How do you tell if something is a Lich's phylactery?


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blahpers wrote:

How big can a phylactery be?

I mean, if I had a choice, rather than the big conspicuous urn of doom on the ominous pedestal in the dark vault at the bottom of Darkevil Dungeon, . . . I'd rather just make the dungeon itself the phylactery.

/why not a planet?

Edit: Master plan:

1. Craft planet phylactery.
2. Transplant all life on original planet to phylactery.
3. Destroy original planet.
4. Be immortal until some other fool gets the same idea.

My phylactery is the color blue.

You would need to be this guy to stop me.

Scarab Sages

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Classic Evil Lich would have a NG human child for their Phylactery....So even if the good players find it, they still can't destroy it (because killing Good aligned human children is evil...).


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Murdock Mudeater wrote:
Classic Evil Lich would have a NG human child for their Phylactery....So even if the good players find it, they still can't destroy it (because killing Good aligned human children is evil...).

A genre savvy lich would never set up such a thing. The child would inevitably become Incorruptible Pure Pureness and sacrifice itself at the worst possible moment. At best, if it were an infant it might buy the lich a few years before the brat becomes sentient enough to play martyr.

Scarab Sages

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blahpers wrote:
Murdock Mudeater wrote:
Classic Evil Lich would have a NG human child for their Phylactery....So even if the good players find it, they still can't destroy it (because killing Good aligned human children is evil...).
A genre savvy lich would never set up such a thing. The child would inevitably become Incorruptible Pure Pureness and sacrifice itself at the worst possible moment. At best, if it were an infant it might buy the lich a few years before the brat becomes sentient enough to play martyr.

Nah, you keep it in stasis of some sort. So the PCs find it and are given the option to murder an innocent to destroy a great evil, or to allow evil to exist so as to keep their sense of morality.

Or, classic Drama, one of the PCs is the phylactery. So destroying the Phylactery means destroying (permanently) one of the PCs.

Could also be tied to a bloodline, rather than an individual creature. PCs would need to locate every member of the bloodline and attempt genocide on them in order to defeat the lich permanently. After all, how did you think Sorcerers get the Undead Bloodline....


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Now you're talking. : D


Volkard Abendroth wrote:
Bwang wrote:
4 GMs have actually sat down and hammered out 'rules for their campaign' Liches and why they MUST keep them to hand.
Lich wrote:
Rejuvenation (Su): When a lich is destroyed, its phylactery (which is generally hidden by the lich in a safe place far from where it chooses to dwell)

Yes, but 3/4 had had to deal with unreachable phylacteries as players and saw a limitation as needed to prevent someone dropping it in the ocean, Liches don't need air.

Someone in the greater group of players actually kept a list of 'impossibles' and the phylactery section had over a dozen entries when I saw it. They imposed an 'idiot tax' on GMs that used anything on the list.

Current group doesn't undead much, tho one I'm kinda running RotL with undead does. Almost level 10 and had a single undead encounter since i got second level spells.

Perhaps the current pool of diseased minds that live here can produce a few broken phylacteries and safe places to hide them. I'll start with 'a pebble on the bottom of the sea in a Sahuaghin (sp) city.

In a chamber sealed off from a lava flow miles below, then word of recall to home base.

The throne of a LN extra-planar being of law.

I like the idea of using a 'holy Avenger'.

Scarab Sages

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Personally, I don't like the idea of running anything immortal with a fixed alignment. Eliminates the option for characters to grow, mentally.

A lich, constantly defeated by good, but not destroyed, should eventually alter their methods so they don't keep getting defeated. Could change to another flavor of evil, or actually shift to a "more" good alignment, like true neutral.

Evil that must always be evil nerfs good, as conversion to good is the ideal outcome that the forces of good should be seeking. Having to destroy evil is an act of desperation for good and really represents failure.


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Murdock Mudeater wrote:
Personally, I don't like the idea of running anything immortal with a fixed alignment. Eliminates the option for characters to grow, mentally.

It's canonical that in Wrath of the Righteous

Serious Spoilers within:

Spoiler:
Runelord Alderpash, who is a lich, is capable of being redeemed for whatever that means.

Quote:
The notion of redeeming Alderpash may sound ludicrous, but in fact, after over 10,000 years in prison, the lich is willing to consider any option for escape. If agreeing to amend his evil ways and seeking a path of redemption is what it takes to get the PCs to agree to help him, he'll give it an honest try. This is no small task, however, and Alderpash's redemption is likely to take longer than the remainder of the campaign. Nonetheless should the PCs hit upon this option and propose it to the lich, he may well take them up on the offer.

So a Lich being something other than Evil is possible. This is from an AP where "redemption" is one of the major themes, and these are exceptional circumstances but it appears possible for a lich to eventually change its alignment.


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Bwang wrote:
Volkard Abendroth wrote:
Bwang wrote:
4 GMs have actually sat down and hammered out 'rules for their campaign' Liches and why they MUST keep them to hand.
Lich wrote:
Rejuvenation (Su): When a lich is destroyed, its phylactery (which is generally hidden by the lich in a safe place far from where it chooses to dwell)

Yes, but 3/4 had had to deal with unreachable phylacteries as players and saw a limitation as needed to prevent someone dropping it in the ocean, Liches don't need air.

