Troll Lord Games

In high level games I have seen some bizarre behavior because the player knew the party cleric could raise them.

Yet it has been a part of D&D since I can rememember.

Should we scrap the whole idea and let pcs die?

My take on them both is to keep them available-- unless your group is all about gritty low-magic meat grinder games-- but make them more difficult and thought-provoking for the average party of PC's to call upon. Basically let the players know that the power over life and death isn't something to take lightly.

Play to the game to make it as seamless as possible. For instance... if the party is in the middle of a tough dungeon (say on a level that would be difficult to exit and re-enter) but a cleric in the party is of sufficient level to cast one of the life-giving spells, have it be so taxing that it causes further difficulties-- maybe it exhausts the cleric, leaving them at half hit points or half their strength for a couple days. Or if a character is raised too many times, maybe there is a percentage chance they instead raise as undead. If the party is in town, the high priest of the local temple can cast the spell, but the party needs to make it worth his or her while in a way besides monetarily. The party may need to perform a quest for the temple, or the raised character must spend his next five years in servitude to the church, tithing a portion of his haul or the like.

There are too many good ways to have fun with it to just completely scrap or excise raising dead, IMHO!

Have to admit it's always been my least favourite thing in the game even back in the slightly more deadly days of AD&D.

Somehow always left me feeling like my characters accomplishments were diminished by a giant reset button.

Naw...like ArgoFrog said: have FUN with them. Even the most bizarre spells IMO have their uses in game. Resurrection and Raise Dead shouldn't be commonplace, after all. Yes, make players sweat over getting their life back -- more titheing, questing, etc. to the temple and such.

And...since these are god-given spells, maybe the god grants them with certain 'conditions' -- oh, yeah, I'll resurrect you, but I want you as a different race for my own inscrutible reasons; sure, I'll raise you from the dead, but one of your abilities that was prime is now non-prime and a non-prime is now prime...

Yep, no such thing as a free lunch...

Rikitiki wrote:Naw...like ArgoFrog said: have FUN with them. Even the most bizarre spells IMO have their uses in game. Resurrection and Raise Dead shouldn't be commonplace, after all. Yes, make players sweat over getting their life back -- more titheing, questing, etc. to the temple and such.

And...since these are god-given spells, maybe the god grants them with certain 'conditions' -- oh, yeah, I'll resurrect you, but I want you as a different race for my own inscrutible reasons; sure, I'll raise you from the dead, but one of your abilities that was prime is now non-prime and a non-prime is now prime...

Yep, no such thing as a free lunch...

The last 3.5 campaign I played in saw a couple of high-level druids who had access to Reincarnation, which behaved just as you described. The elf/half-elf character who kept getting bumped off came back as a kobold, among other things. It made for some fun times, and did good things for the campaign.

Yeah, that reminds me, I once had a mage get killed and get resurrected as something silly, it was a hoot as we ad-hoc'ed it as playable.
this backfired when a barbarian character was resurrected as an ogre mage and wanted to keep playing it wiht their new super powers. ugh.

it's your game, if you don't like them, scrap em. no sweat.
Don't the spells cost 1000's of gp per casting and age the caster like, 10 years? or something? an NPC wouldn't do it lightly, I'm sure.

I usually kick a few spells to the curb right at the beginning of any AD&D/D&D/C&C game: Any and all resurrection-type spells and any major teleport spells (teleport/teleport without error).

I see no problem with including them in the game. Granted, a Raise Dead spell will set you back about 5k and a Resurrection 20k + a service to the church performing the ritual. With enough "red tape" attached, these spells see little abuse in a well run game.

I see no need to eliminate raise dead or resurrection, especially as I implement system shock rolls in my games. The same cannot be said for limited wish, wish, and alter reality.

NO!

Wish really is a headache for the DM/CK.

Relaxo wrote:Wish really is a headache for the DM/CK.

That all depends on how much of a bastage CK you are when it comes to granting them.

