I take the psuedo-science route with magic in my games. I try to have the spells make sense to some extent. I recently started thinking about having any resurrection spells cost life from those performing the spell.
The idea here is life can only come from life. Let's say you have a party of 4. One character dies and another PC uses a revivify. Each PC can roll up to 1/3 of their total HP (or nearest amount of dice that makes sense). Whatever they roll they subtract that amount from their total HP and give it to the now living PC. The total amount given to the raised PC from all other players is their new HP total. They may actually end up with more HP than before but it's up to others in the party. I might also give a level of exhaustion at least for this.
So if 4 PCs are helping then they roll 1/4. 5 PCs then 1/5, etc... Idea is that it has to equal a whole. I guess you could have some RP fun if a PC holds back and it doesn't equal a whole. Also, yes it would permanently reduce the giving PCs hp.
I've only been thinking about this for a couple days now so feel free to poke holes in it.
Reducing max hp to bring back fallen friends will quickly turn into parties either not reviving fallen friends or retiring after they do as they don't have enough hp to keep adventuring.
If you just want it for roleplaying, have them spend hit dice from their healing pool instead. The characters can spend up to the dead member's level in hit dice, the dead person gets to roll that many hit dice for their max hp and will get to add 1 die each long rest until they get back to normal
I like that, but again makes only a temporary inconvenience to the overall party.
Goal: for some resurrection spells make it feel like an everyday occurrence. Finding a 1,000gp Diamond in some campaigns can be easily done. I am aware of making those diamonds harder to come by etc. However, giving a sacrifice for the one that needs resurrection makes it more of a party decision. Do we want to bring this person back at the expense of our own life energy? I want my PCs to really think about what they are doing.
Yes some groups may react just like you say, decide not to revive them and reroll another character. That's fine, that's the choice made. Also, if the group is meta gaming, hack n slash type group then I wouldn't use this. For other groups they may have more emotional attachment to their PC characters, higher RP group, and choose to sacrifice a bit of their own character to have another come back.
Yes some groups may react just like you say, decide not to revive them and reroll another character. That's fine, that's the choice made. Also, if the group is meta gaming, hack n slash type group then I wouldn't use this. For other groups they may have more emotional attachment to their PC characters, higher RP group, and choose to sacrifice a bit of their own character to have another come back.
My problem with this is that the 4 person RP group will permanently lose 1/4 of their health (either all of them lose 1/4 or one loses more than that) every time someone dies, making it far more likely that someone will die in the future. That goes double if the DM doesn't account for the reduced hp when balancing encounters. Even if encounters get adjusted, after a death or two, the whole party should probably consider retirement.
As a DM, I would rather have characters with more hp, it makes it much easier to balance encounters without having to worry about the smallest variance resulting in a TPK.
While I do like the idea in a thematic and roleplay sense, I have to agree with Lunali that either characters will not get resurrected, or after resurrecting 1-2 characters the party as a whole becomes so squishy they either retire or get wiped out, or they start carting round NPCs that can be coerced into casting the spell to conserve the parties health.
A less extreme but permanent option could be a permanent reduction in hit dice for the characters doing the resurrecting, this could be seen as a reduction in the characters regenerative capacity. Say for example the barbarian dies, he uses D12s so you might decide that the party need to spend an equivalent of 2D12 (max possible roll 24) to revive him, 1D6, 1D8 and 1D10 (also max possible 24) would achieve this, as would 3D8, or 4D6. Over time the barbarian regains hit dice up to whatever is appropriate for his level, but the D6, D8 and D10 (or whatever combination the party spend) are forever removed from the other characters pools. If one of the other characters later gets resurrected you just need to remember they have already lost a hit die to resurrecting someone else so their maximum will still be below their level... I might actually try this idea out as an emergency backup if someone dies and the party do not have the standard resources.
If you are trying to get your party to take it more serious, and do less of the, "raise dead, carry on to the next encounter" Maybe consider adding in a chance for the revive not to work? Make them have to roll to see if they can actually bring the person back. Then you could scale the DC to be harder and harder in order to be brought back to life multiple times.
