A Lich is a Mage that has literally "Sold His Soul to the Devil"! Greed and Power can drive a person insane.
As I recall, killing a Lich is much harder than killing a regular Mage. Not only is a Lich much more powerful, they have a lot of immunities and better defences. Typically, a Lich does not die just because you kill it's body. You only think you killed it because the body was destroyed. The Lich's soul finds it's way back to it's container (I forget the name) and will eventually find a new host body to control. Call it respawn if you wish, but it's actually quite different. Destroy the Soul Container to permanently kill the Lich. I remember the container as being easy to smash with a sword, but the explosion was usually fatal. Finding the container was usually very hard. On rare occasion I would find the container first, and the Lich later. Without a container, the Lich was screwed.
I also remember finding hordes of magical items where I had killed the Lich and again near it's container.
I do have a Lich system I have been working on. It is not finished and there are adjustments I need to make. Testing it has not even begun. But I will give you a walk-through.
1) This Mage seeks to become a Lich and looks upon four varieties of Lich bodies he might possess. Most likely it has something to with The Power that the Mage/Lich possesses as to which body he can possess. One body appears to be floating and is assumed to be the most powerful.
2) This Mage has 30 levels of Wizard, 10 levels of Pale Master and specializes in Necromancy. I won't spill any details about the quest or quests involved in getting to this point.
3) The offering begins.
4) "Oh Dark Lord, I have done your bidding as you wished."
5) "I have upheld my end of the agreement. Now I call upon you, Oh Dark Lord, to give me what I have earned."
6) A magical storm begins. No doubt an answer from the Dark Lord.
7) The magical power climaxes here in this ritualistic area of Darkness killing all living beings.
8) The transformation has begun.
9) From life to death to undead. From mortality to immortality.
10) A new young Lich has been unborn, ready to do thy Masters bidding.
11) Just a few of the promises have been kept. You just can't trust an evil Lord these days. Maybe I need to hunt down the Dark Lord and kill him myself in order to get more power.
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Hiya ......Blade here :)
I love what you are trying to do with the new Lich. As i remember, the "Floating Skull" thing was just a Demi-Lich. Also the container was called a Phylactery I believe. I would be interested to see how you propose to implement the Phylactery and treasure surrounding it. Maybe only a high level Rogue could find the secret door that leads to the Phylactery Chamber ? (A bit like a Newport Barracks, but with each Lich having his own seperate chamber and hidden entrance that would need to be searched for) Maybe this chamber could constitute "Housing" for the Lich char, and he could have a treasure chest to store his stuff in that lasts beyond server restarts, now i'm stuck for the right word to describe what i mean lol.
I love the idea of sprucing up the whole server too, putting in the quests to gain access to areas deeper into the game.
Personally i would prefer it if a Mellee type got more gold for lugging Dwarven Waraxes around that he finds, and a Mage type got less gold for "Farming" his easy to kill bosses like Royal Assassin.
All the best .......Blade :)
PS Having a lot of fun playing on Dalakora PW, I am in my second term as "Mayor of Manay" :)
I think i was trying to say "Permanent Storage ".
Another idea might be to force the Lich to store most of his gold in his Phylactery Chamber, by only allowing him to carry a certain amount of gold on his person at any time.
Both of these ideas are shamelessly lifted from the Dalakora PW that I am playing on.
We have Permanent Storage in the Bank by using a Treasure Chest. Also we have Permanent Storage in Housing for those that can afford it. All these Storage Chests are limited to 30 items each, but this is arbitrary.
Also on Dalakora, Paladins and Monks cant multiclass, although the Paladin can become a Crusader. This Crusader would then be limited in how much gold he is allowed to carry to offset other benefits he has.
So I like the idea of a Rogue lead party finding the Lichs Phylactery Chamber, smashing his Phylactery {which might alert the Lich} and then grabbing the loot and gold.
All the Best ........Blade :)
Sooo, if a lich gets more power than a typical mage, does that mean in game stats will allow for greater spell penetration???
i.e. A lich should be able to penetrate a monk/cler/SD's spell resistance. If not, then the balance is all wrong.
I like the lich idea, and the fact a new quest would be added to badlands. But if you're stuck with the same old crappy spell penetration then is it really worht it?
