Post/Author/DateTime	Post
lord_xarallon 12-24-06, 11:08 AM	The point of transforming in to a lich is to avoid death. At least that is what I thought. Another way of avoiding death for spellcasters is to cast Astral Projection. Your physical body is on the plane you casted the spell on. And in suspended animation. And what does that mean btw? No aging? And for your astral self? Does it age, does it nead to eat, sleep, and breathe? Of course you have to protect the physical body of yours, but likewise a lich has to protect its phylactery. And what would be the best protection? Placing on a hostile plane like Plane of Negative Energy? Keeping it emerged in lava? Keeping it in a trap filled dungeon? Any other good suggestions? The silver cord is also a good protection, says the spell description for Astral Protection, but I can't the path in the DMG, could anyone please give me a page number? And the visual, how is that? Does the physical body have a silvery sphere around it? And the astral form, does it have a silvery look? What if you cast Astral Protection on the astral plane? And can you enter the plane you cast the spell on? And last but not least, some insane ideas: 1: Multiple castings of Astral Protection... 2: Combining lichdom with this... 3: Combining Death Pact with this... Combining Multiple castings of Astral Protection, lichdom, and Death Pact.
Seeker95 12-24-06, 12:24 PM	Multiple castings of astral projection will accomplish nothing. Other than that, you are more than welcome to spend eternity on the astral plane if you want. But I wouldn't exactly call that living.
Osedox 12-24-06, 01:04 PM	Other than that, you are more than welcome to spend eternity on the astral plane if you want. But I wouldn't exactly call that living.Does anything specificaly say that you have to stay on the astral plane? I thought you were able to go anywhere from there.
Purple Yin 12-24-06, 01:22 PM	go anywhere else, and your ageing catches up, as does your food requirements.
Red Dragon 12-24-06, 01:30 PM	Not by RAW, but an excellent houserule that I would support. As written, I believe that your body stays in stasis until you come back to the Prime Material, so you can gallivant around the Outer Planes for eternity, leaving your body frozen forever. :rolleyes: Not the best picture.
Osedox 12-24-06, 01:35 PM	Do you have to be on the material plane to cast AP? A nightmare is an outsider that has the ability at will. Does that mean that it must get to the Material Plane before it can even use this ability?
Red Dragon 12-24-06, 01:53 PM	Ah. I misspoke by saying the Material Plane. What that should be is "whatever plane you cast it from." Besides, immortality is the least of the abuses that can be wreaked with a badly managed AP, including total equipment duplication with the right finesse. Just so we all know what to argue about: Astral Projection Necromancy Level: Clr 9, Sor/Wiz 9, Travel 9 Components: V, S, M Casting Time: 30 minutes Range: Touch Targets: You plus one additional willing creature touched per two caster levels Duration: See text Saving Throw: None Spell Resistance: Yes By freeing your spirit from your physical body, this spell allows you to project an astral body onto another plane altogether. You can bring the astral forms of other willing creatures with you, provided that these subjects are linked in a circle with you at the time of the casting. These fellow travelers are dependent upon you and must accompany you at all times. If something happens to you during the journey, your companions are stranded wherever you left them. You project your astral self onto the Astral Plane, leaving your physical body behind on the Material Plane in a state of suspended animation. The spell projects an astral copy of you and all you wear or carry onto the Astral Plane. Since the Astral Plane touches upon other planes, you can travel astrally to any of these other planes as you will. To enter one, you leave the Astral Plane, forming a new physical body (and equipment) on the plane of existence you have chosen to enter. While you are on the Astral Plane, your astral body is connected at all times to your physical body by a silvery cord. If the cord is broken, you are killed, astrally and physically. Luckily, very few things can destroy a silver cord. When a second body is formed on a different plane, the incorporeal silvery cord remains invisibly attached to the new body. If the second body or the astral form is slain, the cord simply returns to your body where it rests on the Material Plane, thereby reviving it from its state of suspended animation. Although astral projections are able to function on the Astral Plane, their actions affect only creatures existing on the Astral Plane; a physical body must be materialized on other planes. You and your companions may travel through the Astral Plane indefinitely. Your bodies simply wait behind in a state of suspended animation until you choose to return your spirits to them. The spell lasts until you desire to end it, or until it is terminated by some outside means, such as dispel magic cast upon either the physical body or the astral form, the breaking of the silver cord, or the destruction of your body back on the Material Plane (which kills you). Material Component: A jacinth worth at least 1,000 gp, plus a silver bar worth 5 gp for each person to be affected.
