Ways to Be Immortal and Keep Your Brain

[Rhizzaer]

So, I'm interested in looking at the different ways that a character can become immortal, and also the ways they can give up their need to eat. I have a concept for a character who is taking the "embrace of undeath" thing in a genuinely charitable direction. Obviously misguided, but basically the premise is that if you can get rid of the need for food, then you can save the existence of billions of conscious beings.

Creatures that don't count because they have no brain:
Zombies
Skeletons
Vasathaunts

Creatures that don't count because they still need to eat:
Vampires
Wights
Ghouls

Creatures that work
Necropolitan
Lich
Brain in a Jar
Dry Lich
Ghost
Immortal

Feats that work
Wedded to History


Spells that Work
Polymorph to Elan

[Medic!]

Necropolitan? Or (and this was my first thought and I almost choked on a drink) Brain in a Jar!

[Rhizzaer]

Necropolitan is definitely the kind of thing that I'm looking for. Cheap, replicable, a little bit of unaddressed elitism. Probably the kind of thing he'd invent, although the level drain hurts.

Brain in a Jar works, but I have already played Lord Sandwich (the psion who transferred his consciousness into a sandwich which he had polymorphed into a block of adamantine), so that's a little less appealing. Nothing similar will trump Lord Sandwich.

[Jack_Simth]

Mummies, Create Undead, 400 gp + spell costs.

[Rhizzaer]

Mummies, Create Undead, 400 gp + spell costs.

Do Mummies retain the memories of their past life?

[shadow_archmagi]

There's also the feat from Dragon Magazine that's like, Tied To History or whatever, where your character is immortal with no drawbacks beyond spending a feat.

It's also a prereq for the Packrat feat, which is my favorite feat of all time. It allows you to spend X/level gold and carry X/level lbs of unspecified nonmagical items to be specified as needed. As in "Okay, so I'm carrying 20 lbs of something in a sack, and it's worth 2 gold. Oh, we come across a wall? I retrieve a ladder from the sack and exclaim 'thank goodness I stopped at that ladder clearance sale! So now I'm carrying 15 lbs of Etc worth 1.8 gold."

[Amnestic]

There's also the feat from Dragon Magazine that's like, Tied To History or whatever, where your character is immortal with no drawbacks beyond spending a feat.


Wedded to History, Dragon Mag 354.

Also can only be taken at first level and allows you to pick a background with a few other bonuses.

Edit: From the same issue (same page, even), there's the spell Timeless Magic (Sorc/Wiz 9) which enchants a wearable object (ring, neck) to make you immortal.

5000xp+4000gp cost though :smallsigh:

[Azoth]

I can't remember where but there is an immortal template for only I think +3 la

[Rhizzaer]

Hmm, Wedded to History and Immortal are interesting options, but they lack the ability to go evangelize about becoming Immortal since they're both inherited conditions.

[TuggyNE]

Why has no one yet mentioned becoming an elan? Spend pp to remove the need for food a day at a time, spend pp to reduce damage, spend pp to improve saves, never age, but you're still technically living.

[Rhizzaer]

Why has no one yet mentioned becoming an elan? Spend pp to remove the need for food a day at a time, spend pp to reduce damage, spend pp to improve saves, never age, but you're still technically living.

Elans lose their memories when they become Elans, and all levels. Doesn't quite keep your identity intact.

[TuggyNE]

Elans lose their memories when they become Elans, and all levels. Doesn't quite keep your identity intact.

Hmm. I was not aware of that, for some reason. :smallsigh:

[Kelb_Panthera]

Elans lose their memories when they become Elans, and all levels. Doesn't quite keep your identity intact.

That's only true if you become an elan in the traditional, the-elan-council-makes-you-one way. If you become an elan through some polymorph based effect or other you get the benefits without the drawback.

[Rhizzaer]

That's only true if you become an elan in the traditional, the-elan-council-makes-you-one way. If you become an elan through some polymorph based effect or other you get the benefits without the drawback.
Hmm, hadn't considered that. Mad transmogrifist would be a very interesting way to go about things.

[Jack_Simth]

Do Mummies retain the memories of their past life?
Unspecified, as far as I'm aware. But they're not mindless, and they're not automatically under the control of their creator.

Exactly what comes back is unclear.

[Laserlight]

Hmm, Wedded to History and Immortal are interesting options, but they lack the ability to go evangelize about becoming Immortal since they're both inherited conditions.

You know, there's a way to pass on inherited conditions, and it's actually rather fun...

[Rhizzaer]

Unspecified, as far as I'm aware. But they're not mindless, and they're not automatically under the control of their creator.

Exactly what comes back is unclear.

Looks like (after checking Libris Mortis) that it's only very dim recollections, so it's a possibility.

[dextercorvia]

True Mind Switch (or Astral Seed, or whatever) a Warforged.

[Rhizzaer]

True Mind Switch (or Astral Seed, or whatever) a Warforged.Hmm, I hadn't considered warforged immortal before, but I do suppose that would be technically correct since you can repair them. I wonder where their consciousness actually sits ...

[Doomboy911]

I know a way that I use for a favorite character of mine. Out of sheer fear of dying a man used the clone spell thousands of times and than passed the secret onto his family and they did it and so on and so on until they could no longer hide the bodies so they made their own dimension. That's the character a semi immortal somewhat suicidal mad man. His name is Jack Trades.

[Rubik]

Elans lose their memories when they become Elans, and all levels. Doesn't quite keep your identity intact.Psychoactive skin of proteus + Metamorphic Transfer or Assume Supernatural Ability. Grab the elan ability to not need to eat for a day, and since ages aren't marked as Ex/Su/Sp/Ps, you get their immortality as well (it's Na).

