Different people want and expect different things from their gaming group sessions.
I had to do a fair amount of adjusting to fit in with my current group.
I like a difficult game where heals, restoration, remove disease, neutralize poison, raise, resurrection, etc... are harder to come by than M&M's at Kmart. It forces you to play smart, plan ahead, be careful, use tactics, run away, have contingencies ready, etc...
They don't. They want all that stuff to be easy to find or buy. The only 'penalty' for death or bad decisions is spending a few gold. Consequently they use poor tactics, don't plan ahead, aren't careful, and all the rest. Because it isn't needed. But that is what they like. I can deal with that and have eventually adjusted my play style. My only problem was the group wouldn't really say what they expected.
Seems like this is a situation where the group needs to have an discussion about what they want.
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Group (or at least the individual who refuses reincarnation) should have purchased the necessary supplies ahead of time. Not rely on the GM to just coincidentally have the next boss posses exactly what they need.
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I personally would love to have a resurrection that gave my build huge problems. Then spend the next several levels trying to figure out how to cope anyway. I think that would be a blast.
I once had a high stealth rogue reincarnated as an ogre with a dexterity of 8. It was hilarious.
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Questions:
Say you were a half-orc THW barbarian.
Got killed.
Reincarnated as a kobold.
Adventured as that for a while.
Got killed again.
Raised from the dead.
What race are you now?
Oh yeah.
Players: “Hey Bob, we have to go on a quest for about 4 nites of gaming in order to raise you, so I guess you can just stay home or you can play my Mount.”
Bob: “yeah, sounds like real fun. Look, instead- here’s Knuckles the 87th , go ahead and loot Knuckles the 86th body. He's got some cool stuff."
The whole idea of “death should mean something” becomes meaningless when we all realize that D&D is a Game, Games should be Fun, and in order to have Fun you have to Play. Thereby, when a Player’s PC dies either you Raise him or he brings in another. Raising is preferable story-wise, and costs resources. Bringing in another costs continuity and actually increases party wealth. Not to mention, instead of an organic played-from-1st-PC we have a PC generated at that level, which can lead to some odd min/maxing.
The third alternative is “Sorry Bob, Knuckles is dead. You’re out of the campaign, we’ll let you know when the next one is starting, should be in about a year or so.’ Really?
And the Devs have said that at one time they were considering a special material for each deity for raise. In fact, it's VALUE of the sacrifice, not the sacrifice itself, which is why (what with fluctuating diamond values) a 5 ct flawless blue-white bought for 5K works as well as a 1/2ct brown flawed rcok- also bought for 5K.
In this case the option is simple. A dream is sent to the Cleric that since no diamonds are available, 5000gps of anything can be sacrified.
Group (or at least the individual who refuses reincarnation) should have purchased the necessary supplies ahead of time. Not rely on the GM to just coincidentally have the next boss posses exactly what they need.
It seems that you haven't played or read Jade Regent, There is no way to have the buy the diamonds beforehand, if you buy at the end of book 2 you are going to spend 7000gp (5000 diamond, 2000 diamond dust for restoration) when you are 7th level you are using (approximately) 1/3 of your wealth in it, which is a lot. And from the moment you start book 3 and until you finish it there is no place to buy the diamond and the diamond dust.
In addition it is most likely that none will even think about buying the material for raise dead in advance since the artifact that the campaign gives you has ressurection once per month.So no i don't think that the player is to be blamed for not having bought the diamond and the diamond dust beforehand, he is to blame if his character was a d**k and the rest of the characters don't want to ressurect him.
Oh yeah.
Players: “Hey Bob, we have to go on a quest for about 4 nites of gaming in order to raise you, so I guess you can just stay home or you can play my Mount.”
Bob: “yeah, sounds like real fun. Look, instead- here’s Knuckles the 87th , go ahead and loot Knuckles the 86th body. He's got some cool stuff."
The whole idea of “death should mean something” becomes meaningless when we all realize that D&D is a Game, Games should be Fun, and in order to have Fun you have to Play. Thereby, when a Player’s PC dies either you Raise him or he brings in another. Raising is preferable story-wise, and costs resources. Bringing in another costs continuity and actually increases party wealth. Not to mention, instead of an organic played-from-1st-PC we have a PC generated at that level, which can lead to some odd min/maxing.
The third alternative is “Sorry Bob, Knuckles is dead. You’re out of the campaign, we’ll let you know when the next one is starting, should be in about a year or so.’ Really?
And the Devs have said that at one time they were considering a special material for each deity for raise. In fact, it's VALUE of the sacrifice, not the sacrifice itself, which is why (what with fluctuating diamond values) a 5 ct flawless blue-white bought for 5K works as well as a 1/2ct brown flawed rcok- also bought for 5K.
In this case the option is simple. A dream is sent to the Cleric that since no diamonds are available, 5000gps of anything can be sacrified.
Simple for you. Maybe not for others.
That to me would only make sense if both the dead and the cleric worshipped the same deity. Or if the player did things that strengthened the deity and his domains. I have a feeling that is not the case.
The groupin question is dealing with a player who seems to be ruining the fun of the group.
The
The problem with raise dead is completely and totally separate from the Player being a "richard'.
If the player is being a "Richard' then you ask him to leave, you don't make it difficult to get his PC raised.
