Ok... so after a wish turned sour, one of the characters became a Lich, one of the players (who ended up betraying the whole party so he wouldn't die; made a faustian pact with a devil to come back to life) wished the Wizard dead so he wouldn't reveal his secret to the rest of the party. He got half is wish because the wizard is dead, but the wizard is now an undead lich.
Just to make things more interesting, the wizard found out that the traitor (who made the wish) has been turned into his living phylactery (talk about a love-hate relationship)
They tried adventuring together still, but at some point the wizard decided that he was beyond immediate redemption (since his pact turned his Neutral to Evil) and they had to split up (not on good terms, 2 other players died permanently because of that traitor).
So the traitor became an NPC for now since he can't still travel with the Wizard and the new group.
Matt and FJ, stop reading if you're here.
Anyway, I have to think (as the DM) that the wizard might get killed while adventuring, and if that happens, he'll start rebuilding himself near the traitor guy.
Traitor guy doesn't want to outright kill Lich guy because "bah we're friends, I forgive you, sure I killed some people I shouldn't but who's perfect amirite ?" So he would probably look for a way to imprison him for when he wakes up in 1d10 days (or more because he can just destroy the body and let it restart the restoration process).
The challenge :
Lich guy is undead : can't hit him with non-lethal
Lich guy rebuilds himself near Trator guy : can't ask a construct to smash the body when it reforms back at the base, it'll start to build in the middle of street or wherever he is !
Lich guy may or may not come back with some dimension door memorized (I'm thinking of using the good old 50% chance of keeping memorized spells)
Lich guy as spell like abilities of the Transmuter specialist : animal body, elemental body, etc... that requires no somatic and no verbal...
Traitor guys knows all of this because they traveled together for many levels, so he knows what he can and can't do and has the ressources and counsel to plan according to it (no use in putting him in shackles if he can just turn into a mouse !
Ideally they would still be able to speak because "he is his friend and wants to tell him about what he's accomplished"
Any thoughts ?
Characters are level 13 now so nothing that is too much over.
Thank you !
I know it isn't what you asked for, but if it my character was turned into a lich without my consent by a man who betrayed my friends and i, and is directly responsible for the death of said friends...I'd destroy him. I wouldn't care that he is my phylactery; I never planned to live forever anyhow. I'd be happy with living my extended lifespan afterwards and dying whenever someone managed to destroy me, content in the knowledge that the betrayer no longer existed. He cost me my immortal soul already, what's one lifespan versus a thousand compared to that?
And there are some good-aligned elven liches in one of the Faerune books, so as a DM I'd allow the PC to keep whatever alignment he started as. Not that that would stop clerics and paladins from unquestioningly seeking to destroy his undead form, mind you. He'd have to keep that well hidden if he sought to continue interacting in public.
Sounds like a terrible party though. As a DM, I wouldn't allow the betrayer's actions to begin with, but I tend to prohibit PvP at my table from the start.
Lacdannan wrote: I know it isn't what you asked for, but if it my character was turned into a lich without my consent by a man who betrayed my friends and i, and is directly responsible for the death of said friends...I'd destroy him. I wouldn't care that he is my phylactery; I never planned to live forever anyhow. I'd be happy with living my extended lifespan afterwards and dying whenever someone managed to destroy me, content in the knowledge that the betrayer no longer existed. He cost me my immortal soul already, what's one lifespan versus a thousand compared to that?
And there are some good-aligned elven liches in one of the Faerune books, so as a DM I'd allow the PC to keep whatever alignment he started as. Not that that would stop clerics and paladins from unquestioningly seeking to destroy his undead form, mind you. He'd have to keep that well hidden if he sought to continue interacting in public.
Sounds like a terrible party though. As a DM, I wouldn't allow the betrayer's actions to begin with, but I tend to prohibit PvP at my table from the start.
Yep, the character was allowed to keep his old alignment (good) and is following the rules of the good-aligned lich.
The Wizard character is looking for a way to revert the process but can't help but notice how strong he is and how this helps with the grand scale of things (since they are on a quest to save the whole city) although this decision means that he is shun by most who know his secret, even old allies, and most recently, his father (lots of good drama RP)
Also, this is quite the opposite, it is a fantastic party and the treason was in everybody's mind of the biggest highlight how stuff that happened had huge repercussions, everyone played their RP brilliantly (The selfish neutral character who sold his soul to stay alive, but became Lawful Evil as part of the whole selling his soul process) and slowly changed his view on life and what he wanted and needed to do to achieve it. How the Wizard understood the implications of selling your soul so he tried to suffer the presence of his former friend in hopes that he'll be able to save him until the treason was complete and the he gave up on him. Really it was memorable moments that will stay with us forever.
