From HGWiki

The Pillar of Light that enables players to use the reincarnation system.

With the constant changes in adding new content or balancing existing content on Higher Ground, the reincarnation system was designed to recognize the amount of time players spend developing a character by allowing minor tweaks to be made in light of recent changes to the server. This system is not meant to be used as an at-will build redesign tool, though it can ultimately be used as such after taking the restrictions into mind.

The first thing to note is DO NOT Attempt to play your character until you have finished the reincarnation process, whilst there are various technical reasons why this is a bad idea there is no benefit to doing it as anything you gain in the interim will be overwritten when you finish the process and you run the risk of invalidating your character making it unplayable when the reincarnation timer runs out!

Usage Restrictions

By visiting the pillar of light named Reincarnation in the Docks of Ascension, as illustrated in the image to the right, players can begin the process of reincarnation. Depending on the character's immortal status, there are some possible outcomes:

• A character must be at least level 21 to reincarnate
  • If the character is not yet immortal, the reincarnated character won't be able to reincarnate for one month.
  • If the character is not yet immortal, you will lose any experience you may have gained above 780k so it is optimal to reincarnate as soon as you get to level 40 if you do not want to reincarnate as an immortal.
  • If the character is not yet immortal, you will lose ALL legendary tags you have obtained on reincarnation and thus the ability to use any loot they may be associated with.
  • If the character is immortal and has previously reincarnated, it will be locked for three months.
    • Additionally, a character must have taken level 41 if they wish to reincarnate as an immortal (if you have not taken level 41 and are immortal the process will not initiate), once you have taken level 41 it is no longer possible to reincarnate this character as a non-immortal (by not claiming immortality and tags) at the end of the initial week your reincarnated character will be invalidated and no longer able to be played.

If the given time period has not yet passed since a character's last reincarnation, the Reincarnation Thingy will notify the player how much more time is remaining before they are able to reincarnate that character. Once a character is deleted for reincarnation through talking with the Reincarnation Thingy, a reincarnation slot is created and will remain active for one week. If the reincarnation process is not completed within that week, the reincarnated character will be invalidated and will be unable to leave the Voyage.

One thing that people sometimes get confused about is that this is NOT reincarnating one of your characters per month. This is one reincarnation per month for every non-immortal character. One reincarnation per 3 months for each immortal character.

XP Loss for post level 60 characters

If you reincarnate beyond level 60 (12.5 million exp) and before level 80 (125 million exp) there is a loss of experience points when creating your new character with the largest loss (from a % point of view) being at about level 70, see this thread http://highergroundpoa.proboards.com/thread/20701 for more details, this loss will be even greater if you switch to a race or class mix that adds a 20% or 40% experience penalty.

If you do not wish to lose experience either reincarnate at or before you get to level 60 (12.5 million xp) or after you have reached level 80 (125 million xp).
Note: If you reincarnate a level 80 character you will end up with 125 million exp no matter how many you had before and you will lose any bragging rights to your previously 1000 million exp character ;-) This also means that if you reincarnate to a build with an experience penalty you will NOT be level 80 and will lose between 25 and 50 million xp when you finish the reincarnation process!

It is also worth noting that initiating reincarnation at exactly 125 million xp can also cause a small loss of xp (at least small relative to the 125 million) meaning you may be slightly short of level 80 upon completion.

Class Restrictions for Pre-Legendary Characters

There are NO class restrictions for reincarnating a character that has yet to achieve immortality meaning that you can use whatever class you find easiest to play and use it to obtain all the low level Accomplishments and then reincarnate prior to getting immortality, Sorcerers to the fore!

Class Restrictions for Legendary Characters

If the character is able to reincarnate per the above requirements, there are additional restrictions on what a character can be reincarnated into in order for that character to reclaim any legendary level tags or experience. A legendary reincarnated character may either have the same Control Class or the same combination of classes upon reincarnation. As examples:

• Control Class swap (Maintain class combination)
  • A melee-oriented Bloodfire Mage (3 Paladin / 25 RDD / 12 Sorcerer) can reincarnate into a caster-oriented BFM (1 Paladin / 10 RDD / 29 Sorcerer)
    • The control class was swapped from RDD (21) to Sorcerer (29), but this is allowed because the character maintained the same class combination (Paladin/RDD/Sorcerer)

• Class combination swap (Maintain Control Class)
  • A Wizard (39 Wizard / 1 Paladin) can reincarnate into a Staffmaster (20 Wizard / 20 Weapon Master)
    • The control class remained the same (Wizard as class levels are exactly the same the first taken determines the control class), so the character was able to change the class combination (dropping paladin levels and picking up weapon master levels) and after the three month timer has expired you could reincarnate again to the more favoured Staffmaster (25 Weapon Master / 15 Wizard build.

Experience Penalties: Note that if a reincarnated character changes classes in such a way that the new character would have an experience penalty (or a 40% compared to a 20% penalty), that penalty will be applied to any legendary experience that character reclaims as well, which would cause a reincarnated character to have fewer levels than the original character, this is in addition to the XP Loss for post level 60 characters.

