Wight Out

[nolongerchaos]

What ways exist at low level to prevent the creation of a wight while killing things via negative levels? For instance Fell Draining Sonic Snaps or Clerics with Death Devotion are relatively simple ways of unintentionally making wights that can be achieved by 1st level characters, so what means are there to prevent accidental Wightpocalpyses?

Wights are corporeal so destruction of corpses might be sufficient to prevent them rising, DM willing, but ideally I'm looking for solutions that wouldn't require DM consultation/fiat.

[Tvtyrant]

Consecrate stops the creation of undead.

[Jowgen]

Well, anything that permanently kills a vampire seems workable. Burning the body and dousing it in Holy Water (get a Sacred Vessel, BoED) seems like it should work.

[Jack_Simth]

What ways exist at low level to prevent the creation of a wight while killing things via negative levels? For instance Fell Draining Sonic Snaps or Clerics with Death Devotion are relatively simple ways of unintentionally making wights that can be achieved by 1st level characters, so what means are there to prevent accidental Wightpocalpyses?

Wights are corporeal so destruction of corpses might be sufficient to prevent them rising, DM willing, but ideally I'm looking for solutions that wouldn't require DM consultation/fiat.

Find a Hallowed place to bury them. Explicitly stops things from rising as undead, and you only need to worry about the one day. Yes, it requires a highish level spell, but it's Instant, and so lasts until specifically undone.

[BowStreetRunner]

The rule to which you are referring (DMG page 293) states that by default a character slain by negative levels rises the next night as a wight. The 'next night' part gives you a small window of opportunity to do one of the following which will prevent the creation of a wight.

• Destroy the body. (Which would be a common practice where undead are found.)
• Bury the body on Hallowed ground. (You don't have to create it if there are existing Hallowed graveyards and the like available.)
• Consecrate the area holding the body for the duration of the 'next night'. (Since consecrate has limited duration you need to focus on the 'next night' window, after which you should be fine.)
• Bring back the dead in some other way. (Raise, Resurrect, and Reincarnate of course, but also turning them into another form of undead.)
• If you have access to 3.0 spells then Burial Blessing (Defenders of the Faith p.83) is a 1st level cleric spell with permanent duration that prevents a corpse from coming back as undead.

[The Viscount]

Spawn screen is a level 2 spell from SpC that prevents the target from rising as an undead.