Post-Effect Immunity

[SirNibbles]

You are damaged by a fireball and take 3d6 -> 10 fire damage. Your HP is 30/40.
You become immune to fire damage. You do not heal from the previously-taken fire damage.

You are stunned for 1 hour.
You become immune to stun. Are you still stunned?

You are infected by a disease (let's say Kyuss's Gift). You take ability damage and are affected by a rider effect: An afflicted creature derives half the normal benefits from natural and magical healing.
You become immune to disease. Your ability damage does not heal. Are you still infected? Does the disease go away immediately or do you have to wait two days? Does the healing penalty persist?

You are paralysed by a paralysis effect.
You become immune to paralysis. Are you still paralysed?

You are poisoned by carrion crawler brain juice. You are paralysed.
You become immune to poison. Are you still paralysed?

You become frostbitten and hypothermic from nonlethal cold damage.
You become immune to cold. Are you still frostbitten and hypothermic once you become immune to cold?

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What about when death is the cause of immunity?

You are stunned for 1 hour. You die. You are revived 30 seconds later.
Are you still stunned?

For poison and disease, the process of raising the dead is quite clear on the result:
From the description of Raise Dead:



Any ability scores damaged to 0 are raised to 1. Normal poison and normal disease are cured in the process of raising the subject, but magical diseases and curses are not undone.


Player's Handbook, page 268

[Darg]

You are damaged by a fireball and take 3d6 -> 10 fire damage. Your HP is 30/40.
You become immune to fire damage. You do not heal from the previously-taken fire damage.

You are stunned for 1 hour.
You become immune to stun. Are you still stunned?

You are infected by a disease (let's say Kyuss's Gift). You take ability damage and are affected by a rider effect: An afflicted creature derives half the normal benefits from natural and magical healing.
You become immune to disease. Your ability damage does not heal. Are you still infected? Does the disease go away immediately or do you have to wait two days? Does the healing penalty persist?

You are paralysed by a paralysis effect.
You become immune to paralysis. Are you still paralysed?

You are poisoned by carrion crawler brain juice. You are paralysed.
You become immune to poison. Are you still paralysed?

You become frostbitten and hypothermic from nonlethal cold damage.
You become immune to cold. Are you still frostbitten and hypothermic once you become immune to cold?

___

What about when death is the cause of immunity?

You are stunned for 1 hour. You die. You are revived 30 seconds later.
Are you still stunned?

For poison and disease, the process of raising the dead is quite clear on the result:
From the description of Raise Dead:



Any ability scores damaged to 0 are raised to 1. Normal poison and normal disease are cured in the process of raising the subject, but magical diseases and curses are not undone.


Player's Handbook, page 268


1) Yes, immunity prevents an effect from harming you. If it's an ongoing effect, you no longer suffer from the effect. It doesnt remove the effect from you. Immunity to fire doesn't make fire just disappear whenever you touch it.

2) Death doesn't remove effects, it can just make them irrelevant. Just like if you enlarge person, polymorph into something other than humanoid, and then revert back you are still subject to the enlarge person spell (provided it has a remaining duration) even though enlarge person didn't work while polymorphed.

[Biggus]

1) Yes, immunity prevents an effect from harming you. If it's an ongoing effect, you no longer suffer from the effect. It doesnt remove the effect from you. Immunity to fire doesn't make fire just disappear whenever you touch it.

Agreed, the default position would be that immunity suppresses but does not dispel the effect.



2) Death doesn't remove effects, it can just make them irrelevant. Just like if you enlarge person, polymorph into something other than humanoid, and then revert back you are still subject to the enlarge person spell (provided it has a remaining duration) even though enlarge person didn't work while polymorphed.

Based on the Raise Dead quote in the OP, I'd say the most logical interpretation is that magical effects are not removed, but nonmagical conditions would be ended.

[Darg]

Based on the Raise Dead quote in the OP, I'd say the most logical interpretation is that magical effects are not removed, but nonmagical conditions would be ended.

The removal of normal poison and disease is only mentioned in the spell description. There is no general rule for their removal upon coming back to life.

[Eurus]

I think this is running into the often brought up issue that "dead" isn't very mechanically well defined to begin with. If a dead character is technically an object, do effects which don't work on objects stop working on them once they're dead? Come to think of it, is there any rule saying you can't cause an inanimate object to be stunned if you can do it without a Fort or Will save? :smallconfused:

[Telonius]

Depends on how you come back to life, too.

