Reviving Deceased Outsiders

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I need some help evaluating something. IMC, 2 planar allies were
recently killed in a big battle, and the clerics involved felt guilty
and want to bring them back to life. To do that, we have the following
rules, in D&D 3.5:

"Unlike most other living creatures, an outsider does not have a dual
nature?its soul and body form one unit. When an outsider is slain, no
soul is set loose. Spells that restore souls to their bodies, such as
raise dead, reincarnate, and resurrection, don?t work on an outsider. It
takes a different magical effect, such as limited wish, wish, miracle,
or true resurrection to restore it to life. An outsider with the native
subtype can be raised, reincarnated, or resurrected just as other living
creatures can be."

OK, so we know the cost of bringing back someone with raise dead,
resurrection, and true resurrection. But what about Wish, Miracle, and
Limited Wish? Is it 5000XP, 5000XP, and 300XP? The first seem overly
costly, at 25,000gp using the 1XP=5gp rule. And the last is cheap, at
only 1500gp worth of XP.

Limited Wish can be used to duplicate Raise Dead, but that would cost
300XP AND 5000gp in diamonds, and wouldn't work on an outsider. So this
use of Limited Wish to bring back an outsider is clearly superior. Does
Limited Wish restore an Outsider killed by death effects (Implosion,
Destruction, bodak gaze)? Does it restore him as a Raise Dead would (
still hurt, -1 level) or as a resurrection would (fully healed, -1 level)
or fully (since there is no mention of a penalty)?

Do Wish and Miracle restore the Outsider to full level/HD, etc? If so,
they are duplicating True Resurrection. The Cleric could just cast that,
though the Wizard is getting a big benefit of duplicating a 9th level
divine spell. Again, should he pay XP AND gp for that or just the XP?

This is important because so far I have ruled that 1 cleric used 2
Miracles to bring them both back - and that leaves the party short of
9th level spells on a very busy day.

This is complicated by the introduction of the spell Revive Outsider in
the Manual of the Planes. You need some of the Outsider's native plane (
earth or water) but it is otherwise like raise Dead for Outsiders, but
level 6 instead of 5. It costs the same, and has the same effect. But
it basically undermines the whole issue of it being mush harder as
presented in the basic rules. under Core Rules, you need to be a 17th
level cleric or 13th level wizard to bring them back. Why should
Wizards be so much better than Clerics at it?

I am not sure what the fair solution is. Should Revive Outsider be 7th
or 8th level. Should Limited Wish be removed as a means to this? What
should the costs be for wizards and clerics trying to do this? All I
know is it is not fair or balanced now.

Thoughts?

ROB

 

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Hmmm. My first impulse is to compare it to what the situation would be
like if the clerics just didn't care and summoned up some brand new
planar allies.

I personally wouldn't make it much harder than that, in pure game
terms. They're basically making a roleplaying decision rather than a
mechanical one, so I'd keep it on that level.

If that makes any sense.



Cheers,
Roger Carbol

 

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In <1116948741.668883.309590@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> (5/24/05 11:
32 AM) rcarbol@home.com wrote:
> Hmmm. My first impulse is to compare it to what the situation would
> be like if the clerics just didn't care and summoned up some brand new
> planar allies.
>
> I personally wouldn't make it much harder than that, in pure game
> terms. They're basically making a roleplaying decision rather than a
> mechanical one, so I'd keep it on that level.
>
> If that makes any sense.
>
Thanks, I thought of that, but it does have implications for
things to come. One of the Players may soon play an Outsider,
so the question would come up again, and I want to be
consistent, not have separate NPC and PC rules.

But yes, it is a role-playing restriction I am imposing
having them revive the planar allies, so they can continue
having interactions with the same ones.

