Resurrection Prevention - A DM/Player Miniguide

[Renduaz]

Ah, Resurrection magic. A bit anti-climatic, isn't it? So long as even a single party member with it, or with access to it, or an NPC who does, survives, then as long as there are bodies present, everyone can just come back to life. And hell, with True Resurrection, you don't even need the body, only to speak the creature's name. Well, all of those provided that the soul is free and willing. The latter is probably not very relevant, but free you say? And probably existing, too? Now that's where I come in.

First of all, if resurrection is practiced in your campaign, then reasonably everyone but the most stupid or sheltered intelligent creatures fought by the party would certainly be aware of that prospect, at least those spells of low to mid level, through first, second or third-hand knowledge. That means that starting from a pretty low level, a majority of intelligent enemies, and especially spellcasters, magical intelligent creatures, or those in service to them, are going to decapitate, burn, teleport or stow away, raise as dead ( or other creatures, if they have access to abilities like those of a vampire, or keep, say, Spawn of Kyuss around, while the target is still living before finishing them off with such abilities ) in order to guarantee certain death. If the death of the party or one of it's members is a high priority for them, either as an order from above or due to personal motives, then I'd say as a DM, the enemy will certainly spend an action to somehow make vanish or destroy the remains of a paty member once killed, including during combat itself.

But now, what about when it comes to the crown jewel, True Resurrection, for high-level parties or those who can find willing high-level NPC's to perform it? In that case, let's say hello to the villain's ( or heroe's, depending on your alignment, although those of good alignment might be hesitant to use this method even against major threats ) best friend - The Barghest. Small, stealthy, telepathic, capable of appearing as an innocent small goblin, the Barghest makes the perfect companion for anyone capable of taming or controlling it through magic ( Which with it's CR of 4, is a laughable task for almost any mage or even physical creature of slightly higher levels ), but most importantly - it's neat ability known as "Soul Feeding". Almost every mid to high-level intelligent organization, enemy and once again, especially spellcasters and powerful intelligent magical creatures, would probably have a pack of Barghests at their disposal ( If the Barghest exists in your world ), either at onset or available for a quick teleportation or summoning, ready to pounce and deal the final blow to a dying target in order to trap it's soul, and if the enemy is clever, he will likely either then order the Barghest to dimension door and retreat somewhere ( preferably though some teleportation means to a completely secure location such as a Demiplane, or a Warded zone which the barghest can get into after teleporting) or do so himself, so that the process of the soul's destruction cannot be interrupted.

Now, if that enemy also happens to be an extremely powerful spellcaster of the highest order and very devious, or has access to the utmost magical powers, hey may also attempt to thwart any attempt to resurrect the target before the barghest has destroyed it's soul after 24 hours even moreso than the 50% chance of resurrection there already is, by scrying/spying on the party if it failed to stall them for 24 hours or capture them in order to estimate when they're about to attempt a true resurrection, and then cast Antimagic Field around the Barghest, which creates an area "completely divorced from the magical energy that suffuses the multiverse" and negates all other spells, even Wish, and thus prevent "True Resurrection" from reaching to the soul trapped inside the Barghest. Meanwhile the "Soul Feeding" ability is not considered magical but rather innate to the Barghest, much like it's own existence, so it continues on, nor does the Barghest itself disappear or anything if tamed or dominated, or even called forth by Planar Ally ( Since it's not actually "summoning" and doesn't use the term unlike other spells, rather beseeching a deity or other entity to send a creature of it's own volition to you, as if teleported ). A sufficiently powerful enemy may have access to Simulacrums, scrolls, allies, enslaved creatures ( Such as a Beholder ) or items which can help him maintain Antimagic Field far longer than one hour or even permanently, thus rendering resurrection utterly impossible before the soul is consumed. Alternatively, or in combination, prior to unleashing Barghests on a dying target, the enemy may cast "Wish" on the target and grant him the "gift" of being immune to True Resurrection for 8 hours first, if he wants them dead so much to burn a True Wish on it and confident he can prevent the resurrection in the upcoming 16 hours after that. And the target nor the party won't even know what happened, since initially there would be no effect, but all resurrection efforts for the next 8 hours would fail. And since the duration of "Wish" is instantaneous, then ( According to Sage Advice ), the effect cannot even be dispelled, not that it matters, since the target's body is destroyed after spending 1 minute in the Barghest anyway and only the soul stays there henceforth, even if the party could find the Baghest's location ( should the enemy be clever )

