General Reincarnation Guide

Hello, adventurers! I’m the Life-Shaper, and I’m here to help you understand what Reincarnation is, what it does, and how to do it.

Step 1: Prepare!

What You’ll Need:

The right Heart of Wood for the kind of reincarnation you are planning to do. Hearts of Wood are available in the DDO Store, and are also available in-game.
Your character will need to be at the right level to reincarnate, and meet other requirements as necessary (be an Iconic Hero, for example, or have enough Karma to have capped out one of your Spheres.)
Your character must have taken all of their levels prior to reincarnating. Characters who have yet to speak to a trainer to level up will need to do so prior to reincarnating.

When the ritual is complete you will be born anew, and get the chance to redo many important decisions! What you take with you to the other side depends on the type of Reincarnation you are undergoing. It is a good idea to do the following prior to a Reincarnation:

If you were thinking about a change of hair color, you may want to wait until after you Reincarnate. You'll have the option to change your looks when Reincarnating, and you won't get to keep any exclusive hair colors or styles.
Avoid Reincarnating with a full backpack; try to leave room in your bags to make inventory management easier during the process.
Don't use long-lasting buffs, such as XP bonus potions, as they won't carry over into your new life.

Step 2: Speak with the Life-Shaper!

You’ve met any requirements. You’ve obtained a type of Heart of Wood. You’ve properly prepared your body for your new life. Now you’re ready to undergo a Reincarnation!

Speak with me, the Life-Shaper, to begin the Reincarnation process. I can be found in the Hall of Heroes. You can get to the Hall of Heroes from the Character Selection screen (provided you have purchased access to the Hall of Heroes in the DDO Store), and in-game in the Marketplace in Eberron, or Eveningstar in Faerûn. I will guide you through the process, and explain what will happen.

Above: The Hall of Heroes location in Stormreach's Marketplace

Above: The Hall of Heroes location in Eveningstar

Important things to note:

The Reincarnation process is not reversible!

Your character will show as level 1 in the character selection screen once you accept a Reincarnation. You must enter the game with the character to continue the Reincarnation process and be returned to your proper level.

The features your character will keep, gain, or lose depend on the type of Reincarnation you are undergoing.

Be sure that you understand the features of the type of Reincarnation you have chosen!

Once you have confirmed that you are certain you would like to Reincarnate your character, type the character’s name in the confirmation box and accept. You’ll receive a confirmation message that you’re ready to Reincarnate. Log out of the game to the character selection screen, and next to your character’s name you’ll see a button that says “Reincarnate.” Until you actually press the “Reincarnate” button next to your name, your character will not Reincarnate, and can log in normally. However, until you complete your current reincarnation, you will be unable to use a different form of reincarnation. You may also exit out of the character generation screen as well if you change your mind during the process.

Once you press the “Create” button at the end of the character generation screen, your journey in your new life is underway with no turning back.

Speaking to the Life-Shaper will give you the chance to see this UI, where you can learn about the various forms of Reincarnation and place your Heart of Wood into the space provided to begin.

Step 3: Rebuild Your Character!

Congratulations! By Reincarnating, you have chosen to purge your weaker form to make room for a new, better you! You’ll be taken to the character creation screen, where you may customize your character by selecting your race, class, abilities, feats, and skills. You will also have the opportunity to change many things about your character, such as their looks, skill point distribution, feat selection, and more.

Once you have completed your training you are ready to return to your life of adventure with your reinvented body. Should you desire to Reincarnate again, you must wait for the three day cooldown timer to be completed. You may Reincarnate as many times as you like!

Types of Reincarnation

There are several types of Reincarnation, each offering different benefits that appeal to different needs:

Lesser Reincarnation

Lesser Reincarnation allows you to retain your level and your equipment. It is a good choice if you’re interested in any of the following:

Changing around your skills, feats, enhancements
Redistributing your starting ability points
Changing the way you look
Upgrading a 28 point Adventurer character to a 32 point (non-drow) Hero character, as long as you have unlocked or purchased 32 point builds. This is a good choice if you’d like to upgrade one of your original 28 point build characters to have more ability points

Characters that undergo a Lesser Reincarnation do not lose items, quest or raid progress, Favor, Epic Destiny experience, or Cannith Crafting levels.

