Death & Dungeons & Dragons: Resurrection in 5e D&D - Web DM

hey there YouTube I'm Pruitt this is Jim Davis and on today's web DM we're gonna reach out to all you DMS that are experiencing a little bit of Rd resurrection dysfunction it's nothing to be ashamed of it happens to everyone but we're going to give you the diagnosis to get you back in the game and more importantly back in the action let's get to it on Webb do you Jim let's talk about resurrection raising the dead the save feature of D&D the save feature Afeni much maligned by Dungeon Master's everywhere and yet I've never seen a player complain about resurrection and raised it I don't think I've ever read of a player being like man that resurrection magic just ruined the game for me it's usually good diems who kind of talked about how it's difficult to establish sort of worlds and take into account the fact that Ray's dead and resurrection magic exists for their setting and what the implications are for it think about it a mitigating sense if you look at like any kind of comic book like Marvel like the villains are constantly being resurrected no one's like heroes never coming back never die or ever die they're playing in a D&D world right and so I think the tension exists because they're dm's out there who want there to be lasting consequences for their games they want death to mean something they want players to have an incentive to be not risk-averse but certainly like to consider the risks involved and not just charge and foolhardy knowing that the Clarets gonna bring him back real quick right he's got five prepared right course he would and so the player side of it which is that they develop attachments to their characters that they want to maintain and while my I'm of the opinion that character death is an opportunity to play a new cool character it just is there are a lot of people that don't play that way and they want to see the same character go from first to twenty and have that emotional satisfaction of doing that while at the same time doing all these risky dangerous things and so the resurrection magic along with things like greater and lesser restoration and all the cure spells do kind of create a save feature that allows your character to engage in this risky behavior and if it goes south it's okay yeah they'll come back and so that the tension ice I see online a lot is is wean those two things yeah Dungeon Master's wanted to create a plausible believable world that that has consequences and players wanting to maintain that attachment to their character so what do we do about resurrection magic I think banning the spells outright is a little drastic even if only for one another module I mean for one module is one thing like a you to man finale we'll get to that we'll get to that in a minute we're gonna talk about it I think starting out it's it's worthwhile to look at the four maybe five ways that it's possible for player characters to bring other player characters back from the dead let's go ahead and get the cantrip by the way general pose the thing that can get you to being raised like if you're out in whatever so you know something's dead yes you know or pose on it it doesn't deteriorate doesn't it so general pose is kind of one of those spells that is is related to that it keeps the corpse fresh there's magic that you know the early level resurrection magic it does does have a shelf life you know it can't be passed either if it's one minute or 10 days so general repose does kind of like keep the keep the body fresh fun tip you can also use it on a newly risen Lich to kind of keep them fresh and deteriorate the flesh starts to deteriorate just stuff a body full of snow to keep it fresh right right there's that one there's spare the dying of course which isn't quite resurrection magic but it is in that gray space where you're making those death saving throws it's to keep you from that keep to keep you from that but I'm talking specifically about revivify and moving on now I personally think that revivify is the problem and if there is any one of the spells that I would just say we're not playing with this one yet would be revivify first off it's way low level fifth level is early to be able to get that yeah stuff for at third level spells the third little spell right so I can remember us playing way back in the day in like second edition where you know we're out in the middle of the trackless wilderness someone's character dies and now we do have to stuff their body full of snow and drag them back on a sled three weeks to civilization where we then negotiate a price with the temple it's not just gold they want they want favors they want other stuff there's a resurrection survival chance for that character to come back there's like all of these hurdles you have to jump through to get a character back to life yeah so that by the time your clerics were actually casting Ray's dead in resurrection if they may to that level that was seen as sort of an achievement now someone else can do that putting revivifying at available to to 5th level characters means that as long as that person stays up as long as that character that's able the cash for vivify stays up they're gonna be able to bring everybody back unless it's like a really bad situation where they've got no slots left that minute casting time or that sorry that minute shelf life that the corpse can be a corpse is you know you're gonna blow past that but I do think that revivify is the one that creates that whack-a-mole sort of feel there's certainly the fact that you can go from zero to there's no negative hit points you have to to account for a branch drop to zero and then the next time you you get hit and now you're making the three death saving throws again I think there's a lot of things that make 5th edition very newbie friendly in that regard and I think that's a good thing for new players but it does have consequences on DMS in the worlds they want to create yeah cuz you just you just circle the wagons around the cleric and just keep him alive right you know and so revivify I think is one of the major culprits of that because