Thoughts on Raise Dead

[abby]

Maybe everyone knows this, but maybe not?

Raise Dead is a choice. When a person dies, and a cleric is raising her, she knows what the alighnment of the cleric is, and what God he prays too. She is in no way bound to return and can happily stay dead or wait for the next priest to come along (so long as they are within the time-limit).

Whenever I raise someone, I send a tell first saying something like "A lawful good cleric of Ilmater is calling you back, do you willfully choose to return?" It may seem like a trivial formality most of the time, but I think its important to make the distinction.

Next. Once people cross over, they do not typically want to come back. Very few people choose to return. Only those with some grand cause, or some great need/desire/love to obligate them to return.

Obviously PCs always return, but NPCs and such should probably not come back very often.

I know that death for PCs is pointless.. but if people adhere to the above, it probably could help at least give some gravity to NPC death. People tend to RP that fixing dead is as easy as casting Raise Dead. As though its a band-aid.

I theorize the "majority" of NPCs will not return to the call, esspecially very young people who haven't had time to "bond" with the world. If you combine this knoweldge with at least RPing that its expensive to cast raise dead (as per the source where 1500gp diamond is required), it provides a very good reason why an entire village of people is "not" going to be raised. Indeed most people don't even try to raise the dead for the above reasons. RP tends to be more honest and immersive when death is a grim reality.

[darinder]

*appluads post*

I've seen a couple of PCs use a Raise Scroll on an NPC corpse and then RP the dead person choosing to not return. On one occasion, it led to some rather sad but wonderful RP for a few of us.

[Lady Frost]

good post

[walkonair]

+1!

I figure my PC doesn't know the difference between another PC and an NPC, they are all "alive" to her. So I ask myself "does my PC care about this PC/NPC and is willing to spend the scroll/money?"

Depending on the PC, it's surprisingly different answers
And depending on the NPC, yep, they may not come back.

It's always been good RP though, either way

[Savoie Faire]

You must also know the name of the person you are raising, or at least the name to which they answer in normal conversation.

The typical adventurer carries a charter with his name on it, so that is one means of identifying a corpse for revival, but most NPC's do not carry such documents, (no driver's license required.)

Raising the dead is not a simple matter, and yet the game mechanics allow players to raise PC's multiple times in an hour of play.

This has lead to a casual attitude toward raising, unfortunately, and I'm very glad to see Abby taking the issue seriously.

[Fluffy the Mad]

Feb 7, 2013 9:49:35 GMT -5 Savoie Faire said:

You must also know the name of the person you are raising, or at least the name to which they answer in normal conversation.

The typical adventurer carries a charter with his name on it, so that is one means of identifying a corpse for revival, but most NPC's do not carry such documents, (no driver's license required.)

I do agree that it isn't something to be taken lightly, but I've never read that it requires a name, just a body to be resurrected.

www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/raiseDead.htm

I've also checked the PHB 3.5 and Magic of Faerun- no mention of it in either of those.

[Savoie Faire]

My first ed roots are showing. You are correct.

[iangallowglas]

I have played an evil cleric on FRC. Before I would cast raise dead on someone, I would send them a tell stating that they were being raised by an evil cleric. Most characters choose to be raised, (which my priest saw as a sign that they could be corrupted, hehe) and on one occasion, they player chose not to be raised (which I thought was major cool).

I did some research on this topic some time ago, (like a year or two back) and it was my understanding that the person being raised did not know the god that the priest prayed to, only his general alignment. I also remember that when being raised by a scroll, the person being raised knows the alignment of the creator of the scroll, and not the alignment of the person reading the scroll.

That's my two cents on the topic.

[sky]

Feb 7, 2013 13:03:16 GMT -5 iangallowglas said:

I have played an evil cleric on FRC. Before I would cast raise dead on someone, I would send them a tell stating that they were being raised by an evil cleric. Most characters choose to be raised, (which my priest saw as a sign that they could be corrupted, hehe) and on one occasion, they player chose not to be raised (which I thought was major cool).

I did some research on this topic some time ago, (like a year or two back) and it was my understanding that the person being raised did not know the god that the priest prayed to, only his general alignment. I also remember that when being raised by a scroll, the person being raised knows the alignment of the creator of the scroll, and not the alignment of the person reading the scroll.

That's my two cents on the topic.

