| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Seems like he got the Lich template for free, which puts you around two levels behind.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I'm always surprised how many players seem to want to play as a lich. This kind of post is always coming up.
You're not going to get much ultimate intrigue with your fear aura traumatising every NPC you meet. Sounds really boring to me - just hiding out alone in your crypt.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I think I would prepare to neutralize him or insulate yourself rather than smite him outright should the situation arise. Less in real life conflict that way.
Not that preparation to defend yourself is a bad idea.
I would think of things both game mechanics wise as well as rp elements that could give you and advantage like say having an alliance with some Pharasmian priest or some such.
Now if you can steal his phylactery then you got him by the macadamias!
However, speaking to your dm and possibly the other player to prevent this from turning into a pc vc pc fight is probably a good idea.
| 11 people marked this as a favorite. |
This does not sound fun at all.
| 15 people marked this as a favorite. |
Our GM encourages pc vs pc unfortunately, and Boomerang, he's not a lich yet, but he's planning to become one. He still has to get a phylactery and do some other things our GM is having him do to become one, so I have a while.
Kill him before he finishes the process... problem solved.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Has he given you reason to worry?
If not don't worry about it, even Evil characters can have friends and family that they want to protect (and an semi-Immortal Guardian is pretty badass thing to have in your corner).
Now if he's a reckless stereotype of cartoon villainy then you have a problem...and my advice is to get 'friends' (maybe another Player) so when he tries to go at you its not a fair fight.
I'd say the best and most brutal tactic would be to drop an Anti-Magic spell on him and have your 'friends' gang up on him and keep him from leaving it, while slowly (or quickly) destroying his undead ass.
After-which you find his phylactery and smash it with an enchanted rock.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Our GM encourages pc vs pc unfortunately, and Boomerang, he's not a lich yet, but he's planning to become one. He still has to get a phylactery and do some other things our GM is having him do to become one, so I have a while.Kill him before he finishes the process... problem solved.
I agree. Unless you absolutely want to play out a pvp scenario, I would talk to the player and GM about how this will detract from yours (and everyone else's fun).
Also, in-character, why would your LG character even want to help a NE character find a phylactery? How would him gaining that kind of power benefit your party in the long run? Remember, lawful good does not equal lawful stupid. If he insists on going this route, a LG character would most likely subdue him and turn him into the authorities before he becomes a grave threat that endangers innocent lives.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I thinking telling your dm that you don't like pc vs pc situation nor do you appreciate him encouraging this behavior.
If not then here a few ideas that are probably tame compared to what some of other people will post. Note most of these are not full solutions but might help a little.
1. Prevent his apotheosis. He'll probably be pretty vulnerable during the transformation.
2. Corrupt his phylactery so that you have some form of control over it or leverage over him. Like maybe he is dependent on you being alive for it to function or for you to renew it's power. I realize that this is delving very far into DM house rules. Regardless some way to have a magical precaution on the phylactery of some sort sounds like a good idea. Maybe a spell that teleports it to you. I doubt he's going to keep it on him, which should be on the item before he finishes his transformation. (Or just steal it!)
3. Disruption weapons.
4. Sunbeam and sunburst. Going by your level you'd need a magic item to cast this.
5. Anti-Magic Shell then with your one martial level smash his undead body with blunt weapons. Scratch that I forgot he's a cleric he would probably win. You need a non-summoned melee machine maybe with grapple so he can't get away.
6. Teleport away from any fight. Come back later with appropriately prepare spells and summoned monsters.
7. Paladin cohort.
8. Get NPC Phrasmian allies. Or just tell them that this guy is going to be a lich.
9. Watch out for the paralyzing touch. I'm going to assume your fort save is low so you are particularly vulnerable. Not to mention if your shaken by his fear aura you're that much worse off.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Magnus and Cesare ninja'd me a bit there while I was posting but they brought up some additional points that I agree with.
| 9 people marked this as a favorite. |
Start building your robot construct army now. Fear and necromancy may stop flesh, but such powers are impotent against the purity of steel.
