Another poster had a cleric guide and it did a good job. Referencing it for those want to lich-cleric to be a melee lich is not a bad idea.
Destrucive Aura is really good if you have a summoner in the party. I think it is better to use it that way than to have it used against yourself, but only the brave get the glory or at least that is what any self respecting battle cleric believes. Thanks for being that one to my attention.
I am in a low level game, and I just realized that their ferocity was different than the half-orcs about 2 weeks ago. Make sure the GM knows the difference, but if he allows it then go for it. they are great melee combatants.
I don't think create undead brings people back with memories of the past life generally. I might have to check old sources since Paizo does not have a general undead book to look at. If the GM allows it though.... :).
Then again if the GM allows the spell to be used to try to bring a PC back as an undead ally he will probably allow memory retention so it may be a moot(?) point.
In short the guide is well done, and I like the picture at the beginning.
Another poster had a cleric guide and it did a good job. Referencing it for those want to lich-cleric to be a melee lich is not a bad idea.
Destrucive Aura is really good if you have a summoner in the party. I think it is better to use it that way than to have it used against yourself, but only the brave get the glory or at least that is what any self respecting battle cleric believes. Thanks for being that one to my attention.
I am in a low level game, and I just realized that their ferocity was different than the half-orcs about 2 weeks ago. Make sure the GM knows the difference, but if he allows it then go for it. they are great melee combatants.
I don't think create undead brings people back with memories of the past life generally. I might have to check old sources since Paizo does not have a general undead book to look at. If the GM allows it though.... :).
Then again if the GM allows the spell to be used to try to bring a PC back as an undead ally he will probably allow memory retention so it may be a moot(?) point.In short the guide is well done, and I like the picture at the beginning.
Thanks. Also, yes, I loved that picture and felt it fit perfectly.
I admittedly house-ruled half-orc ferocity to be identical to the orc ferocity (for balance reasons), and it works nicely. However, I was trying to keep house-rules to a minimum for the guide.
There were templates for Ghouls, Mummys, and other creatures in 3.x. However, even in Pathfinder, there's nothing suggesting that you would not retain the XP you had acquired up until this point, and several sources of lore involving the undead suggest that they do.
The mummy entry basically mentions mummies that are also 10th level clerics, who became mummies to avoid death, yadda yadda yadda. :P
Anyway, bringing them back as undead doesn't say that they lose their XP point totals, which means even if they came back as an undead ghoul or something, they'd just level right back up to their correct level anyway.
Ironically, I'm currently running a PF game where two out of the three party members are currently mummies, because of this very sort of thing. Admittedly, they did have to find a much more powerful spellcaster to preform the rites to resurrect their poor mangled compadres.
On a side note, here's something really funny...
Mummies are created through a rather lengthy and gruesome embalming process, during which all of the body's major organs are removed and replaced with dried herbs and flowers. After this process, the flesh is anointed with sacred oils and wrapped in purified linens. The creator then finishes the ritual with a create undead spell.
Man, who knew that EVIL mummies would require herbs and flowers, and so much anointed oils and purified linens. It sounds almost holy...
Man, who knew that EVIL mummies would require herbs and flowers, and so much anointed oils and purified linens. It sounds almost holy...
It is strange that something so evil need flowers to be made.
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Hup!
Kudos to Wolfy. Lichdom is, to my mind, all about rocking the existential boat.
If you rock the boat you make waves!
..and waves let us surf, ya know?
They're kinda fun..
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For the Lich, especially, it makes me a sand panda to see so much.. how to say? Domestication? ..of the process and role.
Want to be an immortal non-evil entity? Don't be a Lich!
For every imaginative idea about why a Lich doesn't have to be evil there are imaginative ideas for becoming an immortal caster that isn't a Lich, nor undead.
Hmm.. again with the undead. Personally we play the 'undead = anathema to the natural cycle of thins = evil'. Living blasphemies and all that.
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...aah but hey, if X wants to be a lich, an entity focusing vasts wads of gold on personal power (which corrupts something something..) than hey, why not.
Kinda selfish tho, what with that expenditure of all that time and money on personal gain - I'd have hoped a good aligned caster would have spent their efforts curing Death Herpes or increasing the life spans and well being of the populace or at least building a golem army to defend the Northen Pass...
..any ho, who am I to judge? I too am immortal and unliving and have sought power at the expense of others.
..and I'm fiiiiiine!
Granted I'm losing the ability to relate to the common villager a teency weency bit..I mean, come on, famine, again?
