So in short I want to know the communties oppinions and such or going about making a lich pc. Basically in short what is required to do so? Can anyone link and give me a build set up for becoming a lich. Thanks in advance,
Well, basically, caster level 11, Craft wondrous item Feat, and there you go :-)
A lich a very powerful, evil, undead spellcaster and not very well suited as a PC. I would not recommend trying to play one (I would not allow it as a DM). Take a sorcerer with undead bloodline instead.
Stefan
I see, I feared this response but expected it to come. Well thanks anyway.
I mostly agree with Stebehil that a lich isn't well suited for a PC (the DR alone would be outrageous). However, it's also more complicated than he presented. Under Pathfinder (or at least in Golarion, not 100% sure), becoming a lich is a complicated and *unique* process, that must be researched individually, with no guarantee of success.
That is to say, you're rather as likely to end up dead or as a 'failed lich' than to actually become one.
A character trying to become a lich (or recover from a first attempt) would be a far more interesting PC in my opinion. "It's the journey" and all.
Liches are fairly potent undead critters due to their spellcasting powers and the bevy of undead immunities. From a mechanical perspective, these two things are problems which make having a lich in the party difficult at lower levels. Other practical considerations such as how you manage to interact with others without getting attacked by clerics and paladins or scaring entire towns with your fear aura don't help either. The fact that you're unkillable unless someone finds your phylactery or uses a few rare effects to deal with you is also a problem.
What are your goals exactly? Are you hoping to try developing into a lich at a certain point in the campaign, or do you want to evolve into one over many levels?
So in short I want to know the communties oppinions and such or going about making a lich pc. Basically in short what is required to do so? Can anyone link and give me a build set up for becoming a lich. Thanks in advance,
The short answer is that you could take a caster, get to 11th level, invest 120,000gp into making a phylactery and gain a +2 level adjustment.
I did a lot of work on how to get rid of level adjustments, and my ideas are here, including a set of feats you could use to become a lich. I went further, making a vampire prestige class to become a vampire, you could do the same thing with the lich.
A character trying to become a lich (or recover from a first attempt) would be a far more interesting PC in my opinion. "It's the journey" and all.
Thats probably the best advice for that idea - make a story out of it. Why does he want to become a lich? The old "fear of death" trope? What does he do to become a lich? This could be a campaign seed in itself.
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Before the days of politically correct gaming (back when the terms "devil" and "demon" were used to describe the bad guys), D&D was willing to let folks know what exactly it took to become a lich so you'd know how evil these guys were. It's nasty. But then folks still wanted to play liches, so things had to be toned down, otherwise it just plain looked wrong.
When you look below and see that blood of an infant was needed, you should be enraged and feel better about killing that lich. It's not a nice process.
Old Edition Process:
- 18th level
- Spells to make Phylactery: Magic Jar, Enchant Item, Trap the Soul, Nulathoe's Nineman (spell to preserve corpse)
- Entire ritual ruined if you die at any point (even if raised later)
- Special Potion with 9 ingredients:
1. Arsenic (2 drops of the purest distillate)
2. Belladonna (1 drop of the purest distillate)
3. Blood (1 quart blood from dead human infant killed by wyvern venom)
4. Blood (1 quart from a dead demihuman slain by a phase spider)
5. Blood (1 quart from a vampire or a being infected with vampirism)
6. Heart (the intact heart of a humanoid killed by poisoning; a mixture of arsenic and belladonna must be used)
7. Reproductive glands (from seven giant moths dead for less than 10 days, ground together)
8. Venom (1 pint or more, drawn from a phase spider less than 30 days previous)
9. Venom (1 pint or more, drawn from a wyvern less than 60 days previous)
Then they had a table for success. And that's just to get lich form. You'll still rot unless you make a phylactery, which involved the above spells and losing one level. Each death and phylactery use would cause another level to be lost.
I have(had) a lich character!
A neutral psionic/arcane lich no less!
He's been retired. Now spends all his time entombed within his fortress, sat upon his throne of bone, scrying the multiverse for kicks.
Utterly, hideously broken character.
Simply being undead makes things messy, undead + spellcaster even more so.
Posions? Pssh, laugh at them!
Ability drain? HA!
