Cleric Pondering

[Pex]

Clerics get two 5th level spell slots at 10th level. That is when a cleric can cast Glyph of Warding as a spell glyph in a 5th level slot and use Raise Dead as the spell. Depending on the conditions the cleric places on the glyph he can raise anyone, including himself, within 10 days from time of death given an intact body. Given a week of downtime of normal long rest mechanics he can have Glyphs of Raise Dead set up for each party member in a home base.

Going Tippyverse a bit a particular NPC can have this arrangement set up with his church. A BBEG could if he has a cleric lieutenant if not a cleric himself. PCs tend to ignore BBEG bodies after looting them. That adventure arc is over, so there is rarely the stereotypical roleplaying of burying bodies from the random encounters or so the party fought beforehand. Once the players figure out what's happening expect them to cremate the dead bad guys from then on. It would take a 15th level cleric to do a Glyph of Resurrection by using his 8th level slot for Glyph of Warding.

[Coretex]

Edited: to remove ignorance

Neat!

[No brains]

"When you cast this spell, you inscribe a glyph that harms other creatures"

I think it would be quite difficult to argue that Resurrection harms a creature.

Otherwise it is a neat idea.

Edit: That said... the spell description distinctly calls out summoning hostile creatures. One imagines that raising undead would count for this and therefore I think it is probably equally hard to argue that a PC is not a hostile creature (to his enemies). So who knows.

The spell has been errata'd. The spell glyph needn't be harmful. http://media.wizards.com/2017/dnd/downloads/PH-Errata.pdf

[Elric VIII]

This could be done well, but you would need to at least foreshadow something so that it doesn't become a "gotcha" moment. I once had a DM declare that someone's character fell ill because he didn't say he dried himself off when he went to camp in a cave after fighting on an arctic mountain. Some things that need to happen don't need to be explicitly said. I would think that many players assume body disposal is implied. So be careful here.

Also, make sure that the players don't destroy the body accidentally if this is a major plot point for you.


EDIT: One idea would be a scenario in which you defeat one of the BBEG's lieutenants and local law enforcement burn the body. When the players ask about it, have it be an old law or tradition that no one remembers why it exists.

[ZorroGames]

This could be done well, but you would need to at least foreshadow something so that it doesn't become a "gotcha" moment. I once had a DM declare that someone's character fell ill because he didn't say he dried himself off when he went to camp in a cave after fighting on an arctic mountain. Some things that need to happen don't need to be explicitly said. I would think that many players assume body disposal is implied. So be careful here.

Also, make sure that the players don't destroy the body accidentally if this is a major plot point for you.


EDIT: One idea would be a scenario in which you defeat one of the BBEG's lieutenants and local law enforcement burn the body. When the players ask about it, have it be an old law or tradition that no one remembers why it exists.

I really like the edit part! Must mention to DMs.

[ThePolarBear]

Clerics get two 5th level spell slots at 10th level. That is when a cleric can cast Glyph of Warding as a spell glyph in a 5th level slot and use Raise Dead as the spell.

Nope. Raise dead doesn't target a creature or an area.

[Pex]

Nope. Raise dead doesn't target a creature or an area.

Raise Dead targets a dead creature. Glyph of Warding doesn't care about the living state.

[Tanarii]

I would think that many players assume body disposal is implied. So be careful here.Really? My experience on this is PCs usually leave dead bodies lying around, unless they've got a specific reason not to. It takes a lot of time and effort to dispose of a body, and players aren't usually inclined to stop their PCs rampage through the adventuring site to deal with that.

Of course, if you're running an urban campaign or adventure and they have to worry about law enforcement, that might be considerably different.

Or specific creatures of course. Trolls & vampires tend to result in players taking some extra game time to specify how they deal with the body.

I mean yeah, it's always better to ask early on if you need to establish the PCs 'default' behavior about something. I mean, to pick a common example, that's why there's a tradition of establishing marching order. So you don't have "but so-and-so was in front" arguments.

[ThePolarBear]

Raise Dead targets a dead creature. Glyph of Warding doesn't care about the living state.

A dead creature is a body. An object. What was once a creature and now isn't. It targets a dead creature because otherwise you could bring "back to life" a cooking pot - it explains what you can target, not WHO you can target. A dead creature is an object, (https://www.sageadvice.eu/2015/05/14/corpse-creature-or-object/) even if in the text there's the word creature.

[Slipperychicken]

This doesn't seem much different from just having people raised the old-fashioned way; remains still need to be located, recovered intact, and brought to the spell glyph's location. Although the potential to "store" spell slots in this way seems like an innovate way to maximize an organization's utilization of its clerics. One could use spell glyphs in this way as a sort of emergency backup spells.

I'd call foul if you don't at least call for a religion check (arcana works too) after killing a boss, for the players to know that the potential for this tactic exists in-setting and is endorsed by the GM; enemies returning to life after being slain by the PCs is not even close to the default assumption, so that should be communicated. Also, clarifying what the players are doing with bodies, if anything, seems to me like a decent way to hedge against concerns of unfairness.

[Tanarii]

This doesn't seem much different from just having people raised the old-fashioned way; remains still need to be located, recovered intact, and brought to the spell glyph's location.Its most useful for PCs when they have the only level 9 Cleric who would work with them in reasonable proximity.

Ditto for BBeG.

Also ensures the Raise comes from someone with a specific alignment, meaning the recently dead knows what to expect. And if course they know to expect a raise is likely.


enemies returning to life after being slain by the PCs is not even close to the default assumption, so that should be communicated.I've only played in a few high enough level campaigns in my day for this to come into play, but in those I have IMX it's fairly common for slain villains to be recurring villains if the PCs don't take steps.

I'll admit though, often Pcs don't think about dead bodies until after something has made them have to think about it. Be it someone finding a body and becoming alert to their presence, someone regenerating back to life shortly after death, or being raised. Partially because they're not seeing the blood splattered scene that's in the game world. And partly because, yes, many of us are used to looted bodies effectively ceasing to exist, like some kind of video game. (As I said above, if it's a wilderness or dungeon adventuring site, often it doesn't matter, so they just aren't mentioned.)


Also, clarifying what the players are doing with bodies, if anything, seems to me like a decent way to hedge against concerns of unfairness.This seems like a good general rule for verisimilitude anyway. Unless the players can't handle the consequences of a realistic fantasy environment. Ie it's like having humanoids with children ... Dead bodies lying around and having to be buries are something they just don't want to deal with.

[Potato_Priest]

I have a running policy of decapitating all BBEG corpses to make it somewhat more difficult to resurrect them.

[Ganders]

Both of those spells are Bard spells as well (even without Magical Secrets). Which might make it a bit more unexpected, when there are no churches nearby.

[lunaticfringe]

I have a running policy of decapitating all BBEG corpses to make it somewhat more difficult to resurrect them.

As do my players. Bodies are dismembered, burned, sometimes disintegrated, sometimes animated if Necromancy is available. Not everything mostly just BBBEGs....and that is why they fail.

Muahahahaha! Fools! Tomorrow's BBEG was yesterday's mook you tied to that tree and never came back for. Also you probably killed his/her friends & family.

[Chugger]

This could be done well, but you would need to at least foreshadow something so that it doesn't become a "gotcha" moment. I once had a DM declare that someone's character fell ill because he didn't say he dried himself off when he went to camp in a cave after fighting on an arctic mountain. Some things that need to happen don't need to be explicitly said. I would think that many players assume body disposal is implied. So be careful here.

Also, make sure that the players don't destroy the body accidentally if this is a major plot point for you.


EDIT: One idea would be a scenario in which you defeat one of the BBEG's lieutenants and local law enforcement burn the body. When the players ask about it, have it be an old law or tradition that no one remembers why it exists.