Hellooo? Eat less! Sheesh! There are like, bigger issues at play here! There's that war in The South and then there's the 500 year trade negotiation we, the unliving immortals (well, technically Barry is tree..) , are setting up, for the good of all!
Give us 300 more years and there won't be any famine! Ever!
Now, if that isn't good, I don't know what it is!
O_o !
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Side Note: I've played a Lich caster. Not sleeping, being able to out live anyone you don't like, and being immune to whole stack of goodies was very nice and a lovely, unneeded power boost. Luckily, being a (very rich, very influential) caster, the character had more than enough tools (spells, minions, items etc) to overcome the minor 'penalties' of being a Lich/undead.
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...but hey, all this is academic. The thread could be re-titled 'X wants to play a red dragon'. It's all down to how you define what a red dragon is and how you handle things through play.
However, personally, if I wanted to play a red dragon, I'd want to play a RED DRAGON. Not a crimson reptilian that is actually kinda nice to animals ..because Mr R.Dragon iz smart! and who doesn't eat the villagers because they raised him when he was a little panda.. dragon... thing.
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Red dragons and liches both can throw fireball spells at people. That is what this is really about isn't it, ISN'T IT? Darn fireball throwers. That is why people can't have nice stuff because you are always setting them on fire.
<looks in mirror>
Uh, Pay no attention to the flames that surround me. <cast alter self to appear as a smurf>
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Red dragon and liches both can throw fireball spells at people. That is what this is really about isn't it, ISN'T IT? Darn fireball throwers. That is why people can't have nice stuff because you are always setting them on fire.
<looks in mirror>
Uh, Pay no attention to the flames that surround me. <cast alter self to appear as a smurf>
IF IT'S - IT'S OK
..however, Ice, Acid, Eletrical and the other one/s are out!
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Becoming a Lich and not enjoying the HORROR AND WOE of it all is, to my mind, like becoming a sparkly vampire to pick up pasty girls a 5th (ish) of your age!
..or blowing up a police cars in GTA 4 and not getting chased by angry lawmen!
:(
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Quasi-seriously tho: No amount of advice is going to help anyone. You have to try things for yourself and learn what you gotta learn.
They want to be a lich?
Go for it!
If it ends in tears - learn and move on.
If it goes wonderfully - learn and move on.
NOT IN MY UNHALLOWED NAME!
I tend to think it's more true to the meme for the lich to attain it's lichdim by corrupting the pure, rather than redeeming it.
now THAT is an interesting idea indeed....in the process of becoming a lich, the player could drain all the blight druid taint out of their kingdom to fuel her ritual.this would really make for an interesting long term plan.
Hence why it's a fairly interesting spin on it? It's not like there isn't a precedent for goodly and neutral liches.
Merely food for thought but, in Neverwinter Nights, the main campaign takes you to a haunted forest, with a village locked in time because of a judgment of a god (it's FR, so god meddling a plenty). You're tasked with doing research on the events that led to the slaughter of all the town's children, and then judge the guilty.
During this process, you find out the would-be lich that did the killing was a more or less neutral wizard that got the instructions for becoming a lich from a powerful demon whom he believed under his control (or at least he didn't believe him to be lying) who suggested that this evil act was not only necessary but that due to the magic involved, the children would come right back to life along with the would-be lich, with no harm to them.
Of course, when you interview the trapped demon whose honesty is bound by godly power, you discover that the demon just said that for shoots and gaggles. Apparently the process for becoming a lich was a bit more mundane than that, and the wizard had already got everything he needed to complete the transformation into a lich. He just thought it would be funny to trick the wizard into fireballing a room full of children that were being read a story book. The mass slaughter / heinous evil was, apparently, not actually a required part of the magical formula.
Which when you consider thing like Baelnorn and Archliches makes pretty good sense. Likewise, if the process of lichdom is different for everyone, perhaps the process of lichdom is different for a good person becoming a lich, than an evil person.
My friend and I were talking about becoming a lich, and we both agreed that most good spellcasters are probably just not as attracted to lichdom as most evil spellcasters. One has the heavens to look forward to in their afterlife, and sticking around sounds like a pretty suck-tastic prospect. However, if you're that guy who's going to be ripped apart and turned into a pile of devil-jello (lemures), you probably don't wanna go.
This would make good liches a form of martyr. Essentially giving up your eternal afterlife of perfect awesomeness to stick around and try to promote good in the very messed up world of bandits, ex-guards running a butchery that feeds people to other people, and incestuous ogre mothers who hump their undead sons?
Man, that lich deserves some sort of mass gratitude.
