Wedded to History

[Ashtagon]

There seems to be a lot of confusion about this feat, from the Ancient PCs article in Dragon 354. I've taken it on myself to examine it in detail, to understand better exactly what it offers.

(For this post, highlights in blue indicate keywords from that article).

First, the Endless quality. This should be automatic for any character with the Wedded to History feat. Dungeon Masters may optionally make it required for particularly long-lived races, perhaps making it required for all elves, for example. It provides the effect of denying the character ageing bonuses or penalties.


Wedded to History is a 1st level only feat that grants the Endless special quality. It does not justify beginning play at a higher experience level (the article gives several ways to justify this), nor does it grant any particular resistance to dying through illness, accident, or combat (but the background it grants might). It also grants one of the following seven backgrounds.

Apostle of the Forgotten background allows you to cast augury /day.

The Voice of Bitter Experience feat requires Apostle of the Forgotten. It lets you attempt to instil the shaken or frightened conditions on divine casters.

Elder of Legend background grants you a +3 bonus with certain checks against people who know of your history.

The Ancestor feat requires Elder of Legend. It grants attitude and Diplomacy bonus when dealing with your own race.

Golden Ager background grants you a bonus with UMD checks.

The Master's Voice feat requires Golden Ager. It allows you to attempt to give orders to non-intelligent undead and constructs with the UMD skill.

Hand of Prophecy background grants you a +2 bonus in one encounter per day.

The Pawn in the Great Game feat requires Hand of Prophecy. It grants a bonus to resist death attacks and dying.

Survivor background means you don't count as your race when it would be advantageous not to do so.

The Self-Medicating feat requires Survivor. It grants bonuses to healing and the Heal skill when used on yourself.

Throwback background lets you use your Will save in place of the other two, but with a cumulative penalty to Will saves.

The Shuffled Interior feat requires Throwback. It gives a chance to resist critical hits.

Wanderer background grants limited access to all languages (DC 15 Int) and all skills (-2 on trained only skills).

The Pack Rat feat requires Wanderer. It grants you a virtual inventory that you can designate as you need it.




Explaining how you can live forever

Your character might have been born an age ago, but somehow got sent forwards in time, or else frozen in some manner that prevented normal ageing. This applies to Buck Rogers (TV series version), Planet of the Apes, Idiocracy, Sleeper (1973), and The Last Train (TV series). Alternately, the character's personality might live through many bodies, being reincarnated with full memories of past events they lived through (but not trained knowledge of skills etc.).

[MaxiDuRaritry]

I do believe you swapped the effects of Throwback and Survivor.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Wedded to History is a 1st level only feat that grants the Endless special quality.
It does not. Neither the feat itself nor the ancient backgrounds you can choose from grant the Endless quality.

It's not even implied and i'd argue it's not RAI either since several of the backgrounds contradict actually being immortal.
That's supported by the rest of the article talking about ways to be or become immortal to fit the fluff of Wedded to History.

The only RAW way to get the Endless quality without DM fiat is the Kissed by the Ages spell.

[Crichton]

This should be automatic for any character with the Wedded to History feat.


Wedded to History is a 1st level only feat that grants the Endless special quality.




I'm confused. Is this post your proposed homebrew alteration to Wedded to History? There is zero text in that article to imply that the feat would give the Endless quality. Even if there was text that implied it, that's not how feats work.


The feat does exactly and only what is in the actual feat entry's text.


Benefit: You may choose one of the ancient backgrounds described in Ancient PCs, Dragon #354, gaining any special abilities that accompany it.
Special: You can only take this feat at 1st level


None of the Ancient Background options provided give you Endless, either. Just the small mechanical benefit that you've helpfully typed out (though as MaxiDuRaritry mentioned, you mixed a couple of them up)



So again I ask: Are you proposing a homebrew change for your campaign? Because the way you presented this, it looks like you believe the actual text of Wedded to History would give you Endless. It does not.
You started your post by saying there's confusion around this feat, but all you've done is continue to propagate even more confusion around this feat.

[Crake]

It does not. Neither the feat itself nor the ancient backgrounds you can choose from grant the Endless quality.

It's not even implied and i'd argue it's not RAI either since several of the backgrounds contradict actually being immortal.
That's supported by the rest of the article talking about ways to be or become immortal to fit the fluff of Wedded to History.

The only RAW way to get the Endless quality without DM fiat is the Kissed by the Ages spell.


