[3.5] How Should Resurrection be?

[Zovc]

Question is the title... in two forms.

How rare do you think resurrection should be?

Does resurrection work on a subject whose time has come 'naturally?' (How does reincarnate work on a subject whose 'time has come?')

Sure, the spells might say they work a certain way, but DMs have the final say, I say.

[Fortuna]

In my opinion, ressurection should be a hell of a lot rarer than it is, and true ressurection should be in the hands of the gods. The problem is how it makes death "Bugger, we'll need to pay the resident priest" instead of "NOOOOO! DR'YZA THE MAGE! I SHALL AVENGE THEE!", which in my opinion detracts from rather than adds to the fantastic feeling. Likewise for the latter, but less so, and I see no reason why reincarnate shouldn't work then at all.

[dsmiles]

If your time has come, I become the resurrection nazi (much like the soup nazi).

"No! No resurrection for you!"

This also applies to reincarnate. The ressurrection spell...no, let me rephrase that. The prayer that makes up the resurrection spell only works when the gods prefer that character to be alive in order to advance their plots. If the gods don't need you alive...

"No! No resurrection for you!"

[Nero24200]

In my opinion, ressurection should be a hell of a lot rarer than it is, and true ressurection should be in the hands of the gods. The problem is how it makes death "Bugger, we'll need to pay the resident priest" instead of "NOOOOO! DR'YZA THE MAGE! I SHALL AVENGE THEE!", which in my opinion detracts from rather than adds to the fantastic feeling. Likewise for the latter, but less so, and I see no reason why reincarnate shouldn't work then at all.

Seconded. I absolutely hate it in movies/books/games etc where a character dies, then is brought back to life. It makes me feel like life is something cheap.

What's more, it brings up alot of weird questions - If you're able to bring someone back to life without any problems, why should they feear death? If the party are friends with a cleric who happens to know True Ressurection, what's to stop them just saying "We're going to fight big evil bad guy, if we're not back in 5 days assume we're dead and start raising", then go back after dying until they eventually defeat him/her/it/alloftheabove.

It also makes me wonder why NPC XY and Z can't also be brought back? (Same applies in some movies too. For instance, in Transformers)

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Prime dies in the second live action movie and they go to such lenghs to bring him back. But when Jazz dies in the first they don't seem to care. In the second they seem so insistant that, yes, there is definately a way to bring him back, but the thought seemed completely irrelvent earlier?

And well...9 times out of 10 the reason is mostly "Just because" with no real explanation for it. One thing I liked when I opened up my D'n'D books for the first time was that it brought up alot of questions about internal consistancy (for instance, mentioning that castles might not have walls in a setting where fly and teleport are common, since they'd be pointless) and well...when you apply that to ressurection magic, I can't picture anything other than a surrel world were the wealthy do increadibly stupid things constantly since they know they're just a short fee away (for them at least) from being back on their feet, and that doesn't sound like any fantasy setting I've read about.

If it was up to me, ressurection magic would be replaced with revivify, and that would be the only way to bring dead caharacters back to life (barring making them undead).

[Starbuck_II]

Seconded. I absolutely hate it in movies/books/games etc where a character dies, then is brought back to life. It makes me feel like life is something cheap.

But if Conan died in the first movie permanently: there wouldn't be a book series!

The only risk was friendly Wizards are rare who would want to revive you.

[Ormagoden]

I make resurrection a quest. It has some steps...see this post.

[Nero24200]

But if Conan died in the first movie permanently: there wouldn't be a book series!

The only risk was friendly Wizards are rare who would want to revive you.

Well...that actually brings up my other point

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I can't remember her name for the life of me, but the girl who was with him...what was to stop him trying to bring her back? Granted, I've only seen the movie and not read the book, but I couldn't think of any reason why he wouldn't try to bring her back, since, even with the dangers it seemed to bring, theres always the chance that it'll work and they'll both be alive

[Weimann]

I am of the opinion that death should be final, and that's it. Instead, present your characters with means to survive.

[Starbuck_II]

Well...that actually brings up my other point

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I can't remember her name for the life of me, but the girl who was with him...what was to stop him trying to bring her back? Granted, I've only seen the movie and not read the book, but I couldn't think of any reason why he wouldn't try to bring her back, since, even with the dangers it seemed to bring, theres always the chance that it'll work and they'll both be alive

My thoughts are the Wizard didn't care about her. He liked Conan enough at least.