then they can just like bring people back bring people back to people packed right as we get into the higher levels of raise dead magic you whether it's raise dead resurrection or true resurrection I think those are fine there's nothing necessarily wrong with those number one they're higher level so it's gonna take longer to get to them there's gonna be less characters in the world whether pcs or NPCs capable of using that magic and it I think they're less disruptive than revivify yeah also there's some drawbacks some limitations on them right so let's let's get into that Ray's dead you know that's what ten days yeah the person that you're trying to raise can't be dead for longer than 10 days that's where gentle repose comes in conveniently enough lasting for I believe ten days I like it because it's sort of like the Forgotten Realms equivalent of a week right a ten day attend a I think that's probably why it's in there but the raised it has a curious thing where it can bring back someone that's died of old age most of the other resurrection magics can't do that Ray's dead is sort of the exception to that I think there are some interesting world building implications because of that yeah but I mean like all of these spells they've got expensive material components they've got a shelf life you have to cast them within a certain time frame you know particularly we're vivify I think that one minute needs to be strictly enforced a lot of times once you break out of combat tracking what happens round around becomes less you know less rigorous but a minute isn't that long and it's it's and so if something happens or if there's a problem or an issue than they might not get to them but the limitations on all of the resurrection magic I think sometimes get forgotten about in the rush to ban or modify or change these spells yeah well it's like hey this magic might not be everywhere at the same time you know a lot of the complaints come from just a pure player focused perspective not necessarily what the random Dirt Farmer NPC is doing but like the fact that the players keep coming back from that yeah yeah and also you know that our casting time is oh yeah you know you can't you're not just gonna bust this out in the middle combat or be a very interesting combat I need to protect the cleric well I guess raised okay one of the things that I like about these spells is that you know the players handbook spells present that one way to for this magic to work but it's entirely within the team's purview to say yes you can cast raise dead but it has a requirement of being in this specific location so now we're kind of dealing like a cone am barbarian situation where you have to prepare the corpse to be brought back and there are ghosts that are going to come and attack the party while the cleric is trying to bring back this character because you are calling their spirit from the netherworld that opens the door their vengeful spirits that will come through the rest of the party has to keep that cleric safe while that's happening those are the kinds of things you can start working into resurrection magic instead of just like yeah we hole up in the end and an hour later he's gonna come back with with full hit points and all mundane diseases cured and have a beer written and things like that right and then there's also the fact that you know you know body parts that are missing you know not every resurrection spell restores body parts so you know it's not gonna regrow limbs raise dead at least it's not gonna regrow internal organs things like that it might it might help cure or or it might you know some resurrect resurrection magic you know does restore vital organs that some of them it's like you just say the person's name true resurrection is like I'm gonna say this person's name and it's gonna create a whole new body for them in there yeah bring them back but just you know read the limitations on those spells and consider what the implications are for them they're not cheap number one no it might be cheap for the players right they might have a lot of diamonds that they're throwing around because they're players and players tend to accumulate gemstones like that but for the world a three three hundred gold piece J Matthau zijn gold piece with 500 or 2500 those are difficult to come by and they should be similarly difficult to come by for the party if you want to limit resurrection magic without changing the spells or anything then just make diamonds difficult to find yeah right then then giving a diamond as part of treasure it becomes more than just gold that that's a spell component that yeah cleric or whoever needs yeah and that's a very good way of limiting this magic revivify is a 300 gold piece diamond how many of those does should party have how many of those are you making available for the party right right yeah those are the kinds of things I don't really see discussed whenever people ripe about the way this magic works yeah I mean how does the how does the diamond trade not get thrown off you know of course reincarnation is the bastard stepchild of resurrection magic right right you know it's a lot more easier to cope with in 5th edition than pass raccoon or bear a trash can a fifth level rogue trash can right I mean can you imagine all the things you'd be able to get up - sure yeah little hands a little tiny paws you know you're just gonna like roll a random race from the the players hamegg races I I kind of think of reincarnation magic should be like location-specific yeah wherever you're at you know there's a custom table for it because the critters that are found there so maybe you want to be reincarnated in a full city right as opposed to out in the middle of nowhere yeah of course not just tomb of annihilation you know changes the way resurrection magic works obviously cursive Strada had no consequences for coming back from the dead with that one so I think it's entirely within the dungeon masters purview to say this type of magic is going to work differently this is powerful magic yeah the door between life and death is a real thing in a typical Dungeons & Dragons