Here's the full quote from 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. Normal poison and normal disease are cured in the process of raising the subject, but magical diseases and curses are not undone. While the spell closes mortal wounds and repairs lethal damage of most kinds, the body of the creature to be raised must be whole. Otherwise, missing parts are still missing when the creature is brought back to life. None of the dead creature’s equipment or possessions are affected in any way by this spell.

"Closes mortal wounds" and "repairs lethal damage of most kinds" could inform some of the consequences.

Reincarnate has a broader effect:

Since the dead creature is returning in a new body, all physical ills and afflictions are repaired.

From the wording, I would say that only magical ailments (curses and such) would carry over.

Resurrection has a slightly different wording:

Upon completion of the spell, the creature is immediately restored to full hit points, vigor, and health, with no loss of prepared spells.

No limitation on just physical effects; magical effects aren't mentioned.

[Gruftzwerg]

You are damaged by a fireball and take 3d6 -> 10 fire damage. Your HP is 30/40.
You become immune to fire damage. You do not heal from the previously-taken fire damage.
Dealing and taking damage is instantaneous and damage itself doesn't have a duration. Thus the immunity doesn't help you for any damage you already have taken. That is the main difference between this and other points you mentioned.


You are stunned for 1 hour.
You become immune to stun. Are you still stunned?

While the stun effect is still on you, it has no effect as long as you remain immune. If you should lose your immunity within the hour, you would be again stunned.



You are infected by a disease (let's say Kyuss's Gift). You take ability damage and are affected by a rider effect: An afflicted creature derives half the normal benefits from natural and magical healing.
You become immune to disease. Your ability damage does not heal. Are you still infected? Does the disease go away immediately or do you have to wait two days? Does the healing penalty persist?

You can't be poisoned and any poisons on you have no effect. But they are still there if you should lose immunity somehow. The ability damage heals normally as usual.



You are paralysed by a paralysis effect.
You become immune to paralysis. Are you still paralysed?
See above. Same here.


You are poisoned by carrion crawler brain juice. You are paralysed.
You become immune to poison. Are you still paralysed?
No. Since this specific paralysis effect is at same time a poison effect. Thus being immune to poisons makes you also immune to the parlysed effect.



You become frostbitten and hypothermic from nonlethal cold damage.
You become immune to cold. Are you still frostbitten and hypothermic once you become immune to cold?
From a RAI perspective the conditions would slowly diminish as if you wouldn't be in a cold enviroment anymore. But RAW I think the effects would immediately vanish. But haven't looked up the ruies for forstbitten/hypothermic, so don't nail me on this one.
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What about when death is the cause of immunity?
Death only causes immunity to natural healing.
But if you meant "what if the immunity causes death", well that is your problem..^^



You are stunned for 1 hour. You die. You are revived 30 seconds later.
Are you still stunned?
I'm not aware that death would cause any effects to vanish. They become temporary nonfunctional at best as long as you are dead. But if you get revived..



For poison and disease, the process of raising the dead is quite clear on the result:
From the description of Raise Dead:



Any ability scores damaged to 0 are raised to 1. Normal poison and normal disease are cured in the process of raising the subject, but magical diseases and curses are not undone.


Player's Handbook, page 268


The spell does what it says. Not more, not less. If it says it removes condition X, then it is removed. If it is silent about condition Y, then it still remains.

[SirNibbles]

I think this is running into the often brought up issue that "dead" isn't very mechanically well defined to begin with. If a dead character is technically an object, do effects which don't work on objects stop working on them once they're dead? Come to think of it, is there any rule saying you can't cause an inanimate object to be stunned if you can do it without a Fort or Will save? :smallconfused:





DEAD
A creature becomes dead when its current hit points are reduced to –10, its Constitution drops to 0, or it’s killed outright by massive damage or some other death-dealing effect. The creature’s soul leaves its body. Dead creatures can’t benefit from normal or magical healing, but they can be restored to life by magic. When spellcasters die, all prepared spells stored in their mind are wiped away. A dead body decays normally unless magically preserved, but magic that restores a dead creature to life also restores the body to some degree. See Reviving the Dead, page 75. In case it matters, a dead creature, no matter how it died, has –10 hit points.

Rules Compendium, page 73


I don't think it's quite as undefined as you say, but I agree that they definitely could have done better at explaining exactly what dead means.

__

In general, I think it's difficult to decide whether an effect stops working because the target is no longer valid. Duration isn't a defined term outside of magic/spell effects (forcing us to resort to a dictionary definition), and subtypes of durations aren't defined at all for non-magical effects.

From the rules for poisons:



Each instance of poisoning damages a poisoned creature separately. In the case of poisons that have nondamaging effects, those effects don’t stack, but each one runs for its full duration.

