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Last night we had a dilemma with this spell (4th circle nethermancer and shaman).
the caster has to beat the Spell Defense of the recipient of the spell
but wich is the spell defense of a DEAD ?
is the same as if it was alive ?
my caster said "ohy, if when you are knocked down you get - 3 SD, it's impossible your SD is higher when you are basically DEAD"
he was asking about a SD of 2 (the bare minumum)
the minimum value for a Spell casting test is 6 if i am not wrong (lowering SD paragraph), so i judged that he had to beat 6, no matter how it was the target SD.

any other ruling out there ? any opinion ?
thanks

I would say that it entirely depends on if the nethermacer/shaman gets to the dying character while that dying character remains conscious, and then tells them what is going to happen. In that case I'd allow the Lowering Spell Defense rule, see ED3 Player's Guide page 134. Sacrifice your Action that round to roll a Per Test, subtract the Result from your Spell Defense (min Spell Defense is 2). Now, the minimum Casting Difficulty is always 6, but Result Levels are calculated based on target spell defense (see spells, p141 of the same text). This lasts the entire round. [Note: I'm not addressing the corner case of casting that spell on yourself. o_0 ... ]

i already had with james an exchange of mail regarding the use of booster and healing potions on DEAD namegivers while they were getting the last chance salve.
problem is, what is "dead" in ED ?
i mean, if lose an amount of HP equal or superior of your death level, you are technically dead.
then there is the last chance salve, last chance spell and such.
but is the namegiver already dead (and so, wich are the consequences for that ? SD is based on perception, but how much can be the perception of a dead namegiver ? i will say ZERO, so tecnically there isnt a Spell Defense altogether).

what is really needed is some kind of definition of "dead" and what is doable and what isnt with a dead namegiver in terms of potions, spells, etc.
otherwise is all left to the GM.

anyway, yeah Tela, you are right on that (but isnt solving my problem, that is how can you do a conscious action "lowering your sd" if you are dead ?)

being dead is easy, your damage exceeds your death rating.
however it takes toughness step hours for your pattern to degrade to the point that you enter death's realm.
that is the time your Sell deff stays the same, maybe degrading over time.
as such for the spell las chance, use natural spell def of the dead character.

my 2 copper

but how is possible to be harder to cast a spell on a dead with natural spell defense 9 than on the same fellah knocked down ? (that is 9-3 =6) ?

Hiya,

It does need clarification and one for the To Do list. But I've always used higher of target's natural Spell Defense -3 (knocked down) or 6 (minimum for casting spells). Same thing for unconscious characters, although they benefit from still having active threads woven and the like. As noted, if the character is conscious, they can lower their Spell Defense, but this doesn't apply to "dead" characters...

Hope this helps!

Kind regards, James

thanks James
i thought the same, but yes, it definitely needs some "solid" clarification

That's a good way to run it, adding that to my notes.