|
hello all,
I have a character who is completely vain. He is a Lord of a kingdom ( kingmaker ).
The years are passing quickly, he is approaching middle age and starting to wonder about his legacy. He is Neutral, but lichdom is not a path he would take (vanity)
Is there anything about alternate paths to immortality in pathfinder? Fountains of youth? Special magic items?
I know of the exilir, anything beyond that?
I wish there could be a good version of the lich, say something like an Ascended, a being of positive energy.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Ask druids. They know a lot of stuff other people don't, such as the safest, quickest road to immortality.
http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/spells/reincarnate.html#reincarnate
The only disadvantage is the complete change of appearance. And you might become a kobold, but who cares? You'll live, and if the king tells his most trusted advisors and gets reincarnated in front of witnesses, no one will contest his rule, even if he gets turned into a goblin.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Rite Publishing's 101 9th Level Spells has a spell that grants immortality to a living creature. There is, of course, a catch. The caster must make a DC 30 caster level check. If he succeeds, the target retains a youthful appearance forever. If he fails, the target is still immortal, but appears to get older and older and older as time goes on...
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Have you thought about placing your soul into a magical Item (ex: turning your character into an intelligent weapon). If you put enough of yourself in there your ego score could be high enough to dominate weaker willed individuals.
Perhaps the kings sword that all monarchs of your nation wield is actually the king.
If your character is ridiculously wealthy, he could attempt to purchase a dose of Sun Orchid Elixir every year.
A wish could transform him into some sort of outsider. They don't usually age or die of natural causes.
He could always attempt the Trial of the Starstone.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
vanity=vampire
No, it's not exactly easy to be immortal, and most of the ways that do exist are evil to boot.
Those are the ways I can think off the top of my head that are "official".
Beyond that, you could look into a number of things:
This would require repeated use, of course (I'd say you'd go back to being a young adult), but it should work.
If your character is ridiculously wealthy, he could attempt to purchase a dose of Sun Orchid Elixir every year.
A wish could transform him into some sort of outsider. They don't usually age or die of natural causes.
I actually wanted to mention the second one, but I forgot. So I instead second it. It's probably beyond the power of wish to do this without a chance of failure, but depending on how high you reach, I could see this work.
For LN, an axiomite might work. He could even look just like he did before (in the humanoid shape, that is)
The first one was already covered. I just want to add that you don't actually need it that often. The elixir will restore your youth to that of a young adult. You actually only need it every few decades/centuries (depending on race).
As an additional note, transformation into a fey creature might also work. Some fey have definitive lifespans, some do not. For those with some vanity, fey creatures might be the way to go, as a good number of them are quite attractive.
Finding a way to work yourself into a particularly durable construct body isn't a bad idea either.
Within the ruleset, there just aren't a lot of ways to do it. You'll likely have to get creative.
Don't forget "Steal Life" from the Book of Vile Darkness (3.5)!
It's only an 8th level spell and if you cast it on someone while under a full moon, you get younger--1 week for every ability point drained. If an average person has 8-10 in every ability score, then that's more than a full year per person drained.
Also, it says nothing about having to *kill* a person with the spell to reap the benefits--and it also doesn't say anything about the spell making the victim age. So you could take a death row inmate or one of your trusted advisors, cast the spell on them under a full moon, heal them, rinse and repeat.
Definitely the easiest way I've found to stop aging in its tracks... gotta be evil though ;)
I'm not sure what level you are, but since I don't think it's been mentioned yet:
In 3.5 there was an Epic feat "Extended Lifespan" that could be taken multiple times, that raises your maximum age.
Not true immortality though.
I recently saw someone quote a feat "Eternal Youth" from a book "Epic Feats & Familiars" or something. Epic too, and basicly does what it says on the tin. (requires Extended Lifespan twice as prereq)
It's called the Book of Vile Darkness for a reason. The spell is called "Steal Life" for a reason. Don't try to pretend that it's not a highly evil spell.Don't forget "Steal Life" from the Book of Vile Darkness (3.5)!
It's only an 8th level spell and if you cast it on someone while under a full moon, you get younger--1 week for every ability point drained. If an average person has 8-10 in every ability score, then that's more than a full year per person drained.
Also, it says nothing about having to *kill* a person with the spell to reap the benefits--and it also doesn't say anything about the spell making the victim age. So you could take a death row inmate or one of your trusted advisors, cast the spell on them under a full moon, heal them, rinse and repeat.
