Reincarnate: Resurrection Roulette

Usable By: Druid

Spell Level: 5

School: Transmutation

Casting Time: 1 hour

Range: Touch

Duration: Instantaneous

Components: V, S, M (Rare oils and unguents worth at least 1,000 gp, which the spell consumes)

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.

d100 Race
01–04: Dragonborn
05–13: Dwarf, hill
14–21: Dwarf, mountain
22–25: Elf, dark
26–34: Elf, high
35–42: Elf, wood
43–46: Gnome, forest
47–52: Gnome, rock
53–56: Half-elf
57–60: Half-orc
61–68: Halfling, lightfoot
69–76: Halfling, stout
77–96: Human
97–00: Tiefling

The reincarnated creature recalls its former life and experiences. It retains the capabilities it had in its original form, except it exchanges its original race for the new one and changes its racial traits accordingly.

Review by Sam West, Twitter: @CrierKobold

Imagine being a stalwart half-orc paladin; you swore an oath to uphold and protect that which was good in the world. You know this final confrontation with ultimate evil before you may be the end; you’ve made peace with your fate. You win the battle, you and your allies defeat the twisted ideas threatening all you hold dear, and you pass blissfully and nobly into death, destined to meet with your god and eternally shine as a celestial icon forever. Then some dipshit druid reincarnates you, and now you’re stuck as a two and a half foot tall rock gnome with a knack for tinkering and none of your old armor fits. Wild how magic can do that, right?

Reincarnate is my personal favorite of all the Resurrection spells in 5e simply because it adds a layer of permanence and silliness to death. Having some kind of consequence for dying I find adds a lot of fun and weight to it, and while all in all I’m glad this kind of magic exists, I’d rather it look like Reincarnate than Raise Dead.

Magic that brings you back from the dead is at its best when it's cheap and instantaneous; as a 3rd level spell, Revivify stands out to me as the best of the lot. It's an action, only a 3rd level slot, and probably is the only resurrection magic you’ll want to be actively preparing. If you don’t have access to it or are running dry on spell slots, having a ten day grace period to get your shit together to revive somebody is fairly standard for a 5th level slot, and makes death more or less “solved” once characters get passed 9th level assuming they have a cleric or druid or some other divine caster friend. In those cases it doesn’t really matter which of these effects you want, as prepared casters just need to take them when they need it.

Racial shifts don’t tend to wildly affect the effectiveness of a character, but do add some neat hiccups. Getting a new race shifts your ability scores, making it so you may not have as high modifiers as you used to prior to death in some cases. New racial abilities can liven up your character, giving you some neat new options you didn’t have before, and give you the opportunity to change up your play pattern. I’d almost always recommend using Reincarnate over Raise Dead or other effects for this reason.

If you like the randomness of Reincarnate, I’d recommend expanding the table to encompass as many races as you can get from 5e. Going from a humble, simple human to a tortle or aarocockra can majorly shift the game for you in some amazing aways and offer you some choices to shake up how you play in major ways.

Resurrection magic as a whole isn’t all that interesting, but it serves an important purpose. While you probably don’t want to prepare Reincarnate for your average adventuring day, having it on your spell list is a great asset, and casting the spell can lead to the exact right shakeup a table needs after a player character death. If you’re going to resurrect a friend, do it with Reincarnate when able.

5e Spells

Reincarnate: Resurrection Roulette