I intend to live FOREVER! (2 Wizard feats)

[rferries]

Some wizards distill draughts of life-giving elixirs in pursuit of immortality. Others transform themselves into hideous aberrations! 0.0

Now, I'm sure some of the prerequisites should be harder, especially for Transmogrify Self (wizard levels can be bumped up, more feat taxes can be added...). Any suggestions? Animal Affinity for animals/fey/magical beasts, magical aptitude for dragons/fey/outsiders, etc?

Brew Elixir of Life
You have discovered the fountain of youth in your own laboratory.

Prerequisites
Brew Potion, Craft (alchemy) 9 ranks, Spellcraft 9 ranks, wizard level 6th.

Benefits
After painstaking research and a laborious distillation process in your laboratory, you were able to produce and drink one dose of the fabled elixir of life, granting you several powerful benefits.

Eternal Youth: You now ignore aging penalties to your physical ability scores and cannot be magically aged. You continue to accrue aging bonuses to your mental ability scores, up to the maximum of +3 to each score.

Eternal Life: You have no maximum age. Whenever you fail a saving throw to remove a negative level, it does not result in actual level loss. Instead, the negative level persists for another 24 hours (after which you may make another save, repeating this process indefinitely).

Eternal Vitality: You naturally heal hit points and ability damage every hour rather than every day. You may naturally heal ability drain as though it were ability damage.

Special
You are free to brew additional doses of the elixir, but they provide no additional benefits to you. Furthermore, the elixir was tailored to your precise metabolism and therefore provides no benefits to other creatures who drink it.

Whenever you are killed, your corpse benefits from a constant innate gentle repose effect. Whenever you are restored to life, level loss or Constitution loss you suffer from being raised are instead converted to negative levels or Constitution drain, respectively.

Transmogrify Self
Through magical research you have transformed yourself into a non-humanoid creature, and thereby become immortal.

Prerequisites
Endurance, Toughness, Spellcraft 9 ranks, plus special (see below).

Choose one of the creature types listed below. If you possess the appropriate wizard level, Knowledge ranks, and feats, your type changes to that creature type. Increase your Hit Dice, base attack bonus, saves, and skill points to match the features of that type. You gain the traits of that creature type in addition to your original racial traits.

Type	Wizard Level	Knowledge Ranks	Feats
Aberration	6th	Dungeoneering 9	Iron Will
Animal1	6th	Nature 9	Great Fortitude, Lightning Reflexes
Construct2	15th	Arcana 18	Craft Construct, Craft Magic Arms and Armour
Dragon	18th	Arcana 21	Iron Will, Great Fortitude, Lightning Reflexes
Elemental (air, fire)3	15th	The Planes 18	Lightning Reflexes
Elemental (earth, water)3	15th	The Planes 18	Great Fortitude
Fey	9th	Nature 12	Iron Will, Lightning Reflexes
Giant4	6th	Local 9	-
Humanoid5	9th	Nature 12	Great Fortitude
Magical Beast	12th	Arcana 15	Great Fortitude, Lightning Reflexes
Monstrous Humanoid	12th	Nature 15	Iron Will, Lightning Reflexes
Ooze6	15th	Dungeoneering 18	Blind-Fight
Outsider7	18th	The Planes 21	Iron Will, Great Fortitude, Lightning Reflexes
Plant	15th	Nature 18	Great Fortitude
Undead	15th	Religion 18	Iron Will
Vermin6	6th	Nature 9	Great Fortitude

¹Do not alter your features or traits as described above. Instead, you gain the lycanthrope template of your choice. You are treated as a hybrid lycanthrope, and gain the appropriate alignment.
²You may still heal naturally.
³You gain the appropriate elemental subtype (air, earth, fire, or water).
⁴You gain the powerful build special quality.
⁵Do not alter your features or traits as described above. Instead, choose a different humanoid race and gain all the traits (including level adjustment) of that race.
⁶You do not gain the mindless special quality.
⁷You gain the native subtype, plus any alignment subtypes that match your alignment (chaotic, good, evil, and lawful).

