D&D 5E Specters and Revivify

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

I believe the only thing we know about what it's like to not have a soul is the Speak with Dead spell, which explicitly doesn't return the soul to the subject:

"...This spell doesn’t return the creature’s soul to its body, only its animating spirit. Thus, the corpse can’t learn new information, doesn’t comprehend anything that has happened since it died, and can’t speculate about future events. "

Sounds like not having a soul is pretty severe.

 

[neogod22]

No. You must cast Revivify within a minute after they have died. Saying that the party ran away means that no,ute would be up. You would have to find a cleric cast a raise dead on the body, and the target will have to want to come back to life. So while under the wraith's control, he will probably refuse, especially if what you meant by handles meant the party cut off his hands. So before wasting money on a raise dead spell, it probably would be smarter if the party killed the specter first.

 

[neogod22]

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 or 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.

This is not true at all. The soul always have a choice on whether or not they want to come back to life, and they know who is casting the spell. You cannot force anyone to come back, if you attempt it, and they choose not to, your components are consumed and the spell fails. Revivify does not put penalties on bringing someone back only because you have to cast it within 1 minute of death. The OP said, that after the wrath killed the NPC the characters ran away and combat ended, which means that minute had passed, so the spell no longer works. Since the NPC already became undead, Gentle Repose also will not work on the NPC. If they want to bring the character back to life, they will have to slay the specter first, then cast the spell and hope the NPC will accept the Raise Dead.

 

[Warmaster Horus]

Do you have any examples of that?

This comes to mind.

From the Vampire entry of the DMG on Players becoming vampires...

The character's alignment becomes lawful evil, and the DM might take control of the character until the vampirism is reversed with a wish spell or the character is killed and brought back to life.

 

[Jester David]

This was asked on Twitter. As revivify doesn’t have the undead limitation of other dead raising spells.
However, it brings back the dead creature. I this case, the most recently slain iteration of the creature is the spectre! So it brings that back rather than the previously killed PC. According to Jeremy Crawford anyway.

It happened in my game as well. In this instance, the spectre was still alive when revivify was cast. As the party was getting their ass kicked, I ruled it pulled the character’s soul back.
But I also got creative and had the soul be a piecemeal combination of the original soul and the negative energy of the spectre. So the character gained resistance to necrotic damage and needs half as much food, water, and sleep each day.

 

[TheNoremac42]

This is not true at all. The soul always have a choice on whether or not they want to come back to life, and they know who is casting the spell. You cannot force anyone to come back, if you attempt it, and they choose not to, your components are consumed and the spell fails. Revivify does not put penalties on bringing someone back only because you have to cast it within 1 minute of death. The OP said, that after the wrath killed the NPC the characters ran away and combat ended, which means that minute had passed, so the spell no longer works. Since the NPC already became undead, Gentle Repose also will not work on the NPC. If they want to bring the character back to life, they will have to slay the specter first, then cast the spell and hope the NPC will accept the Raise Dead.

Actually, we did the math and determined that the PCs could get to the entrance of the dungeon before the minute countdown ran out. So this scenario assumes that they players are still within the "1 minute" requirement. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

 

[neogod22]

Crawford uses a lot of house rules in his game, so you can't really take that as RAW.

In any case PG 24 In the DMG on Bringing Back the Dead states in the 3rd Paragraph: "A soul can't be returned to life if it doesn't wish to be. A soul know the name, alignment, and patron deity of the character attempting to revive it and might refuse to return on that basis. For example, if the honorable knight Sturm Brightblade is slain and a high priestess of Takhisis grabs his body, Sturm might not wish to be raised from the dead by her, any attempts she makes to revive Sturm to interrogate him automatically fail."

 

[Saeviomagy]

This is not true at all. The soul always have a choice on whether or not they want to come back to life, and they know who is casting the spell. You cannot force anyone to come back, if you attempt it, and they choose not to, your components are consumed and the spell fails. Revivify does not put penalties on bringing someone back only because you have to cast it within 1 minute of death. The OP said, that after the wrath killed the NPC the characters ran away and combat ended, which means that minute had passed, so the spell no longer works. Since the NPC already became undead, Gentle Repose also will not work on the NPC. If they want to bring the character back to life, they will have to slay the specter first, then cast the spell and hope the NPC will accept the Raise Dead.

Show me any kind of official stance for this. Otherwise it's just how it works in a world that you run. Like I said - I choose to believe that revivify's limits are specifically different from those of raise dead and resurrection.

Also - a minute passes when the DM says it passes. If you're hurrying, then a minute is going to get you 600ft away, which is a considerable distance.

Next up - I assume that it was a wraith that raised someone as a specter, since looking at the specter entry, they don't actually create more specters: so I'm going to go off the wraith entry.

And in the wraith rules, it says that "The target’s spirit rises as a specter". That's fundamentally different from Crawford's ruling on zombies. If you make a zombie out of a corpse, then you can't touch the original creature any more - you touch the zombie. If someone raises a specter, you can still touch the original creature.

 

[neogod22]

Show me any kind of official stance for this. Otherwise it's just how it works in a world that you run. Like I said - I choose to believe that revivify's limits are specifically different from those of raise dead and resurrection.

Also - a minute passes when the DM says it passes. If you're hurrying, then a minute is going to get you 600ft away, which is a considerable distance.

Next up - I assume that it was a wraith that raised someone as a specter, since looking at the specter entry, they don't actually create more specters: so I'm going to go off the wraith entry.

And in the wraith rules, it says that "The target’s spirit rises as a specter". That's fundamentally different from Crawford's ruling on zombies. If you make a zombie out of a corpse, then you can't touch the original creature any more - you touch the zombie. If someone raises a specter, you can still touch the original creature.

Actually I just posted an official stance. Also the minute starts as soon as the character dies, not when combat end. If the character dies and combat lasts more than 10 rounds afterwards, the spell automatically fails.

I'm not sure why you mentioned a zombie, but going with that, a zombie is just an animated corpse, where as a specter is a true undead creature. The difference is, a zombie is soulless where the specter is not, which is another reason revivify would fail, the specter would choose not to come back to life and the spell would fail. The reality is, the characters tortured and got the man killed, he more than likely would choose not to come back regardless just because of who is trying to raise him.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Actually I just posted an official stance.

No. You posted something and didn't back it up with any sources at all. In previous editions, the information about the caster was known, but the only limitations on willingness were from the raise dead and resurrection spells themselves. There was not some universal "you cannot compel a soul to return from death" rule.

Also the minute starts as soon as the character dies, not when combat end. If the character dies and combat lasts more than 10 rounds afterwards, the spell automatically fails.

Right... The op covered that.

I'm not sure why you mentioned a zombie, but going with that, a zombie is just an animated corpse, where as a specter is a true undead creature. The difference is, a zombie is soulless where the specter is not, which is another reason revivify would fail, the specter would choose not to come back to life and the spell would fail. The reality is, the characters tortured and got the man killed, he more than likely would choose not to come back regardless just because of who is trying to raise him.

Because Crawford does have a specific ruling that says that using revivify on a character raised as a zombie brings back a zombie, not the original dead creature.

And like I said - revivify doesn't offer a choice. It just works.