As I feel that I've preached often more than not, PCs do not genuinely seem to care about gods or anything of that sort unless it is based around PVP, the god doing something onto said Cleric to aid his party, or loot. Someone die? Forget the Cleric. Go to the Tower of the Gods and fetch a candle.
Instead of that, how about the Tower of the Gods NPC selling Diamonds to Clerics? Perhaps splitting the price in half, such as 600 ducats, or 800? Such a price decrease would drive the interest of seeking a Cleric. It would also involve more interaction with Clerics and give them something to do, brand new or otherwise.
Sounds like a good idea to me. High level clerics are most certainly being watched over by the DMs and having spell failure attributed if not sufficiently fulfilling their deity's duties.
If something like this is to be implemented, perhaps those clerics who are out and about resurrecting people should keep an OOC list somewhere of who they raised, how and why? It should even be in-character I imagine. The reason for this would be to ensure no breaches in the deity's works are done simply to raise people cheaper than a candle.
It would also have implications in such things as group PvP I imagine! Defend the priest or kill them off first, and such! Of course the actual raising should be done in a ritual manner (represent significant period of time in game hours) and roleplayed in form of prayer rather than something done on the fly.
Great idea!
I'm not sure making diamonds more common is intended.
I very much like the idea of selling diamonds but I hope she still sells candles. There are not enough high level clerics to cover all of the time zones.
Yet another vote in favor. Diamonds are über rare in my experience. Five years playing and I have seen TWO, not that I have been everywhere by any means. I don't even think they are sold by the random gnome gem merchant are they?
I also agree. PC Clerics that raise the dead are very cool. Any tool to aid them in such is a welcome addition imo.
Dead people should stay dead or respawn, really.
Bringing people back from the dead should be really rare, and imho clerics shouldn't raise some random adventurer or townsfolk because they get paid for it.
In a more philophical approach of a fantasy world, death is actually something clerics should build upon as it's a passage to the worlds of the gods, and part of the high WIS is to accept that and preach it to the common men.
As far as I see it, candles of life are more of an OOC courtesy item which would just as well be removed.
I don't mind the rare PC cleric raise dead - I think it adds to style, but should be available for players for truly well played clerics - and even then justified in the raise due to dogmatic reasons (not coin). Let's face it, there have been plenty of clerics who Gods probably wouldn't be granting them spells based on the RP, handing out diamonds so easily makes coming back from conflict / death too easy.
All the cleric has to do is take scribe scroll when they hit 9 and diamonds and alignment are a non issue - they can even be sold as a form of income or traded as a valuable luxury.
"Hold on let me put this incredible holy miracle on a sheet of paper, that will come to 1500gp thank you for your patronage"
the diamonds add RP to the endeavor of raising someone, using a scroll is just reading words, while more convenient, not as fun.
As I understand it, it is supposed to be difficult for a cleric to raise the dead, but I have never seen it fail. I'd like to see it fail on occasion, honestly.
Howland changed it to give it auto-success. Whether you should is up to the player...and their supply of diamonds.
Honestly, I am against the idea of using an economic mechanic to get PCs to care about the Gods and more on strong and convincing RP from Cleric PCs. Most clerics don't do as well a job as maybe they could...
LFPP: You then run in to the funny OOC scenario that newbie L5s take a lot of "near misses" but more influential PCs seem to die all the time because of the horribly punishing respawn cost of 1/3 of your XP. And then it's your OOC desire to not lose levels that means other players have to go out of their way IC to grab a Candle. Or conversely that it's OOC pressure to respawn as opposed to getting a raise that means you lose a bigger chunk of XP.
I'm inclined to agree with you in a way, in that I'd far rather see basic respawn only cost 1/6 of your XP and Raise Dead and Resurrection be truly miraculous things that are only used to bring back PCs who died to PVP or perma and are properly dead IC. Certainly I hate sitting around in the Fugue waiting for a raise but knowing that respawning would lead to more grind than it's worth.
What Pool's highlighting with his character doing a lot of raises is that there's a major RP opportunity of Raise Dead that is unavailable to PCs even when they can cast it. This would be especially true if PCs could fail but NPCs were infallible. Even if Diamonds cost 1500, players would buy them for 2 reasons. One, they are portable and don't vanish on reset. Two, it is far more cool to get a PC to do something than an NPC to give you a boring device.
It's pretty much the only exclusively clerical ability. Their command over life and death is the only thing that really sets them apart from the likes of wizards and makes them truly valuable to adventurers at higher levels. I absolutely would like to see more high level clerics having a more affordable raising option they can offer.
It's obviously something they can use as much as possible to the advantage of their church though. Gaining conversions, concessions and services in exchange that isn't necessarily gold related at all - but which can potentially lead to some interesting roleplay situations - would enrich the server. Conversely, priests that go about charging base diamond cost and raising anyone who asks nicely can easily be noted by the DM's and their Deity can give the appropriate divine bitch slap for making light of the greatest miracle a cleric can perform.
I support the suggestion 100%.
Quote from: HerDarkMajesties;304907It's pretty much the only exclusively clerical ability. Their command over life and death is the only thing that really sets them apart from the likes of wizards and makes them truly valuable to adventurers at higher levels. I absolutely would like to see more high level clerics having a more affordable raising option they can offer.
It's obviously something they can use as much as possible to the advantage of their church though. Gaining conversions, concessions and services in exchange that isn't necessarily gold related at all - but which can potentially lead to some interesting roleplay situations - would enrich the server. Conversely, priests that go about charging base diamond cost and raising anyone who asks nicely can easily be noted by the DM's and their Deity can give the appropriate divine bitch slap for making light of the greatest miracle a cleric can perform.
I support the suggestion 100%.
