Originally posted by KnightLamune:
Well... I've been away so long even my accounts have died... huh...
Anyway, 'ello!
Was having a bit of a discussion with a few members of our old tabletop group last night, and one of them mentioned reading a character class that could raise itself from the dead. That was about it, though... no idea where it was from.
I've spent a bit of time looking on my own and found a PrC from out of a Dragon Mag called the Deathstalker of Bhaal. PThis was the only "mostly official" class, though... with some random stuff that looked like it was player-created and not from any official splats.I ran into one that rez'd in 1d4 days, but now I can't find it again. That looked player-made too.
So... does a self-ressurecting class exist? (Or perhaps a race?) Any world, any edition, as long as it's "official."
Or perhaps a specific trick with magic that would make it work?
Thanks,
Lamune
Originally posted by Tempest_Stormwind:
There's a few, most dramatically the Jade Phoenix Mage (which actually blows itself up in the process, then comes back) and the Sand Shaper (which isn't usable in combat and only works in desert locations, but can't really be stopped). There's also several others that include "cheat death" style effects, such as the Teflammar Shadowlord (the wording on this ability is somewhat similar to Firey Discorporation, except with shadow instead of fire).
Racially, all that's coming to mind is the Phoelarch (MM3, I think), but that's not exactly true resurrection (except in its bird form, but the bird isn't exactly playable). The classic lich and ghost also count, but those are templates.
You can also use Contingency set to a Revivify spell (or, more realistically, any of the big emergency healing spells) to accomplish much the same thing with any full caster capable of casting such things. Once you open this to spells, there's any number of ways to achieve this and nearly as many possible effects, so we'd need to know some limits to help sculpt this answer for you.
Originally posted by Slagger_the_Chuul:
Do we count things like the Walker in the Waste (who becomes a dry lich) or are we excluding undead since they're technically not alive even after coming back.
With DM agreement, it can also potentially be handled through flavour: "My new elven wizard is actually my old elven wizard returned through a secret magic ritual". Just the D&D version of respawning with the same character setup.
Originally posted by piggyknowles:
Death Delver's capstone, Nine Lives, lets you survive dying from HP damage up to nine times, but doesn't technically resurrect you.
Originally posted by KnightLamune:
There is no specific build even in mind yet, so it's all hypothetical at the moment... it was just one of those "this can happen, right...?" scenarios that came up discussing past and future games.
The Jade Phoenix looks neat. The Emerald Immolation ability is pretty nifty indeed, but they don't really come back to life if they are to die involuntarily, do they? The passage about the spirit moving on and reincarnating into another body doesn't read to me as in-game mechanic. I saw that as more of the whole "avatar being reborn..." kind of existance.
The Sand Shaper is one I did come across, now that I look at it again. It wasn't as automatic as the Deathstalker with the whole needing-to-be-covered thing. I don't think it's possible to look at one and not say "Isn't that a Naruto character...?" but I'm not going to hold that against them.
That does seem to fit the bill. In a desert environment, without some special care taken to desecrate the burial to deliberately prevent the ability... that does indeed look like a pretty solid self-res.
I'm definately going to track down a copy of Sandstorm. I've never seen that tome before, and it looks like it has a lot of interesting material in it.
I'll look into the Teflammar when I can dig up the source text, but that Fiery Discorporation is pretty interesting, too. I've neglected psionics... in the last twenty years I've been playing we've only had a DM allow them once, and even that was just enough to make a Soul Knife to work. So that opens up the what-if scenario considerably...
Thank you for all the suggestions so far. There is just so much material spanning such an overwelming collection of publications (including all the Dragon magazines) that I wanted to expand my search. This has been quite helpful.
Originally posted by Tempest_Stormwind:
(Also, you might want to google "DNDtools".)
EDIT: I forgot to mention, psionics also includes the Astral Seed power, which for everyone but you is functionally the same as you dying and self-resurrecting later (it operates similarly to a lich phylactery except you're very much alive and have to update it from time to time). I didn't mention it earlier because it's basically psionics' answer to Clone, which doesn't feel anywhere near as much like a resurrection.
Originally posted by awaken_D_M_golem:
One of the very last articles for 3.X was about using a 4e Epic Destiny on a build. Unfortunately that's gone wayback on us; like lots of things. Simply put you lose your levels 12, 15 and 18 feat slots, and gain a 4e epic destiny's level 21, 24 and 26 abilities at those points, the level 30 at level 20, and the quest completion at level 21. Of course this wasn't really well thought out (wink). Anyway ... dumpster dive for good times. Almost every EpicD has a near self rez type ability.
Originally posted by Tempest_Stormwind:
Originally posted by awaken_D_M_golem:
Sweet.
Yeah, I was shorthanding as usual.
You can go Epic in Epic if you insist,
but you can go "epic" well before that.
(wink)
'Course you then have to open a pile of 4e books.
And go which ones of these are not not like the others.
Well... I've been away so long even my accounts have died... huh...
Anyway, 'ello!
Was having a bit of a discussion with a few members of our old tabletop group last night, and one of them mentioned reading a character class that could raise itself from the dead. That was about it, though... no idea where it was from.
I've spent a bit of time looking on my own and found a PrC from out of a Dragon Mag called the Deathstalker of Bhaal. PThis was the only "mostly official" class, though... with some random stuff that looked like it was player-created and not from any official splats.I ran into one that rez'd in 1d4 days, but now I can't find it again. That looked player-made too.
