I am new to being a DM and and have created a homebrew campaign. In the campaign I wish to bring back creatures that have been dead form more than 200 years (True resurrection limitation). I could not find anything that would do what I want so I have made a version of True Resurrection. Do you think this is an adequate spell without it breaking the game?
Exchange life
8th-level necromancy
You touch a creature who has died for any reason except for old age. If the creature's soul is free and willing, the creature is restored to life with all its hit points.
This spell closes all wounds, neutralises any poison, cures all diseases and lifts any curses affecting the creature when it died. The spell replaces damaged or missing organs and limbs. Upon resurrection the creature appears shriveled and undead. The creature takes 1d6 days to fully regenerate their bodies.
The spell can provide a new body if the original no longer exists, in which case you must speak the creature's name. The creature then appears in an unoccupied space you choose within 10 feet of you.
The toll of this spell is great on your body. As the spell takes affect, your life force is drained from your body and given to the resurrected creature. Your life span is either reduced by half plus each year the creature has been dead, or your current age plus each year the creature has been dead; whichever is greater. If the creature has been dead for longer than your life force permits either
The life force of multiple casters can be given to resurrect the creature
All life force is taken and you crumble to dust. The creature is resurrected but in a weakened state of the DM's choosing.
Is this something you want the players to be able to do?
If it’s just NPCs, you can always say they can just do it, because they found some ancient ritual or artifact or something (though I suppose that would also be homebrew) They don’t necessarily need to follow the exact same rules as the players.
Maybe it’s an intended side effect, but with the races having different life spans, the aging effect will really impact things. Elves, for example, could do it way easier than Dragonborn. I’d think that would have some more widespread effects as far as who is going to be brought back with this.
I think you may be over-complicating this. As the DM, you can rule that the 200-year limit doesn't apply in your campaign and leave it at that. I am sure the designers had some reason for the 200-year limit, but in a home-brew campaign, it's really arbitrary. I say just ignore it. Making an 8th-level version has more chance of "breaking the game" than omitting the limit since it allows lower level characters to cast it.
Another option is to require the spell to be cast as a ritual, perhaps an elaborate, multi-day ritual, when the corpse is more than 200 years old. You might even require the castor to track down artifacts related to the deceased's life; in other words, turn it into an adventure involving your players in one way or another.
The purpose of the spell's creation was to allow npc's to bring back a cult spread across the world. I have a player who has DM experience so I take his advice on many aspects. One critique was the changing of spell rules in the 5e spell set. So I decided to make this spell in an attempt for their to be a rule base for this campaign. Xaithu's comment on long life span is quite good, so could modify this(?).
The spell is not really meant for the players to use at all, so I thought of a harsh penalty to cast to avoid players using it Also, I want the npc's to be resurrecting about 20-30 creatures and I did not want the material requirement to be unbelievable for this massive task. I also lowered the level as I did not want multiple max level npc's roaming about.
If the majority think to ignore the 200 year rule then I will just use the resurrection spell without specifically following rules for npc's..
If it's not a spell for the players to use, I would just say "by a mysterious ritual" the cult members were resurrected. I do not think you need a rule base for things that happen in the background as long as you have a basic idea of how it happened--and again, complicated ritual magic seems the best way to go. You do not have to write out the ritual if your PCs are not going to try to cast it.
Pretty sure the reason for the 200 year rule is so you can have mysterious ancient cultures in your world rather than someone going "Hm..I want to research this culture and I have a skull. Why don't I just resurrect this guy and ask him questions". However, raising plot device NPCs can certainly not follow the rules.
My issue with this spell isn't so much the spell itself, but it's reliance on creature lifespan. There's no clear way to predict how old an individual creature of a given race would live to be. The race descriptions list an average, but it's just that -- an average. Take Humans, for example. They live "for less than a century", or less than 100 years. ....how much less? Do they live to be 90? Or 95? Or maybe they die early at 70. Maybe they live way past their expiration date to 115. We don't know, because we don't have a sample from which "less than a century" is derived. It can get pretty bizarre for other races, too. Aarakocra "don't usually live past 30", while Dragonborn "live to about 80" (Really? Less than a human? Or is it...?). For Furbolgs, "the oldest of them can live for 500 years."
The point I'm getting at here is there are a lot of janky, arbitrarily devised numbers here, and the spell you've created a spell that makes specific use of those numbers for a mechanical purpose. As far as I'm aware (and it's entirely possible that I'm wrong), the only existing effect in the game that affects a character's age is one of the results on the Wild Magic Sorcerer's Wild Surge table, that alters your age by some amount.
The point I'm getting at here is there are a lot of janky, arbitrarily devised numbers here, and the spell you've created a spell that makes specific use of those numbers for a mechanical purpose. As far as I'm aware (and it's entirely possible that I'm wrong), the only existing effect in the game that affects a character's age is one of the results on the Wild Magic Sorcerer's Wild Surge table, that alters your age by some amount.
