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Cowboy_ninja
2007-11-09, 12:08 AM
how many ways are there to bring someone back from the dead and what would it take to keep PC's from doing that?

NEO|Phyte
2007-11-09, 12:14 AM
There's a handful of spells that can bring back the dead, the easiest way to deal with them is to hide/mangle/utterly destroy the body (depending on how hard you want them to be to bring back)

If the best the PCs can access is Raise Dead, a suitably mangled corpse (or being killed by a Death effect, or having the corpse turned into an Undead creature) will stop them, while Resurrection requires you to deny them any access to any portion of the body, which includes Disintegration dust. If they can Wish/Miracle/True Res, your only way to stop them is to trap/destroy the soul of the person in question.

tyckspoon
2007-11-09, 12:37 AM
The basic ways to bring somebody back are Raise Dead, Resurrection, True Resurrection, and Reincarnate. A Wish spell may also raise a dead person by duplicating Resurrection.

Destroying or otherwise disposing of the body will prevent Raise Dead, Resurrection, and Reincarnate, and make it more difficult to use Wish. In order to prevent True Resurrection, you have to do what NEO said- find some way to trap the soul. You can do that a couple of different ways. The easiest is probably to revive the body as some kind of undead; that prevents raising spells from working unless the undead is destroyed first. The most obvious is to use the Trap the Soul spell. You can also feed the dead body to a Barghest. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/barghest.htm) Anybody they eat is beyond a Raise Dead or Resurrection, and True Res/Wish/Miracle has only a 50% chance of working.

If you're trying to get somebody beyond the reach of the gods... probably the best bet is to use Trap the Soul and then give the resulting soul-filled gem to another god who doesn't want that person raised.

CatCameBack
2007-11-09, 12:55 AM
Reduce victim to unconciousness via negative hp (not fully dead).

Summon suitably large/powerful outsider.

Instruct outsider to remove body to other plane, and tell them not to tell you where it goes. Further instruct them to maintain the body at negative hp or inert state of some sort indefinitely.


Depending on the rules interpretation of your DM, slayong the person on another plane may invalidate True Res attempts as well.

Jack Zander
2007-11-09, 01:03 AM
Step 1: Flesh to Stone.
Step 2: Stone to Mud.
Step 3: Purify Food and Drink.
Step 4: Drink person.
Step 5: Pee in river.
Step 6: ???
Step 7: Profit!

Since the person never died, not even True Res can bring them back from the dead. I suppose a Miracle or Wish could undo all the transmutations... maybe...

MCerberus
2007-11-09, 01:07 AM
Step 1: Flesh to Stone.
Step 2: Stone to Mud.
Step 3: Purify Food and Drink.
Step 4: Drink person.
Step 5: Pee in river.
Step 6: ???
Step 7: Profit!

Since the person never died, not even True Res can bring them back from the dead. I suppose a Miracle or Wish could undo all the transmutations... maybe...

I think they'd be dead after step 3.

Doresain
2007-11-09, 01:09 AM
I think they'd be dead after step 3.

or really really messed up in the head afterwards

Jack Zander
2007-11-09, 01:13 AM
I think they'd be dead after step 3.

How so? None of these spells kill a subject. The target of a Flesh to Stone spell cannot be killed until they are brought back to flesh. It says so in the spell. Of course, if the stone is destroyed then they die when they are brought back to flesh, but their soul is trapped in the stone and cannot be revived until then.

MCerberus
2007-11-09, 01:17 AM
Well I'm going to have to go with suspension of belief. It's kind of a moot point because the stoned creature is still a creature and purify doesn't work that way.

Nowhere Girl
2007-11-09, 01:26 AM
I think it's genius.

And what a way to deal with someone you really hate ...

MCerberus
2007-11-09, 01:28 AM
I think it's genius.

And what a way to deal with someone you really hate ...

You're right this is too good to ruin with rule lawyering. Although at the worse I think this would only need quick action, a restoration (or wish-like spell), mud to stone, and then a stone to flesh to break out of.

Jack Zander
2007-11-09, 01:30 AM
You're right this is too good to ruin with rule lawyering. Although at the worse I think this would only need quick action, a restoration (or wish-like spell), mud to stone, and then a stone to flesh to break out of.

That's why you drink it and pee in the river.

P.S. Purify does work that way.

Nowhere Girl
2007-11-09, 01:31 AM
You're right this is too good to ruin with rule lawyering. Although at the worse I think this would only need quick action, a restoration (or wish-like spell), mud to stone, and then a stone to flesh to break out of.

