D&D: Five Ways to Live Forever Without Breaking the Rules
Who wants to live forever? Most people. And in D&D, it’s surprisingly easy to live forever without having to break any rules.
Immortality is a gift. Or its a curse. It all depends on your point of view. Because if you live long enough you’ll eventually have to face the consequences of your actions.
But for something so lofty, it’s surprisingly easy in D&D to live forever without breaking any rules. You’ll have to actually try to do it, sure. But there are plenty of ways that your character could live forever. Note, that’s live forever. So no vampires or liches need apply. We want your heart (and soul) to keep on keepin’ on.
Reincarnate
This first one is certainly the most eco-friendly way to live forever. It’s relatively painless, but the trick is that while you technically can go on and on and on, you do have to die at least a little bit in between go rounds.
The spell works when the caster touches a dead humanoid or part thereof. So you have to be dead (but for no more than 10 days). Then the spell creates a new adult body and calls your soul into that body. As an added bonus you might even be in an entirely different type of body. You could be a Dragonborn in one life, and a Tiefling in the next. But you recall your life and experiences and all your capabilities.
Clone
Don’t want to be different? Clone grows an inert duplicate of you as you are. It takes 120 days, of course, but what’re 120 days every now and then compared to eternity?
Especially since you can choose to have the clone be a younger version of you (so you don’t have to worry about dying of old age). And once it’s matured, if you happen to die, you immediately wake up in the clone’s body. Sure you won’t have your stuff, but hey, that’s the least of your problems.
Boon of Immortality
One of the most underutilized books in D&D, the Dungeon Master’s Guide contains the seeds of immortality. There’s an epic boon that grants you immunity from aging, magical or otherwise.
Now you have to get to the 20th level and then do something to merit it. Sure. But if you make it that far, you may as well go for it. The Boon of Immortality means you stop aging. So just pack a month or so full of XP and you’ll be immortal in no time.
Swear an Oath of the Ancients
If you want to live forever, you’ve got plenty of time. So you may as well pick up the Oath of the Ancients subclass.
At high levels, you become ageless and immune to disease. And with all the time in the world, you could just devote yourself to love, peace, and “delighting in song and laughter, in beauty and art.” Sounds like not a bad way to spend eternity.
Go to the Astral Plane
In the Astral Sea, time doesn’t pass. Well, it does and it doesn’t. But the upshot is that creatures in the Astral Plane don’t age. Githyanki know this, Githzerai know this. All manner of creatures extend their limited time by spending a millennium or two floating amid the starstuff.
Just watch out for Astral Dreadnoughts.
Happy adventuring!
