Here is a spell that I think goes inline with the Samsaran Race.
Samsaran Incarnation School Conjuration; Level Cleric/Oracle 5, Druid 5
Casting Time 1 Hour
Components V, S, M, DF (blood from a Samsaran, special (xp cost/loss paid by recipient))
Range touch
Target dead creature touched, see text
Duration instantaneous
Saving Throw none, see text; Spell Resistance yes (harmless)
This spell is similar to Reincarnate and/or Raise Dead except for as noted below.
Samsaran incarnation returns a slain humanoid creature to a new life as a Samsaran provided that its death occurred no more than 1 week before the casting of the spell and the subject's soul is free and willing to return. If the subject's soul is not willing to return, the spell does not work therefore, a subject that wants to return receives no saving throw.
Samsaran Incarnation does not return a creature to its pervious life, instead it is the creation of a new life for the target of this spell. Roll up a new first level character of the Samsaran race and as the same class as the previous life, receive 75% of the memories (experience points) from the previous life at the time of death. Note, this will most likely mean that the new Samsaran is 1 level lower than they where in their previous life, this is not a negative level so it can not be recovered via Restoration or other normal magical means. If the previous life was a multi class character choose one of the classes to base this new life upon. Level up the new Samsaran based on the experience points received and allocating at least half (round up) of the new levels to the same class as the first level class of this new life.
The new creature appears to be a Samsaran analog of their former life similar to Ancestral Regression. No new equipment or material item is granted to this new character from the casting of this spell however they can “inherit” the belongings of their previous life provided they have access to those items, though this spell does not prevent any legal or ownership disputes that may arise.
Only a small portion of the creature’s body is required for this spell but the portion receiving the spell must have been part of the creature's body at the time of death. If no part of the creature’s body is available to use for this spell then Samsaran Incarnation can be cast directly on the creature’s spirit or soul however this spell does not help locate, get to or recover that soul though other magic could help. This spell provides no benefit beyond one week from the time of death of the creature to be targeted even if cast upon the creature’s soul, the spell simply fails.
There are no XP costs nor XP loss in Pathfinder for a reason - it was clunky mechanic that disrupted party progression and didn't meshed well the development of characters (pre 3.0 levels worked differently so it could sustain level loss, to a limited degree, much better than 3.0+).
Keep with negative levels used with other revival spells.
I would add a note that this spell does not keep one as Samsaran after his following death (and thus further rebirth as a Samsaran) - the subject should return to normal afterlife queue instead. Greater Samsaran incarnation should be a major ritual that could be the object of a whole quest or a minor campaign for someone who wants to delay regular fate and instead start a cycle of reincarnation as Samsaran.
Yea, normally I would agree about the XP loss however in the case of reincarnate and raise dead you are keeping your existing character, mental stats, class, feats and that sort of thing. This is intended more as a way to salvage XP and add a way to maintain some storyline continuity when rolling up a new character without opening up an exploit.
Anyways, what spell level do you see this as, and what alternative safeguards can we put in place other than reduced XP recovery considering what this spell does?
PS. Love the concept and feel of the Samsaran race, but that includes the idea of each life being as different as a child to its parent concept. I also like the idea of Greater Samsaran incarnation but then it becomes a question of why not simply roll up a Samsaran from the get go, after all is we do the math in the ARG we find that Samsaran’s have a PR of 10 which is inline with other base races (though the auto reincarnate aspect wasn’t addressed either in my calcs or in mechanical description/racial traits within the ARG). Here is the math I got for figuring the PR,
Samsarans Type - Humanoid (Samsarans) - 0 RP
Size - Medium - 0 RP
Base Speed – Normal Speed – 0 RP
Ability Score Modifiers - Specialized (+2 Int, +2 Wis, -2 Con) - 0 RP
Racial Traits
Low-Light Vision - 1 RP
Samsaran Magic - 2 RP
Lifebound - 2 RP
Shards of the Past - 4 RP
Languages – Linguist – 1 RP
I could be off, and would love any input, but that seams to be fairly close in any case.
Their reincarnation is a plot device not an actual ability so it has no actual mechanical value.
Yea, thats the way i was taking it as well, but its a really cool concept so how could we expand upon that? we could use reincarnation though that would be like a druid that keeps coming back as a diffrent race, or we could use raise dead but that keep us coming back as the same race and class without any deveation. thus the idea for Samsaran incarnation, it goes with the underlying concept of the race butwhat sort of drawback or counterbalance should it have if not an XP hit to keep it from being abused?
