New Rules for Death and Resurrection [PEACH]

[Dove]

As I was reading Winter Heart's essay (http://www.geocities.com/blackhatmatt/pulling_trigger.htm) on character death, it occured to me the usual D20 system of death and resurrection is deeply flawed, both from a role-playing and a mechanical point of view. Heroes and Villians can easily die randomly, for nothing worse than rolling poorly once or twice. On the other hand, nothing short of divine intervention can keep a Hero or Villian dead. This all seems very wrong to me.

I want a death and resurrection system to have the following features:

1. Death is never random. When it does occur, it is because the player and DM agree it needs to. The system should allow enough 'outs' that death never occurs through mere bad luck.

2. Death is serious. It should be possible, even likely, that if the players do not act to save their friends, they will die. Permanently. Full stop.

3. Death is certain. You can verify someone has died within minutes of a battle, and if they're dead, they're dead. Keep villians dead when you kill them. When heroes die, they really die.

4. Death is epic (in the literary sense). When someone dies, it should not be an "oops, you're dead" experience. It should occur the end of an epic fight on both sides for the player's life.

5. True resurrection is possible, even at low levels, but it is a rare and legendary experience. It is not expected, even for heroes of organizations with lots of resources. It is not impossible, even for paupers. It is the sort of thing that requires purpose, sacrifice, and true love. It is the sort of thing that winds up in bard songs.

6. The circumstances surrounding the death and resurrection mechanic should not be hokey in any way. Keeping an enemy dead should not require guarding their corpse for years, binding a soul in a gem and hiding it in an extradimensional space, and so on. Death is serious. Respect it.

With all of that in mind, here is an alternate mechanic, devised last night by LotharBot and myself. I plan to run this in my current campaign, and welcome feedback on the system in advance.

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Remove all of the usual resurrection effects from the game, and use only the spells below. Reincarnation, Revivify, Raise Dead, Resurrection, True Resurrection, and the related effects of Wish or Miracle (replace these with Revive, allowing a mass version only for Miracle).

Everything in the game that can kill you, still can. Falling to -10 hp does it, falling to 0 Con does it, failing a saving throw on a save-or-die does it. However, these experiences only slay the body.

Upon dying, a warrior feels as though she 'pops' out of her body. She observes the battlefield from above, hovering near where she died. The real world is gray and muted; unexpected sounds stand out, while others are muted (like being underwater), and the colors seem to fade away. At the same time, she views her life and the lives of her friends with the clarity of death, percieving glimpses of their true feelings and the significance of her life. Directly above, in the distance, is a bright light, which the soul feels drawn towards.

The soul lingers near the body for exactly 1 minute (10 rounds, same initiative count as death) before departing. During this window of time, it is possible to revive or even re-create the body, and draw the soul back into it (see Revive below). After the soul has departed, resurrection is impossible, except via Resurrection Quest.

The soul is a supernatural entity, and cannot be seen, targeted or blocked in any way. While the soul may be very interested in the happenings in the real world, and is able to concentrate on them and percieve them, she cannot wander farther than a few feet from her body.

[Update to close off a 'sploit] For most purposes, the body of a slain warrior functions as an object. However, the soul is allowed a will save against any effect which allows one, and she can refuse spells which require a willing target. Treat teleport effects as though the body were still alive.

Spells:

Lingering Soul
Necromancy
Level: Drd 2, Clr 2, Sor/Wiz 2, Pal 2
Components: V, S, M/DF
Casting Time: Standard action
Range: Touch
Target: One corpse of a living creature no older than 10 rounds (or older, if the soul still lingers nearby)
Duration: 10 min/level (measured from time of death)
Saving Throw: Will negates (harmless)
SR: No

For the duration of the spell, the soul percieves a glow emanating from its body, and is drawn toward it. The soul lingers nearby, extending the period during which the body can be revived.

This spell can be re-cast on the same corpse, but the duration is always measured from the original time of death, so re-casting it is useless unless the original has been dispelled or caster level has been increased.

If this spell is dispelled or its duration runs out, the soul once again percieves the light from above calling it, and will depart in 10 rounds (measured from the action which removed Lingering Soul).

If a creature's body has been mostly destroyed, this spell requires at least half of what remains. If a creature's body has been completely destroyed (as disintegrate), this spell cannot be cast.

Arcane material component: A small piece of white cloth.


Reincarnate
Transmutation
Level: Drd 4
Components: V, S, DF
Casting Time: Standard action
Range: Touch
Target: One corpse of a living creature no older than 10 rounds (or older, if the soul still lingers nearby) or see text.
Duration: 1 hour
Saving Throw: Will negates (harmless)
SR: No

Upon touching the corpse of the deceased, the soul is drawn into it. The druid then restores the corpse to life by creating it anew. Over the course of one hour, a new body is created for the soul. Use the usual reincarnation rules to determine the race and its effect on the abilities of the character, with the following exception: A creature who has been reincarnated more recently than one year ago has no chance of changing race. Instead, she is reincarnated as her current race, granting her a chance to fully appreciate the new form before moving on.

If the spell is dispelled or the new body is wounded before 1 hour elapses, the process is halted and the soul begins to depart. (This takes 10 rounds, measured from the action which halted the reincarnation).

Since the body has been created anew, the creature is restored to full hit points, any missing limbs or ability damage is restored, and any other effects tied to the old body are removed.

If a creature's body has been mostly destroyed, this spell requires at least half of what remains. If a creature's body has been completely destroyed (as disintegrate), this spell may be cast anywhere within close range (25 + 5/2 levels feet) of where the creature died.

There is no level loss, ability damage, or permanent penalty associated with being reincarnated.

Revive
Conjuration (healing)
Level: Clr 5, Pal 4
Components: V, S, DF
Casting Time: Standard action
Range: Touch
Target: One corpse of a living creature no older than 10 rounds (or older, if the soul still lingers nearby) or see text.
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: Will negates (harmless)
SR: No

Upon touching the corpse of the deceased, the soul is drawn into it, and experiences the sensation of having 'popped' back into its body before blacking out. The creature is at -1 hp, stable, and unconscious.

Minimal auxiliary healing occurs as necessary to restore life: Con score is raised to 1 (if it is lower), negative levels are reduced to 1 fewer than character level (if there were more), and so forth. Major damage to the torso and the head is repaired, and massive bleeding is staunched.

If the body had been mostly or completely destroyed, it is re-created, but any missing limbs remain missing until the target recieves a Regenerate spell.

If a creature's body has been mostly destroyed, this spell requires at least half of what remains. If a creature's body has been completely destroyed (as disintegrate), this spell may be cast anywhere within close range (25 + 5/2 levels feet) of where the creature died.

There is no level loss, ability damage, or permanent penalty associated with being revived.


Resurrection Quest
Universal
Level: Clr 9
Components: V, S, DF
Casting time: 10 minutes
Range: Touch
Target: Self or one willing living creature; intercession may be made for one soul who has been gone for no longer than 1 year/4 levels.
Duration: 30 minutes; see text.
Saving Throw: Yes (harmless, willing creatures only)
SR: Yes (harmless, willing creatures only)

This spell is cast upon an intercessor who pleads with a deity to restore a friend to life. When the spell is cast, the intercessor finds herself in the home of the deity, speaking face to face. She must state the reason she wishes to return the deceased to life, and demonstrate her commitment to doing so.

Deities are free to refuse the request, at their own discretion, at which point the spell simply ends. Each deity will use her own criteria for determining whether the cause and the intercessor are worthy, but none take resurrection lightly. Generally speaking, diplomacy does not help the request, nor does status or position. Strong desire to return, a good purpose to serve, or strong love between the parties generally does help. Evil deities may have their own criteria, may be unwilling to give up prized souls, or may view giving a resurrection quest as an opportunity to lay an unreasonably difficult and painful challenge on someone who will fail.

The deceased will be consulted, and if both she and the intercessor are judged worthy and dedicated enough to undertake the task, the pair is assigned a resurrection quest.

A resurrection quest can occur anywhere--within a plane specially constructed for the purpose, in another world, or even within the mind. The intercessor and deceased are assigned a difficult and epic task designed to test their resolve, their dedication to the cause, and their love for each other. This task is tailored specifically by the deity as a test of dedication. Some ideas are given below:

- Kord: Participate in a wrestling match and contests of strength with Kord himself, until you can win. Includes years of training and preparation, as well as always losing and never giving up.

