Destroying a Lich's soul/life-force

[Jowgen]

I've been looking up on Lich-related talk, and there are dozens of ingenious solutions to the "where do I keep my damn phylactery?" problem. Some of said solutions are somewhat easily accessible to liches all over, and while they can't generally expected to match the genius of the GitP board, a few of them might.

Now I personally prefer monsters that I kill to stay dead, so I'm looking for means to circumvent the phylactery by capturing/destroying the Lich's soul/life energy when I kill said Lich, as to prevent him returning to his hidey-hole and reforming.

A thinaun (CW) weapon might do for the purposes of trapping the soul, but then there is the issue of what to do with it, as I certainly don't want 1 decorative 10000 gp weapon per Lich soul I capture. I certainly don't want to use it to get 10 exp knocked off a magic item crafting thing. Selling it somehow might work, if I can get it transferred to a different receptable (200 gp/soul) or even into Larval Form (250 gp/soul); but that seems like it would require trap the soul or soul bind, which are 8th and 9th level spells respectively. Destroying the soul upon capturing it seems like it might be doable, but I'm not too fond of the whole "inherently evil" thing.

So, any ideas anyone? :smallsmile:

[Chronos]

IIRC, there's a prestige class somewhere that does just this: Undead they slay stay dead, no lich-phylactery-returns, no ghost-haunting, no vampire-misting-back-to-coffin, nothing.

It's probably in the Book of Bad Latin-- Let me see if I can dig it up.

[Chronos]

OK, turns out it's Complete Warrior. The class is Hunter of the Dead, and they get the ability at 5th level.

[holywhippet]

Other than vampires I'm not sure what else that class feature is meant for since just about any other type of undead you can easily make a replacement for with the right spell.

There is a catch though, I think. It only stops someone from coming back as an undead. You could resurrect someone as a living being instead. I've also pondered if a lich could prepare and preserve a clone so that if their phylactory is destroyed they come back immediately in the flesh.

[Jowgen]

Other than vampires I'm not sure what else that class feature is meant for since just about any other type of undead you can easily make a replacement for with the right spell.

There is a catch though, I think. It only stops someone from coming back as an undead. You could resurrect someone as a living being instead. I've also pondered if a lich could prepare and preserve a clone so that if their phylactory is destroyed they come back immediately in the flesh.

Hence why I'm looking for ways to root out the problem right at the root, if the soul is trapped or destroyed, it ain't coming back this side of a miracle.

I've considered the possible benefit of getting a barrel of water from the River Styx and letting the Thinaun weapon with the lich inside soak in there for a few hours. According to FCII, "A soul shell sprayed with or immersed in the waters of the Styx is afflicted with permanent amnesia (no saving throw)", so dumping the weapon with the soul in there should arguably wipe the Lich's memory completely and permanently; but I don't think it would take away its ability to reform.

[OldTrees1]

The trick to defeating a recurring enemy is to prevent the means of recursion. Liches recur when slain. So don't defeat liches by slaying them. Consider the case of "Lich buried in cement".

[holywhippet]

The trick to defeating a recurring enemy is to prevent the means of recursion. Liches recur when slain. So don't defeat liches by slaying them. Consider the case of "Lich buried in cement".

Does a lich that was a wizard in life still need to study their spell book? For a sorcerer or cleric type lich they might be able to just wait until they get their spells back for the day then use a still and silent spell to get out of the cement.

Would stone to flesh work on a lich? I'm thinking no just because it is an undead, but the description says they do still have flesh on their body.

[OldTrees1]

Does a lich that was a wizard in life still need to study their spell book? For a sorcerer or cleric type lich they might be able to just wait until they get their spells back for the day then use a still and silent spell to get out of the cement.

Would stone to flesh work on a lich? I'm thinking no just because it is an undead, but the description says they do still have flesh on their body.

Add a Dead Magic zone/Antimagic Field for the liches that know Silent Dimension Door.
Use Energy Transformation Field instead against Initiates of Mystra.

