3.5 Drained by a vampire, then Revivify-ed. What happens?

[Padishar]

Title says it all. We had a character that was drained to 0 Con by a vampire bite, so normally he would rise as a vampire 1d4 days after burial, but our cleric cast Revivify on him immediately. I guess my first question is: Would the spell even work? If Revivify DOES work, what happens to him? Does he live a normal life, then rise as a vampire after he dies? Does he slowly succumb to the undead taint left behind by his killer? I’d like to hear your thoughts. Thank you in advance.

[SirNibbles]

Title says it all. We had a character that was drained to 0 Con by a vampire bite, so normally he would rise as a vampire 1d4 days after burial, but our cleric cast Revivify on him immediately. I guess my first question is: Would the spell even work? Revivify and raise dead say nothing about restoring ability or level drain. Unless such things “reset” to normal when the person dies. If that’s the case, it brings up a whole new question: If Revivify DOES work, what happens to him? Does he live a normal life, then rise as a vampire after he dies? Does he slowly succumb to the undead taint left behind by his killer? I’d like to hear your thoughts. Thank you in advance.

Raise Dead: "A raised creature has a number of hit points equal to its current Hit Dice. Any ability scores damaged to 0 are raised to 1."

[Padishar]

Raise Dead: "A raised creature has a number of hit points equal to its current Hit Dice. Any ability scores damaged to 0 are raised to 1."

Ok. Obviously I’m blind. Thank you. The second scenario is still a conundrum though.

[Kelb_Panthera]

There is no clear RAW answer, I think.

I'm inclined to just have the vampirism negated. It's simple, it's clean, and it doesn't involve having to destroy him and get a true ress' to undo.

If I'm running a more horror oriented, or at least grittier campaign then I might go with applying the template gradually over the next several days and NPC the character when the change is complete. It works if you want more permanent death and/or body horror.

[Bronk]

Raise Dead: "A raised creature has a number of hit points equal to its current Hit Dice. Any ability scores damaged to 0 are raised to 1."

The scores were drained though, not damaged, so presumably they'd default to back to full. The con score can't stay zero or the recipient of the spell would still be dead afterwards.


There is no clear RAW answer, I think.

I'm inclined to just have the vampirism negated. It's simple, it's clean, and it doesn't involve having to destroy him and get a true ress' to undo.

If I'm running a more horror oriented, or at least grittier campaign then I might go with applying the template gradually over the next several days and NPC the character when the change is complete. It works if you want more permanent death and/or body horror.

For a sillier game, note that the new vamp or vamp spawn only rises 1d4 days after burial. No burial, no rising... The PC could live in fear of being buried!

[hamishspence]

If "drain" is just "damage that can't be repaired without magic" then one would expect a being killed by CON drain to come back with 1 CON, and have to get the rest back via Restoration.

That said, the 2 CON lost by 1st level characters raised, cannot be restored by Restoration.

Since a living being's minimum CON is 1, I'd work it as:

Level 1 character, CON 10, drained to death - Raised - comes back with CON 1.
Character has Restoration cast on them - CON is raised to 8. Cannot be raised further.

Since Revivified characters don't lose levels or CON - they could reach CON 10 again with Restoration spells.

I'd also say that "spawn" effects reset to zero once character is raised from the dead, since, ideally, the next time they die, the cause of death will not be "killed by undead".

If you die of old age, you didn't die by vampire bite, even if you died by it in the past.

[Crake]

The scores were drained though, not damaged, so presumably they'd default to back to full. The con score can't stay zero or the recipient of the spell would still be dead afterwards.

The alternative is that the character simply cannot be brought back by revivify, since it makes no mention about restoring drained ability scores, only damaged ones, there is a distinction between the two.

[Bronk]

The alternative is that the character simply cannot be brought back by revivify, since it makes no mention about restoring drained ability scores, only damaged ones, there is a distinction between the two.

Right, that's why I brought it up. Revivify works as raise dead, which only puts a limit on damage, not drain. In fact, revivify also specifies 'no con loss'. That's probably not what they were talking about with that line, but they could have easily written everything more clearly if they really wanted to.

On the other hand, if energy drain is similar to a curse, then raise dead would bring the person back to life, but would immediately be drained back to zero and die.

[Crake]

Right, that's why I brought it up. Revivify works as raise dead, which only puts a limit on damage, not drain. In fact, revivify also specifies 'no con loss'. That's probably not what they were talking about with that line, but they could have easily written everything more clearly if they really wanted to.

Since the line about no con loss is in the same line as level loss, you have to assume they meant that if you're level 1 you wouldn't lose 2 con like you would with raise dead.


On the other hand, if energy drain is similar to a curse, then raise dead would bring the person back to life, but would immediately be drained back to zero and die.

This is the scenario I'm advocating for.

[Mordaedil]

They'd stay dead because ability drain is permanent, while ability damage is temporary.

[JyP]

Title says it all. We had a character that was drained to 0 Con by a vampire bite, so normally he would rise as a vampire 1d4 days after burial, but our cleric cast Revivify on him immediately. I guess my first question is: Would the spell even work? If Revivify DOES work, what happens to him? Does he live a normal life, then rise as a vampire after he dies? Does he slowly succumb to the undead taint left behind by his killer? I’d like to hear your thoughts. Thank you in advance.
To go the Order of the Stick way : he comes back as a vampire (using savage progression I guess), but seems to be the same old adventurer, apart for the blood regimen. But in fact, he is now a chaotic evil monster which would destroy the party from within :smallbiggrin:

The in media res way : it would depend heavily on which Deity the clerics depends on for the miracle, and how said deity feels about undeads and about the specific PC & cleric. Is the PC a devout one, follower of the deity ? A follower of another deity ? A fighter only using the cleric as a healbot ?

(main idea there is that such a specific event is a very good opportunity to play the cleric's faith & deity and to have it playing in many different ways : the PC comes back as a necropolitan, as an half-vampire, with a geas imposed by the deity, etc...)

[Crake]

To go the Order of the Stick way : he comes back as a vampire (using savage progression I guess), but seems to be the same old adventurer, apart for the blood regimen. But in fact, he is now a chaotic evil monster which would destroy the party from within :smallbiggrin:

The in media res way : it would depend heavily on which Deity the clerics depends on for the miracle, and how said deity feels about undeads and about the specific PC & cleric. Is the PC a devout one, follower of the deity ? A follower of another deity ? A fighter only using the cleric as a healbot ?

(main idea there is that such a specific event is a very good opportunity to play the cleric's faith & deity and to have it playing in many different ways : the PC comes back as a necropolitan, as an half-vampire, with a geas imposed by the deity, etc...)

There's no way that a revivified character would come back as a vampire, that makes no sense, the transformation takes days to occur, and besides, revivify doesn't work on people who have been turned into undead.

[JyP]

There's no way that a revivified character would come back as a vampire, that makes no sense, the transformation takes days to occur, and besides, revivify doesn't work on people who have been turned into undead.
Well, by RAW I agree that revivify would not work and that's it. But it's no fun.

Here we are in a magic world where the cleric asks his divinity for a miracle... even if we know the cleric is not powerful enough to cast true resurrection, we don't know his deity plans also, nor the vampire's curse influence, nor the adventure/campaign background. That's why for me it's a good occasion to invent something unique in the gray area between turning into a vampire / real death, a "fantasy world miracle" event.