Feature Specification: Resurrection

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Resurrection
Resurrection as defined by the APM is detailed below. I'd like to see details that are missing filled in by our resident ACR experts.

For a short explanation of the feature specification format, visit:
http://www.alandfaraway.org/phpbbforum/ ... hp?t=27229

Functional Requirements
ALFA is a permadeath environment. PCs will stay dead, unless the subject of a resurrection. If resurrected, the PC will be returned to his or her body with all gear intact (granting the corpse wasn’t looted in the meantime), wherever the body lies at time of resurrection. Upon resurrection, the lingering effects of the shock of death will be obvious—PCs lose a level at death (applied at the time of resurrection to facilitate tech raises by DMs) or suffer -1 to Constitution if they die at level 1. These effects are mitigated by the casting of True Resurrection. There are three ways to receive a resurrection:

Resurrection by a PC:
In order to resurrect another player, a PC has to cast Raise Dead, Resurrection, or True Resurrection on the deceased character’s corpse and possess a diamond for Raise Dead worth 5,000gp, a blessed diamond for Resurrection worth 10,000gp, and a blessed diamond for True Resurrection worth 25,000gp. Casting of the True Resurrection spell will bring up a conversation menu of dead PCs to resurrect, since a piece of the body is not necessary for this spell to work. The target player does not have to be online for a resurrection to succeed.

Resurrection by an NPC:
One way to resurrect a dead comrade is to carry the corpse to an NPC cleric. Resurrection is expensive and might require the additional component of a specially blessed diamond or even a service to the temple. Resurrection is never undertaken lightly and is therefore only ever offered to worshippers of the same patron deity, of shared purpose (according to dogma), or of sufficiently high reputation within the Priest's Church (faction) earned through questing. Resurrection spells cast by NPCs will be used up until restored through prayer.

When a PC is raised by an NPC priest, they will recieve a non-droppable IOU item. This item names the god who performed the raise, covers one inventory square, and can only be removed by a DM. The item description says "A life is an expensive thing. The church of ***** might still yet call a favour upon you." This acts as a 'Soft Raise Cap'. It will allow a DM to, at a quick glance, see how many times a PC has been raised recently. And it will make the PC aware of how many times he has been raised.

When a DM sees one of these items, they may decide that a quest is needed to be carried out for the payment to be finished. Should they decide that a quest is not needed, a wand will be used to remove the IOU Item.

NPC casters will use up their spell slots when casting spells to tend to players. NPC priests will also be unavailable for a time each day to pray to restore their spells.

Resurrection by a DM:
A player may petition for DM assistance if they believe they were wrongfully killed. If the DM comes to the same conclusion, s/he will be able to raise the character.

For a character to be successfully resurrected, the soul must be willing and free to return from the afterlife and the god must be willing to grant the spell. Kelemvor and Velsharoon are unlikely to grant raises except in exceptional circumstances, while Hoar would always grant one so his faithful can exact revenge.

The faithless cannot be resurrected.

Characters that have died of old age cannot be resurrected.

The Black Rock should be destroyed upon a successful resurrection.

NWN Object Dependencies
Raise Dead, Resurrection, & True Resurrection Scrolls/Spells, Black Rock, IOU Items (for each deity), Diamonds, Holy Water

Local Variables and External Configs
None

Logging and Debugging (global LOG & DEBUG (on/off) constants)
Number of Ressurections, Ressurected By

Persistence Requirements
Character Hit Points

Event Dependencies
None

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Ack! Sorry all. I didn't realize I was shadowing the moved posts....so I deleted the "shadow" but it actually purged the entire topic. Fortunately, I have it in my browser history, so I'll reconstruct all the quotes....in the mean time, I wonder how I remove shadowed topics.

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It's not the proper forum for it, but 3.5 prices for rezzing should put the permanence back into permadeath.

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I vote DM or PC rez only!! No scripted rezzes, but that because I am HARDCORE..

I dont think every bloke and his monkey should be able to rez you for a few coins, I think it should involve a whole bunch of spiritual dimensions, sacrifices, offerings of more than just bucks, conversion experiences, things like that.. just doesnt play out if you make rezzes availble at your friendly neighbourhood temple..

neutral gods I can see possibly rezzing for a fee, good gods for your devotion and they'd never rez someone who didnt deserve it and evil gods probably want your soul /and/ your grandmother to rez you..

