Immortality without Necromancy

[Seerow]

My friend is currently playing a Human Wizard, and is looking for a way to achieve immortality for his character pre-epic. He wants to avoid any form of necromancy (which means the usual 'become a lich' route is off the table, as well as Magic Jar shenanigans to get someone else's immortal body are off the table).

So the question is, is there a way to do this? Sources allowed are anything not from a campaign setting specific book or dragon magazine (So no Forgotten Realms, no Eberron). I was pretty sure there were several different ways for Wizards to be immortal, but I'm having trouble finding them, and was hoping the Playground would have more experience in this particular area.

[Stegyre]

Become an Elan?

Seriously, shouldn't a Wish or PAO be able to change race, and there you have it: you're immortal.

[Hazzardevil]

If he can stomach the LA, can't he take Half-golem to replace all of his vitals with golem parts?
Or maybe he could become a Deathless, like an undead only positive energy.

[Seerow]

Become an Elan?

Seriously, shouldn't a Wish or PAO be able to change race, and there you have it: you're immortal.

Becoming an Elan resets your level to 0 according to EPH. Not a particularly enticing possibility. Becoming one via Wish or PAO may work, I suppose.


If he can stomach the LA, can't he take Half-golem to replace all of his vitals with golem parts?
Or maybe he could become a Deathless, like an undead only positive energy.

What's the source for these? Half Golem sounds interesting.

Edit: Found Half-Golem, I don't see any LA listed, but given the CR increase is like +4, I'm thinking too high to be worth it. Like a +1 LA template that could be bought off might be okay. But that seems like way too much. Especially when they all come prepackaged with -6 int and charisma. Terrible for a caster.

[Johel]

Scroll of Limited Wish

You need to be Wizard level 13 to do it.
Then you hand it to an apprentice.
You kill yourself.

The apprentice use the scroll to cast "Reincarnate" (Druid Spell, Level 4).
You are reincarnated as a random young adult humanoïd.
That's for immortality as "don't fear to die of old age".

If you want true immortality as in "will never ever die permanently", I don't know.

[Crasical]

Spam Reincarnate every few dozen years, since it gives you a new young adult body each time, resetting the clock on when you'll die of old age?

The downsides are that you lose a level or take two negative levels depending on if you're playing 3.5 or pathfinder, that it requires 1k gold in material components, and that the spell is a druid-only, so you'll have to find someone else willing to cast the spell on you, or get it on your own list via shenanigans.

[Namfuak]

Contingency -> Limited Wish -> Last Breath (SpC). Same as reincarnate, but no negative levels and can only be used within one round of death (which would be the contingency). This assumes you are a wizard - if you are a druid, you can take a level of wizard and scroll contingency - last breath, or if you are neither you can take a level in each and use scrolls for both (it may be even cheaper to invest in unlimited wands for both, since contingency would need to be recast every few days, but you get the idea).

Also, assuming you have infinite resources, this would only work once per encounter, and you need some way to heal yourself to consciousness as well, or a way to take actions while at negative health.

[Dr.Epic]

Get a painting done of you?
Find a fountain?
Find a stone that may or may no belong to a philosopher?
Gather the Dragon Balls?
Be from the planet Zeist?

[Ravens_cry]

What kind of immortal?
Living forever immortality is easy.
Ironically, you have to die.
First step, reach venerable. Two, kill yourself. Three, get Reincarnate cast on your remains.
Four, come back in a Young Adult body
Rinse, lather, repeat.
You get a nice little +3 untyped to all mental scores as well, as Reincarnate explicitly says you keep your mental scores.
EDIT: Mostly Ninja-ed:smallamused:

[Feralventas]

10 levels in Renegade Mastermaker from Magic of Ebberon makes you a living construct. 10 in Green Star Adept does the same. 10 in Elemental Savant makes you an elemental outsider. It's not in the RAW, but the Faerun fluff Shadowcasters stop aging as they develop, and their class features slowly take away their need to eat, breath, sleep, and other biological needs; the Child of Night PrC might be a better choice mechanically speaking as Shadowcaster is pretty meek.

