Nerfing Lich, and Demilich question...

[igor140]

So, I'm creating an extended encounter for our party within the context of Dead In Thay. I can go into more detail if it would be helpful, but the short version is that I'm changing up the pacing and plot a good bit, and this sequence is taking place outside the dungeon proper. It needs to center around undead, because one of the noble families is trying to do research into how Szass Tam is so powerful, etc.

All that being the case, it makes sense if the encounter culminates in fighting something powerful like a lich, but the party is only level 11 (this fight will bring them to level 12), and they would probably get throttled. Based upon the circumstances (a recently exhumed lich who had been imprisoned and buried against his will), I can justify denying him his spell levels above the 5th level, which I think would be reasonable and still challenging (if I threw in some other zombies et al)... but I figured I would consult you guys first.

My second idea was to assume that the lich had, over years/ centuries of being interred, decayed into a demilich. Plot-/ lore-/ consistency-wise, this makes a lot of sense... but a) a demilich is the final FINAL boss of this entire story arc, so that seems to undermine that encounter later in the campaign, which I'd rather not do; and b) isn't a demilich-- in some ways-- MORE powerful than a full lich, despite having a somewhat lower CR? That howl attack is no joke.

My third idea is to have the lich-- who is found and raised by bad guy wizards-- attack and fight off those wizards, eating some of those REALLY nasty spells and killing each other off before my guys roll up for a good old three way brawl. I kind of like that idea, but I'm a bit worried that my party will try to take the wizards on separately than the lich, thus taking on TWO fights they wouldn't be able to handle. I suppose I could control that with the narrative, though...

My fourth idea is to go with vampires or a zombie dragon (which I would have to make up, but that's not a problem), but I really don't like that as much. The entire campaign revolves around liches, so it makes more sense to focus on that aspect.

[MaxWilson]

I like a challenge, so my personal preference would be for the DM to use a hard creature like a demilich. If he wants to give us a break he can do that by manipulating the plot to make sure we know the demilich's capabilities and general stats, e.g. by having a knowledgeable old NPC tell us the demilich lore.

The game's not fun if you always win without effort.

[igor140]

Well, that's the balance I'm trying to find. "Challenging" is good. "DC 15 total party kill" every three turns with only a +4 proficiency bonus seems... unfair. Granted, they're going to have to do it around lvl 14 or 15 anyway, but they'll deal with that later : )

The more I think about this, the more I'm leaning towards the full lich (full spells, etc) in battle with a few other wizards by the time the party shows up. That allows them to whittle off some of the lich's HP and nastier spells, as well as give the players some insight to it's AC, resistances, etc as well... assuming they don't just charge in (which one guy most likely will).

Anyway, thanks for your input!

[gloryblaze]

You can just use Tarul Var's statblock (from the same adventure), he's a CR13 version of a lich, and designed to be a boss fight for characters going through the doomvault. Just swap out some spells or something to shake it up, or just use it wholesale

[1Pirate]

I will start by saying party composition matters.

However, I think option three will give you the most flexibility in terms of how the encounter goes. I don't know the full circumstances, but as the DM it should be easy enough from a narrative perspective for you to control how far the fight has gone before the PCs get involved. All kinds of stuff can happened when spellcasters get into a fight, you can whittle away their numbers, you can have them down to nothing but cantrips. Hell, if you don't want the party going after the wizards, they can just decide to teleport out of there rather than risk fighting them(if they don't necessarily know exactly how weak the PCs are).