So no, not terrible group. No need to prohibit PvP because they never actually rolled an attack roll against one each other, it was all 100% RP and it was brilliant.
Besides the fact that it seems the other 2 characters got nothing but death while the lich and wish boy got upgraded, the lich knows that the other guy is his phylactery so why is he letting him romp around unabated?
In fact the lich should be making plans to contain his phylactery. The traitor has proven by his own choices that he's untrustworthy, dangerous to himself and other, and rather unstable. How can he think friendship when he wished the guy dead? To me there's a lot here that just doesn't compute.
If it was me I'd have layered permanent debuffs on him till he posed no threat, then if I could I'd get a binding scroll, I'd bind him, secure him in a nice hidden place, proceed to get his soul back while trying to save my other friends and reversing the lich process. I would not let the container of my soul just rome free, especially after killing 3 friends. He's a danger to all the people in his path and they should be protected. This doesn't mean I would consider him unredeemable though but you probably need his soul back to even get start on redemption.
Understandable that things don't compute, there's a lot of "had to be there" thing.
Lich guy had to do a lot of research and divination to figure out that wish boy was his phylactery, and by then they already split up with him, so he didn't let his phylactery romp around unabated on purpose.
The reason he still wanted a friendship (until he didn't) was because they were friends since Level 1 and with his knowledge, understood that wish boy made a deal to save his life, took an extremely stupid decision and was now slowly losing himself (since he was going from neutral to evil, and fulfilling his part of bargain to the devils), wish boy was slow wisdom and pretty enamored with himself, so it was "in character" to jump on the occasion to come back to life without thinking about the long term.
Later on, they split up, but that was still before he found out that they were linked that way.
Which also means that Wish boy doesn't know that he is the phylcatery, and will literally have no idea why there would be a body suddenly starting to build itself around him.
Now the Lich wants to make plans to contain him, but the traitor before he was traitor started his own personal goals, married into minor nobility, used his newfound title to join the army/town guard with a rank, and go up the ladder. But now that he's LE and left the party, he went on his job full time and took advantage of the chaos in the city to go up even more and at this time is second only the Captain (and I think coincidentally, that is where the captain disappears (Shackled City) so that would leave him in charge of the army/guard. So getting to him is not super easy.
Also, even though he stayed a good Lich, "someone" spread the word that he was an undead which resulted in greatly lowering the number of allies they had in the town.
And since the "killing of the 3 friends" happenend outside of town and really there's only the Lich left as a witness, if it became public it would be the undead's word against the Lieutenant of the guard who has been helping the town in its dire needs. I mean, they know the Lich was an adventurer that saved the city in the past.. but that was when he was living. People have a problem with undeads (as they should lol).
Also, it is part of the plan that if both traitor and Lich are still alive once the campaign is over (which should be at level 20, once again we're in the Shackled city campaign) I have been working on an epic go to hell quest to save the soul of traitor.
But still, my question was about how to deal with the Lich if he reforms next to traitor, not the other way around ;p
Kyujaq wrote: But still, my question was about how to deal with the Lich if he reforms next to traitor, not the other way around ;p Fair enough, well since the living guy doesn't know then it would probably be very traumatic the 1st time it happens. Since it takes 1d10 days I would assume it wouldn't be recognizable in the beginning. Also I'm not sure how you are going to handle the rejuvenation of the body and a moveable phylactery but I would say that they would be tethered, such as the body reconstitutes floating near the guy and travels with him unless destroyed.
That said unless the guy has the appropriate knowledge to identify the process then he would probably see it as a political maneuver to overthrow him or discredit him. To me this means he would probably keep trying to destroying it until he passed our from exhaustion since the process keeps starting over. So until the lich fully reforms once he might not know what to do besides hang out in an anti magic field since that's the only thing to stop SU abilities.
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Hum i'd go for classic..
no one can see the reforming for the first few days, but the traitor guy catchs glimpses of him in mirrors and the like. maybe starting 3 days in, he starts the ghostly vision becomes mroe material. Intead of just growing from like a foot onward.. I'd have the ghostly body that always hangs just behind him, hands on his shoulders, slowly become real.
