Delay death: How to not die

[Nich_Critic]

I'm a DM, and I'm going to be running an encounter with a character using rage claws and delay death to live far, far longer then he should against the party. However, I would like him to have some sort of contingency plan. I fully expect him to rack up an impressive, almost unrecoverable amount of damage in the short time of "immortality" he has, and I also fully expect the party to thwart his recovery somehow, but I want his attack to not be an intentional suicide mission.

Other then keeping delay death up permanently (not really an option with his companions and NPC wbl.. I'm stretching quite a bit to give him the ability in the first place), or letting him die and resurrecting him later, is there any way to quickly (a round or two) recover a lot of hit points?

And no, the drowning trick is not an option, lest all my PC's carrying buckets. But something that did a *very* similar thing would be ideal.

More then a by the book rules way of keeping him alive, I need some way of justifying how he can take tons and tons of damage expecting to come out alive.

[Toliudar]

How about a one-shot magic item, a "Heal me" button that he expects to use at the end of the fight? The PC's may do enough damage to vastly overwhelm the capabilities of the item, but he wouldn't necessarily expect that going in - or he could have been misinformed about the power level of the item. That way, if the PC's win and get the item, it doesn't overpower the game because it's still a one-shot.

[Nich_Critic]

That's not bad, but I would prefer if it were a repeatable trick. This guy's combat style is focused around not dying from hp damage while butchering his normal defenses (Through iron heart maneuvers, and shock trooper power attack). So, he couldn't have a button of "I recover" because he'd probably have used it in "his" last encounter. He needs a button of 1/day "I recover", at least, and you bring up a good point that I can't very well give one of those to the party :P.

Unless the button is 1/day I go from -infinite to 0, which would probably be just fine to give to the party, since they're unlikely to shape rage claws and cast delay death on themselves. I would prefer it be an actual spell, though, so I can give it some legitimacy other then "dm thought it would be neat". I kind of have a bad reputation for that that the players won't let me live down.

Edit: It occurs to me that it would be fun and hilarious to give him an item of 1/day temporal stasis upon impending death. Such a thing would be as harmful to the party as helpful. The idea is, the guy plans to wade in, take a ton of damage, "die", get frozen, and then be rescued and revived somewhere safe.

[Eldariel]

Craft Contingent Spell [Complete Arcane]. He should have a Craft Contingency: Revivify [Spell Compendium]. This revives him when he dies at -1 HP. Then, you can have another Crafted Contingency for healing, or an Armor of Healing/Greater Healing [Magic Item Compendium], which would automatically heal him when he's at negative HP, thus effectively immediately restoring him to a functional state.

I've actually used the combination of Revivify (or Last Breath [Druid version of Revivify in Spell Compendium; gets you a new body tho]) and Healing Armor on a party of high level adventurers where everyone had a Greater Healing Armor and every character had the capacity to cast Revivify from a scroll (through UMD) or as the spell. This gave a contingency for everyone in case anyone died.


Just plain old school "Contingency" with the same spell would also work.

[Rei_Jin]

For ultimate amusement, consider giving him the ability to cast Hostile Empathic Transfer (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/empathicTransferHostile.htm) once per day, at its maximum cost. That would allow him to transfer 90 damage to an enemy, healing your barbarian friend of the same amount of damage.

[NichG]

If he has a way to make the damage he takes non-lethal (e.g. Regeneration from something), then he can use a spell from Complete Champion (I think...) that heals all non-lethal damage that the target has suffered.

[Flickerdart]

Give him a bucket full of potions of Cure Light Wounds. He drowns himself in the bucket, goes to -1, and then goes into positives because he swallowed potion. :smalltongue:

[Telonius]

Custom wondrous item of CL 15 Heal, 1/day.
Contingent Plane Shift to the positive energy plane (make sure you keep a Ring of Positive Protection in your pocket for the occasion)

[Viktyr Gehrig]

Contingent revivify and heal is my weapon of choice. If it's an escape plan, add greater teleport.

[Eldariel]

Contingent revivify and heal is my weapon of choice. If it's an escape plan, add greater teleport.

I strongly dislike Contingent Heal since that's one less Contingent Spell that actually solves some issue; the limit is your HD, after all. Contingent Revivify, on the other hand, I can totally get behind since it's a pretty nice catch-all for various scenarios that all amount to "you die".

[Viktyr Gehrig]

Well, the idea isn't that heal puts you back in the fight. The idea is that it makes you conscious again so you can remove yourself from the situation that killed you.

Revivify plus greater teleport is good enough if you have somewhere safe to teleport to.

[Eldariel]

Well, the idea isn't that heal puts you back in the fight. The idea is that it makes you conscious again so you can remove yourself from the situation that killed you.