I've never had them as an everyday part of the game IMC.

They are strange and scary spells tales are told of but few know, seen (rightly) as necromancy.

Whispers are told of legendary figures said to have been "raised", such as Rulgar Two Lives- but is he man or ghost? What did he see on the other side? He was never the same again...

Such things would be once in a generation boons for an epic storyline IMC, I have in mind a handful of NPC's/Items fair and foul which can achieve the feat, scattered over the campaign world so such things need be sought/quested for rather than at beck and call on a whim.

Dead is dead IMC. I don't like the idea of constant raise dead & resurrections. I understand most do though, it is simply my preference when I run a game.

Go0gleplex wrote:

Relaxo wrote:Wish really is a headache for the DM/CK.

That all depends on how much of a bastage CK you are when it comes to granting them.

Except perverting the intent of a wish only appears in role playing games that have it. I don't recall it appearing in literature.

I believe a wish should be granted as spoken, and not perverted. However, for greedy wishes there should be unexpected consequences. For example, wishing for a million gold pieces will bring a dragon to town looking for his missing gold. Wishing to rule a kingdom would work, but then you'd have to fight a war. Wishes that are beneficial, such as restoring everyone to full health, should have no unexpected consequences.

And then there is the favorite: wishing for more wishes. That one I would let work, but the fabric of reality can't handle the stress. The character would be thrown into a pocket universe where his wishes will work without damage to the rest of reality. Sadly, the character will be permanently placed out of play.

Because wishes are such a game-breaker and headache, I make them extremely rare, and provide an in-game rationale to explain the scarcity: magic is in decline.

There is a famous example of perverting wishes, though I remember it as the movie adaptation, Bedazzled with Elizabeth Hurley and Brendan Frasier...where the devil grants the guy several wishes in contract for his soul...and perverts nearly every one of them.

But, yes, the unintended consequences that can be tossed in can make things really...fun.

I was never a fan of perverting the Wishes of PCs. If they ask for something that would be normal (a lot of money, better skills, etc), go ahead. If they said, "I wish I had 1000 gold pieces!" I'm not going to say, "Granted. They are all in your stomach now your dead HAHAHAHA!". I'm just going to say, "A small chest appears at your feet. Inside is 1000gp."

In my old game back in the 80s, one of our players received a Wish. We were in a town when he decided to use it. He was a Rogue and said, "I wish I was the best archer in the town." Our DM said, "OK, you see about three, or four people just die. Outside, you hear screams and realize more people died outside. Now, since all of the people that were better archers than you have died, YOUR the best!" I'm all, "Really? The gods decided it would be better to kill 10-12 people rather than bump his DEX up three points? Kind of odd, but whatev..."

AGNKim wrote:I was never a fan of perverting the Wishes of PCs. If they ask for something that would be normal (a lot of money, better skills, etc), go ahead. If they said, "I wish I had 1000 gold pieces!" I'm not going to say, "Granted. They are all in your stomach now your dead HAHAHAHA!". I'm just going to say, "A small chest appears at your feet. Inside is 1000gp."

In my old game back in the 80s, one of our players received a Wish. We were in a town when he decided to use it. He was a Rogue and said, "I wish I was the best archer in the town." Our DM said, "OK, you see about three, or four people just die. Outside, you hear screams and realize more people died outside. Now, since all of the people that were better archers than you have died, YOUR the best!" I'm all, "Really? The gods decided it would be better to kill 10-12 people rather than bump his DEX up three points? Kind of odd, but whatev..."

I would have simply transported the character to another town where there were fewer if no archers at all. After all, they did not specify which town.

Go0gleplex wrote:There is a famous example of perverting wishes, though I remember it as the movie adaptation, Bedazzled with Elizabeth Hurley and Brendan Frasier...where the devil grants the guy several wishes in contract for his soul...and perverts nearly every one of them.

But, yes, the unintended consequences that can be tossed in can make things really...fun.