[Shalist]

*'Flesh to stone' is no go, because undead are 'immune to things requiring fort saves unless they also affect objects,' or some such, which kinda annoys me as well. Its worth noting that neither a medusa's gaze or a gorgon's breath say "creatures only," though...

*Regarding petrification, 'Spark of Life' (Clr3, SC pg 196) is also worth a mention:
"...It loses its immunity to effects that require a Fortitude save, as well as its invulnerability to poison, sleep effects, paralysis, stunning, disease, and death effects..."

*A thinaun shuriken is only 207g (improvised melee weapon; 69g if self-crafted). Heck, make necklaces out of them and give them to everyone in the kingdom. To protect against a possible wight-apocalypses, of course *cough*.

*Bag of devouring, sphere of annihilation, voidstones (not uncommon on the negative energy plane), etc, destroy things pretty thoroughly. Heck, 'disrupting weapon' (SRD clr 5) "destroys undead utterly."

*Helm of opposite alignment could be of some use, as it's unhindered by immunity to [mind-affecting].

*Trick him into destroying an artifact via disjunction, and watch his spellcasting permanently go *poof* (pending a DC 25 will save, *sigh*).

[Jowgen]

The whole Lich -> Cement -> Permanent AMF/ET seems like an awful lot of trouble to go through just to get rid of 1 lich, but I'll keep it in mind.



*'Flesh to stone' is no go, because undead are 'immune to things requiring fort saves unless they also affect objects,' or some such, which kinda annoys me as well. Its worth noting that neither a medusa's gaze or a gorgon's breath say "creatures only," though...

*Regarding petrification, 'Spark of Life' (Clr3, SC pg 196) is also worth a mention:
"...It loses its immunity to effects that require a Fortitude save, as well as its invulnerability to poison, sleep effects, paralysis, stunning, disease, and death effects..."

*A thinaun shuriken is only 207g (improvised melee weapon; 69g if self-crafted). Heck, make necklaces out of them and give them to everyone in the kingdom. To protect against a possible wight-apocalypses, of course *cough*.

*Bag of devouring, sphere of annihilation, voidstones (not uncommon on the negative energy plane), etc, destroy things pretty thoroughly. Heck, 'disrupting weapon' (SRD clr 5) "destroys undead utterly."

*Helm of opposite alignment could be of some use, as it's unhindered by immunity to [mind-affecting].

*Trick him into destroying an artifact via disjunction, and watch his spellcasting permanently go *poof* (pending a DC 25 will save, *sigh*).

Okay, so petrification would require a considerable ammount of hoops to jump through. Would be hilarious if I could combine Spark of Life with some means to subject the lich to its own Paralysis effect, but I'm not aware of any spell-reflection type effect that works on Su.

I wouldn't trust a bag of devouring to destroy souls reliably. I severely doubt a disrupting weapon would either, since destorying souls has this whole "inherently evil" thing about it, and the save DC is low anyway. A SoA might work but they're not exactly common. The Helm I'll keep in mind.

The disjunction idea is interesting, but just NO on so many levels there.

With the Shurikens, I usually take a very wide berth around the temptation of shuriken shenanigans, but in this instance it seems like it could work. I originally disregarded them due to Thinaun's melee weapon only limitation, but it should be possible to formulate an argument that can convince my DM.

The only reason it says "melee only" is because the weapon needs to touch at the time of death and stay intact afterwards to give a benefit. Bows and such wouldn't normally be touching, ammunition would normally break, and most thrown weapons are also melee anyways; so they made it melee only to prevent players from making useless thinaun weapons.

Now, getting the Shuriken onto the Lich's body without throwing or attacking with it is a bit of a challenge; but a manageable one I think. I'm thinking of using Sleight of Hand (as a free action of course) to slip the Shuriken somewhere onto the Lich's body before killing him. With a good enough a check the Lich won't even know its there until he dies and goes into it instead of his phylactery.

