Breath of Life

[Father Dale]

I was wondering if anybody could clarify how this spell works so far as bringing back to life a recently slain creature.

It seems that, after applying the healing of the spell to a slain creature, if its new hitpoint total is greater than its negative Con score it would come back to life. And if its new hit point total is less than that, it stays dead.

But can a creature have more negative hit points than its negative Con score? Can a creature with Con 15 have -22 hit points? I know in 3.5 that a creature couldn't have more negative hit points than -10 at which point it was just dead (barring certain magical effects such as the Delay Death spell). Is that restriction lifted now? Otherwise I fail to see how this spell would fail to work, as even 1 point of healing would be sufficient to bring the creature back.

Or is this meant to work simply as just a formula type thing? i.e. Calculate what the creatures negative hit points would theoretically be from the damage that killed it, then apply the healing. For example, PC with 14 Con has 10 hit points, he then takes 40 points of damage, taking him to -14 hit points (the limit) and dead. Cleric casts breath of life on him and it heals for 25 hit points. Since the damage he took would have taken him to -30 hit points if he could take that many negative hit points, and breath of life healed 25, then the creature would now have -5 hit points and be alive but unconscious. Is that how it works then?

Any input is appreciated. Thanks!

[Mauril]

The wording of Breath of Life definitely implies that negative hit points are accumulated past -Con, however I can't find anything outside of Breath of Life to support this.

My group pretty much always calculates the number of negative hit points since it's sort of interesting to know just how dead your character is. And, as you would only have to keep that number in mind for a single round, that shouldn't been too much of a hassle.

[Jonne Karila]

I believe overkill would be the right term ;D

[nidho]

For what ist's worth I've always played this way...
Calculating exactly how many HP a character has, be them positive or negative.
If a hit brings your absolute Hp value to the death value(-10 in 3.5 or -CON in PF) or below then the character is dead.
Breath of life wording makes perfect sense this way. Also the expression: You are VERY dead, a favourite of mine.

[James Jacobs]

If there's a chance that Breath of Life could come into play, you should absolutely keep track of negative hp beyond a character's death. Since a character that's dead doesn't continue to lose hit points, though, this shouldn't be too big of a deal, since breath of life has to be cast very soon after death occurs. It DOES mean that you shouldn't fireball areas containing the dead bodies of allies, since that would further damage a dead body.

[Fatespinner]

James Jacobs wrote:

It DOES mean that you shouldn't fireball areas containing the dead bodies of allies, since that would further damage a dead body.

"Eh, I didn't really like him anyway."

[Scipion del Ferro]

There were two spells in Spell Compendium similar to this one. One of them just brought the target to -1 hit points castable only the round after they died. The other brought them to 50% hit points but they died again round/level later.

I miss them.

[Fatespinner]

So... could a creature benefit from multiple castings of Breath of Life, then? Say the party has two clerics, both with Breath of Life memorized. The party's rogue takes a massive crit from a greataxe-wielding giant and is reduced to -40 HP. His CON is 10, so he's extremely dead.

Cleric #1 tags him with BoL, healing him for 25, which brings his HP up to -15. Still dead. Then cleric #2 jumps in and does the same. Is the rogue now alive with 10 HP to spare?

[Scipion del Ferro]

Looks that way. Could do the same thing if you had a Quickened Breath of Life as well.

[Fatespinner]

Scipion del Ferro wrote:

Could do the same thing if you had a Quickened Breath of Life as well.

True, but that's a 9th level spell slot you could just as well memorize true resurrection in. :)

[Scipion del Ferro]

I have a hard time giving up goodies from the Complete books like the Sudden Metamagic feats. Sudden Quicken would let you do it, if you play with 3.5 under DM approval.

[James Jacobs]

Fatespinner wrote:

So... could a creature benefit from multiple castings of Breath of Life, then? Say the party has two clerics, both with Breath of Life memorized. The party's rogue takes a massive crit from a greataxe-wielding giant and is reduced to -40 HP. His CON is 10, so he's extremely dead.

Cleric #1 tags him with BoL, healing him for 25, which brings his HP up to -15. Still dead. Then cleric #2 jumps in and does the same. Is the rogue now alive with 10 HP to spare?

Absolutely. Assuming you could get enough breath of life spells on a creature before they died (which would normally require multiple spellcasters or a quickened spell), a creature that can't be saved by one spell could be saved by two or more.

[Father Dale]

Good to know!

Thanks James, Mauril and everyone else!

[delabarre]

James Jacobs wrote:

Fatespinner wrote:

So... could a creature benefit from multiple castings of Breath of Life, then? Say the party has two clerics, both with Breath of Life memorized. The party's rogue takes a massive crit from a greataxe-wielding giant and is reduced to -40 HP. His CON is 10, so he's extremely dead.

