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odinspearx wrote:

100% understood. My beef is not with this. My beef is with "how the DM decides to say 'you fail'", and whether or not his methodology is "logical". And to some extent "fairly applied". I personally find a world where the murdered king can't come back from the dead "just because" to be an illogical world. Of course the king has stuff left to do, and if he's a good king he'll be just as eager and/or duty-bound as the PC's to come back and do it.

Says you. 10 to 1 says that the 101 virgins waiting for him in the afterlife make him not want to come back. No matter how much is left to be done, there is always a very good chance that the person will be so happy with the afterlife that he won't want to come back.

Perhaps a still more valid example would be "The PC wants to hit the orc, which is not an action with a guaranteed result, but the GM simply says 'you miss' because he thinks hitting the orc would ruin his story".

See, I wouldn't do that. If someone were about to kill someone I needed alive, I would either A) give him some temporary hit points B) have something occur like a noise behind them right as they announce the attack. C) something else that will distract the characters within the story without saying "You miss" or "You can't do that." DM Fiat doesn't have to be a hammer you use to hit the players over the head with until they scream in pain.

Archtyrant Terevoth]It's an aberration and maybe the PCs are known as chosen ones or children of destiny because of it. But the characters themselves don't necessarily know it'll work the next time, or the time after that.

So every PC you play has to be a "child of destiny" (assuming you want him to be rezzable)? That sounds boring. Sure, it's fine some times. But really ... if a character is so important that the gods are willing to keep brining him back to life, why don't they just do whatever it is he's supposed to do for him?

Even characters who don't "know" that it might not work next time should be able to figure out that it works within their little party far more often than it works on anyone else. And at that point they have two options: question it or ignore it. Ignoring it is ridiculous, and questioning it leads to logic errors.

It's an aberration and maybe the PCs are known as chosen ones or children of destiny because of it. But the characters themselves don't necessarily know it'll work the next time, or the time after that.[/quote]
So every PC you play has to be a "child of destiny" (assuming you want him to be rezzable)? That sounds boring. Sure, it's fine some times. But really ... if a character is so important that the gods are willing to keep brining him back to life, why don't they just do whatever it is he's supposed to do for him?

Even characters who don't "know" that it might not work next time should be able to figure out that it works within their little party far more often than it works on anyone else. And at that point they have two options: question it or ignore it. Ignoring it is ridiculous, and questioning it leads to logic errors.

Archtyrant Terevoth]Maybe he raises as a lich or a death knight?

I 100% agree that coming back from the dead as undead (read: as something "other") can be quite cool. However, you must realize that this is quite different than "circumventing" death. Undeath is a corruption, not a restoration.

Maybe he raises as a lich or a death knight?[/quote]
I 100% agree that coming back from the dead as undead (read: as something "other") can be quite cool. However, you must realize that this is quite different than "circumventing" death. Undeath is a corruption, not a restoration.

Archtyrant Terevoth]In a fantasy world anything is possible.

I'm sorry, but this sentence really bugs me. Would you let your character jump to the moon? Destroy the sun? Freeze the molten core of the planet? Sink a continent? I will admit that, in fantasy, anything is possible. But that does not mean that in a fantasy role playing game, where people are trying to connect to their characters on an emotional and logical level, anything should happen. Yes, such worlds are interesting alternatives, but do you really think these worlds should be default?

In a fantasy world anything is possible.[/quote]
I'm sorry, but this sentence really bugs me. Would you let your character jump to the moon? Destroy the sun? Freeze the molten core of the planet? Sink a continent? I will admit that, in fantasy, anything is possible. But that does not mean that in a fantasy role playing game, where people are trying to connect to their characters on an emotional and logical level, anything should happen. Yes, such worlds are interesting alternatives, but do you really think these worlds should be default?

Archtyrant Terevoth]but that's similar to knowing your favorite character in a TV series is going to stay alive

D&D is not a TV show. In a TV show or movie, the writers have full control over everything. There are no players with differing ideas. There are no unexpected twists. The characters go exactly where you want them to exactly when you want them to. There is nothing but (the writer's equivalent of) GM Fiat.

I propose that players should not know that their characters are coming back, regardless of whether their characters do or not. As I said above, any character with an Int 6 or higher should figure out that people in the party have a much higher percentage chance of being raised.

but that's similar to knowing your favorite character in a TV series is going to stay alive[/quote]
D&D is not a TV show. In a TV show or movie, the writers have full control over everything. There are no players with differing ideas. There are no unexpected twists. The characters go exactly where you want them to exactly when you want them to. There is nothing but (the writer's equivalent of) GM Fiat.

I propose that players should not know that their characters are coming back, regardless of whether their characters do or not. As I said above, any character with an Int 6 or higher should figure out that people in the party have a much higher percentage chance of being raised.