Someone in the greater group of players actually kept a list of 'impossibles' and the phylactery section had over a dozen entries when I saw it. They imposed an 'idiot tax' on GMs that used anything on the list.

Current group doesn't undead much, tho one I'm kinda running RotL with undead does. Almost level 10 and had a single undead encounter since i got second level spells.

Perhaps the current pool of diseased minds that live here can produce a few broken phylacteries and safe places to hide them. I'll start with 'a pebble on the bottom of the sea in a Sahuaghin (sp) city.

In a chamber sealed off from a lava flow miles below, then word of recall to home base.

The throne of a LN extra-planar being of law.

I like the idea of using a 'holy Avenger'.

Dropped in the ocean. Wow. That's a toughie. Finding such a phylactery would be tantamount to a quest or something. : D

Shadow Lodge

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Murdock Mudeater wrote:

Personally, I don't like the idea of running anything immortal with a fixed alignment. Eliminates the option for characters to grow, mentally.

A lich, constantly defeated by good, but not destroyed, should eventually alter their methods so they don't keep getting defeated. Could change to another flavor of evil, or actually shift to a "more" good alignment, like true neutral.

Evil that must always be evil nerfs good, as conversion to good is the ideal outcome that the forces of good should be seeking. Having to destroy evil is an act of desperation for good and really represents failure.

While the type of person who'd become a lich is usually the sort of genius who refuses to believe that they'd ever be wrong (so much so that they'd be willing to commit atrocities in order to become undead), I do like the idea of a repentant lich. Though, if the PCs manage to destroy their phylactery, they'd probably want to play nice, now that they can get killed for real.

(While yes, redemption is the ideal outcome, having to destroy evil isn't so much a failure on the side of the redeemers, as it is on the side of the evil people who have refused redemption and forced the Good Guys into such desperation)

So as to avoid a threadjack, a lich's phylactery usually needs a deeply personal connection or has to be the culmination of a lot of hard, expensive work. "My-phylactery-is-a-grain-of-sand-on-a-beach" aside, finding out information on the lich while they were alive could provide clues as to what was used and how it became such. Plus, you might get some secret information you could use to make fun of the lich at the later confrontation.


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In all seriousness, by the time players are dealing with liches worth the name, divination is crazy powerful and can surmount most obstacles given time, funds, and effort.


I'm trying to find the 'thou shalt not' list, but it evades me. The problem is some of the skills needed to find it can be rendered useless with imagination. I would love to see even a guideline for the creation, etc., of these. A not good guy game I've played in had people try and go the Lich route, forcing one of the above to do his work (weak and very limiting), but 'the bottom of the ocean' came into play. I think that is when the proximity rules got created.

One I liked was the BBEG who sold his soul for power but had to give a duke of Hell his phylactery as hostage!

Another nasty I never used was making the P fire and pressure proof and dropping it into lava.

Not mine but interesting choice was a song. Whenever it was sung again, the Lich was 'reborn'. A variant might be a low level spell, freely copied. Yes, this became the 'kill all Bards' game.

Scarab Sages

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The Shifty Mongoose wrote:

While the type of person who'd become a lich is usually the sort of genius who refuses to believe that they'd ever be wrong (so much so that they'd be willing to commit atrocities in order to become undead), I do like the idea of a repentant lich. Though, if the PCs manage to destroy their phylactery, they'd probably want to play nice, now that they can get killed for real.

(While yes, redemption is the ideal outcome, having to destroy evil isn't so much a failure on the side of the redeemers, as it is on the side of the evil people who have refused redemption and forced the Good Guys into such desperation)

You'd need a multi-generational campaign, I'd think, to have most of the immortal creatures actually learn their lesson and shift alignment. Defeating, but not destroying, the lich multiple times across multiple parties of adventurers should eventually change the lich's outlook (even if the newfound outlook still isn't good).

And yeah, it's failure on both sides if the evil doesn't become good, eventually. The failed redemption is failure on the good side and the evil is failing to survive is a failure on the evil side. Anyway, I wouldn't ding the players for this, but it isn't the "ideal" outcome for the forces of good. That's why, most of the time, the Good forces attempt to Seal away greater evil, rather than destroying it. Sealed evil can still be redeemed.

Anyway, to thread, pretty sure the lich can have just about anything be the phylactery. GM should decide if they want to lich's defeat to include destruction, and base the PC ability to locate the phylactery on that. PCs don't need to destroy evil to defeat it. If destruction of the lich is intended, then make the object easy to identify and locate.

For lich personality, I think of them as objective based. The Lich isn't cruel, everything they do is with purpose (which may still have cruel outcomes, but the goal isn't cruelty). The PCs are annoyances, but they aren't the goal. If the PCs make the Lich's goal unobtainable, the Lich will leave. It doesn't need to waste effort on battles that don't matter. It has no emotion, just cold logic, and it has all the time in the world to execute its plans.

So I'd pick an objective for the Lich, typically one that includes some magic object that the PCs can destroy/take. Maybe the Lich needs the object on exactly a certain day or time. If the PCs prevent the Lich's objective from being able to be obtained, they defeat the Lich. Destroying the lich is meaningless to the quest and the lich will retreat if their objective becomes unobtainable.