Cleric #1 tags him with BoL, healing him for 25, which brings his HP up to -15. Still dead. Then cleric #2 jumps in and does the same. Is the rogue now alive with 10 HP to spare?

Absolutely. Assuming you could get enough breath of life spells on a creature before they died (which would normally require multiple spellcasters or a quickened spell), a creature that can't be saved by one spell could be saved by two or more.

In that situation in my game, said clerics would also have to do some hasty running around collecting body bits and reassembling them before they could cast the spell successfully. ;-)

[ValarakarU]

Has anyone posted any information on using Gentle Repose in conjunction with Breath of Life?

Any corpse put under the effects of a gentle repose spell does not include the time spent in the spell for determining whether they can be raised. So a corpse affected by gentle repose within the 1 round limit should be able to be raised with Breath of Life until the Gentle Repose spell ends. However, the Gentle repose specifically references Raise Dead so it may imply the specific Breath of Life time limit would not be covered by Gentle Repose.

Thoughts?

[Mauril]

Gentle Repose doesn't state that time does not pass for the creature, just that it doesn't decay. The lack of decay is what makes it easier to raise dead. Breath of Life is more like waking someone up from sleep, where Raise Dead is more like waking someone up from a coma. Since the time for Raise Dead is measured in days rather tan rounds, a slight difference of a couple of minutes of decay here or there doesn't really matter much. Since Breath of Life requires things to be done in a single round, every second is apparently important.

Temporal Stasis, on the other hand, ought to work.

[Smite Makes Right]

Mauril wrote:

Gentle Repose doesn't state that time does not pass for the creature, just that it doesn't decay. The lack of decay is what makes it easier to raise dead. Breath of Life is more like waking someone up from sleep, where Raise Dead is more like waking someone up from a coma. Since the time for Raise Dead is measured in days rather tan rounds, a slight difference of a couple of minutes of decay here or there doesn't really matter much. Since Breath of Life requires things to be done in a single round, every second is apparently important.

Temporal Stasis, on the other hand, ought to work.

I don't see anything to support your position. Breath of Life brings a character back from the dead. It therefore falls into the realm of Gentle Repose unless there is a clarification that Raising Dead is different from bringing them back from the dead. There's nothing in the spell text that supports Breath of Life's time limit being dependant on anything different than Raise Dead; only that it is more sensitive resulting in a shorter deadline.

EDIT:

Glossary wrote:

Dead: The character's hit points are reduced to a negative amount equal to his Constitution score, his Constitution drops to 0, or he is killed outright by a spell or effect. The character's soul leaves his body. Dead characters cannot benefit from normal or magical healing, but they can be restored to life via magic. A dead body decays normally unless magically preserved, but magic that restores a dead character to life also restores the body either to full health or to its condition at the time of death (depending on the spell or device). Either way, resurrected characters need not worry about rigor mortis, decomposition, and other conditions that affect dead bodies.

True Resurrection wrote:

This spell can even bring back creatures whose bodies have been destroyed, provided that you unambiguously identify the deceased in some fashion (reciting the deceased's time and place of birth or death is the most common method).

I would say that the current rules provide more support for Breath of Life being affected by Gentle Repose the same way that Raise Dead is.

As to why Gentle Repose calls out Gentle Repose calls out Raise Dead and not Breath of Life, I expect that most likely it is because Gentle Repose and Raise Dead were both present in 3.5 while Breath of Life was added in Pathfinder.

[seebs]

That's a fascinating question. I think there may be a distinction, though, between "dead for less than one round" and "during the round in which you were killed".

[Smite Makes Right]

There may be, but that is not what Breath of Life says. That question becomes is there a difference between a returning to life a creature slain "within 1day/level" versus "within 1 round"?

Personally, from a PFS point of view where getting characters back into the action sooner is encouraged, I hope that the official answer comes back in support of using gentle repose to extend the usability of Breath of Life.

[Matthew Downie]

Well, if you can raise this thread from the dead after four years, anything's possible...

[seebs]

This is a fascinating question.

Okay, so. Why does it mention raise dead, but not resurrection? After all, that has a time limit too. It may just be that no one expects you to have to worry about the time limit (10 years per caster level) for resurrection and true resurrection. Or to be patient enough to cast gentle repose every few days while you level up to be able to cast those.

The spell refers to "the" time limit on raising the creature from the dead. However, there are at least three time limits; they may have intended this to be specific to raise dead, rather than to the generic action of causing the dead to cease being dead.

There's a couple of other spells at issue: Resurrection, true resurrection, and reincarnate. They have different time limits (10 years per level or one week regardless of level). They also have different limits on who they can or can't bring back.

