I've noticed many people posting, talking about character death like it has to be a permanent thing. MY question is how common is Resurection/ Raise Dead in your gaming world. In my current gaming group Resurection is very common/ nessassary part of the world (A good game usually only means a couple of fatalities). When I started playing the Dm didn't allow any type of raise dead and it lead to some angry players when a favorite character finally died. what is your experiences?
In most of the campaigns I've played in, by the time someone dies, the player has an itch to try a new character, so death is permanent. I can only remember one use of ressurection, actually- the party got ambushed in the night by 6 digesters. We managed to kill them all, but not before they melted our fighter. That character's player was missing from the session, so we couldn't just leave him against his will.
I asked how close the nearest town was and quickly figured how long it would take to get there on light horse. I, the wizard, then took the remains and rode until my horse dropped (2 days), the grabbed another from a village and rode it the remaining day into town, where a temple of Pelor facilitated the Raise Dead. I then had to wait half a week for the rest of the party to catch up with me, at which point it cost us a bundle to pay for the spell. It was fun, though.
In my experience, there are 2 things that deter bringing back dead characters more frequently: A) the cost; and B) the level loss (for raise dead and resurrection).
Even if the characters have the necessary gold and find a spellcaster willing to cast the spell, a lot of players would rather simply just bring in a new character at the same level as the others rather than fall behind the others by taking the level loss or permanent Constitution score drain if the PC is only level 1.
If your are running a balanced game as suggested in the DMG (see Character Wealth by Level pg. 135), the characters couldn't even dream of affording a true resurrection until somewhere around 9th-level. Even then, it would force the PCs to liquidate (at half cost) much of their assets and magical gear to do so, assuming the rest of the characters didn't just decide to sell off all of the dead character's own possessions to raise the money. I've seen that happen and it ain't pretty.
The whole point, I guess, is that the game designers intentionally made raising dead characters back to life more difficult to accomplish since it was A) too easy in previous editions of the game, and thus character death had become just a speed bump; and B)it made the miracle of the "Lazarus effect" much more meaningful and uncommon.
There are, of course, many ways PCs can earn such spells without having to raise all of that gold or an overly generous DM may make the book cost (DMG pgs. 41-42) negligable if the PCs are swimming in gold.
I think players are much more respectful and fearful of character death now because of the changes. As they should be. Conversely, my own players are much more resourceful in finding ways to get into the good graces of churches like Pelor that can cast these spells for them.
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As a DM, I am ok for raise dead/resurrect PCs. However, this should not be a common thing. Also, I try not to kill the characters too often (after all, the screen is also to "miss" sometimes) if they played well and were a bit unlucky.
DnD is very different than Ctuhlu. Dying (or becoming mad) is something one expect when playing Ctuhlu (or Stormbringer), but players begin to like the characters they have created in DnD. It depends how you feel the attachment your player has to his PC when that PC dies. Although, it's a matter of "game balance" : for example, in a party with 3 rogue-bard-multiclass rogue, the player who has lost his PC may think it's time for a change !!
I would actually expect reincarnate to be more likely. The cost is 1,000 gp and a 4th level druid spell. At the same time you would have more characters wishing to stay dead.
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I tend to differentiate my campaigns in three levels:
- at lower levels, death for a PC is very serious and has no solution, as they have no spells or powers of their own and each battle is a life or death affair.
- at middle levels, PC can muster enough money to pay for a resurrect spell (in my gaming world they are really expensive, both in resources needed and in PX cost) after a big battle, but it will often cut their equipment money really low.
- at upper levels, PCs can have their own spells and/or resources, and money is no longer a pressing matter (most of the time), but the death causes are often of a more serious nature, and require a Wish or Miracle spell - or have no chance of resurrection at all.
So, even if they have the possibility to resurrect a fallen comrade, about half of the time the party goes for a more common solution, and organize a funeral for their dead friend(s).
