What I wound up doing; When someone tries to bring back a life I'll roll to see if they come back normal or as a Restless Soul.
My GM uses a three strikes option. Your 4th death is final and normally irreversible.
She says there are rare ways to get a death 'removed' from your tally though they are so rare we have never found one yet. She does however use the hero point optional rules so most keep at least 2 points in reserve for those 'oh crap' moments.
In AD&D you could be brought back a number of times equal to your Constitution but each time cost a permanent Con point that could not be gotten back in any manner.
You might want to ban Reincarnation as well. Stupid spell.
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The change you're proposing will certainly get the job done, but you may find some players don't like the idea of making the game significantly more lethal (as measured in new characters rolled per campaign).
If you're willing to take a more comprehensive approach to reworking the death rules, an excellent option can be found at the Alexandrian. It eliminates resurrection magic entirely, but adds a mechanic that ensures that the game doesn't actually become more lethal
I've used it in a few campaigns now, and it works very well.
That'll do it. Though, I'm currently not concerned about the revolving door of death because even raise dead and resurrection has its limits. Neither of them work if the body becomes utterly destroyed or unrecoverable. This means a player can recover from a fluke death or a death in a very anti-climatic way, such as getting crit by a mook. However, they risk losing their character in the case of a very decisive death, such as from an extremely lethal hazard or an assassin that burns the body. Because of this and arguments by Sean K Reynolds, I decided to eliminate the material cost of raise spells. The levels where raise dead and resurrection become available is considered high fantasy anyway.
Aside from wanting to have a more historic or gritty campaign, I haven't really seen any compelling mechanical reason to bar resurrection spells. Even without material costs and negative levels, a PC death still halts the campaign, disadvantages the party, risks a TPK, and can be permanent. I personally believe the decision to bar resurrection should come from how you want to design your campaign setting.
Hmmm. I say with each death the return is harder, and requires higher lever spell slot.
- or -
Growing change to rise as undead instead.
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If you're willing to take a more comprehensive approach to reworking the death rules, an excellent option can be found at the Alexandrian. It eliminates resurrection magic entirely, but adds a mechanic that ensures that the game doesn't actually become more lethal.
Just read the article - very interesting mechanic. I may have to try this next time I GM a campaign.
It depends on the group. Some groups will readily restore life to slain party members if allowed to do so. I'm guessing this is the original poster's group.
Some groups will metagame and weigh the advantages of costly spell components versus just getting a shiny new wealth by level PC while looting the corpse of the previous PC.
I have yet to see a group make the logic leap that it is less expensive and easier to plane shift to the afterlife realms to visit your deceased friend than it is to resurrect said PC. Thus you have an in-game reason to split the dead PC's gear without the guilt since you can visit your friend at any time plane shift is available.
There are other factors in this -
Do your NPCs / opponents suffer setbacks like the PCs in regard to lack of resurrection magic?
Is it easier to have regime changes without resurrection magic? If so, will that change how governments / kingdoms work?
I tend to keep resurrection as is because it creates an added step if someone wants to make certain a BBG or assassinated high profile target will be beyond resurrection.
At some point in the past, seemingly without discussion, our group made a change where a dead character's gear is not available for looting. I believe some exceptions have been made for very special items, but thats it. Additionally, I can't think of any character that has been raised more than twice.
In my forthcoming play by post of The Cleaves, characters will be trapped in the space dungeon unable to go to the church and get raised. I am advising them to bring 10th level characters, possibly a stack of them. The wish spells are hard to come by and limited in different ways. There is also the option of taking over an NPC. Mostly monsters.