- Moradin: Descend (on foot) to the center of the earth and return with a handful of the sand found there. Includes many years of difficult combat and navigation, cultivating allies and following hard roads.

- Ehlonna: Ascend to the top of an extremely high mountain, through rough thicket, and constant storms, enduring all the extremes and hardships of nature.

- Any evil: Endure vile torture and mind games in silence for the entire duration.

- Any good: Seek out 100 orphans (listed) and reunite each a relative.

- Any: Participate in an epic war. Cause one side to win.

The resurrection quest takes enough time to age each participant one full age category. (If this is a disparate amount, the deity manages the subjective flow of time such that each percieves the full amount as having passed). The participants spend the time working together to complete the quest.

Resurrection quests are always difficult, and very easy to fail. For many deities, wavering in resolve for but a moment is enough to terminate the spell. For others, achievement of the final goal is all that matters, and moments of despair are allowed so long as they are overcome. In any quest, should the deceased or the intercessor fail to give their utmost (remember--it's a test of resolve!), the spell ends in failure. A request which ends in failure still ages the intercessor and deceased by the amount of time which has apparently passed.

Time spent in a resurrection quest flows at a different pace than normal. Those twenty (or two hundred) years of questing are compressed into a half hour, yet the body of the intercessor visibly ages. While the quest is going on, the intercessor's body is comatose, but under the protection of the deity, and invulnerable to all harmful effects (deity's discretion).

If the spell is completed successfully, the deceased is restored to life, her body re-created near the intercessor. Both have aged one full age category (and are as far into the next one as they were into the last). Treat childhood as an age category for this purpose (infants age to adults). The penalties and benefits of aging apply.

At the deity's discretion, skills or scars gained during the resurrection quest may be retained, but in general the character gains no experience points or levels for having undertaken the quest. However, the memory of the quest remains as a major life event for both parties, and the bond formed between them is permanent. Both parties gain a permanent, non-magical +1 (morale) bonus to Aid Another checks made to help each other.

Venerable characters cannot be raised by this method. Venerable characters may intercede, but die within minutes of returning after completing the quest. Time spent dead does not count against your age; your age as the resurrection quest begins is your age at the time of death.

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So, let's review our goals:

1. Death is never random. When it does occur, it is because the player and DM agree it needs to. The system should allow enough 'outs' that death never occurs through mere bad luck.

This system allows innumerable outs for accidental death. You have a full ten rounds to raise someone, or get a level 2 spell on them which allows them to be raised later. As a DM, this is enough time for anything to happen. As a PC, this is plenty of time to try all lots of things.

On the other hand, 10 rounds isn't very long. If a story-moving sacrifice needs to be made, there are plenty of circumstances in which the allies reasonably couldn't get to the hero in one minute.

This places death completely under the measured control of the DM and players.

2. Death is serious. It should be possible, even likely, that if the players do not act to save their friends, they will die. Permanently. Full stop.

Check. If you die, really and truly, you are dead. Dead, dead, dead.

3. Death is certain. You can verify someone has died within minutes of a battle, and if they're dead, they're dead. Keep villians dead when you kill them. When heroes die, they really die.

Check. If you watch a villian die, and let their ten rounds expire, they're dead. They aren't coming back.

4. Death is epic (in the literary sense). When someone dies, it should not be an "oops, you're dead" experience. It should occur the end of an epic fight on both sides for the player's life.

Check. When either a player or a villian dies, it's at the end of a 10-round knock-down drag-out summon-all-your-allies, pull-out-all-the-stops kind of fight. Speaking as a player, 10 rounds is a long, long time. 10 rounds is an epic fight, even if you're level 1.

5. True resurrection is possible, even at low levels, but it is a rare and legendary experience. It is not expected, even for heroes of organizations with lots of resources. It is not impossible, even for paupers. It is the sort of thing that requires purpose, sacrifice, and true love. It is the sort of thing that winds up in bard songs.

Check. Resurrection Quest is rare, difficult, and epic. The intercessor literally sacrifices years of her life to gain back years of life for the deceased, and not just anyone can do it. Most villians are going to stay dead. So are most heroes.

6. The circumstances surrounding the death and resurrection mechanic should not be hokey in any way. Keeping an enemy dead should not require guarding their corpse for years, binding a soul in a gem and hiding it in an extradimensional space, and so on. Death is serious. Respect it.

The hokeyest we get is requiring the aggressors to guard the corpse for a minute--maybe two if they need to dispel Lingering Soul.

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I see immense RP potential in these rules. Here are some stories that are possible:

- Medevac missions; an ally has fallen on the battlefield, and you have one hour to revive or get him out of there.

- The reverse; after slaying a foe, you get 10 rounds of all hell breaking loose from his allies.

- TPCs are now just as easy as TPKs, assuming the PCs don't intentionally make will saves to resist reviving. Use overwhelming force, and then mop up the pieces.

- One party member undertakes a Ressurection Quest for another, resulting in a shared bond.

- The party may meet a pair on a resurrection quest, and attempt to aid or hinder them. Perhaps two villians are brothers, and after slaying one, the other undertakes a resurrection quest. Their quest is to defeat the party's resolve, in a dream world, to keep them dead.

- A character died as a child, and spent her entire childhood fighting hordes of demons alongside her father.

- After his wife dies in childbirth, a father undertakes a resurrection quest not once, but twice: once to save his wife, and once for his child.

- A venerable hero intentionally gives his life for a world-changing protege, spending decades instructing him during the resurrection quest.

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How's that sound?

- Dove

[TheLogman]

Beautiful and well-written, indeed something that is romantic and epic, certainly something for groups that are Role-Play Based. However, I do see a few minor problems:

1. What are the other party members going to do during those 5-20 years or so that 2 the party members, one of which is the healer (Cleric), are trekking around no-where land? Perhaps characters could bring allies, or the spell could be cast in ritual, 3 characters all working together to revive an ally.

2. Perhaps more Crunch on how exactly the Quest should work in terms of CR on various tasks, DC checks, ect. Although the Fluff is great, I personally would like a little more Crunch.

3. Although not a complaint, let it be known that Groups that don't appreciate Amazing Fluff/Literary Romance, or DM's that are boring and lazy will not appreciate this, as it has little (Mindless) Hack-n-Slash, and lots of Beautiful description, thought, and effort.

[LotharBot]

1. What are the other party members going to do during those 5-20 years or so that 2 the party members, one of which is the healer (Cleric), are trekking around no-where land? Perhaps characters could bring allies, or the spell could be cast in ritual, 3 characters all working together to revive an ally.

The duration of the spell is only 30 minutes. The 5-200 years (depending on race) take place within an alternate time flow. The party is only standing around waiting for 30 minutes (plus 10 minutes for casting), even though the spell's subjects experience many years of aging. If you've seen the Star Trek:TNG episode "The Inner Light", it's something like that, except that the person actually does age as a result of the process.

Also, it's not necessary for the cleric to be the one who goes on the quest. The cleric casts the spell and then touches the volunteer. Any person can volunteer to be the one who makes the intercession, even a low-level commoner, as long as they love the person being raised enough to be willing to give up a whole age category for them.


2. Perhaps more Crunch on how exactly the Quest should work in terms of CR on various tasks, DC checks, ect. Although the Fluff is great, I personally would like a little more Crunch.

The crunch is, essentially, that you cast the spell and both parties age by one age category over the course of 30 minutes (during which the rest of the party can rest, relax, etc.) and that both parties come out of it with a bonus to aid another for each other. That's all the crunch that's intended.

This system is not designed around actually playing out the ResQuest, except perhaps for RPing the initial request and then adding a bit of fluff. There are no CR's, EL's, or DC's to worry about. The difficult of the task is set according to the participants -- a lowly commoner can have his child raised, overcoming years of challenges appropriate for a lowly commoner and his child; an epic batman-wizard can also have a party member raised, overcoming years of appropriate challenges for two epic characters.

A DM could choose to use this as a framework for making an actual set of adventures, playing out a Resurrection Quest with multiple participants over the course of several sessions, if they so desired. But the way we'll play it is to gloss over the details of the journey, and simply have the two parties come out of it older and closer to each other.


