Deathless needs some icing

[simpetar]

Current shape of Deathless:

"Deathless" (secret eXtremely Rare)
- FC: Fighter
- STR +3, DEX +1, CON +5, WIS +3, INT +3, CHA +3
- Free Feats: Luck of Heroes, Great Fortitude, Iron Will, Lightning Reflexes, Epic Will, Epic Fortitude, Epic Reflexes
- Other: +3 skill points each legendary level

It seems to be a direct upgrade of Undying:

"Undying" (secret Beyond UltraRare)
- Never Gets XP Penalty
- STR +2, DEX +2, CON +4, INT +2, WIS +2, CHA +2, free feat: Dodge, free feat: Luck of Heroes, free feat: Great Fortitude, free feat: Iron Will, free feat: Lightning Reflexes
- Undying receive +3 skill points per legendary level.

Deathless compared to Undying has:
+4 stats
+3 epic feats
-1 pre-epic feat
Deathless also lacks the "Never Gets XP Penalty" part, that can be inconvenient (appears to be an oversight)

Deathless has the highest sum of bonus stats (+18) of all XR races, with the widest spread. This spread qualifies Deathless only for generic tanks, (as opposed to specialist tanks like assassins or rangers who need to focus heavily on one stat, or casters) and further for tanks who cannot afford paladin / BG splash (or all the save feats will be wasted). This limits Deathless usage mainly to threaders and staffmasters who generally cannot splash and are starving for saving throws. Unfortunately, both staffmasters and threaders already have their own custom-tailored XR subraces:

Half-ogre Mage

"Half-Ogre Mage" (secret eXtremely Rare)
- FC: Wizard / BC: Weaponmaster
- STR +5, DEX +2, CON +4, INT +5
- Free Feats: Dodge, Mobility, Spring Attack, WF/GWF: Quarterstaff, SF/ESF: Concentration
- Other: +4 Regeneration, Blackstaff spell inflicts 1d10 more of chosen damage type

and Corrupter of Fate

"Corrupter of Fate" (secret eXtremely Rare; changes Appearance)
- FC: Cleric / BC: Weaponmaster
- STR +4, DEX +3, WIS +5, INT +2
- Free Feats: WF: Sickle, Dodge, Mobility, ESF: Discipline/Heal
- Other: 50% KB reduction (non-stacking)

Other generic tanks have their XR subrace as well: divine tanks, rangers, WMs, rogues, monks, barbarians and others are covered.

Deathless needs something special, if it is ever to be considered a viable choice for any kind of build over other XRs.

Possible suggestions to make Deathless attractive (to be considered separately or together):

- Evasion: nice perk for any kind of tank without rogue / monk levels
- Defensive Roll: combined with Improved Evasion gives access to Epic Dodge
- Slippery Mind: reroll on will saves corresponds with all the save feats
- custom spell immunities, like PWK, Weird, Desintegrate, Implosion, Flesh to Stone, Drown
- continual restoration, CoT style
- stacking 2 tiers of hostile environment penalties reduction
- Aura of Courage; there is one other subrace that has this, Wraith
- Perfect Health (same as above)

[woqued]

I agree to the point where currently the sub race is trying to be a jack of all trades but ends up being inferior to even BUR subs for any specific purpose; - Undying is a quite good gateway sub for Rogues, Bards even Monks - and makes "decent" pretty much any tank type (that has listen, and no DC) - but the XRs widen the power gap so much that as it stands the Deathless sub race doesn't seem to have a place. I'm not actually sure if adding some "fluff" to them without specifying them to any particular role is the way to go - an alternative to that would be gunning for Rogues for those who dislike search mode and like elves (as XRs aren't able to choose "any" race - so rogues are driven to be shorties). In any case, here are some extra suggestions to consider:

- SR 15 + Level
- Toughness (useful flavour on its own)
- Alertness (useful flavour on its own for mini listen, otherwise perk for going harper splash - particularly convenient for feat-tight harper splashers with the iron will too)
- Positive Immunity: 25% (Similar subrace boost to what Solarborn has - Deathless are born from Positive energy or divine powers in some editions so might fit thematically)
- As they are Deathless, they could be inherently immune to Ability Drain, Level Drain and Stun.
- Depending on what type of Deathless the subrace aspires to be, they could have Exotic weapon proficiency, Shield proficiency or some other .. convenient fluff & stuff.

I like Perfect Health on "Deathless" thematically, spell immunity to various spells (like the ones mentioned above) for convenience and stacking hostile environment penalties for coolness and power boost although two tiers might be too much - and CoT restore belongs to CoTs imo.

I'm not sure as to what the final product should have - just hoping to raise some discussion to this thread that got no love.