Definitely the easiest way I've found to stop aging in its tracks... gotta be evil though ;)
And who did that?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Immortality (Su): At 20th level, a monk of the four winds no longer ages. He remains in his current age category forever. Even if the monk comes to a violent end, he spontaneously reincarnates (as the spell) 24 hours later in a place of his choosing within 20 miles of the place he died. The monk must have visited the place in which he returns back to life at least once. This ability replaces perfect self.
Immortality (Su): At 20th level, a monk of the four winds no longer ages. He remains in his current age category forever. Even if the monk comes to a violent end, he spontaneously reincarnates (as the spell) 24 hours later in a place of his choosing within 20 miles of the place he died. The monk must have visited the place in which he returns back to life at least once. This ability replaces perfect self.
^ what he said
Old school D&D used to have a spell called Magic Jar that allowed a soul to be stored in an object and to be transferred to unwilling host later.
Can't recall if PF has such off the top of my head.
Of course! Magic jar is still around.
How could I have forgotten that? Especially since I was thinking about the Corpse Taker method of immortality, i.e. steal someone else's youthful body. I wanted to bring that up, but could think of no way to accomplish it in Pathfinder.
Magic Jar doesn't seem like a really non-evil thing either.
magic jar has a limited duration, hour/CL I think. I would go with building an Adamantine Golum (sp) and go the intelligent magic item route. You also benefit from an almost indestructible body, most of these other ways don't guarantee that you can't get your throat cut in the night.
|
|
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Bah those are the hard ways, the easiest method for an adventuring monarch to become immortal is to take the living monolith prestige class.
at 10th lvl in that you become immortal with a whole slew of cool powers.
Master Ka Stone (Su)
At 10th level, a living monolith must undergo a final ka stone ritual, replacing his current stone with one worth at least 10,000 gp. Upon completing this ritual, the living monolith becomes immortal. He ceases aging (though any aging effects already accrued remain in place) and becomes immune to energy drain and death effects, though he can still be killed by other means.
Easy class to get into and nice perks every level designed around keeping you from taking any permanent damage. Plus the class by definition is anti-undead so all those groups out to remove the scourge of the undying are on YOUR side.
Immortality (Su): At 20th level, a monk of the four winds no longer ages. He remains in his current age category forever. Even if the monk comes to a violent end, he spontaneously reincarnates (as the spell) 24 hours later in a place of his choosing within 20 miles of the place he died. The monk must have visited the place in which he returns back to life at least once. This ability replaces perfect self.The text for Perfect Self as follows:
Perfect Self
At 20th level, a monk becomes a magical creature. He is forevermore treated as an outsider rather than as a humanoid (or whatever the monk's creature type was) for the purpose of spells and magical effects. Additionally, the monk gains damage reduction 10/chaotic, which allows him to ignore the first 10 points of damage from any attack made by a nonchaotic weapon or by any natural attack made by a creature that doesn't have similar damage reduction. Unlike other outsiders, the monk can still be brought back from the dead as if he were a member of his previous creature type.
No mention of immortality from that passage. All of the things that specify anything like that still carry that disqualifier of the "you're gone when your time is up." type
Note, though, that the monk of the four winds replaces perfect self. Perfect self could specify that it makes you live in unspeakable agony - four winds monks could not care less. As they never get perfect self.
Is there anything about alternate paths to immortality in pathfinder? Fountains of youth? Special magic items?
The rules were not made for that, but as far as I understand the concept of Golarion, there should be plenty ways - I mean, it's a world where a dead drunken guy can best a dungeon and become a god.
Level 20 characters are supposed to be heroes comparable to Herakles.My advice: Work something out with your DM, as long as something sounds cool to everyone involved, do it.
A proper druid won't assist you on that path. It's part of the balance of nature that everything dies in it's time to make way for the new. In fact I'm sure there's an order of Druids who take special interest in such folk.
There are plenty kinds of druids. For example a blighter would be quite the opposite of what I think you mean with "proper druid" - and he only has to find one druid who is ok with immortality, he doesn't have to take a "typical" druid
If your character is ridiculously wealthy, he could attempt to purchase a dose of Sun Orchid Elixir every year.