3. Although not a complaint, let it be known that Groups that don't appreciate Amazing Fluff/Literary Romance, or DM's that are boring and lazy will not appreciate this, as it has little (Mindless) Hack-n-Slash, and lots of Beautiful description, thought, and effort.

True. And power gamers may or may not love this, depending on whether they abuse it to gain stat boosts for aging. But then, we didn't write it for them, we wrote it for us.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

One thing I did in a game I GM'd that, to this day, is still seen as the most kickass session ever by the players:

Paladin of Heironous was leading the huge fight against the BBEG, a litch. Mass combat against undead ensues, in a desecreated and unhallowed area. Cleric managed to counter the Desecration with a Concecrate, but couldn't do anything about the Unhallow.

I chunked a Disentegrate at him, figuring 'hey, it's a Paladin. Not only is his Fort save good, but he gets his two highest scores, Con and Cha, added to it. No way is he gonna fail the save, it'll just do a bit of damage and wake them up to the fact that if they keep playing with his pets, he's gonna screw them over'.

He rolled a nat 1 on his save.

The player sat there, staring at that D20, almost in tears. This is a character he had been playing for just about every weekend for the past three years, building up an awsome amount of RP. He was probably the only Paladin ever played who was actually well liked by his fellow party members.

So I took him aside for a bit of sidebar RP...

"You feel the pain of the spell hit you full in the chest, feel yourself falling over, and then... nothing. After a time, you realize that the darkness about you is fading into gloom, then into bright light as bright as day, then even brighter than that. You look up to see your diety, smiling warmly down at you.

Son, you have, in every way, upheld the Code of Chivalry, in thought, word, and deed. You upheld the spirit as well as the letter of the Code, and was a shining example to others to do the same. You have lived a righteous life, and now you can have your reward. Come, you have truely earned this rest."

The Paladin took a knee before his diety "My Leige, all I have done was because it needed doing, not for myself, but for others. But now others, perhaps the whole world, is in peril. Without my aid, I do not believe my friends can defeat this evil, which will spread it's influence far. I could not rest in peace knowing that my death furthered such a vile cause."

Heironous smiled warmly down at him "What you say is true, couragous warrior. However, not even I care to meddle in the affairs of life and death overmuch. Perhaps, then, a repreive. Slay your foe, then come back to your reward as you so rightly deserve."

DM to Player: You realize this means you won't even be able to get a True Resurection later on, right? You take this offer, and your spirit will refuse any such spell. This means writing up a new character completely.

Player: Yea, but we won't get access to a True Res for several levels yet, and this sounds like fun.

DM: Okay, just so long as you are forewarned. Here's the deal. On the beginning of the next turn, you get back up, immune to pretty much anything that could stop you, swinging effectively a Holy Avenger. Then you auto-die.

Player: Sweet!

We go back to the table. The players are all ready with their condolances...

DM: A thunderous booming voice shouts from above "Valor shall prevail over treachery!" The body of the Paladin reforms, glowing with an inner light which causes undead to shrink back from him.

Battle ensues once again, the players figuring I fudged the roll for him. The Paladin makes the killing blow on the litch.

DM: As the Paladin thrusts his sword into the body of the foul being, a brilliant flash of light emerges, sweeping through the field. No longer foul and decrepid, but a warmly lit grassy plain. The Paladin sinks his sword hilt-deep into the carcass, then into the dirt, pinning it there. He kneels down before the blade, then looks up into the shining sun.

That booming voice says once again "Come now, Hero, your deed is done, the battle won. Good has triumphed over evil this day. Now it is time for your reward.

Never again shall this plain be sullied with such evil as it has this day. For the spirit of this brave Paladin shall guard it to ensure none shall ever corrupt it. As his last wish was to defend the defenseless, that wish shall be granted."

The light emminating from the sword flashes a brilliant white so bright that none can look into it. When the light fades, there stands the Paladin's sword, burried in the dirt, on a small mound, in the middle of an idylic plain."

The players thought it was so cool that we ended the campaign right there. Since it was the end of the major story arc, we thought it fitting. It has been at least mentioned in nearly every game I ran after that, as a place most Paladins try to journey to so they may meditate at the pommel.

That, in my opinion, is what character death should be like. When the Player of the character who died says "Whoa... cool..." then it was truely a good death.

[Dove]

Wow. That right there? That is awesome sauce. I'll be happy if I grow up to be half the DM you apparently are.

[jagadaishio]

This is beautiful. Ever since the death of a main character in a random encounter, I've been looking for an elegant yet effective system of making character deaths less random and more meaningful. This does not disappoint in any way.

Bravo.

[Mando Knight]

One thing I did in a game I GM'd that, to this day, is still seen as the most kickass session ever by the players

And rightly so. That was a great piece of RPing. I also think that from what you've described to us, the Pally should be a model for all who uphold the ideals of Law and Good, Paladin or no. I could just hear the epic orchestral music playing in the background with the field bursting into bloom, and the Paladin giving up his spirit into eternal rest. It seems... beautiful.

[Szilard]

The lich battle sounded awesome!

[ShneekeyTheLost]

And rightly so. That was a great piece of RPing. I also think that from what you've described to us, the Pally should be a model for all who uphold the ideals of Law and Good, Paladin or no. I could just hear the epic orchestral music playing in the background with the field bursting into bloom, and the Paladin giving up his spirit into eternal rest. It seems... beautiful.

Yea, he was an awsome player. He did the whole 'truth and justice' thing without having a rod rammed up somewhere I can't mention on these forums. He played, consistantly, both lawful and good without being a jerk or 'holier than thou' about it. And the party was royally screwed without him. So rather than TPK, I invented this on the fly, and he caught on quickly.

That's the sort of thing I'll do for people who actually RP their characters rather than their points.

[Doberler]

Shneekey... I got goosebumps... no joke...

That was beautiful....

[HellFencer]

1. Death is never random. When it does occur, it is because the player and DM agree it needs to. The system should allow enough 'outs' that death never occurs through mere bad luck.
What about critical hits that drop a PC to below -10? And what about traps? I've seen many a player die from a door they, stupidly and brashly, didn't check before opening.


4. Death is epic (in the literary sense). When someone dies, it should not be an "oops, you're dead" experience. It should occur the end of an epic fight on both sides for the player's life.
I would like to point out that life is the most random of all things. This means that (a lot of) things can happen for no apparent reason.

Also, does it not defeat the purpose of non-hokeyness to be able to Revive a PC an innumerable amount of times with no ill repercussions, mechanically or otherwise? Take for example Jozan and Krusk, a cleric and barbarian respectively. Krusk has died nearly seven times in the month the two have been together, though each time Jozan brought him back to life. In one way, this is cool because you get to keep your character and say "Ah, yes, I cheated death!". In another way, it is extremely unsatisfying being able to shrug off such a tremendous and traumatic event because your friend was able to cast a mid-level spell on you.

Overall I like the idea of death being something that happens for a reason, but realistically it doesn't happen that way.

[LotharBot]

What about critical hits that drop a PC to below -10? And what about traps?

Both trigger the "out of body experience" described in the original post, and require the aforementioned level 5 spell in order to reverse them. If players are too brash and get themselves into trouble too often, they're likely to trigger a situation in which they *can't* be rescued within 10 rounds (for example, drowning in lava if the party cleric doesn't have the necessary spells to swim in after them, or falling into a VERY deep pit.)


I would like to point out that life is the most random of all things.

D&D isn't life. D&D is cooperative storytelling, in which the PC's are (usually) the protagonists. In that sense, death should be reserved for situations that advance the storyline in meaningful ways. If you happen to be telling a story about how fleeting life is, and you desire to have people die for random reasons and return from death for the low cost of 5000gp and a level, don't use this mechanic.


does it not defeat the purpose of non-hokeyness to be able to Revive a PC an innumerable amount of times with no ill repercussions, mechanically or otherwise? .... it is extremely unsatisfying being able to shrug off such a tremendous and traumatic event because your friend was able to cast a mid-level spell on you.

You already shrug off tremendous and traumatic events all the time just because your friend can cast low or mid-level spells. Hit so hard you're at -9 hp and on death's door? Doesn't matter, you're all better with a cure spell. If you happen to drop to -10 hp, you have the same situation except for the 5000gp and level loss, which in my experience just results in extra bookkeeping and doesn't add anything to the game. The "revive" system smooths the transition from -9hp to -10hp somewhat, doing away with unsatisfying bookkeeping, while making true death much more difficult to come back from.

