Petrification and rage

[FallofCamelot]

This has come up at my table today. My Barbarian was raging when he met a Basilisk and ended up as a statue (yeah pretty embarrassing, I know).

The subject at the table turned to what happened to his rage and what state he would be in after he was restored to his fleshy form? I know he was unconcious as soon as the petrification hit but a statue can’t be fatigued surely? In that case would he not be fatigued when retored? Would he start his fatigue after being restored? Would fatigue rounds be ticking down whilst he was a statue?

Thoughts?

[merpius]

This is pretty corner case, so I'd be surprised if there is RAW for it. I welcome anyone who can find any, as that would provide a more satisfactory answer.

Assuming there is none, however, I guess we can apply what RAW there is and try to deduce a possible answer.

So, a Basalisk gaze turns a target into stone "permanently" as per flesh to stone (which is actually instantaneous; a subtle difference, which may not matter here). Looking at that spell, we find that it is a Transmutation spell (no subschool). Transmutation itself has no special rules associated directly with it, and, thus, is capable of doing exactly what the spell says. The target physically truly becomes an object. The spell also says they are not dead; to me this implies that the magic sustains their life force or equivalent, but probably not in any sort of accessible way. I suspect that part is to prevent Resurrection/True Ressurection from working to undo the problem. It, notably, doesn't say anything about them being unconcious. I suspect because, physically, they are a completely inert statue/object.

To me it seems like there are only 2 ways to approach this;
a) Their living self is, effectively, kept in suspended animation; they don't age and nothing changes (other than possible physical damage from the statue getting damaged) from the moment they were turned into stone. The barbarian would come out of it in full rage, and, at that point, could choose to end his rage, or continue as if the intervening time period did not occur.
b) Their living self continues to age and suffers any status effects, etc, with thier time in stone counting against the duration of those effects; they would likely stop raging immediately (maybe be forced to) and suffer fatigue, which would then be wearing off from that moment.

It seems to me the more classical approach to this is (a) - people who get turned back from stone do not realize time has passed and they are exactly as they were when they were turned that way (by Medusa in Greek mythology, for example). That doesn't automatically mean it is the correct way, though.

[blahpers]

A petrified creature is still a creature. The rage ends (as a petrified creature is considered unconscious) and the barbarian becomes fatigued for 2 times the number of rounds of rage used. In many cases, this means that the barbarian will no longer be fatigued once returned to flesh. Nothing in the description of the petrified condition indicates any sort of suspension of effects.

That said, don't be surprised if a GM suspends the fatigue. Rules notwithstanding, I certainly would suspend a bleed effect if the bleeder was turned to stone and resume it when they return to flesh, provided the effect wasn't a limited duration spell.

[merpius]

Ah, good catch; Flesh to Stone doesn't mention the petrified condition, or even the word, however, a Basilisk's gaze does. So you could easily justify that to fall back to the petrified condition.

The condition does specify unconcious, so that implies that they are still a creature. It does leave the hole there for bleed, or other status effects that ordinarily would not apply to someone made entirely of stone, as you pointed out, however.

I wonder if the condition was added later than the Flesh to Stone spell? Otherwise, why didn't they reference it?

[blahpers]

Huh, I never noticed that. Very odd considering flesh to stone is one of the Big Three Ways to Become A Statue (along with the basilisk and the medusa).

[Pizza Lord]

There seems to be a disconnect between the petrified condition and flesh to stone (and a basilisk's gaze, which is otherwise like flesh to stone) which never make mention of any petrified condition (the word 'petrified' is used in one) or would lead a reader to look for a differing condition (the descriptions are pretty evident in most cases). It would almost be a case of specific over general where the spell and basilisk are somewhat differing from the general effects of the condition, since they don't mention anything about being unconscious or gaining any conditions.

Even if we were to treat a target as just unconscious, it still says they're stone, which means, for me, I would say that any biological functions are suspended; bleeding, poison damage, disease, etc. A petrified barbarian in rage would be in rage when unpetrified. A poisoned character would have the poison suspended, but would resume when restored (not having healed any damage for the time spent as stone, still needing the same number of successful saves to end it and keeping any previously made). If they'd drunk an antitoxin beforehand, it would still have its remaining duration, and they would be at the same hit points as when they were turned to a statue (they wouldn't heal naturally and barring damage taken while in statue form, of course, which carries over). They wouldn't be well-rested if a day had passed.

