And Stay Out: A Guide to Staying Dead (for the other guy).

[bekeleven]

Man, that joe. What a jerk! If only someone could just… get rid of him. You know, remove him from the world entirely.

The only problem is that Joe is actually King Joe IX, and he (or his treasurers) have pretty limitless access to diamonds. They even have high-level wizards and clerics on tap. Why risk your life to kill him if he'll just get up 10k poorer?

Below I go over some common ways to kill a person with the resources of a high-level player. Chief among these are access to high level spells and access to a lot of money.

Note that anything can be circumvented with a miracle or a custom wish if the GM agrees. I won't go over that below, because there's nothing much to say about them - those fall outside of the domain of RAW.

The ol’ “Flesh to Stone to Mud”

This is the most common, and obvious solution. Basically, King Joe becomes King Joe Statue. You can't follow this up with Stone to Mud because the spell only works on natural or unworked stone (Cruiser1), but if you take to it with Crumble (Saintheart) or a good old-fashioned chisel, you can achieve much the same end.

How to Beat it:
The character isn’t technically dead, so resurrection and its ilk will fail. However, as this is the easiest and arguably most common form of resurrection circumvention (requiring only midlevel spells), I assume someone in any given campaign world will have worked out a custom wish phrasing that gathers all of the bits together, except maybe the dust you inhaled. Alternatively, you can argue that the ability to “lift one creature per caster level from anywhere on any plane and place those creatures anywhere else on any plane” also allows the user to “lift one creature per caster level from everywhere on the plane,” thus assembling the statue.

Beyond Wish, the would-be reviver may have to divine the location of each grain individually to gather them.

Counterplay:
Argue with your GM that those uses of wish shouldn’t be allowed, at least without drawbacks.

Keep a bit of Joe-rock on your person or in your sanctum (you and your base are shielded from divinations, right?) Then throw a bit more into the ocean, and sprinkle some into your wine and cast Purify Food and Drink on it. Who knows where Joe goes...

Reap the Harvest
Harvester of Souls is a vile feat. When you coup de grace someone, they can’t be rezzed as long as you live. Simple, effective. Good on chameleons, who make some of the best assassins already. Ensul's Soultheft, a spell, works pretty much identically, as does Infallible Servant. (Saintheart)

How to beat it:
A Wish or a Miracle gets around the these protections (one for each), if the doc wagon figures it out. Besides that, for Harvester at least, you just painted a pretty big target on your back.

In you go!
A person that dies touching a Thinaun weapons has their soul sucked inside. Good luck bringing this from the afterlife! Trap the Soul, a spell, functions almost identically. Some monsters (like Barghests) or spells (Barghest's Feast) are largely-inferior versions of the same effects.

After storing the soul, you can use it as a crafting component, "destroying it forever." (Bad Wolf)

How to beat it:
If another soul dies touching the weapon, that soul replaces the first. You’ll have to be extra careful, not only to keep it out of your enemy’s hands, but to never use it again And if the do-gooders manage to get ahold of the weapon, it halves the material components they need to bring the deceased back to life.

As for Trap the Soul, breaking the gem frees it and brings them back to life. You can argue that Wish will allow the wizard to bring the gem to them, since the person inside of it isn't strictly dead.

The cheapest these methods can get is 10301 GP per soul taken (Thinaun). or 1000 GP/HD (Trap the Soul). At some point, you may find it more cost-effective to just keep killing the guy.

You can craft with the souls to empty out your Thinaun, but keep in mind that's a variant rule, and GMs may frown upon it.

Counterplay:
RAW, if you break the Thinaun weapon, the soul’s broken too. Although if I were running the game, I’d allow a person to reassemble and reforge the weapon to get the soul out.

Down the Drain
This is a simple and effective way that requires few build resources to a spellcaster. Resurrection (and thus true res) brings a character back with “to full hit points, vigor, and health.” I read this as curing ability damage and negative levels but not ability drain and level loss. (Obviously it doesn’t cure level loss…) If my interpretation is accepted, then even using a true resurrection will cause the 0-Constitution deceased to return to life and then immediately die again.