Archtyrant Terevoth]Where as if it's a mechanic it creates big belief problems as to why they don't just keep raising every major NPC the PCs kill. Obviously that'd mkae for a terrible game, but if the mechanics and logic dictate that the enemy would... it makes no sense not to.

In current default D&D, the enemies already have exactly as much access to Raise Dead as the PC's do. So it makes just as much sense that someone would cast Raise Dead on a fallen villain as it would for the PC's to cast it on their fallen buddies. The big difference, as I've pointed out numerous times, is that it works far more reliably for the PC's.

Where as if it's a mechanic it creates big belief problems as to why they don't just keep raising every major NPC the PCs kill. Obviously that'd mkae for a terrible game, but if the mechanics and logic dictate that the enemy would... it makes no sense not to.[/quote]
In current default D&D, the enemies already have exactly as much access to Raise Dead as the PC's do. So it makes just as much sense that someone would cast Raise Dead on a fallen villain as it would for the PC's to cast it on their fallen buddies. The big difference, as I've pointed out numerous times, is that it works far more reliably for the PC's.

Archtyrant Terevoth]Heh. Nope. Why?

Terevoth: Revolter, Tereshkova (that's a word?!), Revolver
odinspearx: spearheading, inspectorate, spearmint

I just thought these were hilarious attempts by a routine to come up with the "correct wrote:

AaronDireBear]Sounds to me like 4th edition is developing a hypocritical final fantasy 7 mentality.

D&D seems to be staying exactly the same. Raise Dead has forever been (and likely always will be) purely in the realm of GM Fiat. Yes, it is very much like FF7 ("no, Aeris, you can't have a Phoenix Down wrote:

odinspearx wrote:

So every PC you play has to be a "child of destiny" (assuming you want him to be rezzable)? That sounds boring.

Well, you don't actually have to have a prophecy associated with you, but because you're a main character in the story, you're a child of destiny. It's not really even a fantasy thing so much as a cinematic thing. When we watch Die Hard and we see that Bruce Willis is the star, we know that his character isn't going to die 10 minutes into the movie. Quite simply because he's the star, and "destiny" is going to keep him alive, because he's a main character.

Now in some cases, a main character merely appears to be dead, in some cases they really are dead. But because they're one of the main characters, they come back. In a fantasy RPG, the PCs are the stars and the main characters and the story is about them. Just like in Die Hard, there may be no mystical prophecy that the main character is going to stop a bunch of terrorists, but still being main characters, they're going to come back.

Sure, it's fine some times. But really ... if a character is so important that the gods are willing to keep brining him back to life, why don't they just do whatever it is he's supposed to do for him?

It's not really "the gods". In fact, i don't like bringing gods into it because it usually makes clerics and paladins seem more important. I prefer to think of it as some overarching destiny that goes even beyond the gods. Something alien and beyond the full understanding of pretty much everyone. Occasionally prophets can glimpse a part of this grand design, but nobody in the world really knows the entire thing.

Even characters who don't "know" that it might not work next time should be able to figure out that it works within their little party far more often than it works on anyone else. And at that point they have two options: question it or ignore it. Ignoring it is ridiculous, and questioning it leads to logic errors.

I'm not sure why there are logic errors. It's an odd set of circumstances and it leads people into the same kind of age old debates like coincidence or destiny. Maybe the PCs believe they got lucky or maybe they buy into the fact that there's some destiny for them.

There are only logical errors if it's a force that people understand. Why does it rain more in rainforests than in desert areas? Before we knew about climate and stuff, that may seem like a similar question. Are those spots blessed by the gods, is it just random distribution, is there some invisible destiny at work? In the absence of true understanding, you can come up with all sorts of explanations as to why something is as it is. And best yet. Nobody can really question it, because nobody knows for sure. So there may be various theories about why the PCs happen to resurrect better than everyone else, but there's no right or wrong answer anyone is going to come up with. In the end, the study just comes up inconclusive.

The same is true of resurrection. Why does it seem to work better for the PCs than anyone else? Why does Stephen Hawking have such a larger IQ than most other people? Why are there only 9 planets in the solar system instead of 15? I don't really feel that any of these really lead to logical errors.

I 100% agree that coming back from the dead as undead (read: as something "other") can be quite cool. However, you must realize that this is quite different than "circumventing" death. Undeath is a corruption, not a restoration.

But it does the same thing. The villain you killed has returned. In many cases, lichdom and vampirism was considered a way of cheating death. Often times it has horrible consequences, but it's still a way of circumventing final death. Resurrection just happens to be a complication free means of doing that.

I'm sorry, but this sentence really bugs me. Would you let your character jump to the moon? Destroy the sun? Freeze the molten core of the planet? Sink a continent? I will admit that, in fantasy, anything is possible. But that does not mean that in a fantasy role playing game, where people are trying to connect to their characters on an emotional and logical level, anything should happen. Yes, such worlds are interesting alternatives, but do you really think these worlds should be default?

