Quote from: Monster Manuel;783666I think you missed something here:

Revivify is a 3rd level spell that brings back anyone who died within the last minute. Animate Dead has a casting time of 1 minute.

Resurrection is a 7th level spell that says: "You touch a dead creature that has been dead for no more than a century, that didn't die of old age, and that isn't undead".

True Resurrection, a 9th level spell, lacks the wording to that effect, so I'd treat it as a matter of DM discretion, and personally allow it. 9th level spell and all.

I'd definitely not allow a 3rd level spell to do it, even if the simplest method of creating undead didn't use up the window for the spell.

Damn. You're right.

I don't know how I missed that, since I was specifically looking at the wording to see if it did undead or not.

Oh well. It isn't the first time I've talked bollocks and it certainly won't be the last...

Quote from: Blacky the Blackball;783704Damn. You're right.

I don't know how I missed that, since I was specifically looking at the wording to see if it did undead or not.

Oh well. It isn't the first time I've talked bollocks and it certainly won't be the last...

Don't worry about it, man, I've been there far too often.

Something noticed today.

Orcs are genetically evil. Demons and Devils arent?
Since it specifically says Half Orcs allways have that little bit of evil in them and allways feel the call of Grummish on top of that.  They may resist it. bit its there.

Yet Tieflings, born of distilled evil (either recent or ancient)... dont?

What makes the Tiefling different from the Half orc? The etherial nature of planar beings?

I love it 5e is the NWoD but DnD style! It's whatever works for your setting.

Completely off topic but MtAw 2e is going to be the the total bomb! It's the best of MtAs/MtAw totally off the hook!

That's 5e so far.....

Outside of Reincarnation, there is no way to come back from the dead without a diamond (including clone).

If we assume a good amount of previous history and thus a fair amount of cast resurrection spells, those things might be rarer and harder to acquire than the pure material cost implies (and that cost is already nothing to sneeze at).

In addition, those who get their hands on a diamond/lifestone will hang on to it, if humanely possible.

I'd imagine every society aware of resurrection magic to place huge significance in diamonds. Crown jewels with diamonds mean a kingdom can bring back its royalty. Giving diamond jewelry to your beloved is truly the greatest gift possible. It signifies either a promise to resurrect the beloved should doom befall them or it means you truly entrust them with your own life, depending on them to resurrect you in the case of an untimely death.


This might depend on the amount of high level transmuters in the setting. As far as I can tell their level 14 features is the only way to create new diamonds using magic, though they need to expend some other valuable resource to create diamonds bigger than a sand corn.

1st level Fighters and Thieves are much more common than 1st-level Wizards in my mind's eye. Clerics fall somewhere in-between. Specifically, the ratio is 2351:1701:1053:657.  This per 180,000 (don't ask) but the ratio holds over any population.

For reference, paladins 261: assassins 189: druids 105: monks 26.

These are all first-level numbers.  

There are like 12,300 who would be considered normal men, 0 level, and no class abilities, and about 6800 classed and leveled characters.

Access to the elemental planes and bleed over from those planes may mean that gemstones are being replenished, or are being acquired elsewhere.

The big question is. How much is it common knowledge? In the end thoug irrelevant to the common folk who wouldnt be able to afford such normally.

And here is a thought.

Some may NOT want to be raised. Remember. There is is a known afterlife.

I was thinking of the high and mighty, like royalty, high priests, important nobles and patrician merchants, other adventurers, people the PCs will rub shoulders with sooner or later.
Revivify is third level, so even in a world with very few spellcasters, I think it would be as known as, say, a fireball. I'd place it at a easy religion check to know you need diamonds to ressurect.

And when you cast the spell and your target doesn't want to be raised, you still waste the components. You never know where the afterlive sends you, some might expect elysium just to arrive in hell, so I wouldn't depend on the persons will for that.

However, I think I get your point and mostly agree with you. The 5e rules don't need to make ressurections a rare or difficult archivement for PCs.

But they do allow the DM to limit access to ressurection magic, without houserules or departing from the implied setting.



