Explain This To Me...

[Tequila Sunrise]

About once a month, someone starts a thread to ask how to make their PC/NPC immortal by RAW. (Immortality being nothing more than eternal youth.) I don't get this fixation with RAW as it applies to immortality, which is a 100% fluff ability. An immortal character is just as likely to die during a fight than a mortal, so it's not like immortality is BROKENZ. Immortality, and how easy it is to attain, is purely a matter of DM fiat, so explain to me:

If you're the DM, why bother digging through piles of splat material when you can just *snap* your fingers to grant your BBEG immortality? It's not like you're arbitrarily giving your BBEG a bunch of extra HP, attacks, spells or whatever. Immortality doesn't change the campaign finale fight one little bit; it just provides a justification for your BBEG to be a million years old or whatever. And if your BBEG is a spell caster, you've got a built-in justification for immortality, without even having to think about it: they've got magic, which can do anything. Seriously DMs, if you couldn't find a satisfactory method of attaining immortality by RAW would ever not make your BBEG immortal just because of RAW?

If you're a player, why are you asking us how to become immortal rather than asking your DM? I know there are RAW DMs, but these help threads never seem to mention any of those. In any case, most DMs have a bias about immortality: they're either even more stingy than RAW (only undead and gods are immortal!) or they'll allow you to attain immortality with a simple homebrew spell or by questing for the Legendary Fountain of Youth or whatever.

And why, when somebody points out any of these facts in one of these help threads, do most others just keep blathering on about obscure and bizarre methods to achieve immortality by RAW? Admittedly, many of them are amusing but what's with the RAW fixation?

[The Rose Dragon]

Well, which system are we talking about? In M&M, immortality is as easy as a single power point. In Exalted, despite all the epic powers running around, true immortality can only be gained by either becoming an Abyssal or gaining possession of a five-dot manse hearthstone. If I wanted to go and be immortal with only a one-dot manse hearthstone, even though it's a fluff ability, no one would really allow it, since the in-world power is quite clearly defined.

[mikeejimbo]

And in GURPS 4e it's simply the Advantage Unaging (15 points, pB95).

GURPS 3e had a similar Advantage if I recall.

[Yora]

I think most of these people just want to screw with their gm or players.

[Tak]

I've been reading that alot but what RAW mean?

[Kurald Galain]

I've been reading that alot but what RAW mean?

It means the first post is most likely about D&D, which is to my knowledge the only systems where people argue about the minutiae of Rules As Written.

[Yora]

Even lawyers in court don't argue with RAW. They almost always work with Read As Intended, because that's what the judge does.

[Zeta Kai]

People ask because it's a really cool ability in real life, & is a common trope in fiction. In 3E D&D (which I believe is the game system we're discussing), it doesn't make much difference in-game, but as a simulationist system, it falls prey to players & DM's who want to simulate everything. I've only killed a few NPC's with old age, & I can't remember any PC ever dying that way (they've died in just about every other conceivable fashion, but not that way).

As for why it's always RAW, it's because of this: If we're going to allow DM fiat, then the conversation's over. DM fiat is never really about the game, it's about convincing the DM outside of the game, which can be really easy or completely impossible. But regardless of ease, it's not a topic that can be debated here. The only common ground that we on the forums enjoy is the ruleset, as defined by RAW. We can debate RAI, & other interpretations, but RAW is the baseline, & the only thing worth discussing, at least in this context.

[ColdSepp]

Even lawyers in court don't argue with RAW. They almost always work with Read As Intended, because that's what the judge does.

But judges have the authority to do so; no one making the arguments here can claim the same. Thus they have to use RAW, since RAI isn't known and can, generally, never be known.

[Tsotha-lanti]

It means the first post is most likely about D&D, which is to my knowledge the only systems where people argue about the minutiae of Rules As Written.

Insightful! I've never seen arguments about, say, RuneQuest RAW. Or even GURPS RAW...

Is it the size of the game's playerbase, or something about the game itself, that lends D&D to these discussions or arguments?

[Teron]

I blame the bad playtesting and editing of most D&D books for creating a wide divergence between RAI and RAW.

[Keld Denar]

Is it the size of the game's playerbase, or something about the game itself, that lends D&D to these discussions or arguments?

I think its 9/10ths to do with the ambiguity inherent in most of the rules that could be read in a few different ways. D&D makes a lot of simplifications that lead to blanket generalizations that don't model reality well, among other things.

In a game like monopoly, the rules are not subject to interpretation because there is no ambiguity. If you morgage a property, you pay 10% of that value to unmorgage it. You don't negotiate a 5 year adjusable loan, or a 30 year fixed rate, you just pay 10%.