The thing I like most about this idea: the entire strategy can be mostly cost-neutral. A thinaun Shuriken would costs 207 gp, and according to BoVD, a soul in a receptacle is worth 200 gp, which would go for full-price as they are referred to as "Currency". Fiendish Codex II also talks at length about the Value of souls (and is more recent I believe), and how Soul Harvesters from Baator collect them. Souls that aren't Lawful Evil aren't of much use to them (they do still get traded though), but they should still be happy to take them off my hands for a little extra here and there (provided all the proper papers are filled out in triplet).

The only drawback here is that giving the Nine Hells access to the knowledge of a whole bunch of ancient evil wizards might not be the best idea. Do people think that soaking a Thinaun Shuriken in some Stygian water would erase the Lich soul's memory, and if yes, if the Lich's alignment might thus be shifted?

[Crake]

Many people rule flesh to stone to work on corpses (to combine with shrink item for easy/mess free transportation), or for transporting large quantities of meat meant for food preparation without letting it spoil, which would mean it would also work on undead of all varieties.

it is flesh to stone after all, why should it be limited to living flesh? Stone to flesh can create non-living flesh after all.

[Mystia]

I'm amazed that no one commented about it yet (which makes me wonder if I'm not missing something), but it's important to note that a Thinaun weapon wouldn't work at all in trapping a Lich's soul. And that is because a lich's soul isn't on his body - it's inside the philactery. Think about it, do you think that destroying someone's zombie with a Thinaun weapon would trap the soul of whoever used to inhabit that body while it was alive? You're a long-dead LG paladin, enjoying your well-earned place in heaven, when suddenly someone destroys a zombie someone made from your corpse and you're immediately trapped into a random weapon? Doesn't seem right, otherwise I see no reason why demons/devils wouldn't harvest souls this way. The same reasoning applies to liches - the body you fight is a soulless automaton, the actual soul is somewhere else.
RAW seems to support this reasoning btw, because thinaun's wording says that it traps the soul if "its touching a creature when it dies". Remember that undead don't die, they're destroyed once they hit 0 hp.

With that out of the way, the only solution I can think of is what the others have already said. Disjunction the lich, cripple it, bind it, AMF it, lock it into a vacuum-sealed lead coffin placed inside a sacred area, then find the philactery. You also shouldn't forget that destroying a philactery merely frees the Lich's soul, so destroying it may in fact make it possible for the Lich to return later (and probably even nastier than before).

[Mr Adventurer]

1. Buy a portable hole and a bag of holding
2. Plane Shift to Arcadia
3. Put the bag on the floor, open the hole next to it
4. Step away fifteen feet
5. Cast Gate, summon the Lich
6. Command: "Put that bag in that hole."

If the DM argues, just point to where it says "lost forever". You can say it too if you like, I recommend pronouncing it in all-caps to be more persuasive. LOST. FOREVER.

[Bonzai]

The Undead Battery feat from Dragonlance lets you permanently drain an undead's HD with a touch Attack. If you drain a lich to 0 HD, it will pretty much stay dead.

[OldTrees1]

The whole Lich -> Cement -> Permanent AMF/ET seems like an awful lot of trouble to go through just to get rid of 1 lich, but I'll keep it in mind.

For cost comparison:
Antimagic Manacles cost 132,000gp from BoED.
Energy Transformation Field costs 7*13*10+5000+5*250=910+5000+1250=7160gp per permanent 40ft spread.

[Zale]

Many people rule flesh to stone to work on corpses (to combine with shrink item for easy/mess free transportation), or for transporting large quantities of meat meant for food preparation without letting it spoil, which would mean it would also work on undead of all varieties.

it is flesh to stone after all, why should it be limited to living flesh? Stone to flesh can create non-living flesh after all.

Undead are immune to any fortitude-save based effect that does not also target objects. Flesh to Stone affects only creatures.

