I was hoping to engage you guys in a disscussion on the power of healing magic and ressurection ect. in a campaign world.
Most of what I've heard concerning these issues is to dull or nullify some of their more problematic effects on the world i.e; assassinating a king is kind of stupid since he probably has a spiritual advisor capeable of at the very least capeable of buying a scroll of raise dead. Instant healing removing the cinematic feel of "death scenes".
But how many new opportunities would this open up? How different would the world be with at least one cleric in every decent sized village? Religion would be (pardon my frankness) much more popular with clergy delivering daily miracles (plus I loathe the idea of good aligned churches asking for money befor healing a wound) and most villages would probably have a missionary from one church or another. Heck even the hamlets and thorps are probably removed enough to have a druid nearby.
Anyone receiving a wound severe enough to scar would get the wound magical treatment before it scarred over. Maybe scars would become a symbol for country folk too removed to recieve healing. Or maybe soldiers from large battles where only mortal wounds merited clerical intervention.
Perhaps rival (and foolhardy) nobels could have multiple duels to the death against one another. Perhaps reincarnation as a sure fire witness protection program.
Cuthbert could have his troops kill their evil captives and sentance them to a certain time in the horrid afterlife they had chosen through their actions. Then raise them in the hopes that their "journey" could inspire them to repent, provide information ect.
Any other thoughts?
I think its pretty difficult to create such a world. It would not look or feel anything like our own. Thats true of all fantasy worlds of course but this is pushing it out further. All concepts of culture would be fundementaly different in such a world.
Sort of why one does not see fantasy worlds were rivers flow up hill due to a deep attraction to mountian top and gravity works in different ways depending on the time of day. It can be pulled off but immersing your players in such a place so fundementally alien to their experiences of the mundane world is extremely difficult.
I don't know that it would be prohibitively hard to run, and would be a heck of a lot of fun to play up the differences that would surely result.
One question would be the economics of supply. Are there enough clerics to provide all the high level raising and healing that a full world needs? Certainly I could imagine long waiting lists and throngs of folks teeming around the hometowns of those high level clerics capable of such deeds. Certainly it would seem to be much better to heal the person while you can rather than raise them, since any cleric with a lick of training can close a wound, provided the recipient is not high enough level that healing magic has stopped working on him (8 hp back to a 1st vs. a 13th level character for example).
Certainly people would be free to be more reckless. For one, the peasantry would have less need to till the soil with all the bread and water the clerics could make, so there wouldn't be the same seasonal ties to the land--farmers could take seasons off to go see the world. The biggest fear from adventuring would be that no one would find and retrieve you if you came to ill in the webs of some giant spider or fell into a crevasse on some distant mountaintop. So long as you just get killed its not such a big deal. In fact, it might be argued that killing an opponent in a bar brawl wouldn't be such a grievous thing. Cold blooded murder as a good way to vent ill feelings?
That brings up the whole question of what would be the fate of evil in such a world? Certainly the less wholesome gods of death, disease, and destruction who lord over their followers with the fear of dire consequences for not revering them would quickly find themselves without a body of believers. Tyrants would be hard pressed to exercise control over their populace with the sword if some travelling cleric just raises them all (though such accomplished clerics would still be rather rare). Then again, how would even righteous kingdoms make sure their enemies bodies aren't just dragged off and ressurected by their enemies?
I guess the biggest question is how everpresent is bringing back the dead? Are there 20th level clerics around every corner? If so then yeah things would be very interesting. My thought would be that the clerics able to work such great works would be fairly rare and pretty old, and while they would likely go about surrounded by crowds all day long, raising those they feel most strongly deserve it, they would probably not be able to do much more than a handful a day--if that's all they did. It would have to be an exhausting way to spend your sunset years. Then again, if its one of those settings where lots of guys reach level 20 after a month of hard adventuring (say deeds equivalent to an Adventure Path?) then the sky's the limit. You'd have strapping young lads of 18 capable of the greatest feats of divine magic and the world would fairly crackle with it.
