The Suicide Squad.

[druid91]

So, with the Revenants and their immortality clauses, how best can these be used?

Two things to keep in mind.

1.) While immune to death, the Revenants are not immune to being imprisoned. So, if not capable of escaping, they should destroy themselves entirely. Because if their body isn't destroyed on death, then they are entirely capable of being locked away after their foes realize something is up.

2.) If destroyed, the Revenant will lose their equipment. Meaning that either certain equipment should not be brought along on the mission or, preferably not be required at all.

This means, Revenants jive well with Sorcerers, Warlocks, and Eldritch Knights, monks, and ironically, druids and clerics. Depending on the nature of their shared goal a party of revenants might find it useful to establish a sort of supply depot in some little used place. Where they can store things they might need for their missions and not drag the whole lot around with them only to be lost on their death.

At lower levels, relying on spell effects for your self destruct might not be the best option. But if you can douse yourself in lamp-oil or alchemist fire that would probably allow for a decent instant funeral pyre. And if you have a decent charisma score, maybe even an intimidation check on any witnesses?

[Douche]

Reminds me of the Cobra unit from MGS3.

I never realized it from playing the game, but apparently the reason they explode after death is so that they leave no corpse, so that the enemy can't study their body and recreate their super-soldier powers.

I read that as the reasoning on some forum, anyway. Would be a cool idea for a revenant to have a self-destruct mechanism so he doesn't end up imprisoned upon resurrection.

Anyhoo, that sounds like a cool idea for some elite squad of undead super soldiers. Unfortunately, it doesn't make much sense as being a creature of a single-minded focus like a revenant. Like, the Suicide Squad correlation makes it sound like they'd be getting sent on missions, but I don't feel like "working for a shadow government organization" is a good single-minded obsession worthy of defying death.

[druid91]

Reminds me of the Cobra unit from MGS3.

I never realized it from playing the game, but apparently the reason they explode after death is so that they leave no corpse, so that the enemy can't study their body and recreate their super-soldier powers.

I read that as the reasoning on some forum, anyway. Would be a cool idea for a revenant to have a self-destruct mechanism so he doesn't end up imprisoned upon resurrection.

Anyhoo, that sounds like a cool idea for some elite squad of undead super soldiers. Unfortunately, it doesn't make much sense as being a creature of a single-minded focus like a revenant. Like, the Suicide Squad correlation makes it sound like they'd be getting sent on missions, but I don't feel like "working for a shadow government organization" is a good single-minded obsession worthy of defying death.

True, but for example, a rebel unit betrayed by a former companion getting ambushed and killed rising from the grave to free their homeland and avenge their betrayal does seem like a cool idea. Obviously it'd be a bit meta focusing on classes that could use the immortality best. But still.

[Aevylmar]

For thirty years, the demonic hordes have been sweeping across the continent. Every village they reach becomes a new pyre; the suffering a sacrifice to link Earth and Hell and so call up a new legion of the damned. Who do they serve? What wizard is responsible for all these atrocities? That the demons freely admit; the King of the Isles, the son of the last king's daughter, angry at being passed over in the succession, has vowed to make the world pay for his slights. Above every living bonfire his minions erect his scowling face, and it seems to smile as he sees the work done in his name.

Heroes have fought them. Heroes have died. They have no mercy for such.

But there are some people who fight them. They are not the survivors, because there are no survivors. They are the ones who died first and last as they saw the ones they loved perish, and the ones who have one final duty to carry out before death can take them.

They are the Regicide Squad.

I think the general idea of 'all the revenants have the same target: the BBEG' works pretty well.

In a campaign based on this, their early, low-level missions would involve cutting him off from sources of power and killing important lieutenants; each adventure would be incredibly lethal, with the entire group being killed ha ha we don't care. Eventually, they could in-character-Desert-Gorge their way through his fortress, finally killing him with sheer weight of VENGEANCE.