Keep in mind that corpses are objects, not creatures. Undead, by virtue of being creatures, are not corpses any more than a normal living creature is.


1. Buy a portable hole and a bag of holding
2. Plane Shift to Arcadia
3. Put the bag on the floor, open the hole next to it
4. Step away fifteen feet
5. Cast Gate, summon the Lich
6. Command: "Put that bag in that hole."

If the DM argues, just point to where it says "lost forever". You can say it too if you like, I recommend pronouncing it in all-caps to be more persuasive. LOST. FOREVER.


If a bag of holding is placed within a portable hole a rift to the Astral Plane is torn in the space: Bag and hole alike are sucked into the void and forever lost. If a portable hole is placed within a bag of holding, it opens a gate to the Astral Plane: The hole, the bag, and any creatures within a 10-foot radius are drawn there, destroying the portable hole and bag of holding in the process.

You've destroyed a bag of holding and a portable hole, and thrown a Lich to a random point on the astral plane. Poor use of 9th level spells, to be honest.

[holywhippet]

I'm amazed that no one commented about it yet (which makes me wonder if I'm not missing something), but it's important to note that a Thinaun weapon wouldn't work at all in trapping a Lich's soul. And that is because a lich's soul isn't on his body - it's inside the philactery.

That seems to be true, I do notice the Giant seems to think otherwise. At one point in the comic Redcloak threatens to destroy Xykon's phylactery (was that in the comic or in one of the extra books?) but Xykon points out that his soul is currently in his body, not the phylactery.

Then again, that doesn't explain the hunter of the dead PrC's ability to perma-kill a lich. If their soul is off in hiding, how exactly are they killing the lich for good?

The rules are a bit vague on the subject. They say a lich will reappear 1d10 days after seemingly being killed unless you destroy the phylactery. It doesn't say that destroying the phylactery will instantly finish off the lich.

[OldTrees1]

That seems to be true, I do notice the Giant seems to think otherwise. At one point in the comic Redcloak threatens to destroy Xykon's phylactery (was that in the comic or in one of the extra books?) but Xykon points out that his soul is currently in his body, not the phylactery.

Then again, that doesn't explain the hunter of the dead PrC's ability to perma-kill a lich. If their soul is off in hiding, how exactly are they killing the lich for good?

The rules are a bit vague on the subject. They say a lich will reappear 1d10 days after seemingly being killed unless you destroy the phylactery. It doesn't say that destroying the phylactery will instantly finish off the lich.

Hunters of the Dead need to slay the undead and need the slaying to be as a direct result of a melee attack or spell. Slay is not a game defined term. Therefore the ability is not defined. Ask your DM(use Vampire, Ghost and Lich as examples to see if/when it would work).

[holywhippet]

Hunters of the Dead need to slay the undead and need the slaying to be as a direct result of a melee attack or spell. Slay is not a game defined term. Therefore the ability is not defined. Ask your DM(use Vampire, Ghost and Lich as examples to see if/when it would work).

I can only assume the rule of awesome applied - you hit the lich so hard their phylactery explodes.

[Psyren]

By RAW there is nothing about souls at all. A phylactery stores "life force" and the lich "reappears" 1d10 days after its "apparent death." Thinaun weapons, soul destruction, bag of devouring, none of that will do anything by RAW if you haven't dealt with the phylactery.

[Jowgen]

I'm amazed that no one commented about it yet (which makes me wonder if I'm not missing something), but it's important to note that a Thinaun weapon wouldn't work at all in trapping a Lich's soul. And that is because a lich's soul isn't on his body - it's inside the philactery. Think about it, do you think that destroying someone's zombie with a Thinaun weapon would trap the soul of whoever used to inhabit that body while it was alive? You're a long-dead LG paladin, enjoying your well-earned place in heaven, when suddenly someone destroys a zombie someone made from your corpse and you're immediately trapped into a random weapon? Doesn't seem right, otherwise I see no reason why demons/devils wouldn't harvest souls this way. The same reasoning applies to liches - the body you fight is a soulless automaton, the actual soul is somewhere else.
RAW seems to support this reasoning btw, because thinaun's wording says that it traps the soul if "its touching a creature when it dies". Remember that undead don't die, they're destroyed once they hit 0 hp.

