Usually in D&D, positive energy is a bane to undead creatures, or more recently mostly doesn't affect them. However in Curse of Strahd, something very unusual happens.
In the Amber Temple, there is a feeble lich who is almost slipping into becoming a demilich. He is very weak because he hasn't fed souls to his phylactery in a while, likely because he's in a place where people usually don't go or it's been hard to imprison a monster around or some other reason.
However, if you cast Greater Restoration on him, he recovers!
Now look at the description of Greater Restoration:
"You imbue a creature you touch with positive energy to undo a debilitating effect."
What's going on here? Is this an oversight by the writers or is there a little more complexity to the nature of undeath than we are told? Consider that a specific dose of positive energy could replace a lich's need to feed on souls, aren't souls sorta made from positive energy?
Maybe it just kicks his fatigue levels down?... Yeah that is about all I have. It does feel weird but it may be easier than assuming the party will have one particular necromantic spell sine Greater Restoration is a part of most adventurer group toolkits.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
Back in the day, there was no mention of "positive energy" in any of the healing spells, and for the most part they just didn't do anything when cast on non-living creatures like undead.
3rd edition came along and a decision was made to make healing spells a usage of "positive energy", and to make these spells deal damage to undead.
Now, part of that has been changed back to the old way of doing things (i.e. cure wounds not damaging undead), but some of the other details still seem to be hanging around - which can make things confusing for people that don't remember how things were back in the day.
I would say this has to do with the difference between "positive energy" and "radiant damage". While spells that deal radiant damage are of the school if invocation (home of fireballs), this positive force used to heal is actually based off the school of necromancy. It is not really about dealing damage as it is balancing the forces of life and death. Think of invocation radiant damage as hurting the body, while necromancy harms or benefits your life force. The latter's tends to manifest as visually changing the body, but only because there is life force to cause that change.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Usually in D&D, positive energy is a bane to undead creatures, or more recently mostly doesn't affect them. However in Curse of Strahd, something very unusual happens.
In the Amber Temple, there is a feeble lich who is almost slipping into becoming a demilich. He is very weak because he hasn't fed souls to his phylactery in a while, likely because he's in a place where people usually don't go or it's been hard to imprison a monster around or some other reason.
However, if you cast Greater Restoration on him, he recovers!
Now look at the description of Greater Restoration:
"You imbue a creature you touch with positive energy to undo a debilitating effect."
What's going on here? Is this an oversight by the writers or is there a little more complexity to the nature of undeath than we are told? Consider that a specific dose of positive energy could replace a lich's need to feed on souls, aren't souls sorta made from positive energy?
Maybe it just kicks his fatigue levels down?... Yeah that is about all I have. It does feel weird but it may be easier than assuming the party will have one particular necromantic spell sine Greater Restoration is a part of most adventurer group toolkits.
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
Back in the day, there was no mention of "positive energy" in any of the healing spells, and for the most part they just didn't do anything when cast on non-living creatures like undead.
3rd edition came along and a decision was made to make healing spells a usage of "positive energy", and to make these spells deal damage to undead.
Now, part of that has been changed back to the old way of doing things (i.e. cure wounds not damaging undead), but some of the other details still seem to be hanging around - which can make things confusing for people that don't remember how things were back in the day.
I would say this has to do with the difference between "positive energy" and "radiant damage". While spells that deal radiant damage are of the school if invocation (home of fireballs), this positive force used to heal is actually based off the school of necromancy. It is not really about dealing damage as it is balancing the forces of life and death. Think of invocation radiant damage as hurting the body, while necromancy harms or benefits your life force. The latter's tends to manifest as visually changing the body, but only because there is life force to cause that change.