Raise dead ignored

[haran.yakir]

I keep coming back to the fact that raising the dead is completely ignored story-wise. In this kind of setting - where raising the dead, while not an everyday occurrence, is still pretty common - completely ignoring it is very jarring to me. Especially where important characters are concerned and my party has the ability to bring them back right here and now

[アンジェル]

Originally posted by 76561198427487127:

I keep coming back to the fact that raising the dead is completely ignored story-wise. In this kind of setting - where raising the dead, while not an everyday occurrence, is still pretty common - completely ignoring it is very jarring to me. Especially where important characters are concerned and my party has the ability to bring them back right here and now

That is a gameplay vs. lore thing.

Lorewise you cannot raise someone who is taken by Pharasma. Hero characters are toldwise hold back from going to beyond. That is why you can raise them for a while. It does not applies to common mortals.

[haran.yakir]

Originally posted by アンジェル:

Lorewise you cannot raise someone who is taken by Pharasma. Hero characters are toldwise hold back from going to beyond. That is why you can raise them for a while. It does not applies to common mortals.

That is never explained anywhere

[StingingVelvet]

The difficulty options screen actually discusses this and says raise dead is a very expensive process that is only able to be used by the greatest of adventurers. So I suppose that's somewhat of an explanation, 99% of people can't afford it. Though then you have to ask why lords and kings and stuff ever die. I dunno.

It's like how Star Trek technically has no money and machines that can make anything out of matter, but when the story requires them to have any kind of money or resource hardship the writers just kind of ignore that.

[Tourak]

Originally posted by haran.yakir:

Originally posted by アンジェル:

Lorewise you cannot raise someone who is taken by Pharasma. Hero characters are toldwise hold back from going to beyond. That is why you can raise them for a while. It does not applies to common mortals.

That is never explained anywhere

This is a bit complex. Basically Pharasma already know if a soul will or will not be resurrected. If the soul will not be, she proceed to judge them, other wise the soul is left to wait until they are raised back. No souls can be raised after they are dead for more then 200 years, also, a soul can refuse to be raised back to life. So, the only real lore friendly explanation is that they are fine with having died and don't want/feel like coming back.

Raise spell also doesn't allow some one to live longer then their lifespan allow it, which is why you get people becoming undead to escape death.

Edit: the only exception to the lifespan rule is with the druid reincarnation spell.

[ExcaliburV]

I think this is also a matter of the skewed perspective of the player. Even a level 1 adventurer stands head and shoulders above the common man. By virtue of being a successful adventurer, you are arguably the .1% of the setting (successful adventurers generally manage to get enough gold to break the economy of entire cities, for example.)

And still, it takes you being either level 11 to be able to cast raise dead yourself (which is high enough level to be considered a legendary hero IIRC. Remember, most people are not even level 1.)

Or it requires you to spend quite literally thousands of gold for the time of somebody that can cast the spell, which are A. very rare and B. cost more money than most average people ever see in their entire lives.

So yeah, death is very much a factor for the average person in the setting. But as a PC and an adventurer, you basically start out the gate as not being average, so the player never really feels that side of things.

[Tourak]

Originally posted by ExcaliburV:

I think this is also a matter of the skewed perspective of the player. Even a level 1 adventurer stands head and shoulders above the common man. By virtue of being a successful adventurer, you are arguably the .1% of the setting (successful adventurers generally manage to get enough gold to break the economy of entire cities, for example.)

And still, it takes you being either level 11 to be able to cast raise dead yourself (which is high enough level to be considered a legendary hero IIRC. Remember, most people are not even level 1.)

Or it requires you to spend quite literally thousands of gold for the time of somebody that can cast the spell, which are A. very rare and B. cost more money than most average people ever see in their entire lives.

So yeah, death is very much a factor for the average person in the setting. But as a PC and an adventurer, you basically start out the gate as not being average, so the player never really feels that side of things.

