Death and resurrection in D&D

It seems like a lot of campaigns restrict resurrection to make death stay a big deal. I'm thinking, though, what if you don't do that? What does that do to the setting?

I'm considering whether to treat the upper reaches of society as maybe having a more Eclipse Phase type attitude towards death; if someone kills the count but doesn't make any attempt to retrieve or dismember the body, all they're doing is sending him a warning, say.
This begs questions, though. How does that affect systems of inheritance? I'm guessing there are customs for what hoops you're required to jump through before you give up and move on to the heir.

Also, it suddenly makes a difference where people, like, go when they die. Are they reincarnated? In some kind of otherworld? Because the former's probably going to be harder to get them back from, or at least you'd have to go about it radically differently.

I'm also thinking that, given the prominence of capturing and ransoming important figures in a feudal system (assuming the campaign uses something along those lines; mine typically do, but I recognize most published settings are content with the pastiche), how viable is capturing the body, and how does that affect whether people fight to the death?

Have you guys found any cool implications to all this?

There's a reason that resurrection spells state that the target must be willing. Lots of people who aren't deranged murderhobos would just as soon stay dead.

What spells force the unwilling back to life?

Necromancy, ya doofus.

Resurrection is a necromancy spell

Watch Altered Carbon. Cyberpunk, but it deals with this. Premise is basically people get flash drives installed in their necks that hold their personality, but resurrection is expensive.

tl;dw
>Decadent, rich, immortal elite.
>Violence is ok, as long as you don't make it permanent. "Murder" basically becomes property damage.
>Because violence is ok, PTSD and trauma are common. Extended torture and repeated violent murder will do that to you.

Unless you bring undeath into the mix, you can't resurrect someone who's died of old age, so incoherence doesn't change.

>go when they die.

Their deity's plane, or the plane that most closely matches their alignment and personality. Or the Wall of the Faithless if you're in the Forgotten Realms, don't have a patron deity, and actively worked against the gods in some way. Faithless in the Realms who don't have a patron deity but otherwise led god-fearing lives or have some kind of complicated circumstance at work can usually make a case to Kelemvor to let them not be mortared into the Wall, and instead serve him in his city as a psychopomp until another deity claims them or they decide to throw their lot in with the Baatezu.

None. There's a few that can force them into a state of undeath, however, but that is not the same thing.

>incoherence

*Meant to type "inheritance", but damn if that isn't a funny autocorrect.

>Wow, I look like a shill.

Working off of this, you could have an indentured servitude thing, where people resurrected have to work off the cost of resurrection.

Yes, I know, but there are other spells in the school.

>Unless you bring undeath into the mix, you can't resurrect someone who's died of old age, so incoherence doesn't change.
5e has the "Clone" spell (8th-level necromancy), which essentially creates a younger version of whatever creature you wish to clone and doesn't have any restriction on the cause of death of the original.

>Or the Wall of the Faithless if you're in the Forgotten Realms

I despise this fluff. I like how earlier D&D settings had atheists or non-aligned souls travel to the elemental planes and become part of them or even become an elemental and forgetting most about their old life; tying them into the cosmos as a larger part of themselves without being tied to a spiritual godly force.

Considering why the wall of faithless was made makes sense though.

Gods were forced by Ao to be dependent on mortals for living or staying in power.

In order to solve the problem of mortals just simply not giving a shit about the gods. Evil death god solves the problem with non believer rebels by making the wall of faithless to fuck over mortals who dare fuck with him as punishment.

Neutral and good gods reluctantly agree for it benefits them and it is also not their place to decide how death is dealt with because that is evil death gods job. As with their previous lessons prior the gods learned they cannot be dicks anymore or AO will just simply put them into the corner.

This is a very interesting thread. And yes, Altered Carbon is a good place to look.

Honestly, I'd be surprised if some fantasy novel hadn't gone deep into this subject -- but I sure haven't heard of one.

If getting resurrected or cloned was simply a matter of money (as in, a LOT of money) it would indeed mean that the wealthy could be basically immortal.

Royal families would be even more fucked up and stagnant than they usually are.