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While the possibilities for a good or neutral Lich comes down to the DM and player working together and agreeing on it (always the best state of affairs), the idea feels weird to me, solely as a matter of personal preference.
Lichedom to me always seemed like it was basically a horrible curse that certain casters would inflict upon themselves in order to gain the side-effect of immortality. It seemed to me like an agonizing existence where you have to give up everything that makes you "human": as a Lich, you can't feel a tender touch or truly sleep and dream or enjoy a good meal. Makes me think of Capt. Barbossa from POTC, who was going crazy because he couldn't enjoy apples anymore.
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For kicks n' giggles, especially in Kingmaker:
Make the phylactery of the Lich-to-be character the people of the city itself.
Their living (non-enslaved via animate dead!) souls power the Lich character.
As they grow and wane in numbers, so does the power of the Lich character.
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Ahsiel: Not trying to be an arse here (I don't need to try!) but 'typically evil thing that isn't actually evil!' has been done to death, from Beauty and the Beast to Vampires to misunderstood brooding anti-heroes..
Granted, not with a Lich (..weeeeell, mine was neutral..) but come on, is their nothing sacred in evilness any more?
Reminder: Still advocating the dude gets to play a Lich!
Ahsiel: Not trying to be an arse here (I don't need to try!) but 'typically evil thing that isn't actually evil!' has been done to death, from Beauty and the Beast to Vampires to misunderstood brooding anti-heroes..
Granted, not with a Lich (..weeeeell, mine was neutral..) but come on, is their nothing sacred in evilness any more?
Everything has been done to death. Nothing is original. From fallen angels, and heroes, to redeemed demons and risen vagabonds, to bloodthirsty monsters and bloodthirsty monsters that hunt bloodthirsty monsters, to the misunderstood freak, to the dark power for bright purpose, to the bright power for dark purpose, those that sacrifice themselves and those that sacrifice others, the beautiful, the ugly, the weak, the strong, from dusk 'till dawn, from front to back, from flat to round...
Frankly, everything has been done to death. TvTropes can probably answer it pretty well, as you'll basically find a massive archive of tropes from everything from Homer's Oddessy to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and you'll find them re-appearing left and right in virtually all forms of media.
Likewise, comically evil has been done to death. Card carrying villains aren't really very interesting, and saying something is good or evil just so it can be is both a trope and a boring one. Because of that you get the kind of hack & slash no brainer crap like color-coded dragons.
"Hey, it's a gold dragon, those guys are good." / "Hey, that's a lich, he's bad, kill it!"
I've been playing this game in some form or another for a long time (though not as long as some of our older gaming veterans) and I've grown pretty tired of evil orcs that are evil 'cause they're orcs, and villains who exist to be bad.
It's more interesting to think about things in terms of orcs being violent because of their culture, and their raids being because the rain season floods their hunting grounds and thus it becomes easier to raid and pillage to gather supplies and slaves. Not 'cause they apparently just live to get killed by adventurers. If someone murders, why did they do it?
I had an adventure where the party released an angel from a magical prison that trapped her in stasis for countless years. What the party didn't know is she was bound there by her fellow celestials because her zeal, fervor, and desire to fight evil led to a powerful unbalance as she wiped out anything that she deemed evil. The party, having released her, we seen as good in her sight for "aiding the cause of justice and righteousness" and she thanked them, granted them a boon, and teleported away to go spread "goodness" across the world.
She later becomes a major antagonist/villain in the plot as the party ends up encountering her during her crusade and must either stop her slaughter of those who aren't of pure heart, by word or by sword, before she brings ruin to the world.
The Bible did the whole evil angel thing a long time before I did, and then you have the endless crusades and inquisition stories, and things based on those, etc, etc, etc.
If I bothered to give a poop as to what had been done before, time and time again, I'd not have any stories. Meanwhile, plot stuff becomes amazingly boring when you try to stick to "ok these guys are red, these guys are blue, kill each other". It works fine in first person shooting games, however.
EDIT: Then again, there's always atonement.
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I'm gonna start giving all the Liches, Vampires and Abominations T-Shirts with:
''Born/Created/Bred to be Bad/Cruel/B!'..evil!'
Poor Evil..
..what's next, The Devil who cared too much?
v_v
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.....I'm gonna start giving all the Liches, Vampires and Abominations T-Shirts with:
''Born/Created/Bred to be Bad/Cruel/B!'..evil!'
Poor Evil..