Alternatively, yet arguably less common means of thwarting True Resurrection would be a Demilich which is a disciple of Acererak using the "Trap Soul" ability, which works on any creature and not just humanoids, while furthermore preventing the target from being resurrected at all during the consumption process of 24 hours since the soul is not free and no exception is given, banishing or sending any target to Hades and causing them to either spend 6 rests there or gain 6 levels of exhaustion through any means, in which case by the optional "Vile Transformation" rule applies, and it is explicitly stated that the visitor does not die, but rather is permanently transformed into a larva. And since it is not listed as magical, or at least not mundanely so, rather the divine effect of the plane, that means it can't be dispelled, and all resurrection efforts fail since the target is not dead. And if the Larva is killed, it gets resurrected as a Larva. Lastly, if possible to be kidnapped or trapped ( Many ways to do so, won't be discussed here ) an evil humanoid with very low hit points ( Such as 1 after being unconscious, kidnapped, and restored somewhere quickly ), then made to sleep ( Either naturally or through magic ), then a Night Hag ( possible to be summoned with Conjure Fey, even ) can use an ability to trap it's soul in her Soul Bag item.

Finally, it should of course be noted that all of these methods also work the other way around. If a party does not wish to encounter the same enemies over and over gain provided they had "safety measures" in place ( Such as allies with resurrection, Contingency, Clone - And yes, it works against Clone too since the soul isn't free or existing o return there, and so on ), they will be wise to use those.

[Millstone85]

Other reasons why a soul wouldn't be free or willing:

Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.
So the character died and, having been naughty or having signed the wrong contract, went to Hell or some other lower plane. Is that soul free to come back? Of course not! Unless... the character comes back, but what was a short time on the Material was years of torment down there, and the soul is somewhat... changed.

Tasting a little slice of Heaven.
So the character died and, having been nice, began to enjoy their eternal reward. Are you sure this soul would want to come back? Perhaps if the party's quest is a noble one indeed. But then, it is likely that nothing will taste right anymore, not after all the ambrosia and other heavenly delights.

The pearly gates are not revolving doors.
The character has to convince their god, the grim reaper, or some other entity, every time they want to come back among the living. It is possible but it is not easy and it might get harder with repetition.

Journey of the dead.
The departed first venture through the Shadowfell, which sucks for everyone, then sail the Astral Plane toward the place that calls to their soul. A lot can happen on the way. Getting eaten by a death giant, captured by the githyanki, etc.

[Renduaz]

Other reasons why a soul wouldn't be free or willing:

Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.
So the character died and, having been naughty or having signed the wrong contract, went to Hell or some other lower plane. Is that soul free to come back? Of course not! Unless... the character comes back, but what was a short time on the Material was years of torment down there, and the soul is somewhat... changed.

Tasting a little slice of Heaven.
So the character died and, having been nice, began to enjoy their eternal reward. Are you sure this soul would want to come back? Perhaps if the party's quest is a noble one indeed. But then, it is likely that nothing will taste right anymore, not after all the ambrosia and other heavenly delights.

The pearly gates are not revolving doors.
The character has to convince their god, the grim reaper, or some other entity, every time they want to come back among the living. It is possible but it is not easy and it might get harder with repetition.

Journey of the dead.
The departed first venture through the Shadowfell, which sucks for everyone, then sail the Astral Plane toward the place that calls to their soul. A lot can happen on the way. Getting eaten by a death giant, captured by the githyanki, etc.

All good roleplaying reasons, I was more focused on RAW methods of preventing resurrections, but these are always there too.

[90sMusic]

Resurrection doesn't need any special rules or restrictions tied to it, if people are constantly coming back from the dead in your campaign it's because you're throwing endless amounts of gold at them and gold has no real purpose.