Sun Orchid Elixir is a quite good idea - especially if you change "ridiculously wealthy" in "able to do a job for the Thuvians or someone who can afford the elixir" (or even "who has an army to invade Thuvia" if we can go away from mr nice guy)
Remember the general rule of logic... if immortality were that easy to obtain, none of the ruling class would ever die.
Yeah, but on the other hand, there aren't that many high leveled characters who can kill higher demons without help
As an additional note, transformation into a fey creature might also work. Some fey have definitive lifespans, some do not. For those with some vanity, fey creatures might be the way to go, as a good number of them are quite attractive.
I like that - in some old irish legends about Banshees (or Bean Sidhe or Baobhan Sidhe) these beings resembled vampires, basically vampire fey, and they looked like beautiful flying humans (vanity fits)
Adding another couple cents in the pot:
1) the Green Star Adept prestige class, from Complete Arcane (3.5) - excerpt of the level 10 abilities: "cannot die of old age and might exist in this form for eons"
2) the Warforged race (Eberron). They have "middle age" stats but none further - and especially no pesky "maximum age".
3) the Killoren race (Races of the Wild). Excerpt: "can live indefinitely should they choose to do so"
I think the magic jar is a good example of a spell that should be allowed to work with permanency.
The GM may allow other spells to be made permanent.
I'm bored, and so in a pique of either remarkable benevolence or serious malignancy I'll sell you the secret to immortality. Won't cost you a dime either. Might cost someone else, but you, nothing.
I'm good for it. Trust me.
*mouthful of fangs*
There is a 3.5 prestige class called Green Star Adept that effectively turns you into a living statue of yourself as it's 10th level ability. Add a hat of disguise and he can look like a living version of himself forever. Plus the class has other abilities to make you nigh indestructible.
Get a friendly Wizard with access to Clone, slather the clone with some Ugent of Timelessness, or Timestop and Wish built into the Cloning system to effectively hold the Cloned bodies in permanent suspended animation.
Undergoing a potent magical ritual, after slaying a Dragon, to gain the Dragon's vitality and extend your life by a decade per age category. Expect many retaliatory attacks from this. Alternatively, have a Wizard use Limited Wish and the Draconis Fundamentum from aforementioned slain wyrm to turn yourself into a Half-Dragon (pay the CR off by 'losing' levels as a side-effect of the quite-likely painful and/or corrupting ritual, and the risk of the now-extremely-pissed-off Dragon's soul attempting to take over your body.)
There was something from Zazyx the Mad (spelling?) that would allow the caster to trap three Outsiders in a special magical device, then drain an 'alignment' from them and transmute the essence into his own body, becoming an Outsider of that same type. From what I remember, it hurt the Outsiders, drained them of XP, but didn't kill them, but I also forget if they broke out, what happened to the caster. A good-aligned person could undergo the transformation, I assume, by utilizing three relatively weak Good Outsiders after swearing a pact to be a tireless servant of Good upon the mortal plane.
Why not create some new magic item that the character can find out about? As has been mentioned, a Fountain of Youth could exist. Mythology is also full of items that confer immortality or eternal youth (ambrosia, nectar, apples, peaches, alchemist stones, and so on). Pick something that might fit into your campaign world and have your character find out about it. This would make a great hook for an adventure.
Yeah, I have a sorceress character in many of my games (usually I GM) that is overall a good person, but she has always been very vain and wanted to stay young. However, she does have the moral compass to avoid undead (in fact, she despises undead and originally I played her in Mage the Ascension, where she would teleport into a room of evil vampires using a rote (spell) that duplicated the Wicked Witch of the West from Wizard of Oz, causing all the vampires in the room to immediately run screaming from the sudden bonfire in the room, then as they cowered, she'd fireball their asses)
During the course of that Mage game, she actually looked into becoming a goddess, but the GM had certain rules gods had to follow, and when she saw that, she was like yeah not gonna happen. So, she looked for other ways.
Personally, I think in most, if not all, games immortality (agelessness) has no game mechanic benefit, it's just roleplay. Now, some have said in a thread on ENWorld that you should be weary of players wanting immortality, because they might be leaving their power hungry ideas out of their explanation.
As some said and I agree though, if it was about power then vampire and lich would be great, cause they give you lots of power.
Also... I advocate that if your human becomes unaging at age 20, then you are 20. When middle age is reached, sure you don't get the physical penalties, but you do NOT get the mental bonuses either. I justify this by saying that just as your body is not aging, nor is your brain. You might learn more, but you are not maturing. You are still a 20 year old. With age comes wisdom, and you are not aging.
