# Death and Resurrection Character death can often prove to become a minor inconvenience in some campaigns once the adventuring party reaches a certain level, with spells being available to return fallen comrades from the afterlife with temporary setbacks, robbing a small element of danger, and threat to future conflicts and challenges within the story. If you wish to elevate the gravity of character death, you can introduce this optional rule. If a character is dead, and a resurrection is attempted by a spell or spell effect with longer than a 1 action casting time, a Resurrection Challenge is initiated. Up to 3 members of the adventuring party can offer to contribute to the ritual via a Contribution Skill Check. The DM asks them each to make a skill check based on their form of contribution, with the DC of the check adjusting to how helpful/impactful the DM feels the contribution would be. For example, praying to the god of the devout, fallen character may require an Intelligence (Religion) check at an easy to medium difficulty, where loudly demanding the soul of the fallen to return from the aether may require a Charisma (Intimidation) check at a very hard or nearly impossible difficulty. Advantage and disadvantage can apply here based on how perfect, or off base, the contribution offered is. After all contributions are completed, the DM then rolls a single, final Resurrection success check with no modifier. The base DC for the final resurrection check is 10, increasing by 1 for each previous successful resurrection the character has undergone (signifying the slow erosion of the soul’s connection to this world). For each successful contribution skill check, this DC is decreased by 3, whereas each failed contribution skill check increases the DC by 1. Upon a successful resurrection check, the player’s soul (should it be willing) will be returned to the body, and the ritual succeeded. On a failed check, the soul does not return and the character is lost. <div class='descriptive'> ##### Death Domain Cleric Consider a cleric devout to Kelemvor, Lord of the Dead and Judge of the Damned. If this character were to die, Kelemvor may not wish or even allow this soul to return to the Material Plane. Kelemvor believes that death is a natural part of life, and may prefer this soul stay with him. </div> \columnbreak <div class='descriptive'> ##### Vengeance Paladin Consider a cleric devout to Kelemvor, Lord of the Dead and Judge of the Damned. If this character were to die, Kelemvor may not wish or even allow this soul to return to the Material Plane. Kelemvor believes that death is a natural part of life, and may prefer this soul stay with him. </div> ### Resurrection via Spells Spells such as Raise Death, Reincarnate, or Resurrection are the easiest way for a party to resurrect their fallen comrade. When a PC dies for the first time, their soul still has a strong bond to the Material Plane and can be brought back relatively easily. The first resurrection of a character has no chance of failure and will work as stated in any of the official ways to bring a character back from death. After coming back once, however, that souls bond has been weakened. In death after the first will make resurrection much more difficult. If resurrection is attempted on a character that has been brought back once already, that player should roll 1d20 to determine the success of the resurrection. <div style='margin-top:20px'></div> <font face='scalysans' size='2'> <center> **Resurrection DC** </font> = <font face='scalysans' size='2'> 2 x (Number of Deaths) + 10 </center> </font> Luckily, the party isn't on their own. There are many people in the world that may be able to help, and for each additional person casting the same spell, the DC for resurrection is lowered by 3. <div class='descriptive'> ##### Resurrection Example Awhile back, in a fight against some unusually ferocious Bugbears, Lithelri was killed. Fortunately, her cleric was able to bring her back (No chance of failure on first resurrection). Unfortunately for her in the next fight she was stomped by a Frost Giant. Her party was able to find a local cleric to help bring her back, so now there are two people able to cast Raise Dead on Lithelri. The DC for this resurrection is 2 x 2 (she's died twice) + 10 = 14. Because the other cleric is also helping, lower that DC by 3. The total DC to bring Lithelri back to life would now be 11. </div> \pagebreakNum ### Hiring Help It is likely that your party doesn't have multiple people able to cast resurrection spells. If that is the case, they should seek the aid of NPCs who can. When considering the cost of these services, use the following Adventurer's League equation: <div style='margin-top:20px'></div> <font face='scalysans' size='2'> <center> **Total Cost** </font> = <font face='scalysans' size='2'> (Spell Level)² x 10 + (Consumed Materials x 2) + (Non-Consumed Materials x 0.1) </center> </font> **Common Resurrection Spell Prices** | Spell | Cost | |:---:|:-----------:| | Raise Dead | 1,250gp | | Reincarnate | 2,250gp | | Resurrection | 2,490gp | | True Resurrection | 50,810gp | | Gentle Repose | 40gp | Controlling acess to these spellcasting services is a great way to modify the difficulty in bringing characters back from the dead. The easier it is for the party to access these spellcasting services, the easier it will be for them to resurrect their friends. ### Other Ways of Finding Help It's likely that simply hiring someone to cast this spell may be out of the question. Whether the party spent too much at the tavern last week or these kinds of services are rare, other options for spell casting services should be available. Perhaps the local temple is having a particularly nasty Kobold problem. Maybe the local Necromancer is looking for some help clearing out his newest hideout. Whatever it may be, a side quest could always be available to either lower the cost of a spellcasting service or even pay for it in it's entirety. These options are at the DMs discretion and will vary greatly based on the feel and locale of each game. ### Revivify and Wish There are two resurrection spells that don't follow the rules mentioned above. If by some means the party is able to cast a Wish spell, there is no roll to bring back the deceased party member. Any "punishment" for reviving this way is at the DMs discretion If the party is able to bring back their friend with a Revivify spell, the deceased soul hasn't had a chance to completely leave the body yet. The DC for Revivify is as follows: <div style='margin-top:20px'></div> <font face='scalysans' size='2'> <center> **DC** </font> = <font face='scalysans' size='2'> 2 x (Number of Deaths) + 2 </center> </font> If being revived for the first time, there is still no roll. The resurrection automatically succeeds. \columnbreak ### Alternate Methods of Resurrection It's entirely possible that a Warlock's patron decides that his or her pawn isn't quite finished with their duties or that a Fighter decides to make a pact with a needy God. There are many ways that gods, necromancers, or even a lich could intervene with the resurrection of a deceased character. These options are left entirely to the DM. If you wish you could have the god/necromancer make a resurrection roll with a lower DC. If the person intervening is powerful enough, a roll may not even be required. Despite not being brought back by a spell, you may still want to consider adding this death to the character's total deaths, in case they were to be killed again.