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Something came up in a recent game of Pathfinder. The PC's are playing Way of the Wicked and I felt pretty bad for one of the players who got killed on an utter fluke of the dice. My rolling was hot and a max damage hit followed with a critical hit by a raging and power attacking Barbarian on the group's Antipaladin inflicted so much damage that the PC was instantly killed. The characters being level 7 did not have ready access to Raise Dead or some other caster to actually bring them back. Rather than mess around with the party trying to find a way to bring the Antipaladin back, an unique game thread I came up with actually allowed me a way to allow the PC to come back.
You see, I felt that there should be other "Evil" transformation options than either a Lich or a Vampire for PC's, with one of them allowing a PC to undergo a Devil Transformation route. While becoming a full Devil is outside the scope of the game, the Half-Fiend template is eventually attainable. To do this though the PC requires a pact with one of the Archdevils to act as a "Sponsor" for devilhood and would take part in 4 stages.
1. Getting the actual sponsorship of one of the Archdevils.
2. Performing a major task/sacrifice on behalf of the Archdevil as determined by him. By doing this the PC gets a Hellbrand (a 3.5 feat) as well as a single fiendish feature. However they also have to sacrifice a feat due to the hellish link taking a shard of a person's soul.
3. The next sacrifice involves a LARGE SCALE work of evil enough to impress their Archdevil. By doing this they gain the Half-Fiend template and all the benefits/drawbacks of this. They lose another feat in exchange for this though as they become much less mortal.
4. After MANY years of loyal service and performing many wicked acts for their sponsor the Archdevil may decide to grant full Devilhood to their minion. This is probably outside the scope of most games, probably an epilogue. Nonetheless as most PC's would be Epic Level characters by then, they would become a pretty powerful devil once the transformation is complete.
Anyway, back to the game. The Antipaladin had already completed stage one and had got Baalzebul, Lord of Maladomini, to become his sponsor. Baalzebul curious on the obsession of a certain pit fiend into the affairs of a puny island called Talongarde as well as the nature of this newly risen Deity called Mitra, demanded the Antipaladin to sacrifice a high ranking person of the Church of Mitra so he could claim his/her soul, pry the secrets from its soul as well as have a good plaything to entertain himself, granting the Antipaladin a vile ritual that would send the soul straight to him, bypassing the normal afterlife. Now I had intended him to eventually sacrifice a certain annoying Inquisitor who would show up later. However before his demise he also looked into the High Abbess of the local nunnery as a potential sacrifice.
Due to the pact the Antipaladin made with Baalzebul, the Antipaladin went straight to his throne room when he died. Baalzebul was rather perturbed to see that had died before the job could be done. The Antipaladin pleaded for a chance to go back and get the job done. Baalzebul considered just torturing his soul for all eternity but decided that since the Antipaladin was already corrupt, it wouldn't entertain him that much. Thus he gave the Antipaladin a chance to plead his case to be brought back. With a dam good Diplomacy roll combined with an offer of the Abbess and five other sisters Baalzebul was intrigued. However he demanded an extra sister because he liked the number Seven and he wanted more than what is offered, thus demanding the Abbess and Six Faithful Sisters. The Antipaladin agreed and signed a contract. He'ed have 1 year to do it and if he failed not only would he go back to hell but he'ed be be thrown away by a piece of trash with the other tormented souls and have no elevated status. Thus the Antipaladin signed a contract and Baalzebul resurrected him, bringing him back without any negative levels. Still he now has to do this difficult act of capturing a high-level cleric and six sisters alive so he could perform the ritual to send them to hell.
Now this is just my example but certainly it could be used in other circumstances. As many cannot cast or even have access to Raise Dead until higher levels, is it prudent to perhaps offer PC's an alternative, a divine intervention so long as some important task is done on behalf of the force that brings them back. After all Raise Dead and other spells cost a crapload of money and if the PC's can't afford it there should be alternatives. So what do you think?
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I like how you handled that.
There was a thread about the cost of Raise Dead a while back. One of the concerns was that Raise Dead doesn't actually make you more powerful - it restores you to a normal power level (ie alive). So there's not really a need for a balancing cost to it the same way there should be a cost for something like Permanency. And if the group is invested in a character it's a pain to lose them just because it's too hard to raise them.
At the same time, most people want death to be a significant narrative event. Offering the kind of deal that you did keeps that narrative element without unduly punishing the player (especially since the character death was just really bad luck).