[Belac93]

For thirty years, the demonic hordes have been sweeping across the continent. Every village they reach becomes a new pyre; the suffering a sacrifice to link Earth and Hell and so call up a new legion of the damned. Who do they serve? What wizard is responsible for all these atrocities? That the demons freely admit; the King of the Isles, the son of the last king's daughter, angry at being passed over in the succession, has vowed to make the world pay for his slights. Above every living bonfire his minions erect his scowling face, and it seems to smile as he sees the work done in his name.

Heroes have fought them. Heroes have died. They have no mercy for such.

But there are some people who fight them. They are not the survivors, because there are no survivors. They are the ones who died first and last as they saw the ones they loved perish, and the ones who have one final duty to carry out before death can take them.

They are the Regicide Squad.

I think the general idea of 'all the revenants have the same target: the BBEG' works pretty well.

In a campaign based on this, their early, low-level missions would involve cutting him off from sources of power and killing important lieutenants; each adventure would be incredibly lethal, with the entire group being killed ha ha we don't care. Eventually, they could in-character-Desert-Gorge their way through his fortress, finally killing him with sheer weight of VENGEANCE.

That would be an awesome game. I'll have to DM that one sometime.

What about this? 5e Tomb of Horrors on steroids, Revenent Party.

[Slipperychicken]

While immune to death, the Revenants are not immune to being imprisoned. So, if not capable of escaping, they should destroy themselves entirely. Because if their body isn't destroyed on death, then they are entirely capable of being locked away after their foes realize something is up.

Or their foes just bury the revenant within 24 hours of killing him, which they might have done anyway?


Revenants aren't immune to suffocation (PHB 183), which raises some issues with being buried "alive". Once it runs out of air, it would have a hard time getting out. Each time it resurrects in the grave (or it regains a hitpoint after hitting zero? I'm not sure if you can regain hp while suffocating), it has just a few rounds to struggle before being set back to 0hp and dying.


If they know the PC's a revenant, they could bind or otherwise disfigure the body to make escape unlikely. It's already ludicrous to claw out of a grave even if you're not worried about air, but getting through manacles, heavy chains, or even a sturdy (metal?) coffin would be next to impossible. And that's not even considering if the PC's killers simply decided not to take any chances: cut off the revenant's hands and feet entirely, stuff his mouth full of something hard to remove, cover the eyes, pack the coffin with dirt so he can't move, and bury him upside-down.


EDIT: But if you're feeling generous as a GM, the baddies could ritualistically torch the PCs body the first 1-3 times, hoping that would keep him down. Of course the PCs would respawn somewhere nearby, but the baddies don't necessarily know that.. the burial attempts might come after they realize destroying the body doesn't help, or if one of them rolled well on a Religion check to identify the players as revenants and remember what to do about them.

[druid91]

True, but how much disfiguring can you do before the body is considered 'destroyed'? And if you pack the coffin full of dirt, you risk worms and whatnot getting at the body and slowly destroying it.

It's certainly going to buy you some time. But it's not a permanent solution.

[Aevylmar]

That would be an awesome game. I'll have to DM that one sometime.

Thanks!

Let me know if you do. :smallbiggrin:

I think my other comment about a Revenant PC Party would be - other than your increased freedom to throw off-CR encounters at them - you should think about the question of *where* they respawn. "Within a mile of" is general. You should make it clear what the rules are on determining their spawn points at the start of the campaign.

[Slipperychicken]

True, but how much disfiguring can you do before the body is considered 'destroyed'? And if you pack the coffin full of dirt, you risk worms and whatnot getting at the body and slowly destroying it.

It's certainly going to buy you some time. But it's not a permanent solution.

Yeah, I guess if you really don't want to take any chances, you could pack it with cloths instead. Or just go all the way and mummify the body.


