So, are you intepreting the sentence from Raise Dead that says " The spell can't return an undead creature to life." merely to apply to a creature that is still moving around?
The destroyed zombie is still the body of an "undead" not a "humanoid", so the spell shouldn't work.
Yes. Once you destroy it, it's the corpse of a humanoid, not the corpse of a zombie.
Technically, it is neither/both a corps of a humanoid nor a corpse of an undead. The corpse has previously been a humanoid and an undead. The fact that it used to be a humanoid never stopped being the case just because the corpse was animated (though it did become the case that the corpse was a creature and no longer an object).
I maintain that a humanoid died and that this corpse is that humanoid's corpse. Assuming time constraints are met, all conditions are met to return a humanoid (not an undead) to life. Exactly as the spell says it does.
If someone can find me where it says that the corpse's metadata (for lack of a better term) is overwritten so as to no longer have ever been a humanoid, I can be convinced that undeath is permadeath.
I say technically because those plane shift docs are really more like UA-equivelant as the pubs themselves say they're not fully playtested...but hey, they're officially published WoTC D&D material, which is good enough for my [now virtual] table.
Once you destroy it, it's the corpse of a humanoid, not the corpse of a zombie.
I completely agree with this interpretation. IMHO an undead creature is a reanimated dead creature of some description. Once it is "re-killed", the reanimation is lost and it is no longer undead, just dead.
I'd consider it in a similar manner to attaching strings to a corpse and using it as a marionette/puppet. Once the strings are attached, it becomes a puppet. Once it is killed, the strings are cut and it is no longer a puppet.
"Undead" is a word that's used to describe creatures that are still moving around (thus not dead, its right there in the name UNdead), but don't follow the classical rules of biology (thus not quite alive). So, if you make an undead being stop moving around, its no longer UNdead, but regular dead.
Undead is not a creature race, its a state of being. If a dwarf is turned into a vampire, they don't stop being a dwarf, they don't lose their dwarven quirks. They're twisted, sure, but they are still fundamentally dwarves.
In D&D lore, undead are creatures that run on necrotic energy instead of radiant "life" energy. Their physiology doesn't change (aside from rot setting in). Zombies and skeletons have dark spirits that take over the bodies instead of the original souls, but higher undead like liches and death knights or ephemeral ones like ghosts and banshee have the original souls.
Resurrection spells fully restore a person to life with a willing soul, and have the person run on the usual positive energy (life/radiant/etc).
"Undead" is a word that's used to describe creatures that are still moving around (thus not dead, its right there in the name UNdead), but don't follow the classical rules of biology (thus not quite alive). So, if you make an undead being stop moving around, its no longer UNdead, but regular dead.
Undead is not a creature race, its a state of being. If a dwarf is turned into a vampire, they don't stop being a dwarf, they don't lose their dwarven quirks. They're twisted, sure, but they are still fundamentally dwarves.
In D&D lore, undead are creatures that run on necrotic energy instead of radiant "life" energy. Their physiology doesn't change (aside from rot setting in). Zombies and skeletons have dark spirits that take over the bodies instead of the original souls, but higher undead like liches and death knights or ephemeral ones like ghosts and banshee have the original souls.
Resurrection spells fully restore a person to life with a willing soul, and have the person run on the usual positive energy (life/radiant/etc).
uh, undead is a monster Type (note the capital T)...humanoid, undead, giant, dragon, etc (so one step up from species/race). D&D doesn't follow the classical rules of biology (its not just undead - none of it does)...undead follow the D&D version of biology.
Type is not the same thing as race or species. Type is a mechanical expression used to express certain traits shared in common within a certain group.
Take "Celestial" for example. The most commonly known celestial are the Solar, Planetar, and Deva, the D&D version of angels. But there are unicorns, pegasi, lions, celestial elves, and more. A celestial lion can be called to the Prime Material and mate with regular lions to bear kids. They're literally lions, but with special celestial qualities do to making their home on the Outer Planes. Some of the qualities that all celestials share include susceptibility to Banishment, Protection from Good/Evil, detection via paladin Detection abilities, and similar.