world there is a there are gods and goddesses of the dead there are powers and monsters and things that usher and guides souls to their whatever reward they have afterwards and being able to manipulate that is gonna be powerful magic so it's worthwhile to think you know how can I make these spells a part of the adventure how can I make it so that it's not just the player going I cast this spell some time passes and it happens you know do you make them a ritual right do you do you make it something that the group can participate in the the new taldor i setting from critical roles sort of released actually got my copy over the last week and first thing I did was flip through where they have their alternate rules for resurrection and part of those are like making it a group effort making everyone non spellcasters included able to make some kind of skill role or check to participate in bringing this person back but then making it not guaranteed that they're gonna come back yeah and bringing back kind of that old system shock roll from second addition saying like yeah it's traumatic coming back from the dead and it's you do not come back unaltered unchanged I like to either of like bringing everybody in you know bring setting down mementos of the person you know even if it's like the the non spell casters they're offering up a prayer or an item of sacrifice to bring them back I really like that this is where you really enforce the the material components make it not just a diamond make it that they've got a require rare instances and herbs you know they have to tattoo the body with certain arcane or or religious sigils that require special pigments and inks and things are a special quill that has to be used like that's where the DM can really say this isn't just you saying I cast the spell let's roleplay this out what is your character doing what materials are they using they have to go and put some effort into acquiring this and that's how you make things magical you invest significance in these in these acts and these items that they have so that's one way you can do it yeah and and obviously you're coming back from the dead this has consequences you're gonna come back may be changed like it's one thing I loved about you're gonna come back as dougie right like about Game of Thrones when you have a character beric Dondarrion yes Emmy comes back it's like there's pieces of you there's a piece all the way yeah and you're just you know you're not the same person you're not the same person walking through death's door is a harrowing experience right and so it should be and so are there psychological or physical tolls that get taken on your character there there's a table in the dmg that's coming lasting consequences of death but there's plenty that you can find online that's just like what gif give your character a new flaw right use the indefinite madness to kind of guide your decision-making in this and say like yeah you know your this is how your character died this is the location they were in maybe choose some kind of flaw based on that some kind of physical limitation that takes a while to come back from you know were they impaled on a bow on a you know dragon's tooth whenever they died then then there's got to be some kind of consequences for that maybe they walk with a limp maybe they're they have difficulty with you know holding something I don't get just finding a way to say like you came back but there there was a price to pay and that's changing your character and if your character never changes never has something adverse happened to them never has something that they have to overcome then that's doesn't create for a very rich role-playing experience right right you don't you don't actually have a character development arc yes you have a character leveling arc you leveled up but you never develop but you never develop maybe a god or a goddess brings back the character and says like well you can but now there's a price to pay maybe there's a creature that can that knows Ray's dead magic and the party has to approach that creature and beseech them and now they're in their debt and that's maybe something cool where it's like hey we did this for you the price that was paid isn't on the character that's resurrected it's on someone else now right and that kind of creates tension within the party and great opportunities for role-playing as it's kind of like yeah the person who brought you back was the paid the price maybe they had to give a piece of themself we've mentioned it before dr. strange or dr. strange and Mr Norrell or whatever Jonathan strange mister no sorry I'd like to watch dr. strange [Laughter] yeah sorcerer supreme yeah who is good should do our own fanfic Jim you know making a deal with the fairy in order to bring back the lady half her life is gonna be taken by it yeah you know that's obviously he made a deal for her yeah used her as a bargaining chip yes but like you said sometimes maybe one of the party members that that creature maybe has a liking to as a liking for maybe there's a magic item that that brings people back from the dead and acquiring it is an ordeal and of itself just take the Lazarus Pit right Frank from Batman like bringing someone bringing Ra's al Ghul back to life in the last video whoever bathes in that is a it has a price it does something to them and it might be temporary and it might be something that they don't always want to do but long-term use of it carries its own consequences if these places exist in your world where it's like okay the the wellspring of life that's guarded by the you know champions of the four elements you know that they're not just gonna let anybody come up there I'm either have to defeat them and claim the wellspring for yourself or pass their tests in order to do it if you're wanting to have the magic that still exists in the world because you don't want to tell pcs when your character is dead that's it you got to make a new one you don't want to do that to them because they're here to play a character long-term but you don't want to make it trivially easy you can make these things where it's like