Change Recall Spirit Back to Raise Dead

[Jen Joy]

Currently, Recall Spirit (Spirit Shaman LVL 11 Feat) works the same as Revivify, with the Casting Time limited to ten minutes, with a two-minute cooldown afterwards. This is a single-toggle, single-character use feat once per rest.

Previously, Recall Spirit used to function as a Raise Dead spell.

Since we are not in a turn-based game, and with Stabilise Wands being in abundance, it would be nice to see Recall Spirit being returned back into being a Raise Dead. This would give some gravitas to this rather nifty feat rewarded for Spirit Shamans after 11 levels of investment, which only works 1/day and only on a single person. It would also help return some of the previously existing Role-Play venues, which are no longer available with the feat quality change.

[Afendaria]

Having just coincidentally looked through the class last night during some lore research, I'll put my thoughts into a response. I imagine this feat was changed to make sense based on the description of both the in game feat, as well as pen and paper. Based on the description, I suspect it was changed to become Revivify due to the idea that the spell revivify is essentially the same thing as the feat "Recall Spirit" describes in pen and paper, whereas Raise Dead proper as a spell is much more powerful and can bring back the dead who have left the body for a number of days depending on caster level.

In pen and paper ( and summarized in our mod version for spirit shaman ) it reads:

"At 11th level, a spirit shaman gains the ability to call back the spirit of a dead creature before the spirit of the deceased has completely left the body. Once per week, she can reconnect a spirit to its body, restoring life to a recently deceased creature. The ability must be used within 1 round of the victim's death."

Revivify does the same - it returns someone to life before one round passes, without the nasty side effects of having actually died. We've translated that to ten minutes in our mod instead of using rounds. So there is ten minutes to put the soul back into the dead before it goes towards the Fugue or its afterlife. If you wait too long and must use the "Raise Dead" spell proper, that indicates the spirit (soul) has already left, and would require divine intervention through a cleric or a scroll or another divine caster with a similar spell in order to return them to life, or simply put: only the power of the gods can save them now.

So to me, anyways, the feat Recall Spirit seems to make sense now following lore proper. It doesn't actually allow you to call back the soul that has already departed the body - it is supposed to stop them from departing completely and put them back into the body while their soul still lingers around it , just like revivify does.

[selhan]

In my Pov...Mechanically speaking..

One -
Under 5 minutes, Salt works
Over 5 minutes, Something Else works
Beyond that, Something else should work other than having to leave the dungeon + use travel time, via transitions or teleport, just to rez someone to avoid the debuffs and trying to head back to interest of location prior to their deaths etc , and no longer have the desire nor motivation to finish the run ((Mechanically Gameplay speaking)) Cause lets face some facts, Character like mine rather keep his diamonds then resurrect the unknown the unfriend, the random stranger. Or...theres no use leaving your body dead and cold with hopes someone will come to bring it to the land of living when nothing in their belongings has the ability to do so other than drag your heavy carcass to some cleric etc whos likely not even anywhere near the vicinity. Which overall you tend to hear someone make a negative comment about that system. Must the long cast really be a thing? In a game where we can use imagination of being in Waterdeep without physically being there, I think we can due away with all that.

Two -
Make Raise Dead Great Again
This is a D&D Game, fans who love the pnp likes the game designed around pnp, but once again a realization is this is just a Video Game to enjoy. If its not enjoyable, then its doing something wrong. It gets to a point we look selective in what we have far as pnp which is a very bad outlook cause it tends to look like certain thing are favored over others. Until everything is pnp across the board i think its better theres some middle ground balance for the sake of fairness and enjoyment.

Three -
A class specialty should shine which should keep them wanted or needed for specialty. Improving them is my opinion , and not by nerfing or taking away everything else around them.

Four-
Use in an Event Well the DM sets the atmosphere and the rules of whats allowed and not allowed If anything one would expect all forms of Pnp to happen during those. Which made it quite useful when a DM made a "What to Expect in my Events' Threads. Gave players the ideal of what sort of game play they will experience.

[Ithilan]

Perhaps a redundant question, or misplaced, I apologise if so.

