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My group made it into the Ziggurat this weekend after a couple of sessions battling Bellaxus and his gang in Kuluth Mar. Nezzarin went down like a chump and they entered the main structure. They chose the room with the Swords and the Wormcaller. What ensued was a classic 'doorway' fight between the main room and the library, which ended when the group sorceress (Marzena) blocked the doorway off with a Wall of Force. This isolated a single sword in the room with the party, and they dispatched it. With the time left on the Wall of Force, the party healed and prepared to fight off the remaining Swords. When the Wall came down, the party cleric cast two consecutive blade barriers and Marzena threw a bunch of fireballs to try and coax the Swords to come through the blade barriers. I resolved this situation by opening the door behind them and turning Kelvos and his Archons loose. Things got ugly and mistakes were made.
The cleric was killed by a discorporating dive and Marzena Teleported out with his corpse, and returned just in time to get a harm spell from Kelvos that took her to about -100 hp. The party shadowdancer and fighter both escaped, leaving the corpses of Marzena and a cohort in the main chamber. This left me with a couple of questions to answer, and I'm hoping for some help...
1. Is there anything left of Marzena after being sent to -100 hp land? Does she explode, or melt or something? Is there enough of her left to make a proper spawn of Kyuss for when the party returns, or are they going back in search of a DNA sample for a resurrection spell? And is there a guideline for what she animates as (Spawn or something more powerful)?
2. I ruled that Discorporating Dive was not a death affect, so the rogue was able to use a Raise Dead scroll to bring the cleric back to life. Is that correct?
And boy did I let them off the hook. I forgot that the Blade Barriers should have dropped when the cleric went down, releasing the two remaining Swords and the Wormcaller. And I forgot to dismiss the fighter's Stoneskin when Marzena died. They wiggled out of a TPK for sure. Oh well, there's always next time.
1.I always thought harm can only bring you down to 1hp?
2. Sorry I do not know.
Spells normally do not end when the caster is killed or unconscious, except if they need concentration, at least that is what I thought.
Correct, you cannot kill anything with harm.
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Correct, you cannot kill anything with harm.
I had a feeling some other issues might be raised in the responses to my query - oops. That probably would have made the combat last another round, though without having cast Death Ward, I don't know if that would have been good or bad for my PCs.
Is that true about spells not being automatically dismissed when the caster is killed? Generally I have assumed that spells with standing effects worked like a summoned monster - unsummoned when the caster gets wacked. I kind of assumed that only permamnent spells would outlive the caster.
You were correct that the Discorporating Dive didn't prevent the dead PC from being raised.
And no, spells don't end just because the caster died. So far as I know, summoning spells aren't any exception to this; if you summon a creature, and then die, the creature is still there until the duration of the spell ends. The only exception would be a spell with a Duration of "Concentration" - because the dead person obviously can't concentrate on it anymore.
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Thanks all. Looks like the next session will consist of the party hunting down and killing Spawn-Marzena and possibly the cohort, then resurrecting them. They all need to buy the shadowdancer a drink. Her forethought to have the Raise Dead scroll made, her ability to use it, and her ability to get out of there when things went south definitely saved the party's bacon.
And they'll be relieved that they survived legitimately, and not because I screwed something up.
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Is there a rule about what happens to the body of a slain character when they sustain enough damage to take them into the -100s? I mean in the absense of a description from the offending spell. I flubbed with the harm spell (though no one at the table called me on it - they all have PHBs as well), but I'd like to know what is supposed to happen. I was thinking the character probably exploded or something.
Is there a rule about what happens to the body of a slain character when they sustain enough damage to take them into the -100s? I mean in the absense of a description from the offending spell. I flubbed with the harm spell (though no one at the table called me on it - they all have PHBs as well), but I'd like to know what is supposed to happen. I was thinking the character probably exploded or something.
As "Harm" is a negative energy effect, I would rather describe it as being sucked dry of all life force and water, just leaving a shriveled husk. Maybe check the DMG or MoP for a description about what happens when you stay too long on the Negative Elemental Plane. Exploding would result from positive energy.
Technically, there isn't any difference between dead at -10 and dead at -100. So there shouldn't be any penalty to trying to bring the character back just from that.
However, from a story perspective, it makes sense that an attack that does "way more damage than necessary to kill you" would do some pretty awful things to the corpse. It's probably up to you how you want to deal with this. Belfur's idea of a shriveled husk sounds good to me, in this case, but if you want to damage the body, and require True Resurrection (or Raise Dead followed by Regenerate) to bring the PC back because of the sheer amount of damage done, you could say that part of the corpse dried out so much it powdered away to ash. (Just be aware that nothing in the rules suggests this would happen, it's all a DM judgment thing.)
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 6
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Technically, there isn't any difference between dead at -10 and dead at -100. So there shouldn't be any penalty to trying to bring the character back just from that.