I think at the very least that a Wish could undo it, too. I wouldn't say it's a way to make death completely, truly permanent (unless you houserule away most or all resurrection-type spells, which I would because I feel they detract horribly from dramatic tension ... but that's another issue), I just think it's a brilliant way to really stick it to a person you hate enough to expend this kind of effort. :smalltongue:

MCerberus
2007-11-09, 01:37 AM
That's why you drink it and pee in the river.

P.S. Purify does work that way.

If it's still their body, and their body is still housing their soul, I'd think that would still count as a creature and as such is immune to having the water purified out of it.

Jack Zander
2007-11-09, 01:39 AM
Ah, wait. I see what you're saying now. Yeah, a wish or miracle could restore them to mud (or even to stone maybe). You might not even have to revive them. If you can sculpt the stone back into their shape, I think they come back unharmed. Maybe not though, I need to look up the spell again.

So no, it's not completely 100% sure of killing them dead for good, but for every effort that you put forth (which isn't a lot. I think the highest level spell here is level 4 or 5), they have to put about 2-3 times as much effort bringing them back.

Jack Zander
2007-11-09, 01:40 AM
If it's still their body, and their body is still housing their soul, I'd think that would still count as a creature and as such is immune to having the water purified out of it.

Not RAW but if you rule it that way, sure.

Winged One
2007-11-09, 01:44 AM
Have a wizard with the Truename skill cast Unname(basicly, they're erased from existance). It's the least reversible non-evil method of killing someone. If you don't mind committing a Vile act that shifts your alignment 1 step toward evil, then destroy their soul(probably a few ways to do that from the BoVD). Also, I believe there's a weapon material in Complete Warrior that traps the soul of people killed with a weapon made from it.

Ulzgoroth
2007-11-09, 01:49 AM
Sphere of Annihilation works, barring divine intervention.

Jack Zander
2007-11-09, 01:51 AM
Sphere of Annihilation works, barring divine intervention.

Yup. Probably the best way but also the hardest. Where are you gonna find one of those?

Ulzgoroth
2007-11-09, 01:54 AM
At the bottom of every other pit trap?

Well, with a sufficiently sadistic DM.:smalltongue:

herrhauptmann
2007-11-09, 01:55 AM
A 10th level black flame zealot's death attack consumes the soul. No resurrection possible.

Jack Zander
2007-11-09, 01:58 AM
I have to agree with Nowhere Girl. Resurrections are for campaigns that have no dramatic tension. Res and True Res should not exist, and Raise Dead should be 8th or 9th level. That way when a character dies, they really die unless some crazy dramatic spell brings them back. Of course, DnD has too many save or die spells for this to be viable, but I suppose you could outlaw them as well.

tyckspoon
2007-11-09, 02:04 AM
You could still allow Revivify and similar effects. The time limit where they're still good is sharply reduced; you can use them to pick somebody up after a save-or-die, but they don't have the "We're in the middle of nowhere? Not a problem, chuck the stiff in a bag. He'll keep 'til we've got some diamonds." effect from Res/True Res. I think of those spells as kind of grabbing the escaping soul and stuffing it back into the body before it gets too far away.

sophosbarbaros
2007-11-09, 02:19 AM
I am pretty sure someone told me once that being reduced to negative class levels (or HD) had the effect of a non-res possible death. Is that correct?

Behold_the_Void
2007-11-09, 02:20 AM
By your post, it implies you're the DM. The answer I propose is simple:

Ban all spells that return the dead to life.

Really, that's the best way to do it. If you're looking for ways to permanently kill off your PCs and give them no ways to get raised, you'll have to be very specific and it'll be hard NOT to look like you were out to kill their characters. And when my DM goes through extensive lengths to kill me without any hope of getting raised, I find a new DM and tell all my friends to never play with that person again.

Just sayin'

tyckspoon
2007-11-09, 02:27 AM
I am pretty sure someone told me once that being reduced to negative class levels (or HD) had the effect of a non-res possible death. Is that correct?

Hmm. I don't think that's an absolute rule (it does sound sort of familiar, tho), but if you manage to go 24 hours and suffer level drain greater than your HD- that's the requirement for those levels to become permanent losss- your group probably doesn't have the resources to raise you anyway. There is a specific mention of what happens if you get level-drained to death by a number of different undead; you rise some few rounds later as another undead. If that happens, your undead body has to be defeated before you can be raised.

Edit: Oh, here we go.


A character with negative levels at least equal to her current level, or drained below 1st level, is instantly slain. Depending on the creature that killed her, she may rise the next night as a monster of that kind. If not, she rises as a wight.

sophosbarbaros
2007-11-09, 03:21 AM
ahhh, thank you very much

Tempest Fennac
2007-11-09, 03:34 AM
Something else that you could do it use a perminent binding spell on someone ( http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Binding_%28Spell%29 ) and make sure that whatever object tey are bound in is incredibly well hidden (admittedly, they wouldn't be dead, and divinations could probably be used to find the object, but it could be useful).

