Lich unloading cursed items?

[fictionfan]

Suppose a lich has alot of cursed items (maybe he raided a tome or something). Could the lich go attack a adventuring party and get destroyed and when the party loots his body the items are now their problem?

If someone steals a cursed item from you do they keep it?

[KaeYoss]

Why would a tome have a lot of cursed items? Or any at all?

[MLHagan]

I believe they meant tomb not tome. Spell check error most likely. I can relate, lol.

[Lincoln Hills]

Ordinarily a cursed item sticks to the character who uses it until the character's death. My gut feeling is that yes, the destruction of the lich's body separates it from its cursed belongings: since the lich will not rise from the grave for days (and even then not in the same location), the cursed items can't get a fix on their former victim and are free to claim some other poor saps. But that's my judgement on the fly: I'm pretty certain the rules won't discuss so unusual a problem.

Incidentally, this is a great way to get around the big problem with liches as nemeses (all their gear gets stolen & used to buy new toys for the PCs so they're far more likely to whip the lich when it shows up again.) All the lich needs are a bunch of items (i.e. cloak of poison) that have horrible effects on living bearers and none at all on old Boney Britches. Heck, a scarab of death will work fine for an undead wearer indefinitely - it reacts to the proximity of living flesh, after all.

[brock]

This is a superb hook, and a great way for a lich to 'hire' himself a party of adventurers. He wields a bunch of cursed items, goes an finds a suitable party and goes down fighting. Then, when they are down the pub lamenting their fate, he can appear again. If they just do this one job for him, then he can lift the curses and they can be on their way...

[NoStrings]

Or make one of the cursed items the lich's phylactery!

Cursed party member: "I have this amulet that makes my skin rot, and this dead wizard keeps showing up week after week! How does he keep finding us?" <scratch, scratch>

[Godwyn]

How do liches keep getting all their gear stolen and still show up again? Unless PF changed something again, a lich's physical form can use magical items stored with its phylactery, and if the phylactery is found, and identified, the lich has other problems.

[DM MoggZero]

Godwyn wrote:

How do liches keep getting all their gear stolen and still show up again? Unless PF changed something again, a lich's physical form can use magical items stored with its phylactery, and if the phylactery is found, and identified, the lich has other problems.

For Lich's, they have to wear them. You might be thinking about the Demi Lich out of the Epic Level Handbook, pg 175. it's called Phylactery Transference: basically transfers all wearable item properties to the Demi Lich as long as said items are within close to the phylactery. The Demi Lich doesn't have to be close to the phylactery, the bonuses granted have no distance limitation.