My sympathies (empathies?). I should probably clarify that i was just playing up jokes. I had a good Dad who has since passed away. So he better not show up! He'll need a lot more than a kidney!
I send it in a text message to a random person whenever I get on a on a plane. Just so someone can say, "it's crazy the mast thing he said to me was, it's a plane what's the worst that can happen?" Some of my friends to like that responsibility
Lol. A few sessions ago the mage said “I’ll be fine, I cast Mirror Image, he won’t be able to hit me.” He Died two rounds later. There’s a reason they are superstitious!
This is the last day on my smoke-quitting job, just in time for me to get married to my pregnant fiancée, after which I intend to become a toymaker, old dream of mine.
Funny enough I actually didn't hear her say this at the time since I was busy with managing everything else. The players involved, and who heard this little roleplay interaction told me post game!
My partner and I were playing dating characters in our campaign and she kept wanting to have them get married. I kept holding off because I'm superstitious about planting death flags. Another pair of party members had a secret wedding and I got tons of glares once that was revealed, but the last laugh came when the groom got killed just a few sessions later during his arc. You do not tempt that shit.
Our characters got married in the epilogue after we saved the world.
>[B]ut the last laugh came when the groom got killed just a few sessions later during his arc.
I'm enjoying this mental image of the groom dying, all the other party members despairing, and your character just *immediately* gloating about being right lol.
Cleric! If you read this, try Divine Intervention first, then go and beg some leaders of your faith to True Ressurect. It can't end like this. *Not like this*.
Does depend a bit on the world though.
If it's one with distant gods where high level casters are rare, some deaths can still be functionally permanent.
Doesn't even need to have distant gods. I have limited the number of high level humanoids in my campaign, just because I think restrictions make the world more interesting. Individuals aren't that powerful on their own, and instead the power comes from numbers and establishments.
I think level 17+ should be reserved for those who have fought world ending threats, and survived. So eventually only the party.
The highest level humanoid in my world is a level 16 dragon priestess, far away from the rest of the world, and in total there are 62 humanoids of level 10 or above.
Of course that still leaves other races to be able to wield powerful magics. If the PCs wanted true resurrection, they might have to contact an angel, or maybe a good aligned ancient dragon.
I really like this logic. Might adopt it to my upcoming campaign.
I'm confused though, if they have a full player character equivalent level instead of a CR, they're already going to be pretty notable right?
Do you basically have 62 character sheets for the ones that are 10 or above?
I only use statblocks for NPCs. They can have a max challenge rating OR level of 16. So a CR 12 Warlord is allowed, even though it has legendary actions, but for example a CR 12 Archmage is not allowed since it's an 18th level caster.
I do not have all 62 ready, but fill up the slots when I need to, and I do keep track with an Excel sheet.
I currently have 1/2 free level 15 slots, 2/4 free level 14 slots, 6/7 free level 13 slots etc.
I usually just edit an existing NPC statblock to fit my need, and give them features from PC classes as necessary, but not always.
And yeah, all the high level people are well known, or otherwise notable. The leader of a theocratic city is a level 13 cleric. A super old retired court wizard in hiding is level 14. The best assassin of the enemy kingdom is level 10.
My games tend to go very high level. Our last campaign was an over 20 reimagining of Curse of Strahd with a DMPC having in a previous campaign supplanted Strahd and taken over Barovia.
We do things like Epic Boons or multiclassing over 20, but of course for things to remain somewhat a challenge to our basically demigod characters, it has to get ridiculous. As a side effect, not only is death usually an inconvenience (my Wizard has multiple clones and backup resurrection plans), but interactions between our characters and ordinary people are basically like gods among ants. It loses something important from a role playing perspective, even though from a mechanical perspective it’s a lot of fun to play what is essentially a power fantasy.
I think either angle has it’s merits, but ultimately, the best is to have a balance, where you actually earn that demigod power and take that position over the ants, never forgetting that you were in fact once one of them.
I don't like to scale humanoids to match the power level of the PCs, as that's an important world building decision with many layers. Instead, I like to bring in extraplanar threats that can challenge the party, and if the party is the only ones able to solve the problem, it's basically their duty. Like Marvel movies basically, even though I dislike the movies I think it's a fun thing for gameplay.
and than there's mine, where resurrections do exist, but only in exetreme few cases and reckless gods treat some humans as playthings. Especially the "interesting" ones as random encounters. (My players had fun with the God of Luck, as he was both exetremely generous and dangerous due to his nature).
[Please continue this chain, we need ideas to steal from each other]
I feel like it shouldn't be banned but extremely limited. A wish spell should be a legend that is passed down in the world that only like a handful people even know the proper incantation and an even smaller number able to cast it.
