Death And Eberron [Archive] - Wizards Community

Death And Eberron [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Subtle Knife
09-16-06, 12:31 PM In considering the role of the afterlife in Eberron and how readily one finds the wherewithal to raise or resurrect the dead, I’ve decided to make it much harder in my campaigns. My thoughts run thusly – one is born, lives and dies in one’s time, in accordance to nature, and one’s spirit transits to Dolurrh, where memory fades and eventually the core of that spirit is reinfused into the world. Death is an ending, and many consider it something to be avoided – the elves pursue the Path of the Undying, the Blood of Vol pursue immortality, the Church of the Silver Flame believe the souls of those worthy join with the Silver Flame itself. The Druids and Sovereign Host are more likely to subscribe to the believe in reincarnation as a final manifestation of death, with the corrolary that some spirits are “stolen” by the Keeper, effectively removing them from the pool of spirits to be reincarnated. Only those spirits present unnaturally within the world are not bound by this passage of energy from life into death, including those spirits who are bound to world in an unnatural manner, and those who don’t actually belong within the normal scheme of nature on the prime material plane (outsiders and aberrations).

Magic of any form involves the subtle manipulation of natural laws to a specific end. As resurrection and the raising of the dead run contrary to the natural scheme of nature, they require great power, broad resources, and are very dangerous. The use of such spells by even the most powerful mortals runs a tremendous risk and a great price, preventing them from being an option except under extraordinary circumstances. Basically, as DM I am planning to remove any such spell from routine PC/NPC spell lists, making them the province of such luminaries as the Silver Flame itself, the most powerful of the Lords of Dust, the Daelkyr, Lady Vol, and perhaps the greatest of dragons. Thus might seem an extreme step but it fulfills three purposes:

1) It makes survival something to truly valuable, and something to strive for. You will no longer be able to have your compatriots spend a hoard of gold to have you raised if you fail to defend yourself properly or do something foolish. Death is truly to be avoided if you want to keep that particular character in play.
2) It places an inherent value on immortality (via various means), making it more realistic that individuals would risk their lives and souls to avoid the loss of their selves.
3) It makes the raising of the dead a truly remarkable and potentially terrible thing, and the object of great deeds (for good or ill). Though characters will not be able to routinely have their friends returned to them, great valor or ruin will allow characters to return from the afterlife, perhaps by:
a. Finding and making a dark pact with one of the more malevolent entities in the world
b. Gaining audience with the Silver Flame and fulfilling some great deed/converting to the faith (and not in the simplest sense – think levels as cleric or paladin)
c. Finding the ultimate location of the spirit (either in Dolurrh or the Keeper’s Lair), making one’s way there, locating the specific spirit in question, and returning it to the Material Plane (with crazy hijinks on the way)

In my campaign, we are considering using the Taint and Corruption rules as presented in Heroes of Horror, allowing those to also play a role; even successful resurrection or raising runs some risk of corruption or taint to the one returned to life, particularly if the darker powers are tapped for such a purpose.

Keep in mind I don’t want to make it harder to survive (and enjoy) our gaming sessions, so two further novel rules are being considered:
1) Character progression will be altered such that new feats are gained every two levels, rather than every three. This will more readily support the survival of the characters, as well as perhaps allowing some to eventually use some of the feats with manifold prerequisites.
2) Players will be more than welcome to create secondary “backup” characters of an appropriate level (one level less than their current active character), such that in the case of an unexpected death, they will be able to continue playing in the campaign, once I figure out where the new character can be inserted into the plot.

Lastly, The spell Reincarnation would be left as is, as it follows the general plan of nature, merely accelerating it, and in general runs some risk. I might consider raising its' spell level - this is in contemplation...

Please let me know your thoughts on this plan.

SK
hfolkense
09-16-06, 03:04 PM I don't like uber heavy laws on resurection spells. You can make them harder to cast (more expensive), have weird components and just make it difficult to find the right time to cast, but I have a few problems with it.

-Remember than in Eberron, the PC's are one of the most powerful organizations when they reach the level where they could cast rezz plz spells. If you completly erase the spells from their spellbook, it's highly likely that NO ONE can cast it. Remember, by the time they are 6th or 7th, there will be no cleric at the church wiating for them to rezz. That's an effective penalty that you are applying over another one: their inability to rely on NPC's like other worlds.
-I agree that making spells harder to cast is a good way of preventing stupid death. I think immortality IS a big deal in Eberron, because being immortal is a SUPERHARD thing to do and maintain. The undying court of aerenal keeps undying not because of just one spell, but because they live on the good will of thousands of their comrades.
-The thing that ticks me off is the supposedly dangerous casting of resurrection spells: I would feel very bad if after doing some epic quest to get some cleric to rezz a party group, the resurrection went wrong and I found myself fighting some ghosts or other crap like that. Not nice.
-While spare PC's are good, there is nothing like advancing one character. I think it has to do with the established ties that you come to get with your initial character. I would care much more for my fighter that I leveled since 1st to 10'ish level than just some newcomer. Plus they happen to be redundant in the sense that making a fighter spare HAS to fill the role of a fighter.