In my experience the important thing in the case of PC mortality is to decide how available life restoring magic and how deadly encounters will be simultaneously. If the town building guidelines from the DMG are used, then a 9th level cleric might occasionally be the high priest in a large town, and would most likely be found in any population center greater than 5,000. Therefore, a strict interpretation would suggest that anyone with five grand and fresh corpse can get a "cure fatal wounds" spell cast. That being the case, so long as treasure is available to cover a sloppy party's ever escalating medical expenses, the DM should feel free rend, swallow whole, and generally deal out the damage whether the characters are at full hit points or in the single digits. Players just have to make sure that the cleric is still up when the dust clears to stabalize any dying characters she can get to before they bleed out, and to park a wagon out front large enough to accommodate bodies as well as loot.
Of course there are a variety of ways to reduce the commoness of adventurers making return trips from the great beyond. Under the 2E rules one could create priesthoods which didn't have access to the spheres neccessary to bring back the dead. In the 3&3.5E nothing prevents a high level cleric from casting raise or ressurect, assuming they have the material component, but a DM wishing to make death more meaningful might simply reduce the population of clerics of level 9 or higher. Another option is to reduce the availability of diamonds- "Yes, I can help your friend. The Eye of Elderith is hidden somewhere to the north of town. If the rumors of its size are accurate, it will be sufficient for the spell to work."
Just make sure that if, as a DM, you limit life restoring effects, you try to get everyone out of the dungeon alive on most nights, or players will have a hard time getting really involved with their characters.
I think resurrection spells are a must at all times. Firstly because most players like their characters a lot, since it took some time to think about his background, choosing his skills and feats (and spells if applicable). I think that, as a DM you can't kill a PC permanently at first or second levels, since the PC's have just been made and the player would be very angry.
Also, if you remove resurrection spells, or limit them too much, no players would like their characters to take the roll that fighters, paladins, etc, take: between their friends and enemies, since they would risk life. Also, they would be afraid to take risks like opening doors, drinking unknown potions or even fighting tough-looking fights, instead of running. But then again, it shouldn't be taken easy, but that's why there is a level loss in most resurrection methods. I think resurrection spells are necessary to players who want to keep their PC's alive. I mean, who can blame them about it? And they could also choose to make a new PC to try new possibilities, which is a good option too.
I outlawed them and more or less the Wish and Miracle Spell. The only thing that can bring a character back from the dead are if I happen to roll something like a Luck Blade or Ring of Three Wishes or get a scroll with one of these spells on it. In these cases, in my campaign, the wishes are not wishes at all but one use True Ressurection Spells.
While it seems somewhat harsh its not that much worse then how things stand if one follows the rules in anycase. As it stands you can't afford to Raise a Character until about 9th level and that means that half the items of the party get liquidated in the process. At 12th level a character could afford his own raising but would have to probably liquidate half his items to pay for it. Its not until around 14th level that a character is going to be able to actually pay to get himself raised and not have to loose cherished possessions.
In my campaign there are enough of these Raise Dead Fully magical items around that I'll probably have already let one or two one shot versions fall into the players hands by this point and when we get into the 14th level area a few more may make their way into players hands simply due to the size of the hordes they gain at these levels.
So in theory I'm being a bastard about this but upon reflection I don't think its that much of a disadvantage. In reality there is no way they could do this at all before 9th level and through 13th it would be pretty crippling. By 9th I'll probably have given out a True Ressurection magic item once in any case saving the party from crippling themselves to bring a member back from the dead (and all the bickering that would likely result from that) and another one or two such items will surely fall in their hands between 9th and 14th levels. So up until this point I'm probably in line with what the players could have pulled off in anycase but without the pain of having to liquidate prized magic items or stripping the characters of all their hard won gold.
After 14th Level I am probably being a hard ass but in the end I don't really like the change in dynamic that this would entail anyway - under the present rules it seems like there is paradigmn shift that takes place right about 14th level were death goes from being aa terrible tragedy to little more then an annoying inconvience. I'm no fan of that idea really and in anycase I expect my campaign to wrap up around the time the characters get between 15th and 17th level. I'd like the last few levels of the campaign to seem as dangerous as the first dozen.
The other big reason for eliminating this kind of magic is it strains the credibility of the world. Essentially NPCs should normally have access to these spells if they exist and a rich noble or the Emperor etc. would presumably be able to afford these things in a way that a party of PCs simply can't until they reach high levels.