Ya, but that doesn't hold up when YOU ARE PRESENT and willing to resurrect some one. There's no reason my lvl 20 characters can't resurrect a npc I want to lol

[Player#2201]

Originally posted by Tourak:

Originally posted by ExcaliburV:

I think this is also a matter of the skewed perspective of the player. Even a level 1 adventurer stands head and shoulders above the common man. By virtue of being a successful adventurer, you are arguably the .1% of the setting (successful adventurers generally manage to get enough gold to break the economy of entire cities, for example.)

And still, it takes you being either level 11 to be able to cast raise dead yourself (which is high enough level to be considered a legendary hero IIRC. Remember, most people are not even level 1.)

Or it requires you to spend quite literally thousands of gold for the time of somebody that can cast the spell, which are A. very rare and B. cost more money than most average people ever see in their entire lives.

So yeah, death is very much a factor for the average person in the setting. But as a PC and an adventurer, you basically start out the gate as not being average, so the player never really feels that side of things.

Ya, but that doesn't hold up when YOU ARE PRESENT and willing to resurrect some one. There's no reason my lvl 20 characters can't resurrect a npc I want to lol

Not sure if it's in the game description of Raise Dead, but TT there's also this sentence "the subject’s soul must be free and willing to return. If the subject’s soul is not willing to return, the spell does not work; therefore, a subject that wants to return receives no saving throw." The person has a choice in the matter, and after suffering what is likely a horrific demise in the demon infested Worldwound, they probably have a strong incentive to say "I'm out."

[Gracey Face]

Something no one has mentioned is that there's quite a few limits to raise dead. For example it can't heal all injuries so if you're, say, beheaded or torn in half or burned you can't be revived with raise dead.

You need true resurrection to bring back people with grevious wounds (or magical illnesses) and that's a level 9 spell and people able to cast lvl 9 spells are one in a billion kind of rates "lore wise". They're the kinds of people who become barely beleived myths.

[Insanity_184]

it’s simply a game mechanic and that’s it. Anything else is to explain away why Npc’s don’t abuse it to high heaven.

It’s one of those things the original makers of the PnP version know they need so that a PCs favorite character isn’t gone forever and the game loses some fun for them (unless you like that) and that’s the sole reason it exists. After that lore was written for selling the world to people and someone thought “we gotta make up some ♥♥♥♥ to explain why raise dead isn’t used as much”

Cause you know if it was open to all every noble, king, and rich merchant would have a temple priest on standby (like Daran does)

[Tourak]

Originally posted by Insanity_184:

it’s simply a game mechanic and that’s it. Anything else is to explain away why Npc’s don’t abuse it to high heaven.

It’s one of those things the original makers of the PnP version know they need so that a PCs favorite character isn’t gone forever and the game loses some fun for them (unless you like that) and that’s the sole reason it exists. After that lore was written for selling the world to people and someone thought “we gotta make up some ♥♥♥♥ to explain why raise dead isn’t used as much”

Cause you know if it was open to all every noble, king, and rich merchant would have a temple priest on standby (like Daran does)

Darean actually do.

[Insanity_184]

Originally posted by Tourak:

Darean actually do.

Ya and that’s my point. It’s there to add to his backstory but if it was available to all then the Queen would have something like that on demand (like she can’t find a high level cleric)

Or better yet it be an awesome in world job. Go to school to learn “magic device” and how to use high level divine scrolls then charge nobles a fee to retain your service. They provide the scroll, diamond, and any thing needed (I don’t think you need the full body for the higher resurrection) and you get paid a bonus on success.

[haran.yakir]

Originally posted by Insanity_184:

it’s simply a game mechanic and that’s it. Anything else is to explain away why Npc’s don’t abuse it to high heaven.