These are pretty much my exact thoughts. The number of level 9 and up clerics is bound to be fairly small, anyway. I can't imagine it taking long for the DM's to get wind of someone abusing the spell.
This would, IMO, be less about mechanical currency to force people to care about the gods, and more about the exact opposite. Right now "Candles" are exactly that. 1500 gold for the miracle of life. I've seen people burn them on un-named NPC's like they were nothing. The diamonds allow PC clerics who have worked hard to truly be looked at with awe.
Any cleric can raise the dead with the current system in place, not just level 9s.
Keep it rare and miraculous. No diamonds.
Piggybacking on what some have said, I would like to add support to the idea of having less NPC candles and more PC raises. That would certainly give more weight to the cleric as a class, but would probably require the DMs to police the proper playing of clerics to prevent abuse. Realistically I don't see a lot IC reasons for most cleric raises unless the cleric and corpse follow the same faith or otherwise would have a legitimate reason to see a raise performed. The notion of raising purely for cash is or at least should be anathema. Even with the new holy symbol system I still see a lot of clerical abuse with peoria handing out blessing buffs like party favors to nonbelievers who pay a lip service prayer. If anything, things might have gotten worse as now PCs are regularly posting notices trading prayers for withering reduction. Heck, Ferrous won't even sell $&@" potions to non-dwarves since those to him represent blessings in a bottle, not to be shared or definitely not sold to heathens. Bottom line, let us not dismiss the validity of the raise idea but instead continue discourse toward a meaningful implementation of a system by which those truly high level PCs can exercise their class's biggest perk. I understand the desire to limit the number but as is I think diamonds are perhaps too rare and the idea of forcing pcs to take scribe scroll to work a loophole strikes me as cheesy.
I'm pretty sure there's one faith, if not more than a few faiths, that would see a transfer of a sizeable sum of gold in exchange for reviving from the dead as a valid expression of peity to a deity.
For most though, you're right.
Quote from: The Man In The Mist;304916Any cleric can raise the dead with the current system in place, not just level 9s.
Keep it rare and miraculous. No diamonds.
Then remove the candles too. Raising the dead is extremly mundane.
Arguing against this based on that raise dead should not be devalued "further" seems silly because in the candles you can buy a cleric with diamond, no faith required. It's no longer miraculous, just a standard market transaction. Devaluation of cleric raises already is at a high point, especially given the rarity of diamonds. A cleric raise compared to a candle raise is merely an inferior product.
One compromise is this: Also provide diamonds at the shop for the same price. Then increase the cost of the candles substantially.
On the other hand, if you want resurrection to be special, the situation should be reversed: candles should be the rare and occasional drop, instead of diamonds, and instead of candles, you can buy the diamonds...
Mistlocke's hit inflation and 1500 gold is not a lot any more. The price should be bumped up, somewhat substantially in my opinion.
This topic is beaten to death. It is kind of silly that clerics can't use this spell (with an expensive reagent on top of their expectations that borderline an application class) but whatever.
In my opinion it is simple convenience. Instead of wasting a ton of time running back to mistocke to buy a candle, I don't really see why this class cannot use a spell with an expensive / rare reagent. What was the point of adding the reagent when maybe one or two clerics have ever been deemed capable of even using the spell anyway? It really doesn't take anything away from the class or the flavor of it at the core, especially not when you have CANDLES OF LIFE added in for a cheap sum of gold that do nothing but waste player time to run there and get it while dragging a corpse.
I've often seen people 'die' in a quest and end up respawning to have a party member tell them ICly that they had died. Encounters like these haven't been uncommon lately. When it is an actual, real death it is trivialized. A matter of "Oh, he's dead. Let's go get a candle" and then "Oh (god name here) be praised, I'm alive again! Thank you for spending the gold for it. I need to stop this habbit, that's the fifth time I've died!" and then life goes on as if it never happened.
Nobody even considers clerics as so much of an option, or the seriousness of death and the amazing rp that comes from cleric revival. It's just not even a factor worth considering for most people because why should they bother with such a dramatic thing as invoking a god to spare their soul and return them to life when a buddy can just buy a candle and light the wick instead?
VP and Grendel have it. Raise dead is not seen as a miraculous thing, and both diamonds and clerics able to perform it are so rare that it is just not a feasible option for most. It's a nice gimmick, but no practical functionality.
I've been thinking about this some more over the past couple of weeks. It strikes me that raise dead may need a revisit by the DM team. I initially was okay with the diamond requirement since I figured it would make raises somewhat special but once I learned that you can circumvent the requirement and apparently also the fail check by just buying a raise dead scroll or making one yourself, that strikes me now as something of an exploit. If you want to be a dead raising cleric now all it takes is some cash and a scribe scroll feat. That doesn't strike me as carrying through the spirit of the diamond requirement.
So with that in mind, here are some possible ideas to kick around:
Require ALL raise dead castings, scrolls included, to require a diamond.
Make diamonds more available but increase the cost of a candle to stimulate more RP and simulate the awesomeness that should be level 9 and 10 clerics.
Remove the diamond component entirely but require DM clearance of characters for casting raise dead to prevent its abuse.
Thoughts?
Make raise dead scrolls cost 3000gp to craft then, or the dms will see clerics making a business out of selling raise scrolls and slam them with spell failure.
Unless your a priest of waukeen anyway.
I never thought of raise dead to be miraculous in the universe of DnD. By the way, I don't know how Jayde Moon can say that players don't care about the gods, people speak about the gods literally ALL THE TIME.
True enough. It's the most common habit of players just after sending wars.
Not really trying to forum necromancy this but I was struck with the idea of changing Raise Dead to a sixth level spell and Heal to fifth. I always thought this was more in line with the power anyway. It seems a greater feat to raise the dead than to heal someone. Given that it is already possible to tweak spell domains to allow some nonstandard spells I figured it might be possible.