What risk does assassination have when you can just raise dead?

[Benicus]

So I've had a few problems with D&D lately. These minor annoyances will be voiced here for your approval, dissmisal, or criticism.

So in D&D one thing I've had a problem with is how magical worlds are presented with the spells in the PHB. Like the one king in Ebberon before the Great War, why didn't they just Raise Dead and avoid the war? Or Raise Dead any king?

[BigRedRod]

Right, I've moved and split the thread Benicus. Feel free to rename it, I've only just crawled out of my pit and I'm still fuzzy.

This is indeed a problem with D&D. Having to justify quite why those types of magics haven't changed the world on a fundamental level. It also reminds me of an Order of the Stick comic. In my eyes there are two solutions

a) Lower the magic level to make raising the dead very tricky business. There are a few ways you can lower the magic level, and they don't necessarily include a series of hefty mechanical alterations.

b) Do change the world so that the veritable feast of powers available to any ruler of half decent country end up getting used. Empires are now ruled by the same men who founded them, as they have such effective support networks that they are unkillable. It'd make for an interesting game if somebody went back to the drawing board with a world and thought about how high level powers could alter the world.

[Linklegacy77]

Well, there can be several reasons. Maybe the king's corpse was badly damaged beyond repair. Maybe it was taken by the assassins. Maybe his soul was trapped with some spell or device, so he can't be brought back.

[LeeCHeSSS]

And if you use those reasons and put them against the rules which the PHB/DMG gave us, it would probably give the players a feeling of cheesy railroading...

[Linklegacy77]

It might. It really depends on your players. If your players are the type to point out "Hey, shouldn't he have been ressurected?", then they probably won't feel too bad when you say "Yes, but the enemy thought of that and prepared for it."

Otherwise, if they go for realism, they probably wont even mention the possibility of ressurection.

You could always go with the OOTS: http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0410.html

[nightinverse]

You can employ a mechanical and/or logical solution at nearly any level of depth to deal with this.

For example, Lempfhyr Isles and Factions At War are both low-magic games. Lune Moonshadow has an upper practical limit on spellcaster prowess built into character generation, and thus there is an entrenched wide-focus solution for such an issue in the latter game. In the former, I have made magic expensive and desired - you may not be able to hire a priest to revive anybody, they simply don't have the time, training, resources and/or confidence to take the risks involved.

BRR made a very fine point that isn't taken into account in the majority of campaigns - magic that fantastic utterly subverts the meaning of every action and the theoretical rules which bind that campaign. I know Elminster has a certain foe who always comes back from the grave - he is simply that powerful, and he has the infrastructure to protect his reserved powers!

As above, on a smaller scale, you could have the dead individual refuse to allow resurrection. You might mechanically make resurrection impossible by use of magic items, spells or for that matter, plot slips.

Anyway, I recommend working multiple solutions together. You want to play to your players, even if it means sacrificing your own desires - something I struggle with as a GM continually - but you can put your foot down, just support your stance.

[Benicus]

Well, there can be several reasons. Maybe the king's corpse was badly damaged beyond repair. Maybe it was taken by the assassins. Maybe his soul was trapped with some spell or device, so he can't be brought back.

The problem I have with these is just that there are spells in the PHB that would make it so they wouldn't be very applicable (and even after, there's adventurers). For the first, just have the cleric cast regenerate then ressurection, for the second just use True Ressurection and for the last just have Miracle on hand (there's plenty of magic items around that have a wish or two as well).

But that's just nit-picking I know.
I think that it would be a cool premise for a world (probablly going to be my next high magic one) to take into account every stupid spell that could screw up the world and figure out how a world would come about. It'd be massive though.

I like BBR's points, I think that is why Eberron does well is because they basically have the first suggestion flying around.

A thing I've seen, though I can't remember where, that could be a small scale solution to the whole "You die, oh yeah? I cast Raise Dead," thing would be that the people have to bargain with the god of the dead and/or quest to get the dead people back.

[omni-roach]

There actually is a pretty good game for the Super Nintendo called Chrono Trigger where the main character kicks the bucket, and you have to go on this insane quest to get him back. I actually thought it was done pretty well, and does indeed counter the constant "I cast Raise Dead" issue.