We had a thread a while back on whether breath of life can restore you if you get dusted by disintegrate. Well, rules as written, yes; it has no language about being unable to restore people who are missing pieces.

And I think one of the reasons there's concern here is that breath of life is already pretty good, if it can actually bring people back that raise dead couldn't, without a material component, that's making it awfully good for a fifth level spell.

Just from the wording: I think probably this works. The only reason I could see it not working is the distinction between "dead for less than one round" and "died within the last round". If you cast gentle repose on someone immediately, they remain "dead for less than one round", but it quickly stops being the case that they "died within the last round".

[Smite Makes Right]

Matthew, hopefully my gp expenditure for the material cost will be rewarded.

Seebs, Resurrection and True Resurrection both work like Raise Dead. Therefore, there is no need to explicitly call out that they work with Gentle Repose.

And while Breath of Life is good, it has a chance of failing. Raise Dead and the Resurrection spells do not, as long as it is a valid target. And yes, I think that a 5th level spell, with planning and teamwork should accomplish amazing things.

[Cranky Dog]

Gentle Repose as a way to extend the one round limit of BoL?

Now that's what I call thinking outside of the box.

Hmm, with the extended duration of Gentle Repose, you could cast BoL over extended rounds to bring back the ally from the "dead" (debatable but doesn't feel overpowered IMO).

Benefits:
- Gentle Repose and Breath of Life cost peanuts compared to Raise Dead/Resurrection
- Can stack BoL over several days (duration of Gentle Repose).
- Gentle Repose is also available to arcane casters.

Cons:
- Multiple spell slots required.
- Unless multiple casters are around, uses several rounds of casting so isn't ideal under battle conditions.
- Gentle Repose still has to be cast within one round for BoL to work afterwards.

Alternative:
- Deathless, from Mythic Adventures (though available as a non-mythic spell), is a cross between those and is available to multiple spellcasting classes.

[seebs]

Smite Makes Right wrote:

Matthew, hopefully my gp expenditure for the material cost will be rewarded.

Seebs, Resurrection and True Resurrection both work like Raise Dead. Therefore, there is no need to explicitly call out that they work with Gentle Repose.

I disagree.

The rationale given for why gentle repose works is that it prevents the body from decaying. Raise dead has limits based on the condition of the body. Resurrection does not have those limits. So it is conceivable that gentle repose doesn't affect the time limit, because the 10 year per caster level time limit has nothing to do with the body decaying.

[Smite Makes Right]

Gentle Repose is not likely to affect the time limit on Resurrection because the number of castings required to make a significant impact.

That said, Gentle Repose increases the time for Raise Dead and Resurrection works like Raise Dead. Gentle Repose affects Resurrection.

WOTC was really good about communicating their intent by using specific language, at least in the core books, but Gentle Repose doesn't state that it extends the time for Raise Dead, it says that it extends the time for raising the dead (see Raise Dead).

Paizo is far better than most 3rd party d20 publishers about doing the same and I think the interaction between Gentle Repose and Breath of Life is likely an oversight in one direction or the other on Paizo's part.

I hope that a FAQ entry is made clarifying the spells and I hope it says that they work great together.

I feel that I won't sway you otherwise and, while I understand your position, I feel that the two spells should work together.

[seebs]

Oh, I think they probably should, I just don't think it's unambiguous that this was the intent. If Paizo were to release a clarification that gentle repose only affected the time limit for Raise Dead, and produce internal documents showing that they considered this and intended it specifically, I would not be horrified or shocked. A little surprised, maybe, but not shocked.

[Kwauss]

It does say for gentle repose it can preserve severed limbs - but I don't know the utility of that unless you have the regeneration ability.

That speaks to its applicability to something other than raise dead (but I don't know what). Is it to address the 'missing parts' clause in Raise Dead? It doesn't say you can attach limbs if they've been hacked off, even if present, so my inclination is no.

[seebs]

It doesn't say you can attach them, but it doesn't say anything about limbs being disconnected, only that it won't work if they're missing.

[Avildar]

Personally though Gentle Repose does mention Raise dead and the like. I am going to have to side with it not working in tandem with Breath of life. The main reason is that Breath of life is specific, in that the character died within the last round. Yes Gentle Repose stops the time to bring someone back to life, however I have always viewed Breath of life as more of a defibrillator type spell than I bring you back from the beyond. I've always viewed it as if the soul hasn't had too much time to depart from the it's vessel.
As for preserving a limb, you could use spells to recreate your body or even locate the rest of it. Or other divination type spells and things. Plus Breath of Life can be used through channeling, with the right feat (Channeled Revival), and it doesn't have costly material components like Resurrection or True Resurrection. Also it helps immediately, with it's short cast time, which is super helpful in combat.
I see no reason you couldn't cast it multiple times in that round to revive them. Though it could bring back a person who was missing parts and pieces too which would stink. On the fair side I might stack the negative levels though if you are going to allow multiple castings to stack in this way.
As for negative hitpoints, always keep track of how far past dead they are not just for this. But I recall they used to include rules for excessive damage back in D&D that after a point your body was destroyed. I don't recall anything mentioning it in PF, but if I can go over 5 times your constitution modifier in the negatives then I just am mutilating your body at that point.

