D&D 5E The reincarnate table is an interesting thing

[Cap'n Kobold]

Finding a druid who is willing to pervert the laws of nature and bring you back to life again and again can be tricky.
Some may object to you trying to use their powers to "game the system". Others may prefer not to bring back someone who has chosen to die.

 

[Perun]

I don't get what reincarnate costs twice as much as raise dead. True, raise dead brings you back at 1 hp, doesn't restore any missing limbs, and doesn't remove magical diseases, curses, or similar effects, whereas reincarnate gives you a new body, so any such effects are effectively ended, and you are back at full hp. But, you get a random new body, which can provide a great role-playing opportunity and enable new character development, but, OTOH, can be fairly big pain in the, er, lower back.

The older versions of the spell let a reincarnated character to essentially create a different character, of they wanted to do so, with a new race, class, etc., but with most of the memories of the old one. The new version doesn't have this option.

Meh. As it stands, I'd say raise dead is a better option 8 or 9 times out of 10, and reincarnate probably sees regular use only in parties with druid as the sole divine caster.

As a sidenote, I completely forgot that reincarnate used to be a wizard spell, too. Also, the default 2e druid did not have access to reincarnate. Weird!

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I don't get what reincarnate costs twice as much as raise dead.

I think it's to discourage spamming it as discussed, and yeah as you point out, aside from you being a random different race, it is a better spell. A min-maxer's nightmare though.

I am in retrospect disappointed by the lack of animals on the chart. Maybe I can talk to the DM about that - I'm currently playing a druid in one game and whilst far short of reincarnate level (well, hmmm I guess it's only 9 so not that far), I feel like the big "Well, guys, here's the thing - I can't cast Raise Dead, only Reincarnate, so prepare for excitement!" reveal, especially if the chart had badgers and so on on it, would be fantastic. I'm almost sad they added Revivify in the UA! If all I had was reincarnate, by the end of the campaign I could be in a party of talking animals with class levels who all kind of hated me. It would be amazing.

 

[Quartz]

am in retrospect disappointed by the lack of animals on the chart. Maybe I can talk to the DM about that - I'm currently playing a druid in one game and whilst far short of reincarnate level (well, hmmm I guess it's only 9 so not that far),

There's always the pssibility of a scroll...

Having badgers and whatnot didn't matter so much back in the day but with the more RP-oriented mindset these days, I'm now not so sure.

 

[Fanaelialae]

I've house ruled it. The player chooses 4 new races (subject to DM approval) and rolls a 1d6. 1-4 results in one of those races. 5 results in their current race, but in a new, different looking body. 6 is DM's choice . It gives the player a lot of agency as to what they might come back as, without offering any guarantee. I think this came out of someone else's idea that I read about on ENWorld, which was quite similar.

As to killing and reincarnating a character repeatedly, I would personally have that traumatize the character. I don't think the intent of the spell is to euthanize your ally repeatedly and bring them back until they get what they want. Though, admittedly, I'd be sympathetic if playing on the old tables where you could come back as a badger. I actually implemented the above house rule with the intent of circumventing the temptation to do so.

 

[Shiroiken]

Reincarnate has always been the equivalent of playing poker with a Deck of Many Things*. I've only know players to have it done if no other option is available, and even then a few decided to just make a new character. The only time I had it cast upon me was when I was playing a paladin of the goddess of beauty... and I came back as an orc. I told my best friend to kill me, and leave me dead, as I've obviously offended my goddess.


*Yes, I had a high level party of idiots do this. No, it didn't end well.

 

[Richards]

In a previous 3.5 campaign, one of the players ran a human paladin PC. During the course of the campaign he was slain and reincarnated as an elf - so far, so good. Then the demonic heritage in his blood (he had a nalfeshnee demon as a multiple-great-grandfather) was "jump started" and he became a tiefling - still lawful good and thus still a paladin; not optimal, but what can you do? ...And then he was transformed into a vampire during an evil ritual and became an unwilling and self-loathing servant of Orcus. (At that point he became an NPC.)

In my current 3.5 campaign, another player is a human wizard whose mother is a distant cousin of the Emperor of her faraway homeland. She was tracked down and slain by members of the new regime and her husband, a druid, reincarnated her - and she came back as an orc. It's worked out okay, though, as it allowed her to slip into the group of orcs and goblins that have been attacking the kingdom the wizard lives in and she'll be a vital factor in them finding out where all these attacks are coming from.

Other than that, I can't recall reincarnation being much of a factor in our campaigns.

Johnathan

 

[jmartkdr2]

Your DM was being rather generous in two ways:

One, in allowing you-as-badger to keep your previous intelligence, memories etc., thus to realize you didn't want to be a badger.

Two, in allowing multiple rebirths in such a short time (even though RAW says it can happen, I'd still be looking for a few system shock rolls in there after the first rebirth).

If you lose all your memories, etc - you've still lost the character, which means the reincarnate didn't really do what you cast it for: to let you keep a character who died.

Now, that can simply be part of the risk, but form a meta-perspective, the spell failed. You still need to roll up a new pc.

 

[Lanefan]

If you lose all your memories, etc - you've still lost the character, which means the reincarnate didn't really do what you cast it for: to let you keep a character who died.

Now, that can simply be part of the risk, but form a meta-perspective, the spell failed. You still need to roll up a new pc.

If it gets to the point of using Reincarnation I'm already resigned to the fact that one of two things is almost certainly going to happen: (1) I'll be playing a new character or (2) I'll be playing a new character.

(1) if I come back as a different playable race and-or class
(2) if I come back as a badger or somethig else unplayable and have to roll up something new.

 

[jmartkdr2]

If it gets to the point of using Reincarnation I'm already resigned to the fact that one of two things is almost certainly going to happen: (1) I'll be playing a new character or (2) I'll be playing a new character.

(1) if I come back as a different playable race and-or class
(2) if I come back as a badger or somethig else unplayable and have to roll up something new.

See, I would disagree with the semantics here:

When my dragonborn paladin died and was reincarnated as a dwarf, he was still Firtina Da'Karsirga. He wasn't suddenly a totally new person with a different story to be told. He was just shorter and beard-ier. He had the same class, memories, goals, flaws, personality, background and friends.