On the other hand, would it cause more fervent belief in religion? Compared to our world I'd say religion is much more ardent already in any D&D setting. It's like whether people nowadays believe in science. Yeah, obviously. Is everyone a scientist? No, because they lack either the passion or the aptitude or the opportunity for education--I'd imagine it'd be a lot like that. As far as whether loads of ressurection would make a setting lots more religious than in a normal D&D setting, I'd maybe argue the opposite. With clerics to raise you whenever you die, you might imagine people put off the whole issue of religion, since they won't have to worry about it seriously for at least the first 90 years and might like to keep their options open, or at least not declare any loyalties that might keep the nearest cleric from helping them out when they've gone and drowned themselves...again.
For one; under current rule systems the prices of diamonds would sky-rocket. You'd have to give up half your kingdom to buy enough diamonds for a raise...
For wound healing it depends on the amount of clerics per head of the population. A first level cleric (which most probably are) would only have 3 first level spells (assuming the Healing domain) and 3 0st level spells; if the village has 300 inhabitants and 1 cleric, they'd still have to be somewhat careful. If there are 20 clerics per village, then people would become more reckless. The only danger would be killing someone, so attacking, hurting, maiming, probably even torturing would become much less of a deal.
There's a book about a world where the dead ressurect every morning.. it's called The Magic River by Philip José Farmer. Strange book. Pick it up in the library, it might provide you with a lot of good ideas about such a setting...
For one; under current rule systems the prices of diamonds would sky-rocket. You'd have to give up half your kingdom to buy enough diamonds for a raise...
For wound healing it depends on the amount of clerics per head of the population. A first level cleric (which most probably are) would only have 3 first level spells (assuming the Healing domain) and 3 0st level spells; if the village has 300 inhabitants and 1 cleric, they'd still have to be somewhat careful. If there are 20 clerics per village, then people would become more reckless. The only danger would be killing someone, so attacking, hurting, maiming, probably even torturing would become much less of a deal.
True, but I am not suggesting people would ask for a cure moderate wounds for every bump or bruise. But even 500 people or so to one cleric could still easily be managed. I have no medical stats to back me up but I think more than 6 people a day from 500 having grevious wounds and injuries is pretty steep. I think one first level cleric could easily handle the load.
As far as raising goes Grimcleaver is right. The problems presented are vast. As a counter to this I propose that people "capeable" of being ressurected are rare in the extream. Most people do not posses enough unfinished buisiness or drive or sense of self (whatever) to keep them bound to this world instead of moving on to their eternal reward. Raising might be viewed as more a challenge of the person being ressurected than the ability of the preist to call them forth. Most kings would still be unable to be ressurected and assassination would still be a viable threat.
Raising itself might be a closely guarded secret. Low level priests and characters might not even know it is possible. Even clerics of 9th level and higher might not be aware of his ability. Those that are ressurected might be relabled as "arcane clones" a disturbing prospect for most greiving loved ones. Or maybe those that can afford to provide the cleric with the materials would also use their influence to cover up their absence.
I do not think that clerics would be everywhere. But I would think they are one of the more common of the casting classes. Wizards are more like scientists and are rare for the same reasons. I would think that clerical groups would be more interested and active in finding new recruits than a cabal of wizards.
Big cities are rare. So are high level (13 or over) clerics. But with a big city it makes sense that a high level cleric would see they were needed there to preach their message. The larger the city the larger the clerical presence. I would think that many individuals in a civilized society to be able to petition for magical healing. And if their wounds were serious, to receive it.
Just some thoughts.
well... In the world I play in the DM told us at the start that resurrections spells may or may not excite and that our characters had never heard about it happening nor every seen it and that if you died it would be most likely permanent, well... A character did die and the group set out to get him back and it took a whole year of role playing and fighting and searching to find the guy to do it but when it came down to resurrecting him the characters soul liked it in heaven or whatever and didn’t want to be resurrected lol!!!! my point is that it was very hard and expensive but it was possible if not 100 percent reliable just a thought maybe for your game?