Even the lowest, crappiest spell, Raise Dead, needs very specifically a diamond worth 500gp. That is a lot of gold. That kind of gold can get you accommodations at the Wealthy level for 125 days. It isn't common for anyone to have that much money. Even hireling soldiers only earn 2 gold per day, and that is assuming they're more of the mercenary sort that cost a bit more than your run of the mill soldier or guard that probably earns much less being paid by whatever lord they serve. And it would take these guys almost a year's wages to be able to buy one of these diamonds and that is without spending a single cent on living expenses the entire time.

So the idea that every single bad guy you encounter is going to be expecting you to resurrect all your buddies everytime they die is crazy because no standard people have that much wealth and the random bandits and low level thugs you encounter aren't going to see PC's and be like "Oh wow, those aren't just everyday folks, those are PLAYER CHARACTERS, so I KNOW they'll have more money and thus can resurrect!". Resurrecting isn't going to be a common affair, even without arbitrarily changing the rules. It is going to be reserved for the wealthy only, and most wealthy individuals aren't going to care enough about someone in their service dying unless it is someone they care about personally like family, a close friend, a powerful champion, etc.

I believe only the really intelligent enemies that are already aware of your little group would bother taking precautions to dispose of bodies. True Resurrection costs 25,000 gold... That is a ridiculous amount of money, the act of casting that spell should be a monumental event that affects history in most worlds because of the sheer cost.

If you are throwing infinite amounts of gold at your players to fuel endless resurrection, especially true resurrection, that is your fault as a DM as opposed to a fault with the game rules. If they don't have that money, they aren't going to be able to resurrect anyone. Gold is the limiting factor.

Another thing, 25,000 gold is too much money to just carry around with you. It's practically too much gold for anyone to even have all at once barring kings with a treasury and dragons. Most wealth that exists in the world, including the real world, isn't in actual currency, it is in assets. If you happen to get a very large contract to kill something very powerful and are being offered a reward of say 10,000 gold equivalent (which again, monumental amount of money that no one individual should even have unless they are some kind of lord at the very least) they most likely aren't going to just give you a 200 pound sack of gold, they're going to do what lords typically do such as trade valuable favors, grant titles or land (or both), etc to get things worth approximately that much money without actually giving you that much coinage.

There are sections talking about all of this in the dungeon master's guide.

Again, resurrection is only an issue if the DM is just throwing money at them for no reason. Gold is almost worthless in 5e because you don't use it for anything except buying food, drink, and staying at the inn and all those things are cheap. Only other thing you spend gold on is those poor heavy armor suckers that need to save up for crazy overpriced plate armor, and beyond that, they don't need it either. From there on, gold only has value to buy spell components.

All of this is just standard rules with what should be standard behaviors without making up anything crazy. If they want to resurrect themselves a couple of times, that is all well and good, but it will cost them. They can't afford to keep dying because the cost of bringing people back is too high. It's the same reason you don't see that "entire village that was wiped out" brought back to life for a happy ending after a midnight orc raid because it simply costs too much money and no one with that kind of gold cares enough about random peasants and they're unlikely to have rich family members.

The only time, realistically, your players should ever encounter 25,000 gold pieces needed for a true resurrection spell is if they kill a big enough dragon and take it's hoard or break into a king's treasure vault or something along those lines. That much wealth isn't going to be thrown at random people.

Then, even if you actually have the gold wealth to afford the reagents, you have to consider reagent scarcity. There aren't an unlimited amount of diamonds worth 500gp in the world. If you die on an adventure and only have access to Raise Dead, are you going to already have one or more 500gp value diamonds on your person? Do you even know where to go to buy them? Will you make it there within the 10 day time limit to use the Raise Dead spell? If you don't price goes up to 1,000 needing Resurrection.

You think a medieval, feudal society is going to just have a Kay Jewelers on every street corner where you can buy limitless amounts of diamonds of exact prices? No. Something like that is going to come from the black market and cost more than it's worth, or have to come from a rich merchant or member of nobility who would be wealthy enough to have such a thing. Folks who trade in diamonds aren't going to be common and also aren't likely to be free enterprise in a world where the nobility rule and control all the land and people just work on that land on their behalf.

