Undead and Resurrection

[Dr. Cliché]

This came up in a thread recently.

The Zombie entry in the MM says this:

"Once turned into a zombie, a creature can't be restored to life except by powerful magic, such as a resurrection spell."


Likewise, skeletons have this:

"resurrecting a skeleton restores it body and soul, banishing the hateful undead spirit that empowers it."


However, the actual Resurrection spell says this:

"You touch a dead creature that has been dead for no more than a century, that didn’t die o f old age, and that isn’t undead."


So, can Resurrection restore skeletons and zombies or not? :smallconfused:

[StoicLeaf]

This came up in a thread recently.

The Zombie entry in the MM says this:

"Once turned into a zombie, a creature can't be restored to life except by powerful magic, such as a resurrection spell."


Likewise, skeletons have this:

"resurrecting a skeleton restores it body and soul, banishing the hateful undead spirit that empowers it."


However, the actual Resurrection spell says this:

"You touch a dead creature that has been dead for no more than a century, that didn’t die o f old age, and that isn’t undead."


So, can Resurrection restore skeletons and zombies or not? :smallconfused:

There are two resurrection spells, the level 9 one has no limitations of that nature.

[Dr. Cliché]

There are two resurrection spells, the level 9 one has no limitations of that nature.

So, just to be clear, the zombie entry is lying?

[MrStabby]

I think you kind of need to reverse the process. It begin like:

living creature>corpse>zombie through the raise dead spell

To reverse it you need to "kill" the zombie to make it a corpse rather than undead, then resurrect the corpse. This is just based on a hunch.

[Grey Watcher]

I think you kind of need to reverse the process. It begin like:

living creature>corpse>zombie through the raise dead spell

To reverse it you need to "kill" the zombie to make it a corpse rather than undead, then resurrect the corpse. This is just based on a hunch.

This was the case in 3rd Edition and I believe is the intent here: turning a creature into an undead creature makes it impossible to use Raise Dead. Resurrection requires that you first destroy the undead creature before you can bring the original back. So, for example, if Johnny is turned into a zombie and later tied up, casting Resurrection won't do anything. You have to first destroy the zombie (ie reduce it to zero HP) and then use Resurrection on the remains if you want Johnny back.

[Provo]

Hmm, I'd probably treat the resurrection description as the general rule, and the statements about skeletons and zombies as the exception to the general rule.

[Millstone85]

Continuing from the previous thread.


It shouldn't need to. 'Resurrection' is the lowest level 'resurrection spell'. Hence, if it works, True Resurrection will also work by default.I would argue that revivify is the lowest level "resurrection spell", followed by raise dead, reincarnate, resurrection and true resurrection. But it is not a well defined category of spells.


But, if that was the case, why wouldn't it say 'such as a true resurrection spell'?

As it is, they're apparently giving an example that doesn't actually work. :smallconfused:Again, they didn't use italics, so they weren't referencing the spell of that name, just the vague idea of powerful resurrective magic. I agree they should have called out true resurrection specifically.


I really want to use that now. I don't know how, but I'd love to find a way to make use of that gem in a game.My first impression is one of ludonarrative dissonance, or maybe a lack of it. From the devs' tweets, "undead" is a creature type and such a creature can be considered alive or dead according to hit points and death saving throws just like any other creature. So if you have a "dead undead", you can't use that to bring back the non-undead version of the creature.

But on the other hand, it is not without fantasy sense. Undeath is a curse and these bones or whatever aren't free from it just because you smashed them enough to stop them from moving. Maybe they still twitch a bit.

[Dr. Cliché]

I would argue that revivify is the lowest level "resurrection spell", followed by raise dead, reincarnate, resurrection and true resurrection. But it is not a well defined category of spells.

Well, I'd assume that it would contain 'resurrection' and 'true resurrection'.

The thing is, unless Resurrection works, then it fails as an example either way.



Again, they didn't use italics, so they weren't referencing the spell of that name, just the vague idea of powerful resurrective magic. I agree they should have called out true resurrection specifically.


But that makes no sense. The use of "such as" indicates that this is an example of appropriate magic.

If Resurrection doesn't work, then it is neither an example of an appropriate spell, nor even an example of a sufficiently high-level spell (since it's only level 7 and you apparently need a lv9 spell).

So, using 'resurrection spell' as an example is literally inaccurate in every possible way.
- It doesn't refer to a particular spell (because Resurrection doesn't work).
- It doesn't refer to a category of spell (because only one spell of that type actually works, and it isn't even the one named).
- It doesn't even refer to spell level (because Resurrection is below the level of magic needed to actually revive the zombie).

They might as well have said "high level magic, such as a prismatic spray spell." It would have been exactly as useful.



My first impression is one of ludonarrative dissonance, or maybe a lack of it. From the devs' tweets, "undead" is a creature type and such a creature can be considered alive or dead according to hit points and death saving throws just like any other creature. So if you have a "dead undead", you can't use that to bring back the non-undead version of the creature.

But on the other hand, it is not without fantasy sense. Undeath is a curse and these bones or whatever aren't free from it just because you smashed them enough to stop them from moving. Maybe they still twitch a bit.

Just to be clear, I have no objection to Resurrection (and similar magic) not working on undead. As you say, there can definitely be flavourful reasons for that to be the case.

My only issue is that this directly contradicts the text of both Skeletons and Zombies. :smallconfused:

[Millstone85]

So I asked on Twitter. (https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/828725298870972416)

The MM mentions restoring a zombie to life with "powerful magic, such as a resurrection spell". What PHB spells can do it?True resurrection can foil undeath. See the PH errataNothing new, like zombies being meant as an exception or whatever. It really is just the one spell.

I agree about the MM entry being quite useless.

[Fishyninja]

Hmm interesting and I am correct in thinking that only:

Bards
Clerics and Druids have access to this spell correct?

[Coffee_Dragon]

And neo-Favored Souls.