What other characters are in the party? You may be able to get help.
wait how are you an eldritch knight without levels in a class that has martial weapon proficiency
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
If the GM is going by established lich lore, the player is going to have to do something major on the evil scale to complete the process.. which gives you fulljustification to go all righteous might on him.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Back when I was a neophyte GM running a Rise of the Runelords campaign, I had a rebellious player who insisted on playing a cleric specializing in summoning/raising undead. He completely ruined the vibe of the party and his antics derailed the campaign. There was simply no in-game reason why a predominantly good party would ever travel with a NE cleric who regularly defiled the dead. Players spent more time worrying about whether or not the creepy scythe wielding Urgathoan would betray them versus preventing the rise of the big baddie. At a certain point, the party got fed up with him animating giant skeletons and researching a path to lichdom. Led by the NG ranger, the party ultimately subdued the cleric, stripped him of his magic items and valuables, and turned him into the authorities in Magnimar. As far as they know, that cleric is still languishing in prison.
Since then, I instituted a new house rule: no evil characters in a campaign geared towards good characters and no pvp.
Back when I was a neophyte GM running a Rise of the Runelords campaign, I had a rebellious player who insisted on playing a cleric specializing in summoning/raising undead. He completely ruined the vibe of the party and his antics derailed the campaign. There was simply no in-game reason why a predominantly good party would ever travel with a NE cleric who regularly defiled the dead. Players spent more time worrying about whether or not the creepy scythe wielding Urgathoan would betray them versus preventing the rise of the big baddie. At a certain point, the party got fed up with him animating giant skeletons and researching a path to lichdom. Led by the NG ranger, the party ultimately subdued the cleric, stripped him of his magic items and valuables, and turned him into the authorities in Magnimar. As far as they know, that cleric is still languishing in prison.
Since then, I instituted a new house rule: no evil characters in a campaign geared towards good characters and no pvp.
Honestly you might be missing on a ton of fun there with that rule.
One of my favorite characters was Elded, a Human NE STR-based Rogue. The rest of the party was good, and he knew that they pay was good, so he wouldn't make too much of a fuss about going questing to save villages.
But he had several moments when his alignment was a source of engagement and fun for the party:
- While the rest of the party would kindly help strangers, Elded would sidle up to the constable and coax him to cough up proper repayment for the party. The party would protest at first but sometimes the NPCs coughed up pretty good stuff after my Intimidate check (using Coax Information of course).
- The party had this murderous Elf Druid arrested because they were friggin' boy scouts. Elded promptly sneaked into his cell at night, told him he was breaking him out in exchange for information of this guy's secret stash of items, and once he found that out, proceeded to coup de grace the dude when he leaving the cell (thankfully he was manacled so he couldn't Cure his wounds from our previous fight).
- I ran all sorts of intrigue schemes in cities, pitting aristocrats against one another, setting assassins on uncooperating targets, all in the name of fame, glory and wealth. Luckily, the road to riches was coincidentally conducive to regime change in the city (which was the party's goal).
Not saying I was a master at it, but running a fun Evil character on a Good campaign can be quite rewarding.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
Back when I was a neophyte GM running a Rise of the Runelords campaign, I had a rebellious player who insisted on playing a cleric specializing in summoning/raising undead. He completely ruined the vibe of the party and his antics derailed the campaign. There was simply no in-game reason why a predominantly good party would ever travel with a NE cleric who regularly defiled the dead. Players spent more time worrying about whether or not the creepy scythe wielding Urgathoan would betray them versus preventing the rise of the big baddie. At a certain point, the party got fed up with him animating giant skeletons and researching a path to lichdom. Led by the NG ranger, the party ultimately subdued the cleric, stripped him of his magic items and valuables, and turned him into the authorities in Magnimar. As far as they know, that cleric is still languishing in prison.
Since then, I instituted a new house rule: no evil characters in a campaign geared towards good characters and no pvp.