[TOZ]

It's probably not intended that gentle repose manage something that invigorating repose does.

[seebs]

That's an interesting point, but I don't think that's quite the same effect. That's letting you, after missing your window, go back and get a chance to try again anyway, and gives other additional benefits, like increasing the amount of healing produced. That's significantly more powerful than merely delaying the window.

On the other hand, if gentle repose works that way, you can have multiple days to spend casting breath of life over and over until you get enough hit points to bring someone back, and even invigorating repose can't do that.

[Giamo Casanunda]

Heck, I just carry an Invigorating Repose (Dwarf Book) on a scroll, so I can Breath of Life 4 rounds after the target dies...

Though this means that mosters tend to keep swinging for several rounds after someone dies, so that the damage healed from the BoL isn't enough to bring him back.

[The Toaster]

I get BoL as a 4th level Extract (Alchemist (Chirurgeon)/ 11th) - which I put in poisoners gloves and can hand off to other PCs (like the Barbarian in the party). It's something else to see the party barbarian charge across the battlefield and punch a Breath of Life into someone that just went down.

or I can punch a body with a BoL, and take my second attack to punch it again...."Clear!... AGAIN! CLEAR!"

makes a great RP event...

[Smite Makes Right]

Avildar wrote:

Personally though Gentle Repose does mention Raise dead and the like. I am going to have to side with it not working in tandem with Breath of life. The main reason is that Breath of life is specific, in that the character died within the last round. Yes Gentle Repose stops the time to bring someone back to life, however I have always viewed Breath of life as more of a defibrillator type spell than I bring you back from the beyond. I've always viewed it as if the soul hasn't had too much time to depart from the it's vessel.

The reason I quoted the glossary for Dead, above, was that the only thing that is different between being dead and being dead one round later is that you decayed one round.

This is likely a case of Breath of Life being added without consideration for Gentle Repose. I can't really explain Invigorating Repose. It would not be the first time someone published a poorly conceived spell (or feat, trait, item, etc). Whether Gentle Repose works with Breath of Life or not, I don't think Invigorating Repose is worth a 5th level spell which, if I understand the reference correctly, requires that you worship a specific deity to cast it. IMO, extremely underpowered and only useful for a Cleric who has access to all divine spells and knows that he will be raising the dead. As an Oracle, I would say that any other spell is a better choice for a spell known.

[seebs]

Invigorating Repose is mostly useful because it brings you back to the fight actually functional. You'd presumably get a scroll or something, though.

And I still think you're not catching the distinction being made here between "the body has been dead one round" and "you died one round ago". These are claims about fundamentally different things.

Think about, say:

PRD, Wish wrote:

Undo misfortune. A wish can undo a single recent event. The wish forces a reroll of any roll made within the last round (including your last turn).

The limit here has nothing to do with how long a person who died last round has been dead; it has only to do with the magic only having a six-second window it can operate on.

The interpretation that gentle repose doesn't work for breath of life is based on the assertion that the spell's function is not tied to "you have been dead one round or less", but to "your death occurred within the previous round". It's temporal proximity to the event, not the state of your body, that's at issue.

What I think it really comes down to is:

The nature of the D&D/Pathfinder initiative system is such that everything that happens before the next time we come back to the initiative count on which you died happened at unspecified times within that six second window. It's not just that it's six seconds; it's that it's been possibly quite a bit less than six seconds.

So breath of life is sort of handwaving and saying "although it usually doesn't come up because the window is so narrow, there's a tiny tiny window during which the soul hasn't actually quite left the body yet and you can still recover them if you have a powerful enough heal".

And gentle repose has nothing to do with souls, only with physical decay.

[Taku Ooka Nin]

Father Dale wrote:

I was wondering if anybody could clarify how this spell works so far as bringing back to life a recently slain creature.

It seems that, after applying the healing of the spell to a slain creature, if its new hitpoint total is greater than its negative Con score it would come back to life. And if its new hit point total is less than that, it stays dead.

But can a creature have more negative hit points than its negative Con score? Can a creature with Con 15 have -22 hit points?

For terms of Breath of Life, yes.

If you have 0 HP, and take 30 damage, and your con is 15, you are at -30, if healing from Breath of Life does not bring you up to at least -14 you stay dead.