[The Hive Custodian]

I think that it would be a cool premise for a world (probablly going to be my next high magic one) to take into account every stupid spell that could screw up the world and figure out how a world would come about. It'd be massive though.

I think it would be beyond human comprehension and, ironically, virtually impossible to translate into D&D rules. For the latter point, consider that people would then only create the more useful magic items, since we are no longer brushing the question of who makes magic items under the carpet. Someone is spending their precious XP on those items, so they're probably not going to go around making, say, holy thundering saps, to take an example from an actual randomly rolled item in my experience. The effect on the economics of magic items would be a massive project to even approximate, and that's only a tiny part of the picture. For example, would spellcasters even be inclined to make magic items, or would they hoard the XP for themselves? A 20th level character has 760,000 gp starting money; at 1 XP per 25 gold, that's 30,400 XP. Would the average wizard really be willing to give up around 60,000 XP to make that many magic items for themselves and, say, one fighter?

In the larger picture, you would have to specify exactly what conditions you are applying. Does the D&D ruleset actually describe what happens in the world? (If it does, it would be fairly quickly back-derived; for example, as soon as anybody starts tracking statistics at a shooting range, over time some interesting convergences should start to appear. For an even clearer example, consider spells per day, which are blatantly quantized. Whenever a catapult is fired, there are precisely nine locations where it can land, and so forth.) How easy is it to learn magic? How high level do people tend to get? What about rules abuses like Pun-Pun? After that, you would have to consider magic's effect on society, technology, and all other aspects of life--a few trinkets like continual flame streetlights are cute, but they don't even start to cover the whole picture.

[LuneMoonshadow]

Lune Moonshadow has an upper practical limit on spellcaster prowess built into character generation, and thus there is an entrenched wide-focus solution for such an issue in the latter game.

Magic, in my experience, does very little to further stories and simply is another means to make a GM's life more difficult. Magic bypasses minor obstacles far too easily, which I think is what really gives a campaign its life. Teleporting into a city past the guards isn't as exciting as having to plan a way to sneak inside or use a bit of diplomacy to work your way in. Magic seems, far too often, as "easy", much like in this case. Trivializing death to a certain degree is never good.

[Linklegacy77]

I agree to a certain extent. After a while, it just gets repetitive to perform those same tasks that, while they were a challenge when you were five levels lower, are so simple that you might as well just say "Okay, so you got past."

Magic can be a useful tool for solving issues like that. Teleport is a fairly high level spell after all.

Thus I recommend keeping a certain limit on magic, but I usually don't restrict it too much.

My new campaign that I will be running here (as soon as my players build their characters) is a city campaign, and has many restrictions on magic. Primarily, magic is not as useful a combat tool anymore. You can't just launch a fireball at a group of enemies in a city, the collateral damage will cause problems. While magic will be a useful solution to many problems, the group will require many mundane methods of doing various tasks. This campaign is particularly DM friendly from a certain perspective, because it is very easy to limit things.

[LuneMoonshadow]

Yes, doing the same things over and over again does get old. However, there is usually a reason for it, though. You don't have to stop and talk to the guards from levels 1 to 10 because they should eventually recognize you and know you for your famous deeds. Getting stopped at level 10 would be something like visiting a new city completely and I think the event should be used because it's sort of a "You're unknown here and you have to follow their rules" kind of thing.

I like having famous/powerful PCs, but I also like them to actually act like people, not deities. I suppose I'm a little more mundane in my methodology. Magic is bad.

That is, of course, only a single example, and magic does add lots of flavor to certain things. In general, though, I do not like it. I should probably quit whining and go pick up Iron Heroes.

[nightinverse]

The system is damaged in so many ways that THC and I can always analyze a different flaw. Magic is but one of many.

[Mercutio]

Don't forget that Raise Dead and Resurrection assume willing spirits.

[nightinverse]

As above, on a smaller scale, you could have the dead individual refuse to allow resurrection.


To elaborate, many cultures have considered death as a continuation of life, or a well-deserved period of rest, rather than a negative event. This is just one rationale of many which you could use to explain personal rejection on the part of the deceased.

