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Zom B
2010-01-05, 12:32 PM
So the big moment comes: You have all the tools you need to complete the ritual that will rip a portion of your mortal soul and place it into a storage vessel and leave the rest to forever animate your sorcerous bones. Today, you're becoming a Lich. So, how do you go about hiding/protecting your phylactery to where no meddlesome adventurer will ever end your unlife?

Some ideas:

Place it in the Elemental Plane of Water. It may occasionally get eaten by some subaquatic behemoth, but as long as its hardness and acid resistance is high enough, no harm should befall it, right?
The phylactery is a jewel placed into the hilt of a +1 Holy Undead-bane longsword that is intelligent and Lawful Good, but does not know that the jewel is anything special. Let's see some adventurers suspect that!
Your phylactery is a gold coin, scattered somewhere in the world.
Your phylactery is one of the jewels in the crown of a king of a powerful nation.

Optimystik
2010-01-05, 12:33 PM
To reiterate a famous one, my phylactery is the king's good-aligned princess child. That should tie the pesky paladins into knots.

Alternatively, Secret Chest or something.

I wonder what would happen if a Cerbremancer lich/alhoon manifested Astral Seed? (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/astralSeed.htm)

2xMachina
2010-01-05, 12:48 PM
You get 2 bodies?

Tanuki Tales
2010-01-05, 12:50 PM
To reiterate a famous one, my phylactery is the king's good-aligned princess child. That should tie the pesky paladins into knots.



But isn't that a poor choice since she'll eventually die? Or is it still your Phy as long as even some of her remains?

Lapak
2010-01-05, 12:51 PM
My favorite: find the eternal prison of Something Much Worse. Damage the protections binding Something Much Worse and repair them badly, using your phylactery as a linchpin in the repairs. Damaging, or even moving, your phylactery will cause the bindings to come undone and let Something Much Worse escape, wreaking havoc a million times worse than the worst you can do even if you conquer the world.

Djinn_in_Tonic
2010-01-05, 12:52 PM
But isn't that a poor choice since she'll eventually die? Or is it still your Phy as long as even some of her remains?

Perhaps a poor choice...but an excellent campaign hook if the only time to really kill the liche (and trusted adviser to the king) is to destroy him when, in a dozen years, he performs the ritual to take his soul out of the aging princess and into her new daughter...

Reaper_Monkey
2010-01-05, 12:54 PM
The phylactery is a jewel placed into the hilt of a +1 Holy Undead-bane longsword that is intelligent and Lawful Good, but does not know that the jewel is anything special. Let's see some adventurers suspect that!

What happens when you die through other means and respawn though? :smallamused:

unre9istered
2010-01-05, 12:56 PM
I always liked this:
Step one: Genesis to create a small empty demiplane.
Step two: Put Phylactery and backup spell book in the demiplane.
Step three: Cast a Delayed (metamagic) Forbiddance (buy a scroll if you don't want to take the feat yourself).
Step four: Plane shift out.

End Result: Your phylactery is on a plane that is completely inaccessible via planar traveling spells. If your body is destroyed you reform on the demiplane (I'm pretty sure this doesn't count as interplanar travel). Cast dispel magic to break the forbiddance so you can leave then reapply steps three and four. As far as I know this is unbreakable without epic/divine stuff.

Guinea Anubis
2010-01-05, 12:58 PM
Cast antimagic zone, then walk in to it with a bag of holding and stick it in the bag of holding that is now a normal bag. Walk out of the antimagic zone and no one can ever get to it.

Lysander
2010-01-05, 12:59 PM
As the unholy symbol always carried around the neck of a powerful NPC cleric cohort.

unre9istered
2010-01-05, 01:00 PM
Cast antimagic zone, then walk in to it with a bag of holding and stick it in the bag of holding that is now a normal bag. Walk out of the antimagic zone and no one can ever get to it.

How do you get out of the bag when your body reforms in it?

Choco
2010-01-05, 01:00 PM
This is a good one for a campaign villain (and thus it is NOT foolproof and munchkiny..) and is related to the Princess one:

1.) Divine who the person that ultimately kills you will be.
2.) Divine who is the most important person in the world to the killer at the time of your death.
3.) Put your soul into this most important person thus making him/her/it your phylactery.
4.) Watch the fun.

Yrcrazypa
2010-01-05, 01:02 PM
As the unholy symbol always carried around the neck of a powerful NPC cleric cohort.

Yeah, but then what happens when someone gives said NPC a better deal? In order for him to be trustworthy he would have to be Lawful Evil, and trustworthy is only true in the sense that he will do nothing to you as long as you have an advantage. What's to stop the PCs from giving him a better deal?

Anonymouswizard
2010-01-05, 01:03 PM
Step 1: subdue a good aligned God.
Step 2: use that God as your phylactery.
Step 3: laugh at the PCs as they try to locate your phylactery.

Or:

Team up with another lich-wannabe so that you both become each others phylactery.
If your phylactery is destroyed don't worry, it will reform in 1d10 days.

Or:

Use the universe.

Djinn_in_Tonic
2010-01-05, 01:03 PM
How do you get out of the bag when your body reforms in it?

Put a bunch of corpses in there with you, to briefly possess. Then, cast some sort of teleportation spell. :smallbiggrin:

Optimystik
2010-01-05, 01:03 PM
Cast antimagic zone, then walk in to it with a bag of holding and stick it in the bag of holding that is now a normal bag. Walk out of the antimagic zone and no one can ever get to it.

I don't think a bag of holding becomes a normal bag in an antimagic field - it just becomes inert, (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/glossary&term=Glossary_dnd_antimagic&alpha=) with nothing getting in or out.


But isn't that a poor choice since she'll eventually die? Or is it still your Phy as long as even some of her remains?

Choose a warforged/elan princess and the point is moot. :smalltongue:

Or an elven one can buy you a milennium or two.

Boci
2010-01-05, 01:03 PM
A while back on a smililar thread someone mentioned growing it to the size of a small planet and heving your followers colonize it. Bonus points if you destroy the moon and replace it with your Phylactery.

Prime32
2010-01-05, 01:03 PM
I always liked this:
Step one: Genesis to create a small empty demiplane.
Step two: Put Phylactery and backup spell book in the demiplane.
Step three: Cast a Delayed (metamagic) Forbiddance (buy a scroll if you don't want to take the feat yourself).
Step four: Plane shift out.

End Result: Your phylactery is on a plane that is completely inaccessible via planar traveling spells. If your body is destroyed you reform on the demiplane (I'm pretty sure this doesn't count as interplanar travel). Cast dispel magic to break the forbiddance so you can leave then reapply steps three and four. As far as I know this is unbreakable without epic/divine stuff.Someone once recommended a spell which turns an object into a demiplane, but if "you reform next to your phylactery" that sounds like an awfully good way to end up as a vestige. :smallconfused:


Choose a warforged/elan princess and the point is moot. :smalltongue:And now I want to see a picture of a warforged in a pink dress. :smalltongue:

Ichneumon
2010-01-05, 01:06 PM
As I see it, first of all, you need to make sure as few people KNOW about where you hide your phylactery. Don't know if you can make the entire process hidden for magic, but it would at least help if people can't just locate it by casting a spell.

If your enemies are going to find it, you better hide it in such a manner that the only way for your enemies to get it is by doing something they don't want to do. People gave examples of this earlier already. Assuming your enemies are going to be good, make it an evil act to get to your phylactery.

Lastly, you must make sure your phylactery can't be destroyed by accident.

Choco
2010-01-05, 01:09 PM
A while back on a smililar thread someone mentioned growing it to the size of a small planet and heving your followers colonize it. Bonus points if you destroy the moon and replace it with your Phylactery.

Or just use the moon as your Phylactery, saves you the extra effort.

Though if that kind of stuff is allowed, you can be a real arse and make the entire plane of Celestia your phylactery.

Or, once again if this is for a campaign villain, use one of the PC's. Make it the batman wizard and watch the fun as the player tries to find a rules-legal way out of it.

unre9istered
2010-01-05, 01:19 PM
The most common form of phylactery is a sealed metal box ontaining strips of parchment on which magical phrases have been transcribed. The box is Tiny and has 40 hit points, hardness 20, and a break DC of 40. Other forms of phylacteries can exist, such as rings, amulets, or similar items.

I don't think the moon, various planes or princesses count as similar items. As far as PAO is concerned, if you make it so that your phylactery is something else, it's no longer your phylactery and you will not reform if destroyed.

Just found this while reading Polymorph any object:

A nonmagical object cannot be made into a magic item with this spell. Magic items aren’t affected by this spell.
So you can't even use PAO to affect a phylactery.

paddyfool
2010-01-05, 01:20 PM
To reiterate a famous one, my phylactery is the king's good-aligned princess child. That should tie the pesky paladins into knots.


A variation on this theme, for a truly morally ambiguous lich... one that is bitter, twisted, yet people are better for.

1) This lich was an adviser to the king who wanted the kingdom and royal family to flourish in the long term, and assumed lichdom for that purpose.
2) They killed some convicted felon to gain lichdom, and invested the infant heir with power in the process.
3) They transfer the burden, along with lots of permanenced buffs, to any new heir when they hit 1 year of age.
4) They take very, very good, albeit somewhat ruthless, care of the kingdom, and ensure the monarch's moral probity as well as you can when bringing someone up.
5) How do they cover up their immortality? Well, I quite like the idea of assuming a number of different roles with each generation. If this gets uncovered, they could have any number of back-up deceptions, although sadly there's always True Seeing to contend with. Alternatively, they could operate from a distance via dominated minions etc. who would live and die in the ordinary way.

Overall, I think this might make a decent antagonist for an evil campaign, EDIT: or a distraction from the real antagonist for a good campaign.

Rutskarn
2010-01-05, 01:21 PM
My favorite trick: shape it like a copper piece, circulate it into the economy.

Phylacteries are hard to destroy, so there's little chance of it getting accidentally broken.

Boci
2010-01-05, 01:23 PM
I don't think the moon, various planes or princesses count as similar items.

Yeah, you'd have to make a smaller version and then enlarge it.

unre9istered
2010-01-05, 01:26 PM
Yeah, you'd have to make a smaller version and then enlarge it.

This might work but as far as I know would require creating a spell to permanently expand an object to the size of the moon that can affect magical items (probably an epic spell). Also you'd want to want to make your phylactery look as much like a small model of the moon or everyone would wonder why the moon suddenly looks like a box. Now you just need to get rid of the original moon...

2xMachina
2010-01-05, 01:28 PM
Well, the problem of 'disappearing' phylacteries is that you respawn from there. Slowly.

Who wouldn't scream and call the local paladins if they see a skeleton form out of their coin/sword/whatever?

Radar
2010-01-05, 01:30 PM
Or just use the moon as your Phylactery, saves you the extra effort.

Though if that kind of stuff is allowed, you can be a real arse and make the entire plane of Celestia your phylactery.

Or, once again if this is for a campaign villain, use one of the PC's. Make it the batman wizard and watch the fun as the player tries to find a rules-legal way out of it.
This begins to come very near to the logic behind Iron Heart Surging the Sun out (or reality, or just gravity, or whatever else).

As far as safety meassures go, i vote for the own demiplane+Forbiddance method.

unre9istered
2010-01-05, 01:31 PM
Well, the problem of 'disappearing' phylacteries is that you respawn from there. Slowly.

Who wouldn't scream and call the local paladins if they see a skeleton form out of their coin/sword/whatever?


Unless its phylactery is located and destroyed, a lich reappears 1d10 days after its apparent death.

Nothing about respawning slowly, just reappearing a random amount of time later. Still screaming probably but a fully formed lich can probably kill the witnesses and escape from the authorities. The thing to worry about is if your coin phylactery ends up in a great worm gold dragon's hoard.

Lysander
2010-01-05, 01:33 PM
One thing you could do is launch it into space at a phenomenally high speed. It'd be pretty much impossible to find, reach, or recover.

Then you'd reform in space, then cast plane shift twice to use another plane as a relay back to the ground.

ZeroNumerous
2010-01-05, 01:36 PM
Make your phylactery one of the teeth of a dracolich. Planeshift said dracolich to the PEP.

EDIT:


Then you'd reform in space, then cast plane shift twice to use another plane as a relay back to the ground.

Greater Teleport is infinite in range and 100% accurate.

Optimystik
2010-01-05, 01:39 PM
Well, the problem of 'disappearing' phylacteries is that you respawn from there. Slowly.

Who wouldn't scream and call the local paladins if they see a skeleton form out of their coin/sword/whatever?

Actually, that is all the Giant's interpretation; none of that is RAW. Neither the SRD nor Libris Mortis say anything about you reappearing piecemeal, or even being forced to reappear near the phylactery. You could even have your phylactery on another plane and reappear in the exact same spot you died, and the RAW does not forbid it.

2xMachina
2010-01-05, 01:39 PM
Nothing about respawning slowly, just reappearing a random amount of time later. Still screaming probably but a fully formed lich can probably kill the witnesses and escape from the authorities. The thing to worry about is if your coin phylactery ends up in a great worm gold dragon's hoard.

Eh, I must have been influenced by Xykon's respawning. He's pretty slow that time.

EDIT: Ninja'ed too.

Lysander
2010-01-05, 01:40 PM
How about a traveling phylactery? Give it to a loyal (or mind-controlled) being that doesn't sleep, eat, or age, and has plane shift at will. Each round have it plane shift being two sparsely inhabited planes, arriving in a random location and then departing immediately. It'd be nearly impossible for someone to catch up with someone continuously vanishing and reappearing hundreds of miles away across a giant empty desert. Or just an undead creature teleporting randomly around the Negative Energy plane forever would work.

J.Gellert
2010-01-05, 01:41 PM
Huge trap- and monster-filled fortress high up on inaccessible mountains.

If you use enough monsters, and enough traps, then only gods can get to it. And if gods want you dead, you are dead anyway. You are not an epic god-slaying demilich yet, after all.