Yeah, I get what Lunali and dmneiloid (below) are saying. It is a bit of a punishment the original way I stated it and I try hard to avoid that type of DMing. I think you and dmneiloid are on the same track with this idea though. I think I like it more than my original thinking.
Maybe even be able to introduce an orb of restoration type thing that restores the missing hit dice for those that spent them. set up a small little side quest.
If you are trying to get your party to take it more serious, and do less of the, "raise dead, carry on to the next encounter" Maybe consider adding in a chance for the revive not to work? Make them have to roll to see if they can actually bring the person back. Then you could scale the DC to be harder and harder in order to be brought back to life multiple times.
Yeah, I have used that method before Jhdora. I like it. I was just kicking around another idea and see if it stuck.
Do you have the Tal’dorei campaign setting? Matt laid out some alternate flavor rules for resurrection spells that make the ritual interesting. I don’t have mine handy but the gist is that it requires three of the PCs to contribute through some means, increasing or decreasing the DC of the return to life. He’s even sometimes let it be up to the player whose character died to determine if things contributed would work to make the soul more or less willing to return to its body. Could be a way to make the risk of failure feel more real.
I'll post my home-brewed resurrection rules if you're cool with that. Feel free to use them. My players really enjoy them.
Upon being revived from death, a character must make a roll on the Resurrection table and take on the effect that happens. A character can only be brought back to life as many times as their Constitution modifier (a minimum of once). If a resurrection is attempted after this, the ritual fails as the creature's soul is too worn from the constant death and rebirth it has experienced. The soul instead chooses to go rest peacefully in its intended afterlife.
The table I have is pretty fun. Some of the options are silly and some others are pretty interesting. Things like the character is aged 1d12 years, they return with one random missing limb, and there's a even a chance the ritual fails and they don't come back at all and can no longer be resurrected. Right now the table isn't too big, but I'm constantly adding onto it.
The resurrection failed; you don’t come back. Your soul is destroyed by the failure.
You come back, somehow comprehending a new language.
You awaken, but not in your own body. You awaken in the body of a random creature of the DM’s choosing. Your soul can be swapped back if your new body is found.
Your skin changes to a colour of the DM’s choosing for 1d4 days.
You lose a limb. Roll 1d4 to determine which limb turns to dust upon your resurrection. 1 for left arm, 2 for right arm, 3 for left leg, 4 for right leg.
A creature has become attached to your soul in death. This fiend stalks you until it is destroyed.
You come back stronger than before. Increase an ability score of your choosing by three. This number can exceed 20.
Two of your ability scores permanently switch. Roll 1d6 to determine which scores are switched.
A random person of the DM’s choice has died to pay for your return to the land of the living. The random person is someone you may have met in passing, or someone close to you. This person must have been in your life in some way.
Your body ages 1d20 years. You don’t become this age, your body just appears to be the new age.
You bring a creature previously dead with you upon your resurrection. The DM chooses a random creature of a CR matching the level of the resurrected character.
As your returned to the land of the living, something forms magically into your inventory. The DM chooses a random magic item of their choice.
Your alignment changes to the opposite of what it’d be.
The person who tries resurrecting you is sent to a random plane of the DM’s choosing.
You’re brought back to life, but your body turns to stone and you’re currently Petrified until you’re cured of the petrification.
A random person in your party has lost all memory of you.
A figure shrouded in black, smoking robes rises out of the body of the deceased. This figure is an Avatar of Death sharing the stats of the dead creature. It must be defeated before the deceased can be fully brought back.
Your maximum hit points are permanently reduced by a single roll of your hit dice.
You learn a random cantrip of the DM’s choosing.
Your right and left hands switch places.
The method of your previous death has scarred you. Whatever killed you now causes you to cower in fear. You suffer the frightened condition whenever you’re around the source, or type of creature, effect, etc that killed you.
All of your material wealth was eaten up by the energies that brought you back to life. All of your possessions, not including magical items turn to dust.