As far as raising goes Grimcleaver is right. The problems presented are vast. As a counter to this I propose that people "capeable" of being ressurected are rare in the extream. Most people do not posses enough unfinished buisiness or drive or sense of self (whatever) to keep them bound to this world instead of moving on to their eternal reward. Raising might be viewed as more a challenge of the person being ressurected than the ability of the preist to call them forth. Most kings would still be unable to be ressurected and assassination would still be a viable threat.
Again, see the recent developments in OotS regarding Lord Shojo. How in the world does a comic strip have so much good advice? My theory: Rich Burlew is actually at least a demigod, perhaps more...
Back to a relevant point, I like the thought that the emphasis on raising becomes a personal matter to the recipient of the spell; do they have a compelling reason for coming back? If the answer is really "no," then the spell would just fail. Is the diamond still burned up in that case? Priests may not even offer the spell if it is and they don't think the person is likely to come back. One would have to provide evidence that the spell is actually likely to succeed, and you would have to do it within the time period allowed by the particular version of raise or ressurection desired.
Also, as was mentioned before, diamonds become hugely important. Think massive international wars over diamond mines and their trade. Whole world economies and power hierarchies based on them. Actually obtaining one for a ressurection becomes an issue then; sure, the spell may be known by a relatively large number of people, but no one can actually cast it because they don't have the materials. That would be very interesting: "Well, of course ressurection is possible, but you'd have to get a diamond of X carat and qualities, and everybody knows that's not going to happen!"
The king could be as powerful as he wants, but if he doesn't have a diamond supply (or if it's stolen during his assassination), he's just SoL.
Perhaps all the issues with cure spells could also be fixed with a relatively cheap (for PCs) but hard to come by (for everyone but PCs) focus (an idea like that was postulated in the other thread already, though, by Sebastian). One could play up diamonds even more, and make them the required focus; perhaps their carat (price) must be equal to or greater than the "life force" (HD) of the target creature, which helps explain why certain characters react differently to similar healing effects (such as the aforementioned difference in 8 hp to a 1st and a 13th level character).
The politics and economics of healing and raising magic could indeed add a nice flavor to a campaign world. Rather than changing assumptions about its availability or potency or the way people lead their lives, or even the way to game runs, one could just play up the elements that explain why things are they way they are.
- First, some wounds are just lethal. If a person drops below 0 hp he has at the most 8 rounds until he is dead, that's 48 seconds. Must be a very swift cleric to come from the church to the fields, where the farmhand impaled himself on his scythe.
- Second, this is a power provided by the gods. Not every faith would give it away freely to just everyone (who might also be a follower of a hostile faith), and as soon as the normal price is charged, it is impossible for most people to afford it, 25 GP is a lot of money for a peasant. The only people healed for free are really faithful and for many faiths only important faithful.
- Third, there is always the god of death, destiny or some other god who would be very upset, if everyone would be brought back from the brink of death, just because some do-gooder cannot stand, that life and death both are part of ...well life. So every god has to take care that the balance of power is kept, otherwise all the other gods, would gang up on him maybe because their portfolio is interfered with or because the free-giving god might get a bigger share of faithful by this way. And the clerics are wise enough to understand this concept and live and give by it.
Of course adventurers are different, they have some role in the world which goes way beyond the destiny of ordinary people. In addition, they have higher risk, so higher means would only even the odds most of the time.
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Yet another shameless plug for Iron Kingdoms:
In IK, the amount of healing any given cleric can administer per day is limited by their god. The gods do not approve of their followers meddling in the affairs of fate. Any healing that exceeds this daily allowance has a chance of subjecting both the cleric and the patient to numerous forms of divine backlash up to and including death.