I was going with 5th element reconstruction (my own thinking, never read any other ideas to be honest)
Like at first it looks like nothing, but after a while there's the organs, then the skeleton, then the muscles etc....
In my mind it wouldn't be tethered, so it would start next to him, but stay wherever it started building. So he couldn't have someone stay behind and destroy the body because it would reappear wherever he is then.
Traitor guy knows Lich guy is an undead, Lich guy may have said that he seemed to share many abilities with a Lich but it's 100% possible traitor guy doesn't know the finer workings of Lichdom. The traumatic experience and destroy the body until exhaustion makes absolute sense with how the character was played before becoming an NPC. But once he wakes up or sees that simply destroying the thing is not enough... he could get someone to cast an anti-magic field, but that's not permanent enough, and there is no permanent anti-magic field lying around (there could, but since it was never introduced, I feel that would be a bit too "convenient" to the DM)
So I'm still stuck, how would you proceed to prevent the Lich from using SU to escape.
I think.. it would be hilarious if he happen to be in a temple/church when it started reforming, he and everyone freaks the hell out and here comes an insane amount of priests and town guards.
So really if he knew it was happening, and especially if it was stuck in one place. He'd alert the nearest guards and priests. Let the city state or priesthoods combat him or prevent his ressurection by sticking him in a jar or something.
Hell if he figured out it was him or thought it was something on him, then if he alerts then and the priests etc destroy him before he grows. he might go sit on a biiig temple so he reforms there, chances are the priesthood would find a way to break the phalactry rather than kill an innocent soul (though this would depend on him having moved back to neutral not evil. if he rings evil they may just kill him and destroy everything on him to prevent a lich. i doubt they'd test evil on a lich and see he's good)
See my point is if "a first it looks like nothing" and isn't tethered then would he even notice or care? If it's just a random direction away and starts off small he'll from a probably standpoint never connect it to himself. People don't unusually stay in one spot unless sleeping and with him being a noble he'll like travel around more. My guess is it will be easily miss in the beginning then only possibly found because of random direction away and location. Example he went into the attic to retrieve something, bam free rejuvenation.
Also no there's no other way than a dead magic place or anti-magic zone by raw. Well a mage's disjunction might destroy the phylactery.
Agree that it could amount to a lot of hilarity depending on where it happens, but that will also depends on when it happens. (day vs. night to start off)
He is still evil, but my personal belief is that no fantasy justice system uses detect evil as compelling proof (aka: not because you`re evil at the core that you broke an laws, not because you're evil that you go around murdering people) so depending on the situation, evil guy might win people`s favour vs. good lich. The evil guy has been helping the city, and the good lich well... thanks for all the help, but you`re kinda going against everything we believe in, you better go to rest now... now Evil guy get out of here, we don`t like what we had to do and we don`t like that you had us doing it, so if that`s all please leave my temple.
That`s what I thought about RAW... how would you deal with prevent SU apart from dead magic/anti-magic if it came up in your game?
Because really it's a case of : I can't debuff him too much because as a undead he is immune to most debuffs that would work on living prisonners, and since he can SU transform himself, simple manacles or bars won't do the trick.
I guess custom make magic supressing manacles ? He may have access to a wizard high enough to make those (the wizard wouldn`t ask too many questions since traitor guy is representing the guard/army and they did have problems with wizards and magical creatures in the past) but do you think it would be dangerous to introduce such an item in the game? (Because if Traitor guy keeps Lich guy locked up in the basement with anti-magic manacles, it will surely come up at some point and someone will free him, even maybe traitor guy himself (im sorry I had to do this to you, but I had to finish my plan, you understand right? besides you`re immortal now, so what`s a couple of weeks/months in a basement... water under the bridge right buddy ? we'll just start adventuring again like before right, just you and me ?)
Yeah I understand but as a RAW standpoint only dead magic zones and antimagic zones prevent SU abilities. Now I don't know all the rules published so there maybe a class ability that I don't know or can't think of to suppress it.
Now I think that dead magic would work too, such as a dead magic demiplane, or dead magic world, or even just being manacled to a rock in dead magic place. A lich spellcaster stuck in a dead magic place is pretty harsh.
There is also 2 metamagics that let certain spells effect undead instead of normally being immune.
Thanks.
I guess we'll just stick him in a metal box if the need arise.
Lol.
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