Here is a quick comparison of the Resurrection spell group.
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[B][I]L Spell Time HP Ordeal Bodyparts Poison Elderly Undead
Dead /Disease to to
/Curse Youthful Living
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3 Revivify 1 1hp well doesnt restore (?) doesnt restore (?)
min bodyparts youthful health
5 Raise Dead 10 1hp −4/d20 doesnt restore cures non- doesnt restore fails
days bodyparts magical youthful health
7 Resurrection 100 full −4/d20 restores all cures non- doesnt restore fails
years bodyparts magical youthful health
9 True 200 full well creates cures all doesnt restore living
Resurrection years new body youthful health
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Revivify only needs an action to cast, and can happen in combat, whereas Raise Dead, Resurrection, and True Resurrection require a 1-hour casting and must happen in noncombat. All require touch, albeit True Resurrection can create a new body while touching.
Revivify is exceptionally powerful. This spell is a game changer. Excellent. Especially at 3rd level. Most resurrections will be done immediately. The 1 minute (10 turn) countdown, means the resurrection can happen after most combat encounters, if necessary. Revivify tends to be rare because of the relative ease of stabilizing to 1 hp or healing any amount before actually dying. But the spell is there for when things go wrong.
Presumably, Revivify doesnt return undead to life. Likewise, presumably, it doesnt cure natural poisons and diseases. However, presumably, it does close all wounds, when it stabilizes to 1 hit point. The 2nd-level spell,
Lesser Restoration, cures any poison or disease, including magical ones. So apparently, Lesser Restoration must be cast on the corpse, before reviving a poisoned or diseased corpse. Note,
Remove Curse is 3rd level, if applicable.
If missing the 10-turn window, it becomes necessary to cast 5th-level
Raise Dead, which has a 10 day window. This spell comes with an ‘ordeal’, that penalizes d20 rolls until four long rests heals it.
Narratively, there is an important distinction between someone that died within a minute versus someone that has been dead for days or years. So, I am comfortable with the distinction between Revivify versus Raise Dead, even if the former at the lower level is strictly superior to the latter at the higher level.
Neither of the spells restore missing bodyparts. But gaming mechanics omits this possibility (along with no broken bones either), so such a situation rarely comes up.
The main difference between Raise Dead and
Resurrection is the supply of missing bodyparts, if any for some reason, and the extension of the 10 day window to a 100 year window, if necessary for some reason. Also at the 7th spell level,
Regenerate with 1 minute casting time can restore missing body parts within two minutes. Again, missing body parts rarely happen.
Resurrection also heals full hit points, but its long 1-hour casting time must happen outside combat, and a single 8-hour long rest restores the full hit points, anyway. To remove magical poisons, diseases, and curses, if any, are 2nd- and 3rd-level spells.
As is, Resurrection appears to be of less worth than a 7th-level spell slot. It is probably negligible to delete the Resurrection spell from the spell list, since it adds little of use beyond Raise Dead.
In comparison to Raise Dead/Resurrection, the benefits of
True Resurrection are to supply a new body (in case of disintegration), to refrain from imposing an ‘ordeal’, and less impressively to arbitrarily extend the window from 100 to 200 years. In other words, the new body is the only difference between the 9th-level True Resurrection spell and the 3rd-level Revivify spell. The new/renewed body is an interesting feature, and should probably be the focus of for more impressive benefits.
Note, the 6th-level spell
Disintegrate specifically requires True Resurrection (or Wish) to relive, if this spell damage causes the target to reach 0 hit points and thereby disintegrate. With DMs discretion, perhaps any 9th-level slot used to revive the residual ash could satisfy this criterion.
A 9th-level spell should have more utility than to only undo a single 6th-level spell.
Apparently, True Resurrection can return a non-destroyed Undead to life, but the hour casting makes this feature unusable in combat. It would be necessary to go thru the trouble of trying to trap the Undead rather than destroy it. The feature seems to lack a useful application. Note, the soul must be ‘willing’, so Undeads such as a Lich would be unwilling.
As-is, the current spell description of True Resurrection seems of less worth than a 9th-level spell slot. There seems no need for 7th-level Resurrection to exist at all, since it adds negligible benefits to 5th-level Raise Dead. Meanwhile, 3rd-level Revivify covers most resurrection needs.
Note. 8th-level
Clone is a kind of self-resurrection and is more useful (despite its elaborate setup) than True Resurrection.
Probably, True Resurrection is worth a 6th- or 7th-level spell slot, and replaces Resurrection.
