Wikipedia says that in ancient times and the middle ages, the death rate was about 40 per 1,000 people per year. Using that benchmark, in a typical large town of 3,500 people we will see 140 deaths in a year, less than one per day. Unless those deaths are clustered close together due to large-scale tragedies, the 9th level cleric in that town is capable of raising every person killed by accident, violence, or disease. That's only within that settlement, but nearby smaller settlements or large towns not lucky enough to boast a suitable cleric would probably attempt to bring in their dead, especially if they can manage Gentle Repose to give them a few extra days travel time (which requires a 3rd-5th level caster).
The population would be a lot higher than that, especially when you consider that some towns of 5,000 people would not have a cleric of high enough level. 90% of medieval populations lived and worked in agriculture, so that town of 3,500 with a 9th level cleric is supported by a rural population of around 35,000. Since only one in six towns of 2,00-5000 has a 9th level cleric, that means roughly one cleric capable of casting raise dead per 180,000 people. Now we're closer to roughly 19 people dying per day and only one raise dead to go around. On any given day that's 161 people eligible to be raised, without Gentle Repose.
Do you allow npcs to use the same methods as your players? After all, if raise dead is free what stops the big bad from being resurrected by his lower level minions?
Most "classic" BBEGs are unpleasant enough to their inferiors that you'd get a Wicked Witch of the West scenario: While their minions might not spontaneously change alignment and become Good, they're at least relieved not to be under the thumb of that crazy bastard anymore. C'mon, Lou, let's see if there's a lich hiring in Ustalav.
However, my group has waived material components for raise dead all the way back to 2e. And, yeah, I've had bad guys raised by his friends when it made sense for them to do so. It made them vow never to walk off and leave his body to moulder again!
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I see a in world reason to keep the cost of raising the dead:
Personally I think that making the world "hard to conceive" is a valid "game-mechanics reason to keep the 5,000 gp cost".
That's still a campaign reason, not a game mechanics reason.
In AD&D, raising the dead was a big event and limited in # of times and use. Raise dead was only available to clerics whose diety granted "major" access to the sphere of Necromancy, so not every cleric had it.
That's a 2E AD&D rule. That rule didn't exist in 1E AD&D, as there were no "spheres." So you can't use this as the explanation/justification for keeping this mechanic, because it is an argument ex post facto.
I'm also not sure I care for a game where character death is treated as a trivial matter.
Does remove disease trivialize disease attacks?
Does remove curse trivialize curses?Does neutralize poison trivialize poison attacks?
Does restoration trivialize ability damage and negative levels?
Does remove blindness/deafness trivialize blindness and deafness attacks?
More specifically, does breath of life trivialize death? It brings a character back from the dead, permanently without any negative levels, so long as you get there within 1 round. And it's the same level as raise dead, and it doesn't have an expensive material component. So... does it trivialize death?
And if breath of life doesn't trivialize death, why does raise dead trivialize death? Why is it okay to instantly raise a fallen ally in combat at no gp cost and no negative levels, but not okay to do so after a combat or the next day?
In fact without the threat of character death I'm not quite sure what point there is to even playing the game.
There are thousands of incredibly fun games where it is impossible for your character to die. Many of them are fantasy games.
Essentially the GM could just as easily sit down at the first session and say "Here is Rise of the Runelords. Your characters encountered these creatures, you killed them all. Yay you. You are now legends in Varisia. Game over. Wasn't that exciting!? Okay what AP do we want to 'play' next? Skull and Shackles? Okay give me 30 minutes and we'll knock that out right quick too."
Yep, and you can watch a movie that you've watched before, or a song you've heard before, even though you've memorized it... and it's still enjoyable, yes?
In any case, you're comparing apples and oranges. Playing an RPG is a group narrative experience; comparing that to a GM telling you what happens in ROTR is like comparing watching a movie to reading a one-paragraph summary of the movie; it's not the same thing.
For the role-player, the costs and penalties make character death something to be played and embraced.
I think you need to put on a fancy posh accent and trill your R when you say "RRRRRROLEPLAYING" in this sentence, because it sounds even more arrogant that way.
You can have an incredible roleplaying experience even if your character dies.You can also have an incredible roleplaying experience if your character dies and comes back and has to deal with having died.
Removing costs and penalties to character death in fact penalizes the role-player.
False.
There is no obstacle, no consequence, no risk and therefore no real reward, to his actions.
False.
For the role-player it is boring.
False.
You know you will win before you even begin the game.
False.
There is no suspense, it is all a foregone conclusion.
False.
I don't want to play that way.
Then if your character dies, don't accept the raise dead spell. I've had a character do that—he died, the party cleric (of his god) tried to raise him, and he refused because was happy in the afterlife in the house of his god, Thor.
But here's the thing: just because you don't want to play that way doesn't mean we all should have to play it your way. Don't force us to play the way you want to play.Do you allow npcs to use the same methods as your players? After all, if raise dead is free what stops the big bad from being resurrected by his lower level minions?
Yes I do. One game in college, we did a teleport-raid on a temple of Set and killed several powerful priests. But we didn't get all of them... so one of the survivors cast raise dead on the others, and it was just a minor setback.
That's why you take the heads or burn the bodies, that forces them to use resurrection or better spells.
(And BTW, I'm still waiting to hear a game-mechanics reason to justify this expensive material component.)
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I will add this: in one of my first 3rd edition campaigns, we had a character die. It was when the PCs were too low to cast raise dead, so they had to summon an angel and ask its help to raise the dead. It was a lot more interesting than simply casting a spell and it helped provide a plot point when said angel called in the favor later. I have considered just removing Raise Dead as an option and allowing only divine intervention of this sort as an option, apart from reincarnation.
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I have nothing to contribute to the games-mechanics question, but I would like to know if Paizo has considered an Unearthed Arcana style book of optional rules?
