how dose one go to becoming a lich
i know you need craft wonderous items for phylacathy (or the correct spelling of that word) and you die but what are the rules egsacly?
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Other than Craft Wondrous Item and a level requirement, there's nothing concrete.
The second or third Dragon annual has some guidelines from previous editions.
IIRC, it involved brewing a potion using belladonna, arsenic, the heart of a vampire and blood from a werewolf, among other stuff. Craft the phylactery, drink the potion and die. If everything works (which is hardly guaranteed, with possible 'glitches' like permanant madness, becoming a mindless undead, dying and needing to be ressurected to try again, or dying and being incapable of resurrection...), your soul goes into the phylactery, and can then animate the nearest appropriate corpse, transforming it into a replica of your body (if it isn't already your original body).
The GM should feel free to alter that process however they want, and it's pretty much assumed that every lich has to research and follow a slightly different procedure, based on esoteric occult stuff like birth month, current age, current astrological portents, local leylines, etc, etc. to prevent anyone from just finding a 'recipe' and following the steps. (With the exception of those who have some alternate means of skipping the process, like 20th level Dread Necromancers, who just get to cut to the chase and become liches without any of the prerequisites.)
how dose one go to becoming a lich
i know you need craft wonderous items for phylacathy (or the correct spelling of that word) and you die but what are the rules egsacly?
Are you asking about an NPC or a PC. Mechanically for an NPC the DM makes sure the NPC meets the prereqs and says it is so.
For a PC that is up to the DM. There are guidelines but the process to reach lichdom is different for everyone.
The quest to become a lich is a lengthy one. While construction of the magical phylactery to contain the spellcaster's soul is a critical component, a prospective lich must also learn the secrets of transferring his soul into the receptacle and of preparing his body for the transformation into undeath, neither of which are simple tasks. Further complicating the ritual is the fact that no two bodies or souls are exactly alike—a ritual that works for one spellcaster might simply kill another or drive him insane. The exact methods for each spellcaster's transformation are left to the GM's discretion, but should involve expenditures of hundreds of thousands of gold pieces, numerous deadly adventures, and a large number of difficult skill checks over the course of months, years, or decades.
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In the 1st/2nd editions, as Set describes, the ingredients were lethal and there were further ingredients that were just plainly only obtainable if one were evil. I'm sure for politically correct reasons those were taken away in later editions, and now there's options for somewhat "good" liches through vague rituals. If you want the rules from older editions, the 1st edition "Lords of Darkness" (adventures based off undead) lays out the entire nasty process with tables.
In the 1st/2nd editions, as Set describes, the ingredients were lethal and there were further ingredients that were just plainly only obtainable if one were evil. I'm sure for politically correct reasons those were taken away in later editions, and now there's options for somewhat "good" liches through vague rituals. If you want the rules from older editions, the 1st edition "Lords of Darkness" (adventures based off undead) lays out the entire nasty process with tables.
Actually some paizo staff touched on this recently -- Lichs are "EVIL" evil... and the process to become a lich is "EVIL" evil.
how dose one go to becoming a lich
i know you need craft wonderous items for phylacathy (or the correct spelling of that word) and you die but what are the rules egsacly?
Under Pathfinder, i would take a different route =
Craft Construct Item Creation Feat = Craft a body and Lich's Phycactery.
Phycactery is magic item, crated as a magic item, to grant the lich the abilitys like Fear Aura, Paralyzing Touch, Rejuvenation (no longer on wizard spell list as of 3.0-D&D, might want to use spell Clone as Sub),
Use Construct Templet (page 307 Beastary).
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Really no reason for them to need to be undead. They do not drain ablities, do not energy drain, and the undead immunities are about the same as Construct immunities.
Could it just be that people have been mistaking the neutral and good liches as undead just because of how they look ??