It's cliche because it works! :smallbiggrin:

hamishspence
2010-01-05, 02:02 PM
According to Libris Mortis, if your phylactery is in an antimagic field, you cannot reappear- however, once its removed from the field, you reappear d10 days later.

Optimystik
2010-01-05, 02:14 PM
According to Libris Mortis, if your phylactery is in an antimagic field, you cannot reappear- however, once its removed from the field, you reappear d10 days later.

That's the closest the book comes to saying you reappear somewhere near your phylactery - and even then, it is hardly concrete.

Choco
2010-01-05, 02:23 PM
That's the closest the book comes to saying you reappear somewhere near your phylactery - and even then, it is hardly concrete.

Even then it could simply be read as your phylactery, being the source of your ability to reappear, needs to be free of constraints. Kinda like how water won't flow through a blocked tunnel, your soul can't reform if it's source is blocked off.

Though I am willing to bet most DM's houserule that the lich reforms some small distance away from the phylactery, if not directly out of it.

On that note, I don't think the rules specify what happens if the phylactery is destroyed either. From what I remember it just says that the lich can't be permanently killed until the phylactery is destroyed, but I dont recall it saying the lich is destroyed automatically if the phylactery is destroyed.

Cicciograna
2010-01-05, 02:25 PM
Effective method but XP-consuming. This presupposes that you have picked at least once the Spell mastery feat and applied it to Time stop and Greater teleport.

First, teleport on some remote and very exotic location, such as the middle of the Earth, somewhere on another planet or the like. Actually, this prescription is not strictly needed, but taken as an advice to better conceal the following "hiding device".

Once you are in the remote and secluded location, excavate a very large cave but thin cave: imagine a cylinder with large base area but small height. On the ground of this cave deploy the highest number possibile of a Teleport trap (or simply many as possible permanencied Teleportation Circles), and for the destination of each trap choose the exact surface of the following trap.

Once you put the phylactery on one of the traps, "it instantly teleports to the designated destination" (quoting from SRD, emphasys mine), and being the destination another teleport trap, it instantly gets teleported and so on.

You just created the magic-equivalent of Schroedinger paradox, as the phylactery is neither on the first teleport trap, nor on the second, nor on the third... For the sake of its localization, it can be considered outside the space-time continuum, as it instantly cycles through all the traps without being for more than an instant in one single place.

The only way to detect its location, thus collapsing the quanto-mechanical state of the system, would be through the Time stop spell, as it would effectively accelerate the caster's timeframe to a point in which an "instantaneous duration" is actually a discrete entity: in this timeframe, he would be able to spot the phylactery on one of the teleport traps, then he could get it via a Mage hand spell, Telekinesis or some other form of distant manipulation.

To further protect it there are some ways to counter the Time stop maneuver. First, instead of excavating the big cave one could pick some random spot in the planet, dig a chamber the exact dimensions of the phylactery in each spot and proceed to the installation of the teleport traps in each chamber; then he could cast Contingency on the phylactery, with instructions to Greater teleport the thing in your hand each time some effect displaces it from a particular position on the teleport traps (such as when its displaced 1 inch from the exact center of the trap). More, as the phylactery is outside the space-time continuum, nothing prevents you to set up this device in the middle of the Sun, perhaps via the help of some Fire elemental or sort. If your DM has some issues with this idea, use Polymorph any object to transform the phylactery in a creature, then cast Temporal stasis on it: now it can withstand the terrible temperatures and the pressure of the Sun.

Add an instance to the program of Contingency in which, when you are killed and your soul transfers to the phylactery, it Greater teleports the phylactery to a different set of teleport traps, in which the chambers containing the traps are big enough to accomodate your skeleton. Then, when you are fully formed, prepare Time stop and Greater teleport via Spell mastery, cast the former to fix your timeframe and teleport out with the latter.

Choco
2010-01-05, 02:30 PM
stuff.

Course, then you gotta worry bout the adventurers just fireballing the teleport traps.

Optimystik
2010-01-05, 02:31 PM
On that note, I don't think the rules specify what happens if the phylactery is destroyed either. From what I remember it just says that the lich can't be permanently killed until the phylactery is destroyed, but I dont recall it saying the lich is destroyed automatically if the phylactery is destroyed.

Libris Mortis: "A lich whose phylactery is destroyed suffers no harm, but cannot construct a new one." (pg. 151)

hamishspence
2010-01-05, 02:32 PM
I think one of the Dragon magazines, or the FAQ, might have brought the issue or where liches reform up, but I am not sure.

Choco
2010-01-05, 02:32 PM
Libris Mortis: "A lich whose phylactery is destroyed suffers no harm, but cannot construct a new one." (pg. 151)

Ah! thats good to know!

Also, I now know that the many times a DM has ruled a lich destroyed when their phylactery is destroyed it was just a houserule. That or before Libris Mortis came out and we had nothing to go on.

Guinea Anubis
2010-01-05, 02:47 PM
An old one but a good one is to transform it in to a grain of sand then hide its magic aura and make both permanent. Then take a nice boat trip and drop it in the sea.

Ichneumon
2010-01-05, 02:56 PM
An old one but a good one is to transform it in to a grain of sand then hide its magic aura and make both permanent. Then take a nice boat trip and drop it in the sea.

Wouldn't a desert be more useful?

clockworkmonk
2010-01-05, 03:02 PM
The benefit of the sea is that if the particle is small enough, there's a good chance its gonna keep moving for a while. Sure, it may be eaten, or perhaps end up on a beach somewhere, but if that happens, you can always go get it and set it somewhere else.

LibraryOgre
2010-01-05, 03:09 PM
Encase your phylactery in rock.

Use said rock to build a useful, very sturdy, bridge. Enchant the bridge to cast Mending (or an equivalent spell with sufficient AoE) on itself every day or so, so it stays whole for a long, long time.... and covers any incidental magical auras.

It won't last forever, by any means. However, it means that your phylactery is protected, and people don't WANT to destroy that bridge.

GrassyGnoll
2010-01-05, 03:11 PM
Russian dolls. Put a Symbol or Glyph of your choice on each one and carve them progressively smaller until it's a splinter encased in a splinter.

Of course, your phylactery should be the largest of the dolls.

TheCountAlucard
2010-01-05, 03:25 PM
Bonus points if you destroy the moon and replace it with your Phylactery.Bonus bonus points if your phylactery is also a giant mech. :smalltongue:

Prime32
2010-01-05, 03:33 PM
If you used polymorph any object to turn your phylactery into a living creature, would its children also count as phylacteries? Preferably kill a queen and replace her with your phylactery. :smalltongue:

Make your phylactery a gold statue of Pelor, with the inscription "as long as this figure remains intact it seals away The Great Evil" or something. It gives an excuse for the evil aura (though you should probably include some sort of good-aligned enchantment as well).

Anonymouswizard
2010-01-05, 03:34 PM
Russian dolls. Put a Symbol or Glyph of your choice on each one and carve them progressively smaller until it's a splinter encased in a splinter.

Of course, your phylactery should be the largest of the dolls.

They fireball all the russian dolls. Until they are all ash. Then they disintegrate the ash until it is dust. Then they scatter the dust to the four winds.

A side note: if you reformed close to your phylactery couldn't someone just cut it in two and hide the two peices in seperate locations.

So, as by RAW you don't have to:

Split your phylactery into as many peices as you can without it being destroyed. Hide them in every concueveable place you can think of. Use every precaution thought of on the thread. Kill the gods.

Or:

Make your conscience your phylactery.

Cicciograna
2010-01-05, 03:34 PM
Course, then you gotta worry bout the adventurers just fireballing the teleport traps.

This is why the chambers should be in the remote place. Maybe with the best undetection spells on them.
More, we could encase each chamber within multiple layers of Wall of force: this way they would also be protected by landslides, earthquakes and the like (earth has this bad habit of moving...). Even more, if there was some way to shape and make permanent an Antimagic field, one could create an external antimagized shell encasing the chambers leaving their interior still magized: this way the AMF would protect the Walls of force, as it would negate every dispelling magic cast around it, and the Walls would protect the chambers.

drengnikrafe
2010-01-05, 03:37 PM
Split your phylactery into as many peices as you can without it being destroyed. Hide them in every concueveable place you can think of. Use every precaution thought of on the thread. Kill the gods.

It never occurred to me that Voldemort was a Lich.

paddyfool
2010-01-05, 03:38 PM
The bridge idea is quite a decent one, except that bridges may occasionally be military targets etc. It reminds me of Digger (http://www.diggercomic.com/)'s answer to a similar question (link goes to general comic page, rather than specific issue, I'm afraid) - stick something you never want found in the foundation of a valuable public utility that people aren't going to be disposing of in a hurry. A sewage plant, perhaps. And if you make it magically auto-mending and auto-cleaning (go Prestidigitation!) nobody need ever work on it manually and uncover its secret.


It never occurred to me that Voldemort was a Lich.

Well, at least you got there in the end :smalltongue:

Yukitsu
2010-01-05, 03:39 PM
I had my phylactery made out of aurorum, enchanted as a loadstone, and kept it on me as my item familiar, then used polymorph any object on it to keep it as a tough warrior companion, and had it travel with his astral projected form, while his body was hidden in a demiplane blah blah. Anything destroys the phylactery, it comes back reformed, it can't be lost or stolen, and it can be rebuilt in a round by clustering the pieces together, even if it is somehow shattered. If the projection died, the phylactery would be loadstoned back to the demiplane. Even if you can kill the phylactery and the projection, the phylactery would return in tact to the now concious real body.

Kris Strife
2010-01-05, 03:39 PM
You have one of your minions who's infiltrated the local church of inset good diety here to use the phylactary to replace an important bone (say a vertebra) of the next adventurer who gets ressurected by that church.

You did put a minion in the near by good aligned church right?

Cicciograna
2010-01-05, 03:41 PM
It never occurred to me that Voldemort was a Lich.

You know, when I told my girlfriend (who is a big fan of HP and didn't know what a Liche was) about Liches and phylacteries, she made the same comment.

clockworkmonk
2010-01-05, 03:42 PM
I got another interesting solution.

Make your Phylactery a book, a unique one. Take said book to your favorite Magic university, donate it to the library. You better believe that librarian will do everything he can to protect that book. And considering hes a librarian for Magicians? yeah, its gonna be safe for a very long time.

drengnikrafe
2010-01-05, 03:44 PM
You know, when I told my girlfriend (who is a big fan of HP and didn't know what a Liche was) about Liches and phylacteries, she made the same comment.

The thing here was that... when I liked Harry Potter, I had only heard of D&D, and had no idea what Liches were.

When I got into D&D, I didn't give a hoot about Harry Potter.


Back on track, these ideas are really, really malicious. I mean, these liches are, more likely than not, going to live forever unless they're hit by a pile of DM wrath. If I were a lich, I would probably do something like something previously mentioned in this. If I were making a lich as a DM, it would be considerably more accessable.

Cicciograna
2010-01-05, 03:52 PM
Maybe the best and most cunning idea would be to adopt every single idea mentioned in this thread: transform a piece of the phylactery in a grain of sand and dropping it in the sea, incorporating another piece in the bridge, putting another in the demiplane, turning another piece in a coin and spread it and another one on my teleport traps...and as the final note, using all these suggestions to hide a fake phylactery, while the real one is safe...somewhere else...

Anonymouswizard
2010-01-05, 03:55 PM
Magically determine who is most likely to kill you.Capture them, place them in a cage. Make one of their ear-bones your phylactery. He'll never get rid of it from the risk of going deaf, and then when he dies, your phylactery is hidden in the grave of a mighty hero to whom all of the local villagers pay respect.

OR:

Create a normal box-type phylactery. Create many identical copies of the phylactery. Magically disguise the copies so that they are detected as if they were your phylactery. Perform all of the methods of hiding the phylactery mentioned in this thread on the real and copies, thus making it highly unlike that the first one the heroes find is the real one. Or the second. Or the third. Etc, etc, ad nauseum.

unre9istered
2010-01-05, 03:57 PM
While most of the ideas here are good, many of them are illegal by RAW.

From Libris Mortis:

Regardless of the phylactery’s form, its game statistics remain the same: size Tiny, hp 40, hardness 20, break DC 40. As a magic item, it receives saving throws against magical effects that can affect objects.

As a magical item PaO cannot affect a phylactery.

Ravens_cry
2010-01-05, 03:58 PM
Wouldn't a desert be more useful?
Unless the planet your 'living' on is far different from Earth's geography, the oceans will be far larger then any landmass, let alone a desert. Also, this enviroment is supremely inhospitable to most adventurers. Even with the aid of magic, they are still at a disadvantage. Still, throwing it into space might be even better. Similar disadvantages, with some new ones, and an even bigger ocean.

Swordgleam
2010-01-05, 03:59 PM
Come on, you guys are forgetting who is going to be trying to kill you: players. Make your phylactery part of a powerful magic item and make sure it ends up in the rogue's hands. There's no way anything is going to so much as scratch your phylactery, even if the party finds out exactly what it is.

I'm also fond of the "swap hearts with another lich" idea, especially if you two live far apart. What are the odds you both get killed within ten days of each other? Or perhaps you could give you phylactery to that pair of eternally reincarnating druids from another thread.

Melamoto
2010-01-05, 04:11 PM
As the unholy symbol always carried around the neck of a powerful NPC cleric cohort.

But what happens when a Paladin runs in, stabs the cohort, and loses the Phylactery in the ocean/anachronistic sewage plant/obligatory sewer-themed labyrinth?

Lysander
2010-01-05, 04:20 PM
I'm also fond of the "swap hearts with another lich" idea, especially if you two live far apart. What are the odds you both get killed within ten days of each other? Or perhaps you could give you phylactery to that pair of eternally reincarnating druids from another thread.

The only problem is that two megalomaniacal evil undead wizards are unlikely to trust another creature with their precious phylactery. Especially another lich.

Boci
2010-01-05, 04:22 PM
While most of the ideas here are good, many of them are illegal by RAW.

From Libris Mortis:


As a magical item PaO cannot affect a phylactery.

So just make the phylactery a part of the bigger object.