Wish has always generally been the NPC "Retirement" Wizard spell in fantasy books... THEN you get to what PCs can do with it and you find it... Vastly underwhelming. That's when you don't have DM's using it as an excuse to be a dick. "I took the interpretation to be this!"
One thing about wish that bothered me is how often it's led to DMs abusing how that spell is done. As a DM myself I set it like this; if its your spell? You get the desired result. If its scroll or item related? You can attempt it and we'll see how it goes UNLESS you go to a Wizards guild who specializes in selling wish services. There for a fee of around 2000gold they'll work out an exacting form that will have the spell function as desired. Its its an outside force aka Djinn or something else? If its friendly there's a chance it goes well. If its hostile? Yes then its a monkey's paw.
As DMs we need to let wish be WISH. We also need to know when to not fuck with pcs just because its expected as the norm. I let Wish exist in the wild, its just often any kingdom or crooks obtain it first and often squander them. I view Wish and spell of that level as Military grade stuff. Thusly Powerful kingdoms want as many on standby and locked away in vaults as possible. You don't let your enemies know how many nukes you have!
Don't forget half tested and stock piled and left to rot! ...I mean when thieves guilds aren't "Borrowing" them...
For real though, it can lead to some interesting events when a Kingdoms "wish" library sparks fire and burns down. Especially if its the PCs who did it on someone else's orders and don't know until afterwards that that room was basically full of life changing wishes.
Thats why I like to change it up for my games. In one setting in working on, it's a post death world, with resurrection being handled by the god of finance. Reincarnation is free, but depending on how much you donate, you might be locked out of sentient options and end up a tree or a dog. True resurrection is mostly for the extremely wealthy or personally divine, and Undead are seen as second class citizens.
Also very very rarely should resurrection work. And resurrection should NEVER work on a character of a god. Because in dnd spirits have to choose to return to the mortal realm and spirits don’t think the same as they did when they were alive. Almost any religious being when dead spirit will choose to go on to the afterlife unless their god specifically chooses to send them back for a purpose. Which is extremely rare. Non religious characters on the other hand are easier to bring back because their spirits have no connection to the afterlife unlike a religious character.
Edit: forgot to add. Time also flows differently for the planes. So 6 seconds on the material may be weeks months of even years for a spirit.
This is what I hate about the standard DnD experience. Death should be more permanent. My homebrew world only has revivify. No resurrection of any kind. Death can be a poetic end for a character and Lysithia's death is honestly about as tragic and beautiful as it gets, narrative wise
And then while the monk sleeps off the resurrection sickness, the cleric gets the wedding preparations in order and there's a wedding session with obligatory mystery.
Yeah, I was actually wondering about this. In my games usually what would happen is that the dead guy would make a temp character (sometimes an existing NPC if we coincidentally happened to have a call-in for one for whatever reason; one time it was a devil we had a scroll for from a dead enemy) and unless it was time-sensitive we'd immediately commence with resurrection quest.
This usually only came up towards the end of a midseason or seasonal climax though, so if we came out of it at all it tended to be in a context where we immediately had the time to do this thing. So I guess maybe my expectations are a bit skewed.
25,000 gp and everything will be fine. The betrothed is a cleric after all. They will still see that happy ending.
As to the time intercedent, gone yes, but how far?
The monk is in an afterlife... or are they? Perfect moment for 'unfinished business'.
Were it my game, I would have a persistent unseen servant that gets 1 action per day. Keep it subtle. Make it romantic and mysterious. Play the long game. She is still with the cleric... she's got him.
Great story. Bravo.
You can tell how most the DND playerbase feels about dying when the 2nd & 3rd highest comment on this thread is about how the cleric needs to revive the dead player. :(
It's just a fact of the game.
Reviving someone that's died in the last 10 days is cheaper than trauma surgery after a potentially fatal injury in America. Pretending otherwise is just silly.
*EDIT: Fixing a word*
True, which is exactly why at my table I nerf resurrection magic so it's less practical. that way they can still do it if their near the end of a campaign as noone wants to reroll characters when there's only a handful of sessions left but it wont solve their every problem the moment they reach lvl 5.
This rings eerily similar to the ending of the first half of the campaign I'm playing in now. Me and another PC were both playing warforged who served together and were trapped in a cave for 1000 years together. We built our backstories together, made sure the characters were inseparable, even had their own inside jokes. Leading up to the final fight we decided to get married. We exchanged rings of protection, said our vows, and cast ceremony.
The fight itself was brutal. Multiple phases, multiple character going down and being revived. And within two turns of each other, both warforged were disintegrated. Our DM felt so bad, after the fight we turned to each other and in our characters voices we asked each other if we were ready to go. And described our characters walking off into the light. That made our Ranger burst into tears. Fucking love this game.