Ghost horrifying visage on a save failed by 5+, though since age categories aren't in 5th edition it's quite indeterminate what aging attacks do. However, the numbers given for most races are pretty close to 3.5e, so you could probably port those except the ability modifiers might cause issues.
The point I'm getting at here is there are a lot of janky, arbitrarily devised numbers here, and the spell you've created a spell that makes specific use of those numbers for a mechanical purpose. As far as I'm aware (and it's entirely possible that I'm wrong), the only existing effect in the game that affects a character's age is one of the results on the Wild Magic Sorcerer's Wild Surge table, that alters your age by some amount.
Ghost horrifying visage on a save failed by 5+, though since age categories aren't in 5th edition it's quite indeterminate what aging attacks do.
I'd argue that what they do is quite clear. They alter your age. But the issue is that it's unclear what that actually means to the character. Characters don't come with expiration dates. So when you become "old" for your race, the player and the DM both have to sit there scratching their heads trying to figure out how old exactly is too old for a particular character and they just die of old age. There are no rules for that. The racial descriptions don't give a range for ages, or what factors would lead to an individual living a short or long lifespan, etc.
I'd wager that a lot of tables simply hand-wave old age away and ignore it.
You raise an excellent point regarding the rules of a creature's life span. My thinking in this part was specifically regarding a human life span (I know...a little narrow minded with respect to other 5e races). Humans have an average life span maybe 80-90. If the spell takes half the lifespan then the character, which may start out at aged 20 for example, would end up being in their 60s. At this point they are still able to do adventures, but definitely not as nimble as a 20 year old (in general). With respect to other races, perhaps this could be scaled up or down accordingly.
Essentially I am saying that the issue of arbitrary lifespans would not pose too much of an issue, perhaps some tweaking? Maybe for the purpose of the spell a role determines a plus/minus value to a creature's race average lifespan to determine the individual lifespan.
The more I think and tweak, the more complicated and unnecessary the spell become :D
If you want to represent old age without worrying about a specific race's lifespan (and discourage PCs from using the spell) change the consequence to something like this:
The toll of this spell is great on your body. After casting this spell, immediately take 4D6 Constitution damage, reducing your constitution ability score by the amount equal to the dice rolled. If your ability score would drop below 1, it instead drops to 1. This damage cannot be undone by any means, including by a wish or divine intervention.
If you want to represent old age without worrying about a specific race's lifespan (and discourage PCs from using the spell) change the consequence to something like this:
The toll of this spell is great on your body. After casting this spell, immediately take 4D6 Constitution damage, reducing your constitution ability score by the amount equal to the dice rolled. If your ability score would drop below 1, it instead drops to 1. This damage cannot be undone by any means, including by a wish or divine intervention.
Ouch. That's more die than they got to roll their con in the first place, considering the drop low when you roll. Wouldn't that (4d6) average to a 14 point loss? Most casters will drop to a 1 con, right there. If that's by design, then OK, but otherwise, maybe 2d6?
Also, there's nothing that can't be undone by divine intervention. If a god can't do it, a DM can't do it, and a DM should pretty much always have the option, at least. Or do you mean the cleric ability?
Also, this could be abused, after you drop to a 1 con, there's no reason not to just cast It every day, since you can't be penalized again. Though that could be cool, having a sickly necromancer just doing this day after day in service of some greater purpose.
It's by design. It's meant to discourage casting. Sure, it can be abused after dropping to 1.... but you probably won't stay alive for much longer with.. what... 40 hit points at level 20?
Well, a DM can do anything, but it's restricting what a player can do in-game to fix something.
Edit: that being said, a condition of requiring a minimum of 1 Constitution to be spent to cast the spell might solve that. But that would restrict it to a limited number of casting opportunities and I'm not sure I want to go THAT far.
I think the 1 con would be really cool. Some zealot willing to effectively sacrifice themselves for the cause of bringing back more and more of whoever it is he's bringing back. Probably groomed for the role from a young age (probably a bunch of them are, knowing most won't survive), and set him out to adventure to gain experience to become powerful enough to cast the spell, then at the height of his power, give it all up for the cause and basically be unable to leave wherever he is doing this. And the cult would then assign lots of people to protect them with their own lives. PCs wouldn't use it, but the flavor it could give the villains would be incredible.
life force isn't enough. If it's exchanging life, imo you should have a character sacrifice either their whole life or someone else must be willing to make a sacrifice of their own life as the exchange.
wizard knows spell. Makes a scroll. Scroll of it. Not a problem in of itself.
monk. Level 15 and 1 level multi dip to wizard.
