Last night I tried out the death clutch spell from Horror Adventures on my players, & it quickly became apparent that the spell is either broken as written or we're missing some key understanding of its function.
Per the spell's description:
Chanting an unholy litany, you reach out with a grasping motion toward your target and cause its heart to leap out of its chest and into your hand. A target with 200 or fewer hit points remaining that fails its saving throw is instantly reduced to a number of negative hit points equal to your caster level or its Constitution score – 1, whichever is less negative. The creature is staggered until the beginning of your next turn, at which point it dies. If the affected creature receives a regenerate spell before the beginning of your next turn, the creature gains the normal benefits of that spell and, thanks to its heart’s regeneration, it doesn’t immediately die when your next turn begins. If a creature that dies from death clutch is brought back from the dead by a breath of life or raise dead spell, it must also be targeted with regenerate on the following round to restore its missing heart or be unable to return to life.
The questions that arose are:
1. How is it possible for the target to receive a regenerate spell before the beginning of the caster's next turn, when regenerate has a casting time of 3 full rounds? Is it enough for the victim to simply have been targeted by regenerate before the next round to qualify, as long as the spell's casting is completed in the subsequent rounds?
2. Per the regenerate spell, missing body parts take 2d10 rounds to grow back; what is the victim's status during this time? Are they able to act normally as long as they have positive hit points, or are they incapacitated until the process is completed?