True Resurrection: You’d Better Have a Hell of a Life Insurance Policy

Usable By: Cleric, Druid

Spell Level: 9

School: Necromancy

Casting Time: 1 hour

Range: Touch

Duration: Instantaneous

Components: V, S, M (A sprinkle of holy water and diamonds worth at least 25,000 gp, which the spell consumes)

You touch a creature that has been dead for no longer than 200 years and that died for any reason except old age. If the creature’s soul is free and willing, the creature is restored to life with all its hit points.

This spell closes all wounds, neutralizes any poison, cures all diseases, and lifts any curses affecting the creature when it died.

The spell replaces damaged or missing organs and limbs. The spell can even provide a new body if the original no longer exists, in which case you must speak the creature’s name. The creature then appears in an unoccupied space you choose within 10 feet of you.

Review by Sam West, Twitter: @CrierKobold

You're pursuing death insurance policies (as one does) in the PHB. Your options are Revivify (a 3rd level spell), Raise Dead and Reincarnate (5th level spells), Resurrection (a 7th level spell), and True Resurrection (a 9th level spell). Each of these costs some gold, has a varied cast time, and can resurrect willing things that died within a specific time span. How does True Resurrection square up against the rest? Its a 9th level spell, surely it has to be pretty good, right?

It's probably about the 2nd worst of the lot. Oof.

Revivify (the cheapest and best option) takes a 3rd level spell slot to cast, costs you a measly 300 gold, and takes a single action. The only real downside with it is the creature needs to have died within the past minute; a short window, sure, but the most likely case you’ll be in when you’d want to use resurrection magic. In the higher tiers, saving a few 3rd level spell slots in case of emergency is easy peasy, and holding onto a few bags of resurrection diamonds is a pitiful price.

Let’s then look at what True Resurrection offers; you need a full hour to bring the person back to life (yikes). You need twenty-five THOUSAND gold worth of diamonds (BIG yikes), and you need a 9th level spell slot. You don’t need the body at least, but wait, other options do that for less!

Reincarnate creates a whole new body for the deceased, and is only a 5th level spell. It doesn’t even require the whole body; just a bit will do. Remove Curse is a 3rd level spell, so with just a 5th and a 3rd level spell (and for 1/25 the price), you’ve built your own True Resurrection. Sure, it’ll still take an hour, but that seems like a much better usage of your resources.

Raise Dead ends up being a worse Reincarnate, but the creature gets to keep their race. Resurrection is functionally the same as True Resurrection, except the resurrected target has a sickness that gimps their rolls for the foreseeable future, and cuts off your ability to play the game until you finish a long rest. That might make it worse than True Resurrection, but only marginally so. Both spells are still TERRIBLE when compared to a 3rd level spell you can just keep in your back pocket in case of emergencies.

If you happen to run into a single enemy who manages to kill a friend with Disintegrate, you can prepare and use True Resurrection when you’ve got some downtime and a small fortune to burn. If you come across some century long dead sage you want to ask a few questions to, and are so rich you can just throw around 25 grand without sweating, sure, you can cast True Resurrection. Beyond that, you should never be preparing a 9th level spell whose effects can be done better in nearly every instance by a pair of 3rd level spells. What a joke.

5e Spells

True Resurrection: You’d Better Have a Hell of a Life Insurance Policy