Unless, it was the Princess Bride situation: Conan was almost dead and she was fully dead.

[Curmudgeon]

I'm happy with True Resurrection as a nifty way to waste PC resources. I also take glee in strictly following the letter of the spell's description:

Upon completion of the spell, the creature is immediately restored to full hit points, vigor, and health, with no loss of level (or Constitution points) or prepared spells.

Every single time someone comes back, they're at the floor of XP for that level. You used to have 185,000 XP? Sorry, now you're at 171,000, with no loss of level.

[Tiki Snakes]

Nero; I choose to intpret thus;

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Conan, crucified to the tree, does not so much die as mostly die. He's at deaths door. Pretty close to dead, to all intents and purposes, but close enough still to life that his soul can be...preserved, almost as much as raised. They do the necessary magic, fight off the spirits of the dead that want to take him away (as his time had, perhaps, come). But there will be a price, of course. (A life for a life, it seems.)

She, on the other hand, is handily pegged by a snake-arrow, probably taking both significant internal injuries and poison. She's dead in no time, no real chance to do anything about it.

[Maryring]

For me, if someone dies, there's always a quest to raise them. The player gets to assume control of some temporary helper for the duration of the quest so they aren't left out. It is possible but it requires effort to get done.

[Yzzyx]

I'm happy with True Resurrection as a nifty way to waste PC resources. I also take glee in strictly following the letter of the spell's description: Every single time someone comes back, they're at the floor of XP for that level. You used to have 185,000 XP? Sorry, now you're at 171,000, with no loss of level.

Well... feel free to do it that way, but it's not really "strictly following the letter of the spell's description," any more than saying True Resurrection brings you back to life than repeatedly hits you with bolts of lightning, with no loss of level, does so.

[Gnomo]

I just play spells as they should by played and it works just fine... diamonds are very rare in my campaign, and players already know that if they get a diamond of 3k gp of worth they better save it, cause every raise dead / resurrection / true resurrection come out of their own expenses... they even know that if two players die in the same party they will have it hard to resurrect them.

The key is to enforce the correct use of Material Components, you cannot bypass material components with just money, if you don't have the diamonds in your bags (and written down in your inventory) there's no resurrection, and I do the same with every other spell. This is specially useful to keep at bay many problematic spells, for example:

Atral Projection: A jacinth worth at least 1,000 gp, plus a silver bar worth 5 gp for each person to be affected.

Shapechange: Focus: A jade circlet worth no less than 1,500 gp, which you must place on your head when casting the spell. (The focus melds into your new form when you change shape.)

Temporal Stasis: A powder composed of diamond, emerald, ruby, and sapphire dust with a total value of at least 5,000 gp.

Forcecage: Ruby dust worth 1,500 gp, which is tossed into the air and disappears when you cast the spell.

Contingency: Focus: A statuette of you carved from elephant ivory and decorated with gems (worth at least 1,500 gp). You must carry the focus for the contingency to work.

True Seeing: An ointment for the eyes that costs 250 gp and is made from mushroom powder, saffron, and fat.

Like those there are plenty, and I think is the correct way to work with spells, for example if you sunder the wizards bags and he drops his contingency focus the contingency doesn't work anymore, or if the player is using an item on his head he cannot cast Shapechange cause he needs touse another circlet (he needs to take the item off and that's a move action), or if you determine what the Divine Focus of the Cleric is and destroy it / take it from him. Just enforce and manage the scarcity of Material Components and everything should work fine.

On the other hand, in my campaigns is really hard to comeby diamonds, they are usually sold at a higher price than they correct worth, cause nobles and rich people usually stack those in case they die.

[jmbrown]

AD&D wasn't very kind with death. Raise dead was a 5th level spell with no expensive component, however, there were a bunch of restrictions (2E's raise dead)

*You lose all of your memorized spells simply because AD&D made you lose spells if you hit 0 hp.
*You're raised with 1 hp. Period. You're so weak from being returned that you have to rest for 1 day per number of days you were dead regardless if you're healed to full hit points or not.
*Any poison or disease you had may remain in your body
*You have to roll to actually survive the ordeal. Fail and you're dead permanently.
*You lose 1 point of constitution regardless. Your base constitution is also the maximum number of times you can ever be raised in your entire life.

