Why would you bother with lichdom?

[Millstone85]

Something I like about D&D gods is the notion of "aspect".

For example, in Forgotten Realms, the LN sun god Amaunator and the NG dawn god Lathander are sometimes believed to be one and the same, yet different. It is also common to link the pantheons of different races in this fashion. Of course, the books often remain vague on whether those beliefs are correct.

Merging with such a multifaceted deity could mean becoming a very minor aspect of it, both recognizable as such and yet distinct from all other aspects.

[Satinavian]

Assuming that you want things like the 3.5 necropolitan, or even the 3.5 lich where you had to do something bad once and then you could comfortably exist into perpetuity, why haven't all the heroes of past ages decided that existing forever as an undead sounded peachy keen? I mean if you want that, good on you, but a world where all its greatest heroes are still around and active won't have much room for your PCs to do much of anything meaningful.

I don't really have a problem with that.

So really powerful people are around somewhere doing their thing. Which is kinda always the case when a campaign starts at low levels and moves to high levels. All those other actors/monsters/NPCs that are relevant in the high level game don't just pop into existence when the party levels up. They have always been there, just too busy/indifferent to deal with low level stuff. How would it be any different if some of those were undead ? Actually it is just the opposite as undead have kind of a reputation of being a tad inflexible (because they are in essence old people) and less likely to react adequately to new developments.

Yes, i do prefer undead as neutral agents as you put it. I can still make an undead a villain whenever i want by giving it appropriate motivation and actions. But if undead can in principle not work as reasonable beings i lose a whole swath of options to use them in my games.

[Florian]

Sounds like a horrible way to do undeath. Would certainly not use it in my games.

And it really doesn't help with the problem of the OP : That Lichdom in 5e seems to be to bad a bargain to take.

Ah, well, it is "the curse of undeath", not "the blessing" (No matter what Urgathoa preaches....).

[Satinavian]

Ah, well, it is "the curse of undeath", not "the blessing" (No matter what Urgathoa preaches....).

That would be an argument for being that are actually cursed (in the way that someone/something powerful uses magic to make them suffer). That doesn't apply
to people seeking undeath for themself.

[Max_Killjoy]

I'm in my 40s now. I clearly remember being 3 years old. I remember being in high school. I remember being a wild partier in my 20s. The child and the young man are both gone. I don't think or act like them anymore. But they aren't lost because they still live on in me. I wouldn't want to go back to the limited understanding of the world that they had. I have only gained knowledge, insight, and power with age.

When you're a child, you don't want to grow up. When you grow up, you don't want to go back to that ignorance even if there are happy memories from that time. Merging with a god and becoming a minor part of them is just like growing up and becoming some old man's childhood memory. You gain a lot more than you lose and the afterlife is just another level of growth.

Railing against it as a loss of your special uniqueness is like a child demanding to stay a child forever. It's a foolish decision made in ignorance. Attempting to gain physical immortality locked into your present self forever is just as ignorant. When kids do it, they become the Lost Boys. When wizards do it, they become liches.

I don't recall growing up as a process of being devoured by a cosmic egomaniac and losing all individuality and free will, but YMMV.

[noob]

I don't recall growing up as a process of being devoured by a cosmic egomaniac and losing all individuality and free will, but YMMV.

In the forgotten realms the most evil soul eating liches looks like exalted paragons of good who sincerely cares about helping people relatively to the most good god in this setting.
So I would definitively consider getting eaten by a lich as a better fate than being eaten by a 'good' god of that setting.

[Quertus]

I'm in my 40s now. I clearly remember being 3 years old. I remember being in high school. I remember being a wild partier in my 20s. The child and the young man are both gone. I don't think or act like them anymore. But they aren't lost because they still live on in me. I wouldn't want to go back to the limited understanding of the world that they had. I have only gained knowledge, insight, and power with age.

When you're a child, you don't want to grow up. When you grow up, you don't want to go back to that ignorance even if there are happy memories from that time. Merging with a god and becoming a minor part of them is just like growing up and becoming some old man's childhood memory. You gain a lot more than you lose and the afterlife is just another level of growth.

Railing against it as a loss of your special uniqueness is like a child demanding to stay a child forever. It's a foolish decision made in ignorance. Attempting to gain physical immortality locked into your present self forever is just as ignorant. When kids do it, they become the Lost Boys. When wizards do it, they become liches.