EvilJames
2007-11-09, 03:56 AM
on that flesh to stone to pee in river process I would rule them dead after you drink them if not before.

Fizban
2007-11-09, 04:35 AM
The basic ways to bring somebody back are Raise Dead, Resurrection, True Resurrection, and Reincarnate. A Wish spell may also raise a dead person by duplicating Resurrection.

Destroying or otherwise disposing of the body will prevent Raise Dead, Resurrection, and Reincarnate, and make it more difficult to use Wish. In order to prevent True Resurrection, you have to do what NEO said- find some way to trap the soul. You can do that a couple of different ways. The easiest is probably to revive the body as some kind of undead; that prevents raising spells from working unless the undead is destroyed first. The most obvious is to use the Trap the Soul spell. You can also feed the dead body to a Barghest. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/barghest.htm) Anybody they eat is beyond a Raise Dead or Resurrection, and True Res/Wish/Miracle has only a 50% chance of working.

If you're trying to get somebody beyond the reach of the gods... probably the best bet is to use Trap the Soul and then give the resulting soul-filled gem to another god who doesn't want that person raised.

If you don't have access to a Barghest, you can use the spell Barghest's Feast, from the Spell Compendium, which does the same thing without the middle man. Destroys all traces of the body and a 50% chance to destroy the soul beyone true rez and wish power. I think it's between levels 6 and 8. It will require an extra action after the kill though, so unless the caster is very secure in their power, it's not a good idea.

daggaz
2007-11-09, 06:44 AM
Keeping it simple (no magic involved)...

1. Kill them
2. Collect ALL the pieces (easier if you dont hack them to bits, use a piercing weapon!)
3. Cremate the remains
4. Grind remaining bones into dust (easy after cremation)
5. Sprinkle ashes and dust into the sea or a river
6. Wash any utensils used in same body of water.

There you have it, there is no way under RAW the person can ever be brought back, no magic or dangerous higher-than-your-CR-rating monsters need be used, and the hardest part, killing them, is something you have to do under any method.

Azerian Kelimon
2007-11-09, 06:47 AM
True rez. It brings you back even with no body.


Hmm....does brain damage count as dead? If it doesn't, we could start scheming up something.

daggaz
2007-11-09, 06:50 AM
Step 1: Flesh to Stone.
Step 2: Stone to Mud.
Step 3: Purify Food and Drink.
Step 4: Drink person.
Step 5: Pee in river.
Step 6: ???
Step 7: Profit!

Since the person never died, not even True Res can bring them back from the dead. I suppose a Miracle or Wish could undo all the transmutations... maybe...

Why not just dissolve the mud in the river in the first place? Same effect..

Also, Im with the other people here, mud is certainly not food, nor drink. It is beyond purify's spell description. (If I was the DM, I might say something along the lines of... ok... you cast the spell, and the mud is purified! Into... pure mud! At least, it looks like pure mud, you'ld have to taste it to be sure."

shadow_archmagi
2007-11-09, 06:52 AM
Wait, once the body has been peed into the river, how do you plan on re-obtaining that water? Wouldn't that be like finding individual bits of sand in the Sahara?

daggaz
2007-11-09, 06:53 AM
True rez. It brings you back even with no body.


Hmm....does brain damage count as dead? If it doesn't, we could start scheming up something.

*Groans, slaps forehead* Completely forgot about that.

too.... many.... ress spells...

Azerian Kelimon
2007-11-09, 06:53 AM
Telepathic bond + scrying wiz?

daggaz
2007-11-09, 06:56 AM
Not to kill catgirls... but if they are dissolved down to the molecular level? Do you have any idea how many particles that is? And if you have the spell to locate them, is there any spell in RAW for instantaneously removing said particle from all the other trillions of particles moving around it?

Azerian Kelimon
2007-11-09, 07:06 AM
Wish, transport travellers variant pops up.


Hmmmmmm....GOT IT! Found THE spell for killing things dead good. 'Course, you need to be of an obscene level, but...

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/spells/vengefulGazeOfGod.htm


What this doesn't say is that errata confirmed that, if you're killed by this, not even gods can bring you back.

raygungothic
2007-11-09, 07:11 AM
Step 1: Flesh to Stone.
Step 2: Stone to Mud.
Step 3: Purify Food and Drink.
Step 4: Drink person.
Step 5: Pee in river.
Step 6: ???
Step 7: Profit!

Since the person never died, not even True Res can bring them back from the dead. I suppose a Miracle or Wish could undo all the transmutations... maybe...