Intelligent Undead usually have their souls, with Vampires and Liches being specifically called out as such (one place I remember to explicitly state that Liches have Souls is Manual of the Planes). A Zombie is a soul-less automaton, but a Lich is not.

If a Lich's soul were to permanently resided within the Phylactery, then a Lich would drop dead...er the second his phylactery was destroyed, but according to the book of Bad Latin (aka. Libris Mortis), that does not happen. If a phylactery is destroyed, the Lich is completely unaffected except for the loss of the ability to reconstitute himself after destruction (and it can't make a new phylactery).

One could make an argument that the soul still generally resides within the phylactery but simply moves to inhabit the body when the phylactery is destroyed, but this argument is opposed by Demiliches. Demiliches have 8 separate phylacteries, all completely functional, all having to be destroyed to permanently kill the Demilich.

Based on this I believe there are 3 possible explanations for how Lich-souls work.

1. Souls can split. Liches and Demiliches have pieces of their souls in their phylacteries and their current bodies. As there is no limit as to how many times a Lich can reconstitute himself, the piece of soul residing in a phylactery or Lich are not destroyed and do not pass on, but instead are drawn to one of the remaining pieces until at last all vessels are destroyed and the soul has no choice but to pass on. There is no support for the notion of soul-splitting to my knowledge, but nothing against it either, so this is a possibility.

2. Souls can jump. Lich souls reside in either their phylacteries or their bodies, and when one is destroyed it is drawn into the other instead of passing on, until again no vessels are left. This explanation is just as possible as the first, but as it is far simpler, ockham's razor would dictate that this is the correct answer.

3. Soul does not equal life-force. Rather than containing a soul or pieces of souls, Phylacteries contain a perpetual energy (life-force) that a) prevents the Lich's soul from passing on, and b) automatically begins the generation of a new undead vessel for the soul to inhabit the instant the old vessel is destroyed. It is effectively a resetting contingent "true resurrection in lich-form" trap with a casting time of 1d10 days. This explanation has its merits in terms of RAW, but doesn't completely gel with how Phylacteries behave in anti-magic fields, as the reconstitution is suppressed but the Lich's soul does not pass on in the absence of the phylactery's power.

In either scenario, at least a piece of the soul of a Lich resides in its physical body, within reach of a Thinaun weapon; and trapping a piece of it would either prevent reconstitution or at the very least subject the Lich to some rather nasty effects.

Now, the RAW text of thinaun admittedly talks about when a creature dies, rather than being destroyed. I personally would argue that the text reads as such because the vast majority of creatures that are destroyed instead of killed (constructs, plants, etc.) do not have souls that a thinaun weapon could absorb. Liches, Vampires and perhaps a few other intelligent undead are rare exceptions to the no-metabolism=no-soul rule that either got overlooked or did not warrant a special mention in the description of this text entry. Elementals/outsiders are body and soul in one and didn't get a mention of how they'd be affected, and neither did the possibility of a living creature without a soul dying (if such a thing is possible, I'm not sure).

Bottom-line, Thinaun fails to account for a number of potential scenarios in its description, so trying to adjudicate it via reading each word literally can result in several dysfunctions, meaning the dreaded "DMs are expected to use knowledge of existing rules, common sense, realworld knowledge, and a sense of fun when dealing with such special cases" rule comes into effect. Common sense if that an unbound soul from any source comes into contact with thinaun then it is absorbed, as the flavour text describes.

[OldTrees1]

I can only assume the rule of awesome applied - you hit the lich so hard their phylactery explodes.

