Death and negative Levels

[iamarobot]

Hello. First, I apologize if this question has already been asked and answered several times. The search feature is crapping out when I use it.

Last weekend my 12th level Cleric died. Twelve hours earlier he met some spectres and gained 6 temporary negative levels. I'm in the process of being raised my a magic item. At tomorrow's first light I will be raised though I don't know by what spell. An hour after that I was due to make the 6 saving throws to see if those negative levels became permanent. Now I don't know what will happen.

Of course, the best case scenario is that the death and subsequent Raise will wipe the negative levels but I can't find anything in the rules addressing this circumstance. I don't know how the DM will handle it but I want to arrive at next month's session with as much info as possible.

Does anyone have any insight into this?

Thanks in advance.

[Reize]

If you can postpone the resurrection for that hour, you should avoid the level drain. It requires a fortitude save and, as a dead body, you are an object and thus immune to such effects. I hope this is the answer because it would be hilarious to kill yourself in order to hedge your bets against level drain.

If you cannot, you'll probably have to make the 6 fort saves and potentially drop to level 5. Try to get heroism, bear's endurance, and anything else you can to shore up your fort save. If you are still level 7 or above, a few restoration spells should get you back to level 11.

[Zagaroth]

hmm, well, if it's Raise Dead (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/raiseDead.htm), that'd probably fall under 'magical disease or curse' clause, and you'll still have the negative levels.

If it's Resurrection, (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/resurrection.htm) you are in luck, as it specifies that you are restored to "full hit points, vigor, and health". But you still loose a level from the spell.

True Resurrection (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/trueResurrection.htm) is what you are hoping for, for no level loss at all.

[iamarobot]

Thanks for the responses. I'll post the results in case you're curious. My DM can be a hard ass sometimes. He's lucky his plot lines and bad guys are really good.

I asked for a head's up so I could start thinking about the next adventure as an 11th level PC or 5 - 7 level PC depending on the outcome and I got nothing!