Hello D&D Beyond community! This is my first post here.
I have a question regarding immortality in 5E. I have been doing lots of research to make an immortal character for my campaign, and many people seem to talk about longevity or immunity to diseases, some say that if you get a character with high enough AC you can be unkillable. But my situation is rather different. I am to play as a Tabaxi who was granted the curse of immortality by his god, so he saw all his family and friends eventually die, and failed to kill himself many times. That is his curse to bear, and i am trying to justify it by some trait, path, or boon. It's not about making it game breaking, but give a nice role play to the session. And also not about making the character unkillable, but rather giving it tools to cheat death.
Basically, i need to create a character that can escape death or have advantage on death saving throws as if he can't be killed due to a curse. I was heading towards the 'true immortality' boon, but i wasn't convinced, since that would mean he has to die to be reborn the next day.
"Immortality" is tricky to do without being unbalanced, especially at low level.
Agelessness and advantage on death saces would make natural death difficult while still being killable. If your character is suicidal though, it would have been easy for him to let something kill him...
Something just as simple as an automatic Raise Dead spell from unknown cursed sources at anytime you lose out on normal death saving throws?
"Coming back from the dead is an ordeal," with appropriate temporary reductions in abilities
Your character can never die, but it doesn't mean being immortal means you aren't infallible and can't be weakened. It also doesn't have to mean you can't be crippled, handicapped, permanently blinded with no eyes, etc. which could lead to some very interesting lifestyle choices after that moment and a great opportunity to fully realize your character in and out of combat.
Yeah, I believe you're not trying to break the game, but breaking the game is inevitable here, as you've described the situation. I think you're going to need to compromise your vision and work with your DM.
In order of least disruptive thing for a DM to offer a character, knowing that whatever he gives one player, he's gonna have to give to everyone:
1) If all you want is to role-play someone whose entire family has died and who has survived several suicide attempts, no particular curse is required. You play a totally normal character with a tragic past, tremendous survivors' guilt and suicidal depression. Does that sound like an awful character who's likely to get killed early? I think so, but after all, you said this was only about role-play, not making a character unkillable.
2) If all you want is a depressed character who is unnaturally lucky (or unlucky, from his point of view, since he keeps not being able to kill himself), there's a feat called Lucky that gives you advantage on saves 3/day. The DM gives you the Lucky feat, but only they get to decide when to re-roll the dice and they only do so when it will annoy you.
3) If you want to play someone who is unnaturally old, the DMG Boon of Immortality works, but it should be all you get. As Epic Boons go, it doesn't have much crunch to it. But it's still an Epic Boon and when you get one you're forcing your DM to explain why no one else gets one, even though I promise you they think they have an equally cool character concept. So anything besides age that you've survived, you survived because of random chance. And if your luck changes in session one and a kobold stabs you to death, tough.
4) If you and your DM play a lot of one-on-one and there's really no game to break, you have a cursed ring of regeneration that you can't take off. When you try to cut off that finger, it grows a new you and the old you dies, or something weird like that.
My advice would be to instead make this concept into an NPC and use him when you get a chance to DM your own campaign.
So this would definitely be something to bring up with your DM, but here's my thought.
If it doesn't hurt your character backstory, then an example would be Meliodas from Seven Deadly Sins. When he dies, he loses emotions and becomes more evil, and just comes back to life. His is also a curse. Maybe something like this, where the party doesn't want you to keep dying, or you may become evil and kill them.
This could just be another obstacle for the players that they may not like, but it is a somewhat counter measure to make dying something baaaaad to do. Also could be apart of the curse the god gave to them, for something they did that would justify turning someone evil for dying.
Thank you for all of your replies! I definitely got some pretty good advice to think on. I am tempted to use the Meliodas treatment as it would fit the Nihilistic nature of the character, each time death ignores him, he comes back more empty. Also just saying he is unnaturally lucky is a very good idea that would fit the character. So many good choices!
If you want to make it a RP-only immortality instead of an in-game-useful immortality, one way is to make it have a long delay. The curse is if you're killed, you always awaken exactly one month later, feeling like no time has passed. Or something like that.
That way from the character's point of view, they have the curse of immortality... but the party can't really use that tactically (e.g. putting you in front because it doesn't matter if you die) because the delay is long enough that the quest or whatever is going to be done or failed by the time you come back.
I’d have some kind of penalty for being “killed” when you lose your death saves. Play as usual but if you die then you pop back up at 1 hp with a loss of 1 or 2 of your constitution. This would still give a fear of loss but not effect normal game mechanics very much.
Years ago i was reading a Book by Brandon Sanderson. It was about people who got giftet with superpowers but those powers corrupted them. The most powerfull of them were unkillable. One was indestructible, one was able to glimpse into his future paired with super human speed and reflexes. The one that would work for you could actually die, but the next day at dawn her body would reform and she would be alive again. She didn‘t had controll over it, it just happened.
I think that time delay could be very usefull. You die and you lose controll of what happens next.
From a gameplay it wouldn‘t be any diverrent then rolling up a new character after you die, with the roleplay benefit of knowing what happened in the campaign and the internal conflict of loosing your comrades.
I would be carefull to give such a character access to high level spells though.
Hello D&D Beyond community! This is my first post here.