How to beat it:

• Place an amulet of health on the corpse before resurrection. Minimum expenditure: Wish the body back, place amulet, resurrect. More realistically, they'd try a few other methods first. It adds up.
• Reincarnate to a higher-constitution race. The race table (ignoring “Other”) grants +4 con 1/99 times, +2 Con 27/99, and -2 con 13/99 times. This means that, on average, a human would require 2 reincarnations before coming up as a high-con race, but 25% of them would require 4. A dwarf or gnome would have to be at least level 30 to have a 25% chance to rolling a troglodyte and surviving the process before he hits level 1.

Counterplay:
You destroyed the body, right? And you were hidden from divinations while doing the deed? Didn’t let the dearly departed in on what you were doing to him, did you? The first casting of True Resurrection will create a new body, one without visual marks, but then the subject will immediately die regardless. With any luck, the cleric won’t even be able to figure out what happened, try again a few more times, and finally say “he isn’t meant to be alive.”

Run Out the Clock
Nothing can bring back a character who has died of old age. There aren’t many ways to do it – Even the 3.0 Bestow Curse didn’t muck about with lifespan, so you’re pretty much relying on fast time planes.

How to beat it:
There pretty much isn’t one, short of the preventative (be warforged/elan/whatever), super-convoluted (de-age them in the afterlife), or stopping the assassin from completing the job.

Far and Away (Uncle Pine)
Render your target unconscious with Touch of Vecna or a similar effect to prevent the target from needing to eat, then plane shift to a Far Realm with a 1:0 time relation to the prime material. Pass the save to not go insane via method of your choice (Moment of Perfect Mind or racial immunities come suggested). Your victim has to make a will save not to go insane every hour, while aging. By the time anyone notices you're gone, they are infinity years old (and insane).

How to beat it:
Argue that the far realms are found under "variant planes" and thus don't exist.

Hide!
Sequester or Smoky Confinement can keep someone out of the way for a long time. As can Touch of Vecna, if your have good divination protections in your sanctum. Seriously. If you’re a professional assassin, I’d look into one or two.

Touch of Jubilex can turn a person into Green Slime (as in, the dungeon hazard) with no stated way to revert the effect. Leave in a cool, wet place for safekeeping. Arboreal Transformation is similar.(ShurikVch)

How to beat it:
A Wish can bring a person to you regardless of their local conditions if they’re alive.

If a person has accidentally been fungus'd, their would-be savior may have to kill them first, or at least use one of those ways to get Polymorph onto another person. But since Green Slime isn't technically a creature, that might not work.

Invasion of
They’ll never think to cast resurrection if they don’t think the target is dead!

How to beat it:
Make sure nobody’s a body snatcher.

Counterplay:
Be the better liar. I recommend chameleon. Can you tell I like chameleon? See also: Simulacrum, Ice Assassin. Take their place, abdicate the throne, piss off the heir, and disappear somewhere. Nobody will miss you. Remember: Joe was already a jerk.

But I Don't Wanna! (The Viscount)
Mindrape the target so that they do not want to live, then kill them. When someone attempts to raise them, it fails since the spells require the soul be willing.

How to Beat it:
Argue with the GM that souls in the afterlife aren't subject to curse-like spells and enchantments. (or maybe St. Peter cast Break Enchantment when he entered.)

Died of Joy (The Viscount)
On the Infinite Staircase in the Abyss, a lone creature can encounter a door with its greatest desire. When it enters the door, it is simply removed from play, with no discussion of even the possibility of them returning. If you cannot force the target to do this, you can PAO the target into an object, give the object to a minion who will fail the save, and your opponent is gone forever.

How to beat it:
Beat the save?

Tipping Boatmen (ShurikVch)
A corpse with a Coin of Eternal Rest in its mouth stays dead. Period.

How to beat it:
That corpse is 100% useless, and assuming you've protected it from divinations - go on, I'll wait - would-be resurrectionists agree. However, there is precedent for Wish being able to create bodies. While RAW doesn't specify that it can create a body of a creature whose real body isn't destroyed, I would probably allow it to do so as GM.

eoJ gniK (mabriss lethe)
The Unname truespeech spell can erase a person from reality completely. It's not that the character was retroactively removed from the world, but rather that it's against the laws of physics for them to be alive.