RAW there is no permanent solution to a revenant aside from finishing its objective, but with some common-sense countermeasures like burial and binding, you can easily keep one down for many years. It all depends on exactly when a body is considered "destroyed", and exactly how the body is restored when the revenant returns to life or gains a hit point. If it's enough to stave off natural decomposers like fungus and worms, then a paranoid burial (including bindings) should be enough in most cases.

I think it's a pretty big oversight for WotC not to name some ritual or spell to prevent revenants from rising. Not to mention that they neglected to make revenants undead. I guess revenants would work perfectly in one of the Dark Souls 5e games that people keep kicking around here...

[Mith]

I would say that conducting sincere funeral rites over a "killed" Revenant would kill it at low levels, rendering it a shade, impotent at influencing the mortal ream, unable to move on. At higher levels, these rites only banish the Revenant, with the banishment time getting shorter and shorter.

Does this give the Revenant an advantage over the PCs? Yes. However I would balance it out saying that they do not benefit from healing, only recovering HP from Hit Dice and then 1 HP every night (I use the 1+Con mod healing, because I have always used that rule, so why stop now? :P)

Revenants to me would be a sort of thematic choice that I wouldn't add to a campaign unless the player is going in an interesting direction.

[Belac93]

RAW there is no permanent solution to a revenant aside from finishing its objective, but with some common-sense countermeasures like burial and binding, you can easily keep one down for many years. It all depends on exactly when a body is considered "destroyed", and exactly how the body is restored when the revenant returns to life or gains a hit point. If it's enough to stave off natural decomposers like fungus and worms, then a paranoid burial (including bindings) should be enough in most cases.

This is what makes them so scary. Imagine this scenario: You are an overlord, and have recently heard of stories. A group of grim adventurers. A warrior capable of amazing feats of strength, who turns into a engine of destruction when he gets mad. A priest of death, armed with a scythe with the holy symbol of the Raven Queen on it. A fighter who attacks with only their fists and body, never picking up a weapon, and a mage wielding dark powers, gained from making deals with the goddess of death herself. No big deal. You think. Adventurers crop up everywhere. You send a crack squad to kill them. The squad reports successful. The next day, you hear about the same group massacring one of your outposts.

You send out another, better group. They also report successful. The next day, the group is back.

You order the bodies to be burned after death. You send out a group. They now report that the warrior seems even more powerful, able to ignore any harm to his body. The priest has begun summoning zombies and skeletons of your dead warriors to work for him. The monks has been able to send waves of fear from his body. The mage has started healing his friends, and seeming to revive even quicker.

You send out more and more. You burn the bodies, and raze the ground where they were.

The next day, they are back.

You go yourself. You kill them, bind them in coffins, and lock them underground. You rest easy for a few months.

And then they are back. The priest has started calling upon his god directly. The mage can reattach his limbs. The warrior can fly. The unarmed fighter has been surviving dozens of killing blows in quick succession.

And that's when you know.

You can't stop them. Bury them, and they'll claw their way out. Kill them, they'll be back. Throw their corpses into the sea, and the mage will summon them up again.

You are doomed.

[Slipperychicken]

You order the bodies to be burned after death. You send out a group. They now report that the warrior seems even more powerful, able to ignore any harm to his body. The priest has begun summoning zombies and skeletons of your dead warriors to work for him. The monks has been able to send waves of fear from his body. The mage has started healing his friends, and seeming to revive even quicker.

Now that I think of it, the revenant thing could be a way to use respawns without using an OOC conceit to make it feel too video-gamey. I guess I just don't like that revenants break the paradigm, under which every other sort of resurrecting undead (really every creature in the game) has ways to stop it for good.


I guess if we make the mental gymnastics required to assume revenants are meant to be undead (but they didn't explicitly say that because many of the game's implicit assumptions would snap in half the moment they introduced a non-humanoid PC race), then storing a revenant's body in a properly Hallowed area (with the "everlasting rest" option) should keep one down too, as could regular castings of Gentle Repose.