So... does a self-ressurecting class exist? (Or perhaps a race?) Any world, any edition, as long as it's "official."
Or perhaps a specific trick with magic that would make it work?
Thanks,
Lamune
Originally posted by Tempest_Stormwind:
There's a few, most dramatically the Jade Phoenix Mage (which actually blows itself up in the process, then comes back) and the Sand Shaper (which isn't usable in combat and only works in desert locations, but can't really be stopped). There's also several others that include "cheat death" style effects, such as the Teflammar Shadowlord (the wording on this ability is somewhat similar to Firey Discorporation, except with shadow instead of fire).
Racially, all that's coming to mind is the Phoelarch (MM3, I think), but that's not exactly true resurrection (except in its bird form, but the bird isn't exactly playable). The classic lich and ghost also count, but those are templates.
You can also use Contingency set to a Revivify spell (or, more realistically, any of the big emergency healing spells) to accomplish much the same thing with any full caster capable of casting such things. Once you open this to spells, there's any number of ways to achieve this and nearly as many possible effects, so we'd need to know some limits to help sculpt this answer for you.
Originally posted by Slagger_the_Chuul:
Do we count things like the Walker in the Waste (who becomes a dry lich) or are we excluding undead since they're technically not alive even after coming back.
With DM agreement, it can also potentially be handled through flavour: "My new elven wizard is actually my old elven wizard returned through a secret magic ritual". Just the D&D version of respawning with the same character setup.
Originally posted by piggyknowles:
Death Delver's capstone, Nine Lives, lets you survive dying from HP damage up to nine times, but doesn't technically resurrect you.
Originally posted by KnightLamune:
True. Spells probably opens it up too much. Between artifacts and continginecy effects one can easily reproduce the effect with enough gold. I was thinking more abilities more inherant or natural to the class. So the Deathstalker of Bhaal fit the bill, even if they were murderously insane. That didn't disqualify them.
There is no specific build even in mind yet, so it's all hypothetical at the moment... it was just one of those "this can happen, right...?" scenarios that came up discussing past and future games.
The Jade Phoenix looks neat. The Emerald Immolation ability is pretty nifty indeed, but they don't really come back to life if they are to die involuntarily, do they? The passage about the spirit moving on and reincarnating into another body doesn't read to me as in-game mechanic. I saw that as more of the whole "avatar being reborn..." kind of existance.
The Sand Shaper is one I did come across, now that I look at it again. It wasn't as automatic as the Deathstalker with the whole needing-to-be-covered thing. I don't think it's possible to look at one and not say "Isn't that a Naruto character...?" but I'm not going to hold that against them.
I'm definately going to track down a copy of Sandstorm. I've never seen that tome before, and it looks like it has a lot of interesting material in it.
I'll look into the Teflammar when I can dig up the source text, but that Fiery Discorporation is pretty interesting, too. I've neglected psionics... in the last twenty years I've been playing we've only had a DM allow them once, and even that was just enough to make a Soul Knife to work. So that opens up the what-if scenario considerably...
I wasn't considering lich as a res-type. Yeah, they can't really be killed... but they're already dead. So, my bad... probably should have been more specific on that one, too.Slagger_the_Chuul wrote
I like the suggestion, but you're also not technically dying either.piggyknowles wrote
Thank you for all the suggestions so far. There is just so much material spanning such an overwelming collection of publications (including all the Dragon magazines) that I wanted to expand my search. This has been quite helpful.
Originally posted by Tempest_Stormwind:
True, the JPM lacks a revive-if-slain ability; Immolation was just the first that came to mind. It won't, say, allow you to pull off Transcend Mortality hijinks, which is probably up there on the list of things that kill you that you might want to actually do.
You've missed out. 3.5 psionics is quite simply the best spellcasting system to come out of the edition. Unless you consider the Tome of Battle to be spellcasting, which it isn't (but it's still aweseomesauce).
(Also, you might want to google "DNDtools".)
EDIT: I forgot to mention, psionics also includes the Astral Seed power, which for everyone but you is functionally the same as you dying and self-resurrecting later (it operates similarly to a lich phylactery except you're very much alive and have to update it from time to time). I didn't mention it earlier because it's basically psionics' answer to Clone, which doesn't feel anywhere near as much like a resurrection.
Originally posted by awaken_D_M_golem:
One of the very last articles for 3.X was about using a 4e Epic Destiny on a build. Unfortunately that's gone wayback on us; like lots of things. Simply put you lose your levels 12, 15 and 18 feat slots, and gain a 4e epic destiny's level 21, 24 and 26 abilities at those points, the level 30 at level 20, and the quest completion at level 21. Of course this wasn't really well thought out (wink). Anyway ... dumpster dive for good times. Almost every EpicD has a near self rez type ability.
Originally posted by Tempest_Stormwind:
....Actually, I saved a PDF of it. You're describing the Variant: Non-Epic Destinies at the end of the file; normally they really do show up at the same timing points they did in 4e, but if you were waiting until 27th level for a revive, you're not familiar with what 3.5 can actually do.
Originally posted by awaken_D_M_golem:
Sweet.
Yeah, I was shorthanding as usual.
You can go Epic in Epic if you insist,
but you can go "epic" well before that.
(wink)
'Course you then have to open a pile of 4e books.
And go which ones of these are not not like the others.