Your eyes melt away into nothingness. You are permanently blind. This can be reversed by a Regeneration or a Wish spell.
All of your ability scores are either increased or decreased. Flip a coin. On Tails, all of your ability scores are reduced by 1d4. On Heads, all of your ability scores are increased by 1d4.
You gain the ability to breathe underwater if you can’t already.
Your race changes to a race of the DM’s choosing for 1d4 days. You just take on the appearance of the race. Not the traits or abilities.
You become resistant to a damage type of the DM’s choosing for 1d4 days.
You come back, but your soul does not. You currently are soul-less and do not sleep, eat, nor drink. You have no emotions. While soul-less you cannot be healed by magic, only healing potions or healing kits. You also cannot cast spells or do anything magical while soul-less. Your soul is on a plane of the DM’s choosing and you can regain your soul by finding it and touching it.
You come back, but are haunted by nightmares from your time in death. Every time you take a long rest or short rest, roll a Wisdom Saving Throw or suffer an effect on the Long-Term Madness table in the DMG.
You no longer need to sleep to restore yourself, and instead can enter a trance-like state for 4 hours and gain the benefits of a Long Rest.
Once per day you can cast the Speak with Dead spell at will since you have known the lands and tongues spoken by the dead.
You’ve died before, and you don’t want to do it again. You gain advantage on your next set of Death Saving Throws.
You came back with more abilities at your disposal. When you come back, you can gain an additional Feat.
You look normal to everyone else, but to yourself you have the appearance of a rotted corpse and the smell of death constantly lingers around you. The people don’t see this appearance, but they can smell it.
You come back with a renewed lease on life. Increase your maximum hit points by a single roll of your hit dice.
29 is a bit too much I think, indefinite madness is a permanent effect, gaining a new one every rest (even if it was only long rests) will quickly result in an unplayable character.
29 is a bit too much I think, indefinite madness is a permanent effect, gaining a new one every rest (even if it was only long rests) will quickly result in an unplayable character.
You're right. Long-term madness would be more fun.
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You're right. Long-term madness would be more fun.
Indefinite madness that ends with the next rest could also be interesting, but any version that rolls for it every rest is going to get annoying fast. I think I'd go with just having one indefinite madness effect as a result of the resurrection.
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I've just recently started toying with this idea:
I take the psuedo-science route with magic in my games. I try to have the spells make sense to some extent. I recently started thinking about having any resurrection spells cost life from those performing the spell.
The idea here is life can only come from life. Let's say you have a party of 4. One character dies and another PC uses a revivify. Each PC can roll up to 1/3 of their total HP (or nearest amount of dice that makes sense). Whatever they roll they subtract that amount from their total HP and give it to the now living PC. The total amount given to the raised PC from all other players is their new HP total. They may actually end up with more HP than before but it's up to others in the party. I might also give a level of exhaustion at least for this.
So if 4 PCs are helping then they roll 1/4. 5 PCs then 1/5, etc... Idea is that it has to equal a whole. I guess you could have some RP fun if a PC holds back and it doesn't equal a whole. Also, yes it would permanently reduce the giving PCs hp.
I've only been thinking about this for a couple days now so feel free to poke holes in it.
What is your actual goal with this?
Reducing max hp to bring back fallen friends will quickly turn into parties either not reviving fallen friends or retiring after they do as they don't have enough hp to keep adventuring.
If you just want it for roleplaying, have them spend hit dice from their healing pool instead. The characters can spend up to the dead member's level in hit dice, the dead person gets to roll that many hit dice for their max hp and will get to add 1 die each long rest until they get back to normal
I like that, but again makes only a temporary inconvenience to the overall party.
Goal: for some resurrection spells make it feel like an everyday occurrence. Finding a 1,000gp Diamond in some campaigns can be easily done. I am aware of making those diamonds harder to come by etc. However, giving a sacrifice for the one that needs resurrection makes it more of a party decision. Do we want to bring this person back at the expense of our own life energy? I want my PCs to really think about what they are doing.
