Anyone else happy there is no 'Raise Dead'-like spell?

[Death Machine Miyagi]

I've mentioned this in other threads, but the treatment of 'Raise Dead' in other games has always slightly bugged me. It diminishes the impact of someone dying when all you have to do is drag them down the street to the local temple, throw a few hundred gold in the donation bowl and walk out with your dead buddy now as good as new. It also turns plot-line deaths into a farce; when Khalid or Yoshimo or whoever get killed permanently in BG2, they have to dance around the question of why you can't just grab their body and revive them ('Oh, his body has been....ummm, defiled! Yeah, that's the ticket! Can't resurrect defiled people!)

 

It also raises all sorts of philosophical questions about just how radically the ability to reverse death would change a society, questions which are of course never really answered in most fantasy settings. Rather than again not answer them here, I'm glad to see they'll just set the issue aside entirely and leave us with appropriately pseudo-medieval levels of healing.

 

Though it does raise all sorts of questions about the specifics of how healing will work in-game....

[tajerio]

I also am very much pleased that we won't have to deal with resurrection, mostly because the effects it would have on society are never well realized.

[Monte Carlo]

Not really.

[jb.]

Yes, I very much approve

[Tamerlane]

Hell yeah.

 

It worked in PST. It doesn't work... well, damn near everywhere else.

 

Let death be death.

[Death Machine Miyagi]

I, for one, am looking forward to being leeched in-between adventures.

[Rink]

I don't mind the spell, because if there is no raise dead spell, this also means you have to reload after every single death.

There is no real philosophical explanation for reload and its impact on society either.

[Wirdjos]

I also am very much pleased that we won't have to deal with resurrection, mostly because the effects it would have on society are never well realized.

 

This is the most important plus in my book. I would have a difficult time finding a way to make resurrection affect the setting without making the whole game revolve around ala P:T. However, the scene where Galuf dies and everyone is desperately pumping phoenix downs into him with no effect was pretty moving.

[C2B]

Very much so, yes.

 

It's something that bugged me about games for a long time and I loved the few that didn't have it or handled it very clever.

Edited October 15, 2012 by C2B

[rjshae]

I can live with it, as it were.

 

I never used resurrection spells in a game anyway. Not when you can quickload.

[Kitan]

I like that... makes combat way more dangerous

[Death Machine Miyagi]

I don't mind the spell, because if there is no raise dead spell, this also means you have to reload after every single death.

There is no real philosophical explanation for reload and its impact on society either.

 

'Raise Dead' is in-universe. Reloading is meta-gaming, which doesn't need to be acknowledged by anyone in-universe.

 

And honestly? Knowing that it was mostly a chore of running back and forth between town, in the BG series I tended to just reload anyway when a party member died and I didn't have a Raise Dead spell prepared.

[GhostofAnakin]

I haven't followed too closely any developer comment on companion death in combat, and how it will be handled. Will they die, or will they be "knocked out" until after the battle is over if their HP hits zero?

 

If it's the latter, then a Raise Dead spell is irrelevant anyway since they just revive after the battle is over with.

[tajerio]

I haven't followed too closely any developer comment on companion death in combat, and how it will be handled. Will they die, or will they be "knocked out" until after the battle is over if their HP hits zero?

 

 

They'll die permanently if you're playing on Expert or have the permadeath option turned on; otherwise, they'll be "maimed," as per today's update.

[Tamerlane]

I haven't followed too closely any developer comment on companion death in combat, and how it will be handled. Will they die, or will they be "knocked out" until after the battle is over if their HP hits zero?

 

If it's the latter, then a Raise Dead spell is irrelevant anyway since they just revive after the battle is over with.

Players have two hit-point pools: Stamina and HP.

 

Stamina goes down a lot faster, but can also be restored easier. A player at 0 stamina is knocked out.

 

HP doesn't take hits as often, but it can't be restored easily. When it hits 0, a player goes to "maimed" status, and presumably has some long-lasting/hard to remove/permanent status effect or some ****.

 

"Maimed" is replaced with "dead" at the highest difficulty level, and there is a toggle to make it so on all difficulty levels.