I know Jason would love to do that sort of book. :)
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Sean brings up a lot of good points here.
I've GMed campaigns where players don't accept the raise, because they know it will be a much better story if they do not.
In my current home campaign, I had a PC die because of a particularly bad encounter with some ninja. It wasn't intentional for a PC to die, and it was too early for the story to take such a 'major hit'. Those kinds of character deaths are not conducive to telling a good story, instead, they are the result of bad dice and poorly executed encounters.
I think one of the best ideas I've ever heard of, was changing 'Breath of Life' to 'Cure Deadly Wounds', allowing clerics to cast it spontaneously. This gives clerics a lot of versatility at higher levels when it comes to bringing back PCs.
In my games, I tend to be of the mindset that if the PC has an intact body and wants to come back, there should be a minor inconvenience charge, and then they should come back (assuming the rest of the party is alive and able to arrange the details).
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To some extent I can see this for today's generation. But when I grew up playing video games, when you died you inserted another quarter, hit continue before the timer counted down to 0, and kept playing. There was a very real world cost for resurrecting your character.
And the problem with needing to shove quarters into the machine was that I always went home broke, still wanting to play. :)
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 4
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Does remove disease trivialize disease attacks?
Does remove curse trivialize curses?
Does neutralize poison trivialize poison attacks?
Does restoration trivialize ability damage and negative levels?
Does remove blindness/deafness trivialize blindness and deafness attacks?More specifically, does breath of life trivialize death? It brings a character back from the dead, permanently without any negative levels, so long as you get there within 1 round. And it's the same level as raise dead, and it doesn't have an expensive material component. So... does it trivialize death?
And if breath of life doesn't trivialize death, why does raise dead trivialize death? Why is it okay to instantly raise a fallen ally in combat at no gp cost and no negative levels, but not okay to do so after a combat or the next day?
This is a fascinating discussion.
As a (mostly) DM, I can say that the expensive resurrection cost is a deterrent for me to be consistently lethal with encounters. I will happily curse, poison, blind, infect, and horribly maim the characters knowing they can recover with only minor difficulty.
But when it comes to character death, I find myself always fishing for loopholes - "Are you sure you don't have two hero points?", "Did you remember your Damage Reduction?", "Don't you have Fortification Armor?" - because the "go to town shopping for diamonds" side-trek is not really something I'm interested in doing in the middle of an adventure.
On the Breath of Life question - I'd say that Breath of Life does not trivialize death for the following reasons:
- It takes away a round's worth of actions by your healer in the middle of combat when he could be channeling or banishing or flame-striking.
- It likely places your healer in harm's way (in range of whatever killed the dead guy)
- It has no guarantee of success. It only works if you heal enough damage to get past the death threshold - not always a guaranteed thing.
These factors increase the risk, and the drama, of the situation. Which I think is what most of the people in the "Death Must Have Consequences" camp are really asking for.
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I take the game for what it is, a game. If your character makes it from 1 to 20 then that's great, if not then it wasn't meant to be. Having your games become to involved in set of characters without any wiggle is railroading and my players don't like that. The game is deeply involved in the characters as long as they are alive and/or able to be raised. If the PC meets his end then his story ends there, that's why dice make it interesting because it gives everyone a fair chance.
I like death to have consequences. But actually, the negative level and diamond cost feel very video gamey to me. I mean tha is pretty much verbatim how a lot of MMOs used to handle death, it cost you some of your money and you lost XP.
I only accept a Raise Dead for my characters if I feel it's needed to continue their story. One very long campaign we played, I had a character die, he was being used as bait for a BBEG. We didn't catch him, so I accepted the raise. Later, he fought valiantly defending a city, holding a gate for longer than expected, he felt it was a good death, so he just stayed dead. Several years later, both in game and real life, something came up and he had an opportunity to come back. This time he felt it was something he had to do, so he accepted the resurrection, took part in the adventure... and managed to die again, but went back to his eternal home (due to circumstances he was an immortal guardian to a dungeon in his afterlife).
We still played with costs at the time, but they never entered into the decision for me. It was all about the story and what my gut told me about the character.
I think that a material cost is sort of a red herring for returning a dead person to life. Either it just doesn't matter ("we want our friend back") or it's another penalty (dammit, Haaran just lost sixth level spells) added to the not-negligible list of expenses...
Besides... why on earth would the gods not extort a debt for this, rather than allowing a paltry diamond to suffice? Aren't heroes the glove around the hands of the gods in the mortal realm? I think it would be much more like a god to invest in the services of a hero via raise dead or resurrection... to be called in later, when the power of said hero begins to rival that of the god's more usual servants...
@SKR: You haven't gotten a good game mechanic reason for requiring a diamond because there isn't one. ;P
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How can removing the calculation of penalty for failure not be relevant to game mechanics?
If recovery from death has little to no risk, that fundamentally effects how players value death as a penalty.
There is a great gap between the effects you described and death. You can still take actions when diseased, poisoned, blind or deaf. In fact, you can take actions to personally cure yourself of those effects.
Death is...well, death.
If the penalty for death is made trivial, self-sacrifice becomes a simple logical mechanical move, and raise dead is no different than healing someone who is unconscious.
The framing of the debate shouldn't be this as the last vestige of "Player vs GM" when the real conflict is player vs dice.
If players don't have consequences for death, you reward greater risk and reckless play.
I agree 100% that the fiat gold cost or fiat diamond is kind of silly, but I do think that recovery from death should have some kind of risk or penalty specifically because it is so different from the status effects you listed.
The fact is growing up with video game culture trivializing death in that gaming experience doesn't equate to to making sense to do so in a completely different experience.
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Does remove disease trivialize disease attacks?
Does remove curse trivialize curses?
Does neutralize poison trivialize poison attacks?
Does restoration trivialize ability damage and negative levels?