Even better is the original Bedazzled, a British movie from the 60's. There is also a Twilight Zone episode, where an antique dealer finds a genie and gets four wishes.

I say keep them but put those in the list of spells that the player never has easy access too. That way if they are needed they are there but they wont be abused.

I was never a fan of perverting the Wishes of PCs. If they ask for something that would be normal (a lot of money, better skills, etc), go ahead. If they said, "I wish I had 1000 gold pieces!" I'm not going to say, "Granted. They are all in your stomach now your dead HAHAHAHA!". I'm just going to say, "A small chest appears at your feet. Inside is 1000gp."

In my old game back in the 80s, one of our players received a Wish. We were in a town when he decided to use it. He was a Rogue and said, "I wish I was the best archer in the town." Our DM said, "OK, you see about three, or four people just die. Outside, you hear screams and realize more people died outside. Now, since all of the people that were better archers than you have died, YOUR the best!" I'm all, "Really? The gods decided it would be better to kill 10-12 people rather than bump his DEX up three points? Kind of odd, but whatev..."

Nice!

Even better is the original Bedazzled, a British movie from the 60's. There is also a Twilight Zone episode, where an antique dealer finds a genie and gets four wishes.

I've seen the TZ episode, but will have to look up the movie. One more good one about twisted wishes (well not exactly wishes) was S. King's "Needful things". I've used that movie as a basis for a campaign in D&D and one of my best Beyond the Supernatural marathon games.

Oh yes, please do get the original "Bedazzled" with Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. Fantastic and 'quietly' funny like all good British comedies.

Great lines like:
George Spiggot (the Devil): It's the standard contract. Gives you seven wishes in accordance with the mystic rules of life. Seven Days of the Week, Seven Deadly Sins, Seven Seas, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers...

All the pro comments seem to include making it something other than it is in the rules.

Make it rare

Make it special

Make it a unique ceremnoy that taxes the cleric physically.

But no where in the RAW do I see any form of similar sentiment.
Its just another spell. Make a wand...how special is that?

it sounds the pro comments are saying keep it in the game, but make it something different than what it is in the game. keep it as is...but change it to something totally different. This confuses me a bit. Do you like it or not? It sounds like you want it...but not as written.

I can see myself telling the players yeah, I'll let you cast every other spell as written but when it comes to Resurrection I'm gonna make it a pain in the butt simply because I want to.

Instead of putting GMs in such awkward positions the solution seems simple.
Either right the rules to communicate that even though they are one of many spells this one spell needs to be given extra narrative pains, or ixnay the entire fiasco and let GMs house rule them back into the system if they so desire.

If the GM truly wishes to keep them in the game I figure they can refer to one of the many...many SRD publications out there to obtain the spell.
This will save redundant page space and allow me to provide 2 original spells.

So I guess my question changes a bit.

In a new OGL game would you rather have old spells that have been written, re-phrased, re-written, paraphrased, repeated, mimicked, and otherwise re-hashed numerous times or would you prefer new original material that you may NOT have repeatedly read in each version?

This question stems from comments and critiques I have read from gamers as the elements of "D&D" that they find most absurd. Seems those that prefer "gritty dark" games like that one "gritty dark" game laughes at the concept of dead...poof...rewind alive again!
My own experience has been more toward the absurd than toward "Wow Resurrection was such a spiritual and deep moment."
I have yet to see ANY player treat it as something special. They plop the money down and expect the spell they are "entittled" to. Perhaps if the spell was written as "rare and special" it would be treated differently?

I also know players that don't really appraciate the fact that they take great measures to play responsibly becaause they realize the effect of a stupid action is often death. I'm not sure why we need to reward the irresponsible player that does not bother simply becasue they have a cleric in the party.

I don't know this for sure...but I'm willing to bet if...just if...players were held accountable for their action maybe...just maybe they may take more care with their style of play.

Either way, don't you think poor play deserves just as much "reward" as excellent play?

