Death Ward

Death Ward is a level 4 abjuration spell. It allows spellcasters to prevent a target from dying.

Description

Protect a creature from death. The next time damage would reduce it to 0 Hit Points, it remains conscious with 1 Hit Point left.

Casting this spell at a higher level grants no additional benefit.

UID

Target_DeathWard

Spell flags

HasSomaticComponent, HasVerbalComponent, IsMelee, IsSpell

Death Ward

Duration: Until Long rest

The next time damage would reduce the affected entity to 0 Hit Points. it remains conscious with 1 Hit Point left.

Classes:

Class level 7: Cleric, Life Domain (Domain Spell), and Death Domain (Domain Spell)
Class level 10: Bard (via Magical Secrets)

When the creature affected is hit with spells like Magic Missile and receives multiple attacks as part of one spell, assuming the 1st attack was sufficient to down the creature with Death Ward active, the 2nd attack appears to apply before Death Ward activates. This means that after 2 attacks the creature loses Death Ward but remains with 1HP:
- If the initial attack has 3 applications the creature is downed on the 2nd attack and again for an actual kill on the 3rd attack.
- In the case of party members with Death Ward applied, they need to receive 6 attack applications to actually die: 2 to break down the ward, 1 to get downed and 3 more to fail 3 Death Saves. This effect seems to apply to all multi-application attacks, like Scorching Ray and Eldritch Blast (as of 4.1.1.3669438).
If cast by a Cleric, this spell must remain Prepared; removing Death Ward from the caster's prepared spell list removes the buff from all party members whom the caster applied Death Ward to.
If a creature is downed on their own turn, all of their actions are restored after being revived by Death Ward.
Death Ward does protect party members from Bhaal's Edict, although in this case they lose all of their current buffs and conditions as if they had briefly died.
The incantation for Death Ward is Quod Dico Face, Latin for "Do as I say".

Death Ward uses Survival Instinct as a Parent condition, and as such inherits the Action point restoration it possesses. This is exploitable by a character who can cast Death Ward on themselves, allowing them to continuously regenerate Action points so long as they are able to both down themselves and recast Death Ward multiple times per turn.