Ravens_cry
2010-01-05, 04:27 PM
The only problem is that two megalomaniacal evil undead wizards are unlikely to trust another creature with their precious phylactery. Especially another lich.
Maybe they are friends? (http://www.giantitp.com/articles/XbsQgS9YYu9g3HZBAGE.html) It must be nice, evil or not, to have someone with whome to share eternity with.

Ire
2010-01-05, 04:29 PM
Just carry it around at all times, because anything good enough to kill you, probably is good enough to find it and destroy it in 1d10 days anyway.

nekomata2
2010-01-05, 04:37 PM
Couldn't a rogue disarm one of the teleport traps, and since the phylactery is instantly at all of them, it would instantly appear at the disarmed trap?

Cicciograna
2010-01-05, 04:43 PM
Couldn't a rogue disarm one of the teleport traps, and since the phylactery is instantly at all of them, it would instantly appear at the disarmed trap?

Yes it would. But the rogue has first to locate one of the traps, then he has to somehow pierce the layers of Wall of force, then he has to disarm it without displacing the phylactery, or it teleports to the Liche's hand, and without stepping on the trap, or he too will be sucked in the endless cycle of teleports.

J.Gellert
2010-01-05, 05:06 PM
Keep a normal phylactery someplace... any place, as long as it's quiet.

Cast Disguise Self on self every day. Or Gentle Repose. Or just use a lot of makeup.

No one is going to look for your phylactery if they don't know you are a lich.

Win!

hamishspence
2010-01-05, 05:13 PM
Pretending to be mortal is a common strategy for liches- but given the prevalence of spells that can reveal that it is Something Different (detect undead, true seeing, etc) there needs to be a plan for when The Masquerade fails.

Hmm- maybe skip the disguising, but just make the undead body look very unimportant. If the lich spends most of the time astral travelling, with it's body appearing to be a perfectly normal armed skeleton in the middle of a dungeon full of skeletons, finding the "real lich" may prove difficult.

A bit like Xykon's three decoys- but on a massive scale.

Swordgleam
2010-01-05, 05:14 PM
The only problem is that two megalomaniacal evil undead wizards are unlikely to trust another creature with their precious phylactery. Especially another lich.

Which is why no one will ever think to look there! Besides, mutually assured destruction: they do something bad with your phylactery, you'll do something bad with theirs. You just need two logical megalomaniacal evil undead wizards.

J.Gellert
2010-01-05, 05:21 PM
Pretending to be mortal is a common strategy for liches- but given the prevalence of spells that can reveal that it is Something Different (detect undead, true seeing, etc) there needs to be a plan for when The Masquerade fails.

Hmm- maybe skip the disguising, but just make the undead body look very unimportant. If the lich spends most of the time astral travelling, with it's body appearing to be a perfectly normal armed skeleton in the middle of a dungeon full of skeletons, finding the "real lich" may prove difficult.

A bit like Xykon's three decoys- but on a massive scale.

Another excellent idea. That way, when you regenerate 1d10 days later, you can just pass off as another skeleton.

However, you can't make majestic entrances then. But it would be good for specific, trickery-themed NPC liches.

For PC liches, here's another thought; you don't need a phylactery. Celerity + Teleport guarantees you will never be destroyed, so just keep it on your person.

Tamburlaine
2010-01-05, 05:28 PM
Maybe the best and most cunning idea would be to adopt every single idea mentioned in this thread: transform a piece of the phylactery in a grain of sand and dropping it in the sea, incorporating another piece in the bridge, putting another in the demiplane, turning another piece in a coin and spread it and another one on my teleport traps...and as the final note, using all these suggestions to hide a fake phylactery, while the real one is safe...somewhere else...

Maybe the best and most cunning idea would be to discover the locations of your enemies' phylacterys by starting a thread about good ideas for places to hide phylacterys.

*Gives Zom B a suspicious look*

Zen Master
2010-01-05, 05:28 PM
Enchant phylactery with prodigous amounts of fire resistance.

Look up into the night sky. Pick a star at random. Teleport to that star.

Drop your phylactery into the star. Teleport home.

(don't forget to put on spacesuit)

Of course any DM might decide that stars are home to fire elementals. Elementals find phylactery, take it to city of brass, where it gets auctioned off to the higest bidder. Problem with fantasy worlds is that so few places are truly uninhabited.

Evard
2010-01-05, 05:33 PM
Maybe its the Dr. Who marathon I had but why not make a epic (or 9th level) spell that allows you to displace your phylactery by 1 second... Make the spell work so that when you die the phylactery displaces back into the main time line so you can re-spawn in the actual time line.


Edit: oh put it just about anywhere :)

Ravens_cry
2010-01-05, 05:44 PM
Enchant phylactery with prodigous amounts of fire resistance.

Look up into the night sky. Pick a star at random. Teleport to that star.

Drop your phylactery into the star. Teleport home.

(don't forget to put on spacesuit)

You're a lich, what do you need a spacesuit for?

SoC175
2010-01-05, 05:57 PM
Place it in the Elemental Plane of Water. It may occasionally get eaten by some subaquatic behemoth, but as long as its hardness and acid resistance is high enough, no harm should befall it, right? However there are many subaquativ behemoth with high Int, high spellcaster levels and the ability to easily identify a phylactery

The phylactery is a jewel placed into the hilt of a +1 Holy Undead-bane longsword that is intelligent and Lawful Good, but does not know that the jewel is anything special. Let's see some adventurers suspect that! As long as the sword is also very talkative and thus prevents every good/neutral adventure from thinking of examing it with detect magic (still hope they never fall and the sword is captured by someone evil who does finally examine it because either the sword refused to talk to him or he doesn't trust the words of the sword).

Your phylactery is a gold coin, scattered somewhere in the world. That sounds at least safer than leaving it at the elemental plane of water.

Your phylactery is one of the jewels in the crown of a king of a powerful nation. Which would mean that it certainly get into the target of a lots of detection spells

Yeah, but then what happens when someone gives said NPC a better deal? In order for him to be trustworthy he would have to be Lawful Evil, and trustworthy is only true in the sense that he will do nothing to you as long as you have an advantage. What's to stop the PCs from giving him a better deal? Try to get him kill his own brother to protect you, so he will never take a deal to betray you since that would mean he killed his brother for nothing ;)

Someone once recommended a spell which turns an object into a demiplane, but if "you reform next to your phylactery" that sounds like an awfully good way to end up as a vestige. :smallconfused: Well, demiplanes are floating in the astral plane, so reforming just next to your demiplane-phylactery means your on the astral plane. No big deal

Make your Phylactery a book, a unique one. Take said book to your favorite Magic university, donate it to the library. You better believe that librarian will do everything he can to protect that book. And considering hes a librarian for Magicians? yeah, its gonna be safe for a very long time. You forgot that they will certainly examine the book first and people at a magic university should easily spot a phylactery for what it is

Sstoopidtallkid
2010-01-05, 06:43 PM
The one I plan on using as a BBEG at some point is a group of Liches. A Bard, a Beguiler, a Blackguard, a Cleric, a Druid, a Wizard, and the Dread Necromancer who turned all of them into Liches. And they are each each other's Phylactaries. They were an adventuring party before falling to evil over the death of a couple of their own, and now they work together to gather power for themselves. They are slow, cautious, and all have mental stats in the upper 30s. Kill one, and see what hell they will rain down upon you. Meanwhile, each also has multiple methods of becoming invulnerable to ensure that no one can take out any of them, much less all within a fortnight.

Juhn
2010-01-05, 07:02 PM
The person heading for Lichdom in my party is going to put it in one of the lower layers of Acheron. As she's a very fervent devotee of Wee Jas, I figured this was fitting.

nekomata2
2010-01-05, 07:02 PM
Yes it would. But the rogue has first to locate one of the traps, then he has to somehow pierce the layers of Wall of force, then he has to disarm it without displacing the phylactery, or it teleports to the Liche's hand, and without stepping on the trap, or he too will be sucked in the endless cycle of teleports.

So....Unseer Seer? Or find a way to beat the absurdly high escape artist DC (120) to pass through a wall of force. A bit excessive to beat a 6th lvl spell but hey, wizards are just better...

elonin
2010-01-05, 07:23 PM
Two thoughts. First make sure your phylactery is immune to acid damage. Feed it to a terrasque.

Second do the Sauron role and make your phylactery so cool that noone will want to destroy it. Yes I know that Sauron wasn't a lich.

Ravingdork
2010-01-05, 07:33 PM
There's no reason you can't make your phylactery into an intelligent magical item perfectly capable of defending or relocating itself.

Gensh
2010-01-05, 07:40 PM
The doorknob of a shady adventurers guild. No one would expect that you'd hide it right under their noses, and if someone realizes it's evil, they'd just think that an evil cleric had messed with it on his way in or something.

On one occasion, I had a recently-dead NPC whose phylactery was his still-living wife's wedding band. Of course, she was just an ordinary commoner, so no one ever suspected anything.

ZeroNumerous
2010-01-05, 08:04 PM
Pretending to be mortal is a common strategy for liches- but given the prevalence of spells that can reveal that it is Something Different (detect undead, true seeing, etc) there needs to be a plan for when The Masquerade fails.

Actually. A disguise check plus Mind Blank means you're forever indetectable as an undead as long as you max out your disguise check to a ridiculous degree.

EDIT:


Silly idea about undead being one another's phylactery

See, the problem with this is that it straight up does not work. By RAW or RAI, it is completely non-functional. LM spells out, quite clearly, that a lich cannot make another phylactery if his is destroyed. An undead reduced to 0 HP:

"Not at risk of death from massive damage, but when reduced to 0 hit points or less, it is immediately destroyed. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/typesSubtypes.htm#undeadType)"

Emphasis mine. One of your buddies bites it and your phylactery is gone. No lich, ever, would agree to that. Because it makes a lich very mortal, very quickly and that is exactly what you become a lich to avoid.

And that doesn't even address the impossibility of making a magical item into a phylactery.

J.Gellert
2010-01-05, 08:06 PM
The doorknob of a shady adventurers guild. No one would expect that you'd hide it right under their noses, and if someone realizes it's evil, they'd just think that an evil cleric had messed with it on his way in or something.

Until some adventurers steal another lich's phylactery, and said undead goes around the guildhall blasting the place.

"A locked door! Nothing stands between me and my prey! DISINTEGRATE!"

Kepsek
2010-01-05, 08:12 PM
It isn't the best hiding place, but what would happen if the phylactery was the holy symbol of a good cleric and/or paladin?

Dimers
2010-01-05, 08:15 PM
A while back on a smililar thread someone mentioned growing it to the size of a small planet and heving your followers colonize it. Bonus points if you destroy the moon and replace it with your Phylactery.

"That's no moon, it's a Spelljammer station!"

Sir_Elderberry
2010-01-05, 08:27 PM
It isn't the best hiding place, but what would happen if the phylactery was the holy symbol of a good cleric and/or paladin?

Then you have to regenerate next to a paladin. Even if you do just appear out of nowhere, fully formed, you are now naked with no buffs on.

Fishy
2010-01-05, 08:55 PM
Well, Here's Mine. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=121334) The short version is that you gather a whole bunch of ageless and fanatical worshipers/mind slaves, use Microcosm to link all their minds together into a collective hallucination, and use Dream Walk to just go there. Why settle for Genesis?

I think it might be fun to run a campaign where the players are all liches, and hide phylacteries at character creation.

J.Gellert
2010-01-05, 09:07 PM
...
I think it might be fun to run a campaign where the players are all liches, and hide phylacteries at character creation.

Only they do so secretly from each other, and then later they fight among themselves!

Brilliant!

drengnikrafe
2010-01-05, 09:15 PM
Only they do so secretly from each other, and then later they fight among themselves!

Brilliant!

And suddenly, we have Street Fighter! Well, not really, but I can pretend to justify it.
Here we have a bunch of people who can somehow fight until they fall backwards and appear pretty much dead. Over and over and over. However, when one loses, we don't see him until the campaign is over, and the whole fighting campaign happens over a day.
... Like I said, pretend to justify it.

J.Gellert
2010-01-05, 09:18 PM
...Over and over and over. However, when one loses, we don't see him until the campaign is over, and the whole fighting campaign happens over a day.
... Like I said, pretend to justify it.

He has to fall over best out of three times, but yes, that's the idea...

RS14
2010-01-05, 10:51 PM
How about making it permanently invisible, inside a permanent Private Sanctum on the Negative Energy plane? It can only be found by epic magic, or by random encounters on this (infinite!) plane. In the darkness of the NE plane, it is invisible except to Detect Magic, or some idiot literally tripping over it. Certainly, it can be expected to attract the attention of any Nightshade which wanders by (At will detect magic; magic auras on the NE plane cannot be too common), but otherwise should be unnoticed. Thus, a Teleport Object trap is prepared--the Phylactery is sent to a predetermined (and likewise prepared) but unremarkable location in the Negative Energy Plane. Simultaneously, a Sending trap, onset delay 0 triggers, notifying the Lich "Phylactery threatened, time zero." While this has a 5% failure chance, another triggers a turn later with a similar message, and so on. (All traps use proximity triggers). As soon as this is received, and the lich is safe to act, it activates an Instant Summons to bring the Phylactery to him, to be hidden again in a similar manner elsewhere on the plane. It is considered unlikely that one of these creatures will stumble upon the Phylactery, and track it, before the lich can recover it in this manner.

If a lich is willing to burn Antipathy (Sor/Wiz 8) and two castings of Plane Shift every 2xCL hours, he can further reduce this chance by maintaining an Antipathy (Nightshade) aura, though it requires actually visiting the Phylactery, which most likely will allow it to be located more easily than simply leaving it alone.

Of course, it is relatively vulnerable while the lich is regenerating. Thus, he should try very hard to avoid dying.

In this unlikely contingency, a substantial reward will be offered in exchange for the safe return of the Phylactery, as indicated by a magic mouth that will activate when encountered.

"You may have just one a ring of three wishes! Contact $Owner$ for more information!" :smallamused:

Edit: I just realized that Private Sanctum doesn't actually do everything I thought. How about a timed trap casting Sequester on the Phylactery, still all within the ?