That's wonderful. It has a sort of mythic, fairy-tale quality to it - "This is what the bad witch did...". I would certainly allow it, rules validity aside, unless I had a really good reason to make it more difficult than that.

I don't think being terribly mechanistic about death is thematically appropriate here. The character has become something-else, and very difficult to reach, but they never died - they were just transformed. If you ask the river's-god VERY nicely, maybe go on a quest for him, he might be able to put you in touch with the lost character... but he'll never give her back.

(Edited to add: In general, I am not a fan of readily-available resurrection, so I just tend to rule that "Maybe Raise Dead and its like exist... but no-one you know has ever met or even heard of anyone who can cast them, so they might as well not". Resurrection as a difficult-to-achieve part of a thunderous and epic plot, on the other hand... sometimes.)

Assasinater
2007-11-09, 07:56 AM
I'm pretty sure there's a workaround for this as well, but...

Knocking the person unconscious and putting him into a Bag of Holding. Then stabbing a dagger in the bag.

"If the bag is overloaded, or if sharp objects pierce it (from inside or outside), the bag ruptures and is ruined. All contents are lost forever."

The person includes the soul(the reason not killing him first), and since "all contents are lost forever", I'm wondering what could counter this.

Mad Wizard
2007-11-09, 12:55 PM
You could still allow Revivify and similar effects. The time limit where they're still good is sharply reduced; you can use them to pick somebody up after a save-or-die, but they don't have the "We're in the middle of nowhere? Not a problem, chuck the stiff in a bag. He'll keep 'til we've got some diamonds." effect from Res/True Res. I think of those spells as kind of grabbing the escaping soul and stuffing it back into the body before it gets too far away.

This is exactly what I do in my games, and I've found it works well.

Alex12
2007-11-09, 01:40 PM
Trap the Soul. Place gem in Bag of Holding. Place BoH into a portable hole. Laugh.

Microcosm, then take them to die of old age.

Smack them with Mind Seed. They didn't die, they just became you 8 levels ago.

Hit them with Genesis or similar.

Clone them (per RAW, they don't have a choice:smallbiggrin: ) then kill their original body. Rinse and repeat until they lose all levels and all Con.

Mewtarthio
2007-11-09, 01:50 PM
I'm pretty sure there's a workaround for this as well, but...

Knocking the person unconscious and putting him into a Bag of Holding. Then stabbing a dagger in the bag.

"If the bag is overloaded, or if sharp objects pierce it (from inside or outside), the bag ruptures and is ruined. All contents are lost forever."

The person includes the soul(the reason not killing him first), and since "all contents are lost forever", I'm wondering what could counter this.

I'm guessing that everything just gets shunted off to the astral plane. By "lost forever," the spell just means "don't count on recovering it." Otherwise, you could destroy artifacts with this trick, and nobody wants that.

----------

Hm... How about sending them to the Grey Wastes (NE afterlife)? From what I've heard, people who go there lose all sense of idenity and hope, becoming unable to leave. That's a lot like killing them. You could also try turning them to stone, encasing the stone in quintessence (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/quintessence.htm), and then opening a portal to the Far Realms and dumping the whole thing in. The stone ensures that they're still alive, the quintessence protects the stone from the elements, and the Far Realms has such a screwy time system that they'll likely be trapped there for what amounts to all eternity (either that or they'll just pop right back out somewhere else the instant you close the portal, having spent several billion years in the Far Realms, but no plan's perfect). Naturally, there are a few flaws: A Far Realmer could scrape the quintessence away, the quintessence could react oddly with the Far Realms, the Far Realms are generally quite a bit more difficult to access than anything else, you're opening a freaking portal to the Far Realms, etc.

Beyond that, all you can do is petition a deity with the "Life and Death" ability to deal with your problem. Anyone slain by such a deity (no save, by the way) can only be restored by a deity of equal or greater divine rank.

Clementx
2007-11-09, 02:26 PM
Aside from banning resurrection magic, you can make it illegal or otherwise forbidden. Maruts, Nerull, Wee Jas, druids, or a dominant religion can all have reasons to stamp out perversion of the natural order. Back that up with a good justification, like mishaps from HoH, and you have death being a serious problem. When bringing back a friend means creating an undead doppleganger of his shadow that runs away to slaughter innocents, dying becomes a serious issue.

Of course, you need to tone down the save-or-die abilities. Dropping the target to negative HP equal to the spell level could be an alternative, or separating their body and soul until they get a Break Enchantment cast on them instead, could work.