As for magical effects, like spell durations, I would most likely keep those suspended as well if they were directly on the creature, like a mage armor.

[blahpers]

Looks like it was the same wording in 3.5 as well for both spell and condition (or close enough for this thread). So it's an old problem at least. : /

[blahpers]

Pizza Lord wrote:

As for magical effects, like spell durations, I would most likely keep those suspended as well if they were directly on the creature, like a mage armor.

That I wouldn't do--even spells on dead creatures wear off in their normal course.

[Pizza Lord]

blahpers wrote:

Pizza Lord wrote:

As for magical effects, like spell durations, I would most likely keep those suspended as well if they were directly on the creature, like a mage armor.

That I wouldn't do--even spells on dead creatures wear off in their normal course.

So, for instance, you would have a wildshaped druid or polymorphed character that was a bear, be a bear statue, but sometime later it would flow and transform itself into a stone statue of a human or elf? A person with missing arms that gets regenerate cast on them right before a medusa attacked would possibly look like the Statue of David, but then, over the course of a minute would grow stony arms? :)

Or did you just mean they would look like they did but when you thought your were unpetrifying a beautiful elven maiden, it immediately resolves into a hag whose alter self would have worn off? She wouldn't even get a chance to pull off a con or bluff?

Again, there's certainly things that might require adjudication. For instance, I might view a fire shield spell as being 'around' a character, and as such, the resulting statue might still have that up (which would just use its duration until expended), providing its protection to attacks on the petrified character. I might consider the same for mage armor too, considering the field of force to be around the character and continuing to grant a +4 AC to the new statue against attacks until it expires. The same for a mirror image; I would have multiple statues shifting about in space until the spell ended or the copies were destroyed.

Certain effects that physically alter the character should remain evident, like if it was large size from an enlarge or had claws or bulging magical muscles.

[merpius]

I guess if you're going with my option a then it would require some adjudication to decide if any given effect is affecting the creatures form/physical body/biology or if it is, instead, indirectly affacting them. The former would suspend along with the creature, while the latter would continue to function while in statue form, using up duration.

Still, with the Basilisk specifically, even though it doesn't explicitly say to use the petrified condition, it does indicate that they are petrified. I thinkt hat link, tenuous though it may be, is enough to simply use the petrified condition, which, in turn, certainly implies that option b is the right one (or somethign similar), for that instance. That is, at least, from a RAW rules perspective.

[slade867]

A party member gets hit with the Suffocation spell and begins dying. Desperate to save them, the Wizard casts Flesh to Stone to retard the effect.

What does the wizard find when they cast Stone to Flesh the next day after preparing spells?

Did the party member continue to suffocate anyway and die?
Did the spell duration end so they're fine?
Does the spell simply resume and they are suffocating from where they last left off?

[born_of_fire]

Pizza Lord wrote:

blahpers wrote:

Pizza Lord wrote:

As for magical effects, like spell durations, I would most likely keep those suspended as well if they were directly on the creature, like a mage armor.

That I wouldn't do--even spells on dead creatures wear off in their normal course.

So, for instance, you would have a wildshaped druid or polymorphed character that was a bear, be a bear statue, but sometime later it would flow and transform itself into a stone statue of a human or elf? A person with missing arms that gets regenerate cast on them right before a medusa attacked would possibly look like the Statue of David, but then, over the course of a minute would grow stony arms? :)

Or did you just mean they would look like they did but when you thought your were unpetrifying a beautiful elven maiden, it immediately resolves into a hag whose alter self would have worn off? She wouldn't even get a chance to pull off a con or bluff?

Again, there's certainly things that might require adjudication. For instance, I might view a fire shield spell as being 'around' a character, and as such, the resulting statue might still have that up (which would just use its duration until expended), providing its protection to attacks on the petrified character. I might consider the same for mage armor too, considering the field of force to be around the character and continuing to grant a +4 AC to the new statue against attacks until it expires. The same for a mirror image; I would have multiple statues shifting about in space until the spell ended or the copies were destroyed.

