Death

[Christopher Carpinello <chrisc@cs.odu.edu>]

Rupert G. Goldie writes:
> Here's another alternative for death. I have had an idea for two spells - 
> recusitation and raise dead.
> 
> Recusitation must be cast within (dead characters level) minutes of the
> characters death upon his or her gravestone. Successful casting of the spell 
> brings the character back to life at 1 hp and with the loss of one point off
> a physical stat (str,dex,con).

Traditionally, in AD&D and other FRPs, players have lost 1 pt. of Con
when they were resurrected.
 
> Raise Dead can be cast upon a dead characters gravestone anytime after they
> died, but is otherwise the same as recusitation.

Sounds a bit necromanic to me -- I really don't see the difference
between raise dead and ressurection (other than the time interval).
 
> To implement this we have to change they way death is handled. Instead of
> deleting a character's save file when he dies we have to keep it around. 
> This means that when you startup with the name of a dead character the game
> should ask you: "That character is dead, do you want to delete it and
> start again [y/n] ?". 
> 
> Tricky bits. When a map is refreshed, the game should check for any gravestones
> of dead characters and deleted the save files before loading the refreshed map.
> 
> Where do we start the character when they restart with their newly raised
> character ? If we make it wherever the gravestone is when the spell was cast,
> there is the potential for abuse, so they should probably start back in the 
> starting town.

Make a temple with an altar [in the main town?] and have the
newly-resurrected indiviual appear on the altar with 1 hp and
beginning character equipment [leaving his old equipment where he
died].

> 
> How does that sound ? Reasonable ?

IMHO, there should only be one spell (namely resurrection) which
should be a very high level [lvl 25?], rare cleric prayer with a
chance of failure dependant on the caster's Wisdom bonus and his
current level (at 25th level, the caster should _just_ be able to cast
it with few successes, but as he progresses up in levels, it should
become easier).

#chris