Discussion on Death

Craig 12:56, 27 Apr 2006 (BST)
I'm not sure that I'm keen on the fate points idea. I don't think that 5000gp (in diamonds) for Raise Dead is within the reach of most people. In the knowledge that even ressurection requires a part of the body that was attached at death, perhaps assassination of the wealthy involves abduction of the person, execution, then disposal of the body in the hope that no-one can find it. It's not beyond the means of most D&D usurpers to have someone teleport in, grab the victim, then teleport out.
We're in a magical world, and a lot of it doesn't conform to logic. To remove the ability to raise the dead has knock-on effects on certain spells like the 'instant death' spells that do not allow the use of Raise Dead. These spells are suddenly not quite as powerful as they were.
Rather than fate points. I think it makes more sense to do something like restrict 'Raise' type spells exclusively to the Death domain, then make the priests of Death highly secretive, difficult to contact, and resistant to reversing their master's hold on the dead. In other words, something doable by adventurers, but maybe not by others. - Just my 2¢

Craig 13:03, 27 Apr 2006 (BST)
Another idea that I had is that raising leaves someone with a visible 'death mark'. This could be something that marks the character as an outcast amongst the general populace and makes people shun them. Of course, this idea penalises some classes more than others - particularly those who rely on speaking to others as a major part of their class repertoire (e.g. bards and maybe paladins and rogues).
Just throwing ideas into the air - ultimately, it's your game Dave.

Henry 13:39, 27 Apr 2006 (BST)
I think the difficulty with resurrection-type spells is a consequence of the "We don't generally bother tracking material components" house-rule. I think we're all happier not having to deal with tracking down a pinch of brimstone for every fireball you want to cast, or whatever, so we have to work around this. Do we then say "only use material components for spells where there's a listed cost"? - but this means that, for example, True Seeing etc. become costly. I don't see any problem with the Fate Points idea - though I do see your point that maybe the objections to Raise Dead are not excessively strong.

Craig 17:35, 27 Apr 2006 (BST)
Not to do with death but...
The rules essentially do state "only use material components for spells where there's a listed cost". But like you say, the issue is then if Identify doesn't cost 100gp in pearls, why does Raise Dead cost 5000gp in diamonds? I'm fairly sure that the game designers put the costs for certain spells in to mitigate the use of what are potentially overpowered spells - like stoneskin for example. With regard to Identify, from what I've read the designers actually intend for players to have to learn about items by using them and seeing what happens - thus saving the 100gp cost of the spell.

David 18:14, 27 Apr 2006 (BST)
Raise dead etc. are being removed for reasons other then previously mentioned. Basically, it has to do with the way I intend for magic to function in this world but you'll need to wait a bit longer for me to do a proper write-up of my ideas. (Also, I'd have preferred if all this discussion occured in the same place... oh well.)

Craig 09:54, 28 Apr 2006 (BST) ==> I wasn't sure how to add to the blog.