How can someone kill a revenant?

Question

According to the rules for Revenants:

A revenant’s existence is fueled by its hatred for its murderer. As long as the murderer exists, the revenant exists. If the murderer dies, the revenant is immediately slain.

So when the murderer fights his revenant, and brings the revenant down to 0 HP what does happen to the revenant? Is it really killed / slain, or does it just vanish into thin air, and a new revenant rises from the corpse searching for its murderer? If it isn't slain, how can the murderer slay it? Is there any way at all?

Answer 1

The revenant is introduced originally not in Bestiary 2 but in Rise of the Runelords Chapter 2: The Skinsaw Murders, where it gets a two-page writeup that helps decode this a little bit, but it's still very confusing.

You have to completely destroy the revenant to keep it from rising again. Here's a quote from the extended version: "If a murderer is brought back to life after dying (or later becomes an undead creature), the revenant returns to life as well unless its body has been destroyed completely."

However, the general undead rules say that undead are "immediately destroyed when reduced to 0 hit points." And even the revenant writeup says "As long as this creature exists, the revenant exists. If this creature is killed, the revenant immediately drops to the ground and is destroyed as well."

So it appears there's a difference between the normal meaning of destroyed (alternate word for death used for undead things) and the level of destruction required to stop a revenant, "completely destroying its body." There's some GM fiat required here, but what this appears to be is the traditional "keep hitting the troll and put it on a bonfire" kind of destruction.

(It is also listed as having fast healing 5 in the Skinsaw writeup, which makes a little more sense given the description...)

Answer 2

It's subject to GM discretion

As long as the murderer exists, the revenant exists.

That seems to have two posible interpretiations:

1. The revenant will stop unliving when the murderer is dead/destroyed
2. The revenant will reappear and continue to chase its murderer as long as it's still alive/undead

With number one the answer it's simple, punch it until it stops moving!

Number two makes things more complicated, you might need to be on the run for the rest of your live or maybe you'll need to use some kind of divine magic to destroy it for good. You may be able to dispose of it with the first solution, but this interpretation suggests that the revenant will reform in some time and continue its chase.

The rules seem to suggest the first interpretation due to the lack of any regeneration/reforming rules. But as always the last word comes from the GM. He might rule interpretation number two and say the revenant after "destroyed" will reappear after XdY days/months/time unit.

Answer 3

Revenants don't have any particular protections against reaching 0 hp or immunity to the general rule for undead that they are destroyed upon reaching 0 hp. Their Reason to Hate ability seems to indicate they will continue to exist once destroyed, but it doesn't explicitly prevent their destruction or the consequences thereof. 'Existing' is a pretty low threshold and quite subject to GM interpretation; perhaps the revenant's corpse can't be transmuted until the murderer or their corpse has been, perhaps stories of the Murderer are magically compelled to always include the revenant, or perhaps your GM comes up with something else altogether. In any case, lowering the Revenant's hp to 0 destroys it so that it's effectively 'killed'.

If the revenant's continued existence is a problem, antimagic will counteract the revenant's Reason to Hate ability, leaving it subject to normal existence continuance under your GM. Furthermore, most (but not all) supernatural abilities cease function on a creature's death and some GMs would rule that a generic Revenant's Reason to Hate ability ceases function entirely upon its destruction.

Revenants, as undead, have a number of other special weaknesses and even one special weakness of their own invention. As undead they can be dealt with via Undeath to Death, Resurrection (or better), and are subject to myriad non-instant-kill weaknesses not detailed here. As revenants they are automatically destroyed by their own Reason to Hate ability if their Murderer dies, even briefly.

The only published revenant I'm aware of has its own special resurrection method, which clearly indicates that, at least it its case, the Reason to Hate ability is intended to operate even after the revenant is destroyed. This lends credence to the ability operating in such a manner in general, which may make killing such creatures via brute force less than effective, even in a temporary Antimagic Field. Nonetheless, Resurrection is a surefire instant-kill against undead without special resistance to it, and will work against nearly all reasonable custom Revenants with explicit respawning mechanisms.