TheDon
2007-11-09, 05:12 PM
Well if you're the DM and it's an NPC you're trying to kill, that makes things simple. You can only res a willing person, if I'd be in paradise, I don't think I'd be willing to go back down :P

Hyozo
2007-11-09, 05:48 PM
Have a wizard with the Truename skill cast Unname(basicly, they're erased from existance). It's the least reversible non-evil method of killing someone. If you don't mind committing a Vile act that shifts your alignment 1 step toward evil, then destroy their soul(probably a few ways to do that from the BoVD). Also, I believe there's a weapon material in Complete Warrior that traps the soul of people killed with a weapon made from it.

Unnaming is good if you can get access to 9th level necromancy spells in a class that gets truespeak as a class skill (would a factorum work? I've never read the crunch for factorum.). It's pretty unlikely that there is a divine caster who also has max ranks in truespeak, knows your victim's old truename, has the materials to cast true ressurect, and wants your victim to come back. The only thing is that unlikely things are more likely to happen than likely things. Yes, I know that seems contradictory, but we're talking about D&D.

Jayabalard
2007-11-09, 06:02 PM
As I recall, death by old age prevents resurrection effects, so the obvious solution would be to have them to die of old age somehow.


You can also feed the dead body to a Barghest. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/barghest.htm) Anybody they eat is beyond a Raise Dead or Resurrection, and True Res/Wish/Miracle has only a 50% chance of working.It looks like to me that this is true only "When a barghest slays a humanoid opponent" so feeding an already dead corpse wouldn't do anything.... they'd have to be only mostly dead.

Mike_Lemmer
2007-11-09, 06:25 PM
The only thing is that unlikely things are more likely to happen than likely things. Yes, I know that seems contradictory, but we're talking about D&D.

"1-in-a-million chances crop up 9 times out of 10." -Terry Pratchett

Mewtarthio
2007-11-09, 06:38 PM
As I recall, death by old age prevents resurrection effects, so the obvious solution would be to have them to die of old age somehow.

Again, it's back to the deific drawing board: The only creature I know of who does that is the Phane (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/monsters/abomination.htm#phane), and it's the unwanted child of time deities and an Abomination. Good luck finding one of those things.


It looks like to me that this is true only "When a barghest slays a humanoid opponent" so feeding an already dead corpse wouldn't do anything.... they'd have to be only mostly dead.

Use a Merciful weapon to simply beat them unconscious, then planar bind a barghest and say, "Look, a free lunch! Merry Christmas!" The downside is that this requires you to spend some amount of time after defeating the foe, but there's no such thing as a... never mind.

Artanis
2007-11-09, 08:03 PM
Also, Im with the other people here, mud is certainly not food, nor drink. It is beyond purify's spell description. (If I was the DM, I might say something along the lines of... ok... you cast the spell, and the mud is purified! Into... pure mud! At least, it looks like pure mud, you'ld have to taste it to be sure."
Ah, but you see, mud is dirt and water mixed together, and thus can be considered to be water with dirt mixed into it. So you aren't purifying mud, you're purifying water that happens to have a great deal of dirt in it :smallwink:

bugsysservant
2007-11-09, 08:31 PM
Again, it's back to the deific drawing board: The only creature I know of who does that is the Phane (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/monsters/abomination.htm#phane), and it's the unwanted child of time deities and an Abomination. Good luck finding one of those things.

I don't have my epic level handbook with me, and d20srd lacks the fluff. Is the Phane unique, or could you gate it in?

Mewtarthio
2007-11-09, 08:40 PM
I don't have my epic level handbook with me, and d20srd lacks the fluff. Is the Phane unique, or could you gate it in?

It's listed as "Solitary or Pair," so, yeah, a CL 18 Gate is all it takes. Man, Gate is broken.

Jack Zander
2007-11-10, 01:04 AM
Alright, since there are some non-believers, by RAW my method works and I'll prove it.

Flesh to Stone from the SRD:

The subject, along with all its carried gear, turns into a mindless, inert statue. If the statue resulting from this spell is broken or damaged, the subject (if ever returned to its original state) has similar damage or deformities. The creature is not dead, but it does not seem to be alive either when viewed with spells such as deathwatch.
The creature cannot die until restored to it's original state. The statue can be damaged and transmuted, but the creature is still not dead. And Purify Food and Drink can too work on mud:

This spell makes spoiled, rotten, poisonous, or otherwise contaminated food and water pure and suitable for eating and drinking. This spell does not prevent subsequent natural decay or spoilage. Unholy water and similar food and drink of significance is spoiled by purify food and drink, but the spell has no effect on creatures of any type nor upon magic potions.
Since mud is water spoiled with dirt, the spell removes the dirt from the water, thus making the mud into pure water.

The reason you drink it and pee into the river is because now some of the water is processed by your body and sweat out, some gets recycled for a long time, some gets into the mouth of the next person you kiss, some drifts into the next river you pee into. It's a more thorough method this way.