I'm confused. Is this post your proposed homebrew alteration to Wedded to History? There is zero text in that article to imply that the feat would give the Endless quality. Even if there was text that implied it, that's not how feats work.


The feat does exactly and only what is in the actual feat entry's text.




None of the Ancient Background options provided give you Endless, either. Just the small mechanical benefit that you've helpfully typed out (though as MaxiDuRaritry mentioned, you mixed a couple of them up)



So again I ask: Are you proposing a homebrew change for your campaign? Because the way you presented this, it looks like you believe the actual text of Wedded to History would give you Endless. It does not.
You started your post by saying there's confusion around this feat, but all you've done is continue to propagate even more confusion around this feat.

While you're right, the section that describes the endless special quality outright says it's simply a means to codify the nature of immortality for the sake of consistency, if you as DM desire such a thing. The wedded to history feat may not give you the endless special quality in writing, but in so giving you one of the ancient backgrounds, it still does make you, for all intents and purposes, endless, since, after all, there's no way for you to possibly have those ancient backgrounds without having lived for eons.

Honestly, if anything, not having the endless special quality is actually a benefit, because you no longer lose out on aging bonuses.

[Crichton]

While you're right, the section that describes the endless special quality outright says it's simply a means to codify the nature of immortality for the sake of consistency, if you as DM desire such a thing. The wedded to history feat may not give you the endless special quality in writing, but in so giving you one of the ancient backgrounds, it still does make you, for all intents and purposes, endless, since, after all, there's no way for you to possibly have those ancient backgrounds without having lived for eons.

Honestly, if anything, not having the endless special quality is actually a benefit, because you no longer lose out on aging bonuses.

That all makes sense in the fluff of the article.

And yet.

The feat, and its associated Ancient Backgrounds, only give you the mechanical benefits that they list in writing. That's how the rules system works. You don't have any ability or quality until the rules say you do, and you can't do anything the rules don't provide you a means to do. There is no rules text here that would make you ageless, immortal, or Endless (Ex). Thus, you aren't any of those things, with just this feat. Full stop, end of story. The article already gives you a mechanical means of acquiring the Endless quality, so if you want that, then use the means it gives you.

[Kalkra]

While you're right, the section that describes the endless special quality outright says it's simply a means to codify the nature of immortality for the sake of consistency, if you as DM desire such a thing. The wedded to history feat may not give you the endless special quality in writing, but in so giving you one of the ancient backgrounds, it still does make you, for all intents and purposes, endless, since, after all, there's no way for you to possibly have those ancient backgrounds without having lived for eons.

Honestly, if anything, not having the endless special quality is actually a benefit, because you no longer lose out on aging bonuses.

Even fluff-wise, there are plenty of ways you could be that old and still age normally, like being frozen for a while.

[sleepyphoenixx]

RAI seems pretty clear to me that Wedded to History is intended for characters who are already old or somehow skipped past a few millenia and give them mechanical benefits for that, not for people who want to stop aging.

And RAW backs that up. Nowhere in the feat text, the description of the Endless quality and the entire article is it even implied that Wedded to History does that.


Even fluff-wise, there are plenty of ways you could be that old and still age normally, like being frozen for a while.

The article actually spends an entire paragraph discussing that, as well as creatures that simply live long (or indefinitely) like fey, elementals, outsiders and free-willed undead.

[Ashtagon]

I guess this serves me right for trying to take full advantage of the fancy formatting tools. The text ended up becoming so full of formatting code that I couldn't easily read past the code to see the actual text. Couple that with the site having been slow for the past week (don't know why, but I'm sure there's an answer in the admin board here that I haven't looked at). That line about Wedded to History granting Endless was from an early draft that I had intended to remove, but somehow got left behind. Unfortunately, that error made the whole thing kind of gibberish.

[Grim Reader]

Fluffwise, Wedded to History seems to be for a "King asleep in Mountain" type character. Its a myth type with its own designation in the motif index system. King Arthur, asleep in Avalon is the most prominent example of the type. It is said he will return at the nations greatest need. (And probably slaughter all the Saxon blood thats overrun his nation, but hey). But there is a lot of these types. Just the UK has Arthur, Merlin, Thomas the Rymer, no less than two different Owains, Bran, Fion, the Earl of Desmond, the Earl of Kildare, King Harold and Sir Frances Drake.

The US continued the mother countrys fascination with Steve and Buck Rogers. You could use the feat with other characters, elves who have been out of history for a long time, actual immortals etc, but it looks like its mainly intended for characters who have skipped out on a big slice of time.