I don't think it's hokey at all. When you're in the process of dying, there's a short period of time in which it can be reversed, after which point it becomes an epic task to bring someone back. It's a lot like modern medical care -- once your heart stops, the doctors still have a couple minutes to work before you're truly gone, but if they don't get on it right away, they won't have time to save you. With access to magic, you can be treated for even more substantial wounds (loss of limbs, etc. via regenerate) but there's still a very short window of time during which you can be saved.

And this definitely eliminates the hokey "when we kill the boss, let's make sure we cast trap the soul and then hide the soul-gem in an extradimensional space so his buddies don't True Resurrect him" dynamic that you have in the current game (since, honestly, what high-level creature *wouldn't* have a true resurrection pact with someone else?) The current mechanic requires you to jump through hoops after you've killed someone. In this mechanic, if you can keep someone from receiving medical attention for just a little while after they go down, you don't have to worry about seeing them again.

[HellFencer]

I understand the want to romanticize death and heroism, and I applaud that you have a group that likes using these rules. I would love to try them out, but I usually run with more "realistic" valued groups. Basically, even though there's plenty of magic around, logic is still more important, it would seem.

My point here in all this is: Krusk springs a trap (because Lidda didn't see it) and a scythe lops his head off. Jozan sighs and casts Revive again. Krusk's very essence and being "pops" out of his body for a few moments (enough to contemplate being dead) and is then just drawn back in. Jozan waggles his finger at the barbarian and the trio continue on.

Does the above situation not seem just a bit odd? It just reminds me of when you drop a quarter into the arcade machine - you only get to keep going for as long as you don't die. If you run out of quarters (or Revives), you have to walk away from the machine and start over later (with a new character).

I would like to point out that I am by no means saying the current death system is perfect. Far from it. I hate that you lose a level, but it does make sense due to soul-trauma. If you don't fear death (even as stupid as EXP penalties are), you won't try as hard to avoid it.

Note on Revive / Lingering Soul: You should probably avoid letting this spells be put into wands / staves / items of any kind, or else you'll never kill the party. Just my two cents.

[Mewtarthio]

Why do these allow Spell Resistance? Corpses generally don't get SR, and if they did, the dead person would be in trouble.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Note on Revive / Lingering Soul: You should probably avoid letting this spells be put into wands / staves / items of any kind, or else you'll never kill the party. Just my two cents.

Yes, because every GM should be concerned primarily with being able to kill the party...:smallconfused:

[LotharBot]

Krusk springs a trap... Jozan sighs and casts Revive again... Does the above situation not seem just a bit odd?

In a world with magic, any mechanic will seem a bit odd. Magic does things that medical technology can't. I don't see this as any more odd than any other mechanic -- if it was Krusk's arm rather than his head, we could be having the same discussion about Regenerate; if Krusk was at -8 hp instead of dead, we could say the same about the Cure spells.

This requires less bookkeeping than the previous line of spells, which perhaps could lead to sloppy play and "not fearing death" -- but if you find that happening with your group, modify the mechanic accordingly. That's the beauty of D&D and the beauty of homebrew -- you can change things you don't like. My group doesn't like the paperwork that comes with level loss (as Jeremy says, "it feels like doing taxes!") so I won't put level loss into the game without REALLY good reason.

In the spirit of "changing things you don't like", if you don't like the spells as presented because they don't have costs associated, here are some costs you could choose to add:

- level loss (if the paperwork doesn't drive you nuts)
- loss of XP, but not necessarily enough to lose a level
- permanent CON loss
- temporary CON penalty (say, -4 CON that heals at a rate of 1/day)
- expensive material components
- some sort of status effect for the rest of the day (dazed, penalty to saves on fear, etc.)

Rather than just objecting that you don't like the mechanic, you can always present possible modifications like these.


You should probably avoid letting this spells be put into wands / staves / items of any kind, or else you'll never kill the party.

One could say the same for Raise Dead and similar. That's the DM's call, but I have no problem making these things available.

In some ways, this makes it easier to kill the party, or at least pieces of it. You just have to change your methods from "make them run out of healing spells or hit them with save-or-dies" to "keep them from reaching the body for 10 full rounds after someone drops". When you drop someone, grab the body and run, or toss it off a cliff, or stick it inside a prismatic sphere. Or just have such a powerful group of enemies that there's no way you can survive long enough to revive your ally. Or "divide and conquer" -- get one party member away from the rest of the party, kill him, and make sure they don't realize it until the minute is up. Kills, even TPK's, are still possible under this mechanic -- the DM just has to know the way this mechanic behaves, and not rely on tactics that work better under the other mechanic.


Why do these allow Spell Resistance? Corpses generally don't get SR, and if they did, the dead person would be in trouble.

As written in the blue text update to the OP, we've treated a corpse whose soul hasn't left as an object for most purposes, but have allowed the soul will saves and SR against the sort of effects we think it makes sense for a soul to be able to refuse.

These spells function much like the Cure line of spells. In general, you'll forgo SR and your saves... but you may choose NOT to allow the evil lich to revive you, just as one example.

[Dove]

Note on Revive / Lingering Soul: You should probably avoid letting this spells be put into wands / staves / items of any kind, or else you'll never kill the party. Just my two cents.
Yes, because every GM should be concerned primarily with being able to kill the party...:smallconfused:

QFT. Also, I think Shneekey wins the thread by now.

Yes, this mechanic moves the line for what truly functions as "dead". Having your body completely vaporized is now a mortal wound, not as death in the traditional sense. (They have some extremely fine medical technology in this universe.) So basically, you used to have a 10 hp buffer between "mostly dead" and "all dead". Now you have a 10 round buffer.



Why do these allow Spell Resistance? Corpses generally don't get SR, and if they did, the dead person would be in trouble.

As written in the blue text update to the OP, we've treated a corpse whose soul hasn't left as an object for most purposes, but have allowed the soul will saves and SR against the sort of effects we think it makes sense for a soul to be able to refuse.

These spells function much like the Cure line of spells. In general, you'll forgo SR and your saves... but you may choose NOT to allow the evil lich to revive you, just as one example.

Yeah. Well, actually three reasons. The first one's fluff: It's a magical effect, not an effect that rearranges the mundane world. It should allow SR, however infrequently that's invoked. Lots of spells are like that. The SR is usually not applied, but it's there just in case there's some perverse situation in which you don't want Endure Elements cast on you. If and a bad guy tries to do it, and you have SR, you can use it.

Second reason is a related crunch: lots of other effects key on the presence or absence of SR. Spell immunity does. Some rulings about AMFs do (though not in my game--they suppress anything with a duration). Some spell-based monsters do weird things based on an absence of SR. Basically, a spell which allows SR is "normal". A spell which doesn't takes a lot more thought to add to the game--you don't want it to turn into a seed for something perverse.

But the main reason is that I want the soul to have some say in magical effects that apply to it. Basically, there are all sorts of weird things you can do to objects that you can't do to players. Teleport Object comes to mind, or even just plain Teleport. If you treat the corpse like a true object, some very hokey things become tactically correct. So we'll treat it like a player for the purpose of being able to allow/refuse spells, apply SR, and consent to spells which require a willing target. I think that gets rid of most of the problem.

Also, I can think of circumstances in which a player would want to refuse a hostile revive. In my current campaign, my party faces psionic enemies with access to Mind Probe--basically, if you get captured, they know everything you know, and there's nothing you can do about it. At the same time, the party is usually privy to some pretty juicy world-shaking secrets. The bad guys have a keen interest in capturing and interrogating the PCs. A PC who falls in battle, away from his party, very well might choose to die rather than be captured, especially if his capture would result in the enemy learning Frodo was at Mount Doom with the One Ring.

'Course, that's a PC choice; some might accept the revive and let the good guys take their lumps. But I at least want to give players the option.

[Mewtarthio]

The trouble with SR is that it's assumed to be always active. You have to actively concentrate (with a standard action each round) on suppressing SR if you want spells to affect you normally.

...Then again, I suppose it doesn't matter, provided souls are given the ability to take standard actions to suppress SR.