Epic-level true-name magic could probably let you re-write yourself, though that's getting more expensive than the 10 to 15 level characters I'm suggesting .

7 or so levels in a Druid Archetype (Reincarnated druid in PF) grants you a free Reincarnation 1/week as long as you don't die of a death-effect and bonuses on saves against them.

True Mind-Switch for a high-level telepath.

Cloud Anchorites don't die of old age IIRC.

I think there's a divine PrC that turns the character into a Fey, though I don't recall what it is.

[The Dark Fiddler]

He could always develop his own spell, to give him whatever flavor of immortality he wants. I'd imagine it'd be high-ish level, though,.

Then again, "you don't age" is a semi-common class feature, so it should be acceptable as, say, a level 4 or so spell.

[SowZ]

He could always develop his own spell, to give him whatever flavor of immortality he wants. I'd imagine it'd be high-ish level, though,.

Then again, "you don't age" is a semi-common class feature, so it should be acceptable as, say, a level 4 or so spell.

You don't age for days/caster level, maybe. It couldn't be a spell you just cast once and then are immortal, of course.

[Callista]

Hang on, what kind of a character is this? Is he non-evil, or does he just not like the idea of turning into a desiccated shadow of his former self? This is important. There are so many more options for immortality if you're Evil.

Reincarnation might work, I guess.

Oh, and if you're the DM, remember that immortality (of the "not dying of old age" sort) is not overpowered. I'm willing to bet that nobody here has ever had a character die of old age unless there was some kind of narrative time-skip or temporal magic involved.

[Yorrin]

As a DM I'd allow "Eternal Youth" to be the product of a properly worded Wish spell...

[CheshireCatAW]

Use independent research to make an immortality spell. It will likely remain a "Necromancy" spell, but I think you meant that he doesn't want to be an Evil Undead Lich of Darkness moreso than using the Necromancy school for a generally alignment neutral purpose.

I'm not even sure it'd be worth a 9th level spell. It's really not OP at all.

[gorfnab]

Thief of Life (FoE) prestige class doesn't age if they kill at least one equal HD living creature every year.

[Harry]

Three ways replacing his first level feat with the otherworldly feat taking the wedded to history feat and taking 10 levels in shadowcrafter the first and third option both make you a outsider Hope I helped :smallsmile:

[Alleine]

Does he really mean any form of necromancy? There's actually a spell for this in BoVD. Level 8 necromancy spell for sorc/wiz; every night of a full moon you can drain someones ability scores to regress your age by 1 week for each ability point drained. It's evil and necromantic, but you don't have to die to do it like the reincarnate trick.

There's also the rituals in Savage Species, but those tend to be prohibitively expensive.

[Bard for Kicks]

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/fw/20040710a

Acorn of Far Travel can indirectly grant you immortality if you're willing to burn spell slots to maintain your immortality. Though you won't be immune to aging...

[Andion Isurand]

Kissed By The Ages (Dragon 354) although its a necromancy spell, can grant someone the Endless quality as long as they wear the affected item. It doesn't involve any templates or physical alterations.

Oops, no drag mag allowed.

[Johel]

As a DM I'd allow "Eternal Youth" to be the product of a properly worded Wish spell...

:smallamused:
So many possibilities...

[Ravens_cry]

Eternal Youth, taking literally, just sounds like what monks and druids get, not immortality. Of course, for some it is a package deal, but never assume so (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tithonus).

[Hiro Protagonest]

Then again, "you don't age" is a semi-common class feature, so it should be acceptable as, say, a level 4 or so spell.

You mean Timeless Body? Because that's not how it works.

[Callista]

You die of old age, but you don't suffer aging penalties. That would be one of the gentler results of a misworded Wish spell. If it was really badly misworded, you could have it turn you to stone or kill you outright--you said you wanted to be eternally young, and dead people don't age either.

But I don't think this is beyond the scope of a Wish. It's probably even underpowered. It's interesting in terms of plot, but that's it.

[Morithias]

You die of old age, but you don't suffer aging penalties. That would be one of the gentler results of a misworded Wish spell. If it was really badly misworded, you could have it turn you to stone or kill you outright--you said you wanted to be eternally young, and dead people don't age either.