Yes, but that can be accomplished with an 8k gp armor property too. I don't think it's worth spending a Contingent Spell slot on.

[Darrin]

Use simulacrum, clone, or ice assassin (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=dnd/fw/fw20030124a).

PCs: "Dead? Finally... about frickin' time! We burn the body, and scatter the ashes. Let's see him regenerate from that!"
DM: "Don't bother. The body is already melting away."
PCs: "WTF?!?!"

[Talya]

How to not die?



What's with all that macho {expletive}, anyway? "Pull the plug on me. If I'm ever a vegetable, pull the plug on me." {expletive} you! Leave my plug alone! Put an extension cord on my plug! I learned a long time ago, that's the whole secret of life: not dying! SAVE my {expletive.}

Sorry they couldn't keep it up forever, George. :(

[Alabenson]

If all you want to accomplish is to give the villian a good way to not die, you may want to consider the Soul-Locked template from Heroes of Horror. Its a CR +0 template that gives the creature the ability to come back from the dead similar to a ghost's rejunvination.

[Jack_Simth]

More then a by the book rules way of keeping him alive, I need some way of justifying how he can take tons and tons of damage expecting to come out alive.
Check out Fortunate Fate, from Spell Compendium. It's a Contingent Heal, based on when something would kill you.

[myancey]

If he has a way to make the damage he takes non-lethal (e.g. Regeneration from something), then he can use a spell from Complete Champion (I think...) that heals all non-lethal damage that the target has suffered.

Regeneration is the way to go. Have the character take a combination of three feats.

1) Toughness
2) Troll-blooded
3) Tireless (if you use the OA version, it is not counted as a regional feat I believe.)

This will give the character a +1 regeneration, and he only takes lethal damage from fire and acid. The tireless feat is because troll-blooded normally makes you fatigued in sunlight.

Now, acid is tough to find immunities to, but a Sandstorm spell called Mantle of the Fiery Spirit will give him the fire subtype, making him immune to fire damage. The spell counts towards 16200gp of player wealth. The cost breakdown: 5000gp for fiery opal, 10,000 gp for XP cost (5gp per XP), and 1,200 gp for Druid 15 caster cost for 8th level spell.

The benefit of this build is that only suffocation, death effects, Con. drain, and acid will kill him.

If you want to make him basically unkillable..make him go Frenzied Berserker and obtain the Deathless Frenzy class ability.

Edit: Troll-blooded is based out of a 3.5 Dragon Magazine article.

[JaronK]

Crusader levels would be an obvious choice, as they have their own "nah, don't want to die" stance and can self heal quite effectively over time.

JaronK

[Greenish]

Now, acid is tough to find immunities to, but a Sandstorm spell called Mantle of the Fiery Spirit will give him the fire subtype, making him immune to fire damage. The spell counts towards 16200gp of player wealth. The cost breakdown: 5000gp for fiery opal, 10,000 gp for XP cost (5gp per XP), and 1,200 gp for Druid 15 caster cost for 8th level spell.

If you want to make him basically unkillable..make him go Frenzied Berserker and obtain the Deathless Frenzy class ability.If you're going for barbarian or other rager, Blazing Berserker from Sandstorm grants you fire subtype while raging. You can even negate the drawback by also taking Frozen Berserker (no rewards for guessing the source) to also gain Cold subtype while raging, and by immune to both types.

[Rei_Jin]

Acid Immunity can be gained from the Half-Clay Golem template. Whilst it's not listed specifically as immunity, every 3 damage that acid would do to the Half-Clay Golem actually heals it 1hp.

[The Glyphstone]

Howbout a custom item, usable at will, that instantly sets your HP to 0? Great for him, almost worthless to the group.

[Havelock]

There's a mind's eye magical tattoo trick. Costs 8k, recharges somewhat slow, faster if you can put power points in it.

I think it's mentioned in the Psion guide.

[Tokiko Mima]

Howbout a custom item, usable at will, that instantly sets your HP to 0? Great for him, almost worthless to the group.

Clever!

Make it usable as a standard action, so it can never benefit someone without at least the Diehard feat. :)

[Sitzkrieg]

I'm a little rusty on psionics, but I think this would work for immense cruelty:

Get him a psionic tattoo of Hostile Empathic Transfer, as mentioned before, at full power points and the extra ranged option.

As a standard action, he can activate the tattoo and transfer 90 hit points from himself to everyone within a 20 ft radius spread. No item leftover for the party to recover, and will probably wipe out every melee guy in the party. If this guy is going to get sent to the really deep end of the HP pool, give him a second one and he can do it again.

The best part is that they're only 750 gold each, or alternatively require a low level (4th I think) psion to craft them for you.