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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MerakSpielman" data-source="post: 1530585" data-attributes="member: 7464">A lot of people like to think of it this way, but Thanee covered it pretty thoughrally. Death ward is pretty specific in the 4 types of things it prevents. As she said, a good spell is a spell with the [good] descriptor, an evil spell is a spell with the [evil] descriptor, and a death spell is a spell with the [death] descriptor.The idea is that certain spells call upon the primal forces of pure, incarnate DEATH itself. This power is distinct. Death Ward is designed specifically to thwart it. Other spells, like Blasphemy, do indeed kill the subject, but they do it via a different mechanism. Perhaps in this case it is by uttering words so foul that only evil creatures can bear to hear them, and weak enough other creatures simply die from cardiac arrest, unable to get the unholy message out of their minds. Your interpretation also makes Death Ward work against disintigration. No biggie, you think. Also, realize that your description might also allow Death Ward to render Undead immune to a good cleric (of twice their HD) attempting to destroy them.  Remember that the spell only causes death for creatures significantly below the level of the casting cleric. Creatures of this level have no business trying to kill a high-level cleric, and if Blasphemy doesn't kill them, some other spell surely will. Perhaps you're right in so much as this spell deserves the [death] descriptor, but as written it doesn't have it. If you want to go strictly by the rules, well, I'm sorry, but no level of "I think it should work" will change the way it actually does work. I suggest you speak with the other members of your group about this and see if they agree with you about the way it should work (perhaps you can vote to add the [death] descriptor to all insta-kill spells). If so, you can kiss all of our interpretations goodbye. Your group decides how they want to play the game, and if they're fine with an expanded-use Death Ward, who are we to argue? For the record, I think Death Ward is a bit weak, since there are so few spells with the [Death] descriptor. Hell, I'm not sure it would be overpowerd for a creature under Death Ward to be unkillable (only reducable to -10 hp, stabalization automatic). I also think the Daze effect with no saving throw is  over-the-top. But this IS the rules forum, and the rules seem to be more in our favor than in yours. I agree that they could have been written a bit more explicitly in this area, but I think it's pretty obvious what they intended.</blockquote>

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