Also, note that the classic "magic-aura on a grain of sand in the desert" method doesn't work--magic-aura can't be made permanent.

OracleofWuffing
2010-01-05, 11:26 PM
I read quickly, but I don't think anyone mentioned the bag of holding trick.


If the bag is overloaded, or if sharp objects pierce it (from inside or outside), the bag ruptures and is ruined. All contents are lost forever.
There you go. Put the phylactery in the bag, pierce the bag with a toothpick, nobody will ever find your phylactery again.

Just, ah, hope that the whole "You regenerate from your phylactery" interpretation doesn't waltz in you. And don't think about your phylactery too hard.

Callista
2010-01-05, 11:52 PM
To those of you who are advocating hiding the phylactery in such a way that destroying it will kill a Good-aligned person: Think about this a little bit.

This is a Good-aligned person. You know, the kind of person who risks his life to save others. Are we seeing the flaw in the logic here yet?... 'Cause what's to stop Mr. Good-Aligned from destroying the phylactery himself, even if he does know the consequences? And half the time, he'll get a Resurrection out of it, too, so he'll really only end up with lost XP, maybe not even that...

No, you have to get more despicable than that. You're going to want to threaten them with something more than just death... think destroying the soul or flipping their alignment to evil via Mindrape. It's simply rather silly to threaten Good-aligned people with mere death. They're used to risking that for things they consider more important. Funny advantage that Good alignment has that no other does: They consider themselves expendable! (Which makes them a match for Evil, who considers everybody else expendable, naturally.)

Actually, don't mess with the Good-aligned people at all. If you're going to threaten somebody, threaten the Neutrals. They might hate you for being the kind of person who'll torture their kids and kick their puppies, but they would much prefer to live, thank you very much, and will do quite a lot for self-preservation. But don't threaten their family and friends. Do that, and even the Neutrals get badass.

Lysander
2010-01-06, 12:00 AM
Regardless of how you do decide to hide it one thing is also a good idea: having an immense fortress filled with deadly traps and monsters to protect an identical replica of your phylactery.

clockworkmonk
2010-01-06, 12:06 AM
You forgot that they will certainly examine the book first and people at a magic university should easily spot a phylactery for what it is

Well, that is a risk, but thats why the book has to be unique. You could simply disguise it as a very dangerous magical book. That will put it in the highly dangerous books section. A good place for such a thing. I mean, commonly, when people find a trap, they don't really look for another. Guess thats my plan.

Krazddndfreek
2010-01-06, 12:11 AM
Back to basics, you could just pretend to be a normal living person. Hide your aura and cast alter self or have some other glamer effect permanencied on you. Permanencied Invisibility and an invisible (metamagic) Darkness on your phylactery and an invisible Darkness spell on yourself. The invisible darkness spells prevent magical sight from seeing anything other than an orb of blackness instead of you or your phylactery.

Ravingdork
2010-01-06, 12:25 AM
One of my friends just told me about a lich he played not too long ago.

He kidnapped the infant daughter of a powerful, and much loved king. He tore a rib from over her heart, finished the final parts of the ritual to make the rib into his phylactery. He then healed the babe and placed her back in her crib before anyone realized she had been taken to begin with.

Though a scant few discovered the truth of it, none dared to kill the King's daughter in order to eternally destroy the lich.

That campaign ended as the players switched over to pathfinder.

For the new campaign (which carried over many elements from the old one) my friend opted to play a young princess that developed sorceress abilities with a necromantic theme (he chose the undead bloodline) -- the product of the powerful magical energies seeping throughout her very system from a magical rib phylactery.

The princess ended up destroying the (now NPC'd BBEG) lich herself decades after her initial kidnapping.

Stormlock
2010-01-06, 01:34 AM
Create a homunculus. Name it. Hand it the Phylactery. Now Imprison it. It cannot be freed except by a Freedom spell cast by someone who knows it's name and details about it's life. Not terribly likely. And all you need to do it is an (Admittedly expensive and dangerous, best to have someone else cast it for you maybe) scroll and a homunculus.

Alternately, use a powerful evil creature of some sort in place of a homunculus. That'll require some serious power though.

Anonymouswizard
2010-01-06, 02:40 AM
Create a homunculus. Name it. Hand it the Phylactery. Now Imprison it. It cannot be freed except by a Freedom spell cast by someone who knows it's name and details about it's life. Not terribly likely. And all you need to do it is an (Admittedly expensive and dangerous, best to have someone else cast it for you maybe) scroll and a homunculus.

Alternately, use a powerful evil creature of some sort in place of a homunculus. That'll require some serious power though.

:smallbiggrin:

What about:

make your phylactery the moon. Have an automatic reset teleport trap that teleports the moon onto the person killing it. And an automatic reset antimagic field trap that antimagi fields the person trying to kill it.

The rules say nothing about the acually size, just it's statistics.

mistformsquirrl
2010-01-06, 02:48 AM
Huge trap- and monster-filled fortress high up on inaccessible mountains.

If you use enough monsters, and enough traps, then only gods can get to it. And if gods want you dead, you are dead anyway. You are not an epic god-slaying demilich yet, after all.

It's cliche because it works! :smallbiggrin:

I just realized something:

Use this method: BUT have the "Really obvious" Phylactery be a fake. Also have 2 or 3 additional fakes that are progressively more difficult to search out within the fortress.

The actual phylactery? Using the "it's a copper coin in a treasure pile" trick. Literally put it in a random vase somewhere in the dungeon with other loose change. <^-^>

Stormlock
2010-01-06, 02:49 AM
I recall at least one deity who became rather unhappy with a mortal scribbling on his moon in a Dragonlance book. He got away with it anyways mind you, but I wouldn't recommend it as a solid plan.:smallwink:

Anonymouswizard
2010-01-06, 03:33 AM
I recall at least one deity who became rather unhappy with a mortal scribbling on his moon in a Dragonlance book. He got away with it anyways mind you, but I wouldn't recommend it as a solid plan.:smallwink:

Then make sure nobody owns the moon. Go back to the creation of the moon and say: I claim this moon and there's nothing you can do about it.

Can't use magic to travel back in time: Summon TARDIS!

Thajocoth
2010-01-06, 03:52 AM
Some people said stuff about a princess being a famous example... From what?

I know Super Paper Mario did this (Though it was a multiverse-saving heart, not a phylactery... And no, it wasn't Peach, it was the daughter of Jaydes (Queen of the Underwhere{Underworld}) and Ghambi (King of the Overthere{Heaven}))

But I'm sure that's not the famous example you're referring to... The 4e Lich Ritual mentions only small metal boxes, amulets and rings as possible phylacteries. From this I'd assume any jewel or jewelry, including a coin, but things like "a person" or "a moon" don't seem to fit what a phylactery can be...

Kelb_Panthera
2010-01-06, 05:06 AM
Hiding the aura of the phylactery isn't any trouble, at least not if custom items are allowed. An item that produces a continuous magic aura affect would only cost 1000gp, a continuous undetectable alignment costs the same. So the phylactery now costs 122000, instead of a 120000 and is completely concealed from detect magic and detect evil. In fact, it can only be identified by Identify or Analyze Dweomer both of which need the caster to be actively checking the phylactery because they already suspect it's a magic item. For a little more (relatively) you can make your phylactery intelligent. Now it gets a will save against analyze dweomer and can be given the ability to teleport itself. Give it the physical apperance of being a copper coin, and put it into circulation. Your phylactery now appears to all but the most direct magical scrutiny to be nothing more than a mere copper coin. Unless of course, you're worried about a foe with mindsight detecting it. Even then the character with mindsight only knows that there's an intelligent item in that 5ft square and it can get away by teleporting somewhere else.

Narazil
2010-01-06, 05:09 AM
Hiding the aura of the phylactery isn't any trouble, at least not if custom items are allowed. An item that produces a continuous magic aura affect would only cost 1000gp, a continuous undetectable alignment costs the same. So the phylactery now costs 122000, instead of a 120000 and is completely concealed from detect magic and detect evil. In fact, it can only be identified by Identify or Analyze Dweomer both of which need the caster to be actively checking the phylactery because they already suspect it's a magic item. For a little more (relatively) you can make your phylactery intelligent. Now it gets a will save against analyze dweomer and can be given the ability to teleport itself. Give it the physical apperance of being a copper coin, and put it into circulation. Your phylactery now appears to all but the most direct magical scrutiny to be nothing more than a mere copper coin. Unless of course, you're worried about a foe with mindsight detecting it. Even then the character with mindsight only knows that there's an intelligent item in that 5ft square and it can get away by teleporting somewhere else.
How does hiding its Magical Aura and Alignment hide it from the dozens of other Divination spells?

lord_khaine
2010-01-06, 05:23 AM
But the most fun thing here is that all of this still doesnt keep the lich totaly safe, since there are a undead hunter prestice class that gives the ability to permanently kill undeads, meaning that suddenly neither ghosts, liches or vampires are safe.

ZeroNumerous
2010-01-06, 05:34 AM
Stuff about using the NEP.

Use the PEP instead. It actually benefits undead.

Rasman
2010-01-06, 06:49 AM
the concept of

Unseen Servent = Phylactery amuses me, so long as the Unseen Servent is permanant.

You could always put it in a REALLY big bag of devouring, so that anyone who wanted to get at it would actually have to climb inside, thus bearing the chance of getting eaten, not perfect, but safe. Worst case scenerio, when you're climbing out, you get eaten, which means you just repeat the escape process.

Zen Master
2010-01-06, 08:33 AM
You're a lich, what do you need a spacesuit for?

Hm ... there's that. To prevent catastrophic decompression of your ... potions?! I dunno. Forget the spacesuit then =D

JaronK
2010-01-06, 08:49 AM
One important trick: use Consumptive Field loops to get a huge caster level, then cast Hardness on your Phylactery. Now it has a hardness in the hundreds. Very handy if a martial adept isn't about to hit it.

JaronK

Setra
2010-01-06, 08:57 AM
Make it invisible, put it in an invisible box. Put a bunch of immovable rods about a mile in the air, put the box on them, then put even more rods around it to keep it still. Make those invisible too. Put as many wards as you can think on it.

Alternatively: If you can make it a living creature, cast Imprisonment on them. Make sure it's someone know one knows anything about.

Sure you'll either reform on top of your invisible box, or under the earth.. but you're a skeleton, you'll make it out okay. Just make sure you have Still Teleport.

Fishy
2010-01-06, 11:33 AM
I like the Homunculus -> Imprisonment plan, but Hypercognition (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/hypercognition.htm) thumbs its nose at it.

Actually, a level 15 Psion can deduce how your phylactery is protected through the weight distribution of your footprints. Right through Nondetection, Mind Blank and the like, for that matter.

Obfuscation is not the same as security. But hey, defense in depth, and it makes a pretty impressive 'You must be this tall to ride'.

Anonymouswizard
2010-01-06, 11:55 AM
Obfuscation is not the same as security. But hey, defense in depth, and it makes a pretty impressive 'You must be this tall to ride'.

Or: "your wizard must be this level to kill me"

SoC175
2010-01-06, 12:20 PM
The person heading for Lichdom in my party is going to put it in one of the lower layers of Acheron. As she's a very fervent devotee of Wee Jas, I figured this was fitting. Well, giving it to your deity or renting a lock box at the infernal bank of Baator make it pretty sure that no third party will ever get it. However it also places straight into the hands of the second party (your deity, the devils, ...) who are supposed to guard it.

Lysander
2010-01-06, 12:35 PM
Alternatively: If you can make it a living creature, cast Imprisonment on them. Make sure it's someone know one knows anything about.



Of course the downside is that if your phylactery is in stasis that might mean you don't get to respawn until someone else casts Freedom to get it out. And the creature carrying it is someone nobody knows, then it'll never get out.

How about this. Make the phylactery an intelligent object with the power to teleport. Create a simulacrum of a powerful spontaneous spellcaster AROUND the phylactery, so its embedded in the snow of their body. That way you have two layers of defense, a spellcaster who can teleport and plane shift away and the phylactery can teleport as well.

Now create an airtight coffin out of some nigh invulnerable material made invisible, and have the simulacrum wait inside the coffin (if simulacrums need to eat or breathe give it items to negate those needs). Guess what. The coffin is also an intelligent item and it can ALSO teleport and it has a fly speed. It's there to protect the simulacrum from any surprise attacks.

Cast a permanent Mage's Private Sanctum on the negative energy plane, and cover it with a Permanent Image of empty space. Have the coffin wait inside hovering. The coffin tells the simulacrum what it sees, the simulacrum sends you daily status reports with Sending.

If any creature ever finds the coffin you have it teleport away with its cargo, then create a new sanctum/illusion elsewhere on the plane.

J.Gellert
2010-01-06, 03:43 PM
Of course the downside is that if your phylactery is in stasis that might mean you don't get to respawn until someone else casts Freedom to get it out. And the creature carrying it is someone nobody knows, then it'll never get out.

How about this. Make the phylactery an intelligent object with the power to teleport. Create a simulacrum of a powerful spontaneous spellcaster AROUND the phylactery, so its embedded in the snow of their body. That way you have two layers of defense, a spellcaster who can teleport and plane shift away and the phylactery can teleport as well.

Now create an airtight coffin out of some nigh invulnerable material made invisible, and have the simulacrum wait inside the coffin (if simulacrums need to eat or breathe give it items to negate those needs). Guess what. The coffin is also an intelligent item and it can ALSO teleport and it has a fly speed. It's there to protect the simulacrum from any surprise attacks.

Cast a permanent Mage's Private Sanctum on the negative energy plane, and cover it with a Permanent Image of empty space. Have the coffin wait inside hovering. The coffin tells the simulacrum what it sees, the simulacrum sends you daily status reports with Sending.

If any creature ever finds the coffin you have it teleport away with its cargo, then create a new sanctum/illusion elsewhere on the plane.

When exactly does it teleport?

If a goblin finds it?

If a beetle finds it?