[LynMars]

My understanding is, people with magic high enough for those spells are supposed to be rare in the game world. You wouldn't know it in some settings like the Forgotten Realms--unless you make those named NPCs, and maybe the PCs if they live and the campaign runs long enough, the only ones with that sort of power. Otherwise, NPCs have access to the not-quite-as-cool NPC classes, like Acolytes.

Also, people seem to forget the components required in those high level spells--resurrection is expensive and difficult, besides finding someone capable of the act, the casting itself, and assuming a willing spirit.

One doesn't have to change the mechanics of how the magic works--it's more changing accessability and social dynamic that can help. The levels available in the PHB, et al, can be seen as more of what's possible to attain for PCs especially, known magic some mage in the past has gained, but doesn't necessarily mean every single King's Advisor has to have the ability to cast all the level 9 spells.

[LuneMoonshadow]

I agree that the higher level spells are only for the extremely powerful and NPCs usually never rise above the level 10 mark. However, in high levels campaigns it is a difficult thing to balance since magic becomes such an incredible tool to anyone who can wield it. It eventually gets to the point where the only real effective means of killing a high level magic user is by magic itself.

[akiko]

But then there is always the discussion of where do you get a 5 or 10 thousand gold piece diamond. When you really think about it these things just shouldn't be that abundant. I mean that is a pretty sizable chunk of diamond for a medieval type setting, no?

Part of what I like about Iron Kingdoms is being discussed here. Plain and simply there is no True Res. Doesn't exist. And Raise Dead is moved from a 5th level spell to 8th or 9th (top of my head). And the gods do not take kindly to healing or resurrection magic. Perform it on someone who is not a believer of your same god and you could lose HP, Con, your casting abilities or even your life. Gods do not like tampering with souls especially.

[Takkaryx]

Second the IK way to deal with Raise Dead. Raise Dead got moved to 9th level, and Resurrect and True Resurrect doesn't exist, period. Reincarnate is a 7th level spell, with some funky effects. Morrow's clerics, the clerics that will most likely cast Raise Dead (And most likely to avoid most of the horrid things), will only cast the spell on these conditions:

1) Under 10th level are automatically denied.
2) 1% chance per level to even be accepted.
3) 1k GP per level of the departed.
4) If the departed worships Morrow, then the odds are increased by 10%.

Pretty harsh, to say the least. When a person casts raise dead that's not the equivilent of the Morrow Pope or a Cardinal, the caster has to make a will save DC 15 plus the dead guy's level. If the caster fails, the punishments range from -4 penalty to all saves against disease, to no spell casting for 3d6 weeks, to loosing limbs, to loosing your soul in the process.
If the caster suffers an problem, the raise-ee also automatically gets a roll, and also has a percentile chance (3x the raise-ee's level) to get a roll as well. Those range from foul stench to physical deformities, to a DC 15 Will save once a day to avoid -4 to the kitchen sink for the day, to level loss, to 2 more rolls.

It's ugly.

[elmer_jok]

Wow, that's pretty damn hardcore. I like the implications it has on raising the dead though. I've always thought it was kind of cheesy as well to be able to go to the local 'church' and for the proper 'donation'.

[Doomsmile]

Now, you all are forgetting that, assuming the king can have resurection cast on him as many times as he darned well pleases (and why not? That comes later...), repeated assasinations will lower his level, making him (in theory) progressively easier to assasinate, and also (in theory) progressively worse at his job. Once the guy hits level 1, he's not only no longer fit to be king, but now his constitution drops. Come consitution 5 or so, a stiff breeze will kill him- assasins are no longer required.

Also, no D&D magic can reverse death from old age. If a setting requires the death of a leader (and a following disintigration of the kingdoms), old age will do the trick, even if a level eleventy-twelth cleric is on call with all the diamonds left on the plane.

One other thing making an assasination matter in D&D is that, even if the spirit is willing, the prince may not be. As the new ruler, a not-so-cuddly prince-come-king could simply refuse to pay for the old king's ressurection- he wants to be in power! The above discussed options of a trap the soul spell or what not are equally valid. As is abduction by a teleporting ninja-wizard or something- you can't raise him if he's not dead!