IF the mental bonus were granted, it would be ONCE ever.
According to a few anime/manga I've seen (Sayuki in particular) if you kill a thousand demons, or people with demon blood in them, you become a demon yourself.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
In addition to all the stated ones above, assuming some 3.5 stuff is fine,
Pathfinder: Alchemist level 20 grand discovery, somewhat vague, may grant immortality
3.5:
Cloud Anchorite (Frostburn)
This is a monk-ish PrC that grants a climb speed and some other abilities, but the real benefit is the capstone. 10th level Cloud Anchorites no longer have a maximum age. The only problem is no class really complements this PrC very well.
Beloved of Valarian (BoED)
Unusual in that it grants immortality at level 1, this PrC has fairly strict requirements. You have to be a good (exalted, specifically) female with Vow of Chastity and you lose your immortality if your unicorn mount ever dies. You need +7 BAB and the class has its own spell list, so its clearly designed for martial characters.
Incantifier (Dragon 339)
This one is kind of unusual. You need 6th level arcane spells and it costs the same as becomming a lich but there's no level adjustment. You don't become undead so much as static; alive, but without any of the requirements of a living creature. You get immortality at 1st level but lose the ability to heal naturally. You eat magic to heal, either by draining items or absorbing spells through your spell resistance. 3/5 arcane spellcasting.
Honorable Mention
Gray Portrait(champions of ruin or here): Initially only a blank canvas, a gray portrait becomes a picture of the owner after one week. After this time, it magically absorbs all the negative effects of aging and prevents the owner from dying of old age. If the portrait is destroyed, the owner immediately suffers all the negative effects of age and instantly dies if he has outlived his natural lifespan. If the owner is killed by any means, the canvas becomes blank again. Only issue it is a major artifact, so the DM should make this the capstone of a major adventure.
Tasmia's Heart (players guide to faerun) pricey vest that doubles your life span
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Gray Portrait(champions of ruin or here): Initially only a blank canvas, a gray portrait becomes a picture of the owner after one week. After this time, it magically absorbs all the negative effects of aging and prevents the owner from dying of old age. If the portrait is destroyed, the owner immediately suffers all the negative effects of age and instantly dies if he has outlived his natural lifespan. If the owner is killed by any means, the canvas becomes blank again. Only issue it is a major artifact, so the DM should make this the capstone of a major adventure.
Yeaaaah....
No, it's not exactly easy to be immortal, and most of the ways that do exist are evil to boot.
If you allow Psionics Unleashed, let him figure something out that will turn him into an elan. Those guys are effectively immortal. For LN, an axiomite might work. He could even look just like he did before (in the humanoid shape, that is)
Both require a council or committee to "invite" you to be re-made into an Elan or Axiomite, I believe. Such committees are either looking for unusually intelligent humanoids that never got their chance, or reincarnated individuals that end up on Axis for some reason and eventually re-make themselves into Axiomite by themselves. They're not looking to make kings, they're typically looking for self-improvement guys and explorers.
While as a DM it would be interesting to have an epic adventure to Axis or an Elan enclave to ask for immortality, leaving home for such an extended time has problems for the king as well.
Your king would be better looking for scrolls of wish, a genie, or an Alchemist who has had the Grand Discovery of Eternal Youth.
You could leave your body on a timeless plane (such as the astral plane or your own demiplane) and use astral projection to leave your body and go to other planes (where you will form a new body, but your actual body would remain ageless).
Hope the Paradox didn't fireball her right back. Mage the Asencsion games tended to be either one of the most well run or horribly run with very little room in between.Yeah, I have a sorceress character in many of my games (usually I GM) that is overall a good person, but she has always been very vain and wanted to stay young. However, she does have the moral compass to avoid undead (in fact, she despises undead and originally I played her in Mage the Ascension, where she would teleport into a room of evil vampires using a rote (spell) that duplicated the Wicked Witch of the West from Wizard of Oz, causing all the vampires in the room to immediately run screaming from the sudden bonfire in the room, then as they cowered, she'd fireball their asses)
You mean the free Quintessence she gets by converting that paradox with Prime 6? I said she was an archmage in an earlier post. Probably one of the biggest reason we started a new game and retired them. Prime 6 pretty much took away all the balance of the Paradox system by allowing you to convert your paradox points into Quintessence.