Trying to treat Type as species is doomed to failure, because there are too many types in D&D lore that don't fit that mold.
of course its not, i didn't even suggest it was. In fact i specifically said it was above species...that's if we were to try to shove it into a classification system somewhat paralleling our own.
And no, there aren't too many types. in fact, there's exactly 14.
Awakened to an endless night, vampires hunger for the life they have lost
I would interpret that to mean that they had a life once, they no longer do, so are reanimated in a similar fashion to Zombies. There is more of a case for their form having been permanently altered here, but it could still be argued that the death of a vampire is a loss of the magical reanimation, which means the corpse is no longer undead.
Of course, this is only my view, but I wouldn't personally say that becoming undead is a permanent changing of "creature Type".
I say technically because those plane shift docs are really more like UA-equivelant as the pubs themselves say they're not fully playtested...but hey, they're officially published WoTC D&D material, which is good enough for my [now virtual] table.
Those also describe vampires from a different plane/realm/sphere. They do not have the same traits as forgotten realms vampires and are not undead.
Undead is a creature type. If a human is converted into a vampire, then it's type changes from humanoid to undead. Killing the vampire doesn't revert its creature type away from undead back to humanoid (no rule says it does), so it remains as undead.
The Raise Dead spell says that it does not work on undead, so it won't work on the killed vampire.
Undead is a creature type. If a human is converted into a vampire, then it's type changes from humanoid to undead. Killing the vampire doesn't revert its creature type away from undead back to humanoid (no rule says it does), so it remains as undead.
Being converted into a vampire is not a change of creature type. It's dying (and thus having creature type nulled, as corpses are not creatures and do not have a creature type) and then a new creature (with a new type) being created from the corpse. Ignoring that, if an effect changes the creature type of a target, when that effect ends, the target returns to its original creature type, so the question is what 'ends' the effect of 'vampire', and the obvious answer is 'destruction'.
Consider another case: rather than casting Animate Dead on a corpse, it's entirely legal to cast Animate Objects -- a corpse is an object. At this point, its creature type is Construct. If the animated corpse gets beaten up (or the spell just ends) is it now the corpse of a construct?
A Elven High Mage using the 2e 8th level spell called "Gift of Life" or artifact that can cast the effect "Gift of Life", can cure any kind of Undead condition corporeal or incorporeal, back to life. The target of the spell does get a save vs Fortitude, spell resistance or magic immunity does not help to resist the effects of this spell (This spell is considered Epic Magic, because it is Elven High Magic). If the target is a Lich they can try to save vs Fort at half their current effective Level. Also a Lich rolls % chance on how much their life expectancy returns to them (they are also stunned for 4d6 x 10 mins as they take in on what happened to them). Vampires return at the age they were turned - ten years, the same for other corporeal undead. Ghosts and other incorporeal undead can choose their fate, they can roll % to find out how much life expectancy returns to them or they can cross over to whatever afterlife that is waiting for them. In the Lore many Evil Liches, Vampires, and other foul forms of undead creatures have after they were saved by this elven magic dedicated the remainder of their restored mortal lives to serving and protecting the Elven people, or nations, and dedicating themselves to the gods of Good.
You are all missing something. Revivify returns a creature to life. If an undead creature is not alive, not living, then it is restored to a state of life, and thus cured.
You are all missing something. Revivify returns a creature to life. If an undead creature is not alive, not living, then it is restored to a state of life, and thus cured.
Revivify does seem to be able to target a creature that died within the last minute, without particular restrictions (it doesn't even require the target be currently dead; if someone uses wish to resurrect a dead ally with full hit points, you can target them with revivify and reduce them to 1 hp), but it's rather rare that you're dealing with a vampire that died within the last minute.
If we understand an undead to be in a state of undeath, it is neither dead or alive. It can have died but is restored to a state of undeath, as per the Undead creature type. Thus, it dies again when it is reduced to 0 hit points as a Vampire Spawn, because if a Vampire Spawn is not alive, then it cannot surely be dead if it is undead. If you say it is dead, then sure, but when it is killed by a Cleric, let's say, it dies again. Revivify does not state that it needs to be the original time of death. Undead can die twice, multiple times even.