[Dove]

Huh. I've never played it that way. With the harmless spells, I've always treated it as something you can just forgo, like with the saves.

[Edit: A brief review of the rules indicates that you are, indeed, correct. Most sucky. I don't think I'll be in a hurry to adopt that rule any time soon. Nonetheless, I'll remove the SR entry from the spells in the OP, out of deference to the folks who play by the book. It wasn't making as much sense to me as the saves, anyway.]

[The_Snark]

The duration of the spell is only 30 minutes. The 5-200 years (depending on race) take place within an alternate time flow. The party is only standing around waiting for 30 minutes (plus 10 minutes for casting), even though the spell's subjects experience many years of aging. If you've seen the Star Trek:TNG episode "The Inner Light", it's something like that, except that the person actually does age as a result of the process.

I do like the mechanic, but I think Logman may have been getting at something different, which is—what are the rest of your players going to be doing while those two players (or one player and an NPC) go off on a very lengthy quest? It's tricky. I suppose you could simply speed through the quest, but that robs it of some of the epic feel. On the other hand, you definitely don't want to leave the rest of your players doing nothing for one or more sessions.

Since you're using this in your campaign, I imagine you've thought about how to handle this; do you just have your players inform you beforehand when they want to use the spell, so that you can arrange two- or three-person sessions in between the normal ones to have that adventure? It's not a perfect system, because it's only a half-hour of in-game time and so occasions might arise where the players need to revive someone without warning, before the end of a session, but it's all I can think of. What are your thoughts on that?

[LotharBot]

what are the rest of your players going to be doing while those two players (or one player and an NPC) go off on a very lengthy quest?


This system is not designed around actually playing out the ResQuest

At most, I expect to spend a couple minutes of player/deity dialog, a minute or two describing what the quest was, and 30 seconds describing the aging process to the outside observers. Then we move on. In other words, in my game, it's just a quick bit of fluff.

If some other DM (or a group of players) decided they wanted to actually play out the quest, they'd need to either alter the mechanic, or set up alternate sessions with just the player(s) in question.

[Duke Malagigi]

I have three questions for you Dove, on Resurrection Quest. One, if the recipient was an adult female, would she be rendered incapable of having children because she's now middle aged? Two, how could any god that grants this spell be considered non-Evil? This is the kind of spell designed as a sick joke to torment those who would need it most. I wouldn't fault any character who wanted to go up to this deity, kill him or her and take it's place so crap like this won't happen any more. Third, would any god really want to do this to their worshipers? Even the Evilly aligned gods aren't this stupid. They wouldn't want legions of their disgruntled ex-worshipers coming to kill them.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

I have three questions for you Dove, on Resurrection Quest. One, if the recipient was an adult female, would she be rendered incapable of having children because she's now middle aged? Two, how could any god that grants this spell be considered non-Evil? This is the kind of spell designed as a sick joke to torment those who would need it most. I wouldn't fault any character who wanted to go up to this deity, kill him or her and take it's place so crap like this won't happen any more. Third, would any god really want to do this to their worshipers? Even the Evilly aligned gods aren't this stupid. They wouldn't want legions of their disgruntled ex-worshipers coming to kill them.

Why would they be pissed? Aging a few years >> lost levels

[Roderick_BR]

I like the idea of ressurrection demanding a quest of some sort. It should be easier than just casting a spell and bringing a character back.
I already rise the level of some spells. Raise Dead is a 6th level spell, Ressurection is 9th, and True Ressurection is epic. Then I add a spell from Masters of the Wild, that brings a character back to life if he died only a few rounds ago (whose name escapes me now), as a 3rd level spell.
For death rules, I heard that the ones in Star Wars Saga are very good. Delay a bit death, and make some spells to bring characters from the brink of death, instead of just using healing to stop them from reaching -10.

And for ShneekeyTheLost: That tale must be the most awesome game I heard in... as far as I can remember. For a player, the greatest reward is to have one of his character become part of the setting's story :smallbiggrin:

Edit: Found the name of the spell: Last Breath, Druid 4. It's on Complete Divine. Make it a Cleric 3/Druid 3 spell, and increase the limiting time from 1 round to 1 turn, or 1 round/caster level, and you have a passable replacement for raise dead that the players can use at lower levels, and you can push up the level of the others spells.
Last Breath: Cleric 3/Druid 3
Raise Dead: Cleric 6
Resurrection: Cleric 9
True Resurrection: Epic level cleric.

[Dove]

I have three questions for you Dove, on Resurrection Quest. One, if the recipient was an adult female, would she be rendered incapable of having children because she's now middle aged?

I suppose. I'm not sure that's true across all races this might apply to, or that it would apply even to every human equally.


Two, how could any god that grants this spell be considered non-Evil? This is the kind of spell designed as a sick joke to torment those who would need it most. I wouldn't fault any character who wanted to go up to this deity, kill him or her and take it's place so crap like this won't happen any more.

Deities have agendas bigger than just helping out mortals. In particular, they are usually bound not to interfere in mortal affairs too much, which in my view includes not raising the dead. You need to prove to them that you're worth making an exception to the rule.

Appealing to a higher power and being assigned a quest to prove your worthiness is quite a tried and true theme in fantasy (and other) literature. It's not evil at all--if anything, it's a gift that you have an opportunity to prove your worthiness. Normally, people don't come back from the dead at all, their part played.


Third, would any god really want to do this to their worshipers? Even the Evilly aligned gods aren't this stupid. They wouldn't want legions of their disgruntled ex-worshipers coming to kill them.

Not sure why you're so angry. If you don't want to do it, don't cast the spell. Obviously the folks who went on the quest throught it was worth it . . .

[Duke Malagigi]

I suppose. I'm not sure that's true across all races this might apply to, or that it would apply even to every human equally.

But the risk of it is still too high as far as I'm concerned. Would Ehlonna wont to risk leaving any of her followers barren? I don't think so. Lillith or Lolth on the other hand wouldn't bat an eye at it.

[QUOTE=Dove;3966297]Appealing to a higher power and being assigned a quest to prove your worthiness is quite a tried and true theme in fantasy (and other) literature. It's not evil at all--if anything, it's a gift that you have an opportunity to prove your worthiness. Normally, people don't come back from the dead at all, their part played.

Not sure why you're so angry. If you don't want to do it, don't cast the spell. Obviously the folks who went on the quest throught it was worth it . . .

The quest part isn't the problem. The rapid aging is what bothers me. I don't see how any truly Good aligned deity can justify it. Some other hardship would be suitable for non-Evil gods. Evil gods should only afflict the aging. To the Good gods and Cosmic Entities, their purpose is to serve the non-divine/Cosmic beings (this includes most fey and dragons). To Evil gods, it's either the exact opposite or serving the great masses of mortals and lesser immortals by tormenting the few or all of them.

[Dove]

I suppose. I'm not sure that's true across all races this might apply to, or that it would apply even to every human equally.

But the risk of it is still too high as far as I'm concerned. Would Ehlonna wont to risk leaving any of her followers barren? I don't think so. Lillith or Lolth on the other hand wouldn't bat an eye at it.

Well, it's supposed to be a sacrifice. If you miss a whole age category, there are a lot of things in life you aren't going to be able to do. That's true for adventurers in general; if you spend 20 years chasing dragons, living as an ascetic in a monastery, or leading armies . . . you probably aren't going to have time to have a family. Hardly out of the ordinary for deities to ask sacrifice of their worshippers--indeed, long quests with high costs are par for the course. "Mortal, I place on you the burden of ridding the world of the great wyrm! Climb to the top of the highest mountain in the world" . . . and you may well die in the process. Or turn into stone for a thousand years. Or lose a friend. Or turn into a goblin. Yes, that's what's being asked. That's why it's worth singing about.

Sacrifice is not evil. On the contrary, asking and giving sacrificially are the height of nobility. It's not like deities are free to raise whoever they like. Things are worth what you pay for them; life costs life. At a very fundamental level, the intercessor is giving up a good chunk of her life for the deceased. That's what makes it tragic and romantic. That's what makes it reasonable (from a deity's POV) to return the deceased to life.