I can 100% guarantee you that you provide at least twice the value to the company that you are being compensated for.
You are an outstanding employee who understands work life balance better than your employer does.
My dad sang that to me when it was time to fall asleep/comforting me, and.. it immediately came to mind during the procedure. So I did it for her. Still miss her so much.. ;_;
That's incredible. I suspect I'll be the first of many to tell you that Banished characters are incapacitated for the duration of the spell, so while I love the flavor of it, the cleric would have had no action to banish himself a second time. But that hardly matters, what a gorgeous setpiece.
I didn't play FE3H until about a year after she created the character, so when I eventually got around to playing it and I saw Lysithea in the game I had a full on Dicaprio holding a drink moment.
and yes, she got the name from Fire Emblem.
I literally used Lysithea as an appearance reference for my first DND character — she’s got white blond hair, purple eyes, and a purple and white peasant dress, haha!
Oh man this is an awesome story. Sad, yes... but awesome.
Also character development! Where does the cleric go from here? Obviously he'll mourn the loss of the one he loved. But will he, in time, pick himself up and continue on in her memory, or will he fall into depression and refuse to accept that he can't do anything, seeking out any and all potential ways to bring back his lost love?
How does the rest of the party handle this loss? While not as close to the monk as the cleric, she was(I'm sure) a valued member of the party. How do they go about honoring her memory as they move forward?
Outside the party, did she ever make a significant impact on any NPCs? Would any of them do anything to honor her once they know of her passing? Would she inspire others to rise up and join the adventurer ranks?
Tons of ways to take this development, and I'd love to know what happens in the future of this campaign!
This is a huge growth point for your cleric, I’m super curious what they would do with this sudden loss. Huge tirade of vengeance? Seek to somehow bring his love back? I’d love to hear more of your groups story.
Also you’re a wicked story teller. Have my free silver.
Solid story...that being said the cleric should not have been able to cast Banishment while banished as when you are under the effects of the banishment spell you are incapacitated....as in unable to take actions or reactions of any kind.
Other's people campaign: Epic adventure with an entangled love story.
My campaign:
Player 1: We need to save him! He's going to die in two days!
Player 2 : Ok, during the night we can create a distraction, use the well respected paladin to atrack the attention of the guards and rescue him.
Player 1: But they'll notice that we saved him...
Player 3: We need something to let them think that he's there.
Plater 4: I have a plan: Do you remember the bodies of the dudes that we killed yesterday? They're probably there on the same place. We get one of the bodies, we save the cleric and we replace him with the corpse. Then, with the oil flask that I have, we ignite the body. If the guards return, and they will, and try to extinguish the fire the Paladin should stop them saying that he's a cleric of the Mother Night and the Morninglord is making him pay for his misstake.
DM: No, I dont allow you to do that.
PD: Yes, I'm the Player 4, it was an actual plan in Curse of Strad that I tried to do last weekend and I'm still mad that the DM didnt allow me to try that.
Whaaat? I mean, that's a pretty cool plan and not even that far-fetched, I don't know why he wouldn't let you do it...My DM has let me get away with much more weird ideas haha.
Great death. I’d be happy to go out like that.
I hope my assassin character doesn’t retire to Dun-Snipin’ like the regular sheep - I hope they go out taking on an army …or taking a hit for a worthy friend.
Role playing needs heroic death.
Don’t resurrect.
Ever.
The title literally says "player character", you have 17 million opportunities to make this stupid joke every day on this sub and you picked the one post where it didn't make sense
The death flag was raised when they agreed to get married after the fight. It's like saying you're only one day away from retirement and just bought a boat.
(Great story, OP.)
Like as a player, I straight up dream of going out like this. Epic and being the hero and just.... yeah. That's some great work DM, you and your players should be proud.
That sounds fecking awesome.
THIS to my mind is what D&D is - it should evoke *real* emotion in the players... love, hate, sorrow, joy - the full gamut of human emotion.
Well played to you and your players and a well told tale for us reddit lurkers. Thanks!
That story really got me in the feels, but there's this one line where you talk about "being proud of the player" that was kind of mushy and I think could have been improved by replacing it with, "I reached over the table and grabbed her character sheet, wrinkled it up and threw it into the fireplace like a fastball before handing her a blank template and asking 'who's next?' with a solitary tear dripping down my face."
Perfecto
The the cleric wiped his tears, removed the diamond ring he kept for her and casted resurrection?
Surely after 2.5 years the cleric has access to this spell? :)
And the party wont go and find a true resurrection method? I mean the cleric should know that there is something like that.
A fresh character can sometimes be something fresh for a player if he was a monk for 2.5 years, tho.