So what you're saying is that in character your party betrayed someone who implicitly trusted them, to the point where they could ambush and subdue him despite him apparently having loads of minions and then handed him over for certain death by execution when there was a Runelord awakening and they needed all the help they could get.
There's two sides to every story, if you flip the alignments you'd certainly think it was an unacceptable thing for the party to do and more than slightly unfair when the guy was by the sound of it playing fairly legit with them.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Back when I was a neophyte GM running a Rise of the Runelords campaign, I had a rebellious player who insisted on playing a cleric specializing in summoning/raising undead. He completely ruined the vibe of the party and his antics derailed the campaign. There was simply no in-game reason why a predominantly good party would ever travel with a NE cleric who regularly defiled the dead. Players spent more time worrying about whether or not the creepy scythe wielding Urgathoan would betray them versus preventing the rise of the big baddie. At a certain point, the party got fed up with him animating giant skeletons and researching a path to lichdom. Led by the NG ranger, the party ultimately subdued the cleric, stripped him of his magic items and valuables, and turned him into the authorities in Magnimar. As far as they know, that cleric is still languishing in prison.
Since then, I instituted a new house rule: no evil characters in a campaign geared towards good characters and no pvp.
So what you're saying is that in character your party betrayed someone who implicitly trusted them, to the point where they could ambush and subdue him despite him apparently having loads of minions and then handed him over for certain death by execution when there was a Runelord awakening and they needed all the help they could get.
There's two sides to every story, if you flip the alignments you'd certainly think it was an unacceptable thing for the party to do and more than slightly unfair when the guy was by the sound of it playing fairly legit with them.
Yeah that's what I was thinking too.
Seriously, it sounds like the OP is stirring for a fight, despite supposedly disliking PvP. Seems like others are too.
If you don't want the lich to be your enemy, why not let it be your friend instead?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Sorry to break it to you, but it doesn't work. Martial Weapon Proficiency only grants proficiency with a single weapon. To qualify for EK, you need proficiency with ALL martial weapons, so you need at least 1 martial level. I understand if your GM looked aside though.
Our GM encourages pc vs pc unfortunately, and Boomerang, he's not a lich yet, but he's planning to become one. He still has to get a phylactery and do some other things our GM is having him do to become one, so I have a while.
PVP can be fun if everyone is into that, some of my favourite games were made more interesting thanks to the PVP element. But I agree that it's no fun when you have invested a lot of effort into a character and someone else builds a character designed to take yours out.
My advice is to retire your character and create a new character that is more suitable for a PVP style of game and that you don't have any emotional attachment to. Be open about it, tell them your character was built to work within a cooperative group and wouldn't be a challenge in a PVP type game.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I need your build. What is your specialty? Why take a level in Eldritch Knight? How did you qualify?
You're a wizard, that's a good start. I need all your resources, allies, gear, connections, familiar, anything relevant.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure Still Spell won't help with arcane spell failure for wearing armor.
You also need to be proficient in wearing it. :-)
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Yeah, I'm pretty sure Still Spell won't help with arcane spell failure for wearing armor.
You also need to be proficient in wearing it. :-)
No - it actually does work that way.
Arcane Spell Failure Chance: Armor interferes with the gestures that a spellcaster must make to cast an arcane spell that has a somatic component.
Still spells don't have somatic components.
Though I don't know how he's fighting effectively in heavy armor with that massive armor check penalty to rolls.
Thanks! Good to know. :-)
Your bigger issue is the drastically opposing alignments. Why would you be OK with him being a cleric of an evil god even before his transformation?
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
As for the Eldritch Knight thing, VMC Battle Oracle, Skill at Arms at 3rd level would have helped a lot, here.
As for the other bits:
First off, I have to disagree that an Evil character can't be in a good party; it all depends on the party and the goals and motivations of the evil character. Our parties have frequently included an evil character now and again. They tend to fall into the "Lazy Evil" category.