If the D&D gods seemed more mature than my 3-year-old self, this might make more impact.

As it stands, my generic character template includes putting "overthrow the gods" as a life goal.

I don't recall growing up as a process of being devoured by a cosmic egomaniac and losing all individuality and free will, but YMMV.

And there's that.

So, I wouldn't, but would you mind having all your memories and identity merged with that of an immortal? Or, to put it backwards, would you mind absorbing all the memories and personality of a like-minded immortal, gaining their power and immortality in the process?

Now, D&D gods lack that whole "like-minded" or in any way not morally inferior to myself or my characters as a rule, so they're a horrible choice, but, if a valid being existed, would you mind becoming "more" by absorbing them into yourself?

[Max_Killjoy]

If the D&D gods seemed more mature than my 3-year-old self, this might make more impact.

As it stands, my generic character template includes putting "overthrow the gods" as a life goal.

On the first... so true.

On the second, I can't really find any objection.

And there's that.

So, I wouldn't, but would you mind having all your memories and identity merged with that of an immortal? Or, to put it backwards, would you mind absorbing all the memories and personality of a like-minded immortal, gaining their power and immortality in the process?

Now, D&D gods lack that whole "like-minded" or in any way not morally inferior to myself or my characters as a rule, so they're a horrible choice, but, if a valid being existed, would you mind becoming "more" by absorbing them into yourself?

Still not interested, most of my characters wouldn't be either.

There's one character who would if she could guarantee "remaining herself", but her core character trait was hunger for knowledge and magical power.

[Xuc Xac]

I don't recall growing up as a process of being devoured by a cosmic egomaniac and losing all individuality and free will, but YMMV.

When I was a kid, I thought "When I grow up, nobody can tell me what to do! I'm going to eat cookies and ice cream for dinner and stay up all night!" Now that I actually have the authority to do that, I know it's a stupid thing to do that isn't even appealing now that I know more about nutrition and have a more mature palate that can appreciate more flavors than "Sweet!" I remember wanting to do it, but now that I can, I no longer want to.

The child didn't lose his free will. The child now has much greater knowledge and perception and makes more informed decisions.

Complaining that the gods seem capricious or selfish doesn't do anything to disrupt the analogy. It's just like a kid complaining that their parent's rules are "unfair" and "mean".

(Note that this is just a way to put a positive spin on it. I wouldn't actually go for it either. I tend to favor the Denis Diderot school of thought on priests and kings.)

[Max_Killjoy]

When I was a kid, I thought "When I grow up, nobody can tell me what to do! I'm going to eat cookies and ice cream for dinner and stay up all night!" Now that I actually have the authority to do that, I know it's a stupid thing to do that isn't even appealing now that I know more about nutrition and have a more mature palate that can appreciate more flavors than "Sweet!" I remember wanting to do it, but now that I can, I no longer want to.

The child didn't lose his free will. The child now has much greater knowledge and perception and makes more informed decisions.

Complaining that the gods seem capricious or selfish doesn't do anything to disrupt the analogy. It's just like a kid complaining that their parent's rules are "unfair" and "mean".

(Note that this is just a way to put a positive spin on it. I wouldn't actually go for it either. I tend to favor the Denis Diderot school of thought on priests and kings.)

The difference is, you gained knowledge, perspective, and freedom of choice as you grew -- as you note, you could choose to spend a day eating cookies and ice cream, and then stay up all night. You remained you, however.

The processes being "sold" in these D&D afterlives all in some way involve loss of choice and/or loss of knowledge (especially in the sense of the unique collection of knowledge that is part of what makes an individual who they are). They're not growth of the individual, they're all the death of the individual.

[Rater202]

So, I wouldn't, but would you mind having all your memories and identity merged with that of an immortal? Or, to put it backwards, would you mind absorbing all the memories and personality of a like-minded immortal, gaining their power and immortality in the process?

Now, D&D gods lack that whole "like-minded" or in any way not morally inferior to myself or my characters as a rule, so they're a horrible choice, but, if a valid being existed, would you mind becoming "more" by absorbing them into yourself?

You weren't asking me, but honestly i'd be down for that if I was sufficiently "big" that taking the immortal into myself didn't dilute my core essence.