Does remove blindness/deafness trivialize blindness and deafness attacks?More specifically, does breath of life trivialize death? It brings a character back from the dead, permanently without any negative levels, so long as you get there within 1 round. And it's the same level as raise dead, and it doesn't have an expensive material component. So... does it trivialize death?
And if breath of life doesn't trivialize death, why does raise dead trivialize death? Why is it okay to instantly raise a fallen ally in combat at no gp cost and no negative levels, but not okay to do so after a combat or the next day?
This is a fascinating discussion.
It really is.
I agree with everything you said about breath of life, but want to add that the entire mechanic of breath of life engages the urgency of how serious "death" is.
You have to drop everything to save your companion immediately, generally in a combat situation where you are moving yourself into whatever harms way just killed your friend, and you had to make that memorization investment as part of your daily spell allotment.
I think we all have a breath of life story or two, and most of them were players being "big damn heroes" for having the spell and being able to get to X "in time."
Raise dead you don't even need to have memorized that day. In fact, if raise dead had no cost, why bother with taking the risk and losing the combat round to use breath of life? Presumably you'll have over a week to address it later, or just use raise dead and a restoration spell.
Again, I agree that the monetary cost is probably the wrong way to go on the whole thing, but zero cost is equally disruptive.
To paraphrase a quote you made regarding VOP, "Being dead is supposed to suck."
I think reincarnate hits a great balance of risk reward. It sucks to die because there are consequences, but the game can go on.
I think there needs to be some kind of similar risk with Raise Dead, and while I agree what is currently in place doesn't really work, I don't think the solution is to remove all costs.
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The fact is growing up with video game culture trivializing death in that gaming experience doesn't equate to making sense to do so in a completely different experience.
Exactly!
I don't want this pulled to chase Sean out of the discussion, as I'm not saying his style isn't valid or is "bad" but I do think it is a fundamentally different equation for players when death is less costly. The change from 3.5 to Pathfinder is one our group struggles with and application varies from GM to GM in our group.
I don't see how a raise dead with no material cost trivializes death any more than the "smart" player whose PC runs around with 7000 gp worth of diamonds in his pocket and a 9th-level cleric in his party. We almost never got high-enough level to have a party member who could cast raise dead, so there was enough drama surrounding just finding someone we could convince to cast the spell for us, particularly when we're out in the wilderness, many days' journey from civilization. Having a player sit out the rest of the encounter -- and any other encounters that might ensue before we could get to a caster -- was punishment enough.
I wouldn't mind getting rid of raise dead if the reincarnation table contained only PC races. I wouldn't mind coming back as a half-orc or a dwarf or a gnome, but being a troglodyte whose stench aura sickens one's own party members is not a viable solution to the problem of a dead party member and no access to resurrection.
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How can removing the calculation of penalty for failure not be relevant to game mechanics?
If recovery from death has little to no risk, that fundamentally effects how players value death as a penalty.
"I am not able to play" is a penalty, whether it's because you're hit by hold person, your Dex is 0 from poison, or you're dead.
I'm still waiting for the game mechanics justification for "removing I-can't-play" costs 5,000 gp for death* and 0 gp for hold person or poison.
*Assuming you don't use breath of life, which is also 0 gp.
There is a great gap between the effects you described and death. You can still take actions when diseased, poisoned, blind or deaf. In fact, you can take actions to personally cure yourself of those effects.
There are also abilities that automatically kick in when you hit 0 hit points or below, such as contingency, which personally "cures" you of those effects. And there are items such as the ring of regeneration which can "cure" your unconsciousness if you stabilize at negative hit points. And there are items such as the ring of freedom of movement that "cures" you being grappled or paralyzed. And things like a periapt of proof against poison that "cure" you of any poison effects that hit you, and spells like delay poison that do basically the same thing.
So why is it okay to have an ability that completely prevents a special attack that gives you penalties or prevents you from taking action (say, a paladin's fear immunity, or a monk's immunity to disease, or a spell or item that makes you immune to poison, or elven immunity to sleep), or an ability that reverses a special attack that makes you unable to take actions (hold, poison), and a cast-right-away spell that reverses death (like breath of life, which, mind you, could be cast in conjunction with contingency to automaticaly un-kill you), but it's not okay to wait a day to cast raise dead on someone to "cure" their death? I'll rephrase an earlier statement by me: it is cheaper to transport up to 8 PCs to Heaven to talk to the dead paladin PC's soul in person than it is to put that paladin's willing soul back in his own dead body.
Death has a cost. It isn't trivial. It costs the player time he's not able to play. It costs the other characters time and a magical resource. It costs the GM effort to incorporate an unexpected death into the campaign storyline and either provide a way for the PC to return or an avenue to smoothly insert a new PC. And it costs at least a 5th-level spell.
If the penalty for death is made trivial, self-sacrifice becomes a simple logical mechanical move, and raise dead is no different than healing someone who is unconscious.
If the penalty for travel is made trivial, instantaneous transportation of goods and information becomes a simple logical mechanical move, and teleporting across the world is no different than walking across the street to the local magic shop. Down with teleport! It ruins the "feel" of the campaign, and therefore should have a 5,000 gp cost!
The framing of the debate shouldn't be this as the last vestige of "Player vs GM" when the real conflict is player vs dice.
Contrariwise, the swinginess of dice means that sometimes PCs die for accidental, stupid, or inglorious reasons, and there should be a way to fix that which isn't (1) harsh for the unlucky PC, and (2) doesn't require the GM to say "oops, you only take 50 points, you're not actually dead."
If players don't have consequences for death, you reward greater risk and reckless play.
That doesn't have to be a bad thing. Being an adventurer is a risky line of work. Maybe players should aim higher and try harder, and not be satisfied with 14 CR-appropriate (i.e., easy) encounters per level.
I agree 100% that the fiat gold cost or fiat diamond is kind of silly, but I do think that recovery from death should have some kind of risk or penalty specifically because it is so different from the status effects you listed.