Heroic True Reincarnation

Heroic True Reincarnation allows you a fresh start as a more powerful character! A character that undergoes a Heroic True Reincarnation will continue their adventuring at a lower level, and will require a little more XP to level in the future, but will gain several benefits unavailable through other forms of reincarnation.

It is an excellent choice if:

You’d like to upgrade a 28 point build to have more ability points
You’d like to change your race or alignment
You’d like to completely redo your character, including what class they are
You like prestige and recognition for your accomplishments
You’d like to gain extra perks for your character

Characters who undergo a Heroic True Reincarnation will be level 1 after reincarnating if they are reincarnating into a non-Iconic Hero, or level 15 if they reincarnate into an Iconic Hero.

NOTE: Characters who are currently an Iconic Hero cannot undergo a Heroic True Reincarnation. Iconic Heroes have the option to undergo an Iconic True Reincarnation, described below.

The benefits of a Heroic True Reincarnation include:

+2 build points (up to 36 point builds.)
Class-based passive Heroic Past Life feats (which stack up to three times.)
Access to Class-based Active Heroic Past Life feats (which require the use of an available Feat slot.)
And more!

Undergoing a Heroic True Reincarnation will cause a character to lose all quest progress, including Favor, Raid completions, and Quest completions. Cannith Crafting levels will be retained, and items will be retained as well.

Epic Reincarnation

Epic Reincarnation is available to all characters who meet the following requirements:

The character must be at level cap
The character must have earned six million Karma in one of their Destiny Spheres

Epic Reincarnation allows a character to undergo many of the benefits of other forms of reincarnation, including the ability to re-select a character’s look, stat points, skills, feats, and more! Additionally, characters that undergo an Epic Reincarnation:

Retain their Epic Destiny progress, Race, Class levels (non-Epic levels)
Select an Epic Past Life feat (which stacks up to three times.)

Characters who undergo an Epic Reincarnation will return to the game at level 20. Characters will not lose their quest progress, and will retain their Favor, Raid completions, Quest completions, Cannith Crafting levels, items, and more.

Iconic True Reincarnation

Iconc True Reincarnation offers many of the benefits of other forms of reincarnation, but is specifically tailored to Iconic characters! Characters must meet the following requirements:

The character must begin the process as an Iconic Hero (although the character may use an Iconic True Reincarnation to switch to a non-Iconic class if they wish.)
The character must be at level cap.

Characters who undergo an Iconic True Reincarnation will return to the game at level 15 if they remain an Iconic Hero, or level 1 is they True Reincarnate into a non-Iconic class. The character will receive several benefits, including the ability to change their character’s look, stat points, skills, feats, and more! They will also select BOTH an Iconic Past Life and Heroic Class Past Life!

Lesser +1 (and more) Reincarnations

These types of Reincarnation allow you to change a level of your character’s class to a different class. The number after the plus (+) indicates how many class levels you may change. These are an excellent choice if:

You’d like to eliminate levels that you multiclassed
You’d like to try multiclassing with an existing character
You’d like to gradually change your character to be a different class without starting over

Notes and Important Information:

At no time during the reincarnation process may a character have levels in more than three classes, and the reincarnation process “remembers” which classes you had selected during your previous existence. This means that if you have three classes already, you may be unable to swap one class for another class without using multiple Hearts of Wood.
Items in Artificer Iron Defender or Druid Animal Companion equipment slots can be lost upon reincarnation (Lesser, Greater or True.) Players should make sure to remove gear from their companion/defender’s inventory prior to a reincarnation.
It is possible for items to erroneously appear above or underneath other items in your first few inventory slots following a Lesser or Epic Reincarnation, making it appear that an item disappeared. Moving your inventory slots around can uncover these items.
The Lesser Reincarnation UI does not state that the account-level 32-Point Build option is required in order to upgrade a character to 32-points when using a Lesser Reincarnation.