What about your arch-rival arch-mage polymorphed into something that the simulacrum/magic items can't detect/don't recognize as hostile?

Lysander
2010-01-06, 04:03 PM
When exactly does it teleport?

If a goblin finds it?

If a beetle finds it?

What about your arch-rival arch-mage polymorphed into something that the simulacrum/magic items can't detect/don't recognize as hostile?

Considering that its hovering invisible and hidden by illusions in mid-air on the nearly uninhabited negative energy plane encountering ANY creature would be pretty significant and worthy of alarm.

LibraryOgre
2010-01-06, 04:08 PM
Insinuate it into the tomb of a good king or other individual. Don't corrupt the place... just put it there.

Dr Bwaa
2010-01-06, 05:51 PM
The Demiplane/Forbiddance one is the best I know of for absolute safety.

For fun, I have seen ideas for various large objects (planes, moons, castles, people). It is not hard to make these phylacteries. For instance, the moon example: PAO the moon into an amulet. This has a duration factor of 7 (5 for both Mineral-class +2 for same intelligence (this one may not even apply)), so it lasts a week. Make the phylactery out of the amulet. Now, one of two things happens: either the moon-amulet-phylactery is now magic, and therefore no longer affected by PAO, or the duration factor wears off after a week. Either way, the moon pops back to being the moon, but now it's your phylactery as well. Voila. You don't even need to give it an atmophere, since you're now a lich and you don't need to breathe. I think this strategy works for any of these problem cases (people, for example). Of course, if you're a player trying to do it, the DM may fiat that reverting to its normal form kills the phylactery-ness of it, but I wouldn't, and besides the large portion of these ideas would be much more easily used by DMs than PCs anyhow =P

RS14
2010-01-06, 05:52 PM
Use the PEP instead. It actually benefits undead.

Not terribly important, as we don't intend to set guards, and don't intend to spend any serious time on the plane ourselves. But sure; both the NEP and the PEP are excellent choices.

AgentPaper
2010-01-06, 06:47 PM
The absolute best way to protect it would be to somehow get it into the personal possession of the Lady of Pain. If that's not possible, make some important object in Sigil your phylactery, something that the Lady of Pain would want to protect, but wouldn't really care if was made into a phylactery, as long as it wasn't harmed.

Assuming those are impossible (for example, Lady of Pain doesn't exist in your world, or isn't as omnipotent) then the copper coin idea would be the best. Cast as many permanent anti-divination and protection spells on it as you can, make it intelligent with a low int score so it isn't smart enough to rebel against you (3-4) but smart enough to make decisions to protect itself. Give it 1/day or more teleport, always into some large bank or dragon hoarde, and give it instructions to teleport to one of a number of set, convenient locations when you start to regenerate near it. (either you follow along with it, or stop regenerating, die, and start regenerating near it again) Make it your familiar, so you can speak with it telepathically, which would also allow it to be higher intelligence without risk of it turning on you. If the familiar telepathy isn't good enough, there's probably some spell or psionic power that can give you a better version that will work anywhere in the world.

Proceed to throw the copper coin as part of the payment for a bottle of gin. :smallbiggrin:

Then, just don't piss off any epic-level casters, at least until you are yourself an epic level casters, and you're pretty much invulnerable. Having a well-known fake in a hideously trapped dungeon/fortress (summon monster traps for more mobile defenders) would also help, if nothing else as a way to get a lot of bodies of high-level good adventurers without much effort on your part, or to watch from afar as entertainment of the highest order. :smalltongue:

elonin
2010-01-07, 09:51 PM
What happens if the coin gets melted down to be made into a statue? How about having the plactycary be in the form of a necklace you put on your familiar?

rayne_dragon
2010-01-07, 10:02 PM
I say disguise it as a simple plain grey stone. Then put it somewhere with a lot of other plain grey stones. If you want to be tricky, put it somewhere highly inaccessable in a room (full of plain grey stones) with a large number of fancy mystical things, like giant gemstones and ornate gold boxes. Put as much magical protections on the room and fake phylacteries as you want. Hopefully nobody clues in that it's one of the many, many stones on the floor.

Tanuki Tales
2010-01-07, 10:07 PM
Two thoughts. First make sure your phylactery is immune to acid damage. Feed it to a terrasque.



This only works assuming your DM hasn't read the "Ecology of the Tarrasque" article. It goes on to say that one of its many stomachs have a powerful disjunction effect that, if memory serves, not even artifacts can survive.

The Extinguisher
2010-01-07, 10:34 PM
Someone once recommended a spell which turns an object into a demiplane, but if "you reform next to your phylactery" that sounds like an awfully good way to end up as a vestige. :smallconfused:


Great, now I need to make a vestige that this happened to.

Personally, I like the idea of sending it into space. Making it impossible to find, and flinging it at near light speeds into space. The only problem is that if it collides with anything it's probably doomed. But there should be a way to fix that.

One Step Two
2010-01-07, 11:08 PM
I've always been a fan of letting the player out-smart themselves.

For example, one little trick I did to my players once: inside a dungeon filled with horrid monsters the likes of which strike fear into any man, sits a heavily warded, heavily trapped room. The room is 100ft x 100ft amd filled with every single trap magical and mundane you can think of. In the very centre of the room is a stone pedastal with a tightly locked, trapped and warded box, inside the box is another locked, trapped and warded box, and so on for about 4 boxes. And inside all of these is a Phylactery.
Sort of.
It's of course a very hard to break, and magically sealed device the size and shape of a phylactery, but not the actual one. The real phylactery is in the middle of the stone pedastal. warded against detection up the wazoo. If someone tried to divine the location of the phylactery and managed to get a look into the room, they'd see the very well guarded fake.


Of course, this then started the precedent that the party should physically destroy dungeons once they had finished them.

Swordgleam
2010-01-08, 12:55 AM
I say disguise it as a simple plain grey stone. Then put it somewhere with a lot of other plain grey stones. If you want to be tricky, put it somewhere highly inaccessable in a room (full of plain grey stones) with a large number of fancy mystical things, like giant gemstones and ornate gold boxes. Put as much magical protections on the room and fake phylacteries as you want. Hopefully nobody clues in that it's one of the many, many stones on the floor.

I like this thought. Why not make it the cornerstone of someone's castle? Either a good-aligned person who the heroes will neither suspect nor want to piss off, or a baddie who's too stupid to find the phylactery but has nasty defenses for their fortress.

Vizzerdrix
2010-01-08, 02:26 AM
You know, playing Hide-the-Phylactery is how several of my characters came to have the lich loved feat. :smallredface: Gigity!

Ravens_cry
2010-01-08, 03:03 AM
You know, playing Hide-the-Phylactery is how several of my characters came to have the lich loved feat. :smallredface: Gigity!
*Looks up feat (http://realmshelps.dandello.net/cgi-bin/feats.pl?Lich_Loved,all)*
*does take*
*stares*
*does double take*
*stares again*
*eyes getting sore*
***
*stares*
Ewww!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:smalleek:

Coidzor
2010-01-08, 03:28 AM
So that's how that works... :smallyuk:

The Tygre
2010-01-08, 03:54 AM
Got love putting the Tarrasque inside your phylactery.

Tanuki Tales
2010-01-08, 11:23 AM
Got love putting the Tarrasque inside your phylactery.

Yup. Infinitely more of a good idea than the other way around.

Narazil
2010-01-08, 11:27 AM
Great, now I need to make a vestige that this happened to.

Personally, I like the idea of sending it into space. Making it impossible to find, and flinging it at near light speeds into space. The only problem is that if it collides with anything it's probably doomed. But there should be a way to fix that.
Give it a repeating contingency (or just the ability) to teleport away if anything is within a certain range? Granted, it might be dangerous if it teleports into a planet or something, but this is depth of space we're talking about.

Thelas
2010-01-08, 11:28 AM
What if you're respawning? Next to the phylactery, it teleports away from you continuously, and don't you have to be near it to respawn (according to some people, at least)?

Narazil
2010-01-08, 11:56 AM
What if you're respawning? Next to the phylactery, it teleports away from you continuously, and don't you have to be near it to respawn (according to some people, at least)?
I doubt you have to be near it all the time. If anything, I think you respawn at the location it's at when you die.
It's just added security - if someone scryes you out when you are respawning, the Phylactery is long gone.

Triaxx
2010-01-08, 12:11 PM
Hey, you've just defeated the lich. What are you going to do now?

Destroy his Phylactery.

Great, remember the merchant prince who sent you here? The one with the six level 27 body guards? And the pet dragon? Saw his daughter? The one guarded by the Rust Golems? Guess who's got the Phylactery. Go on.

D Knight
2010-01-08, 04:26 PM
if you want to "have" fun you could make a magic structure in your fortress that has the stasis. put a great red dragon in it but make one of his scales your phylactery. so if the PC breach all the monsters and traps you have in your fortress and after fight you. they will be wore down and think twice about waking the dragon.
yes you might reform in the field that's when u have a minion come up a secret hall that has a button to turn off/on the field. you might be thinking now that the field is off the dragon will leave or attack you.
you would be correct if you did not make a deal with the dragon in the first place that allows you and it to work together like you pay him 100k to 500k in gold, items, and works of art. he sleeps on it with in the structure.

Tale
2010-01-08, 04:43 PM
I've always wanted to run a Hide-the-Phylactery scheme in reverse. Hide it from the Lich.

I've got an idea for a city in a campaign where a Lich is enslaved as the protector. His Phylactery embedded in the walls and numerous spells in place to prevent him from finding precisely where. So now he must protect the city. His unlife depends on it.

Gentleman Bard
2010-01-08, 05:57 PM
How about a sphere of Annihilation as a philactery?

Mewtarthio
2010-01-08, 06:27 PM
How about a sphere of Annihilation as a philactery?

Your phylactery contains your soul. The Sphere of Annihilation utterly destroys whatever is put into it. Do the math. :smallamused:
Also, you have to make the phylactery yourself, and you can't make a minor artifact unless you're a god.

Sstoopidtallkid
2010-01-09, 01:02 AM
*Looks up feat (http://realmshelps.dandello.net/cgi-bin/feats.pl?Lich_Loved,all)*
*does take*
*stares*
*does double take*
*stares again*
*eyes getting sore*
***
*stares*
Ewww!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:smalleek:Hey, some people like that kind of thing. And what's more romantic than swearing to love someone forever, then ensuring you'll both live until the end of the earth together?

Swordgleam
2010-01-10, 01:22 AM
You know, playing Hide-the-Phylactery is how several of my characters came to have the lich loved feat. :smallredface:

That looks like a pretty good feat. But the description confuses me. Are there no vanilla liches out there? Or can those ones just not bestow powers on their paramours?

Ravens_cry
2010-01-10, 01:40 AM
That looks like a pretty good feat. But the description confuses me. Are there no vanilla liches out there? Or can those ones just not bestow powers on their paramours?
Liches and paramours do not belong in the same paragraph, in relation of one to the other.
Crumbly or gooey, crumbly or gooey?!:smalleek:

Swordgleam
2010-01-10, 02:05 AM
Liches and paramours do not belong in the same paragraph, in relation of one to the other.
Crumbly or gooey, crumbly or gooey?!:smalleek:

Are liches necessarily rotting corpses? I mean, vampires are iconic sex objects, and they're just as dead.

2xMachina
2010-01-10, 02:41 AM
Technically, you can take that feat by having sex with vampires too. They're also undead which is all that is required.

Ravens_cry
2010-01-10, 02:43 AM
Are liches necessarily rotting corpses? I mean, vampires are iconic sex objects, and they're just as dead.
You can reflavour anything as anything, but the SRD explicitly states that,

A lich is a gaunt and skeletal humanoid with withered flesh stretched tight across horribly visible bones. Its eyes have long ago been lost to decay, but bright pinpoints of crimson light burn on in the empty sockets.

PhoenixRivers
2010-01-10, 02:46 AM
You can reflavour anything as anything, but the SRD explicitly states that,

Hmm... Bright pinpoint of light makes me think "ring toss".

Ravens_cry
2010-01-10, 02:52 AM
Hmm... Bright pinpoint of light makes me think "ring toss".
Statement makes me "confused."
Please clarify.:smallconfused:

druid91
2010-01-10, 02:53 AM
create a drop of water put it in the ocean.

PhoenixRivers
2010-01-10, 02:54 AM
Statement makes me "confused."
Please clarify.:smallconfused:

The beautiful thing about ambiguity is that it's ambiguous.

Ravens_cry
2010-01-10, 03:05 AM
The beautiful thing about ambiguity is that it's ambiguous.
The beautiful thing about clarity is that it is the only way to communicate meaningful information to other beings. With due care, ink on a page, warbles and trills of sound, or pixels on a screen, can allow the thoughts of one brain to transfer to another. It's like telepathy!
With due care, that is.:smallsigh:

PhoenixRivers
2010-01-10, 03:13 AM
The beautiful thing about clarity is that it is the only way to communicate meaningful information to other beings. With due care, ink on a page, warbles and trills of sound, or pixels on a screen, can allow the thoughts of one brain to transfer to another. It's like telepathy!
With due care, that is.:smallsigh:

Whereas, with some ambiguity, the message can be transferred to those with the insight to make the correct inferences, and remain mystery to others. There are times when I strive for clarity. This is not one of those times.

The Extinguisher
2010-01-10, 03:16 AM
Are liches necessarily rotting corpses? I mean, vampires are iconic sex objects, and they're just as dead.

Belt of Gentle Repose (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/gentlerepose.htm) anyone?

Ravens_cry
2010-01-10, 03:29 AM
Belt of Gentle Repose (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/gentlerepose.htm) anyone?
Even a fresh corpse is still a corpse. It doesn't breath or have a heartbeat, and blood pools in the funkiest places. It's going to be cold by now as well. Gentle Repose isn't going to make a corpse not a corpse, just not decay. In my view, Mr. or Miss. Lich wouldn't even blink. Very Uncanny Valley.

Whereas, with some ambiguity, the message can be transferred to those with the insight to make the correct inferences, and remain mystery to others. There are times when I strive for clarity. This is not one of those times.