Witchcraft 12-24-06, 03:50 PM	Also the material component is expensive. :-P
Grizzled Gryphon 12-24-06, 04:54 PM	While this can't be right, this spell implies that I could cast Astral Projection, and take, say, a holy Avenger with me. I then could travel to the Beastlands, where a new body complete with equipment, is formed. I could then plane shift back to the origonal plane I started on, and there would be an empty body of me, with the equipment that I took with me in the first place. So now, I have two Holy Avengers. This can't be right...
Seeker95 12-24-06, 05:18 PM	GG's abuse concern is legitimate, if one assumes that the body that forms when you go to a plane from the astral plane remains in existence when you again leave. I rule that the newly formed body is gone when you return to the astral plane -- it is a temporary vessel.
Grizzled Gryphon 12-24-06, 05:27 PM	GG's abuse concern is legitimate, if one assumes that the body that forms when you go to a plane from the astral plane remains in existence when you again leave. I rule that the newly formed body is gone when you return to the astral plane -- it is a temporary vessel.While I did not somehow know you would come up with that ruling, I did circumvent that in my example above. In the example, I never returned to the Astral Plane, I Plane Shifted back to the first plane.
Red Dragon 12-24-06, 05:44 PM	By RAW, that's perfectly feasible. By houserule, it's blasphemy. AP & MDJ are really gnarled, nasty spells however you look at them.
lord_xarallon 12-24-06, 08:16 PM	Multiple castings of astral projection will accomplish nothing. I thought that too... Other than that, you are more than welcome to spend eternity on the astral plane if you want. But I wouldn't exactly call that living. As written, I believe that your body stays in stasis until you come back to the Prime Material, so you can gallivant around the Outer Planes for eternity, leaving your body frozen forever. :rolleyes: Not the best picture. It is opposed to lichdom. Another way of living forever. And I think this is a better alternative to lichdom Also the material component is expensive. :-P No not really, because a lich's phylactery cost 120.000 gp and some xp. While this can't be right, this spell implies that I could cast Astral Projection, and take, say, a holy Avenger with me. I then could travel to the Beastlands, where a new body complete with equipment, is formed. I could then plane shift back to the origonal plane I started on, and there would be an empty body of me, with the equipment that I took with me in the first place. So now, I have two Holy Avengers. This can't be right... I respectfully disagree. The Holy Avenger your physical body have is protected by the sliver cord and therefore you cannot get it without destroying the cord (and thereby killing yourself). But thanks for the replies so far, and please read the OP and answer more of the questions I asked. Or just comment on this alternative to lichdom. I think it would by better to be a manifested (but separated from the physical body) soul then being a rotten semiliving corpse without a soul...
lord_xarallon 12-24-06, 09:19 PM	Multiple castings of astral projection will accomplish nothing. Other than that, you are more than welcome to spend eternity on the astral plane if you want. But I wouldn't exactly call that living. I thought that too... And now I thought of another benefit... Astral Projection Necromancy Level: Clr 9, Sor/Wiz 9, Travel 9 Components: V, S, M Casting Time: 30 minutes Range: Touch Targets: You plus one additional willing creature touched per two caster levels Duration: See text Saving Throw: None Spell Resistance: Yes By freeing your spirit from your physical body, this spell allows you to project an astral body onto another plane altogether. You can bring the astral forms of other willing creatures with you, provided that these subjects are linked in a circle with you at the time of the casting. These fellow travelers are dependent upon you and must accompany you at all times. If something happens to you during the journey, your companions are stranded wherever you left them. You project your astral self onto the Astral Plane, leaving your physical body behind on the Material Plane in a state of suspended animation. The spell projects an astral copy of you and all you wear or carry onto the Astral Plane. Since the Astral Plane touches upon other planes, you can travel astrally to any of these other planes as you will. To enter one, you leave the Astral Plane, forming a new physical body (and equipment) on the plane of existence you have chosen to enter. While you are on the Astral Plane, your astral body is connected at all times to your physical body by a silvery cord. If the cord is broken, you are killed, astrally and physically. Luckily, very few things can destroy a silver cord. When a second body is formed on a different plane, the incorporeal silvery cord remains invisibly attached to the new body. If the second body or the astral form is slain, the cord simply returns to your body where it rests on the Material Plane, thereby reviving it from its state of suspended animation. Although astral projections are able to function on the Astral Plane, their actions affect only creatures existing on the Astral Plane; a physical body must be materialized on other planes. You and your companions may travel through the Astral Plane indefinitely. Your bodies simply wait behind in a state of suspended animation until you choose to return your spirits to them. The spell lasts until you desire to end it, or until it is terminated by some outside means, such as dispel magic cast upon either the physical body or the astral form, the breaking of the silver cord, or the destruction of your body back on the Material Plane (which kills you). Material Component: A jacinth worth at least 1,000 gp, plus a silver bar worth 5 gp for each person to be affected. Therein lies the small advantage. Your plans does not get foiled by a simple casting of Dispel Magic.
