No Revives

[Naez]

After reading another thread it really hit me that in DnD death isn't really much of a deterrent to anything really. And the more you realize the magic the res people is pretty everyday (but expensive) the less plots make sense. "We're going to assassinate the king." Well you best do it 15 times because his funds are damn near unlimited. "We'll kill the hostage!" go ahead we can just res them and still turn a profit off the gear we get off your corpses. "Who murdered this fellow?" hell I don't even have to res this one, Speak with Dead.

So I was thinking of running a game with no resurrection spells to really drive home the finality of death. I don't intend for it to be a meat-grinder, just make more sense overall.

[Extra Anchovies]

It would probably be a good idea to avoid creatures that have instant-death effects, or replace those effects with long-term disables (e.g. petrification), and/or leave access to spells and effects that allow resurrection if they're cast within a few rounds after the subject's death, like Revenance and/or the Spirit Shaman's Recall Spirit ability.

[Atarax]

I've often thought the same thing. That, and I have trouble imagining the point of castles where magic or dragons aren't rare. For that matter, dragons appear to be way too heavy to be able to fly.

Maybe coming back from the dead is rare in the world, but the PC's have access to an item that makes it easier for them to find their way back.

[Douglas]

Ah, but there are ways to make it harder, and professionals would use them.


"We're going to assassinate the king." Well you best do it 15 times because his funds are damn near unlimited.
Do it with a weapon made of Thinaun, then bury that weapon in a secure vault somewhere protected from divinations. Doesn't matter how much money he has, or even if he's got someone ready to cast True Resurrection, he's not getting raised without someone recovering that weapon first.


"Who murdered this fellow?" hell I don't even have to res this one, Speak with Dead.
Take a few seconds to carve up the corpse's mouth, and that doesn't work.


"We'll kill the hostage!" go ahead we can just res them and still turn a profit off the gear we get off your corpses.
It's still expensive enough to be a meaningful incentive, and at higher levels where a mere 5k for Raise Dead isn't that much any more you can resort to things like using Destruction (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/destruction.htm) as the method of hostage-killing, raising the death fee to 25k.

Sure, a lot of people aren't going to resort to these sorts of tactics, but that's the difference between amateurs and professionals - and when it matters for the plot, you can have it done by professionals.

[Brunks]

I run a campaign where I've disallowed ressurection in all its forms. To compensate for this I've removed death from massive damage, and increased(decreased?) the negative HP limit to half their maximum HP.
It works great, the buffer between falling unconsious is usually big enough to allow for a chance to stabilize, heal, or get captured.

I feel like success and failure matter a lot more with the finality of death.

[Venger]

After reading another thread it really hit me that in DnD death isn't really much of a deterrent to anything really. And the more you realize the magic the res people is pretty everyday (but expensive) the less plots make sense. "We're going to assassinate the king." Well you best do it 15 times because his funds are damn near unlimited. "We'll kill the hostage!" go ahead we can just res them and still turn a profit off the gear we get off your corpses. "Who murdered this fellow?" hell I don't even have to res this one, Speak with Dead.

So I was thinking of running a game with no resurrection spells to really drive home the finality of death. I don't intend for it to be a meat-grinder, just make more sense overall.

how about that. was it that thread about the king's alignment for letting the secret police continue to exist? (just curious)

anyway, there's a bunch of ways to permanently kill an enemy (barghest's feast, flesh to stone>rock to mud>purify water, etc) but I guess I understand your point.

whether it's your intention or not, your game's gonna be a meat grinder if no one ever respawns. the game is written and balanced with the understanding that characters will be able to do this since they're gonna die sometimes.

if you and your players are down for a grognardy dungeon crawl, by all means go for it, but if you're planning on an RP-heavy intrigue game, I'd suggest thinking twice, since it'll be hard to get attached knowing you're just one failed save away from rolling up a new character


I run a campaign where I've disallowed ressurection in all its forms. To compensate for this I've removed death from massive damage, and increased(decreased?) the negative HP limit to half their maximum HP.
It works great, the buffer between falling unconsious is usually big enough to allow for a chance to stabilize, heal, or get captured.