Also, clerics have a chance to suffer backlash any time they heal someone of a differing or opposing faith. Obviously, if the patient simply reveres a different deity than the cleric's own, the penalties are not as substantial as they are if the cleric attempts to heal someone who is directly opposed to their beliefs. Bear in mind that the subjects of these healing spells are also subject to similarly harsh backlashes, so it is generally a very bad idea to try to heal strangers since you have no way of knowing where their faith lies. Clerics with the Healing domain get a SLIGHT reprieve on this issue, but not much. There's a chart for backlash listed in the book and the higher you roll, the worse the backlash is. The healing domain allows the cleric to subtract 1 from their backlash rolls which, at least, makes the "Death" result impossible unless they are healing someone of opposed faith.
Also, IK took away the resurrection spells and made raise dead a 9th level spell. Even so, the backlash tables for raise dead are magnitudes worse than the ones for simple healing spells. Thus, only people of incredible importance to the church are even CONSIDERED for resurrection.
I agree with Sexi Golem. My thoughts on this would be to make it so that you had to make a extremley difficult Will save to escape the gods of death or make it so that the people trying to resurrect you would have to undertake an extremley challenging crusade or something for the god of the cleric who was going to do the resurrection. Furthermore you could make the interval between deathand when resurrection doesn't work is even shorter.
Just my two coppers.
Just to clarify, the idea, at least the one I had in mind when I started this thread, is not to change anything about healing or ressurection magic, as far as the rules are concerned. I like the way they work. I want to discuss how a world with these elements in place would be fundamentally different. And discuss some non-mechanical ideas to make the differences tolerable.
1. I doubt that any faith would deny healing because the wounded did not believe the same things. Firstly because churches are a people buisiness and for good aligned churches turning wounded non-pelorians out on their ass is bad PR. To say nothing of the fact that turning away those in need does not feel like Pelor or Yondalla to me. Plus helping others is a good way to get new acolytes. In addition, with the existance of every god fairly obvious I doubt their are many real non-believers. Most people (I always imagined anyway) worked like the ancient greeks. They payed respect to many gods, but considered one to be more important to them personally.
2. Even evil cults could provide healing. "The Cuthbert boys too nosy about where you got those knife wounds? Sure pal Vecna will patch you right up. First you tell us who did it, where, when, and why, sound like a deal?" Just like mob doctors treating wounds and people that would rather avoid public notice.
3. I do not want ressurection magic common. I do not want it removed or changed either. I think the "few people know it is even possible and even then they know how rarely it is that it actually works" idea makes this possible and would like to cultivate it further. Note: this new line of thinking has replaced many of the concepts in my original post.
I do not want death averted for every farmhand that gets trampled by a horse. Such a person will likely die before a cleric could show up. I would theorize that lesser, but still serious, wounds like broken bones, deep lacerations, anything that a reasonable person would be worried about becoming lethal via infection or what have you would get magical healing rather than wait for nature to take its course.
Well, here's another interesting take, hopefully along the lines with your new train of thought. We talked about how the world would change in respect to diamond trade to keep them available for resurrection magic. But, you want to go a different route.
Say there is some powerful order that goes around burning books, scrolls, and intimidating/imprisoning/killing people who are too vocal about resurrection magic. Few people know they even exist, and while they aren't opposed to resurrections themselves, they realize overly common knowledge of them would completely destabilize the world. Thus, they disuade their use except when strictly necessary, and then come up with conspiracies to cover up the king's assassination and subsequent return, or other such things. They don't have to be strictly good or evil, and could even work with both sides. Maybe they're lawful neutral. Heck, it could even be a sect of the church of Wee Jas; ressurection spells kind of fall squarely into the conjunction of death and magic.
I believe the Fiend Folio has information on the Quarut inevitables, who are concerned with violators of the laws of time and fate, including people who are raised one time too many. These things are very powerful, somewhere around CR 17 or 18 I think. They could work with, lead, or just share similar goals with this organization, or perhaps simply inspired some overly zealous mortals (or immortals?) to try and immitate their work.
