In a recent campaign, I've been told by the DM that such things as becoming a lich are a doable possibility. This is rgeat, given my plan to be a venerable Wizard/EK. Living up to one of my older characters who once managed the in-character line
The problem: We have an inquisitor of Phazzy in the group who my character considers a good friend, if deluded.
The easy solution? We HIDE IT. Gentle repose, illusions, etcetera, etcetera, but what else can I use to shield myself? The main problem I can consider is the possibility of "discern lies" as well as true seeing.
As for "Detect undead" Well, I can just wear lead lined robes. I'm dead, after all, no lead poisoning.
A lich is basicaly a soul in a dead body, a dead body is an object.
So, dominate someone, extended magic jar into him, shrink the undead body, put it in your pocket.
Mind Blank + Gentle Riposte. I think this is your best bet.
Mindblank is your best solution for this purpose. Protecting yourself from those pesky divination spells. But it is a 8 lvl spell, so it might not be availiable.
You should be prepared to the fact, that he (or others) might try to heal you, for lethal effects. You need to have a plausible reason to turn down that wand of CLW going around after battle.
You need to consider the possible consequences, though. Would it be alright for his character to kill yours if he found out?
If not, it might force him to play his character 'stupider' than it really is, due to the fact that he would be forced to disregard it to avoid breaking up the group.
Personally as a GM I would never let the lead lined robes fly, not even a lead lined ninja suit.
You better take ranks in disguise to mimic your voice and act properly alive and try to actually 'enjoy' those morale bonuses, chances are eventually you will be dispelled or wander into an anti-magic field or be affected by an effect that harms you/identifies you as an undead.
I think in the short run it might be doable. But in the long run it will be found out. Fooling someone who's whole resistance is to destroy you and is one of the best classes in the game for seeing through hidden things will be difficult.
Not to mention, after you have drunk the blood of a thousand babies while listening to opera music as part of the ritual things like friends wont really mean as much.
Assuming the GM follows the book's advice you have to do some evil things to become a lich. When someone tried to heal you and it does damage that will not be a good thing. IIRC Inquisitors can heal. There is also the fact that you are immune to certain things as an undead creature. When the party is hit with something and the lich has a big smile on his/her face it won't look good.
In short I agree with Mojorat.
In a recent campaign, I've been told by the DM that such things as becoming a lich are a doable possibility. This is rgeat, given my plan to be a venerable Wizard/EK. Living up to one of my older characters who once managed the in-character line
The problem: We have an inquisitor of Phazzy in the group who my character considers a good friend, if deluded.The easy solution? We HIDE IT. Gentle repose, illusions, etcetera, etcetera, but what else can I use to shield myself? The main problem I can consider is the possibility of "discern lies" as well as true seeing.
As for "Detect undead" Well, I can just wear lead lined robes. I'm dead, after all, no lead poisoning.
First of all I go on record saying this is a bad idea. Here is why.
1. Becoming a Lich should come with a hefty level hit causing you to fall behind the group in levels. Caster level hits are never a good idea.
2. You have a party member that is directly opposed to Undead and is VERY good at finding them. There is no possible way you could hide being an Undead creature from him for very long.
Gentle repose and illusions only go so far. First your alignment shifts to Evil. Liches are evil. What happens when your friend detects evil next time and surprise surpise your evil all a sudden.
True seeing and discern lies are going to be an issue.
Detect undead is stoped from that but are you going to wear lead over your entire body? Hands? Neck/Face? How are you going to see? You still have undead eyeballs. I just dont see how you can make this work. With a Inquisitor of that diety... he will end up trying to kill you.
Bad idea and it might break up your party.
I have a player wanting to become a Lich. And really, the whole "must be Evil" shtick still seems stupid to me. So all those who fear and try to avoid death are evil? Yeah, sure. From what my player told me, his Lich-to-be is strictly Lawful Neutral, if anything else. He even wants to die after finishing his research, having no problem shattering the phylactery and then letting his undead body crumble to dust.
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I have a player wanting to become a Lich. And really, the whole "must be Evil" shtick still seems stupid to me. So all those who fear and try to avoid death are evil? Yeah, sure. From what my player told me, his Lich-to-be is strictly Lawful Neutral, if anything else. He even wants to die after finishing his research, having no problem shattering the phylactery and then letting his undead body crumble to dust.
Becoming a lich means you did some very evil things. Of course it's the GMs choice to do what they want. I'm not sure if it's in a core book so it might not be RAW and just developer opinion.
The Must be evil thing is there because the basic idea is this. You have to do alot of really realy really really really aweful things in order to create the phylactry. obviously as a Dm you can change it however you want but that is the basic idea.
I used the drinking the blood of a thousand babies example above but im sure you can think of any number of other appropriate things.
Its a huge power upgrade and should come with all the downsides and the 'i have to kick puppies into a meat grinder for ten days straight while i chant evil chants' is one of the downsides becuase its part of the lich process.
But as i said as a Dm you can change it however you want in your game.
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Becoming a lich when there's already an inquisitor of Pharasma in the party means PvP. Either you die, or he does. If everyone's okay with that (players, not characters), go for it. But I don't think it will end any way except badly.
Edit: changed the class of the Pharasmite to align with reality. In the game world. Whatever.
So all those who fear and try to avoid death are evil?
More "all who create undead and pervert the natural order to avoid death" are.
There are non-undeath ways to avoid dying, in the books and stuff that isn't statted out yet but a DM could approve.
