Reincarnation....4E

[FullofQuestions]

So I had a character die that was not suppose to die. We'll call him Bob. Well, Bob died because he went back to a town where he was wanted for breaking a prisoner out (another PC in the game), and Bob was caught at the gates, along with a fellow adventurer friend he had made (a new PC that just started the game). They were defeated, and the guards were supposed to stabilize them if this happened and take them prisoner. The one guard that was left, though, did not make it to both of them in time, and Bob died.

I had the second adventurer, the one that he met in town, wake up in shackles in a prison. Since Bob was not supposed to die, I had wake up in a luxurious bed in a very nice room. I have my own reason for this obviously, but I was wondering if you guys could suggest more. How was he reincarnated? Was he reincarnated? If so or if not, where is he now? That sort of thing.

[Hzurr]

A few quick thoughts:

- He's part Deva, and gets "one free reincarnation"

- In his past, he was involved in a necromantic ritual, where an evil wizard used his soul for a "practice run" in phylactory creation before attempting to become a lich. This room is where the lich tossed the practice phylactory, and forgot about it.

- the player is now a Revenant (or however that's spelled), and has been brought back from the dead to complete a great tast

- Asmodeus grabbed his soul, and is now preparing to "make a deal"

- a princess, or other wealthy noble in the town saw him, fell head over heels for him (possibly because of magic), and had him ressurected.

--edit-- as a general rule, if the player died in fair combat, don't do cheap deus ex machina to bring them back. If you really feel bad that the PC died in a "stupid" way, at least make their comeback have some interesting plot hooks attached, which I tried to do with my suggestions.

[Mando Knight]

If he's the same as he was before, then odds are he's not reincarnated, but rather resurrected. The two words have very distinct meanings, and only occasionally does the former match the latter in exact outcome.

Example: a Deva's form is rarely the same from reincarnation to reincarnation. One life he could be a male Invoker, the next, she's a female Swordmage. However, if one were to use the Raise Dead ritual on the Invoker, it's likely that they got him before he fully entered the next phase of the reincarnation cycle, and would return as the same Invoker he was before. Likewise, a reincarnation ritual based off of the 3.5 Druid spell of the same name would bring back the male human Fighter as a Fighter, but possibly of a different race, gender, and/or general physical appearance (Female Half-Orc? Quasi-Hermaphroditic Minotaur? Red hair? Green hair? Boat-light eyes? Who knows!); but using the Raise Dead ritual will definitely bring him back as the same male human he was before.

Like Hzurr stated, a Deva-blooded individual could have a free reincarnation/resurrection, or the character could become a Revenant, a quasi-undead being generally raised from the grave by a patron power (usually a deity... the fluff suggests the Raven Queen does this the most) due to unfinished business.

[Tiki Snakes]

He hasn't been ressurected OR reincarnated.

Option 1 - He's dead.
The person who woke up with all his memories just believes himself to be the same person. Okay, so he doesn't look the same as he used to, but whatever Druid it was that must have reincarnated him in passing must be responsible for that.
Someone else has been given the memories of the first character, perhaps they are a sleeper agent for some powerful figure who wants to keep an eye on the players?

Option 2 - He was never really in danger of dying.
He was convinced that he was injured, but in actuality, the guard's just knocked them both out. He was bleeding a bit more than they had intended, perhaps he knocked his head as he fell.
Note -If the goal was to capture them in the first-place, then they didn't ever need to be rolling death-saving throws. You get to choose whether you are killing or disabling when you reduce something to 0hp.


Edit - If he definately was dead, and you'd rather it was definately, definately the original Bob, I'm going to (third?) the suggestion of Revenant.
It doesn't even have to be the usual, 'sent back for an epic task'. Perhaps he just refused to die, or introduced the Grim Reaper to Melvin (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzgU5O-3Xto).
Alternatively, there's the Discworld-ish, Reg Shoe approach. He doesn't really know why he woke up dead, rather than remained entirely dead. He just did. He's now a Zombie, and must find his own reason for continuing to exist.

[Thajocoth]

Here's a tip: Nonlethal damage


Knocking Creatures Unconscious
When you reduce a creature to 0 hit points or fewer, you can choose to knock it unconscious rather than kill it. Until it regains hit points, the creature is unconscious but not dying. Any healing makes the creature conscious.
If the creature doesn’t receive any healing, it is restored to 1 hit point and becomes conscious after a short rest.

Nothing says an enemy can't do this to a player. I would expect any enemy that intends to take prisoners to use this. Obviously, if the attack knocked them to negative bloodied, they're dead anyway, but I'm doubting this happened unless they were level 1. (I've come as close as 2 points away from negative bloodied on a level 1 character in Athas.)

[FullofQuestions]

I extremely like all of your ideas. I will have to choose one though. Would it be a bad move as a DM to go back and make it nonleathal damage when I already had him make all the Death Saving Throws and he failed on all of them....if I choose that direction of course?

[Urpriest]

I extremely like all of your ideas. I will have to choose one though. Would it be a bad move as a DM to go back and make it nonleathal damage when I already had him make all the Death Saving Throws and he failed on all of them....if I choose that direction of course?

If they know you're a new DM just learning the game, and you make it clear that you had forgotten about that rule, then yeah, they should be ok with that. Generally it's not a good idea to take stuff back, but when you're inexperienced it's ok to let some stuff slide for the sake of fun.

[Thajocoth]

I extremely like all of your ideas. I will have to choose one though. Would it be a bad move as a DM to go back and make it nonleathal damage when I already had him make all the Death Saving Throws and he failed on all of them....if I choose that direction of course?

"I'm really sorry guys, but I hadn't noticed this one rule near the end of the PHB until after the session. It's never come up before, but realistically, any enemy who wants to capture you would do this. Basically, any time anyone's brought down to 0hp or less, the attacker can choose to knock them out instead of killing them. This would mean no death saves to fail, so your character didn't die. Sorry for the confusion."

Just don't do this often.