I also assume the rule of awesome applies but which way is subject to the DM. Is it more awesome for a PC lich to return for vengeance, or for a PC Hunter of the Dead to totally destroy liches, or for both?

[atemu1234]

For the purpose of the sealing in cement option, how many grapple checks would it take to strip a lich of all his items, then carry him and drop him into a pit which you proceed to fill?

Because unless I'm mistaken, an object can't take most kinds of energy damage, so cement's probably going to last a while. Sure, he could try clawing his way out, but nothing he does will probably work. Be he spontaneous, make sure it's enough cement that he can't reach anything to harm it (after all, I doubt he invested in plane shift or teleport).

Or go the antimagic route. Or, you could kill the lich, don't destroy the body, Speak with Dead it, and find the phylacteracterwhatevertracctery.

[Khedrac]

The whole Lich -> Cement -> Permanent AMF/ET seems like an awful lot of trouble to go through just to get rid of 1 lich, but I'll keep it in mind.
The problem is not that it "is a lot of trouble to go through", the problem is that it does not usually work.
(In response to an earlier unanswered question, the lich will still need spell-books if it would need them in life.)

So, why does not work? Anti-magic field is an emanation that requires line of effect - the cement overcoat will block line of effect. One Dimension Door later...
To get this to work you would need to put the source of the AMF inside the cement overcoat which is not the order specified. So it will work, but not as suggested.

[Frozen_Feet]

Originally, the functions of Lich's phylactery were similar to the Magic Jar (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/magicJar.htm) spell. As you can gather from it, Jowgen's second hypothesis ("Souls can jump") is the most likely to be correct.

The magic jar spell also answer the question of what it means to be "slain". Newsflash: it's the same as dying. "It's not defined in the rules!" is an asinine argument relying on overly literal reading of the text. It completely ignores known synonyms and normal conventions of written English, so it has no validity.

Now, as far as Liches in cement goes, it's a good thing some wizard had the forethought to make a spell just for that. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/imprisonment.htm) :smallwink:

[OldTrees1]

The problem is not that it "is a lot of trouble to go through", the problem is that it does not usually work.
(In response to an earlier unanswered question, the lich will still need spell-books if it would need them in life.)

So, why does not work? Anti-magic field is an emanation that requires line of effect - the cement overcoat will block line of effect. One Dimension Door later...
To get this to work you would need to put the source of the AMF inside the cement overcoat which is not the order specified. So it will work, but not as suggested.

Correction: Permanent Antimagic is most commonly found as manacles(as I said earlier). Line of Effect is not broken.

[Khedrac]

Correction: Permanent Antimagic is most commonly found as manacles(as I said earlier). Line of Effect is not broken.

My point is that if you apply the AMF after the cement LOE is broken. In the manacles case he manacles arguably are not on the lich. If the cement is thin enough to allow the manacles to placed over it then it is probably thin enough to break out of (at which point he manacles become useful). In the traditional "concrete block" form there's no way of applying the manacles afterwards. Somewhere between the 2 and the manacles are on the statue that the lich is inside not the lich itself.

[Frozen_Feet]

You place the manacles on the Lich first, then cast it in cement.

[OldTrees1]

My point is that if you apply the AMF after the cement LOE is broken. In the manacles case he manacles arguably are not on the lich. If the cement is thin enough to allow the manacles to placed over it then it is probably thin enough to break out of (at which point he manacles become useful). In the traditional "concrete block" form there's no way of applying the manacles afterwards. Somewhere between the 2 and the manacles are on the statue that the lich is inside not the lich itself.

Use enough cement to pin the limbs and then put the manacles on the neck. Follow with adding more cement if desired.

[hamishspence]

3. Soul does not equal life-force. Rather than containing a soul or pieces of souls, Phylacteries contain a perpetual energy (life-force) that a) prevents the Lich's soul from passing on, and b) automatically begins the generation of a new undead vessel for the soul to inhabit the instant the old vessel is destroyed. It is effectively a resetting contingent "true resurrection in lich-form" trap with a casting time of 1d10 days. This explanation has its merits in terms of RAW, but doesn't completely gel with how Phylacteries behave in anti-magic fields, as the reconstitution is suppressed but the Lich's soul does not pass on in the absence of the phylactery's power.