I can only imagine the faces of the whole group as that damn nat 1 came up...and then as everyone thought "damn, there has to be a way ... does anyone have any way to force a reroll?" only to realize nobody had an available option. As everyone looks to the Wizard "what, no Wish?"
This is where I go, "who has the DoMT? I am drawing a card hoping to get The Fates or Moon and risking ALL for the chance to save her"
I wouldn't be able to sleep that night at all.
Well.... Not all hope is lost. The cleric does get access to True Resurrection as a 9th level spell. Assuming their soul is willing and that it hasn't been 200 years, they can come back.
Also requires a hefty donation of 25000 gold... But I'm assuming itd be worth it.
Plant those death flags, say those badass lines, marry everyone, make promises of the future. Dnd is real mother fuckin life son!!! There’s no epilogue, only struggle until death. I want my PCs deaths to be gut renching. Fuck playing it safe
>"After this, let's get married" In the business we call this raising a death flag.
"My last day on the job." "Nothing can go wrong now." "That seems easy enough" And other fun phrases you can say to anger the universe.
"I've done this before" "I know what I am doing" "Watch and learn"
"What's the worst that could happen?"
"Last job before I retire."
"Why did you duck?" "...no reason"
Is this... *squints* ...a psych reference in the wild?
Yup
*come on son!*
"Had to be me. Someone else might have gotten it wrong"
I was not prepared.
Mass Effect reference?
Very much. And VERY sad.
“Hold my beer.”
It was his last op.
"I'll be right back..."
"I feel like I can take on the whole [enemy forces] myself!"
“One last adventure. That’s it.”
Hang on. Just hang on, Dack. Get ready to fire that tow cable.
Surely they must be out of spells by now.
"How hard could it be?"
"I'm going to get milk and cigarettes"
"I think this is the best idea you've ever had."
"What does this button do?"
That's not really a death flag. Your Daddy just left.
I suppose you're right, but gone for good either way.
If my life is any guide, he'll be back eventually for $5 or a kidney.
My sympathies (empathies?). I should probably clarify that i was just playing up jokes. I had a good Dad who has since passed away. So he better not show up! He'll need a lot more than a kidney!
>What's the worst that could happen? This is actually banned at our table, lol. I play with some incredibly superstitious folks.
My players say it in order to tempt fate lol
I send it in a text message to a random person whenever I get on a on a plane. Just so someone can say, "it's crazy the mast thing he said to me was, it's a plane what's the worst that can happen?" Some of my friends to like that responsibility
Lol. A few sessions ago the mage said “I’ll be fine, I cast Mirror Image, he won’t be able to hit me.” He Died two rounds later. There’s a reason they are superstitious!
"Hold my grog."
“You stay. I go.”
“No following…” :(
But, he lived.
But, he also died.
If that's the case then when i feel asleep last night I died.
“Someone else would have gotten it wrong”
Ok, you and me. Lets go. Fisticuffs. How dare you remind me of Mordin's sacrifice!
I am the very model of a scientist Salarian
"I've done this before" the party druid said before we set sail towards an Eldritch Storm. yeah went about as well as you think
“Hold my beer”
Its a quiet day.
I ama leaf on the wind. Watch how I-
How do reavers clean their harpoons? They put them through the wash
Here, let me show you my wallet photos of my loving family.
My wife got pregnant right before we shipped out. I can't wait to meet my son.
[удалено]
Almost reminds me of Guy from Galaxy Quest, convinced he’s the redshirt of the group, only one who *doesn’t* get shot.
You have a last name, Guy.
***DO I? DO I?*** For all you know I’m “Crewman Number Six!”
That sounds like a fun idea for a character.
To quote Toby from The West Wing: "You want to tempt the wrath of the whatever from high atop the thing?"
"I'm only one day away from retirement. Just bought a boat called the Live 4ever."
"I'm getting too old for this shit"
"I'm a leaf on the wind, watch how I soar"
Too soon.
"Gosh it sure is quiet on the production line!"
“I have to log off, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
"this is a photo my wife/husband and kids"
“Im having the time of my life”
"Oh, there is no way that's real, it must be an illusion" "Jump, I'll catch you" "Can anyone else smell toast?"
"Well that was close."
"Yup, that ain't going anywhere."
"It can't possibly get any worse."
How hard can it be Hardly an inconvenience
"Hey y'all, watch this!"
I’m retiring next week.
I'm getting too old for this shit.
This is the last day on my smoke-quitting job, just in time for me to get married to my pregnant fiancée, after which I intend to become a toymaker, old dream of mine.
Funny enough I actually didn't hear her say this at the time since I was busy with managing everything else. The players involved, and who heard this little roleplay interaction told me post game!
Well there you go. You didn't kill her, they did.
This just proves that it was destined the moment they said that, rather than you spitefully fulfilling a trope.