>If getting resurrected or cloned was simply a matter of money (as in, a LOT of money) it would indeed mean that the wealthy could be basically immortal.
According to 5e: 3000 gp per clone, limited only by the availability of 15th level wizards and singular diamonds worth 1000 gp or more (though I'm sure those could be somehow artificially or magically created).

A spell specifically designed to force-rez someone for the sake of making them fix some sort of fuckup would be interesting imo.

Generally speaking you can't revive someone who died of old age so it's not like the upper class is going to be immortal. The diamonds aren't exactly cheap either.

>What spells force the unwilling back to life?
Maybe Wish?

All those arrows and not a single one hit her in the gut.

Perhaps she is on to something..

Welp, an immortal elite it is, then.

This is the power of chainmail bikini armour.

>Generally speaking you can't revive someone who died of old age so it's not like the upper class is going to be immortal. The diamonds aren't exactly cheap either.

>According to 5e: 3000 gp per clone, limited only by the availability of 15th level wizards and singular diamonds worth 1000 gp or more (though I'm sure those could be somehow artificially or magically created).

All the rich/royal person would have to do is pay the court-appointed magic user to clone
'em every fifteen years or so. That way they stay young forever. And hey, when you're royalty, or an ultra-rich merchant or noble, the diamonds being "not exactly cheap" isn't much of an impediment. That's what we're talking about -- the ultra-rich ultra-elite, the very few, the richest, would be effectively immortal. Or at least would be around long enough to seem that way to normal folk.

I believe Reincarnate also circumvents this, but I don't have it in front of me.

I completely forgot about Clone. Reincarnation should also work for cheating death by old age assuming a 9th level druid is a bit easier to come by, though changing race may not be appealing to the subject.

Moreover, the notion of having just one deity you're really into is a little weird, if you look at past polytheistic societies. Even in modern Vaishnava or Shaivite Hinduism, you'll get some reverence thrown at the other figures. I guess my big issue with the Wall of the Faithless is it seemed like an attempt to Abrahamicize a cosmology that really didn't need it.

I recall Rokugan's D20 iteration had a take I thought was cool on Reincarnate. Instead of it summoning a random body out of nothingness, it worked through time and made someone else nearby simply remember having been you in a previous life, but they've had a whole life in their new body as well. That struck me as great story material!

Another idea with Reincarnate that might be cool, following up with the Eclipse Phase/Altered Carbon comparisons, would be that you're basically getting a body off the shelf at the wizard's tower or whatever, as a product.

That still leaves potential room for trickery. How much does the target know about who has their body and why? Isn't it just the alignment and level of the caster or something? Like, that's not a lot to go on.

It might alternately be that the society doesn't consider them the same person after the procedure in terms of property and inheritance, which could preserve a more familiar social structure.

Sure, but that's not as interesting.

Maybe the elves don't live forever; maybe they're just richer/more developed. Or maybe you get a god-emperor type figure, a pharoah who's been ruling for millenia, etc. That could be a cool setting.

Home Rules;
RAISING THE DEAD

Anyone can be raised up to 1d3 times. Known only to the DM, rolled when the character is first made.
Anyone can be reincarnated as many times as they want.
Regardless of method* used, no Constitution, XP or levels are lost.
No PC or NPC can raise more than once per point of wisdom. A character with a Wisdom Score of 21 can raise or resurrect 21 times. If another point of wisdom is permanently gained then the number of time he can raise someone increase.
*raise, resurrect, miracles or wishes

i'm no fan of mccree, but his resurrection variant isn't bad.

If you straight-up don't want to come back then it doesn't really matter who casts the spell

So is it per wisdom score or d3?

>it seemed like an attempt to Abrahamicize a cosmology that really didn't need it
Yeah, that is a big problem with how DnD handles polytheism in general.

Reincarnate brings the target back in the body of a young adult, but it doesn't work if they died of old age in the first place.

Well, right, but if you commit sudoku every time you turn 45 you're back to having an issue.

A cleric can raise people a number of times up to their wisdom score

A person can BE RAISED a d3 number of times in their lifetime.

Who?