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Are not Liches just skeletons with a bunch of class levels?
Technically, most PCs are skeletons with class levels. Most just have some meat layered on top.
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The central issue I see with Liches and Graveknights is that they are things you become, rather than things you start out as, and each strongly suggests a class or kind of class (liches are all spellcasters, graveknights are all armored folks).
I'm personally much more interested in a person who starts out at level 1 as some sort of spooky thing, and then will progress along whatever trajectory the player chooses. An undead character that ends up that way because of things beyond their control is much more compelling, I think.
"Becoming a Lich" as a thing an existing PC can do in order to become more powerful is a thing that's fraught with problems.
I'm really hoping for ghoul rules at least. I'd love archetypes for ghouls/vampires/liches, since they all feel bigger than a simple ancestry. Not instantly becoming one of them, but gradually with different stages along the way. A bit like a kitsune gains tails, I guess.
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Another kind of PC option I hope is in book of the dead is a 2e take on the horror adventure corruption rules for characters who are becoming undead against their will and have to struggle with the way that transformation is affecting them.
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Another kind of PC option I hope is in book of the dead is a 2e take on the horror adventure corruption rules for characters who are becoming undead against their will and have to struggle with the way that transformation is affecting them.
Yeah, that could be interesting, although I would probably do away with the whole "your character becomes an NPC at the end", as that feels more like something you should plan out with your DM, and almost none of the people I played with liked the idea of just losing control of their character, although I personally do understand why they would do it from a design standpoint, given how templates gave you crazy stat boosts back in 1st edition.
My 'ancestries' I've made for ghouls and vampires have rules for both a versatile heritage for someone 'born' or starting as one. The other way is an archetype for those that become undead later on.
Sounds interesting! Would you happen to have a link for them?
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Also using undead for labor on large scales probably also requires large-scale measures to prevent the spread of disease, especially for food.
Depends on the paradigm. Traditionally, negative energy, which empowers zombies and skeletons, is inherently hostile to living things. Which is why zombies can last for decades or even centuries without rotting. Bacteria can't live in them. Fungus can't grow on them. Their negative energy-imbued tissue are not tasty to micro-organisms. They'd be effectively sterile, however gross.
That said, the rules don't seem to pay attention to that, and necromancy is also associated with the Contagion spell, which *should* be tied to positive energy (which *creates* life) and not negative energy (which destroys life). Similarly, Remove Disease should be a negative energy spell, since it's killing (millions of tiny) living things.
So it's a bit inconsistent, but, according to theory, Geb's undead-harvested grains should be *more* free of disease than grain harvested by humans with their dirty germ-covered hands! :)
Which wouldn't stop superstitious folk in other countries from casting purify food & drink on their Gebbite food deliveries, just to be sure!
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The central issue I see with Liches and Graveknights is that they are things you become, rather than things you start out as, and each strongly suggests a class or kind of class (liches are all spellcasters, graveknights are all armored folks).
[tangent] I always felt that was a kind of boxed in option killer. I loved the notion, hinted at in early Pathfinder, that Arazni, with her order of knights, became a lich, despite having been a Paladin, not a Wizard. But then she turned out to be a Wizard anyway, with an order of knights following her, for... reasons? It felt like the lore was hijacked / railroaded by an unnecessary restriction in the wording of the Lich template. She had to be a Wizard, *because* she was a Lich. Not because she was inherently 'wizardy.'
That said, the Lich template did seem cherry picked to be great for casters, with all the mental attribute enhancements, and so a Graveknight template for more fighty folk seemed called for. [/tangent]
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My 'ancestries' I've made for ghouls and vampires have rules for both a versatile heritage for someone 'born' or starting as one. The other way is an archetype for those that become undead later on.Sounds interesting! Would you happen to have a link for them?
Not to derail things I won't include a link, but if you look for Liber Genus by me in the 3rd party section here there will be a link to it. Just the ghoul for now, the vampire is the next one I will be releasing once I take a second pass at the feats and set it all up properly.
