Unkillable and Unmakeable character?

[Bannan_mantis]

recently I'm dm'ing for some friends who are playing dnd for the first time and I offered to make their characters if they gave me a template. I went through all of them and I wanted to be as open as I could with their suggestions but there's one player which had a character that was interesting to say the least.

He wanted a character which had immortality. Now my first thought is "we aren't level 20" but then he described it more, he wanted a character that was immortal....but that's it, no fancy weapon fighting, no super strength, no magic, just immortal. I said no and he was okay with it but this had me thinking, is something like this possible? Could you make a character who was immortal maybe through magic or something while also not having them have much powers outside of that, it seems hard since gaining immortality is something high level and by that point you have enough abilities to write a short novel about but this seems interesting so yeah. If anyone can make the weirdly specific build of a immortal average Joe then please post, I'd love to hear it.

P.S posting anything close is also nice to see : ) and the lower the level the better!

[JackPhoenix]

Sure. Boon of Immortality from DMG does that, but the character can still be killed normally, it just won't die of old age. Revenant race from one UA article is also technically immortal, and respawns even if killed, but it's got a limit on its existence... once it achieves its driving goal, it dies for good. Both available at level 1 with GM permission.

[Maan]

If you mean they don't die of old age, or even don't age at all, that's just a ribbon I'd say.
PCs die in dramatic ways anyway, so something like that it's pretty much unremarkable.

Not having to eat, sleep, etc. would be another matter and I would rule that out: circumstantial benefits, for sure, but still there are class features for that.

Being straight out impossible to kill is of course ridicolous.

Back to step one: "can't die of old age" could even be a curse. Life's not going to be enjoyable when you are a human 200 years old, with old the pains and maladies of that age!

[Unoriginal]

Does he mean "immortal" as in "could be hit by a nuke and live without a scratch because nothing can kill him" or "can't die of old age"?

Neither of those are level-dependent. Just give the guy a Commoner statblock to play, add "damage immunity: everything", "condition immunity: everything" and "Boon of Immortality", and it's done.

[Malifice]

Revenant race.

Does exactly what he wants.

[MarkVIIIMarc]

recently I'm dm'ing for some friends who are playing dnd for the first time and I offered to make their characters if they gave me a template. I went through all of them and I wanted to be as open as I could with their suggestions but there's one player which had a character that was interesting to say the least.

He wanted a character which had immortality. Now my first thought is "we aren't level 20" but then he described it more, he wanted a character that was immortal....but that's it, no fancy weapon fighting, no super strength, no magic, just immortal. I said no and he was okay with it but this had me thinking, is something like this possible? Could you make a character who was immortal maybe through magic or something while also not having them have much powers outside of that, it seems hard since gaining immortality is something high level and by that point you have enough abilities to write a short novel about but this seems interesting so yeah. If anyone can make the weirdly specific build of a immortal average Joe then please post, I'd love to hear it.

P.S posting anything close is also nice to see : ) and the lower the level the better!

Barry Sadler, yes the Green Beret who wrote the Ballad of the Green Berets, also wrote a book series called Casca. Casca was cursed with eternal life and would be a quite fitting character in a D&D setting.

The books are probably still considered adult reads. There are a bunch placed throughout history and Casca and the other characters were often men of their times or locations. The historical fiction I found educational and entertaining. By book whatever I was also reading a library book about the Eastern Roman Empire since it opened a world to me.

"Soldier you are content with what you are, so you shall remain until we meet again".

[Deox]

Revenant race.

Does exactly what he wants.

Curious, the Revenant is still only UA, correct?

Regardless, since OP is the DM and to echo Malifice, the Revenant (https://dnd.wizards.com/sites/default/files/media/upload/articles/UA%20Gothic%20Characters.pdf)is a perfect fit. Relevant bit allows the character to be killed normally, however will return to 'life' within 24 hours. Even if your body is somehow destroyed (fire, disintegrate, etc.) a new body is formed within (IIRC) 1 mile of where the death occurred.

