If you allow raising from the dead at all in your D&D game, just what do the PCs have to go through to get it?

No such thing in my games. Maybe, just maybe,  through the power of True Love...

Quote from: RPGPundit;839290If you allow raising from the dead at all in your D&D game, just what do the PCs have to go through to get it?

If the rules set assumes it, I often just let it be.  In 3.X D&D, save or death gets a lot more frightening if you can't apply resurrection to reverse the condition.  It was a bugbear for me with that edition.  

In 4E and 5E, it's a lot less essential and I start wondering about whether people come back the same.  Like Beric Dondarrian in Game of Thrones, the experience can change them and, even worse, something else might follow them back.  That probably gets more likely if the same idiot keeps casting the spell over and over, letting a patient infernal lord just have to watch to get their chance . . .

Resurrection is insanely rare in my games.

It requires seeking out some sort of unscrupulous magician, as the gods don't do it in my settings and mortals shouldn't. Then it requires convincing said magician it's worth their time. Incredibly rare ingredients have to be found for said ritual/spell. Typically rare ingredients tend to be in dangerous places and I've actually had a PC killed trying to set up a resurrection.

If all goes according to plan and the party completes their herculean task then someone is raised from the dead. Of course this isn't a straight forward affair, their CON is negatively effected and there are often other nasty side effects.

For the most part my players bury their dead and move on. The one time a resurrection was performed it became a campaign all it's own and much fun was had by all.

If I was going to allow it at all it's going to be a mini-campaign... going to some other-plane to find the soul and then find a physical home for it (probably not the original body).
Most of the time the dead stay dead... though something else might step in to make use of the corpse.

I've never allowed Resurrection in any D&D game I've run. I've never seen Resurrection in any D&D game I've played, though I'm pretty sure at least a few of those DMs allowed Resurrection. I have seen Resurrection via Divine Intervention in Runequest, but that was only once or twice and the cost to the character was high. (In RQ DI, if it even works, costs permanent POW from the character's stat.)

It depends on if the PCs are high enough level to have acces to such magic themselves or need to receive such services from an NPC.

If the players can do it on their own, I just use whatever rules exist in the system for handling it.

If the party needs outside help then there will certainly be a quest involved and an entire adventure will need to be completed for such a service.

Precisely two PCs have been raised from the dead in the 37 years of my campaign.

Raise dead/resurrection has been very few and far between. Reincarnate was a more common option. But some choose death rather than the likelyhood of coming back as something useless and their career effectively over no matter.

The times we have gotten someone back from the dead its most often been for a price. A quest, or actually having to go visit the afterlife to pull it off.

As a DM I place the only spots where a raise is likely to be had only in major population centers. There was at least one in Specularum, another somewhere in Alfheim, etc. Sometimes too far to hope to make it in time.

But if a player is determined enough to drag the body all the way back then sure. Fork over some gold or get really persuasive, or prepare for ye-ol' quest. Put some effort into it and I am much more open to having stuff availible. It might still be a hassle. But its there.

Quote from: RPGPundit;839290If you allow raising from the dead at all in your D&D game, just what do the PCs have to go through to get it?

They can buy an extremely expensive license from the death cult or go on a Great Quest for a legendary location or item that can raise the dead.  Being raised without one of these two means the person is an excommunicant and outlaw.

I make it very, very easy.  I especially love it when the players don't have the 5000 gold it takes.

"Someday... and that day may never come... the Temple of Cuthboit will need a favor.  And on that day, you will remember this."

In the last D&D game I ran, there was only one NPC who could resurrect people. And she was of the wandering type, and as 'evil' as they come. Her services in that department was never wanted by the PCs. Probably because she had the tendency to cast Geas on people she resurrected...

1. Track down a cleric of sufficient level.

2. Bribe or persuade him or her into conducting the proper rites.

3. Hope the cleric's patron deity has no grounds to oppose the ressurection.

4. Roll on the ACKS "Tampering With Mortality" table.

It's bad enough that at most lower levels players will probably just choose to write off the character and roll a new one.

No resurrection in my games, death is final.

I don't like easily-occurring character death, but once it happens, it's the end.

The scales must be balanced.  Any magic that raises the dead requires a human sacrifice.  The more things in common between the sacrifice and the one being returned, the greater the likelihood of success.  Failure can mean the person comes back as some thing, the caster dies as well, or something else equally dire.  In 25 years, no PCs have successfully returned to life as they were.  There was only one attempt sacrificing a condemned criminal because that was all the party could justify.  Their "friend" came back but it wasn't him inside his body.

Sufficiently villainous spell casters realize that if you sacrifice multiple people, each with something in common with the deceased, it sort of adds up.  And if they figure out a way to capture the essence of the person, they can perform the sacrifices in advance.  So if you hear rumours of a string of ritualistic murders it's entirely possible it's part of an attempt to bring back someone or something really bad.  There's also no time limit from when the person died, so a cult could be trying to raise some historical figure or the founder of their dark faith.