Immortality and Invulnerability [3.5]

[Emperor Tippy]

I was messing around and came up with a 4 step process to achieve pretty much complete immortality (as in not aging or dieing of old age) and pretty much complete invulnerability (as in not dieing of things like suns going nova).

Step 1: Create a Permanent Prismatic Sphere
Step 2: Use Craft Contingent Spell to create a Contingent Dispel Magic with the activation condition of "My Astral Projection spell is ended in a during a round that I haven't previously said "hop ho endo asto projectiono donko""
Step 3: Cast Astral Projection (while outside the sphere)
Step 4: Travel back to your real body and place it inside of the Prismatic Sphere
Step 5: Cast Temporal Stasis on your physical body.
Step 6: Go adventuring

When your Astral Projection ends, your contingency goes off and dispels the Temporal Stasis and you just recast the spells. Thanks to the Prismatic Sphere's Blue layer your body is impossible to find with divination's. Thanks to the other levels the only way to get to your body after you find the PS is pretty much with a disjunction or a rod of cancellation.

If you want more protection, place AMF traps around your Prismatic Sphere.

[Harperfan7]

Congratulations.

[Milskidasith]

The question is... why couldn't your body just be physically stumbled upon?

[Godskook]

Its not a good approach when they are smart enough to look for where something could be.

[Emperor Tippy]

The question is... why couldn't your body just be physically stumbled upon?

Inside the Prismatic Sphere, which would kill anyone trying to get. The Sphere could be stumbled upon, but that's why you hide it. Where and how depends on the setting and world.

[cheezewizz2000]

Emperor Tippy's 4-step processes. Now with 50% more steps.

You can be killed if the silver chord connecting you to your body is severed. Not sure if you can really go adventuring in astral form, except on the astral plane, unless there's something I've missed.

[Foryn Gilnith]

Hide it in a random, decently-large air pocket left behind in the earth's crust. Or somewhere in Pandemonium, or whatever. Or make your secret underground bunker yourself.

If they kill you long and hard enough you might run out of jacinth or crafting materials, but this seems fairly solid.

In D&D, how do you propose to look for "where something could be"?

[hamishspence]

A deity can use Divine Blast to destroy the sphere- and the body inside.

More defenses are needed than that in a D&D world.

[Milskidasith]

Inside the Prismatic Sphere, which would kill anyone trying to get. The Sphere could be stumbled upon, but that's why you hide it. Where and how depends on the setting and world.

A prismatic sphere is one fortitude save and two will save or dies. Not exactly an autokill.

Also, this just doesn't work.

You can pass into and out of the prismatic sphere and remain near it without harm. However, when you’re inside it, the sphere blocks any attempt to project something through the sphere (including spells). Other creatures that attempt to attack you or pass through suffer the effects of each color, one at a time.

I think that astral projection counts as projecting a spell through the sphere, does it not?

As for how to look for where it could be... you just find all the areas you can't actually divine the info to. Not really hard, though time consuming.

[Emperor Tippy]

Emperor Tippy's 4-step processes. Now with 50% more steps.

It was 4 steps until I decided to lay it out even more precisely.

You can be killed if the silver chord connecting you to your body is severed. Not sure if you can really go adventuring in astral form, except on the astral plane, unless there's something I've missed.

Nope, that's what the Temporal Stasis is for. You are protected.

A deity can use Divine Blast to destroy the sphere- and the body inside.

More defenses are needed than that in a D&D world.

Yes, if a deity want's you dead it requires extreme measures. As in "Kill all of the gods" level.

[Milskidasith]

I'm still pretty sure the silver cord counts as a projection (it is astral projection) preventing you from actually being in a prismatic sphere while you are astrally projecting. Not sure, though.

[Emperor Tippy]

A prismatic sphere is one fortitude save and two will save or dies. Not exactly an autokill.

I wasn't being specific.

Also, this just doesn't work.

I think that astral projection counts as projecting a spell through the sphere, does it not?

That is why you cast Astral Projection from outside of the sphere and then drop your body into it after preparing it.

As for how to look for where it could be... you just find all the areas you can't actually divine the info to. Not really hard, though time consuming.

It would take a very long time and be a pain as the only way to do it is to play 20 questions with a grid map of the world and ask "Are their any locations in this area that you can't find?" And even that is iffy.

[Milskidasith]

That is why you cast Astral Projection from outside of the sphere and then drop your body into it after preparing it.

You are still projecting from inside the field, meaning as soon as you put your body in the field, your astral projection disappears.

It would take a very long time and be a pain as the only way to do it is to play 20 questions with a grid map of the world and ask "Are their any locations in this area that you can't find?" And even that is iffy.

Being "invincible and invulnerable" and being a pain to find by requiring seven spells and another dispel magic cast to destroy your body are not the same thing.

[Glimbur]

Problem with your plan.

[Milskidasith]

So it doesn't work because you can't project through a prismatic sphere (it specifies when your body is inside, so when you enter, it starts working again, and Astral Projection isn't instantaneous, so the projecting is still going on) and even if it did, you aren't really invincible, unfindable (or even hard to find, at that level), or immortal.

Score: People against Tippy: 1. Tippy: Aleph-Null.

[Emperor Tippy]

Problem with your plan.

That's what you use a CL 1 million scroll of Prismatic Sphere for. They can't make the caster level check.

@Milskidasith

Perhaps. Close enough for government work. If you want to be truly invincible you have to start messing around with time.

[Milskidasith]

That's what you use a CL 1 million scroll of Prismatic Sphere for. They can't make the caster level check.

