Character death has always been one of the most sobering aspects of D&D. There have always been spells to bring a character back from the dead, but such spells have always had some sort of penalty built into them. For example, before D&D V3.0, not only was there a chance that the character would fail his "resurrection roll" and not come back at all, but even if he did come back to life, he would permanently lose a point of Constitution. Since the probability of succeeding at your "resurrection roll" was directly tied to your Constitution score, a player whose character died repeatedly would watch his character's Constitution march relentlessly downward. This not only decreased the character's Hit Points, making it more likely he would die again, but also made it less likely that he would successfully come back to life next time. Many a character simply retired, weak and feeble, rather than die on adventure for the last time.

Starting in D&D V3.0, several aspects of this process were made more palatable. No longer did random chance play a role in whether a character could come back to life. No longer did elves require the higher level and more expensive resurrection spell, rather than the cheap and readily available raise dead spell. No longer was the character's Constitution score harmed by being brought back from the dead. Instead, the character lost a level of experience, and even this penalty could be avoided - if a 17th level cleric could be found to cast the true resurrection spell upon the dead character and sufficient gold was available to pay for the spell.

But, in some sense, losing a character level is at least as severe a punishment as losing an ability point, since, as Andy Collins points out in his theory of The High Cost of Dying, it punishes the player as well: a level's worth of experience might represent many weeks of game play. For example, my level 15 drow, Veracity, has been adventuring for over a year in The City of the Spider Queen and has, so far, not advanced so much as a single level. Should she die and be raised via a lesser spell than true resurrection, that is a year of gaming down the drain, XP-wise.

Level Loss and restoration spells

Other modes of level-loss have long been a part of D&D. Vampires and spectres, wraiths and wights, have always been among the most-feared monsters since they could drain away experience levels with terrifying ease. Fortunately, there was a spell - restoration - which would allow such lost levels to be recovered. Here, too, V3.0 improved game play: such monsters now bestow "negative levels" which only become permanent level drain if the character fails a (possibly difficult) saving throw, 24 hours later. The restoration class of spells removes "negative levels", obviating the saving throw, and can also remove actual drained levels acquired by failing those saves, if cast soon enough after the failed save.

However, even the most powerful restoration spell was not effective at removing a level lost due to coming back from the dead: the spells specifically stated that there was no way to avoid that. Not even via a wish spell, which is puzzling: what is conceptually wrong with saying "I wish that we had bought a true resurrection spell to bring back poor Vandis, rather than a simple raise dead"?

(Perhaps this represents old-time-thinking on my part: I believe that the V3.0 wish spell is much more "here is a generic spell to harness high-level magical power in ways that other more specific spells don't address", rather than the pre-V3.0 attitude that "a wish is actually a kind of potent curse that is inflicted upon the caster by malevolent extra-planar beings: it is the DM's job to play the role of these beings by scrutinizing the exact wording used by the players and interpreting the words in the most literal and disadvantageous way possible in order to screw over the characters", which was, unfortunately, so common.)

In any case, Andy Collins, in his article, proposes that a character brought back from the dead not lose a level, but should simply acquire a negative level which could not be healed via restoration (although he did mention that a wish or miracle should work), but which would naturally go away when the character next advanced a Character Level. Until then, the character would effectively operate as a level lower, but no actual XP - and hence player game time - would be lost. He also proposed that this mechanism could be used for level drains from energy drain attacks, such as those inflicted by the undead monsters I mentioned above, although the player would then need to keep track of how each negative level was acquired, since only the energy drain inflicted ones would be curable via restoration.

In fact, that kind of bookkeeping is already necessary: a player needs to keep track of the date, at least, of each drained level, since the restoration spell only restores levels that have been drained within the recent past: one day per caster level, or one week per caster level, if the greater restoration spell is used.

Therefore, I propose here a unified mechanism to ameliorate both coming back from the dead and the long-term effects of energy drain attacks. I will describe a hierarchy of types of "negative levels" and a corresponding hierarchy of restoration spells, including a new one, true restoration.

Negative Levels

What are the game effects of a "negative level"?

As described in the energy drain section of the Dungeon Master's Guide, each a negative level that a character carries has the following baneful effects:

• -1 on all skill checks
• -1 on all ability checks
• -1 on all attack rolls
• -1 on all saving throws
• -5 hit points
• -1 effective level for any roll in which that is a factor, such as Caster Level Checks
• loss of one spell slot from the spellcaster's highest available spell level

This is an abstraction, of course: the character may have had more or less than 5 hit points and may have gained multiple spell slots, but the general "feel" of character afflicted in such a way is more or less that of a character one level lower.

