D&D 5E Fun With Death Ward: Living Death

[Pjack]

The 4th Level Abjuration spell, Death Ward, states, in part: "If the spell is still in effect when the target is subjected to an effect that would kill it instantaneously without dealing damage, that effect is instead negated against the target, and the spell ends."

So what happens if someone warded with Death Ward reaches level 6 of exhaustion, "Death"? (Perhaps because they've been wandering lost in the Underdark for a week with no food or water...) By the spell description, the "effect is negated", so it seems to me the character wouldn't die. As a DM, I'd probably say that the character's exhaustion level goes back down to 4 or 5.

So a mid-level cleric, trapped by, say, a cave-in, could postpone their own death by starvation indefinitely. They'd just keep getting thinner and thinner, and more and more dehydrated. Eventually the only way they'd be able to wet their lips enough to cast the spell would be to drink their own blood. And they'd turn into a ghastly, shambling, corpse of a person, and they just wouldn't die...

 

[jrowland]

I don't think that's RAI, but damn, that sure is RAF. I approve.

 

[abirdcall]

It is a cruel god that grants Death Ward but not Create Food and Water.

Running out of oxygen would be my primary concern.

 

[Pjack]

It is a cruel god that grants Death Ward but not Create Food and Water.

Ha! I knew I was forgetting something.

 

[gyor]

It could be used as a form of torture, Death Ward and then brutal, painful, otherwise lethal attack, and the victim is still alive, only for you to cast it again. And again. And again.

 

[Jaelommiss]

It is a cruel god that grants Death Ward but not Create Food and Water.

Running out of oxygen would be my primary concern.

I spent the last two weeks trying to figure out what should be the final threat in a long abandoned crypt/shrine devoted to Bhaal. An insane cleric kept from death without food or drink for three hundred years should be fun. A Gollum-like fixation on eating flesh coupled with the unhinged nature of the Joker should get their skin crawling. I'll cover it in blood and scars from where it ate its own flesh (and then healed it) to sate its endless appetite.

 

[Unwise]

Would exhaustion kill you instantly? If not it won't trigger Death Ward.

I would think by its very nature it is a long protracted death. I don't think it is meant to represent your heart exploding, but rather that point of malnutrition or hypothermia etc from which your body simply cannot recover and you die. All death is "instant" if exhaustion is.

 

[Sunseeker]

The spell triggers as soon as you hit 6 points of exhaustion. The exhaustion effect remains until you can get rid of it, so instead of instantly killing you, it nearly instantly kills you, as you are still at 6 points of exhaustion after the spell triggers. The spell doesn't eliminate the source of the death effect, it only cancels the death effect. The 6 points of exhaustion would immediately check to see if you're alive after the effect triggers and then trigger again.

 

[Pjack]

The spell triggers as soon as you hit 6 points of exhaustion. The exhaustion effect remains until you can get rid of it, so instead of instantly killing you, it nearly instantly kills you, as you are still at 6 points of exhaustion after the spell triggers. The spell doesn't eliminate the source of the death effect, it only cancels the death effect. The 6 points of exhaustion would immediately check to see if you're alive after the effect triggers and then trigger again.

That's a perfectly valid interpretation. The way the rules on "Food and Water" are written, you only check once, at the end of the day. I was going with rules-as-written.

 

[Sunseeker]

That's a perfectly valid interpretation. The way the rules on "Food and Water" are written, you only check once, at the end of the day. I was going with rules-as-written.

Well, I don't see in said rules where it only checks at the end of the day. Where do we define the end as? Midnight? Bedtime? 24 hours from the last time you gained exhaustion through natural causes?

It just says it is checked "once a day". But that's for food and drink and applying or gaining exhaustion. The exhaustion itself doesn't check how many you have once a day. It seems like an easy loophole to abuse if it only checked once a day.

In any case, this gives me a great idea for a dungeon, wherein some evil person attempted to turn themselves into a lich by attempting to abuse exhaustion, but was thwarted by an amulet of death ward, which permanently puts death ward on them. Since he's got 6 points of exhaustion, he can't take any actions and he's not technically resting. So the party will find this nearly-dead person, and hopefully will steal his amulet! Allowing him to rise as a lich and terrify my poor poor party.