Makes no sense. Should have used Revivify, since Reincarnate cares about the soul’s preferences
Target: A creature that has died within the last minute
Classes: Cleric, PaladinRevivify has a very limited window of opportunity and druids can’t cast it.
Druids have officially had access to Revivify for a while now in 5E as part of optional class features.
Then switch the race of the joke ?
My point still stands. You cannot reincarnate an unwilling soul.
They need to be willing, but it doesn’t say they get a choice or have preference for what they reincarnate as, or even if they know its reincarnate vs revivify or another spell
"You touch a dead humanoid or a piece of a dead humanoid. Provided that the creature has been dead no longer than 10 days, the spell forms a new adult body for it and then calls the soul to enter that body. If the target’s soul isn’t free or willing to do so, the spell fails.
The magic fashions a new body for the creature to inhabit, which likely causes the creature’s race to change. The GM rolls a d100 and consults the following table to determine what form the creature takes when restored to life, or the GM chooses a form."
I know. But the joke here is that the death was satisfying. You aint coming back after that usually. The meat suit is secondary
Also, Revivify ? You dont get a choice in the matter. Hence, it would have made the joke work.
No, in an exception based system like D&D, specific trumps general. There is a general rule in the DMG that states that you can’t bring someone back to life against their will; and since Revivify doesn’t specifically state that it is an exception to this rule, it isn’t.
Sure you can. Reincarnate specifies a willing soul, Revivify doesnt. Meaning you could revivify against their will. A costy tool but useful one for a torturer.
Dungeon Master’s Guide p.24, Bringing Back the Dead:
A soul can’t be returned to life if it doesn’t wish to be. A soul knows the name, alignment, and patron deity (if any) of the character attempting to revive it and might refuse to return on that basis.
That’s the general rule for anything that brings the dead back to life. The spell needs to explicitly override this for it to work differently.
Reincarnate doesn’t specify that the subject knows what form they’re coming back to, or that “reincarnate” is being used at all. So the subject doesn’t know that.
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Maybe his soul secretly wanted to be a gnome this whole time?