Anyway, just some things to think about. You don't have to bend the rules or try to find crazy ways to limit resurrection by making every single enemy just automatically know and assume people they kill will be raised, there are enough reasonable limitations already in place if you don't hand-wave them. I've played in a lot of campaigns where the PCs get showered in gold that really serves no purpose and has Kay Jewelers where they can buy limitless amounts of whatever size diamonds they want, it is the sort of thing people like to ignore and hand-wave a lot, but if you're THAT hell bent on limiting resurrection then just don't hand-wave the whole thing and it'll work it's self out. Party should have a couple of res's if things go south, but it isn't going to be something they can repeat infinitely. Especially if they do happen to lose that corpse in some horrible way like falling in lava or dragon fire, or who knows what else.

That dude making 2 gold a day would take over 34 years of working non-stop without vacations, days off, etc to be able to afford a single true resurrection. If you compare that to real world minimum wage, it would put the cost of resurrecting people at close to $500,000. Imagine if it was possible in the real world, even if it did only cost $500,000, how many people do you think you're going to know and meet that have been resurrected? That is way out of the price range of 99% of the population. Even if you had enough people scrounge together and save enough to do it once, they aren't going to be able to do it again. Big businesses, nobility, governments, they can afford that, everyday joe blows can't.

Also fun fact that is slightly related: there is a company in Korea I believe (might be china, but pretty sure it's korea) that will clone dead pets and it costs either $100,000 or $200,000. Rich people that love their dogs get them cloned because they can afford to.

[Renduaz]

Resurrection doesn't need any special rules or restrictions tied to it, if people are constantly coming back from the dead in your campaign it's because you're throwing endless amounts of gold at them and gold has no real purpose.

Even the lowest, crappiest spell, Raise Dead, needs very specifically a diamond worth 500gp. That is a lot of gold. That kind of gold can get you accommodations at the Wealthy level for 125 days. It isn't common for anyone to have that much money. Even hireling soldiers only earn 2 gold per day, and that is assuming they're more of the mercenary sort that cost a bit more than your run of the mill soldier or guard that probably earns much less being paid by whatever lord they serve. And it would take these guys almost a year's wages to be able to buy one of these diamonds and that is without spending a single cent on living expenses the entire time.

So the idea that every single bad guy you encounter is going to be expecting you to resurrect all your buddies everytime they die is crazy because no standard people have that much wealth and the random bandits and low level thugs you encounter aren't going to see PC's and be like "Oh wow, those aren't just everyday folks, those are PLAYER CHARACTERS, so I KNOW they'll have more money and thus can resurrect!". Resurrecting isn't going to be a common affair, even without arbitrarily changing the rules. It is going to be reserved for the wealthy only, and most wealthy individuals aren't going to care enough about someone in their service dying unless it is someone they care about personally like family, a close friend, a powerful champion, etc.

I believe only the really intelligent enemies that are already aware of your little group would bother taking precautions to dispose of bodies. True Resurrection costs 25,000 gold... That is a ridiculous amount of money, the act of casting that spell should be a monumental event that affects history in most worlds because of the sheer cost.

If you are throwing infinite amounts of gold at your players to fuel endless resurrection, especially true resurrection, that is your fault as a DM as opposed to a fault with the game rules. If they don't have that money, they aren't going to be able to resurrect anyone. Gold is the limiting factor.

Another thing, 25,000 gold is too much money to just carry around with you. It's practically too much gold for anyone to even have all at once barring kings with a treasury and dragons. Most wealth that exists in the world, including the real world, isn't in actual currency, it is in assets. If you happen to get a very large contract to kill something very powerful and are being offered a reward of say 10,000 gold equivalent (which again, monumental amount of money that no one individual should even have unless they are some kind of lord at the very least) they most likely aren't going to just give you a 200 pound sack of gold, they're going to do what lords typically do such as trade valuable favors, grant titles or land (or both), etc to get things worth approximately that much money without actually giving you that much coinage.

There are sections talking about all of this in the dungeon master's guide.

Again, resurrection is only an issue if the DM is just throwing money at them for no reason. Gold is almost worthless in 5e because you don't use it for anything except buying food, drink, and staying at the inn and all those things are cheap. Only other thing you spend gold on is those poor heavy armor suckers that need to save up for crazy overpriced plate armor, and beyond that, they don't need it either. From there on, gold only has value to buy spell components.

