.
If someone is dead and we need a diamond or a caster paid - pary fund.
You get the idea. It is there to be used to no one needs to 'pay back' what they use, just to practice discretion and only use it if it is really NEEDED. Works great with our group. May not work great in a group if you have a player who would abuse it.
Quick question:
when you heal your party members with a CLW wand, do you ask them to pay for the charges?
I like the fame and prestige system. In PFS you can spend PP for a res. I think only raise dead, but also restoration. It makes it less pinful.
I'd probably say no new characters are to be brought in.
If someone's not having fun with their guy then look and see if some small tweaks are enough or major re-haul is needed. Explain major changes as being tied to the death something like "The events of your death left you lame, but your mind has been expanded and you've been blessed by great powers of the divine" remake any character into a lame oracle.
I do not like new PC's being brought in either. Mostly, because they get to cherry pick and optimize their gear. Another part of PC death is what happens to their gear. All of a sudden the other PC's can have a significant economic bump.
I'm in a game of Slumbering Tsar, where deaths happen daily due to the AP being one of those ultra-brutal ones. Death is handled by having two backup characters prepped to go, and as such the feeling of expendability for each character causes mourning character death to be fairly rare. All of my characters so far have been part of a cult who worship my first character, who was a cult leader mesmerist and constantly seek to recover the body of their "god", usually ending up dead due to religious fervor and horrifically overpowered enemies.
Well, you can always earn enough XPs in the astral plane, hell, heaven, or negative plane to obtain a level of reanimated medium and return to life by your own effort.
I have a summoner in my party whith a level of reanimated medium earned after death (the adventure took place in a hellish apocalipic scenary)
For clarity, it should be acknowledged that the rules say you generally Shouldn't be able to pay someone for resurrection magic according to the rules on hiring someone to cast a spell for you.
For clarity, it should be acknowledged that the rules say you generally Shouldn't be able to pay someone for resurrection magic according to the rules on hiring someone to cast a spell for you.
Haven't found that section, to be honest. There's no guarantee of anything, and naturally if that human commoner 2 runs afoul of a pack of kittens he's probably not carrying enough diamond dust for Raise Dead, but I'd say it's available to some extent.
So far we haven't had any actual party deaths in my group, although not for lack of trying in a few cases. We've not really done a 'party share' thing officially, yet. Still, I can see the advantage of having 7,000 gold standing by for ... unfortunate circumstances.
Haven't found that section, to be honest.
iirc, if the costs go over 3000 gp that spell shouldn't generally be available. Shouldn't be too hard to find a scroll of raise dead though as long as you go to a large city or metropolis.
Well, you can always earn enough XPs in the astral plane, hell, heaven, or negative plane to obtain a level of reanimated medium and return to life by your own effort.
I have a summoner in my party whith a level of reanimated medium earned after death (the adventure took place in a hellish apocalipic scenary)
I...hadn't seen that archetype before, especially not the part where it can serve as a resurrection of sorts. That's actually kind of awesome...and creepy. All at once. As all the best things are.
Curses, now I'm actually going to have to wrap my head around the darned medium, just to have the tool available when it's necessary...
The group I play in always pools treasure, spending on whatever anyone wants in an order of generally agreed upon priority. If someone dies (PC or NPC we're fond of), out of the shared pool comes the cost of a reincarnate spell (cast at the nearest town, generally) and restoration.
The group I run for on the other hand has a player whose previous group was a meat grinder, and where everyone puts excessive effort into backstories, illustrations, group dynamics, and several campaigns back flat out requested that I just don't flat out kill anyone. So far that's actually worked out pretty well. They're tactics-minded enough to usually avoid it being an issue, most exceptions just require me to not be a jerk with monster tactics (i.e. start in on a fresh target rather than coup de grace the rogue at -2 HP), and the only case I've had to date where I'd have had to do some serious dice fudging (critical hit from the Carrion King) was significantly dramatic and lined up with character arcs that everyone agreed it should really stick...
... at least long enough to spend the next full session setting up an elaborate ritual to bring her back with a new weird third party class themed around being partially undead her player had been curious about trying, which I have to say still felt plenty weighty of a consequence.
go through there clothes and look for loose change.
In the campaign I've been running most recently, every member of the party is a member of the "generic adventuring guild" which offers any number of unusual services to it's parties (such as fully equipped heavy wagons with tents, locked chests, etc). One of the most noteworthy perks though is that one of the highest level members of the guild is a extremely powerful, venerable human witch with the Life Giver hex. The guild maintains a waiting list for adventurers slain in the line of duty (which varies in length according to GM fiat), and resurrects them free of charge as soon as possible.
Guild members are informed of this fact when they join the guild, and it is standard guild protocol to bring back the bodies of fallen comrades for resurrection later. Technically the expenses for things like this come out of the party's wealth... but they are informed at the beginning that the guild takes a share of the loot, and I adjust the loot I give out to accommodate this fact, so the players at my table usually stay pretty close to wealth by level.
@ Cantriped -- That is a neat idea. Allows you to work in DM fiat on resurrections a little more organically, and to sort of hand-wave the whole distribution of loot thing. Might not work for every campaign, but it is very tidy.