If the lich's plans evil plans always fail, it might start examining the plans objectively and running statistics. At some point, it will probably experiement with neutral or good plans, and if they lead to success, it may switch to being a different kind of lich. I don't really think the Lich will ever feel bad about past deeds with them hurting the innocent (or feel at all), but they could still become a force of good in the present tense.


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It should be noted that in this case the Lich has only recently woken up from a 10,000 year sleep so only one of the PC's knows anything aboutr him, and that's because he's a skin stealer and 10,000 years ago the Lich captured him and kept him as a slave for some time as a joke, and the Skin Stealer has some very patchy memories.

Culminated in the Skin Stealer hitting him with a Smite Critical Undead-bane arrow with the words "I resign!" which left the Lich Dimension Dooring away with 3 hp.
Then coming back invisible and hitting the Skin Stealer with an Empower Vampiric Touch and the words "Resignation accepted!".


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blahpers wrote:
In all seriousness, by the time players are dealing with liches worth the name, divination is crazy powerful and can surmount most obstacles given time, funds, and effort.

Most divination spells are blocked by lead.


Familial bloodline lich

Lich brought back via "song" (of it's story)


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PossibleCabbage wrote:
Keep Calm and Carrion wrote:
So this is an Imp lich? Or a man-sized box in really big brick? I do love the idea of a superintelligent lich not having the wisdom to keep his phylactery in a space large enough for his body to reform in, but I suspect that's not the scenario you had in mind.
I thought a lich reforms "nearby" its phylactery, not immediately in contact with it. So if you had it in the wall of a room, it would reform in the room near the wall.

Yeah, some folks interpret "nearby" to mean there doesn't need to be line of effect between a phylactery and its lich's reforming body, which I suppose is no more silly than deciding that liches can make things that already exist (swords, children, planets) into phylactreries, instead of making them from scratch.

Scarab Sages

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Volkard Abendroth wrote:
blahpers wrote:
In all seriousness, by the time players are dealing with liches worth the name, divination is crazy powerful and can surmount most obstacles given time, funds, and effort.
Most divination spells are blocked by lead.

But does the Lich know that...?

RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32

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Break it. Did the lich come back? That wasn't it.

Exo-Guardians

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Even the halfling ranger in Order of the Stick knows lead blocks divination. Maybe if you dropped Divination when you specialized I could understand why a caster wouldn't know that.

The problem with dropping it in the ocean (aside from the new pressure zone rules in Aquatic Adventures) is that even you don't know where it is. Things wash up on shore all the time, there are aquatic species out there that have the same spells as surface folk. When you regenerate do you really want to wake up inside a whale? Or stuck in some tube worm near a volcanic vent?

Exo-Guardians

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PossibleCabbage wrote:
Murdock Mudeater wrote:
Personally, I don't like the idea of running anything immortal with a fixed alignment. Eliminates the option for characters to grow, mentally.

It's canonical that in Wrath of the Righteous

Serious Spoilers within:
** spoiler omitted **

So a Lich being something other than Evil is possible. This is from an AP where "redemption" is one of the major themes, and these are exceptional circumstances but it appears possible for a lich to eventually change its alignment.

And somehow that wasn't the spoiler I was expecting. Anything with an intelligence over 2 can be redeemed in theory. Just because you've broken the natural cycle of life and death to extend your material existence ... oh wait, that's why you're evil in the first place. So maybe the best we can hope for is True Neutral.

That would be another route to defeating a Lich even if you can't identify the phylactery. If you can't kill it, convert it.


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wolaberry wrote:
PossibleCabbage wrote:
Murdock Mudeater wrote:
Personally, I don't like the idea of running anything immortal with a fixed alignment. Eliminates the option for characters to grow, mentally.

It's canonical that in Wrath of the Righteous

Serious Spoilers within:
** spoiler omitted **

So a Lich being something other than Evil is possible. This is from an AP where "redemption" is one of the major themes, and these are exceptional circumstances but it appears possible for a lich to eventually change its alignment.

And somehow that wasn't the spoiler I was expecting. Anything with an intelligence over 2 can be redeemed in theory. Just because you've broken the natural cycle of life and death to extend your material existence ... oh wait, that's why you're evil in the first place. So maybe the best we can hope for is True Neutral.

That would be another route to defeating a Lich even if you can't identify the phylactery. If you can't kill it, convert it.

Next thing you know, we'll be grappling with the concept of a good aligned succubus.

Scarab Sages

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wolaberry wrote:
you really want to wake up inside a whale?

Hey, you can live inside a whale. Thank Disney for this Educational tip.


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Volkard Abendroth wrote:
blahpers wrote:
In all seriousness, by the time players are dealing with liches worth the name, divination is crazy powerful and can surmount most obstacles given time, funds, and effort.
Most divination spells are blocked by lead.

Augury

Commune
Contact other plane
Divination

I'm just getting started.


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Just to head off "that can be defeated by X, the other by Y", and so on: You're the GM. You decide how much time, energy, research, and funds have been put into ensorcelling the crap out of the phylactery. A relatively young lich of only modest power probably takes some pains to protect its phylactery from detection. A very powerful lich may have done most or all things it could conceive of, but commensurately powerful players tend to have very powerful resources at their disposal. If you want the lich to be unfindable, it'll be unfindable, but you don't need a lich to do that sort of thing. Make it challenging, not impossible.