It has a penalty for the player, it's called "time I'm sitting at the table unable to do anything."
It has a penalty for the character, it's called "1 negative level."It has a penalty for the other characters, it's called "spend a 5th-level spell slot or pay a 9th-level 450 gp to do it."
The fact is growing up with video game culture trivializing death in that gaming experience doesn't equate to to making sense to do so in a completely different experience.
And the fact is that the gaming audience isn't just the 40-year-old graybeards who grew up on tactical historical miniatures games. The people learning D&D and Pathfinder today were born when D&D was already 20 years old. They've been playing video games with swords and fireballs since they were 7, and their idea of a typical play experience is far, far different than yours or mine. And if RPGs as a game genre doesn't try to learn from other, more successful game genres, is destined to remain a niche hobby forever. I don't want to turn D&D or PF into WOW any more than I want to turn it into football, but that doesn't mean we should ignore what we can learn from playing WOW and football when we think about our game.
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@SKR: You haven't gotten a good game mechanic reason for requiring a diamond because there isn't one. ;P
Use your imagination and I can promise you that you will find a reason.
Why do you need bat guano for a fireball?
I could see a diamond as representing something precious like one's soul so it's used as a spell component much like a sacrifice.
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Bad example, shallow. The guano cost for fireball is purely flavor and costs 0 gp. If I made a different 3rd-level spell that dealt the same damage as fireball but had no M component, it would still be balanced against fireball. Therefore, there is no game mechanics reason for fireball to have an M component, likewise for raise dead.
Keep trying. Still waiting.
I'm just trying to understand why what went on in video games should effect what goes on in a table top RPG.
Plenty of video games penalize you for death, such as loss of money, XP or even both. Why do you want PF to be like those video games?
This statement was made to illustrate that any argument based on how some video games are is invalid, because there are other video games that are the opposite.
Heck, X-com has ironman mode. If a soldier dies, there's nothing you can do. If you fail a mission, you can't go back and do it over. The consequences of choices are real, immediate and permanent.
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Bad example, shallow. The guano cost for fireball is purely flavor and costs 0 gp. If I made a different 3rd-level spell that dealt the same damage as fireball but had no M component, it would still be balanced against fireball. Therefore, there is no game mechanics reason for fireball to have an M component, likewise for raise dead.
Keep trying. Still waiting.
I was actually referring to the "making sense" part.
Sulfur makes sense in a fireball while bat guano does not.
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I'm just trying to understand why what went on in video games should effect what goes on in a table top RPG.Plenty of video games penalize you for death, such as loss of money, XP or even both. Why do you want PF to be like those video games?
Those types of losses were in table top RPG's first and video games second.
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Bad example, shallow. The guano cost for fireball is purely flavor and costs 0 gp. If I made a different 3rd-level spell that dealt the same damage as fireball but had no M component, it would still be balanced against fireball. Therefore, there is no game mechanics reason for fireball to have an M component, likewise for raise dead.
Keep trying. Still waiting.
I was actually referring to the "making sense" part.
Sulfur makes sense in a fireball while bat guano does not.
Bat guano results in crystallized saltpeter, which is a gunpowder component. Therefore, used in a fireball for thematic reasons.
Those types of losses were in table top RPG's first and video games second.I'm just trying to understand why what went on in video games should effect what goes on in a table top RPG.Plenty of video games penalize you for death, such as loss of money, XP or even both. Why do you want PF to be like those video games?
That's irrelevant. You can't complain that video games are a certain way, because they aren't. Video games come in a lot of favors and options and your blanket statements about how they impact roleplaying are false. I can bring up more specific examples if you'd like to further prove how your sweeping statements are false if you'd like, or you can leave video games out of the discussion.
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 8
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I'm just trying to understand why what went on in video games should effect what goes on in a table top RPG.Plenty of video games penalize you for death, such as loss of money, XP or even both. Why do you want PF to be like those video games?
This statement was made to illustrate that any argument based on how some video games are is invalid, because there are other video games that are the opposite.
Heck, X-com has ironman mode. If a soldier dies, there's nothing you can do. If you fail a mission, you can't go back and do it over. The consequences of choices are real, immediate and permanent.
And that's great if that's the kind of game you want to play, but the point of the comparison is that you don't have to penalize death to have a fun game. Or a difficult video game for that matter. Plenty of games are fairly forgiving when it comes to death, and yet still manage to be throw-your-controller-at-the-wall hard.
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Sean, you make some great points, and I honestly don't disagree with any of them, but I'm not quite ready to completely give up on the material cost for Raise Dead unless I can come up with a good alternative (such as mentioned earlier with the way Reincarnate works). Actually, maybe we leave reincarnate as is and have Raise Dead have a similar effect but with a more favorable list of possible races?
Anyways, actually my main question was if you would prefer to get rid of all spell component costs, such as those for Bless Water and Restoration, or if it's just the Raise Dead cost?
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Bad example, shallow. The guano cost for fireball is purely flavor and costs 0 gp. If I made a different 3rd-level spell that dealt the same damage as fireball but had no M component, it would still be balanced against fireball. Therefore, there is no game mechanics reason for fireball to have an M component, likewise for raise dead.
Keep trying. Still waiting.
I have a question Sean. If there isn't a game mechanic reason for Raise Dead costing 5,000g, is there a game mechanic reason for Restoration costing 1000g to remove a negative level?
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Wow... excellent post, ciretose (and others; I agree with the sentiment that this is a really good discussion).
I think you hit the nail on the head when you brought up reincarnate. Namely, the penalty of reincarnate is meaningful in game terms; it's not just a hole in a wallet.
The trick, as a friend said well, seems to be in figuring out how to make raise dead have the same sort of feel. It seems to me that if that could be figured out nicely, nobody* would argue with getting rid of the gp cost -- because, as Sean has shown, there's no mechanical reason for it to cost gp.
