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In the Curse of Strand adventure, the following information is provided about the NPC Ezmerelda in Appendix D (p. 231):

Ezmerelda's Secret ... On one of her less successful adventures, a werewolf bit off her right leg below the knee, and although she avoided being afflicted with lycanthropy, Ezmerelda was sidelined for months. She commissioned a master artisan to craft a prosthetic lower leg and foot. After several tries, he delivered a prosthesis that restored her mobility. She has since adapted well to the false appendage and takes care to hide it from view.

There's also this magic item that can be found in the village of Krezk (p. 148):

Sun's Grave
The gravestone marked X is carved with roses and bears a 3-inch-diameter sun-shaped indentation on its east side. Engraved beneath the indentation is the name PETROVNA. If Tasha Petrovna's holy symbol (see chapter 4, area K84, crypt 11) is placed in the indentation, both the holy symbol and the indentation vanish. Then read:

A ray of golden sunlight breaks through the clouds to the west and shines upon the grave. The fog and the gloom shrink from its brilliance as the sunlight causes the gravestone to crack and crumble, revealing a ring within.

The sunray lasts for 1 minute. If the characters smash the gravestone without placing Tasha Petrovna's holy symbol in it first, they find nothing within its remains. The ring is a ring of regeneration.

The description of this magic item in the DMG says (p. 191):

While wearing this ring, you regain 1d6 hit points every 10 minutes, provided that you have at least 1 hit point. If you lose a body part, the ring causes the missing part to regrow and return to full functionality after 1d6 + 1 days if you have at least 1 hit point the whole time.

So the question is:

If the party found this ring of regeneration and gave it to Ezmerelda (either by coincidence or because they learned of her "secret" and wanted to help), would her missing leg grow back? Is there any reason this wouldn't work (such as due to the length of time her leg has been missing, or the fact that her leg has now been replaced by a fully functioning prosthetic)?

NathanS
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2 Answers2

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"Lose" is a present tense verb

The ring says "If you lose a body part" not "If you are missing a body part". It doesn't seem like it would help if you've already lost a body part before you put on the ring.

Perhaps the magical ring needs to establish what your body is like so it knows what to regenerate, so passing the ring to person missing a body part won't help.

But it's a nice idea

Your DM might rule that it works anyway. I'm not sure that I would, since I wouldn't want this ring being used as a portable body part re-grower, but I don't think that's a huge issue.

user-781943
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    That's a good point about the wording, it does imply losing the body part after attuning to the ring. And here was me thinking it would just be an open-close "yep, this works", I'm actually glad this question turned out to be a bit more interesting than that :) – NathanS Jun 30 '20 at 07:45
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    I think there are good arguments for and against this working in post, both here and in your related Q&A, but after much thought, I think your arguments (both here and in your answer to your related Q&A) are stronger, so I've decided to accept your answer (if I had asked the other question, I'd be accepting your answer there too, although I think Odo's answer there is also a good one). – NathanS Jul 02 '20 at 09:01
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Yes, this item could be used to help Ezmerelda

The general question of “can a ring of regeneration be used to regenerate an already lost limb?” has been answered on this site:

How to get a character's limb regrown at 3rd level?

How can I recover a missing body part without using wish?

As you can see the consensus in the top answers is that using the ring in this fashion is viable. Therefore you should be able to use it for Ezmerelda.

I suspect some confusion may be coming from the rules changes between the 5e version of the ring and previous editions. For example, in 3.5e, there was a requirement to be wearing the ring at the time of the injury for it to work.

From the 3.5 SRD:

If the wearer loses a limb, an organ, or any other body part while wearing this ring, the ring regenerates it as the spell. In either case, only damage taken while wearing the ring is regenerated.

The clause about only regenerating damage taken and limbs lost while wearing the ring prevented the ring from being passed around the party after a fight. I hypothesize that was the game balance point of the clause. However, in 5e that requirement to be already wearing the ring is no longer present. The requirement for Attunement is there instead for the new edition.

Don’t let the tense of the verb throw you. The stack agrees this is a viable use of the ring.

NathanS
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Dana
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  • I read the ring to mean the same thing as in 3.5, would you mind explaining how you interpreted the text differently? – user-781943 Jul 01 '20 at 01:57
  • I reworded my answer to address this. In short, i don’t think your analysis of the verb tenses stands up even for RAW. The 3.5e rules call out the specific rule that you have to already be wearing the ring and that was dropped for 5e. The addition of requiring attunement satisfies the same game balance issues but changes some capabilities of the ring, like this scenario here. – Dana Jul 01 '20 at 06:18
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    @Dana Conversely, it seems to me that the lack of the clause is what is making you think that it works on previously list body parts. I don't see any RAW reading that would imply that it works. Furthermore, we have never had a question on this topic on the stack, maybe it's time for one. – user-781943 Jul 01 '20 at 06:54