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I'm really interested in what class options the dead could bring. Not necessarily being dead/undead, but maybe just imitating, like Revenant as a Barbarian Instinct.
A Bard whose Muse transcends death. A Witch's Patron tied deeply into Necromancy. An Alchemist whose research is focused on becoming immortal or mastering resurrection (not mundane healing). A fringe Druid Order that views undeath as a part of life.
Anyone interested in the Shabti? Technically dead.
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Might not be exactly what the thread was asking, but the thing I would be excited for in the book of the dead would be necrografts. I'm all for any sort of permanent body modification in ttrpgs, makes the character so unique, and I love thing that can't be taken away (say if you could install a bone blade in your arm, for example).
Conrasu says Hi! Technically, Anadi too. Maybe a couple of fleshwarps or androids.Are not Liches just skeletons with a bunch of class levels?Technically, most PCs are skeletons with class levels. Most just have some meat layered on top.
I did say "most."
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Here's my pitch:
Ancestry Archetypes!
Special packets of feats that work like class archetypes but can only be purchased using ancestry feats. Since you only ever get 5 Ancestry feats, each one would be pretty strong, and because of the levels they scale at, easy to balance.
For example a Lich Ancestry Archetype might look like:
Lich Transformation - 9th
Traits: Transformation
You gain the Undead trait, Darkvision and the Negative Healing abilities. You lose all abilities that come from being a living creature.
You gain the "Hand of the Lich" unarmed attack. These hand unarmed attack that deals 1d8 negative damage and inflicts a paralyzing touch. This attack has the finesse trait.
- Paralyzing Touch (arcane, curse, incapacitation, necromancy) A creature damaged by the lich's hand Strike must succeed at a Fortitude save against the lich's spell DC. The creature becomes paralyzed for 1 round on a failure. A DC 25 Medicine check reveals the victim is alive.
Special: You cannot select another Transformation feat until you have gained two other feats from the Lich archetype.
Dark Deliverance - 13th
You become more resilient and start to gain some of the liches resistances.
Gain a +1 status bonus to all saves vs. positive energy. Gain Resistance 5 to cold and physical (except magic bludgeoning). You gain Immunities to death effects, disease, paralyzed, poison, unconscious.
Forge Phylactery - 17th
You spend time crafting a Phylactery to house your soul, finalising your transformation into a lich.
You gain a Lich Phylactery. Your phylactery is a sealed metal box containing strips of parchment inscribed with magical phrases. This box has Hardness 9 and 36 HP. A phylactery might also come in the form of a ring, an amulet, or a similar item; the specifics are up to the creator.
You gain the Lich Rejuvenation ability and the Drain Phylactery action.
Lich Rejuvenation (arcane, necromancy): When a lich is destroyed, its soul immediately transfers to its phylactery. The phylactery then rebuilds the lich’s undead body over the course of 1d10 days. Afterwards, the lich manifests next to the phylactery, fully healed and in a new body (therefore, it lacks any equipment it had on its old body). A lich’s phylactery must be destroyed to prevent a lich from returning.
Drain Phylactery Free Action, Frequency: once per day; Effect The lich taps into its phylactery's power to cast any arcane spell up to the highest level the lich can cast, even if the spell being cast is not one of the lich's prepared spells. The lich's phylactery doesn't need to be present for the lich to use this ability.
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Obviously, this is a first pass to toss around the concept, but you get the idea.
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Here's my pitch:
Ancestry Archetypes!
Special packets of feats that work like class archetypes but can only be purchased using ancestry feats. Since you only ever get 5 Ancestry feats, each one would be pretty strong, and because of the levels they scale at, easy to balance.
I... REALLY like this idea, not even just for liches, but vampires, fleshwarps like a PC Drider, Cyborgs in you're in Numeria. I think 5th would be a better jumping off point, and you're only ever limited to one Transformation feat, but this idea intrigues me greatly. Now I wanna make a thing! If only I had time between the other things I'm making...
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As someone mentioned, many kinds of undead are something you become rather than something you would start off as, so making them archetypes becomes an option (IMO).
