How does Disintegrate affect a character with Deathless on them?


Rules Questions


Like the topic says, a character affected by Deathless doesn't die when reduced below 0 hit points.

Disintegrate turns anything that is at zero hit points or below to dust.

How do these spells interact? RAW would seem to state that the character would end up as a technically still-living pile of dust.

And if you were to add something like To the Death at the same time, the result would seem to be that you would end up as a pile of dust that was still perfectly capable of fighting and taking actions.

I mean, granted, it's a fantasy world, and sentient dust that can attack you is totally a thing that exists, I'm just curious if this is actually the result of these powers interacting with each other.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

If a creature is reduced to zero hit points or less by disintegrate, they turn to dust. That's not dying from hit point damage (prevented by deathless), it's a specific effect from the spell description.

Normally, even without deathless, a character with Constitution 10 can go to -10 hp without dying. But if disintegrate reduces them to 0, or -3, or -8, or whatever, they turn to dust immediately, per the disintegrate description. It's a specific effect—disintegrate (and thus die, by logical extension) at 0 hp—overriding the general (at least negative Constitution before dying). A creature that is disintegrated is dead, yes, but it's not necessarily killed by the damage. The damage dealt is irrelevant, only the hit point total.

It's the same with power word death. Power word death doesn't say "deals 100 points of damage with no save," it says "if the target has 100 hit points or less, they die." Deathless wouldn't stop that, either, and in the PW:D example the underlying principle is easier to see.

EDIT: Looking at the spell description, it says that causes of death other than hit point damage aren't stopped by deathless. Turning to dust is an effect that is contingent on dropping to 0 hp due to damage from disintegrate. It doesn't actually reduce you to 0 hp; the damage roll from the spell did that. The effect of turning to dust, by itself, doesn't actually deal hit point damage. That already happened, which is why you are now at 0 or below and thus turning into dust.

In 3.5, there was an armor enchantment that made you immune to transmutation effects. This included being hit with flesh to stone, polymorph any object, etc. It explicitly stated in its description that it didn't make you immune to the damage from disintegrate, it merely meant your body would not be turned to dust if reduced to 0 hp or below by disintegrate.

If a character with that armor enchantment were affected by deathless, they could be blasted with theoretically infinite disintegrates and not die until the deathless spell runs out, because then the only effect of disintegrate is pure hit point damage.

EDIT 2: And in case you were wondering, if that armor enchantment were then suppressed while the wearer was at 0 or below, they would not turn to dust, because disintegrate is an instantaneous effect. However, being hit with another disintegrate while no longer protected by the armor would turn you to dust, because you are far below 0 hp by that point.
If you walked into an antimagic field after taking infinity+1 disintegrates while wearing the armor, you wouldn't turn to dust either, though you would die instantly because you would no longer be protected by deathless, and thus being a negative Constitution or below results in instant death.


Alright, that makes sense.

Thanks for breaking it down for me!


I have an added question on this subject, a 19th lvl gunslinger has the cheat death deed, if he was struck by Disintegrate and the die roll was enough to slay him, can he use that deed to survive


Yes, since the spell can't disintegrate someone who still has hit points remaining, and he would have 1 hit point left from using that deed.

EDIT: Since the deed specifically calls out "whenever the gunslinger is reduced to 0 or fewer hit points," it is even more favorable to this interpretation. The damage doesn't even have to be enough to kill them instantly; they can use the deed on the same triggering condition as the disintegration effect and thus spoil it.

Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder First Edition / Rules Questions / How does Disintegrate affect a character with Deathless on them? All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.