Lich Phylactery

[carrdrivesyou]

So I had an idea for a lich with a twist. The lich was a former adventurer (dwarf wizard), who ended up making his battle axe (or other such weapon) into his phylactery.

When the PCs inevitably kill him and loot him...would they even think to consider the weapon he used to be anything but an incredibly powerful weapon to add to their own arsenal?

[16bearswutIdo]

Wouldn't the first thing the party does be cast Identify on the axe? I guess if you follow the rules for cursed items and apply them to a phylactery for some reason, there's the chance they don't detect it as a phylactery.

[noob]

So I had an idea for a lich with a twist. The lich was a former adventurer (dwarf wizard), who ended up making his battle axe (or other such weapon) into his phylactery.

When the PCs inevitably kill him and loot him...would they even think to consider the weapon he used to be anything but an incredibly powerful weapon to add to their own arsenal?

It depends on the players.
In my group they would suspect each thing in the entire multiverse to the the phylactery of the dwarf.
In some groups they would just use appraise and if it costs 120000 more than a weapon with the modifier it have they would conclude it is a phylactery and destroy it or simply keep it into an antimagic zone and wait for the lich to respawn and capture the lich and then do what they want with the lich (mostly involving ways to turn an undead in a slave).

Cursed items and antidivination spells protects against magical identification but not against the appraise skill so the phylactery can not protect itself from appraise.

[Silly Name]

Does Identify tell you if something is a phylactery? I've looked at both the Identify spell and the rules for phylacteries, and I really can't tell.

[16bearswutIdo]

It tells you the "all magical properties of a single item." I'd certainly say that being a phylactery is a magical property.

If a phylactery is an artifact (pretty sure it isn't), then it wouldn't work.

That being said, I do really like this whole "Lich fighter with an axe phylactery" thing. Maybe make the axe so good that the PCs think twice about destroying it? And then when the Lich respawns, the PCs may even be able to blackmail him because they have his phylactery and can kill him any time they want.

[heavyfuel]

It depends on the players.
In my group they would suspect each thing in the entire multiverse to the the phylactery of the dwarf.
In some groups they would just use appraise and if it costs 120000 more than a weapon with the modifier it have they would conclude it is a phylactery and destroy it or simply keep it into an antimagic zone and wait for the lich to respawn and capture the lich and then do what they want with the lich (mostly involving ways to turn an undead in a slave).

Cursed items and antidivination spells protects against magical identification but not against the appraise skill so the phylactery can not protect itself from appraise.

The axe could be protected against Identify but only a little magical. A +8 weapon costs 128'000, so have the axe only be a +2 Axe (8'000) but they will think it's a +8 one.

Also, an item's "value" is very dependent on what the item is.The rule in the PHB says you in general can sell for half price. I'd say no one would actually pay 60'000 GP for an axe that will, in a few days, spawn a lich to murder them. Despite the cost of the phylactery, it's definitely not something you apply the general rule to.

[noob]

The axe could be protected against Identify but only a little magical. A +8 weapon costs 128'000, so have the axe only be a +2 Axe (8'000) but they will think it's a +8 one.

Also, an item's "value" is very dependent on what the item is.The rule in the PHB says you in general can sell for half price. I'd say no one would actually pay 60'000 GP for an axe that will, in a few days, spawn a lich to murder them. Despite the cost of the phylactery, it's definitely not something you apply the general rule to.

Of course the people that would buy a lich would be ready to line up easily 160000 (just with the slave rules for guessing the cost of a person since once you have the phylactery it is easy to place it in an antimagic zone and have a trapped lich then find your ways to do what you want with it) and in fact possibly even more since it can also be used to build a grisgol.

And the axe does not stops being an axe once you slaved the lich so the buyer after slaving the lich might sell it to an artificer which will drain the item to fuel its own crafting pool(which would also get rid of the phylactery) so in fact that item is worth even more.

