Why can't you just cast a spell to make you younger and use it again each time you become too old instead of becoming a...

Why can't you just cast a spell to make you younger and use it again each time you become too old instead of becoming a lich or something?
Even if you must do it every few years, it's not going to get any harder.

Because the process of doing so is not only complex but there is the chance it may not work the exact same way for reasons that require extensive testing.

For example, if you rejuvenate your body with the souls of others how do you ensure that you have the full capacity of the victim's soul? Do you need the soul of a particular person? How do you measure potency and ensure you have the supply you need to do it consistantly? Testing will eventually get you found out by the inqusition.

Or just permanently polymorph yourself into a younger form.
lol y r magez so dum

>implying immortality is the only appeal of lichdom
who let you on the big boy part of the internet kiddo?

I would hire employees. They would trade 8 hours of their life a day,5 days a week, for a standard minimum wage salary. They would lose the same amount of time as a normal job, but would instead experience each day as completely free of employment responsibilities. They may live to a younger age, but they would experience the same amount of free time with none of the stress.

The niceness of a Permeant solution and not having to breathe, eat, drink, or sleep is nice.

So is the fact that disease and poison don't bother you.

And some of the undead gods rock.

So there's like 3 reasons.

Eternal youth does not equal eternal life. With a phalectery and such, you have a place for your immortal soul to stay attached to even if your body rots or is killed. A youth spell does not help in the face of swords, disease, and cancer.

I think the usual argument is that it's not the body aging which is the problem--it's the soul. You can make the body as young and as healthy as you want with enough magic, but some essential part of you knows that you're supposed to be older. It can't reconcile your aging soul with your ageless body, so gradually you start to lose your essential "you-ness". Actions which you once found trivial are suddenly more difficult, and you find yourself losing track of larger and larger tracts of time. Eventually your soul becomes too corrupted to control your body at all, and you spend the rest of your life as a vegetable, until whatever magic you used to preserve your body runs out.

And I'll say it once and I'll say it again.

Necropolitans from Libris Mortis have all the nice qualities of a Lich minus the souls/phylactery stuff.

The ritual doesn't require any sacrifice but pain(meaning neutral characters can do it), you don't need any food, no level adjustment, and no soul-feeding required.

EZ PZ

That's my go-to. Polymorph Self into "myself but younver and maybe with some useful templates tacked on top".

You can, s'what Elizabeth Bathory did.

>doesn't require any sacrifice
Game Effect: Immediately upon opening its undead eyes, a new necropolitan loses a level as if the spell raise dead had been used on it and it was alive instead of animate. (If the subject has no levels to lose, it is simply destroyed.) It then also loses an additional 1,000 XP. If the loss of this much XP forces the
necropolitan to lose another level, then it loses another level. No spell, not even restoration, can restore this lost XP. Petitioners may not spend experience points they don’t have—if the level loss and the 1,000 XP cost drains a creature to 0 XP or less, it is destroyed, turned to dust, and can never be raised or revived again using any means. If the ritual is interrupted before it is completed, the petitioner is merely dead.

This would actually work, especially in some medieval shithole. Life of leisure was unheard of for 95+% of population back then.

>Not becoming a Gravebound

>spell to make you look young again
>requires a price or some sort of 'toll fee' (ex. some rare alchemic ingredient, body part of some rare creature, etc.)
>has a limit
>returns to your 'true' form if you did not pay the toll fee

Would you really believe someone proposing such a thing?

>become lich
>check out cool magic shit you can do
>start to notice skin getting dry
>flip open spellbook
>Gentle Repose

The boon of lichdom is that its the scrubs ez way to immortality. Much like all undead solutions its a curse more than a solution or power up in the long run.

Accension, demonhood, godhood and true immortality is a true wizards eternal life and unlike lichdom, is actually immortallity instead of just making you harder to kill. I mean the bear isn't immortal next to the lone stone age hunter, its just tough to kill.

What, youve never transferred your mind into a golem? Shit, my masterpiece was a ain to build, but totally worth it. Skeletal system assembled out of wands, rods, enchanted stones, and other foci. Musculature mirroring the human body's, composed of Animated Ropes soaked in troll's blood. Tendons, flesh, and soft tissues composed of enchanted clay with substantial amounts of dragon blood mixed in. Skin made of alternating layers of specialized spell scrolls anchoring both the protective spells and the illusions which make me look mortal. Gems of True Sight for eyes. Really, what fool wouldn't ne content with such an eternal corporeal form?

Any conjuror worth the name knows of the four great genie races. Dao, Marid, Djinn, and Efreet. Fewer know of the fifth genie race, the Janni. Composite elementals who spend much of their time on the Prime Material. They are no less immortal than the Great Four. Their existence is proof that composite elemental beings are possible.

It is possible to temporarily link oneself to the heart of an elemental plane to acheive immense power for a short time. Prolonged use leads to an imbalance as one's mind becomes more and more elemental in nature.

If one can link to an elemental plane temporarily, then such things can be made permanent. And if one can link to one, why not all four? To become an eternal composite elemental. The material plane itself is made of an even mixture of all four elements. Where do you think the gods got the raw material to forge this world? I simply refined myself to a purer form.

Wish would do that

No level adjustment though. You also have all the time in the world to get back that 1000 XP and level.