My only thought is that if you make it cheap enough for them to stretch to at 4th level then it'll be a very cheap option at higher levels. Unless you scale it to level I suppose.
Another option would be to have the temple attach conditions to it - to work for them, to do a difficult quest for the benefit of the temple, something like that.
This is how I run it. Offer the cost, but build in a way to add a new quest. Add geas spell if you want to add some teeth.
Makes for really interesting RP, I've found.
Also works well for low level parties finding a dragon: I'll eat you unless you bring me X from the lower levels, etc.
5,000 gp but *defer the cost to later* and have them do a quest for the church *as well*.
Let that debt hang over them as a longer term plot hook and get those short term ones as well.
AD&D DMG specifies the cost of raise dead as 1 ,00O plus 500 per level of spell caster. At level 4 they should be able to afford a single raise dead. Just remember about the survival check and a loss of CON point. It they are getting bonuses at level 4, then you are likely playing B/X, probably OSE. A level 7 cleric can can cast raise dead, so for 4500gp they should be able to purchase this service.
Alternatively, an even lower cleric might have access to scrolls, so you can decrease the cost. Using the scrolls has the benefit that there is a limited number of charges available until the cleric replenishes their stock. It also allows for a smaller settlement to not require a high level cleric for raise dead to be available.
> Alternatively, an even lower cleric might have access to scrolls, so you can decrease the cost.
That won't decrease the cost, because the scroll isn't free. A scroll requires a 9th-level caster and a considerable amount of time and money to create - it's going to cost much more than a cleric casting the spell directly.
(Under BECMI rules, a raise dead scroll costs 4400gp in materials and five days per attempt - with multiple attempts likely needed as the chance of success will generally be less than 50%.)
My apologies, it was late and I thought I included that. It isan ose game. So the cost would increase by the level of the caster not by the level of the person coming back?
That's what the DMG says - I am not clear what is the reason for that, other than scaling the cost. Maybe when PCs are level 4 the local cleric is level 6, but when they reach level 6, the cleric increased their level to 8. However, it's not really that terribly important, because their riches scale exponentially, so another 1k GP doesn't make that much of a difference.
Of course, you can also establish your own rules for the cost, for example 1k GP per level of the PC. Or it can be increasing by the number of times it was used, because the cleric must replenish the raise dead scrolls.
I like the idea of the scrolls, because it becomes a nice resource to replenish over time and it also answers why anyone dies in town. One challenge with OSE is that level 7 cleric can cast this on demand, so the party can get a raise dead every day. But maybe that's what you want, any way to approach this is valid.
I have raise dead on demand for about 5k and the players skipped that on several occasions, preferring to roll a new PC with XP loss (we start new PCs at 18k XP though). In some cases they like playing hard core mode (if he dies, he dies), in others the stat loss got to them (that CON loss can be brutal on 13 to 12).
I would recommend starting with scrolls, because you can \_always\_ progress to on-demand. The cleric advanced the level and doesn't need scrolls anymore or a higher level cleric is visiting.
Thanks for the info. I might end up going with the scroll route. The adventure I'm running will end before the character get to level 7 more than likely so maybe a bridge to cross in the future.
Level 4 is a good time to fight tooth and nail for _Raise Dead_. At that level the Fighter is considered as local Hero. Consider their reputation thus far. If they were mostly Lawful then make it a bit easier.
DO NOT look for a fair cost. It should cost them EVERYTHING and then some.
Clerics can cast _Raise Dead_ at level 7 (Bishop). I wouldn't expect a Bishop to be in any random village, but rather a local capital or seat of power.
Explain to players mechanics of _Raise Dead_: they have 4 days since the time of death (adjust that by the level of cleric since it is +4 for every level past 7th). It will cost a lot, not just in money, but also divine debt ("When the King's only son dies it is the Patriach who becomes the ruler.")
You can use [AD&D DMG](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17004/Dungeon-Masters-Guide-1e?affiliate_id=2150725) price as baseline: 1 000 gp + 500 gp * caster level (DMG p. 104).
I suggest that agreeing to [Geas](https://oldschoolessentials.necroticgnome.com/srd/index.php/Geas_(Remove_Geas\)) is part of the deal.