But, in D&D (and possibly other systems that get less press time due to popularity and player base), the rules are much more complex. So complex that you need multiple volumes of books spanning thousands of pages with rules, features, clarifications, and exceptions. When you have that much content, there are bound to be things that are ambigous or unclear, and since no-one knows the exact thoughts of the developer (unless they are that developer, a close contact of that developer, or god) then you can't really comment on RAI. Thus, RAW is the only thing you can really debate off of. You can make observations of RAI, and you may be right, and in some situations, it might be blatently obvious, but that still holds about as much weight in a debate as stating that strawberry is the best flavor of ice cream.

[DragoonWraith]

Insightful! I've never seen arguments about, say, RuneQuest RAW. Or even GURPS RAW...

Is it the size of the game's playerbase, or something about the game itself, that lends D&D to these discussions or arguments?

It's in the design of D&D 3.5, mostly. The game was designed to appeal to a certain demographic that it is interested in rules mastery - which is why, for example, some feats are decidedly inferior to others. The devs wanted to reward people for understanding the rules well enough to know, say, that 3 HP is really not worth a feat.

[lsfreak]

I blame the bad playtesting and editing of most D&D books for creating a wide divergence between RAI and RAW.

There's also a lot of subtleties. Note the difference between special attack, attack, and attack option. Such things need to be looked at closely in order to figure out exactly what it means. However, once you start looking at other things in such a manner, they kind of start to fall apart due to the intricacies of the wording, such as how a beguiler or warmage or dread necro with Versatile Spellcaster can cast spells of a higher level than they should be able to because they now have access to them (by combining two of their highest-level known spells to cast a higher level spell) and therefore now know all the spells of that level.

[graymachine]

Well, the discussion of legal discourse aside, a character gaining immortality could alter the game. In the last game, that has since gone on hiatus, the party fought an evil demi-goddess and won. I was the only player left standing (the rest were polymorphed into objects) and I told the DM that I was reaching out to her dying soul the same way I reach out to steal divine spells every morning (I have Ur-priest levels amongst others.) The outcome was my character absorbing part of her divinity, making me immortal. Then me and my party of objects were scattered to the four corners of the world. Obviously, I want to revive my friends and allies, so this is a long quest. But, I have the option of taking the long view in gathering them; I could talk to the DM about taking a few decades (or centuries) to find them, building power networks and resources along the way. We could simply start play with me casting the spells to turn them back. The DM, however, would have to do a lot of legwork on how the world has changed around us.

This is the biggest thing I think there is about immortality in D&D, and why it's resisted. Play methods can change from the relatively fast paced play of D&D to resemble something more akin to Vampire, or at least how Vampire *should* feel.

[Doc Roc]

What I don't get is why people don't just read the forty other threads using the forum search tool. The answers are comprehensive AND easy.
Other than that, it has some useful and powerful RAW effects, boiling down to a +3 to all mental stats at no real cost, if you can swing it right. That's a bit of a big deal for a primary caster.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

What I don't get is why people don't just read the forty other threads using the forum search tool. The answers are comprehensive AND easy.

Because the Forum search tool doesn't work. I can't remember the last time I used it successfully, and most of the time I remember specific quotes from the threads.

[The Rose Dragon]

Hell, you can know the precise title of the thread, letter by letter, and you still can't get it to work.

How hard can it be to find the thread with "Cobalt Wedding of Bliss" in the title?

[Doc Roc]

This thread comes up on every forum. :: sighs :: WotCO has a stickied Links To Common Threads post. That'd sure be nice here....

Search worked just fine for me.

[lsfreak]

Search worked just fine for me.

No it didn't. It didn't come up with any results older than 2 months.
EDIT: Which isn't all that bad with this topic, but try searching for "batman." Two versions of the original thread are on the forums, neither accessible by the search function.

[Tequila Sunrise]

It's in the design of D&D 3.5, mostly. The game was designed to appeal to a certain demographic that it is interested in rules mastery - which is why, for example, some feats are decidedly inferior to others. The devs wanted to reward people for understanding the rules well enough to know, say, that 3 HP is really not worth a feat.

This must be it. Ya know, it's sad that 3e has at least a dozen ways of gaining immortality but most of them are sickeningly wasteful uses of resources. (See: ELH and Extend Life Span )

And yes, I'm mostly talking about 3e D&D because these help threads always seem to be about that system.

PS Rose Dragon: Thanks for those tidbits about Exalted. Note to self: must acquire a five dot manse!

[erikun]

3.5e D&D has a very "Follow the Rules Darnit" feel to it, with the system stating out virtually everything with your character. A lot of DMs - at least, a lot that I have ran with - feel the need to roll for everything, right down to Balance checks for tying shoes and Climb checks for walking up a flight of stairs.

I wish I was kidding.

As for immortality, some players want it because it's neat. It's the same reason they want to swing around a sword to casts spells through, or animating statues to fight for you, or dual wielding scimitars while flanking with a pet panther. It may not be useful, or even practical, but it's something neat and they want it.

