I've got an idea for one for my homebrew campaign, but I have no idea where to start. Any suggestions welcome!
Just build a psion, and then add the lich template.
Are you asking about specific builds or ideas?
Not really, just a general idea. I though the lich template was for magic-based creatures. I guess it didn't occur to me to use it for psionic. Thanks.
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I've got an idea for one for my homebrew campaign, but I have no idea where to start. Any suggestions welcome!
There is a psionic lich template in Bruce Cordell's excellent adventure module If Thoughts Could Kill. It's for 3.5, but it shouldn't be hard to adapt it for Pathfinder and Dreamscarred Press's psionics rules.
One of the villains of the adventure is a pretty badass psionic lich. (His base of operations is a mini-dungeon built into the dimensionally-expanded inside of a Huge skeletal bear. Sort of an undead-bear-TARDIS. The lich rides in the bear's head and blasts his enemies with psionic powers through the bear's eye sockets.)
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When I think of a psychic lich, I think of someone who plants their consciousness into an object and projects that consciousness into people.
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Yeah, for a psychic lich, I feel like the Body Snatcher prestige is a good place to look for ideas. Its not immortal in the usual lich sense of a phylactery, but I like the idea of the lich being killed and then just body jumping to its killer. Other than that, I feel like there was a psionic power that was essentially clone or something similar to regenerate a new body when the old one is killed.
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In Seventh Path there is a template for creating what is basically a psionic lich
Use a 'Psychic Lich' from the Occult Bestiary and change the word 'psychic' to 'psionic'.
I looked at that, but I'd have to swap out all the psychic spells for psionic powers, though some of the abilities are cool.
In Seventh Path there is a template for creating what is basically a psionic lich
I think that'll work. I'd downloaded this a few weeks ago but hadn't really had time to go through it well. Thanks!
I do like that template a lot!
http://www.angelfire.com/d20/vaelos/Psi_Lich_Template.html
This was a 3.x version from If Thoughts Could Kill.
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I looked at that, but I'd have to swap out all the psychic spells for psionic powers...
Again, this is largely semantics. The lich's "psychic spells" ARE "psionic powers".
I mean, what's the difference between a "Psychic" from Occult Adventures casting the 1st level psychic spell "Telempathic Projection" vs a "Psion" from Ultimate Psionics manifesting the 1st level psionic power "Telempathic Projection"?
What level do you want it to be?
It's more of a psychic leech than a Lich, but the coment by DHAnubis about body-jumping reminded me of the new Psychic sorcerer bloodline, where if you're killed you can mind-switch with your attacker.
What level do you want it to be?
It's more of a psychic leech than a Lich, but the coment by DHAnubis about body-jumping reminded me of the new Psychic sorcerer bloodline, where if you're killed you can mind-switch with your attacker.
Probably around 15th level. The PCs are currently level 10 and it'll be awhile before they encounter it,but it'll be in the background manipulating events.
http://www.angelfire.com/d20/vaelos/Psi_Lich_Template.html
This was a 3.x version from If Thoughts Could Kill.
Awesome. Thanks!
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I looked at that, but I'd have to swap out all the psychic spells for psionic powers...Again, this is largely semantics. The lich's "psychic spells" ARE "psionic powers".
I mean, what's the difference between a "Psychic" from Occult Adventures casting the 1st level psychic spell "Telempathic Projection" vs a "Psion" from Ultimate Psionics manifesting the 1st level psionic power "Telempathic Projection"?
The differences between psychic spells and psionic powers are not largely semantics. One is using Vancian casting... the other is using a point cost casting. Those two systems do not convert simply without throwing off balance.
There may be a few situations where the spells have very direct overlaps but overall the two systems are vastly different in general mechanics.
I looked at that, but I'd have to swap out all the psychic spells for psionic powers...Again, this is largely semantics. The lich's "psychic spells" ARE "psionic powers".
I mean, what's the difference between a "Psychic" from Occult Adventures casting the 1st level psychic spell "Telempathic Projection" vs a "Psion" from Ultimate Psionics manifesting the 1st level psionic power "Telempathic Projection"?
The differences between psychic spells and psionic powers are not largely semantics. One is using Vancian casting... the other is using a point cost casting. Those two systems do not convert simply without throwing off balance.
There may be a few situations where the spells have very direct overlaps but overall the two systems are vastly different in general mechanics.
Actually they are, the default rules are transparency, where the psionic and spells are the same thing. Detect psionics is the same as detect magic, the overall effect is the same even if the game mechanics behind the scenes are different.
It is largely accepted that the psionic system is more "balanced" than the vancian casting, you need to play for things that are included in spells innately. As long as the balance of the subsystem is in fact balanced, it isn't an issue. Some systems may do things better than others, or lend themselves to certain tactics, but if they are balanced... Plug and play shouldn't be an issue mechanically.
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I looked at that, but I'd have to swap out all the psychic spells for psionic powers...Again, this is largely semantics. The lich's "psychic spells" ARE "psionic powers".
I mean, what's the difference between a "Psychic" from Occult Adventures casting the 1st level psychic spell "Telempathic Projection" vs a "Psion" from Ultimate Psionics manifesting the 1st level psionic power "Telempathic Projection"?
The differences between psychic spells and psionic powers are not largely semantics. One is using Vancian casting... the other is using a point cost casting. Those two systems do not convert simply without throwing off balance.
There may be a few situations where the spells have very direct overlaps but overall the two systems are vastly different in general mechanics.
Actually they are, the default rules are transparency, where the psionic and spells are the same thing. Detect psionics is the same as detect magic, the overall effect is the same even if the game mechanics behind the scenes are different.
