No Resurrections! [Archive] - Wizards Community

No Resurrections! [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
haloofbees
10-30-07, 10:37 AM I'm thinking about removing resurrection and raise dead and all related magic from my campaign. It doesn't fit in with the flavor of the world I'm building. I want the game to be plot and story driven (but still with lots of action) and I think having death be final as it is in the real world will be conducive to greater drama. Most of my players are relatively inexperienced with game mechanics and so may not even miss those options.

Has anyone here tried this and can they give me any advice? I don't want it to be a killer campaign, but I do what the threat of character death to be real just as it is in most heroic fiction.

Can you think of any pitfalls I may want to avoid? Are there any game balance issues this may bring up?

I'll post an overview of my setting soon if anyone is interested.

-Michael
CrimsonDeath
10-30-07, 11:24 AM After the point when resurrection magic becomes available, character death is a very real threat (because the characters have a way to come back from it). If you remove Raise Dead and related spells, be prepared to have people rolling up new characters-- which may be problematic in a story-driven campaign.

Out of curiosity, are you also removing Reincarnate and related spells? Do you feel that Revivify and Revenance defy the flavor you're going for?
Danahan
10-30-07, 12:38 PM You might end up with some very, very jaded players. There is little worse than losing a favored character to a terrible die roll (Oh, crap I failed my Reflex save. What do you mean I got eviscerated by that delayed blast fireball? Roll up a new character?), and then having to roll up a new character on the spot that you don’t even like. If you want to remove restoration magic, then perhaps you should think of an alternative way for characters to come back to life. If your campaign is story and plot intensive, then you should devise a way for characters to come back that involves exactly that... story and plot. Can the party travel to the Afterlife, Other Side, whatever, and retrieve their friend’s soul and bring him back that way? Can the party make a deal with the Grim Reaper to bring their friend back? Can they sacrifice an innocent individual to a demon in exchange for their friend’s safe return? Where I’m getting at here is that death is so final, too final, especially for a player who really enjoys roleplaying their character. Think wisely before stripping away restoration magic, because the campaign might die right along with the characters.
michaeljpatrick
10-30-07, 12:58 PM (Hi, I am the same person as Haloofbees- the OP. I had trouble getting my account to work and created Haloofbees as a last ditch to be able to post. Then I managed to get my real account working again so I will post under this name from now on)

I've only been playing 3.5 for less than a year now. I am not familiar with every spell that brings dead characters back to life (in my day it was mostly just resurrect, raise dead, and reincarnation). I think it is not the spells themselves that I have issue with so much as the way in which they are often used in campaigns. In a 2E campaign I played a fairly wealthy thief who was able to buy himself back to life- with the help of his party of course- several times simply because high level spellcasters were available for hire in the large cities of our game. I got to the point where I dove recklessly into battle and never bothered to check for traps since death was hardly a threat. Sure there were costs and penalties, but no cost is greater than never having the ability to play ever again. In most (non-superhero) fiction when a character dies that is it. They are removed from play, so to speak.

As a DM I tend to prevent pointless deaths (such as the fate that befell my first character ever- Nikolas Mok the magic user who died at seventh level after swallowing a poison mushroom from the buffet table at Castle Amber). If a player does something really stupid, dangerous, or brave they still run the risk of life and limb, but I try not to kill them without warning.

I like the idea of the party traveling to the afterlife to retrieve the character's soul. That is the sort of thing I would like to use rather than simply saying, "Dead again? Oh well, just make a huge contribution to your local church and all will be ok."

Any more suggestions like that?
Dog_O_War
10-30-07, 01:00 PM Every decent campaign I've played in, resurrection magic was barred. In fact the few campaigns that I had been in where resurrection was possible, the challenges were often overwhelming and we died more (and the reponse to that was "well you can just get rezzed"). I see barring resurrection as a way of making your players strong (as long as you the DM, play reasonable).

All that being said, I hated that we couldn't get a raise dead, at all - which has wore on me. In my campaign setting resurrection is available.

Also; when you do this, do it all the way. In some of those non-raise dead campaigns, the DM would "save" us by giving out exp. loss, or other crappy penalties. Sometimes an NPC would happen by and "save" us. Everything I have just listed is something that players hate.
Xaer
10-30-07, 03:00 PM Think strongly about banning save-or-die spells, as those are made with ressurection spells in mind.
Tsochar
10-30-07, 03:34 PM Alternatively, you could have it so that any resurrection or similar effect requires one to pay a great price, like in FMA or Earthsea. In my campaign there are vengeful, murderous spirits that are invisible and intangible. Since they can't act as they are, they must wait for a resurrection or similar spell to transplant them into a new body. After that, they usually try to kill any people nearby, but the some are intelligent enough to wait for the right time to strike. There is a fair possibility of a success, but there's always that lurking terror.
Heroes of Horror also describes a few side-effects of resurrection that causes the character to take on odd, somewhat eerie personality quirks.
Danahan
10-30-07, 05:59 PM I like the idea of the party traveling to the afterlife to retrieve the character's soul. That is the sort of thing I would like to use rather than simply saying, "Dead again? Oh well, just make a huge contribution to your local church and all will be ok."

