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XAos
Underboss
2413 Posts
    
London
 | | 07/24/2008 8:16 AM |
| I'm having difficulty with the social & military implications of a raise dead ritual which costs 500gp, does not require a "Good" cleric to perform it. And has no defined way of making an enemy unraisably dead.
Thats cheaper than the estimated cost of amunition per enemy kill in modern warfare.
It's sufficiently cheap that an army would expect to raise all it's "more valuable" troops {e.g. officers, nobles, engineers etc} And some armies could afford to raise all their casualties, down to the lowest level conscripts.
"Winning" a war against such an army would be essentially impossible. Even possession of the battlefield (and all the dead bodies) doesn't help. An army can raise dead from toenail clippings taken up to 30 days prior to death. And so can the average bandit gang or orc tribe.
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vanrulzz
Commander
2778 Posts
¯\(°_o)/¯
| | 07/26/2008 1:52 PM |
| | thats what houserules are for | | | |
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Lord_rock
Underboss
2045 Posts
Portland OR
| | 07/26/2008 2:30 PM |
| If you're spending time figuring out all of this you're not having as much fun as you could be... There are thousands of reasons to make sure such a thing doesn't happen...
It's cheap but the simple addition of a material component makes it much much easier to limit... especially large scale. | |
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Ghendar
Warlord
13099 Posts
Mud Lick, Kentucky
| | 07/26/2008 5:47 PM |
| For better of worse, 4e is all about options and possibilities, not restrictions and conditions.
If I ever DM a 4e game, I'll likely be doing extensive house ruling. | |
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zenthrus
Warlord
5132 Posts
SLC, UT
| | 07/26/2008 6:50 PM |
| Or, consider the average salary of a farmer (i.e. taxpayer) who makes maybe 20gp per year. Out of that 20gp, the taxpayer probably is assessed 10% (since taxes were substantially lower in fiefdoms than they are these days). Let's say a town has a population of 2000 individuals. Out of those individuals roughly 1500-1800 are going to be the average Joe Blow taxpayer so the annual assize would be ~4000gp. That's assuming of course that the farmers don't simply pay their tax assizement in corvee labor.
So, a nobleman has to finance his house, pay his fuedal lords, subsidize a militia/army, maintain public services, and ensure taxation/food production all on a 4000/year budget.
How on earth is that noble ever going to finance 500gp/head rituals?
Expand it to a metropolis-size city and you still have the same problem, just on a larger scale. At best a king holding a huge kingdom might be able to justify spending the effort to raise his elite troops (officers/specialists). However, odds are that at least a handful of the elite troops are probably going to be Paragon tier (and thus cost substantially more than 500gp to raise).
Now, taking all of that into consideration, consider also that the default world-building scheme for 4e D&D is the "Points of Light" scenario. There really aren't supposed to be many hugemungous metropolitan centers.
So, 500gp/head for Raise Dead is not cheap. It's inexpensive enough that adventurers (whose income is drastically skewed) aren't making new characters every tough encounter but expensive enough to seriously discourage anyone from using the ritual en-mass. I can see wealthy nobility, royalty, and perhaps noted wizards or merchants financing the odd Raise Dead ritual to bring back a loved one or valued servant/henchman/employee. Really not seeing the economics behind trying to constantly revive entire armies. | |
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Teflon Jeff
Warlord
7908 Posts
Sector 2814
| | 07/26/2008 9:40 PM |
| Zenthrus has the right idea. The fact of the matter is, it's not economical, nor practical. Besides, that requires a lot of Casters working too.
Morality may have something to do with it, and I haven't checked the lates, but willingness too. If you were a soldier, would you willingly leave Heaven to go trench it up again?
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Bert the Troll
Commander
3964 Posts
Adelaide
| | 07/27/2008 5:44 PM |
| Nobles might spend more on wine in a night than 500 gp :p
Certainlty would have enough change to spend on it. (not that old age is preventable, but may becoem a social ritual for the rich, a status thing to rasie every 'first' death et el)
It would certainty change society around a bit. Though raise dead has always been a bit like that - the 'real'consquences mostly swept next to the elephant in the room, save for a few Dragon articles.
The cost investment of training and support for an old time longbow man would possibly be equal to the cost of rasing one.
/adds that in my games raise dead is exceedinlgy rare, to the point of non existent, espically for PCs.
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