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[Parsely]

When you hit 0HP in most games, you're dead. Some games do make it clear that the character is unconscious when he loses all his health, but then why are revive spells different from healing spells? They must do something more than just fixing your wounds, replacing your lost blood and restoring your strength.

I wonder what your views are on revival and healing in RPGs. Are there any games that try to deal with the implications of revival? I think it's pretty curious that it's never brought up philosophically in stories. Surely there might be people who express a wish not to be revived if they're killed.

My favorite way in which the problem is dealt with is in Metal Max: an RPG in the most classic sense for the SNES, losing all your HP can definitively be called DEATH. There's only one location in the game world to bring your party members back from the dead (it's not so bad as it sounds since you can teleport to any town in the game with the Dog System), the mad scientist's lab, and by mad science I mean brains in jars. His methods are unclear but involve a slab and lots of electricity. His service is free because it contributes to his 'research', which is cryptic in a really fun way, he's even got a frankenstein-type monster in a cage. If your entire party bites it then the protagonist's dad drags your corpse(s) back to the scientist's lab and mutters something about you being an idiot for getting yourself killed.

Edit: So that's a fun way one game has dealt with it, but it still leaves me unsatisfied since it deals with the problem by taking away the idea of an item or spell that can heal you in combat, which is fair but it still avoids fully addressing the implications of a commonly available method of bringing someone back from the dead. Nearly every shop in every Final Fantasy game ever stocks Phoenix Downs, it's that easy to obtain something that helps you avoid death.

In the opening cutscene of Lost Odyssey they do something amazing. It's a big mass battle, the Uhrans are doing battle with the Khent, Uhrans are taking a lot of casualties because the Khent are beastmen and far superior fighters. They're strong enough to send men flying with their blows and one even pins a man to the ground by throwing his blade a good distance. By this time hundreds lie dead and the audience is meant to be thinking "oh no the good guys in shiny armor are losing". Then the Uhrans advane with a bunch of big towers with mages on top of them casting mass revive spells and bring back everyone who just died. How cool is that? Then they proceed to ignore magic for pretty much the rest of the game, including in the camp of wounded later after that same battle.

Nurse 1: All these poor soldiers bleeding to death and there's no way we could treat them all oh the humanity-
Protagonist: Um, I know Cure. I picked up some potions in that chest over there but clearly you could use them more than me.
Nurse 2: We just don't have enough bandages! Is there nothing we can do?! *wails*
Protgonist: ...

I've aggregated this from posts I made on another forum. I want to know what B12ers think as well.

[Mech#4]

From the RPGs I know, Baldur's Gate your characters do die and are resurrected when their health gets to 0. Usually, in the books I think I've seen it, sometimes people can't be resurrected because "it's their time" but that's not a defined moment really. I think the body also has to be mostly intact, as in Baldur's Gate II one character can't be resurrected having been dissected, and if a character gets gibbed by a critical hit deathblow, the meaty chunks can't be resurrected. It returns the spirit to the body rather than recreates a new body and I don't think many healing spells can restore a destroyed/mutilated body.

I think in later Forgotten Realms games characters only fall unconscious rather than outright die. I vaguely remember something like they have to get to -20 hitpoints to die completely.
In Forgotten Realms, I think the whole process is explained kind of like: Person A and B are fighting monsters/whatever, Person B dies. Person A resurrects B and it works because Person B wants to come back as they have unfinished business. This, of course, does have the problem above I noted where people will remain dead despite resurrection for plot convenience, not a big issue in my mind.

I think there's some spells in Forgotten Realms that can resurrect people against their will, creating undead lich-like creatures under the control of the caster. Most undead I think are otherwise mindless without a soul guiding them, being more like puppets.

[Shadowlord]

The D&D gold box games, which preceded Baldur's Gate in the 80s and 90s, followed the rules of D&D at the time: party members tended to go unconscious at 0 HP, and slowly bleed out until they died at -10 HP, but anyone else in the party could bandage them to stop the bleeding - or clerics/paladins could use magic to heal them, which iirc (not 100% sure about this) gets them back up if they go back to positive hp. If everyone in the party dies, though, you lose the game. If you flee, leaving them behind, they're lost forever, and you're fucked, and should reload the game. If you win the battle and have unconscious people in the party, they'll wake up when you rest but will still need healing (or a lot of rest) to fully recover, but you can recover as long as you don't get ambushed while camping. If you have dead bodies (from winning a battle in which some of your characters died), you can take them to a cleric to be resurrected, but you should just reload the game at that point because the prices are murder and you need that gold to level your characters up and stuff.

P.S. This topic might be well suited for Other Games, which has game-related discussion stuff.