How to beat it:
Trying to overcome an unname spell, you may notice you have one thing going for you: Your opponent is using truespeech magic.

Counterplay:
To undo it, they also have to use truespeech magic.

Skeletons In Your Closet (Jormengand)
Turns out you explicitly can't resurrect undead.

Tear out Joe's skeleton, make a Skeleton. Put bones back into his body, perhaps via Regeneration, then repeat this as many times as you want, then kill him and turn the body into something else (a death knight or something). Until all undead made of Joe are destroyed, Joe can't be resurrected.

Arguably, if Joe is turned into a wight (trivial to do), then the creature Joe ceases to exist entirely, as opposed to Skeleton Joe who is the same creature with a wonky template. But this interpretation is shaky.

How to beat it:
Wish each undead to you one by one, and kill them. Alternatively, argue with your GM that only intelligent undead count as having the person's "soul" inside of them. Or at least require 51% of body mass or something.

Counterplay:
Turn Joe into a death knight, let them wish Joe to them, and let the reaping begin!

Burn Baby Bun (ShurikVch)
The epic monster Shape of Fire reduces the target's HP permanently on hit. Feed joe to one, healing him whenever he takes transient damage. He'll hit -10 max hit points eventually.

How to Beat it:
Argue that once you have 0 hit points, you can't lose more. Alternatively, don't be a living creature.

Doctor, We Lost Him (Zanos)
The ritual of Crucimigration, which turns somebody into a necropolitan, costs a level, then an additional 1000 XP. "If the level loss and the 1000 XP drains a creature to 0 XP or less, it is destroyed, turned to dust, and can never be raised or revived again using any means." However, if the subject is at level 1 when the ritual begins, they are merely destroyed, so get Joe to level 2 by whatever means.

How to Beat it:
Argue that it can't be done. The ritual can't be performed by an assassin, it's done by specific people in a specific location that may not even exist in your world. Also, you have to apply (there is literally a written application) and presumably they'll notice if the applicant is unconscious and "accompanied" by his "handler."

Counterplay:
Level drain Joe, then mind rape him into applying on his own. It doesn't matter if the enchantment is broken in the afterlife, because the ritual is your endgame.

I Encyst (Venger)
If you have a Mother Cyst (you're evil, so why not?) you can plant baby cysts in others and use special spells on them.

One of these spells is Necrotic Termination. It kills someone and stops all resurrection. No wish. No miracle. No god clause. Joe is "gone forever."

How to beat it:
Argue you don't need a god clause - it's assumed the gods can do this unless specifically barred from it. Also, Cysts only work in the living.

Counterplay:
At this point their only hope is maybe a god. If that's your limit, it's a pretty good one.

--------

When possible I recommend combining as many options as possible. Smuggle the king out, swap your floating feat to Harvester of Souls, cast Infallible Servant, drain his con to 1, and coup de grace him with a Thinaun weapon after spell storing a sanctum Touch of Years. Then disguise as him, kick some puppies in the shins in the middle of the marketplace, foster a revolution, and skip town when the palace is in flames.

[Uncle Pine]

It's not much, but a thinaun shuriken costs only 206 gp and 2 cp and isn't instantly destroyed if used as an improvised melee weapon. I'll see if I can manage do come up with something else later.

Nice compilation, by the way!

EDIT: Plane Shift (Far Realm) could be a nice start for the Run Out of the Clock set up.

[bekeleven]

It's not much, but a thinaun shuriken costs only 206 gp and 2 cp and isn't instantly destroyed if used as an improvised melee weapon. I'll see if I can manage do come up with something else later.

Thinaun is a bit weird. It has rules only for light, one-handed, or two-handed melee weapons. In addition, it functions only if a "melee weapon is touching" the person as they die.

Given that everything is an improvised melee weapon, such a sentence means nothing unless it means actual weapons weapons. Like, things that appear on the weapon tables under "melee weapon."

I don't really see shuriken working.