Only until the the character's goals / mission has been completed can the spirit find final rest.

[CTurbo]

15+ level Ancients Paladins are almost kinda somewhat immortal.

14+ level Zealot Barbs are really hard to kill.

11+ level Long Death Monks are REEEEALLY hard to kill.

But yeah Revenant would be the best option probably.



Funny little story, I once had a pet/familiar cat that truly was immortal. I traded pretty much all familiar features like help action for example for it to be immune to all damage types and magical conditions. It was thousands of years old and had been in the character's family since forever lol. It didn't come up all that often but it was good for some really funny moments.

[Malifice]

Id just tie the Revenants goal into the BBEG/ climax of the quest.

From 5th level onwards its really just saving people a spell slot for revivify and the diamond cost.

[Bloodcloud]

If he gets maimed but not killed, I guess it could sorta work?

[OracularPoet]

Interesting difference regarding Monk’s Timeless Body vs. Ancients Paladin’s Undying Sentinel (at least in my PHB; perhaps it has been errata’ed):

Timeless Body

At 15th level, your ki sustains you so that you suffer none of the frailty of old age, and you can’t be aged magically. You can still die of old age, however. In addition, you no longer need food or water.

Undying Sentinel

Starting at 15th level, when you are reduced to 0 hit points and are not killed outright, you can choose to drop to 1 hit point instead. Once you use this ability, you can’t use it again until you finish a long rest.

Additionally, you suffer none of the drawbacks of old age, and you can’t be aged magically.
Notice that nothing like the red text is present in the latter ability. So, is natural death a drawback of old age? I had assumed prior to today that the second part of the Ancients’ ability works straight forwardly like the first part of the Monk’s ability.

Edit: typo.

[Sigreid]

Interesting difference regarding Monk’s Timeless Body vs. Ancients Paladin’s Undying Sentinel (at least in my PHB; perhaps it has been errata’ed):


Notice that nothing like the red text is present in the latter ability. So, is natural death a drawback of old age? I had assumed prior to today that the second part of the Ancients’ ability works straight forwardly like the first part of the Monk’s ability.

Edit: typo.

I seem to remember seeing on these forums a response from the developers to the effect that yes, dying of old age is a drawback of old age. So an Ancients Paladin isn't what I would call immortal, but is what I would call Timeless.

[NecessaryWeevil]

Not sure about mechanics but...you know, as strange as it may sound, it's almost just an interesting fluff ability. As the OP mentioned, it doesn't come with any increased abilities so I would argue it might not even be all that unbalancing (it just enables them to fight a little more aggressively). Obviously they should still be capable of being KOd and otherwise incapacitated.
If it continues to make the character fun for the player and for the DM, and if the other players get their own minor bonuses if desired, I don't know that handwaving the mechanical justification is all that problematic.

[Inscrutable]

I seem to remember seeing on these forums a response from the developers to the effect that yes, dying of old age is a drawback of old age.

Phew, it is a good thing the developers on this forum told us about one of the drawbacks of old age!!! I'm definitely not doing it if I can die from it! 😂

To the OP: Why not just let him never age? I can't see how that would unbalance anything and it could work into some neat story-telling. Being unkillable is, of course, totally different. But if he means ageless, don't see how it could hurt gameplay.

[Foxhound438]

Interesting difference regarding Monk’s Timeless Body vs. Ancients Paladin’s Undying Sentinel (at least in my PHB; perhaps it has been errata’ed):


Notice that nothing like the red text is present in the latter ability. So, is natural death a drawback of old age? I had assumed prior to today that the second part of the Ancients’ ability works straight forwardly like the first part of the Monk’s ability.

Edit: typo.

On the one hand, dying is a pretty nasty setback if it happens... but on the other hand, people "die of old age" because their organs become weaker and more frail and end up failing due to that, so it really doesn't make much sense that a monk can be at 100% fighting power with no organ issues one second and then die from old age the next.