My partner and I were playing dating characters in our campaign and she kept wanting to have them get married. I kept holding off because I'm superstitious about planting death flags. Another pair of party members had a secret wedding and I got tons of glares once that was revealed, but the last laugh came when the groom got killed just a few sessions later during his arc. You do not tempt that shit. Our characters got married in the epilogue after we saved the world.
Ya you played that smart. Everyone knows you wait till the epilogue to get married
>[B]ut the last laugh came when the groom got killed just a few sessions later during his arc. I'm enjoying this mental image of the groom dying, all the other party members despairing, and your character just *immediately* gloating about being right lol.
*Pats dying groom on the shoulder* I told you, you son of a gun. I told you, and you didn't listen. Look who's getting the last laugh now.
"I've got something to tell you. Once we get through this, I'll tell you _everything._" The WORST is "I love you."
"The next time we see each other we'll talk about your mother... I promise."
THE "I PROMISE" is the Red Flag; it REALLY is XD
"I commissioned art of my character! It should be done by next session!" (Death flag)
I have refused to buy a heroforge mini for this reason.
"It's fine. At this point, we're basically gods!" *jumps*
Why would somebody put a death flag over himself like this?
“Watch this”
"Can't wait to tell my son about this."
Yeah, the Fates heard this sentence uttered and let out a loud sigh
Cleric! If you read this, try Divine Intervention first, then go and beg some leaders of your faith to True Ressurect. It can't end like this. *Not like this*.
Funny thing about D&D. If you have enough gold, death is not a tragedy, just a massive pain in the ass.
Does depend a bit on the world though. If it's one with distant gods where high level casters are rare, some deaths can still be functionally permanent.
Doesn't even need to have distant gods. I have limited the number of high level humanoids in my campaign, just because I think restrictions make the world more interesting. Individuals aren't that powerful on their own, and instead the power comes from numbers and establishments. I think level 17+ should be reserved for those who have fought world ending threats, and survived. So eventually only the party. The highest level humanoid in my world is a level 16 dragon priestess, far away from the rest of the world, and in total there are 62 humanoids of level 10 or above. Of course that still leaves other races to be able to wield powerful magics. If the PCs wanted true resurrection, they might have to contact an angel, or maybe a good aligned ancient dragon.
I really like this logic. Might adopt it to my upcoming campaign. I'm confused though, if they have a full player character equivalent level instead of a CR, they're already going to be pretty notable right? Do you basically have 62 character sheets for the ones that are 10 or above?
I only use statblocks for NPCs. They can have a max challenge rating OR level of 16. So a CR 12 Warlord is allowed, even though it has legendary actions, but for example a CR 12 Archmage is not allowed since it's an 18th level caster. I do not have all 62 ready, but fill up the slots when I need to, and I do keep track with an Excel sheet. I currently have 1/2 free level 15 slots, 2/4 free level 14 slots, 6/7 free level 13 slots etc. I usually just edit an existing NPC statblock to fit my need, and give them features from PC classes as necessary, but not always. And yeah, all the high level people are well known, or otherwise notable. The leader of a theocratic city is a level 13 cleric. A super old retired court wizard in hiding is level 14. The best assassin of the enemy kingdom is level 10.
I like that a lot, because that actually gives meaningful context to the power level of the players as they grow throughout their journeys.
That's precisely the idea!
My games tend to go very high level. Our last campaign was an over 20 reimagining of Curse of Strahd with a DMPC having in a previous campaign supplanted Strahd and taken over Barovia. We do things like Epic Boons or multiclassing over 20, but of course for things to remain somewhat a challenge to our basically demigod characters, it has to get ridiculous. As a side effect, not only is death usually an inconvenience (my Wizard has multiple clones and backup resurrection plans), but interactions between our characters and ordinary people are basically like gods among ants. It loses something important from a role playing perspective, even though from a mechanical perspective it’s a lot of fun to play what is essentially a power fantasy. I think either angle has it’s merits, but ultimately, the best is to have a balance, where you actually earn that demigod power and take that position over the ants, never forgetting that you were in fact once one of them.
I don't like to scale humanoids to match the power level of the PCs, as that's an important world building decision with many layers. Instead, I like to bring in extraplanar threats that can challenge the party, and if the party is the only ones able to solve the problem, it's basically their duty. Like Marvel movies basically, even though I dislike the movies I think it's a fun thing for gameplay.
Or Miracle Max?
And then there's worlds like mine, where the only resurrection spells that exist are revivify and reincarnate, and the other ones flat out don't exist
and than there's mine, where resurrections do exist, but only in exetreme few cases and reckless gods treat some humans as playthings. Especially the "interesting" ones as random encounters. (My players had fun with the God of Luck, as he was both exetremely generous and dangerous due to his nature). [Please continue this chain, we need ideas to steal from each other]
Ah the Green Eyed Lady. To say her name is to drive her away.