2E's resurrection? You were fully healed with no drawbacks (but you still couldn't be raised more than your base constitution). What happened to the cleric to the resurrected you?

-Immediately crippled (can't cast spells or fight) until he's rested a number of days equal to the experience level or hit dice of the creature he resurrected.
-Caster immediately ages 3 years.

Ouch. Frankly, I like how AD&D handled death more than 3.5. Death was a problem but didn't totally ruin a character. Most DMs I've played with give raised characters in 3.5 extra experience or count the experience they earned in the fight that killed them in order to off set the level loss. In AD&D, you died and you felt the physical pain from it.

[Tyndmyr]

I'm happy with True Resurrection as a nifty way to waste PC resources. I also take glee in strictly following the letter of the spell's description: Every single time someone comes back, they're at the floor of XP for that level. You used to have 185,000 XP? Sorry, now you're at 171,000, with no loss of level.

That's not the letter of the spell's description, since it does not in any way describe loss of xp.

If you choose to do so, that's fine, but it's a house rule, not the literal reading.

[Nero24200]

Spoiler Stuff

See, that I wouldn't mind. I don't have a problem with someone being near death and comming back (in fact, that's how I prefer to RP revivify). But theres a big difference between that and actually being in the afterlife then comming back.

[Curmudgeon]

That's not the letter of the spell's description, since it does not in any way describe loss of xp.

The spell doesn't state that it restores full XP, just the last full level. Restoring exactly the XP count before death is a house rule, too.

[Grumman]

The spell doesn't state that it restores full XP, just the last full level. Restoring exactly the XP count before death is a house rule, too.

No, it's not. Dying doesn't make you lose XP, Raise dead/Resurrection makes you lose XP. {Scrubbed}

[Gnomo]

A houserule that I like to use is that you don't lose a level when resurrected, be it by means of Reincarnate, Raise Dead, Resurrection or whatever spell you are using, but you lose 1000 experience points per level you have.

You keep your level but you lose a ton of exp points, this makes it harder to get to the next level but doesn't hamper you right now.

[Belobog]

I really have no problem with Resurrection as it's stated, or any 'back from the dead' spell. They have penalties built in, and if you get high enough up the food chain, you bypass those. Makes sense, in a 'you-get-you-pay-for' kind of way. I do understand making it a little more dramatic, though; journeying into Perdition to rescue a fallen friend makes for a better story than 'I crushed some diamonds and stuffed them in his mouth. He got better.'

[AslanCross]

I don't think it should be readily available via NPCs. (By the guidelines in the PHB anyway, it shouldn't be.)

[deuxhero]

Death to provided motive has always seemed... cheep and overdone to me, so resing breaking such a plot doesn't really bug me.

[oxybe]

honestly?

whatever gets the game moving faster.

in low levels, we just don't bother. it's too expensive, has pretty heavy drawbacks and making a character isn't much of a hassle.

mid-levels, it varies. sometimes it's time to try a new character, other times you want to keep playing this one because he's just fun. the option should be there should you want it.

high-levels, revive. making a high level character, especially a caster, is a pain. marking off 25000gp worth of diamonds is just less painful then sitting out the session making a new character.

that's just my personal opinion. in-game, the rarity of the spell and those who can/are willing to cast it will vary depending on the setting. note that even if resurrection is possible, failing can be worse then death. fail to stop the assassination and even if you can bring the rogue back, that won't stop the coup d'etat from happening...

[Jack_Simth]

It's a matter of taste. The people you want to ask are your players, not a random bunch of strangers on the internet.

Players like the characters they've built, so they want to be able to continue playing them - hence the possibility of resurrection at all.

If you ban it, players just roll up another character and keep going - but they don't get to play the character they've grown attached to anymore.

If it's too expensive, or has overly horrendous consequences, it's effectively not an option, and you're effectively banning it even though you're not technically banning it. Meanwhile, it's available to opposing NPC's, for whom resources don't actually affect gameplay - which isn't fair.

If it's cheap, it cheapens character death.

If it requires a side-quest, it disrupts the plot and leaves the player sitting on the sidelines twiddling his thumbs for extended periods of time. Meanwhile, it's available to opposing NPC's, for whom resources don't actually affect gameplay - which isn't fair.