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blahpers wrote:
Volkard Abendroth wrote:
blahpers wrote:
In all seriousness, by the time players are dealing with liches worth the name, divination is crazy powerful and can surmount most obstacles given time, funds, and effort.
Most divination spells are blocked by lead.

Augury

Commune
Contact other plane
Divination

I'm just getting started.

  • Augury: target you - provides no specific info, only events affecting the caster.
  • Commune:target you - answer restricted to yes/no/uncertain. Contacted entity must have knowledge sought.
  • Contact Other Plane: target you- restricted list of answers (e.g. yes, no, maybe), high percentage of false answers/ability damage
  • Divination: target you - advice only in regards to events affecting the caster.

Summary: lead won't stop a caster from using divination spells from contacting other planes or attempting to discern his personal future. Contacting other planes may/may not reveal information. Divining your personal future not no much, unless you are already fated to find what you are looking for in the next few days.

Scarab Sages

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blahpers wrote:
Make it challenging, not impossible.

Unless you don't intend the PCs to the destroy the lich. You can make it impossible to destoy, but you need to be careful that the PCs aren't mislead into believing that destroying the lich is the goal...


Commune is awesome at finding things.

"Hey Nethys, literally omniscient god of knowing everything about magic, is this lich's phylactery <insert region here>?"

That's the most potent. Divination's ability to tell your personal future (heck, even augury) can tell you a looooooooooooooooooooot about how to search.

"If I look here really hard, will I find it?"

Divinations are incredibly potent when used to their full potential as-written.

Which is kind of blaphers' point - sure, you can make it harder on the PCs, but you don't need specific rules (though there are a lot, and they're pretty awesome) to do that. :)


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Volkard Abendroth wrote:
  • Divination: target you - advice only in regards to events affecting the caster.[/list]
  • Summary: lead won't stop a caster from using divination spells from contacting other planes or attempting to discern his personal future. Contacting other planes may/may not reveal information. Divining your personal future not no much, unless you are already fated to find what you are looking for in the next few days.

    What does target have to do with it?

    Anyway... Divination not so much, eh?

    Divination wrote:

    Similar to augury but more powerful, a divination spell can provide you with a useful piece of advice in reply to a question concerning a specific goal, event, or activity that is to occur within 1 week. The advice granted by the spell can be as simple as a short phrase, or it might take the form of a cryptic rhyme or omen. If your party doesn’t act on the information, the conditions may change so that the information is no longer useful./quote]

    Doesn't match your description at all. If your goal is "find the phylactery", divination can help, albeit not necessarily in a direct fashion. Sounds like a winner to me.

    The rest were just counterexamples to your "lead blocks most divination". Lead blocks scrying and some non-scrying diviniations. "Most" is a bit much.

    Point being, players have options, and neutering liches so they have to basically carry around their weakness is a disservice to the concept.

    Scarab Sages

    Tacticslion wrote:


    "Hey Nethys, literally omniscient god of knowing everything about magic, is this lich's phylactery <insert region here>?"

    Though that wording will probably fail you if the another PC in the party has better perception. Nethys says no, [u]you[/u] will not find in there.


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    Murdock Mudeater wrote:
    Tacticslion wrote:


    "Hey Nethys, literally omniscient god of knowing everything about magic, is this lich's phylactery <insert region here>?"
    Though that wording will probably fail you if the another PC in the party has better perception. Nethys says no, you will not find in there.

    In any game where your own deity is actively trying to mislead you on spell answers, Commune will be pretty useless, yes.

    It's usually operated under the assumption that your god -wants- to help you, though.


    Volkard Abendroth wrote:
    Next thing you know, we'll be grappling with the concept of a good aligned succubus.

    You know what you were doing!

    Murdock Mudeater wrote:
    Tacticslion wrote:


    "Hey Nethys, literally omniscient god of knowing everything about magic, is this lich's phylactery <insert region here>?"
    Though that wording will probably fail you if the another PC in the party has better perception. Nethys says no, [u]you[/u] will not find in there.

    Uh, I don't think you read what question was asked.

    I mean, sure, your reply works for the divination, but when I asked Nethys, with commune, I get a pretty straight-forward answer. With the divination I was intentionally being less precise because the answer is less precise. There is no real way to know if I or another will be the one to find it, and "really hard" is vague, at best (encompassing all sorts of different definitions), so it's up to a GM/table relationship whether or not that kind of question works. I was, generally, assuming that the GMs and players weren't particularly antagonistic to each other. Some tables are, one supposes, but I doubt that's the norm.

    Back to commune, though: even if I'd used that vague question, given its my deity I'm contacting, misleading answers are allowed a couple words worth of clarification, per the spell. "No." is too definitive and misleading - even if someone has a higher Perception than I, it's clear to all parties what the intent is, which is what commune runs off of, unless, of course, said Lich is also a cleric of Nethys, at which point I'd be aware of it having just, you know, watched him weild his holy symbol to cast spells in battle. That would be a neat BBEG moment - the cleric and BBEG both worship (and receive spells from) the same deity! But are opposite alignments! What a twist! And in that case, it's likely a whole 'nother level of story going on, and likely to be taken in a very different direction, so...

    Specific tables and exceptions are specific, is what I'm saying, but the general advice generally applies: players have options, and outside of specific, contrived circumstances, or outright rules changes, they are very powerful. :D


    Tacticslion wrote:

    Commune is awesome at finding things.