Yes some groups may react just like you say, decide not to revive them and reroll another character. That's fine, that's the choice made. Also, if the group is meta gaming, hack n slash type group then I wouldn't use this. For other groups they may have more emotional attachment to their PC characters, higher RP group, and choose to sacrifice a bit of their own character to have another come back.
My problem with this is that the 4 person RP group will permanently lose 1/4 of their health (either all of them lose 1/4 or one loses more than that) every time someone dies, making it far more likely that someone will die in the future. That goes double if the DM doesn't account for the reduced hp when balancing encounters. Even if encounters get adjusted, after a death or two, the whole party should probably consider retirement.
As a DM, I would rather have characters with more hp, it makes it much easier to balance encounters without having to worry about the smallest variance resulting in a TPK.
While I do like the idea in a thematic and roleplay sense, I have to agree with Lunali that either characters will not get resurrected, or after resurrecting 1-2 characters the party as a whole becomes so squishy they either retire or get wiped out, or they start carting round NPCs that can be coerced into casting the spell to conserve the parties health.
A less extreme but permanent option could be a permanent reduction in hit dice for the characters doing the resurrecting, this could be seen as a reduction in the characters regenerative capacity. Say for example the barbarian dies, he uses D12s so you might decide that the party need to spend an equivalent of 2D12 (max possible roll 24) to revive him, 1D6, 1D8 and 1D10 (also max possible 24) would achieve this, as would 3D8, or 4D6. Over time the barbarian regains hit dice up to whatever is appropriate for his level, but the D6, D8 and D10 (or whatever combination the party spend) are forever removed from the other characters pools. If one of the other characters later gets resurrected you just need to remember they have already lost a hit die to resurrecting someone else so their maximum will still be below their level... I might actually try this idea out as an emergency backup if someone dies and the party do not have the standard resources.
If you are trying to get your party to take it more serious, and do less of the, "raise dead, carry on to the next encounter" Maybe consider adding in a chance for the revive not to work? Make them have to roll to see if they can actually bring the person back. Then you could scale the DC to be harder and harder in order to be brought back to life multiple times.
Yeah, I get what Lunali and dmneiloid (below) are saying. It is a bit of a punishment the original way I stated it and I try hard to avoid that type of DMing. I think you and dmneiloid are on the same track with this idea though. I think I like it more than my original thinking.
Maybe even be able to introduce an orb of restoration type thing that restores the missing hit dice for those that spent them. set up a small little side quest.
Yeah, I have used that method before Jhdora. I like it. I was just kicking around another idea and see if it stuck.
Have you considered just banning 'back from the dead' spells?
Do you have the Tal’dorei campaign setting? Matt laid out some alternate flavor rules for resurrection spells that make the ritual interesting. I don’t have mine handy but the gist is that it requires three of the PCs to contribute through some means, increasing or decreasing the DC of the return to life. He’s even sometimes let it be up to the player whose character died to determine if things contributed would work to make the soul more or less willing to return to its body. Could be a way to make the risk of failure feel more real.
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I'll post my home-brewed resurrection rules if you're cool with that. Feel free to use them. My players really enjoy them.
The table I have is pretty fun. Some of the options are silly and some others are pretty interesting. Things like the character is aged 1d12 years, they return with one random missing limb, and there's a even a chance the ritual fails and they don't come back at all and can no longer be resurrected. Right now the table isn't too big, but I'm constantly adding onto it.
DM/Founder for Mimics & Monstrosities, a D&D network.
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Occasional DM's Guild Content Creator
29 is a bit too much I think, indefinite madness is a permanent effect, gaining a new one every rest (even if it was only long rests) will quickly result in an unplayable character.
You're right. Long-term madness would be more fun.
DM/Founder for Mimics & Monstrosities, a D&D network.
Mimics & Monstrosities Youtube
Mimics & Monstrosities Twitch
Occasional DM's Guild Content Creator
Indefinite madness that ends with the next rest could also be interesting, but any version that rolls for it every rest is going to get annoying fast. I think I'd go with just having one indefinite madness effect as a result of the resurrection.