Talk:Dying is Serious (3.5e Variant Rule)

Two more spell ideas

I have two more ideas for spells for this variant, let me know what you think.

Quest of Glory

This spell would basically take the place of a Good-aligned version of Devil's Pact. Instead of calling a devil, it calls an angel or a similarly powerful celestial being. Unlike Devil's Pact, this spell does not work on evil-aligned creatures--the angels will never resurrect an evil creature for any reason.

Life and death are no cheap matters to the angels--even death has its purpose in their great plan for the universe. For this reason, the angels require anyone requesting the resurrection of a dead soul to go on a great quest. The purpose of this quest is twofold. First, it serves to prove the trustworthiness of the person requesting the resurrection. The angels must be able to trust that the person to be resurrected will not squander their renewed life, for to them, the resurrection is not a gift, but an investment, to be used for the advancement of the cause of good. Secondly, the quest serves to repay the debt owed by the caster, for interrupting the natural flow of life and death is a great and costly burden to the angels, and it is the responsibility of the caster to pay for those costs.

The exact nature of the quest is up to the DM's discretion--it could be a quest to acquire holy artifact, or to destroy an evil dragon, or a pilgrimage to an ancient city to spread the word of a good deity, or any other suitably holy quest the DM can think of. However, there are some base requirements:

• The quest must be dangerous and involve great personal risk to the caster.
• The quest must be arduous and difficult, requiring no less than one year of nonstop dedication and work to complete
• The caster may not commit any evil acts or use any evil means to complete the quest or otherwise make the quest easier. If the caster breaks this rule, the quest is a failure and the angels will never resurrect the target or even accept another casting of this spell on the same target.
• The caster may not use powerful magic to cheat his way through the quest. Specifically, the caster may not use any spells higher than 5th level during the quest, and even then may not use any teleportation, compulsion, or summoning spells, unless there would be no other way to complete the quest. Furthermore, the caster may not use any spells with the "Evil" descriptor. If the caster breaks this rule, the quest is a failure and the angels will never resurrect the target or even accept another casting of this spell on the same target.
• The caster may bring no more than five allies to aid him in this quest (the DM can modify this number for larger parties--this restriction is only intented to prevent the caster from brining along NPC cohorts, followers, hirelings, mercenaries, etc). These allies are subject to the same two restrictions above. The caster is fully responsible for making sure his allies do not violate the above restrictions. None of the allies may be more than one ECL higher than the caster. The caster may ask others for advice, directions, medical aid, or supplies, but other than that may not have any help or assistance of any kind other than his five allies. If this rule is broken, the quest is a failure and the angels will never resurrect the target or even accept another casting of this spell on the same target.

Once the caster has successfully completed the quest of glory within the rules and guidelines outlined above, the angels require one final sacrifice from the caster--the caster must give up some of his own life force and place it into the person to be resurrected, as one final test of trust. This means that the person to be resurrected does not lose a level (or 2 points of Constitution if level 1)--rather, it is the caster that suffers this loss. The resurrected target is fully restored and even regains lost body parts.

For the duration of the quest, the angels keep the body to be resurrected in a timeless extradimensional space where it will remain perfectly preserved until the quest is completed.

In addition to resurrecting the dead, this spell can also be used to acquire from the angels a magic item worth up to 5,000 gold pieces value, or a +5 Sacred bonus to any skill.

Transfer Life

The only way a mortal can restore a being to life without divine intervention is to impart his own life energy into the being to be resurrected--a great sacrifice indeed. This spell is mostly identical to the resurrection spell, with the following differences:

• The target does not lose a level. Instead, the target's Constitution score is reduced to 0 (see below).
• The caster must transfer his own life energy to complete the spell. The target of the spell is resurrected with a Constitution score of 0. In order to revive the target, the caster must transfer his own Constitution score to the target--for every point of Constitution the caster wishes to restore in the target (to a maximum of the target's original Constitution score), the caster must permanantly reduce his own Constitution by the same amount (to a minimum of 0--the caster may not give more Constitution than he has). This Constitution loss cannot be recovered in any way, period. If the caster chooses to reduce himself to 0 Constitution in this way, he dies and cannot be resurrected except by this spell.

