Re: im in deep doo doo
 

No problem and good luck.

Re: im in deep doo doo
 

Chalice, chalice... Be more creative, guys, seriously. Gift of Health (a global spell) is much easier to get if you have some nature magic. And if not - almost every tribal shaman has at least N1.
I don`t think that pretenders die from disease (AFAIK, they just stop at 1 hp), but i`m not 100% sure about it.
Other variant is casting Twiceborn on your pretender and getting killed (not drowned) in friendly dominion. He will return as undead wight mage with immunity to disease (still can get diseased, but no HP loss or afflictions) - i used this trick in SP to get boots slot on my archmage, so i`m 100% sure that Twiceborn works on gods. You`ll need at least 2D on pretender, or 1D + a skull staff, however.
Casting regeneration on him in combat is another way of keeping him alive for now - in combat, regeneration still restores your health to full.

Re: im in deep doo doo
 

His pretender is definitely not undead - undeads don`t lose health to disease neither they get afflictions from it. :)

Re: im in deep doo doo
 

shardphoenix, if i use twiceborn and get killed, does he lose magic paths? loss of magic paths is my biggest concern. thanks for your suggestions...

Re: im in deep doo doo
 

Parone, you can test that in a test game you know :D.

Re: im in deep doo doo
 

No, in fact, there's a chance he'll gain magic power in death. However, getting killed typically leads to a lot of afflictions, so you're risking getting mute, which cuts your magic powers in half, and feeble-mind, which nulls all your paths. And once your pretender is undead, only the Chalice will heal his afflictions.

Re: im in deep doo doo
 

I was testing twiceborn. And I got this message: "The death of Horatia has greatly increased his understanding of death"

WTF twiceborn can give death levels. (Another wtf, the message always is for a male, even if the mage is female).

I have put my findings into : http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki?title=Twiceborn

Re: im in deep doo doo
 

Thanks for taking care of the wiki, its the best source for finding out interesting stuff about the game(par talking to experts on irc I guess).

Re: im in deep doo doo
 

You ninja! And I didn't know that. Twiceborning is also permanent. Even call god does not return the shape.

It might be good to recall that certain abilities (gem generation, increased dom spread, and unrest decrease etc) are tied to the shape of the commander, these abilities are gone as soon as you transform into a wight mage.

Re: im in deep doo doo
 

Alternately, depending on your paths it's highly possible to get them back with a simple Ring of Wizardry or a Staff of the Elements.