Outsiders and Death on the Prime Material Plane

[Eye Tyrant]

I am running Demons and Devils (from Necromancer Games) and in doing so must run all the Outsider badguys...

Now I established last session that when the Outsiders "die" they return to their homeplane for some undisclosed amount of time and that all their stuff goes too...

Is this correct? I can't find anywhere in the DMG,MM or MotP where it says anything about this. I just want to try to keep the rules lawyer(s) in my group from complaining too much.

Any help?

 

[Maitre Du Donjon]

If an outsider doesn't die on his home plane, he can't be brought back to life unless you use miracle or wish. The corpse of a slain outsider stays on the plane it was killed, as does all its equipment

Quote from MMII:

A slain outsider cannot be raised or resurrected, although a wish or miracle spell can restore it to life

I guess one explanation could be that when you do not die on your home plane, your spirit/soul/chi/whatever cannot find its way to the right "resting place", and thus cannot be called back via the usual spells.

Maitre D

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

The important difference is whether he was Summoned (via Summon Monster, etc) or Called (via Planar Ally or Planar Binding, etc).

The former, he'd go back to his home plane.

The latter, he's dead on the material plane.

The "die on the prime equals banished" things is from previous editions, but wasn't carried over to 3.0.

 

[gfunk]

There is a 6th level clerical spell in MotP called "Revive Outsider" that can do the trick w/o Wish or Miracle.

 

[Halivar]

I kind of like the flavor of Errtu's banishment in R. A. Salvatore's The Crystal Shard from the Icewind Dale trilogy.

Drizzt pretty much kills him, but it merely banishes him back to the Abyss for a hundred years and a day. I believe Errtu was "summoned", but the ritual didn't seem to correspond with anything in 3.0 rules, at least.

Of course, I know that Salvatore's books are not canonical with respect to D&D, but he certainly captures the setting flavor. I prefer banishment, myself.

 

[Eye Tyrant]

Thanks guys... I guess the first group was summoned then (because they went back to their hoime plane).

 

[Iscariot]

Thanks guys... I guess the first group was summoned then (because they went back to their hoime plane).

It's your game. Nothing says you cannot make that a house rule that they are banished rather than outright slain.


A method I use is that beings of above 12 hit dice are banished, lessers are slain.

 

[Trickstergod]

Back in older editions, Outsider-types would, indeed, be banished back to their home plane - assuming they were powerful enough. I don't recall the specifics of it, and it may have changed between 1st and 2nd edition (and possibly, even once more in Planescape), but lesser extraplanar creatures just died, whereas more powerful ones were simply banished, and unable to return, for a certain amount of time. Whether they left a corpse or not doesn't specifically come to mind (for lesser ones, at least).

In third edition, I think Outsiders just die, simple as that, unless they were brought in by, say, a Summon Monster spell.

 

[Malicene]

the tricky thing for fiend (those who can) is to astrally project to Prime (ok ok the silver cord....) but this way Outsider can't die and he can use is summoning power to have some support and bring back thing he wants ....

just a tought

 

[Li Shenron]

If an outsider doesn't die on his home plane, he can't be brought back to life unless you use miracle or wish. The corpse of a slain outsider stays on the plane it was killed, as does all its equipment
...
I guess one explanation could be that when you do not die on your home plane, your spirit/soul/chi/whatever cannot find its way to the right "resting place", and thus cannot be called back via the usual spells.

Maitre D

I always thought that a creature of the type "Outsider" when destroyed doesn't go anywhere really. It's a native of an Outer plane, for example it was born in Hell. Does it go to Hell when he dies? He was already there. There is probably DM's free interpretation, but as I thought was the standard way to play it, a slain Outsider is destroyed forever. Unless someone comes with a Miracle or Wish, which is pretty much the same as creating it again. Mortals die but have a soul to hope for eternal afterlife (but again at DM's discretion, in fact MotP assumes that damned souls can fade away in time), immortals are already there: can be only destroyed by force, but if they are they are no more.