It seems like I've been asking a lot of questions recently, but it's better to know everything than nothing I guess. :p
Anyway, I was wondering how the following would work:
1. Character A dies, so Character B who's Character A's best friend wants to follow in his footsteps and eventually have someone bring him back to life.
2. Cleric uses Restore Corpse, making Character A look the same as when he just died.
3. Cleric uses Gentle Repose every day, keeping him in this state until he can raise Character A from the dead.
4. Once raised from the dead, Greater Restoration is cast.
5. Character A wishes to be as powerful as the rest of the currently levelled party, at which point Character B leaves, having completed his goal as a true friend and a loyal Knight of the fallen comrade and Character A comes back as a fully levelled character with a vengeance, to continue his goals.
Question: Will Restore Corpse restore the corpse in such a way that it only counts as being dead one day, or not?
Plus, is this the easiest way of doing things to keep Character A as Character A?
I would say no. It seems to be a DM call based on cosmology. I prefer to run it as a sort of phasing into the afterlife. There is a short window when weaker magic can still reach a soul, as it isn't fully integrated into it's afterlife. It can still be contacted or pulled out relatively easily as it's still half on the prime material. After the set amounts of time, the entirety of the soul moves on. So in my interpretation, it's not so much a matter of the condition of the body, but that the soul can no longer be contacted without more powerful magic.
Ah ok. Full resurrection it is then, I guess. :/
Means he can't return until the party are around level 14 as the GM says all gods are against bringing people back from the dead, no matter how good their intentions, where as my argument is that Pharasma would be the only one with the real issue.