But I don't think this is beyond the scope of a Wish. It's probably even underpowered. It's interesting in terms of plot, but that's it.

Or it could turn you into a child/baby.

Personally as a DM I would allow a player to wish for eternal youth. I mean what's going to damages your campaign more, Mr Wizard isn't going to age, or the 25k gold pieces.

Unless your campaign is taking place over decades of time, it really shouldn't come up any.

[Darth Stabber]

Immortality is much more of a fluff goal, given that I have never seen a gm hand out an age category aside from magically induced aging. That being said, it is something to shoot for. Personally I say POA, Wish, Reality Revision, and Miracle are all reasonable methods of achieving such a goal.

[Gavinfoxx]

Has no one linked to this yet??

http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=5996.0

[blazingshadow]

getting the telthor template from unapproachable east might do it. you die but instead of becoming undead or deathless you become a fey. you might need to make a custom acorn of far travel spell so you can move around though

[RndmNumGen]

If Pathfinder is on the table, the Immortality (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/wizard/archetypes/paizo---wizard-archetypes/arcane-discoveries/immortality) Arcane Discovery can be taken in place of the bonus feat at level 20.

[Bard for Kicks]

getting the telthor template from unapproachable east might do it. you die but instead of becoming undead or deathless you become a fey. you might need to make a custom acorn of far travel spell so you can move around though

Thus the link I posted a couple posts earlier. If you snag an acorn from Ysgard, you true resurrect every time you die. QED. Immortality achieved. Just carry lots of acorns that hail from Ysgard. DMs can't really screw you with that. Wish can eaaasillly screw you.

[Elfinor]

The guide that Gavinfoxx linked to & PaO covers all non-setting specific things I'm aware of. A warning though, PaO is subject to being dispelled. I think that means you suffer ageing penalties/age death as though the spell had never been cast on you - but check with the DM. Even though you said that you'll be ignoring Dragon material note that Wedded to History, as mentioned in the guide, doesn't grant immortality by RAW.

As a guideline for Wish granting immortality, it should probably not be able to grant immortality from just one casting. The only reference I can find for Wish successfully extending a character's life is in an FR source. The character in question (Telamont Tanthul) had used Wish spells several times to extend his life, but he was considering a more permanent form of immortality. The reference is Lords of Darkness (3e).

[Psyren]

If Pathfinder is on the table, the Immortality (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/wizard/archetypes/paizo---wizard-archetypes/arcane-discoveries/immortality) Arcane Discovery can be taken in place of the bonus feat at level 20.

That doesn't actually make you immortal, it just removes/prevents aging penalties. It says nothing about changing your maximum age or not dying when your time is up.

[Ravens_cry]

That doesn't actually make you immortal, it just removes/prevents aging penalties. It says nothing about changing your maximum age or not dying when your time is up.
On the other hand, unlike other examples that remove or prevent ageing penalties, like Timeless Body, it does *not* mention not doing so either.

[blazingshadow]

Thus the link I posted a couple posts earlier. If you snag an acorn from Ysgard, you true resurrect every time you die. QED. Immortality achieved. Just carry lots of acorns that hail from Ysgard. DMs can't really screw you with that. Wish can eaaasillly screw you.

you can only carry 1 acorn at a time but yeah a magic item of acorn of far travel can give you true resurrection if you key the power there. it doesn't prevent you from death from old age and if you are lawful and/or evil you suffer charisma penalties IIRC

[RndmNumGen]

On the other hand, unlike other examples that remove or prevent ageing penalties, like Timeless Body, it does *not* mention not doing so either.

That, and this:


You discover a cure for aging, and from this point forward you take no penalty to your physical ability scores from advanced age. If you are already taking such penalties, they are removed at this time.

That implies that you stop aging entirely. Violent deaths are still on the table(as they are for everything), but age seemingly becomes irrelevant. Compare to this:


a monk no longer takes penalties to his ability scores for aging and cannot be magically aged. Any such penalties that he has already taken, however, remain in place. Age bonuses still accrue, and the monk still dies of old age when his time is up.