They're evil, but they're opposed to evil organizations because those guys are a-holes, and they like good civilizations because they tend to be nice places to live. They're opposed to world destruction because that's where they live and keep all their stuff.
They also tend to bond with the party, because hey, these dupes are helping keep them safe and advance own goals. Plus, they're cool, unlike those "other" good characters. They tend not to have incredibly evil ambitions, they just want wealth, power, and influence, and don't want to have to be bothered with morality. Or in other cases (like my goblin alchemist in our Iron Gods campaign) they just have a very warped understanding of morality. He's a horrible little monster doing terrible experiments in the name of advancing science!
So, back to the OP, I dunno, it really all depends. We had a necromancer in our RotR campaign who just wanted to become powerful enough to create her own demi plane and get the hell away from people.
| 10 people marked this as a favorite. |
Whenever another player becomes a lich, I leave the group.
Maybe I'm intolerant, but I just can't handle rolling my dice, eating my pizza and drinking my Mountain Dew while across the table is an animated rotting corpse.
Just kill him now and retire your character. This sounds like a cluster-f.
Stay up later than him and kill him in his sleep before he turns into one.
|
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Next, there's been times he's made things very hard for the party. Killing people we need and turning them into zombies, he burned down an orphanage because he thought it would please Urgathoa (I'm not even kidding), etc.
Yes, that's horrible, he should have saved the orphans as offerings to summoned Vulnudaemons. Really, not good, not good at all...
The situation is not unique.
Whenever another player becomes a lich, I leave the group.
Maybe I'm intolerant, but I just can't handle rolling my dice, eating my pizza and drinking my Mountain Dew while across the table is an animated rotting corpse.
I would take video of the walking, talking corpse and sell it to the highest bidder. Perhaps line the lich player up on talk shows.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I would take video of the walking, talking corpse and sell it to the highest bidder. Perhaps line the lich player up on talk shows.Whenever another player becomes a lich, I leave the group.
Maybe I'm intolerant, but I just can't handle rolling my dice, eating my pizza and drinking my Mountain Dew while across the table is an animated rotting corpse.
No one's really interested in a no-name lich anymore. If they want that sort of thing, they just book Keith Richards.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Sorry to break it to you, but it doesn't work. Martial Weapon Proficiency only grants proficiency with a single weapon. To qualify for EK, you need proficiency with ALL martial weapons, so you need at least 1 martial level. I understand if your GM looked aside though.Our GM doesn't know the rules the best. Most of the players look to me when asking questions instead of our GM because I know the material better.
To those wondering why I'm "itching for a fight" yet not being a big fan of pvp, I have an answer for you. Urgathoan Cleric (We'll call UC for short) has been sneaking around doing things without telling the rest of the party and will not tell even when questioned. He's also been talking for months about how OP he'll be as a lich. Example: GM: "So and so casts a mind control spell on you" UC: "Hey, I'll be immune to that when I'm a Lich." And liches are immune to a lot of things, so I"ve been hearing this kind of thing a lot.
A lich's immunity, which is just standard undead immunity, is not a concern. While undeath provides heavy resistance to lots of issues that plague the living, it comes with a host of weaknesses that malign the undead. For example, if you look at the plethora of anti-undead spells, they are patently worse for the undead than their nearest counterparts.
Compare hold person to halt undead, or charm person to command undead, etc. Likewise, even powerful undead like liches get wrecked by disruption weapons on an average of once every 20 hits (anytime they're hit, they still have a 5% - rolling a 1 - chance of getting dusted, no matter how good their Will save is). There are countless ways to deal with undead, you just don't deal with them in the same ways you deal with living creatures (locking them in a room and gassing them with cloudkill just won't do you much good).
For a lich specifically, remove paralysis and/or freedom of movement is a good idea (for their paralyzing touch) and remove fear or similar is nice (but against level appropriate foes their fear aura isn't great).
ON FEAR AURA: Contrary to what some think, liches do not make commoners and stuff run screaming unless they explicitly want to. An aura of fear requires a free action to maintain, and it's just generally assumed that the undead in question is always maintaining it, even before combat begins. They can, however, walk around in public without keeping it up if they choose to do so, though if they do they are making it easier for would-be ambushers.
