Having observed things for a while, and played a cleric, I've come to think that raise dead eating your exp and ressurrection taking a diamond to work is a bit unfair.
The ability to raise your fallen companions serves only to get them back into the action on the spot, instead of having them to respawn in a temple or a similar location. That's really the only beneefit. Raise dead even fails in that, since it places your friend in a direct danger of dying again - and losing further gold and xp.
The problem is a simple one: raise dead can end up taking more exp (delevel) than respawning through a faith token would. Ressurrection works only as a cheap raise dead, since diamonds are ridiculously rare (I take all of you don't even know how to get them - neither do I).
What I'm saying is that this kind of setting makes two spells unique to cleric rather useless - even harmful to use. Why is this? It's not like people didn't raise from dead in this setting often enough, returning to temples and such and even being helped by dieties directly. Surely it can't be that you'd think that it'd be out of place to have a diety's direct messenger being able to perform such feats without risking the diety's ire - after all your actions serve to further the word about the diety you serve.
Moreover, there are not so many clerics on the server that are able to perform ressurrection that one should feel a need to limit their amount and abilities in order to make people's life harder, and the ones that die are more often new player characters, whose losing of xp and gold serves little purpose. Actually deleveling them through "helping" is not helping either.
The only situation that makes the cleric's spells a bit harsh is when in combat with other players, and being able to even odds by raising your party members as they fall. However, it is not entirely unfair as the other side could have clerics as well, and since there is a rest timer, you can not just go into an endless spree of ressurrecting your fallen. That is not the only thing that limits one's ressurrections, as some of the cleric's best offensive spells are at the same level (word of faith, destruction).
This being the case, it must be also stated that the situations where a cleric is present and a player dies are rather rare. It is not often that a cleric gets an opportunity to shine and help people in such a dire situation. Therefore it is a bit unreasonable to actually be able only to hinder them, unless you have some diamonds. Even if you had some, would you waste them on a newcomer, or on an ally of your level to pass a quest or beat some monster? In general, restricting raise dead and ressurrection seems rather pointless (even if p'n'p is cool), since you are bound to end up dead more often in nwn - and especially in this server. Also, as respawning seems to be rather expensive for high level (epic) characters, having a cleric around might be a great relief. I do not see any rp being damaged by giving the class some value over just being the divine buffbot.
(During most of the campaigns I've played on p'n'p, we usually end up using ressurrection only once if at all - one time being when our monk was turned into a gem golem and we anhillated him.. ah the memories.)
_________________ More, just to be sure I got what I wanted, so naturally I want more What I paid for, entertain me now All I want is more, cos I like it Too good to let it go, keep it coming Cos I want more, cos I'm not sure What I really wanted, so all I want is more
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