Timeless Body
At 15th level, your ki sustains you so that you suffer none of the frailty of old age, and you can't be aged magically. You can still die of old age, however. In addition, you no longer need food or water.
but wizard. So can use the scroll to do this. Now you have created a situation where the monk can do this without consequence.
And I say that, because at the time monk was made. There was aging magically, and aging effects. But no “reduce life force” wordings. So, the rules lawyers can argue that RAI the monk thing and Druid one (where it’s just slower) would apply to these as well, because that’s the original intent.
huge can of worms. I’d just remove the limit for true resurrection, and add a DC check to see if they can succeed based off their spellcasting mod and roll for a set DC.
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Hi there,
I am new to being a DM and and have created a homebrew campaign. In the campaign I wish to bring back creatures that have been dead form more than 200 years (True resurrection limitation). I could not find anything that would do what I want so I have made a version of True Resurrection. Do you think this is an adequate spell without it breaking the game?
Exchange life
8th-level necromancy
You touch a creature who has died for any reason except for old age. If the creature's soul is free and willing, the creature is restored to life with all its hit points.
This spell closes all wounds, neutralises any poison, cures all diseases and lifts any curses affecting the creature when it died. The spell replaces damaged or missing organs and limbs. Upon resurrection the creature appears shriveled and undead. The creature takes 1d6 days to fully regenerate their bodies.
The spell can provide a new body if the original no longer exists, in which case you must speak the creature's name. The creature then appears in an unoccupied space you choose within 10 feet of you.
The toll of this spell is great on your body. As the spell takes affect, your life force is drained from your body and given to the resurrected creature. Your life span is either reduced by half plus each year the creature has been dead, or your current age plus each year the creature has been dead; whichever is greater. If the creature has been dead for longer than your life force permits either
Thanks for reading.
Is this something you want the players to be able to do?
If it’s just NPCs, you can always say they can just do it, because they found some ancient ritual or artifact or something (though I suppose that would also be homebrew) They don’t necessarily need to follow the exact same rules as the players.
Maybe it’s an intended side effect, but with the races having different life spans, the aging effect will really impact things. Elves, for example, could do it way easier than Dragonborn. I’d think that would have some more widespread effects as far as who is going to be brought back with this.
Hi,
I think you may be over-complicating this. As the DM, you can rule that the 200-year limit doesn't apply in your campaign and leave it at that. I am sure the designers had some reason for the 200-year limit, but in a home-brew campaign, it's really arbitrary. I say just ignore it. Making an 8th-level version has more chance of "breaking the game" than omitting the limit since it allows lower level characters to cast it.
Good luck.
Recently returned to D&D after 20+ years.
Unapologetic.
Another option is to require the spell to be cast as a ritual, perhaps an elaborate, multi-day ritual, when the corpse is more than 200 years old. You might even require the castor to track down artifacts related to the deceased's life; in other words, turn it into an adventure involving your players in one way or another.
Recently returned to D&D after 20+ years.
Unapologetic.
The purpose of the spell's creation was to allow npc's to bring back a cult spread across the world. I have a player who has DM experience so I take his advice on many aspects. One critique was the changing of spell rules in the 5e spell set. So I decided to make this spell in an attempt for their to be a rule base for this campaign. Xaithu's comment on long life span is quite good, so could modify this(?).
The spell is not really meant for the players to use at all, so I thought of a harsh penalty to cast to avoid players using it Also, I want the npc's to be resurrecting about 20-30 creatures and I did not want the material requirement to be unbelievable for this massive task. I also lowered the level as I did not want multiple max level npc's roaming about.
If the majority think to ignore the 200 year rule then I will just use the resurrection spell without specifically following rules for npc's..
Thank you :)
If it's not a spell for the players to use, I would just say "by a mysterious ritual" the cult members were resurrected. I do not think you need a rule base for things that happen in the background as long as you have a basic idea of how it happened--and again, complicated ritual magic seems the best way to go. You do not have to write out the ritual if your PCs are not going to try to cast it.
Good luck.
Recently returned to D&D after 20+ years.
Unapologetic.
Pretty sure the reason for the 200 year rule is so you can have mysterious ancient cultures in your world rather than someone going "Hm..I want to research this culture and I have a skull. Why don't I just resurrect this guy and ask him questions". However, raising plot device NPCs can certainly not follow the rules.
My issue with this spell isn't so much the spell itself, but it's reliance on creature lifespan. There's no clear way to predict how old an individual creature of a given race would live to be. The race descriptions list an average, but it's just that -- an average. Take Humans, for example. They live "for less than a century", or less than 100 years. ....how much less? Do they live to be 90? Or 95? Or maybe they die early at 70. Maybe they live way past their expiration date to 115. We don't know, because we don't have a sample from which "less than a century" is derived. It can get pretty bizarre for other races, too. Aarakocra "don't usually live past 30", while Dragonborn "live to about 80" (Really? Less than a human? Or is it...?). For Furbolgs, "the oldest of them can live for 500 years."