Realize: this spell is supposed to be epic and rare. If you don't want to give up 20 years of your life, you probably shouldn't be casting it. That's the price you're going to pay, and it is only during the process of paying it that you find out whether you were really willing. If it daunts you, don't try; you'll likely fail. The cost is both high and real, to both parties. The dead are leaving paradise for a difficult quest and more mortal torment; the intercessors are giving up a major piece of their part of history. Whatever you're trying to achieve, it better be something incredible. You better be able to look back on the three decades of fighting goblins in the rain it took to get there and say, "that was well worth it." If you're not sure about that, let the dead rest and let others play their part in the great narrative.

Understand that in normal D&D, death is common and resurrection is the rule. This system is designed so that death is rare, but staying dead is the rule. Resurrection is the exception.

(I'll add that, if someone really wanted to have children, I'd put concieving after menopause under the "reasonable" uses for Miracle or even Wish. It certainly has precedent in mythology, and is nowhere near as powerful as some of the other uses of the spells. It could even make a good story: romantically involved adventurers, one dies and the other goes on a quest; they marry and as a final miracle, they're granted a single child together.)


The quest part isn't the problem. The rapid aging is what bothers me. I don't see how any truly Good aligned deity can justify it. Some other hardship would be suitable for non-Evil gods. Evil gods should only afflict the aging. To the Good gods and Cosmic Entities, their purpose is to serve the non-divine/Cosmic beings (this includes most fey and dragons). To Evil gods, it's either the exact opposite or serving the great masses of mortals and lesser immortals by tormenting the few or all of them.

Oh, I see how it is--you, since you're a PC, so you think the world revolves around YOU! Let me tell you somethin', kid . . . ;)

I think you have it exactly backwards. It is mortals who serve deities, not the other way around. Deities may form alliances with mortals, may take an interest in mortal affairs, and may even take some mortals under their care and protection. But they have their own rules and agendas. In most worlds, not overly interfering in mortal affairs is high on the list of their own rules.

The aging is not an arbitrary curse imposed by the deity. It's an essential part of the resurrection process. The deity may have control of the quest, but not the cost. The intercessor is not posting bail; he's donating a kidney. (Heck, a venerable character who tries this is donating his only kidney . . .) A truly epic demonstration of love and sacrifice is needed to allow for an exception to the usual rules of death and life, and the appropriate cost for life is life--not gold or experience. Of course it takes decades. Of course it's hard. Of course it's life-changing. When you get right down to it, the cost is on the same order as having and raising a child.

Guess what? It should be.


----------

Another thought: I read a story once by Isak Dinesen. I don't remember the title, and I'm going to spoil it for you anyway, but it's still worth reading. The story is about a lord, whose son had died of disease, and a peasant woman, whose son was imprisoned. The lord offers the woman the chance to free her son, if she does a reasonably impossible physical task. She does, and it kills her, but her son goes free.

Toward the end of the story, as she's finishing the task, someone comes up to the lord and argues with him. "She's done enough," the argument goes, "let the boy free already." The lord replies that the offer is as it is, and no lesser price will be paid. Obviously she thinks it's worth it, and so does he. His friend thinks he's being unfair to her, but in actuality he envies her: He wishes he had been given the chance to die to save his son.

Yeah. It's like that.

[Duke Malagigi]

First, the lord you mentioned, in my opinion sounds irredeemably Evil. He should be decapitated and have his head stuck on a pike as a warning to all future nobles. Homicial Lord Winder, Mad Lord Snapcase and Psychotic Lord Hargon of Quirm would approve. I still think that the aging portion of the spell is needlessly cruel and wicked on that god's part. As for my thoughts on god aligned gods and paladins, see below.

"The superior man is...eyes for the blind, strength for the weak, and a shield for the defenseless. He stands erect by bending above the fallen. He rises by lifting others."

Robert Ingersoll, speech, Republican Convention, 1876

[Mewtarthio]

I still think that the aging portion of the spell is needlessly cruel and wicked on that god's part.

From a metagame perspective, this limits the amount of resurrections done overall. From a flavor perspective, we're talking about gods. I don't think it's fair to demand everything from them. It would be like going to the White House and demanding that the President of the United States help you out of a legal bind, then calling him "Evil" when he doesn't pay attention to you. The spell itself is ridiculously powerful: Not many mortals get an actual audience with a god, and the gods can't go resurrecting mortals left and right. The "age category" thing is probably something that's been universally agreed-upon in some sort of binding divine treaty: Every god wants the opportunity to raise select worshippers, but no god wants death to be a revolving door, so they've all agreed that if a mortal's important enough for someone to give up a quarter of his lifespan to save them, then they get resurrected.

-----

Two notes:

1) How does resurrection quest work with creatures that don't grow weaker and die with age? Take, for instance, creatures with no maximum age that are in their greatest defined category. Do they simply advance to the next category and die as normal, having spent what is practically an eternity working to raise their comrade, or are they rejected outright? What about creatures that get stronger with age, like dragons?

2) Why is their no downside to reincarnation? As of right now, it seems like you could easily play "reincarnate roulette," repeatedly comitting suicide and being reincarnated until you get a body you like.

[Dove]

Duke Malagigi, I think we may simply have to agree to disagree. Where I see mercy and an invitation to nobleness, you see cruelty. Bear in mind that the aging occurs in another timestream, where the experiences and passing of time are real. The quest is much harder than the aging--which is just a byproduct--and is a truer measure of a deity's moral nature.

The 'acceleration' is actually a mercy; a fairer cost would be to make the quest actually take that long in real-time. But this is a bow to playability, and an allowance for heroes to come back and affect the world as they left it. The aging is also actually a mercy; a fairer price for bringing someone back from the dead would be to die yourself.

We seem to have real-life philosophical disagreements about what it means for an action to be good. I see both the lord in the above story and the deity in this mechanic as good, while you see them as evil enough to warrant graphic calls for their violent end. That's interesting.

These are actually nice philosophical thought experiments, because they bring two different moral philosopies into sharp disagreement: virtue ethics and deontology. Deontology holds that actions are good/evil in and of themselves, while virtue ethics holds that the development of character and virtue is all that matters, and actions are meaningless.

For the deontologist, the taking of life (or time alive) is inherently good or evil. Suppose to your moral taste, it's evil. Oversimplifying the moral position, any time life is taken in such a way--without some overriding counterbalancing good--that's evil. So Resurrection Quest is always evil.

For the virtue ethicist, the same action can be good or evil--it depends on why you do it. A deity who permits a Resurrection Quest as a reprieve for the harsh laws of death, out of mercy for the friends and a desire to spur them to noble deeds is good. A deity who permits a Resurrection Quest hoping for failure and looking forward to the years of torment the friends undergo is evil. It could even be the same quest; the only difference is the motive.

You might guess I fall into the latter camp . . . I surmise you fall into the former. That's just a little bit beyond the scope of a D&D mechanic.

But regaurding servant leadership, deities serving mortals, and so forth, I shall leave you with a passage from Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, which I believe captures some of what servant leadership is . . . and what it is not.



[The setting: Merry has been wounded in battle with a ringwraith, and Aragorn is healing him, and others who have suffered the same fate.]

Gandalf and Pippin came to Merry's room, and there they found Aragorn standing by the bed. 'Poor old Merry!' cried Pippin, and he ran to the bedside, for it seemed to him that his friend looked worse, and a greyness was in his face, as if a weight of years and sorrow lay on him; and suddenly a fear siezed Pippin that Merry would die.

"Do not be afraid," said Aragorn. "I came in time, and I have called him back. He is weary now, and grieved, and he has taken a hurt like the Lady Eowyn, daring to smite that deadly thing. But these evils can be amended, so strong and gay a spirit is in him. His grief he will not forget; but it will not darken his heart, it will teach him wisdom."

Then Aragorn laid his hand on Merry's head, and passing his hand gently through the brown curls, he touched the eyelids, and called him by name. And when the fragrance of athelas stole through the room, like the scent of orchards, and of heather in the sunshine full of bees, suddenly Merry awoke, and he said, "I am hungry. What is the time?"

"Past supper-time now," said Pippin; "through I daresay I could bring you something, if they will let me."

"They will indeed," said Gandalf, "And anything else that this Rider of Rohan may desire, if it can be found in Minas Tirith, where his name is held in honor."

"Good!" said Merry. "They I would like supper first, and after that a pipe." At that his face clouded. "No, not a pipe. I don't think I'll smoke again."

"Why not?" said Pippin.

