What happens to spells when you die?

[reefwood]

If a Wizard casts a spell on a Fighter with a duration of 1 minute, and the Wizard is killed 1 round later, I know the spell continues to function for the entire minute. But what happens is the Fighter is killed before the duration runs out?

The reason I ask is because a Fighter is usually a living creature and some spells can only be cast on living creatures or creatures or humanoids or some other specific type of being. But when the Fighter is killed, his corpse is an object... correct? So, does the spell end as soon as the Fighter is killed if the Fighter is no longer a valid target for the spell? An example of this would be enlarge person that targets one humanoid creature. Does an enlarged Human Fighter who is killed immediately shrink back to medium? Or is his Large body still take up 4 squares?

How about a Druid using wildshape? This is a supernatural ability... so, it is magical, but nothing in the description of wildshape or supernatural ability says that these things only affects creatures.

[Starglim]

reefwood wrote:

The reason I ask is because a Fighter is usually a living creature and some spells can only be cast on living creatures or creatures or humanoids or some other specific type of being. But when the Fighter is killed, his corpse is an object... correct? So, does the spell end as soon as the Fighter is killed if the Fighter is no longer a valid target for the spell?

Exactly right

reefwood wrote:

How about a Druid using wildshape? This is a supernatural ability... so, it is magical, but nothing in the description of wildshape or supernatural ability says that these things only affects creatures.

Beast shape, to which the description of Wild Shape refers, has "Target: You". I agree, it seems very murky whether "You", the spellcaster, must be a creature (considering magic items, probably not) and whether a corpse ceases to be the "You" who cast the spell. edit: On second thought, it would probably be more consistent to treat Personal spells in the same way as spells that target one or more creatures - saying no to the second question: the corpse is no longer "You".

On the other hand, if wild shape remains in effect, the druid hasn't taken the standard action to change back and now can't, so it would persist for 1 hour per druid level.