All of this is just standard rules with what should be standard behaviors without making up anything crazy. If they want to resurrect themselves a couple of times, that is all well and good, but it will cost them. They can't afford to keep dying because the cost of bringing people back is too high. It's the same reason you don't see that "entire village that was wiped out" brought back to life for a happy ending after a midnight orc raid because it simply costs too much money and no one with that kind of gold cares enough about random peasants and they're unlikely to have rich family members.

The only time, realistically, your players should ever encounter 25,000 gold pieces needed for a true resurrection spell is if they kill a big enough dragon and take it's hoard or break into a king's treasure vault or something along those lines. That much wealth isn't going to be thrown at random people.

Then, even if you actually have the gold wealth to afford the reagents, you have to consider reagent scarcity. There aren't an unlimited amount of diamonds worth 500gp in the world. If you die on an adventure and only have access to Raise Dead, are you going to already have one or more 500gp value diamonds on your person? Do you even know where to go to buy them? Will you make it there within the 10 day time limit to use the Raise Dead spell? If you don't price goes up to 1,000 needing Resurrection.

You think a medieval, feudal society is going to just have a Kay Jewelers on every street corner where you can buy limitless amounts of diamonds of exact prices? No. Something like that is going to come from the black market and cost more than it's worth, or have to come from a rich merchant or member of nobility who would be wealthy enough to have such a thing. Folks who trade in diamonds aren't going to be common and also aren't likely to be free enterprise in a world where the nobility rule and control all the land and people just work on that land on their behalf.

Anyway, just some things to think about. You don't have to bend the rules or try to find crazy ways to limit resurrection by making every single enemy just automatically know and assume people they kill will be raised, there are enough reasonable limitations already in place if you don't hand-wave them. I've played in a lot of campaigns where the PCs get showered in gold that really serves no purpose and has Kay Jewelers where they can buy limitless amounts of whatever size diamonds they want, it is the sort of thing people like to ignore and hand-wave a lot, but if you're THAT hell bent on limiting resurrection then just don't hand-wave the whole thing and it'll work it's self out. Party should have a couple of res's if things go south, but it isn't going to be something they can repeat infinitely. Especially if they do happen to lose that corpse in some horrible way like falling in lava or dragon fire, or who knows what else.

That dude making 2 gold a day would take over 34 years of working non-stop without vacations, days off, etc to be able to afford a single true resurrection. If you compare that to real world minimum wage, it would put the cost of resurrecting people at close to $500,000. Imagine if it was possible in the real world, even if it did only cost $500,000, how many people do you think you're going to know and meet that have been resurrected? That is way out of the price range of 99% of the population. Even if you had enough people scrounge together and save enough to do it once, they aren't going to be able to do it again. Big businesses, nobility, governments, they can afford that, everyday joe blows can't.

Also fun fact that is slightly related: there is a company in Korea I believe (might be china, but pretty sure it's korea) that will clone dead pets and it costs either $100,000 or $200,000. Rich people that love their dogs get them cloned because they can afford to.

Well, first of all, are you addressing me when it comes to "changing the rules"? I have not done so, I'm not a fan of that at all. That's exactly why I listed RAW methods by which enemies will attempt to thwart resurrection magic. And really, most of the time until "True Resurrection" is available, decapitation or burning or transportation of the body is all that enemies really need to worry about when it comes to preventing resurrection magic, or even magics that can glean information from the dead, or various necromancy mumbo-jumbo and so forth. That would be essentially the equivalent of almost every person staying away from someone who has blackpox or burning the bodies of those with the plague, it's just something that in a world with magics such as these would become widespread to ensure "no funny business" transpires, especially among people familiar with such arcane rites. It's not even a question of whether someone has the gold or not at this point, it's literally just a question of "Why the **** not?" Burn, destroy or stash the remains and you don't need to worry about it.