As for DMs, most don't allow it because they think it takes control out of their hands. "By RAW," there is nothing stopping an immortal character from just sitting round until normal old age (gaining +3 to Int/Wis/Cha) or by using their 4 ranks of Profession to work for 10,000 years, and buying every magical item in the DMG at level 1.

Of course, this ignores the DM's ability to veto any background or attempted roll that would disrupt the game. However, as said before, 3.5e has a very "Follow the Rules" mentality, meaning that most DMs won't directly contradict something stated explicitly in the rules - even when it doesn't make sense. (Really, you'd going to keep thousands of gold under your pillow for hundreds of years... and you don't expect anything to happen before you can purchase the kingdom?)

[The Rose Dragon]

PS Rose Dragon: Thanks for those tidbits about Exalted. Note to self: must acquire a five dot manse!

The Rose Dragon.

By the way, if the game is a Sidereal game, you're out of luck - Sidereals are, as agents of destiny, most bound by it, and they all die of old age barring violence and disease, Gem of Immortality or no.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

There are two reasons I can think of:

1) Aging has, for any character dependent on mental scores, a huge benefit and practically no drawback (any caster would gladly sacrifice -6 to physical abilities for a free +3 to mental abilities). In prior editions there were many effects that could age you, getting worse towards higher levels, so being old enough to get those benefits at the beginning of the game was practically a death sentence; in 3e, the only cost of aging is ability score penalties.

2) When DMs say "No, that's way too powerful/'out there'/restricted/etc.", if you can point to several examples in RAW and say "Look, if you are X race or Y class, it's really easy to get" you can show where a particular rule is considered to fall on the balance spectrum. If your DM says "immortality is way too powerful for a starting character" and you can show him the elan, who starts off that way, that opens negotiations for (A) allowing it as fluff, (B) finding a way to get it within the rules, or at least (C) showing that it's not as bad as he thinks and working out a lesser compromise.

[holywhippet]

It's easy to have a PC who is immortal. Ask the DM to let you play a tarrasque. There will probably be a rather large LA involved but you should manage.

[Flickerdart]

There was a thread, posted recently, that lamented the Cleric's inability to resurrect themselves. All that power, and then it's useless once you die. Well, immortality is what makes that not useless. Your character's accomplishments, in the game world, never go away. It's the epitome of a power fantasy. And there's no challenge to getting that fantasy fulfilled without it being solidly grounded in the laws that dictate the game world.

[Jayabalard]

Insightful! I've never seen arguments about, say, RuneQuest RAW. Or even GURPS RAW...

In GURPS, for example, arguing RAW isn't really meaningful. Pretty much everything is optional, and quite a bit is contradictory. My take has always been that the game system isn't complete when you buy it... you need the GM to make a bunch of rulings first.

Is it the size of the game's playerbase, or something about the game itself, that lends D&D to these discussions or arguments?

Personally, I'd go with "something else"... I think the fixation on the RAW is a product of 3.5's playerbase... not the size, but the demographic that WOTC generally is targeting.

[Tequila Sunrise]

However, as said before, 3.5e has a very "Follow the Rules" mentality, meaning that most DMs won't directly contradict something stated explicitly in the rules - even when it doesn't make sense.

What blows my mind is that there is no rule, or even DMG advice, saying "immortality is only attainable via WotC published material." And yet, all these gamers seem to be assuming that there is such a rule/suggestion. But there's no rule to contradict: I don't think anyone would even argue with sobriety that "No, your PC can't start as Venerable" is an unreasonable DM call. All that [relatively] simple immortality requires is 5-10 minutes of homebrewing.

3e certainly is its own beast; I remember reading a 2e passage which read: "Any mage worth his salt can make himself immortal..." Even though there were even less RAW ways to do so than in 3e.

/grognardia

[Doc Roc]

3.5e D&D has a very "Follow the Rules Darnit" feel to it, with the system stating out virtually everything with your character. A lot of DMs - at least, a lot that I have ran with - feel the need to roll for everything, right down to Balance checks for tying shoes and Climb checks for walking up a flight of stairs.

You need a new gm really badly. Really really badly. That's not a function of the system. And take it from a Guru when I say that D&D hits the non-existent middle ground between rules-light and rules-heavy and this is the real root of the problem.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

What blows my mind is that there is no rule, or even DMG advice, saying "immortality is only attainable via WotC published material." And yet, all these gamers seem to be assuming that there is such a rule/suggestion. But there's no rule to contradict: I don't think anyone would even argue with sobriety that "No, your PC can't start as Venerable" is an unreasonable DM call. All that [relatively] simple immortality requires is 5-10 minutes of homebrewing.

Someone is coming here looking for advice. If the DM was willing to give it to them easily, they wouldn't need us. So, we find ways to get it for them that don't require a DM.