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View Full Version : "Why won't you die!" (3.5/PF)



Tanuki Tales
2010-01-17, 08:05 PM
In DnD versions 3.0/3.5 and Pathfinder, how many monsters are there that, without any plot playing by the DM, just will refuse to stay dead no matter what you do to them (outside of the usual "Lolz Magixs iz teh ubranezs!")?

And I don't mean regeneration, the Tarrasque, etc kind of this trope or using resurrection magic/plane traveling back, but more as you were sure as damn you killed the thing dead but it comes back later to try and waste you again.

Liches and Ghosts come to mind for me, as well as possibly Cursts. I don't count Inevitables since each one is a brand new entity on itself, not just the original coming back from blatant death.

Mystic Muse
2010-01-17, 08:06 PM
Vampire muses in 4th edition. (they're essentially the Lich version of vampires)

Gods tend to avoid staying dead.

Tanuki Tales
2010-01-17, 08:08 PM
Vampire muses in 4th edition. (they're essentially the Lich version of vampires)

Gods tend to avoid staying dead.

*coughs and points at the title*

Mystic Muse
2010-01-17, 08:11 PM
*coughs and points at the title*

oops.

okay let me think.

well, Demons and Devils endlessly regenerate unless they're killed on their home plane or through a specific spell I believe.

Gods still qualify.:smalltongue:

I don't play Pathfinder (and due to the stupidity and poor phrasing of the Paladin code never will) so I don't know about monsters from there.

Eldariel
2010-01-17, 08:12 PM
Everything is killable as long as you know what you're doing. Ghosts are rather difficult to dispose of through traditional means though. Big T obviously also belongs. Some vampire types have a strong aversion to dying. Overall, many types of Undead tend to...well, not go away unless you do something very specific.

Mind you, every single one of them can be ended with a sufficient application of appropriate spells, but it'll take more than swinging a sword, which I guess is what you're asking.

Tanuki Tales
2010-01-17, 08:30 PM
Everything is killable as long as you know what you're doing. Ghosts are rather difficult to dispose of through traditional means though. Big T obviously also belongs. Some vampire types have a strong aversion to dying. Overall, many types of Undead tend to...well, not go away unless you do something very specific.

Mind you, every single one of them can be ended with a sufficient application of appropriate spells, but it'll take more than swinging a sword, which I guess is what you're asking.

I mean aside from just using magic to just make it straight dead.

Lich's will keep regenerating until it's Phylactery is destroyed and Ghosts just reform eventually until their reason for staying are gone.

Cursts only kind of count since a single mid-level spell could ruin them.

I did say that I wasn't talking about things that just use massive regeneration or are uniquely immortal (like Big T).

onthetown
2010-01-17, 08:31 PM
I had a couple of cockatrices that haunted me. I'd try to get rid of them and they would turn me to stone, the cleric would drag me back and turn me back to flesh, and then I would go back after them to the same end..

I'm pretty sure I still haven't gotten rid of the stupid things. They're just a running gag now.

Undead don't seem to like to stay dead... :smalltongue:

OldTrees
2010-01-17, 08:33 PM
Edit: misread OP

Bluff to act like an Undead or Construct
fall below 0hp
Diehard
Bluff to act as a corpse

Tanuki Tales
2010-01-17, 08:36 PM
The Survivor PrC from Savage Species could help enemies survive longer at the cost of offensive power.

5 levels nets
+0 BAB
+4 Saves
Improved Evasion
Improved Uncanny Dodge
DR 5/-

The Stone Power feat from ToB gives temp HP every round the enemy attacks

A Shield with the Heartening Psionic Ability gives +5 temp hp per round as an immediate action (proper timing allows it to stack with Stone Power. Stone Power, Take Damage, Heartening, Take Damage, repeat.)


I meant that you kill it, blast it apart, reduce it to a nice, fine dust and it still can just come back by its own devices to haunt you later.

Guess only the Lich, Ghost and Vampire Lords can really do that.

OldTrees
2010-01-17, 08:39 PM
Edit: misread OP

Bluff to act like an Undead or Construct
fall below 0hp
Diehard
Bluff to act as a corpse

Add Delay death and you don't have to do the first bluff check.


Note: this trick does not work against tearing apart the body or disintegration but might work vs some coup de grace attempts

OldTrees
2010-01-17, 08:41 PM
Also Undead can use the above trick if they have that one feat that allows them to survive under 0hp

Otherwise there is that one pact spell the resurrects you when you die.

