Quasi-Immortal PCs


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion


I was noticing something as of late. There are at least two Archetypes for the Witch and Druid that grants a PC something akin to Immortality if played right, of course they can still be killed by specific things such as Death effects though.

Are there any I missed? I noticed the Beast Bond Witch (Allows body hoping as a way of keeping alive) and the Reincarnated Druid (Allows you to reincarnate a day later up to 1 mile from your body.)

I was curious if there were others because it would be fun to possibly play in a part composed of characters who maybe where a little harder to kill. You could give them more challenges higher then they might normally handle or give them social issues of beings who are virtually immortal how do they relate to the changing world around them?

A druid who has reincarnated so many times that they forgot their original form, since they have been 1 of every common race would they have a bias toward their native race if they could remember it? How do they deal when they Reincarnate as a Goblin?

For the witch, do they feel guilt for stealing the form they are in? Do they do this to stay young and beautiful or just to survive?

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Maximilian Gaston wrote:


For the witch, do they feel guilt for stealing the form they are in? Do they do this to stay young and beautiful or just to survive?

Still evil either way. They aren't satisfied with their own life, they're stealing the lives of others.


There's the Monk of the 4 Winds and the Heaven's Oracle.

Additionally there is the psychic bloodline sorcerer that allows you to body swap when killed.


LazarX wrote:
Maximilian Gaston wrote:


For the witch, do they feel guilt for stealing the form they are in? Do they do this to stay young and beautiful or just to survive?

Still evil either way. They aren't satisfied with their own life, they're stealing the lives of others.

If they are stealing the bodies of foes their party would have killed, it would really be a moot point wouldn't it?

Stealing the body of the Orc their party would have killed is at least a painless death compared to what the swords or spells of their compatriots would feel like.


The NPC wrote:

There's the Monk of the 4 Winds and the Heaven's Oracle.

Additionally there is the psychic bloodline sorcerer that allows you to body swap when killed.

Not familiar with those, can you explain?

EDIT: Ok the monk and oracle I see are level 20 abilities. The Witches ability comes at 10th and the Druid at 5th. Anything more playable?


Well, the Grand Hex Forced Reincarnation is almost immortality. You can use on yourself and remove age penalties at the price of two temp negative levels. As an 18th level witch, those should be easy to deal with. You never grow old, and change your body whenever you want.

/cevah


LazarX wrote:
Maximilian Gaston wrote:


For the witch, do they feel guilt for stealing the form they are in? Do they do this to stay young and beautiful or just to survive?

Still evil either way. They aren't satisfied with their own life, they're stealing the lives of others.

In self-defense or to kill someone that deserves to die, it wouldn't be Evil to take their body.


A contingency resurrection should fit the bill for arcane casters.


VRMH wrote:
A contingency resurrection should fit the bill for arcane casters.

As far as I remember, you can't resurrect someone died of old age. So your contingency will work for a time, in case of violent death but nothing more.

Other options
- wizard arcane discovery "Immortality" (level 20 prereq). Self explanatory.

- special templates such as vampire or extraplanar (not aging for some), being construct... but these have a RP counterpart not every PC can handle

All these options open truly interesting RP options but I'm not sure it can fit in a short campaign. Immortal PCs (or ones that have lived a long life before) will have trouble matching in a low level and short campaign I think. Plus being very "old" and still alive, they should have earn more XP and knowledge than an average level 1 PC.


Wizard's have had clone since the CRB's beta. The only "new" thing was getting options before level 15. That's just a few levels past PFS play. It doesn't feel so special put in that perspective.


SRD

Clone wrote:
If the original creature has reached the end of its natural life span (that is, it has died of natural causes), any cloning attempt fails.

Clone does not work for old age death.

SRD

Reincarnate wrote:
The magic of the spell creates an entirely new young adult body for the soul to inhabit from the natural elements at hand.

Reincarnate takes care of old age.

/cevah


http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/prestige-classes/other-paizo/a-b/brightness -seeker

For when you want to be a Somewhat Immortal Dinosaur-Elf


Cevah wrote:

SRD

Clone wrote:
If the original creature has reached the end of its natural life span (that is, it has died of natural causes), any cloning attempt fails.

Clone does not work for old age death.

SRD

Reincarnate wrote:
The magic of the spell creates an entirely new young adult body for the soul to inhabit from the natural elements at hand.

Reincarnate takes care of old age.

/cevah

See a wrinkle, slit your wrists, wake up in the clone of yourself you made when you were in your 20s. Rinse and repeat. You can get millenia out of that spell.


Buri Reborn wrote:
See a wrinkle, slit your wrists, wake up in the clone of yourself you made when you were in your 20s. Rinse and repeat. You can get millenia out of that spell.

I can still see the slow creep of time in that. Because you have to deal with the time span between when you wake up in a clone, and then when you make a replacement clone. So you grow just a bit older each time. Maybe just a few hours, while you prepare the spell, the lab equipment, and the preservatives. But it adds up.

Also, obviously, with millenia, there is eventually going to be an accident. Not even just enemies trying to sabotage- just a basic fire or something. It is just a matter of statistics when you have that much time.

So then, you might get stuck with a middle aged body which you have to clone from. Which pushes up your demise by hundreds of years compared to the 'lose a few hours' method above.

Overall, this seems less like a long term solution, and more of a cheat so that you can study how to gain proper immortality as a level 20 wizard or something.


Oh, there's still a slow creep for sure. This thread is about quasi-immortality, not bona fide immortality. A regular human will get millenia out of it. A half elf will get several. An elf would get tons. I'm just pointing out this is all CRB content and nothing new to the system.


Buri Reborn wrote:
Oh, there's still a slow creep for sure. This thread is about quasi-immortality, not bona fide immortality. A regular human will get millenia out of it. A half elf will get several. An elf would get tons. I'm just pointing out this is all CRB content and nothing new to the system.

So why, given your name, are you championing Clone over Reincarnate?

/cevah


Who's championing anything? I mentioned a spell...


What's funny is if you run a gestalt game tag reincarnated druid on one side for five levels and have a full arcane caster like wizard or Arcanist on the other side and make the liches jelly


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Buri Reborn wrote:
Who's championing anything? I mentioned a spell...

1) There was supposed to be a smiley.

2) Three posts to make one spell mention? Well maybe championing was a bit strong.

:-) :-) :-)

/cevah

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