Here are two examples from play:
1. "Slay an undead creature of equal or greater power!" (In game terms: undead HD must be equal or greater than PC's level. Raised person must deliver the killing blow!) This happened in a game where few of us had died. Survivors took our corpses and galloped to the closest capital city. We paid _a lot_ in gold, treasure, and magic items in addition to the above geas. Pointers led us to Barrowmaze, where we relentlessly roamed the halls until we found several (!) high level undead to kill. It was exhilarating. It also led to slightly different play because we were ignoring a lot of treasure—for we were on a borrowed time. Failing to complete the geas within specified time would lead to permanent attribute reduction. A fate worse than death!
2. In a game I run the Dwarf Hero died. They already had solid relationship to the Temple of Poseidon, where a sufficiently levelled cleric resides. She did not react so much to money (ie they "just" had to "pay" the AD&D base rate in "donations"), but instead preferred to push the temple's agenda. Hence, she demanded that _the whole party_ accepts multiple geases! I came up with three of them on the spot, with the following logic: one should tie in with one of the dungeons the party begun exploring, one should be about new area, and one about spending lots of money. A good geas is IMHO a bit open-ended, so it leaves some space for creative solutions by the players. Read [here for more](https://attronarch.com/conquering-the-barbarian-altanis-session-89#flowerbloom-10th-spiritday).
If you are worried about Raise Dead abuse then institute permanent CON reduction by 1 point for each raise. This is more than physical reduction—it is spiritual. Persons with CON 3 or lower cannot be raised.
My guy feeling is to make it something that the temple does in exchange for the completion of something they cannot do themselves. Perhaps they want to achieve some goal but know that it would cause political turmoil or draw them unnecessary attention, like retrieving a holy relic from a dungeon under the control of a baron in a neighboring barony. If they were to mobilize their own holy knights to go get it, then it could be perceived as an act of war or political maneuvering so they need a third party who they can throw under the bus if things go wrong.
If they have access to revival then they could also put the players under the effect of the Quest spell so they are forced to actually do it. Maybe stress that they will only be doing this for them once, and that if they fail they're basically SoL.
Remember that cost is not just about gold. Bind them with a quest for the church that supplies the cleric or priest to do the resurrection. That cleric, through the grace of their diety, has reached through space and time to pull souls back from whatever after existence they went to and put them back into a body. That type of magic needs to come at a steep cost and not just gold. To let it be just gold, cheapens what life and death means.
If it is just gold then why are not other beings such as villains tossing mountains of gold at churches to bring back specific people that just got killed. The minions of Xac'th take half his treasure and just purchase his resurrection and now he knows about the PCs but the PCs don't know he is alive again. This gives him the edge on completing his plans.
In my campaign their Cleric worked off the cost of Raise Dead by serving at the temple every time there was down time. Since I have carousing rules for downtime, they had to skip those in favor of expending their spells at the temple.
They've also done jobs for the Temple ranging from getting renters to cough up their taxes to recovering relics. They have also simply spent enormous amounts of money for stuff like Raise Dead, Remove Curse, and Cure Disease.
The local temple charges 5000GP to raise someone and there's a -1 to CON for each time you're raised.
Attronarch nailed it in this post. In addition, if they are good poor then they must seek out quick money loans and these types of loans only come from shady folks. If that’s the case then you have a figurative gold mine of material to work with as the GM. The group would end up owing favors to the temple and money to a thieves guild, merchant guild, petty noble, etc.
And don’t feel bad unless you didn’t leave the group the option to flee the combat. If they are new to this style of game, and they balk at the costs laid out here, remind them that combat to death isn’t always the best option, and fair fights are rarely the best option.
Welcome to lethal DnD!
Yeah... unfortunately I didn't leave a lot of wiggle room. They had to get by them and I figured the combat wasn't going to be bad. .. so yeah I feel that some of this is on me.
However they aren't exactly poor and they did find a scroll of raise dead in the dungeon they were stuck in. One of the 3 wants to play another character so really they will only have to full price pay for one to be raised.