But other topics are touching on the class identity of certain spells and abilities, I think Sel is touching on it here too. The line between immersion, fun gameplay and the settings upon which we try and mould the server. I find myself a little confused in that conversation, as we want various abilities to be tied in to class identity, but at the same time we also make convenience in other areas that could fall in the same category?

Clerics are largely redundant for tackling death on our server, I can not remember the last time I even had an opportunity to RP that aspect of being a cleric, before someone had crammed a Bloodstaunch or otherwise, down the throat of the fallen. Where Bloodstaunch should stop bleeding, not drag your spirit back from the fugue.

So how does these interpretations align with our want for immersion and convenience, I think they are slightly at odds with each other at times.

On the topic itself, I know little about spirit shamans I concede, but from my understanding Recall Spirit should function as a raise dead spell, just flavour texted to match Spirit Shaman lore, no?

[Afendaria]

But other topics are touching on the class identity of certain spells and abilities, I think Sel is touching on it here too. The line between immersion, fun gameplay and the settings upon which we try and mould the server. I find myself a little confused in that conversation, as we want various abilities to be tied in to class identity, but at the same time we also make convenience in other areas that could fall in the same category?

So how does these interpretations align with our want for immersion and convenience, I think they are slightly at odds with each other at times.

They are very much at odds, yes. In another thread there was discussion involving Speak to Animals, Dead, plants, etc . We covered a similar topic where we mentioned wands make some abilities and spells for some classes become pointless. Why do we need a druid present when I myself with my wand can talk to animals? We dont need a cleric to restore the dead's life. We have convenience and fun balancing itself with immersion - but it sometimes crosses over in a way that makes some rp aspects for spells and feats on some classes a little redundant.

Clerics are largely redundant for tackling death on our server, I can not remember the last time I even had an opportunity to RP that aspect of being a cleric, before someone had crammed a Bloodstaunch or otherwise, down the throat of the fallen. Where Bloodstaunch should stop bleeding, not drag your spirit back from the fugue.

I disagree! There is a shovel, the ground, and a tombstone available. Dealing with death is easily done in other ways!

Regarding Bloodstaunch, it is the same for Stabilize, really. Stabilize in pen and paper is supposed to stop the dying and those bleeding out from actually dying. You cannot stabilize the dead. There is no life left in the dead to stabilize. But for our mod, we have given people a five minute grace period (or maybe its also five minutes in never winter nights 2 vanilla?) where we seem to consider those who are past the bleeding out stage to be "at death's door", and with the abundance of such items and wands available to quickly to revive someone, you can just spam a Stabilize wand mid battle and bring people back from death.

On the topic itself, I know little about spirit shamans I concede, but from my understanding Recall Spirit should function as a raise dead spell, just flavour texted to match Spirit Shaman lore, no?

Revivify and Recall Spirit are both magic / an ability that prevents the spirit from going to the Fugue / Afterlife and are far more lore appropriate than using stabilize and bloodstuanches when someone has actually died moments ago. They use the exact same wording in their PnP versions and revivify also states this in game - it prevents the soul from leaving the body completely. Both Recall Spirit and Revivify in the rulebooks state they function as the Raise Dead Spell (as in, bring them back to life) , without the negative effects of Raise Dead Spell, but it must be be cast within one round of someone's death (which we have made ten minutes in our mod mechanically), while the spirit is still present around/in the body. They have died, but need a moment to depart because after that round (ten minutes for us) the soul is gone, fugue bound, trapped elsewhere or wherever, and is beyond the powers of the Spirit Shaman / the revivify spell once they pass that round (or ten minutes) because they are no longer with the body so to speak. You would need an actual Raise Dead Spell or Resurrection to bring that person back from the dead because the soul has fully departed.


That all being said, I dont think the problem will be solved if we changed Recall Spirit to become the full on Raise Dead Spell. The feat would become more than what is intended by lore, and it would not change the fact that everyone already has something to revive the dead on hand within five minutes anyways. There are enough people out there with UMD that they will have resurrection or revivify handy if it crosses the 5 or 10 minute mark anyways. Every single person has the miraculous powers of a Cleric or Spirit Shaman, but since we are, as Sel states, in a video game and not a sit down pen and paper game, that may be for the best when it comes to convenience and entertainment for many people.