Regardless of whatever creature type you transform yourself into, you have designed the transformation such that your new form will survive indefinitely. You no longer have a maximum age, though you continue to accrue aging modifiers to your ability scores as normal for your original race (up to the venerable category).

You gain the augmented subtype.

Incorporeal Transmogrification
You are now a ghostly undead.

Prerequisites
Undead, Cha 12.

Benefits
You gain the incorporeal subtype. You gain the manifestation special quality, as a ghost.

Swarm Transmogrification
Your body breaks down into an animate mass of vermin.

Prerequisites
Vermin, Character level 12th.

Benefits
You gain the swarm subtype, including a swarm attack and the distraction special attack. Your swarm attack automatically deals damage as a swarm of your Hit Dice to all creatures within your reach. You are considered to be made up of Tiny creatures.

[Debihuman]

How often do PCs become undead in your campaigns? Sorta takes the fun out of DMing if you can't make a PC undead for a least a little while. Though there are still ways to be utterly annihilated without becoming undead. I don't at all understand how becoming a non-Humanoid makes you immortal. Most creature types aren't immortal.

Debby

[khadgar567]

6tth level imortality looks iffy in my book and around that level its not hard to order a wizard to brew you a one if you are sufficently powerful

[dethkruzer]

Yeah, immortality at 6th will seem like a great idea up until you find a Marut knocking on your door. These are both really powerful. I'd put at least one or two more feat tax on elixir of life, as well as an actual cost in money and time to brew it.

Transmogrify Self is similarly troubling, but it also makes me question: Why would turning yourself into a Giant or Vermin make you immortal?

[rferries]

How often do PCs become undead in your campaigns? Sorta takes the fun out of DMing if you can't make a PC undead for a least a little while. Though there are still ways to be utterly annihilated without becoming undead. I don't at all understand how becoming a non-Humanoid makes you immortal. Most creature types aren't immortal.

Debby

Brew Elixir of Life
The "can't become undead" thing was just a bit of flavour, i.e. your life-force is so strong/you're so imbued with positive energy that negative energy can't corrupt your remains. However I'm reminded of Death Becomes Her (the film) now; the elixir in that film granted both life AND undeath so I've deleted the "can't become undead line".

Transmogrify Self
Yeah the immortality was just for flavour - all those mad scientists in B movies who transform themselves into non-human creatures by accident (or intent) when seeking immortality. I feel "spirits" (fey, outsiders, elementals) should be immortal, and other magical creatures (magical beasts, dragons, etc.) are often portrayed as being immortal in fiction. That just leaves animals (lycanthropes), humanoids and vermin, and I threw in immortality for them for the heck of it.

6tth level imortality looks iffy in my book and around that level its not hard to order a wizard to brew you a one if you are sufficently powerful

The feat specifically can't be used to benefit anyone but yourself.

Yeah, immortality at 6th will seem like a great idea up until you find a Marut knocking on your door. These are both really powerful. I'd put at least one or two more feat tax on elixir of life, as well as an actual cost in money and time to brew it.

Transmogrify Self is similarly troubling, but it also makes me question: Why would turning yourself into a Giant or Vermin make you immortal?

Immortality itself is just a flavour thing, rarely impacting combat. The other benefits of Brew Elixir of Life are inferior to an item of death ward, and I feel investing a feat (plus prerequisites) is sufficient to gain such benefits.

Transmogrify Self gets you powerful benefits (BAB, saves, skill points, HD, the ability to take type-specific feats, immunities, etc.) but you have to invest much of your build into getting them. Giants in lore can be handwaved as being immortal, same with the magical kind of vermin you turn into.

If the immortality thing is really bugging people for certain creature types I can edit it, or remove it entirely, but it really is just for flavour. I've expanded the line in Transmogrify Self a bit.

