Limits on Resurrection?

A few of the PCs in my DF Felltower game have died a number of times.

As-written, though, and as-run, we basically have only two limits on Resurrection:

- cost, in either character points or money or both (25 points or $15,000, or a combination of both at the usual 1 point/$500 exchange)

- a 15 or less success roll in town (with a -1 per day after death).

And for what it's worth, I don't allow Luck or Lesser Wish or Wish spells to affect this. It's just a roll. Dead people aren't lucky, they're dead, and we don't allow wishes to work on spells.

In the DFRPG, it's even less limited:

- cost, in either character points or money or both (25 points or $15,000, or a combination of both at the usual 1 point/$500 exchange)

And that's it. No rolls, no "per day" penalty mentioned, nothing.

So you can come back from death as often as you can afford to.

But what if you want to limit it? What if you don't want death to just be, "okay, you're done for the session, and out $15K"?

Here are some limits you can choose from.

No Cash-Only Resurrection

Instead of $15,000 or 25 points, make it $10,000 and 10 points. Every time you die, you must cough up 10 points of reduced abilities or additional disadvantages or both. This can have an in-game effect of making death really frightening without making it all-or-nothing.

You could also make this an escalating point cost - perhaps it's $15,000 and 0 xp the first time, the second time it's $15,000 and 5 points, then $15,000 and 10 points, etc.

Cumulative Resurrection Penalties

Each Resurrection spell after the first is at -1. Cost is paid up-front, of course, and any failure means no one can try again. If you fail this, hopefully a friend will try Great Wish.

You can make this more steep, if you like: -3 per cumulative attempt will make this a 1-3 time affair. It would match the -3 for cumulative healing spells.

Hard Limits

Put a firm cap on the number of times. One to three is probably thematically appropriate, nine for cat-folk (make it a Perk), if you want to avoid D&D-level issues of Con 13 guys who've died 10-11 times and think, okay, I've got to stop adventuring soon, it's getting risky.

Setting a stat-based limit is possible. HT/5, round down, or Will/5, round down, can make sense depending on how you see it metaphysically.



Generally, I don't have a problem with Resurrection as written and as we play it. But having people killed over and over and come back does make it seem like sufficient money will even take out the sting of death. If you want that sting put back in, those are ways to do it. Still, it's a game, and if people want to earn treasure and spend it getting their paper man playing piece back in play, is that a bad thing? I'd recommend using Resurrection limits sparingly.