So lich phylacteries have an absurdly high value that is like two times the 120000 indicated in the manuals or more if you do not use the slave estimation values which usually ends up judging slaves as worth less than they are.

You can not sell it to a random person but a phylactery is extremely valuable.
Most people would not buy a gold mine even if it was sold to them at a low cost but that does not means the gold mine have a low value it just means that few people can benefit from that value do you conclude that appraising a gold mine would tell me "that gold mine is worth 1 gp because nobody in the region knows how to use it".

anyway with the logic "most people would not want to have a lich phylactery therefore it should have a lower value" we can even conclude it should have a negative cost: if you threaten people to give them a lich phylactery some would be ready to pay for not having it and if the adventurers use appraise and see it have a negative cost then they will conclude the item is suspicious

one thing that is interesting is that appraise allows to know the most valuable item visible in a treasure hoard or the value of a mundane item but not directly to know the value of a magical item so for knowing the value of a magical item you need to constitute hoards with the most expensive item having a varying value and so you can compare your most expensive items to the new item and thus guess the value of your new item by dichotomy if you have a lot of items of varied values.

[16bearswutIdo]

Also, an item's "value" is very dependent on what the item is.The rule in the PHB says you in general can sell for half price. I'd say no one would actually pay 60'000 GP for an axe that will, in a few days, spawn a lich to murder them. Despite the cost of the phylactery, it's definitely not something you apply the general rule to.

This is a pretty silly way to do appraise rolls. An unspoken rule to appraise rolls is that if you roll well, it gives you accurate information about what you could sell it for if you found a motivated buyer. If I found a diamond, I wouldn't expect the DM to base my appraise roll value off what the average random peasant would pay for it. You're talking about giving players information that an item is worth less than half of what the item is actually worth by the books. If this happened to me as a player, I'd definitely feel like the DM is trying to cheat me out of information in order to get a "gotcha" story moment. "Ha ha surprise that axe you evaluated as being worth 30k gold is actually worth 150k gold and is the repository of the soul of an evil wizard!"

[carrdrivesyou]

So what I am gathering here is that I could make the axe magical, just not overly so. Maybe just a slight upgrade from what the party fighter might be using at the moment.

Divinations could be misleading with the proper magical defenses, but somehow the appraise skill automatically takes into account the entire magical worth of the item as well...

Hmmm...i'd have to revisit and reread the phylactery rules, but I think it could be viably a "shows up as a +5 keen axe" but is really "+5 keen, with other abilities."

Give it some sort of sentience and have it bluff its way into "compliance" and being "helpful." Just go Sauron on the thing and let it destroy the party from the inside.

[noob]

Actually there is someone that is sure to be ready to pay 120000 for that item: the lich itself.
the lich would even be ready to pay more since the rules does not allows the creation of more phylacteries so I think a lich caring about its eternal life would be ready to pay 300000 easily and that dwarf in particular also is attached sentimentally to that axe since he carried it around so that dwarf would be ready probably to pay like 500000.
So saying nobody would be ready to buy that item is extremely false: there is one person that cares very intensely about that item.

[Saintheart]

Just to be a Spoily McSpoilypants: can you make a phylactery out of a magic weapon since the feats are different? (Craft Wondrous Item for the phylactery, Craft Magic Arms and Armor for a magic weapon)

[OgresAreCute]

Just to be a Spoily McSpoilypants: can you make a phylactery out of a magic weapon since the feats are different? (Craft Wondrous Item for the phylactery, Craft Magic Arms and Armor for a magic weapon)

I suppose that depends on whether an item can be both a magic weapon and wondrous at the same time. I believe there are some items that require multiple crafting feats to make (eternal wands?).

[heavyfuel]

somehow the appraise skill automatically takes into account the entire magical worth of the item as well...

If this is something that bothers you (and, for what it's worth, it does bother me), you can always change it. That's part of your job as DM. Ultimately, it's your call if you want the Appraise skill to take unknowable things into account.


Actually there is someone that is sure to be ready to pay 120000 for that item: the lich itself.