It is largely accepted that the psionic system is more "balanced" than the vancian casting, you need to play for things that are included in spells innately. As long as the balance of the subsystem is in fact balanced, it isn't an issue. Some systems may do things better than others, or lend themselves to certain tactics, but if they are balanced... Plug and play shouldn't be an issue mechanically.
Largely accepted it is more balanced? Last I heard all of Paizo's game designers prefer Vancian. I haven't heard what their newest designer (Rogue Eidolon) thinks of it. I love Dreamscarred Press's Ultimate Psionics. I think they fixed most of the problems I had with 3.0, and 3.5 psionics by WotC and prefer the system it uses over Vancian but I have never seen many people who agree with your statement. We will have to agree to disagree because I have seen no evidence to support it.
The major differences lie in the fact that a lot of the spells scale more based upon how many power points you spend to cast the spell and meta psionics feats normally cannot be used again until you spend actions to reacquire your psionic focus whereas in 3.x D&D Vancian you just have caster level, and you don't have to spend any actions to cast another spell with with a meta magic feat (but some classes increase the casting time on to cast with most metamagic feats). Also you can't use all of your casting ability to cast your highest level of spells in Vancian because you have spell slots, not points you can spread as you see fit (with a max per manifestation of your manifested level).
Those major differences are why I do not believe you can just call Paizo's Psionic Spells Psionic Powers and just assign a cost to manifest the spell.
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As an alternative, there's an Iron Lich template where the lich in question basically chills out inside a construct. If you're looking for less magic and more mind powers, that might work reasonably well.
(I think it's from Pathways magazine...? Should be available free, at least.)
Largely accepted it is more balanced? Last I heard all of Paizo's game designers prefer Vancian. I haven't heard what their newest designer (Rogue Eidolon) thinks of it. I love Dreamscarred Press's Ultimate Psionics. I think they fixed most of the problems I had with 3.0, and 3.5 psionics by WotC and prefer the system it uses over Vancian but I have never seen many people who agree with your statement. We will have to agree to disagree because I have seen no evidence to...I looked at that, but I'd have to swap out all the psychic spells for psionic powers...Again, this is largely semantics. The lich's "psychic spells" ARE "psionic powers".
I mean, what's the difference between a "Psychic" from Occult Adventures casting the 1st level psychic spell "Telempathic Projection" vs a "Psion" from Ultimate Psionics manifesting the 1st level psionic power "Telempathic Projection"?
The differences between psychic spells and psionic powers are not largely semantics. One is using Vancian casting... the other is using a point cost casting. Those two systems do not convert simply without throwing off balance.
There may be a few situations where the spells have very direct overlaps but overall the two systems are vastly different in general mechanics.
Actually they are, the default rules are transparency, where the psionic and spells are the same thing. Detect psionics is the same as detect magic, the overall effect is the same even if the game mechanics behind the scenes are different.
It is largely accepted that the psionic system is more "balanced" than the vancian casting, you need to play for things that are included in spells innately. As long as the balance of the subsystem is in fact balanced, it isn't an issue. Some systems may do things better than others, or lend themselves to certain tactics, but if they are balanced... Plug and play shouldn't be an issue mechanically.
Preferring vanician casting isn't the same as it being more balanced, not even close...
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Largely accepted it is more balanced? Last I heard all of Paizo's game designers prefer Vancian. I haven't heard what their newest designer (Rogue Eidolon) thinks of it. I love Dreamscarred Press's Ultimate Psionics. I think they fixed most of the problems I had with 3.0, and 3.5 psionics by WotC and prefer the system it uses over Vancian but I have never seen many people who agree with your statement. We will have to agree to disagree because I have seen no evidence to support it.
The differences between psychic spells and psionic powers are not largely semantics. One is using Vancian casting... the other is using a point cost casting. Those two systems do not convert simply without throwing off balance.There may be a few situations where the spells have very direct overlaps but overall the two systems are vastly different in general mechanics.
Actually they are, the default rules are transparency, where the psionic and spells are the same thing. Detect psionics is the same as detect magic, the overall effect is the same even if the game mechanics behind the scenes are different.
It is largely accepted that the psionic system is more "balanced" than the vancian casting, you need to play for things that are included in spells innately. As long as the balance of the subsystem is in fact balanced, it isn't an issue. Some systems may do things better than others, or lend themselves to certain tactics, but if they are balanced... Plug and play shouldn't be an issue mechanically.
Preferring vanician casting isn't the same as it being more balanced, not even close
...
That doesn't refute what I said, and in your words "not even close"...
What Paizo designers have expressed as their preference was only a side note. The important line is "I have never seen many people who agree with your statement". To be largely accepted as more balanced there needs to be a large number of people who say it is more balanced.
Again, we can agree to disagree.
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Just because you haven't seen them, doesn't mean they don't exist. Generally speaking most players who understand both systems see Psionics as more balanced. There are fringes who misunderstand it (and see it as OP because they forget core rules) and those who are ambivalent towards it, but I myself haven't seen ANY who understand it and find it less balanced. So my anecdote cancels yours, I suppose.
Paizo's designers may prefer Vancian, but they're 4 people, hardly able to make up a majority in any sense of the word except "Majority of Paizo designers", and that doesn't speak to their views on its balance either (though they have collectively said on multiple occasions that they love DSP's work).
Now, back on the main topic, I like the idea of a body snatcher Lich who instead of reconstituting himself possesses those who would slay him (or, if you want it to be less dangerous, those who touch its Phylactery, as the power Mind Seed, perhaps).
I like this idea.