You are right about the scroll thing. The magic is sealed within the scroll and not the user so anything the receiver would feel would be from the composer of the scroll.

I've always interpreted it that you wouldn't know anything as exacting as the alignment,social security number, God, D.O.B. ect.
but rather a rather vague 'feeling' as if feeling slightly clammy when being raised by a velsharoonite, or hell slightly randy when raised by a sharessan.
subtle tidbits of information that a player can choose to use in their RP or pass up.

[Savoie Faire]

From the Player's Handbook:

"A soul knows the name, alignment, and patron deity, (if any,) of the character attempting to revive it..."

Not the mauacturer of the scroll, but the character reading the scroll and calling the dead back to life.

[ID10Tango]

I can't help but wonder that if people want to take death more seriously, and hope to suggest others do the same then why not make FRC a perm death server? There would probably be a very sharp decline in "senseless violence", more effort would be put into conflict resolution, less ignorant actions would take place while dungeon crawling if even a single death was permanent for that character. It was a suggestion I heard from another player and it seems to fit right in to what some are posting here unless I am misunderstanding something.

[magiuss]

Feb 8, 2013 10:12:17 GMT -5 Savoie Faire said:

From the Player's Handbook:

"A soul knows the name, alignment, and patron deity, (if any,) of the character attempting to revive it..."

Not the mauacturer of the scroll, but the character reading the scroll and calling the dead back to life.

got a question about that then.. if they know all these things as normaly is an ooc knowledge would my char know any if that after he has been raised ? and the name.. is that the birth name.? or the taken name.. my char was not named Magius when he was born. but took in that nickname later on. [part of his storie] what name would they know ?

[Lady Frost]

Feb 8, 2013 10:21:45 GMT -5 ID10Tango said:

I can't help but wonder that if people want to take death more seriously, and hope to suggest others do the same then why not make FRC a perm death server? There would probably be a very sharp decline in "senseless violence", more effort would be put into conflict resolution, less ignorant actions would take place while dungeon crawling if even a single death was permanent for that character. It was a suggestion I heard from another player and it seems to fit right in to what some are posting here unless I am misunderstanding something.

You must be misunderstanding because I think a very very small percentage would even consider that.

This thread is about people's thoughts on RP'ing raising someone though, not death seriousness or permadeath. If you wanted to start a thread on it, I'm sure a great many would share their feelings.

[Savoie Faire]

Feb 8, 2013 10:21:56 GMT -5 magiuss said:

Feb 8, 2013 10:12:17 GMT -5 Savoie Faire said:

From the Player's Handbook:

"A soul knows the name, alignment, and patron deity, (if any,) of the character attempting to revive it..."

Not the mauacturer of the scroll, but the character reading the scroll and calling the dead back to life.

got a question about that then.. if they know all these things as normaly is an ooc knowledge would my char know any if that after he has been raised ? and the name.. is that the birth name.? or the taken name.. my char was not named Magius when he was born. but took in that nickname later on. [part of his storie] what name would they know ?

The raised person has no memory of his time dead. This is an FRC ruling.

[magiuss]

So it this is pretty much just so the one whom is being raised can decide if he will answer the call of the one raising him/her ?.

[sky]

So to clarify, the receiver of the raise dead know (while dead) what god ect. ect. ect. is trying to bring them back, but as soon as they are revived they remember nothing because of the 30 min ruling, correct?

[Lady Frost]

Feb 8, 2013 18:06:37 GMT -5 sky said:

So to clarify, the receiver of the raise dead know (while dead) what god ect. ect. ect. is trying to bring them back, but as soon as they are revived they remember nothing because of the 30 min ruling, correct?

They remember nothing, not due to the 30 min ruling (because that is only for PvP and even a PvP raise could happen after the 30 mins) but because without a DM ruling you can't remember anything from when you are dead.

[MTGPackFoils]

Feb 8, 2013 16:31:12 GMT -5 Savoie Faire said:

The raised person has no memory of his time dead. This is an FRC ruling.

I do something similar to Abby in that I send the player a tell of what happened to them to snatch them back to the world of the living.

RP wise my character plays it as if the person was knocked out (if we are the only two), or if I did raise the person in question. Several players have treated the info in tell as either a vision, or something similar to a nightmare. One player was even worried about what he had seen from an IC point of view.

While the PHB says what it does, the rule here I think is made to prevent metagaming, but yeah players should probably have a choice before the scroll/spell is used.