A spell to please the Giant

[Sniccups]

The Giant has stated several times that true resurrection is a spell that gets in the way of a good game. I have designed a spell to remedy that.

It is known as Sublimate, or an improved version of disintegrate.

The Player's Handbook states that

A disintegrated creature and everything it is wearing or carrying, except magic items, are reduced to a pile of fine gray dust. The creature can be restored to life only by means of a true resurrection or wish spell.

This spell provides a way of getting around that.

Sublimate
8th-level transmutation

It acts mainly as a 7th-level disintegrate, except for the paragraph quoted above.

Here it reads as follows:
"A sublimated creature and everything it is wearing or carrying, except magic items, are reduced to a fine gray gas. The creature can be restored to life only by the power of a god, not even with a true resurrection or wish spell."

How is THAT? It beats true resurrection!

[quinron]

I see the intent, I appreciate it, but here's my question: what effect would you consider "the power of a god?" Technically, miracle could count, and that spell isn't any more or less powerful that wish or true resurrection. By the time true resurrection is becoming a DM's issue, a cleric has a 17% chance every day of being able to invoke Divine Intervention to make it happen - strictly going by numbers, they should be able to get lucky by the end of the week.

[Sniccups]

I see the intent, I appreciate it, but here's my question: what effect would you consider "the power of a god?" Technically, miracle could count, and that spell isn't any more or less powerful that wish or true resurrection. By the time true resurrection is becoming a DM's issue, a cleric has a 17% chance every day of being able to invoke Divine Intervention to make it happen - strictly going by numbers, they should be able to get lucky by the end of the week.

What is miracle? What do you mean by divine intervention? This is a 5th Edition spell, and you appear to be asking a 3.5 question.

[TheTeaMustFlow]

What is miracle? What do you mean by divine intervention? This is a 5th Edition spell, and you appear to be asking a 3.5 question.

The miracle spell may not exist in 5th ed, but if you were to take a cursory glance at the Cleric, you would find the Divine Intervention class feature most certainly does.

[Sniccups]

Oh, sorry. However, Divine Intervention states that the effect of a cleric spell would be appropriate, and True Resurrection is a Touch spell. Sublimate turns the body in gas, so there is no way to get any remnant of the body.

Let me add something to the spell:

"The gas is lighter than air and floats away"

[quinron]

What is miracle? What do you mean by divine intervention? This is a 5th Edition spell, and you appear to be asking a 3.5 question.

Heh, I guess I must've been reading the 3.5 PHB shortly before the last time I read the Divine Intervention ability's description and ended up thinking miracle was carried over. My bad.

Nonetheless, I think you may be trying to make things a bit too complicated with the "dispersed gas" bit - considering that gods of death, in the official settings, have been portrayed as Neutral at best and are more often Evil, and those who are considered positive (like the Raven Queen) are more concerned with preventing "unnatural" forms of resurrection, I think it's fair to say that genuine resurrection is, on the whole, considered a pretty Neutral-to-Good action. That would make sublimate - a spell designed to prevent someone being resurrected - pretty Evil. So why not just say that in addition to destroying the body, it destroys the soul?

[arrowed]

True Resurrection lets you raise a creature by speaking it's name, gas ain't gonna cut it I'm afraid. But there is a way around True Rez already: Imprisonment. The target doesn't even die, and you can carry them around in your pocket to make sure they never escape. There are some hefty drawbacks though: it's a once-only try on any given being, and you have to hold them in range while you bind them over 1 minute. And it's level 9.
Other options include Feebleminding your foe and imprisoning them in a more mundane fashion, or using Sequester on their corpse. True Resurrection's naming clause specifies "The spell can even provide a new body if the original
no longer exists, in which case you must speak the creature's name. The creature then appears in an unoccupied space you choose within 10 feet of you." Sequestering the body hides it from sight and divination magic, but it still exists, and thus RAW True Rez cannot raise the creature without it. Ironically, this means the best alternative to disintegrating the body is preserving it.
By the by, did you want Sublimate to be level 7 or 8?

[Inevitability]

What happens if you use this spell in a closed-off space, funnel the gas into a small container (should be easy enough: it's ligher than air after all) then cast True Resurrection on the gas?

[Sicarius Victis]

So basically, you deliberately designed a spell purely to break everything else. I suppose that's an interesting idea. But it doesn't actually work as well as you think it does, for a multitude of reasons. Divine Intervention is pure Godly Power. While its effects may take shape as a spell, that does not change what it inherently is: Godly Power. And Godly Power taking the form of a True Resurrection is still Godly Power. So according to the writeup of your spell, Divine Intervention still works.

Also, a decent amount of the time clerical magic would be considered Godly Power anyways, considering where their power comes from anyways. And so, any cleric spell could be ruled as able to overcome this.




And TBH, when I saw the title I was expecting a Cat-Retrieving Hand spell.

[Kish]

What does that do that Soul Bind doesn't, if what he was looking for is "ways really high-level enemy spellcasters can thwart True Resurrection"?

(Whether Soul Bind exists in 5ed or not, it does in the edition Rich made that post about, so.)

[Tempest Critic]

It's a good idea. By making the ressurection requirements ambiguous you have left it to the DM of any given game to choose how accessible a ressurection would be.
Players have wayy too much Hero armor in DnD.

My only problem is perhaps with the word 'power of a god'. Some players might take that as a hint that a holy power or divine intervention could work. Perhaps wording it a bit more ambiguous so the players don't get too ahead of themselves, would help, that way they don't call out the DM when he says 'no'.