raising or reincarnating someone with negative levels?

[ARandomGod]

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....

That would be my justification were I to go with that ruling (as I said above, I can see reasons to go with any of the first three). The negative levels aren't permanent yet, so they haven't been attached to the soul. The soul is no longer attached to the body, the body can't get negative levels, after 24 hours the curse that would have affected the soul is gone, so if the soul comes back it's unaffected (by those levels).

 

[maggot]

I voted #3, although I don't know what the dead person's Fort Save is. Does he get benefit of a cloak of protection?

This is one of the reasons I've house ruled that you save immediately to determine if the neg level is permanent or 24-hours. The other reason is to avoid people taking a potion of endurance 23hrs and 57 minutes later.

 

[frankthedm]

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.

On the subject of undeath and the loss of life energy, I am very cruel. Mainly it comes from my enjoyment of the fantasy & horror fiction where the soul is not indestructible and is quite vulnerable to consumption by the undead and dark magic. This outlook was also held by some of the writers of D&D up to and including the 3e Manual of the Planes, though the 3.5 book went with the cop-out [at least I think it is] of ‘you always go to your eternal reward’.

I feel that since the body is dead, how healthy it is won't be of help to the soul being gnawed at by the negative levels. To allow them to just go away at death really leaves a loop hole where someone loaded with high DC negative levels is better off killing themselves, waiting it out dead, then getting raised.

 

[ARandomGod]

To allow them to just go away at death really leaves a loop hole where someone loaded with high DC negative levels is better off killing themselves, waiting it out dead, then getting raised.

Very true. Allowing them to just go away would make it downright stupid to NOT kill yourself in some cases. For that matter, allowing them to just "wait" would make a similiar (but less attractive) loophole. If the odds are you're going to fail several times, you could get yourself killed, having arranged to get yourself ress'd when you'll have access to spells to remove those levels before you have to make the save.

Of course, either way it's a rather drastic choice. The feeling of I'd be better off if I were dead sounds like it could be a rather fun story.

BTW, I do also sometimes like the flavor that souls can indeed be drained or destroyed. But I'd want it to be much more occassional than what I'd imagine likely in the high magic realm that is current 'normal' D&D. Well, more rare or more common! KNOWING that you're in peril is a fun game as well.

 

[frankthedm]

BTW, I do also sometimes like the flavor that souls can indeed be drained or destroyed. But I'd want it to be much more occassional than what I'd imagine likely in the high magic realm that is current 'normal' D&D. Well, more rare or more common! KNOWING that you're in peril is a fun game as well.

For my own game I added that soul-kill to death effects and from spiritual effects that damage/drain charisma. The other person in my group who DMs also does the same for his game.

I also gave paladins' an ability called Guarded Soul, which makes sure thier souls cannot suffer this fate.[As long as the Paladin is not in the Far realm, thier souls can't be destroyed{thier bodies are still dead, but thier reward is assured]

 

[Nail]

To allow them to just go away at death really leaves a loop hole where someone loaded with high DC negative levels is better off killing themselves, waiting it out dead, then getting raised.

Not true. Restoration and Greater Restoration can wipe away one or all of those drained levels.

...whereas Raise Dead takes one level away permanently.....

If you are the subject of Bestow Curse, and you die....and then you are raised, are you still cursed?

 

[frankthedm]

You need restoration effects on hand within 24 hours, Raise dead gives you 9+ days to Raise the person.

As far as Curses go, for my own game, yes, being necromancy, curses anchor to the spirit.

 

[ARandomGod]

If you are the subject of Bestow Curse, and you die....and then you are raised, are you still cursed?

Good question. I wonder if there's any RAW for this. The couple of times it came up in a game I was GMing I said no, and the one time it came up in a game I was playing I assumed no... I was the player at the time, and I remember thinking I should perhaps check this with the GM. However it wasn't really a curse that time, it was a *geas*, which I think of as a curse, and I didn't bring it up officially because my character had every intention of following through on the plan made by the party when it was put under the geas. Now, I DID say out loud to the party that I no longer had to do it, that I"d managed to shake off the "need" because I wanted to do it of my own free will. But that's because of the arrogance of that particular character (he's a signer. Everything happens because he wills it).

 

[Fighter1]

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

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.

ouch!

 

[azhrei_fje]

Wow, a lot of interesting points of view on this!

First off, as DM I wouldn't allow a player to state that their character is going to wait 36 hours to be raised. There are plenty of problems with that: it's metagaming (if the player says something out loud, they will discover that the character cannot be raised later; after all, they wanted to be dead, right?), how to communicate that desire to the rest of the party (the metagaming argument comes up twice in this case: once for them considering it and once for them talking to other party members about it), and how to tell time accurately (for the wait-23-hours-and-57-minutes-then-take-a-potion crowd; I'd roll a d20 and say you're that many minutes from the appointed hour, and a d2 for before or after ).

I have no problem with players coming up with unique solutions to problems, but they must do so IN CHARACTER or they can expect me to impose in-character penalties.

Oh, and I vote for option #3: make the save 24 hours after death without benefit of CON or magic modifiers (the soul is no longer in the body and not affected by things that would normally affect the body).