raising or reincarnating someone with negative levels?

[Plane Sailing]

How do you rule it?

A PC takes 4 negative levels, but is then killed by hit point damage.

A couple of days later he is raised or reincarnated. What happens to the negative levels?

I'd be interested in the poll results and your reasonings too.

* Did they disappear when he died?
* Did they go 'on hold' when the spirit was out of the body and the 24hr limit start ticking again when he comes back to life?
* Did they need a save as per normal when the 24 hours was up?
* Did they automatically turn into lost levels with no save when the 24 hours was up?

 

[UltimaGabe]

I think that the third option- that is, they have to save after 24 hours, which affects what they return as- is the most reasonable outcome. Since the rules don't govern it, however, I'd probably just go with whatever I felt like at the time.

I had an idea for a campaign a long time ago, where the PCs are approached by some first-level Lawful Good kobold one day, claiming that he has lost his memory and needs their help. The befriends them, goes with them on crazy adventures, slowly picking up bits of his memory every now and then- memories of a powerful elven sorcerer with a group of adventurers, going on mystical quests and such himself. Over time, though, his regained memories start becoming more and more sinister... memories of this elven sorcerer wreaking havoc on villages, destroying temples, and so forth. In reality, he is an Elf- or, rather, he was an epic-level Lawful Evil Elven Sorcerer, who was attacked by some epic-level Undead which managed to kill his party and Level Drain him down to first level- he managed to escape, of course, but as he fled, he eventually was killed by a wolf or something in the wild. A kindly Druid happened to be passing by, and, taking pity on him, Reincarnated him- as a Kobold. Near the end of the Campaign, the party comes across a magical fountain that he uses to Wish himself back to his former mind and glory- whereupon this Epic-level Evil Sorcerer then turns on the party that brought him so far.

I never got a chance to use it, but who's to say what the future holds?

 

[frankthedm]

Fort save without benefit of CON modifier.

 

[pbd]

This seems to beg the question; can you raise a character that was killed by gaining too many negative levels?

What if they gain enough negative levels then fail ALL the saves 24 hours later and are raised 2 hours after that?

 

[frankthedm]

can you raise a character that was killed by gaining too many negative levels?

By the rules you have until the next night, at which point you rise as a wight.

What if they gain enough negative levels then fail ALL the saves 24 hours later and are raised 2 hours after that?

Dying from negative levels means you'll be a wight within 24 hours, before the negative levels can go perm. If somehow you wind up in that situation, with no levels at all, I would say your soul is lost to oblivion.

Energy Drain And Negative Levels
Some horrible creatures, especially undead monsters, possess a fearsome supernatural ability to drain levels from those they strike in combat. The creature making an energy drain attack draws a portion of its victim’s life force from her. Most energy drain attacks require a successful melee attack roll—mere physical contact is not enough. Each successful energy drain bestows one or more negative levels (the creature’s description specifies how many). If an attack that includes an energy drain scores a critical hit, it drains twice the given amount. A creature gains 5 temporary hit points (10 on a critical hit) for each negative level it bestows (though not if the negative level is caused by a spell or similar effect). These temporary hit points last for a maximum of 1 hour.

A creature takes the following penalties for each negative level it has gained:

-1 on all skill checks and ability checks.
-1 on attack rolls and saving throws.
-5 hit points.
-1 effective level (whenever the creature’s level is used in a die roll or calculation, reduce it by one for each negative level).
If the victim casts spells, she loses access to one spell as if she had cast her highest-level, currently available spell. (If she has more than one spell at her highest level, she chooses which she loses.) In addition, when she next prepares spells or regains spell slots, she gets one less spell slot at her highest spell level.
Negative levels remain until 24 hours have passed or until they are removed with a spell, such as restoration. If a negative level is not removed before 24 hours have passed, the affected creature must attempt a Fortitude save (DC 10 + ½ draining creature’s racial HD + draining creature’s Cha modifier; the exact DC is given in the creature’s descriptive text). On a success, the negative level goes away with no harm to the creature. On a failure, the negative level goes away, but the creature’s level is also reduced by one. A separate saving throw is required for each negative level.

A character with negative levels at least equal to her current level, or drained below 1st level, is instantly slain. Depending on the creature that killed her, she may rise the next night as a monster of that kind. If not, she rises as a wight.

 

[Scion]

as long as they are dead whenever the time is up I give the player a break and let the negative levels simply wash away without need for a save.

Sure, it can make some odd game situations, but then so can the opposite stance, and I like there to be a silver lining to the massive black spot of a death.

 

[pbd]

as long as they are dead whenever the time is up I give the player a break and let the negative levels simply wash away without need for a save.

Sure, it can make some odd game situations, but then so can the opposite stance, and I like there to be a silver lining to the massive black spot of a death.

Personally, I agree.

 

[FredtheDorcM]

Fred, I'm deleting this post now as being somewhere between a personal attack and threadcrapping, neither of which we allow here.

If, on the off chance, you actually did not just create this id to flame one particular poster, then I suggest you make numerous non-inflammatory, non-insulting posts.

 

[ARandomGod]

1* Did they disappear when he died?
2* Did they go 'on hold' when the spirit was out of the body and the 24hr limit start ticking again when he comes back to life?
3* Did they need a save as per normal when the 24 hours was up?
4* Did they automatically turn into lost levels with no save when the 24 hours was up?

I voted the way I would rule, but I wanted to comment additionally that I think options 1-3 are perfectly valid interpretations that I wouldn't have a problem with, but option 4 is just mean spirited, and *wrong*.


Oh, and so is Frank's interpretation (Fort save without con modifier benifit). But then, I've found that Frank often postes really mean (IMO) suggestions. I'd probably game with him as a DM, certainly. I'd just be prepared for him to be a mean one. That type of gaming does have it's own brand of fun.

 

[FEADIN]

If you think that the negative levels are linked to the soul the ruling must be that you roll the saves 24h later, but to be cool we can say that a corpse can no longer be subject to negative levels so they vanish....