I've got "hellsing style vampire" on my list of potential routes to power if I ever get the power to travel to fictional realities and I honestly think that "eat something to absorb it's power/knowledge/skills/memories/destiny/shape/life" is an interesting power type.

That naturally includes being able to consume the essence of another being.

So as long as certain moral or ethical constraints aren't a problem(IE, if they're willing and/or a big enough of a jerk that I don't feel bad Abbott eating them) and there's no risk of being eaten from the inside or drastically altered then I'd be down for that.

[icefractal]

I honestly, really, truthfully have no conception of how to put a good spin on that.

One way would be -

Getting absorbed by a god is like moving to a new country. A country inside the deity, populated by all the followers from times past. Maybe everyone is telepathically linked beings of pure thought, or maybe it's pretty similar to "outside". You even get to vote on what the god does.

Now there's no canon support for that, but there's also no support for "your soul just gets used as fuel and destroyed" in most settings - it's vaguely specified. That's what I mean by people taking a pessimistic angle.

[Anymage]

One way would be -

Getting absorbed by a god is like moving to a new country. A country inside the deity, populated by all the followers from times past. Maybe everyone is telepathically linked beings of pure thought, or maybe it's pretty similar to "outside". You even get to vote on what the god does.

Now there's no canon support for that, but there's also no support for "your soul just gets used as fuel and destroyed" in most settings - it's vaguely specified. That's what I mean by people taking a pessimistic angle.

I don't think anybody is going to dissuade Max. He's very much the sort of person who would chose undeath if it were an option, and might even consider having to regularly eat souls an acceptable cost to ensure that he gets to persist, as a continuous him, into perpetuity. Which come to think about it, if nobody found the idea of undeath appealing, those entires in the MM wouldn't exist.

Maybe gods wind up as composite entities, and you can engage in speed-of-thought deliberations with the other souls in the composite and vote on the long term goals of the god. Maybe your eventual dissolution is a fact of existence in the multiverse (unless you regularly feed on others), and good gods merely ask you to chose to dissolve into them to strengthen them as crusaders towards certain goals, as opposed to just dissolving into the landscape. Both of these allow good gods to stay Good, as opposed to grabbing handfuls of unwilling souls and snacking on them.

But so long as the metaphysical underpinnings of the universe don't allow a comfortable and permanent discrete existence, some people are going to be upset with that. And while those feelings can sometimes be misplaced (you can't be too upset at gods about rules that predate them and that they have no say in), that won't stop upset people from looking for alternatives.

[Max_Killjoy]

I don't think anybody is going to dissuade Max. He's very much the sort of person who would chose undeath if it were an option, and might even consider having to regularly eat souls an acceptable cost to ensure that he gets to persist, as a continuous him, into perpetuity.

Maybe gods wind up as composite entities, and you can engage in speed-of-thought deliberations with the other souls in the composite and vote on the long term goals of the god. Maybe your eventual dissolution is a fact of existence in the multiverse (unless you regularly feed on others), and good gods merely ask you to chose to dissolve into them to strengthen them as crusaders towards certain goals, as opposed to just dissolving into the landscape. Both of these allow good gods to stay Good, as opposed to grabbing handfuls of unwilling souls and snacking on them.

But so long as the metaphysical underpinnings of the universe don't allow a comfortable and permanent discrete existence, some people are going to be upset with that. And while those feelings can sometimes be misplaced (you can't be too upset at gods about rules that predate them and that they have no say in), that won't stop upset people from looking for alternatives.

If they have no say in the rules, are they really gods? Are they really worth venerating?

[PhoenixPhyre]

If they have no say in the rules, are they really gods? Are they really worth venerating?

The idea that the gods-that-are-worshiped made the rules (as opposed to the gods being subordinate to those that actually did) isn't part of FR (or many other D&D worlds).

For example, the D&D meta-setting has the idea of "Greater Gods"--Ao in particular for FR. He sits "above" the gods and does not need worship himself. In fact, he doesn't respond to mortals at all. Then again, he didn't make the rules either. The rules existed before anything, before anything else existed. They pre-exist the gods (as should be obvious--apotheosis happens. There have been how many gods of magic in FR? More than 1.).

This does change the nature of what we mean by "god", but that shouldn't be too odd for a student of real religions (about which I won't say more due to forum rules).

[Anymage]

If they have no say in the rules, are they really gods? Are they really worth venerating?

Unless you're talking the monotheistic, big G God, very few gods are portrayed as truly omnipotent. You might even have a case like Ao, where there's an overgod who would be very deserving of a boot up the backside (except you can't, because of overgod stats of You Lose), and gods who focus on the actual running of the world but who have to deal with the overgod's decrees.

Are they worth worshipping? If a quick prayer to the god of knowledge might help you remember what you're studying better, why not? And if a little time on your knees devoting your victories to a cosmically aligned entity empowers said entity, it's very much like sending a donation to a charity you consider worthy. Both are reasons that a good aligned character might offer prayers, even if they're not getting spells or any other mechanically tangible benefit out of the deal.

Edit to add: Assume that there either aren't any entities you can meaningfully complain about cosmic rules to, or that they're too distant to meaningfully interact with. Also assume that the 5e philosophy of TANSTAAFL, so you can't find a method of immortality that doesn't require some form of costly upkeep, usually at the expense of other people. In such a world, what would your long-term goal be?

[Millstone85]

There have been how many gods of magic in FR? More than 1.

Rhetorical, I know, but I think there have been 3:
Mystril (CN) In the beginning, Ao created Realmspace, which was naught but shadow. Then the shadow separated into light and darkness, Selûne and Shar. The two goddesses worked as one to create matter, and with it Chauntea. When the latter asked for more warmth to nurture mortal life, it brought a conflict in which Mystril was accidentally created. Siding with Selûne and Chauntea against Shar, Mystril allowed Selûne to ignite the sun (thus creating Amaunator? I don't know). Eons later, a wizard named Karsus would try to take Mystril's place. The attempt failed but caused the goddess' death.
Mystra (LN) The successor and/or reincarnation of Mystril. It was her who got depowered along with most other deities during the Time of Troubles. She died at the hand of Helm, a god kept powerful by Ao to make sure none of the others could return to their divine realms before his little game was over.
Midnight (NG) The successor of Mystra, whose name she assumed. She would meet her own doom at the hand of Cyric, which started the Spellplague.

After the Second Sundering and its surrounding events, Midnight is back and possibly merged with both Mystril and Mystra. So there is like a Trinity thing going on, maybe.

[Segev]

I prefer to set up lichdom as a contingency. I have a phylactery ready, I've performed all the steps of the ritual, but I haven't yet actually died (normally the last step of said ritual). If it takes modifying the ritual to set it up this way, I do. Then, when I die, I don't look like I did. The first clue something happened is when my fear aura suddenly bursts into existence and my touch on the hand that dealt the deathblow paralyzes my would-be murderer with the chill of the grave.


I do agree that any form of lichdom that requires you to become an ongoing serial-murderer is just plain inefficiently undesirable. It's one reason demilichdom is not a pure upgrade, and something to consider carefully before embarking on (unless you foolishly just let yourself go to the point that it was your only option left). Stick with the methods that leave you undead because your life force is already in its final resting place: your phylactery. Any leaky, energy-wasting phylacteries that require constant "feeding" are to be repaired and upgraded to proper ones that are self-sustaining.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I do agree that any form of lichdom that requires you to become an ongoing serial-murderer is just plain inefficiently undesirable. It's one reason demilichdom is not a pure upgrade, and something to consider carefully before embarking on (unless you foolishly just let yourself go to the point that it was your only option left). Stick with the methods that leave you undead because your life force is already in its final resting place: your phylactery. Any leaky, energy-wasting phylacteries that require constant "feeding" are to be repaired and upgraded to proper ones that are self-sustaining.

All life, even unlife, requires the expenditure of energy. For living beings, that comes from food. But liches don't eat. So where does the energy to move, talk, cast spells, rebuild that fancy body, etc come from? A single ritual can't provide infinite energy, and certainly not a ritual a mid level caster can do alone.

The philactery doesn't leak, but it's not a perpetual motion machine either. You're not an elemental, to pull energy directly from the weave (or wherever), so where do you propose it come from?

[Rater202]

In 3.5 at least, all undead have a connection to the Negative energy plane, which is to say a reservoir of infinite negatively-charge life-force, and that is what sustains them. (Except vampires and wights and the like, who need to take in Life-force from the living to augment this energy. Undead that needs to eat people have it as a craving but no biological need to, per Libris Mortis.)

Liches, in 3.5 at least, were an undead creature sustained entirely by this connection.

Also, I'll be honest, assuming that Entropy is an inescapable law in a multiverse that's default cosmology includes six self-sustaining planes of energy(four of elemental energy, one of life, one of death/anti-life/whatever) is flimsy logic--you might not be able to make yourself eternal, but there are at least six sources of infinite energy that you can theoretically tap to sustain yourself indefinitely and multiple classes of being that never die of natural causes that you can theoretically become.

To argue that it's impossible to become genuinely eternal or that it requires constant, active, and costly upkeep when multiple eternal things exist is folly.

[PhoenixPhyre]

In 3.5 at least, all undead have a connection to the Negative energy plane, which is to say a reservoir of infinite negatively-charge life-force, and that is what sustains them. (Except vampires and wights and the like, who need to take in Life-force from the living to augment this energy. Undead that needs to eat people have it as a craving but no biological need to, per Libris Mortis.)

Liches, in 3.5 at least, were an undead creature sustained entirely by this connection.

Also, I'll be honest, assuming that Entropy is an inescapable law in a multiverse that's default cosmology includes six self-sustaining planes of energy(four of elemental energy, one of life, one of death/anti-life/whatever) is flimsy logic--you might not be able to make yourself eternal, but there are at least six sources of infinite energy that you can theoretically tap to sustain yourself indefinitely and multiple classes of being that never die of natural causes that you can theoretically become.

To argue that it's impossible to become genuinely eternal or that it requires constant, active, and costly upkeep when multiple eternal things exist is folly.

Ah yes, the Negative Energy Plane justification. I had blocked that excrescence from my memory. The idea that you can be powered by drawing energy from a plane of infinite entropy is so hideous a thought as to make all the rest of the odd decisions in the Great Wheel cosmology pale in comparison. As a physicist, my mind rebels against it. At most you could have the NEP as an infinite sink--energy comes from the PEP and falls down through creation to the NEP, where it ends--this is the "energy as electric field" model. But the "there's negative energy and positive energy" thing causes way too many problems from a worldbuilding standpoint.

One reason that had to change for 5e is that they (thankfully) removed the idea of the Positive and Negative Energy planes as discrete things from the cosmology. Because they (like so many other things) were just there out of a misguided desire for symmetry IMO.

So no, saying "they're powered by negative energy" doesn't make things any better. Even if it did, negative energy is always described as hungry, it sucks the energy out of things being there. It doesn't build, which is what's required to sustain a lich.

I'm not saying that you can't have an infinite lifespan. Go to the Astral, or become an ageless creature (True Polymorph into an elemental or other unaging being). But even so, you need a source of energy. And there are tradeoffs. Even the Gods aren't truly eternal--the Gods can die. And that's better for settings anyway--without turnover, the world would be glutted with these immortals who just clutter up the landscape. Nothing would progress; all would grind to a halt.

Edit: and as far as not wanting to be a serial murderer--which is better? Being a serial murderer or being a walking wound in the natural world? Because having a direct link to the NEP is exactly the latter. Your very existence offends nature and breaks down the walls of the Material Plane. Your existence destroys everything you come in contact with by its very nature. You are decay, personified. And that's supposed to be the better choice?

[Rater202]

Regardless of your feeling about it, the NEgative Energy Plane having energy that acts as sustenance for the undead is canon in 3.5

I mean, Negative Energy isn't Entropy--that's an aspect of Limbo(See the Entropic reaper.)

The Negative Energy Plane is the plane of deathly energy--it sustains the dead just as positive energy sustains the living and positive energy harms the dead just as negative harms the living

I imagine that a man who found a way to sustain himself directly by a connection to the positive energy plane, that he'd be just as long lived and unaging as an undead--that is, forever until manually killed.

not only is "Undead have a direct connection to he plane of negative energy and that's why most of them can go indefinitely without food" canon, but there's an entire template built around the idea of what happens when that connection gets stronger(Evolved Undead)

[Pleh]

I'm not one terribly much for "overthrow the gods" excuses. I really don't believe any replacement will do better, nor do I think "no one will be gods" is very beneficial for D&D cosmology. It creates a power vacuum and who is next on the list to fill it? The archangels/archfiends. Like a corrupt corporation, you take out the top and everyone below just shuffles a step up the pyramid.

So let's destroy all the heavens and the hells and get rid of all of them.

That totally won't tear the Material plane apart. Total multiversal annihilation into oblivion is probably not going to happen. It's not like oblivion and nonexistence wasn't already exactly what we were trying to avoid by deposing the deities to begin with.

And when the Material Plane remains totally stable and goes back to normal, there totally will never be powerful adventurers gradually leveling into divine rank 0 with no deities to oppose them. They surely won't be the murderhobos the last deities were.

Nah. Taking such a pessemistic, nihilistic view of D&D cosmology just seems plainly unsustainable and not very fun. Either everyone just has to grin and bear having toddler gods or the universe gets the option to implode to save itself.

Much better to reframe the cosmology that each of these deities has valid reasons to follow them and valid reasons to oppose them so that the nutjobs that want to kill the gods typically don't get much support or very far.

As for afterlives, the D&D cosmology makes most sense to me when the afterlife is basically a New Game+ for your character, with the setting based on their deeds and motives in the first life. You just go to the world as your actions would shape it and from there continue to grow more or less into what would constitute and angel of that realm. That process takes so long that by the time you earn your proverbial (and possibly literal) wings, you have little to no connection to the material plane anymore.

It feel like this interpretation gives players the most amount of room to play however they like, rather than kind of pidgeon holing them into, "save the universe from the incompetence and profiteering of the gods." That's kind of fun once, but does it have to be the focus of every game? You'd think the gods would eventually start to catch on that someone is God of Warring them all off one by one and squish them promptly.

[Max_Killjoy]

The idea that the gods-that-are-worshiped made the rules (as opposed to the gods being subordinate to those that actually did) isn't part of FR (or many other D&D worlds).

For example, the D&D meta-setting has the idea of "Greater Gods"--Ao in particular for FR. He sits "above" the gods and does not need worship himself. In fact, he doesn't respond to mortals at all. Then again, he didn't make the rules either. The rules existed before anything, before anything else existed. They pre-exist the gods (as should be obvious--apotheosis happens. There have been how many gods of magic in FR? More than 1.).

This does change the nature of what we mean by "god", but that shouldn't be too odd for a student of real religions (about which I won't say more due to forum rules).

On the other hand, that assumes that the ability to have some say in the rules, or to bend the rules, requires one to have actually made the rules.

Using the Forgotten Realms example, didn't the present day deities keep changing the rules for the afterlife, including the ultimate blackmail of "worship at least one of us or you end up spending eternity as a brick at best"?

Using my own setting as an example, the mortals who achieved their own apotheosis and sealed the "old gods" away, then promptly used their new power to make it harder for other mortals to do the same.

Unless you're talking the monotheistic, big G God, very few gods are portrayed as truly omnipotent. You might even have a case like Ao, where there's an overgod who would be very deserving of a boot up the backside (except you can't, because of overgod stats of You Lose), and gods who focus on the actual running of the world but who have to deal with the overgod's decrees.

Which really amounts to a sort of "might makes right" situation that's fig-leafed by "but they're gods" -- and that includes Ao.

Are they worth worshipping? If a quick prayer to the god of knowledge might help you remember what you're studying better, why not?

Why not? At least for some characters, because it's a crutch, a dependence. Or because they just want nothing to do with cosmic egomaniacs who routinely fail to use whatever power they do have to actually live up to the responsibilities they supposedly have.

Edit to add: Assume that there either aren't any entities you can meaningfully complain about cosmic rules to, or that they're too distant to meaningfully interact with. Also assume that the 5e philosophy of TANSTAAFL, so you can't find a method of immortality that doesn't require some form of costly upkeep, usually at the expense of other people. In such a world, what would your long-term goal be?

As a character in such a setting... find a way to kick the gods in the teeth and/or seize immortality from the universe, or go down swinging and take as many of them with me as possible.

[Anymage]

In 3.5 at least, all undead have a connection to the Negative energy plane, which is to say a reservoir of infinite negatively-charge life-force, and that is what sustains them. (Except vampires and wights and the like, who need to take in Life-force from the living to augment this energy. Undead that needs to eat people have it as a craving but no biological need to, per Libris Mortis.)

Liches, in 3.5 at least, were an undead creature sustained entirely by this connection.

Also, I'll be honest, assuming that Entropy is an inescapable law in a multiverse that's default cosmology includes six self-sustaining planes of energy(four of elemental energy, one of life, one of death/anti-life/whatever) is flimsy logic--you might not be able to make yourself eternal, but there are at least six sources of infinite energy that you can theoretically tap to sustain yourself indefinitely and multiple classes of being that never die of natural causes that you can theoretically become.

To argue that it's impossible to become genuinely eternal or that it requires constant, active, and costly upkeep when multiple eternal things exist is folly.

I'm sure everybody on this board knows that 3.5, in both rules and fluff, allows for you to make infinite free stuff and create a post-scarcity utopia.

Many people, myself included, find that post scarcity utopias aren't really conducive to letting epic fantasy adventurers do their thing. We're two editions of the game out from 3.5. Presumably, the devs agree with that some things could really use changing.

"Everything comes with a cost" is a popular trope in many forms of fantasy. I'm not disputing what the 3.5 model allows. Just highlighting that there are reasons why people might prefer something different.

[Millstone85]

Also, I'll be honest, assuming that Entropy is an inescapable law in a multiverse that's default cosmology includes six self-sustaining planes of energy(four of elemental energy, one of life, one of death/anti-life/whatever) is flimsy logic--you might not be able to make yourself eternal, but there are at least six sources of infinite energy that you can theoretically tap to sustain yourself indefinitely and multiple classes of being that never die of natural causes that you can theoretically become.

Tell that to the Doomguard in Sigil. Unless I misunderstand their credo, that's exactly it.

One reason that had to change for 5e is that they (thankfully) removed the idea of the Positive and Negative Energy planes as discrete things from the cosmology. Because they (like so many other things) were just there out of a misguided desire for symmetry IMO.

But the Positive and Negative are still part of the 5e Great Wheel. What has changed is that they no longer count as inner planes, and the quasi-elemental planes are gone.

[Satinavian]

People should really have avoided ever to inlude the term "entropy" into D&D. Not only is D&D full of stuff that blatantly not follows thermodynamics, but every instance where it is used in D&D is an instance where it is grossly misused.

What physics understands as chaos has nothing to do with what D&D calles chaos.

[Pleh]

People should really have avoided ever to inlude the term "entropy" into D&D. Not only is D&D full of stuff that blatantly not follows thermodynamics, but every instance where it is used in D&D is an instance where it is grossly misused.

What physics understands as chaos has nothing to do with what D&D calles chaos.

To be fair, it's hard to avoid when core rules have Entropic Shield.

[Rater202]

Tell that to the Doomguard in Sigil. Unless I misunderstand their credo, that's exactly it.

They believe that everything ends, but they're essentially a cult that worships the concept of entropy. They have no more say on whether or not it's truly an inescapable law of reality then that one cult of Weirdos that thinks that Vecna, Bane, and Hexxtor are all a single god forcibly split in three on the nature of their own deity.

(and the distance of six--eternal planes of infinite energy--18 if you count the Pseudo and Quasi-elemental planes--says that no, i's not.)

[PhoenixPhyre]

But the Positive and Negative are still part of the 5e Great Wheel. What has changed is that they no longer count as inner planes, and the quasi-elemental planes are gone.

The only mention of the Positive and Negative Planes (note the word Energy is gone) is in the DMG:

The Positive and Negative Planes. These two planes enfold the rest of the cosmology, providing the raw forces of life and death that underlie the rest of existence in the multiverse.

They're not mentioned in the later descriptions of all the planes in that same chapter. They're shown in the graphic in the PHB as outside the outer planes. There's not mention in any of the monster descriptions of them being "powered by negative energy"--in fact there is no mention of "negative energy" as a type of thing. Nor is there a mention of positive energy.

Thus, these vestigial planes are best interpreted as the source and sink of unified "energy"--the power of creation starts in the Positive plane, cascades down through the functional planes, and dissipates in the Negative.

Edit: Honestly, though, I strongly dislike the Great Wheel, both Planescape's version and 3e's version. It's rigid in all the wrong ways but wishy-washy in other ways. It's obsessed with symmetry for the sake of symmetry and, most damning, it's not usually useful for adventuring.