..what's next, The Devil who cared too much?
v_v
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What an amazingly easy way to completely dismiss my portion of the discussion. It's very belittling to imply that I'm suggesting that all evil creatures should be good guys. There's a difference between some, and all. You're inventing an argument to argue against, which is called straw-manning. Don't do that, 'cause it makes people that do it look bad/stupid.
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.....I'm gonna start giving all the Liches, Vampires and Abominations T-Shirts with:
''Born/Created/Bred to be Bad/Cruel/B!'..evil!'
Poor Evil..
..what's next, The Devil who cared too much?
v_v
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I can normally pretty easily decipher your post, but "Poor Evil..
..what's next, The Devil who cared too much?" could be taken as a slight against a player going undead or any other trope where a player takes an evil monster, and tries to use it in party which is far from the norm.
If so I do agree that it should be a rare thing, and people bringing these types of thread up a lot does not mean it actually happens though.
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Ashiel: Please, don't take my remarks personally. My preferences and opinions are.. mine. I've seen the 'evil as good' too many times. Will it happen again? Yes! Will I cry into my beer? Yes! This is all I am expressing.
It's not about you nor your contributions to the discussion.
This is my madness. You are welcome to your own.
Wraithy: Aye, yes, personally, as mentioned above, I've seen too many players want to play 'good evil guys' - because it's cool!
I'm all for cool but the rule of of cool says that when everyone is doing it, it's no longer cool.
No. I am not suggesting everybody is doing it. Nor that they will do it.
However, I do acknowledge that the more viable an option becomes, the more likely it is that people will take it.
Which, again, isn't necessarily a 'bad' thing.
Personally tho, (..and I find it strange and yet.. typical of teh intrWabez that I have to state that opinions I express are my ... own personal.. opinions/onions,) I would want to keep Liches in a box marked 'Evil, dudes, bad ass' and not in a box marked 'bad ass, possible character option'.
Simply because sometimes, not getting the toys they want, a little envy, a smidgen of denied gratification if you will, makes something all the more special.
Personally.
Gah.! >_< :)
Damnit!
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As I have re-stated, I think the poster's player should get a chance to play a Lich!
Hell, as long as all are having fun!
Tis their game, their madness to enjoy.
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Disclaimer:
As the dude said - We are not snowflakes.
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Alternatively you could give them some penalties when they first aquired the template which woudl wear off one level later as they became used to the body. Either way they should wind up effectively 1 level behind the rest of the PC's for balance purposes.
Aye, this is what we did.
It works and is great fun to RP.
However we found that the option of eventually offsetting the penalties made the choice all the more attractive to other players.
This option of offsetting penalties led to an increase in viability of creating Lich-characters.
For us, this led to DM FIAT of 'No Lichdom for characters' because, all the cool kids were doing it! :D
I realise that others have different experiences and would love to here their stories!
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Note: The -1 effective level/level behind is a relative balance 'fix'. It assumes a standard power level for the group and varies from gaming table to table. It's not a 'bad' fix, but it is a relative mechanical fix - i.e, operates on the assumption that their is a'standard' party power level - and as we've seen on and as is supported on these boards by the numerous debates, different parties/groups/tables play different games at different power levels, even if they are all technically the same 'level X' party.
Or, if you prefer: We can assume a similar ball game but we can also acknowledge the existence of a variety of ball parks.
We found that 'fluff' fixes were stronger but hey, let's be honest, if folk don't want to play ball then there is no game - and no amount of tinkering will stop things getting messy.
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HUG THY NEIGHBOUR!
That's cool Facist. ^-^
I think we all got our little things we get tired of. I'll share a story that might make you laugh. :)
I've been working on a campaign setting, and in this campaign setting there is the option to play a very large number of humanoids and even nonhumanoid races, because of their ties dating back in the campaign's fictional history. There are no less than about 26 different playable races in my campaign setting.
This includes...
All the core races, Orcs, Goblins, Hobgoblins, Bugbears, Lesser Drow, Drider (yes, drider), lycanthropes, tieflings, aasimar, the elemental planetouched, doppelgangers, lizardfolk, and several custom races that were designed for the campaign setting itself.
One player who wasn't a member of our regular group, wanted to play, and basically ignored every race. Pretty much didn't even look at the list of playable races, and starting going through his copies of the MM II and III, and pretty much just pointing to different things and asking if he could play that. Most of the stuff was CR 8 or higher.
He got to Warforged, and I was like "Yeah, I don't mind warforged. There's an area in the campaign that it could easily be from", at which point he suddenly changed his mind and decided to keep looking.