As for the measures of countering a True Resurrection, since it's a 9th-level spell, and pay attention - The DMG stating in "tiers of play" that at this level, characters would be dealing with issues of "Planar scope" in their importance, and not to even mention any soul-related house rules or deity behaviors and such, then yes, high-level intelligent enemies like Liches or Archmages or an Elder Brain or high-ranking Fiends are definitely going to want to utterly destroy the soul of any being of similar power they are fighting to ensure they stay that way, and a pack of CR 4 Barghests and Antimagic Field spells are not even a difficult way of doing so.

"Common bandits", usually fighting pretty low-level characters, as I have said in my own post, are likely not going to worry about True Resurrection or even know of it, but if Necromancy or simple resurrections such as Raise Dead or Revivify have been practiced so much as a few times in any of your world's cities or other places where it would be known, and with the various Temples or tales of Necromancy cults which are very, very much present in most official campaign settings and adventure modules practically everywhere, I'd say it would be pretty much common knowledge for everyone, and unless deeply isolated, most thugs and assassins are certainly going to prefer making a simple "confirm kill" during combat or afterwards, especially if they work under some organization with higher-ups who have some basic information about stuff.

And when it comes to much higher levels, then why yes, I absolutely think that any high-level enemy watching a party decked out with magical artifacts of planar legacy and wielding major arcane powers, and who is very interested in their deaths, is going to take precautions for the event of a true resurrection being performed, since it would certainly appear as if they could potentially muster the gold.

Lastly, I would concur that there is often too much gold in the hands of player characters ( But you can actually blame the DMG RAW for that, since those are the actual sums given by every single one of the random loot generation tables, which even at mid-level are WAY, WAY more than the amounts you talk about ), but even that aside, you're forgetting something - At the levels in which True Resurrection becomes a consideration, you're not in Kansas anymore. Your medieval society becomes obsolete. You have now either ventured into the Planes or come into contact with beings who hail from there, and the entire wealth of the Prime Material becomes a joke, where demon princes hoard the wealth of infinity from various worlds and planes and creatures without end, where "intergalactic" empires like the Gith rove across the multiverse and the various possible worlds and realities, And where your medieval "Kay Jeweler" argument will send anyone who has read the official DMG's description of places like the spatially infinite Elemental Plane of Earth and the City of Jewels ( Where "infinite diamonds" is precisely what you can find ) spitting his drink and rolling in incredulity. And when it comes to intelligent creatures of CR 20 and above, they expect to be contending with enemies who have access or connections of this nature. And don't get me started about how you can create a galaxy-sized pile of gold going by the actual rules of True Polymorph, or Wish for a Simulacrum and then have it cast Wish to gain an object of 25,000gp and do it over and over again, if we were to follow the written rules.

And once again I will say that I have no idea why you're talking to me about "bending rules" so much. Are you sure you're in the right thread? I specifically gave RAW methods of preventing resurrections using monsters from the MM and Volo's along with magical spells.

[mephnick]

Resurrection doesn't need any special rules or restrictions tied to it, if people are constantly coming back from the dead in your campaign it's because you're throwing endless amounts of gold at them and gold has no real purpose.

Have you seen the expected wealth in the DMG? Just hoard gold/gems/art, not even counting individual monster gold, hits like 600k overall in the higher levels. Per character.

Now, obviously everything loot-wise that's printed in the DMG is a total ridiculous disaster that needs heavy home-brewing, but going by RAW you can pretty much afford to resurrect anyone at any time once you hit 3rd tier play. Like resurrecting some random dead dude on the street has the financial hit akin to giving some change to a beggar.

[JackPhoenix]

No need to hit deep end of the alignment pool, all you need to stop True Resurrection is to hide the body (TR only provides new body "if the original no longer exists"), or, for more extreme (but still not as bad as trying to deal with soul-eating monsters) solution, cut its head off and hide it separately. Head isn't an organ or limb, so TR can't just replace it.

[Millstone85]

all you need to stop True Resurrection is to hide the body (TR only provides new body "if the original no longer exists")This is correct, and such a weird aspect of the spell.

What is the threshold here? A pile of ashes probably isn't a body anymore, but what of a pile of crushed bones?


cut its head off and hide it separately. Head isn't an organ or limb, so TR can't just replace it.Well, the head is a collection of organs, so I am not sure.

Also, what happens if the missing limb is somewhere else?

