The Blood Domain Cleric
Added 2023-08-25 14:29:41 +0000 UTCThis one has a feature that I can't get my head around.
Comments
I believe not needing to see the target is there so you can cause a corpse to climb out of its own grave (a cool image).
Chet Erez
2023-08-26 19:41:07 +0000 UTCI'm not sure I agree with some of Chris's objections re: Blood Puppet. I think some of the things he was confused about are actually pretty clear. "It's statistics are the same as when it was alive or conscious." I don't think this is as unclear as Chris is making it. The ability seems like it will be used in one of 3 ways: Before combat/against a "full health" target; during combat against a wounded target, against a possibly damaged target; and against a corpse. In the case of a full health target, there's not really a question as to what it's HP is -- it's whatever the HP is when you're using the ability. If they were at 45/45 then, they're at 45/45 after you puppet them, for instance. In the case of a "during combat" target, there's also not really a question. Same as before, if they were at 22/45 then, they're at 22/45 after you puppet them. So the only confusion here is against a creature who is a corpse or unconscious; and really even then only against a corpse. In the case of a corpse, it's statistics are the same as when it was alive. It does NOT require that the corpse be alive AND conscious. So the most straight-line reading of this feature would have the puppet be at 0hp (their last HP value while alive) and unconscious (as normal at 0hp) but NOT incapacitated (they normally would be but the CD ability overrides this). You could of course heal them up from there if you wanted, which would take them out of unconscious state. Moreover, because the spell makes it clear that they are not *brought back to life*, but merely "gain a semblance of life that you control", there's no need for them to make Death Saving Throws at this point. The biggest area of ambiguity I see is whether an animated corpse can be re-killed by damage/reduction of HP, OR whether it could only be killed by spells/effects that destroy the Object of the corpse (per Jeremy Crawford, non-Undead corpses are Objects). That's a big, huge, gaping hole left in the ability. But I think most everything up to that point is actually pretty clear.
Dan Rosenthal
2023-08-26 18:26:54 +0000 UTC