The point I'm getting at here is there are a lot of janky, arbitrarily devised numbers here, and the spell you've created a spell that makes specific use of those numbers for a mechanical purpose. As far as I'm aware (and it's entirely possible that I'm wrong), the only existing effect in the game that affects a character's age is one of the results on the Wild Magic Sorcerer's Wild Surge table, that alters your age by some amount.
Ghost horrifying visage on a save failed by 5+, though since age categories aren't in 5th edition it's quite indeterminate what aging attacks do. However, the numbers given for most races are pretty close to 3.5e, so you could probably port those except the ability modifiers might cause issues.
I'd argue that what they do is quite clear. They alter your age. But the issue is that it's unclear what that actually means to the character. Characters don't come with expiration dates. So when you become "old" for your race, the player and the DM both have to sit there scratching their heads trying to figure out how old exactly is too old for a particular character and they just die of old age. There are no rules for that. The racial descriptions don't give a range for ages, or what factors would lead to an individual living a short or long lifespan, etc.
I'd wager that a lot of tables simply hand-wave old age away and ignore it.
You raise an excellent point regarding the rules of a creature's life span. My thinking in this part was specifically regarding a human life span (I know...a little narrow minded with respect to other 5e races). Humans have an average life span maybe 80-90. If the spell takes half the lifespan then the character, which may start out at aged 20 for example, would end up being in their 60s. At this point they are still able to do adventures, but definitely not as nimble as a 20 year old (in general). With respect to other races, perhaps this could be scaled up or down accordingly.
Essentially I am saying that the issue of arbitrary lifespans would not pose too much of an issue, perhaps some tweaking? Maybe for the purpose of the spell a role determines a plus/minus value to a creature's race average lifespan to determine the individual lifespan.
The more I think and tweak, the more complicated and unnecessary the spell become :D
If you want to represent old age without worrying about a specific race's lifespan (and discourage PCs from using the spell) change the consequence to something like this:
The toll of this spell is great on your body. After casting this spell, immediately take 4D6 Constitution damage, reducing your constitution ability score by the amount equal to the dice rolled. If your ability score would drop below 1, it instead drops to 1. This damage cannot be undone by any means, including by a wish or divine intervention.
Ouch. That's more die than they got to roll their con in the first place, considering the drop low when you roll. Wouldn't that (4d6) average to a 14 point loss? Most casters will drop to a 1 con, right there. If that's by design, then OK, but otherwise, maybe 2d6?
Also, there's nothing that can't be undone by divine intervention. If a god can't do it, a DM can't do it, and a DM should pretty much always have the option, at least. Or do you mean the cleric ability?
Also, this could be abused, after you drop to a 1 con, there's no reason not to just cast It every day, since you can't be penalized again. Though that could be cool, having a sickly necromancer just doing this day after day in service of some greater purpose.
It's by design. It's meant to discourage casting. Sure, it can be abused after dropping to 1.... but you probably won't stay alive for much longer with.. what... 40 hit points at level 20?
Well, a DM can do anything, but it's restricting what a player can do in-game to fix something.
Edit: that being said, a condition of requiring a minimum of 1 Constitution to be spent to cast the spell might solve that. But that would restrict it to a limited number of casting opportunities and I'm not sure I want to go THAT far.
I think the 1 con would be really cool. Some zealot willing to effectively sacrifice themselves for the cause of bringing back more and more of whoever it is he's bringing back. Probably groomed for the role from a young age (probably a bunch of them are, knowing most won't survive), and set him out to adventure to gain experience to become powerful enough to cast the spell, then at the height of his power, give it all up for the cause and basically be unable to leave wherever he is doing this. And the cult would then assign lots of people to protect them with their own lives. PCs wouldn't use it, but the flavor it could give the villains would be incredible.
life force isn't enough. If it's exchanging life, imo you should have a character sacrifice either their whole life or someone else must be willing to make a sacrifice of their own life as the exchange.
Flaw in scenario I see:
wizard knows spell. Makes a scroll. Scroll of it. Not a problem in of itself.
monk. Level 15 and 1 level multi dip to wizard.
Timeless Body
At 15th level, your ki sustains you so that you suffer none of the frailty of old age, and you can't be aged magically. You can still die of old age, however. In addition, you no longer need food or water.
but wizard. So can use the scroll to do this. Now you have created a situation where the monk can do this without consequence.
And I say that, because at the time monk was made. There was aging magically, and aging effects. But no “reduce life force” wordings. So, the rules lawyers can argue that RAI the monk thing and Druid one (where it’s just slower) would apply to these as well, because that’s the original intent.
huge can of worms. I’d just remove the limit for true resurrection, and add a DC check to see if they can succeed based off their spellcasting mod and roll for a set DC.
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