Certain effects that physically alter the character should remain evident, like if it was large size from an enlarge or had claws or bulging magical muscles.

Being needlessly picky here: Michaelangelo's David is not missing any limbs (though some consider him tragically under-endowed). Perhaps you are thinking of the Venus de Milo?

[blahpers]

Pizza Lord wrote:

blahpers wrote:

Pizza Lord wrote:

As for magical effects, like spell durations, I would most likely keep those suspended as well if they were directly on the creature, like a mage armor.

That I wouldn't do--even spells on dead creatures wear off in their normal course.

So, for instance, you would have a wildshaped druid or polymorphed character that was a bear, be a bear statue, but sometime later it would flow and transform itself into a stone statue of a human or elf? A person with missing arms that gets regenerate cast on them right before a medusa attacked would possibly look like the Statue of David, but then, over the course of a minute would grow stony arms? :)

Or did you just mean they would look like they did but when you thought your were unpetrifying a beautiful elven maiden, it immediately resolves into a hag whose alter self would have worn off? She wouldn't even get a chance to pull off a con or bluff?

Again, there's certainly things that might require adjudication. For instance, I might view a fire shield spell as being 'around' a character, and as such, the resulting statue might still have that up (which would just use its duration until expended), providing its protection to attacks on the petrified character. I might consider the same for mage armor too, considering the field of force to be around the character and continuing to grant a +4 AC to the new statue against attacks until it expires. The same for a mirror image; I would have multiple statues shifting about in space until the spell ended or the copies were destroyed.

Certain effects that physically alter the character should remain evident, like if it was large size from an enlarge or had claws or bulging magical muscles.

That's fair. I'd make the same rulings for some and not for others, but that only illustrates the point that GM adjudication is needed for some things. For example:

slade867 wrote:

A party member gets hit with the Suffocation spell and begins dying. Desperate to save them, the Wizard casts Flesh to Stone to retard the effect.

What does the wizard find when they cast Stone to Flesh the next day after preparing spells?

Did the party member continue to suffocate anyway and die?
Did the spell duration end so they're fine?
Does the spell simply resume and they are suffocating from where they last left off?

A rational reading would dictate that inert statues don't need oxygen to live and thus suffocation would just wear off over the three-round duration without killing the target. The petrified condition nor flesh to stone don't explicitly state that petrified creatures don't need to breathe to live, but the former states that the creature is turned to stone and the spell states that the creature is an "inert statue", so one can derive the lack of needing to breathe from that text. After all, the alternative is that being petrified is invariably fatal to living, breathing creatures.

[wraithstrike]

slade867 wrote:

A party member gets hit with the Suffocation spell and begins dying. Desperate to save them, the Wizard casts Flesh to Stone to retard the effect.

What does the wizard find when they cast Stone to Flesh the next day after preparing spells?

Did the party member continue to suffocate anyway and die?
Did the spell duration end so they're fine?
Does the spell simply resume and they are suffocating from where they last left off?

The rules don't cover this, but this is what I would do.

I would say suffocation expires. On the flip side they could die from the DC 15 fort save of Stone to Flesh.

They also used a resource(2 spell slots) to circumvent the spell. I'd say that's fair since they could also have used dispel magic and possibly failed.

So we have one spell that might work if they roll high enough, or two spells to make sure the person doesn't succumb to suffocate, and the victim still needs a fort save to avoid dying.

[Pizza Lord]

born_of_fire wrote:

Being needlessly picky here: Michaelangelo's David is not missing any limbs (though some consider him tragically under-endowed). Perhaps you are thinking of the Venus de Milo?

You are absolutely correct. I was thinking of the Venus do Milo. As for David's endowment, I'm fine with it. Makes me feel better.

[born_of_fire]

Pizza Lord wrote:

born_of_fire wrote:

Being needlessly picky here: Michaelangelo's David is not missing any limbs (though some consider him tragically under-endowed). Perhaps you are thinking of the Venus de Milo?

You are absolutely correct. I was thinking of the Venus do Milo. As for David's endowment, I'm fine with it. Makes me feel better.

He's a grower not a show-er