Answer 4

Since this is an undead creature, the soul isn't intrinsically connected to the body in the same way we live as mortal creatures. It's like controlling an RC probe on an alien planet from Earth, we can tell the robot precisely how to move but it's only a puppet. The RC robot can't be killed, since it's not alive, we will still control it for as long as its body is capable of being controlled.

Now back to the revenant. What would happen if you removed its legs? Well it could still bite you. So cut off the head, too. It's still trying to grab you and tear you apart with its arms, so cut them off too.

A revenant with 0HP has lost its ability to pursue and harm you, even if that means reducing it to a small mound of gore that will forever wobble angrily at you until the day you die.

Answer 5

First, let's meet the revenant. Not only does it always exist, the revenant is also undead. Undead are extremely difficult to permanently disable. This gives adventurers a list of things they can't do. They can't permanently command it to do nothing, paralyze it, hopelessly poison it, or permanently drain its abilities to the point it can't act. Worse, they can't subdue it by reducing its hit points to 0 since it is immediately destroyed; they also can't subdue it with non-lethal damage. All of the following undead traits make the revenant very difficult to destroy.

• Immunity to all mind-affecting effects (charms, compulsions, morale effects, patterns, and phantasms).
• Immunity to death effects, disease, paralysis, poison, sleep effects, and stunning.
• Not subject to nonlethal damage, ability drain, or energy drain. Immune to damage to its physical ability scores (Constitution, Dexterity, and Strength), as well as to exhaustion and fatigue effects.
• Immunity to any effect that requires a Fortitude save (unless the effect also works on objects or is harmless).
• Not at risk of death from massive damage, but is immediately destroyed when reduced to 0 hit points.
• Not affected by raise dead and reincarnate spells or abilities. Resurrection and true resurrection can affect undead creatures. These spells turn undead creatures back into the living creatures they were before becoming undead.

These traits suggest one out, casting resurrection (cleric 7, 10,000 gp material component) on the revenant. This is a bad choice even for high-level characters because

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 may refuse to return on that basis.

The murderer's victim may not be cooperative in coming back to life just so their murderer can escape the torment of a revenant. A more reliable high-level solution is to imprison the revenant on a demiplane created specifically to be its prison. An appropriate demiplane can be constructed with a permanent create demiplane, lesser (cleric 7, sorcerer/wizard 7, 18,000 gp material components)

Since a revenant is CR 6 I'm going to assume a party of adventurers seeking to disable it are somewhere around the same level. If acquired on scrolls the necessary spells cost 21,400 gp. If destroying the revenant is particularly narratively important to the story, the adventurers may be willing to spend a significant amount of their resources on its destruction. A party of four 6th level characters should have a combined wealth of about 64,000 gp. Creating a permanent demiplane to hold this revenant would cost just over a third of the party's resources.

The party will need a sorcerer or wizard with 17 intelligence or charisma (or at least 17 for the two hours it takes to read create demiplane). Activating the scroll requires a DC 14 caster level check, which the reader should fail no more than 35% of the time. If they do fail there's a small chance (DC 5 Wisdom check, natural 1 always fails) that a mishap will happen; see the rules for scrolls. Otherwise they can attempt the same thing all over again and spend another 2 hours reading the scroll. The writing disappears from the scroll when the scroll is successfully activated.

The party will need to subdue the revenant (physically overpower) while the spell is being cast or create the demiplane first and then use some form of extradimensional travel (more expensive). The party will need to hold hands (and hold the revenant's hands) at the end of the spell to travel to the new demiplane. The caster can then eject everyone except the revenant one at a time as a standard action. The caster will end up exposed to one round alone with a revenant on another plane of existence.

The revenant can also be defeated by an ordinary mirror, if we read its entire description.

• Self-Loathing (Ex) When confronted with its reflection or any object that was important to it in life, a revenant must make a DC 20 Will save to avoid becoming overwhelmed with self-pity. This condition renders the revenant helpless, and lasts until the revenant is attacked or sees its murderer. If a revenant resists becoming overwhelmed, the revenant becomes obsessed with the source that triggered the saving throw and does everything it can to destroy it, reacting to the trigger as if the trigger were its murderer and gaining bonuses from its reason to hate ability.

Bury it deep someplace it won't be found or disturbed, preferably under at least a few feet of soil or stone. But what's the fun in that?