Great spell, shame the zombie feature only works on humanoids. I’d love to have a zombie dragon permanently under my control. 

Quote from SergeTroy >>

6th level Spell, Disentegrate: 10d6 + 40 Force

Finger of Death, a 7th level spell: 7d8 + 30 Necrotic (for more common resistance type).  

Hello to house rules for bad game design.

The more you might gain, it's less likely you'll get it

That's scary and good maths

I think that if someone dies from failed death saves, the last source of damage they took should be counted as cause of death.
So if someone gets the Finger of Death, then fails 3 Death Saving throws, Finger of Death killed them.
If, however, they get Finger of Death, fail 1 Death Save, then a skeleton pokes them in the eye with a finger of bone, the skeleton killed them.

In cases where what brought them to 0 HP was not numerical damage (such as a Banshee wail), if they take no damage on Death Saves and still die from failed death saves, whatever brought them to 0 HP is cause of death.

Dude I have about a million zombies from this spell. I used them to rip Vecna limb from limb.

Note:

The spell's zombification only works on humanoids.

I didn't realize this until someone pointed it out, so I figured I'd share.

what happens if you kill a wight with this? i know its says " A humanoid killed by this spell blah blah blah" but wight are kinda like humanoids right?

Back in the day (AD&D) Finger of death was save or die and didn't create zombies.

"finger of death causes the victim's heart to stop. Unless the victim makes the appropriate saving throw death occurs. A successful save negates the spell"

IMHO the new version is better because, notwithstanding the death save discussions, it always does something. However the "original" one unambiguously kills (or not).

In the campaign I am playing at the moment we could do with it working in the old way, not needing any army of zombies and having a particularly strong bbeg to deal with. 

The damage isn't the only thing

Quote from Haravikk >>

Quote from TheAlmightyN >>

Quote from Haravikk >>

I would argue the spell still killed you in this case, as the skeletons wouldn't have been able to finish you off without it being cast first.

The rules are only interested in what actually killed you. If you failed three death saves, that is what killed you regardless of how you may phrase it in conversation, e.g. "Remember when you were killed by that weak little goblin har har har?"

By that logic you are effectively rendering this spell useless; because technically you cannot kill anything with it unless you are forcing the final failed death save, that's one hell of a nerf to a 7th level spell.

If you reduce a creature to 0 hit-points with this spell then the spell is the reason that that creature is dying.

This holds true with medical cause of death; if a person falls and breaks their neck, it's the broken neck that kills them, even if they survive for a few hours before suffering organ failure (due to no signals from the brain).

I'm not sure why you want to nerf a 7th-level spell that's very, very clear in how it's intended to work?

Non Player Characters and Monsters die instantly upon hitting 0 HP, unless the DM rules otherwise. You can definitely use this to turn an enemy of the party into a Zombie permanently under your control, a BBEG could use this to kill a beloved NPC and zombify them.

But against players, RAW and RAI the spell has to either kill them through Massive Damage or finish them off when they’re dying on the floor. You could try reducing their HP Maximum with Harm or something similar if you want to kill with the spell without wasting it on someone who’s dying on the ground.

Or you could just homebrew that it kills creatures reduced to 0 HP.

The only acceptable way to describe this is as a middle finger.

Quote from dnd_bart >>

what happens if you kill a wight with this? i know its says " A humanoid killed by this spell blah blah blah" but wight are kinda like humanoids right?

Description: Wights are intelligent undead humanoids that resemble armed and armored corpses. 
Their creature type is undead, but based on their description I might allow it if the PC caster did an Arcana or History roll.
Since they would just get a basic Zombie it would not be to hard.


Since this is a 7th level spell that folks will not get until lvl13 I do not see it instantly killing very often if used by a PCs or a BBEG.
It should be no issue to get a zombie from a lower level henchperson of the BBEG. Probably most humanoids monsters CR3 or lower, or perhaps even some CR4.

i wish it could be a skeleton or a zombie

This'll be good for liches.

- Can you use finger of death on a zombie to kill it and then reanimate it as yours? -

I have a new butler zombie Alfred 

Coffee lock

Quote from Blue0440 >>

Quote from SergeTroy >>

6th level Spell, Disentegrate: 10d6 + 40 Force

Finger of Death, a 7th level spell: 7d8 + 30 Necrotic (for more common resistance type).  

Hello to house rules for bad game design.

 You're missing some key features, which should be reexamined. 

-1) Saving Throws: On a successful saving throw against Disintegrate, they take no damage. A successful save against Finger of Death still results in half damage, so it is guaranteed damage, whereas Disintegrate is not.

-2) Secondary Effect: Killing someone with Disintegrate will disintegrate them, which only serves to make them harder to resurrect (and destroys their nonmagical loot). Finger of Death turns them into a Zombie, which is permanently under your control. Not only does this extend your resources (free minion!), but it even has the same effect as Disintegrate (you need a Wish or True Resurrection to resurrect an Undead). 

-3) With the other Undead Creation spells, you have to recast them everyday, putting a limiter on how many Undead you can have. Also, they have to be cast on already-dead corpses, whereas Finger of Death can slay someone and Zombify them at once. I could see a high-level Necromancer using this to save up a massive army of Undead, and use them to conquer a nation for himself. 

Basically, this spell is how you create large armies of Undead which don't need to be maintained. Great for the DM to give to enemy Necromancers to justify how they have an army of Undead. You'll notice that the Lich in the PHB knows Finger of Death, and that's no coincidence...

con saves are generally worse than dex ones, and there are easier ways to get minions. 

85.5 average damage from a 7th-level disintegrate, with a dex save for no damage. The average dex save for a CR 13 creature is around 2.8 so we'll count that as 3:

1-(21-(18)+3)/20= 0.7 

59.85 average damage from disintegrate

61.5 average damage from finger of death

The average con save for a cr 13 creature is 7.

1-(21-(18)+7)/20= 0.5

61.5/2=30.75

30.75+(30.75x0.5)=46.125 average damage.

59.85-46.125=13.725 more damage from disintegrate.

The zombie isn't worth that much, and finger of death also doesn't have material components- which is actually bad since that doesn't allow you to perform the somatic components with a component pouch or the like.

Quote from usemane_here >>

just a bit overpowered. 7d8 + 30? thats a bit overkill for a lot of things.

 Not overpowered if it hits my 10th lvl moon druid. Average damage is about half of her max HP or half of one of her wildshapes. If it rolls high it could definitely be a problem though.