Rules Compendium, page 109


Most importantly, spells also have a defined instantaneous duration missing from other effect types:



The spell energy comes and goes the instant the spell is cast, though the spell’s effects might last longer.


Rules Compendium, page 127


Stunning Fist says the 'defender is... stunned for 1 round'. What does that actually mean in terms of duration if we try to draw parallels to spell durations? There's obviously no magic involved, but let's pretend there is. The magical punch is the casting of the spell. Is the duration instantaneous with an effect which lasts 1 round or is the duration 1 round? I would argue that it makes the most sense (in this specific example) for it to be instantaneous with an effect lasting 1 round. There is no continuous application of magic (or any other force) to maintain the stun. In this comparison, would it make sense for someone who gains immunity to the magical effect which caused the stun to stop being stunned? I would say no.

This is very closely related to the carrion crawler brain juice example. If the duration is instantaneous and the effect lasts 1 hour, then becoming immune to poison after being affected should not remove the paralysis effect.

Weather and starvation could also be seen as instaneous causes with lasting effects, or as being permanent (until removed).




Creatures that have taken nonlethal damage from lack of water are considered dehydrated and become fatigued. If a dehydrated creature would take nonlethal damage from hot environmental conditions, that damage instead becomes lethal damage.


Rules Compendium, 140


If you become dehydrated, you are fatigued. If you then acquire an ability which no longer requires you to drink water to sustain yourself (e.g. Tattooed Monk Ocean Tattoo), it doesn't necessarily remove the fatigue, or even remove the dehydrated condition.

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I admit, this scenario (immunity to an effect after it has affected you) is very rare, but I am still unsatisfied by the way the rules are written and the lack of support for durations for things besides spells.

[Crake]

No. Since this specific paralysis effect is at same time a poison effect. Thus being immune to poisons makes you also immune to the parlysed effect.

Disagree. The poison does indeed induce paralysis, but once you have the paralysis condition, the poison’s effect is over, you would no more recover from the paralysis than you would regain ability damage lost.

[Gruftzwerg]

Disagree. The poison does indeed induce paralysis, but once you have the paralysis condition, the poison’s effect is over, you would no more recover from the paralysis than you would regain ability damage lost.

Remind you of the instantaneous and duration argument in my last post.

Poisons are a bit special when it comes to this. A standard poison that simply deals ability damage, is both: instantaneous (the initial ability damage) and has a duration (for the 2nd ability damage 1min later).

Then we have poisons who don't deal direct damage but apply a condition. These poison effects have durations. As long as you are poisoned the condition remains.

As said, there is no rule that prevents an effect to have multiple "tags". Take a sleep poison as example. Any special resistances against sleep and poison apply. Anything that makes you immune to either sleep or poison stops the effect.

Same here. The paralysis effect ain't a standalone condition here. It is still a poison effect at the same time.

I do get what you wanna imply here, but imho this is not the case here. But I will give you another example where your argument partially applies, which imho should help to see the differences here..

While this kind of overlapping tags are not that common, there are some examples here and there. The one that comes to my mind is the Ghostly Visage's "Gaze of Terror" ability.

1. GoT is mainly an "Gaze" attack, and if you are immune to em, you don't have to deal with the effect at all. But if you only later become immune to gaze attacks/effects, any effects already on you still remain.

2. If you fail the save against GoT, you get affected by "fear" that "paralyses" you. Here we again have the situation that a single "effect" has 2 different "tags" that remain relevant. Only the "gaze" tag did become irrelevant. Being immune to either fear or paralyses lets you ignore the effect.

back2topic:
For our scenario here I still argue that the effect implied in the scenario here has 2 "tags": "poison and paralysis"
Immunit to either one of the tags makes you immune to the entire effect. Poison-immunity ain't limited to sole protect your from "poison attacks" but also "poison effects".

[Crake]

Remind you of the instantaneous and duration argument in my last post.

Poisons are a bit special when it comes to this. A standard poison that simply deals ability damage, is both: instantaneous (the initial ability damage) and has a duration (for the 2nd ability damage 1min later).

Then we have poisons who don't deal direct damage but apply a condition. These poison effects have durations. As long as you are poisoned the condition remains.

As said, there is no rule that prevents an effect to have multiple "tags". Take a sleep poison as example. Any special resistances against sleep and poison apply. Anything that makes you immune to either sleep or poison stops the effect.

Same here. The paralysis effect ain't a standalone condition here. It is still a poison effect at the same time.

I do get what you wanna imply here, but imho this is not the case here. But I will give you another example where your argument partially applies, which imho should help to see the differences here..