[Uncle Pine]

Thinaun is a bit weird. It has rules only for light, one-handed, or two-handed melee weapons. In addition, it functions only if a "melee weapon is touching" the person as they die.

Given that everything is an improvised melee weapon, such a sentence means nothing unless it means actual weapons weapons. Like, things that appear on the weapon tables under "melee weapon."

I don't really see shuriken working.

'Checked the book, you're right. Still, it might be worth mentioning that crafting a thinaun weapon only costs a third of the base price, which ends up being rather cheap considering that with a couple of spells everyone can Craft any non-magical weapon (thinaun is a special, non-magic material).

[ShurikVch]

Touch of Juiblex spell turn targeted creature into green slime; no way to reverse it; and it's not a death, so any resurrection will fail

[Elricaltovilla]

That bit about thinaun makes me a little sad. I'd been toying with the idea of an assassin that mixed powdered Thinaun into his poisons to "catch' the dead person's soul, but now I guess that idea won't pan out.

[bekeleven]

Touch of Juiblex spell turn targeted creature into green slime; no way to reverse it; and it's not a death, so any resurrection will fail

Thanks! Added, under "Hide." In practical terms, it acts similarly to Touch of Vecna and the like.

[ShurikVch]

Coin of Eternal Rest (AEG): if you put it into mouth of a corpse, coin prevents it from being raised, resurrected, or turned into undead of any sort.

[mabriss lethe]

There's also the Unname spell in ToM. Coming back from that is pretty difficulty.

[Bad Wolf]

You can use a soul as crafting material, which destroys it. No way of reversing that.

[Venger]

That bit about thinaun makes me a little sad. I'd been toying with the idea of an assassin that mixed powdered Thinaun into his poisons to "catch' the dead person's soul, but now I guess that idea won't pan out.

it doesn't have to. pao the thinaun to stone, then do the purify water trick on it. solved.

[Heliomance]

I like to add a couple of steps to the Flesh to Stone to Mud trick. If you take the mud and ad water until you have muddy water, you can then cast Purify Food and Drink, transmuting the mud to pure water. That's then even harder to get together when you pour it in the ocean - or, better yet, drink it.

[Cruiser1]

King Joe becomes King Joe Statue, which becomes mud, which is poured into the ocean.

After you cast Flesh to Stone, you can't cast Transmute Rock To Mud on the statue. The latter spell only works on "natural, uncut or unworked rock", and not a high quality statue.

Resurrection (and thus true res) brings a character back with “to full hit points, vigor, and health.” I read this as curing ability damage and negative levels but not ability drain and level loss.

I've always considered Resurrection to cure ability drain as well, which is a physical status effect like any other. However, you can still kill somebody and bring them back over and over, delevelling them to level 1, and then reducing CON by 2 each time until their base CON is 0 and they can no longer be raised. Of course, a soul is likely to refuse to return if you keep Resurrecting and killing them over and over.

[The Viscount]

Here's two more, use the titles if you wish.

But I Don't Wanna!
Mindrape the target so that they do not want to live, then kill them. When someone attempts to raise them, it fails since the spells require the soul be willing.

Died of Joy
On the Infinite Staircase in the Abyss, a lone creature can encounter a door with its greatest desire. When it enters the door, it is simply removed from play, with no discussion of even the possibility of them returning. If you cannot force the target to do this, you can PAO the target into an object, give the object to a minion who will fail the save, and your opponent is gone forever.

[Uncle Pine]

Run Out the Clock - Addendum
Buy a novice ring of the Diamond Mind and attune to it to get Moment of Perfect Mind. Make your target unconscious without killing him (i.e. non-lethal damage). Plane Shift with your target to the Far Realm (an already existing plane with a time ratio of 1:0 with the Prime, meaning that no time passes in the Material plane for each round that passes in the Far Realm). Roll a Will save DC 20 when you reach the Far Realm to not become insane (use Moment of Perfect Mind to avoid autofail on a roll of 1). Keep dealing non-lethal damage to your target so that it doesn't regain consciousness, continuing to roll Will each hour to not become insane, until your target dies of old age. Works better if you're a Warforged or a Necropolitan (or made yourself immortal in any other way).