Just a little side note, revivify and raise dead both have the same wording for their time limit. Gentle repose explicitly suspends the time limit, effectively making it meaningless. So, as long as you have that spell prepared, revify is the superior option even when you don't have 300gp diamonds handy, as it is cheaper and comes without side effect.

Quote from: Gold Roger;783886Outside of Reincarnation, there is no way to come back from the dead without a diamond (including clone).

If we assume a good amount of previous history and thus a fair amount of cast resurrection spells, those things might be rarer and harder to acquire than the pure material cost implies (and that cost is already nothing to sneeze at).

The game is quite weird about that, in that it specifies a value of diamond rather than a quantity of diamond.

For example, take the basic Raise Dead spell. This requires (and consumes) a diamond worth 500gp.

So how big a diamond is that?

In a setting where diamonds are very rare and people hold on to them, like you suggest, you might only get a tiny chip of diamond for 500gp.

On the other hand, in a setting where dwarves are practically tripping over them as they mine and they're handing them out like candy, a 500gp diamond might be one as big as your fist.

But in either case, a PC can go to a jeweller and give them 500gp for a diamond. How big a diamond they get for their money will vary from campaign to campaign, but the book doesn't care about that. All it cares about is that it should cost a PC about 500gp to cast a Raise Dead spell.

So unless you make diamonds so rare that it's impossible to buy them - thus making even the tiniest speck worth more than 500gp - it doesn't matter how rare diamonds are in your campaign setting other than as a flavour thing.

And to be honest, most players won't care about the flavour thing anyway. They'll simply care that Bob has died and they need to spend 500gp to raise him.

Quote from: Omega;784022Remember. There is is a known afterlife.

Actually, there isn't.

There might be a known afterlife in various published settings, but there's none mentioned in the PHB that I can find. Even the appendix about the planes of existence doesn't mention whether or not people's souls go there after death.

While the PHB is compatible with the existence of an afterlife, it is also compatible with a setting in which there is no afterlife at all. For example you could play in a setting where a person's soul dissipates and ceases to exist at the point of death and a Raise Dead spell could actually be reconstructing it. That would be just as compatible with the PHB rules as a setting where the soul goes to an afterlife and is recalled by the spell.

Huh hadn't noticed that but your right the PHB does not say anything one way or the other about an afterlife. Nice little grey area for making up your things.

Quote from: Blacky the Blackball;784076So how big a diamond is that?

Sounds like a fun thing to estimate.
Using random website calculators and "facts" to figure this stuff out.

Things to know:
- A D&D coin is 1/3oz (50 coins/lb).
- I'm comparing it to the US gold eagle coin, which apparently is about 91.67% gold.

So 500gp weighs 10 pounds (160 oz), of which 146.672 oz is gold. Gold is currently $1287.20 per ounce. So 500gp would be worth $188,796.20.

For a perfect, clear, white diamond, that would be around 3 carats (the diamond calculator I used put 3.0 carats at closer to $200,000. That would definitely make one heck of a ring!

Quote from: Blacky the Blackball;784076The game is quite weird about that, in that it specifies a value of diamond rather than a quantity of diamond.

For example, take the basic Raise Dead spell. This requires (and consumes) a diamond worth 500gp.

So how big a diamond is that?

In a setting where diamonds are very rare and people hold on to them, like you suggest, you might only get a tiny chip of diamond for 500gp.

On the other hand, in a setting where dwarves are practically tripping over them as they mine and they're handing them out like candy, a 500gp diamond might be one as big as your fist.

But in either case, a PC can go to a jeweller and give them 500gp for a diamond. How big a diamond they get for their money will vary from campaign to campaign, but the book doesn't care about that. All it cares about is that it should cost a PC about 500gp to cast a Raise Dead spell.

So unless you make diamonds so rare that it's impossible to buy them - thus making even the tiniest speck worth more than 500gp - it doesn't matter how rare diamonds are in your campaign setting other than as a flavour thing.

And to be honest, most players won't care about the flavour thing anyway. They'll simply care that Bob has died and they need to spend 500gp to raise him.

I consider this debatable. If I sell some tiny speck of diamond dust to my adventuring companion for 500 gp, is it suddenly a suitable material component?

