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Immortality by 12th Level?!?!?!
- Thread starter Atavar
- Start date
BiggusGeekus
That's Latin for "cool"
Atavar said:
Neat way to summarize the issue. I shall steal this phrase and use it to impress people at cocktail parties.
Joonaibug
First Post
I couldn't in good conscience comment on the new Dragon issue -- seeing as I don't have it -- but the old Planescape Monsterous Compendium seemed to offer plenty of disadvantages to Incantifers.
- For one, your social life goes completely out the window; aside from the fact that they usually appear extremely old and frail, the vast majority of Incantifers are exceedingly paranoid and only really care about devouring other people's magic. Also, the alignment requirement for Incantifers was either Neutral or Evil.
- System-wise (at least, in the old PS setting), Incantifers must absorb spell levels equal to his own experience level every month, or permanently lose a level. That can definitely put a damper on things.
- The process to become an Incantifer, in the old fluff, was pretty dang elaborate, involving dangerous quests spells and rituals that would take years to complete.
- There was also the line which stated, "The DM shouldn't allow player characters to attempt (the transformation into an Incantifer)" -- although, that's obviously a moot point if they just released the PrC in Dragon.
- For one, your social life goes completely out the window; aside from the fact that they usually appear extremely old and frail, the vast majority of Incantifers are exceedingly paranoid and only really care about devouring other people's magic. Also, the alignment requirement for Incantifers was either Neutral or Evil.
- System-wise (at least, in the old PS setting), Incantifers must absorb spell levels equal to his own experience level every month, or permanently lose a level. That can definitely put a damper on things.
- The process to become an Incantifer, in the old fluff, was pretty dang elaborate, involving dangerous quests spells and rituals that would take years to complete.
- There was also the line which stated, "The DM shouldn't allow player characters to attempt (the transformation into an Incantifer)" -- although, that's obviously a moot point if they just released the PrC in Dragon.
cignus_pfaccari
First Post
Joonaibug said:
I let my subscription to Dragon lapse about six months ago, but was able to see the incantifier in this issue.
One of the drawbacks is that you have to sacrifice 120k gp or more to get into the class, which is a significant chunk of change. Without checking wealth guidelines, I'd be surprised if most 12th-level characters would have that available.
And I wouldn't want to be an incantifier facing someone with Orb spells.
Brad
Shemeska
Adventurer
A few comments:
1) The Incantifer PrC removing aging really has no relevant in game effect. It's not likely to be an issue in 99.99% of campaigns.
2) One change I'd make regarding the Incantifers, based on their original flavor, was that as I recall they had to consume a certain amount of magic over a given period of time in order to stay alive.
Now in my campaign I ended up with the PCs entering the maze into which the Incantifers had been condemned, and it was obvious from that start that shortly after they had been mazed, they'd begun to starve and subsequently fallen upon one another in what amounted to magical cannibalism. After several thousand years (I altered the timeline) all that was left of them were two former factors of the Faction, one of them having become a lich and the other surviving off of the souls of the dead and pillaged magic items she was slowly devouring to stay alive.
If you wanted to stay true to the Wanters / Eaters / Magicians / Incantifers you might have the PC have to devour spells, or item charges every so often to stay alive. Again, it wouldn't have terribly much impact in game.
1) The Incantifer PrC removing aging really has no relevant in game effect. It's not likely to be an issue in 99.99% of campaigns.
2) One change I'd make regarding the Incantifers, based on their original flavor, was that as I recall they had to consume a certain amount of magic over a given period of time in order to stay alive.
Now in my campaign I ended up with the PCs entering the maze into which the Incantifers had been condemned, and it was obvious from that start that shortly after they had been mazed, they'd begun to starve and subsequently fallen upon one another in what amounted to magical cannibalism. After several thousand years (I altered the timeline) all that was left of them were two former factors of the Faction, one of them having become a lich and the other surviving off of the souls of the dead and pillaged magic items she was slowly devouring to stay alive.
If you wanted to stay true to the Wanters / Eaters / Magicians / Incantifers you might have the PC have to devour spells, or item charges every so often to stay alive. Again, it wouldn't have terribly much impact in game.
Sejs
First Post
lukelightning said:
Bah, that's not true at all. It's just that all young people are obnoxious idiots, and they become slightly less so as they age. It's more offsetting an inherrent penalty that it is accumulating a bonus.
Anyway, yeah -as others have said: not dying of old age is a complete non-issue. Adventurers never die of old age. Other creatures either have it (Elans, etc) or damn near enough (Elves, etc). And the 'cost' of not healing naturally and not being able to be healed at all other than through a strange magic-consuming mechanic?
For an adventurer: damn high. It's irksome and clumsy and the last thing you want is to have that difficult-to-remove damage stacking up on you over time.
It's seriously Bad News Bears.
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