My parenthetical question above raises another interesting aspect. Perhaps the group is an elitist, and very powerful, organization of immortal beings who are bent on preserving their "special" status, and keeping mortals from achieving any form of immortality. I guess they'd be opposed to liches, too, unless of course they're not, which exposes some twisted hypocrasy, or at least raises further questions. Maybe they are a bunch of liches!
Kudos on this whole thread, Sexi!
How long would it take to completely use up a world's diamonds via repeated raisings? Especially considering, humans at least, have very little racial forethought. A.k.a. we rarely think about running out of a resource while there is still the tiniest bit of it left. Even with nations fighting over the last unspent diamond mine in the world, those diamonds are likely to be used pretty quick whether during or after the war.
Perhaps this would be a good situation to handwave the specifics of a spell's material component? Maybe you don't need a diamond worth X gp, but the god of the cleric who is doing the raising demands monetary compensation in the form of goods or coins worth X gp. Sure it doesn't sound very "spiritual" of the gods to make such a demand, but there is precident for it in the real world.
Just to clarify, the idea, at least the one I had in mind when I started this thread, is not to change anything about healing or ressurection magic, as far as the rules are concerned. I like the way they work. I want to discuss how a world with these elements in place would be fundamentally different. And discuss some non-mechanical ideas to make the differences tolerable.
The thing for the DM to do is to strictly use the costs of spellcasting services and material components. Most shrines and temples probably won't turn away those seeking low-level healing, but those who can't pay would still need to make up the debt in goods or labor (upkeep for the temple or shrine, food and supplies for the clergy, etc.). Diseases are still dangerous; Remove Disease is a 3rd level spell, so only clerics of 5th+ level can cast it, for those who can afford the 150gp+ price tag (although many good temples probably have a wand or two locked up in case of epidemics). Poison is still a threat; Neutralize Poison is a 4th level spell, so it requires a 7th+ level cleric and costs at least 280gp (plus it's worthless unless cast at the right time and doesn't cure any damage done by the poison, which means more healing spells). Restoration (4th level spell plus 100gp of diamond dust, costing at least 380gp) is also within the reach of prosperous craftpeople, but Raise Dead (5th level spell plus 5,000gp in diamonds) and many higher level healing magics are just too expensive for anyone except adventurers, rich merchants, and nobility.
Just to clarify, the idea, at least the one I had in mind when I started this thread, is not to change anything about healing or ressurection magic, as far as the rules are concerned. I like the way they work. I want to discuss how a world with these elements in place would be fundamentally different. And discuss some non-mechanical ideas to make the differences tolerable.The thing for the DM to do is to strictly use the costs of spellcasting services and material components. Most shrines and temples probably won't turn away those seeking low-level healing, but those who can't pay would still need to make up the debt in goods or labor (upkeep for the temple or shrine, food and supplies for the clergy, etc.). Diseases are still dangerous; Remove Disease is a 3rd level spell, so only clerics of 5th+ level can cast it, for those who can afford the 150gp+ price tag (although many good temples probably have a wand or two locked up in case of epidemics). Poison is still a threat; Neutralize Poison is a 4th level spell, so it requires a 7th+ level cleric and costs at least 280gp (plus it's worthless unless cast at the right time and doesn't cure any damage done by the poison, which means more healing spells). Restoration (4th level spell plus 100gp of diamond dust, costing at least 380gp) is also within the reach of prosperous craftpeople, but Raise Dead (5th level spell plus 5,000gp in diamonds) and many higher level healing magics are just too expensive for anyone except adventurers, rich merchants, and nobility.
I have a lot of issues with clerics and spell prices.
A. I don't care about game balance enough to build a situation where the cleric of Pelor has to hassle people for money.
B. If ressucetion spells are widely known and possible, it poses problems for me. If people are desperate for money they will go to extrodinary means to get it. I don't want every NPC with a recent death acting like a crack addict. I don't see how diamonds would even be considered as jewlery. Wearing any clear shiney jewlery is as good as a death warrent.
