Talk:Protected by Spirits (3.5e Feat)

Ratings

	Spanambula dislikes this article and rated it 1 of 4.
	Aside from the power jump Eiji has mentioned, I don't condone giving out unlimited free raise dead effects at 16th level, even at VH level play.

	Eiji-kun opposes this article and rated it 0 of 4.
	That auto-life is not ok.

19 ranks

This seems like a fair feat, and then the last benefit appears. What the heck is going on over there? Did you just become invulnerable short of disintegrate-type things? Sweet crispy christ crackers... -- Eiji-kun (talk) 20:03, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

Not really. Raise Dead brings you back with 1hp per Hit Die and you lose half your spells, so you aren't really in any condition to carry on fighting. It also fails if you are killed by a Death effect, or if the body is not "whole" (whatever that means). Simply cutting your head off will stop it working once an enemy has seen your trick. Ultimately Raise Dead is a 5th level spell and has been castable every day by the Cleric for 7 levels when you get this ability. But hey, you give warriors caster level goodies and people lose their minds I guess ;) - Red_Rob

It introduces a problem though. If the enemy cannot destroy the body (a specific effect) in 1 round, or can't use [Death] effects, combats go like this.

You die.

You return, weak as you said.

You die again.

Repeat until allies (if you have any) break the cycle. You can't actually lose. -- Eiji-kun (talk) 11:16, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

You are missing the clause in Raise Dead: "While the spell closes mortal wounds and repairs lethal damage of most kinds, the body of the creature to be raised must be whole. Otherwise, missing parts are still missing when the creature is brought back to life." It is not necessary to destroy the body, only to render it unraisable in the intervening round before you are raised. Now this does require some specific workarounds. More than one enemy will do it, as once you are killed someone else will need to spend an action severing your body (now an object and no longer subject to hp rules I might add) into pieces. Otherwise a source of ongoing damage enough to kill you when you return will allow one enemy to ready an action to sever your head. Yes, it's powerful. But too powerful for a level 16 character? - Red_Rob

That's an odd clause, because the first sentence stipulates that the body must be whole. Then the second sentence directly contradicts that by saying that "missing parts are still missing when the creature is brought back to life." Reasonable interp says that missing bits are not an obstacle to raise dead unless they were vital bits (like a head or major organ like heart, lungs, whatever). Not that an enemy can't still sever your head once you're down, but there you go. Also amusing is "One round after dying for any reason" would appear to supersede the old age exception in the raise dead spell (not to mention the death effect exception). Meaning that this would provide a very awkward form of immortality. --Spanambula (talk) 02:59, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

Actually, I included the line "tries to return your soul to your body" as an explicit callout to the fact that Raise Dead doesn't work in all circumstances. It was intended to be exactly as if someone had cast Raise Dead on you, with the exception you don't lose a level/Hit Die. - Red_Rob

"Explicit (adj): Stated clearly and in detail, leaving no room for confusion or doubt."

Explicit would be: "One round after you die, your Spirit Guardian casts raise dead on your corpse. If successful, you do not suffer the normal level loss."

Explicit would NOT be: "You should infer from the one verb 'tries' my exact intent and meaning."

Regardless, this is still giving a 5th level spell with a 5k material component infinitely for free all for a single feat. That's a bit much even for VH. --Spanambula (talk) 08:58, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

1/5th of a feat actually, since it's just a small part of the feat. I suppose I take issue with giving near instant auto-rez with a feat, much less 1/5th of a feat with no costs other than skill points. You can say things like liches, ghosts, or the occasional (and usually level 20) class capstones are too weak with their high prices, high LA, and slow respawn costs, but this is several degrees of magnitude stronger, by far. I suppose one of my issues with that last thing is that its so easy. Were the revival contingent on something, such as your allies hitting you with a stick for a minute, or not quite so immediate so that the risk of TPK was a thing (or the risk of an infinite revival loop wasn't a thing), it would sit a bit better with me. But only a bit. With a 1 round rez that's combat-time, there is almost never a chance where you aren't up and a threat. After all, "1 hp means I'm good to go". Or, if you would care to imagine: infinite lives of 1 hp each is still effectively infinite hp.

I suppose the other issue I have with it is that it is such a sudden departure in power from the rest of the feat. It's something I accuse Frank & K of often, I call it "wizard pisses in your feat" ruining a perfectly good idea with something grossly out of power scale. Look at what you are getting here. Luck rerolls (cool), not-quite-at-will 1st level SLA (awesome), at will utility 3rd lvl SLA (neato), a odd reverse ghost touch (useful), and then suddenly we go from some neat at will or not-at-will low level SLAs to infinite contingent lossess raise deads. Christ that is a jump, and at the very lease I can accuse the feat of being imbalanced. In the literal sense of being two very different power scales. -- Eiji-kun (talk) 20:08, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

Have you looked at the kinds of things level 16 Warriors are expected to face? Having basically a Contingent Raise Dead effect doesn't seem gamebreaking given the prevalence of Death effects, Disintegration, summoning and other ways to get around it by this point. Level 16 is one level before casters get level 9 spells, I should think the abilities Warriors are getting at this level should be pretty powerful if they are supposed to compete. Talking about "infinite hp" is also pretty misleading - imagine giving this to an enemy, how long would it take the players to figure it out and work around it? After you have auto-raised once or twice an enemy will start looking at ways to prevent raising - so this is maybe 30-40hp extra in practice? If the instant return part is actually causing an issue it could be changed to 5 rounds or a minute, however then is it any better than a scroll of Raise Dead cast after the fight? That seems pretty underwhelming for a level 16 ability. - Red_Rob

I am aware of the threats they face. I'm saying it can be done cleaner than this. That, and also its still a sudden departure in power compared to the first four benefits.

