Limits of Miracle spell to turn tide of battle

[zoroaster100]

The group I DM for is in the middle of a massive battle. We had to stop mid-battle and will resume the fight next week, but at the very end of this session, the evil cleric used a miracle spell for the purpose of "Swinging the tide of a battle in your favor by raising fallen allies to continue fighting" as specified in the powerful uses of the spell. This brought up the questions, just how powerful is miracle in this situatation.

Here is the background: A party of 18th level characters is facing an epic level cleric/wizard/mystic theurge and her epic sorcerer spellweaver ally, as well as a powerful monk/shadow dancer vampire, a fighter/blackguard vampire and a swarm of lesser vampires. The party had already "utterly destroyed" the fighter/blackguard vampire with a disrupting weapon and his failed save. They had destroyed the lesser vampires with an undeath to death spell. They had destroyed the monk/shadowdancer vampire with a mass heal spell. And finally, they destroyed the spellweaver with a time stop spell followed by three delayed blast fireballs set to explode simultaneously. Following the defeat of the spellweaver, the cleric used a miracle spell to swing the tide of battle by raising her fallen allies to continue fighting.

As the DM, I ruled that all the allies that fell in this fight (the vampires and the spellweaver) were restored to full hit points. The players objected, but since we were breaking until next session anyway, rather than arguing I told them I'd post this up at ENWorld to hear what others had to say. Please help us sort out the following objections and whether they players have a point as to each:
Does the miracle spell have the power (when the cleric uses 5000 xp to cast it) to raise all allies who fell in the fight, or only one ally?
Does the miracle spell raise an ally up to full hp, or only up to 1 hp or something less than full hp?
Does the caster of miracle need a line of effect to each ally that is to be raised back to fight by the miracle?
Can the miracle spell used this way bring back a vampire that has been turned to gaseous form by being brought to 0 hp?
Does the miracle spell used this way bring back a vampire that has been destroyed by undeath to death?
Does the miracle spells used this way bring back a vampire destroyed "utterly" by a disrupting weapon?

Your opinions and any rules support are welcome on this. The fate of the party of characters, played from the lowest level all the way to 18th level over the course of a year and a half may depend on it, as may the fate of the ulitmate mortal opponent for the characters since early levels.

 

[phindar]

All good questions. I don't really have any answers for you, but I did glance over the spell and I have a few more questions:

The spell description states that it can swing: "the tide of a battle in your favor by raising fallen allies to continue fighting." Does the use of the term "raising" imply that it will Raise Dead on fallen allies, because that doesn't sound that great. And if by "raising" they meant Resurrection, why use the term "raise"? And if you are resurrecting multiple people, are you on the hook for the xp cost of the individual resurrections, or is this considered a 5000xp general use of the spell?

To quote Rev. Lovejoy, "Short answer 'Yes' with a 'But', long answer 'No' with a 'Maybe'." Or maybe I have that backwards, but its probably not important.

On the "utterly" destroyed undead, I'd rule that they're gone. As a general rule, dead undead are pretty darn dead. (As a rule.) That is they've been dusted, so you're looking at a Wish spell to get a body and a Resurrection spell to return it to life, at which point you have a healthy guy who you'd have to kill and animate again. I've never really thought about it, but its a lot of work to bring vampires back.

Does the miracle spell have the power (when the cleric uses 5000 xp to cast it) to raise all allies who fell in the fight, or only one ally?
Does the miracle spell raise an ally up to full hp, or only up to 1 hp or something less than full hp?

I'd say all, but I gotta be all hyper-literal and assume it Raise Deads all those that fell, and you got to burn another Mass Heal to get them back up to their fighting weight. Which is immaterial in the case of undead, since they can't be Raised. (Edit: It also seems pretty presumptuous to assume that raising dead comrades will turn the tide of the battle. It might raise them, but they might just get killed all over again. Wanted to throw that out there, that miracling a turn in the tide of the battle is one thing, raising everybody is another. They aren't necessarily linked.)