[Saintheart]

Logging Infallible Servant, p.27 from Exemplars of Evil. Cleric 3.

If target is captured by non-evil creatures or is slain, the body dissolves into foul sludge. Target is utterly destroyed and explicitly by RAW cannot be affected by any spell or effect that restores life -- such as True Resurrection, again explicitly by RAW -- short of miracle or wish. There's a Will save, of course, but the main thing is that the target need not be willing. So if you're a neutral cleric, all you really need to do to the target is cast this spell on it, then leave the room locking the door behind you (thus "capturing" it) and kerboom, your target is now a sludgy mess that nothing can bring back. For bonus points you can collect said sludge and dissolve it out by the tactics mentioned, of course.

Also, a specific tactic:

Accentuate the Positive, Eliminate the Negative
If you're a rather evil fellow, convince your target via a high Diplomacy check that it would be very, very cool to be a Necropolitan. Get them to even pay you the 3,000 gp to get you to perform the ritual of Crucimigration. Wait for the target to open its undead eyes and then immediately Plane Shift it to the Positive Energy Plane. It then blows up as if it had been caught in the path of a supernova, and being undead at the time of its destruction, is beyond resurrection magic. Wish or Miracle might get around it, but good luck locating the precise place of death since Plane Shift has an error factor of up to about 5,000 miles or so.

[Saintheart]

After you cast Flesh to Stone, you can't cast Transmute Rock To Mud on the statue. The latter spell only works on "natural, uncut or unworked rock", and not a high quality statue.

Would the high quality statue be considered a "construct" or "structure"? If so, the third level druid spell Crumble seems to do something similar, even if the spell allows objects to have spell resistance. If so, then, crumble the object, sweep up the crumbs, dump them in a bucket of water, and you've got your mud.

[bekeleven]

OK, I've updated the post with suggestions added. I never thought of using the far realms, although I really should've.

Thanks all!

[ShurikVch]

Arboreal Transformation spell (Complete Mage) turn target into a tree; tree is alive, but not a creature...

From the Dragon magazines

#300 - Putrefaction: this 9th level Necromancy spell make target to age 1 age category/turn; when age become Venerable, at the next turn creature die from old age, it's body will be animated as zombie, and soul turn into ghost - both undead are under the caster's control; even if undeads will be destroyed, original creature died from the old age, thus off-limit; spell have no save, but doesn't work on dragons and other creatures with non-standard aging.

#330 - Requiem Jar: if pour tonic from the jar into the corpse's mouth - corpse will be turned into dust, which will magically gather into the jar; as long as dust is in the jar, creature can't be raised or resurrected

#359 - Nightforged weapon special ability: creatures who died with unhealed wound from such weapon cannot be brought back from the dead by any means short of a wish, miracle, or true resurrection spell. Price: +1 bonus

[icefractal]

Sort of a variant of "I Don't Wanna", less efficient but doesn't leave anything to potentially remove:

1) Drain target to 1st level, via energy drain.
2) Mindrape / Programmed Amnesia to instill the belief "It's ALWAYS worth it to come back from the dead, no matter what."
3) Kill / Last Breath until you get Troglodyte.
4) Put an Amulet of Health +6 on them.
5) Kill / Raise Dead until their Con is 0.

Now the only way they could be brought back is by something that boosts Con more than 6, and works on dead bodies. And if such a thing exists, you can just add it to step 4 and thus be protected against it.

[WhamBamSam]

I'm sure you can find a good number of monster abilities that make it harder to resurrect someone if you look.

The only example I have offhand is the Gloom Dragon in Dragon Magazine 344, which can eat the corpse of a creature 2 or more size categories smaller (you may have to shrink the corpse or enlarge yourself, especially if you're using Dragon Wild Shape as opposed to other means of acquiring dragon Su abilities), and in so doing make it so that raising the person requires that the dragon (you) be killed, followed by Wish or Miracle, and then Resurrection.

[Venger]

thought of another:

But, I Encyst

1) take mother cyst
2) encyst target with necrotic cyst
3) target with necrotic termination.

now he's gone no loophole like barghest's feast that allow the gods to bring him back:

Raise
dead, resurrection, true resurrection, wish,
and miracle cannot return life to the
subject once her soul is digested—she is
gone forever.

for when they absolutely, positively have to get there overnight.

