Dvanti and Death

[CyberThread]

Two things... if you used a some sort of resurrection spell on a divanti, would both come back alive?


If you used a animate dead on a divanti, would both be animated, as they are a single "unit" as far as the game is concerned.

[OldTrees1]

Resurrection targets 1 dead creature. Since one of the Dvati bodies can be dead while the other is still alive, I would expect that Resurrection only restores 1 body.

Animate dead targets 1 or more corpses. Dvati have 2 bodies/corpses both with the full amount of HD. So no the resulting zombies/skeletons would not be 1 unit. This is reinforced by the Skeleton and Zombie templates that remove the Dvati racial trait in question.

Why would you use animate dead on a Dvati? They only have 1RHD and thus make poor Skeletons/Zombies.

[Psyren]

I disagree actually - while they do have two bodies, they explicitly share a soul. What I take this to mean is that you only have to target one of the corpses with a raise spell, but "both" would come back to life.

Besides - it seems a bit sucky to me that rezzing a Dvati would require twice as many diamonds and twice as much time.

[OldTrees1]

I disagree actually - while they do have two bodies, they explicitly share a soul. What I take this to mean is that you only have to target one of the corpses with a raise spell, but "both" would come back to life.

Besides - it seems a bit sucky to me that rezzing a Dvati would require twice as many diamonds and twice as much time.

While they have a single soul, that does not mean the soul is in a single place. Their soul explicitly can be spread across multiple planes. (When only 1 body is dead)

Having 2 bodies means the Dvati is usually able to Rez the dead body before the living body dies.

However I can see most DMs being willing to rule that Dvati require only 1 Rez regardless of the interpretation of the RAW.

[Alex12]

I disagree actually - while they do have two bodies, they explicitly share a soul. What I take this to mean is that you only have to target one of the corpses with a raise spell, but "both" would come back to life.

Besides - it seems a bit sucky to me that rezzing a Dvati would require twice as many diamonds and twice as much time.

The reason is because you can have one body be dead and the other alive. Granted, not for very long, since they take penalties that increase by the day and can only be removed by restoring the other body, but still.

Personally, the way I'd argue it to happen if it ever came up would be that you only resurrect one body per casting, but if one body is alive, then lower-level resurrection spells (such as Raise Dead) do not incur the normal penalties such as level loss.

Yes, Dvati have trouble with resources like magic items, diamond dust, etc. That's what happens when you have to equip two bodies. However, it's balanced out by the fact that a Dvati, just by existing, tells the action economy to take a long walk off a short cliff.

[Psyren]

While they have a single soul, that does not mean the soul is in a single place. Their soul explicitly can be spread across multiple planes. (When only 1 body is dead)

I don't think the other "half" or whatever of the soul (gosh this is confusing) is on another plane. It's just dispersed. There's only one soul, so it's not like the living one could cast Contact Other Plane and talk to its twin, or plane shift over and look him up.

I would say a raise spell cast while one is alive and one is dead simply reconstructs the damaged soul. I would also follow Alex's suggestion of not forcing level loss until both twins die.