While this kind of overlapping tags are not that common, there are some examples here and there. The one that comes to my mind is the Ghostly Visage's "Gaze of Terror" ability.

1. GoT is mainly an "Gaze" attack, and if you are immune to em, you don't have to deal with the effect at all. But if you only later become immune to gaze attacks/effects, any effects already on you still remain.

2. If you fail the save against GoT, you get affected by "fear" that "paralyses" you. Here we again have the situation that a single "effect" has 2 different "tags" that remain relevant. Only the "gaze" tag did become irrelevant. Being immune to either fear or paralyses lets you ignore the effect.

back2topic:
For our scenario here I still argue that the effect implied in the scenario here has 2 "tags": "poison and paralysis"
Immunit to either one of the tags makes you immune to the entire effect. Poison-immunity ain't limited to sole protect your from "poison attacks" but also "poison effects".

Hm, youve convinced me that theres another interpretation, but you havent convinced me its the ONLY interpretation. Ability drain inflicted by poison is also an ongoing effect, but that would not be removed from poison immunity, so you havent convinced me that all effects applied by poisons are considered to have the poison tag.

[Gruftzwerg]

Hm, youve convinced me that theres another interpretation, but you havent convinced me its the ONLY interpretation. Ability drain inflicted by poison is also an ongoing effect, but that would not be removed from poison immunity, so you havent convinced me that all effects applied by poisons are considered to have the poison tag.

Sorry that I have to ask but do we actually have any poison with abilty drain (duration)? The most common poisons deal ability damage (instantaneous).

And to expand on my Ghostly Visage example:
Note again that the gaze attack (1) is instantaneous, while the effect of the attack (2) has a duration.

Imho it all boils down to the logic if it is instantaneous or if it has a duration. Because instantaneous effects can't be canceled but have to be undone by other means. Only if something (e.g. an effect) has a duration it can be canceled.

And I heavily disagree that 2 effects are applied here. It's a single effect with multiple conditions/tags.

[SirNibbles]

Sorry that I have to ask but do we actually have any poison with abilty drain (duration)? The most common poisons deal ability damage (instantaneous).

And to expand on my Ghostly Visage example:
Note again that the gaze attack (1) is instantaneous, while the effect of the attack (2) has a duration.

Imho it all boils down to the logic if it is instantaneous or if it has a duration. Because instantaneous effects can't be canceled but have to be undone by other means. Only if something (e.g. an effect) has a duration it can be canceled.

And I heavily disagree that 2 effects are applied here. It's a single effect with multiple conditions/tags.

Ungol Dust (Dungeon Master's Guide, page 297) drains Charisma. I don't know if you could argue that drain has a duration as much as it is damage that doesn't heal.

There's also Vedya (Dragon Compendium Vol I, page 168), which starts as a poison but then "takes on the properties of a disease" after the secondary damage is dealt.

__

As for 2 effects or a single effect, I think it's a series of effects, just as you would see with an attack: attack causes damage, damage causes poison, poison causes paralysis. If each one is instantaneous except the last, the only thing that will remove the final effect is something that prevents the final effect, not anything earlier in the chain.

Either way, the rules are extremely unclear on this topic and I think any number of interpretations are completely valid, including yours.

[Gruftzwerg]

Ungol Dust (Dungeon Master's Guide, page 297) drains Charisma. I don't know if you could argue that drain has a duration as much as it is damage that doesn't heal.
"This effect permanently reduces a living opponent’s ability score ..."
Permanent is a valid duration here in 3.5
Permanent Effects can still be canceled, dispelled, suppressed and so on.

There's also Vedya (Dragon Compendium Vol I, page 168), which starts as a poison but then "takes on the properties of a disease" after the secondary damage is dealt.


As for 2 effects or a single effect, I think it's a series of effects, just as you would see with an attack: attack causes damage, damage causes poison, poison causes paralysis. If each one is instantaneous except the last, the only thing that will remove the final effect is something that prevents the final effect, not anything earlier in the chain.

Either way, the rules are extremely unclear on this topic and I think any number of interpretations are completely valid, including yours.

Have a look at the definition in the Spell Descriptions (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicOverview/spellDescriptions.htm).

Effect

Some spells create or summon things rather than affecting things that are already present.

You must designate the location where these things are to appear, either by seeing it or defining it. Range determines how far away an effect can appear, but if the effect is mobile it can move regardless of the spell’s range.

Ray

Some effects are rays.
The rules have defined the singular here: "Effect" and not the plural "Effects".

