Interaction of unchained poisons with resurrection spells


Rules Questions


Unchained poisons state:

Quote:
However, once the disease or poison has reached its end state, only a more powerful spell such as miracle or wish can remove its effects.

I'm a bit confused. The end state is usually death. So doesn't raise dead/resurrection work no longer?

Bonus question: If your end state is earlier, are you stuck without miracle/wish?


Afflictions

This is an alternate system for more "realistic" effects. Each type has a defined progression path to make the afflictions have more in-game impact.

Progression and End States wrote:
Most afflictions also have an end state—a point at which the disease or poison has progressed as far as it can. Once an affliction has reached its end state, the victim keeps all current effects (but doesn’t suffer further effects) and can no longer attempt saving throws to recover from the affliction. By default, each disease and poison track has an end state of dead, but some afflictions have less severe end states, and others might progress only to a certain intermediate state at worst, allowing victims to continue attempting saves.

commentary -

hopefully one deals with an affliction BEFORE the end state (death) occurs. That's usually a wise idea as coming back from the dead can be rather expensive. Absorb Toxicity, Neutralize Poison, Delay Poison, etc all become more useful under this optional system. Aegis of Recovery...


You're using a set of optional rules, so it's going to rely heavily on interpretation, but here goes...

"Usually, neutralize poison or remove disease immediately moves the victim to a healthy state on the respective track, and a heal spell will work for both. However, once the disease or poison has reached its end state, only a more powerful spell such as miracle or wish can remove its effects."

I believe Resurrection would resurrect you without the poison/disease, and Raise Dead would have no effect (if the target died by the poison/disease). I believe this because Raise Dead is a *weaker* spell than Heal (which it says as written would not remove the poison/disease at its end state), so regardless of the fact that raise dead *should* be able to raise them, it *cannot* reverse the end state cause of the disease/poison, which happens to be death, which means it cannot raise them.

Resurrection on the other hand is a more powerful spell (one level higher on each specific caster spell list: witch, cleric/oracle, shaman, and domain lists). *And* resurrection specifically notates that it does not care about the "conditions of the remains", and the individual is "immediately restored to full hit points, vigor, and health."

*However* the only two spells it gives as examples that are strong enough to overcome poison (the end state is made far too strong in the unchained rules) are both level 9 spells.... which are an equivalent power of stopping time, creating demiplanes, and literally breaking the most fundamental natural laws. So in my opinion a level 8 spell should work just fine to both resurrect and get rid of your newly ridiculously-strong poison. Because if Resurrection isn't strong enough to get rid of the poison, that's extra crazy, since you can literally turn someone from a pile of ash back into a living human... So if you can't also get rid of the poison in the process of restoring an ash pile to life, you have your priorities of spell power very backwards...

As a general rule, you need to look at the precedent that the written rules set, and use that to make your judgments where the official rules are silent.

Also, if you're not the GM, ask him why in the world you guys are playing with unchained poison rules...

Bonus Answer: yes. Though you could argue Regenerate (same level as resurrection) would work (Poison is obviously affecting organs, being transported via your blood, and regenerate can grow entirely new organs from ruined ones - repairing existing would be even easier).


CMantle wrote:
You're using a set of optional rules, so it's going to rely heavily on interpretation, but here goes...

Those interpretations make sense to me.

CMantle wrote:
Also, if you're not the GM, ask him why in the world you guys are playing with unchained poison rules...

That confuses me - I can't remember seeing someone critizing the unchained rules. I thought those were liked over the original one. What am I missing?


in Organized Play the optional rules are not used. As it is corporate sponsored and widely played, I'd say that was the most popular interpretation of the rules.
Classes could pick up the options in Pathfinder Unchained(UnC) but they had to be that class (UnC Rogue, UnC Monk, etc) with those options and not the CRB class. It was a mixed bag in practice as Org Play generally stops at 12th level.

Home Games can be more tailored to the local culture, players and GM, and avoid or modify rules that aren't liked or aren't sensible. There's a lot of opinion in there as the 3.5 model isn't very accurate or precise but it generally gets a believable job done.

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