I feel like success and failure matter a lot more with the finality of death.

death from massive damage is a variant in the first place, so doesn't need to be "removed." it being a default rule is insane, since any halfway competent character should be dealing 50+ damage before long.

i assume the negatives only applies to PCs. that's a good idea. if all monsters have it too, it tacks on an annoying cleanup phase to every combat, though

[MyrPsychologist]

If you assume that the average individual running about the world is a level 1 commoner and that those with class levels are going to be rare relative to total populations, resurrection makes a little more sense. There isn't going to be a cleric on every street corner willing or able to revive every single individual that falls off of a cart and smashes their noggin. What's more, consider the instances where the body is lost or completely destroyed you need even more powerful magic. It might make sense to provide a party with NPC options of revival if they didn't take any classes that provide the ability but it should always be kept in perception how rare this is relative to the normal world.

And that's before really getting into racial or religious issues that further confound the problem of obtaining a resurrection.

I have never once restricted the amount of resurrections available to a party. If you limit this option for PCs all you do is make them behave more conservatively and stick to enemies that are much lower level and don't provide a real threat. So things become grindy and boring and less is actually accomplished while they grind out level 1 boars in the woods.

[Honest Tiefling]

I run a campaign where I've disallowed ressurection in all its forms. To compensate for this I've removed death from massive damage, and increased(decreased?) the negative HP limit to half their maximum HP.

I like the idea of the negative HP, and gives a nice boost to mundanes. Mind if I steal it?

[Sian]

I'd probably go with allowing Revivify, optionally together with Gentle Repose, and then otherwise class resurrection magic as highly unusual and only done via ritualistic magic, costing massive favor 'points' from the deity whom you approach (via his/her clerics), usually panning out in something like Geas/Quest, while it also put you in bad standing with deities for differing reasons opposing the resurrection (like say God of Death and/or God of Murder, and any deity opposed to what the target did)

[Rubik]

It would probably be a good idea to avoid creatures that have instant-death effects, or replace those effects with long-term disables (e.g. petrification), and/or leave access to spells and effects that allow resurrection if they're cast within a few rounds after the subject's death, like Revenance and/or the Spirit Shaman's Recall Spirit ability.I agree with this.

Plus, if death is permanent, expect many players to ramp up their optimization level so they won't likely die at all.

[danzibr]

I ran a campaign once where a major plot element was a murder. Eventually they broke the news to the guy's brother, and the brother was like, ``That sucks. Well, I'd better go get him resurrected.'' My players hadn't thought of rezzing him (a new group).

[Hellborn_Blight]

I've thought about this as well. As I like to use npc's with class levels as enemies and allies in my worlds, the idea of not raising important figures crumbles under the weight of the power available. So I make diamonds difficult to find. I even made them quest for them once (and the dead character got to play an NPC in the mean time). The relative cost of diamonds means little if they are just a pain to find. After all, the diamond dust gets used up when you rez someone, so there is only a finite amount of the stuff to go in existence.

But if I were to ban it all together, I would definitely institute a few things I have done for more deadly d20 systems. Things like negative con score instead of -9 to death, and you don't die from HP loss until your turn, effectively making any healing you receive that puts you above negative con score a revivify. That doesn't always work out however, like if you take mortal damage right before your turn, but it helps. Removing insta death sounds good too, though some players won't like this (a Dread Necromancer should be well rewarded for their lost spells).