In any case, I can see myself making the call either way. It just allows revivify to be used for this if a GM deems it fitting
Technically, it is neither/both a corps of a humanoid nor a corpse of an undead. The corpse has previously been a humanoid and an undead. The fact that it used to be a humanoid never stopped being the case just because the corpse was animated (though it did become the case that the corpse was a creature and no longer an object).
I maintain that a humanoid died and that this corpse is that humanoid's corpse. Assuming time constraints are met, all conditions are met to return a humanoid (not an undead) to life. Exactly as the spell says it does.
If someone can find me where it says that the corpse's metadata (for lack of a better term) is overwritten so as to no longer have ever been a humanoid, I can be convinced that undeath is permadeath.
you could let them keep it - not all vampires are undead - they're technically a humanoid player race with an eldritch disease if you look here: https://media.wizards.com/2016/downloads/magic/Plane Shift Zendikar.pdf or here: https://media.wizards.com/2018/downloads/magic/plane-shift_ixalan.pdf
I say technically because those plane shift docs are really more like UA-equivelant as the pubs themselves say they're not fully playtested...but hey, they're officially published WoTC D&D material, which is good enough for my [now virtual] table.
Guide to the Five Factions (PWYW)
Deck of Decks
I completely agree with this interpretation. IMHO an undead creature is a reanimated dead creature of some description. Once it is "re-killed", the reanimation is lost and it is no longer undead, just dead.
I'd consider it in a similar manner to attaching strings to a corpse and using it as a marionette/puppet. Once the strings are attached, it becomes a puppet. Once it is killed, the strings are cut and it is no longer a puppet.
"Undead" is a word that's used to describe creatures that are still moving around (thus not dead, its right there in the name UNdead), but don't follow the classical rules of biology (thus not quite alive). So, if you make an undead being stop moving around, its no longer UNdead, but regular dead.
Undead is not a creature race, its a state of being. If a dwarf is turned into a vampire, they don't stop being a dwarf, they don't lose their dwarven quirks. They're twisted, sure, but they are still fundamentally dwarves.
In D&D lore, undead are creatures that run on necrotic energy instead of radiant "life" energy. Their physiology doesn't change (aside from rot setting in). Zombies and skeletons have dark spirits that take over the bodies instead of the original souls, but higher undead like liches and death knights or ephemeral ones like ghosts and banshee have the original souls.
Resurrection spells fully restore a person to life with a willing soul, and have the person run on the usual positive energy (life/radiant/etc).
uh, undead is a monster Type (note the capital T)...humanoid, undead, giant, dragon, etc (so one step up from species/race). D&D doesn't follow the classical rules of biology (its not just undead - none of it does)...undead follow the D&D version of biology.
Guide to the Five Factions (PWYW)
Deck of Decks
Type is not the same thing as race or species. Type is a mechanical expression used to express certain traits shared in common within a certain group.
Take "Celestial" for example. The most commonly known celestial are the Solar, Planetar, and Deva, the D&D version of angels. But there are unicorns, pegasi, lions, celestial elves, and more. A celestial lion can be called to the Prime Material and mate with regular lions to bear kids. They're literally lions, but with special celestial qualities do to making their home on the Outer Planes. Some of the qualities that all celestials share include susceptibility to Banishment, Protection from Good/Evil, detection via paladin Detection abilities, and similar.
Trying to treat Type as species is doomed to failure, because there are too many types in D&D lore that don't fit that mold.
of course its not, i didn't even suggest it was. In fact i specifically said it was above species...that's if we were to try to shove it into a classification system somewhat paralleling our own.
And no, there aren't too many types. in fact, there's exactly 14.
Guide to the Five Factions (PWYW)
Deck of Decks
Maybe so. However, there are descriptions of undead creatures which show them being reanimated corpses.