Some people in this thread have proposed ways of giving it that "feel"; that seems to be the direction which will prove most profitable.
Edit to add: *except the people who'll argue about anything, but they don't count
I think if you add an unavoidable but low fail chance, that would do it for me.
If there was, say %5 chance each time you died that you could not be brought back at all, I would be fine with removing the other penalties associated with the spell.
That would keep the fear of death as part of the equation without making it a simple cost benefit kind of thing.
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 8
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Also, having no cost on raise dead would definitely make my party more kill happy. If someone hysterical(or mind controlled) villagers started attacking, we can just kill em and sort it out later.
If we could kill NPCs and raise them for free later(if we are level 9 and have a cleric), killing wouldn't be nearly as big a deal.
What if the NPCs don't want to come back? You always know who's trying to resurrect you, and if the jerks who stabbed me to death were trying to bring me back to life, I'd have some second thoughts about answering the call. I may choose to accept my just rewards in the afterlife instead, especially when captivity or torture might be waiting for me back on earth. And that's not even going in to the Con drain I might suffer if I'm a 1st level villager.
It'll be pretty funny to see how the party deals with the sheriff when their kill-raise plan doesn't work out. Maybe they'll kill him and raise him too. :D
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I think there is a big difference between I am not able to play until this spell wears off in the case of something like hold person and I am not able to play, because my character died.
And I think there are several big disadvantages with breath of life when you consider that must be memorized so that it is available to be used in the same round your ally died, by someone moving to touch said dead friend in the very spot they were presumably, just killed (and quite possibly provoking a AoO). Presuming it wasn't with a death attack or for more damage beyond death than the 5d8+ caster level.
Not to mention you still get a negative level with breath of life (albeit temporary) and you really must give up a spell slot since you can't really scroll it effectively since it is a touch spell and you are going to have to move to get to the dead guy.
In a sense Breath of life is effectively a heal spell that works in the round they were killed. A kind of combat defibrillator that you have to carry in a 5th level spell slot at all times.
Raise Dead you don't need to memorize, as you can either memorize it the next day, or if we remove the material costs, just scroll it up to carry around as needed.
The two negative levels can be removed for 2k (another kind of arbitrary cost), but only one a week. And it works on death effects.
Add to this that negative levels aren't what they used to be and the equation in Pathfinder is already very different than in 3.5.
I am not sure what you are specifically looking for in terms of game mechanics. Breath of Life is much, much harder to use than Raise Dead for a spell of the same level that you really don't need to memorize if it doesn't have that 5000k cost.
I mean, without that a scroll of raise dead is I believe 1,125 purchased? So total cost to bring someone back to full health even with a 9 day gap would be 3,125 + a week for the 2nd negative level if you raise dead.
Conversely Breath of Life requires you to always have a 5th level slot dedicated to it, to be within one movement of anyone who may die at all times, to avoid the attack of opportunity or make the concentration check, etc...
Again, I agree the 5k may not be the right way to go, but considering how much less a negative level means now (which is something I agree is better, but still less of a sting) why wouldn't a 9th level party just carry a raise dead scroll or two so they can have that 5th level slot occupied with something that could maybe kill whatever killed their buddy, then raise him later?
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I hate to through a monkey wrench in to this whole discusion but with the new Paladin Feat Ultimate Mercy a 7th to 9th level Paladin can raise a Dead party member back to life costing either 5000 gp or a negitive level for 24 hours.
Sean is right IMO the 5000gp for raise dead needs to be done away with I do not see how it cheapens death at all. Buy your scroll of raise dead and your 2 scrolls of restoration or your 1 scroll of greater restoration and consider them an investment in keeping you higher level characters alive when that mean old dragon zorchs them with his bad old breath weapon and you roll a 1 on your save.
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How about because there are plenty of situations where you will spend minimal time not playing?
This still isn't a game mechanics reason that justifies the 5,000 gp cost for raise dead but not for breath of life or plane shift or teleport.
For instance, if we are searching the area for traps, I could activate all of them then get raise dead cast on me.
And you'll get a negative level for your troubles. That's the cost. Plus, the cleric will be annoyed that she has to waste a 5th-level spell on your lazy, reckless hide when the rogue could have just spent a few rounds searching for and disabling the traps.
Alternately, if we are near the end of a big fight, I might simply not care that I am going to die. I will charge the creature, die and get rezzed after.
... assuming you know for sure that the other PCs will survive and be able to raise you.
I recently ran an arena based campaign and the lethality aspect was supposed to be a risk in the fights. Characters could be convinced to surrender to avoid death(due to the costs involved), but if the party cleric could raise dead for free, that risk would disappear.
So the game should have a universal rule that affects all campaigns in order to justify your specific arena-based campaign?
Anyways, actually my main question was if you would prefer to get rid of all spell component costs, such as those for Bless Water and Restoration, or if it's just the Raise Dead cost?
There are many I would get rid of, but some I would keep just because they're there to offset creating countless permanent effects. For example, without a gp cost, there's no reason why a temple wouldn't have glyph of warding plastered all over every available surface, keyed to that temple's god—and that would be (1) cheesy, (2) make adventures against clerics really annoying and deadly because there would be an explosion every 10 feet and you could never run an infiltration adventure.
I have a question Sean. If there isn't a game mechanic reason for Raise Dead costing 5,000g, is there a game mechanic reason for Restoration costing 1000g to remove a negative level?
Yes, because temporary negative levels can go away on their own with a saving throw, permanent negative levels cannot, so obviously it should be harder to get rid of a permanent negative level. You could have the increased "cost" be that it takes a different, higher level spell do it (which would be annoying because there are already three spells in that chain) or use the costly material component method that 3E does.
I think there is a big difference between I am not able to play until this spell wears off in the case of something like hold person and I am not able to play, because my character died.
