| 9 people marked this as FAQ candidate. |
This question was asked in another thread, and marked as ""answered in the FAQ", but it is not there.
So please FAQ it again.
I was wondering how this hex works against Undead, Constructs, Elementals, and Outsiders.
Forced Reincarnation (Su): The witch causes a creature within 30 feet to die and be immediately reincarnated into a new body. A Will save negates this effect. Those that fail are slain and immediately brought back to life with the spell reincarnate. Whether or not the save is successful, a creature cannot be the target of this hex again for 1 day.A creature that has been turned into an undead creature or killed by a death effect can't be returned to life by this spell. Constructs, elementals, outsiders, and undead creatures can't be reincarnated.I note that while I'd expect such a hex to be a fort save (which would make undead and constructs immune by default), it is actually a will save. Also, due to the text quoted for reincarnation, apparently the death caused by this hex is not a death effect, lest the hex would never work at all.
So, how does this work?
1. Specific trumps general, with the Hex you *can* reincarnate those creature types.
2. Those creatures are killed as per the hex, but then they get hit w/ Reincarnate, the spell says, "uh...this isn't in my job description, sorry," and does nothing, and they just die.
3. Since they can't be both killed and reincarnated, the hex does nothing.
4. Something else.I think by RAW, #2 is how it works, though #1 might also be the case. I don't see why #3 could possibly be correct.
The hex does mention killing the target, so perhaps undead and constructs are immune for not being alive. But at least for undead, there are spells to "kill" them or make them "dead," such as undeath to death.
Looks like answer #3 to me:
- Undeads and Constructs do not die. They are destroyed (cf. undeath to death spell, disruption weapon property and the creature type descriptions stating that Undead/Constructs are destroyed when reduced to 0 hp).
- Nothing in the Forced Reincarnation description imply that it ignores Construct/Undead immunity to reincarnation.
Personally, I think that lack of death descriptor in Forced Reincarnation description is accidental omission.
From what I understood trying to get another question FAQ'd, they may mark it as answered in FAQ if the question is too long or confusing, so reposting the original question exactly may not help.
May I suggest simply shortening it to:
"How does the Forced Reincarnation hex affect creatures that cannot be reincarnated?"
From what I understood trying to get another question FAQ'd, they may mark it as answered in FAQ if the question is too long or confusing, so reposting the original question exactly may not help.
May I suggest simply shortening it to:
"How does the Forced Reincarnation hex affect creatures that cannot be reincarnated?"
That is not what they do. That would be lying.
SKR did say if something was marked as answered and it was not to just open a new thread on it and FAQ it. Then they click on button in their end to check it when it comes up.
I was just going on what Jiggy said here but I FAQ'd your original post already anyhow. ;)
Or as SKR put it in the thread Jiggy linked to:
However, as there is no option for us to say "this post is a mess and we can't suss out exactly what you're asking," it's possible it may have been marked answered-in-FAQ to purge it from the list (otherwise it would sit in the list forever... the only options for clearing flags are "answered in FAQ," "answered in errata," "not an error/no staff response needed," and "create new FAQ entry for this") with the expectation that a clearer version of the question is in the queue.
But this post was very clear.
It gave 4 options.
With that aside he also said
"Sean K Reynolds
That link isn't working for me.
But if you really can't find an answer to the question in the available FAQs, post the question again and get people to FAQ it. (I don't have any way of tracking which things were in which category you describe in your post).
Adding such a thing doesn't really "glut up" the FAQ. We'll sometimes see a question pop up that's been answered, but it's just one click for us to mark it as "answered in FAQ" once we've verified that it is actually answered."
If the question is not clear a "simplify question" is a lot better than "answered in FAQ" when it was never answered.
Just curious, how is this NOT a death effect? I thought the very definition of a death effect was any effect that causes a creature to die without doing HP damage. That's exactly what the first part of this spell does, instant slays a creature, regardless of whether that creature has 1 HP or 1,000 HP.
That's a death effect.
The reincarnation happens after the death effect. If the death effect cannot be applied, then there is no reincarnation, either, since the "target dead creature" is not dead.
I tried to detail the issue and included notes on it neither being a fort save effect (which undead and constructs are immune to) nor a death effect, along with every possible option/answer I could think of specifically *to* make it all as clear as possible...
Also, link to original thread.
Just curious, how is this NOT a death effect? I thought the very definition of a death effect was any effect that causes a creature to die without doing HP damage. That's exactly what the first part of this spell does, instant slays a creature, regardless of whether that creature has 1 HP or 1,000 HP.
That's a death effect.
The reincarnation happens after the death effect. If the death effect cannot be applied, then there is no reincarnation, either, since the "target dead creature" is not dead.
I don't know too many off the top of my head, but I'm pretty sure there are multiple examples of spells/effects that kill (by a means other than from doing lots of hp damage) without being death effects.
Baleful Polymorphing a foe into a fish on land or the (Mass) Suffocation spell, for instance.
Baleful Polymorphing a foe into a fish on land or the (Mass) Suffocation spell, for instance.
Those examples don't "kill" or "slay" the target - they just cause a condition that, after a while, kills the target.
For the same reason, poison is not a death effect. You poison someone and give him long enough, the poison will kill him unless he makes enough Saving Throws or gets rescued. And if you Levitate someone way up into the air and then drop them, the fall might kill them but Levitate didn't kill them so Levitate is not a death effect.
To be a death effect, the effect only has to "kill" or "slay" a creature without doing HP damage. Period.
That's exactly what Forced Reincaration does. "Those that fail are slain..."
Death effect.
Uh...suffocation most definitely kills on a failed save. It just takes 3 of them. On that note, Phantasmal Killer requires 2 saves to kill and is not a death affect. Is that spell also not "killing" or "slaying" the target? What exactly are your (completely unlisted in RAW) requirements for a spell that directly kills a target to count as a death effect? Only allowing 1 save to prevent dying? Why must Forced Reincarnate be one when these others are not?
Never mind the fact that, as I noted originally, if it WERE a death effect, the hex would never work as advertised, ever, anyway. Which is just silly.
Just curious, how is this NOT a death effect? I thought the very definition of a death effect was any effect that causes a creature to die without doing HP damage. That's exactly what the first part of this spell does, instant slays a creature, regardless of whether that creature has 1 HP or 1,000 HP.
That's a death effect.
Except it rarely work that way in PF. Death effect is nothing more than a descriptor which determines interaction of effects that are noted as [death] with certain abilities (e.g. immunity to death effects, death ward spell and effects that revive dead creatures).
Of 18 spells that bear [death] descriptor 10 kill without dealing damage, however five of those only affect creatures that are already below 0 hit points and one involves performing a regular coup d'grace as its part. Five [death] spells are just spells that inflict damage with extra effect that their victims cannot be revived with raise dead or reincarnation (and destroying the body in case of destruction).
There is also a spell that causes instant, non-damage kill that is not death effect: phantasmal killer (and it hadn't death descriptor in 3.5).