Red Dragon 12-24-06, 09:23 PM	The quoted text allows for a Dispel, which is implied to kill you instantly. ;)
Osedox 12-24-06, 09:30 PM	It would be cool to create a Demiplane via Genisis and then use that place as your starting point so that you dont have to worry about some loser poking you to death with a masterwork dagger, and also so that you arent limited in the planes you can visit.
Red Dragon 12-24-06, 11:16 PM	Or you could craft an airtight, twenty-inch-thick cube of adamantine with just enough room inside for four Medium beings, bury it somewhere deep, deep underground, teleport inside, then cast Astral Projection. :schemes:
Osedox 12-25-06, 02:43 AM	That is still suseptible to being raided unless you were to cast private sanctum and dimensional anchor permenantly. Which of course you could do.
Red Dragon 12-25-06, 09:15 AM	Right. Forgot about that. :embarrass
Grizzled Gryphon 12-25-06, 09:59 AM	How is the Holy Avenger destroyed? It is an item, so it doesn't have a silver cord. What is the basis of your staement? I didn't see anything in the spells description that says naything is protected by the astral cord. Like was posted above, you would have to worry about being poked to death by a masterwork dagger. If that is the case, why can't you loot the body? There is nothing in the spell that says, using my example, that doing anything to your former body would have any negative impact on anything.
Osedox 12-25-06, 05:35 PM	Pun Pun would smite you if you tried to duplicate your swag.
SageBahamut 12-25-06, 06:53 PM	By the RAW it is legal, though. You planeshift home, leave the duplicated Avenger next to your body, dismiss the spell, and wake up with a shiny new sword from the outer planes. Of course, your DM could rule that the weapon dissolves instantly along with your outer plane constructed body, but that would be a ruling, since the RAW doesn't say either way what happens to disconnected bits of your astral self.
Grizzled Gryphon 12-25-06, 07:16 PM	By the RAW it is legal, though. You planeshift home, leave the duplicated Avenger next to your body, dismiss the spell, and wake up with a shiny new sword from the outer planes. Which, of course, you immediatley begin duel weilding. :P
Roivas 12-26-06, 02:18 AM	I'd advise moving your body to a timeless plane of existance. Your body might be inert while the spell is fuctioning, but it isn't going to stop aging because of this. A timeless plane makes this little issue go away. If you used a demiplane to house your body you could make others unable to enter without a specific item or code word. I do like the idea of an immortal ghosty guy, but a lich can kick people in the face something that never gets old.
zzakk2to2 12-27-06, 11:18 AM	you are not gost guy because the plane you are on you are physical it even say its creates a physical body.
Khael 12-27-06, 11:32 AM	One thing I see here: Lich means you interfered with nature order yadda yadda, Maruts come, but you can blast them, and you can hide your phylactery (of course). AP means you have a bigass silver cord between you and whatever body you have. You cannot hope to blast the random Githanki a mile back, who happened to draw his silver sword in the wrong metre of astral, killing you instantly, while you were projecting happily along. Simply put I would pick lichdom, if only because I'd have less chance of random death (I.E. very little, and that'd probably be due to a direct attempt).
Seeker95 12-27-06, 02:31 PM	you are not gost guydo like the idea of an immortal ghosty guyghostly guy != gost guy
Jaxgaret 12-27-06, 05:49 PM	Which, of course, you immediatley begin duel weilding. :P I thought all the cool Paladins were dual wielding Sun Blades with Holy Avengers?
The_Cheeseman 12-28-06, 04:50 AM	Or be a Demilich, who can use Astral Projection at will as a spell-like ability. Then you don't have to worry about pesky Githyanki, as you can simply re-form 1d10 days later and then go consume their souls for interrupting your inter-planar holiday. Though immortality via Astral Projection is a neat idea, you really can't beat lichdom for pure staying power. Especially once you can cast Aumvor's Fragmented Phylactery.
zzakk2to2 12-28-06, 09:22 AM	ghostly guy != gost guy you are not a gost guy because you are a physical body on that plane while a gost is not physical.