[Death Machine Miyagi]

I haven't followed too closely any developer comment on companion death in combat, and how it will be handled. Will they die, or will they be "knocked out" until after the battle is over if their HP hits zero?

 

If it's the latter, then a Raise Dead spell is irrelevant anyway since they just revive after the battle is over with.

 

The update says there will be two stats for taking damage: stamina and health. Lose all your stamina and you're unconscious, lose all your health and you're either maimed (in standard gameplay) or dead dead dead (in Expert mode, or as an option in standard gameplay) with no possibility of coming to life again.

[Hypevosa]

I'd rather have it but just make it a difficult and arduous process, essentially requiring quest-like effort to accomplish. In D&D even a simple raise dead spell takes 5,000gp worth of diamonds to accomplish - do you have any idea using random loot tables how long it would take to come across that?

[GhostofAnakin]

So maimed is basically the same as knocked out, like in current games where they pop back up after the last enemy is killed and slowly regain full health over time? Or do the companions suffer long-term effects/penalties to their abilities after being maimed?

[Tamerlane]

Exactly what "maimed" does is presently unknown, I think.

 

Assuming you're not playing a perma-death mode, the character will get up once combat ends, but only stamina will regen. Health will require resting to restore.

[Death Machine Miyagi]

So maimed is basically the same as knocked out, like in current games where they pop back up after the last enemy is killed and slowly regain full health over time? Or do the companions suffer long-term effects/penalties to their abilities after being maimed?

 

They don't say, but it could be something like Dragon Age where you suffer a bunch of stat-diminishing afflictions until you get the wound properly treated.

[Feldoth]

Exactly what "maimed" does is presently unknown, I think.

 

Assuming you're not playing a perma-death mode, the character will get up once combat ends, but only stamina will regen. Health will require resting to restore.

 

Maimed NPCs should retire and be provided with a pension and place to live in your stronghold >_>

 

(while that would be amusing, it's probably not practical)

[Magnum Opus]

Mixed feelings, I suppose.

 

Am glad that I won't have to justify to myself just how it was that a Khalid/Yoshimo -type character COULDN'T be raised from the dead or resurrected, in those few instances in a game where such things were encountered.

 

Am not-so-glad with what has been the replacement method of deal with "death" in modern games, which is to say, the party either lives or dies as a unit (with fallen members popping back up after a battle is done -- which, incidentally, happens FAR more frequently than the occasional instance of a fallen party member being inexplicably un-raiseable). In short, death mechanics in moderns games have been so random, arbitrary, or nonsensical at times that I don't even feel anything when the plot line DOES take that character away, because I know they were just a plot device to begin with.

 

Reloading never bothered me, since the act of reloading was never an in-context construct to begin with (aside from ToB, where it was just an easter egg/ bit of humour... "Bondari reloads..." )

 

As I see it there are drawbacks to Raising the Dead, and drawbacks to what has taken over since they decided that allowing characters to die was a problem. All in all, I find that having to ignore a few societal inconsistencies and justify a few Unraisables was a small price to pay for a game that I found to be mostly consistent in its treatment of death, otherwise, rather than having everything left up to the whim of the writers of the story and heavy-handed mechanics that bore no resemblance at all to what they were supposed to be portraying.

 

Am hoping that PE is the game that convinces me that non-raisable characters really is the way it should be done, however.

Edited October 15, 2012 by Magnum Opus

[cyberarmy]

I always reload if some dies in combat unless im playing "Dead is Dead" Not that i dont like ressurrections, i dont like to dress them again from start. (lol how come im that lazy i dunno:))

[Zoraptor]

I'd just point out that the update said "no known magic that can bring them back". Given the importance companions typically have I can certainly see there being some- probably/ hopefully non trivial- discoverable means of bringing them back, particularly since another part of the update deals with necromancy.

[cyberarmy]

I'd just point out that the update said "no known magic that can bring them back". Given the importance companions typically have I can certainly see there being some- probably/ hopefully non trivial- discoverable means of bringing them back, particularly since another part of the update deals with necromancy.

 

Yeah i smell some hint there too. maybe we can find some "pilot device/spell/perk" to raise dead. Maybe not all again quest related or we can have limited usage of raising.

Even maybe some quest like in BG2 where we cure our lovers vampirism, a one/two time quest?