Any more suggestions like that?

In my gothic horror campaign, restoration magic is exceedingly rare, but attainable. Nonetheless, we have a house rule when a character is killed. He or she find themselves in a very eerie royal chamber, devoid of any light besides a strange blue luminescence. There the character meets the personage of Death itself, appearing a lot like the Grim Reaper. He gives the character two choices: they can either fight him in a duel, or answer a riddle correctly to have their lives restored to them (essentially treated as a true resurrection). An individual character can only duel Death once, and answer a riddle once. Once they’ve done both things, they die as normal... having to be resurrected or what not. When dueling Death, he is treated as being of the same class and level. For example, if a 5th level wizard duels Death, he is also a 5th level wizard, etc, etc. Answering riddles can obliviously be far more difficult. But it gives some of my players who love riddles an opportunity to rack their brains.
LFK
10-31-07, 11:12 AM Basically if you take Restoration magic out of the game you need to take a good look at the difficulty level before you start. Character death sucks as is, and no resurrection makes it worse. If you want persistent characters for story sake then ban Save or die spells, drop your normal CR range by 1 (mooks -3 instead of -2, or -2 instead of -1, slightly easier than you'd normally run), have a rule in your head like "mooks can't crit" to avoid useless deaths against meaningless encounters (a 20 still hits, but they "always seem to fail the confirm roll" when a crit comes up), and spend a lot more time thinking about how chains of encounters interact with each other in terms of how they drain player resources. Are the earlier encounters harmless enough that the wizard and cleric feel safe using lower damage/healing output, cheap wands or will they be using top rank spells? If they’re using top rank spells on the first encounter in the dungeon then they’ll either be gassing (and dying) by the 3rd and 4th encounters, or you’ll get the 50-feet-per-day movement rate as the players decide that resting for 24 hours after each encounter is more worthwhile than even considering whatever might be in the next room over.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
haloofbees 10-30-07, 10:37 AM	I'm thinking about removing resurrection and raise dead and all related magic from my campaign. It doesn't fit in with the flavor of the world I'm building. I want the game to be plot and story driven (but still with lots of action) and I think having death be final as it is in the real world will be conducive to greater drama. Most of my players are relatively inexperienced with game mechanics and so may not even miss those options. Has anyone here tried this and can they give me any advice? I don't want it to be a killer campaign, but I do what the threat of character death to be real just as it is in most heroic fiction. Can you think of any pitfalls I may want to avoid? Are there any game balance issues this may bring up? I'll post an overview of my setting soon if anyone is interested. -Michael
CrimsonDeath 10-30-07, 11:24 AM	After the point when resurrection magic becomes available, character death is a very real threat (because the characters have a way to come back from it). If you remove Raise Dead and related spells, be prepared to have people rolling up new characters-- which may be problematic in a story-driven campaign. Out of curiosity, are you also removing Reincarnate and related spells? Do you feel that Revivify and Revenance defy the flavor you're going for?
Danahan 10-30-07, 12:38 PM	You might end up with some very, very jaded players. There is little worse than losing a favored character to a terrible die roll (Oh, crap I failed my Reflex save. What do you mean I got eviscerated by that delayed blast fireball? Roll up a new character?), and then having to roll up a new character on the spot that you don’t even like. If you want to remove restoration magic, then perhaps you should think of an alternative way for characters to come back to life. If your campaign is story and plot intensive, then you should devise a way for characters to come back that involves exactly that... story and plot. Can the party travel to the Afterlife, Other Side, whatever, and retrieve their friend’s soul and bring him back that way? Can the party make a deal with the Grim Reaper to bring their friend back? Can they sacrifice an innocent individual to a demon in exchange for their friend’s safe return? Where I’m getting at here is that death is so final, too final, especially for a player who really enjoys roleplaying their character. Think wisely before stripping away restoration magic, because the campaign might die right along with the characters.
