Ghost-Lich

[Xar Zarath]

What the thread says, is it possible to homebrew a ghostly lich without making it horrible? I have read on the Suel Lich but that template is unfeasible as you constantly need bodies which you burn through.

I would like to see if the playgrounders can come up with a lich who is ghostly in form but is able to possess living or dead(undead) bodies for physical stuff but still has a phylactery

[OldTrees1]

You could take the first 4 levels of the Ghost template class (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/sp/20040117a)(Savage Progressions Article)

Swap the 3rd level Rejuvenation ability for any equal or lesser "not quite dead" ability like a Lich's Phylactery.
Select Malevolence for the Greater Ghost Power to gain your possension ability.

[Rubik]

You could take the first 4 levels of the Ghost template class (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/sp/20040117a)(Savage Progressions Article)

Swap the 3rd level Rejuvenation ability for any equal or lesser "not quite dead" ability like a Lich's Phylactery.
Select Malevolence for the Greater Ghost Power to gain your possension ability.Or take the levels in ghost, along with Leadership/Undead Leadership/thrallherd and use it to get a lich for a cohort or thrall, which you then proceed to possess.

[Thurbane]

Lich with the Phantom template? Not a true Ghost, but a (mostly) incorporeal Lich.

CR would be all out of whack, though...

Could a Lich PaO itself into a Ghost?

[Necroticplague]

Human Heritage would allow for this combo by the normal rules. By turning your type from undead to Humanoid, you could then apply the other template (since, oddly enough, neither one says the base creature has to be living).

[ExLibrisMortis]

The LA:-- Phantom template, from MMV, is pretty great. Homebrew a level adjustment and you're done.

[ShurikVch]

1) Ghost-Lich or Lich-Ghost? Order may matter...
2) SRD Ghost or Ghostwalk Ghost?

[Flickerdart]

Spectral Savants (CPsi) are something like this - they are evil psions that undergo a lich-style transformation ritual to become incorporeal undead. They have no special ability to elude death, but you can take levels in Body Leech to usurp a previously captured body when you die, and then undergo the ritual again.

[Thurbane]

Unholy Scion Human Warlock 8/Fiend of Possession* 6

Feats: Practiced Magic (to get CL to 11+ for crafting the phylactery) - or just make it Warlock 11/FoP 6 instead.

You then have it undergo the variant Lich ritual for a Lichfiend.

It's not the traditional spellcasting Lich, but it does have an arsenal of special abilities, SLAs, and can possess creatures just like the OP wanted.

You can tack on whatever levels you like after that (more Warlock, most likely. Sadly, you can't take Hellfire Warlock due to the whole Con -- ).

Obviously this is an NPC/monster build, since Unholy Scion is LA --. But who plays a Lich as a PC anyway (unless you get it for "free", like from Dread Necromancer 20 or similar), unless your DM hand waves LA +4?

*Make sure you are OK with no longer meeting reqs for PrCs after entry. Once you become Undead, you will technically be ineligible for Fiend of Possession.

Sources:
- Unholy Scion: Heroes of Horror p.155
- Warlock: Complete Arcane p.5
- Fiend of Possession: Fiend Folio p.204
- Practiced Magic: Shackled City Hardcover
- Lichfiend: Libris Mortis p.156

[Urpriest]

Ghost, with the purpose holding you to this world being preserving your phylactery. Has the same effect, if slightly less reliable.

Alternatively, Lich with a spell like Ghostform Persisted to keep them incorporeal.

[Psyren]

Spectral Savants (CPsi) are something like this - they are evil psions that undergo a lich-style transformation ritual to become incorporeal undead. They have no special ability to elude death, but you can take levels in Body Leech to usurp a previously captured body when you die, and then undergo the ritual again.

Or just use Astral Seed. Came here to suggest this.

[Rubik]

Ghost, with the purpose holding you to this world being preserving your phylactery. Has the same effect, if slightly less reliable.So if the phylactery no longer exists, neither does the ghost?

That doesn't seem like a good idea, if you want to keep existing after the phylactery is destroyed.

[Urpriest]

So if the phylactery no longer exists, neither does the ghost?

That doesn't seem like a good idea, if you want to keep existing after the phylactery is destroyed.

I feel like if you're a normal Lich, and someone destroys your phylactery, you don't have very long anyway. But it depends on how sophisticated a plan you have I suppose.

[Necroticplague]

I feel like if you're a normal Lich, and someone destroys your phylactery, you don't have very long anyway. But it depends on how sophisticated a plan you have I suppose.

Depends on how close to your you keep your phylactery. As Xykon pointed out (paraphrasing due to my poor memory): "Go ahead. Long as my souls not in it, it's just a pretty bauble" Well, a hard-to-destory minor artifact , but not one that intrinsically does anything.

[Psyren]

Depends on how close to your you keep your phylactery. As Xykon pointed out (paraphrasing due to my poor memory): "Go ahead. Long as my souls not in it, it's just a pretty bauble" Well, a hard-to-destory minor artifact , but not one that intrinsically does anything.

