"1 Hp remaining.... again"

[Stormonu]

Phantasmal killer and its big brother weird are both 3E illusions that kill people and aren't [shadow] spells (and thus not real at all). If I played 4e, I would assume any illusion spells that killed a target worked the same way -- scared 'em to death, essentially.

That, or go for "extreme psychosomatic reactions to illusionary/hallucinatory damage". Which is probably just a more technobabbly way of saying "scared 'em to death".

Somebody beat me with the Phantasmal Killer reference.

I guess it's like death in the Matrix. Your mind makes it real...

 

[On Puget Sound]

One way I describe the reliably fatal Vicious Mockery from our gnome (inspired by Terry Pratchett):

When the Gods spoke the World into being, their words became rock and river, beast and tree, star and sky and all the things we see. Everything that is real began as a word, and remains real only because the Gods remember those words.

But Gods are busy, and remembering every blade of grass, every grain of sand, is tiresome even to the infinite, so they put lesser servants in charge of remembering the words to keep everything in existence. And these servants can be distracted. A clever bard can sometimes persuade the powers that a particular being is insignificant, that forgetting about it would not harm the fabric of reality. And so the word is forgotten, and the being...

doesn't exactly die, or disappear. It just loses its importance to anything else. It can no longer be heard or seen, or affect anything, unless someone makes a particular effort to notice it. And of course, since it is unimportant, no one does.

So he kills things with VM by persuading the universe that they don't matter any more.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Phantasmal killer and its big brother weird are both 3E illusions that kill people and aren't [shadow] spells (and thus not real at all). If I played 4e, I would assume any illusion spells that killed a target worked the same way -- scared 'em to death, essentially.

That, or go for "extreme psychosomatic reactions to illusionary/hallucinatory damage". Which is probably just a more technobabbly way of saying "scared 'em to death".

The person I replied to was explicitly saying he didn't want to just chalk each usage up to scaring the creature to death. So I didn't mention the illusion spells that do just that. *shrug*

 

[Garthanos]

One way I describe the reliably fatal Vicious Mockery from our gnome (inspired by Terry Pratchett):

When the Gods spoke the World into being, their words became rock and river, beast and tree, star and sky and all the things we see. Everything that is real began as a word, and remains real only because the Gods remember those words.

But Gods are busy, and remembering every blade of grass, every grain of sand, is tiresome even to the infinite, so they put lesser servants in charge of remembering the words to keep everything in existence. And these servants can be distracted. A clever bard can sometimes persuade the powers that a particular being is insignificant, that forgetting about it would not harm the fabric of reality. And so the word is forgotten, and the being...

doesn't exactly die, or disappear. It just loses its importance to anything else. It can no longer be heard or seen, or affect anything, unless someone makes a particular effort to notice it. And of course, since it is unimportant, no one does.

So he kills things with VM by persuading the universe that they don't matter any more.

I have taken to thinking in terms of all attacks having two final stroke definitions...one is something they will recover from fairly naturally but usually which only the stubborn and heroic will do quickly like a spell which is a natural sleep spell (which does hit point damage and the final effect might be a coma that is forever and requires special conditions or some ritual to remove) ... or the target falls asleep in a preternaturally hard to waken sleep state ... identical to unconciousness.

For your vicious mockery the "unconcious" result might be the universe is only convinced the target is worth forgetting for a time and they appear whispy and faded and non responsive barely able to follow where others lead ... or maybe they do vanish but when they fade back in they probably fade back in where those who remember and know them the most are...nearest to where they faded out. (similar to if they were unconcious and carried by allies).

I like your impact on my imagination.