However, from a story perspective, it makes sense that an attack that does "way more damage than necessary to kill you" would do some pretty awful things to the corpse. It's probably up to you how you want to deal with this. Belfur's idea of a shriveled husk sounds good to me, in this case, but if you want to damage the body, and require True Resurrection (or Raise Dead followed by Regenerate) to bring the PC back because of the sheer amount of damage done, you could say that part of the corpse dried out so much it powdered away to ash. (Just be aware that nothing in the rules suggests this would happen, it's all a DM judgment thing.)
Note that ash would require just resurrection, not true resurrection. Even the handful of dust left after disintigrate is enough for a res.
However, if I killed someone with a harm, I would probably own up to the mistake and restore the person to life to correct it.
Russ
Harm -can- kill you if you fail your save. Here's the spell description:
"Harm charges a subject with negative energy that deals 10 points of damage per caster level (to a maximum of 150 points at 15th level). If the creature successfully saves, harm deals half this amount, but it cannot reduce the target’s hit points to less than 1."
See how the 'less than 1' clause is only attached to the sentence that describes what happens when you make the save?
As to the other thing, Harm does hit point damage. It's not a death effect. Mechanics-wise, -100 is identical to -10. I wouldn't mess with it unless you are in the mood to piss your player off. This adventure path incurs enough raise/resurrection costs without artificially inflating them for 'flavor' purposes. Just my two cents, though.
Harm does 150 points of damage, right? Wasn't the rule that the victim of a Harm gets reduced to a minimum of 1 hp (leaves the victim with 1d4 hp) in 3.0 ? I don't have my books in front of me, so sorry if I'm off.
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However, if I killed someone with a harm, I would probably own up to the mistake and restore the person to life to correct it.
Russ
Sorry, no do-overs in my campaign. I will definitely own up to the mistake in the interest of staying within the rules in the future, if it is indeed a mistake. I can't read the actual description again right now, but Treehouse's post seems to call that conclusion into question as well. My players are big enough to accept that we make mistakes every time we play, and each time just try to understand the rules better for the next session.
If it is truly my fault, I'll probably compensate by making it easy to isolate the Marzena-Spawn in combat without having to engage all the opponents from the Kelvos and Sword of Kyuss encounters. This will make it easier for them to recover, though it will still cost the character a level.
I'm actually already bending over backwards to help them. The cleric had enough xp to advance to 14th level, but chose not to because he didn't want to go through the process with everyone sitting there and hadn't done it ahead of session time. That being the case, he should come back as 12th level, losing 7th level spells (resurrection), not the 13th level I'm allowing him to be raised at. True, if I flubbed the rule, they might not need resurrection to get Marzena back, but the cohort died from Kelvos casting Destruction, which should require resurrection anyway.
Being DM means never having to say you're sorry...
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 6
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True, if I flubbed the rule, they might not need resurrection to get Marzena back, but the cohort died from Kelvos casting Destruction, which should require resurrection anyway.
Being DM means never having to say you're sorry...
Whatever works for your group is fine :)
Note that destruction is particularly nasty - it DOES take a true resurrection to get back from that (unless you wish back the body).
From the SRD:
This spell instantly slays the subject and consumes its remains (but not its equipment and possessions) utterly. If the target’s Fortitude saving throw succeeds, it instead takes 10d6 points of damage. The only way to restore life to a character who has failed to save against this spell is to use true resurrection, a carefully worded wish spell followed by resurrection, or miracle.
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Thanks again Russ. We're pretty new to higher level adventures and the whole resurrection-thing threw my whole table for a loop. It didn't help that it was after midnight. Guess that cohort is taking the REAL long sleep.
I'm going to stop giving the cleric in my party these cohorts. They last about two sessions, then poof. The word's gotta get out eventually, 'If you go out with those guys, you don't come back!' I just know he's going to insist on using True resurrection to bring them all back once he gets that spell. If he does, I might have them all turn on him at once. ;-)
And boy did I let them off the hook...They wiggled out of a TPK for sure.
Love the "wormy" puns, by the way.
Something I would recommend regarding resurrection: Since the party is somewhat "stationed" in Magepoint, for the most part, if they have to retreat from the Spire, they should have little trouble with attaining magical resources, like that of true resurrection.
Agath of Thrunch is a 19th level Lawful Good cleric, and apparently a friend of Manzorian. He's more than likely going to offer his services to a party in need, questing to divine some knowledge the likes of which draw his and Manzorian's attention...for the usual fees, no doubt.
Yep, true rez is expensive! But, I've usually found the average party member will want to keep their experience/constitution more than their gold.
So, although it's a matter of DM preference, I'd say "welcome to high-level gameplay...now, run to the cleric for a true rez" than worry about the small stuff. Our own party cleric died at this very same spot, ironically, and true rez came just in time for her last level of the Wormhunter prestige class. Felt very appropriate.