And you don't need to take the baggage from PF1 where the templates were all overpowered, and even just having the undead type was pretty overpowered because of immunities.
PF2 has eliminated the issue of creature type carrying so many immunities. It's not much more appropriate for PCs to have.
You can craft archetypes of what a lich is without having it be power creep for player characters. Rather is going to make you "good" (by giving more options) at doing certain specific kinds of things, which all archetypes do. And not through numbers, but rather through the options I mentioned.
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I... REALLY like this idea, not even just for liches, but vampires, fleshwarps like a PC Drider, Cyborgs in you're in Numeria. I think 5th would be a better jumping off point, and you're only ever limited to one Transformation feat, but this idea intrigues me greatly. Now I wanna make a thing! If only I had time between the other things I'm making...Here's my pitch:
Ancestry Archetypes!
Special packets of feats that work like class archetypes but can only be purchased using ancestry feats. Since you only ever get 5 Ancestry feats, each one would be pretty strong, and because of the levels they scale at, easy to balance.
Oh 100% and you could do all sorts of things with the concept.
I picked 9th as the starting level in the example simply because it’s high enough level to start down the road to lichhood, but you don’t get the good stuff until endgame still.
A single Transformation feat per character also makes sense as well. But didn’t want to preclude possible cases of “Zombie-Werewolf-Dwarf” from the outset.
Only danger I see with that is that we're already seeing versatile heritages providing more powerful or useful feats for ancestries than the ancestries inherently offer.
Each feat should come with its own downside, in my opinion. So that the more lich-y you become, you gain power but lose stuff. And that seems like a balancing nightmare!
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Archetypes have precedent with Oozemorph and Golem Grafter, so I'm not sure about making it compete with Ancestry. Either way, there's a path for Chimaera: Lich-Bear-Dwarf becomes Lich-Ooze-Dwarf.
I'm digging the idea, regardless.
Here's my pitch:
Ancestry Archetypes!
Special packets of feats that work like class archetypes but can only be purchased using ancestry feats. Since you only ever get 5 Ancestry feats, each one would be pretty strong, and because of the levels they scale at, easy to balance.
Ancestry feats are generally quite a bit weaker than class feats, though. The opportunity to spend an ancestry feat and gain a class feat - even one of lower level - is pretty strong. These do not look "quite a bit weaker than class feats" to me.
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Ancestry feats are generally quite a bit weaker than class feats, though. The opportunity to spend an ancestry feat and gain a class feat - even one of the lower level - is pretty strong. These do not look "quite a bit weaker than class feats" to me.Here's my pitch:
Ancestry Archetypes!
Special packets of feats that work like class archetypes but can only be purchased using ancestry feats. Since you only ever get 5 Ancestry feats, each one would be pretty strong, and because of the levels, they scale at, easy to balance.
That's not a rule and it doesn't have to be true.
Stick the rare tag on them, give them requirements that are balanced against their effective reward, done.
For example, the lich ancestry archetype could have a prerequisite of completing a new ritual spell. Make the ritual quite tough, expensive and need several checks with secondary casters, etc, etc.
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Ancestry feats are generally quite a bit weaker than class feats, though. The opportunity to spend an ancestry feat and gain a class feat - even one of lower level - is pretty strong. These do not look "quite a bit weaker than class feats" to me.Here's my pitch:
Ancestry Archetypes!
Special packets of feats that work like class archetypes but can only be purchased using ancestry feats. Since you only ever get 5 Ancestry feats, each one would be pretty strong, and because of the levels they scale at, easy to balance.
Maybe if the ancestry archetype has class feats for the more powerful options, so that if you want to be a lich you are spending an ancestry feat to buy in, and then you get more thematically focused feats you pick up with class feats to unlock the more powerful aspects of being a lich.