My campaign world however rests on some fundementals of things like nasty noble fueds and the possibility of viscous coups to steal the throne as well as the death of hiers etc. None of this works with True Ressurection spells in the campaign. The wealthy are immune to death as they simply get themselves raised. It was this that got me researching this angle in the first place and when I satisfied myself that True Resurection really did very little for the players until they were 14th level and above I felt it was actually rather easy to eliminate raise dead spells from the game. It preserves the integrity of the world at large and simply did not actually negitivly effect a party below 14th level so long as I handed out a few True Resurection type magic Items along the way.
The fact that this negitivly impacts the players from 15th-17th levels was a small price to pay from my perspective.
To compensate even further - because my players die significantly more commonly then they could ever hope to pay for at low levels inm any case (I'm loosy a PC about every 3-4 sessions by my reconing) I use a protege system so players always have back up characters they can bring in - they still hate lousing their characters however - as well they should.
I think it is important to remember that raise dead is not a particularly high level spell. That it is intended to be with thin the reach of most characters over about third level. That said it will of course depend on the magic level of the campaign - and how rich the backdrop for the world is, and style of play.
The other thing is a few people talked about players been pissed because the party sold the dead persons magic to fund the spell. To me thats kind of silly - the character, the background, the (purposed) relationships with the rest of the party are what matter - not stuff. For myself I like to play my character - who I try to equip appropriately - but my character is not an agent for the use of trinkets. Okay good roleplay might mean that a character was annoyed - but I think that would be offset by the joy of being brought back to life. Further I don't believe it is metagaming to think that the party would want the character to retain as much of his best gear as possible. But maybe that just me.
There are certain risks with just scrapping a character and starting a new one. Old character dies - party splits up his stuff (logical enough). New character is created at the retired characters level to fill the gap (logical enough). That character is created with level appropriate wealth & gear (logical enough). The party however is now unbalanced it has an extra characters worth of wealth spread across it. This is no big deal to address - but if it happens a couple of tie it can be a mess.
For my campaigns, resurrection is pretty much a divine miracle. So it can happen if GM decides it to happen (and usually involves a quest or something instead of simply coughing up cash). Death as a rule is a permanent event.
That said, I am ready to fiddle the rolls a bit to avoid too many character deaths...so death is also quite rare event.
I've noticed many people posting, talking about character death like it has to be a permanent thing. MY question is how common is Resurection/ Raise Dead in your gaming world. In my current gaming group Resurection is very common/ nessassary part of the world (A good game usually only means a couple of fatalities). When I started playing the Dm didn't allow any type of raise dead and it lead to some angry players when a favorite character finally died. what is your experiences?
One thing that is not to be overlooked is the fact how a terrible ordeal it must be for a person to be brought back to life. Firstly, having died in the musn't be very interesting, secondly one should not forget that (in most campaings) people actually go to heaven or close to it when they die. I don't know about heroic PC's but if you ask me that can't be bad...
First disclaimer - we play a highly modified 2nd edition and not 3.x However, I'm pretty lenient about the amount of life-restoring magic, especially Raise Dead. With enough time, effort and money virtually any character can (and often is) restored to life. I've never had a problem with game balance. Death is extremely inconvenient and almost always results in a side-track to raise their fallen ally. The only time death is truly permanent in any practical sense in my campaign is at 1st or 2nd levels and (theoretically) at any epic level (above 20). The reason that death is fairly permanent at extremely low levels is simply based on the party's inability to raise enough cash (even for a Raise Dead spell). The players in my campaigns (for over a quarter of a century) have never batted an eye at pooling their resources, even often liquidating virtually everything, to afford to ressurrect a fellow adventurer (after all, the next time the dead character might be yours and you'd want your friends to go to every extreme to help you). The availability of life-restoring magic does not cheapen death IMC because the party still has to travel (and transport the corpse) to a large enough city, raise the considerable funds necessary, and the restored character still suffers the permanent loss of a Constitution point. So dying, even if you are restored to life, still sucks. The character (and likely all his friends) is now poor and permanently weakened so death is still something to be feared and avoided, but it isn't insurmountable or completely devastating. The players are very attached to their characters and I don't blame them. Drawing up new characters is a pain and, as earlier posters pointed out, death is to be feared but not paralyzing to the point that no one dares be heroic.