If you were striving to hide information, why did you even reply?

PhoenixRivers
2010-01-10, 03:41 AM
Even a fresh corpse is still a corpse. It doesn't breath or have a heartbeat, and blood pools in the funkiest places. It's going to be cold by now as well. Gentle Repose isn't going to make a corpse not a corpse, just not decay. In my view, Mr. or Miss. Lich wouldn't even blink. Very Uncanny Valley.
Prestidigitation and Silent image for the heartbeat and look. Blood pools are not likely to be an issue for something withered for hundreds of years.

Excellent use of cantrips.


If you were striving to hide information, why did you even reply?
I wasn't striving to hide information. Only to restrict it to those that "get it".

Such messages are often referred to as "inside jokes". If you don't get it, then likely you aren't on the inside.

Which, oddly enough, has some interaction with my original message.

EDIT: More relevant than your question: Once it became apparent that you'd get no further explanation, why did you reply? Perhaps your answer and mine will match.

SparkMandriller
2010-01-10, 03:45 AM
We should all be playing FATAL. There's a spell to fix that whole corpses being unsexy thing.

Ravens_cry
2010-01-10, 03:50 AM
Prestidigitation and Silent image for the heartbeat and look. Blood pools are not likely to be an issue for something withered for hundreds of years.

Excellent use of cantrips.

Why wouldn't they? Gentle repose keeps the body fresh,in a fresh body the blood pools. Also how does a SILENT image add a heart beat? Predigitation will have no effect as a Lich is a creature.



I wasn't striving to hide information. Only to restrict it to those that "get it".

Such messages are often referred to as "inside jokes". If you don't get it, then likely you aren't on the inside.

Which, oddly enough, has some interaction with my original message.

EDIT: More relevant than your question: Once it became apparent that you'd get no further explanation, why did you reply? Perhaps your answer and mine will match.
Curiosity. And I was a little peeved at been led around. While it may sound odd to you, I personally consider it a common courtesy to provide clarification if asked for. My mistake.

PhoenixRivers
2010-01-10, 04:23 AM
Why wouldn't they? Gentle repose keeps the body fresh,in a fresh body the blood pools. Also how does a SILENT image add a heart beat? Predigitation will have no effect as a Lich is a creature.A lich's description is withered. Regardless of what that spell does?

If it's a lich, by SRD, it's withered. Were it not withered, it would be something else.

Gentle Repose keeps a body fresh. Not an animate undead creature.

As for Prestidigitation? Recheck your source. Prestidigitation is called mini-wish for a reason. Minor magical effects, such as the impression of a heartbeat, are not out of line for the spell.


Curiosity. And I was a little peeved at been led around. While it may sound odd to you, I personally consider it a common courtesy to provide clarification if asked for. My mistake.
I didn't lead you around. I told you my intent was to make it ambiguous. I've not deviated from that mindset, nor have I obfuscated it.

If you're peeved at being out of the loop, I'm sorry. But you're really making a much bigger deal out of it than likely it should be.

While yes, clarity is generally a courteous thing to do, it is certainly not discourteous to refuse such explanations. There are several conditions/situations which can render someone unwilling or unable to make things more clear. One applies in this instance. Regardless of how much I sympathize with your lack of understanding (and peeved state), I'm afraid you'll get no further clarification, regardless of how many requests you make, what insinuations you make on my level of common courtesy, or how nicely you phrase it.

Ravens_cry
2010-01-10, 04:27 AM
OK fine. End of conversation.

Kosjsjach
2010-01-10, 04:34 AM
OK fine. End of conversation.

I can't be the only one thinking this: Huzzah!
(Or hooray, yay, whoop, praise be, thank goodness, etc.)

PhoenixRivers
2010-01-10, 04:43 AM
I can't be the only one thinking this: Huzzah!
(Or hooray, yay, whoop, praise be, thank goodness, etc.)

I know I was.

Ravens_cry
2010-01-10, 05:24 AM
Same here. :smallsigh:

Jarrick
2010-01-10, 10:14 AM
Having played a 21st lever Dread Necromancer, I had several thoughts on this. I ended up employing almost all of them through the use of Aumvor's Fragmented Phylactery (FR: Champions of Ruin pg.37), an epic spell which allows a lich to split its phylactery into multiple pieces, all of which must be destroyed to kill the lich. The trick was that I had no access to teleportaion or plane-shifting effects due to my limited spell selection, so I had to keep them near my lair and on the ground/surface of the material plane or at least somewhere I could get out of in a timely manner on foot. These are some of the things I came up with:

-Build a small alcove in a wall of your lair. Put the phylactery inside a lead box. Put the box in the alcove. Erect a permanent gate to some far corner of the negative energy plain in front of the alcove. Scrying doesn't work and targeted detection spells detect through the gate instead of the wall behind it. When you respawn, you simply walk through the backside of the one-way gate and into your home. The benefits of respawning within your own lair and having a healing station when you get home from a sucessful mission are just icing on the cake.

-Shape it like some unnoticeable object in an out of the way corner of wherever. The metal rings holding your flag to the pole, the doornail on your privvy, one brick among hundreds in a wall, etc. the better if you can cover it in lead and enchant it to be undetectable.

-The coin thing.

-Within an opaque vial of potion of some evil spell, preferably one harmful to anyone not undead. Detection reveals an evil aura. Big surprise. Store this in my personal medicine cabinet.

-Given the use of the epic spell mentioned before, hand out phylacteries to your minions for them to hide. If you don't know where your own phylacteries are hidden, you can't be forced to give up the info when the heroes cast "Speak with dead" on your corpse.

-Inside your awakened zombie 10-headed pyrohydra that lives in the nearby volcano. Good luck with that.

-Fake your own death. Magic Jar lets you possess your intelligent undead minions and keep all your spellcasting. While this isn't a method of hiding a phylactery, it makes a nice surprise to pull on adventurers. When they think they've got you, you pop out of the closet and say "Hey guys... (wail of the banshee)"

Sstoopidtallkid
2010-01-10, 11:49 AM
We should all be playing FATAL.There is no situation in which this is an acceptable statement. No, not even then.

elonin
2010-01-10, 01:51 PM
Why would anyone want to be a lich? Having 6 less caster levels than you otherwise could, sign me up. :smallyuk:

Pie Guy
2010-01-10, 02:11 PM
Why would anyone want to be a lich? Having 6 less caster levels than you otherwise could, sign me up. :smallyuk:

Actually, Liches have 4 LA, not 6.

PhoenixRivers
2010-01-10, 02:45 PM
Actually, Liches have 4 LA, not 6.

That still nerfs you out of 9th level spells pre-epic*

*Barring high optimization

elonin
2010-01-10, 03:25 PM
Didn't mean to give bad info, just remembered incorrectly. The sentiment is the same. If I want to give up 4 levels for abilities etc I'd go for mind bender or something like that

flabort
2010-01-10, 04:11 PM
So someone mentioned making another lich, like your best friend in life, your phylactery. then someone mentioned if he's crushed, you can both be permanently killed if someone crushes you before 1d10 days.
Then there's the Aumvor's Fragmented Phylactery mentioned above as well. find 3 other wannabe lich's, and each share a portion of eachother's soul, so all of you have to be crushed withing 1d10 days, or none of you die. or even more lichs, if you have the time. as well, create 30 copper pieces each during the spell, so 120 cp have to be shattered before any of you die, too.

Raiki
2010-01-10, 04:52 PM
Well, what I wound up doing with my Psionic Lich was Genesising myself my own plane, then put a horrible lump of radiation-laden rock [aquired by using temporal acceleration, time stop (this wasn't me, but an opponant), that one epic spell that rips yourself from the future (also said opponant) and a rather unfortunately worded Reality Revision (me, again) to unintentionally vaporize, condense, and rematerialize a 1 mile square portion of the material plane] in the other plane as well. Needless to say, the radiation was strong enough to basically disintigrate anything that wasn't an undead/construct. And on top of that, the phylactery itself was...I think it was called the "Book of the Planes"...or something like that. It was a huge size category book that killed anyone who touched it by overloading their soul with all the knowledge of the Cosmos.

A bit of overkill maybe considering it was an all-evil campaign setting. (War of the gods at the beginning of creation which the evil gods won, leaving Olidamara and the Atropal that used to be Heironeous as the closest things to good gods there were.) But anyway, it sure was fun to think up.

~R~

Swordgleam
2010-01-10, 05:22 PM
Didn't mean to give bad info, just remembered incorrectly. The sentiment is the same. If I want to give up 4 levels for abilities etc I'd go for mind bender or something like that

That might be true if you're outside the game thinking "this character is an adventurer who will eventually die a horrible death." But if you're the character, you're more likely to think, "One day I will give up this life of adventuring. I would like to then live forever, even if that means a few less spells now."

Night Monkey
2010-01-10, 06:22 PM
If it's in your cosmology, put it in the plane of Vacuum. An infinite empty space. Then throw on all the other fancy defences. Vacuum has the advantage of being inhospitable to life without magical defence, but fine for you. Also, it is theoretically impossible for anyone to just stumble across something in infinite empty space, and it's not as if many folks are looking there either.

NEO|Phyte
2010-01-10, 06:38 PM
If it's in your cosmology, put it in the plane of Vacuum. An infinite empty space. Then throw on all the other fancy defences. Vacuum has the advantage of being inhospitable to life without magical defence, but fine for you. Also, it is theoretically impossible for anyone to just stumble across something in infinite empty space, and it's not as if many folks are looking there either.

Has the slight problem of breathers being able to negate all the inhospitibleness with 9000gp worth of bling (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#necklaceofAdaptation), whereas the Negative or Positive energy planes are harder to compensate for, if less empty.

Night Monkey
2010-01-10, 07:46 PM
Nevertheless, both your naked, unbuffed, regenerated form and the phylactery itself are immune to the effects of the plane.

Magnor Criol
2010-01-10, 07:56 PM
1) Create a vault in your lair that's warded, protected by all manner of traps and minions, and such - essentially, just the sort of place adventurers would think to look if they're looking for something you're protecting.

B) Make a lot of red herrings - fill said vault with a multitude of innocuous small objects. Boxes, lockets, necklaces, vases, tinkertoys, amulets, lava lamps, statues, bookends, and other miscellany. Slather 'em all with Nystul's Magic Aura. Enshrine some of them on pedastals, throw a few defensive spells on others, etc. Use Dominated / follower spellcasters to make this work go faster.

III) The PCs will fight their way into the expecting your phylactery. They'll spend time sifting the herrings to try and discover which is the phylactery. They'll either be fooled into thinking one of them is the real deal and fry it; get frustrated and just blast the room to get them all; or methodically work through them all and discover they're all fakes.

Four) If they think they destroyed the phylactery, great; they'll march off and be ripe for the picking later. Even if they weren't fooled, if you placed enough herrings in the vault, they'll spend so much time that some well-planned trap you set in place can go off; perhaps a timed, self-sealing door with a long timer closes them in the vault, or your minions are instructed to swarm the room after a set amount of time, or the whole place slowly fills with gas, slowly enough so they don't notice. Your call, go with what your gut tells you.

As for your real phylactery, use one of the many fine suggestions. I like the coin one for high odds against finding it.

Jarrick
2010-01-10, 08:11 PM
Didn't mean to give bad info, just remembered incorrectly. The sentiment is the same. If I want to give up 4 levels for abilities etc I'd go for mind bender or something like that

And then when the terrasque eats you, what do you have to show for it? :smallwink:

RS14
2010-01-10, 09:21 PM
Didn't mean to give bad info, just remembered incorrectly. The sentiment is the same. If I want to give up 4 levels for abilities etc I'd go for mind bender or something like that

Giving up present power for future power. Sure, you may be behind your peers now, but 10,000 years on they will have died of old age, beyond the reach of resurrection, and you'll have so many levels you'll be dipping into commoner for some variety.

That's the plan, anyway. The abundance of sub-epic liches dying to adventurers suggests otherwise. :smallwink:

Foryn Gilnith
2010-01-10, 09:28 PM
It's an unfortunate consequence of the metagame Level Adjustment rules, and is glossed over for the same reason Profession is glossed over. Necropolitan is available for the enlightened caster.

elonin
2010-01-10, 09:59 PM
Giving up present power for future power. Sure, you may be behind your peers now, but 10,000 years on they will have died of old age, beyond the reach of resurrection, and you'll have so many levels you'll be dipping into commoner for some variety.

That's the plan, anyway. The abundance of sub-epic liches dying to adventurers suggests otherwise. :smallwink:

If I thought I was about to die then I'd probably go through the process of becoming a lich. Then again ethics and morality might stop that or else there would be quite a few more (demi)liches out there.

This conversation could also run the way of how do you safe guard the main spell book. Cause for all the talk of having a main book and a traveling book the wizards I've played have been cash strapped enough to have to resort to making their own wondrous items and couldn't afford to keep a spare copy of each spell. For example one of my dms had us fighting mostly clerics thus no spell books to capture. I just about always had to pay for full cost of scrolls except for the free research ones.

2xMachina
2010-01-10, 10:29 PM
Genesis a limited magic (teleportation only) negative energy plane. No divination for you. Have herrings too. So, you've to load up and take them out before you can examine them.

Make enough (and scattered) that they need many days to destroy them all (would also need to teleport/transport them out, cause you can only use teleportation in this plane. Have fun trying to teleport lots of items). Negative energy would also kill them. Very good chance they can't destroy it in 1d10 days.

If you respawn there in front of them, the only thing they can do to you is try to get you out of the plane (just teleportation subtype works). Just resist long enough that they die from negative energy. Problem if they use undead too though.

BTW, you don't lose class lvls by becoming lich right? You can go lvl 21 wizard, then make a phylactery. Exp for a lvl 21 epic wizard, but you're a ECL 25 lich. Sure, no lvling for a long time, but you're already epic NOW.

D Knight
2010-01-11, 04:37 PM
if you are worried about losing your main spell book. just enchant it to teleport back to a safe spot that only you know where it is.