[MichaelGoldclaw]

I've heard this many times over. "Death has no consequence and thus revives are stupid" I know of an Anime where this is true, but it manages to make a good story if you are a fan of suspension of disbelief: Dragonball Z. Thing is, death doesn't have to have consequences. It can just be a setback for the PCs. What is a consequence is losing your ability to revive or a TPK, where no one will be able to. Your divine casters go down? Pretty hard to get revived. Your group dies? What are the odds of someone going in and recovering you all for the measly price of thousands of diamonds, which is a dime a' dozen. Now what about NPCs? Well, Kings aren't high level aristocrats. They are probably level 5 or 6. The Kings that are heavily influenced by magic may be able to get revived, but that ammount of gold is a major investment for a nation. If the King's successor had some daddy issues, then that's another problem. He'd rather use the money to make a statue in the assassin's honor. What about the big bad and his lieutenants? Why not have them revive and come back? "I'm back, b*tches." After that second time the PCs kill them, they would probably do something to make sure they don't come back, like bury the remains in a unmarked location or turn him to ash and blow away the remains (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0914.html) This is fantasy; heroes and villians are beyond even our heroes and villians, so why should death be as much of a problem or solution?

[Sian]

seem to remember something about Ed Greenwood stating (probably on Candlekeep) that at least in Forgotten Realms theres a rule that getting ressurected invalidate all your inheritances, so even if a king could be ressurected, his heir would still be the new king.

Interesting fact would be that the most resurrected character in the Canon Realms is "Nain Keenwhistler", who've been mentioned in Blackstaff (and City of Splendors: Waterdeep iirc) and is stated to have been resurrected on the tall side of 20

[Socratov]

Well, sure... Methods to revive a person do somewhat cheapen death somehow. But keep in mind that it's freaking expensive. By lvl 10 or 12 a pc could, with his collected wealth, buy a small nation. When an honest day's work for commonners is about a couple of copperpieces to silverpieces, then the price of a couple of thousand gold pieces priced in diamonds is astronomically high.

Roughly compared to modern-day economics (roughly since the economics go wonky when trying to translate them) it's like a couple of billion dollars to resurrect someone. Besides the disintegrate, gust of wind trick to make resurrection completely impossible, justifying the cost to do so would make for a political nightmare.

Hell, even for adventurers it's actually more logical, when faced with a pc dying, to just go to the tavern, look for a trustworthy (ahem) fellow and spend the thousands of gp you saved on a round of drinks and some wenches/gigolos (hey, female characters should be able to have some fun as well).

[Extra Anchovies]

What ways are there to cheese past the material components of rezzing people? Hierophant SLA is an obvious one but I'm curious if there are any others.

[Rhyltran]

In my campaign most commoners will never be able to afford resurrection. A king might but then he has to find someone capable of resurrecting him. Most clerics are not a high enough level to resurrect someone. At the same time I also rule you have to have the body in front of you. If the body has been taken or completely disposed of that's a problem.

[Grod_The_Giant]

And the more you realize the magic the res people is pretty everyday (but expensive) the less plots make sense.
Firstly, that's going to require that 9th level clerics are commonplace. And if that's true, then presumably 9th level wizards are also common. And theeen you have to start thinking about all the other traditional fantasy things that magic messes up:

Flight makes walls pretty useless as a defensive structure
Teleport means that physical distance isn't an obstetrical anymore
Fabricate turns the economy inside-out
Invisibility+Silence=good luck, guards
Enchantments mess with all kinds of social norms
Divinations mean that mysteries aren't really things anymore

At that point, there are really only a few things you can do: You can play e6 and sidestep most of the issues, you can turn your suspension of disbelief back on, or you can delve deep into the rules to figure out the (sometimes equally magical) solutions to such things. Maybe castles are now geodesic domes, and it's common practice to destroy any corpses you create to make resurrection harder (without at least part of the body, you need true resurrection). Lots of money will need to be spent on hired mages and wondrous items/architecture to ward things. Finally, you can houserule in mundane counters to magic: lead blocks divinations, flowing water can wash away ongoing spells, stuff like that. Doing so will probably cause other balance-type concerns, but at least they'll be affecting the characters who are already the most powerful.