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I personally think the issue is to make death a reasonably big deal. If it's just a case of a quick teleport to the temple, lay out the cash, and "Bingo!" you are back on the road - the issue of in-game death loses it's drama. Instead, it becomes an inconvenience. And as mentioned above, if the PCs can do it, so can the villains. Why bother slaying evil if, one True Res later, Lord Evil is back oppressing the peasants like nothing has happened?
The issue is to make getting a resurrection really tricky. You don't just buy off the cleric, he gets you to do him a big favour (preferably after, since the dead PC can't take part otherwise). Or maybe you quest to find the only guy on the co0ntinent with the power to Raise Dead. Also, in Eberron getting Raised is very hard since there are few high level clerics and House Jorasco can only help the living.
Dying sucks - if your player is really upset, well - unless it was a cruel or arbitrary DM decision - that is a bit of a shame. A character death should be a big deal, so maybe a momentary pang for a lost character will stick in the memory longer than a trip to the temple.
First disclaimer - we play a highly modified 2nd edition and not 3.x However, I'm pretty lenient about the amount of life-restoring magic, especially Raise Dead. With enough time, effort and money virtually any character can (and often is) restored to life. I've never had a problem with game balance. Death is extremely inconvenient and almost always results in a side-track to raise their fallen ally. The only time death is truly permanent in any practical sense in my campaign is at 1st or 2nd levels and (theoretically) at any epic level (above 20). The reason that death is fairly permanent at extremely low levels is simply based on the party's inability to raise enough cash (even for a Raise Dead spell). The players in my campaigns (for over a quarter of a century) have never batted an eye at pooling their resources, even often liquidating virtually everything, to afford to ressurrect a fellow adventurer (after all, the next time the dead character might be yours and you'd want your friends to go to every extreme to help you). The availability of life-restoring magic does not cheapen death IMC because the party still has to travel (and transport the corpse) to a large enough city, raise the considerable funds necessary, and the restored character still suffers the permanent loss of a Constitution point. So dying, even if you are restored to life, still sucks. The character (and likely all his friends) is now poor and permanently weakened so death is still something to be feared and avoided, but it isn't insurmountable or completely devastating. The players are very attached to their characters and I don't blame them. Drawing up new characters is a pain and, as earlier posters pointed out, death is to be feared but not paralyzing to the point that no one dares be heroic.
We play 2nd ED also. And I agree with you on the idea that Raising someone from the dead doesn't cheapen death. I Am surprised to learn that 3ED costs the ressurected character a level. That feels petty. In all of our campaigns, it is an unwritten rull that if a PC dies, the part will do everything in their power to bring them back from the dead. This is so that if it is your character the next time, everyone will come to your aid with cash or magic. That's just good game Etiquette, As opposed to looting their corpes while the player rolls up a new character.
We have players who have been playing the same characters for 20+ years. I think that allowing resurection and raise dead allows the DM to go balls out full force against the players with out having to fudge rolls to keep players alive or deal with hurt feelings over the death of a favorite character.
Here's another thing to think about- a group of adventurers stumbles into a temple of Pelor with a dead comrade. They want him raised, but how does the clergy of the temple know that they aren't evil orcs using Alter Self and Nondetection provided by the mage servant of their evil master, who is in fact the dead body they are bringing them? So, the cleric would probably want some form of proof or quest to validate that the corpse in question is worthy of being returned from the grave. After all, since EVERYONE can't be raised, make sure that those who get it deserve it.
Now, an evil party could go to an evil priest, but last time I checked, they aren't too common in most major cities; at least, ones powerful enough to revive someone. A party could go to a neutral god, but there's no guarantee that they'll agree to cast the spell (Wee Jas might say it breaks the balance; another temple might say yes, but only with a much higher profit margin than a normal Raise Dead, since most of the high cost just goes to the diamonds, not the temple/pockets of the caster).