Well remember that we do have rules to prevent some things from happening. And rules are good in that offer us consistency. But sometimes, we really don't want consistency. Because in the case of resurrection either case is bad for us. We don't want to lose the heroes, but creating a weird world where anyone can come back isn't consistent with the kind of world we want to make either. So we're put in a quandry. An easy solution is simply to dump consistency for certain parts.

D&D is not a TV show. In a TV show or movie, the writers have full control over everything. There are no players with differing ideas. There are no unexpected twists. The characters go exactly where you want them to exactly when you want them to. There is nothing but (the writer's equivalent of) GM Fiat.

That's true, but D&D wants to borrow some elements from TV shows and movies, because it tries to be cinematic. We have rules because we want to let PCs contribute ideas and such in a way that isn't always "does the DM say it's okay". And we keep those rules around. But sometimes excessive rules can get in the way of the story.

Sometimes the DM just does set the stage. It's not as though when the DM said, "The king has just been assassinated." that he rolled for the assassin sneaking into the palace and killing the king. No, he simply decided that the king was dead and that's what the PCs arrive to.

Similarly, I think it's okay for him to decide which NPCs are worthy of returning and which are not. If the PCs fail the quest to save the king and he dies, it's just not very interesting to have him get raised anyway. It trivializes the PC's quests. Similarly if every high level villain can return the PCs may wonder why they bother fighting at all.

But having someone return once in a while is cool. Unfortunately you really can't write rules to do that, because it's all a matter of DM fiat. I for one don't want a plot ruined by a simple percentage chance. it's really not even relevant to anything.

I propose that players should not know that their characters are coming back, regardless of whether their characters do or not. As I said above, any character with an Int 6 or higher should figure out that people in the party have a much higher percentage chance of being raised.

Well it depends on how common death happens to be for the PCs. For one, I propose making death more rare. 4E has done this by eliminating save or dies and reducing the threshold to -bloodied for true death. So as far as the characters are concerned the raise dead concept shouldn't be tested very much.

In current default D&D, the enemies already have exactly as much access to Raise Dead as the PC's do. So it makes just as much sense that someone would cast Raise Dead on a fallen villain as it would for the PC's to cast it on their fallen buddies. The big difference, as I've pointed out numerous times, is that it works far more reliably for the PC's.

I guess I see that as more a feature than a problem. As a DM, you want your PCs to come back, but you don't want every villain coming back. Before you think about what mechanic you want, I always believe that it's best to decide how you want the world to work. In this case, you really do want the world to work different for PCs than for NPCs. Because if the king or a major NPC gets killed, I want it to mean something. Otherwise the PCs are put in a standstill war where they can't really effect change, and for heroes, that sucks.

Most PCs don't want to play a MMORPG where the big bad orc they killed respawns in a few minutes and they can't achieve anything beyond constantly killing and looting him. They do however want to come back themselves.

That pretty much says you need different mechanics for PCs and NPCs.

Terevoth: Revolter, Tereshkova (that's a word?!), Revolver
odinspearx: spearheading, inspectorate, spearmint

I just thought these were hilarious attempts by a routine to come up with the "correct" word.

Heh, that's pretty amusing. And now I'm left wondering what Tereshkova means.

Maxperson wrote:

I didn't say that. In my example, it was RP'd out, not hammered over the head with that absurd example above. "The King's soul doesn't come back to his body. Either he's unwilling to come back, or something is keeping him away. You just don't know which." THAT is an example of DM Fiat without it being "No, I don't want you to raise the King, so you can't." I hope you can see the difference.

So you get to engage in some extra prose and the PCs are out 5000gp+, without result. Ouch.

I prefer to warn my PCs when/if a rez won't work for "plot reasons" (obviously, still using various in-game explanations for why). Otherwise it's pretty unfair.

Maxperson wrote:

Neither of the last two options involve a hammer or bad timing with DM Fiat. Things get stolen, and a pickpocket taking an item is FAR different from "Alright, Mark. I'm stripping this item off the sheet because it's too powerful and I shouldn't have given it to you."

Can the PC track down the thief and get the item back?

Because if not, the only reason between those two methods is the number of words they take. I know more than a few players who'd actually rather you just say "I'm taking the item" and get on with the action, than narrate a PC-nerfing scene.

Archtyrant Terevoth]It's not really "the gods".

But aren't the gods the ones bestowing the rezzing?

It's not really "the gods".[/quote]
But aren't the gods the ones bestowing the rezzing?

Archtyrant Terevoth]Well it depends on how common death happens to be for the PCs. For one, I propose making death more rare. 4E has done this by eliminating save or dies and reducing the threshold to -bloodied for true death. So as far as the characters are concerned the raise dead concept shouldn't be tested very much.

That's not quite true. PC death will be greatly reduced for 1-20. When you hit epic, it seems each PC will have a "when you die" ability - not if, mind you - and I can't imagine 4e would have you get an ability you almost never use. PCs will likely die often in Epic tier - it'll just be easy to wrote: