Players' Guide to Immortals: Changes

Immortals have stats.  They apply to the immortal's essence.  Physical aspects are irrelevant and unnecessary.

Immortals create material forms for use outside their home planes.  Those have a full set of D&D stats.  If you kill them (i.e. their material forms), then the immortal gets REALLY pist, 'cause the darn things are expensive.  Immortal Power Points that should be expended on home improvement (e.g. creating worshipper races on the home plane and developing the homeworlds) must instead be diverted into the emergency expenditure of creating a new form.  (All such expenditures are renewable only by going out and Doing Things to earn more XP and Power Points.)

Frank Mentzer, from Dragonsfoot (April 28, 2006)

Power Points:

Upon attaining immortality, a player character's experience points (XP) are converted to "Power" points (PP), at a rate of 1 PP for every 10,000 XP gained in mortal life.

Additional PP are earned in much the same way as XP, and can also be bestowed by other Immortals.

An important way in which PP differ from XP is that PP (alternately referred to simply as "Power") can be expended through various actions.

Power is temporarily expended by certain activities, regenerating at a rate determined by the Immortal's rank and other factors, or permanently expended by others.

Form(s):  

Immortals regularly use three or more material forms, also known as "normal" forms.

For example, whenever an Immortal revisits the Prime Plane, the character assumes his or her original mortal form.

Alternately, an Immortal may become incorporeal, becoming immune to most attack forms.

Name(s):

Every new Immortal gains a new common name, but also a secret "truename".

An Immortal's truename is linked to his or her existence, and those who know this secret truename may command or destroy the Immortal.

Immortals gain an additional truename upon reaching each new rank, for a total of five truenames upon becoming a Hierarch.

Rank and Level:

I mocked up an AD&D 1e type version of the Immortals Rank Advancement Chart (pg. 29):

Alignment:

Although specific alignments are favored by certain Spheres, Immortals themselves are not bound by the alignment restrictions of mortals, and may change alignment without penalty.

One controversial corollary of my last set is the argument that within it, Good and Evil (i.e. Alignments) do not exist.  I think that's a false deduction, as the implicit moral relativism of the RAW do not preclude an extension into Absolutes; go right ahead, if that's your thing.

I simply refused to make the work itself either pro or con vis a vis deontology or teleology or Kant or Plato or any other theoretical strain of our collective mental flu.

The biggie of course is that in this fantasy realm, vs the real world, there is absolute evidence of existence after death. That has a lot of ripple effects.

Frank Mentzer, from The Piazza (August 21, 2010)

Movement Rate:

An Immortal's method and rate of movement are determined by the form used, and by magical effects applied to that form.

The maximum rate for an incorporeal Immortal is 24 miles (the width of a standard large-scale campaign map hex) in one round, or 8,640 miles per hour.  This amazing speed results from the character's relative freedom from the limits of matter and time while in this form.  When incorporeal, a character may pass freely through material objects and magical effects.

Trans-dimensional travel always requires an expenditure of Power, though usually very little.  Trans-planar movement toward the Inner Planes also requires an expenditure of Power, but movement toward the Outer Planes requires none.

Illustration by Larry Elmore

Ability Scores:

An Immortal character keeps the same six ability scores used to describe the mortal form.  Although ranging from 0-100, these no longer affect AC, hit points, or saving throws.

An Immortal can increase his or her ability scores by expending Power permanently, to a maximum listed by rank.  The cost of increasing a score is determined by rank.

Talents:

Three ability scores are important to the character's Sphere.  The first corresponds to the Prime Requisite of the mortal class matching the Sphere.  This is the Primary Talent of every character in the Sphere.  The Secondary and Tertiary Talents are listed in order of their importance to the Sphere.  The total of these three scores is a new statistic, called the character's "Greater Talent".  The total of the three remaining scores is called the "Lesser Talent".

Saving Throws:

Four new types of saving throws are introduced:

Power Drain when a non-spell effect would reduce Power Points.

Magic Spell when a spell or other magical effect, including those produced by artifacts, would affect any part of the Immortal except the mind.

Physical Blow when an impact or other attack would inflict an amount of hit points of damage.

Mental Blow when an attack (magical or otherwise) could affect the Immortal's mind.