However if the PCs are to the point of disintegrating the body then only the aforementioned monsters and the clone spell would work

Jack_Simth
2010-01-17, 08:46 PM
I mean aside from just using magic to just make it straight dead.

Lich's will keep regenerating until it's Phylactery is destroyed and Ghosts just reform eventually until their reason for staying are gone.

Cursts only kind of count since a single mid-level spell could ruin them.

I did say that I wasn't talking about things that just use massive regeneration or are uniquely immortal (like Big T).

Do note that there's spells that make things go away until something intervenes to fix them up (Plane Shift, Trap the Soul, Flesh to Stone, and so on) without technically killing them - drop a vampire into, say, the Plane of Fire, and he isn't coming back (he burns, then can't get back to his coffin in time). Use Trap the Soul (successfully) on ANYTHING (ideally, duplicate it with Shades to avoid the gem cost), and it's in your back pocket until you figure out what you want to do with it (the Lich's Phylactory doesn't help him in that case, nor does the Ghost's Rejuvination, nor does the Vamp's Gaseous Form).

Tanuki Tales
2010-01-17, 08:49 PM
Do note that there's spells that make things go away until something intervenes to fix them up (Plane Shift, Trap the Soul, Flesh to Stone, and so on) without technically killing them - drop a vampire into, say, the Plane of Fire, and he isn't coming back (he burns, then can't get back to his coffin in time). Use Trap the Soul (successfully) on ANYTHING (ideally, duplicate it with Shades to avoid the gem cost), and it's in your back pocket until you figure out what you want to do with it (the Lich's Phylactory doesn't help him in that case, nor does the Ghost's Rejuvination, nor does the Vamp's Gaseous Form).

And do note where I said "outside of the usual "Lolz Magixs iz teh ubranezs!""

Tanuki Tales
2010-01-17, 08:54 PM
Also Undead can use the above trick if they have that one feat that allows them to survive under 0hp

Otherwise there is that one pact spell the resurrects you when you die.

However if the PCs are to the point of disintegrating the body then only the aforementioned monsters and the clone spell would work

Or casting Deathwatch

sofawall
2010-01-17, 08:56 PM
I had a couple of cockatrices that haunted me. I'd try to get rid of them and they would turn me to stone, the cleric would drag me back and turn me back to flesh, and then I would go back after them to the same end..

I'm pretty sure I still haven't gotten rid of the stupid things. They're just a running gag now.

Undead don't seem to like to stay dead... :smalltongue:

Dire Quadrupeds seems to haunt one of the players in my group. They always find him when he is alone, and always grapple him.

Boars seem to also haunt him, for some reason. Not applicable to the thread, but amusing.

Soranar
2010-01-17, 08:57 PM
don't Trolls have this habit of coming back

Mystic Muse
2010-01-17, 08:58 PM
@^ no regeneration either

olentu
2010-01-17, 08:59 PM
don't Trolls have this habit of coming back

Regeneration was excluded.

Bobmufin52
2010-01-17, 08:59 PM
There's something in the Heroes of Horror book called a soul locked creature, it's sort of a template. Basically any monster or person can have it, and all it does is returns the creature back to life after so many days. It's only completely killable by a way dictated by the DM.

sofawall
2010-01-17, 09:03 PM
Don't dying curses in Dragonlance have some manner of doing this? Probably to do with death knights/Lord Soth.

Tanuki Tales
2010-01-17, 09:19 PM
There's something in the Heroes of Horror book called a soul locked creature, it's sort of a template. Basically any monster or person can have it, and all it does is returns the creature back to life after so many days. It's only completely killable by a way dictated by the DM.

You sure Heroes of Horror? I'm not seeing it.

arguskos
2010-01-17, 09:22 PM
You sure Heroes of Horror? I'm not seeing it.
It wasn't in the critter chapter, but was a paragraph somewhere. Basically, you can give a critter the power to come back from death FOREVER, unless specific DM-set requirements for it's death are set. Pg 47 has details.

Tanuki Tales
2010-01-17, 09:29 PM
It wasn't in the critter chapter, but was a paragraph somewhere. Basically, you can give a critter the power to come back from death FOREVER, unless specific DM-set requirements for it's death are set. Pg 47 has details.

Interesting, thanks.