Vizzerdrix
2010-01-11, 04:44 PM
Hmm... I wonder if you'd keep body mods as a lich when you respawn, like ear piercings ant tats. If you keep tats, use yourself as a spellbook.

LibraryOgre
2010-01-11, 05:00 PM
Hmm... I wonder if you'd keep body mods as a lich when you respawn, like ear piercings ant tats. If you keep tats, use yourself as a spellbook.

Forget tats. Real bad-asses carve their spellbooks into their bones.

Vizzerdrix
2010-01-11, 05:05 PM
Forget tats. Real bad-asses carve their spellbooks into their bones.

.....


I, I think I may love you for this idea :smalleek:


SQUEEEEEE! Mah Lich is hardcore!

appending_doom
2010-01-11, 06:23 PM
Complete Arcane does, in fact, have rules for using bones as spellbooks.

A fun way to abuse these rules is the fact that a "finger bone" of a medium sized creature counts as 1 page of a spellbook. The human hand has 27 bones in it. The human foot has 26. Thus, your hands and feet can count as one whole spell book all on their own.

Volos
2010-01-11, 06:23 PM
Take Quickdraw Feat
Quickdraw the Material Plane
Make The Material Plane (being that you have it now) your Phylactery
Sheath the Material Plane
Fun

Dr Bwaa
2010-01-11, 06:33 PM
Hey, some people like that kind of thing. And what's more romantic than swearing to love someone forever, then ensuring you'll both live until the end of the earth together?

Not having really horrid venereal diseases from sex with something (un)dead. This can happen. Do not let it happen to you!

On another topic, Dread Necromancer is a perfectly reasonable way to get 9th-level spells pre-epic and still get the Lich mod.

On the original topic-- make your phylactery out of an advanced, buffed Rust Monster and set him loose in the desert. Maybe make it a rust monster zombie (or something, so long as it keeps its important ability) so it never dies. Good to go. :smalltongue: I know this isn't anything like foolproof, but I do find it funny.

Someone mentioned a Phylactery Behind the Gate trick. Kudos to that one!

Swordgleam
2010-01-11, 06:42 PM
I thought of another good one. More good from a DM perspective than a lich perspective, but not bad.

Replace a sacred relic of the setting's major religion with your phylactery. Then the players not only have to figure that out and find it, they have to find the real one, replace the fake one, and convince any relevant authority figures that it's necessary to do so.

Vulaas
2010-01-11, 10:52 PM
Have a funeral held for yourself. You aren't becoming undead to make new friends, so you can make it appear that you no longer exist. Make nice with the local church of whatever death god your setting has. Make sure you'll have a tomb, mausoleum, or a coffin. From this, make a permanent Mordenkeinen's Mansion (If possible, I am AFB so can't check) with the entrance residing within your place of rest, somewhere small they'll need Gaseous Form to get to. Possibly put up an (expensive) permanent Prismatic Wall over the entrance. Encase the phylactary in lead, and then go into the mansion and put it there. From there I'm sure you can put all sorts of nastiness in your hidden lair that wouldn't affect you. Maybe put Explosive runes everywhere, a contingent Forceward around it, and an area Dispel Magic trap at minimum caster level. The actual defenses beyond the hiding place are up to you. Just make sure you can survive them and that you can sustain them.

Ravens_cry
2010-01-11, 11:03 PM
Forget tats. Real bad-asses carve their spellbooks into their bones.
Or get Toto Santos to do it.:xykon:
Grim Fandango

Swordgleam
2010-01-11, 11:26 PM
Make sure you'll have a tomb, mausoleum, or a coffin.

I dunno about this. It's classy, but it's also classic. It's certainly one of the first places I'd look for someone's phylactery.

taltamir
2010-01-11, 11:46 PM
make a copper coin or a single grain of sand your phylactery. then enchant it to be undetectable (2000gp), then enchant it to be an intelligent item with the special purpose of serving your purposes (which means, not getting killed, and not being near anyone when you regenerate).
make sure you give it the ability to teleport. Forget a single copper coin in a pile somewhere, its a single copper coing that can teleport anywhere it wants...

Oh, give it the ability to change its size and the ability to have some minor illusion... so it can change its appearance to look like any other type of coin most commonly used in the country it is hiding in.

btw... if it is the princess's rib, why does she need to die to destroy? a rib is a non critical organ.

Swordgleam
2010-01-12, 12:55 AM
btw... if it is the princess's rib, why does she need to die to destroy? a rib is a non critical organ.

Maybe we should also inscribe some exploding runes on the other ribs (see the skeleton nuke thread) so that if they mess with the wrong one, everyone goes boom.

taltamir
2010-01-12, 12:58 AM
Maybe we should also inscribe some exploding runes on the other ribs (see the skeleton nuke thread) so that if they mess with the wrong one, everyone goes boom.

problem is, how will they know its full of exploding runes, and exploding runes also damage the object itself... so all it achieves is the killing of the princess and surgeon while still destroying the phylactery

also, if anyone ever hits her with dispel magic...
wizard: I swear! my lord I have no idea why your daughter exploded, i only cast dispel magic on her, not something harmful!

Swordgleam
2010-01-12, 09:58 AM
also, if anyone ever hits her with dispel magic...
wizard: I swear! my lord I have no idea why your daughter exploded, i only cast dispel magic on her, not something harmful!

You know, that just seems like a good thing to do in general as an evil character. Inscribe explosive runes on your enemies' bones (somehow) then cast some sort of curse on them.

Lysander
2010-01-12, 10:48 AM
Why not protect your phylactery with yourself?

Step 1: Build a secret fortress with a wizard's lab and a library you wouldn't mind spending a long time in.

Step 2: Leave your phylactery inside. Go away without looking back.

Step 3: 10 years later travel back in time one decade with Teleport Through Time. Guard your past self's phylactery.

Step 4: After ten years of guarding the phylactery you're back at the present. Leave the fortress. Go about your normal adventuring for ten years. Leave the phylactery inside.

Step 5: Repeat steps 3-4 forever.

So you live every decade twice, but what do you care. You're immortal.

The major downside of Teleport Through Time is that if you ever encounter yourself you both go crazy and try to kill each other. But if you're from the future you know exactly if and when you die. So just save the date and leave the room with the phylactery before your past self regenerates.

Eldariel
2010-01-12, 11:27 AM
Why not protect your phylactery with yourself?

Step 1: Build a secret fortress with a wizard's lab and a library you wouldn't mind spending a long time in.

Step 2: Leave your phylactery inside. Go away without looking back.

Step 3: 10 years later travel back in time one decade with Teleport Through Time. Guard your past self's phylactery.

Step 4: After ten years of guarding the phylactery you're back at the present. Leave the fortress. Go about your normal adventuring for ten years. Leave the phylactery inside.

Step 5: Repeat steps 3-4 forever.

So you live every decade twice, but what do you care. You're immortal.

The major downside of Teleport Through Time is that if you ever encounter yourself you both go crazy and try to kill each other. But if you're from the future you know exactly if and when you die. So just save the date and leave the room with the phylactery before your past self regenerates.

That only functions with type A time travel though; pretty big "If" since I don't think any official source has ever commented, how time travel works in standard D&D cosmology.

Lycanthromancer
2010-01-12, 02:56 PM
While most of the ideas here are good, many of them are illegal by RAW.

From Libris Mortis:


As a magical item PaO cannot affect a phylactery.Dispel magic turns it into a nonmagical item temporarily, which means you can indeed cast polymorph any object onto it.

Also, take your phylactery and attach it to your fellow lich's body as a graft, or possibly just sovereign glued to the inside of his chest cavity.

...just make sure he's a true-blue friend beforehand. And, for preference, a metamind abusing the timeless body/temporal reiteration trick to make himself virtually invincible.

Then again, I suppose using polymorph any object/animate object on it, followed by a few dozen (and well-hidden) clones and astral projection would be a good way to protect it. Turn it into something nobody would want to destroy, either good or evil. Like a bisexual nymph that can cast alter self and summon sex partner at will.

Meh. Just make it a (very cute) Small-sized Lernaen half-construct tarrasque, or something else virtually indestructible.

Short Stuff
2010-01-12, 04:34 PM
1. Make your phylactery a 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle.
2. Take the jigsaw apart and hide a few of the pieces around your impenetrable dungeon fortress, preferably under the fridge or down the back of the sofa.
3. Place the remaining pieces in a dusty old box, which can then be hidden at the back of the games cupboard or given away at an undead garage sale.

I know this is probably not allowed by the RAW, but I feel it is an interesting concept.

taltamir
2010-01-12, 08:01 PM
1. Make your phylactery a 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle.
2. Take the jigsaw apart and hide a few of the pieces around your impenetrable dungeon fortress, preferably under the fridge or down the back of the sofa.
3. Place the remaining pieces in a dusty old box, which can then be hidden at the back of the games cupboard or given away at an undead garage sale.

I know this is probably not allowed by the RAW, but I feel it is an interesting concept.

well... is taking it apart "destroying" it? what if you find one of the pieces and vaporize it?
if you can get away with having literally 1000 seperate phylacteries like that... make 1000 copper coings + sand grains + etc and hide them across creation.

Swordgleam
2010-01-12, 08:06 PM
1. Make your phylactery a 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle.
2. Take the jigsaw apart and hide a few of the pieces around your impenetrable dungeon fortress, preferably under the fridge or down the back of the sofa.
3. Place the remaining pieces in a dusty old box, which can then be hidden at the back of the games cupboard or given away at an undead garage sale.

I know this is probably not allowed by the RAW, but I feel it is an interesting concept.

Be interesting if that set-up meant you couldn't respawn until it was reassembled. Imagine how surprised the eventual puzzle assemblers will be!

2xMachina
2010-01-13, 12:34 AM
Heh, if phylacteries work even when split up. Or very tiny items.

Make a dust particle as your phylactery. And split it to it's constituent sub-atomic particle (or the sub-atomic particle in the first place).

Congratulations. Your phylactery is now indestructible except for anti-matter.

The puzzle idea seems fun. You could distribute it (except 1 piece, with contingent teleport to the rest when you're destroyed), and spread out a rumor that completing the puzzle gives them a wish in 1d10+1 days after. Now, you can either summon your resident effreti, or just kill them.

Adventurers must now track down the puzzle.

Caen'ir
2010-01-13, 12:43 PM
Man, this thread has me wanting to make up liches. >_> I love this thread. :smallbiggrin:

unre9istered
2010-01-13, 01:17 PM
Dispel magic turns it into a nonmagical item temporarily, which means you can indeed cast polymorph any object onto it.



By that logic if you polymorphed into an animal, had Animal Growth cast on you and permanenced and then ended the polymorph effect ended you'd still get the bonuses from Animal Growth. You wouldn't though as you are not a legal target for the spell. When the dispel magic wore off one of two things would happen: the object would revert to its original form being not a viable target for PaO, or the phylactery is considered destroyed given that it is no longer a tiny object with 20 hardness and 40hp as RAW demands it to be.

JoshuaZ
2010-01-13, 05:55 PM
You know, when I told my girlfriend (who is a big fan of HP and didn't know what a Liche was) about Liches and phylacteries, she made the same comment.

The whole sticking your soul/life-force into a hidden object is quite old actually much older than either D&D or Harry Potter. For example, there's a Russian folktale about , Koschei the Deathless, put soul placed a needle. The needle is inside an egg, inside a duck, which is inside a rabbit, chest buried deep in a hole in a hidden, inaccessible magical island.

There's a Welsh version also which got modified to be used by a minor villain in Loyd Alexander's Prydain Chronicles. And that was written a bit before D&D.

At some level, even the One Ring is a bit in this category in that Sauron can't die until it is destroyed.


Well, Here's Mine. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=121334) The short version is that you gather a whole bunch of ageless and fanatical worshipers/mind slaves, use Microcosm to link all their minds together into a collective hallucination, and use Dream Walk to just go there. Why settle for Genesis?

I don't know if this is doable. Dream Walk takes you into a dream, not a hallucinatory experience (you aren't asleep during Microcosm). But this probably far closer to legal than some of the other ideas on this thread. And pretty kickass. And having now read that entire linked to plan, the whole thing is even neater. The whole destroying a thousand years of time thing isn't necessarily helpful (I don't think that in order to become a lich you need to do a general act of unspeakable evil. More that the required process involves some process of unspeakable evil).



I think it might be fun to run a campaign where the players are all liches, and hide phylacteries at character creation.

I love that idea.

taltamir
2010-01-13, 08:38 PM
I always figured that the "unspeakable evil" was not that you must commit any act of unspeakable evil before being allowed to become a lich, but that there is a specific unspeakably evil act that occurs as part of the ceremony.
EX: as a material component to casting the lichdom spell you need freshly carved still beating hearts of infants

flabort
2010-01-13, 08:44 PM
Suddenly I'm glad I'm not an infant...
Actually, just more glad...

JoshuaZ
2010-01-13, 08:47 PM
I always figured that the "unspeakable evil" was not that you must commit any act of unspeakable evil before being allowed to become a lich, but that there is a specific unspeakably evil act that occurs as part of the ceremony.
EX: as a material component to casting the lichdom spell you need freshly carved still beating hearts of infants

So that whole destroying a thousand years of the universe was what? Just for fun?

taltamir
2010-01-13, 08:50 PM
So that whole destroying a thousand years of the universe was what? Just for fun?

More of a misinterpretation of the RAI as I perceive the RAI.
The thing is, the book never actually specifies what that evil is, only that there is some unspeakable evil act. It is left up to the DM to say exactly what that is (if they even want to instead of just leaving it vague)...
What I am saying is that it seems to me like it supposed to be consistent. If it takes destroying 1000 years of the universe to become a lich, then every lich in the world has had to destroy 1000 years of the universe; no exceptions.

but actually, yea it was pretty much just for fun... if you read the relevant thread, there is quite a bit of unnecessary "fun stuff" as part of the plan.... a lot of "go to town, have fun with it type of tidbits. its a pretty awesome plan IMAO

Fishy
2010-01-13, 08:53 PM
Well... I've heard it both ways, and it makes it more individual if you get to pick your own unspeakable evil. The point is that you're ritualistically demonstrating that you're willing to do *anything* for power.