"Well," answered Merry slowly, "He is dead. It has brought it all back to me. He said he was sorry he had never had a chance of talking herb-lore with me. Almost the last thing he ever said. I shan't ever be able to smoke again without thinking of that day, Pippin, when he rode up to Isengard and was so polite."

"Smoke then, and think of him!" said Aragorn. "For he was a gentle heart and a great king and kept his oaths; and he rose out of the shadows to a last fair morning. Though your service to him was brief, it should be a memory glad and honourable to the end of your days."

Merry smiled. "Well then," he said, "if Strider will provide what is needed, I will smoke and think. I had some of Saruman's best in my pack, but what became of it in the battle, I am sure I don't know."

"Master Meriadoc," said Aragorn, "if you think that I have passed through the mountains and the realm of Gondor with fire and sword to bring herbs to a careless soldier who throws away his gear, you are mistaken. If your pack has not been found, then you must send for the herbmaster of this House. And he will tell you that he did not know that the herb you desire had any virtues, but that it is called westmanseed by the vulgar and galenas by the noble and other names in other tongues more learned, and after adding a few half-forgotten rhymes that he does not understand, he will regretfully inform you that there is none in the House, and he will leave you to reflect on the history of tongues. And so now must I. For I have not slept in such a bed as this, since I rode from Dunharrow, nor eaten since the dark before dawn."

Merry siezed his hand and kissed it. "I am frightfuly sorry," he said. "Go at once! Ever since that night at Bree we have been a nuisance to you. But it is the way of my people to use light words at such times and say less than they mean. We fear to say too much. It robs us of the right words when a jest is out of place."

"I know that well, or I would not deal with you in the same way," said Aragorn. "May the Shire live forever unwithered!" And kissing Merry, he went out, and Gandalf went with him.


Two sides to servant leadership: servanthood and sovereignty. Aragorn evidences servanthood in taking care of so humble a soldier, in ignoring his own needs for Merry's, and demonstrating love & humility, ignoring his position. Yet Aragorn evidences sovereignty in setting his own agenda, and reminding Merry of his position and obligations.

Servanthood without sovereignty is naive, and collapses into a leader who can be pushed around and who stands for nothing. It is the mother who wants to be her daughter's friend and peer, the manager who cannot fire an incompetent employee, the lead engineer who cannot tell the junior engineer that his work sucks (do it again), the god who gives his servants absolutely anything they ask without limit.

And sovereignty without servanthood is, of course, tyranny.

The leader is bound to uphold his broader obligations, to demand sacrifice (from himself most, but also from his subordinates) to achieve his vision. The lord in my story above is bound to uphold the law, while the deity administering the resurrection quest is bound to uphold the law that death is permanent, and to allow each mortal to play his part (and only his part). It is wholly within the power of the leader to exercise mercy--yet mercy may justly have its price in sincerity, even sincerity evidenced through sacrifice.

Our expectation is usually to see things evaluated legally, on a case-by-case basis. You fill out a resurrection application, and if the stakes are high enough, the cause worthy enough, and so forth, you get the resurrection. The rest of you, thanks for applying. Some folks might want to do it this way.

But this isn't the only right way to do it. I like something about the core criteria being not only the circumstances, but also love and sacrifice. A good deity may be well within her rights to choose these as core criteria, and demand that they be evidenced (sacrifice on paper isn't real). Something about that really appeals to me--it's hard to put a finger on why, but it seems dramatic, epic, appropriate for fantasy. It probably has something to do with my mythology and moral background, and may not resonate as well with other folks, but . . . well, I like it a lot. Intriguing again--the very thing that you criticize as cruel I find extremely right.

[Dove]

I like the idea of ressurrection demanding a quest of some sort. It should be easier than just casting a spell and bringing a character back.
I already rise the level of some spells. Raise Dead is a 6th level spell, Ressurection is 9th, and True Ressurection is epic. Then I add a spell from Masters of the Wild, that brings a character back to life if he died only a few rounds ago (whose name escapes me now), as a 3rd level spell.

...

Edit: Found the name of the spell: Last Breath, Druid 4. It's on Complete Divine. Make it a Cleric 3/Druid 3 spell, and increase the limiting time from 1 round to 1 turn, or 1 round/caster level, and you have a passable replacement for raise dead that the players can use at lower levels, and you can push up the level of the others spells.

A very similar strategy. My Revive is based on Revivify from Spell Compendium, and while I don't have Complete Divine, it appears very similar Last Breath. It's basically the same spell, but with some tweaks to the casting window and target to compensate for the more severe consequences of death.

It's funny. I play a cleric in a campaign I'm in right now, and I originally rejected Revivify as far too cheap for my use. It reduces death to a no-cost affair, which I felt was insane. So it's funny that when I went to rewrite the death rules, I embraced Revivify as the right mechanic, and rejected the usual resurrection spells as too cheap!



1) How does resurrection quest work with creatures that don't grow weaker and die with age? Take, for instance, creatures with no maximum age that are in their greatest defined category. Do they simply advance to the next category and die as normal, having spent what is practically an eternity working to raise their comrade, or are they rejected outright? What about creatures that get stronger with age, like dragons?

Well, the mechanic is ill-suited for outsiders or immortals. I wouldn't allow them to be resurrected at all. If they can be, it'll be under some other arrangement with their respective deities. Resurrection Quest doesn't apply.

Dragons are a special case. Even PCs get stronger in some ways as they age, and I don't view that as a bad outcome of this spell. I think I'd let it work on dragons under the rules as written--between the "coming back stronger" thing and the "way more age categories than you" thing, this is simply a case of Dragons Are Better Than You. I think I'm okay with that. Does that mean death rewards dragons? I guess, in some ways. Bahamut still has to approve the reason, and might make the resurrection quests themselves harder to compensate for the percieved reward. I guess in terms of crunch (and this is not very crunchy), I'd translate that into quests involving dragons having a much higher chance of failure.



2) Why is their no downside to reincarnation? As of right now, it seems like you could easily play "reincarnate roulette," repeatedly comitting suicide and being reincarnated until you get a body you like.

LOL, that's clever! I totally didn't think of that.

I think the right thing to do is to treat it like a divination; "repeat" castings yield the same result as the first. The only question is what constitutes a "repeat." The obvious thing is, "the next time you die and it's not on purpose." That's a little hard to quantify, though, and the poor guy who dies (accidentally) twice a session has to keep rewriting his character sheet! Perhaps there should be a stipulation that you must "attune" to your new form before you can leave it. Say, if you've been reincarnated, and you're slain before your time is up, the reincarnation gods decide that you haven't spent enough time as a Gnoll to completely appreciate Gnollhood, and you can't move on yet. You get to stay a Gnoll. So if you've already been reincarnated once, Reincarnate becomes a non-combat useful version of Revive.

What's the right period for that? Mmmm... I'm thinking a year. It's enough to truly contemplate your new outlook on life, yet it'll probably only happen to most characters once.

Does the following make sense? I've added it to the OP.



A creature who has been reincarnated more recently than one year ago has no chance of changing race. Instead, she is reincarnated as her current race, granting her a chance to fully appreciate the new form before moving on.

[Wardog]

Duke Malagigi, I think we may simply have to agree to disagree. Where I see mercy and an invitation to nobleness, you see cruelty. Bear in mind that the aging occurs in another timestream, where the experiences and passing of time are real. The quest is much harder than the aging--which is just a byproduct--and is a truer measure of a deity's moral nature.

The 'acceleration' is actually a mercy; a fairer cost would be to make the quest actually take that long in real-time. But this is a bow to playability, and an allowance for heroes to come back and affect the world as they left it. The aging is also actually a mercy; a fairer price for bringing someone back from the dead would be to die yourself.

We seem to have real-life philosophical disagreements about what it means for an action to be good. I see both the lord in the above story and the deity in this mechanic as good, while you see them as evil enough to warrant graphic calls for their violent end. That's interesting.


I'm not sure those are comparable situations.

In the case of the resurection quest, there are potentially fundamental cosmic reasons why people can't be ressurected willy-nilly. Maybe it would simply cause too much chaos. Maybe the "resources" required are so great that even a god can only "afford" to ressurect a few people, and ressurecting everyone would prevent him from performing any other godly duties. (After all, DnD deities are not omnipotent).