How about in the case of sepia snake sigil? That lasts 1d4 days + 1 day per level... if the other PCs can't dispel that effect, your character is unable to do anything for an extended time. Or what about a Dex poison that reduces your Dex to 0 and you can't move? Or a monster with ability drain that reduces a stat to 0 and you can only recover with magic? Or mummy rot, which is so debilitating that it requires remove disease and remove curse to cure you?
And I think there are several big disadvantages with breath of life when you consider that must be memorized so that it is available to be used in the same round your ally died, by someone moving to touch said dead friend in the very spot they were presumably, just killed (and quite possibly provoking a AoO). Presuming it wasn't with a death attack or for more damage beyond death than the 5d8+ caster level.
Sure... but does that offset the 5,000 gp cost? People are arguing that spells that remove death trivialize death. Breath of life removes death, so why doesn't it trivialize death? Would it trivialize death if it worked on someone dead up to 1 minute? 10 minutes? An hour? It's splitting hairs trying to justify something that's been in the game to punish players since the 1970s. And why is raise dead so costly but teleport and plane shift are not? They're all the same spell level.
I am not sure what you are specifically looking for in terms of game mechanics.
I'm looking for a valid game-mechanics reason why it's more costly to cram Seelah's soul back in her body than to teleport from Kyonin to Absalom or to planar travel the entire party to the Seven Heavens to consult with Seelah's soul. So far all the justifications have been "it alters the feel of the campaign" and "it's always been that way" and "it'll make players take more risks" and "it'll trivialize death," but none of those are game mechanics reasons like "fighters do consistent damage all day and are balanced against a barbarian's damage spikes while raging but lower damage when not raging."
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I'm looking for a valid game-mechanics reason why it's more costly to cram Seelah's soul back in her body than to teleport from Kyonin to Absalom or to planar travel the entire party to the Seven Heavens to consult with Seelah's soul. So far all the justifications have been "it alters the feel of the campaign" and "it's always been that way" and "it'll make players take more risks" and "it'll trivialize death," but none of those are game mechanics reasons like "fighters do consistent damage all day and are balanced against a barbarian's damage spikes while raging but lower damage when not raging."
I completely agree that it doesn't make sense with the current rules, and unfortunately I don't see a good way to fix this without a significant reworking of the entire spell lists. It's true that there are some spells that are way more powerful than other spells of the same level. Expensive material components do a little bit to balance that. In this case there may be some spells that just are at the wrong level for the powers and abilities they give (I'm looking at you, Plane Shift). In other words, the problem is with Plane Shift and Teleportation, not with Raise Dead. I would say it was probably a bad idea to make it a 5th level Cleric spell and it probably should have stayed at 7, where Wizards and Sorcerers get access to it.
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First, let me know if I am over stepping, because I'm not trying to be argumentative, I think this is an interesting back and forth and I like that the people who write the books play in the playground as well.
I don't want what is a think a helpful discussion to devolve into a less helpful back and forth, and I know I can do that quite well, often unintentionally :)
First, you raise three separate issues for me. First I think the spells you listed and the effects you listed either a) will wear off or B) Still allow you to do things like communicate your needs or interact.
Do they suck? Yes. But it isn't the "you are out of the game, go roll a new character", level of suck that untreated death is. I am concerned when my character is impaired, and that is something I need to address before I might be able to play my character as I would like, but if I am still alive, I am still at the table. I can envision exception scenarios (kidnapped PC, planar travel to talk to my soul if I'm dead as you mentioned) but it seems to me there is a line between impaired and removed, where the costs change, even if both are annoying.
Which leads me to the second part, circling back to the breath of life thing. I do think when you compare the two spells, 5000 isn't a number that is an unreasonable difference. One you need at all times and very often will not work, one you can carry on a scroll. One is functionally a combat healing spell with the added benefit of healing hit points past the...pardon the pun..."dead-line" as long as it is used the same round, and the other is the reset button you can use up to a week later.
I agree with you the costs assigned don't make a lot of sense, but I disagree that no costs should be assigned and I would say removing the cost weakens breath of life significantly, IMHO.
Which leads me to your third point, the comparison of Teleport and Plane Shift not having costs. I agree, however they do have something raise dead doesn't have, that I advocated above.
Risk due to imprecision.
If you were to argue that the gold cost should be replaced instead with some other, unavoidable, risk I would be with you.
Again, if I am overstepping or coming off as disrespectful let me know, not at all my intent.
Another possible cost-option that came to mind as I've been keeping up with this discussion: forced alignment change.
For Thematic Comparison:
- 4th lvl Reincarnate = forced form change (maybe), requires a bit of the body, requires 1k gold in oils, costs two negative levels, must touch body within one week for an hour, other penalties
- 5th lvl Breath of Life, requires entire body to work, costs one negative level (temporarily), must touch body within one round for an action, other penalties
- 5th lvl Raise Dead = forced alignment change (maybe), requires entire body to work, costs two negative levels, must touch body within number of days = caster level for 1 minute, other penalties
- 7th lvl Resurrection = costs 10k gold, some bit of body, and one negative level, must touch body within 10 years per caster level for 1 minute
- 9th lvl True Resurrection = costs 25k gold, knowing something about the creature to be raised, must be cast within 10 years per caster level
There is a very strange step down in the quality of what a 5th level raise dead spell gets you compared to a 4th level reincarnate gets you. Reincarnate grants longer life, youth, vigor, and costs less over-all (although you might not be terribly pleased with your knew form*), but you're mostly getting benefit out of it.
Regardless, the potential alignment change, while possibly ignored by some players, does provide real incentive not to just kill and raise random innocent people. Another potential penalty is a potential mental adjustment... because the wrong soul has come back, or the soul has come back altered.
Regardless, these are just 'make it palatable' suggestions, not 'this is how the game should run' suggestions.
* That's what Polymorph any Object is for.