But hey. There's got to be something you can do with a collapsed universe as a material component. Maybe just make yourself a nice T-shirt.

Kelb_Panthera
2010-01-13, 08:58 PM
How does hiding its Magical Aura and Alignment hide it from the dozens of other Divination spells?

It doesn't exactly hide from them, but most other divinations aren't specific enough to tell you exactly what you're looking for. Scrying gives you a magical sensor several feet away, the sensor sees the poor farmer that has the phylactery/coin. The party interrogates the farmer, the phylactery thinks, "crap these guys are after me," and teleports itself to a random street corner it's seen where it is promptly picked up by someone who thinks it's a lucky day because he just found some money lying on the ground. If the phylactery doesn't look like a phylactery it can be really hard to find even if divinations can get you pretty close.

This can't be too bad an idea in anycase because taltamir had the same idea a page back.

Edit: I just realized this can lead to some social problems for the PC's who're now going around shaking people down trying to find the phylactery that they can't quite identify :smalltongue:

taltamir
2010-01-13, 09:00 PM
Well... I've heard it both ways, and it makes it more individual if you get to pick your own unspeakable evil. The point is that you're ritualistically demonstrating that you're willing to do *anything* for power.

But hey. There's got to be something you can do with a collapsed universe as a material component. Maybe just make yourself a nice T-shirt.

well, if it is any individual "unspeakable evil" then it must be about permission... so the question is, whose "permission" are you asking and can you get around it? (aka, dominate the pit fiend to force him to grant you his essence for the transformation without committing evil, do a non evil but vital service for vecna, etc)

Archpaladin Zousha
2010-01-13, 09:12 PM
Did I respond to this one? In case I didn't, I'd just hide my phylactery in the foundation of my stronghold. Kind of hard to win if you've got to tunnel through masonry and bedrock to get to the thing.

taltamir
2010-01-13, 09:24 PM
Did I respond to this one? In case I didn't, I'd just hide my phylactery in the foundation of my stronghold. Kind of hard to win if you've got to tunnel through masonry and bedrock to get to the thing.

assuming you go ahead and put enchantments that prevent divining its location, why not just dig a few miles into the earth at a totally random spot, and bury it there amidst the rock?

amaranth69
2010-01-13, 09:31 PM
Well... I've heard it both ways, and it makes it more individual if you get to pick your own unspeakable evil. The point is that you're ritualistically demonstrating that you're willing to do *anything* for power.

But hey. There's got to be something you can do with a collapsed universe as a material component. Maybe just make yourself a nice T-shirt.

"I collapsed a universe and all I got was this lousy T-shirt" lmao

RS14
2010-01-13, 09:42 PM
Did I respond to this one? In case I didn't, I'd just hide my phylactery in the foundation of my stronghold. Kind of hard to win if you've got to tunnel through masonry and bedrock to get to the thing.

SNA III: Thoqqua.

Lycanthromancer
2010-01-13, 09:43 PM
If your particular Material Plane has some sort of foundation, such as a Crystalline Heart of the World or Yggdrasil Tree, find a way to either turn it into your phylactery, or travel back in time (maybe hitching a ride with the mind flayers as they slingshot the world into the sun) and arrange events in such a way that your phylactery can't be destroyed without causing the entire world to collapse.

You might also consider finding a greater artifact that is prone to phylacteronomy and storing your soul in it. Even better if it's a sentient artifact and is willing to protect your soul if you protect it from its one-and-only means of destruction.

Cast magic jar, swap your soul into a worm that walks, and then turn it into a half-golem. Take each worm in the thing, put it in a jar (doesn't need to eat drink or breathe) and hide it in a random place somewhere among the planes.

LibraryOgre
2010-01-13, 09:49 PM
I will open a small account with the First National Bank, and take the opportunity to rent a safe deposit box. Every sixty years, I will send a dominated minion to retrieve the phylactery, and bring me the phylactery. Another will take it to a separate bank, open another account, and rent another safe deposit box.

Each time the box is brought to me, I will cast another round of nondetection + permanency and magic aura (no aura) + permanency.

2xMachina
2010-01-14, 12:20 AM
Wait, so Sauron was a lich who's phylactery is also his item familiar? (Can't die while ring survives. Also give him extra power while he has it.)

flabort
2010-01-14, 09:50 PM
Well, it took him more than just 1d10 days to regenerate, and by the time he was destroyed, he'd only regenerated in the form of a massive EYE, but that about sums it up.

Probably the reason it took so long though, is because his 1 ring also had the power to control the 9, the 5, and the 3... and that those turned the wearers of the 5 into ring-wraiths. the proccess that enabled that may have caused a delay in his regeneration period (12d100+3650 days rather than 1d10), and prevented it from regenerating his full strength at once, creating a temporary physical manifestaion of what did survive...

taltamir
2010-01-15, 03:11 PM
Wait, so Sauron was a lich who's phylactery is also his item familiar? (Can't die while ring survives. Also give him extra power while he has it.)

1. it was his item familiar (it grants him powers while he wears it)
2. it was his phylactery
3. it was an artifact (only one specific way of destroying it)
4. it was a ring of invisibility
5. it was paired with a set of other rings which grants "domination" effects over the wearers of the other rings (was it 11 other rings?)

hamishspence
2010-01-15, 04:03 PM
Well, it took him more than just 1d10 days to regenerate, and by the time he was destroyed, he'd only regenerated in the form of a massive EYE, but that about sums it up.


More a movie thing than a book thing- the book strongly implies he had a form, that included fingers and one missing.

Though it was Gollum that said this.

Jerthanis
2010-01-15, 04:18 PM
When I was a child, I read a book series called "The Prydain Chronicles", and in my favorite of the five books, Taran Wanderer, the main character happens upon an Enchanter who has stolen one of the precious gems from the Fair Folk and stole its magic. He placed his life into his little finger and cut it off, making his body immortal. Taran overcame this enemy by breaking the finger, which killed the enchanter.

Years later, when I started playing D&D and read about the Lich, I just said to myself "Oh, like Morda from those books", and ever since I've never been able to think of a better place to hide a phylactery than where Morda did.

He placed the finger in a tiny box and placed it in the hollow of a tree within his domain, under a bird's nest. The chances of anyone discovering it in such an inconspicuous location would be slim, and it would be unlikely to be disturbed by the birds on top of it, or displaced by a digging mole as it would if buried. It wasn't likely to be cut down by loggers, as it was within the Lich's domain, and he could drive the loggers out. The only issue is that for the truly immortal, a tree with a 500 year lifespan is still a temporary solution.

Jarrick
2010-01-15, 05:38 PM
Hmm... I wonder if you'd keep body mods as a lich when you respawn, like ear piercings ant tats. If you keep tats, use yourself as a spellbook.

This reminds me. Our group has ruled that once a character obtains a graft, that graft becomes a part of the character's body. This means a lich gets to keep the graft when he respawns, or a living char when he is ressurected. My char had many undead grafts, including a few custom ones, to give him some of the best qualities of the undead in an attempt to make himself the ultimate undead creature. I miss that char. :smallfrown:

Swordgleam
2010-01-15, 06:23 PM
This reminds me. Our group has ruled that once a character obtains a graft, that graft becomes a part of the character's body. This means a lich gets to keep the graft when he respawns, or a living char when he is ressurected. My char had many undead grafts, including a few custom ones, to give him some of the best qualities of the undead in an attempt to make himself the ultimate undead creature. I miss that char. :smallfrown:

Reminds me of Jacob from Dominic Deegan.

Jarrick
2010-01-15, 07:10 PM
Reminds me of Jacob from Dominic Deegan.

::Looks up:: o_0; Wow, they even look alike... ::Disappears for a month reading 8 years worth of this webcomic::

Lysander
2010-01-15, 09:53 PM
More a movie thing than a book thing- the book strongly implies he had a form, that included fingers and one missing.

Though it was Gollum that said this.

Yeah, the "eye" of sauron was partially metaphorical. He had some sort of watch system on his tower, but he had a physical body that you never see in person. I always thought the big cartoon eye was a bit silly.

elonin
2010-01-15, 10:34 PM
Yeah, the "eye" of sauron was partially metaphorical. He had some sort of watch system on his tower, but he had a physical body that you never see in person. I always thought the big cartoon eye was a bit silly.

Not quite so much. In the books there are plenty of references to Sauron as the lidless eye. Going straight to the text he could have assumed a non humanoid form with great effort. He clearly lost the ability to take humanoid form at the battle that ended the last alliance between elves and men.

Tanuki Tales
2010-01-16, 06:42 AM
Well, it took him more than just 1d10 days to regenerate, and by the time he was destroyed, he'd only regenerated in the form of a massive EYE, but that about sums it up.

Probably the reason it took so long though, is because his 1 ring also had the power to control the 9, the 7, and the 3... and that those turned the wearers of the 9 into ring-wraiths. the proccess that enabled that may have caused a delay in his regeneration period (12d100+3650 days rather than 1d10), and prevented it from regenerating his full strength at once, creating a temporary physical manifestaion of what did survive...

Fixed for you.

Kelb_Panthera
2010-01-16, 11:42 AM
Anybody else got any interesting ideas? This thread is fun. :biggrin:

D Knight
2010-01-16, 03:38 PM
you could hide it in plain sight like it your throne from which he controls his vast undead army. how may players would thing to look for it in the same room as they defeated him?

Shademan
2010-01-16, 04:28 PM
a simple copper coin. then use some nifty means of concealing the magic then buying a potato for it.
Those pesky adventurers will never find it!

OH! or I can give that pesy paladin's daughter a kidney disease then offer my kidney THEN make that kidney my phylactery! MUAHAHAHA!

Brendan
2010-01-16, 04:57 PM
I would make it a reseting trap of quickened randomized greater teleport/plane shift put on a piece of dust that is immune to divinations.
whenever movement occurs of any sort around it or it could sustain damage if it did not have my large amount of protections, it teleports somewhere else that has no movement within one mile. it teleports constantly and unpredictably. any adventurer, incorporeal or not would trigger it, and it is out of range of all spells. have it have an invisible shield that surrounds it by six feet and has an illusion that makes it look like it is just part of the landscape. when I regenerate, it doesn't matter where it is and I can just teleport back when I finish.

Kelb_Panthera
2010-01-16, 06:06 PM
I got one. Permanent Invisibility. Custom item rules set up so that its intelligent and casts dimension door to teleport to a random location within LoS each round. Now nobody knows where it is, and most divinations that would let you see it don't bypass invisibility. Now nobody knows where it is. :smalltongue:

Lysander
2010-01-16, 06:25 PM
Nobody's suggested this yet, probably because its too obvious. It's basically what wotc came up with when they thought about how epic liches would hide their phylactery or other object.


Create Living Vault (Ritual)
Conjuration (Creation)
Spellcraft DC: 58
Components: V, S, XP, Ritual
Casting Time: 100 days, 11 minutes
Range: 0 ft.
Effect: One living vault, 50 ft. by 50 ft. by 10 ft.
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: None
To Develop: 540,000 gp; 11 days; 21,600 XP. Seeds: animate (DC 25) large chunk of stone, fortify (DC 27). Factors: allow vault to “grow” to proper size in 4d4 days (ad hoc +20 DC), increase HD of object by 92 (+184 DC), grant magical immunity (ad hoc +105 DC), increase damage reduction to 30 (+29 DC) and to /+7 (+18 DC), make permanent (×5 DC). Mitigating factors: increase casting time by 10 minutes (-20 DC), increase casting time by 100 days (- 200 DC), 16d6 backlash (-16 DC), seven additional casters contributing one epic spell slot (-133 DC), four additional casters contributing one 2nd-level spell slot (- 12 DC), one additional caster contributing one 1st-level spell slot (-1 DC), burn 20,000 XP per epic caster (- 1,600 DC).

The character creates a construct known as a living vault to protect and hide his or her treasures. Upon completion, the vault initially measures only 5 feet on a side, but it gradually increases to its proper size over the following 4d4 days. The vault is attuned to the character, allowing him or her alone entrance and egress in a manner similar to a dimension door spell. When the character desires the vault to hide itself, he or she gives it a simple command. To summon the vault, the character may cast a sending spell or arrange some other manner to contact it.
XP Cost

20,000 XP.

CTLC
2010-01-16, 10:05 PM
put it anywhere on a nice plane.

cast this : http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Ending_(3.5e_Epic_Spell)

laugh, after! going to a different plane

D Knight
2010-01-16, 11:54 PM
put it anywhere on a nice plane.

cast this : http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Ending_(3.5e_Epic_Spell)

laugh, after! going to a different plane

if you had a way to control them you could bulid a bace on the moon in no time flat or anywhere eles you wanted a base.

Fishy
2010-01-17, 05:16 AM
Here's a thought: what if you houseruled that the power of the Phylactery couldn't cross planar boundaries? The entire point of the thing is to keep your soul out of Hell, after all.

If you die in the Shadow plane, you stay dead until someone picks up your Phylactery and brings it to the Shadow plane for 1d10 days- similar to the way it works when your Phylactery gets caught in an antimagic field.

So no Genesis, no tomfoolery with extraplanar spaces, and if you die in Canada, you die for real. Does that keep people honest or make things unfun?

Swordgleam
2010-01-17, 03:40 PM
Depends on how common plane-hopping is where you are. If people travel across planar boundaries rarely, then it keeps things honest. If anyone worth their epic salt regularly goes jaunting around the planes, it screws over liches who now have to keep their phylactery on them or it's worse than useless.

What might be fun is to have some kind of option where you/your phylactery gets a benefit, but in exchange for the restriction that your phylactery has to be on the plane of your death for you to respawn.

Then you can have the plot point of the uber-powerful lich who never seems to leave a certain plane - is he tied to it because he made the bargain, or is he trying to fool everyone? Or, the lich who you know has the restriction in place - quick, he's on the Plane of Fire today, get him before he leaves!