Death and Prepared Spell Retention: If a spellcaster dies, all prepared spells stored in his mind are wiped away. Potent magic (such as raise dead, resurrection, or true resurrection) can recover the lost energy when it recovers the character.
There doesn't seem to be a version of this text for spontaneous casters.
It does make me wonder if you can immediately refill those wiped spells by preparing your spells again or if the spells count as if they were cast.
Apparently nothing happens to spontaneous spell casters. They don't prepare spells, so that text doesn't apply to them.
It would apply to arcanists, since they are still prepared spell casters, even if they play more like spontaneous caters.
If I had to guess, I'd say that the Pathfinder developers simply forgot the default spell loss was a thing, when they created Breath of Life. The other spells are copied from 3.5 D&D, as is the information from the magic chapter.
Specific trumps general. Raise dead does what it does to spells known and prepared because it says it does and it's more specific than the general rule in the magic chapter. Resurrection doesn't say anything about spontaneous spells so doesn't affect those, and there is no general rule, so they are unaffected.
I'd say RAW, Breath of Life causes loss of prepared spells and no penalty to spontaneous casters, but the loss was probably unintentional in the design of the spell.
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If I had to guess, I'd say that the Pathfinder developers simply forgot the default spell loss was a thing, when they created Breath of Life. The other spells are copied from 3.5 D&D, as is the information from the magic chapter.
Specific trumps general. Raise dead does what it does to spells known and prepared because it says it does and it's more specific than the general rule in the magic chapter. Resurrection doesn't say anything about spontaneous spells so doesn't affect those, and there is no general rule, so they are unaffected.
I'd say RAW, Breath of Life causes loss of prepared spells and no penalty to spontaneous casters, but the loss was probably unintentional in the design of the spell.
To be honest I never really understood why you lost them in the first place its not like barbarians lost their uses of rage and bards lose their spells but not their performances. Meanwhile as your probably being raised after the fights over you'll have plenty of time to remorize before any future combat so I don't see what the aim was.
It may be a holdover from 2nd edition. Something to make the capture of wizards easier to manage. Personally, I'd just pretend that rule doesn't exist, but you'll get heavy table variation on how seriously they take that rule.
Note you cannot reprepare spell in an empty slot if it has been cast within the last 8 hours (which is likely if you die and then are raise dead'd), but also note that an expended slot isn't empty, it's gone. You rest to gain the (now empty) slots back.
To be honest I never really understood why you lost them in the first place its not like barbarians lost their uses of rage and bards lose their spells but not their performances. Meanwhile as your probably being raised after the fights over you'll have plenty of time to remorize before any future combat so I don't see what the aim was.If I had to guess, I'd say that the Pathfinder developers simply forgot the default spell loss was a thing, when they created Breath of Life. The other spells are copied from 3.5 D&D, as is the information from the magic chapter.
Specific trumps general. Raise dead does what it does to spells known and prepared because it says it does and it's more specific than the general rule in the magic chapter. Resurrection doesn't say anything about spontaneous spells so doesn't affect those, and there is no general rule, so they are unaffected.
I'd say RAW, Breath of Life causes loss of prepared spells and no penalty to spontaneous casters, but the loss was probably unintentional in the design of the spell.
You could be captured or behind enemy lines and resting for 8 hours is completely unsafe, but the cleric brought a scroll of raise dead and now the wizard is alive again. Keep in mind "the way D&D was played" back then was those Gygaxian megadungeons where you couldn't just back up and walk back to the magic shop to reset whenever an oopsie happens (even though those oopsies were much more frequent back then).
The rule for a prepared caster losing all prepared spells is under the Arcane Spell section. There is no mention of it applying to divine casters. There is no reference to this under the section on Divine spells. Other restrictions on divine spell casting do reference the arcane section. This would indicate that only prepared arcane casters are affected by this. I may be wrong and there could be something that refutes this, but I don’t see it.
Raise dead specifies what happens when it is cast so that is an obvious case of the specifics taking precedence over the general. Resurrection also specifies what happens when it is cast. In this case it specifies that there is no loss of prepared spells. Breadth of Life does not have an overriding clause so would follow this rule.
It kind of makes sense if you stop and think about it. Raise Dead and Resurrection are designed to do only one thing. They bring someone back from the dead that is it. If you cast either of these on a healthy living person there is no affect at all. They are not general healing spells they only bring the dead back to life. Breadth of Life is on the other hand a general healing spell and can be cast on both living and dead targets. Raise Dead and Resurrection overcome some of the limits of dying because the spells are designed to.
In any case a death does not actually cause the loss of spell slots it just wipes away memorized spells. Since spontaneous casters do not have memorized spells, they obviously cannot lose them. This is the price a prepared caster pays for their flexibility. If you want an in-game reason death is a journey and who knows what the soul actually experiences on its journey. Maybe as part of the journey the character conciseness continues and doing so is tested to see its fate. Since the prepared spell are more of a mental thing, they lose of them is due to the characters soul casting them in its journey. This does bring up the possibility of one last after death adventure for a character who is killed.
The rule for a prepared caster losing all prepared spells is under the Arcane Spell section. There is no mention of it applying to divine casters.
I'd say that, too, falls under "Divine spellcasters prepare their spells in largely the same manner as wizards do, but with a few differences." Since it isn't listed as a difference it should work the same.
1. Yes, and I think that's probably the intent.
2. Yes, though I think for Breath of Life that was more of a mistake.
3. Probably yes. Expect some table variation.
Frankly, I feel like ignoring the default spell loss is a pretty good house rule. And I also feel like more than a few GMs won't even remember the default rule exists.
It's a bit like weapons glowing:
Light Generation: Fully 30% of magic weapons shed light equivalent to a light spell. These glowing weapons are quite obviously magical. Such a weapon can’t be concealed when drawn, nor can its light be shut off. Some of the specific weapons detailed below always or never glow, as defined in their descriptions.
30% of magic weapons glow, and yet in many games with many groups, I've only encountered 2 that did so.