[mabriss lethe]

Barghests have the ability to devour the bodies and souls of those they kill, making any form of resurrection requiring a body impossible and giving only a 50% success chance to more powerful resurrection magics.

You can also (ab)use Quintessence to entomb a living person outside of time.

[Wolfofmibu66]

So out of curiosity are we disallowing content from 3.0 or just epic stuff? Because if not, then the organization "The Garotte", from the epic level handbook is basically the top of the line in keeping people dead. (ELH page 234) Mortu: a poison which makes the body Unraisable, barring wish or miracle, and those have a 50% failure rate. Alternately the leader of this epic assassins guild has a cloak which basically opens to a void dimension, and RAW makes the body go away forever(even the gods can't get it back) (ELH pg 233)

[BilltheCynic]

There is a 6th level Cleric/7th level Wizard spell called Bargehst's Feast (SC 24 and PlH 95). It has a 5,000 gp diamond material component, but when cast on a corpse it utterly destroys it, prevent the target from being raised by any method requiring a body. There is also a 50% chance that the target cannot be raised by wish, miracle, or true resurrection.

[Necroticplague]

Accentuate the Positive, Eliminate the Negative
If you're a rather evil fellow, convince your target via a high Diplomacy check that it would be very, very cool to be a Necropolitan. Get them to even pay you the 3,000 gp to get you to perform the ritual of Crucimigration. Wait for the target to open its undead eyes and then immediately Plane Shift it to the Positive Energy Plane. It then blows up as if it had been caught in the path of a supernova, and being undead at the time of its destruction, is beyond resurrection magic. Wish or Miracle might get around it, but good luck locating the precise place of death since Plane Shift has an error factor of up to about 5,000 miles or so.

Er, this is actually contradictory to the rules. The rules for blowing up as a result of too much energy on the PEP only effect creatures. As a result, since the effect allows a fort save, undead are immune. Even if it did, it doesn't really make them any harder to raise (outside of standard 'the body has been destroyed'). At the very least, True Resurrection works on them.

[Venger]

now he's gone no loophole like barghest's feast that allow the gods to bring him back:

There is a 6th level Cleric/7th level Wizard spell called Bargehst's Feast (SC 24 and PlH 95). It has a 5,000 gp diamond material component, but when cast on a corpse it utterly destroys it, prevent the target from being raised by any method requiring a body. There is also a 50% chance that the target cannot be raised by wish, miracle, or true resurrection.

recasting that's gonna add up fast, especially if the dice aren't with you. even after you get them to come up the way you want, the gods can bring tem back.

[Kraken]

Seconding necrotic termination. The spell itself is limited by the fact that living creatures can be implanted with necrotic cysts. However, if you polymorph, or otherwise force the victim into a living body, then you're good to go. Off the top of my head, I can only recall liches being immune to polymorphing, however you can simply destroy the lich then bring it back to life in its living form to necrotically terminate it - worst case scenario it just stays dead.

[Venger]

Seconding necrotic termination. The spell itself is limited by the fact that living creatures can be implanted with necrotic cysts. However, if you polymorph, or otherwise force the victim into a living body, then you're good to go. Off the top of my head, I can only recall liches being immune to polymorphing, however you can simply destroy the lich then bring it back to life in its living form to necrotically terminate it - worst case scenario it just stays dead.

undead and constructs (and anyone else immune to fort saves) are by extension immune to polymorph effects.

the simplest way to get around it (since like all these tricks, this is assuming you've already beat the enemy and pretty much have him at your mercy in your basement) is the following:

1) spark of life
2) polymorph spell of choice to turn him into a living creature with a poor fort save
3) necrotic cyst
4) necrotic termination

if you wanted to do it the hard way, once you destroy the lich and his phylactery, you could mindrape someone he trusts into trueresing him (that'd return him to his living body) and then you could encyst and terminate him if you wanted to give him someting of a fighting chance.

[Kraken]

PAO gets around typical undead/construct fort save immunity because it can also be used on objects.