I have a question regarding immortality in 5E. I have been doing lots of research to make an immortal character for my campaign, and many people seem to talk about longevity or immunity to diseases, some say that if you get a character with high enough AC you can be unkillable. But my situation is rather different. I am to play as a Tabaxi who was granted the curse of immortality by his god, so he saw all his family and friends eventually die, and failed to kill himself many times. That is his curse to bear, and i am trying to justify it by some trait, path, or boon. It's not about making it game breaking, but give a nice role play to the session. And also not about making the character unkillable, but rather giving it tools to cheat death.
Basically, i need to create a character that can escape death or have advantage on death saving throws as if he can't be killed due to a curse.
I was heading towards the 'true immortality' boon, but i wasn't convinced, since that would mean he has to die to be reborn the next day.
Any ideas that i could suggest my DM? Thank you!
"Immortality" is tricky to do without being unbalanced, especially at low level.
Agelessness and advantage on death saces would make natural death difficult while still being killable. If your character is suicidal though, it would have been easy for him to let something kill him...
Something just as simple as an automatic Raise Dead spell from unknown cursed sources at anytime you lose out on normal death saving throws?
"Coming back from the dead is an ordeal," with appropriate temporary reductions in abilities
Your character can never die, but it doesn't mean being immortal means you aren't infallible and can't be weakened. It also doesn't have to mean you can't be crippled, handicapped, permanently blinded with no eyes, etc. which could lead to some very interesting lifestyle choices after that moment and a great opportunity to fully realize your character in and out of combat.
Just a suggestion, though.
Boldly go
Yeah, I believe you're not trying to break the game, but breaking the game is inevitable here, as you've described the situation. I think you're going to need to compromise your vision and work with your DM.
In order of least disruptive thing for a DM to offer a character, knowing that whatever he gives one player, he's gonna have to give to everyone:
1) If all you want is to role-play someone whose entire family has died and who has survived several suicide attempts, no particular curse is required. You play a totally normal character with a tragic past, tremendous survivors' guilt and suicidal depression. Does that sound like an awful character who's likely to get killed early? I think so, but after all, you said this was only about role-play, not making a character unkillable.
2) If all you want is a depressed character who is unnaturally lucky (or unlucky, from his point of view, since he keeps not being able to kill himself), there's a feat called Lucky that gives you advantage on saves 3/day. The DM gives you the Lucky feat, but only they get to decide when to re-roll the dice and they only do so when it will annoy you.
3) If you want to play someone who is unnaturally old, the DMG Boon of Immortality works, but it should be all you get. As Epic Boons go, it doesn't have much crunch to it. But it's still an Epic Boon and when you get one you're forcing your DM to explain why no one else gets one, even though I promise you they think they have an equally cool character concept. So anything besides age that you've survived, you survived because of random chance. And if your luck changes in session one and a kobold stabs you to death, tough.
4) If you and your DM play a lot of one-on-one and there's really no game to break, you have a cursed ring of regeneration that you can't take off. When you try to cut off that finger, it grows a new you and the old you dies, or something weird like that.
My advice would be to instead make this concept into an NPC and use him when you get a chance to DM your own campaign.
So this would definitely be something to bring up with your DM, but here's my thought.
If it doesn't hurt your character backstory, then an example would be Meliodas from Seven Deadly Sins. When he dies, he loses emotions and becomes more evil, and just comes back to life. His is also a curse. Maybe something like this, where the party doesn't want you to keep dying, or you may become evil and kill them.
This could just be another obstacle for the players that they may not like, but it is a somewhat counter measure to make dying something baaaaad to do. Also could be apart of the curse the god gave to them, for something they did that would justify turning someone evil for dying.
Also known as CrafterB and DankMemer.
Here, have some homebrew classes! Subclasses to? Why not races. Feats, feats as well. I have a lot of magic items. Lastly I got monsters, fun, fun times.
Thank you for all of your replies! I definitely got some pretty good advice to think on. I am tempted to use the Meliodas treatment as it would fit the Nihilistic nature of the character, each time death ignores him, he comes back more empty. Also just saying he is unnaturally lucky is a very good idea that would fit the character. So many good choices!
If you want to make it a RP-only immortality instead of an in-game-useful immortality, one way is to make it have a long delay. The curse is if you're killed, you always awaken exactly one month later, feeling like no time has passed. Or something like that.
That way from the character's point of view, they have the curse of immortality... but the party can't really use that tactically (e.g. putting you in front because it doesn't matter if you die) because the delay is long enough that the quest or whatever is going to be done or failed by the time you come back.
I’d have some kind of penalty for being “killed” when you lose your death saves. Play as usual but if you die then you pop back up at 1 hp with a loss of 1 or 2 of your constitution. This would still give a fear of loss but not effect normal game mechanics very much.
Years ago i was reading a Book by Brandon Sanderson. It was about people who got giftet with superpowers but those powers corrupted them. The most powerfull of them were unkillable. One was indestructible, one was able to glimpse into his future paired with super human speed and reflexes. The one that would work for you could actually die, but the next day at dawn her body would reform and she would be alive again. She didn‘t had controll over it, it just happened.
I think that time delay could be very usefull. You die and you lose controll of what happens next.
From a gameplay it wouldn‘t be any diverrent then rolling up a new character after you die, with the roleplay benefit of knowing what happened in the campaign and the internal conflict of loosing your comrades.
I would be carefull to give such a character access to high level spells though.
Attack: [roll]3d20dl2+6[/roll] Damage: [roll](if([roll:-1:critical], =0, 1d8, 2{1d8}.expand()))+4[/roll] Sneakattack: [roll](if([roll:-2:critical], =0, 2d6, 2{2d6}.expand()))[/roll]