    "Hey Nethys, literally omniscient god of knowing everything about magic, is this lich's phylactery <insert region here>?"

    Contacting Nethys is a DC 16 INT check, reduces INT and CHA each by 8 on a failed check for 5 weeks with no information provided, prevents arcane casting for 5 weeks, and still has a 12% chance of failing/providing false information.

    Even if you succeed, you only get a one-word answer.

    Quote:

    [That's the most potent. Divination's ability to tell your personal future (heck, even augury) can tell you a looooooooooooooooooooot about how to search.

    "If I look here really hard, will I find it?"

    Unless you are already going to find it, the answer is "NO", with no explanation of why. Even if you were in the right city or even the right building.

    On the plus side, an answer of "YES" will tell you the big day is approaching and you should be prepared and possibly point towards a few specific preparations.

    Quote:

    Divinations are incredibly potent when used to their full potential as-written.

    Which is kind of blaphers' point - sure, you can make it harder on the PCs, but you don't need specific rules (though there are a lot, and they're pretty awesome) to do that. :)

    As written, only the caster's personal future is subject to Divination, it will reveal nothing about anyone else.

    If anyone is going to benefit from Divination it is the lich. The spell will easily reveal if anyone will attack him or find his phylactery in the next week. That is his personal future.


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    Commune =/= Contact other plane =/= Divination.

    It seems you are very vested in the narrative of the lich not being found and are ignoring the rules for the sake of making a point.

    Your point was not only made, but accepted and noted.

    "The lich can be impossible to find if the GM rules it that way" is not only true, it's tautological. We all accept that. Of course there are an infinite variety of ways of hiding the thing. We all accept that, too.

    What is not accepted is that it's impossible to find, barring GM shenanigans. I mean, liches are already waaaaayyyyyyy over treasure/CR just by having a phylactery, much less anything else. That's very legitimate, if you decide to start giving them more things or rule spells against the players for their sake or whatever. At your table.

    But as a general series of guidelines, it's better to assume that things are possible to achieve.

    Oh, and sure, divination can reveal (within a likelihood) a lich's phylactery being found, but the trick is how often would they be casting it? One presupposes they're a divine faster to do so. Unlike PCs, the lich had a single obtainable goal - immortality - long ago, and, once achieved, they hid the key to breaking that very well. To that end, after a century or two of, "Will meddling kids find my box, prrreessscciiioousss?" followed by, "Survey says: it's looks unlikely." it is unlikely the lich habitually checks anymore - there is little point or reason, after generating the same results 520 or 1,040 times (give or take) that they'd continue to bother. I mean, it's not like the PCs habItaly check for phylacteries by way of commune or divination either. It's only when the actual conflict comes up that they start to look for stuff like that.

    And if the lich did use divination every week and it did warn him... not a lot he can do. "I dig up the building, removing it from its secure location and putting it somewhere else." seems reasonable, until you realize they just removed the very reason for hiding it. They have now exposed their precious phylactery to the world in their attempt to hide it (bad), and now people will know to look for their tricks (worse, as, "I make it an even more buildingy building!" is dumb, and there are limited variations a given creature can come up with). A lich is usually better off just killing anything that would otherwise find its phylactery. Which brings us back to square one.

    Liches are tough and canny creatures with great imagination and high ability scores. They are immortal and come back, unless defeated. Lead blocks some of the easier divinations. But that is just a method of buying them more time, not of making them immune to being discovered. And most often, that's more than enough. And he would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for those meddling kids...

    EDIT: to clarify something and make it hopefully look better, now that I'm not on my phone.


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    blahpers wrote:

    You're the GM. You decide how much time, energy, research, and funds have been put into ensorcelling the crap out of the phylactery.

    If you want the lich to be unfindable, it'll be unfindable, but you don't need a lich to do that sort of thing. Make it challenging, not impossible.

    I wish more dms would take that to heart! We had one that decided that no one else could reach the BBEG's lair because it was his personal micro dimension.


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    Okay.

    So, since it seems there is some amount of confusion, let's actually look at what each spell does.

    Hopefully, this will put us all on the same page.

    Also, I'm not copy/pasting (or commenting) on everything - if I miss something significant, feel free to mention it, but generally I'm ignoring stuff because it's irrelevant to the topic at hand.

    Divination

    Quote:
    Similar to augury but more powerful, a divination spell can provide you with a useful piece of advice in reply to a question concerning a specific goal, event, or activity that is to occur within 1 week. The advice granted by the spell can be as simple as a short phrase, or it might take the form of a cryptic rhyme or omen. If your party doesn’t act on the information, the conditions may change so that the information is no longer useful. The base chance for a correct divination is 70% + 1% per caster level, to a maximum of 90%. If the die roll fails, you know the spell failed, unless specific magic yielding false information is at work.