On Liches: It sounds like your group is pretty new to the game or not very experienced with high level play. The simple fact of the matter is that the value of lichdom isn't in its immunities, it's in the fact that you're essentially immortal. If a lich plans correctly, a lich can make it impossible to find, obtain, and destroy their phylactery. They may even have a contingency for when their phylactery is destroyed (liches can wake up as a mortal again and have to build a new phylactery, assuming access to the right spells).
A lich's power is actually less than a normal spellcaster of the same CR (because the +2 CR bump drops them a full set of spells behind in terms of XP value or CR value). The value of lichdom is in long term savings on raise dead, restoration, and resurrection costs, and that assumes you're going to be failing a lot. Beyond that, being a lich is primarily a for-fun thing, knowing your character has achieved immortality.
Next, there's been times he's made things very hard for the party. Killing people we need and turning them into zombies, he burned down an orphanage because he thought it would please Urgathoa (I'm not even kidding), etc. I feel these things will only become more often when he becomes a lich. I don't want to kill him, but I don't want him to endanger the party.
So Stupid-Evil. Geeze, I miss the classic Urgathoa from the Pathfinder Campaign Setting manual, where she and Asmodeous were framed as sane evil deities, and she was often worshipped by normal people who wanted to avoid being sick, or have maladies removed, as readily as she was by evil folks or those seeking undeath.
Well, if he obtains lichdom, which would set him back a ton (it costs 120,000 gp to create, which is nearly the entirety of a 13th level character's expected wealth by level) so no matter what level he does it at, it means he's going to be far weaker than usual after the process (because he'll have to consume most of his magic shwag to do it), rather than trying to find his phylactery you'd be better off capturing and imprisoning him.
Obtain the lich (using usual methods of preventing magical escape such as dimensional anchor and dispelling any freedom of movement the lich has active), find a nice dark tomb or something, chain them up with their hands, legs, and mouth bound and anchored to the wall (no somatic components, pinned down, no verbal components, no material components, no divine focus, and requires a massive concentration check vs the guy who chained them up's CMB or they fail to cast anything else). Blindfold them to boot if you'd like (that way they can't target things with direct-target spells effectively). If you want to be especially cheeky, build a trap that uses antimagic field or something and sit it upright next to the bound lich (but this is probably overkill).
If the lich has minions, a private sanctum will prevent them from easily discovering the lich's location via divinations to rescue it.
Basically, you lock them up and throw away the key. Just understand that there are only two ways this can go in the long run if the lich gets out. Having to sit in time out for so long will either cause the lich to go insane in the confinement, or the lich will rethink its unlife and swear to live a good life if it ever gets free. But you're more likely to end up with the first, and nobody wants a recently freed and insane with wrath lich pissed at them and their kin.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
As for the Eldritch Knight thing, VMC Battle Oracle, Skill at Arms at 3rd level would have helped a lot, here.
As for the other bits:
First off, I have to disagree that an Evil character can't be in a good party; it all depends on the party and the goals and motivations of the evil character. Our parties have frequently included an evil character now and again. They tend to fall into the "Lazy Evil" category.
They're evil, but they're opposed to evil organizations because those guys are a-holes, and they like good civilizations because they tend to be nice places to live. They're opposed to world destruction because that's where they live and keep all their stuff.
They also tend to bond with the party, because hey, these dupes are helping keep them safe and advance own goals. Plus, they're cool, unlike those "other" good characters. They tend not to have incredibly evil ambitions, they just want wealth, power, and influence, and don't want to have to be bothered with morality. Or in other cases (like my goblin alchemist in our Iron Gods campaign) they just have a very warped understanding of morality. He's a horrible little monster doing terrible experiments in the name of advancing science!
So, back to the OP, I dunno, it really all depends. We had a necromancer in our RotR campaign who just wanted to become powerful enough to create her own demi plane and get the hell away from people.
