D&D 5E Revivify and Clone

[Charlaquin]

The "soul hasn't yet departed the body" idea is a reasonable inference to make, simply from the face that revivify is the only resurrection spell which lacks that "soul must be free and willing to return" clause. Even clone itself, which is potentially instantaneous so you'd think the soul wouldn't have had time to get into trouble, includes that clause.

This raises an interesting point... Can you Revivify someone who’s soul isn’t willing to return? The wording suggests so.

 

[MarkB]

This raises an interesting point... Can you Revivify someone who’s soul isn’t willing to return? The wording suggests so.

Potentially useful to counter successful suicide attempts.

 

[Quartz]

Does Soul Bind exist in 5E? Because that's another spell with restrictions similar to Revivify.

 

[Ringmaster 5985]

Does Soul Bind exist in 5E? Because that's another spell with restrictions similar to Revivify.

It's not in any 5e books that i've seen

 

[DEFCON 1]

This raises an interesting point... Can you Revivify someone who’s soul isn’t willing to return? The wording suggests so.

I think you were right the first time in that the "soul" doesn't even get a chance to make a decision. For that one minute your "soul" is lying there going "Okay... I think I'm dead. Or am I? I dunno. Am I dead? Hmm. Well, that person is now over me doing CPR... that person over there has got the electrical paddles out... maybe I'm not dead? Although what is dead anyway? My heart has stopped beating, so I guess that counts as technically being dead, right?"

"Clear!" SHZZZZZZZZ-ZZUMP

"Huh. Okay, well, my heart is beating again. That means I'm now technically alive, right? I guess I wasn't actually completely dead. As Miracle Max might say, I was only mostly dead. But now my heart is beating again. I'm back to being a living person. Man... never even got to say hi to God or anything! What a gyp!"

 

[Stalker0]

Potentially useful to counter successful suicide attempts.

Or doing the thing they would do in stargate sg1, where the villain would torture a person to death and then bring them back over and over again

 

[TwoSix]

This raises an interesting point... Can you Revivify someone who’s soul isn’t willing to return? The wording suggests so.

Really, it's like a druid wearing metal armor. The soul could leave, but it won't.

 

[Oofta]

Really, it's like a druid wearing metal armor. The soul could leave, but it won't.

Bzzzt! Flag on the play! Trying to sidetrack a legitimate question so that we can beat the dead horse before we have a chance to revivify it!

 

[Torquar]

Clone requires the soul be willing, you could just say no. Whether you need to make that decision immediately or not is up to the DM I guess.

 

[Oofta]

In my home campaign, raise dead is much more difficult than just casting a spell and resurrection is pretty much unheard of. So much like @Charlaquin I rule that the soul takes a minute to fully leave the body.