All in all, I am not agaisn't making death a igger OBSTACLE, but erasing spells, putting an ultra high resurrection spell and plotting risk in the spells is not something I would do to scare PC's of dieing, especially in a world where they are the most powerful beings.

AS I told you, for me at least, raising the spell cost (or level), making the components rare but not almost impossible to get would be fine.

The whole spirit of the world lies in a "nigh miss" furious battles in which the Characters always seem to win by a hair, I think saying, UPS you died, is not quite in the tone of the Campaign. Certainly death should be feared but not to the point of becoming an impossible barrier to a character carrier.

I think that double feats is a very risky way of handling this. Courrently, feats are a limited resource of power burst that comes very sparingly, by making it 2/levels a feat, you are almost doubling their frequency, which becomes a problem in an in itself.

The taint stuff is nice and all, but there are other ways to add them in a campaign that punishing players for trying to keep playing a PC.

You have also to remember that Eberron campaigns very well end at lower level than others 16, 17 level are just fine to end a campaign.
Syltorian
09-16-06, 04:08 PM I agree mostly with hfolkense; resurrection might pose a lot of problems but it is extremely frustrating to just lose a character beyond recovery. And while I am all for realism, this is still a game, and it should not be frustrating. A player should not be made feel (too) bad because of an honest mistake, a bad roll, or the like.

My idea was the following: Tie resurrection to action points. So far, I got this:

1) To cast a Resurrection spell, the caster must expend an action point:
This prevents most NPC spellcasters, except those specially chosen by the DM, from ever actually casting such a spell; much like your limiting it to only exceptional NPCs, but more common than your example.

2) To be brought back from the dead, a character loses 1d4 action points permanently: Coming back from the dead is a gruelling experience, and only the most heroic and exceptional individuals ever make it. Special heroic efforts are represented in Eberron by action points, so that is why I am tying them in here. But dying and returning takes a certain amount of vitality away; part of the soul stays behind or so; hence the permanent loss of action points. On a metagame issue, there needs to be some punishment. Permanent Action Point loss can not be remedied. He always has 1d4 action points less than normal (or suffers a greater penalty, if he died more than once).

3) A character who does not have enough action points (either because he just does not have them at all, or because he spent them all for that level) can still be brought back if he is very lucky, but rolls a d% to determine whether a mishap happens. The table I got has the highest likelihood of nothing happening, and a small likelihood of the spell working, but between there are things such as: the wrong soul returns (cannot be exorcised), a ghost comes in (can be exorcised, but body is still dead), a gate to Dollurh opens, the soul returns but the body continues to rot and decompose, the soul returns but is not alone (neither can be exorcised; they continually wrest control of each other). This is mostly to explain why most people are afraid of resurrection and will not engage in it unless it is really necessary (as people in the game have no idea of what action points are).

4) Characters lose action points permanently, but do not suffer level-loss. This is to prevent players from dropping behind too far.

I have never tried this, but I hope action point loss is going to hurt players enough to avoid having their characters killed, but still not enough to spoil the game for them. I might also consider having the resurrection tied to a specific time of the day - as explained in one of the Dragon Magazines - probably the hour around midnight or sunset (or maybe sunrise; with its symbolism of rebirth).

What do other people think of this system?
Neutronium_Dragon
09-16-06, 04:35 PM > On a metagame issue, there needs to be some punishment. Permanent
> Action Point loss can not be remedied.

And that's precisely why it's a bad idea. XP loss is ugly, but you can recoup it. If you saddle them with a permanent loss like that, it simply means that they're mechanically better off to junk the character and make a new one; even if it has more catching-up to do, at least it *can*.

It'd be better to just charge the one being resurrected an AP. That also keeps resurrection from being commonplace (only the special individuals of the world can benefit from it), with some cost, but not one that basically hangs a "Do Not Resurrect" sign on the PC. (If they don't have any APs, it's taken out of their next level's allotment.)
Syltorian
09-16-06, 06:05 PM D'oh. Excellent point, Neutronium Dragon, I hadn't thought about that. Thanks for catching my mistake before I go and implement it.

I'll take your advice and make the AP loss recuperable. Still, one single AP seems a bit trivial for coming back from the dead. I'm just not sure how much it would be right to ask, though...
hfolkense
09-16-06, 06:19 PM 1 Ap seems a little low to me.