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Can you elaborate on that? i am not sure i get it, but please put in a spoiler tag so that we don't threadjack (a lot).
In my campaign, the seal and the warding box have stronger anti-scry and fry protections. It also makes it so the PCs will have more trouble teleporting as well, which was another of my design goals.
The warding box has an aura that rubs off on all creatures that stay near it for long enough that grants immunity to divination (scrying) subschool spells. You can't be the target of them, and if it's like an arcane eye, you don't show up. If you stay away from the box for long enough, you lose this. If you open the box, everyone loses it and has to reattune.
The seal has an aura that is similar but grants immunity to conjuration (teleportation). The timer on the two auras is the same, so if you want to teleport somewhere, you will have to wait away from the group until you have lost your immunity to scrying. The seal's aura also hinders incoming teleportation--in a fairly wide radius, all destinations count as a false destination, which means teleport screws up and greater teleport just fizzles.
In light of these changes, I have upgraded the Five Storms to be more competent.
So let's say the PCs open the box. This allows the oni to pinpoint the location. They can even scry and get a visual (but if the PCs are smart, they can bring everyone inside the wagons with the windows drawn, preventing a scryed visual of the exterior. But it's still a false destination. Fortunately, I know from the Baleful Coven by Legendary Games that the oni have developed a series of "stepping stone" locations in the Crown of the World that they have excellent sketches of to use to make journeys via teleport-hopping. The adventure doesn't specify where these are, but I did specify them. So what can the oni do?
If the PCs didn't think to have everyone inside, they can wait for the PCs to get far enough ahead of them and then greater teleport a small army to the spot where the box was opened and then use superior move speed and tracking to catch up and probably slaughter the PCs.
But my PCs will think of that, so the oni's only choice is to go to the nearest stepping stone point (remember you still need a detailed and specific drawing or description to use greater teleport) and then try to intercept the PCs based on their best guess of trajectory. In this case, my PCs have already started planning how they are going to switch off the Path of Aganhei if they need to open the box--however, it is hard to do so in a way that would fool the oni. Granted, in this case the oni will send fewer troops because they realize that there is a chance that the troops will not be able to find the PCs due to shenanigans, unlike in the case of directly tracking, and they won't want to lose many forces in the Crown on a wild goose chase. The PCs will probably get their best chance to open it near Iqalit because the Katiyana story means they will wind up going way way way off the Path of Aganhei and into the Boreal Expanse, which is crazy enough to not enter into the oni's predictions. If they use it anywhere else, the oni will have a greater chance of intercepting them.
Indeed... endings like this bring "Heroes" or "Alphas" to mind... Grrr! For unresolved stories!
Alphas was resolved - Sheldon 'phoned up the writer and asked how they planned to resolve the cliffhanger . . . then told him what a horrible idea that was and that his show deserved to be cancelled. #:-]
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In this case the option is simple. A dream is sent to the Cleric that since no diamonds are available, 5000gps of anything can be sacrified.
To be honest this is the way my group has always played with the cost of all spell components. Spend the required amount of gold from the PC/group wealth and thats that. We've never bothered to enforce any rule about having to have a specific expensive material component. An offering of 500,000 copper coins laid out in the holy symbol of your god like a coin-mandala is just as good as a hunk of diamond worth 5000 gp in our world.
Heck, I'd even go so far to say that arranging a crude shrine to your god and any of the characters items worth at least 5000 gp would be sufficient for the divine magic of raise dead to function.
And if you allow it, then that gets around the plot hole problem of "If the demons were really intelligent any use of the Seal should result in TPK" and get around the problem of how to revive the character. What it doesn't get around is the player being a "Richard" as described above. And if thats the case and the group wants him gone, they shouldn't be passive agressive about it and say that the wont revive his character in the way he wants. They should just tell him straight forward and honestly that they don't like playing with him and that he is no longer invited to gaming nights unless he can change his behavior.
In the end I sent a message to all my players letting them know I was going to be taking the week off, expressed some concerns I had within the group as far as I felt some play styles were disrupting the group. In the end the player in question stepped forward, agreed to the differences and he felt the same and stepped away for the time being. The entire group had sat down multiple times, talked to the particular person and we had expressed our concerns. I am not just talking about a single incident, there has been many things throughout years of playing that have gotten under the entire groups skin...however we have come to terms that that is just his play style, and possible our group isn't accommodating to his style.
I am very pleased that I saw the forum very balanced as far as opinion on the issue. Thank you everyone for your help.
It seems that you haven't played or read Jade Regent, There is no way to have the buy the diamonds beforehand, if you buy at the end of book 2 you are going to spend 7000gp (5000 diamond, 2000 diamond dust for restoration) when you are 7th level you are using (approximately) 1/3 of your wealth in it, which is a lot. And from the moment you start book 3 and until you finish it there is no place to buy the diamond and the diamond dust...
Group (or at least the individual who refuses reincarnation) should have purchased the necessary supplies ahead of time. Not rely on the GM to just coincidentally have the next boss posses exactly what they need.
Aha. Ok sorry. No I have not run Jade Regent yet. I did not realize from what the others had written that it was unavailable from several levels before the occurrence. That is much more understandable.
I thought this was like some of the players I've seen that never buy items recovery items like that. But assume the GM will have the cure be the next loot drop after they contract lycanthropy or die.