[Aevylmar]

My assumption is that the same death rule apply to PC revenants as to Monster Manual revenants: that, after one year (or, if you prefer the mythic feel, 'a year and a day'), if they do not succeed in their quest, their spirit passes on.

So if you could store them underground for a year, that would do it.

[Kane0]

+1 to this campaign idea. Sounds like a great fun.

[Belac93]

I would allow these as 'Permanent' solutions to revanents.


Having gentle repose cast on it prevents it from coming back to life
Convincing the Revanent to give up on its quest for vengeance makes it immediately die.
Possessing a Revanents body using magic jar, and then dying while in the body, prevents it from coming back for a year and a day.
If a Revanent ignores it's quest for a year and a day, they die permanently. This time must be consecutive, but is reset to 0 if they spend the same amount of time trying to complete their quest as they did ignoring it.
Being in an area with hallow cast on it, and then being hit with the banishment spell permanently kills a Revanent.


This is all I can think up at the moment. I would also say that anything that would trap the Revanents soul permanently kills them as long as their soul is still trapped. If their soul comes back for any reason, but their body is destroyed, they are dead for a year and a day.

[druid91]

Now that I think of it, the revenant thing could be a way to use respawns without using an OOC conceit to make it feel too video-gamey. I guess I just don't like that revenants break the paradigm, under which every other sort of resurrecting undead (really every creature in the game) has ways to stop it for good.


I guess if we make the mental gymnastics required to assume revenants are meant to be undead (but they didn't explicitly say that because many of the game's implicit assumptions would snap in half the moment they introduced a non-humanoid PC race), then storing a revenant's body in a properly Hallowed area (with the "everlasting rest" option) should keep one down too, as could regular castings of Gentle Repose.

To be fair, Ghosts were like this in 3.5

The only way to get rid of a ghost permanently was to figure out what was keeping them from passing on and fix that.

[Douche]

Or their foes just bury the revenant within 24 hours of killing him, which they might have done anyway?


Revenants aren't immune to suffocation (PHB 183), which raises some issues with being buried "alive". Once it runs out of air, it would have a hard time getting out. Each time it resurrects in the grave (or it regains a hitpoint after hitting zero? I'm not sure if you can regain hp while suffocating), it has just a few rounds to struggle before being set back to 0hp and dying.


If they know the PC's a revenant, they could bind or otherwise disfigure the body to make escape unlikely. It's already ludicrous to claw out of a grave even if you're not worried about air, but getting through manacles, heavy chains, or even a sturdy (metal?) coffin would be next to impossible. And that's not even considering if the PC's killers simply decided not to take any chances: cut off the revenant's hands and feet entirely, stuff his mouth full of something hard to remove, cover the eyes, pack the coffin with dirt so he can't move, and bury him upside-down.


EDIT: But if you're feeling generous as a GM, the baddies could ritualistically torch the PCs body the first 1-3 times, hoping that would keep him down. Of course the PCs would respawn somewhere nearby, but the baddies don't necessarily know that.. the burial attempts might come after they realize destroying the body doesn't help, or if one of them rolled well on a Religion check to identify the players as revenants and remember what to do about them.

Em... Thanks for rephrasing the OP?

The point of the topic was to create a revenant that can destroy his own body in the case of imprisonment or capture - IE disintegrate himself - so that he/she can reform somewhere a mile away and continue their quest.

The 2nd point was to pick a class that could benefit from losing all their equipment at that point, like a bladelock, who could still materialize his weapon if he loses it when kamikaze-ing

[Belac93]

Oops, this thread has gotten a little off topic. So, the perfect revanent? I would probably have to say monk. Bladelock, sorcerer, druid, cleric, and eldritch knight are all good, but they all need armor or spell components. If you made a monk, had a steady supply of alchemists fire, I think you're set. If your DM allows it, take a level of cleric to sacred flame yourself to death if you become trapped.