I agree with Simon in principle. Being a Lich does sound cool but it should definitely come with some pretty heavy rewards and penalties. I'm not sure that Spell Penetration is the ONLY thing that needs to be considered, but there should definitely be some sort of "carrot" out there other than the coolness factor. Obviously, in addition to whatever horrible things Q can dream up, the newly formed Lich should be hurt by "healing" spells and healed by "harming" spells. Not sure where that puts healing kits...they should probably work the same. You can sew up dead flesh just as well as you can living :)
Anyway, cool ideas, it's very interesting. Although, as exciting as new and interesting additions would be, I'm honestly more interested in getting some older problems corrected, such as how True Sight works on Badlands. (for those of you unclear what I mean, the spell "True Sight" blocks the Blinding affect of the spell "Word of Power" when it is cast by a player, but not when cast by a monster, ie. the Half Dragon Clerics on the way to Sheelo.)
Deurack said Not sure where that puts healing kits...they should probably work the same. You can sew up dead flesh just as well as you can living :)lol.. lich has no flesh to be "healed" or sewed. He should rely on either regen or potions of harm. Otherwise he's screwed.
Which means, healing kits should have the same effect as potion of 'heal' and 'heal' scrolls when used by chars with no divine spellcaster levels..
Inj the PnP version once a paladin took a lvl or anything other than paladin he could no longer take a lvl of paladin again. Don't think it's then same for monk i'll have to check that out.
as for liches bonuses and penalties do liches take damage from sunlight? also would they be able to possess the person who there fighting body if theres was body was destroyed.
I really do like the idea of a lich and think it could be fun even if it works or not should be a giggle either way.
"Deurack said Not sure where that puts healing kits...they should probably work the same. You can sew up dead flesh just as well as you can living :) lol.. lich has no flesh to be "healed" or sewed. He should rely on either regen or potions of harm. Otherwise he's screwed."
Yes, Liches have flesh, they don’t just become incorporeal beings, they keep the same body and become undead. Slowly the body might begin to decay, but every picture of a lich I’ve ever seen in a D&D book or game had a body.
"Which means, healing kits should have the same effect as potion of 'heal' and 'heal' scrolls when used by chars with no divine spellcaster levels."
Whoa, easy killer! That’s a major game change you’re proposing there! Not to mention that the reason the “Healing” skill exists is for the use of Healing kits. You take away the ability of people to use Healing Kits and make them rely completely on Healing Potions and you’ll have A LOT more people dying MUCH more frequently and A LOT more people with levels of Cleric in their builds :P
"Extomorf said: In the PnP version once a paladin took a lvl or anything other than paladin he could no longer take a lvl of paladin again. Don't think it's then same for monk I'll have to check that out."
I know that’s the way it worked in 2nd Edition but I think it might have changed over to the way it is in NWN in 3rd. It’s been a while, I could be wrong.
"As for liches bonuses and penalties do liches take damage from sunlight?"
No, there are actually very few Undead that take damage from sunlight. Liches are not one of them.
In response to all the excellent views:
"beyond server restarts" and "permanent storage" can also be referred to as "Persistent Storage". Although BadLands doesn't use Persistent Chests, it is in my abilities to do so.
I like the idea of making gold have weight, just like old-school DND. A strong fighter might be able to carry 10,000 in gold before becoming 'overloaded'. But, a weak mage might be crushed by 1,000 gold. It's to bad that NWN didn't use this concept. And I think I have an idea how I can do that.
But, I think we should limit this Gold/Weight to Liches only. And we would need to also force a limit on how many gems the Lich can hold. The Lich's Phylactery Chamber (thank you Blade) would be the Liches only way to keep from being overloaded.
Smash up the Phylactery Chamber and get all his loot. Kill the Lich and get all (or most) of what he is using.
Rogues and secrets.... excellent point.
There are a lot of balances to be worked out. I have worked out most of the heal / harm spells to see the Lich as an undead.
