scrying someone who may be dead

[Bad Paper]

I'm going to scry someone who may be dead or may be raised. If the spell fails, can I tell if it was because of an illegal target or whether the person saved against it?

 

[Jack Simth]

I'm going to scry someone who may be dead or may be raised. If the spell fails, can I tell if it was because of an illegal target or whether the person saved against it?

Depends on what counts as him. If it's the character's soul, rather than the character's body, you will see him dead or alive; if he's dead, his soul is not on the prime Material Plane (unless he is a ghost or something, which should be pretty obvious - otherwise, he is likely on his alignment plane or his diety's plane) and he shows up there (unless he makes his will save). If he is alive, his soul and body are in the same place (most likely the Material Plane), and it should be pretty obvious that he is living. Exceptions for well-disguised undead, or people visiting other planes, of course. Scrying works across planar boundaries, but the target gets a +5 bonus on the will save for that particular situation.

 

[dcollins]

I really don't think that the scrying spell is intended to view dead souls in the afterlife. (A "soul" is not a "creature".) Personally, I think I'd allow the scrying spell to view the dead body in question.

 

[Jack Simth]

Depends on (among other things) Death in the campain - one option listed in the Manual of the Planes (3.0 version, at least) is that the dead become petitioners - and thusly are still creatures (if in a different form).

 

[atom crash]

My group has interpreted the spell to allow the caster to know if the spell failed because the subject was dead. In those cases, all we get is a "blank screen" in a color associated with the target's alignment -- gold for good, red for neutral and black for evil.

However, I'm not sure if there's any explicit RAW answer to this.

 

[Starglim]

I'm going to scry someone who may be dead or may be raised. If the spell fails, can I tell if it was because of an illegal target or whether the person saved against it?

The target of scrying is a magical sensor that can (but sometimes fails to) give you sight and hearing of a creature.

Firstly, a dead person is a creature that has the dead condition, so it's a legal thing to scry. Nothing in the spell excludes a creature that happens to be dead. You would scry the dead body and its (probably dark and cramped) surroundings. The DM might rule that a dead creature automatically fails a Will save, is immune to anything requiring a Will save, or has a Will save but no Wisdom score - it's a grey area to say the least.

Secondly, even if you try to scry a creature to which you have no connection or that does not exist, the spell still has a valid target, the sensor. The sensor cannot succeed in its scrying and automatically fails. I'd say it reacts exactly as if there actually was a scrying target that made its Will save, just because the wizard should not be allowed to gain information by deliberately naming a series of targets that may or may not exist.

 

[glass]

Firstly, a dead person is a creature that has the dead condition, so it's a legal thing to scry. Nothing in the spell excludes a creature that happens to be dead. You would scry the dead body and its (probably dark and cramped) surroundings. The DM might rule that a dead creature automatically fails a Will save, is immune to anything requiring a Will save, or has a Will save but no Wisdom score - it's a grey area to say the least.

Except that for most puposes, a dead creature is an object, not a creature.


glass.

 

[Infiniti2000]

As glass points out, a corpse is an object, not a creature and thus not a legal target for a scry. Your spell would fail and you would know that. You also know when your spell fails due to someone saving against it. So, if you scry someone you will know if they are alive or dead, if you make the assumption that the spell failing means they are dead (note that they could be within a private sanctum, protected by a mind blank, or other means of blocking a scry).

Just a word of caution, that if you allow scry to work on objects you are significantly improved the power of the spell. If a metaphysical lean towards the definition of creature works in your campaign, go for it. It sounds kinda neat to me, but per the core rules it would not work.

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

I was looking at this the other day and I came to the same conclusion regarding a dead person being an object, which is not a legal target (creature) for the scry spell.

 

[yennico]

If the person who you want to scry is dead IMHO you see nothing. Seeing nothing does not mean the person is dead the person can be protected against scrying.