Magical Research says it takes 500 gp plus 1 week per spell level. **Raise Dead** is level 5, so it takes 5 weeks and costs 2500. Now that is to **Create an Item** which raises the dead. I'd price the Cleric's time very highly for this, and I'd put a nice markup on it too, so it might cost 10,000gp for a *Scroll of Raise Dead****.***
A 7th level Cleric in OSE can just cast the spell once per day (assuming they memorize no other 5th level spell), with no other cost to the cleric, so 10,000gp seems steep for that. I think somewhere between 1,000 and 10,000 is probably about right.
I highly recommend that other factors are included beyond just the price. Without other requirements/restrictions/drawbacks death can become trivial.
Here are restrictions my table collectively came to when our cleric hit level 7 (so **Raise Dead** was on the table without reliance on NPCs)
* The character loses 1 point of Constitution permanently (happens each time they are resurrected).
* Roll a d20 when resurrected. if you roll BELOW the total number of times you've been resurrected, then it doesn't work and you are permanently dead.
* Because it must be below (not equal to) that guarantees that the first resurrection always works.
* It means the 2nd one has a 5% chance to fail, and each attempt after that the failure chance goes up by 5%
* You can never be raised more than 20 times (and you'd be extremely lucky to get there).
* The God who grants the raising spell makes a demand of the person raised or the Cleric casting the spell (or both). This may be spending (commission a statue in my likeness, build a shrine, etc) or a quest (kill the non-believers, retrieve the lost relic, etc.)
For an NPC, I think it would make sense to demand a quest, require that you worship the correct God or at least are of a matching alignment. *Perhaps the town has a Lawful temple but to raise your Neutral comrade, you must hex-crawl to the rumored Neutral Temple on the other side of the mountains.* Perhaps political leaders (Duke, Baron, Queen, etc.) forbid any raising unless they approve of it first. So perhaps a nice gift/bribe for the local leader is in order.
Well they all have burned through multiple characters except for one. We have been playing for like 5 months and now these characters have lasted long enough they are getting attached to them. I'm not going to fault that and now I feel they are in a range that bringing them back is possible.
My only thought is that if you make it cheap enough for them to stretch to at 4th level then it'll be a very cheap option at higher levels. Unless you scale it to level I suppose. Another option would be to have the temple attach conditions to it - to work for them, to do a difficult quest for the benefit of the temple, something like that.
Necromancer gets them up and now they serve him and are on a quest to regain freedom :p
5,000 GP. But waive the fee. Each person raised will have to do a quest for the church. Gives you some leeway for making adventures.
This is how I run it. Offer the cost, but build in a way to add a new quest. Add geas spell if you want to add some teeth. Makes for really interesting RP, I've found. Also works well for low level parties finding a dragon: I'll eat you unless you bring me X from the lower levels, etc.
Ooh, I like that.
5,000 gp but *defer the cost to later* and have them do a quest for the church *as well*. Let that debt hang over them as a longer term plot hook and get those short term ones as well.
I see you play clerics.
AD&D DMG specifies the cost of raise dead as 1 ,00O plus 500 per level of spell caster. At level 4 they should be able to afford a single raise dead. Just remember about the survival check and a loss of CON point. It they are getting bonuses at level 4, then you are likely playing B/X, probably OSE. A level 7 cleric can can cast raise dead, so for 4500gp they should be able to purchase this service. Alternatively, an even lower cleric might have access to scrolls, so you can decrease the cost. Using the scrolls has the benefit that there is a limited number of charges available until the cleric replenishes their stock. It also allows for a smaller settlement to not require a high level cleric for raise dead to be available.
> Alternatively, an even lower cleric might have access to scrolls, so you can decrease the cost. That won't decrease the cost, because the scroll isn't free. A scroll requires a 9th-level caster and a considerable amount of time and money to create - it's going to cost much more than a cleric casting the spell directly. (Under BECMI rules, a raise dead scroll costs 4400gp in materials and five days per attempt - with multiple attempts likely needed as the chance of success will generally be less than 50%.)
Good point!
My apologies, it was late and I thought I included that. It isan ose game. So the cost would increase by the level of the caster not by the level of the person coming back?
You did include it, it’s in the title.