I really like the idea of Ressurection magic being unknown to 99% of the population and being amazingly unreliable to the rest.
The organization of pro-afterlife individuals seems cool. Their place in the world at large would be fun to develope I think.
It's easy to see why good aligned individuals would want not to return and leave their just rewards, but I don;t care for the idea that neutral or evil beings would be more easily ressurected. What would work as an in game excuse for them?
How long would it take to completely use up a world's diamonds via repeated raisings? Especially considering, humans at least, have very little racial forethought. A.k.a. we rarely think about running out of a resource while there is still the tiniest bit of it left. Even with nations fighting over the last unspent diamond mine in the world, those diamonds are likely to be used pretty quick whether during or after the war.
This post just gave me an idea - how about there are no diamonds left? They've been used up millenia ago for the reasons Tequila just outlined, which means that in the past there was a sort of "Age of Legends" where heroes were routinely resurrected, but now such a thing is not possible.
Perhaps an extraordinarily powerful wizard might have a diamond he acquired after great hardships, especially as insurance, or perhaps an ancient crown from the age of legends lost in some catacombs is rumoured to have a diamond on it?
Other than such exceedingly rare cases, well... as Saern put it, pretty much everyone is SoL :)
Perhaps an extraordinarily powerful wizard might have a diamond he acquired after great hardships, especially as insurance, or perhaps an ancient crown from the age of legends lost in some catacombs is rumoured to have a diamond on it?
Sounds like a great epic adventure!
It's easy to see why good aligned individuals would want not to return and leave their just rewards, but I don;t care for the idea that neutral or evil beings would be more easily ressurected. What would work as an in game excuse for them?
Somewhere in the 2nd edition Planescape setting, a comment was made about this very subject. Though 'primes' tend to think of Baator, the Abyss, etc. as eternal punishments, the reality is that the souls who end up there actually WANT to be there. When some BBEG is killed by a rival or band of pesky adventurers, he finds himself in a new and brutal world, but a world where everyone else plays by his rules. Sure he's likely born as some minor imp or what-have-you, but he has the opportunity to rise through the ranks and become the next Asmodeus or Demogorgon. If he lets himself be resurrected, he returns to mortality once again, where he has to go back to hiding his evil intentions from everyone else...oh and minus his possessions which have been carried off by those who did him off.
That was a bit of a ramble, hope it helped.
While TS's answers will certainly work for some, other DMs may interpret Baator and the Abyss to really be eternal punishment and any mortal soul dreads going there. But, what, you think the Lords of the Nine or the Demon Princes are just going to let souls go? You know how valuable those things are down in the Lower Planes! No, sir, you've got to really work to get people out of those dimensions.
As far as Sexi's squeamishness over charging money for healing spells, I share it. Allow me to expound upon our reasoning:
Take Ye Olde Cleric of Pelor. He serves the deity of HEALING. He is a GOOD GUY. He wants to help people. It costs him nothing, absolutely nothing more than the energy to wiggle his fingers, pray, and the approximately three seconds needed to cast a cure spell. Sure, I imagine channeling the mystic energies leaves him feeling somewhat tired for a few seconds, but that's a nonfactor. He also had to go to seminary for training for a few years to do it, but he wants the common peasants to pay for this when they're at their weakest points and their lives are in danger?
If the spell has a material component, of course money will be charged. Someone has to pay for that thing somewhere or the spell doesn't happen. But when it requires nothing, why in the world is a cleric of Pelor charging gold? Or any good deity for that matter? Even neutral ones would seem to have a tendancy to heal for free, just because, as Sexi said, it's good PR! Evil clerics will turn away some people, and charge for healing in many cases, although perhaps not with gold. Hextorites might demand labor, Vecnans secrets, and so on.
Nerull. There you go, there's one deity at least who will not offer healing to most people, not that a lot of people would seek his adherents out. Erythnul can be added to that list, too, most likely. Just about every other deity in the PHB would probably have some interest in tending the wounds of the injured for free, either out of moral obligation, an attempt to win public favor (afterall, worshipers make the gods go round!), or manipulation for personal gain.
