Is Raise Dead considered to be a positive energy spell like Cure spells are?


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion

Liberty's Edge

So I have a player who drew from a Harrowed Deck of Many Things and received a card that allowed him to be immune to a type of energy. He asked for Negative(since we had recently encountered a nest of Wights).

I allowed it, and for his vulnerability I chose for him to be vulnerable to positive energy. Which comprises most of the healing spells.

His 6th level Conjurer just bit the dust in tonight's game. We were talking about it afterward and I said I thought that raise dead would work. But he doesn't think so, and I'm the DM.

Most of the spells that are positive in nature contain some form of wording in them with positive as a descriptor.

Raise Dead does not.
So I'm ruling that yes, a Raise Dead spell would work on his character, and his curse would still linger on.

Thoughts?
Am I wrong? If I am, I couldn't find a descriptor for positive energy within the Raise Dead write-up.

Thanks!


depends on if his curse is on his body or his soul. All raising the dead does is bring the soul back to the body, but it also heals the body so they dont immediately die upon returning. If the curse is on his soul then his dead body could still be restored to a livable state, and then his soul reenters it without issue. If its on his body, it would be resistant to the healing and he would just die again soon after his soul reentered.

Of course you could also easily rule that a dead body cant be healed with positive energy, and so the fixing is closer to mending than cure, in which case it doesnt matter.

Thats my interpretation, but this is way into DM discretion at this point. Work with him to come up with an amicable solution.

Liberty's Edge

Thanks, Baval.

We are in the midst, this morning, discussing it. He's all mad at himself for taking the Harrowed cards, but says he'd do it again.

See it's not JUST the negative immunity or positive vulnerability that is getting him. He also had his Handy Haversack suddenly only work underground, which it contained 80% of his scrolls and his spellbook. So it hampered him more than anything else.

And we've not had much of a break, I threw some sidequests at them just to peek their interest and instead they(the party) swallowed it whole.

So... yeah.
Thanks again1

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16

It's 'pique' their interest. :) FYI.

==Aelryinth


jhilahd wrote:

Thanks, Baval.

We are in the midst, this morning, discussing it. He's all mad at himself for taking the Harrowed cards, but says he'd do it again.

See it's not JUST the negative immunity or positive vulnerability that is getting him. He also had his Handy Haversack suddenly only work underground, which it contained 80% of his scrolls and his spellbook. So it hampered him more than anything else.

And we've not had much of a break, I threw some sidequests at them just to peek their interest and instead they(the party) swallowed it whole.

So... yeah.
Thanks again1

Does the card say you get both a vulnerability and an immunity?


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jhilahd wrote:
I allowed it, and for his vulnerability I chose for him to be vulnerable to positive energy. Which comprises most of the healing spells.

So, he takes +50% from healing spells?


Matthew Downie wrote:
jhilahd wrote:
I allowed it, and for his vulnerability I chose for him to be vulnerable to positive energy. Which comprises most of the healing spells.
So, he takes +50% from healing spells?

Healing isn't damage. It isn't affected by vulnerability.

Quote:
Vulnerabilties (Ex or Su) A creature with vulnerabilities takes half again as much damage (+50%) from a specific energy type, regardless of whether a saving throw is allowed or if the save is a success or failure. Creatures with a vulnerability that is not an energy type instead take a –4 penalty on saves against spells and effects that cause or use the listed vulnerability (such as spells with the light descriptor). Some creatures might suffer additional effects, as noted in their descriptions.

And unless he is undead, the cure spells won't deal damage, so the vulnerability won't kick in. There aren't many abilities that deal positive energy damage to living creatures.


By vulnerability, do you mean that he takes damage from heals?

You could decide to only give him half benefit on heals, or make him always try to save against positive energy, even if it would help.

Does your party have a wand of infernal healing?


Yeah basically decide what vulnerable to positive means then got from there.

Does he heal more?
Heal half as much?
Take damage alone?

How did he heal before this? If someone gave him a potion what happened?

You COULD reason (as this is all a special case) that whatever level loss he would have had is increased by one. So raise dead would give 3 levels until restored etc. As more a flavour thing than anything else. Just a suggestion that may appease all parties.


Of course, the truly evil thing to do would make him heal like an undead creature, then make him immune to negative energy.


Quote:
Vulnerability means the creature takes half again as much (+50%) damage as normal from that energy type, regardless of whether a saving throw is allowed or if the save is a success or failure.

By RAW, vulnerable to positive energy means that if someone finds a way to damage him with positive energy, he takes +50% damage. Nothing else.


Find a druid to cast reincarnate IMO.

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