Lets raise everyone!

[tim01300]

So my party of lvl 11 players are mostly new to the game and have finally started hitting levels where they can raise dead or afford to pay for resurrections. I don't know if its a problem per say but they are raising everyone. They don't seem to care about the money wasted, and it's worth noting that I actually give them less than the suggested lvl amount for personal setting reasons. The world setting is loosely forgotten realms.

Example is they find just a family where the father was killed by bandits, the son asks the pcs for vengeance, they just raise the body and skip the bandits. Another one I had them fight their way through a keep that was invaded and they found the dead lord of the keep. Even though they have never met this man and were paid by his daughter they wanted to spend the coin to get him resurrected (i hate body parts missing from him).

I guess what I'm asking is should I make resurrections available at the local city temples? And if I do why does anyone in DnD ever stay dead not counting old age? I feel like without the threat of death the game is sorta different.

[John Longarrow]

This should level off soon...
I.E. as soon as they run out of money. With the expense involved they can't keep it up for long, especially if you don't feed them lots of gold...

[Adverb]

The world contains a finite supply of diamonds, so eventually they will stop.

But mostly, this is a good thing. You've found a thing your players care about and are willing to spend time, energy, and in-game resources on achieving.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Keep in mind that Raise Dead is expensive. Most people who are not adventurers go their whole lifes without seeing even a fraction of that kind of wealth at once.
There's also the point that quite a few people may not want to come back to life. If you're not one of the faithless there's a good chance that your FR afterlife is actually better than your life.
There's no reason to go back unless you have family to take care of or some unfinished task to complete. If you are faithless you can't be raised without divine intervention anyway.

It's not really a problem from a balance perspective either.
Unless your players circumvent the material cost they will run out of money sooner rather than later, meaning no more ressurections. And probably a TPK because they can't afford to keep their gear up to date.

If you want to limit ressurection further you could also have a deity be unwilling to let the soul of a worshipper return to life. A simple "your time on the material plane is over" by your patron deity prevents pretty much any kind of ressurection in FR. The same applies to being transformed into a petitioner iirc.

[Flickerdart]

The Elemental Plane of Earth is infinite, and contains infinite diamonds. Even if there was a finite quantity of diamonds, their price would increase because of increasing scarcity, and you would need less and less for the resurrection.

Don't forget that raise dead has a time limit of 1 day/CL, and once that runs out, you'll need the more powerful spells. And finding a cleric willing and able to do it for you might be difficult...

[satorian]

This tempts me to play a (hm, probably neutral good oracle or favored soul to avoid patron gods getting mad, or a neutral evil Ur-Priest who does it just to screw with the church system) who starts a nonprofit to provide healing and resurrection services for the indigent. Fund it through a mixture of donations, elemental diamond mining operations (selling the other gems we come across), and by charging full price to the wealthy.

[Daer]

perhaps try buffy idea that resurrected person was actually enjoying his/her time being dead and once resurrected isn't that happy about it..
perhaps even angry or then just melancholic afterwards

But overall i wouldn't see reason to stop them doing it if they enjoy it, instead embrace it and add flavors. there are plenty of chances..

think if the father killed in raid was actually killed by his son because he might been abusive father and son saw cahcne to get rid off him.. Still father so he would mourn him or just to fool people think so. what would happen then when heroes come and raise him? I think there is lots of potential for miniquests and such.

and for actual question, i don't think every temple should have it. but perhaps in large towns with plenty of rich and important people . and perhaps make poisons and disease count as natural causes of death.

[Ansem]

The level loss sucks enough they'll stop trying to die after the first time being resurrected.

[Slipperychicken]

The gods might get pissed off about the PCs spitting in the face of mortality. People are supposed to stay dead, and circumventing that violates the natural order (but more importantly, robs the divine masters of their rightly-claimed souls). It's not a problem if it happens sometimes, but if it goes on too long, someone's going to crack down.