Maybe just 1d3 AP use.

What do you think about the 2/level feat thingie?

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Subtle Knife 09-16-06, 12:31 PM	In considering the role of the afterlife in Eberron and how readily one finds the wherewithal to raise or resurrect the dead, I’ve decided to make it much harder in my campaigns. My thoughts run thusly – one is born, lives and dies in one’s time, in accordance to nature, and one’s spirit transits to Dolurrh, where memory fades and eventually the core of that spirit is reinfused into the world. Death is an ending, and many consider it something to be avoided – the elves pursue the Path of the Undying, the Blood of Vol pursue immortality, the Church of the Silver Flame believe the souls of those worthy join with the Silver Flame itself. The Druids and Sovereign Host are more likely to subscribe to the believe in reincarnation as a final manifestation of death, with the corrolary that some spirits are “stolen” by the Keeper, effectively removing them from the pool of spirits to be reincarnated. Only those spirits present unnaturally within the world are not bound by this passage of energy from life into death, including those spirits who are bound to world in an unnatural manner, and those who don’t actually belong within the normal scheme of nature on the prime material plane (outsiders and aberrations). Magic of any form involves the subtle manipulation of natural laws to a specific end. As resurrection and the raising of the dead run contrary to the natural scheme of nature, they require great power, broad resources, and are very dangerous. The use of such spells by even the most powerful mortals runs a tremendous risk and a great price, preventing them from being an option except under extraordinary circumstances. Basically, as DM I am planning to remove any such spell from routine PC/NPC spell lists, making them the province of such luminaries as the Silver Flame itself, the most powerful of the Lords of Dust, the Daelkyr, Lady Vol, and perhaps the greatest of dragons. Thus might seem an extreme step but it fulfills three purposes: 1) It makes survival something to truly valuable, and something to strive for. You will no longer be able to have your compatriots spend a hoard of gold to have you raised if you fail to defend yourself properly or do something foolish. Death is truly to be avoided if you want to keep that particular character in play. 2) It places an inherent value on immortality (via various means), making it more realistic that individuals would risk their lives and souls to avoid the loss of their selves. 3) It makes the raising of the dead a truly remarkable and potentially terrible thing, and the object of great deeds (for good or ill). Though characters will not be able to routinely have their friends returned to them, great valor or ruin will allow characters to return from the afterlife, perhaps by: a. Finding and making a dark pact with one of the more malevolent entities in the world b. Gaining audience with the Silver Flame and fulfilling some great deed/converting to the faith (and not in the simplest sense – think levels as cleric or paladin) c. Finding the ultimate location of the spirit (either in Dolurrh or the Keeper’s Lair), making one’s way there, locating the specific spirit in question, and returning it to the Material Plane (with crazy hijinks on the way) In my campaign, we are considering using the Taint and Corruption rules as presented in Heroes of Horror, allowing those to also play a role; even successful resurrection or raising runs some risk of corruption or taint to the one returned to life, particularly if the darker powers are tapped for such a purpose. Keep in mind I don’t want to make it harder to survive (and enjoy) our gaming sessions, so two further novel rules are being considered: 1) Character progression will be altered such that new feats are gained every two levels, rather than every three. This will more readily support the survival of the characters, as well as perhaps allowing some to eventually use some of the feats with manifold prerequisites. 2) Players will be more than welcome to create secondary “backup” characters of an appropriate level (one level less than their current active character), such that in the case of an unexpected death, they will be able to continue playing in the campaign, once I figure out where the new character can be inserted into the plot. Lastly, The spell Reincarnation would be left as is, as it follows the general plan of nature, merely accelerating it, and in general runs some risk. I might consider raising its' spell level - this is in contemplation... Please let me know your thoughts on this plan. SK
hfolkense 09-16-06, 03:04 PM	I don't like uber heavy laws on resurection spells. You can make them harder to cast (more expensive), have weird components and just make it difficult to find the right time to cast, but I have a few problems with it. -Remember than in Eberron, the PC's are one of the most powerful organizations when they reach the level where they could cast rezz plz spells. If you completly erase the spells from their spellbook, it's highly likely that NO ONE can cast it. Remember, by the time they are 6th or 7th, there will be no cleric at the church wiating for them to rezz. That's an effective penalty that you are applying over another one: their inability to rely on NPC's like other worlds. -I agree that making spells harder to cast is a good way of preventing stupid death. I think immortality IS a big deal in Eberron, because being immortal is a SUPERHARD thing to do and maintain. The undying court of aerenal keeps undying not because of just one spell, but because they live on the good will of thousands of their comrades. -The thing that ticks me off is the supposedly dangerous casting of resurrection spells: I would feel very bad if after doing