Their reincarnation is a plot device not an actual ability so it has no actual mechanical value.
Yea, thats the way i was taking it as well, but its a really cool concept so how could we expand upon that? we could use reincarnation though that would be like a druid that keeps coming back as a diffrent race, or we could use raise dead but that keep us coming back as the same race and class without any deveation. thus the idea for Samsaran incarnation, it goes with the underlying concept of the race butwhat sort of drawback or counterbalance should it have if not an XP hit to keep it from being abused?
Here is a rough draft of a samsaran replacement character I wrote up for my GM for Council of Thieves, if this is the sort of thing you are thinking of.
Spoiler:
Yeesla's first incarnation was over one-hundred years ago when she was born human and her samsaran parents sent her to Westcrown, capital of Cheliax to live her life in harmony. Aroden was still alive and Cheliax was still near the height of its power. She was among the crowd waiting for Aroden's return when he didn't. She became involved in the 30 years war of the houses for the throne, fighting on the side of the good aligned houses against the likes of Thrune and the devils they aligned with. She died fighting the Thrune Ascendency.
Forty years later, a samsaran named Soni Yeesla was born. She grew up in Minkai learning magic along with her cat familiar, Pur-hiss. Although most of her young years were spent in harmony as is the samsaran way, she felt an undeniable tug of a mission unfulfilled and when she came of age, began the journey towards Westcrown once again. There, she felt the disappointment from her past life's failure and vowed to bring the fight back against House Thrune and restore honor the first nation she called home.
In Westcrown, she found that with her unusual appearance people assumed she were a tiefling. She wasn't bothered by the treatment, using the confusion to gain trust among societies undesirables. She founded the Aroden's Avenging Angels, a group of female tielflings, assimars, and others devoted to revolution against Thrune. She sometimes worked closely with the Bastards until they proved evil, and on other occasions Arael and the Children of Westcrown when the major hitters, Viggo, Niko, Roy, and Ulrich were off on other important work. She had grown fond of the half-elf priest of Iomedae and was devastated when she learned of his loss.
Soon after Arael's death, things in Westcrown went from terrible to horrible. The shadows started attacking indiscriminately, a fire geyser appeared, and the thieves guild Council of Thieves was running rampant. She spent much of this time fighting cults of Mammon as well as Hellnights. It was during this time that Purr-hiss grew in power from an ordinary cat familiar into a silvanshee agathion.
In the ensuing holocaust, she was trying to herd survivors away from shadows and give solace to those it was too late for. She recognized Ulrich, one of The Children, and teamed up with him to defend a group of refuges from shadows. They made it back to the safety of the Temple to Aroden.
Here is a rough draft of a samsaran replacement character I wrote up for my GM for Council of Thieves, if this is the sort of thing you are thinking of.
** spoiler omitted **...
Kind of, this is a great starting point for back story and a new character.
Think of it this way, raise dead can be like treating your character like Kenny from south park, don’t worry about dyeing this episode because you will come back the same for next week.
Reincarnate is more like how star trek treats red shirts off screen, don’t worry about dying because you’re going to be playing the same part next week as a new race. Lord Voldemort from harry potter, yea you’re going to come back to the same life in a new form.
Samarian incarnation is more like Gandalf from lord of the rings, he died and came back changing a bit in the process but still looking the same. An easier analogy would probably be Dax from Deep Space 9, same race, a lot of the memories but really a new life that has learned from the old one.
The idea of developing characters over several lifetimes is a really fun idea. Say you have a player that always plays fighters but for once they decide to break out and play a cleric instead, they go a few levels and realize that’s just not for them so they multi class over to paladin. Turns out they play a great paladin and everything is fine and dandy but they get killed off around level 10. Rather than rolling up a completely new paladin this would allow that player to keep the rich history that they have already built upon and create a new life as a straight paladin rather than a multiclass paladin. A nice clean way to tie everything together from a DM stand point rather than hiding behind the pile of dead bards so to speak.
So this is more of a storyline and continuity type spell rather than different kind of fireball or something like that. And for those that start out as a Samsaran, this is a way to build upon the underlying racial concept as they progress through the levels. Rather than relying on raise deads and reincarnates they can get down with their Samsaran self’s and really embrace the wheel of life concept.
