Dealing with death

[ElizLestrad]

Its been a pet peeve of mine since 2nd edition Dungeons & Dragons, the ease of healing magic and more specifically raise dead/resurrection/etc.
In 2nd edition raising a character from the dead, at least did a perminant and irremovable penalty to a player's constitution.

Thus, as a player and a DM being able to raise a character (player or otherwise) from the dead takes away the risk...the need to be careful. It also can ruin the mood when playing a serious "wartime" setting where you "want" NPCs that the characters have grown attached to to die in battle.

But then suddenly the party cleric goes: "I'm going to run over and raise the warrior who just sacrificed themselves to protect us from the evil monster from the dead!"

Um....no? Not only does it ruin the mood, it ruins the plot.

My initial idea was that since all the raise dead type spells are classified as "necromancy" that I could just have necromancy outlawed and the practice of it punishable by death.

But then I thought it would be too hoaky.

Then I thought, well I could just perma-kill everyone meaning that NPCs that I needed to die for the sake of the plot would have to either be burned, melted with acid, their head chopped off, eaten alive by a three-headed kraken, you get the idea...

Then I thought of the old anti-smoking slogan "just say no" which seemed even more hoaky than the last two especially when realizing the first question the players would ask is "Why not?"

I mean, chances are more likely than not that a party is going to have a healer, but how do you combat resurrection short of outright banning the spell(s)?

[Ope]

I've got multiple thoughts, some of which has been used in games I've played. If it is PC death, I see no problem allowing resurrection with penalties if you as GM prefer. I'm an old school 1e/2e player and feel being brought back should have a penalty. Yet, players do get attached to characters as they should. Giving a chance to be brought back from an unfortunate circumstance gives a little leeway, though a foolish PC will still end up with a dead character.

If it is an NPC, perhaps they "fail" their resurrection chance and it isn't successful. Alternatively, what if a soul doesn't want to come back? Speak with dead could be used to ascertain this before or after the resurrection attempt. If they have been judged worthy and have already arrived in their heaven, some folks won't want to rejoin the world of the living. Also, if the would be recipient is a devout follower of another god than the cleric attempting to perform the resurrection, that god may not allow the soul to be returned as he or she has plans for that soul.

In game death of PCs and NPCs is part of what creates a living world and adds value to PC actions. It is a valuable tool to establish the importance of why PCs are trying to be heroes, to save lives, both their own and those who can't defend themselves.

[ElizLestrad]

True, but let me put it another way using a situation that I luckily wasnt the GM for (or it would have gone *quite* differently).

Lothar the fighter gets crit by a minitaur's axe, loosing an arm.

Cue Razmus the cleric who comes in with his *cure critical wounds*.

Now I know that *technically* the spells dont say you cant use the spell in this manner, but I dont believe it was the intent of the spell to be used for such a manner.

Now if the cleric had a healing kit and had skill points in healing (which I would more accurately discribe as triage or surgical) then I can see him doing a normal skill check to stitch the arm back on *before* casting healing but even then I wouldnt say the wound was instantly healed 100%, "cauterized" yes but healed no.

On the matter of death, I've always been a fan of the *bleeding out* method of killing someone. If their life is 0 they are "incapacitated" but not dead (unless it would be impossible to RP otherwise...an example being a beheading) Have them roll 1dX per turn and count that as damage. When they reach -100 their officially dead.

My other thought was to redo the "cleric" class altogether and make it more of an apothecary with minimal healing magic making them rely more on skills than magic.

As a GM I've tried not to deliberately place them in situations where death was a likely possibility (except for one time when it was critial to the story that the players died). But given the setting I'm currently running is very much war themed, I dont want to loose the emotion, brutality of said war due to one spell.

I think what I may end up doing is retool your "diety" explination into something like this

In order to maintain the natural cycle of life, the gods have forbidden mortals from tampering with death. Necromancy is banned by law (meaning spells like raise dead are included).

Players can "find ways" to resurrect a player (dark rituals etc) but the use of such methods would run the risk of being discovered and incur a very high cost on both the caster and the subject.

[Ope]

I like your idea of a healer being more of a battle field medic. That would be fun for role-playing purposes and for the setting. For sever injuries like limb removal, critical organ damage, I make players make a healing skill check then cast a healing spell. Depending on the wound, the character healed may be alive, but certainly not in fighting condition until he has had time to rest and regain his/her strength. They basically are in a time out. Time needed for rest depends on the injury and flow of campaign.

Does your setting have a god of the dead/death? If so, perhaps every time a character is brought back they are in essence pushing their luck to incur his wrath.

[DMFTodd]

Why stop short of banning resurrection/raise? Sounds like those are the problems, get rid of 'em.

That's what I did for my campaigns. We found Pathfinder a little too deadly for our tastes, so we added in hero points to stave off death somewhat.

[Scrogz]

Ihave always viewed "Raise dead" and "Resurection" as a bit different, at least in the games I run.

These spells require the cleric to specifically ask their gawd for permission to restore life to someone. It's "special" for the cleric and not just another spell they memorize. The gawd may or may not grant this based on many factors such as the the general alignment of the person being raised, how pious the cleric has been, the circumstances of the character's death, etc....

This allows for some great RP opportunities. It's not uncommon for a person who has been raised to convert to following the gawd of the cleric who raised them =) We have also had some character who were in disfavor with their personal gawds block the rez from another gawd. All kinds of fun.

It makes character aware that their actions have repercusions. Maybe not in this life but certainly in the next.