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Been wondering, as it has a large impact on my party's willingness to be reincarnated...
Reincarnate spell touches a dead creature, creates a new body for them, and puts the willing soul into it. No particular ordered is described for the process.
Does the willing soul know what form the reincarnated body is going to be?
Or rather, what order does the spell execute? Does the new body get created and then require the willing soul, or does the willing soul know it will be put in a random body?
I will note that the spell can be cast on a dead creature which is unwilling to be reincarnated. The spell fails, but I've been unclear if the unwilling comes from knowing the body would be an a random one, or because the soul just doesn't want to be alive again.
With reincarnate or raise dead, does the willing soul know that which spell is being cast? Or is it just a shiny red second chance "button" that shows up in the after life?
Greetings, fellow traveller.
From the wording I'd go with
1st: is the soul willing or not as it is mentioned before the body stuff.
2nd: the new form is created
3rd: if 1st was positively answered, the former party member is reincarnated and you follow the process described further.
The main problem here is not the wording of the spell nor its intention but how meta-gamey your players are.
Depending on how you do the rolling of dice the player(s) in question of course will know what the new race will be and this might influence their descision.
You know your group best: would they play along being reincarnated into a sub-optimal body (a bugbear for the former face in a human centric campaign might not be something they're able to bear)?
If they say "no" I'd not bother with this spell, if they're willing to invest and roleplaying has a place at your table lots of rewarding moments will ensue, I'm sure.
Ruyan.
Bringing Back the Dead: Several spells have the power to restore slain characters to life.
When a living creature dies, its soul departs its body, leaves the Material Plane, travels through the Astral Plane, and goes to abide on the plane where the creature's deity resides. If the creature did not worship a deity, its soul departs to the plane corresponding to its alignment. Bringing someone back from the dead involves magically retrieving his soul and returning it to his body. For more information on the planes, see Environment.
Negative Levels: Any creature brought back to life usually gains one or more permanent negative levels (see Special Abilities). These levels apply a penalty to most rolls until removed through spells such as restoration. If the character was 1st level at the time of death, he loses 2 points of Constitution instead of gaining a negative level.
Preventing Revivification: Enemies can take steps to make it more difficult for a character to be returned from the dead. Keeping the body prevents others from using raise dead or resurrection to restore the slain character to life. Casting trap the soul prevents any sort of revivification unless the soul is first released.
Revivification against One's Will: A soul can't be returned to life if it doesn't wish to be. A soul knows the name, alignment, and patron deity (if any) of the character attempting to revive it and may refuse to return on that basis.
Knowing even the exact spell that is cast is housing ruling. Though, it's certainly possible for the dead to assume if they know the abilities of who's reviving them.
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As a follow up, says spell "does not work" if the target is unwilling.
They never define "does not work" in the description. Maybe somewhere more generic, but I have to ask:
If the spell does not work (due to unwilling target), does the spell:
-Use up a casting of the spell?
-Use up the oils worth 1000gp?
-Create a random lifeless body over the next hour?
-Damage, destroy, or otherwise alter the dead creature touched?
Also, if the unwilling target refuses and is brought back via another caster/method, do they recall the attempt? What details do they remember?
I'd say yes to
-Use up a casting of the spell?
-Use up the oils worth 1000gp?
-Create a random lifeless body over the next hour?
and no to
-Damage, destroy, or otherwise alter the dead creature touched?
Ruyan.
Traditionally at our tables, the dead character does not know what precise spell is being used, nor which form it will be in the case of Reincarnate.
Equally traditionally, a reincarnated character does have the option of suicide-via-monster for a chance to try again. (Or by any other means.)
After all, if it weren't for traditions like this, we'd never meet a rival adventuring party like the one in the late 1e Castle Greyhawk module. :)
For those not in the know: after a near-TPK, their Druid reincarnated the others. According to the module, "they did not get lucky". The Paladin came back as a pixie (his warhorse died of laughter), the Wizard came back as a badger (with a tendency to bite ankles and barely able to use his Staff of the Magi), and the Thief came back as a centaur (with a racial modifier of -85% to Climb Walls, so she treasures her Ring of Flying). Although the party was willing to kill themselves and try again, unfortunately their Druid ran afoul of a pack of wights and was level-drained down to L 3. So they were stuck in their current forms.
Yes, it was a comedy module. (And yes, there were some questionable goals behind it.)
Does the willing soul know what form the reincarnated body is going to be?
...With reincarnate or raise dead, does the willing soul know that which spell is being cast? Or is it just a shiny red second chance "button" that shows up in the after life?
"Salve of Second chance" allows you to roll twice and pick which one you want. In this case you do know what the forms are.
We also tend to modify the list of races given--as we play in a human-centric homebrew where gnolls, bugbears, elves (sic!) and other races are unknown.
Ruyan.
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We also tend to modify the list of races given--as we play in a human-centric homebrew where gnolls, bugbears, elves (sic!) and other races are unknown.
