D&D 5E Specters and Revivify

[TheNoremac42]

TL;DR: Does the Revivify spell work on people that have already been turned into specters?

So my group and I are just finishing up The Lost Mines of Phandelver. The Black Spider surrendered after the party killed all his spiders and bugbear guards. However, earlier in the dungeon when the party encountered Mormesk the Wraith, the CN monk rolled a nat 20 to swipe the spirit's pipe. Naturally, when he discovered it was missing, he got pissed.

As the party was making its way out of the mines, Mormesk intercepted them with a retinue of undead. Mormesk knew one of them had stolen his pipe, but he didn't know who. He demanded that the pipe and the thief be turned over to him, or he would kill the whole party. Thanks to the party's divination wizard, Mormesk took a nat 1 on insight when the party blamed the Black Spider. Nezznar, gagged and handless, could not refute this claim and was promptly killed by the wraith and turned into a specter.

The party skedaddled out of there after a stern warning from Mormesk to never return. However, they want to turn Nezznar in for a bounty and believe he would be worth a lot more alive, so they rush to the exit of the cave and try to cast revivify on him - keeping in mind the cut-off time. This is where things get tricky... Nezznar's spirit has already left his body in the form of a specter, so what would the spell do? We determined three options:

1. The specter is destroyed and Nezznar is restored to life, which would no doubt anger Mormesk.
2. The specter is not destroyed, and Nezznar is restored to life... but he is a vegetable. This is due to the spell only reviving the physical body and not returning the spirit.
3. The spell fizzles out.

 

[Lucas Blackstone]

There's nothing prohibiting the revivify from working as normal according to the spell description since you said you were within the time limit.

I would opt for the first option because the spell would return him to life and there would be no unfettered spirit remaining to be the specter. Nothing in the specter's description says they are prevented from being returned to life, only prevented from going on to the afterlife is made reference to.

 

[MechaTarrasque]

I am a little leery of a monster being destroyed without at least one save or damage roll occurring. I would tend to go with #2 (although if you destroyed the specter, he would then be restored to consciousness) or 2.5, the specter is not destroyed, Nezznar is restored to life (not in a vegetable state), and the specter is totally obsessed with killing him again (maybe so obsessed that it upgrades to a ghost). A side benefit of this is that this could be seen as messing up destiny or some cosmic law, so the party could have an angry mondron/devil/angel (or the skein witch or algorithm from Tome of Beasts) track them down at some point.

 

[Warmaster Horus]

Typically an undead form of a creature must be destroyed before the creature can be raised.

 

[Dausuul]

Hmm. That's an interesting question. Raise dead has language specifying that the creature's soul must be free to return and willing. Revivify has no such constraint. However, my guess is they didn't bother with the constraint because they figured a creature that died within the last minute hasn't yet had time to transition to any kind of afterlife. In this case, the specter is created immediately, so that assumption is invalid.

The strictest reading of RAW would say that the guy is restored to life, and nothing happens to the specter. That doesn't make much sense, though. So you're going to have to bend some part of the RAW; either the specter is destroyed, or the spell fails in some way. I would go with the second option.

Personally, I would say that the body is revived, but the soul is not available and something... else... takes its place. However, if you prefer not to mess with that, you can just have the spell fail outright. That would be the simplest and most logical ruling.

 

[77IM]

When I DM, if I encounter a nuanced rule situation like this and more than one perspective makes total sense... I let the dice decide! The caster must make a DC 15 Intelligence (Religion) check. On a success, the spell works just fine and the specter disappears; on a failure... well, something "interesting" happens.

 

[77IM]

Hmm. That's an interesting question. Raise dead has language specifying that the creature's soul must be free to return and willing. Revivify has no such constraint. However, my guess is they didn't bother with the constraint because they figured a creature that died within the last minute hasn't yet had time to transition to any kind of afterlife. In this case, the specter is created immediately, so that assumption is invalid.

Interestingly, the specter isn't created immediately: the wraith must create the specter from the corpse of a humanoid that has died within the last minute, the exact same time frame that revivify uses!

So in a sense, the wraith has already brought the creature back to life, and revivify wouldn't work.

Thought Experiment: The Big Bad Evil Guy dies. On the next round, one minion restores him to life with 1 hit point with revivify, and another heals him to 125 hit points using heal. On the following round, a PC casts revivify on the BBEG. What happens???

By a strict reading of the spell, that BBEG is a creature that has died within the last minute, so even though he's not dead anymore, he gets restored to life with 1 hit point! Does he drop from 125 hp back down to 1?

It seems kind of ridiculous, but maybe trying to revivify a specter is like that.

 

[JacktheRabbit]

Interestingly, the specter isn't created immediately: the wraith must create the specter from the corpse of a humanoid that has died within the last minute, the exact same time frame that revivify uses!

So in a sense, the wraith has already brought the creature back to life, and revivify wouldn't work.

Thought Experiment: The Big Bad Evil Guy dies. On the next round, one minion restores him to life with 1 hit point with revivify, and another heals him to 125 hit points using heal. On the following round, a PC casts revivify on the BBEG. What happens???

By a strict reading of the spell, that BBEG is a creature that has died within the last minute, so even though he's not dead anymore, he gets restored to life with 1 hit point! Does he drop from 125 hp back down to 1?

It seems kind of ridiculous, but maybe trying to revivify a specter is like that.

No, because when the second Revivify is cast the BBEG no longer meets the requirements of the spell. Yes he died with the last minute so he meets that requirement, but the spell then says "that creature returns to life with 1 hit point" since the BBEG was already brought back to life 30 seconds ago he is obviously no longer dead and for that reason casting Revivify on him will fizzle the spell.


By the same token I think the spell would fail when cast on the corpse of the guy that is currently a spectre. The spell requires someone that is dead, he is NOT dead, he is UNDEAD, which is a very specific state in DnD.

So you cast the spell and nothing happens. For it to happen the guy would have to die, get turned into a spectre, the spectre be destroyed, and THEN Revivify be cast all within 60 seconds of when the guy first died.

 

[TheNoremac42]

Typically an undead form of a creature must be destroyed before the creature can be raised.

Do you have any examples of that?

 

[Saeviomagy]

I choose to believe that revivify specifically and deliberately leaves out all of the failure cases of raise dead.

Most interestingly:
1. Revivify can restore an undead to life.
2. Revivify does not neutralize poisons or cure diseases.
3. Revivify brings things to life even if their soul is unwilling to rejoin the body. (which is interesting, since you can kill a foe, treat his body like an object for a minute, then bring him back. Take a peek at gentle repose for long term captivity)
4. Revivify brings things to life even if their soul is not at liberty to rejoin the body.

That said - it seems obvious to me that if you bring someone to life when their soul is not at liberty to return to their body, they come back without a soul.

Which could be interesting - what does not having a soul look like? Does not having a soul mean that you have no morals? Or does it mean you cannot deviate from your alignment?

So I guess the question is - are undead forcibly containing souls within them? In the case of a spectre, it sort of seems like the answer is no: a spectre is a lost spirit, not a soul housed in some sort of prison.

Is there a difference between a spirit and a soul?

Is creating undead preventing souls from going to their final destination, or is it simply using up something that resurrection and raise dead require? After all, true resurrection requires a free soul, but can bring back someone who is an undead.

All of those things are down to your campaign, and deciding on all of them will make plot lines possible or impossible, and will color the morality and customs of your world.