    1) can provide you with a useful piece of advice in reply to a question concerning a specific goal, even, or activity to occur within one week

    - 1a) nothing about your personal future, my proposed question is probably not very useful for the spell either, though

    2) simple as a short phrase, or cryptic rhyme or omen
    - 2a) GM-dependent
    - 2b) not "yes/no"

    3) 77-90% accurate
    - 3a) or more, with incense, chainmail, or a six pack er, shiny piece on your chest)

    4) if you don't act on it, it stops being useful
    - see "within 1 week" above

    5) you know if it fails, unless weird things give you fake results
    - 5a) things can give you fake results

    Commune

    Quote:

    You contact your deity–or agents thereof–and ask questions that can be answered by a simple yes or no. (A cleric of no particular deity contacts a philosophically allied deity.) You are allowed one such question per caster level. The answers given are correct within the limits of the entity’s knowledge. “Unclear” is a legitimate answer, because powerful beings of the Outer Planes are not necessarily omniscient. In cases where a one-word answer would be misleading or contrary to the deity’s interests, a short phrase (five words or less) may be given as an answer instead.

    The spell, at best, provides information to aid character decisions. The entities contacted structure their answers to further their own purposes. If you lag, discuss the answers, or go off to do anything else, the spell ends.

    1) you contact your deity or agents thereof

    2) usually a simple yes/no/unclear
    - 2a) if this would be misleading OR contrary to the answerer's interest, a short phrase (five words or less) may be given instead
    - 2b) the entity you contact structures answers for their purposes
    - 2c) it is helpful (unless they are antagonistic to you, in which case, it's strange you'd be contacting them)

    3) up to one question/level

    4) doing anything other than question/answer -> spell ends

    Contact other plane

    Quote:

    You send your mind to another plane of existence (an Elemental Plane or some plane farther removed) in order to receive advice and information from powers there. See the accompanying table for possible consequences and results of the attempt. The powers reply in a language you understand, but they resent such contact and give only brief answers to your questions. All questions are answered with “yes,” “no,” “maybe,” “never,” “irrelevant,” or some other one-word answer.

    You must concentrate on maintaining the spell (a standard action) in order to ask questions at the rate of one per round. A question is answered by the power during the same round. You may ask one question for every two caster levels.

    Contact with minds far removed from your home plane increases the probability that you will incur a decrease in Intelligence and Charisma due to your brain being overwhelmed, but also increases the chance of the power knowing the answer and answering correctly. Once the Outer Planes are reached, the power of the deity contacted determines the effects. (Random results obtained from the table are subject to the personalities of individual deities.) On rare occasions, this divination may be blocked by an act of certain deities or forces.

    Oof. What a mess!

    1) one-word answers only
    - 1a) "yes," "no," "maybe," "never," "irrelevant" are possible
    - 1b) so are others

    2) questions asked 1/round
    - 2a) requires standard action
    - 2b) up to 1/2 lvl questions

    3) can cause intelligence/charisma decrease (to 8) and shut things down fast
    - 3a) this reduction is not damage or drain, so undead are not immune
    - 3b) you can't take 10

    4) the deity can lie to you, randomly
    - 4a) this is subject to deity's personality
    - 4a-1) so no "Sarenrae, goddess of honesty, lies to you" or "Iomedae lies; falls as a paladin" silly god-traps

    5) oh my word, this spell sucks so bad, why would you ever use it
    - 5a) reasons: you'd use it for "reasons"

    Hope that helps as we discuss things in the future!


    Heh.

    Somehow I missed this post.

    Sorry!

    blahpers wrote:
    Make it challenging, not impossible.
    Murdock Mudeater wrote:
    Unless you don't intend the PCs to the destroy the lich. You can make it impossible to destoy, but you need to be careful that the PCs aren't mislead into believing that destroying the lich is the goal...

    Yes, this is very true.

    But communicating that is challenging, and, from what I'm given to understanding, at many tables it won't even work - many PCs are too incensed at the idea of a living bad guy to do something else.

    Some exceptions may apply - such as long-term setting-specific bad guys, ala The Whispering Tyrant or Geb*, in Golarion, but even so, many PCs may well be opposed to permitting such a foe from being merely "sealed again" - be prepared for pushback, if you introduce such a character.

    * Okay, so he's not a lich, but still - you get the point.

    That said, it could, maybe, potentially very worth doing, if you think your table would ultimately enjoy the game in that regard. But know your table, and know your PCs, and know what you're willing to flex on, and what they are for an over-all good gaming experience!


    blahpers wrote:

    You're the GM. You decide how much time, energy, research, and funds have been put into ensorcelling the crap out of the phylactery.

    If you want the lich to be unfindable, it'll be unfindable, but you don't need a lich to do that sort of thing. Make it challenging, not impossible.

    Bwang wrote:
    I wish more dms would take that to heart! We had one that decided that no one else could reach the BBEG's lair because it was his personal micro dimension.

    Planeshift is a thing.


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    Tacticslion wrote:
    Oh, and sure, divination can reveal (within a likelihood) a lich's phylactery being found, but the trick is how often would they be casting it? One presupposes they're a divine faster to do so. Unlike PCs, the lich had a single obtainable goal - immortality - long ago, and, once achieved, they hid the key to breaking that very well. To that end, after a century or two of, "Will meddling kids find my box, prrreessscciiioousss?" followed by, "Survey says: it's looks unlikely." it is unlikely the lich habitually checks anymore - there is little point or reason, after generating the same results 520 or 1,040 times (give or take) that they'd continue to bother. I mean, it's not like the PCs habItaly check for phylacteries by way of commune or divination either. It's only when the actual conflict comes up that they start to look for stuff like that.

    I don't argue the likely of a lich repeating the same divination specifically regarding his phylactery every single week for centuries with negative results. Not unless he is suffering from paranoia.

