Reincarnate = Immortality?

[pallandrome]

Say your old Druid is about to die of old age. He scribes a scroll of Reincarnate, hands it to a flinky, and then stabs himself to death. The spell specifically states that the druid returns in a young adult body, only one level worse for wear. By such means could a character live forever?

 

[Jack Simth]

Depends on the DM. Reincarnate is a vaguely-worded spell. Some of the options it has don't list lifespans at all.

Then there's always the dreaded double-00 result. Wherein you come back as mayfly if you've been abusing the system.

 

[Sejs]

Depends on who you ask.

One side of the argument says that the young adult body mentioned in Reincarnate means your lifespan is essentially reset and for that incarnation you use the age categories for whatever creature you came back as. This leads to the Old Druids Never Go Away conclusion.

The other side of the argument references abilities like Timeless Body that state regardless of the fact that your body's no longer deteriorating, you still die when your natural time is up. This leads to the Dead Of Old Age At 24 conclusion.

My personal take is that old druids never go away. It can lead to some interesting in-game consequences (secretive circles of elder druids reincarnating one another throughout the ages), and for most games is a non-issue as far as balance is concerned. Adventurers never die of old age anyway.

 

[Cedric]

I think the aging rules are contrived and forced. It seems like a heavy handed mechanism just shoe horned into the system for a sense of balance since there are no level caps really.

So, I just pretty much ignore the aging rules.

 

[silentspace]

I'd say immortality. I don't have any backup in the rules for this, but in non-game parlance, reincarnation generally means that your soul/spirit is immortal.

 

[frankthedm]

Lose a level and randomly pop back into a body that might slap you with an ECL and racial HD depending on how the dm rules it? It will be a long time before seeing another level in that case.

A wish or a miracle spell can restore a reincarnated character to his or her original form.

That "original form" might cost you any perma-buffs, level up ability score increases and any inherant bonus acrued since that first death. And most likely 'restores' the original character age.

 

[pallandrome]

Lose a level and randomly pop back into a body that might slap you with an ECL and racial HD depending on how the dm rules it? It will be a long time before seeing another level in that case.

A wish or a miracle spell can restore a reincarnated character to his or her original form.

That "original form" might cost you any perma-buffs, level up ability score increases and any inherant bonus acrued since that first death. And most likely 'restores' the original character age.

Oh so true. Still, if you've only got a few days left in the old meat-sack, the trade in option looks pretty nice.

 

[Jack Simth]

Let's see... with the standard Reincarnate listing, there is....

an 83% chance of a PHB race (Dwarf, Elf, Gnome, Half-Elf, Half-Orc, Halfling, Human),
a 12% chance of an LA +0 non-PHB race (Orc, Kobold, Goblin),
a 4% chance of somthing with racial HD and a level adjustment (Bugbear, Gnoll, Lizardfolk, Troglodite),
and a 1% chance of a critter of complete DM fiat.

So basically, you've got a 95% chance of avoiding any and all LA and racial HD from Reincarnate.

What's really fun, though, it's that it's a young adult body, and your mind is mostly untouched; if you get Reincarnated just after hitting Venerable, you argueably keep the +3 to all mental stats (as they are unchanged) while losing the -6 to all physical stats (as it's a young adult body) from age... not that a high-level druid needs to worry about physical stat loss.

 

[frankthedm]

What's really fun, though, it's that it's a young adult body, and your mind is mostly untouched; if you get Reincarnated just after hitting Venerable, you argueably keep the +3 to all mental stats (as they are unchanged) while losing the -6 to all physical stats (as it's a young adult body) from age... not that a high-level druid needs to worry about physical stat loss.

Those age adjustments are still arguably race based. Also it could be argued all racial modiiers are lost, while only Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution are gained from the new race.

Its class, base attack bonus, base save bonuses, and hit points are unchanged. Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution scores depend partly on the new body. First eliminate the subject’s racial adjustments (since it is no longer of his previous race) and then apply the adjustments found below to its remaining ability scores.

 

[Jack Simth]

Those age adjustments are still arguably race based. Also it could be argued all racial modiiers are lost, while only Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution are gained from the new race.

Its class, base attack bonus, base save bonuses, and hit points are unchanged. Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution scores depend partly on the new body. First eliminate the subject’s racial adjustments (since it is no longer of his previous race) and then apply the adjustments found below to its remaining ability scores.

As I said - argueably.

Consider, though, the context:

Its class, base attack bonus, base save bonuses, and hit points are unchanged. Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution scores depend partly on the new body. First eliminate the subject’s racial adjustments (since it is no longer of his previous race) and then apply the adjustments found below to its remaining ability scores.

(Emphasis added)

It could be argued that with the underlined sentence saying that the physical ability scores depend on partly on the new body, but not saying how, that the next sentence is actually a continuation of the idea of the underlined sentence, and only applies to the Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution scores.

Of course, if you're eliminating adjustments from mental ability scores, and then adding physical only, you get some... interesting... results when you turn into something after having been an orc in the previous Reincarnation: When you leave Orc (even if you go back to Orc) you lose the Int, Wis, and Cha penalty, so each of your mental stats go up by 2, each and every time you are Reincarnated from an Orc. Ditto for any of the other races that have penalties to mental stats. As none of those listed have any bonuses to mental stats, if you keep getting reincarnated (and getting the lost level back via experience) you would theoretically keep getting smarter, wiser, and more charismatic as time went on.