(Incidentally, could Polymorph any Object polymorh a corpse of your friend into a living version of your friend? ... actually, yes, upon looking it over again, it could, though they'd be kind of stupid.)
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From the 1st Edition AD&D preface to the Player's Handbook:
You will find material which enables the Dungeon Master to conduct a campaign which is challenging...Because it is a game, certain things which seem "unrealistic" or simply unnecessary are integral to the system.
Death is the ultimate "fail" whether it be an RPG, WOW, or any other type of game. Getting paralyzed, knocked into a coma, or put to sleep all have the game effect of death - you don't get to play. But as characters get more powerful, with more experience, the goal isn't to become more reckless, more foolhardy, because one happens to have gotten more powers that can negate these "cannot play" detriments. It would be counter-intuitive to gaining experience. So when players gain power, what's to discourage them from egregious foolhardy play of a character with their meta-game knowledge that death is only temporary, that it can be just as curable as a hold person spell? There has to be a disincentive built into the system unlike any other for the ultimate "fail" that also encourages players to play as if their character had gained experience to want to avoid death (because death is supposed to be avoided).
With the irregular and random abundance of gold flow in AD&D, cash didn't make sense. It was limiting the # of times one could be raised, and in a system where characters were far more fragile (a 20th level wizard might only have 40 hit points and on a bad day be killed by a spell cast by someone half their level), death, at least in my games, was far more common.
To preserve a "challenge," presumably to play in a manner that your character lives to see the next adventure, a disincentive must exist for dying. Dying is the option that leaves you with two and only two options: find a way to be raised or roll up a new character. A challenge is presented: take the "penalty" of dying, or start anew. Will one give up a character they've presumably invested time into? Will they give up possibly the dozens of hours put into this character, or will they accept the penalty?
In 3.5/Pathfinder, why a gold piece cost? I surmise it's the penalty the designers in a Wealth by Level system thought would most provide a challenge: proceed farther into the game with less resources than before in order to keep your character that you've invested time into. Does it make total sense? Not totally because if it's a financial disincentive, then it would scale with the wealth of the party. However, even Gary Gygax admitted the rules may not always work, may not always make sense. But penalty has always been integral to the system to provide challenge.
This is why I'm still a believer in the Resurrection Survival % roll, based off your original base CON (no matter how high you artificially raise it later in life), that decreases each time you're brought back. Cash is irrelevant. Even a 100% chance can fail if you roll double zeroes on the 10-siders. Risk exists, and I have been party to see a player roll those double-zeroes once in a game with his 15th level barbarian who fell from an 800' cliff after climbing it bare-handed and had to roll a "system shock" roll. It was improbable, incredulous, but that thought of risk always exists. I can fail. I cannot predict my character's fate, no matter the odds.
Still...the manual goes on.
By means of group co-operation and individual achievement, an adventurer can become ever more powerful. Even death loses much of its sting, for often the character can be resurrected, or reincarnated. And should that fail there is always the option to begin again with a new character. Thus ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS is, as are most role playing games, open-ended. There is no "winner", no final objective, and the campaign grows and changes as it matures.
Ah, death loses its sting. Doesn't mean the DM or game system should encourage reckless death, and the key words are "should that fail." There needs to be some risk involved constantly, otherwise the game loses some of the challenge. It preserves some aspect of realism in a game based on fantasy. Will players really view the system with respect if they can say "Guys, watch this. Gor the Barbarian is going to put his head into this molten lava flow. Resurrect me when I'm dead."? Is it good RP for a system to enable this type of play without penalty? Sounds absurd, but a penalty-free system does so.
If the game is not challenging, if advancement is too speedy, then it becomes staid and boring.
So, back to game mechanics. I can argue that the 5K "fine" for dying is to build in a challenge by means of disincentive to dying, in an amount that puts the player in a bind once raise dead is available: start anew and give up the hours you've devoted to this character or pay for resources that could have been used to get better gear. At 9th level, it's around 10% of a character's expected Wealth by Level. 10% isn't so large a number to automatically cause a player to say "screw this, I'll roll up a new one" but it's no small change as well. The problem is by 12th level, this is down to less than 5% of Wealth by Level, and by 18th level down to less than 1%. Imperfect, sure. Should have scaled with level (500gp diamond per level to be raised?)
Optimally, for a challenge in combat, the players should be nervously watching the dice roll when they're low on hit points rather than munching chips and shrugging "what's the point, as long as one of us survives you'll get us raised." They should care about their characters, and having to make the tough decision to finally let one go should be a momentous occasion. Raise Dead without penalty lessens the challenge behind that decision, even eliminates it. Without risk of loss, the game loses challenge.
Teleportation, plane shift, those are powerful means to an end, but they do not harken back to the ultimate "fail' of dying. Arguably, there are other ways to get from A to B, and this spell lessens the challenge by circumventing it. Even Breath of Life is so limited to perfect timing (get there in one round or fail) that casting it is the challenge.
But it's apples and oranges, for with these spells we're not applying the deliberation that is allowed with raise dead spells. It's a crude form of Let's Make a Deal. Door #1, you come back, but maybe that $$$ you spent might have bought an item that would allow your group to better survive the next combat. You'll have to be more careful next time with less resources. Door #2, roll up a new character. Those hours you put into your character? Gone. Those hours you spent rolling dice, developing background, acting in character, gone. What's it going to be?
No other spells duplicate this dilemma. If I cannot Teleport, I'll find another way there. But the dilemma doesn't involve possibly losing a real life investment that I've made with my time. It only involves fantasy elements.
I've rambled enough, but loving this thread on theorycraft as I've always disliked the Raise mechanics.
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I love this thread. It's a strange one. We've got one of the devs arguing against a rule that he doesn't like. I love it. I love seeing how others play and the impact it has on their games. I'm always looking to enhance mine and different insights certainly help me quite a bit.