Negative levels are now classified into three "types". The game effects of each are identical: all afflict the character as described above. They differ only in how they are acquired and how they can be removed.

Types of negative levels

Type	Caused By	Cured By
temporary	energy drain attacks	Successful Fortitude save restoration or better
semi-permanent	Failed Fortitude save	Timely restoration or better Character Level advancement
permanent	raise dead or resurrection spell	true restoration Character Level advancement

A character afflicted by an energy drain attack takes some number of "temporary negative levels". 24 hours later, the character must make a Fortitude save against a particular Difficulty Class for each such "temporary negative level". A successful save means that the negative level is removed. A failed save means that the negative level is now a "semi-permanent negative level". Any time before the character is required to make such Fortitude saves, any restoration spell more powerful than lesser restoration will remove all "temporary negative levels", along with healing ability damage and drain.

A character who has acquired a "semi-permanent negative level" does have some options. A restoration spell cast within one day per Caster Level will remove one "semi-permanent negative level", as well as healing all ability damage and drain; a greater restoration spell cast within one week per Caster Level will restore all recently acquired "semi-permanent negative levels", as will a true restoration spell cast at any time. And finally, simple adventuring can cure the affliction: acquiring enough XP to go up a Character level will remove the oldest "semi-permanent" or "permanent negative level" afflicting a character.

A character acquires a "permanent negative level" when she is brought back from the dead with a raise dead or resurrection spell. The true restoration spell will remove the oldest "permanent negative level": in some sense, the combination of raise dead and true restoration is the equivalent of the character having used a true resurrection spell in the first place. And again, simply acquiring enough XP to go up a Character level will remove the oldest "permanent negative level" afflicting a character.

restoration-type spells

There is a hierarchy of spells that heal ability and level damage and draining.

Spell	Spell Level	Minimum Caster Level	Material Cost	XP Cost	Heals
restoration	5	9	100 gp	—	All ability damage and drain All "temporary negative levels" The oldest "semi-permanent negative levels" acquired within the recent past: within one day per Caster Level
greater restoration	7	13	2,500 gp	—	All ability damage and drain All "temporary negative levels" All "semi-permanent negative levels" acquired within the recent past: within one week per Caster Level
true restoration	9	17	20,000 gp	—	All ability damage and drain All "temporary negative levels" All "semi-permanent negative levels" The oldest "permanent negative level"

Note that the player must maintain a record of each negative level the character has acquired, including the date upon which is was acquired and the "type" of negative level: temporary, semi-permanent, or permanent. Upon receiving restoration magic, all "temporary negative levels" and one or more sufficiently recent "semi-permanent negative levels" are erased. Upon Character Level advancement, the oldest permanent or semi-permanent negative level is erased.

1. The greater restoration spell, as defined in the Player's Handbook, has a cost of 500 XP. The regular restoration spell has a simple 100 gp cost. Why did the designers switch from a gp cost to an XP cost? I suspect it is because the 7th level V2 restoration spell had an "aging" cost: the Cleric would age three years when she cast it. In V3.0, most such "aging" costs became "XP" costs; wish, and limited wish being prime examples.

   I find the switch from a "material" cost to an "XP" cost inconsistent; the raise dead, resurrection, and true resurrection sequence of increasingly powerful spells has an increasingly more expensive gp cost; it does not switch mid-stream to requiring an XP cost.

   Using the defined ratio of 1 XP = 5 gp, I converted the 500 XP cost to be 2,500 gp.

2. Andy Collins proposed that a wish or miracle spell could cure one "permanent negative level". Each of those spells has a 5,000 XP cost, or 25,000 gp. I considered using that amount of gp as the material cost for true restoration, but scaled it back somewhat: it seems to me that the combination of raise dead (for 5,000 gp) and true restoration (for 20,000 gp) is about the equivalent of true resurrection (for 25,000 gp).
3. What about permanent Constitution loss that a level one character suffers if he dies and is raised? That, too, is supposedly "not curable by any means." I think true restoration should fix that, as well, although I suspect that most level one characters don't get raised, much less restored.

Raise dead sequence of spells:

Restoration sequence of spells: