Death ward and Negative Energy

[Matafuego]

Hello everybody!

Here's the Death Ward spell, as in the SRD:

The subject is immune to all death spells, magical death effects, energy drain, and any negative energy effects.

This spell doesn’t remove negative levels that the subject has already gained, nor does it affect the saving throw necessary 24 hours after gaining a negative level.

Death ward does not protect against other sorts of attacks even if those attacks might be lethal.

Am I right then to suppose that this spell prevents damage from any inflict spell as well as enviromental damage for travelling to the Negative Energy Plane?

Since it says "negative energy effects" and not "damage", does it mean an undead can't be healed by negative energy if he has a death ward on?

Does such thing exists for positive energy?

Thank's a lot!

Lucas

 

[Infiniti2000]

Am I right then to suppose that this spell prevents damage from any inflict spell as well as enviromental damage for travelling to the Negative Energy Plane?

Yes.

Since it says "negative energy effects" and not "damage", does it mean an undead can't be healed by negative energy if he has a death ward on?

Yes.

Does such thing exists for positive energy?

There is a spell called positive energy protection (as well as negative energy protection), but they function differently than death ward.

 

[ken-ichi]

A creative use of the spell, but one that does not work. The Target entry for Deathward is One Living Creature. An undead creature is therefore an invalid target of the spell.

The spell would protect you from the effects of the Negative Energy Plane.

If such a spell exists for protecting against positive energy it can probably be found in the Liber Mortis book.

 

[Solarious]

It can also be found in the Spell Compendium: Life Ward.

 

[Matafuego]

Thanks a lot everyone!
I missed the Life Ward thing but it's actually pretty good.. stopping someone from Healing IS good...

 

[Hypersmurf]

A creative use of the spell, but one that does not work. The Target entry for Deathward is One Living Creature. An undead creature is therefore an invalid target of the spell.

You could actually manage it.

Cast Death Ward on someone. Kill them. Cast Animate Dead. The Death Ward is still in effect, since it was cast on a valid target, and Animate Dead is not specified as a negative energy effect, so Death Ward does not protect the corpse from being animated.

Result? One Death Warded zombie, who is immune to be healed by inflict spells for a few minutes.

-Hyp.

 

[Infiniti2000]

There's a spell in Libris Mortis that would simplify the whole process, I believe, should you really want a death warded zombie.

 

[ken-ichi]

For some reason I thought that if the subject of a spell changed to be a nonvalid target of an ongoing spell that the spell ceased to affect the subject.

However I can't find any such thing in the SRD. The only thing I see is at the time of casting the Target must match.

Does this mean that a human can get a Enlarge Person spell cast upon him and Permanencied, then later on changes his type from humanoid to something else like dragon (Dragon Disciple Prestige Class) he would still be affected by the ongoing Enlarge Person spell? But if the Enlarge Person spell was dispelled, he would not be able to get the Enlarge Person recast upon him again.
Weird.

 

[IcyCool]

For some reason I thought that if the subject of a spell changed to be a nonvalid target of an ongoing spell that the spell ceased to affect the subject.

That would, if you'll note, make the Shillalegh spell completely pointless.

Does this mean that a human can get a Enlarge Person spell cast upon him and Permanencied, then later on changes his type from humanoid to something else like dragon (Dragon Disciple Prestige Class) he would still be affected by the ongoing Enlarge Person spell? But if the Enlarge Person spell was dispelled, he would not be able to get the Enlarge Person recast upon him again.
Weird.

Yes.

 

[Hypersmurf]

However I can't find any such thing in the SRD. The only thing I see is at the time of casting the Target must match.

Indeed, for what it's worth, there's an FAQ answer that states a change in target status doesn't affect the validity of an existing spell.

-Hyp.