Also, this is an excellent excuse to throw Inevitables at them.

[HighWater]

Is this really a problem? The PC's are using their vast resources for good... Be proud! Either way, their lack of funds will quickly stop them from doing this.

Now, in the meanwhile this can mess up your plot quite a bit. It seems they are bypassing some of your plot/encounter-elements, and not every DM enjoys that very much:

Example is they find just a family where the father was killed by bandits, the son asks the pcs for vengeance, they just raise the body and skip the bandits.
Situations like this provide a simple solution. About half a day after the PCs leave, the bandits return, kill the father ("You shoulda stayed dead, mister!"), kill the son (for trying to get them killed by adventurers) and maybe do some other horrible things too. Either inform the PCs through rumour, a messenger, or by mailing them the severed head of the son. Afterall, it's bad for the bandits' reputation if the people they off come back from the dead.

PC's wanna raise the father and son again? Tough luck! Raise Dead actually provides a -very- good reason for it to fail:


You restore life to a deceased creature. You can raise a creature that has been dead for no longer than one day per caster level. In addition, the subject’s soul must be 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.

Coming back from the dead is an ordeal. The subject of the spell loses one level (or 1 Hit Die) when it is raised, just as if it had lost a level or a Hit Die to an energy-draining creature.

People trying to raise you? Maybe a non-hero's soul would be willing to go through that once, but shame on him for leaving heaven a SECOND time to go through a very traumatic experience to return to a life of suffering in the material plane and a good chance of getting killed in a horrible way once more.

I'd be proud of PC's that are actually willing to use their wealth to right the wrongs done to NPCs, but make them understand that a Raise Dead is treatment of the symptoms, not the disease. They better deal with the problems at hand, rather than just slapping on a Raise Dead bandage...

Edit: a failed Raise Dead spell still uses the diamonds, so burning all that dough to get effectively nothing should prompt your players to make more informed Raise-decisions...

[Cloud]

Just note that the subject of any resurrection spell must be willing, and this comic shows two great examples of people not being willing. Most people aren't willing to answer the call of a raise dead spell once they're in the afterlife.

[ImperatorV]

Page 159 of the Monster Manual. I quote:

"Those who use magic to reverse death (raise dead spells, for example) aren't worthy of a marut's attention unless they do so repeatedly or on a massive scale."

CR15 being pissed off at you might be enough incentive to stop.

[BWR]

As others have said, raising everyone is expensive, especially if you want to return those neg levels. Unless you give them enough diamonds to keep doing this, they will run out pretty soon.
Secondly, which many people seem to overlook when complaining about clerics, a cleric is the servant of his god, not the other way around. If a god (the DM) thinks the cleric is upsetting the balance of the world, spending Her gifts frivolously, or raising the wrong person, the god can simply withhold the spell or tell the cleric to knock it off or else.
And then you have all the various other reasons for why it's a bad idea. Some people want to stay dead (wasted spell, no raise), there are fundemental forces that work to make sure death still means something (maruts, gods of death and their clergy, interested parties like nature gods, gods of balance etc.).

Also, what happens when people get wind of these wonderful heroes that bring the dead back to life for free? They will be absolutely swamped with people begging them to raise anyone imaginable, like dear old mommy that died 5 years ago. They won't get a moment's rest once they start handing out stuff like that for free.

[Slipperychicken]

Secondly, which many people seem to overlook when complaining about clerics, a cleric is the servant of his god, not the other way around. If a god (the DM) thinks the cleric is upsetting the balance of the world, spending Her gifts frivolously, or raising the wrong person, the god can simply withhold the spell or tell the cleric to knock it off or else.\

You could totally have the god turn the Cleric into one of those immortal/ageless hydra-plants (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydra_(genus)#Non-senescence). That would be a pretty fitting punishment for a dude who's trying to transcend mortality via resurrection spells. Bonus points if the new species is named after the Cleric.