Dude Bob 19:05, 4 June 2009 (MDT)

Delete this

I vote to delete this article. Me no rikky. --Jay Freedman 23:53, 17 August 2009 (MDT)

I vote to keep this, it adds depth to the game. --Ganre 03:21, 18 August 2009 (MDT)

• Keep - Nothing usable should be deleted.   Hooper   talk    contribs    email   09:34, 18 August 2009 (MDT)

Oh, I thought TK would what it deleted. (May he rest in peace.) Nevermind then. Keep it. --Jay Freedman 13:13, 18 August 2009 (MDT)

I don't think you understand Good Faith, Hooper

Good Faith in this case means when nominating it, you're sure the author wants it deleted. As the author nominated this, good faith obviously true. Surgo 09:20, 18 August 2009 (MDT)

Actually, if we're using the Wikipedia G7, then that isn't the case. I looked it up last night. There was a arbcom case about articles being deleted after the creator had been in a "wikidispute/wikiargument" with someone else on the wiki, and it was decided that that made it not good faith. I'm at work at the moment but I will hunt it back down later. I'm not going to edit war over it, we should just decide two things: first, are we using wikipedia's guideline, and if so, TK should find a different reason or wait a bit to nominate, or are we not using their guidelines, at which point it doesn't matter.   Hooper   talk    contribs    email   09:34, 18 August 2009 (MDT)

We allow people to delete things with "Author's request" as justification all the time. Regardless of whatever else, TK should be allowed to nominate his own work for that reason. -- Jota 12:42, 18 August 2009 (MDT)

Plausibly so, but this all really goes back to we need a set of core D&Dwiki rules and not just rely on wikipedias.   Hooper   talk    contribs    email   12:56, 18 August 2009 (MDT)

Hooper: Gaming_the_system & Assumed_bad_faith. "if requested in good faith and provided that the page's only substantial content was added by its author". seriously... --130.214.17.20 15:21, 18 August 2009 (MDT)

Your links do not apply, and get off track. Lets not straw man this. The discussion is not over "author requests deletion" or "gaming the system" (though this could be argued as one small part of an attempt of TK and the other leaving individuals to harm this wiki). The situation is: G7 does not apply because TK is not requesting this in good faith, atleast in appearance. It appears to be done as part of his dispute with Green Dragon's recent doings, and is being done to remove "his" pages from the wiki.

Secondly, if you allow the G7 to stay and pretend this is Good Faith, then you also override our usual stance of using Wikipedia as a guideline. In that case, D&Dwikians should discuss if we even agree that an author should be able to remove content just by requesting. You can't have it both ways. Either we follow Wikipedia, which has their arbcom states "Deletion requests by authors after they have undergone a personal change of stance towards wikipedia shall be considered to not be in good faith", or we do not follow Wikipedia, which means it is entirely Green Dragon's decision if authors can delete pages or not. Seeing as this entire thing sprung from TK's disagreement with Green Dragon, I would find that to be an odd choice.   Hooper   talk    contribs    email   16:17, 18 August 2009 (MDT)

Just gotta say that while I understand why people are pissed off, Hooper does make sense, and I think he's spot on one why people want their material deleted. If "wanting to delete things due to a change of stance towards the wiki" is filed under "not in good faith", then G7 doesn't apply here, or, in fact, to any of the articles that have the same template. --Ghostwheel 16:44, 18 August 2009 (MDT)

WE ARE NOT WIKIPEDIA! The minute D&D Wiki allowed homebrew content it became the antithesis of wikipedia. Obviously Green Dragon has the final say (until other admins are re-instated--and even then), so why don't you just leave the delete template and let Green decide what he's going to do. -- Jota 17:55, 18 August 2009 (MDT)

I agree Jota, but TK is the one who referenced G7 on wikipedia. I've always thought we needed a small amount of D&Dwiki-specific rules, because in situations like this it makes things, for lack of a better word, murky.   Hooper   talk    contribs    email   18:05, 18 August 2009 (MDT)

I am pretty sure I see what Hooper means. That in one sense (when following Wikipedia's guidelines) one cannot have the reason for deletion on a certain article be "Authors Wishes" (on Wikipedia an article has no author - as a rule; and most likely for this very reason -, etc) however they do have certain rules for "Speedy Deletion". I think Hooper is saying we need to figure out which or if at all of Wikipedia's rules we want to follow for deletion criteria. --Green Dragon 00:07, 19 August 2009 (MDT)

Edit War

I will not continue to edit war, though your comments in your edit summary further destroy your arguments toward having good faith in your removals.   Hooper   talk    contribs    email   14:38, 18 August 2009 (MDT)

"To create an impact and permanent feel of death, the rules must be changed to remove certain spells and certain effects of spells."

