Vrock_Summoner
2015-03-23, 11:22 PM
Usually, phylactery defense recommendations are given under the assumption that the character forging the defense has 20 levels of wizard casting. (Also I think it's worth noting how incredibly, almost scarily, similar tips are for protecting phylacteries to tips for protecting the 20th level wizard's actual person.) This is fairly reasonable, as wizard liches are the most iconic kind of liches, wizards have the best spells for pulling that off (and, well, the best spells in general), and liches are more commonly BBEGs than player characters so 20th level is a pretty decent assumption. But not all liches will have 20 levels of wizard casting... So let's talk about some other options.
Lich comes online at level 11 at the earliest. Since many NPCs won't be faced with regular, appropriately challenging encounters, it's quite reasonable to assume in most settings (not counting Tippyverse or Planescape or other settings with specific justifications to the contrary) that many wizards won't get much higher than level 11 by the time they're getting old enough to want to turn themselves into a lich rather than age more and/or die of old fart syndrome. So what might a level 11-13 character do to defend their Phylactery, based on their available spells? (We'll assume for the sake of discussion and cross-setting applicability that blowing WBL on scrolls with higher-level spells than their own is not an option.)
And then, of course, there's the non-wizards.
What would a 20th level Cleric do to defend their phylactery? What if we dial it back to 11-13 (and restrict scrolls, though Magic Domain scrolls of low-level wizard spells aren't technically banned I guess) like we did with the wizard?
How about 20th level Druid? 11th-13th?
Then, of course, there's the fun ones. By which I mean those casters that get full CL but slower progression up to, usually, 6th level spells.
Like, come on, it's hilarious. How about a Bard 20? Bard 11-13? Same with Duskblade? The possibilities are endless!
If you have ideas for what any, some, or all of them would use to defend their phylacteries, do post!
(It would also be convenient to know the relative op-levels of certain options, just so I know which ones to use against parties of various optimization skill should I use these in future campaigns. But that's secondary; the spells and summoned creatures and such are the interesting part!)
Lich comes online at level 11 at the earliest. Since many NPCs won't be faced with regular, appropriately challenging encounters, it's quite reasonable to assume in most settings (not counting Tippyverse or Planescape or other settings with specific justifications to the contrary) that many wizards won't get much higher than level 11 by the time they're getting old enough to want to turn themselves into a lich rather than age more and/or die of old fart syndrome. So what might a level 11-13 character do to defend their Phylactery, based on their available spells? (We'll assume for the sake of discussion and cross-setting applicability that blowing WBL on scrolls with higher-level spells than their own is not an option.)
And then, of course, there's the non-wizards.
What would a 20th level Cleric do to defend their phylactery? What if we dial it back to 11-13 (and restrict scrolls, though Magic Domain scrolls of low-level wizard spells aren't technically banned I guess) like we did with the wizard?
How about 20th level Druid? 11th-13th?
Then, of course, there's the fun ones. By which I mean those casters that get full CL but slower progression up to, usually, 6th level spells.
Like, come on, it's hilarious. How about a Bard 20? Bard 11-13? Same with Duskblade? The possibilities are endless!
If you have ideas for what any, some, or all of them would use to defend their phylacteries, do post!
(It would also be convenient to know the relative op-levels of certain options, just so I know which ones to use against parties of various optimization skill should I use these in future campaigns. But that's secondary; the spells and summoned creatures and such are the interesting part!)