Curse of the Bodak

[Urbannen]

Last night the party ran into a random encounter with two bodaks. One of the cohorts, a level 8 rogue, failed her saved against the bodaks' death gaze.

Two questions:

1. This is dumb, but here goes: Is the Death Gaze ability a death effect? It doesn't specifically say in the MM entry. If it's a death effect, than the character cannot be raised with Raise Dead. Pretty potent for a CR 8 creature, if you ask me.

2. Is there any spell that will prevent the corpse from rising as a bodak in 24 hours?

Thanks.

 

[Notmousse]

1) I would say so, but don't have specific citation ATM. Though you could just disregard the issue entirely since it's not mentioned in the MM.

2) Destroying the corpse would do so nicely. Bashing the head to mush and/or removing it completely would make the remainder of the creature much less troublesome, killable and in theory viable for raise dead. I suppose any spell that keeps the corpse 'fresh' for raising could be considered as stopping the curse countdown while in effect.

 

[Voadam]

I always ruled it was a death effect and death ward protects against it.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/bodak.htm

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#deathAttacks

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/deathWard.htm

Death attacks are not specifically defined, but going by the facts that the attack power is titled with the word death and has a fortitude save or actually die instantly effect it meets the general death attack description.

I never thought about the raise aspect before but I guess assassins' death attack class feature would work the same way.

 

[Voadam]

2. Is there any spell that will prevent the corpse from rising as a bodak in 24 hours?

Thanks.

Miracle, wish, limited wish.

 

[Urbannen]

Ouch! The party has access to up to 5th level clerical spells, only.

That's how I ruled. I said it was a death effect so the character couldn't be Raised, and there was no way of preventing her becoming a bodak except by destroying her body.

I can't say I agree with the design behind all this, but for now we're playing 3.5....

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Last night the party ran into a random encounter with two bodaks. One of the cohorts, a level 8 rogue, failed her saved against the bodaks' death gaze.

Two questions:

1. This is dumb, but here goes: Is the Death Gaze ability a death effect? It doesn't specifically say in the MM entry. If it's a death effect, than the character cannot be raised with Raise Dead. Pretty potent for a CR 8 creature, if you ask me.

It's one of the few monsters that you can even throw at high level parties and scare them. I don't see this as a positive thing, but maybe it's just because too many of my characters have a habit of rolling 1 on their good saves...

 

[Notmousse]

Headless bodaks are easier to handle.

 

[Voadam]

Ouch! The party has access to up to 5th level clerical spells, only.

That's how I ruled. I said it was a death effect so the character couldn't be Raised, and there was no way of preventing her becoming a bodak except by destroying her body.

I can't say I agree with the design behind all this, but for now we're playing 3.5....

Reincarnation as an option?

As a side note, I changed for my 3.5 games all the save or die effects such as the Bodak gaze into save or dieing (-1 hp). Changes the game play dynamics into combat situations I much prefer running than the binary combat dynamics of no effect/instantly dead PC.

Before that I swapped out encounters with bodaks for similar CR undead (I advanced disease spirits from a green ronin freeport web enhancement for one module's encounter to great effect).

 

[Stalker0]

Ouch! The party has access to up to 5th level clerical spells, only.

That's how I ruled. I said it was a death effect so the character couldn't be Raised, and there was no way of preventing her becoming a bodak except by destroying her body.

I can't say I agree with the design behind all this, but for now we're playing 3.5....

You now know why many people on these boards consider bodaks to be broken monsters.

 

[WhatGravitas]

You now know why many people on these boards consider bodaks to be broken monsters.

To expand on that: They're also total push-overs. 58 hp are weak for a CR 8 monster - some comparisons:
Elder Arrowhawk: 112 hp
Behir: 94 hp
Stone Giant: 119 hp
Gray Render: 125 hp
Mohrg: 91 hp
Treant: 66 hp, but has DR 10/Slashing

And his 1d8+1 slam is also pitiful. He's only CR 8, because he can kill instantly. The bodak is basically the equivalent to the "Gotcha! You're dead!"-trap or the quintessential glass cannon.

Cheers, LT.