Negative LA-Assignment : Resurrection, but no diamond here

[Beni-Kujaku]

Living spells

Aaah, living spells. Probably the single most unique template in all of D&D in that it applies not to a creature (or even two creatures, in Tauric's case), but to a spell, changing them into an amorphous creature that applies the spell effect on each of its attacks. The concept is wild and the monsters created are original and quite varied despite the simplistic design. As such, living spells have more support than most anything else in this book, notably the coolest prestige class in all of d&d 3.5, the Spell Sovereign from Dragon #357. They were initially printed in Eberron Campaign Setting, reprinted in MM3 and expanded on in Eberron: Five Nations, and even in 4th edition, with Dungeon magazine #175, and recently 5th edition gave us a few, including a living Create Demiplane, which is as terrifying as it is tame, only trapping its enemies for a little while in an extradimensional space.
Living spells are oozes in 3e, aberrations in 4e and constructs in 5e, but they are invariably created when too much magical energy is concentrated in a corrupted place, generally the Mournland in Eberron.

I like to think that visiting the Mournland looks just like that, with so many living spells that you can't walk a mile without qualifying for every spelltouched feat in existence.
From left to right, we have a Shroud of Death and Despair (living crushing despair/finger of death), a Withering Grasp (living Evard's black tentacle/ray of enfeeblement), a chillspark (two 4e spells), a Glitterfire (living fireball/glitterdust), a living Cloud of Knives, a living Entangle, a living Flaming Sphere (supposedly) familiar, a living Blasphemy, and two more unidentified living spells

Now, living spells are supposed to be only applicable to spells with an Effect or Area line but no Target line. Of course, even in 3e, that rule was already broken with the Shroud of Death and Despair being a half-living Finger of Death, which is definitely a targeted spell. The point is, there can be living spells for any spell, even if we restrict the caster level to the minimum needed to cast a spell. You can't assign an LA that will fit all spells. That's why we will only review here the example living spells in MM3: the Glitterfire, the Chilling Fog (living cone of cold), and the living Blasphemy/Dictum/Holy Word/Word of Chaos. But if you have other ideas of fun living spells, I'd like to hear them!


I'm going to consider here that reducing the RHD of a living spell doesn't affect its caster level. Thing is, the caster level of a living spell affects everything from its ability scores to its AC, size and even SR. If I considered that all living spells have caster level equal to their RHD, then most living spells would become 1 RHD Medium oozes and one or two CL 1 spell effects. Not that original or interesting. Living spells are already ooze type, are mindless, and have only one ability, which is to apply an area-of-effect or ray spell to a single target at melee range. That's not good. Not good at all. No need to reduce the spell's power level further.

General stats
- The ability scores of a living spell are 10+SL/7+SL/10+SL/_/7+SL/10+SL (total 5*SL-16, round to the lower multiple of 2, with SL being the spell level of the living spell). That's generally low, but not unexpected from oozes.
- They get SR 10+CL, which translates here to SR 10+HD, average but always appreciated. They also have Deflection bonus equal to their spell level and DR 10/Magic, which is honestly pretty good for oozes, who are used to have 1 Dex and no natural armor or DR.
- They have Engulf as a Gelatinous Cube, and otherwise use their single slam to apply their spell effect.
- As all oozes, 60ft blindsight and mind-affecting immunity.

Chilling Fog, living Cone of Cold, CL 9, Large, 20ft movement speed: Cone of Cold is one of the worst level 5 spells, being both uninteresting and plagued by Cold spells being generally overleveled for their effect. The Chilling Fog has no interesting ability except dealing 9d6 damage with its slam, which isn't even that easy considering its 20ft movement speed, and is generally worse than the Gelatinous Cube's paralysis (and will become even worse at higher levels). Its non-intelligence stats are more balanced and generally better than GC except Con (+4/+2/+4/-8/+2/+4) and having 5 deflection is decent. All in all, I guess the high damage output and decent stats are enough for 3 RHD, DLA-4, but it will probably be very strong at ECL 3 and very weak when 9d6 doesn't one-shot anything anymore.

Edit: Considering the immediate power of the chilling fog at ECL 3, 4 RHD may be better, but do not hesitate to reduce that number if your campaign starts at higher level.

Glitterfire, living Fireball/Glitterdust, CL 5, Medium, 40ft movement speed: Lower damage and slightly lower overall ability scores than Chilling Fog, but twice as fast, a save-or-suck as a rider and Medium size (probably better than non-reach Large on a creature with only marginal grappling focus). Seems once again like a solid 3 RHD, DLA-1.

Living Blasphemy/Holy Word/Word of Chaos/Dictum, CL 13, Huge, 20ft movement speed: Fun fact, the template doesn't actually give the monster any subtype, which means that the Evil/Good/Lawful/Chaotic subtype is specific to the living Blasphemy and its brethrens. The living spell's ability scores are pretty good for a lower-level creature (+6/+4/+6/-8/+4/+6), and its spell effect is monstrously effective at low level, but doesn't work on creatures of the same alignment and will progressively become inexorably weaker as you level up. Interestingly, Blasphemy is the only one with the potential to stunlock an opponent. If you stumble upon a non-evil creature with 13 HD or less, you can walk up to them, and hit them with a pseudopod. No save, they are dazed for a round. Then, you engulf them. Each turn, the guy is engulfed, and gets dazed. No save. No way for you to run out of spells. The guy is just boned except if they have SR. Word of Chaos does the same, but only up to 12 RHD (but might actually be better since there are many more Evil creatures than chaotic ones), and the paladin alignments require the opponent to have at most 8 RHD. No-save-just lose is not something I'd like to include at low level, regardless of the other drawbacks of the creature. It's a one-trick pony, but a one-trick pony who might one-shot bosses up until mid-level. I think 7 RHD is fair for Blasphemy and Word of Chaos, since it is a level where basically all CR-appropriate encounters have more than 8 HD and a decent portion have more than 13. Holy Word and Dictum are weaker, and I suggest 6 RHD. In both cases, DLA-5 seems reasonable to give them the ability to actually hit people when reaching melee range.


I love the flavor from 4e for living spells. They're incomplete spells with everything set in stone except the target area or creature. They feel this absence as a flaw and try to fill this gap by blindly attacking any creature in sight. I would have liked to see a harmless living spell like a living Stabilize just going around and engulfing harmed creatures like a gooey healing pod. I guess a living Dispel Magic would also be really interesting. What would you like to see/use in your campaigns as a living spell? I personally used a living Tasha's Hideous Laughter in one of my campaigns as a sentry ooze in a prison, making prisoners laugh so much that they could be brought back in their cells with no problem, and creating a great creepy ambience for the PCs. Next time, we will have the one guy you will never win a staring contest against, it's the Lurking Strangler!