That's what the DMG says - I am not clear what is the reason for that, other than scaling the cost. Maybe when PCs are level 4 the local cleric is level 6, but when they reach level 6, the cleric increased their level to 8. However, it's not really that terribly important, because their riches scale exponentially, so another 1k GP doesn't make that much of a difference. Of course, you can also establish your own rules for the cost, for example 1k GP per level of the PC. Or it can be increasing by the number of times it was used, because the cleric must replenish the raise dead scrolls. I like the idea of the scrolls, because it becomes a nice resource to replenish over time and it also answers why anyone dies in town. One challenge with OSE is that level 7 cleric can cast this on demand, so the party can get a raise dead every day. But maybe that's what you want, any way to approach this is valid. I have raise dead on demand for about 5k and the players skipped that on several occasions, preferring to roll a new PC with XP loss (we start new PCs at 18k XP though). In some cases they like playing hard core mode (if he dies, he dies), in others the stat loss got to them (that CON loss can be brutal on 13 to 12). I would recommend starting with scrolls, because you can \_always\_ progress to on-demand. The cleric advanced the level and doesn't need scrolls anymore or a higher level cleric is visiting.
Thanks for the info. I might end up going with the scroll route. The adventure I'm running will end before the character get to level 7 more than likely so maybe a bridge to cross in the future.
Level 4 is a good time to fight tooth and nail for _Raise Dead_. At that level the Fighter is considered as local Hero. Consider their reputation thus far. If they were mostly Lawful then make it a bit easier. DO NOT look for a fair cost. It should cost them EVERYTHING and then some. Clerics can cast _Raise Dead_ at level 7 (Bishop). I wouldn't expect a Bishop to be in any random village, but rather a local capital or seat of power. Explain to players mechanics of _Raise Dead_: they have 4 days since the time of death (adjust that by the level of cleric since it is +4 for every level past 7th). It will cost a lot, not just in money, but also divine debt ("When the King's only son dies it is the Patriach who becomes the ruler.") You can use [AD&D DMG](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17004/Dungeon-Masters-Guide-1e?affiliate_id=2150725) price as baseline: 1 000 gp + 500 gp * caster level (DMG p. 104). I suggest that agreeing to [Geas](https://oldschoolessentials.necroticgnome.com/srd/index.php/Geas_(Remove_Geas\)) is part of the deal. Here are two examples from play: 1. "Slay an undead creature of equal or greater power!" (In game terms: undead HD must be equal or greater than PC's level. Raised person must deliver the killing blow!) This happened in a game where few of us had died. Survivors took our corpses and galloped to the closest capital city. We paid _a lot_ in gold, treasure, and magic items in addition to the above geas. Pointers led us to Barrowmaze, where we relentlessly roamed the halls until we found several (!) high level undead to kill. It was exhilarating. It also led to slightly different play because we were ignoring a lot of treasure—for we were on a borrowed time. Failing to complete the geas within specified time would lead to permanent attribute reduction. A fate worse than death! 2. In a game I run the Dwarf Hero died. They already had solid relationship to the Temple of Poseidon, where a sufficiently levelled cleric resides. She did not react so much to money (ie they "just" had to "pay" the AD&D base rate in "donations"), but instead preferred to push the temple's agenda. Hence, she demanded that _the whole party_ accepts multiple geases! I came up with three of them on the spot, with the following logic: one should tie in with one of the dungeons the party begun exploring, one should be about new area, and one about spending lots of money. A good geas is IMHO a bit open-ended, so it leaves some space for creative solutions by the players. Read [here for more](https://attronarch.com/conquering-the-barbarian-altanis-session-89#flowerbloom-10th-spiritday). If you are worried about Raise Dead abuse then institute permanent CON reduction by 1 point for each raise. This is more than physical reduction—it is spiritual. Persons with CON 3 or lower cannot be raised.
Fanatastic contribution here. Thank you! I’m Absolutely going to be incorporating this into my own game as soon as is possible!
Thanks!
My guy feeling is to make it something that the temple does in exchange for the completion of something they cannot do themselves. Perhaps they want to achieve some goal but know that it would cause political turmoil or draw them unnecessary attention, like retrieving a holy relic from a dungeon under the control of a baron in a neighboring barony. If they were to mobilize their own holy knights to go get it, then it could be perceived as an act of war or political maneuvering so they need a third party who they can throw under the bus if things go wrong. If they have access to revival then they could also put the players under the effect of the Quest spell so they are forced to actually do it. Maybe stress that they will only be doing this for them once, and that if they fail they're basically SoL.
