this post was submitted on 19 Oct 2025
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I guess this comes down to DM fiat as for what constitutes "touching" the creature. For example, what if the person casting the spell had a hair sample, or a severed finger or some other item from the monarch's body, which they were also taking any of those steps to prevent decay of?
The 3rd Edition version of the spell is even more ambiguous. RAW, it doesn't prevent you from "unambiguously identifying" the creature through a means other than touching the body even if the body still exists.
Once those items are removed from the body they become a separate object. Maybe useful in divination, but not touching the body. If this were true the party could just cut off some hair hand it to the cleric and all their touch spells would be infinite range.
Okay, so, thought experiment. Someone gets cut into a lot of pieces. What do you have to touch to resurrect them? The largest piece? Any piece? No piece, the body is destroyed? What constitutes 'destroyed'? If getting cut into pieces counts, then how much of the body has to be missing?
RAW doesn't really adequately address this situation.
My comment was about the plan for gentle repose, but if you're talking about the resurrection spell it does have text that overcomes this problem, because it regenerates any lost limbs.
Sure, but... which piece gets regenerated? The one you touch?
In that case, why couldn't the spell be cast on the severed finger to regenerate an entire body attached to it?
It can. My problem was using gentle repose on a severed finger. Looking back it seems like that might not be what you were suggesting. If so my mistake.
Ah, sorry, I think there's two different competing discussions happening in this same thread. I'm also getting confused about what's being discussed. :D
I was proposing (for example) embalming a finger to prevent decay and having a permanent True Resurrection 'target', not using Gentle Repose specifically, but I can see where the ambiguity came from.
Magic doesn't make any sense. lol