some epic quest to get some cleric to rezz a party group, the resurrection went wrong and I found myself fighting some ghosts or other crap like that. Not nice. -While spare PC's are good, there is nothing like advancing one character. I think it has to do with the established ties that you come to get with your initial character. I would care much more for my fighter that I leveled since 1st to 10'ish level than just some newcomer. Plus they happen to be redundant in the sense that making a fighter spare HAS to fill the role of a fighter. All in all, I am not agaisn't making death a igger OBSTACLE, but erasing spells, putting an ultra high resurrection spell and plotting risk in the spells is not something I would do to scare PC's of dieing, especially in a world where they are the most powerful beings. AS I told you, for me at least, raising the spell cost (or level), making the components rare but not almost impossible to get would be fine. The whole spirit of the world lies in a "nigh miss" furious battles in which the Characters always seem to win by a hair, I think saying, UPS you died, is not quite in the tone of the Campaign. Certainly death should be feared but not to the point of becoming an impossible barrier to a character carrier. I think that double feats is a very risky way of handling this. Courrently, feats are a limited resource of power burst that comes very sparingly, by making it 2/levels a feat, you are almost doubling their frequency, which becomes a problem in an in itself. The taint stuff is nice and all, but there are other ways to add them in a campaign that punishing players for trying to keep playing a PC. You have also to remember that Eberron campaigns very well end at lower level than others 16, 17 level are just fine to end a campaign.
Syltorian 09-16-06, 04:08 PM	I agree mostly with hfolkense; resurrection might pose a lot of problems but it is extremely frustrating to just lose a character beyond recovery. And while I am all for realism, this is still a game, and it should not be frustrating. A player should not be made feel (too) bad because of an honest mistake, a bad roll, or the like. My idea was the following: Tie resurrection to action points. So far, I got this: 1) To cast a Resurrection spell, the caster must expend an action point: This prevents most NPC spellcasters, except those specially chosen by the DM, from ever actually casting such a spell; much like your limiting it to only exceptional NPCs, but more common than your example. 2) To be brought back from the dead, a character loses 1d4 action points permanently: Coming back from the dead is a gruelling experience, and only the most heroic and exceptional individuals ever make it. Special heroic efforts are represented in Eberron by action points, so that is why I am tying them in here. But dying and returning takes a certain amount of vitality away; part of the soul stays behind or so; hence the permanent loss of action points. On a metagame issue, there needs to be some punishment. Permanent Action Point loss can not be remedied. He always has 1d4 action points less than normal (or suffers a greater penalty, if he died more than once). 3) A character who does not have enough action points (either because he just does not have them at all, or because he spent them all for that level) can still be brought back if he is very lucky, but rolls a d% to determine whether a mishap happens. The table I got has the highest likelihood of nothing happening, and a small likelihood of the spell working, but between there are things such as: the wrong soul returns (cannot be exorcised), a ghost comes in (can be exorcised, but body is still dead), a gate to Dollurh opens, the soul returns but the body continues to rot and decompose, the soul returns but is not alone (neither can be exorcised; they continually wrest control of each other). This is mostly to explain why most people are afraid of resurrection and will not engage in it unless it is really necessary (as people in the game have no idea of what action points are). 4) Characters lose action points permanently, but do not suffer level-loss. This is to prevent players from dropping behind too far. I have never tried this, but I hope action point loss is going to hurt players enough to avoid having their characters killed, but still not enough to spoil the game for them. I might also consider having the resurrection tied to a specific time of the day - as explained in one of the Dragon Magazines - probably the hour around midnight or sunset (or maybe sunrise; with its symbolism of rebirth). What do other people think of this system?
Neutronium_Dragon 09-16-06, 04:35 PM	> On a metagame issue, there needs to be some punishment. Permanent > Action Point loss can not be remedied. And that's precisely why it's a bad idea. XP loss is ugly, but you can recoup it. If you saddle them with a permanent loss like that, it simply means that they're mechanically better off to junk the character and make a new one; even if it has more catching-up to do, at least it can. It'd be better to just charge the one being resurrected an AP. That also keeps resurrection from being commonplace (only the special individuals of the world can benefit from it), with some cost, but not one that basically hangs a "Do Not Resurrect" sign on the PC. (If they don't have any APs, it's taken out of their next level's allotment.)
Syltorian 09-16-06, 06:05 PM	D'oh. Excellent point, Neutronium Dragon, I hadn't thought about that. Thanks for catching my mistake before I go and implement it. I'll take your advice and make the AP loss recuperable. Still, one single AP seems a bit trivial for coming back from the dead. I'm just not sure how much it would be right to ask, though...
hfolkense 09-16-06, 06:19 PM	1 Ap seems a little low to me. Maybe just 1d3 AP use. What do you think about the 2/level feat thingie?