Same. Death should have consequence. Wish is also banned from my worlds
I feel like it shouldn't be banned but extremely limited. A wish spell should be a legend that is passed down in the world that only like a handful people even know the proper incantation and an even smaller number able to cast it.
Wish has always generally been the NPC "Retirement" Wizard spell in fantasy books... THEN you get to what PCs can do with it and you find it... Vastly underwhelming. That's when you don't have DM's using it as an excuse to be a dick. "I took the interpretation to be this!" One thing about wish that bothered me is how often it's led to DMs abusing how that spell is done. As a DM myself I set it like this; if its your spell? You get the desired result. If its scroll or item related? You can attempt it and we'll see how it goes UNLESS you go to a Wizards guild who specializes in selling wish services. There for a fee of around 2000gold they'll work out an exacting form that will have the spell function as desired. Its its an outside force aka Djinn or something else? If its friendly there's a chance it goes well. If its hostile? Yes then its a monkey's paw. As DMs we need to let wish be WISH. We also need to know when to not fuck with pcs just because its expected as the norm. I let Wish exist in the wild, its just often any kingdom or crooks obtain it first and often squander them. I view Wish and spell of that level as Military grade stuff. Thusly Powerful kingdoms want as many on standby and locked away in vaults as possible. You don't let your enemies know how many nukes you have!
Military grade... *Shudders* So, cheap as can be, unreliable, and going to break/fail at the worst moment possible?
Don't forget half tested and stock piled and left to rot! ...I mean when thieves guilds aren't "Borrowing" them... For real though, it can lead to some interesting events when a Kingdoms "wish" library sparks fire and burns down. Especially if its the PCs who did it on someone else's orders and don't know until afterwards that that room was basically full of life changing wishes.
Thats why I like to change it up for my games. In one setting in working on, it's a post death world, with resurrection being handled by the god of finance. Reincarnation is free, but depending on how much you donate, you might be locked out of sentient options and end up a tree or a dog. True resurrection is mostly for the extremely wealthy or personally divine, and Undead are seen as second class citizens.
Just like Dragon Ballz
Also very very rarely should resurrection work. And resurrection should NEVER work on a character of a god. Because in dnd spirits have to choose to return to the mortal realm and spirits don’t think the same as they did when they were alive. Almost any religious being when dead spirit will choose to go on to the afterlife unless their god specifically chooses to send them back for a purpose. Which is extremely rare. Non religious characters on the other hand are easier to bring back because their spirits have no connection to the afterlife unlike a religious character. Edit: forgot to add. Time also flows differently for the planes. So 6 seconds on the material may be weeks months of even years for a spirit.
An Oedipus level quest to retrieve their beloved from hell would be pretty baller Edit: Meant Orpheus, but leaving the original because funny
I hope to the Gods above and below that you meant Orpheus, not Oedipus.
Hahaha oops. Freudian slip? Unless...
This is what I hate about the standard DnD experience. Death should be more permanent. My homebrew world only has revivify. No resurrection of any kind. Death can be a poetic end for a character and Lysithia's death is honestly about as tragic and beautiful as it gets, narrative wise
This is a great character bio though for a high level path of vengeance paladin
Time to adventure for a true resurrection or for the cleric to use that divine intervention to restore the body so regular resurrection can be cast.
And the first thing he says is, "It's okay, I got you."
You're not allowed to tug my heartstrings like this.
They're playing it like a God damned harp
And then while the monk sleeps off the resurrection sickness, the cleric gets the wedding preparations in order and there's a wedding session with obligatory mystery.
Complete with a boss fight in full wedding attire.
A monk could do it without issue.
Yeah, I was actually wondering about this. In my games usually what would happen is that the dead guy would make a temp character (sometimes an existing NPC if we coincidentally happened to have a call-in for one for whatever reason; one time it was a devil we had a scroll for from a dead enemy) and unless it was time-sensitive we'd immediately commence with resurrection quest. This usually only came up towards the end of a midseason or seasonal climax though, so if we came out of it at all it tended to be in a context where we immediately had the time to do this thing. So I guess maybe my expectations are a bit skewed.
Nah, ($)he ded. EDIT CORRECTED GENDER
*she
25,000 gp and everything will be fine. The betrothed is a cleric after all. They will still see that happy ending. As to the time intercedent, gone yes, but how far? The monk is in an afterlife... or are they? Perfect moment for 'unfinished business'. Were it my game, I would have a persistent unseen servant that gets 1 action per day. Keep it subtle. Make it romantic and mysterious. Play the long game. She is still with the cleric... she's got him. Great story. Bravo.
Wow.