ROB

 

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"Rob Douglas" <rob_douglas@mac.com> wrote in message
news:20050524104115765-0400@news.stsci.edu...
> Limited Wish can be used to duplicate Raise Dead, but that would cost
> 300XP AND 5000gp in diamonds, and wouldn't work on an outsider. So this
> use of Limited Wish to bring back an outsider is clearly superior. Does
> Limited Wish restore an Outsider killed by death effects (Implosion,
> Destruction, bodak gaze)? Does it restore him as a Raise Dead would (
> still hurt, -1 level) or as a resurrection would (fully healed, -1 level)
> or fully (since there is no mention of a penalty)?

You're melting your brain too much. Slow down and take a deep breath.
Start from the top. There is a family of four spells that are capable
of restoring life to an outsider, three of which are 9th level (IIRC).
True Resurrection, Wish and Miracle, Limited Wish. Each does its thing
in a different way.

Assumption: "duplicate" a spell does not necessarily mean duplicating
its limitations, but rather, its effects.

Miracle: You can use Miracle to effectively duplicate Resurrection
(assumption: but working on the outsider); in which case it costs 10,000 gp.
Alternatively, you can use the powerful Miracle option ("swing the tide of
battle in your favor by raising fallen allies to continue fighting") to get
both outsiders fixed in one go. This costs 5,000 *xp*. No guidance on
whether it's a resurrection or a true resurrection, but you're blowing 5000
xp on the job, it may as well be 'true', and you know the diety will go for
it; they're his servants!
True Resurrection: This is a hyperpowerful resurrection that works on
anything, and without level loss; 25,000 *gp* each. Note that if you have
the $$, you can True-Resurrect the allies later in the week and save
yourself the hassle of going without 9th level spells today. There's no
relevant time limit!
Wish: Wish's ability to restore life is keyed to Resurrection
(assumption: but working on the outsider), it costs 5,000 xp per casting.
It's not clear wehther the gp cost would have been charged; Wish has a
10,000 gp "bank account" which covers resurrection in any case.
Limited Wish, being only 7th level, must therefore be an inferior effect
to what Wish can provide, and given that Wish restores life with the
mechanics of Resurrection (7th), the only viable candidate for us is 5th
level Raise Dead (assumption, but working on the outsider) as a template.
I'd stick with duplicating the spell; 5000 gp & 300 xp. Essentially, you
trade 2 spell levels and 300 xp for the ability to raise an outsider.

Mechanics relying on Resurrection include level loss.

> This is important because so far I have ruled that 1 cleric used 2
> Miracles to bring them both back - and that leaves the party short of
> 9th level spells on a very busy day.

2 Miracles and 20,000 gp or 1 miracle and 5,000 xp. Choose!

> This is complicated by the introduction of the spell Revive Outsider in
> the Manual of the Planes. You need some of the Outsider's native plane (
> earth or water) but it is otherwise like raise Dead for Outsiders, but
> level 6 instead of 5. It costs the same, and has the same effect. But
> it basically undermines the whole issue of it being mush harder as
> presented in the basic rules.

It stands to reason that you might want to bump Revive to 7th; that
would set things up so that you can Raise oustiders when you can Resurrect
mortals. Also, if the limited wish _anyspell_ can do the job at 7th, we know
that's a fair power level, and knocking off the XP cost for the anyspell in
exchange for a single-purpose spell seems OK.

> under Core Rules, you need to be a 17th
> level cleric or 13th level wizard to bring them back. Why should
> Wizards be so much better than Clerics at it?

Why shouldn't they? Clerics are good at healing mortals! All this
demon-summoning BS is for sorcerers.

-Michael

 

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mistermichael@earthlink.net wrote:

> Miracle: You can use Miracle to effectively duplicate Resurrection
> (assumption: but working on the outsider); in which case it costs 10,000 gp.
> Alternatively, you can use the powerful Miracle option ("swing the tide of
> battle in your favor by raising fallen allies to continue fighting") to get
> both outsiders fixed in one go. This costs 5,000 *xp*. No guidance on
> whether it's a resurrection or a true resurrection, but you're blowing 5000
> xp on the job, it may as well be 'true',

5000 XP is about equivalent to 25000 gp, and that's what a single true
resurrection will cost you. You're basically allowing the effect of two
9th-level spells for the cost of one (both slot-wise and component-
wise).