Thats a personal preference that I cant really impose on everyone else (unfortunately )

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Some of those restrictions would be built into the scripts I imagine. A good NPC cleric wouldn't raise an evil PC for instance, not unless they converted, in which case we can make a permanent alignment shift as part of the 'conversion' dialogue option. We could put in script hooks for quests that open the dialogue for raising a PC upon completion, which can be used by builders to create their own quests, but I think it will likely be enough to simply require PCs to provide the spell components (placed by DMs or available through difficult quests). We could of course make suggestions according to what's in canon, but I think geography and region will dictate much of that. Regardless, I think the option still has to be there as PCs and DMs can't always be relied on (timezones and schedules and whatnot).

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On a semi-related note, it'd be good if priests could check the diety of the PC and give reduced or increased costs of healing based on the alliances between the cleric's and healee's dieties. There's something like this on TLR, IIRC.

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Unless NWN2 changes something, we can't have a convo with the dead PC, only the guy carrying him in. We can't even necc adjust the dead guy on Rez as he may not be logged in.

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How about each time a black rock is destroyed it is replaced with something else, undropable. Just so we can see how many times a character has been rezzed. Lets non-home DMs take a view on resurection success. I remember seeing someone suggest this a while ago and thought it wasn't a bad idea.

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True rez should be also implemented, ie no level or con loss.

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Dorn - I'd far rather set an INT on one of their creature skins. Less meta crap in their inventory, and it doesn't cost them slots.... unless we want to make it an 8 square no-drop, no-bag, 10# item as a death penalty

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Dorn - I'd far rather set an INT on one of their creature skins. Less meta crap in their inventory, and it doesn't cost them slots.... unless we want to make it an 8 square no-drop, no-bag, 10# item as a death penalty

I believe it's been implied that all items in NWN2 will have single square icons.

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Unless NWN2 changes something, we can't have a convo with the dead PC, only the guy carrying him in. We can't even necc adjust the dead guy on Rez as he may not be logged in.

But if the player isn't logged in, can he actually be ressurected...? We'd need a player object to work with so it seems like that's an essential part of ressurection.

As to good/evil raises, I think the issue might already be addressed in the permadeath proposal to some degree with IOU's. Having an IOU in the raised player's inventory would allow a DM to make a reasonable judgement call (either a post raise alignment shift or invoking the IOU to lead to one) rather than a script. But we can still generate such scripts that check alignment (a deities dogma may simply prohibit raising evil creatures after all) and hook them in a conversation template that builders can use.

Dorn, I'll put number of raises under logging so we can report on it both in game and out. I don't see anything in the rasie or ressurection spell description to indicate any chance (or increasing chance with subsequent attempts) for failure.

I'll add in the raise, ressurection, and true ressurection details as well using what's in the permadeath proposal.

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I wish there was a way to have rped only rezzes..

But I and most other DMs dont want to spend half their volunteer DMing time roleplaying raise dead..

Can we add a functionality to allow different requirements for different temples? The cost of rezzes are written for pen and paper, not an online persistent gaming world.

I think we should demand more of our players than just enough coin. If you are going to a temple to get your companon rezzed, you should at least know a little about the temple and make a tithe/sacrifice appropriate to the temple you are dealing with.

Reversing death /should/ be something priests should think twice about since it is extending a person's natural span, so perhaps persuasion is something else to add.. Just ideas..

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Certainly Thangorn. Just post any specific suggestions you might have.

In regards to the templates, we could (time permitting) construct suitable ones to cover all supported deities. The best we can do is construct the most basic of things in advance and leave it up to builders to determine the best use of them. As you point out, scripts can only do so much. The creative or RP aspects can't be simulated well, if at all, but we can build in reputations, skill checks (persuasion, intimidate, bluff, etc), and quest hooks.

Maybe we can even go so far as testing the faith of the individual by asking questions or interrogating them (based on the deities dogma), or using riddles to divine their worthiness for which the answers are hard to find (have to find the right NPC, need the proper amount of charisma or faith, know the right creature to slay or aid, etc). Most of it I still see as module building that's beyond the scope of the base mod. Think of us as providing the paint, brush and canvas. It's up to builders to apply their creativity.

[Ronan]

True rez should be also implemented, ie no level or con loss.

True resurrection has level or constitution loss as normal.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/trueResurrection.htm

Casting of the spell (by PC or NPC) should bring up a conversation menu of which PC to resurrect, since a piece of the body is not necissary. Alternatively, we could just not worry about it since at 25,000gp and a 9th level spell, any true resurrections will be rare enough to warrent DM attention.

The FRCS has a whole section on priests, healing, and how they treat other faiths.