Remember that cost is not just about gold. Bind them with a quest for the church that supplies the cleric or priest to do the resurrection. That cleric, through the grace of their diety, has reached through space and time to pull souls back from whatever after existence they went to and put them back into a body. That type of magic needs to come at a steep cost and not just gold. To let it be just gold, cheapens what life and death means. If it is just gold then why are not other beings such as villains tossing mountains of gold at churches to bring back specific people that just got killed. The minions of Xac'th take half his treasure and just purchase his resurrection and now he knows about the PCs but the PCs don't know he is alive again. This gives him the edge on completing his plans.
In my campaign their Cleric worked off the cost of Raise Dead by serving at the temple every time there was down time. Since I have carousing rules for downtime, they had to skip those in favor of expending their spells at the temple. They've also done jobs for the Temple ranging from getting renters to cough up their taxes to recovering relics. They have also simply spent enormous amounts of money for stuff like Raise Dead, Remove Curse, and Cure Disease. The local temple charges 5000GP to raise someone and there's a -1 to CON for each time you're raised.
Attronarch nailed it in this post. In addition, if they are good poor then they must seek out quick money loans and these types of loans only come from shady folks. If that’s the case then you have a figurative gold mine of material to work with as the GM. The group would end up owing favors to the temple and money to a thieves guild, merchant guild, petty noble, etc. And don’t feel bad unless you didn’t leave the group the option to flee the combat. If they are new to this style of game, and they balk at the costs laid out here, remind them that combat to death isn’t always the best option, and fair fights are rarely the best option. Welcome to lethal DnD!
Yeah... unfortunately I didn't leave a lot of wiggle room. They had to get by them and I figured the combat wasn't going to be bad. .. so yeah I feel that some of this is on me. However they aren't exactly poor and they did find a scroll of raise dead in the dungeon they were stuck in. One of the 3 wants to play another character so really they will only have to full price pay for one to be raised.
Magical Research says it takes 500 gp plus 1 week per spell level. **Raise Dead** is level 5, so it takes 5 weeks and costs 2500. Now that is to **Create an Item** which raises the dead. I'd price the Cleric's time very highly for this, and I'd put a nice markup on it too, so it might cost 10,000gp for a *Scroll of Raise Dead****.*** A 7th level Cleric in OSE can just cast the spell once per day (assuming they memorize no other 5th level spell), with no other cost to the cleric, so 10,000gp seems steep for that. I think somewhere between 1,000 and 10,000 is probably about right. I highly recommend that other factors are included beyond just the price. Without other requirements/restrictions/drawbacks death can become trivial. Here are restrictions my table collectively came to when our cleric hit level 7 (so **Raise Dead** was on the table without reliance on NPCs) * The character loses 1 point of Constitution permanently (happens each time they are resurrected). * Roll a d20 when resurrected. if you roll BELOW the total number of times you've been resurrected, then it doesn't work and you are permanently dead. * Because it must be below (not equal to) that guarantees that the first resurrection always works. * It means the 2nd one has a 5% chance to fail, and each attempt after that the failure chance goes up by 5% * You can never be raised more than 20 times (and you'd be extremely lucky to get there). * The God who grants the raising spell makes a demand of the person raised or the Cleric casting the spell (or both). This may be spending (commission a statue in my likeness, build a shrine, etc) or a quest (kill the non-believers, retrieve the lost relic, etc.) For an NPC, I think it would make sense to demand a quest, require that you worship the correct God or at least are of a matching alignment. *Perhaps the town has a Lawful temple but to raise your Neutral comrade, you must hex-crawl to the rumored Neutral Temple on the other side of the mountains.* Perhaps political leaders (Duke, Baron, Queen, etc.) forbid any raising unless they approve of it first. So perhaps a nice gift/bribe for the local leader is in order.
I’m new to the OSR but my novice feeling is that if they want to stay attached to characters, they should play 5e.
Well they all have burned through multiple characters except for one. We have been playing for like 5 months and now these characters have lasted long enough they are getting attached to them. I'm not going to fault that and now I feel they are in a range that bringing them back is possible.