Shalist
2010-01-17, 09:56 PM
+1 to Vampire Lord (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/mm/20021018a) from the WoTC site...aside from shedding a lot of the usual weaknesses (not killed by stakes, can walk in sunlight, etc), there's this beauty:


The only way to make sure that a vampire lord does not return is to cut its head from its body, burn the body and the head separately, scatter the ashes from the body over running water, immerse the ashes from the head in holy water, and bury the immersed ashes in consecrated ground. However, if the head ashes are ever unearthed and somehow separated from the holy water, dried thoroughly, and then subjected to an unhallow spell, the vampire lord can regenerate in a week if the ashes are placed inside one of its places of rest.

Tyndmyr
2010-01-17, 10:08 PM
Wow, thats a tough mob to kill.

Tanuki Tales
2010-01-17, 10:30 PM
Wow, thats a tough mob to kill.

It gets Leadership as a bonus feat too.

Sinfire Titan
2010-01-18, 12:00 AM
There's an ability in Heroes of Horror that auto True Rezs the creature 4d20 days after death with no cost. DM tool only though.

Rasman
2010-01-18, 12:11 AM
giving a demon the incorpreal template can SORT of make it come back over and over again...

...we were fighting a "booloo" or something like that...

it's pretty much a little red demon that, because it could become incorpreal, was possessing a village one by one in order to cast some type of uberevil summoning of a great and powerful demon. It would also BAMF out of rooms if it felt like it was about to lose, so, we ended up fighting it about 3 times before we used these special chains to capture and bind it to death

arguskos
2010-01-18, 12:13 AM
There's an ability in Heroes of Horror that auto True Rezs the creature 4d20 days after death with no cost. DM tool only though.
That would be Soul-Locked, dude. :smallwink: We already hit that one.

ShippoWildheart
2010-01-18, 12:20 AM
+1 to Vampire Lord (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/mm/20021018a) from the WoTC site...aside from shedding a lot of the usual weaknesses (not killed by stakes, can walk in sunlight, etc), there's this beauty:

Holy cockroach powers Batman!

Looks like we need a Tippyverse rocket and launch the ashes into space, and scatter it everywhere in order to stop THIS type of menace. :roy:

Tanuki Tales
2010-01-18, 12:40 AM
giving a demon the incorpreal template can SORT of make it come back over and over again...

...we were fighting a "booloo" or something like that...

it's pretty much a little red demon that, because it could become incorpreal, was possessing a village one by one in order to cast some type of uberevil summoning of a great and powerful demon. It would also BAMF out of rooms if it felt like it was about to lose, so, we ended up fighting it about 3 times before we used these special chains to capture and bind it to death

So like a Shadow Demon?

Olo Demonsbane
2010-01-18, 01:42 AM
Hobgoblin Warrior 3s. My players hate me so much now...it took them 30 turns at level 6 to kill 4 of them. Healing Potions FTW!

2xMachina
2010-01-18, 07:41 AM
+1 to Vampire Lord (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/mm/20021018a) from the WoTC site...aside from shedding a lot of the usual weaknesses (not killed by stakes, can walk in sunlight, etc), there's this beauty:

Why not just scatter the head ashes into the ocean? No ash, no target to unhallow/place in place of rest.

Foryn Gilnith
2010-01-18, 08:35 AM
Ghosts of 15 HD or more are pretty immortal. So are those Soul-Locked things. Lichs and vampires have permadeath conditions that are too well-known, and therefore easier to research a counter for.

Sinfire Titan
2010-01-18, 09:08 AM
That would be Soul-Locked, dude. :smallwink: We already hit that one.

I missed it then. Posting on a Wii is tedious enough.

Bobmufin52
2010-01-18, 11:19 AM
You sure Heroes of Horror? I'm not seeing it.

pg. 47, under the headding "Sometimes, They Come Back". It's not realy so much a template as a rule you can aply to a monster, so it dosen't change it's CR on anything, just makes it hard for them to stay dead.

Tanuki Tales
2010-01-18, 12:49 PM
Ghosts of 15 HD or more are pretty immortal. So are those Soul-Locked things. Lichs and vampires have permadeath conditions that are too well-known, and therefore easier to research a counter for.

That's highly debatable. A smart enough Lich can easily remain immortal (just look at the Hide the Phylactery thread). Regular vamps are wimps but Vampire Lords are pretty tough.