The 'heal kits' currently heal (not harm) all undead. Since this is a NWN thing, I thought I would leave it as it is. A 'kit' is not magic. It is gauze and tape, ointment, needle and thread, ect... Not much different from a real-life 'first-aid kit'. Taking 'heal skills' is what makes a kit work better. As near as I can tell, each one heal skill adds +1 to a kit. 40 skills and a kit+1 = 41 HP healed; 40 skills and a kit+10 = 50 HP healed. Int or something adds to this. I can't tell that a pure cleric can use a kit any better than a pure fighter can. But kits are in a script that I can alter.
There is no way to possess a Player, not even in DM mode. I could make a copy of the player and allow the Lich to possess the NPC copy. I could allow the Lich to posses a monster as well. This would be cosmetic only. The Lich would not be able to access any 'special actions' the dead body once had. Considering all the scripting problems as well as game play problems this will present, lets leave this alone.
I had not thought about extra Spell Penetration. It is an excellent point. I will check into when I get back into this building exercise.
Almost all of the ideas you all have presented are valid and need to be considered. The Lich powers need to be much greater than I currently have them. And the penalties need to be a bit greater as well. The teeter-totter of balance it a tricky thing.
Being evil, a Lich is susceptible to Smite. I don't recall if I was able to get Bless Sword to see the Lich as Undead or not.
I worked out the resurrection / destruction spells so that they are reversed. This change spills out into ALL undead, not just a Player Lich. Casting resurrection (not rez) will attemp to kill a Lich. If a player wants to raise the Lich, he will need to cast destruction.
It's been a long time since I have worked on the Lich system, and it's lost in my dead computer along with the mythical "next updated module". I'm seriously hoping to get my 'puter fixed in a few weeks and have access to all these wonderful things once more.
The container that holds the Lichs "Lifeforce" is called a Phylactory I believe. I added the word Chamber to describe the "Room" that the Phylactory was kept in lol .......as in "In my Ladies Chamber" rofl
All the Best .......Blade :)
As for the evil Necromancer to be effective, it's not the spell penetration that needs work. It's the spell's DC, if there's one thing absolutely atrocious here it's the fact that almost any spell that requires DC needs an awfull lot lose out on for very little you get back.
Lich Necromancers are the most dedicated evil bastards in existence so I think they should get an extra to their DC when casting necromancy spells.
Q can work out how much they'll need for their DC driven spells to be effective, and figure out how much their extra DC should be. Cause as of now, I'm rly not looking forward to fighting any char that's slashing away into me while I'm hoping for it to roll a bloody 1.
A + 10 to Spell penetration would make the lich equal to pure caster. I’d think something more than that would be appropriate to make up for the loss of a skill dump. AC will be lower and Discipline will be a joke. Say +15 This would allow a lich to hit SR of 45 – 65 not counting feats and mords. An increase to DC’s would be cool. But I don’t know if you can code that in. It probably wouldn’t be that useful though. You’d have to play a int based wizard, (not con) to take advantage of it.
Love the idea though of a lich though!
Well yeah, you would have to play an Int based wizard instead of Con, but the whole reason I play a Con based wizard is so I dont DIE FAST when some big bastard starts whacking me with something heavy and sharp! A Lich doesnt really need to worry as much about that, now does he? Unless I'm very much mistaken, you cant kill a Lich by doing damage to it. You might be able to hack it up to the point where it cant do much, but it's not dead unless its Phylactery is destroyed.
If there were some way to make it so that a Lich were much, Much, MUCH harder to hurt, I wouldnt have any problem playing a Wizard with only 8 Con and maxed out Intelligence.
This is why I'm talking about it in The Blog, "Dano", and not adding to BadLands yet.
You guys are bring up some excellent points. Figuring out how to allow something that NWN did not make provisions for. Any and all 'undead' related stuff is set so monsters can only hurt players, and players can only hurt monsters.
Example:
-- A player cast Healing Circle. No undead pets in the party will be hurt, only undead monsters.
-- A monster casts Healing Circle. No undead monsters will be hurt, but any undead pets in the player party will be harmed.
-- A player is never seen as undead.
-- The same rules apply to Harm spells as well a long list of other stuff.