I think what Rubik was saying is that, if your purpose is "preserving your phylactery" and it gets destroyed, that purpose has been thwarted/fulfilled and you end up losing your ectoplasmic tie to the material and passing on. You'd basically stop being a ghost immediately and become a petitioner instead.

[Rubik]

I think what Rubik was saying is that, if your purpose is "preserving your phylactery" and it gets destroyed, that purpose has been thwarted/fulfilled and you end up losing your ectoplasmic tie to the material and passing on. You'd basically stop being a ghost immediately and become a petitioner instead.That is, indeed, what I was getting at.

If you want to prevent yourself from passing on, make your purpose "refusing to pass on." There's not much that can be done to finalize that particular purpose.

[The Viscount]

You can always take Psion Uncarnate and use magic/psionics transparency to make a psionic phylactery.

[Xar Zarath]

1) Ghost-Lich or Lich-Ghost? Order may matter...
2) SRD Ghost or Ghostwalk Ghost?

1. Lich-Ghost
2. SRD if possible

[Xar Zarath]

I think what Rubik was saying is that, if your purpose is "preserving your phylactery" and it gets destroyed, that purpose has been thwarted/fulfilled and you end up losing your ectoplasmic tie to the material and passing on. You'd basically stop being a ghost immediately and become a petitioner instead.

Hoping for a lich ghost that has a phylactery and can posess living and dead or undead bodies. If that body is busted then they can still move around. If their ghostly form gets busted, their "soul" can go to their phylactery where they spend a few days reforming their ghostly form or instead just hop into a nearby convenient body

[enderlord99]

This (http://mimir.planewalker.com/forum/proto-lich-library-toh-var-im) story is semi-relevant.

[Jack_Simth]

Hoping for a lich ghost that has a phylactery and can posess living and dead or undead bodies. If that body is busted then they can still move around. If their ghostly form gets busted, their "soul" can go to their phylactery where they spend a few days reforming their ghostly form or instead just hop into a nearby convenient body

Hmm....

Well, if a psion (Telepath) got into lich under magic/psionics transparency, and hit up the Psion Uncarnate PrC (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/prestigeClasses/psionUncarnate.htm) to the capstone, then you'd have an incorporeal lich (who can still re-equip), and could make use of Mind Switch (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/mindSwitch.htm) to posess people. Mind you, with the +4 LA from lich, you'd be 19th to pull it off, and Uncarnate loses four manifester levels, so you'd be manifesting as a Psion-11 at 19th, ... no, that fits the bill of "Completely terrible", doesn't it?

[OldTrees1]

Hoping for a lich ghost that has a phylactery and can posess living and dead or undead bodies. If that body is busted then they can still move around. If their ghostly form gets busted, their "soul" can go to their phylactery where they spend a few days reforming their ghostly form or instead just hop into a nearby convenient body

This really sounds like the LA+4 version of the Ghost (Ghost + Malevolence + Rejuvenate at Phylactery).

[ShurikVch]

Is Dracolich a Lich enough for you?
BECOMING A DRACOLICH
...
Soul Substitution: On very rare occasions, when the circumstances are just right, a dragon skeleton that has been necromantically charged and kept in long proximity with a receptacle holding the essence of some powerful evil being—such as an entrapped fiend or bound soul—can spontaneously arise as a dracolich. One occurrence of this phenomenon bides its time at the Silphar Royal Museum in the Kingdom of Raoke. For long years this museum has displayed the treasures of the ancient priest-king Ramaket, looted from his hidden burial site by graverobbers. Among these treasures is a jeweled urn said to hold Ramaket's ashes. Yet also within the urn resides Ramaket's soul, which has been helplessly imprisoned in the vessel for millennia. In an adjacent gallery hangs a display featuring the mounted skeleton of an old blue dragon. The curator of the museum, a sorcerer, secretly cast animate dead on the skeleton to guard the treasures of the museum against thieves. Unbeknownst to the curator, the powerful will of Ramaket's entrapped soul has slowly begun influencing the necromantic magic animating his mindless guardian, gradually transforming the undead thing into a dracolich with the mind of the evil priest-king—the ancient urn serving as its phylactery. It is only a matter of time before the soul will have attained sufficient control of its new body to launch a second reign of Ramaket.1) Be a Mage
2) Become a Ghost
3) Animate Skeletal Dragon
4) Possess it
5) Congratulations! You are a Ghost and (Draco)Lich now.

[Urpriest]

That is, indeed, what I was getting at.

If you want to prevent yourself from passing on, make your purpose "refusing to pass on." There's not much that can be done to finalize that particular purpose.

Right, but if you did that, you could just be a ghost. The OP specifically wants a ghost with a phylactery, i.e. one with an extra source of vulnerability beyond that of a typical ghost.

[Psyren]

Right, but if you did that, you could just be a ghost. The OP specifically wants a ghost with a phylactery, i.e. one with an extra source of vulnerability beyond that of a typical ghost.