Complete Divine seems to go with "Soul normally resides in lich body."

[Jowgen]

Similarly, liches are characters who’ve voluntarily transformed themselves into undead, trapping their souls in skeletal bodies - Complete Divine p. 126

Thank you hamishspence for pointing me to that reference. It's a big nail in the coffin of the notion that souls can split. Frozen_Feet's post regarding Magic Jar and the definitons of die/slay/destory also supports that souls can split, and that RAW wise there is no reason Thinaun shouldn't work on a Lich.

People really seem to like the Cement+AMF field option, which has the upside that it can work for imprisoning just about anything; but I've got to ask... where would I find the stats for Cement when I can't even find a good pocket-watch anywhere? :smallannoyed:

So yeah, a this point I genuinely feel like 207 gp Thinaun shurikens (if DM can be convinced to allow them) slipped onto the Lich's body before killing him is the most effective method here. Do people have any input on this idea, like alternatives to using Shurikens, things that could be added to make this approach better, or ideas on what to do with a set of Lich-soul shurikens?

[hamishspence]

There's a certain amount of "soul-splitting" in the backstory of the Forgotten Realms novel Azure Bonds. Not a lich in this case - but a paladin and a construct - a bit of the paladin's soul is broken off to give the construct one (the novel's protagonist) - but it doesn't harm the paladin - and the two have rather different personalities.

"Souls are infinite - split one and you've still got two infinite things" was said at one point.

That's fluff more than rules, though.

[OldTrees1]

People really seem to like the Cement+AMF field option, which has the upside that it can work for imprisoning just about anything; but I've got to ask... where would I find the stats for Cement when I can't even find a good pocket-watch anywhere? :smallannoyed:

So yeah, a this point I genuinely feel like 207 gp Thinaun shurikens (if DM can be convinced to allow them) slipped onto the Lich's body before killing him is the most effective method here. Do people have any input on this idea, like alternatives to using Shurikens, things that could be added to make this approach better, or ideas on what to do with a set of Lich-soul shurikens?

I think the popularity was in part a result of the argument back and forth.

Cement is sorta a stand in for a class of effect. The only RAW ones I know of right now are Stone Shape and Transmute Mud/Rock. However mundane versions probably exist since even the Romans had cement.

Shurikens(when DMs allow that kind of pricing) are probably the best option for enemies you can slay.

[Mystia]

-snip-

Ah, you guys are right! I was re-reading the lich's entry after I had made my post and realized that indeed nothing is ever said about the soul, only the "life-force". I guess that I simply always assumed that the life force was the same thing as the soul. And indeed, a Lich doesn't simply drop dead if their philactery is destroyed. I also do agree that Vampires and similar definitely retain their soul (... Also, this just made me realize that killing a ghost should be ridiculously easy with a Thinaun weapon) :smalltongue:

Then again, if only RAW is considered, Psyren is definitely correct... Well, while I'd go with the 3rd option, I guess that it will fall upon the hands of your DM to decide, I think you can very likely convince him that thinaun would work :smallwink: don't mind it that I'm a little biased with liches since they're my fav creatures.

And yep, like OldTrees said, the cement being talked about is more of a figure of speech. The same effect can be acquired from burying him in some substance he isn't able to escape... like a pool of sovereign glue, frozen water, or burying him in clay.

[Khedrac]

It's also worth noting that the ancient Romans had concrete (which would set while underwater - it's a chemical reaction).

Something to think about is that once you "kill" the lich it, if anywhere, is at its phylactery so Discern Location is going to work - and it cannot hide behind Mind Blank because that spell cannot be in effect while it doesn't have a body (it may still be on the body at our feet, but not on the lich itself).