Ruyan.
Completely agree with changing that table. The spell even describes that table as being more optional than anything. Quite honestly, I've been surprised that there isn't already an entire supplement dedicated to this spell and variants of it. Easily my favorite spell.
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I had a GM that rolled randomly for which of the big bestiarys to use and then rolled randomly for the page number to see what I became with a reincarnate. It was a special reincarnate done by a god of chaos against my characters will. I tried to argue that you couldn't reincarnate against peoples will and he looked and me and said: "GOD! So nya nya!" :D
Why the god did it is a story that is too long to get into.
Wonderful GM.
Also, there is now a (Grand) witch hex which allows unwilling reincarnation. In fact, it doesn't even require them to be dead, the ability kills a living creature and forces the reincarnation...
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Knowing even the exact spell that is cast is housing ruling. Though, it's certainly possible for the dead to assume if they know the abilities of who's reviving them.Bringing Back the Dead: Several spells have the power to restore slain characters to life.
Revivification against One's Will: A soul can't be returned to life if it doesn't wish to be. A soul knows the name, alignment, and patron deity (if any) of the character attempting to revive it and may refuse to return on that basis.
Thanks, I couldn't remember where that was and it bugged me.
Speak with Dead or Augury may be useful in confirming a soul is willing to return before casting Reincarnate or Raise. The limitation on the former is that it won't reveal whether the soul's opinions on being raised change after death. I think Planar Ally would allow you to request a particular soul/petitioner and negotiate its return to life but it's a little dicey.
"Salve of Second chance" allows you to roll twice and pick which one you want. In this case you do know what the forms are.
But it doesn't specify you (as the soul) know what the forms are before you decide to return. You could easily be presented with the choice after definitively leaving the afterlife but before re-entering the new body.
The Wizard in my Kingmaker campaign got Reincarnate cast on him. The character didn't want to die, and didn't question the method by which he was brought back to life, though he was rather shocked to find himself in the body of a bugbear.
That may be so, but bugbears are murderous psychopaths in Golarion. He chose to use magic to disguise himself in his old human form.
Sage the Wizard is a human stuck in a bugbear's body.
The spell didn't warp his mind. That is very much a good thing.
That's what he did, though he later made a public announcement to the people of the barony about it. The revelation caused some confusion and gossip but Sage didn't lose face despite the transformation.
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First: While you are technically right that speak with dead doesn't know if the answer changed after death (ie. seeing what the afterlife is like), I as the GM would allow the player to answer it with that knowledge (And I know that it isn't RAW but I don't care)
Yeah, we do too, but since we're in the rules forum it seemed appropriate to point out the RAW limitations.
It depends on the type of campaign you are running.
As a GM I would never "force" a player to play a character they didn't want to play.
So I would probably ask the player to come up with an interesting idea for a race to play as a reincarnated character, if they were willing to play such a character. I would say that the new character could gain some interesting things from his new race as long as there was still a down side.
If it's good for the story I'd let a player choose what he comes back as.
Some of my players would probably prefer to roll and see what happens though. :)
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I am not sure how to note one looking like they have a very specific genetic condition, if I can never speak of the condition in question.
Is Dwarfism something I can make references to?
I think dwarfism is a human genetic condition, while being a dwarf is a PF race option.
It depends on the type of campaign you are running.
As a GM I would never "force" a player to play a character they didn't want to play.
So I would probably ask the player to come up with an interesting idea for a race to play as a reincarnated character, if they were willing to play such a character. I would say that the new character could gain some interesting things from his new race as long as there was still a down side.
If it's good for the story I'd let a player choose what he comes back as.
Some of my players would probably prefer to roll and see what happens though. :)
The notable difference between a reincarnated character and "forcing" a player to play another race, is that the reincarnation isn't entirely the same thing. It functions more like raise dead, but with bestow curse added to gain access at earlier levels. The PC changes race only on the outside, losing access to both past racial traits and the racial traits of the new form. Although duration is permanent, the PC can be reverted to their "true" form via certain spells.
I will also add that reincarnate is is the only spell that I know of which can return to life PCs which died of old age. It also requires only a small portion of the deceased creature, so is closer to resurrection in this respect.
On a side note, NPCs which take trophies of killed PCs are very dangerous to parties that only have a cleric to raise dead. This is because raise dead doesn't restore lost parts, unlike reincarnate.
I quite like reincarnate myself, though I have yet to have one of my players have to use it. I would create custom tables though, and probably make "salve of the second chance" more available than normal. Still, weird stuff it is.
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Reincarnate doesn't either. It just gives you a whole new set of different parts.
On a side note, NPCs which take trophies of killed PCs are very dangerous to parties that only have a cleric to raise dead. This is because raise dead doesn't restore lost parts, unlike reincarnate.
Yeah, I suppose your right. I just meant that a NPC which took an arm or the eyes from a PC they killed, would really, really impair raise dead's effectiveness, while it wouldn't overly impact reincarnate.