[Temperjoke]

I had a thought on this. It's nothing official, but what if you kinda went with highlander rules? Like, the character could be killed like a normal character, it's just that he doesn't stay dead? So if he drops from something in combat, he rolls death saves like normal, and if he succeeds he comes back to life at 1 hp a minute later from the last successful death save, but if he fails, it's 10 minutes (or some other arbitrary long period of time in game). This makes it important for him to try and stay alive, because if he goes down it means he's out of the fight for a certain length of time, which means the rest of the party could die. The price could be that if any enemies die while he's out he won't get credit/experience for killing, which helps provide incentive. Really the only thing that would kill him would be a Disintegration spell, which you could choose to not use.

[lperkins2]

So, if I were running a game in a setting where a cursed immortal would fit, here's how I would run it. It's immortality not invulnerability, and not reincarnation/respawning. Unless he gets knocked to 0, it makes no difference. If he gets knocked to 0, track the overdamage. Let him make death saves like normal, if he stabilizes, great. If he 'dies', he simply appears dead until he heals, 1 HP per 1d4 hours. When he gets back into positive HP, he wakes up. If his body is destroyed, have him regenerate from the largest surviving piece a day or two later.

This has the advantage that the character still can be defeated, especially if his enemy knows he can't actually die. Shackles and drop him overboard, seal him in a box, et cetera. He still can get put out of a fight. At the start of the campaign, his companions (and possibly himself) should not know about his immortality, which means he's likely to be left behind should he fall. If the player can do it, having the character lose the last day or so of memory could also be interesting.

Anyway, I've done stuff like that before, to good effect. It was back in the 3.5 days, but I don't see that it would break anything in 5e.

[CTurbo]

I gave my group once a potion of invincibility that for 5d4 minutes, who ever drank it was completely invincible to pretty much anything. The Fighter took off everything but his metal armor and waltzed into an adult red dragon's lair unarmed to steal a magic sword from his loot. He took a couple fire blasts to the face and didn't even acknowledged it lol, and when the dragon full on attacked him, he simply said "stop bothering me". Hahahaha it was great.

[Anonymouswizard]

He wanted a character which had immortality. Now my first thought is "we aren't level 20" but then he described it more, he wanted a character that was immortal....but that's it, no fancy weapon fighting, no super strength, no magic, just immortal. I said no and he was okay with it but this had me thinking, is something like this possible?

That's the hard bit. D&D assumes a baseline competence from all characters (specifically combat competence), and it's hard to remove that.

I could build this character in GURPS, I'm AFB but I think I could manage it on 100CP (Unaging+Unkillable 1 isn't quite complete immortality, but considering the body has to be atomised to kill you it's close enough for a fantasy setting). Could even give them some okayish fighting skills and a bit of social stuff with a couple of drawbacks (not much else though). Could do it in M&M and a couple of other point buy systems, and could mock it up in another handful.

Immortality isn't such a problem. Have the bad guys fight to capture the PCs a lot more and it'll rarely come up, and in many ways 'make a new character' is the least interesting consequence for failure. The problem is that there is no way to have just the immortality and mundane skills without getting fancy weapon fighting, magic, super strength, or something else thanks to the class system.

[TheMoxiousOne]

My immediate thought on this was the boon from the DMG, but there could be a mechanical thing, too. Maybe they have something like the vampire's ability to return to their home when they fall, and rest for 8 hours there to reform, or recover from their previous injuries.

This would mean they don't die of old age, and not die in combat. Maybe there's a drawback, though. Maybe when they reform they don't remember the last 24 hours before their death, so they have to keep a journal and/or have their party come fill them in; this would add a more immersive RP experience and have a drawback incorporated to prevent them from rushing in recklessly.

Though, I feel the need to ask: How or why is this character an immortal, storywise?