This spell raises more questions than corpses.

[Renduaz]

This is correct, and such a weird aspect of the spell.

What is the threshold here? A pile of ashes probably isn't a body anymore, but what of a pile of crushed bones?

Well, the head is a collection of organs, so I am not sure.

Also, what happens if the missing limb is somewhere else?

This spell raises more questions than corpses.

That's exactly all that I was thinking about when not including the method he specified. For example, we actually have above all else before that, to define what a "creature" is following it's death and possible evisceration ( Since we know, the spell can "replace damaged or missing organs and limbs", and here especially the "damaged" part indicates it basically creates or regenerates tissues, cells and other biological matter from thin air, so it'd be able to grow a head RAI, not to mention creating a new one entirely, and as you say the head could be argued to be a collection of organs in English definition )

So this actually begs the question of, before we even get to discussing the "no longer exists" part, just what constitutes a "creature" for touching? Just how much do you need? We know it can miss as many limbs and organs as possible and the spell will simply regenerate or replace them. By all appearances it would seem that all you'd need is actually a scrap of flesh or a finger or heck, even blood in order to regenerate and replace everything from scratch. Furthermore, the fact that the spell replaces missing limbs and organs even while those parts are still in existence out there somewhere, but not attached to whatever part of the creature was touched to perform the spell, lends support to the next point:

Which is, the description says "The spell can even provide a new body if the original no longer exists", which is not in the context nor wording of some kind of requirement, but rather - the spell can provide new bodies per se, even if the original no longer exists. This also aligns with RAI with the same ability of the "Raise Dead" spell, which is likely the intention here. Secondly, it would actually be impossible for the body to no longer "exist" ( Unless it was thrust into the Negative Energy Plane or something ), physically speaking, since parts of it would just break down into raw microscopic elements.

However, there is actually no need for us to split hairs over these interpretations, we do actually have a final RAW judgement ( Which completely reinforces the RAI and interpretation explained above, but also provides an indisputable RAW wording as to why Jack's suggestion would most likely not work ( Or require some very serious cleanup at the very least ), that is, the description of the "Disintegrate" spell:

>If this damage reduces the target to 0 hit points, it is disintegrated. A disintegrated creature and everything it is wearing and carrying, except magic items, are reduced to a pile of fine gray dust.
>The creature can be restored to life only by means of a true resurrection or a wish spell.

Now, this completely confirms one of two things - either True Resurrection exercised by touch does in fact, grow absolutely everything back, and furthermore can be done even with so much as the atomized fine dust remains of the affected target, in which case it would be nigh impossible to clean up a battlefield so much that the party will not find some speck or particle from the target's body to touch, or better yet - Cut off something like a stripe of their own flesh for use in the Touch version in case they ever die and some part of them must be around to get regenerated, or otherwise that the dust counts as "the body no longer existing", but we also know it doesn't need limbs or organs to count as "existing", which would in fact contradict the Oxford definition of "Body" (https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/body), and raises a lot of nonsensical questions about "Body" when it comes to the flesh or bones, or that the spell simply can work like "Raise Dead".

In the absence of any coherent or logical possibility of making a consistent ruling about "body" going by the second option, in the absence of a body's "non-existence" being explicitly required in the RAW, and since all other RAW and RAI interpretations point to the first and the latter reading, then hiding or decapitating a body would probably not work at most tables.

[thereaper]

No need to hit deep end of the alignment pool, all you need to stop True Resurrection is to hide the body (TR only provides new body "if the original no longer exists"), or, for more extreme (but still not as bad as trying to deal with soul-eating monsters) solution, cut its head off and hide it separately. Head isn't an organ or limb, so TR can't just replace it.

Trouble is, the body (or its parts) will eventually rot away. What are you going to do, find someone to cast Gentle Repose on it for the rest of eternity? That accomplishes nothing except adding one more step to the True Resurrection spell (find this person and kill them first).

The resurrection spells that require a body aren't so problematic, however, for that exact reason.

[Malifice]

Multiply the component cost by 10fold.

Require a system shock (con check) DC 5 or permadeath. Each time you come back your con score is permanently reduced by 1.

This is how I run it. Works a charm.