michaeljpatrick 10-30-07, 12:58 PM	(Hi, I am the same person as Haloofbees- the OP. I had trouble getting my account to work and created Haloofbees as a last ditch to be able to post. Then I managed to get my real account working again so I will post under this name from now on) I've only been playing 3.5 for less than a year now. I am not familiar with every spell that brings dead characters back to life (in my day it was mostly just resurrect, raise dead, and reincarnation). I think it is not the spells themselves that I have issue with so much as the way in which they are often used in campaigns. In a 2E campaign I played a fairly wealthy thief who was able to buy himself back to life- with the help of his party of course- several times simply because high level spellcasters were available for hire in the large cities of our game. I got to the point where I dove recklessly into battle and never bothered to check for traps since death was hardly a threat. Sure there were costs and penalties, but no cost is greater than never having the ability to play ever again. In most (non-superhero) fiction when a character dies that is it. They are removed from play, so to speak. As a DM I tend to prevent pointless deaths (such as the fate that befell my first character ever- Nikolas Mok the magic user who died at seventh level after swallowing a poison mushroom from the buffet table at Castle Amber). If a player does something really stupid, dangerous, or brave they still run the risk of life and limb, but I try not to kill them without warning. I like the idea of the party traveling to the afterlife to retrieve the character's soul. That is the sort of thing I would like to use rather than simply saying, "Dead again? Oh well, just make a huge contribution to your local church and all will be ok." Any more suggestions like that?
Dog_O_War 10-30-07, 01:00 PM	Every decent campaign I've played in, resurrection magic was barred. In fact the few campaigns that I had been in where resurrection was possible, the challenges were often overwhelming and we died more (and the reponse to that was "well you can just get rezzed"). I see barring resurrection as a way of making your players strong (as long as you the DM, play reasonable). All that being said, I hated that we couldn't get a raise dead, at all - which has wore on me. In my campaign setting resurrection is available. Also; when you do this, do it all the way. In some of those non-raise dead campaigns, the DM would "save" us by giving out exp. loss, or other crappy penalties. Sometimes an NPC would happen by and "save" us. Everything I have just listed is something that players hate.
Xaer 10-30-07, 03:00 PM	Think strongly about banning save-or-die spells, as those are made with ressurection spells in mind.
Tsochar 10-30-07, 03:34 PM	Alternatively, you could have it so that any resurrection or similar effect requires one to pay a great price, like in FMA or Earthsea. In my campaign there are vengeful, murderous spirits that are invisible and intangible. Since they can't act as they are, they must wait for a resurrection or similar spell to transplant them into a new body. After that, they usually try to kill any people nearby, but the some are intelligent enough to wait for the right time to strike. There is a fair possibility of a success, but there's always that lurking terror. Heroes of Horror also describes a few side-effects of resurrection that causes the character to take on odd, somewhat eerie personality quirks.
Danahan 10-30-07, 05:59 PM	I like the idea of the party traveling to the afterlife to retrieve the character's soul. That is the sort of thing I would like to use rather than simply saying, "Dead again? Oh well, just make a huge contribution to your local church and all will be ok." Any more suggestions like that? In my gothic horror campaign, restoration magic is exceedingly rare, but attainable. Nonetheless, we have a house rule when a character is killed. He or she find themselves in a very eerie royal chamber, devoid of any light besides a strange blue luminescence. There the character meets the personage of Death itself, appearing a lot like the Grim Reaper. He gives the character two choices: they can either fight him in a duel, or answer a riddle correctly to have their lives restored to them (essentially treated as a true resurrection). An individual character can only duel Death once, and answer a riddle once. Once they’ve done both things, they die as normal... having to be resurrected or what not. When dueling Death, he is treated as being of the same class and level. For example, if a 5th level wizard duels Death, he is also a 5th level wizard, etc, etc. Answering riddles can obliviously be far more difficult. But it gives some of my players who love riddles an opportunity to rack their brains.
LFK 10-31-07, 11:12 AM	Basically if you take Restoration magic out of the game you need to take a good look at the difficulty level before you start. Character death sucks as is, and no resurrection makes it worse. If you want persistent characters for story sake then ban Save or die spells, drop your normal CR range by 1 (mooks -3 instead of -2, or -2 instead of -1, slightly easier than you'd normally run), have a rule in your head like "mooks can't crit" to avoid useless deaths against meaningless encounters (a 20 still hits, but they "always seem to fail the confirm roll" when a crit comes up), and spend a lot more time thinking about how chains of encounters interact with each other in terms of how they drain player resources. Are the earlier encounters harmless enough that the wizard and cleric feel safe using lower damage/healing output, cheap wands or will they be using top rank spells? If they’re using top rank spells on the first encounter in the dungeon then they’ll either be gassing (and dying) by the 3rd and 4th encounters, or you’ll get the 50-feet-per-day movement rate as the players decide that resting for 24 hours after each encounter is more worthwhile than even considering whatever might be in the next room over.