The Reincarnation Process

When a character is selected for reincarnation, it will be deleted and its experience, tags, some equipment, and bound items saved to be reclaimed by the reincarnated character. Randomized items, gold, and duplicate items in the character's inventory cannot be saved and should be stored (in a transfer chest for items and in the player's !wallet for gold) for retrieval at a later time. If the character has any random items in their inventory, the Reincarnation Thingy will notify the player of this and refuse to reincarnate the character. The step by step process is as follows:

• Inventory Preparation: Store items/gold you wish to save for the reincarnated character to retrieve later, the light will not let you reincarnate if you have any random equipment in your inventory, use the !wallet deposit all command to add all the gold on your character to your wallet, save all the items you want to keep in the Persistent Transfer Chest, DO NOT STORE IN THE PERSISTENT STORAGE CHEST as this is bound to your character name and will effectively be deleted during the process, you should carry out a check to make sure that you have not stored anything in this chest before beginning the process. If you have a Solar Mote make sure you store this before reincarnation as it will not be returned if you keep it in your inventory.
• Begin the Process: Talk to the Reincarnation Thingy with the character you wish to reincarnate
  • Acknowledge all points the Thingy presents, which covers most of the information on this page
  • Your character will be deleted at the end of the conversation and a reincarnation slot created with this character's information
• Create your reincarnated character
  • Character Names: If you intend to use the exact same character name you must wait 24 hours and create the character on a server that has been reset after that 24 hour period. Note: Using 'spaces' at the beginning or ending of a name to avoid the 24 hour wait period is not recommended and may result in an unplayable character. Basically if you want a pain free reincarnation process DO NOT USE THE SAME NAME AS THE ORIGINAL CHARACTER HAD!.
  • Subrace Upgrades: If you intend to upgrade your character's subrace, you must already have the tag for that subrace and the reincarnated character must have on them the item that grants that specific subrace in order for that character to be upgraded. This item will be taken when the reincarnation slot is first claimed.
    • If you need to re-do the reincarnation during the reincarnation period, a second such item will not be required for that subrace
    • If you need to re-do the reincarnation during the reincarnation period and wish to upgrade to a different subrace, you must again have the appropriate item to perform such an upgrade (and already have the tag for the desired subrace) when reclaiming the reincarnation slot.
• Reclaiming a reincarnation slot: Talk to the Reincarnation Thingy with the reincarnated character
  • Reclaim the pre-legendary experience available from the character slot
  • Level up the character until it has reached its maximum level
• Talk to the Reincarnation Thingy
  • Reclaim any tags the previous character had NOTE: This will overwrite any you may have achieved on the new character with those previously present for the reincarnation slot therefore you CAN NOT use the reincarnated character to pick up missing accomplishments see Proxy Characters for information on what to do if you are missing any pre-40 accomplishments.
• It will ask you to relog to gain maximum HPs
  • • If the previous character was immortal and reached level 41, the legendary experience that character obtained will now be given and the !level command or The Altar of Legends can now be used to continue levelling.
• Finishing Reclamation: After your character has finished levelling and you are satisfied with the results (if this is not the case, use the !delete command to delete the character so that you can re-do the reincarnation from the Create your reincarnated character step), talk to the Reincarnation Thingy
  • Reclaim equipment not stored in transfer chests
    • If you later decide in your reincarnation week to re-do the reincarnation, these items will not be available to that character
  • Reclaim any bound items for that character
    • If your character previously had any Epic Spells available to them, the reincarnated character must have the prerequisite epic spell focus feats in order for these bound items to be reclaimed. If this requires the character to read a [Wondrous Tome], it must be done before choosing this option
    • Note: You MUST have the Epic Spell stone in your inventory to be able to take the Paragon spell for the school, if you do not have this the Paragon spell will not appear in your levelling options even if you have Paragon spell focus for the school in question, if you have changed spell schools this will require a quick trip to The Ruins of the Arcane Academy to get any missing Epic spells.
    • If your character is level 55 or higher and has the Illithids tag you will be presented with a Skull whether or not you have completed Avernus previously, this will then allow you to tag for any Hells or Abyss layer (except Nessus) you enter even if you have not previously completed Avernus
    • If you later decide in your reincarnation week to re-do the reincarnation, these items will be available to that character
  • Reclaim an artifact if your character had used one
    • If you have an artifact in your inventory, this will cause an explosion and both artifacts will be lost
    • If you use this artifact and later decide in your reincarnation week to re-do the reincarnation, this artifact will not be available to that character
    • If you want to use a different artifact to the one the previous character used just ignore this part of the reclamation process, or for a more crowd pleasing effect grab the Legendary Horn of Blasting from the Desert then claim your original artifact and watch the fireworks
  • Reclaim a [pandect] if your character had used one
    • If you use this pandect and later decide in your reincarnation week to re-do the reincarnation, this pandect will not be available to that character
  • Reclaim ability bonuses granted as a demigod or double-demigod

After reclaiming everything, the reincarnation process is complete. If you play the reincarnated character for a few days and then decide that you are not satisfied and need to re-do the reincarnation, in addition to the items listed above that will not be available to a re-do character, any tags or experience gained with the reincarnated character will not be saved.

Frequently Asked Questions

For any specific questions not explained by this page, refer to the [Reincarnation FAQ].
The experience lost during reincarnation is explained in this topic [Reincarnation XP Loss]