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Wikipedia says that in ancient times and the middle ages, the death rate was about 40 per 1,000 people per year. Using that benchmark, in a typical large town of 3,500 people we will see 140 deaths in a year, less than one per day. Unless those deaths are clustered close together due to large-scale tragedies, the 9th level cleric in that town is capable of raising every person killed by accident, violence, or disease. That's only within that settlement, but nearby smaller settlements or large towns not lucky enough to boast a suitable cleric would probably attempt to bring in their dead, especially if they can manage Gentle Repose to give them a few extra days travel time (which requires a 3rd-5th level caster).The population would be a lot higher than that, especially when you consider that some towns of 5,000 people would not have a cleric of high enough level.
I used 3,500 because as the midpoint between 2,000 and 5,000 it represents the "average" large town. There will also be towns of 2,000 that do have a 9th level cleric. A large town with 5,000 people is going to have only roughly 200 fatalities a year, still within the cleric's capabilities.
90% of medieval populations lived and worked in agriculture, so that town of 3,500 with a 9th level cleric is supported by a rural population of around 35,000. Since only one in six towns of 2,00-5000 has a 9th level cleric, that means roughly one cleric capable of casting raise dead per 180,000 people.
I focused on a single large town that is lucky enough to have a 9th level cleric and glossed over the surrounding area (stating "that's only within that settlement") because PF does not give any guidelines for the distribution of settlements of different sizes. The 90% agricultural rule sounds reasonable, so sure, we'll go with that for the larger population. However, there's also the question of whether dead persons from surrounding areas can be reliably transported to the cleric within the time limit (taking Gentle Repose into consideration). I expect that as you get farther out from the raise-capable town, the common person will be less likely to be able to make the trip. It would be a bit like living in a community without access to a cardiac surgeon - those who live in an appropriate center would have disproportionate access to the treatment, and those who can't afford to travel to an appropriate center would suffer for it.
Now we're closer to roughly 19 people dying per day and only one raise dead to go around. On any given day that's 161 people eligible to be raised, without Gentle Repose.
That's 161 people eligible to be raised, but those people are eligible to be raised over a period of several days, so it's still most relevant to look at the deaths per day. With 19 deaths per day and 1 Raise Dead, at least 5.2% of total deaths everywhere due to accident, violence, or disease can be reversed. That's a huge percentage. That's HIV/AIDS. That's Malaria and Tuberculosis put together (wiki). How the cleric determines which 5.2% are raised or whether they raise the dead at maximum capacity is up to them and up to cultural factors (or limitations on transporting the bodies). The details behind those decisions determine what the campaign looks like,. And should the cleric decide to prioritize the citizens of his home town, barring very large accidents he is capable of raising every single one of them, which would have an enormous impact on that town.
In fact, since in today's world 2/3 of deaths are due to "old age," the cleric could likely address 10-15% of deaths due to causes other than old age.
And remember that if we remove the cost from Reincarnate as well, there will likely be some additional return from death via 7th+ level druids.
And there are lots of us who don't like "movie style" games.
What's "movie style" about a game where you have a pretty good expectation that the PC you started with will be alive at the end of it?
If the penalty for death is made trivial, self-sacrifice becomes a simple logical mechanical move, and raise dead is no different than healing someone who is unconscious.
The gold cost doesn't prevent that at high-level play. In a recent campaign I was in charge of supplying the party to fight the end boss, and the shopping list included two scrolls of Raise Dead.
I think we all have a breath of life story or two, and most of them were players being "big damn heroes" for having the spell and being able to get to X "in time."
Or they're about a cleric who knew we were going into a big fight and had a Metamagic Rod of Reach.
Optimally, for a challenge in combat, the players should be nervously watching the dice roll when they're low on hit points rather than munching chips and shrugging "what's the point, as long as one of us survives you'll get us raised."
In the game I played with free resurrection, I absolutely was nervously watching the dice when party members got low on HP. Losing an ally in a fight hurts your odds of winning that fight. And in one session I was put in a position where my character's death meant leaving his two friends in an already uneven fight with the life of my character's lady love on the line. And that just wasn't happening.
Having a very low cost to death doesn't have to mean that dying doesn't matter. Instead, it prevents someone from losing their emotional and playtime investment in a favorite character. That deliberation you mention isn't really a thing for my group. We get invested in our characters. If we think they're ready to die, they stay dead even if the cost isn't an issue (one character refused a Breath of Life). But 5000gp isn't going to dissuade us from bringing back a character whose story isn't finished yet. And if that 5000gp cost isn't adding to our game, why keep it?
Besides, there's something interesting to be had in the fact that high-level characters have more than one life to give for their cause.
That's 161 people eligible to be raised, but those people are eligible to be raised over a period of several days, so it's still most relevant to look at the deaths per day. With 19 deaths per day and 1 Raise Dead, at least 5.2% of total deaths everywhere due to accident, violence, or disease can be reversed.
You have to keep them in. 19 people die, one person gets raised. So the next day, those 18 remaining are still eligible to be raised, plus the new 19, so now the cleric has to choose between 37 people. One gets raised, but the next day we add another 19 people, until finally people become too decomposed because of the clerics level limit of 9 days. So that's still roughly 153 people to choose from on any given day. If people are purchasing gentle reposes, the total starts to climb.
You're right, it does reduce the death rate of a region, but it's a lot less than you first implied. Plus there are dragons, bulettes and goblins running around killing people. The bigger impact on a societies average life span would be Remove Disease. Cure a carrier, or nip an epidemic in the bud would have much wider consequences. It's lower level and if there enough you could get a herd immunity effect. 5 in 6 towns would have a cleric capable of casting it at least once a day. Though if their highest stat is put in Wisdom with the human +2, they can cast a minimum of 2/day. 3rd level paladins would increase everyones longevity quite a bit as well too.
And as long as people make it long enough to die of old age, Raise Dead doesn't matter.