Micah Sweet
Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
Disagree. My players always knew about it, and you accepted it as a price for playing an elf (just like dwarf magic item failure and level limits). Rules that support flavor/setting are basically the way rules are supposed to work IMO. Feeling differently is fine of course, but just preference.It was dumb because it was a hidden gotcha rule. It's not in the elf racial rules, it's hidden in the raise dead spell description and it reads "elves are kewl, but if you die then you lose your PC forever*." I'm pretty sure most people didn't even know the rule existed and I'm pretty sure it was one of the first rule 0's that DMs made.
On a flavor scale, it's cool. On a practical level, it's right up there with level limits and dwarf magic item failure on the "this is designed to screw your players" list.
I also recall all humanoids in the Complete Book of Humanoids had a similar prohibition because of course they would. Anything to discourage players from actually playing those races
* If you're playing in the kind of game that raise dead was even an option..
And what beings Raise Dead does and does not work on should be in the spell description. It's not like you can cast the spell without reading it.