(edit I'm not sure to whom this body-burning applies - dead guards (who may or may not be rezzable - I know DMs who say NPCs are dead and not zero-health but who do allow raise dead on NPCs) - or a dead player character cleric? If it's a player character...(I have a feelign I'm missing something in the above - so pls disregard if I'm just not getting it))

After a player has been this inventive, to set up a glyph so that if he dies the party can drag him back to his base and trigger it ... as a DM I'm going to be so nasty as to say "oh but the guards burned your body out of fear a necro would turn you into a skeleton" ... um no. I don't run that kind of campaign. And I leave the second I realize a DM might be that way. This kind of DM'ing is common and some players love it. Not all of us do - some of us abhor it. Just know that if you choose to do this as a DM you're going to find out the tolerance levels of your players, and this is something that can break a campaign or drive a good player out of your group. You may easily regret doing this. Threatening to do it - oh but wait, they still haven't set the body pile on fire yet, Guard Ted is off buying more oil - the firewood is too green - and giving them a chance to rescue the body - creates the heart-attack moment of omg I could be perma-dead but allows a chance to avert that - preserves your creds as a tough DM because you're hinting that this could happen, i.e. you're not the carebear DM - but without creating a permanently bad vibe with the players.

Now, if your players are cool with this sort of harsh arbitrary thing - what the heck - do it. I'm not telling anyone what to do - just saying you can expect consequences from certain actions as a DM, and that you'd better be analyzing your players' mindsets and abilities to handle this before you do it to them.

[Tanarii]

Muahahahaha! Fools! Tomorrow's BBEG was yesterday's mook you tied to that tree and never came back for. Also you probably killed his/her friends & family.Probably? Definitely.

Also, what kind of murderhero leaves a mook that's not an ally alive?

Edit:

After a player has been this inventive, to set up a glyph so that if he dies the party can drag him back to his base and trigger it ... as a DM I'm going to be so nasty as to say "oh but the guards burned your body out of fear a necro would turn you into a skeleton" ... um no.Pretty sure he was talking about an NPC, not a PC.

[lunaticfringe]

Probably? Definitely.

Also, what kind of murderhero leaves a mook that's not an ally alive?



I can say with complete honestly I have no idea at this point what will strike a sympathetic chord with my players. I just jump on the Opportunity.:xykon:

[Pex]

Muahahahaha! Fools! Tomorrow's BBEG was yesterday's mook you tied to that tree and never came back for. Also you probably killed his/her friends & family.

In one of my games, a goblin from Phandelin who survived to Round 2 because we all missed in our various attacks became a guide when we agreed to take out Big Boss. He was promoted to helper for the rest of the module after we did that. He survived the module and was promoted to NPC semi-party member. Because of circumstances in and out of game he was promoted to PC-run semi-party member and earned class levels as a Fighter-Battle Master. Proving his worth he was promoted to PC run full party member. Upon acquiring land as a reward the party agreed to set up a fort and become protectors of the local areas including Phandelin. However, for various in character reasons, the only one really interested in taking charge and be Responsible for the fort and constabulary to come is the goblin. He was getting rich from adventuring and now gets to be Boss. He still kills and plunder like he always did, but now he's called a Hero for it because he only does it against the Bad Guys. He finds being Nice has its rewards. He's the Lord of the Manor. He was invited into the Lords Alliance and is friend of the Harpers and Lord Neverwinter.

[lunaticfringe]

In one of my games, a goblin from Phandelin who survived to Round 2 because we all missed in our various attacks became a guide when we agreed to take out Big Boss. He was promoted to helper for the rest of the module after we did that. He survived the module and was promoted to NPC semi-party member. Because of circumstances in and out of game he was promoted to PC-run semi-party member and earned class levels as a Fighter-Battle Master. Proving his worth he was promoted to PC run full party member. Upon acquiring land as a reward the party agreed to set up a fort and become protectors of the local areas including Phandelin. However, for various in character reasons, the only one really interested in taking charge and be Responsible for the fort and constabulary to come is the goblin. He was getting rich from adventuring and now gets to be Boss. He still kills and plunder like he always did, but now he's called a Hero for it because he only does it against the Bad Guys. He finds being Nice has its rewards. He's the Lord of the Manor. He was invited into the Lords Alliance and is friend of the Harpers and Lord Neverwinter.

I'm all for furthering the Goblinoid cause. Especially in FR. The Chill & Lurkwood tribes in my version stopped an Utgard Horde and are quite a bit more accepted then in the lore. They are on quite good terms with Longsaddle. The Harpells are currently teaching the basics of Arcane theory to several promising goblinoid students & are studying Traditional tribal magics.

[Tanarii]

lol for sure players just love to subvert evil humanoids to be their guides, informers, and often pawns. Especially particularly servile Kobolds and Goblins.