Does the caster of miracle need a line of effect to each ally that is to be raised back to fight by the miracle?

I'd vote yes.

Can the miracle spell used this way bring back a vampire that has been turned to gaseous form by being brought to 0 hp?

Used "this way", depends on how you mean. It wouldn't Raise said vampire, but you could Miracle up a Harm for the vampire. It's kind of a waste of a slot, since the evil cleric can probably just cast Harm, but if you were desperate you could do it.

Does the miracle spell used this way bring back a vampire that has been destroyed by undeath to death?
Does the miracle spells used this way bring back a vampire destroyed "utterly" by a disrupting weapon?

If you interpret Miracle's "raise" ability as Raise Dead, then no. Even if you interpret it as Resurrection, its still no because it would restore the creatures to "life". Having Miracle simply replace everybody on the battlemat at full strength seems beyond the ability of the spell, which is an important point as Miracle and Wish are spells the party likely has access to as well. Off the top of my head, I'd think it would be something a deity could do on its home plane where it has total control of reality, but its not something the D&D spell system can accomplish. Typically, the only undead you can bring back after dusting are ones with a special ability relating to it. Liches spring to mind. Everybody else is just a Kansas lyric.

All that said, the evil cleric could Miracle up an escape for him and the gassy vampire, and return at another time. Or if that smacks of anti-climaticism, he could Miracle up the nastiest 8th level attack spell he can and try to retributive strike the party as his dying action. I don't see a Mass Harm spell on the menu, but if there were multiple gaseous vamps, I'd allow it as per the powerful request use of the Miracle spell.

 

[Quartz]

This is Miracle as in the intervention of a deity, right? Then note that while this can be vastly more powerful than Wish,

In any event, a request that is out of line with the deity’s (or alignment’s) nature is refused.

What deity does the cleric worship?

Depending on the deity's abilities, I'd suggest that everyone apart from the Disrupted vampire comes back. Maybe the spellweaver comes back as a Death Knight or some other powerful undead.

Consider also, would the players - or you - want their cleric to be able to resurrect them all with one spell? Sauce for the goose and all that.

 

[ThatGuyThere]

As "Referee-of-the-game", you want to make sure the decision you make for yourself would fly for the PCs.

As "Creator-of-Challenges", you want to make your party work hard to earn those XPs.

As "Teller-of-Stories" you want cool things to happen.

And here, those three roles might have different desires.

If the PCs have cakewalked over your Epic challenge, your "Creator-of-Challenge" might want to bring back all of the baddies, just to say, 'Let's try that again', which is a very interesting challenge. Your Teller-Of-Stories thinks that sounds cool, too. But trust your "Referee-of-the-Game", considering allowing your PCs to Ressurect the entire party as a combat-action - and return from being destroyed utterly, no less! - won't remain tenable.

If your "Creator-Of-Challenge" feels that the party hasn't been appropriately challenged yet, however, bringing back a heaping helping of minions is a great way to exhaust party resources, and flavorwise, very interesting.

What I might suggest is that they are returned to life as the spell "Revenace" from the Spell Compendium - that is, they're back alive, at half HP, and die unpreventably after a certain period of time. I'd also say, for flavor reasons, the Vampire remains "utterly destroyed", although it might conjure a mortal version of him / her.

Thus, "raising allies" would indeed "turn the tide of battle", but not allow debilitatingly powerful game effects.

If, on the other hand, the party has been beaten, battered and bruised, and likely doesn't have the strength to face all-that-again, you might want to consider - and I'm not saying it's true - that you're being a touch petty, and want to Win.

Of course, your not-quite-Epic party is facing multiple Epic bad guys - maybe they were supposed to lose, and accidentally swung the tide?