Breathing? Pssh
Trapped? I'll dig my way out of this dungeon, 5x5 square feet a week!
Pay for a mount? Pssh, I'll run. For ever and ever and ever...
etc etc
GM: The bandit leader shouts out, ''We know you're in there, come out and play. Raise the barrier, come on, we won't bite!'' A cheer sounds out from his blood thirsty gang of killers - what do you do?
Me: Wait.
GM: For how long?
Me: At least a few years.
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GM: The bandit leader shouts out, ''We know you're in there, come out and play. Raise the barrier, come on, we won't bite!'' A cheer sounds out from his blood thirsty gang of killers - what do you do?
Me: Wait.
GM: For how long?
Me: At least a few years.
I like it. Laying siege to the guys outside the walls. I bet the bandits' air/food/water/bad-attitude supply runs out before the lich's.
I like it. Laying siege to the guys outside the walls. I bet the bandits' air/food/water/bad-attitude supply runs out before the lich's.GM: The bandit leader shouts out, ''We know you're in there, come out and play. Raise the barrier, come on, we won't bite!'' A cheer sounds out from his blood thirsty gang of killers - what do you do?
Me: Wait.
GM: For how long?
Me: At least a few years.
Aye aye, as the song goes, ''TiiiIIiiiime is on my side..'' :)
As soon as you remove aging/mortality from the playing field things can get messy very quickly -- or very interesting, depending on take of things.
You get to plan long term. You can choose to work around obstacles taking as long as it takes and simply out live your enemies.
Perhaps a sorcerer who failed to become a lich could switch out their bloodline for that of the necromantic bloodline mid-game. Might be interesting if the player doesn't kill the GM for it.
So in short I want to know the communties oppinions and such or going about making a lich pc. Basically in short what is required to do so? Can anyone link and give me a build set up for becoming a lich. Thanks in advance,
The force is strong with this one!
Perhaps a sorcerer who failed to become a lich could switch out their bloodline for that of the necromantic bloodline mid-game. Might be interesting if the player doesn't kill the GM for it.
Ya know, now-a-days I prefer the idea of becoming a Ghost -- and possessing/animating my own Blessed Shield Gaurdian..
..granted it'd take some fiddling on both sides of the GM screen but hey, we've already got one foot in the devil love sock...
I once had a character player with a case of amnesia, the usual : no siblings no idea where he came from, enrolled in the local navy / military, a war wizard serving with him discovered he had untapped magical potential and taught him some basic magic.
Infact he was a clone held in stasis, that awakened when the original, a powerful lich failed casting an epic spell to split his phylactery in multiple parts, awakening all his hidden clones.
Along the road he met up with his mysterious twin brother (another clone), another version of himself, be it a bit more obsessed and arogant being a powerful spellcaster, he saw in his 'twin brother' someone that might be considered his near equal and as a matter of personal pride tried to unlock his brother's magical potential further, also hoping to gain insight into his own inborn talent in the process.
Anyway, I diverted from the thread a bit, my bad.. we never finished the campaign though, but I intended to eventually confront their 'father' and by slaying him reclaim his soul and gain redemption.
sorry had to finish it.. it wasnt exactly related, but figured you might enjoy reading it anyway xD
So in short I want to know the communties oppinions and such or going about making a lich pc. Basically in short what is required to do so? Can anyone link and give me a build set up for becoming a lich. Thanks in advance,
In the 3.5 book Libris Mortis there was another template a bit more balanced for PCs. It was called the Necropolitan, had no level adjustment (just involved the loss of a level), and didn't take nearly the amount of resources the Lich did (several thousand gold to make a petition to undergo the Ritual of Crucimigration). The template didn't confer too many benefits other than the undead immunities and some turn resistance.
The method described was quiet gruesome for the would-be Necropolitan,you get nailed to a pole for a 24 hour ritual. Then you die slowly and awaken again as an undead being.
Doesn't nearly give you the powers of the lich, but it doesn't take nearly the amount of resources. Nor is it as morally compromising (though it's morally gray in the most favorable light, it doesn't list a required evil alignment to undergo it).