From Zombie
This would tell me that a Zombie is a reanimated corpse. To die, that reanimation would need to end, and it would revert to being just a corpse.
It's not as clear cut for a Vampire
I would interpret that to mean that they had a life once, they no longer do, so are reanimated in a similar fashion to Zombies. There is more of a case for their form having been permanently altered here, but it could still be argued that the death of a vampire is a loss of the magical reanimation, which means the corpse is no longer undead.
Of course, this is only my view, but I wouldn't personally say that becoming undead is a permanent changing of "creature Type".
Those also describe vampires from a different plane/realm/sphere. They do not have the same traits as forgotten realms vampires and are not undead.
Undead is a creature type. If a human is converted into a vampire, then it's type changes from humanoid to undead. Killing the vampire doesn't revert its creature type away from undead back to humanoid (no rule says it does), so it remains as undead.
The Raise Dead spell says that it does not work on undead, so it won't work on the killed vampire.
Being converted into a vampire is not a change of creature type. It's dying (and thus having creature type nulled, as corpses are not creatures and do not have a creature type) and then a new creature (with a new type) being created from the corpse. Ignoring that, if an effect changes the creature type of a target, when that effect ends, the target returns to its original creature type, so the question is what 'ends' the effect of 'vampire', and the obvious answer is 'destruction'.
Consider another case: rather than casting Animate Dead on a corpse, it's entirely legal to cast Animate Objects -- a corpse is an object. At this point, its creature type is Construct. If the animated corpse gets beaten up (or the spell just ends) is it now the corpse of a construct?
There's an interesting addition to the latest Sage Advice Compendium:
But Animate Dead does have the line: "Choose a pile of bones or a corpse of a Medium or Small humanoid within range."
A Elven High Mage using the 2e 8th level spell called "Gift of Life" or artifact that can cast the effect "Gift of Life", can cure any kind of Undead condition corporeal or incorporeal, back to life. The target of the spell does get a save vs Fortitude, spell resistance or magic immunity does not help to resist the effects of this spell (This spell is considered Epic Magic, because it is Elven High Magic). If the target is a Lich they can try to save vs Fort at half their current effective Level. Also a Lich rolls % chance on how much their life expectancy returns to them (they are also stunned for 4d6 x 10 mins as they take in on what happened to them). Vampires return at the age they were turned - ten years, the same for other corporeal undead. Ghosts and other incorporeal undead can choose their fate, they can roll % to find out how much life expectancy returns to them or they can cross over to whatever afterlife that is waiting for them. In the Lore many Evil Liches, Vampires, and other foul forms of undead creatures have after they were saved by this elven magic dedicated the remainder of their restored mortal lives to serving and protecting the Elven people, or nations, and dedicating themselves to the gods of Good.
Monster Manual, page 295.
Player Characters as Vampires: "...until the vampirism is reversed with a wish spell or the character is killed and brought back to life."
I dislike how easy it is to fix a player character.
Enjoy your slop. I'll be enjoying good products elsewhere.
That example doesn’t work on vampires; and regardless a DM can always just say a particular curse is too powerful for the spell.
You are all missing something. Revivify returns a creature to life. If an undead creature is not alive, not living, then it is restored to a state of life, and thus cured.
Revivify does seem to be able to target a creature that died within the last minute, without particular restrictions (it doesn't even require the target be currently dead; if someone uses wish to resurrect a dead ally with full hit points, you can target them with revivify and reduce them to 1 hp), but it's rather rare that you're dealing with a vampire that died within the last minute.
If we understand an undead to be in a state of undeath, it is neither dead or alive. It can have died but is restored to a state of undeath, as per the Undead creature type. Thus, it dies again when it is reduced to 0 hit points as a Vampire Spawn, because if a Vampire Spawn is not alive, then it cannot surely be dead if it is undead. If you say it is dead, then sure, but when it is killed by a Cleric, let's say, it dies again. Revivify does not state that it needs to be the original time of death. Undead can die twice, multiple times even.
In any case, I can see myself making the call either way. It just allows revivify to be used for this if a GM deems it fitting
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