So charging money when the commoner is at -1 hp in order to save his life seems really stupid to Sexi and me.
However, I can see most churches, particularly neutral and evil ones, charging money when the wound is not life-threatening, just to stop themselves from getting flooded with requests for divine spells. Some good churches might do this, too. Although, sparingly doing such things for free will win more followers, so the clerics would need to balance the potential pay offs.
This post just gave me an idea - how about there are no diamonds left? They've been used up millenia ago for the reasons Tequila just outlined, which means that in the past there was a sort of "Age of Legends" where heroes were routinely resurrected, but now such a thing is not possible.
See now, that, would be pretty frickin cool!
As far as Sexi's squeamishness over charging money for healing spells, I share it.
Unless you want to start instituting tithes, how else are churches supposed to finance themselves? Charitable donations only go so far, especially since there are no tax deductions for them in D&D (unless you have a very non-historical setting). Patrons are a tricky situation, as they have a tendency to "suggest" modifications to liturgy and dogma. Self-sufficient communities (like historical monasteries) tend to spend most of their time providing for themselves, rather than ministering the community. Selling services (healing, spellcasting for courts, etc.) is probably the best way.
The other issue at work here is the primary reason for clerics in the deity's eyes: increasing the power of the faith. The more money in the church coffers, the more temples and shrines built, the more clerics trained, the more converts gained (or souls saved/corrupted).
Most churches would be willing to heal those who can't pay immediately, but would still expect that they help "the cause" in some manner. Like I said earlier, payment in goods or labor (craftwork, facility maintenance, food) would be a common way to show appreciation for low-level healing. Good churches would be willing to set up easy payment shedules that wouldn't impose undue burden on the debtor. Neutral churches might be a bit more mercenary, but would still be flexible. Evil churches would probably use debt peonage, or even slavery, when they can away with it.
And why not just have tithes? Real churches do it. It's already assumed that most people in a D&D world are pretty religious, what with clerics walking around casting divine spells and all. So, the temple of Pelor takes up a healthy weekly collection. Also, don't forget that there are adventuring clerics out there who can generate massive sums of wealth for the faith.
Yes, if someone cut their arm but already has it bandaged and is in no danger, and especially if they aren't a member of that church's congregation or are behind in tithes, I can see a fee being levied. But strictly enforcing the monetary guidelines in the PHB/DMG just seem odious.
Procuring a raise dead or resurrection spell should be an adventure in itself. Perhaps no mortal spellcaster should be able to use such a talent: the odds of their misusing it is too great for the divine folks in the apartment upstairs to allow such a possibility. Destructive magic is very easy; just point your fingers and something blows up, disintegrates or implodes. But reforming the entire human body, from the inside out, repairing all of the tissue (not just a small part like a cure spell) and organs AND fetching the soul back from where it belonged is much more complicated.
Maybe there's a specific place in the campaign setting, like the Lazarus Pit of Ra's Al Ghoul or something similar that is supposed to allow the dead to return after a ritual is performed. Another example from comics, in Hellboy's "Wake the Devil" the vampire supposedly had to return to his home castle every time he was mortally wounded and sit in a special room where the moon could hit his body and Hecate would revive him with part of herself. Maybe those seeking a resurrection or raising would have to strike such a bargain; perhaps they come back with some small traits befitting their patron. Scales, a forked tongue, compound eyes, feathers, etc. What further side effects could happen?
Of course, this threatens to derail some of the campaign, but that's only if the DM wants it to. If PC death happens often enough that it would be ridiculous to have to voyage to the remote location for a raising, this is obviously not a good idea for that campaign. It also encourages players to really think out whether or not a character is worth raising.
And why not just have tithes? Real churches do it. It's already assumed that most people in a D&D world are pretty religious, what with clerics walking around casting divine spells and all. So, the temple of Pelor takes up a healthy weekly collection. Also, don't forget that there are adventuring clerics out there who can generate massive sums of wealth for the faith.