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I think the problem with playable liches is how to implement them without watering down how special they are - the basic liche in the bestiary is a 6th level spellcaster for a reason, and even that feels a bit too low to me - becoming a liche is supposed to be a process that takes a powerful and ambitious spellcaster doing decades of research. It being just something you get by picking a feat and crafting a phylactery in a month of downtime really cheapens it - I actually can't see any prerequisites that can be practically done in a campaign being sufficient to represent how much work and time and etc it takes to become a liche. In the lore, even a powerful spellcaster who finds a step by step guide written by someone who became a lich still has to spend years or decades doing research because the ritual has to be customised to fit the person. I think what makes Liches compelling is the sheer unprecedented magnitude of successfully becoming a Liche, so it's risky to make it a player option.
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PCs are exceptional and unique individuals. Lichdom incidence among PCs higher than the general population seems fine. Making it available to players does nothing to cheapen it in and of itself.
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I think the problem with playable liches is how to implement them without watering down how special they are - the basic liche in the bestiary is a 6th level spellcaster for a reason, and even that feels a bit too low to me - becoming a liche is supposed to be a process that takes a powerful and ambitious spellcaster doing decades of research. It being just something you get by picking a feat and crafting a phylactery in a month of downtime really cheapens it - I actually can't see any prerequisites that can be practically done in a campaign being sufficient to represent how much work and time and etc it takes to become a liche. In the lore, even a powerful spellcaster who finds a step by step guide written by someone who became a lich still has to spend years or decades doing research because the ritual has to be customised to fit the person. I think what makes Liches compelling is the sheer unprecedented magnitude of successfully becoming a Liche, so it's risky to make it a player option.
Most of the things characters can do at higher levels are insane and normally require decades of training. Instead, my Tyrant of Dispater went from level 1 to 12 in a couple of months and can now arm-wrestle a mammoth or a gargantuan goliath spider with relative ease. In my Agents of Edgewatch campaign, my players will reach these heights in weeks. We are the main characters, constantly surrounded by implausible coincidences and finding equipment fit for kings and more. We are literally the most special of snowflakes, whether we want it or not.
Just by giving people the option to become something, you do not cheapen it. You do that by not building an appropriate story around it. There are also people who just like the mechanical aspects of things and do not care, but if that is what they find fun, then so what?
I think the problem with playable liches is how to implement them without watering down how special they are - the basic liche in the bestiary is a 6th level spellcaster for a reason, and even that feels a bit too low to me - becoming a liche is supposed to be a process that takes a powerful and ambitious spellcaster doing decades of research. It being just something you get by picking a feat and crafting a phylactery in a month of downtime really cheapens it - I actually can't see any prerequisites that can be practically done in a campaign being sufficient to represent how much work and time and etc it takes to become a liche. In the lore, even a powerful spellcaster who finds a step by step guide written by someone who became a lich still has to spend years or decades doing research because the ritual has to be customised to fit the person. I think what makes Liches compelling is the sheer unprecedented magnitude of successfully becoming a Liche, so it's risky to make it a player option.
Just make the main prereq casting the super-duper-ultra-custom-mega ritual, then the pace and price is up to the GM or whatever guide/template they might lay out. It'll still take MONTHS in world and thousands of platinum pieces worth of reagents to perform, which is exactly what the lore outlines. Plus, I don't see many GMs allowing this option in the first place, let alone making it easy if they do allow it at the table.
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Ancestry feats are generally quite a bit weaker than class feats, though. The opportunity to spend an ancestry feat and gain a class feat - even one of the lower level - is pretty strong. These do not look "quite a bit weaker than class feats" to me.That's not a rule and it doesn't have to be true.
Stick the rare tag on them, give them requirements that are balanced against their effective reward, done.
For example, the lich ancestry archetype could have a prerequisite of completing a new ritual spell. Make the ritual quite tough, expensive and need several checks with secondary casters, etc, etc.
It's not a published rule, no. It's simply the way they've generally built the game. Given how good Paizo has been at game balance with PF2, I'm inclined to believe it's deliberate. You don't get something that well-tuned by mistake... which means that while this doesn't technically violate any published rules, it is a pretty severe case of power creep.
I mean, really. There are a number of ancestry feats out there that are just "gain darkvision" that require that you have low-light vision already. (Orc Sight for half-orcs, Eyes of the Night for Dhampir, Gravesight for Duskwalker, etc). You're handling full darkvision out for a feat, and it isnt' even the most significant part of that feat. The feat set you describe here is massively OP.