Well, those changes listed aren't enough.

First and foremost, the presence of save-or-die spells rely on cheap quick ressurrection being in the game. If you remove Raise Dead, you must also change the rules so there aren't any spells and monsters that can kill you with A SINGLE UNLUCKY ROLL.

(How this is done is out of scope right here and now)

173.245.49.110 14:41, 10 March 2012 (MST)

This page should be deleted.

It had mentioned of a "Devils Pact" and a "reapers sacrificial fake understanding". It explained how in depth to get the few sentences to explain it actually read. With a title as "Dying is Serious (3.5 Variant Rule)" I believe it was under cover by a miscreant imp sort of follower.

It explained the "Devils Pact" in the beginning correctly by not explaining it at all but instead then explaining the page as an all reaper concept for homunculus'. They said at first you would pay 5000Gold Pieces to cheat death ("a reaper" of the grim reapers[they made it so to make it understandable from a youthful grace] then at the level so-and-so you'd pay 10,000 Gold Pieces and lose a level. There was also a moment where they brought up for players that-"still didn't understand" by explaining that the monster hurled up a piece of your former body- somehow you as that piece of your body was brought to a cleric and with their healing ability you were brought to life because of the situation they were meaning on this page then. THEN you'd pay 25,000 Gold Pieces to be resurrected a final time but without having your body be accompanying you. They left it at that- yes, as a phantom/specture-- possibly a wraith.

They explained under that in emphasis after explaining that enlargely to get to this specific part of the page: To have someone elses soul switched with your soul; which is up to the reapers. But since the grim reaper has many reapers it shouldn't be possible because death should only be balanced by one grim reaper that's why it's death. (They even said you could sacrifice a reaper specifically for your soul)

{Therefore pacts with devils shouldn't be possible.} But they explained the whole page was for making a pact with a devil instead of going for a reapers respite. Because they needed to brainwash themselves to brainwash the readers to believe it that way.

They made the reaper have multiple reapers and spelled out to them how to sacrifice one soul for saving your own soul just to make it understood to just make a pact with a devil because in the game it's entirely about surviving and becoming a better character whether it be adventurer or cleric.

So I have reason to believe this page was created just so it'd be tied with rumors(male or female) that Dungeons & Dragons is heretically correct. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by ‎MasterMalayanPitViperSlayer (talk • contribs) . Please sign your posts.

Seems like it should be balanced, maybe not deleted? --Green Dragon (talk) 12:37, 18 June 2019 (MDT)

{DISCORD} U.N.S.C. Field Major Dabrowski #1350

I'm doing a quest currently. It'll be in the dragon-hunting-rpg channel. It'll be a few years. But I am not going to do the fake gladiator idea because I couldn't make atleast one sword deflector be turned into an ultimate deflector (two swords) and earn freedom. It's a nice thing to figure out- you can make a kingdom, and learn warfare correctly. Na, I intend to dragon hunt from start to finish- slay a dragon naked, make dragon armor, amass a legion, a warband, primitively slay several dragons, then several dragons at once, learn to use a mountain as a snake trap and ride another dragon to its death- and so forth. I had to make a sorceress invasion with the said thousands of dragons try and take over Poland (my birthplace) to then become a Mage Hunter after all that.

So how about we delete this article? There's a Demon Slayer's Slayers Guide out. I don't know if it isn't in there, but I'm sure we all always wanted this specific article deleted since elementary school- but then there was that one kid who lied about being a Bird Warrior/Monkey/or whatever and it got through... and, heh, there they are the Blind Users with their Banners. But seriously, we wanted to slay demons with swords and defeat magick in it's entirety. Only the weak minded person plagued it ever since. Here's our chance to delete it.

I'm Sebastian, Warrior of the Malayan Pit Viper, Black Knight Overlord Hunter--Slayer Mercenary (talk) 21:34, 10 June 2019 (MDT)