--
Jasin Zujovic
jzujovic@inet.hr

 

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I'm very suspicious of attempts to exchange gp for XP in pursuit of
"balance", but you have a point; even if one disagrees with the 1/5th
exchange rate, at _some_ number of allies it becomes a little fishy to
let those all be True Resurrections. That line of thinking has some
weird consequences, but perhaps they're quite appropriate .. there is
no guidance on how many allies can be brought back to life but we can
play games with 25k gp/ 5k xp ... That's one True, 2-3 Resurrects, or
what, 25 Raise Deads? (Or animate dead! Whee!).

I'm quite comfortable with the True breakpoint being "2" for fallen
Planar Allies of the divinity involved, though you're probably right
that it ought to be "1" for PCs in general.

By the way, raising one's fallen Allies - good show.

-Michael

 

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Jasin Zujovic wrote:
> The "raise fallen allies and swing the tide of battle" is a whole
> different thing: for me it was always implied that the allies rise
> *only* to swing the tide of battle, going back to their heroic deaths
> once the job is done. Miracle is only a 9th-level spell, after all. It's
> effects should be in line with other such.

That's a rather inspired interpretation. I believe the answer to the
other poster's "what if ye've got an army?" falls neatly into that
niche. However, I don't have any heartburn over letting Miracle serve
as a True Resurrection under the "powerful miracle" clause; it's pretty
flexible (intentionally so), and the end result is that you either pay
5000 xp or 25000 gp to get someone resurrected cleanly, and the gods of
game balance consider that equivalent (and it also is in practice).
(Can all clerics use Miracle and True Resurrection?)

On the other hand, that would imply that True Resurrection is
"powerful", but it's just another 9th level spell <sigh> ... but a
spell that allows you to anyspell *8th* level spells and under _would_
consider anyspelling a 9th level spell to be powerful! <whew>
I'm going to step away from the semantic soapbox before I hurt
myself.


-MIchael

 

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On 26 May 2005 11:03:55 -0700, "MisterMichael"
<mistermichael@earthlink.net> scribed into the ether:

>
>I'm very suspicious of attempts to exchange gp for XP in pursuit of
>"balance", but you have a point; even if one disagrees with the 1/5th
>exchange rate, at _some_ number of allies it becomes a little fishy to
>let those all be True Resurrections. That line of thinking has some
>weird consequences, but perhaps they're quite appropriate .. there is
>no guidance on how many allies can be brought back to life but we can
>play games with 25k gp/ 5k xp ... That's one True, 2-3 Resurrects, or
>what, 25 Raise Deads? (Or animate dead! Whee!).

How about if the party are the commanders of a sizeable army (a not
unrealistic situation for 18th+ level characters), would the whole lot of
them be considered "allies" for this purpose? It doesn't say
close-friends-and-allies.

 

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mistermichael@earthlink.net wrote:

> I'm very suspicious of attempts to exchange gp for XP in pursuit of
> "balance", but you have a point; even if one disagrees with the 1/5th
> exchange rate, at _some_ number of allies it becomes a little fishy to
> let those all be True Resurrections. That line of thinking has some
> weird consequences, but perhaps they're quite appropriate .. there is
> no guidance on how many allies can be brought back to life but we can
> play games with 25k gp/ 5k xp ... That's one True, 2-3 Resurrects, or
> what, 25 Raise Deads? (Or animate dead! Whee!).

Only five raise deads in 3.5: 5000 gp.

But that's not how I'd rule the whole thing.

IMO, if you want to raise people from the dead, you should look at rules
for using miracle to mimic an appropriate spell, which means that true
res is probably only just within reach: miracle mimics 8th-level and
below, not 9th, but true res is on your list, the XP cost is exactly
equivalent to the gp cost, it's a selfless thing to do so the gods might
be approving...