Only the players don't want the Lich alive and with his phylactery. And the lich probably doesn't have that much gold after the players looted his things.


If I found a diamond, I wouldn't expect the DM to base my appraise roll value off what the average random peasant would pay for it.

Huh? Who said anything about "the average random peasant"? What are you even talking about?

[ExLibrisMortis]

Identify or a DC 25 Knowledge (arcana) check reveals a phylactery. Phylacteries can not, by default, have magic properties built into them. A phylactery does not count towards a lich' treasure, so you could just value it at 0 gp.

[noob]

Identify or a DC 25 Knowledge (arcana) check reveals a phylactery. Phylacteries can not, by default, have magic properties built into them. A phylactery does not count towards a lich' treasure, so you could just value it at 0 gp.

If they appraise the magical axe and discover it is worth 0 gp they will instantly know something is wrong.
anyway thanks to the knowledge arcana clause it is nearly impossible to not spot a phylactery since I know no spell that works against that mundane form of analysis so it makes everything simpler.

[heavyfuel]

Identify or a DC 25 Knowledge (arcana) check reveals a phylactery. Phylacteries can not, by default, have magic properties built into them. A phylactery does not count towards a lich' treasure, so you could just value it at 0 gp.

I don't doubt you, but could provide a book and page for these statements?

[ExLibrisMortis]

I don't doubt you, but could provide a book and page for these statements?
Libris Mortis 151.

[Deophaun]

You could have a hidden chamber built into the ax, then put the phylactery in that.

In general, though, making your phylactery something that might get sundered is a bad idea.

[heavyfuel]

Libris Mortis 151.

I thought it might be somewhere in that book. Thanks!


You could have a hidden chamber built into the ax, then put the phylactery in that.

In general, though, making your phylactery something that might get sundered is a bad idea.

This also circumvents the Appraise issue. Yeah, the axe is an ordinary magical axe worth X gp. The phylactery itself won't be appraised unless they decide to make a Search check on the axe and pass the DC to discover its hidden chamber.

[PrismCat21]

Just to be a Spoily McSpoilypants: can you make a phylactery out of a magic weapon since the feats are different? (Craft Wondrous Item for the phylactery, Craft Magic Arms and Armor for a magic weapon)

Well, in Libris Mortis p. 151, the sentence right after the 'Identify or a DC 25 Knowledge (arcana)' sentence, it says


A phylactery cannot be part of another magic item, nor may additional magical properties be built into it.

So the different Feats required doesn't really matter. I wouldn't have much of a problem doing it anyway though. :)

[ViperMagnum357]

EDIT: I second making your phylactery out of a small gem or piece of jewelry that could easily be slipped inside the purely mechanical compartment of a large, clearly magical item; hopefully, the group that finds it will (correctly) assume the item is magical without having to scan it with Detect Magic/Arcane Sight, and just jump directly to Identify/Analyze Dweomer. If they do not scan it, then someone like a Rogue looking it over for hidden caches or decorative gems to pry off would be your chief concern.

[Mordaedil]

Wait, so you cannot attach your phylactary into a socket on a different magical item? How does that work? Does the item suppress your phylactary or something? Do they separate due to magnetic forces?

What is the point of making it so difficult to hide the phylactary, just to prevent players from getting too creative? Just to make sure a lich has a weakness that can be destroyed?

[Silly Name]

I think that "a phylactery can't be part of another magic item" is meant to say that you can't make a phylactery out of, say, a Ring of Wizardy, or make your phylactery from the shaft of a +3 Keen Battleaxe.

However, you can totally tie your necklace-phylactery around a Staff of the Magi, because at that point the phylactery isn't part of the other item - it's just in contact with it.

[Mordaedil]

If that's the case, I'd make an enchanted waraxe and leave a slot for decoration that you use to put the phylactary in. Preferably the hilt or something so it isn't rocked loose from use or broken by a random shatter or sunder attempt.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Wand chambers are pretty good for that sort of thing.