No, a rare tag isn't going to balance it. Rare tags help for "might be disruptive to some/most campaigns", not "is just mechanically too strong". I mean, it probably *should* have a rare tag, because a lich PC *would* be disruptive to a lot of campaigns for purely diplomacy-related reasons... but it's not solving the power creep issue.
"Make them do a ritual" is similarly not useful here. Ritual difficulty isn't really a factor. It makes it harder to achieve, but doesn't change the power budget once you're done. Ritual cost matters, because gold is another source of power, but any ritual you can even consider performing at 9th level isn't going to be much of a chunk taken out of your 15th level budget.
Now... I could see a series of progressively harder and more expensive rituals, perhaps... especially if they somehow consumed magic item slots. *That* you might be able to balance against the magic item budget. I mean, I wouldn't necessarily expect attempts in that direction to end well, but it's at least *possible* to achieve balance that way.
Oh, and the majority of this transformation is actually more useful to a monk than a wizard. That's also something you might consider to be an issue.
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Oh, and the majority of this transformation is actually more useful to a monk than a wizard. That's also something you might consider to be an issue.
This is the chargen equivalent of threatening me with a good time. You might consider it an issue. I certainly don't.
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It's not a published rule, no. It's simply the way they've generally built the game. Given how good Paizo has been at game balance with PF2, I'm inclined to believe it's deliberate. You don't get something that well-tuned by mistake... which means that while this doesn't technically violate any published rules, it is a pretty severe case of power creep.
I mean, really. There are a number of ancestry feats out there that are just "gain darkvision" that require that you have low-light vision already. (Orc Sight for half-orcs, Eyes of the Night for Dhampir, Gravesight for Duskwalker, etc). You're handling full darkvision out for a feat, and it isnt' even the most significant part of that feat. The feat set you describe here is massively OP.
No, a rare tag isn't going to balance it. Rare tags help for "might be disruptive to some/most campaigns", not "is just mechanically too strong". I mean, it probably *should* have a rare tag, because a lich PC *would* be disruptive to a lot of campaigns for purely diplomacy-related reasons... but it's not solving the power creep issue.
"Make them do a ritual" is similarly not useful here. Ritual difficulty isn't really a factor. It makes it harder to achieve, but doesn't change the power budget once you're done. Ritual cost matters, because gold is another source of power, but any...
Dude, it was a first pass to illustrate a concept, chill out.
I find your objections pretty ridiculous though. Upfront cost as a barrier of entry does allow you to have more powerful options than what is available without that barrier of entry.
A 9th level feat which would require an expensive ritual, and GM permission SHOULD be more powerful than first level options to anyone of an ancestry. It should have more to it.
It’s not power creep if you have to pay for it appropriately.
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Oh, and the majority of this transformation is actually more useful to a monk than a wizard. That's also something you might consider to be an issue.This is the chargen equivalent of threatening me with a good time. You might consider it an issue. I certainly don't.
Yeah, I certainly don’t see it as a problem at all.
You would want Ancestry Archetypes to appeal to a diverse range of characters and not have them aimed at a specific class - even if traditionally they are associated with that class.
To broaden it out more, you could change the Drain action to be a Focus point or a spell from the Arcane or Occult traditions. That way it retains a bit of flavour while being useful to a wider type of character.
I would like to point out, though, that liches have to be 6th level spellcasters at minimum. That means that a PC option would have to be either a 12th level regular archetype or at least a 13th level ancestry archetype.
Though I'm pretty sure that it wouldn't be a pure ancestry archetype. What seems much more likely is that you take the lich dedication at 12 and have ancestry feats at 13+.
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I think "Lich" works better as an archetype like other archetypes, just put some ancestry feats in the archetype to represent "you didn't become any more human by becoming a lich, in fact you became decidedly less so." Archetypes can have skill feats in them, so I don't see why they couldn't have ancestry feats.
Dude, it was a first pass to illustrate a concept, chill out.