I'm all about fantasy but never in any of my favorite fantasies did Gandalf hit the reset button and hey everyone look...Boromirs still alive. I think that would have ruined the whole funeral pyre scene...don't you think?

My sentiment is the constant threat of death is what makes heroic actions heroic. If you know theres a get out of jail for free card...it just becomes calculated action, not heroic sacrifice.

And I just think lazy sloppy players should be rolling up new characters not sidled up to the cleric teet. Everyones agnostic until they are hurt or dead aren't they? Then suddenly faith and religion become important to you again...hmm. (Hint of real world lesson perhaps?)

You are always free to do what you want with it.

Just drumming up conversation on the topic Google.

I have my obvious bias but I honestly don't feel strongly either way and never gave it a second thought until I heard diparaging comments coming from none other than one of my writers. He was referring to "D&D" in general but it made me stop and think about my own experiences with the spell in game.
It felt like when the rugby players make fun of american football. Granted the impacts are nothing like they are in american football nor the chance for injury but they really do look manly and tough with bloody faces in comparison to our shiny Fabio looking quarterbacks. (Patriots I'm looking at you)
I must admit I never played that "gritty dark" game but I have played american football and rugby. In football I lasted five years. In rugby I only lasted one practice. (Those guys are crazy!)

So maybe they are on to something about death being the end.

Come on Google you can do better than just grant me to do what I want. Everyone knows thats what I'm gonna do anyway.

But sway me, convince me. Though personally biased as a result of my experience I do still wish to hear your input.
But so far the yays have communicated they still want the spell but they all say to make it different than raw.

I'm mulling over if the effort will pay off with the desired result, or if having to roll a new pc would do that much more easily. Getting arrested is a better deterrent to crime than explaining how special and unique it is to obey the law.
I'm all for flavor and fluff...but will it work?

Joe, you make a point. The idea of making it rare, or costly, or costing a year of the caster's life... I can only speak for myself when I said that. I THOUGHT that was part of the spell as written (maybe it's only Wish). I didn't actually read the spell before commenting.

Having reviewed the thread, I'm back in the "keep them" camp, but that's just me.

You all need to remember that before the d20 System came out, the following things required a system shock roll: magical aging, petrifaction (including flesh to stone spell), and polymorph (any object, other). Then there was a resurrection survival roll, which applied to raise dead and resurrection. In both cases, there was a percentage score that you had to roll equal to or under on a d%. Failure results in permanent death of the character. Survival reduced CON by 1.

d20 took out those things, because they were declared badwrongfun. As a lame attempt to balance the spells, expensive material components and level loss were introduced to replace this. Neither really worked, because there were no permanent side effects.

Raise dead and resurrection in Castles & Crusades went half way. They took out the temporary level loss and reintroduced the mandatory reduction of CON by 1. So there is a permanent side effect for the character, but both spells are still automatic. There still is no chance of permanent death for the character. This is why I reintroduced system shock rolls into my games. In my game, you have to roll CON or less on a d20 to survive.

So, I added something that wasn't in the rules as written and in doing so revived what I thought was missing from the game: the chance of permanent death to the character. At least the RAW in the PHB for the two spells is a lot more effective in terms of permanent side effects to a character than the d20 System.

To be fair, I suggested changing the spells (the rarity, taxingness, idea of tithing to the church who raises) because it sounded like you were already against them-- because RAW makes it seem too powerful or unrealistic and causes characters to take risks thinking that they can just get raised later if they pooch.

What I suggested is that as a CK, you can make those sorts of spells less of an easy alternative without killing them completely from your game. And I do believe that as a CK, unless you're a hardcore stickler for RAW, you can tell your players that you think that certain spells (such as life-restoring and/or reality-altering spells) should have some non-RAW effects simply because of their very potent nature. In fact, that is one of the things that moved me to C&C from 3.5/PF/4e-- the resurrection (no pun intended) of a GM with the ability to make on the spot rulings based on their reason and judgment, and not specifically because a player says that Rule X in Book Y says so.

