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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Anubis" data-source="post: 1011297" data-attributes="member: 2358">Ah!  My specialty!  I love Highlander!I regret that I have not built any immortal campaigns as of yet, but the reasoning is simple: most immortals who live past 150 will be epic characters without exception, and some of the most powerful immortals would likely be Level 1000+.Anyway, I'll give my current thoughts about this, but I have to maintain that a D&D campaign and immortals just don't mix very well.There has been much debate about this, and I recently changed my original thoughts on the matter.  Indeed, it can be proven directly that newborn immortals immediately get a boost to Str, Dex, and Con.  In the episode Reasonable Doubt, during the flashback showing Lucas Kagan's first death, his mentor directly states "now you'll be stronger, faster, and better than you could ever have been before" or something to that effect.  I would do this with something small, though, like Str +4, Dex +2, Con +4.  Nothing big.Yep.  Damn Highlander: The Raven for putting such confusion into this!  Amanda is not, was not, and will never be a Highlander, regardless of how many times the Highlander is in her! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" />Okay, I've had my lewd joke for the day . . .Something like that, yeah.  The real power comes from the quickening.It's not easy.  It's very difficult to account for "rust" in D&D, but it plays a huge part in many parts of Highlander (such as when Methos tries to fight Kalas after not fighting for 200 years).  It AIN'T like riding a bicycle, that's for sure.  That would likely be handled by giving a character 1 negative level per decade of not fighting regularly.<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" />You can find "A Kind Of Magic" at most music stores, including Wal-Mart.<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" />Okay, time to get down to business.This is correct.This is only partly correct, and is a problem caused by Highlander: The Raven, although there is still to this day some confusion about these things.Immortals are born immortal, plain and simple.  You either have it or you don't.  This is proven by the fact that immortals can sense others that are not immortal yet.  (The first time this is stated outright is in Rite Of Passage when Duncan explains to Michelle Webster that "he knew all along that this day would eventually come", although astute viewers will notice that Duncan also sensed Richie as well in The Gathering and viewers were led astray by the arrivals of Slan and Connor MacLeod.  In addition, Kurgan sensed Connor MacLeod when they first met on the battlefield.)  I do believe, however, that the head can't be taken before the "first death", which is when the latent immortality is activated.This is where confusion sets in.  Highlander: The Raven stated it when Amanda told Nick about his own immortality, and that is where confusion started.  Unfortunately, this made some people believe that another immortal can possibly make someone immortal, which is not true.  Amanda's first death, however, was to the black plague, so obviously a violent death isn't necessary, just any death other than "natural causes".  If that happens, the immortality never sets in fully.In Joe Dawson's words, "Constantly facing other immortals in combat to the death, the winner takes his enemy's head, and with it, his power.  Power means all physical and mental attributes, along with an ounce of their personality as well.  (Something Wicked shows us what happens when a good immortal takes too many evil immortal heads.)Mechanically speaking, this is why D&D and immortals don't mix.  You see, the only way to simulate taking someone's power is to transfer all levels.  In other words, if a Level 20 immortal kills a Level 10 immortal, the victorious immortal is now Level 30.  An alternative to this, however, is to transfer all feats with the winner having skill ranks and ability scores equal to whoever had the better ranks and scores to begin with, and then give all of the loser's XP to the winner along with the standard XP award.  (This would only curtail rampant level-gaining slightly, though.)Any which way, it's tough.Yeah, the rules of the immortals.  Some of these are honor rules that only the Chaotic Evil and Neutral Evil immortals would break, whereas others are set in stone and can't be violated.Honor Rules:1. Battles must be one-on-one duels.  No ganging up on people.  Even most evil immortals follow this.2. No interference.  Most will follow this, but some (such as Xavier St. Cloud) will ignore this to gain an advantage.Strict Rules:1. You must never kill another immortal on holy ground.  Doing so will most likely cause a cataclysmic reactions within a hundred miles and will also destroy the victorious immortal outright.  (I believe Methos is the one to finally reveal what happens, although it could have been the Watchers.)2. Duncan implies often that immortals can't kill ANYONE on holy ground, but I think sparing mortals on holy ground is an honor thing and not a strict rule.  Only other immortals are truly safe.I explained this one above.  Basically if the winner has 3 ranks of Search and the loser had 5 ranks, the winner should now have 5 ranks.  If the winner had Int 14 and the winner had Int 30, the winner now has Int 30.  If the winner started with 200,000 XP and the loser had 50,000, the winner would have 250,000 plus ay XP gained from the encounter.No only the power of the immortal would matter.  First you have to determine what an immortal gets to begin with.  I would suggest Str +4, Dex +2, Con +4, fast healing 10, and electricity immunity.  Also, nack wounds do not heal.  (Duncan sliced Kalas's throat open and it never healed, destroying his vocal chords and leaving a helluva nasty scar.)  Some would argue that they have disease and poison immunity as well along with regeneration, but this is clearly false.  First off, limbs don't grow back.  (Duncan cut off Xavier St. Cloud's hand and it was gone for good.)  Second, several immortals have fallen prey to poison (mostly sedatives; Xavier St. Cloud used to gas immortals before beheading them, and Amanda was once caught by getting stuck in the neck with a good sedative).  Third, although there is a point where Duncan says "immortal's don't get sick", he contradicts this later when he catches a cold.  If anything, an immortal just can't die from a disease; as soon as it kills him, the disease is gone, and the immortals comes back to life as normal.Oh, and I think the ECL would be CR +1 per head.There are two ways to handle this.  The first and easier, but less Highlander-like way, is to have battles take place normally, and once the immortal is below 0, the winner can flat-out take the head without interference or even a coup de grace attempt.The other way is to have a new mechanic for immortal duels using opposed attack rolls.  This would be more true to the series, of course.  Anyway, with this, on the strike that would put the immortal below 0, that is when they are "disabled" and like crouching or whatever as most immortals do.  If an immortal somehow get's an instant-kill hit as per the DMG variant (roll 20, then 20 again, and then confirm), then it's an instant beheading in the middle of combat.This is a good starting point.  I was planning on having all the Greyhawk deities become immortal and fight until only one remains, and having them fight like immortals, but with deific powers involved, it's a whole new ball game.  (Why use swords at all when you can divine blast another into oblivion and then just lop off the head?)Anyway, hope this input was useful.</blockquote>

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