[Palanthias]

I really think that a good GM can handle all of this. You have to come up with explanations for game maechanics all the time. You just deal. The king was assassinated. Live with it you weren't there you don't know how. He could be on vacation in the southern relmns with harem of serving girls not giving a crap what happened to the kingdom he left behind. Death comes to every one. A good assassin makes it stick. The bit about willingness is valid. Think of modern society and our current batch of religions. The christians base most of there schtick on the afterlife. If you cheat death, are you cheating God? Are you meddling with God's plan? I would say before a Priest performed that particular piece of magic they would have to do some serious communion to make sure that was in the Big Guy's plan. The answer then might comeback no... People also underestimate the proper application of magical or alchemical poisons. A theoretically high enough level poison could be the ultimate end. A faith based poison maybe made by the cult or Church of death themselves. Whatever you need to make the story right. Its all just story telling anyway.

[LeadPal]

For brilliance! For heroism! For posterity! :D

I doubt any of these problems truly be fixed, but I'm sure that they can be made superficially convicing. And that's enough; all that's really necessary for a campaign setting is the suggestion that it might function by realistic rules. The PCs have a very limited perspective, and, like a movie set or a magic trick, it only needs to be convincing from their point of view.

Obviously, the easiest solution is to explicitly remove all high-level characters, to the point that a character able to cast 5th level spells would have an Elminster-like status. However, the power of the PCs becomes increasingly inexplicable if you decide to keep them adventuring to high levels, to say nothing of the power of their enemies. For a low-level campaign, though, this is convenient.

My favourite limitation, though, is the scarcity of components. But then there is always the discussion of where do you get a 5 or 10 thousand gold piece diamond. When you really think about it these things just shouldn't be that abundant. I mean that is a pretty sizable chunk of diamond for a medieval type setting, no?It's not really a "medieval" setting if there's a lot of magic, but there'd probably be a lot less diamonds than usual if they're being destroyed to fuel resurrections. I like to rule that they can't be bought in any shop, nor in random treasure (all of the random values for gems have different gems to select). This makes the hunt for existing gems comparable to the hunt for an artifact.

There's always the nature of whatever killed the king, as well.A good assassin makes it stick.High-level assassin contracts might be ongoing in case of resurrection--assassins aren't going to be in demand if no one ever stays dead, after all. These organizations might invest heavily in trap the soul type spells and effects, hire monsters like barghests that can prevent resurrection from working at all, or might just monitor the person regularly, sending for another assassin as necessary. It could get awfully uneconomical to raise the king twice a month.

The magic item economy is impossible to fully define, or to even fix, but I'm still optimistic that the illusion of a real economy can exist.For the latter point, consider that people would then only create the more useful magic items, since we are no longer brushing the question of who makes magic items under the carpet.Well, I don't really see how the game is improved by religiously adhering to randomly generated items. I only ever place items that I feel the party could theoretically use, or that the NPC wielding it would clearly want, so already someone would think there's value to the items.

Spellcasters would want to only create the ideal magic items for their power, but they couldn't do so without complete knowledge of all the magic items that could possibly exist. It's likely that some less-effective items are created by crafters that just can't think of anything better to make. Perhaps magic items are even like technology--developing all the time. Everyone would love to have bags of holding, but they were only invented a twenty years ago; you won't find any in an ancient vault.

Obviously if you wanted to really define this, you'd need to create a huge chart with the age of every magic item in the setting, but that would be a waste of time; all that's necessary is a few examples, with the implication that there might be more.

For example, would spellcasters even be inclined to make magic items, or would they hoard the XP for themselves?Hmm. I'd dodge this question by adding Eberron's artificers and magewrights, perhaps revised to have even less to do than to sit around creating lots of magic items. If I didn't want to add new classes, though, I'd make the majority of the item creation have taken place in empires long vanished, where there may have been more incentive to create lots of items. (Perhaps because those classes existed back then?)

This would make the number of magic items in the world somewhat static, and encourage mercantalism; everyone wants to get more items, but nobody wants to part with them.

Does the D&D ruleset actually describe what happens in the world?Hehe. I always found the implications of the back-derivation really funny. I wouldn't rule that it does in anything other than an OOTS-like comedy world, in which case I'd be more concerned with setting up my jokes than with verismilitude. :)