[ericgrau]

Nope. Besides having a million things that can kill or disable you to shortly be killed in D&D, you can die in 1-3 rounds even from damage. Death from any source imaginable is too frequent and based on luck in D&D to go without revives. You won't have to redo some effects, you'll have to redo nearly all of them. Even damage will need a nerf. And unless you're a mathematical savant, your efforts will fail. Sure you may come up with something, but good luck on it not being a complete mess in practice.

If you want to assassinate someone they may be too low level or without friends to afford a revive. You can also capture them. There are options to trap the soul. You can make resurrection more difficult and expensive by eliminating the remains.

Or you can run a campaign with lots and lots of backup characters who are a level behind. This satisfies your fluff though mechanically it's nearly the same effect. The difference is players keep playing someone new, which can be fun. Not much of a deterrent to the player but at least it might be to the character if he's role-played well.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Socratov
…even for adventurers it's actually more logical, when faced with a pc dying, to just go to the tavern [and pick up a new one].

This has been the very pragmatic attitude of every group I've ever gamed with.

Discussions of resurrection cheapening death have always seemed strange to me, because not once in over a decade of playing 3.5 have any of my groups troubled to resurrect a fallen PC.

Not once, ever. You lose a guy, you roll up a new one. Only once, just after 3.5 was released, was the option even mentioned, and it was immediately dismissed as not worth the money. I'm coming up on my first year playing Pathfinder, and the attitude is the same with those groups as well.

No doubt there are tables where it's a regular thing, but I have to wonder how common they are within the grand spectrum of 3.5 gaming.


Originally Posted by Grod_The_Giant
Teleport means that physical distance isn't an obstetrical anymore….

I'm assuming this is a autocorrect error of some sort. Otherwise higher-level magic could have quite an effect on demographics. :smallbiggrin:

[ShurikVch]

Is Reincarnate (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/reincarnate.htm) out too?
Are you going to ban (Greater) Create Undead as well? What's prevent sentient undead from adventuring?
How about the Craft Construct? Some constructs are controlled by the souls of mortals...
And what's about the interplanar travels? Party may just walk to the afterlife ad bring killed fellow back kicking and screaming :smallamused:

[Jay R]

Originally, what made this work was that Raised Dead was beyond the reach of PCs, or indeed, most characters in the world. To get a character raised, you needed to find one of the highest Patriarchs in the world, and usually go on a quest for him.

When high level characters, both PC and NPC, became the norm, this problem came with it. That happened more-or-less with 3E.

[MyrPsychologist]

Firstly, that's going to require that 9th level clerics are commonplace. And if that's true, then presumably 9th level wizards are also common. And theeen you have to start thinking about all the other traditional fantasy things that magic messes up:

Flight makes walls pretty useless as a defensive structure
Teleport means that physical distance isn't an obstetrical anymore
Fabricate turns the economy inside-out
Invisibility+Silence=good luck, guards
Enchantments mess with all kinds of social norms
Divinations mean that mysteries aren't really things anymore

At that point, there are really only a few things you can do: You can play e6 and sidestep most of the issues, you can turn your suspension of disbelief back on, or you can delve deep into the rules to figure out the (sometimes equally magical) solutions to such things. Maybe castles are now geodesic domes, and it's common practice to destroy any corpses you create to make resurrection harder (without at least part of the body, you need true resurrection). Lots of money will need to be spent on hired mages and wondrous items/architecture to ward things. Finally, you can houserule in mundane counters to magic: lead blocks divinations, flowing water can wash away ongoing spells, stuff like that. Doing so will probably cause other balance-type concerns, but at least they'll be affecting the characters who are already the most powerful.

At this point there really shouldn't even be a need for adventurers as quests and problems are solved by hit squads of angels or other bound outsiders.

Really, the whole thing kind of falls apart if you allow there to be a ton of people swinging high leveled magic around.

[Story]

What ways are there to cheese past the material components of rezzing people? Hierophant SLA is an obvious one but I'm curious if there are any others.

A Healer 20 can true resurrect someone for free once per week. As if anyone would ever play a Healer to level 20.

[Venger]

Well, sure... Methods to revive a person do somewhat cheapen death somehow. But keep in mind that it's freaking expensive. By lvl 10 or 12 a pc could, with his collected wealth, buy a small nation. When an honest day's work for commonners is about a couple of copperpieces to silverpieces, then the price of a couple of thousand gold pieces priced in diamonds is astronomically high.

uh... no?

what kind of crappy nation could you buy for a few thousand gp? while that may be the price of a commoner's labor, I think aristocrats would want more money than that.


Roughly compared to modern-day economics (roughly since the economics go wonky when trying to translate them) it's like a couple of billion dollars to resurrect someone. Besides the disintegrate, gust of wind trick to make resurrection completely impossible, justifying the cost to do so would make for a political nightmare.
that may nerf raise dead, but trueres doesn't need a body, os wh cares?


Hell, even for adventurers it's actually more logical, when faced with a pc dying, to just go to the tavern, look for a trustworthy (ahem) fellow and spend the thousands of gp you saved on a round of drinks and some wenches/gigolos (hey, female characters should be able to have some fun as well).
weird. do you impose an xp penalty if the character is brought back or something?


What ways are there to cheese past the material components of rezzing people? Hierophant SLA is an obvious one but I'm curious if there are any others.
trueres. though it isn't "cheese," it's a printed spell.

[ShurikVch]

Optional rule from Dragon #342 required to take feat Life Restorer in order to prepare or cast any Conjuration (healing) spell that return life to the dead.

What ways are there to cheese past the material components of rezzing people? Hierophant SLA is an obvious one but I'm curious if there are any others.Half-Celestial creature with 19+ HD have Resurrection SLA 1/day

A Healer 20 can true resurrect someone for free once per week. As if anyone would ever play a Healer to level 20.Healer also may cast Gate from the 17th level, which make him into Angel Summoner

[Story]

weird. do you impose an xp penalty if the character is brought back or something?


Anything short of True Res does. (Or Revivify, I guess)



Healer also may cast Gate from the 17th level, which make him into Angel Summoner

I guess I should have said "As if anyone would play a Healer to level 17". The real problem is that it's de-facto an NPC class.

[Blackhawk748]

I guess I should have said "As if anyone would play a Healer to level 17". The real problem is that it's de-facto an NPC class.

Ive seen someone play a Healer before, though we did make it a spontaneous list caster (like the Beguiler and the Dread Necro) so that helped, but the Healer has a bunch of nifty little features. True i would never play one but i know people who wouldnt mind being Super Healer.

[Spore]

In two of our homebrew settings we have the following:

1) Not every cleric is gonna ress you, even if they have the power to. My oracle in particular is of the opinion that you don't ress people who died in honorable battle. You can ress people murdered tho. So they can enact revenge.

2) The other setting has twisted its afterlife into some slipstream of souls if which people get reborn into other ones. If you ress people out of that they go slightly (or more heavily) crazy to the point that the DM takes partial control of them.

[Socratov]

At this point there really shouldn't even be a need for adventurers as quests and problems are solved by hit squads of angels or other bound outsiders.

Really, the whole thing kind of falls apart if you allow there to be a ton of people swinging high leveled magic around.
Well, if any of you read the discworld novels abou teh wizards you can see a clear reason why high level magic shouldn't be common or rampant. High level magic is like nukes IRL: the fact that you have them is perfectly fine, but that doesn't mean they should actually be used, plus there is this whole resources and cost angle. That said, high level character should be pretty rare anyways. sure there should always be a bigger fish then the party, but apart from that it should be pretty rare for the party to find high level characters. And there where scarcity surfaces, prices rise

Optional rule from Dragon #342 required to take feat Life Restorer in order to prepare or cast any Conjuration (healing) spell that return life to the dead.
Half-Celestial creature with 19+ HD have Resurrection SLA 1/day
Healer also may cast Gate from the 17th level, which make him into Angel Summoner

Now all we need is a BMX bandit...