 

[ThirdWizard]

I always assumed "Swinging the tide of a battle in your favor by raising fallen allies to continue fighting" meant that for this one battle, fallen allies are restored back to full hp to fight, but afterward, they fall dead again. It doesn't say "Bring allies back to life," it specifically works to swing the tide of a single battle. Bringing everyone back at 1 hp wouldn't really swing anything. And, bringing them back for longer than the encounter constitutes more than "swinging the tide of battle."

That's how I see it at least.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

I think instead of raise dead or resurrection, it would produce more of a revenant effect (I think the spell is in SC) -- i.e., bring the allies back, at fighting strength, but for a significantly limited duration. (And now I see that someone beat me to the suggestion.)

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

I'd say miracle could raise the dead and put them to full hp (b/c raising them to 1 hp isn't much of a miracle when they'd get cut down before they had a chance to do much of anything), but it wouldn't grant them their spells back. If you only wanted to bring back one character, I'd say that character would be at full hp with fully replenished spells.

I don't think it would bring back creatures that were utterly destroyed. Although the spell has some generic language (i.e., turning the tide of battle), it still has a lot of built-in game mechanic reference points. Characters are raised, not resurrected, for example. Plus all the duplication of spell effects cited. For those reasons, I'd say miracle doesn't allow you to break game rules en masse by returning to (un)life creatures that would otherwise be irrevocably destroyed. That being said, I might allow it for a single creature (a miracle, vs. miracles).

There might be another way to go about using the spell. Maybe the miracle just reverses the clock, either for everyone or for just the villains. Sort of a temporal rift that takes the enemy back a number of rounds. The downside would be that they wouldn't remember anything that had happened (or was going to happen?), but the upside would be that the PCs would have to defeat them again. I'd probably determine how far back the bad guys could go based on the ability of the PCs to fight them a second time; it could very easily become a TPK if you're not careful. If you went back in time, I'd allow creatures that were utterly destroyed to be back in play.

If they weren't already undead and I had enough prep time, I'd probably work out undead versions of all the slain bad guys for the miracle to bring into play. As someone else already mentioned, I'd also take into consideration the type of deity involved and tailor the miracle accordingly. For example, if it's a god of destruction it doesn't make much sense to be bringing back creatures that were utterly destroyed. In such a case, I'd be more likely to have the deity send some kind of deific juggernaut to wipe out the PCs (and maybe everyone on the battlefield to boot!).

 

[pawsplay]

Full hit points and cured of conditions, but they drop dead again after 1 round/caster level, I'd say.

 

[papastebu]

If it's not something the cleric's deity couldn't or just wouldn't do, I'd allow it if it didn't honk off my players too much--a little, yes, but not too much. I didn't see who the poster was, but rolling back the clock to the time before the first bad guy took the first bit of damage is kind of interesting. You never know how things are going to turn out the second time around. There might be bad rolls on the good guys' side, this time.
The main question with that one is, "How hard was it to bring down all of the bad guys they already beat?" If they had a really hard time of it--it doesn't sound like they did--then maybe reinstate/reconstitute/whatever every bad guy except the disrupted one, and make them half strength or alter them somehow to make a whole new battle. It seems to me that the players' objection is mainly to having to go through all the same stuff all over again.
If you make the re-fight different and exciting, then maybe they won't object.

 

[darthkilmor]

The group I DM for is in the middle of a massive battle. We had to stop mid-battle and will resume the fight next week, but at the very end of this session, the evil cleric used a miracle spell for the purpose of "Swinging the tide of a battle in your favor by raising fallen allies to continue fighting" as specified in the powerful uses of the spell. This brought up the questions, just how powerful is miracle in this situatation.

Make it interesting, why does it have to be fallen allies in This Fight? Raise the spellweaver ally, and have a variety of other "allies" the cleric has had appear, maybe they climb out of the ground with black eyes and expressionless faces, ready to attack and fall to dust when slain. Reviving the vampires might make it too close to a TPK to be safe, but the one caster and a variety of midlevel bodyguards, rogues and alcolyte clerics gives you some mooks to deplete the party resources, give some flanking bonuses, and in all other ways distract the party.