Yet those are basically the only four ways it can go. None of them are particularly grand, as they all have things about them that will upset somebody. You can get together with the players and negotiate how hard it'll be... but there's no one-size-fits-all answer.

[Inhuman Bot]

I agree with Jack_Smith entirely here.

Personally, though I like the Iron Kingdoms take on ressurection

You CAN ressurect people, but the gods like to have the souls of their followers serving them in the afterlife, so ressurection carries the risk of "Does your god think this person can serve them better alive then dead?", where horrible things can occur to the caster of the revive spell.

Also, yay, ogre itp.

[Maryring]

If you're going through the side-quest route, it's important to have a backup for the player "sitting it out". Considering all the people you've helped out, at least one of them should be willing to help find the snow rose of this millenium, or whatever other mac-guffin you need for resurrection, and you can let the player play that character. It offers them something new to try out and it'll make the return to their character that much sweeter when done well.

It also helps maintain internal consistency when resurrection is difficult.

[Foryn Gilnith]

I just really don't see what's wrong with easy resurrection. So you died and were resurrected. That's great. You just wasted 25000 or more gold, a 9th-level spell slot, and a lot of time that could have been spent stopping the BBEGs. Every resource you spend on resurrection is one not spent on saving lives. People are dieing because of your resurrection (indirectly). It's like deuxhero said - IMO death on such a small scale isn't great motivation.

What's more, it brings up alot of weird questions - If you're able to bring someone back to life without any problems, why should they feear death? If the party are friends with a cleric who happens to know True Ressurection, what's to stop them just saying "We're going to fight big evil bad guy, if we're not back in 5 days assume we're dead and start raising", then go back after dying until they eventually defeat him/her/it/alloftheabove.

Because death is failure. Do you know how many people are dieing during those 5 days? You think they can all afford resurrection? I get to save my life easy, sure - but as a hero, I care about much more than my own life. The time spent resurrecting is time for the BBEGs to do whatever the hell they want, and that's very, very bad.

when you apply that to ressurection magic, I can't picture anything other than a surreal world were the wealthy do increadibly stupid things constantly since they know they're just a short fee away (for them at least) from being back on their feet, and that doesn't sound like any fantasy setting I've read about.

You really can't picture anything else? Between the possibility of noble enemies with soulbinding assassins, the extremely painful experience of dieing, and innate human fear, I'd assume resurrection is a last resort. Does it still break medievalism? Yes, but a lot less than Remove Disease, Create Water, Prestidigitation, or Teleportation do.

And if the DM is playing with easy resurrection, but never explains why NPC XYZ remains dead, that's a fault of the DM more than the easy resurrection. I've played with (and ran) semi-consistent settings where resurrection is easy. I say semi-consistent because after a while on these boards, anything but a "soft sci-fi" setting due to magic prevalence seems unrealistic to me. Srsly, y'all think teleportation or sanitation are less important problems than Raise Dead?

[Saintheart]

Nero; I choose to intpret thus;
Conan, crucified to the tree, does not so much die as mostly die. He's at deaths door. Pretty close to dead, to all intents and purposes, but close enough still to life that his soul can be...preserved, almost as much as raised. They do the necessary magic, fight off the spirits of the dead that want to take him away (as his time had, perhaps, come). But there will be a price, of course. (A life for a life, it seems.)

She, on the other hand, is handily pegged by a snake-arrow, probably taking both significant internal injuries and poison. She's dead in no time, no real chance to do anything about it.

And don't forget how she comes back from the dead to save Conan's ass at one point in the fight. She blinds one of the fighters, and then when Conan looks at her, she's got what damn well looks like a significant upgrade to mithril full plate with ghost touch and blur enhancements. No wonder she says "Do you want to live forever?" Hell, no! The gods have got better loot!

[nightwyrm]

If I was a player looking to game the system, I'd totally choose to make a new char instead of rezing.

a) Your party doesn't lose money from rezing.
b) Your party gets to loot your dead PC body.
c) You get to bring in a new char with new gear (or a clone of your dead PC, hello Bob the Fighter IV). If you're playing 3e or 4e, your new char's level is probably no more than 1 lower than the rest anyways and you can catch up pretty easily in 3e.