[Hanzoku]

Generally, in AD&D, there are three obstacles to mass resurrection of the dead.

1- Cost
Generally speaking, Raise Dead, Resurrection and such spells have an extremely high material component cost per casting. It's certainly not something that can be done on a mass scale. As Shadowlord says, in the computer games, it's better to reload and try again then eat the cost of the spell.

2 - Power
Divine casters with the power to raise the dead are pretty rare in the world. Generally the one with your group of murderhobos can manage it, but there won't be that many NPCs capable of the feat.

3 - Will
Finally, the dead has to want to come back. It takes an important purpose or a strong will to break free of hell or return from the pleasures of heaven to the mortal realms. Sometimes, the person will simply say "thanks, but I'm not going back."

In most games, 0 HP is treated as unconscious, not outright dead.

[Akura]

or clerics/paladins could use magic to heal them, which iirc (not 100% sure about this) gets them back up if they go back to positive hp.

In 3rd Edition, at least, this is true. Their bleeding out is also stabilized if they receive any form of healing, such as a Cure Minor Wounds or having a Goodberry shoved down their throat(wait, does that work?), even if their hitpoints are still -9 - 0, though they go back to dying if they receive any damage after that.


The if I remember correctly(though I only played the demo), in Baldur's Gate II you can't resurrect {Khaleid} because {his} corpse was desecrated, not just dissected.

Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura has an interesting take on this. Except for your character(and don't know if it's ever explained why), it's supposedly possible to resurrect anyone at any time, by a sufficiently-skilled master of White Necromancy(healing magic, though some forms of Black Necromancy can probably pull it off) at only the cost of the mental concentration of the spell. Even a skilled technologist can do it using a device that's essentially built from scrap.

Spoiler: It's rather important (click to show/hide)

Kergan, the main villain, wants to wipe out all life to prevent there ever being anyone capable of casting resurrection. It's not strictly an evil desire; having been dead and resurrected before, he feels that being dead is a lot more peaceful than the conflicts of life. If you've done Vergil's sidequest, which involves him getting killed and being resurrected, he concedes that Kergan has a point. If you're a master of persuasion, you can convince him to allow you to use a device(which you were going to do anyway if you don't join him) that completely cuts his soul from life, permanently preventing him from resurrection, which is what he really does want.

There are some quest-related dead people who cannot be resurrected for some reason; trying will result in saying that there's powerful magic preventing it. Oddly, you can raise zombies from them and conjure their spirit, but they have nothing to say(the latter because conjure spirit is extremely torturous, especially if they've recently died and are reliving their death).


Another game is an H-game RPG {Knights of Xentar} where if any of your characters reach 0 HP, they're dead and it's game over.

Yet another game(this one is NOT an H-game) is Darklands, where two stats are involved: Strength and Endurance. You lose both when hit. If your Endurance hits zero, you're unconscious and if your party is wiped out what happens is dependent on what you're fighting - wild animals will probably kill and eat one or more of your party, bandits will steal your stuff and leave you to die, etc. Strength on the other hand, if that hits zero you're dead, and since it's mythologically accurate medieval Germany, you can't come back because only Jesus can do that. The idea is that, particularly with good armor, Endurance will drain faster than Strength.

[Mech#4]

I suppose in regards to the D&D settings, you could suggest that it is up to the gods whether someone comes back or not. Upon death, the persons soul goes to the deity they worshipped who decides what to do with it or whether they are willing to return it if the person has resurrection cast on them. Overarching game played with mortal lives, inscrutable goals, unknowable reasons and all that.

Though, that does leave the question about atheists. I know they end up with their souls absorbed into a wall in one of the nine hells or something but I suppose in a world with such overt interaction and physical proof of the existence of gods atheists are much rarer.

[TheBiggerFish]

PTW!

[Hanzoku]

I suppose in regards to the D&D settings, you could suggest that it is up to the gods whether someone comes back or not. Upon death, the persons soul goes to the deity they worshipped who decides what to do with it or whether they are willing to return it if the person has resurrection cast on them. Overarching game played with mortal lives, inscrutable goals, unknowable reasons and all that.

Though, that does leave the question about atheists. I know they end up with their souls absorbed into a wall in one of the nine hells or something but I suppose in a world with such overt interaction and physical proof of the existence of gods atheists are much rarer.

Yeah the whole 'Wall of the Dead' thing torqued me off in Mask of the Betrayer. About the only time I didn't take the 'good' route, because 'good' was leaving that abomination to stand.

[Akura]

For atheists, aren't they supposed to end up on the godplane that closest matches their philosophy? Also, it's kinda hard being an atheist in a setting where gods verifiably exist. Agnostic, probably. But actual denial of the existence of deities is a bit of a stretch.