Yes, if someone cut their arm but already has it bandaged and is in no danger, and especially if they aren't a member of that church's congregation or are behind in tithes, I can see a fee being levied. But strictly enforcing the monetary guidelines in the PHB/DMG just seem odious.
Religious, yes, but not to the extent of giving one-tenth of all income/produce by every member of the community (unless it's the community's only faith). Note that even with that, many curches in medieval times had financial difficulties.
Active congregation members who donate regularly will be healed for "free." Non-members or those who are not donating will incur a fee (either monetary or other). Actually refusing to heal would only happen with enemies of the faith.
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I was playing a CN mid-level fighter who died. The cleric in the group took his body to the church to be raised, as the fighter was a mercenary working for the church and that was part of the deal. Everything proceeded normally until, to the surprise of all the players in the group, the DM told us to roll initiative.
My character's soul had gone to one of the Nine Hells (he wasn't a very nice guy) and the minor demon did not want to give it up. My character came back to life and several demons appeared in the church.
It turns out that the DM had been planning this all along for the first character to die and get resurrected. He had a level-appropriate encounter (assuming help from the cleric doing the raising) ready to go all along.
This put much more emphasis on staying alive for the remainder of the campaign. It also forced our characters to analyze the repercussions of their actions. And for my fighter, he reflected upon his time in hell and ended up switching alignments to CG and devoting himself to the church that "saved" him. He eventually took the Divine Champion prestige class, which was almost the complete opposite of the direction I had initially intended for him to take, but character-motivated decisions always trump.
Needless to say: Best. DM. Ever.
I was playing a CN mid-level fighter who died. The cleric in the group took his body to the church to be raised, as the fighter was a mercenary working for the church and that was part of the deal. Everything proceeded normally until, to the surprise of all the players in the group, the DM told us to roll initiative.
My character's soul had gone to one of the Nine Hells (he wasn't a very nice guy) and the minor demon did not want to give it up. My character came back to life and several demons appeared in the church.
It turns out that the DM had been planning this all along for the first character to die and get resurrected. He had a level-appropriate encounter (assuming help from the cleric doing the raising) ready to go all along.
This put much more emphasis on staying alive for the remainder of the campaign. It also forced our characters to analyze the repercussions of their actions. And for my fighter, he reflected upon his time in hell and ended up switching alignments to CG and devoting himself to the church that "saved" him. He eventually took the Divine Champion prestige class, which was almost the complete opposite of the direction I had initially intended for him to take, but character-motivated decisions always trump.
Needless to say: Best. DM. Ever.
~wistles~ Damn. That is such a good idea. I will have to "borrow" it sometime.
And why not just have tithes? Real churches do it. It's already assumed that most people in a D&D world are pretty religious, what with clerics walking around casting divine spells and all. So, the temple of Pelor takes up a healthy weekly collection. Also, don't forget that there are adventuring clerics out there who can generate massive sums of wealth for the faith.
Yes, if someone cut their arm but already has it bandaged and is in no danger, and especially if they aren't a member of that church's congregation or are behind in tithes, I can see a fee being levied. But strictly enforcing the monetary guidelines in the PHB/DMG just seem odious.
Religious, yes, but not to the extent of giving one-tenth of all income/produce by every member of the community (unless it's the community's only faith). Note that even with that, many curches in medieval times had financial difficulties.
Active congregation members who donate regularly will be healed for "free." Non-members or those who are not donating will incur a fee (either monetary or other). Actually refusing to heal would only happen with enemies of the faith.
Clerics are far from a one trick pony. Selling divinations, purifying meals for a significant gathering, weddings, funerals, making and selling magic items that also promote their goals. Training the local guard. Clerics should be swimming in swag. Especially since buisiness management seems to be tied to a high wisdom.
I think this could support a church fine without having to charge for healing, water, or the odd exorcism. At least the good ones. Neutral and Evil can charge all they want.