Negative Level, Die, Raise Dead

[DMFTodd]

Say your PC is battling some wights, gets hit and temporarily loses a level. Before the 24 hours is up, the PC goes and gets himself killed one way or another. The party then raises the PC.

What happens to that temporary negative level? Let's say the PC gets raised before the 24 hours is up. Then let's say the PC is raised later than the 24 hours. Does that make any difference?

 

[Hypersmurf]

Raised before 24 hours : the character is raised (less one level), with one negative level. At the end of 24 hours, he makes a Fort Save to avoid having the negative level become permanent.

Raised after 24 hours: the character makes his Fort Save while dead.

(A couple of years ago, Monte Cook was asked this question, and expressed the opinion (unofficial, I believe) that a dead character should automatically fail the Fort save against negative levels. However, he admitted that this was pretty harsh.)

Then, when he's raised, he loses a level through Raise Dead.

-Hyp.

 

[HeavyG]

Well, a dead person is immune to anything requiring a fortitude save unless it affects object, innit ?

 

[Darklone]

Well, a dead person is immune to anything requiring a fortitude save unless it affects object, innit ?

That's how I ruled it till now... never really thought about it. Isn't there something in the Raise Dead description about this?

Raise dead cures hit point damage up to a total of 1 hit point per Hit Die. Any ability scores damaged to 0 are raised to 1. Normal poison and normal disease are cured in the process of raising the subject, but magical diseases and curses are not undone. While the spell closes mortal wounds and repairs lethal damage of most kinds, the body of the creature to be raised must be whole. Otherwise, missing parts are still missing when the creature is brought back to life. None of the dead creature’s equipment or possessions are affected in any way by this spell.
A creature who has been turned into an undead creature or killed by a death effect can’t be raised by this spell. Constructs, elementals, outsiders, and undead creatures can’t be raised. The spell cannot bring back a creature who has died of old age.

Hmm. If you get killed by too many negative levels, is that an death effect? Lethal damage? Or is a negative level a curse? Sadly not. Comparing the price of Raise Dead with Restoration .... Uhm, someone with 3.5 Restoration around?

 

[iwatt]

If you get killed by too many negative levels, is that an death effect?

This is intersting actually. That would make somebody with the Death Ward spell activated immune to that last Wight attack!
I'm not feeling wise enough to give an opinion on this one, because I'm biased (my clerice were's a Full plste armor with the Death ward special abilty from MoF)

 

[DMFTodd]

When you say "the character makes his Fort Save " you mean that "the player rolls the dice for the fort save" as opposed to "the player automatically succeeds at a fort save"?

 

[Hypersmurf]

When you say "the character makes his Fort Save " you mean that "the player rolls the dice for the fort save" as opposed to "the player automatically succeeds at a fort save"?

Yes - apologies for the ambiguity.

In a lot of ways, it comes down to the old question of "If a valid target of a spell or effect becomes an invalid target before the duration expires, is the spell or effect negated?"

If you cast Levitate on a willing target who subsequently changes his mind, does the spell automatically terminate, or does it continue to function because he was willing when it was cast?

If you cast Lesser Geas on a living creature who becomes a dead creature, is he still geased when he is raised, or did the spell terminate when he ceased to be a living creature?

I'm personally of the opinion that the unwilling man is still Levitating and the dead man is still Geased, and by the same logic, negative levels do not "go away" just because you're dead, and you still have to roll the Fort save as normal.

Which is nicer than Monte's original opinion of "If you're dead, you automatically fail the check to remove negative levels".

-Hyp.

 

[Thimble the Squit]

(House Rule -- Sorry)

This has happened to our party so many times I've lost count. It's really debilitating when you get energy drained and then (usually as a direct result) get killed. It's even worse when this happens when you're 50 XP away from your next level-up...

Our house rule on this one is to have energy drain and level loss from dying both affect XP as if your character had exactly enough to reach their current level. If you're 8th-level with 44,000 XP, for instance (not too far from 9th) and you lose a level from an energy drain attack, instead of dropping all the way back to 32,000 XP (half-way between 7th and 8th), you instead lose ((36,000 - 28,000) / 2) = 4,000 XP, leaving you on 40,000 XP and, most importantly, still on 8th-level.

In fact, the math is actually easier this way than with the current system: for every level lost (for whatever reason), lose ((current level * 1,000) / 2) XP. This way, if you're a 12th-level character who loses 2 levels from energy drain then gets killed and raised, that unfortunate feller drops by 18,000 XP (3 * (12,000 / 2)) and recalculates his totals to find his new character level. I'd much rather lose that than go from 83,950 all the way down to 50,000 (which is what could happen currently). At least, this way, I could conceive of still having a remotely playable character within the campaign (as opposed to suddenly becoming weaker than my buddy's cohort).

 

[Yobgod Ababua]

I'm personally of the opinion that the unwilling man is still Levitating and the dead man is still Geased, and by the same logic, negative levels do not "go away" just because you're dead, and you still have to roll the Fort save as normal.

I concur.

My personal preference for the 'killed with a negative level' problem would be that the 24 hour timer stops when you die, then starts up again if, and when, you are raised. The same goes for poisons... if you had 3 rounds to go before your check for secondary effects when you died, you make the check 3 rounds after being raised.

This makes the most sense to me, makes sure the party doesn't get 'cheated' out of opportunities to help the drained/poisoned character, and also makes sure that the character always gets the full effects of their ill fortune.