@Milskidasith

Perhaps. Close enough for government work. If you want to be truly invincible you have to start messing around with time.

Wait, if we are using CL 1 million scrolls, aren't we, at this point, so far into epic spells that using non-epic spells is kind of worthless? I mean, at that point, the psion just uses a CL 1 million Dojre (or whatever their scrolls are) of Metafaculty. Or they both start using Epic Spells and in the end we wind up with... the Tippyverse 2: Electric Bugaloo.

[Glimbur]

You can just Wish up any magic item. A CL one million scroll is a magic item. There's some critter (the name escapes me) that auto-makes UMD checks. You can get this ability via Shapechange. So there's your silly Prismatic Sphere.

Have you considered the possibility of your Astral Projected self getting Mindraped or Dominated or similar? Of course you'll have a Mind Blank up, and a Disjunction might also remove you entirely via dispelling the Astral Projection, but there are ways around these things. Shatter Mindblank, for one.

[Indon]

That's a fine phylactery, particularly for the caster that doesn't want that pesky level adjustment.

[Bayar]

There was a paranoid wizard thread somewhere that used most of this plan, but it substituted the sphere with a demiplane, warded against detection, forbidden acces inside even to dieties via magik, wizard surrounded by simulacrums of solars or something, wizard in stasys with astral projection on the material plane going on adventures and the silver thread covered in quintencence. Or so i remember.

[BobVosh]

Is there a reason you don't place your sphere in your permanency mage's sanctum? Or is that just too obvious?

There was a paranoid wizard thread somewhere that used most of this plan, but it substituted the sphere with a demiplane, warded against detection, forbidden acces inside even to dieties via magik, wizard surrounded by simulacrums of solars or something, wizard in stasys with astral projection on the material plane going on adventures and the silver thread covered in quintencence. Or so i remember.

Prior to the level 1 million scroll, this is a fine alternative.

[jindra34]

You do know each color of a prismatic sphere can be dispelled in turn. Thus enabling anyone who found it to eventually crack it and kill you?

[jiriku]

This is good, Tippy! It's a very strong defense. You need more, though. In particular, assuming your sphere can be found (you've ruled out divination, but divination immunity won't protect you from, say, being captured and interrogated until you divulge its location), it's not a strong enough defense for your body. In particular, a caster with a stone golem can simply order the golem to enter the sphere and retrieve anything found within.

Perhaps instead of temporal stasis, you could build a miniature home for yourself, encase it in a sphere of adamantine or something, then use binding (minimus containment) to trap yourself within it. From there you could use astral projection to send a projection of yourself out to adventure. Protecting the sphere imprisoning your original self would still be an issue, however....

Edit: Assuming you can create a truly invulnerable protection for your body, you'd also want to erase your own memories so that even you don't know where it's kept. That way its location can't be pulled from your mind.

[Milskidasith]

Considering he can't project while his body is in the sphere, you have more problems than simply protecting the sphere; the sphere itself cannot exist.

Nothing, however, prevents casting multiple permanent Prismatic Walls into the shape of a cube. RAW rules!

[Myou]

You can just Wish up any magic item. A CL one million scroll is a magic item. There's some critter (the name escapes me) that auto-makes UMD checks. You can get this ability via Shapechange. So there's your silly Prismatic Sphere.

Have you considered the possibility of your Astral Projected self getting Mindraped or Dominated or similar? Of course you'll have a Mind Blank up, and a Disjunction might also remove you entirely via dispelling the Astral Projection, but there are ways around these things. Shatter Mindblank, for one.

But... that doesn't work... that scroll would cost millions of gold....

Wish has a 25k limit. I mean, you can try for more, but you may a well try wishing that the enemy wizard just die of loneliness.

[Gralamin]

Considering he can't project while his body is in the sphere, you have more problems than simply protecting the sphere; the sphere itself cannot exist.

Nothing, however, prevents casting multiple permanent Prismatic Walls into the shape of a cube. RAW rules!

He puts himself inside afterwards. Its part of the fun of being able to pass through your own spheres.

[Foryn Gilnith]

The argument is that the silver cord itself, which must be maintained, is a "projection" and thus cannot pass "through" the sphere.

[Myou]

The argument is that the silver cord itself, which must be maintained, is a "projection" and thus cannot pass "through" the sphere.

I thought the argument was that the entire time the spell is on he's projecting himself, until the spell ends. The cord has nothing to do with that, the spell itself is a projection.

[jiriku]

The argument is that the silver cord itself, which must be maintained, is a "projection" and thus cannot pass "through" the sphere.

I don't know that the rules spell it out, but it seems to me that the cord is a part of the caster's soul/lifeforce. That's why cutting it kills you. Since the cord is part of you, it should pass through the sphere. Of course, I'm committing two cardinal sins here: using logic in an immortality combo, and bringing RAI into the same. I suppose you could just toss yourself into the sphere without actually entering it.

[Milskidasith]

I thought the argument was that the entire time the spell is on he's projecting himself, until the spell ends. The cord has nothing to do with that, the spell itself is a projection.

This is correct. While the cord may be considered something trying to pass through the sphere, the spell itself is centered on your material body, and it cannot be maintained through the prismatic sphere, much like you cannot hide inside it and cast Meteor Swarms or Holy Words or what have you against people outside.

So whether or not the cord counts as part of you for passing through the sphere is, while another possible flaw in the sphere (but not the wall-cube), the main problem is that you can't have any spell on you that affects an area outside the sphere. Then again, project is such a vague word it could be argued either way, but since this is an immortality combo, the extra expense of six prismatic walls over a prismatic sphere can be discounted.