So, good clerics are the best to go to for Raising, and they'll probably want to take time to make sure what they are doing is right. If you're dealing with a lowly Raise Dead, as opposed to Ressurection or True Ressurection, you could burn out the time limit. They might agree to Raise the person if the time limit was running low, but have the person confined until the party could come back with proof that their intentions are pure. Just some more things to consider that make coming back from the dead even more arduous and rare. Use these options at your own discretion.
good post, Black Dragon - I can see we share some gaming similarities.
Saern, I have no problem with your "prove yourself" quest or assigning any quest (assigned by the church/cleric responsible for the resurrection) for those engaging such life-restoring services. This seems logical and not overly penalizing to me.
I agree with Black Dragon that the level penalty seems illogical and overly harsh. I mean, character is probably the weakest in the party and so dies during combat. He is raised and now he's a whole level behind everyone else, therefore the weakest, therefore the most likely to be killed. He's raised up again and loses another level, therefore he's the weakest ... Do we sense a pattern here? And God forbid this character died the first time because his player was a newbie or lacks certain wisdom in playing his character. Nevermind the time, energy and expense, that unfortunate player is never going to catch a break! How can a person be expected to learn and develop when the odds against his character are constantly mounting? I'm sure the creators of this game mechanic were attempting to reduce the use of restorative magic and ...well, they succeeded as is evidenced by the number of 3.x players who just scrap the old character and draw up a new one. I would too under such circumstances!
I think that if the DM is pretty good on his use of the "quest for a ressurection" application, and manages to make it fun, they can actually safely scrap the level penalty, since that was just put there to make it somewhat less easy to raise someone. But, if the party has to go on a whole quest just to accomplish this, it still makes death more than just a speed bump, while not overly penalizing the players. Of course, this makes True Ressurection less useful by a long shot. Perhaps the DM can find a way around this?
Maybe instead of a level, the standard penalty should be 1 point of Con (maybe 2? Just thowing out ideas here), and True Ressurection raises someone without that. This way, the character is still permanently weaker in a physical sense, but not nearly so much as with a level loss. Plus, there's a 50% chance that the character has no negative side effects, since he could have an even number in Con. Just a thought.
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I guess it boils down to what the players want. I know players where easy resurrection ruins the sense of drama for them. There are others who hate to lose characters. (Unfortunately for me, I have both types in the same group, which makes balancing things a bit difficult sometimes.) So long as everyone is having a good time, that is the acid test. That includes the DM, of course....
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good post, Black Dragon - I can see we share some gaming similarities.
Saern, I have no problem with your "prove yourself" quest or assigning any quest (assigned by the church/cleric responsible for the resurrection) for those engaging such life-restoring services. This seems logical and not overly penalizing to me.
I agree with Black Dragon that the level penalty seems illogical and overly harsh. I mean, character is probably the weakest in the party and so dies during combat. He is raised and now he's a whole level behind everyone else, therefore the weakest, therefore the most likely to be killed. He's raised up again and loses another level, therefore he's the weakest ... Do we sense a pattern here? And God forbid this character died the first time because his player was a newbie or lacks certain wisdom in playing his character. Nevermind the time, energy and expense, that unfortunate player is never going to catch a break! How can a person be expected to learn and develop when the odds against his character are constantly mounting? I'm sure the creators of this game mechanic were attempting to reduce the use of restorative magic and ...well, they succeeded as is evidenced by the number of 3.x players who just scrap the old character and draw up a new one. I would too under such circumstances!
I think people are forgetting the old System Shock Survival roll - you had a percentile chance of actually not surviving the shock of resurrection in 1E (and 2E?). So a level loss seems a less drastic penalty. Of couse, the old SSS rolls could have be fudged, so it was less of a penalty ultimately.
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As an almost constant DM, my thought on this is two fold.
Practicality and Character Value.
Is it practical for the character to be brought back to life:
1. Are they characters somewhere that this can be done?
a. Will the current adventure have to take a break to get this done?
b. Do the characters have the contacts to get this done?