[Venger]

Anything short of True Res does. (Or Revivify, I guess)

no. psionic revivify, last breath, cocoon (in tandem with lowr level spells, including raise dead, resurrection, or reincarnate), along with pact of return or certain contingencies all allow you to dodge an xp penalty.

[lsfreak]

if you and your players are down for a grognardy dungeon crawl, by all means go for it, but if you're planning on an RP-heavy intrigue game, I'd suggest thinking twice, since it'll be hard to get attached knowing you're just one failed save away from rolling up a new character
For a counterpoint, though, take a game where you have unlimited save files versus only a single one (ironman/hardcore mode). You take your decisions much more seriously in the game where you can't just reload when someone goes wrong, and failure hits you much much harder.


death from massive damage is a variant in the first place, so doesn't need to be "removed."
No it's not. The rules are any time someone takes 50 damage, DC15 Fort save or die immediately. The variants are alternative penalties, different damage thresholds, or scaling save DCs.

[Venger]

For a counterpoint, though, take a game where you have unlimited save files versus only a single one (ironman/hardcore mode). You take your decisions much more seriously in the game where you can't just reload when someone goes wrong, and failure hits you much much harder.
that's a strawman. it may be true in video games where it's possible for you to be killed every few seconds, but even in a meat grinder game, you'll probably only die once every other room or so.

I'm not denigrating that style of gameplay, I just don't know what kind of game OP is running. if there's a lot of RP involved, cycling through new characters all the time will be disruptive. if it's just a hack and slash, then my concerns are irrelevant.



No it's not. The rules are any time someone takes 50 damage, DC15 Fort save or die immediately. The variants are alternative penalties, different damage thresholds, or scaling save DCs.
wow, that's gross. I don't know anyone who actually plays with massive damage since dealing 50+ damage in a hit is the rule rather than the exception, so my point was removing it was a good idea.

[MyrPsychologist]

For a counterpoint, though, take a game where you have unlimited save files versus only a single one (ironman/hardcore mode). You take your decisions much more seriously in the game where you can't just reload when someone goes wrong, and failure hits you much much harder.


I love those types of video games. I think i have maybe...400 hours logged on xcom and still go back for that brutal difficulty and fun gameplay.

But tabletop games aren't those. The two aren't even comparable. These difficulty settings make sense in a video game but really shouldn't be applied to tabletop games in a broad sense. I've been in e6 games and it makes sense there but beyond that it just feels like a crutch to explain a world building error.

[Grod_The_Giant]

At this point there really shouldn't even be a need for adventurers as quests and problems are solved by hit squads of angels or other bound outsiders.

Really, the whole thing kind of falls apart if you allow there to be a ton of people swinging high leveled magic around.
I'd actually think you'd wind up with a special-forces-combat-only style situation, where "war" is conducted by small bands of highly trained, extremely powerful specialists (ie, parties of adventurers),l played out against high-magic, mutually-assured-destruction static defenses. Bounds outsiders would work in open war, but not when it comes to commando action. Not when they can be easily blocked by low-level spells like magic circle against evil.

[Rhyltran]

For a counterpoint, though, take a game where you have unlimited save files versus only a single one (ironman/hardcore mode). You take your decisions much more seriously in the game where you can't just reload when someone goes wrong, and failure hits you much much harder.


No it's not. The rules are any time someone takes 50 damage, DC15 Fort save or die immediately. The variants are alternative penalties, different damage thresholds, or scaling save DCs.

That is a variant rule. Dungeon Master's Core rulebook page 27.

Variant: Massive damage based on size.

If a creature takes 50 points of damage or more from a single attack, she must make a fortitude save or die.

Unless I'm missing something it most definitely is a variant rule.