You may be interested in this class rewrite up:
Pathfinder Dread Necromancer
So in short I want to know the communties oppinions and such or going about making a lich pc. Basically in short what is required to do so? Can anyone link and give me a build set up for becoming a lich. Thanks in advance,
I'd been ha ving tons of trouble convincing my DM's to allow this for a while. finally, I had one green light it, and ti worked out surprisingly well. I had to drop a lot of extra gold in research, but eventually it was just the craft wonderous items and level 11 wizard. (Though I didn't finish it until 12.) The character was powerful in a fight, wicked with application of spells. (And maybe a little sprinkling of EK.) That said, except in the most DIRE of circumstances, my character was always abandoned out of town, and had to give the party detailed lists of what to purchase, "written in letters big for you to sound out to the nice shopkeep." And we've come accross 'good' adventurers looking to carve their name out of a lich more than once. All in all, mechanically, it would be unbalancing, but in the world story, it's really kind of balanced with all the inconveniences we've faced for it.
So in short I want to know the communties oppinions and such or going about making a lich pc. Basically in short what is required to do so? Can anyone link and give me a build set up for becoming a lich. Thanks in advance,
If you're looking for a rules spelled out process.. it generally doesn't exist. Each character that's described in Golarion lore takes pretty much a unique path to lichdom. They have exactly one thing in common, they commit a truckload of evil, usually involving the sacrifice of many innocent lives as part of the process.
So in other words... ask your DM.
Spheres of Power Expanded Options has a Soul Weaver archetype that exists pretty much solely to allow a PC friendly lich. Of course, that requires the use of 3rd party material. If that isn't allowed, then the 3.5 Dread Necromancer, as has been mentioned) would be a good alternative.
If sticking strictly to 1st party Pathfinder material, it gets harder, but a Dhampir Sorcerer (Undead bloodline) would be your best bet
Before the days of politically correct gaming (back when the terms "devil" and "demon" were used to describe the bad guys)
This is a little off topic, but what now? Demon and devil are used to describe the bad guys in Pathfinder all the time. Two recent adventure paths come to mind.
In fact, I remember in the 'old edition' days, i.e. 2nd ed AD&D, when they changed devils to baatezu and demons to Tana'ri to appease the 'D&D is devil worship' crowd. So how is today the 'politically correct' days in comparison to that?
You do realize the OP hasn't posted on these boards since 2010, don't you?
In the Occult Realms book there is an official paizo ritual on how to become a Lich.
So more thread necromancy.
Does it require the spell caster to be a Necromancer, or is that just what most people do?
I'm looking seeing if I can do a PC Necromancer for Hells Vengance.
Thoughts?
Technically you shouldn't even need the caster level 11 if you take a +5 DC to the craft check for the phylactery. The only things that are really required are the Craft Wondrous Items feat and the 120,000 gp cost. If you could somehow scrape together the money and make a good enough crafting roll, you could theoretically become a lich at level 3.
This is all horribly broken, btw, but mechanically it's doable.
I once DM'd through a game where a player character turned into a lich.
The game was not broken by this, so honestly I fail to see how it can go wrong unless the DM doesn't know what he's doing.
And as for the requirements of becoming a lich, nothing specifically says that it must be a Necromancer. The main requirement is the Caster level.
I haven't had a chance to read it but I know the Horror Adventures book I got in the mail yesterday from Paizo has rules about being a lich PC.
6 years and not one get dat lich a phylactery joke
Horror Adventures introduces corruptions, one of them can make you a Lich or so I believe, I haven't read it
His GM had 99 problems, but a lich ain't one.
Lichhood is the option for those who aren't hardcore enough to obtain actual immortality.
Tell that to Xykon. He's pretty hardcore for someone who took the path of becoming a lich.
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Tell that to Xykon. He's pretty hardcore for someone who took the path of becoming a lich.
But not hardcore enough to actually reach 20th level before being chumped by microbes.
The best character I'd ever played was a complete arcane warlock who gained lichdom at 11th level. Did it give me some serious advantages? Sure. Did it make me markedly more powerful than the party wizard or paladin? Not by a long shot.
That said, there are some options in the new Horror Adventures for emulating it, but frankly, they're garbage. Even on the "nice" variant rule, you don't even really become undead. Just get some really bad emulation of it. I'd just ask your DM for the template, and a level adjustment that goes down over time, or balance things around it.