Meanwhile, my younger brother made an entire party of dwarfs (a pair of fighters, a cleric, and a wizard) for fun in the time that it too this guy to find a race; and that was after looking at half-ogres, and finally deciding that he really wanted to play some 3rd Party d20pfsrd.com race that has very specific campaign fluff that was completely alien to this campaign, as the basis for the PC.
Man, sometimes GMing is a task... lol
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Lol, oh... I can relate to that.
My younger brother had a cleric. paladin. cleric. misc. who would, when encountering a Deck of Many Things, thumb through the deck in the hopes of finding the Holy Avenger.
His gear was turned to glass three times, numerous meteors were summoned, dragons got involved and the party would cry, in and out of character, every time.
The character also took 12 damage from a 12D8 Call Lightning...
..and saved for half!
Just keep smiling and thinking the best of all..
Just keep smiling and thinking the best of all..
Just keep smiling and thinking the best of all..
Just keep smiling and thinking the best of all..
...!
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I would love to play in your campaign if only to get a chance at playing a Drider. I respect you commitment to accommodating to your players wishes and fully believe that in doing so, all learn and hone their craft more effectively than simply saying 'No!'..
..even if afterwards we sometimes wish we had. >_<
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Spider dude, spider dude, can do anything a spider can.. do. d.
Thanks Facist. You'd be more than welcome to. Unfortunately, I haven't had the time to run any online games at the moment (my online campaign is currently on Hiatus), but I'm actually working on my campaign to publish as small, cheap, pdf books.
Here's the Drider Racial Progression rules that I cooked up for my campaign setting, as well as a small piece of the lore behind them. The only thing you'd need to change for most games is that they wouldn't begin with the maximum HP for their hit dice (they'd have average HP or 9 + Con mod * 2). My campaign had a house rule that gave PCs more starting HP than normal, you see.
Also, thank you again. I do try to accommodate my players whenever possible. I've had several of my players tell people that if I won't let them play a particular race, then there must be a really good reason for it. This is especially true since I'm fairly adept at working the oddest things into playable character rules.
Oh, I also had a Deck of Many things in a game once. On a side note, the augury spell is really amazing when dealing with one of those. ^.^"
Dotting for Ashiel's awesomeness, I never once considered an Antipaladin, Bard, or Ranger lich before. My players will love you for this I'm sure!
Dotting for Ashiel's awesomeness, I never once considered an Antipaladin, Bard, or Ranger lich before. My players will love you for this I'm sure!
Thanks idilippy. ^-^
tonight's pathfinder game was...interesting. necro-girl (proto-lich that she is) sacrificed her entire allotment of undead JUST so that she could get a cairn wight out of it's hidey hole and into position for her to slam it with a 'command undead' check. so now she's got a 6HD new buddy to open doors and play fetch for her.
the rest of the party just kinda shrugged and went about looting the tomb. the king told her that she can't keep her necro-toys in the basement - he's worried that it might somehow affect the werewolf or owlbear cub they've got down there. so she's manufacturing mid level magic items and turning them in for kingdom BP - she wants to build herself a nice mage tower or magic academy. oh joy...it'll be like hogwarts only with a LOT of dead things shambling around the corridors.
the party bard is gonna be able to make one helluva song about all this. Assuming he survives that is....
Dotting for Ashiel's awesomeness, I never once considered an Antipaladin, Bard, or Ranger lich before. My players will love you for this I'm sure!Thanks idilippy. ^-^
No, thank you! I'm sure my players will just love it when the lich they are facing in the future is an Antipaladin armored in black plate mail who caries a gleaming sword and a lance similar to one of those negative energy lances from a Forgotten Realms book, and rides in atop a massive nightmare, or skeletal dragon, or the Pathfinder version of a Dracolich :)
ok, so after some subtle questioning of my players, i've got at least TWO players in my group who may attempt to achieve lichdom at some point in this campaign - necro girl (of course) and the blight druid.
I haven't gotten my copy of Ultimate Magic yet (it's in the mail) so I can't say what impact that product might have on their long term character development plans, so i'm going to have to proceed as if two players will eventually try to achieve undead status.
hmmm. which should make the final two modules in the kingmaker AP rather interesting indeed...but I don't want to post spoilers. lets just say it's giving me ideas.
I wonder how blight druids would turn out as liches? I remember facing one in a previous module (something about dragons and a big damn temple of Tiamat) but for the life of me I can't remember the name of the module/campaign. And we didn't 'face' the lich so much as tossed it's phylactery at it and ran like hell while it did Really Bad Things to the people who enslaved it.