    The likelihood of a lich casting a weekly Divination to check for significant events likely to affect him is somewhat higher.

    The likely of a lich expending some divination effort after being destroyed and reforming - very.


    Okay, that is super-fair, and something I wasn't considering.

    But now it's more-or-less a race, which is the place we were at originally: can the meddling kids PCs find the phylactery (the first time) before the lich reforms?

    They've (the PCs've) got 1d10 days (average of 5.5, but as few as 1, and as many as 10)* to find the phylactery before angry dude shows up again.

    That's where the various divination effects from the PCs come into play - how quickly can they find the thing?

    Usually pretty quickly. If they don't, of course, all bets are off - only a supremely confident lich** wouldn't take any new precautions now that those kids are out to get him, for sure, that's a definite.

    * This is, of course, assuming a standard lich; exceptions for all sorts of variants apply. And we all know what happens when we assume... *coughxkcdcough*

    ** Either stupidity, age, arrogance, or justified reasoning can lead to such confidence. Some of those are the same thing.


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    Tacticslion wrote:

    Okay, that is super-fair, and something I wasn't considering.

    But now it's more-or-less a race, which is the place we were at originally: can the meddling kids PCs find the phylactery (the first time) before the lich reforms?

    They've (the PCs've) got 1d10 days (average of 5.5, but as few as 1, and as many as 10)* to find the phylactery before angry dude shows up again.

    That's where the various divination effects from the PCs come into play - how quickly can they find the thing?

    Usually pretty quickly. If they don't, of course, all bets are off - only a supremely confident lich** wouldn't take any new precautions now that those kids are out to get him, for sure, that's a definite.

    * This is, of course, assuming a standard lich; exceptions for all sorts of variants apply. And we all know what happens when we assume... *coughxkcdcough*

    ** Either stupidity, age, arrogance, or justified reasoning can lead to such confidence. Some of those are the same thing.

    i know you put asterisks but i just got to add these hasty rebirthand dread lich with 1 day and 1d4 day rejuvinations respectively


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    hasty rebirth is a third party feat so not applicable to put here.


    Tacticslion wrote:

    Okay, that is super-fair, and something I wasn't considering.

    But now it's more-or-less a race, which is the place we were at originally: can the meddling kids PCs find the phylactery (the first time) before the lich reforms?

    They've (the PCs've) got 1d10 days (average of 5.5, but as few as 1, and as many as 10)* to find the phylactery before angry dude shows up again.

    That's where the various divination effects from the PCs come into play - how quickly can they find the thing?

    Usually pretty quickly. If they don't, of course, all bets are off - only a supremely confident lich** wouldn't take any new precautions now that those kids are out to get him, for sure, that's a definite.

    * This is, of course, assuming a standard lich; exceptions for all sorts of variants apply. And we all know what happens when we assume... *coughxkcdcough*

    ** Either stupidity, age, arrogance, or justified reasoning can lead to such confidence. Some of those are the same thing.

    Lady-J wrote:
    i know you put asterisks but i just got to add these hasty rebirthand dread lich with 1 day and 1d4 day rejuvinations respectively

    Fair!

    John Murdock wrote:
    hasty rebirth is a third party feat so not applicable to put here.

    Also fair!


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    Tacticslion wrote:

    Commune is awesome at finding things.

    "Hey Nethys, literally omniscient god of knowing everything about magic, is this lich's phylactery <insert region here>?"

    That's the most potent. Divination's ability to tell your personal future (heck, even augury) can tell you a looooooooooooooooooooot about how to search.

    "If I look here really hard, will I find it?"

    Divinations are incredibly potent when used to their full potential as-written.

    Which is kind of blaphers' point - sure, you can make it harder on the PCs, but you don't need specific rules (though there are a lot, and they're pretty awesome) to do that. :)

    I recall one of the devs clarified that Nethys isn't omniscient, he just became omniscient long enough to break his mind. What deities know in PF is never defined as far as I know though. In 3E I think he would know (It's a pretty major thing in his portfolio) but d20srd is down so I cant check them. edit: Wayback to the rescue! If you're within 16-20 miles and it isn't obscured by another deity, he can find it under 3E rules.


    Tacticslion wrote:

    Commune is awesome at finding things.

    "Hey Nethys, literally omniscient god of knowing everything about magic, is this lich's phylactery <insert region here>?"

    That's the most potent. Divination's ability to tell your personal future (heck, even augury) can tell you a looooooooooooooooooooot about how to search.

    "If I look here really hard, will I find it?"

    Divinations are incredibly potent when used to their full potential as-written.

    Which is kind of blaphers' point - sure, you can make it harder on the PCs, but you don't need specific rules (though there are a lot, and they're pretty awesome) to do that. :)

    deuxhero wrote:
    I recall one of the devs clarified that Nethys isn't omniscient, he just became omniscient long enough to break his mind. What deities know in PF is never defined as far as I know though. In 3E I think he would know (It's a pretty major thing in his portfolio) but d20srd is down so I cant check them.

