Sword and Sorcery Campaigns 

Sword and Sorcery campaigns have a much different feel to them than normal D&D campaigns. They are characterised by an absence of what most players would think of as treasure and a general overall lower level of power. Mechanically as a GM there are a few things you should be aware of.

Challenge Ratings 

Sword and Sorcery characters as a group tend to be less powerful than their D&D counterparts once you get above the first few levels. You should adapt the CR of monsters bearing this in mind. I find it best simply to give out flat experience awards based on how well I think the players did rather than CR. Certain monsters are much deadlier in an S&S environment simply because they may have attacks with which the players simply cannot deal. Energy and ability drains fall under this heading. I have tried to deal with these issues above.

Unforgiving Environments 

Generally speaking S&S environments are far less forgiving than normal D&D ones. Dead usually means dead, for example. 

I believe D&D was originally influenced by the S&S source material, it diverges from it in many ways, and most of those ways usually have to do with player survivability. It’s extremely uncommon even in epic fantasy novels to have major characters resurrected for example. It’s not uncommon for this to happen in a D&D game. The reasons are obvious. In a story the author has far more control over the fates of his characters, and if the character is dead, it’s for the reason that the author wanted him to be that way. This is not a reason most players will accept when it comes to their characters. 

All the healing and resurrection spells are designed to insure players against the simple bad luck they are statistically bound to endure when playing a dice driven game. Roll enough dice and any bad result no matter how unlikely will eventually happen. By taking away the spells that counter this you are effectively taking away the player’s insurance policy. This is great for tension and excitement, but bad for long term player survivability. What are the options for dealing with this? Here are a couple:

Accept it. 

Death is a fact of life in the S&S world just as it is in our own. The player characters are not Conan or Elric or the hero of an ongoing genre series, they are characters in a game set in a world where death is inescapable. They just need to be cautious. You should probably allow players to preserve their experience total though so that if they die, they start with the same amount of XP as their previous character. This will soften the sting a little. They should not get any experience points for the scenario in which they died.