Willie the Duck
Hero
On Dragonsfoot back before Frank Mentzer's most recent foibles someone came and reported to him that they had done so. He congratulated them and talked a little bit about the immortal rules (from his perspective, the framing as immortals was also because he wanted them to be more like Superman/Marvel Thor-type gods than what AD&D gods already were becoming). The general consensus behavior at the time was roughly analogous to the person who posts about their character with stats 18/18/17/16/16/14 -- people cautiously around asking what special decisions the campaign has, and talking around not really buying it.On a related note, BECMI also had a rule about how, if you became an Immortal (i.e. a god; that edition didn't use the term due to the Satanic Panic) of the highest tier, and willingly gave up your immortality to become a 1st-level mortal again, then if you managed to become an Immortal and reach the highest tier of immortality for a second time, you essentially transcended the game system itself, with your character becoming an "Old One" and crossing the Dimensional Vortex, which even the Immortals couldn't breach.
I don't know if anyone ever legitimately did that, but it's awesome to consider.
In retrospect, I'm not sure why it's so implausible -- excepting motivation*. Just like starting over at 1st for the Polymath routes to immortality, you still know the game world, your DM's nuances, and so forth*, and might possibly have allies looking after you** as you level back up (DM/Immortal sponsor call). Unlike the Polymath route, there's no rules stating that one must lose your character knowledge as well. So if you figured out how to get to level 36 at least once (more if you did take the Polymath route to immortality the first time), there's no good reason you couldn't do so again.
*despite a strong fondness for BECMI, I'll be the first to say that there's a lot more 'up' to go in advancement past the point where the advancement actually feels meaningful. You can rule countries at level 10 and cast all the spells at level 18 (of 36).
**also, BECMI has no max # of times or failure chances for being raised from the dead, so you can even die quite a few times in the attempts.
***and taking you on adventures that will level you up one-level per session.
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