Mewtarthio
2007-11-10, 01:12 AM
Since mud is water spoiled with dirt, the spell removes the dirt from the water, thus making the mud into pure water.

But couldn't one also state that, say, a sponge is water spoiled with a sponge, and therefore you can cast purify food and drink to eliminate the sponge? How about chopping your enemy into tiny pieces, immersing each piece in water, and casting purify food and drink to destroy those pieces? What effect would that have? If no effect, then I don't believe you can cast purify food and drink on mud unless you're some weird fantasy monster that eats mud. If it works fine, then purifying your opponent's mud effectively destroys his body, rendering him dead and targettable by true resurrection.

Jack Zander
2007-11-10, 01:14 AM
More research to counter upcoming counter arguments.
Transmute Rock to Mud:

This spell turns natural, uncut or unworked rock of any sort into an equal volume of mud. Magical stone is not affected by the spell.
Okay, but the duration of flesh to stone is instantaneous so it's not magical. Nor as it been worked or cut in any way. I suppose you could argue it's not natural, but as far as I understand, anything created by magic is considered natural.

For fun:

The mud remains until a successful dispel magic or transmute mud to rock spell restores its substance—but not necessarily its form. Evaporation turns the mud to normal dirt over a period of days. The exact time depends on exposure to the sun, wind, and normal drainage.

If you really wanted to, you could restore them just to see a blob of revolting flesh. They could then be revived though.

Jack Zander
2007-11-10, 01:18 AM
But couldn't one also state that, say, a sponge is water spoiled with a sponge, and therefore you can cast purify food and drink to eliminate the sponge? How about chopping your enemy into tiny pieces, immersing each piece in water, and casting purify food and drink to destroy those pieces? What effect would that have? If no effect, then I don't believe you can cast purify food and drink on mud unless you're some weird fantasy monster that eats mud. If it works fine, then purifying your opponent's mud effectively destroys his body, rendering him dead and targettable by true resurrection.

Are you trying to tell me that if some dirt gets into your waterskin, and you cast purify food and drink that it'll have no effect? You're giving extreme examples. I'm simply stating what the spell is intended to do.

And if it works fine, his body was never destroyed just transmuted and purified, and even if it was READ THE SPELL DESCRIPTION. The target cannot die if the statue is destroyed.

Jack Zander
2007-11-10, 01:23 AM
Target: 1 cu. ft./level of contaminated food and water

You can't cast it on a sponge, just the water inside the sponge. It works on mud because mud is spoiled water. The spell also never says anything about destroying the contamination, but it simply purifies it and makes it drinkable. The mud might not go away, but it's safe to drink at least. Likewise if you chopped them into tiny pieces and purified the smoothie you just made. They may still be in there, but you can drink/chew them now and not get sick.

wumpus
2007-11-10, 10:30 AM
If I were DM and a PC decided to drink somebody this way, I'd have a hard time not sending a dispel magic spell the PCs way and telefragging the PC.

Belial_the_Leveler
2007-11-10, 10:49 AM
Unname and Necrotic Termination are the only nonepic spells that utterly annihilate the victim with not even Wish or Miracle being able to return it.

Epic magic is easier. I've created 3 separate ways of utterly destroying mortal beings.

The first is Arcanis' Balefire. A banishment effect that removes you from the Timestream insted of the Prime Material. Added benefit: all your past actions are erased and you no longer exist in the memory of anyone (since you never existed). Too high DC for most casters though.

The second is Crushed by Eternity. It simply ages you to the point of natural death. No coming back with mortal magics.

The third is Spread to Infinity. It turns you to dust, puts a ward against Wish, Miracle and Reality Revision then teleports the dust randomly across the Multiverse. So unless someone finds every piece physically, puts them together and reverses the transformation, bye bye.

Jack Zander
2007-11-10, 12:50 PM
You can still come back from old age. Druid's have a nifty spell called reincarnate. If you come back as some gay animal, wish for you're old form, or polymorph into your old form.

Azerian Kelimon
2007-11-10, 01:15 PM
Why does it have to be gay? FATAL requirement, mebbe?

Mewtarthio
2007-11-10, 01:29 PM
You can still come back from old age. Druid's have a nifty spell called reincarnate. If you come back as some gay animal, wish for you're old form, or polymorph into your old form.

1) Reincarnate cannot restore someone killed from old age. Nothing can restore somone killed of old age, except maybe divine intervention (I'm talking Salient Divine Abilities: The really big, cosmic guns that show the gods themselves mean business). What reincarnate does is reset the the timer, so to speak. If you kill an old man and reincarnate him, he comes back as a young creature that he'd rather not be. Repeating this cycle means that it's possible to live indefinately (or at least until the Maruts take you down), but once you hit death by senescence, you're never coming back. That means that killing someone with old age (such as by gating in a Phane or trapping them in a microcosm with a Ring of Sustenance and guarding their body until they finally die) will work every time. Unfortunately, it takes a lot of work.