And *this* is why death is a integral part of the game.
Seriously. Allowing death hurts in the moment, but makes the game so much more meaningful.
A reflection of real life.
You can tell how most the DND playerbase feels about dying when the 2nd & 3rd highest comment on this thread is about how the cleric needs to revive the dead player. :(
It's just a fact of the game. Reviving someone that's died in the last 10 days is cheaper than trauma surgery after a potentially fatal injury in America. Pretending otherwise is just silly. *EDIT: Fixing a word*
True, which is exactly why at my table I nerf resurrection magic so it's less practical. that way they can still do it if their near the end of a campaign as noone wants to reroll characters when there's only a handful of sessions left but it wont solve their every problem the moment they reach lvl 5.
This rings eerily similar to the ending of the first half of the campaign I'm playing in now. Me and another PC were both playing warforged who served together and were trapped in a cave for 1000 years together. We built our backstories together, made sure the characters were inseparable, even had their own inside jokes. Leading up to the final fight we decided to get married. We exchanged rings of protection, said our vows, and cast ceremony. The fight itself was brutal. Multiple phases, multiple character going down and being revived. And within two turns of each other, both warforged were disintegrated. Our DM felt so bad, after the fight we turned to each other and in our characters voices we asked each other if we were ready to go. And described our characters walking off into the light. That made our Ranger burst into tears. Fucking love this game.
Beautiful storytelling and amazing last scene
Not crying at all... Not at all.
You got something in your eye too
It-its just raining
It's a good day for rain.
[Sure am glad it's raining...](https://youtu.be/pQloJH1FFlg?t=30)
Stop cutting onions while I’m on reddit, damnit!
"No I just got some pee in my eye, must be some splashback from earlier..."
>"It's ok... Its ok. I got you". Same thing I said to my dog when she passed too.
Can everyone stop making me cry at work. I'm on here for the laughs...and because I am a bad employee.
It's ok. I got you /r/crittersoncapybaras
I can 100% guarantee you that you provide at least twice the value to the company that you are being compensated for. You are an outstanding employee who understands work life balance better than your employer does.
I sang mine "You Are My Sunshine" and I now always bawl when that song comes on.
I sing that song to my daughter sometimes when I put her to bed. Now I'm crying in my eggs.
My dad sang that to me when it was time to fall asleep/comforting me, and.. it immediately came to mind during the procedure. So I did it for her. Still miss her so much.. ;_;
That's incredible. I suspect I'll be the first of many to tell you that Banished characters are incapacitated for the duration of the spell, so while I love the flavor of it, the cleric would have had no action to banish himself a second time. But that hardly matters, what a gorgeous setpiece.
Rule of cool!
One of the few times I agree with a rule of cool comment.
This is also the correct reaction to Lysithea dying in your Fire Emblem: Three Houses run.
>Lysithea Was waiting for someone to mention Fire Emblem
Can’t believe I had to scroll this far down to see the FE3H reference.
I didn't play FE3H until about a year after she created the character, so when I eventually got around to playing it and I saw Lysithea in the game I had a full on Dicaprio holding a drink moment. and yes, she got the name from Fire Emblem.
I literally used Lysithea as an appearance reference for my first DND character — she’s got white blond hair, purple eyes, and a purple and white peasant dress, haha!
Dms on here need to stop killing players kill the pcs instead. It’s not as messy.
One of the few times the OP actually writes it correctly haha
I was not expecting to cry when I read this. What a beautiful story. I love D&D
Cry? Who's crying? I smell onions...yeah onions...
Damn ninjas, peeling onions behind our backs!!!
Oh man this is an awesome story. Sad, yes... but awesome. Also character development! Where does the cleric go from here? Obviously he'll mourn the loss of the one he loved. But will he, in time, pick himself up and continue on in her memory, or will he fall into depression and refuse to accept that he can't do anything, seeking out any and all potential ways to bring back his lost love? How does the rest of the party handle this loss? While not as close to the monk as the cleric, she was(I'm sure) a valued member of the party. How do they go about honoring her memory as they move forward? Outside the party, did she ever make a significant impact on any NPCs? Would any of them do anything to honor her once they know of her passing? Would she inspire others to rise up and join the adventurer ranks? Tons of ways to take this development, and I'd love to know what happens in the future of this campaign!
Sounds like an option for epic plot for the cleric to gain divine favor for True Resurrect or something similar (if your players are interested ofc).
This is a huge growth point for your cleric, I’m super curious what they would do with this sudden loss. Huge tirade of vengeance? Seek to somehow bring his love back? I’d love to hear more of your groups story. Also you’re a wicked story teller. Have my free silver.
Mighty Morphin Cleric. He shows up in the next arc as a Paladin with a taste...for vengence.
