Author Topic: dying while level-drained?  (Read 2695 times)

Offline Braininthejar

  • Legendary Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 1464
  • I'm old...
    • View Profile
dying while level-drained?
« on: May 28, 2012, 03:49:30 PM »
What heppens if you get level-drained and then die before you can roll to see whether it sticks?

Offline sirpercival

  • Epic Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 10855
  • you can't escape the miles
    • View Profile
Re: dying while level-drained?
« Reply #1 on: May 28, 2012, 04:33:01 PM »
You're dead?
I am the assassin of productivity

(member in good standing of the troll-feeders guild)

It's begun — my things have overgrown the previous sig.

Offline snakeman830

  • DnD Handbook Writer
  • ****
  • Posts: 1091
  • BG's resident furry min/maxer
    • View Profile
Re: dying while level-drained?
« Reply #2 on: May 28, 2012, 04:44:31 PM »
I think he means if they're resurrected later.  Could also have an impact on Animate Dead in certain circumstances.
"When life gives you lemons, fire them back at high velocity."

Offline phaedrusxy

  • DnD Handbook Writer
  • ****
  • Posts: 10717
  • The iconic spambot
    • View Profile
Re: dying while level-drained?
« Reply #3 on: May 28, 2012, 04:48:58 PM »
You're dead?
:lmao

All conditions affecting you are generally removed when you die and are resurrected, right?
I don't pee messages into the snow often , but when I do , it's in Cyrillic with Fake Viagra.  Stay frosty my friends.

Offline Braininthejar

  • Legendary Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 1464
  • I'm old...
    • View Profile
Re: dying while level-drained?
« Reply #4 on: May 28, 2012, 05:10:28 PM »
Quote
All conditions affecting you are generally removed when you die and are resurrected, right?

Most of them... but what about the roll for lost levels? Can your vitality shake off the impact of negative energy when you are dead?

- either level drain is something "added" to the body - in effect "negative energy poisoning" and it discharges safely when there is no lifeforce.

- or it represents something "missing" - a lifeforce "hole" that a body can recover from or not. - and dead people don't heal. That would not only mean automatic loss of levels, but make people drained to death unressurectable (since you can't be a living creature with no levels)


Or perhaps I am going too philosophical

Offline phaedrusxy

  • DnD Handbook Writer
  • ****
  • Posts: 10717
  • The iconic spambot
    • View Profile
Re: dying while level-drained?
« Reply #5 on: May 28, 2012, 05:19:38 PM »
Hmm... now that I look at the text of Raise Dead, I'm not sure what the answer is.

Quote
Normal poison and normal disease are cured in the process of raising the subject, but magical diseases and curses are not undone.
A negative level isn't exactly a magical curse, but it is kind of close.

Does the Rules Compendium have anything to say on this?
I don't pee messages into the snow often , but when I do , it's in Cyrillic with Fake Viagra.  Stay frosty my friends.

Offline rot42

  • Full Member
  • **
  • Posts: 106
  • I'm new!
    • View Profile
Re: dying while level-drained?
« Reply #6 on: May 28, 2012, 05:59:21 PM »
I could not find anything directly relevant in the Rules Compendium. As a practical matter, I would have any negative levels discharge safely on death to avoid having a PC worse than a cohort. Possibly with an exception for Revivify, but there are cheaper ways out of negative levels.

Offline Kethrian

  • Legendary Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 2232
  • Night Owl
    • View Profile
Re: dying while level-drained?
« Reply #7 on: May 28, 2012, 11:17:26 PM »
A negative level also isn't a normal poison or disease, or an ability score at 0, so it's nothing that Raise Dead mentions as being able to remove.  But if you're still dead when the 24 hr later Fort save occurs, I would think that it just ends with no effect because a corpse is immune to level loss (it's not alive).
What do I win?
An awesome-five for mentioning Penny Arcade's On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness.

Offline darqueseid

  • Hero Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 593
  • I'm new!
    • View Profile
Re: dying while level-drained?
« Reply #8 on: May 29, 2012, 11:35:21 AM »
Quote
All conditions affecting you are generally removed when you die and are resurrected, right?

Most of them... but what about the roll for lost levels? Can your vitality shake off the impact of negative energy when you are dead?

- either level drain is something "added" to the body - in effect "negative energy poisoning" and it discharges safely when there is no lifeforce.

- or it represents something "missing" - a lifeforce "hole" that a body can recover from or not. - and dead people don't heal. That would not only mean automatic loss of levels, but make people drained to death unressurectable (since you can't be a living creature with no levels)


Or perhaps I am going too philosophical
People drained to death become the monster that slayed them per the SRD, if not they become wights, meaning they do in fact become unressurectable (until they are destroyed as the undead that they became). 

the SRD for resurrection states that the creature is restored to "full hit points, vigor and health"  so to me this means that the negative levels are removed with regards to that spell.  Raise Dead however, doesn't have a specification about this, but I would interpret it in as favorable a way as I can for the character and remove the negative level.  The only exception being if the negative level were caused by a magical disease or curse...