Also, ring of sustenance + Reincarnation on a regular basis. You always get a young adult body when Reincarnated. Also, you can PAO into a young body, or use Fusion/Astral Seed with a young adult creature, or True Mind Switch with one.

[edit] Really, using a psychoactive skin constantly means you can *always* be a young adult creature (since that seems to be the default, aside from dragons). Keep the Na ability of the age category and you literally never age.

[edit2] Why didn't I read through the whole thread first? I got swordsaged on almost everything.

[shadow_archmagi]

Hmm, Wedded to History and Immortal are interesting options, but they lack the ability to go evangelize about becoming Immortal since they're both inherited conditions.

Wedded to History isn't inherited; it's essentially a handwave that somehow you wound up becoming immortal during your backstory. Wanderer, for example, has the line "you may have even forgotten how you got to live so long. It could have been that night with the goddess of spring, or the mermaid's flesh you ate, the strange spring in the mountains, the unearthly energies from the yawning vortex, or even the crucible of wailing souls you encountered." so apparently any of those things might grant immortality.

Survivor is for fans of the Iron Heart discipline- it says you've survived a lifetime of living simply by refusing to die.

EDIT: Couldn't you also go before the Elan Council, get turned into an Elan, and then imbibe a thought bottle?

EDIT2: Oh, right, thought bottles only store a day's worth of memories. Oops. Well, you could get a hundred thousand of them. Or ask a wizard to make a single specialized one that has more RAM.

[Slipperychicken]

Edit: From the same issue (same page, even), there's the spell Timeless Magic (Sorc/Wiz 9) which enchants a wearable object (ring, neck) to make you immortal.

5000xp+4000gp cost though :smallsigh:

It's actually called Kissed By The Ages. The heading is "Timeless Magic" :smalltongue:

And that's actually a steal in the long run, saving you the price of many (potentially infinite) resurrections. It should pay for itself after only 2-3 lifetimes or so, since you need really costly magic to bring yourself back from old-age death. Sooner if you use Thought Bottle cheese.

[Flickerdart]

Any intelligent undead that doesn't retain memories can grab Emancipated Spawn levels to restore its memories of past life (and class features).

[Rubik]

Planar Bind a nightmare.

Use it to cast Astral Projection.

Coat your real body in quintessence.

Planar Bind another critter to guard your body and remove some quintessence if your projection is sent back to your body.

Profit!

[TuggyNE]

Planar Bind a nightmare.

Use it to cast Astral Projection.

Coat your real body in quintessence.

Planar Bind another critter to guard your body and remove some quintessence if your projection is sent back to your body.

Profit!

You left out contingency: dispel magic if Astral Dreadnought/Githyanki Silver Sword/whatever-else gets within 10' of your silvery cord.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Planar Bind a nightmare.

Use it to cast Astral Projection.

Coat your real body in quintessence.

Planar Bind another critter to guard your body and remove some quintessence if your projection is sent back to your body.

Profit!

This one's kinda dodgy. I could easily see a DM ruling that the projection is a magical extension of your body and, as such, removing your body from the time-stream removes the projection from it as well.

Just a heads up.

[hex0]

Wedded to History isn't inherited; it's essentially a handwave that somehow you wound up becoming immortal during your backstory.

Like that one Twilight Zone episode?

[Venusaur]

Behold, the Immortality Handbook! (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=5996.0)

[Rubik]

This one's kinda dodgy. I could easily see a DM ruling that the projection is a magical extension of your body and, as such, removing your body from the time-stream removes the projection from it as well.

Just a heads up.Since you're not in your body and your body's in the quintessence, you are not in the quintessence. QED.

But even should the DM rule against logic, you still have your minion to scrape some off and pull you back into the time-stream. And it's not like there aren't a dozen other easy ways to nab immortality.

[Telonius]

Green Star Adept will do it. No need to eat after level 7, basically immortal (unless killed) at 10.

Shadowcaster5 will drastically reduce the amount of food someone needs to eat; at 20 they no longer need to eat at all.

Stage 2 Drift from Geomancer allows you to photosynthesize instead of eat. (Still need the same amount of water).

The monster description of Gargoyle states that it doesn't need food, water, or air. No word on whether or not it takes aging penalties.

[Rubik]

Green Star Adept will do it. No need to eat after level 7, basically immortal (unless killed) at 10.Considering what it does to you, you're better off dead (literally).

[Crasical]

Considering what it does to you, you're better off dead (literally).

:smallconfused: Losing five/ten caster levels is pretty bad... if you're an optimized PC. If you're not, though, not needing to eat, sleep, breathe, or fear age, disease, or poison is hardly a fate worse than death.

[Rubik]

:smallconfused: Losing five/ten caster levels is pretty bad... if you're an optimized PC. If you're not, though, not needing to eat, sleep, breathe, or fear age, disease, or poison is hardly a fate worse than death.Or, you could spend 3,000 xp at level 3 and gain the necropolitan template. Or you could spend a couple of castings of Polymorph Any Object. Or a single casting of Planar Binding (for a nightmare to grant you an Astral Projection). Or any number of the (many) other means of doing this.

Death is MUCH easier to overcome than a loss of 5 caster levels, a permanent loss in hp, Concentration checks, and Fort saves from a lost Con score, the permanent inability to cast Polymorph on yourself, and permanent arcane spell failure.

[Darth Grall]

I've always been a fan of the poor mans version of Immortality: Reincarnation. You just get a new young adult body when you feel like you need to.

And on that note, I'd recommned the Reincarnated Druid (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/druid/archetypes/paizo---druid-archetypes/reincarnated-druid)for Pathfinder players, who want to be reincarnated automatically, if they haven't been killed in the past week.