EDIT: I should note that my inspiration for these immortality feats were alchemy (elixir of life), and liches/worms that walk (undead and aberrations/vermin, which expanded into all the options of Transmogrify Self for completeness' sake).

[Quarian Rex]

I like the idea of this but I have to agree that such early access to immortality is a problem, just not in the way you might think. The pre-reqs for the Elixir of Life should be bumped up to @15th level, not because life extension is overpowered (it isn't, you're right it is mainly a fluff thing though you do add a lot of very strong buffs) but because it means that any world that has this feat will never have any liches.

Lichdom is the main way for impatient arcanists to become trans-human and that comes online at 11th level. It is a powerful option but one that has many downsides that are well known in the wizarding community. An option to get immortality and still be able to enjoy earthly pleasures should become available late enough that lichdom is still a temptation.

Similarly I would remove the undead option from Transmogrify Self. The undead usually have the conversion aspect well covered.

The longevity aspect of Transmogrify Self could be addressed by saying that as part of the ritual you gain the ability to halt physical aging on yourself if you eat a member of your new species (once a year/month? Not sure). Not all in one sitting, but you have to eat a whole one. That way this would be an earlier access option that is distasteful and requires unpleasant upkeep and so is a less attractive option. Also would introduce some interesting choices for the player, like basing their transmogrified form on what will be easiest to eat and not what will give them the most power. This would let you lower the requirements on some of the forms as well (dragon doesn't deserve to be epic, just specify that you aren't a 'True' dragon, and humanoids can definitely be dropped down to 6th, etc.). That could lead to some interesting story options as well, such as all of the mid to high level druids in your campaign being transmogrified were-animals as a form of druidic lichdom that lets them maintain a balance with nature (only needing to hunt/eat animals).

Thoughts?

[rferries]

I like the idea of this but I have to agree that such early access to immortality is a problem, just not in the way you might think. The pre-reqs for the Elixir of Life should be bumped up to @15th level, not because life extension is overpowered (it isn't, you're right it is mainly a fluff thing though you do add a lot of very strong buffs) but because it means that any world that has this feat will never have any liches.

Lichdom is the main way for impatient arcanists to become trans-human and that comes online at 11th level. It is a powerful option but one that has many downsides that are well known in the wizarding community. An option to get immortality and still be able to enjoy earthly pleasures should become available late enough that lichdom is still a temptation.

Similarly I would remove the undead option from Transmogrify Self. The undead usually have the conversion aspect well covered.

The longevity aspect of Transmogrify Self could be addressed by saying that as part of the ritual you gain the ability to halt physical aging on yourself if you eat a member of your new species (once a year/month? Not sure). Not all in one sitting, but you have to eat a whole one. That way this would be an earlier access option that is distasteful and requires unpleasant upkeep and so is a less attractive option. Also would introduce some interesting choices for the player, like basing their transmogrified form on what will be easiest to eat and not what will give them the most power. This would let you lower the requirements on some of the forms as well (dragon doesn't deserve to be epic, just specify that you aren't a 'True' dragon, and humanoids can definitely be dropped down to 6th, etc.). That could lead to some interesting story options as well, such as all of the mid to high level druids in your campaign being transmogrified were-animals as a form of druidic lichdom that lets them maintain a balance with nature (only needing to hunt/eat animals).

Thoughts?

You make some very salient points, but I think it's fine as it is. Lichdom provides many benefits over either of these feats (namely, a better form of immortality via a phylactery). With these feats you're immune to old age, but if you're killed you don't have a phylactery to bring you back.

The undead option from Transmogrify Self can be thought of as a way to access Necropolitan simply through your build. I agree that it (and animal, humanoid, etc) are od choices to include but I have them there just to be thorough with the list of creature types.

I LOVE the idea of staying alive by cannibalising sentient creatures! I'll keep the feat as an independent method, but your idea could be incorporated into a different feat or even an [Evil] spell/ritual. The druid idea is a very clever way to mix "undeath" with nature, in a way that makes sense for them :)