Here's the problem then... assuming standard story assumptions for a lich. The character is going to commit some tremendous form of evil to reach his goal. The good characters are going to have to stop him. If the GM is waiving that requirement, than there is no further point to this thread.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I'd like to point out that the lich must perform an act of great evil. However, that act is largely up in the air. Evil is defined as hurting, oppressing, or killing. It's very possible that a would-be lich might have to do something like kill twenty sentient creatures before their ritual or whatever to finalize the process.
Which would make you a bad person if you captured a bunch of brigands and used them for your ritual. However, it would be an act of great evil that most people wouldn't care about. In fact, some might even be happy that the brigands are gone.
And that's just if the GM is going with the fluffy lore in the Bestiary and not allowing liches that don't conform to the fluff.
I'd like to point out that the lich must perform an act of great evil. However, that act is largely up in the air. Evil is defined as hurting, oppressing, or killing. It's very possible that a would-be lich might have to do something like kill twenty sentient creatures before their ritual or whatever to finalize the process.
Which would make you a bad person if you captured a bunch of brigands and used them for your ritual. However, it would be an act of great evil that most people wouldn't care about. In fact, some might even be happy that the brigands are gone.
And that's just if the GM is going with the fluffy lore in the Bestiary and not allowing liches that don't conform to the fluff.
Usually with something like this...killing 50 corrupted persons won't do. The requirements usually wind up requiring the sacrifice of a group of fairly innocent souls. Price of magic and all that.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Usually with something like this...killing 50 corrupted persons won't do. The requirements usually wind up requiring the sacrifice of a group of fairly innocent souls. Price of magic and all that.I'd like to point out that the lich must perform an act of great evil. However, that act is largely up in the air. Evil is defined as hurting, oppressing, or killing. It's very possible that a would-be lich might have to do something like kill twenty sentient creatures before their ritual or whatever to finalize the process.
Which would make you a bad person if you captured a bunch of brigands and used them for your ritual. However, it would be an act of great evil that most people wouldn't care about. In fact, some might even be happy that the brigands are gone.
And that's just if the GM is going with the fluffy lore in the Bestiary and not allowing liches that don't conform to the fluff.
I'm supposed to accept that on your authority, why exactly? The ritual is explicitly left up to the group in question.
Hell, in a number of campaign settings (including The Forgotten Realms), there are good-aligned liches, which implies that while the ritual may be unique to each lich, there are apparently alternatives to lichdom.
In fact, in Neverwinter Nights, there's a mage who became a lich using the instructions given to him by a balor. The balor instructed the lich to fireball a room full of children as part of the ritual, but later you find that the balor actually lied and that wasn't even needed to become a lich. He just tricked the mage for the lulz (the mage was a sorcerer IIRC, so he wasn't the brightest crayon in the box).
And if you don't consider murdering 50 people an act of great evil, well...I question your value of life, even unwanted or unwelcome life.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Saying there is good aligned "excpetions" in FR is like saying Adamantine is good at getting through hardness.
And if you don't consider murdering 50 people an act of great evil, well...I question your value of life, even unwanted or unwelcome life.
Life has value, yes. Like all things, a variable value.
Rounding up a bunch of innocent children to slaughter to power an evil ritual? EVIL f+!$ing evil.
Rounding up a bunch of rapists to slaughter to power an evil ritual? Wee smidge of evil. Mostly because of the killing to power the ritual than just the killing.
I'm always surprised how many players seem to want to play as a lich. This kind of post is always coming up.
You're not going to get much ultimate intrigue with your fear aura traumatising every NPC you meet. Sounds really boring to me - just hiding out alone in your crypt.
Yes but I'm even more amazed at the number of DMs who think allowing them to do so could be a good idea
Rounding up a bunch of rapists to slaughter to power an evil ritual? Wee smidge of evil. Mostly because of the killing to power the ritual than just the killing.
eh... i'd argue that killing them for no reason is actually worse.
yes.