2. Will the campaign suffer without that particular character?
Is the character worth bringing back:
1. Is it an interesting character that has more development in its future or a fun character in play?
2. Is the character of high enough level to merit the cost of resuscitation?
a. Can the party afford it? (some parties set up a fund at a local temple to cover this, others sell off the dead characters possessions to cover the cost)
b. Are the other characters willing to pay the cost, or take time off to let the expired character respawn?
After looking at these areas, I usually make a determination if I want the return to life to be a possibility. For me death should not something treated lightly. I almost never allow Resurrection in my game. Reincarnation and Raise Dead are more common alternatives. I will usually make a scroll of one of these available to the party at various points in the game. That way, if a character takes a dirt nap, the players have to decide whether to use the scroll or not. If two characters bit it, then there is a decision to make.
ASEO out
This seems like a simple balance problem.
How do you penalize the player for getting killed (deserving or just unlucky it doesn't matter) without driving him into the backround for eternity.
And how do you negate the cycle of death, weakness and more death without death becoming a simple speed bump instead of the massive problem players should avoid at all costs
My solution is simple. Never let the party have it easy. Every fight should be a narrow escape from death. If the party is 9th lvl for example send five hill giants after them. More than enough power to kill off a characer or two. And lots of XP and treasure to go around. repeat the cycle as nessesary. The PC's wil still climb levels at th same rate as theyare getting tons of xp but lose levels regularly from death. Likewise they get tons of treasure but it's constantly being sapped for buying diamonds for ressurections.
So they advance together (as long as you remember to kill a different member each time) and you get to kill them a lot how could a system be more perfect?
This seems like a simple balance problem.
How do you penalize the player for getting killed (deserving or just unlucky it doesn't matter) without driving him into the backround for eternity.
And how do you negate the cycle of death, weakness and more death without death becoming a simple speed bump instead of the massive problem players should avoid at all costs
My solution is simple. Never let the party have it easy. Every fight should be a narrow escape from death. If the party is 9th lvl for example send five hill giants after them. More than enough power to kill off a characer or two. And lots of XP and treasure to go around. repeat the cycle as nessesary. The PC's wil still climb levels at th same rate as theyare getting tons of xp but lose levels regularly from death. Likewise they get tons of treasure but it's constantly being sapped for buying diamonds for ressurections.
So they advance together (as long as you remember to kill a different member each time) and you get to kill them a lot how could a system be more perfect?
In my opinion any time I'm 'remembering to kill a different player each time' I'm becoming to involved in deciding the players fate. It should be the players choices and actions that get them killed or not - not me arbitrarly deciding ahead of time that this session Sara's character dies and its irrelivent what she tries to avoid that fate - her character is going to buy the farm and her input can't change that.
I think that's it's better to loose a level than in the older editions where the loss of a constitution point brought characters more and more near death or made that character less playable.
We played and still play "one shot" scenario a lot and I had characters with 6 or 7 death and 6 or 7 less constitution points, often fighters, you see the problem, keeping on fighting with a 8 score in constitution is very difficult.
With a level loss that's not a problem, your character loose something but is still playable as it was before leveling up.
But you have to afford the price, at low levels there is often no possibilities and the character is buried, around level 7-8 and following the scenario there is sometimes raise dead spells, after that, if there is a cleric in the group of 9 level or up that's his reponsibility.
...With a level loss that's not a problem, your character loose something but is still playable as it was before leveling up...
I agree with Christian.
We've had no trouble playing when the party composition is spread over up to three levels (we currently have 4th to 6th).
On the other hand, lots of people here seem to feel that such an event is debilitating -- to each their own, I suppose.
Later,
Jack
Hail! In my campaigns, ressurection is a pricey experience. Only those who are clerics may raise a fallen companion (as a person, not an undead, though that is easier to do,), and the cause of death must be unnatural! So should the King of Luna City die from old-age, nothing will bring him back (not even a wish spell. It's what the gods all wanted.)
Hail! In my campaigns, ressurection is a pricey experience. Only those who are clerics may raise a fallen companion (as a person, not an undead, though that is easier to do,), and the cause of death must be unnatural! So should the King of Luna City die from old-age, nothing will bring him back (not even a wish spell. It's what the gods all wanted.)
That's the rule, you know? ;)