[Extra Anchovies]

If a creature takes 50 points of damage or more from a single attack, she must make a fortitude save or die.[/B]

That's just a restatement of the default rule. PHB, page 145, not in a sidebar:

Massive Damage: If you ever sustain damage so massive that a
single attack deals 50 points of damage or more and it doesn’t kill you outright, you must make a DC 15 Fortitude save. If this saving throw fails, you die regardless of your current hit points. This amount of damage represents a single trauma so major that it has a chance to kill even the toughest creature. If you take 50 points of damage or more from multiple attacks, no one of which dealt 50 or more points of damage itself, the massive damage rule does not apply.

[Rhyltran]

That's just a restatement of the default rule. PHB, page 145, not in a sidebar:

Ah, okay. Thank you for that correction.

[Venger]

That's just a restatement of the default rule. PHB, page 145, not in a sidebar:

it's still a terrible idea. except for very low levels, it's difficult not to deal that much damage. every action people'd be rolling saves, making mid/high lvls even more rocket taggy than it already is. I don't know anyone who uses this rule, like multiclass xp.

[Extra Anchovies]

it's still a terrible idea. except for very low levels, it's difficult not to deal that much damage. every action people'd be rolling saves, making mid/high lvls even more rocket taggy than it already is. I don't know anyone who uses this rule, like multiclass xp.

Oh, yeah, it's a stupid rule. I definitely agree with you there. The save DC isn't bad, but that just means it's left up to RNG (you'll roll a natural 1 eventually).

[Baroknik]

I don't know if anyone has mentioned it yet, but what about killing someone by accelerated aging? Off the top of my head No resurrection effect can turn back time.

[Venger]

Oh, yeah, it's a stupid rule. I definitely agree with you there. The save DC isn't bad, but that just means it's left up to RNG (you'll roll a natural 1 eventually).
yeah, it's a really dumb rule. well, 5% of the time is still too high of a chance to just suddenly stop playing the game, especially when it happens to a PC.


I don't know if anyone has mentioned it yet, but what about killing someone by accelerated aging? Off the top of my head No resurrection effect can turn back time.

there is no way to do this. the closest you can get is bumping them up an age category, but that won't cause them to immediately die of old age.

no spell can rez someone who die of old age, but that's fixable by just reincarnating.

[Story]

What about Touch of Ages? I don't recall the exact mechanics offhand, but at least the fluff fits.

[Venger]

What about Touch of Ages? I don't recall the exact mechanics offhand, but at least the fluff fits.

it's "touch of years" and it just deals ability damage. if you hit a target with a second while the first is up, it blinds and deafens. it doesn't mess with your age.

[atemu1234]

I think that coming back from the dead does cheapen the game, not because you can die whenever you want, but because you can't come up with a reason not to come back when you die; it cheapens the roleplay aspect of the game in that, by the time you're level twenty, and you want a new character, why would you want to die? When you're 25,000 gp away from not dying anytime soon, why is your character going to not come back?

[Suzuha]

I don't know if anyone has mentioned it yet, but what about killing someone by accelerated aging? Off the top of my head No resurrection effect can turn back time.

I wrote a couple paragraphs explaining the plot more fully, but I really should just distill it down to this: As part of a game I'm planning on running, there's a (homebrew) time magic ritual that's intended to circumvent the otherwise impossible resurrection of an ancient hero.

Was just reminded of it.

[soapdude]

In my current campaign, resurrection exists and is pretty easily obtained by the characters (though my character prefers true reincarnation). The way it is paid for is by party loot. All loot is split evenly between every member and cohort, and one equal portion goes into the party fund. We cap the party fund at 100,000gp per individual. That makes sure to pay for anything necessary to bring the character back.

That said, there have been some instances where people were still not brought back.
1) A shadowdancer's soul was left behind on a plane of existence that we then had no recourse but to destroy. Yeah, we destroyed the whole plane. No coming back from that.
2) A death knight got turned into a wraith and then left of their own accord as a favor to the party, but warned us not to pursue, which we didn't out of respect (character went NPC).
3) A half-giant fighter decided after death to move on and not be resurrected, but managed to, through no fault of her own, be later reborn as a living god-child. (obviously npc at that point).
4) We've also had characters just retire and leave the party (character retired, player made another character)

So, even if true resurrection is available, there are always RP ways around its use. Remember that a soul has to want to come back.