I consider the gp price for material component to be the price purely derived from actual rarity, if then rising demand make the aquiration much harder, the spell doesn't care. Magic doesn't just adapt to the market.

And, once again, I'm not saying it has to be played this way but can be, by implied setting.

That is the thing, implied setting is a variable scope, not a hard definition.

Quote from: Gold Roger;784084I consider this debatable. If I sell some tiny speck of diamond dust to my adventuring companion for 500 gp, is it suddenly a suitable material component?

I consider the gp price for material component to be the price purely derived from actual rarity, if then rising demand make the aquiration much harder, the spell doesn't care. Magic doesn't just adapt to the market.

And, once again, I'm not saying it has to be played this way but can be, by implied setting.

That is the thing, implied setting is a variable scope, not a hard definition.

And that's a good point that has been fodder for other posts here in the past. To make my 3 carat diamond = 500gp estimate requires a bunch of assumptions that would have to then be trapped in amber. Now that I've looked at some pictures, I'm comfortable with a diamond that size being a "500gp diamond", but that may not always be its value in-game.

The D&D economy is a compromise meant to give a point of reference. It's definitely possible to fiddle with things for the sake of trying to emulate* a certain economy.

*That's emulate, not replicate. I think that an attempt to make a comprehensive, and living economy would be impractical.

Quote from: Arkansan;784077Huh hadn't noticed that but your right the PHB does not say anything one way or the other about an afterlife. Nice little grey area for making up your things.

Various spectral undead, and the various planar beings suggest right out the gate that there is at least some sort of afterlife. Whatever that may be.

You could to take Reincarnation and extrapolate that everyone who dies comes back as something else later. but doesnt remember it. Or look at ghosts and undead and say that the dead spirits are just kinda out there... somewhere... preferrably unseen and harmless. Some sure as heck arent.

Then theres those pesky demons, seraphim and gods and such mucking it all up.

Quote from: JamesV;784080Sounds like a fun thing to estimate.
Using random website calculators and "facts" to figure this stuff out.

Things to know:
- A D&D coin is 1/3oz (50 coins/lb).
- I'm comparing it to the US gold eagle coin, which apparently is about 91.67% gold.

So 500gp weighs 10 pounds (160 oz), of which 146.672 oz is gold. Gold is currently $1287.20 per ounce. So 500gp would be worth $188,796.20.

For a perfect, clear, white diamond, that would be around 3 carats (the diamond calculator I used put 3.0 carats at closer to $200,000. That would definitely make one heck of a ring!

I think we have another setting implication here - gold is obviously much more common in the implied setting than in the real world.

Using your values, a single gold piece is worth around $430, and looking at the price list, this gives us:

Backpack = $860
Whip = $860
Bedroll = $430
Blanket = $215
Hunting trap = $2,150
Rations (1 day) = $215
Sledge hammer = $860
Shovel = $860
Quiver = $430
10' pole = $215
Pack of cards = $430
Modest lifestyle = $157,000/year (that's living cost, not income)
Gallon of ale = $83
Modest inn (one night, without food) = $215

I think it's clear that we can't simply use modern values for gold as a guideline for conversion.

Quote from: Gold Roger;784084I consider the gp price for material component to be the price purely derived from actual rarity, if then rising demand make the aquiration much harder, the spell doesn't care. Magic doesn't just adapt to the market.

I was talking about the difference between settings in which diamonds are more or less rare, not components altering due to price fluctuations within a setting. In fact we could call that another implied setting element - the fact that everything is given fixed costs implies that prices will be stable and won't fluctuate over the course of a campaign.

Of course, you can easily alter the prices if you want - limiting the life giving spells by saying that in your world diamonds are rare and therefore the costs of those spells are higher (or vice versa by saying that in your world diamonds are plentiful and the costs of those spells are lower). But that's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about the books imply, not how you can easily ignore the implication and house-rule something different.

Similarly, there's nothing to stop you making prices change over a campaign or making them be different in different areas - but again the implication of the fixed price lists and material components by cost is that this won't be the case by default.