The "raise fallen allies and swing the tide of battle" is a whole
different thing: for me it was always implied that the allies rise
*only* to swing the tide of battle, going back to their heroic deaths
once the job is done. Miracle is only a 9th-level spell, after all. It's
effects should be in line with other such.

The one time it came up IMC, the party was raiding an enemy stronghold
and the paladin got killed; I allowed miracle to be used to temporarily
true resurrect him for as long as the raid lasted (which ended up being
somewhere on the order of 1 minute/level). (Funny aside: he later got
true resurrected for real, and between the XP loss from spellcasting for
the cleric and level loss from death for the others, was the only one
who managed to go up a level that session.)

For mass battles and mass mook-raising via miracle, I'd say 1
round/level is all you get.

> I'm quite comfortable with the True breakpoint being "2" for fallen
> Planar Allies of the divinity involved, though you're probably right
> that it ought to be "1" for PCs in general.
>
> By the way, raising one's fallen Allies - good show.

Right.


--
Jasin Zujovic
jzujovic@inet.hr

 

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"Rob Douglas" <rob_douglas@mac.com> wrote in message
news:20050524104115765-0400@news.stsci.edu...
> I need some help evaluating something. IMC, 2 planar allies were
> recently killed in a big battle, and the clerics involved felt guilty
> and want to bring them back to life. To do that, we have the following
> rules, in D&D 3.5:
>
Try casting 'Revive Outsider' (6th level) from MotP.
You'll have to go the the planar allies' home plane,
but that shouldn't be too difficult. (Plane Shift).

Geoff.

 

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In <EMtle.15731$Le2.99489@nasal.pacific.net.au> (5/26/05 8:20 PM) Geoff
Watson wrote:
>
> "Rob Douglas" <rob_douglas@mac.com> wrote in message
> news:20050524104115765-0400@news.stsci.edu...
>> I need some help evaluating something. IMC, 2 planar allies were
>> recently killed in a big battle, and the clerics involved felt guilty
>> and want to bring them back to life. To do that, we have the
>> following rules, in D&D 3.5:
>>
> Try casting 'Revive Outsider' (6th level) from MotP.
> You'll have to go the the planar allies' home plane,
> but that shouldn't be too difficult. (Plane Shift).
>
THat was part of my question - based on the rules using
Limited Wish, Miracel, and Wish, I thought Revive Outsider
was too low a level. I think it should be a 7th level
spell. But I also wanted to know how Limited Wish would
be able to do it. MSB had a great response, basically:

Miracle - get 2 back -lHD each, costs 5000XP (actually, he suggested no
loss of HD on this one, but I think only True Resurrection itself should
do that)
True Resurrection, get 1 back, costs 25000gp
Wish - get 1 back, -1HD, costs 5000XP
Limited Wish - get 1 back, -1HD, costs 300XP and 5000gp, can't get those
killed by death effects (similar to raise dead).
Revive Outsider - get 1 back, -1HD, costs 5000gp

SO I am thinking 7th level for Revive Outsider - saves 300XP over
Limited Wish, and isn't as versatile (by a long shot) but it does keep
the power of brining them back to those of 13th level or higher.

ROB

 

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On 26 May 2005 11:03:55 -0700, "MisterMichael"
<mistermichael@earthlink.net> carved upon a tablet of ether:

>
> I'm very suspicious of attempts to exchange gp for XP in pursuit of
> "balance", but you have a point; even if one disagrees with the 1/5th
> exchange rate, at _some_ number of allies it becomes a little fishy to
> let those all be True Resurrections. That line of thinking has some
> weird consequences, but perhaps they're quite appropriate .. there is
> no guidance on how many allies can be brought back to life but we can
> play games with 25k gp/ 5k xp ... That's one True, 2-3 Resurrects, or
> what, 25 Raise Deads? (Or animate dead! Whee!).

Animate Dead is 25gp per HD, which would be 5XP/HD. That's a thousand
HD of undead per Miracle or Wish.


--
Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@paradise.net.nz>
"Just because the truth will set you free doesn't mean the truth itself
should be free."