[Psyren]

Plus, if death is permanent, expect many players to ramp up their optimization level so they won't likely die at all.

Or worse, to not spend time getting attached to their characters since they could be permadead at any moment, instead using barebones descriptions or randomized backstory generators so they don't get invested.

[lsfreak]

that's a strawman. it may be true in video games where it's possible for you to be killed every few seconds, but even in a meat grinder game, you'll probably only die once every other room or so.
I was actually thinking specifically about a game opposite that, where getting a game-over isn't easy (unless you're being very reckless), but if you do really **** up it might have cost you 60 hours of play. Ironman EU4/CK2, a handful of RPGs, and self-imposed limitations in several games where multiple safe files are used strictly in case of gamebreaking bugs.


I'm not denigrating that style of gameplay, I just don't know what kind of game OP is running. if there's a lot of RP involved, cycling through new characters all the time will be disruptive. if it's just a hack and slash, then my concerns are irrelevant.
If you claim strawman on my situation, I do for this as well. Never mentioned hack-and-slash and had in mind RP-heavy games, and certainly nothing about cycling new characters all the time. I maintain that having permadeath in games, especially RP-heavy ones, gives weight to choices that aren't there when you are allowed to res. Personally, despite many claims otherwise, my collection of anecdotes either have people becoming connected to their characters or not depending on the player's personality/attitude, rather than depending on whether deaths are permanent or not (the exception being games where death is so common that it happens every few sessions).

[ryu]

I think that coming back from the dead does cheapen the game, not because you can die whenever you want, but because you can't come up with a reason not to come back when you die; it cheapens the roleplay aspect of the game in that, by the time you're level twenty, and you want a new character, why would you want to die? When you're 25,000 gp away from not dying anytime soon, why is your character going to not come back?

Why on earth does your character have to die to move on to a new one? Last I checked that situation you just described is called wining. How do you follow that up? Retire followed by new character.

[Mystral]

It really depends on which kind of game you want to play. In most game worlds, finding a cleric of high enough level to cast raise dead (Level 9 or higher) is not that easy, there isn't one in every small town chapell. You might need to see the head priest of a major temple in a big city, and these guys are usually quite busy.

@Hostages: You have to remember that many people don't WANT to get raised. They have left the mortal plane behind, and if they were good people, they would live in eternal bliss. If they were in a lower plane, they might be to depressed and hopeless to answer the call of raise dead.

@Assasination: There are ways to kill someone in a way that only a resurrection, true resurrection or wish might bring them back, and good luck finding someone who can cast those. Best example would be to just take the corpse of the target with you in a bag of holding, burn it at a far off place and scatter the ashes in the wind.

[Rhyltran]

Why on earth does your character have to die to move on to a new one? Last I checked that situation you just described is called wining. How do you follow that up? Retire followed by new character.

I agree with this and sometimes that situation actually happens before level twenty. The last campaign I played ended at level fifteen. By the time we defeated the villain all side plots had been cleared up, there was no more loose ends, and it really was the end of the campaign. Could something have been made up on the spot? Yeah, it's possible, but I think that would have weakened the story. The conclusion ended without anyone asking, "Is that it?" so it was definitely a good point to stop. Death doesn't need to be the only reason for a new character to be rolled up. Sometimes you just win.

Anyway to stay on topic most of the people here posted numerous ways to get around resurrect but there is another method. Perhaps you can do it in a location where no one knows resurrect. You can also create a world where, as someone mentioned earlier, resurrect can be taboo. Maybe it's possible to revive someone but the stigma behind it isn't good. Maybe the people are superstitious and believe no matter how much the revived person resembles someone they know they're actually something else entirely.