    You are definitely correct about 3.5 - but I wasn't really paying any attention to those rules. I just meant that Nethys had his super-spell that let him look everywhere at once. According to my understanding, that's part of what fuels his insanity and why he wants no one to fix it - he wasn't around for Irori's ascension (Irori was first). Plus, according to this:

    Quote:

    Ancient Osiriani texts tell of a God-King named Nethys, whose mastery of magic allowed him to gain unparalleled power. With these abilities he became a god by seeing all that transpired on all planes. However, this omnipresent knowledge also drove him irreparably mad. This dual-edged nature of magic is cherished by his followers and is epitomized in his apotheosis.[2]

    <snip>

    Although his madness makes it hard to act on long-term plans, Nethys is active and approachable by all deities for aid in their ventures. He remains neutral for the most part, unless his powers of omnipresent knowledge reveal he is being betrayed or threatened. He particularly allies with those requiring the use of magic, regardless of nefarious or benevolent cause.[2]

    But! I could be wrong. If you could find that comment, I'd be super excited! It's always cool to learn new lore!

    Even if he was watching all things at all times, though, Nethys still isn't, technically, omniscient. He's nuts. Plus, of course, if his uber-spell is still running, it doesn't work in any dead magic if that's a thing in PF - I don't actually know; it's referenced in Nethys' article, though, so probably or antimagic, and it may be "reply hazy, ask again later" in something like primal magic.

    Also, he's not omniscient in regards to the future.

    ... but giving all these caveats (that I'd been considering at the time) in the middle of making a fairly glib point would have killed the momentum, soooooooooo...

    XD


    Oh! Also, the d20srd actually still works (as I discovered a few days ago when seeking information from it), but it seems the front page is badly broken somehow for a reason unknown.

    In pure paranoia with absolutely zero evidence whatsoever, I do wonder if WotC or Hasboro tried something against them, which would be pretty awful of them, as a company decision, but that is merely wild mass speculation on my part with no evidence whatsoever other than a blank front page, and a lingering distrust for the way WotC (as lead by Hasboro) treated its own fans.

    EDIT: Oh! You ninja'd me with your edit! XD

    Also, it's taking forever to load this tab to edit my post, so I'm just going to type this over here, and cut/paste it, later, when my would-be edit finally loads...


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    OK, update.
    The PC's destroyed what they believed was the Phylatery.
    They then went of carrying the real Phylatery.
    Does the time the party spends moving count for the purpose of the Lich reforming?
    Or do you start counting from when they stop moving around?

    Either way one of the PCs is going to be unhappy when they work out what the Phyaltery is because they intend to use/wear it.


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    Volkard Abendroth wrote:
    ]Next thing you know, we'll be grappling with the concept of a good aligned succubus.

    ...who runs a brothel dedicated to mental pleasures?

    But to get back on track, if they've created their own demiplane (and made it permanent), then you need to find the proper tuning fork to get to it. The smart thing to do would be to create a demiplane of fast time, so it only takes 2.75 days on average and not have a symbol for it on this plane. The creator of the demiplane can force people (including themselves) out at any time.


    Stephen Ede wrote:

    OK, update.

    The PC's destroyed what they believed was the Phylatery.
    They then went of carrying the real Phylatery.
    Does the time the party spends moving count for the purpose of the Lich reforming?
    Or do you start counting from when they stop moving around?

    Either way one of the PCs is going to be unhappy when they work out what the Phyaltery is because they intend to use/wear it.

    That... depends on your reading of several things.

    The first and biggest thing, though, is determining how, exactly, it forms.

    Does the phylactery need line of sight? Of effect? Does the phylactery need to stay "nearby" for the whole process? Or only to start it?

    Quote:
    When a lich is destroyed, its phylactery (which is generally hidden by the lich in a safe place far from where it chooses to dwell) immediately begins to rebuild the undead spellcaster’s body nearby. This process takes 1d10 days—if the body is destroyed before that time passes, the phylactery merely starts the process anew. After this time passes, the lich wakens fully healed (albeit without any gear it left behind on its old body), usually with a burning need for revenge against those who previously destroyed it.

    To me, this looks like it takes 1d10 days to slowly rebuild the body. Roll each time.

    So, from what I'm getting:
    - 1 begins building body "nearby"
    - 2 this is a slow process that's kind of obvious
    - 3 the phylactery is continually doing work

    This implies that the phylactery has to mainatain a nearby position - that it can't reform the body of its <arbitrarily> "too far away" to do so. So it sounds an awful lot like a certain PC is going to continually wake up with bits of half-formed lich on him each morning - how much depending on how fast this particular lich is reforming today.

    I do wonder, though, if the partially formed body either "goes with" the phylactery or is merely abandoned to start over elsewhere, and of the lich's deadly touches are still part of its corpse. I mean, paralysis/negative energy damage are a nasty combo while your asleep (though I'd suggest giving some sort of saving throw, first, if you do this... which I don't necessarily recommend).

    The other interpretation is that the process starts nearby but doesn't care - after it's started, it no longer matters. Of course, you'd still have to determine if line of sight/effect matters continuously or just the once.

    Either way, I'd expect the process to be rather self-evident: take the days you rolled a dice for, find the size of a normal human, and divide by whatever time increments.

    So, let's just say this lich 5 feet tall, and it takes him ten days. After an hour, 1/240th of the guy would be built - that's less than an inch. In fact, it'd take him four hours to really be noticeable - after that time, he'd have one full inch of his body back together.

    So anyway, hope that helps!


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    Thanks.
    Some ideas for me to work with.

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