It’s one of those things the original makers of the PnP version know they need so that a PCs favorite character isn’t gone forever and the game loses some fun for them (unless you like that) and that’s the sole reason it exists. After that lore was written for selling the world to people and someone thought “we gotta make up some ♥♥♥♥ to explain why raise dead isn’t used as much”

Cause you know if it was open to all every noble, king, and rich merchant would have a temple priest on standby (like Daran does)

If it were just for the sake of game mechanics, they could say that your character is not really dead but knocked out and severely injured so you have this powerful healing spell you must cast on them to bring them back to fighting condition. They weren't dead dead. But since raise dead is actually part of the setting, and it's even mentioned by some characters in game, it's really jarring that it is almost always ignored as a story mechanic

[Miskatonic]

That was one thing I liked about Tomb of Annihilation. The stakes are more interesting when there's no resurrection.

[Gracey Face]

Originally posted by haran.yakir:

If it were just for the sake of game mechanics, they could say that your character is not really dead but knocked out and severely injured so you have this powerful healing spell you must cast on them to bring them back to fighting condition. They weren't dead dead. But since raise dead is actually part of the setting, and it's even mentioned by some characters in game, it's really jarring that it is almost always ignored as a story mechanic

Like I said, there's limits to raise dead. Head cut off? Can't be done. Heart cut out? Can't be done. Chest crushed? Can't be done. Burned? Can't be done. Arm cut off? Can be done but you'll bleed to death right after. Died of a magic illness? Can't be done. Died of old age (in the setting everything has a set lifespan that to exceed you need very specialised potions/spells)? Can't be done.

That's why it's ignored most of the time, because a lot of things just can't be fixed. The spell that can bring you back from everything (except old age) is a level 9 spell and level 9 casters in universe are almost impossible to get a hold of, they're above royalty in status.

And in order to survive old age, other than things like becoming a lich you need things like Sun Orchid Elixirs, which is what Galfrey drinks, which depending on what you read might cost as much as 50k gold per year of your life. And 50k gold might not seem like a lot if you play this game, because the games give you far more loot than you really should have, but 50k gold is "yearly GDP of a small country" levels of money.

[Tourak]

Originally posted by Gracey Face:

Like I said, there's limits to raise dead. Head cut off? Can't be done. Heart cut out? Can't be done. Chest crushed? Can't be done. Burned? Can't be done. Arm cut off? Can be done but you'll bleed to death right after. Died of a magic illness? Can't be done. Died of old age (in the setting everything has a set lifespan that to exceed you need very specialised potions/spells)? Can't be done.

But resurrection and true resurrection have no such restriction, I don't see any reason to not be able to use it on your allies. Btw, you can cast raise dead on some one with a missing leg or arm, they'll just come back without the limb needing a regeneration spell to regrow the lost limb.

Fun fact, one of the suggested way to save some one from a Mindflayer tadpole once they had one infecting them is to have the head utterly crushed and destroying the tadpole followed by a resurrection spell. lol

"It was only possible to interrupt ceremorphosis and save the host before this initial stage was completed, and even so it was only possible to do so by killing the tadpole, which was complicated by its location. The safest way was to incinerate or crush the host's head and then use spells such as resurrection, or true resurrection. Destroyed parts of the victim's personality could then be reconstructed via restoration and heal spells, as long as the damage was not complete."

https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Ceremorphosis

Originally posted by Gracey Face:

That's why it's ignored most of the time, because a lot of things just can't be fixed. The spell that can bring you back from everything (except old age) is a level 9 spell and level 9 casters in universe are almost impossible to get a hold of, they're above royalty in status.

If they had time to give they dying speech, then the body can't be in that bad a shape. lol

Originally posted by Gracey Face:

And in order to survive old age, other than things like becoming a lich you need things like Sun Orchid Elixirs, which is what Galfrey drinks, which depending on what you read might cost as much as 50k gold per year of your life. And 50k gold might not seem like a lot if you play this game, because the games give you far more loot than you really should have, but 50k gold is "yearly GDP of a small country" levels of money.

Like I said in an earlier post, the reincarnation spell do bypass the lifespan limit, but only druid can cast it.