Besides, as has been pointed out, the aging isnt't an arbitrary penalty applied to the people - it is a natural consequence of the quest taking so long. The deity is simply benefiting everyone else by having it take place in an alternate time stream, so noone else notices.

Plus, a god isn't a person, and can't be expected to act like one.



In contrast, the lord in question is just a person, albeit a rich and powerful one. It is (presumably, assuming a feudal society) completely within his power to release/pardon/reduce the sentence of a prisoner.

Even if he wants a sufficient show of commitment before he grants that request, there is no reason why he cannot reduce/alter the requirements if it turns out it will be fatal to the woman. And saying "well, she's lucky - I never got the option of dying to save my son" sounds like a desparate attempt to justify himself in his own mind.

Besides, if there was a good reason to jail the woman's son, it seems silly to release him as long as the woman is willing to die (or even just suffer) for him. It should be the son who makes the sacrifice to prove himself worthy of release.

And if there wasn't a good reason to jail him, then
a) keeping him in jail is evil in itself
b) making the woman to in order to release him just makes him eviller.

IMO, that lord is at best stupid and arbitrary, and at worst a completely evil bastard who deserves to find himself on the wrong end of a peasants' revolt.

[Yakk]

The Peasant Son was, presumably, imprisoned for a good reason. Should the Duke refuse to let the Son out no matter what? Should the Duke allow someone else to pay, freely, for the Son's crime, and free the Son?


If your pack has not been found, then you must send for the herbmaster of this House. And he will tell you that he did not know that the herb you desire had any virtues, but that it is called westmanseed by the vulgar and galenas by the noble and other names in other tongues more learned, and after adding a few half-forgotten rhymes that he does not understand, he will regretfully inform you that there is none in the House, and he will leave you to reflect on the history of tongues.

I'd read that as "I already asked". :-) (Otherwise, how would Strider know what the herbmaster would say!)

[Innis Cabal]

As I was reading Winter Heart's essay (http://www.geocities.com/blackhatmatt/pulling_trigger.htm) on character death, it occured to me the usual D20 system of death and resurrection is deeply flawed, both from a role-playing and a mechanical point of view. Heroes and Villians can easily die randomly, for nothing worse than rolling poorly once or twice. On the other hand, nothing short of divine intervention can keep a Hero or Villian dead. This all seems very wrong to me.

I want a death and resurrection system to have the following features:

1. Death is never random. When it does occur, it is because the player and DM agree it needs to. The system should allow enough 'outs' that death never occurs through mere bad luck.

2. Death is serious. It should be possible, even likely, that if the players do not act to save their friends, they will die. Permanently. Full stop.

3. Death is certain. You can verify someone has died within minutes of a battle, and if they're dead, they're dead. Keep villians dead when you kill them. When heroes die, they really die.

4. Death is epic (in the literary sense). When someone dies, it should not be an "oops, you're dead" experience. It should occur the end of an epic fight on both sides for the player's life.

5. True resurrection is possible, even at low levels, but it is a rare and legendary experience. It is not expected, even for heroes of organizations with lots of resources. It is not impossible, even for paupers. It is the sort of thing that requires purpose, sacrifice, and true love. It is the sort of thing that winds up in bard songs.

6. The circumstances surrounding the death and resurrection mechanic should not be hokey in any way. Keeping an enemy dead should not require guarding their corpse for years, binding a soul in a gem and hiding it in an extradimensional space, and so on. Death is serious. Respect it.


How's that sound?

- Dove

Alright....

1.Death is never random. When it does occur, it is because the player and DM agree it needs to. The system should allow enough 'outs' that death never occurs through mere bad luck.

But...realisticly.....ya it is. You could die 10 minutes from now. Just because of a few "bad rolls" so to speak. The above makes death a minimal problem to me. Its not RP to die when you choose to, your in a fight, your in danger as an adventurer going up against demons, gods,and monsters...death is going to happen.

2. Death is serious. It should be possible, even likely, that if the players do not act to save their friends, they will die. Permanently. Full stop.

This is really...well it contridicts the above. Everyone should agree on when they die, but please go save your friend becase he's in a bind. Dosnt seem to make sense to me. While ya it makes sense for RP, so does dieing from a "bad save" If you look at it from saves and rolls, then your not really getting into the RP of it.

3. Death is certain. You can verify someone has died within minutes of a battle, and if they're dead, they're dead. Keep villians dead when you kill them. When heroes die, they really die.

4. Death is epic (in the literary sense). When someone dies, it should not be an "oops, you're dead" experience. It should occur the end of an epic fight on both sides for the player's life.

See....this is one part i have a huge problem. Death isnt always epic. Some people...just die. It happens. People just up and die, their heart gives out, or something just as simple. Take that away...and death stops being even remotely realistic and completly fantastic. You've said it before, Death is serious. This makes it so less so.

5. True resurrection is possible, even at low levels, but it is a rare and legendary experience. It is not expected, even for heroes of organizations with lots of resources. It is not impossible, even for paupers. It is the sort of thing that requires purpose, sacrifice, and true love. It is the sort of thing that winds up in bard songs.

This is as simple as making the spells hard to come by, epic hard. Simple as that. Really fix's the whole true rez.

6. The circumstances surrounding the death and resurrection mechanic should not be hokey in any way. Keeping an enemy dead should not require guarding their corpse for years, binding a soul in a gem and hiding it in an extradimensional space, and so on. Death is serious. Respect it.

Again, contridiction. The above is going to become hokey eventuallly. How do you make something epic hard to do or use when...you dont make it like an adventure? Which....is hokey.

My simple answer. There isnt anything here that you couldn't do with a simple no this world dosnt work that way. Players will either hate it and look out for one another(which is actually counter RP for some alignments....so you want to punish them?) or they'll not play.

[Lorien077]

*applause*
Its always bothered me as both a player and a DM when a character who has tons of backstory invested in him/her dies for stupid reasons.
I'll be bookmarking this for future use.

[Recaiden]

*snip*
Players will either hate it and look out for one another(which is actually counter RP for some alignments....so you want to punish them?) or they'll not play.The point is that having a player character just die because of bad luck is usually counterproductive to the story. And looking out for your allies is not against alignment. Maybe for some chaotic evil.

I feel that if dieties are not supposed to interfere or death is serious, they are not evil for imposing restrictions. If they don't have to age people, it's evil.
The lord in the story is almost certainly evil, but may just be lawful. The woman meant to complete the task, so it doesn't matter if she does, because it was just a test.

That being said, these new rules are great. I think they are a solution to all of those problems with the death system.

[Owrtho]

I like the system for the most part, but it makes me wonder about a few things. However, first, the resurection quest reminds me of a book (for those who care its called The Sleeping Dragon and is the first in the Guardians of the Flame series)in which they had something that was comparible. When one of the party members died, the others had to carry their body to the temple of a benign deity and there had to sacrifice something (as in each party member) to show it was worth it to them. The main sacrafice I remember was that the group wizard gave up their ability to use magic. In adition to the other costs however, the whole party (including the one who died) was thereafter unafected by beneficial magic from that deity (such as healing potions made by their temple, healing spells, buff type spells, etc.). That said, I think that in some cases comparible costs could be paid in lue of the aging (provided you completed the quest in a short amount of time).

As for questions.
1. How would this effect such things as necromancy which revive the body but not necasarily the spirit, or if they do so in an incomplete manner?
2. You mentioned that the spirits can't be harmed, but what about monsters and the like that actualy feed on the spirits of their victems? Shurley they would be able to harm the spirits. And what would happen to those that were thus killed. Would they be forever beyond resurection?
3. What about such entities as the dracolich which has bount is spirit to an object to alow itself to revive. Would they be affected by this or just act as normal?
4. Finnaly, what about ghosts. Based on this system they should not exist. My thought on the matter is that a player who is currently within the 1 minute time limit befor true death may each round choose to try severing themself from both their body and the afterlife (most likely a will save). If they succede, they become a ghost and are treated as dead for the purposes of the revive spell (though not true resurection). However, they are also forever unable to enter the afterlife. If after being resurected they die again they resume functioning as a ghost. If killed as a ghost, they disolve into a puddle of ectoplasm that can be revived (would likely require a similar spell to revive but revive could be used for simplicity) befor it disolved into nothingness leaving them forever beyond resurection (even true resurection).

Owrtho