While the entire page often makes "general statements", like "Some effects are rays. ..". But that is because for general statements you commonly have to use plural. But when it comes to the actual rules, it always uses the singular "effect" here.

Besides from this RAW evidence, we also have technical indicators that back this up. Lets have a look at saves:

Saving Throw

Usually a harmful spell allows a target to make a saving throw to avoid some or all of the effect. The Saving Throw entry in a spell description defines which type of saving throw the spell allows and describes how saving throws against the spell work.


Negates

The spell has no effect on a subject that makes a successful saving throw.


Partial

The spell causes an effect on its subject. A successful saving throw means that some lesser effect occurs.


...

Disbelief

A successful save lets the subject ignore the effect.

The main evidence here is how "Partial (saves)" are defined. Because it clearly still talks about a single effect and that a save turns it into a lesser effect.

Thus if we effectively see multiple effects (e.g. spells that allow partial saves), the correct mechanical term would be that we have "a single effect, consisting of multiple partial effects".

When we now get back to our initial situation back, we have a single poison effect that also paralyzes you. It's clear to me that you only need to be immune to either one tag (poison or paralyze) to be immune to the implied effect here.

But be careful it you try to extrapolate this onto other situations. Imagine a poison with a instantaneous initial effect (e.g. ability damage) and a secondary effect with a duration. Being immune to one partial effect doesn't grant immunity to the entire "poison effect". Only poison immunity would help in this kind of situation.
Same if an effect would cause 2 conditions and you are only immune to one (e.g. you get blinded and stunned from a single effect but are only immune to stunning).

Unless you have immunity to the main effect (poison in our example), be careful if you are really immune to all partial effects or not.

[Crake]

"This effect permanently reduces a living opponent’s ability score ..."
Permanent is a valid duration here in 3.5
Permanent Effects can still be canceled, dispelled, suppressed and so on.

There's also Vedya (Dragon Compendium Vol I, page 168), which starts as a poison but then "takes on the properties of a disease" after the secondary damage is dealt.



Have a look at the definition in the Spell Descriptions (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicOverview/spellDescriptions.htm).

The rules have defined the singular here: "Effect" and not the plural "Effects".

While the entire page often makes "general statements", like "Some effects are rays. ..". But that is because for general statements you commonly have to use plural. But when it comes to the actual rules, it always uses the singular "effect" here.

Besides from this RAW evidence, we also have technical indicators that back this up. Lets have a look at saves:


The main evidence here is how "Partial (saves)" are defined. Because it clearly still talks about a single effect and that a save turns it into a lesser effect.

Thus if we effectively see multiple effects (e.g. spells that allow partial saves), the correct mechanical term would be that we have "a single effect, consisting of multiple partial effects".

When we now get back to our initial situation back, we have a single poison effect that also paralyzes you. It's clear to me that you only need to be immune to either one tag (poison or paralyze) to be immune to the implied effect here.

But be careful it you try to extrapolate this onto other situations. Imagine a poison with a instantaneous initial effect (e.g. ability damage) and a secondary effect with a duration. Being immune to one partial effect doesn't grant immunity to the entire "poison effect". Only poison immunity would help in this kind of situation.
Same if an effect would cause 2 conditions and you are only immune to one (e.g. you get blinded and stunned from a single effect but are only immune to stunning).

Unless you have immunity to the main effect (poison in our example), be careful if you are really immune to all partial effects or not.

Consider a lich’s paralyzing touch. To be affected by it, you must be hit by the lich’s negative energy touch attack. If you have death ward up, you are immune to the touch attack, and thus cannot be affected by the paralysis, however, if you were to be hit with the paralysis, casting death ward would not make you recover from the paralysis. The negative energy touch induced the paralysis, but the paralysis is not itself a negative energy effect, it is merely the rider effect of a negative energy attack. Same goes for a paralytic poison.

[Gruftzwerg]

Consider a lich’s paralyzing touch. To be affected by it, you must be hit by the lich’s negative energy touch attack. If you have death ward up, you are immune to the touch attack, and thus cannot be affected by the paralysis, however, if you were to be hit with the paralysis, casting death ward would not make you recover from the paralysis. The negative energy touch induced the paralysis, but the paralysis is not itself a negative energy effect, it is merely the rider effect of a negative energy attack. Same goes for a paralytic poison.

The lich clearly has 2 (!) abilities (and thus 2 effects!) that affect his touch attacks not one! This is where the difference is here and why this makes it incomparable to our previous examples where we had 1 ability causing multiple partial effects. See the difference in your example here. My suggested interpretation still works without any alteration.