ritualized the spell make them go to a certain location to do it and make them bargain with an entity to do it right ways to keep the magic in the game but make it more difficult to gain access to that magic another way is to add those that that watch over the the pathways between life and death there are certain entities and deities right right that may be why have something to say absolutely so we've got we've got the Raven Queen that came into Dungeons and Dragons and fourth edition and sort of and I think is one of the better additions additions to the game editions and it's just a really fun concept we have the inevitable z' sort of like lawful creatures that that that some of them are out there to say like yes you know resurrection magic you've got a certain number of limits for it oh those extra planar voyeurs we've got the death curse and sort of tomb of annihilation or it's like yeah if you've come back from the dead you've got a clock you got a countdown clock tick tock so those are all kinds of things that that you can incorporate into your game so that if you do have fragrant flagrant violators yeah just like yeah that's kind of gets brought back every session and there are times and dungeons and dragons where that might happen and if you can brought back every session you're dying a lot therefore you would be a fragrant but talking about like what happens with the world building I think for a lot of diems it's when it comes to world building that they have a problem there are those diems who are like I can't challenge my players because they keep coming back from the dead maybe you're running to combat heavy focused a game and you need to just not do that but there are similar just like I can't wrap my head around the world building implications for raise dead magic and so one of the ones that I'm thinking of that pops out immediately is raised it the fact that you can die of old age if someone gets to you in time they can bring you back first off who gets resurrected right is the big question yeah that money right you gotta that money you've got to have that diamond and like who has access to that well obviously if you're if you're kind of building a standard sort of medieval esque world those gemstones are gonna be very rare you're talking about aristocrats and sort of very important people yeah well campaign world who have who have access to that maybe the trade and diamonds is heavily restricted by some entity whether it's the monarch or or whatever government official whether it's the religious organizations you know if you have a temple that that that produces clerics that no resurrection magic then it might just be like yeah you don't get to sell diamonds they take them as the acts and if you want to know where the diamonds are they are in a vault deep underneath the temple where they keep those kinds of things yeah they control the diamond mines they control the diamond trade that's just how it is it you know you you've got to think these things through if the man chick exists it's in the players handbook and it's tied with a physical resource that's in the game in this case diamonds then there will be people in the game world who are like yeah those diamonds are more valuable that than just their aesthetic appeal yeah it's a diamond that you can bring someone back from the dead with so Jim how long would someone live if they died of old age and then they're brought back with race debt how long would you say they live I mean I would say they live as long as their Constitution checks they keep keep working so I here's this scenario I'm imagining and I can totally see this for like a low fantasy kind of game or something where it's like you have a Cersei and Qyburn situation where there is a specifically a wizard who has stolen clerical magic right whether it's a fair gist or something else could be probably a warlock as well or maybe even a favorite soul like an arc anis --that is stealing magic that's normally reserved for champions of the gods and you have a monarch who shelters this spellcaster and prevents them from suffering the consequences of their fame the Inquisition can't touch them the holy order of assassins isn't coming after them they're sort of sheltering them in exchange for that this ancient decrepit but just absolutely vindictive and power-hungry monarch is kept alive by this spell caster then they die of natural causes in the middle of night let's get the spell caster up here and he's gonna do what he does you know and it's just a steady stream of Ray's dead lessor restoration heals and just this decrepit because they don't want to become a lich they don't wanna become a vampire they like their full life as it were and and now it's one of those things where yeah no one's allowed to sell diamonds in the kingdom yeah no I know one is a lot of you if you get caught doing that the king's men are gonna come after you yeah is one way to play yes I dove so yeah our party of intrepid adventurers come up to the border of this kingdom right break out the laden with gemstones as they are latest adventure and all the shop keeps are like no you gotta get out [ __ ] out you gotta get out of here yeah so I think that that's one way to kind of present it the other way is just sort of like who can raise dead many casters are there in your kingdom in your empire and whatever it is that you're creating who have access to this magic this is why I don't normally like saying this spell is off-limits but I'd be okay with saying revivify is off-limits not we're just gonna take it out of the game like how many casters are they're capable of casting fifth level spells seventh level spells ninth level spells I mean in a standard kind of high fantasy world like Dungeons and Dragons it might be in the dozens or hundreds but that's up to the DM yeah it doesn't have to be the case the DM can say there is no one in this world capable of casting X number of spells above a certain level right you could just flat-out say there is no one else in the world you can cast six level and above magic just full full stop no one's done it there have in the past of