I find your objections pretty ridiculous though. Upfront cost as a barrier of entry does allow you to have more powerful options than what is available without that barrier of entry.
A 9th level feat which would require an expensive ritual, and GM permission SHOULD be more powerful than first level options to anyone of an ancestry. It should have more to it.
It’s not power creep if you have to pay for it appropriately.
I'll agree that, in general, 9th level Ancestry feats should allow more power than 1st level Ancestry feats... but "rare feat that requires an expensive ritual" really shouldn't be much more intrinsically powerful in a long-term way than a standard feat. Being rare means that you can get a bit wilder on what kind of effects you allow, but it still shouldn't give particularly larger numerical advantages. Rare is a flag set byt the DM, after all - "Will this warp or break my campaign?" Expensive rituals are approximately worth a magic item of equivalent expense... but over time, an individual magical item will tend to get less and less meaningful, as overall wealth totals increase and it competes for slots with more expensive things. A well-designed feat generally maintains its value.
If that were the only issue, then we could just dial things back (significantly) to whatever the appropriate level was, and that would be fine. The issue is, as you've noted, ancestry feats are relatively thin on the ground. You're just not going to be able to get a really satisfying lich out of part the feat budget for your ancestry. Honestly, I think the touch attack alone is worth about two feats. It certainly would be on a monk chassis
I don't think "player characters are rare and exceptional" or "player characters do special things like wrestling mammoths" remotely compares to becoming a liche. Those also don't answer the issue of, again, decades of research. Campaigns don't generally work on that timescale, and the people taking decades to perfect the formula to turn into a liche ARE the exceptional ones - it's not that an exceptional person would do it quicker, its that you need to be exceptional in the first place to be able to do it at all.
It's not that I just dislike the idea of playable Liches (Liches like Tar-Baphon in PF2 or Nagash & Arhan the Black in warhammer are my favourite characters in those settings, and I used to really want to run an evil campaign where a player becomes a Liche or Graveknight) I just don't think it works structurally or thematically now that I have put a lot of thought into it. You can make them work as perspective characters (Warhammer has done this well in their novels, which notably involve pretty large timeskips and rotating the Liche out of the role of perspective character at times so that you can see them from the perspective of actual humans) but generally not in a collaborative interactive medium where you level up from being a random guy with a sword or a few cantrips over the timescale of days and weeks and months.
I do think it can work in single player video games (Undead Horde is an example of this) but that notably starts you out as someone who became a Liche thousands of years earlier - it's not really been represented in video games as something you achieve in game (I would like to see a video game where you start out as a low level necromancer and try to rise to power and eventually become a Liche, but this more or less requires the game to be entirely structured around that rather than it being a class option).
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I'd start looking at stuff like the following. This feels powerful as a player option, but still within the realm of what a high level archetype gated behind a rare ritual could do.
Lichdom
Lich Dedication 12 [Rare][Archetype]
Archetype: Lichdom
Prerequisites: member of a full spellcasting class, Master proficiency in Arcana, Expert in Occultism or Religion, and have completed the 'Phylactery Soulbinding Ritual' as the primary caster
You take the final steps to become a lich. You are no longer a living being, instead becoming undead. You gain the negative healing feature, meaning you are damaged by positive energy and healed by negative energy. You no longer need to eat, sleep, or breathe, but instead require sustenance by performing the 'Sacrifice Soul' ritual with your Phylactery at least once per month. You become immune to death effects and diseases.
Lich's Touch 14 [Archetype]
Archetype: Lichdom
Prerequisites: Lich Dedication
You gain the Paralyzing Touch unarmed strike. It is in the brawling group, has the finesse and unarmed traits, and deals 1d8 negative damage. Once per turn, you can force a creature damaged by your paralyzing touch strike to make a Fortitude saving throw against your spell save DC. On a failed save, a creature is paralyzed for 1 round. On a critical failure, a creature is paralyzed indefinitely. This effect has the incapacitation trait.