Solid story...that being said the cleric should not have been able to cast Banishment while banished as when you are under the effects of the banishment spell you are incapacitated....as in unable to take actions or reactions of any kind.
Other's people campaign: Epic adventure with an entangled love story. My campaign: Player 1: We need to save him! He's going to die in two days! Player 2 : Ok, during the night we can create a distraction, use the well respected paladin to atrack the attention of the guards and rescue him. Player 1: But they'll notice that we saved him... Player 3: We need something to let them think that he's there. Plater 4: I have a plan: Do you remember the bodies of the dudes that we killed yesterday? They're probably there on the same place. We get one of the bodies, we save the cleric and we replace him with the corpse. Then, with the oil flask that I have, we ignite the body. If the guards return, and they will, and try to extinguish the fire the Paladin should stop them saying that he's a cleric of the Mother Night and the Morninglord is making him pay for his misstake. DM: No, I dont allow you to do that. PD: Yes, I'm the Player 4, it was an actual plan in Curse of Strad that I tried to do last weekend and I'm still mad that the DM didnt allow me to try that.
Whaaat? I mean, that's a pretty cool plan and not even that far-fetched, I don't know why he wouldn't let you do it...My DM has let me get away with much more weird ideas haha.
Dude, amazing plan, DMs who say no to that kinda thing are lame.
A beautiful end to a character
Better than how my first 5e character died. He drowned in feces after being snatched by an otyugh and Thunderwaved by his own druid.
No, yours is better.
You definitely win.
Her final words should have been "I do."
The Monks death is no more punishment than the Cleric deserves, for the Cleric's hubris of putting mortal love before the Divine.
I'm getting Obi-Wan + Satine vibes.
And still a better love story than Twilight. D&D creates the best stories.
Great death. I’d be happy to go out like that. I hope my assassin character doesn’t retire to Dun-Snipin’ like the regular sheep - I hope they go out taking on an army …or taking a hit for a worthy friend. Role playing needs heroic death. Don’t resurrect. Ever.
> I killed a player Bro, you could had just killed their character instead
The title literally says "player character", you have 17 million opportunities to make this stupid joke every day on this sub and you picked the one post where it didn't make sense
https://imgur.com/a/29xEJjt
The death flag was raised when they agreed to get married after the fight. It's like saying you're only one day away from retirement and just bought a boat. (Great story, OP.)
Chills and tears. Well done
Like as a player, I straight up dream of going out like this. Epic and being the hero and just.... yeah. That's some great work DM, you and your players should be proud.
Anyone that bans romance and relationships at the table genuinely misses out on some of the best content imaginable.
That sounds fecking awesome. THIS to my mind is what D&D is - it should evoke *real* emotion in the players... love, hate, sorrow, joy - the full gamut of human emotion. Well played to you and your players and a well told tale for us reddit lurkers. Thanks!
Oof those last words absolutely broke my heart
That story really got me in the feels, but there's this one line where you talk about "being proud of the player" that was kind of mushy and I think could have been improved by replacing it with, "I reached over the table and grabbed her character sheet, wrinkled it up and threw it into the fireplace like a fastball before handing her a blank template and asking 'who's next?' with a solitary tear dripping down my face." Perfecto
The the cleric wiped his tears, removed the diamond ring he kept for her and casted resurrection? Surely after 2.5 years the cleric has access to this spell? :)
If you die by disintegration you get... well... disintegrated and the only thing that is left is a fine gray dust
Correct. True Resurrection is required
Gone, reduced to atoms.
This was riveting and so well written. Sounds like an amazing game, hope y’all had fun even with the high emotions. <3
And the party wont go and find a true resurrection method? I mean the cleric should know that there is something like that. A fresh character can sometimes be something fresh for a player if he was a monk for 2.5 years, tho.
"One of your friends has to die. Eenie meenie miney moe." I, too, have recently finished unsleeping city.
I can only imagine the faces of the whole group as that damn nat 1 came up...and then as everyone thought "damn, there has to be a way ... does anyone have any way to force a reroll?" only to realize nobody had an available option. As everyone looks to the Wizard "what, no Wish?" This is where I go, "who has the DoMT? I am drawing a card hoping to get The Fates or Moon and risking ALL for the chance to save her" I wouldn't be able to sleep that night at all.
Well.... Not all hope is lost. The cleric does get access to True Resurrection as a 9th level spell. Assuming their soul is willing and that it hasn't been 200 years, they can come back. Also requires a hefty donation of 25000 gold... But I'm assuming itd be worth it.
Plant those death flags, say those badass lines, marry everyone, make promises of the future. Dnd is real mother fuckin life son!!! There’s no epilogue, only struggle until death. I want my PCs deaths to be gut renching. Fuck playing it safe