Deurack said:"Yes, Liches have flesh, they don’t just become incorporeal beings, they keep the same body and become undead. Slowly the body might begin to decay, but every picture of a lich I’ve ever seen in a D&D book or game had a body."----------
Well, exactly my point. I didn't mean they would turn into a phantom of sorts. Technically, they are dead. Most of their organs are gone, they don't breath, and their rotten flesh looks like an old piece of clothing. An annoyance, really. What good will it do to sew dead flesh back together?
Deurack said:"Whoa, easy killer! That’s a major game change you’re proposing there! Not to mention that the reason the “Healing” skill exists is for the use of Healing kits. You take away the ability of people to use Healing Kits and make them rely completely on Healing Potions and you’ll have A LOT more people dying MUCH more frequently and A LOT more people with levels of Cleric in their builds :P"---------
I was trying to be sarcastic. What I meant with: ""Which means, healing kits should have the same effect as potion of 'heal' and 'heal' scrolls when used by chars with no divine spellcaster levels."is that healing kits should be as useless as healing scrolls & potions are to a non cleric/druid character. I explained why in the beginning.. when I wrote about the "skin problems" liches usually have..
As for bonuses, I'd say the possibility of being turned by a powerful cleric or getting his ass smited by a pally. A big boost on Spell Penetration. Maybe something on Necromancy spells DC as well.. and a good regen factor, wolverine style.. like +4 or +5.
The weak points.. hmm, I'd say no healing with kits and potions.. the reverse spell effects and maybe permanent death with no respawning option allowed..
What?? No respawn??
Liches are undead things that aren't crippled with a fragile and weak body of a living human being. Therefore they can push themselves to their limits, like getting beaten up pretty badly (for human standards) and keep going without fainting or dying easily like your regular simon..
Translating into game stuff, it would mean that a lich can't use the respawn buttom to get back into the game, he'd need someone to come to his sack of bones and cast destruction/finger of death so he can get up.. But also means that he doesn't fall to the ground dead when he gets to -xx hp. He could very well keep fighting til he is... well... 2x his total HP.
So if you have a 750hp lich.. you'd only drop to the ground when your hp decreases to -750 or so..
That's just an idea I had to balance this quested subrace.. make it powerful and with its limitations too..
As interesting as negative hit points for an undead Lich is, I can't make it happen. The death / HP is hard-coded. At -10 HP you are dead.
What I could do is give the Lich extra HP, like I do with Polly. Make the HP increase based on something, like, levels of PM. Say ten HP per level of PM. That would be 100 HP when you become a Lich, (this assumes you became a Lich at level 30, Wiz 20 / PM 10). Then the trade off is less wizard for more HP for the next 10 levels. This could have a logarithm of 10 HP + PM level
PM Level + 10 = HP
1 + 10 = 11
2 + 10 = 12
3 + 10 = 13
4 + 10 = 14
5 + 10 = 15
6 + 10 = 16
7 + 10 = 17
8 + 10 = 18
9 + 10 = 19
10+ 10 = 20
total = 155
11 + 10 = 21
12 + 10 = 22
13 + 10 = 23
14 + 10 = 24
15 + 10 = 25
16 + 10 = 26
17 + 10 = 27
18 + 10 = 28
19 + 10 = 29
20 + 10 = 30
total = 255
155 + 255 = 410 HP on top of the normal HP you would normally get.
Just thinking out loud here.
I can't give you more AC, NWN put a stop to that. Maybe I can give you the RDD feat that adds some AC and immunities. But, without RDD levels that may not work.
Definitely, I need to add immunity to piercing and vulnerability to bludgeoning. I think I can and should make the Lich a bit faster. Barbarian Speed will work for 10% speed.
Ok, the extra hp works.
Pros:Extra HP
Spell Penetration boost
Increased Necromancy Spell's DC
Piercing damage immunity
Slashing damage reduction (say like 50%)
Regeneration +5
Cons:Can't heal self with healing kits or potions
Can be turned
Can be smited
Vulnerability (bludgeoning damage 100%)
The reversed spell effects doesn't fit in any category but it has to remembered..
The lack of respawn option may be too much tho.. as the lich may be already balanced by not being able to heal itself with healing kits..
Continued in this new thread, http://badlandsrpg.blogspot.com/2009/05/lich-quested-subrace-continued.html
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