Honestly, as a DM, if he doesn't have a reason to detect evil, undead, or discern lies or use true seeing on you to see through whatever disguise you come up with, he really doesn't find out. Granted, as an Inquisitor, he might start to suspect things when you take damage from positive energy and other undead qualities present themselves but until then you're safe. As it has been mentioned before though, it seems like a bad idea as his character is strictly opposed to you being undead.
If you are opposed to him trying to kill your character then you should not do it since you already knew what his stance was.
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What is it with people that
2) have paladins in the party and deliberately get quasit/imp familiars?Imps are cute?
I mean come on, can you resist that face?
And they don't mean THAT much trouble.*looks around*
okay, I've got nothin'
Those are the same guys who, as GMs, deliberately put the paladins into no-win scenarios to make them fall.
...which gives me a great idea for my next home game...
I have a player wanting to become a Lich. And really, the whole "must be Evil" shtick still seems stupid to me. So all those who fear and try to avoid death are evil? Yeah, sure. From what my player told me, his Lich-to-be is strictly Lawful Neutral, if anything else. He even wants to die after finishing his research, having no problem shattering the phylactery and then letting his undead body crumble to dust.It's what people do to avoid death that generally brings them to evil. Constructing a phylactory generally involves rituals which frequently involve a good chunk of evil.
So your lich to be may start off as Neutral, but the things he'll do to acheive lichdom generally put him on the bottom side of the nine squares.
Not when I'm DM it won't. If you ask me, a Lich can be created with some ritual involving souls, regardless of the target soul's alignment.
But hey, that's just how I roll with it as DM.
Why don't you try the spell-less possibility, your body won't instantly decay (I am assuming it doesn't), so you will be immortal while your mortal buddy will not, you do the math...
Pretty sure Alter self wont work on a litch. i cant remember the specifics but i think polymorph effects dont work on undead. I may be wrong.
Icyshadows, i really dont get why you are trying to make becoming a litch something fluffy and cute.
Using other people's souls is still a bad thing in D&D/Pathfinder.
Icyshadow, really dont get why you are trying to make becoming a litch something fluffy and cute.
Mojo, I don't really get how you can turn "morally ambiguous" into "fluffy and cute". I mean, what led you to such a conclusion? Better question, why do you even bother complaining about something you cannot really affect, and missed the point of anyway? And Wraith, not all soul-related spells are Evil.
Icyshadow, really dont get why you are trying to make becoming a litch something fluffy and cute.Mojo, I don't really get how you can turn "morally ambiguous" into "fluffy and cute". I mean, what led you to such a conclusion? Better question, why do you even bother complaining about something you cannot really affect, and missed the point of anyway? And Wraith, not all soul-related spells are Evil.
I don't know what a soul spell is, but a common trope of D&D is that using other people's souls for your own means is a bad thing.
Trap the Soul does not have the Evil descriptor, just to name an example.
Anyway, there's no point arguing this. Some DMs are fine letting a Lich be neutral, and others aren't. Case closed if you ask me.
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Don't gingers make the best paladins because they have no soul to be corrupted?
Trap the Soul was not was I was talking about. I was referring to situations where you use/sacrifice souls(the power of souls) to gain power.
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Inquisitors can detect any of the 4 alignment types at will.
Said spell is a cone. It can and should get used *alot* (I know my inquisitor has one version or another running almost constantly... its usefulness can not be overstated)
The chances of catching your fellow PC's in said cone are almost guaranteed ... and if at some point the evil-o-meter pings you can be sure the inquisitor is going to try to figure out what pinged it.
This *will* happen, and it will happen pretty darn early.
This isn't the paladin version where you specify a target. Its the regular spell version that gets the whole area, your intent to check your companions is immaterial if their anywhere within 60'.The lich needs to guard against. Hoping it won't happen is unreasonable.
I realize Inquisitors can detect any alignment at will but, if the lich and the Inquisitor were friends before the character became a lich and the character was not evil until afterwards, I don't think the Inquisitor would be casting detect evil on his friend. If he were evil before, then yes he'd have a cause to do it but before then I don't really see "I detect evil on the lich... I mean so and so's character" as not metagaming.
Sure if the lich doesn't take measures to hide his lich-iness then the Inquisitor is likely to find out relatively quickly but I doubt he'd find out right away. Also, from the way I personally run games, just because someone detects as evil (unless of course it's blatantly undead, an evil dragon, or an evil outsider) the character has no reason to attack it, which is why most of the people I play with have changed the detect alignment spells to only detect that alignment when the characters have the intent of doing something of that alignment. That's just me though, I realize other people play differently.
Thanks for the input everyone. (And I do mean everyone, even the haters. :p) I recognize this is a devicive issue, but both characters had been in the works for a long time prior to the campaign, and we're trying to find a way to make it work. Yes, I realize party PVP is a very real option, and worst cse scenario, a character dies. Yet we're trying to find ways to work with it. As for the alignment thing, as with alignment itself, every game, every DM, is different. Needless to say, I'm lawful neutral-right on that lawful evil line, but my character is probably the most virtuous in the party. (Apart from that whole, you know, refuse to die thing.) Gentle repose, mind blank should do a lot, as well as disguise checks and bluffs, I wanted to ehar what people thought about it. Worst case scenario, again, a character dies/becomes unplayable by running away frmo the party, etc. We both know that. But we want to try to keep that from happening if possible.
Really appreciate the input, glad to ehar all the different opinions. But let's throw this at a different angle: If a lich wants to survive in a place frequented by inquisitors without arousing suspicion, what's a guy to do?
Only thing I really didn't want to consider is the size change/possession angle. That's one of the few things my DM have a rage-spot for.