Putting it at a 1 minute delay actually does fix one of the main issues. By making it 1 minute its effectively "for the battle" so the party still needs to keep their fighter alive lest they lose firepower. Need to cut it short, out of time, so I'll wrap up.

But there is one other problem with your argument. You mentioned fighters. Fighters don't have Knowledge Religion, and if they did, it doesn't matter. This feat fits perfectly fine on a CoDzilla too. Even better on them, they can cast Heal when they pop back up. It was probably an accident, but you made the fighter-caster divide bigger... -- Eiji-kun (talk) 10:00, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Firstly, the 0 rank ability makes Knowledge: Religion a class skill specifically to avoid Fighter hosing. Secondly Casters have a 50% chance to lose each of their spells when Raised, so it's not actually that great for them.

I do take on board that the instant nature of the resurrection makes it more difficult to counter than it probably should be. I think I'll probably change it to 3 rounds after death - that's long enough for an intelligent enemy to slice you up once they get wise to it, but short enough that you can still get back in the fight if your party can turtle for a few rounds. - Red_Rob

Firstly I would argue that making it a class skill for fighters and other melee types who are usually extremely starved for skill points isn't really all that helpful for fighters. Secondly I would argue that even if a caster has a 50% spell loss chance upon returning to life, it's still pretty great for them because they are NOT FUCKING DEAD.

Lastly, raise dead has a 1 minute casting time. The way you're talking about this, the spirit protector seems to be able to produce the effect instantly. If that's correct, basically you've quickened a 5th level spell, making it equivalent to a 9th level spell (which as you point out, the casters can't even cast yet at 16th level) FOR FREE (no level loss, no expensive components), INFINITELY. Oh wait, you can't quicken a spell with a casting time longer than 1 full round, so the effect is actually WAY better than a 9th level spell. Even for VH, that's a no-no in my book. --Spanambula (talk) 23:43, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Unfortunately 3 rounds is still pretty well into the "combat time" even at VH. I suppose I'm stressing this point because it's not merely insurance against death but because it actually affects action economy. If someone is going out of their way to destroy a corpse mid combat, that's a round not spend killing the PCs. And in VH play, a round not spent firing your rocket launchers is a death sentence. You need to make sure that your revival doesn't invoke in the middle of how long you expect combat to last.

Also, the caster is less of a problem if they have an emergency scroll or staff, or are a spontaneous caster, or simply roll well and don't lose their rocket launcher/get out of jail free spell of choice.

And it's still grossly different from the rest of the powers given. -- Eiji-kun (talk) 00:00, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Spanambula, shouting INFINITELY doesn't make it any more convincing. You know, Fighters get to do more damage than Shocking Grasp at first level. INFINITELY!!! Bah-roken, right? No, because merely getting an ability that is also a spell has no bearing on whether that ability is appropriate for the level and use schedule you get it at. Some spells are bad for their level. Some spells have long casting times to prevent shenanigans. None of this is relevant when giving a conditional use ability as part of a feat. If I gave out INFINITE Cone of Cold at level 16 you wouldn't bat an eyelid, but that's a 5th level spell too.

I guess we'll have to disagree that Raise Dead is a substantial effect by level 16. I assume that once a character reaches this level they will have some kind of insurance against dying from regular hp loss. One round is maybe too short, but the fact that anyone can spend an action to sever something vital means it really doesn't look out of line at this level to me. - Red_Rob

Before we end this on a "agree to disagree" note, I would like to address the inconsistency of benefits issue. -- Eiji-kun (talk) 00:04, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Lol, yes, let's compare weapon damage and a straight HP damage spell to the ability to come back from the dead with no XP penalty. Because the fighter has to pay 5,000 gp every time he deals damage, and cone of cold takes 1 minute to cast. That's cool, don't address my points, just focus on my using caps. I'm also amused by your saying casting time and power level aren't relevant when deciding if getting infinite use of the benefit granted by a spell is appropriate. One wonders what criteria you think should be used instead.

For the record, I agree that in a VH-level game the pc will likely have a get-out-of-death-free card to play by 16th level. Once. What I object to is having it every three rounds for the price of a 1st level feat and some skill points. But if you're assuming pcs can cheat death by HP loss somehow, then you also have to acknowledge that they have access to one of the many items that protect from or grant immunity to death effects, which is one of the conditions you say make this aspect of the feat so much less useful that it actually is. "Conditional use" of raise dead to me should be more than "enemy somehow figures out that my resurrection abilities won't work if my corpse is dismembered." But we've been over this, so I'm done, and I'll just go ahead and rate this now. Seriously, change the every 3 rounds to 1/day, or even 1/hour, and this will still have the obnoxious power jump Eiji has beef with, but I'll change my disapprove. --Spanambula (talk) 01:12, 20 April 2015 (UTC)