I read it that the OP was trying to be less vulnerable rather than more. Not realizing that adding a phylactery to a ghost is like adding a Snickers Bar to a steak dinner - less is more in this case.

[Urpriest]

I read it that the OP was trying to be less vulnerable rather than more. Not realizing that adding a phylactery to a ghost is like adding a Snickers Bar to a steak dinner - less is more in this case.

Ah.

Yeah, OP, the crucial thing here is that ghosts, by default, already come back after you kill them unless you fulfill really specific conditions. So if all you're going for is an especially hard-to-permanently-kill ghost, just have them have an extremely unlikely condition for permanent rest.

[ExLibrisMortis]

"I desire to see a square circle before I pass on!"

Unkillable ghost, go.

GITP is not responsible for the results of encounters with square circles in the Far Realm.

[Rubik]

"I desire to see a square circle before I pass on!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyKwyAWJZcI

[Thurbane]

"I desire to see a square circle before I pass on!"

Unkillable ghost, go.

Take the ghost to a wrestling match?


The term squared circle is often used by wrestling promotions and promoters to refer to the ring.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Okay, I want to say that doesn't count, but... yeah.

I desire to see a set of points P = {x : x, M ∈ ℝ2 /\ d(x, M) = 1} also satisfying M ∈ P.

If I'm right, this is asking for a circle with radius 1, whose midpoint lies on the circle (pretend that /\ is a conjunction).

[Jack_Simth]

What the thread says, is it possible to homebrew a ghostly lich without making it horrible? I have read on the Suel Lich but that template is unfeasible as you constantly need bodies which you burn through.

I would like to see if the playgrounders can come up with a lich who is ghostly in form but is able to possess living or dead(undead) bodies for physical stuff but still has a phylactery

... actually, if we're homebrewing for an NPC, it's easy.

Start with the base Ghost template (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/ghost.htm), then replace Rejuvenation (Su) with the "The Lich’s Phylactery" section from the Lich template (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/lich.htm), pick a few abilities off of each entry to taste (essentially add the Lich abilities as individual options for the Ghost), fix the fluff and any copy paste errors (you'll be replacing the name, after all - so once it's named, you replace all instances of "Ghost" and "Lich" with your new name in the ability description), possibly shuffle the ability scores around a little, and done. Fluff could be something like.... (note that this is probably a bad name).

Not all who seek immortality follow the path of the lich. Immortality is good, but being a shambling decayed corpse for the rest of eternity? That leaves a bad taste in many a mouth. A ghost would be good, as they can take over a mortal form on a whim, but it takes great tragedy to form one.

Hence, the Glitch. It is very difficult and costly to become a Glitch. In addition to building your phylactery (see below), one must engineer a great tragedy, capable of ripping your own sanity from you, see it to completion, and then die by one's own hand in true remorse. Each great tragedy is, of necessity, specific to the new Glitch... however, this usually involves arranging the deaths of all the Glitch-to-be's loved ones in grotesque, painful manners. If the tragedy is not sufficient to rip the Glitch-to-be's sanity, or if the Glitch-to-be does not die by their own hand in true remorse, then the attempt to become a Glitch fails, and the would-be Glitch simply dies as normal.

A Glitch is actually very similar to a ghost, and is difficult to distinguish (+10 DC on Knowledge(Religion) checks to identify a Glitch, and a failure caused by this additional +10 DC results in identifying the Glitch as a Ghost).

[enderlord99]

...I'm pretty sure that a lich/ghost was what he asked for, not a lich/allip.

[Jack_Simth]

...I'm pretty sure that a lich/ghost was what he asked for, not a lich/allip.
So you're saying I should add something to the fluff about "Successfully becoming a Glitch restores the persons sanity, but they're never the same - all Glitches become evil at the completion of the process if they were not so previously"?

[enderlord99]

So you're saying I should add something to the fluff about "Successfully becoming a Glitch restores the persons sanity, but they're never the same - all Glitches become evil at the completion of the process if they were not so previously"?

I suppose that'd be enough...

[Necroticplague]

Y'know, the default fluff of Ghosts allows for a lich-style creature. Rejuvenation only mentions "the reason for it's existence" and the beginning of the entry only says " spectral remnants of intelligent beings who, for one reason or another, cannot rest easily in their graves." Having a phylactery that snatches your soul from the afterlife and pieces it back together sounds like it meets the criteria.

[Cirrylius]

Ghost-Lich or Lich-Ghost? Order may matter...

I find the idea of a wizard who made the "life is short, acquiring power takes forever" realization only after death, and whose ghostly compulsion is to get back in the game, from the other side of things, way way more unsettling than a conventional lich, for some reason. Maybe it's just me.

[Zephonim]

Wizard seeking True Resurrection to become Lich

[Rubik]

Wizard seeking True Resurrection to become LichEnjoys candle-lit dinners, basketweaving, and long walks on the beach.