2) Reincarnated creatures return as a creature of their type. That means humans come back as some form of Humanoid. No animals to worry about.

dyslexicfaser
2007-11-10, 02:14 PM
Actually, the easiest way to prevent resurrection is to remove someone's soul is to bring them to -10 with a thinaun weapon. The weapon stores their soul nicely. Then bury their soul sword in the backwoods somewhere.

If you don't want to waste swords, get a metalline sword and change it to thinaun for the kill, then aurorum, making it pretty much un-sunderable.

If that doesn't suit your fancy, I think Brain Jar can hold souls. Put the souls of your enemy on the mantle. They make a nice ornament.

MCerberus
2007-11-10, 02:16 PM
and then toss them into a Sphere of Annihilation. Destroyed souls yay!

Mewtarthio
2007-11-10, 02:19 PM
Or just open a gate to Hell and toss the soul through. You'll never see it again.

AmberVael
2007-11-10, 02:24 PM
...

Okay, here's what you do.

1) Trap their souls/soul.
2) Use their soul to power a magic item (or a spell with XP component), as listed in the Book of Vile Deeds.
As it says: "Using a soul in any other way than simply transferring it as a barter consumes it completely, destroying it forever."

Tada! No more soul! AND you got some extra XP in crafting your item/spell!


I can't believe no one mentioned that already...

dyslexicfaser
2007-11-10, 02:37 PM
I'm still a big proponent of Soul-inna-Jar, but it is hard to beat turning the souls of your freshly-slain enemies into profit.

EDIT: Speaking of, K has some neat homebrewed classes for just this sort of thing here (http://bb.bbboy.net/thegamingden-viewthread?forum=1&thread=661), one with a rogue bent (Thief of Souls), and one spellcaster (Merchant of Souls).

Assasinater
2007-11-10, 03:16 PM
I'm guessing that everything just gets shunted off to the astral plane. By "lost forever," the spell just means "don't count on recovering it." Otherwise, you could destroy artifacts with this trick, and nobody wants that.


Actually, in the instances where a bag of holding and a portable hole is present, it clearly speaks of the Astral Plane. But it doesn't do so in the case of the bag getting ruptured. It says the contents are lost forever. So, my interpretation is: since the bag is effectively a gate to a pocket dimension, when the gate(bag) is ruined, the link will be severed and the pocket dimension will remain, albeit being unreachable.

Darkxarth
2007-11-10, 04:22 PM
The subject, along with all its carried gear, turns into a mindless, inert statue. If the statue resulting from this spell is broken or damaged, the subject (if ever returned to its original state) has similar damage or deformities. The creature is not dead, but it does not seem to be alive either when viewed with spells such as deathwatch.

The creature cannot die until restored to it's original state. The statue can be damaged and transmuted, but the creature is still not dead.

And Purify Food and Drink can too work on mud:


This spell makes spoiled, rotten, poisonous, or otherwise contaminated food and water pure and suitable for eating and drinking. This spell does not prevent subsequent natural decay or spoilage. Unholy water and similar food and drink of significance is spoiled by purify food and drink, but the spell has no effect on creatures of any type nor upon magic potions.

Since mud is water spoiled with dirt, the spell removes the dirt from the water, thus making the mud into pure water.

The reason you drink it and pee into the river is because now some of the water is processed by your body and sweat out, some gets recycled for a long time, some gets into the mouth of the next person you kiss, some drifts into the next river you pee into. It's a more thorough method this way.
Yes, Purify Food and Drink would purify mud from Transmute Rock to Mud into water, but not if that mud is a creature, which I'd say it still is thanks to the text in the Flesh to Stone spell.

EDIT: Not that it's not a very clever use of all three spells, but I'd say this particular combo is impossible.

Alex12
2007-11-10, 06:23 PM
Just Baleful Polymorph them into a mayfly. Presumeably they're already an adult, so if they're not returned to life within 24 hours...they're dead of old age!:smallamused:
I think it would work, anyway. I know if I were DMing and someone came up with that I'd allow it.

Dalboz of Gurth
2007-11-10, 06:37 PM
Easiest way to perma kill -- take them to Ravenloft.


Let your imagination run wild there. I honestly don't believe there's a player alive who is stupid enough to willfully try and resurrect any dead man or woman in that realm.

the_tick_rules
2007-11-10, 07:36 PM
soul bind ensures any form of resurrection is impossible, as long as the gem remains secure.