But then again, I tend to play a higher-magic, more-prevalent-gods campaign, so my suggestion that could come from that sort of mindset. To each their own.

In my game I have made resurrecting conditional since when you die your soul goes 'somewhere'. If a character was really devoted to his deity, said deity may or may not allow resurrection depending on how much he needs the dead character's service in the after life versus in the material world. However, if a character was spiritually ambivalent, his soul is doomed to walk the lands of purgatory.

The resurrecting of a spiritual character must be done at a temple of the relevant deity and can be done at any time.

To resurrect the spiritually ambivalent character, a quest must be made into purgatory to retrieve his soul. Now, the dead character may be temporally raised via the Raised Dead spell at a loss of one level and remain 'alive' but soulless until the next new moon at which time he dies again. This processes of raising can be repeated until the character is at level zero at which point resurrection is impossible.

In my years of running games I have only had one party decide to try to retrieve someone from purgatory.

I'm reminded of an old Nodwick. At the top of a great tower, Yeager asks Nodwick how many times he died on the way up. Several. And now that he was loaded down with loot, he'd probably die several more times before getting back out? Probably. Wouldn't it be great if you only died once? I guess. Yeager throws Nodwick, with the loot, out a window.

"Where's Nodwick?" asks Piff.

"He's meeting us at the bottom," says Yeager.

But really, I've never encountered that kind of silliness in a game. Regardless of the rules for raising the dead, dying has always been serious business.

One thing to note about the spells is the level of cleric required to cast them. Raise Dead is easily the quickest on the block, requiring only 9th level to cast. Now, I don't know about other CKs, but a 9th level cleric is only going to be found in a good sized town or small city in my world. These tend to be a couple weeks travel apart, meaning that the odds of getting a corpse to a capable cleric in time is no easy task, if even possible. This is where role playing comes in as well, since should a capable cleric be found, the party is on the spot to come up with a reason the cleric should go out on a limb with their deity to change the fate of the character. This reason may take several forms, the most common type being a sizable donation to the church in my world.

Now, with resurrection, the time limit is stretched out to decades but only a cleric of at least 13th level may cast it. For True Resurrection, the cleric would need to be at least 17th level. Both highly uncommon and likely to be found only in the largest of cities or sites of religious importance, such as Mecca is in the real world. Since the prayer to the divine is asking so much more of the deity, reconstructing the deceased's body from the stuff of the cosmos, the party's reasons for needing such a service had best be dire or at least in the best interest of the church. Similarly, the compensation required by the church is likely going to be proportionally greater as well.

In short, the CK always has the ability, or rather their NPC clerics have the ability, to simply say NO. This allows the spells to be used as written.

Now, should the PC cleric gain sufficient level to cast the spells themselves, the CK has less control...however the cleric is forced to sacrifice a spell slot, and generally will use only one, in order to carry the spell for the day. Should more than one character die, decisions get to be made...and maybe the cleric is forced to flee or one of the casualties, making its use much less certain. Honestly, I've only seen Raise Dead carried by a cleric for the day at levels higher than the minimum required to cast...and that infrequently. This infrequency tends to make me less inclined to worry about abuse of the spells or the purported cheapening of character death.

Besides...survivors...what will they choose first when fleeing. A corpse, or a greater share of loot? *EG*

This was silly, but we once ran a game so totally TPK happy that we had a magic wand, the Wand of New PCs, which we used to POOF add new characters every time someone's PC was killed off.... in context, it was good silly fun, but yes, totally asinine in general use.

(one particulary memorable death, someone was tricked into playing a harp of dischord, which (we may have mis read it) was cursed to sound so horrid taht everyone hearing it must attack the player wiht their most potent attack... this included several high level spell casters, so the guy who played the harp was reduced to like, - 76 hp. SO silly.