those spells kind of exist in dusty tomes waiting to be rediscovered but as it stands you can't go to the high temple and get a true resurrection yeah you can barely go there and get a raise dead there's like one guy there it does it you got to go out and quest for that scroll of true resurrection right and so maybe you have a case where aristocrats and nobles and merchants Lords and everything they have to supply their own diamonds for it maybe you have a situation where because there's only a handful of people in the kingdom who are able to raise dead the the power brokers of that of that place have a lock down on it and it's like no we that if so-and-so dies my Ray's dead is meant for them I can't cast it on you today because I don't know when I might need it you know this is we're thinking about the setting implications of the world that you're building how many spell casters are there just on how many people are capable of doing this that's up entirely up to the DM if they're worried about too much magic floating around and then limit the number of spell casters yeah yeah because there's a there's a lot in between the an area of sparsity or like a supermarket of a raised dead like right you know there's a lot in between there yeah there's a lot of between you can go the opposite direction and in which raised dead magic is really common and it's in for a certain class of people in the campaign world a common experience and and you just sort of take that in stride and say yeah you know what it exists revivify and all and it just is gonna be there and it's gonna happen and the powerful people in the world which eventually will include the PCs have access to magic that that the common folk of this world do not have and it sets them apart from others I think the real tension comes is where when DMS want a very medieval a squirrel that adheres to kind of a real-world standard or kind of a low fantasy standard but they're playing with the base Dungeons & Dragons rule set and they don't alter it base Dungeons & Dragons is not low fantasy there is magic all over the place and it can do fantastical things that completely break a kind of real world setting and you need to take that into account I am a fan of not fighting the system in this regard and working with it in order to create a rich game world but there are some diems who want a different experience and so they're gonna have to change the way these spells work I think it's better for them to alter them than to ban the spells outright but you know you do what you got to do for your own table yeah quick capsule how much of a body you need for resurrection I guess it depends on the spell right like it no no no resurrection you know cuz I think you can do I think what do you think how much of a body do you need I think you need enough of a body that it's a recognizable body you know and I mean like a torso a head at least yeah even though it says that it grows back all body parts even though it says it grows back all party parts you could get like a fifth element situation where you just have a hand it's one of those weird things where I think the spell says you target a creature with it which is already kind of weird because if they're dead they're not a creature anymore in our Court there are corpsman technically an object I think that's one of the cases where an overly legalistic reading of the rules will get you in trouble and the DM just needs to go with what seems right are they going to be able to bring the head of the sainted one back and and you know place it on on the pedestal or the altar and the cleric you know Cass in and out of that grows magically a flash of light in there they are something like spoke out and start wiggling Ryan I mean this is this whole thing is why I love the zealot barbarian and I hope I hope I hope it makes it into zan thar's because I just love the idea of someone who's like yeah you don't have to worry about that diamond you don't have to worry about all that my god is ready and willing to send me back yeah I'm here I'm back into the fray yep I already signed by uh I already saw in my NDA already signed everything else right I'm good all right well now I'm imagining something like we might have talked about this when we talked about the Zilla barbarian and long ago in those Sunday night live shows for our audio was horrible where it's like yeah there's the champ the eternal champion who as long as someone keeps reading him every 200 years this guy comes back yeah and it's just riddled scarred up he always dies in battle that's what happens whole point right but you but when the kingdom needs him it gets brought back lead the armies and and and so I think that's or it's or the reverse it's just kind of like yeah oh yeah oh yeah we've got to deal with that evil warlord again [ __ ] like someone defeated and last time defeated them last time who keeps bringing this guy back but it's trivially easy to bring him back from dead so yeah I mean I think bottom line for me is I think resurrection magic is what makes D&D D&D yeah and if you ban it outright which is a legitimate thing there are campaigns we're just not having it is a thing and there's other ways you can have you can borrow like fate points from Warhammer where it's like I spend a fate point I'm not really dead even though I might have failed those death saves gonna spin that fate point and I come back with a horrible injury or something more insane and and that's kind of a way to circumvent that but III think resurrection magic is so part of what makes D&D D&D and it's worth really thinking through what it means for your campaign worlds yeah [Music] Oh God he's robbing us Pienaar damn Peter you're Peter yeah

Channel: Web DM

Views: 136,774

Keywords: Dungeons, Dragons, Role, Playing, Tabletop, Game, 5th, Edition, 5e, Web, DM, WebDM, D&D, DND, resurrection, cleric, raise dead, revivify, dungeons and dragons, role playing game, how to play, how to play dungeons and dragons, death & resurrection, death and resurrection

Id: ZlQkw7ZKHt4

Length: 27min 54sec (1674 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 09 2017