The best thing about Raise Dead is that it lowers your level.

[awaken_D_M_golem]

(thinking about it for a night ... )

"Experience Is A River" is available as early as level 1.
This isn't.


The party comes out ahead, once the (Treasure minus Raise Dead Cost) > 0.
This looks linear to me, up to:
The Treasure minus {(Whole Party minus One Survivor)*Raise Dead Cost} > 0
Assumes the "One Survivor" can initiate all the Raise Deads.
After that, it looks geometric.
But I don't know how to keep the barrier between levels, as a limit.
Someone up for fancy Maths on this?


I mean what's stopping a level 17 party from Raise Dead-ing all the way down to level 1 ?
And it's a better pay-out than Negative Levels.

[Tubercular Ox]

(thinking about it for a night ... )

I mean what's stopping a level 17 party from Raise Dead-ing all the way down to level 1 ?

DMG pg 54 (again)

Your job is to compare the wealth gained from the encounters in your adventure with the expected wealth gain shown on the table above. If your adventure has more treasure, reduce it. If your adventure has less treasure, plant enough treasure not related to encounters to match the value (see Other Treasure, below).

If characters go into debt to raise themselves, you're free to let them ride the river back up to their expected WBL, and you don't even have to pull any special strings.  If they lose too many levels, they're so dramatically overwealthed for their level that you're justified by the rules to just flat stop handing out treasure, until they're forced to hock enough of their items to put them right back at their expected WBL.

This is actually what I meant by "sawing at the reins."  It's not something a smart DM does (well it is, but...), it's something the guidelines tell a DM to do.  From the player end, abusing this means burning through consumables so that your wealth by level is never so far out of whack the DM is justified in cutting back.  If you start buying potions of cure serious wounds instead of wands of lesser vigor, you might even get away with it.

[awaken_D_M_golem]

Oh you sneaky Art Of War kind of guy.

The DM has explicit rules cover to nerf this altogether.
But you're advocating using it as a little extra go-go juice.

And guidelines are "just" guidelines, aren't they 

[Tubercular Ox]

Oh you sneaky Art Of War kind of guy.

The DM has explicit rules cover to nerf this altogether.
But you're advocating using it as a little extra go-go juice.

And guidelines are "just" guidelines, aren't they 

Honestly, you've made me think about it, and I may be reading it wrong.  Unfortunately, my revised understanding means there isn't any nerfing.
It's "compare wealth gained" with "expected wealth gained," not "expected wealth by level."  What it's *really* saying is if you roll random treasure too low too often, bump it up to match the middle column.  And if you roll random treasure too high too often, bump it down.  But the number you're bumping is wealth *gain* not wealth *total*, and your expected wealth gain is measured against your current level, not whatever level you may have been in the past.  So I'm wrong.  There are no guidelines in the DMG to hold back at all.  At least, not on page 54. 

I honestly feel bad about this.  My first interpretation was, "Dying doesn't suck."  But I'm reading it now and it does look like it's saying, "Dying is awesome."  That's not exactly what I intended.

Have fun with that.

[Captnq]

Uhhh...

I have many different encounters of all sorts of levels.

nobody plays bards in my game so the bards are all NPCs and have wound up as "Adventurer Agents". They take a small cut of the party treasure and in return run around promoting the party, finding adventures, tracking down rumors and what not. So the party bard (Stringer) would have a number of jobs available at any given time. If the party took a job and all got killed, I'd roll some dice and see if Stringer would find them and bring them back. Reincarnate works within a week of death, works even if only a chunk of the dead person remains, and only costs 1,000 gp in material componates. The jobs don't have to change level, Stringer just encourages them to take an easier job next time.

I don't railroad the players and have the next 14 encounters set up and figured out. I don't adjust the levels because the players should be smart enough to know when to quit and go find some where else to adventure. If they aren't, I kill them. The players worked out just fine and haven't died that often. Never had to have Stringer come and save the day.

As for exceeding the wealth by level guidelines, I just level adjust when handing out XPs. Never sat well with me that I was required to make people give up treasure they got just because they exceed the WBLG.

[awaken_D_M_golem]

Captnq ... hey Home Games can do whatever they want.
If you stick near the WBL, then BG/minmax can give you
reasonable advice.  Go off on your own WBL = wtf game
and it can boil down to slightly educated guesses.
TubeOx just found a corner case, that only an old CO-er
would love , but probably not use in game at all.

  But the number you're bumping is wealth *gain* not wealth *total*, and your expected wealth gain is measured against your current level, not whatever level you may have been in the past. 

So I'm wrong.  There are no guidelines in the DMG to hold back at all.  At least, not on page 54. 

I honestly feel bad about this.

Oh don't feel ...  ... bad about it.

Another way to think about it , is it's a money loop but a really slow and involved one.

[Nytemare3701]

Did...did WoTC write something that's legitimately self-correcting? 

[Tubercular Ox]

Did...did WoTC write something that's legitimately self-correcting? 

Seeing as it went unnoticed for years, I'm sure it was an accident.

[Nytemare3701]

Did...did WoTC write something that's legitimately self-correcting? 

Seeing as it went unnoticed for years, I'm sure it was an accident.

To be honest, that's pretty much the only way I would expect them to write it