[Sonlirain]

Though, that does leave the question about atheists. I know they end up with their souls absorbed into a wall in one of the nine hells or something but I suppose in a world with such overt interaction and physical proof of the existence of gods atheists are much rarer.

Yeah quite sure you'd be hard pressed to find an atheist in a world full of magic directly connected to various deities that regularly commune with mortals in various ways.
And if some atheist actually existed in a world lkike that he'd be in obvious denial... and probably a crazy hobo.

For atheists, aren't they supposed to end up on the godplane that closest matches their philosophy? Also, it's kinda hard being an atheist in a setting where gods verifiably exist. Agnostic, probably. But actual denial of the existence of deities is a bit of a stretch.

They could basically go "I don't like this god so i will pretend that he does not exist."

But let's see... in Might and Magic you can resurrect people if you have the right spell or visit a temple but there are several ways someone can "die".
Getting wailed on with weapons and directly damaging magic kills you.
Petrification is basically death.
Some spells can kill you so good that your body is simply not even there anymore (eradicated) and you need some special hard to get spells to fix that.

Also in HoMM5 Nicolai gets shanked by a demonic magic thingamajig and cannot be resurrected by normal means (angels can resurrect people basically at a whim otherwise) and has to be brought back by less savvy means
 (and it goes to shit)

[Mech#4]

For atheists, aren't they supposed to end up on the godplane that closest matches their philosophy? Also, it's kinda hard being an atheist in a setting where gods verifiably exist. Agnostic, probably. But actual denial of the existence of deities is a bit of a stretch.

It might've changed in one of the later editions. My knowledge of D&D is very centred around Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale and the Drizzt series so AD&D to about 3rd.
On the gods. I remember in Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 you come across a few gods in mortal avatar form. Specifically, you meet Mask in the form of a thief or something in Athkatla. There was also the books on Finder Wyvernspur who ends up becoming a god, also Vecna was mortal at one point.

I think it's pretty much the same in Dragonlance series. If anything, from what I remember, the gods have an even more active presence what with the war against Tiamat.


It is funny in Heroes of Might and Magic because an angel casting resurrect on a unit stack brings back different amounts of units depending on their value/toughness. You might resurrect 100 peasants but only 15 cavalier. Peasants are just naturally worth less in Ashan.

[Parsely]

For atheists, aren't they supposed to end up on the godplane that closest matches their philosophy? Also, it's kinda hard being an atheist in a setting where gods verifiably exist. Agnostic, probably. But actual denial of the existence of deities is a bit of a stretch.

Hephaestus' lightning bolts can't melt steel beams.

[USEC_OFFICER]

For atheists, aren't they supposed to end up on the godplane that closest matches their philosophy? Also, it's kinda hard being an atheist in a setting where gods verifiably exist. Agnostic, probably. But actual denial of the existence of deities is a bit of a stretch.

Personally I always thought of it more as 'these entities are not worth worshipping' as opposed to 'these entities do not exist'. Yeah there's these extremely powerful beings that perform amazing feats and which clerics draw their abilities from, but do they really need your obedience? In a world with magic and monsters like dragons, what makes these entities worthy of worship over all of the other beings? So an atheist in D&D wouldn't deny that someone like Pelor exists, given all of the things that they have done, but they would deny that Pelor is a deity that they should worship. Does that make sense?

[RangerCado]

Heres an interesting way that Pillars of Eternity handles death. (sorry for any wording errors, haven't played enough to memorize it all. Might also get the terms backwards, but you get the idea)

You have 2 hp bars effectively, Health and Endurance. When you enter combat, your HP is represented by your endurance bar. As you get hit, it drops along with your Health. At the end of a fight, your Endurance goes back to full, but your Health is still lowered. Until you go to an actual resting point, or get some powerful healing, that Health is gone. If your endurance drops to 0, you go unconscious like most games. But if your Health gets to 0, you're dead. Most healing spells early on from what I've seen only restore Endurance too.

Depending on your class determines how much Health you have, and how much can be used for Endurance per fight. (though constitution and strength(maybe) both increase your max Health)

So during a whole dungeon, its a slow war of attrition as your Health steadily falls every fight, but you never feel crippled when your health is at 1/4 before the final boss, as your Endurance was likely going to use the majority of it anyway. Its an interesting system that fixes one problem, while potentially causing another, but I'll leave that analysis to others.

[Folly]

Atheists in a magical setting with active gods might be people who believe that gods are not divine, but in reality just mortals who have achieved advanced mastery of magic?


'Baroque' had one of the most interesting death mechanics I've seen in an RPG setting. It's a roguelike, where you play an amnesiac, and with each death and rebirth you unlock new cutscenes that reveal a bit more of your story.