Mewtarthio
2007-11-10, 08:06 PM
Actually, now that I think about it, I believe a demilich can kill people permanently. Yeah, epic again.

Jack Zander
2007-11-11, 12:48 AM
Yes, Purify Food and Drink would purify mud from Transmute Rock to Mud into water, but not if that mud is a creature, which I'd say it still is thanks to the text in the Flesh to Stone spell.

EDIT: Not that it's not a very clever use of all three spells, but I'd say this particular combo is impossible.

Explain to me how the text says they are a creature and not an object? It turns the creature into a statue, which is an object. Nowhere does it say the target remains a creature for purposes of targets of spells.

And if you don't think it's clever, why not come up with your own combo instead of getting angry at DnD loopholes? The game isn't perfect. There are a lot of them.

@Mewtarthio: Crap! Yet another spell that works differently than what my group has been playing with for about 3 years now. That spell has absolutely no use now.

dyslexicfaser
2007-11-11, 01:15 AM
And if you don't think it's clever, why not come up with your own combo instead of getting angry at DnD loopholes? The game isn't perfect. There are a lot of them.

He said "not that it's not a clever use of the spells..." A double negative, i.e. he does think it's clever.

tyckspoon
2007-11-11, 01:30 AM
@Mewtarthio: Crap! Yet another spell that works differently than what my group has been playing with for about 3 years now. That spell has absolutely no use now.

What, Reincarnate? I haven't looked at the actual book in a while because online resources are much handier, but the d20srd entry for Reincarnate specifically mentions that it can't bring back old age deaths. Your group has an unusually high rate of player characters dying peacefully in senility or what?

Darkxarth
2007-11-11, 01:30 AM
Explain to me how the text says they are a creature and not an object? It turns the creature into a statue, which is an object. Nowhere does it say the target remains a creature for purposes of targets of spells.

And if you don't think it's clever, why not come up with your own combo instead of getting angry at DnD loopholes? The game isn't perfect. There are a lot of them.

Echoing what dyslexicfaser said, I did think it was clever. I was just using a double negative and trying to be clever myself, I guess that didn't work out too well. Sorry if you took any offense. :smallredface:

I'm going with the phrase in the spell description that says "The creature is not dead, but it does not seem to be alive either when viewed with spells such as deathwatch."
Emphasis again mine. This seems to me to indicate that despite the fact that our victim is now "an inert statue" he/she is still considered a creature as far as Purify Food and Drink is concerned. Of course, he/she is a helpless, defenseless, Spell Resistance-less, saving throw-less, rock, so it's a toss-up.

This seems to me to say that the statue is still considered a creature in some sort, though it's vague enough to rule it either way as a DM. Personally, I wouldn't allow it by RAW, but I'd probably let it slide because it's such a clever use of that spell combo. But, like I said, as far as a rules-position, I'd say it's illegal, but that's just my personal opinion. :smallsmile:

Dervag
2007-11-11, 02:08 AM
Let your imagination run wild there. I honestly don't believe there's a player alive who is stupid enough to willfully try and resurrect any dead man or woman in that realm.Why not? I'm curious about this, being utterly unfamiliar with the setting.

tyckspoon
2007-11-11, 02:15 AM
Why not? I'm curious about this, being utterly unfamiliar with the setting.

I'm sure Dalboz can give a far more complete explanation, but the basic reason is that you're far more likely to end up casting something like Create Greater Undead on the body then you are resurrecting the dead person.

Dalboz of Gurth
2007-11-11, 02:34 AM
I'm sure Dalboz can give a far more complete explanation, but the basic reason is that you're far more likely to end up casting something like Create Greater Undead on the body then you are resurrecting the dead person.

That's one issue. But usually what happens is any form of resurrection results in some sort of powers check for the caster (and in certain cases, it could also apply to the player being resurrected), since you are tampering with the laws of nature, and specifically, the forces of death and undeath. Powers Checks usually mean the person casting the spell has to save vs various modifiers, a failure moves their alignment one step towards evil and gives them some cool power (tempting them to further carry out acts of evil).

Attempts to resurrect also tend to notify the Domain Lord as well, which would ultimately result in the party's death if they aren't on good terms with the Domain Lord.

Or the resurrection may just outright fail, reducing the constitution that much more, and insuring the body is unresurrectable.

Then again... should the body become corrupted during resurrection --- but that whole concept is really a DM just screwing with PCs since there's really no way to corrupt the target of resurrection... unless they were bitten by a vampire or something before they died...

AstralFire
2007-11-11, 02:37 AM
People killed with a thinaun (special material, CW) weapon can't be rezzed until the weapon is brokified.

Jack Zander
2007-11-11, 02:39 AM
Sorry Darthxarth. I misread.