Lich's Resilience 14 [Archetype]
Archetype: Lichdom
Prerequisites: Lich Dedication
You gain resistance to cold, piercing, poison and slashing damage equal to half your level. You gain immunity to the paralyzed condition.
Resilient Phylactery 15 [Archetype][Skill]
Archetype: Lichdom
Prerequisites: Lich Dedication, legendary Arcana or legendary Crafting
You reinforce your phylactery with magical wards to keep it safe. Your phylactery's hardness increases to 15 and its HP to 72. Additionally, it attempts to counteract all divination spells cast to locate it, using your spell attack modifier and highest spell level for your counteract check.
And yeah, given that the above is the bare minimum for what a player should expect from becoming a fully fledged lich, this is way too powerful to just go into ancestry feat slots.
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I don't think "player characters are rare and exceptional" or "player characters do special things like wrestling mammoths" remotely compares to becoming a liche. Those also don't answer the issue of, again, decades of research. Campaigns don't generally work on that timescale, and the people taking decades to perfect the formula to turn into a liche ARE the exceptional ones - it's not that an exceptional person would do it quicker, its that you need to be exceptional in the first place to be able to do it at all.
It's not that I just dislike the idea of playable Liches (Liches like Tar-Baphon in PF2 or Nagash & Arhan the Black in warhammer are my favourite characters in those settings, and I used to really want to run an evil campaign where a player becomes a Liche or Graveknight) I just don't think it works structurally or thematically now that I have put a lot of thought into it. You can make them work as perspective characters (Warhammer has done this well in their novels, which notably involve pretty large timeskips and rotating the Liche out of the role of perspective character at times so that you can see them from the perspective of actual humans) but generally not in a collaborative interactive medium where you level up from being a random guy with a sword or a few cantrips over the timescale of days and weeks and months.
I do think it can work in single player video games (Undead Horde is an example of this) but that notably starts you out as someone who became a Liche thousands of years earlier - it's not really been represented in video games as something you achieve in game (I would like to see a video game where you start out as a low level necromancer and try to rise to power and eventually become a Liche, but this more or less requires the game to be entirely structured around that rather than it being a class option).
I mean comparisons like these are pretty subjective, but I think you are overestimating the amazingness (?) of liches a bit. By the end of the campaign my champion will be an immortal quasi-demigod in command of one of the most important city states of Varisia. Well, that is the plan anyway. I don't see how that it is in any way less exceptional.
Liches by themselves are really just wizards (usually) with too much time on their hands, a grudge and the wrong/right reading material. It doesn't even necessarily take decades to become one, though usually it is quite a while - "After long years of research" is the only thing we have to go on. Not all that different from any high level wizard or similar spellcaster in terms of effort or necessary talent. What makes a lich cool is the story attached to each individual. Such as the reason why they chose such drastic measures and what they intend to do with that power, now that they have it.
Such stories won't fit into many campaigns, sure. Regardless of the time aspect - which can be circumvented or threaded in by good storytelling and drama - the main problem is that most people are not really cool with undead in general. Liches, with their stellar reputation, even less so. But that is not the point. The point is that it is possible, that we have the technology. What we do with that technology is, as it should be, up to us.
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I wouldn't get too hung up on liches being a specific level - that level used to be 17 in D&D 2E, but had already dropped to 9 in PF1. Which tbh I thought was a bit low.
I do think a lich is one of those "this will really change your campaign" options, at least if you give it the classic properties of a lich. Like the phylactery letting them respawn if destroyed. That's definitely up there with high-powered divination and teleportation in the box of "may wreck conventional plots".
Not that that's necessarily a reason not to publish this - a lot of undead have stuff like that. Revenants and ghosts respawn too, vampires force much of your campaign to take place only at night, and ghosts walk through walls. And for most of these, you will have to re-evaluate the threat level of NPC monsters because abilities like poison damage lose a lot of their punch.
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Anyway, the skeleton ancestry is something I didn't know I needed. I doubt I will build a single non-comedic member of said ancestry, but damn if it isn't a gold mine. Just thinking off all the nonsense that will come with just passing as a regular person tickles my funny bone. Heh.