Defense against implosion

[TwylyghT]

And yet it specifically lists a few categories of creatures that would not be meaningfully affected by being crushed into goo and says that they're immune to it. That certainly seems to imply that the death is just a side effect of being crushed into goo.

Edit: Actually, the statement of the spell's effect is "you cause one creature to collapse in on itself, killing it." That is the mechanical text, and it is quite clear that the effect of the spell is making a creature collapse in on itself, with the usual end result of killing it.

It works on any and all creatures that it can effect at all , which is any creature that is not gaseous or incorporeal. The spells text allows for no targets that survive the effect on a failed save. (Some creatures specific text counters this, the Tarrasque for example, has specific text on the issue. The undead and construct types have specific text on fortitude saves, the spell itself has no clause.). Save, or Die. There is *no* Save, or usually die.

Where is the rule that any spell or ability with these traits is a death attack? I can find a rule that death attacks have these traits quite easily, but your argument requires a rule that goes the other way.

The entry is...

Death attack: A spell or special ability that instantly slays the target, such as finger of death. Neither raise dead nor reincarnation can grant life to a creature slain by a death attack, though resurrection and more powerful effects can.

That's the whole text as it appears in the PHB. There again is not a most, or usually in the text. its simply "A spell or special ability that instantly slays the target". Nothing in the entry states that the [Death] tag is the sole factor in determining this trait.

- Implosion kills by physically destroying the body. All known [death] spells or spells that are labeled "death effect" belong to necromancy and directly attack the life force

Uhm... no? Power Word Kill is an enchantment, mind effecting compulsion with the death tag. Crisis of Life is a telepathy power with mind-affecting and death as tags. Clairsentience is also a power with the death tag. Note none of these have any ties to necromancy or negative energy, so that also counts pretty heavy against the Death Ward only protects against negative/necromancy effects.

The Thread also contains reference to an article by WoTC describing Implosion as one of the effects that cannot be countered by Death Ward.

And WoTC articles are not at all known to contradict themselves or be all together wrong at times?

My understanding of this was always that [death] spells just simply caused death itself, while others have some effect on the body.

For example, if you die to implosion, the cause of death obviously is the fact that your body collapsed and simply couldn't continue to sustain itself like that. Sure this collapse was caused by magic, but the cause of death itself was something that had a real impact on the body. Same story for phantasmal killer, the cause of death is that you were, quite literally, scared to death. The body couldn't handle the stress and simply could not sustain itself. Cloudkill, again, cause of death is the gas clouds and killed you, your body could not handle this gas. All these spells have an effect on the body where, if asked, we could describe what killed them without needing to including magic at all (even though it was still ultimately caused by magic).

See thats the thing though, most of those do infact cause other effects *with mechanics* that *then* determine if they kill you. Vorpal severs the head, and then, as stated in the text, kills creatures that would be killed by decapitation. Phantasmal killer creates an illusion, that then, if your subject to fear may scare you to death. Cloud Kill conjures up a cloud of poison, that then might kill you if your not immune to poisons.

Can you live without a head? Great! But you head is still chopped off.
Are you immune to poisons? Great! There is still a cloud of poison.
Immune to fear effects? Great! That big scary illusion still appeared.

Implosion does not crush you and *then* check if thats fatal. It kills, or does nothing. That's why it is different.