Wishing for Immortality (Unaging actually)?

[gamerprinter]

Making yourself a target...

Don't worry, I've developed a new class of divine assassins for Pathfinder for an upcoming publication, whose sole goal is to eliminate anyone who attempts to unnaturally extending their life beyond their normal limits. I have a goddess of Life whose concern is maintaining the balance and normal extent of life. It is her priests that will hunt you down and put a necessary end to you life!

So you go pursue this unnatural goal of yours, but be alert and keep an eye open when you sleep (now that they know about you...) a divine contract has been placed on your PC's life.

As a GM I do not allow wishes to grant extensions of life, that is too powerful to achieve with a wish. A wish might raise a stat like Strength, but I don't allow it to break classes, spells, abilities or grant extensions in life. You need something much more powerful than a wish to achieve that. I know this vampire...

GP

 

[gerroditus]

As a long time DM and reading the actual query, specifically mentioning that it is only the un-aging aspect being sought, I would say that it's entirely reasonable. It really gives away NOTHING in game terms unless the DM has a game spanning decades at least. My game does do this, but very few DMs follow suit. This is essentially an up-gunned version of the Druid or Monk "Timeless Body" ability. Indeed there are planes that essentially timeless in and of themselves, with zero aging effect for any thing or anyone on them.

Like most items under DM supervision, this one comes down to common sense. The DM simply asks themselves; how much game effect will this have? Overwhelming = Sorry Charlie, it's too much. Otherwise there is no good reason not to let the Player have something from a wish that isn't directly in the rules but that won't disrupt the game.


Isshia

 

[Psychotic Jim]

As a long time DM and reading the actual query, specifically mentioning that it is only the un-aging aspect being sought, I would say that it's entirely reasonable. It really gives away NOTHING in game terms unless the DM has a game spanning decades at least. My game does do this, but very few DMs follow suit. This is essentially an up-gunned version of the Druid or Monk "Timeless Body" ability. Indeed there are planes that essentially timeless in and of themselves, with zero aging effect for any thing or anyone on them.

Like most items under DM supervision, this one comes down to common sense. The DM simply asks themselves; how much game effect will this have? Overwhelming = Sorry Charlie, it's too much. Otherwise there is no good reason not to let the Player have something from a wish that isn't directly in the rules but that won't disrupt the game.


Isshia

I tend to agree with this. There's nothing really mechanically broken about this at all (in fact, going out of your way to do it would just be mostly for rping/in character reasons. The only thing I see that might be an issue is for flavor/dramatic purposes (how much does it take to become unaging?). If a player would to do this in game, I think I'd probably use it as an occasional plot hook or source of drama relating to possible complications of being unaging. But I wouldn’t really set out to screw over a player for something as minor as this barring extraordinary circumstances (like getting a wish from a trapped efreet). In fact, this idea of wishing to not age actually sounds like a fun game/story development idea, pretty cool.

 

[Runestar]

In Lords of Darkness, it mentions that Lord Shadow used wish spells to extend his lifespan, and mentions this process is made easier because he is a shade with a longer lifespan compared to a normal human. So it suggests that wish can be used to replicate the effects of the extended life span epic feat.

Though this means that if you are a race with a rather short lifespan like a human or half orc (compared to elves or dwarves), you get the short end of the stick.

 

[gerroditus]

Again, it all seems like just flavoring. The elves are fairly often referred to various scenarios as "the immortal elves", which they certainly are from a human perspective. The "Epic Feat" that adds a paltry few years to the human life span seems woefully and embarrassingly under powered compared to sooooo many other Epic Feats.

In earlier editions a Wish was the ideal way of pealing back the wrinkles, but D&D 3+ changed things. Really, if you have to stick to canon and dismiss common sense, it should be an artifact level thing, say creating a philosopher stone (or three if you are as nasty a DM as I am....of course the player, who was epic, who did this in my game got a good deal more than simple agelessness for breaking three Philosophers Stones) and using it's core to create an "elixir of life".


Isshia

 

[Kaisoku]

Reincarnate is a 4th level spell that bypasses the aging problem.

It is a spell that needs to be effectively re-cast every so many years to maintain that un-aging effect.

Is it that hard to imagine that a spell 4 levels higher being capable of doing this one thing? It's not even immortality, it's just "no longer aging".

Worse case scenario, you might see some venerable Monks or Druids wanting this Wish.


However, watch out for any Marut's that might be sent your way.

 

[Votan]

Some PRCs have immortality as a perk too. Assuming you don't want to be a lich or an undead there are other options.

I've generally assumed that the existence of Liches (with the implied cost/pain involved required plus gaining all of the vulnerabilities of Undead) suggests that easy work arounds to dying of old age are rare.

I'd also agree that this could easily trigger another spell effect which would do something different than what you'd like . . .

 

[Ryujin]

In the past I've handled this sort of thing by either using change of race, or templating. As others have said, allowing the character to become an Outsider of some sort is a relatively easy way to deal with it, that seems within the power available to a wish. I wouldn't necessarily limit it to native outsiders. Instead I might let the character barter away the ability to be raised for something tangible, like a form of elemental resistance in addition to the standard Outsider abilities.

A Lich gets something that is pretty close to true immortality, in that it can't be destroyed completely unless the phylactory is also destroyed. This is a very large benefit (and weakness), that I could see requiring much more investment than 'just' a wish.

 

[gamerprinter]

For all the reasons described, I don't think Wish is powerful enough to make one ageless. Consider those PrC where agelessness is a one of its features. Are you saying a Wish is equal to qualifying for a prestige class, as well as taking 5 to 10 levels of a prestig class - that's more like 10 wishes.

Also many undead were once living people who sought a means to become ageless. Why go through the trouble, lethal danger, and get all the world's hatred to become undead to achieve this, if a simple wish could get you there. A lich is supposed to put himself at great risk devising the poison, rituals and phylactery to do this - a wish is too easy an out to get around all that.

All of this proves that Wish is too weak a spell to grant even limited immortality. Otherwise nobody would be going through extreme means to become immortal - it would only take a wish.

GP

 

[Ryujin]

... or it proves that Wish isn't an easily accessible spell.