Phylactery with additional magical powers?

[redking]

A lich can craft a phylactery, but can the lich add additional powers to the phylactery, assuming it pays the crafting costs? It seems to me that if the lich crafted a phylactery with useful magical abilities, perhaps the phylactery might be less likely to be destroyed.

Is this possible?

[Biggus]

As far as I can see, yes. Magic items can have new powers added to them (almost) entirely without restriction (DMG p.288, MIC p.233) so the only question is whether it's considered a magic item. Given that you need Craft Wondrous Item to make it and that its caster level and costs work like a magic item* it would be one unless otherwise specified. This is supported by Libris Mortis p.151 which states that a phylactery doesn't work if it's in an antimagic field, unlike constructs which are not magical once created.

*the only difference is that the XP cost is 1/25 the cost to create, not the base/selling price. As phylacteries don't have a selling price (and no lich would want to sell one) I assume this is intentional.

[Thurbane]

Yeah, I don't see why not.

In addition to hat Biggus said, MIC also has rules/guidelines for adding multiple powers to one item.

Oooh, now I'm thinking about an intelligent phylactery item. That would be an interesting twist for an NPC - the phylactery could actively defend itself with it's powers.

[Biggus]

Oooh, now I'm thinking about an intelligent phylactery item. That would be an interesting twist for an NPC - the phylactery could actively defend itself with it's powers.

Someone on a thread I read about this suggested trying to get its Ego as high as possible, so if anyone picks it up they have to make a Will save or come under its influence. Maybe make it as a ring too...

[loky1109]

Oooh, now I'm thinking about an intelligent phylactery item. That would be an interesting twist for an NPC - the phylactery could actively defend itself with it's powers.

I see even better twist: intelligent phylactery is LG and actively helps PC to destroy itself. And it is so cute and sweet, it’s becoming a moral dilemma to destroy it.

[redking]

Oooh, now I'm thinking about an intelligent phylactery item. That would be an interesting twist for an NPC - the phylactery could actively defend itself with it's powers.

An intelligent item? I just went down the rabbit hole and rediscovered Nybor's Psychic Imprint (https://archive.ph/9yh2a).

Perhaps this - create simulacrum of self, then charm, cast Nybor's Psychic Imprint, and implant the personality into the phylactery. Crazy stuff.

[Paragon]

Otherwise the Dead Throne in Sandstorm is a kind of phylactery and a minor artefact. It's pretty interesting

[ShurikVch]

In 2005-2006, on the WotC site was such rubric as "Creature Competition (https://web.archive.org/web/20160123033751/http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dnd/20050510a)" - with such "Grudge Matches" as "Beholder Swashbuckler vs. Warforged Ninja" (and the "winner", eventually, was now-well-known Eludecia, the Succubus Paladin (http://web.archive.org/web/20160322201312/http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/fc/20050824a))

So, one of "participants" was "Jannys Shadowgaunt": female Drow Lich whose phylactery was... a Greater Iron Golem (shaped like a spider). Unfortunately, her entry isn't available currently, so we can't read how, exactly, it was done.

[redking]

In 2005-2006, on the WotC site was such rubric as "Creature Competition (https://web.archive.org/web/20160123033751/http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dnd/20050510a)" - with such "Grudge Matches" as "Beholder Swashbuckler vs. Warforged Ninja" (and the "winner", eventually, was now-well-known Eludecia, the Succubus Paladin (http://web.archive.org/web/20160322201312/http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/fc/20050824a))

So, one of "participants" was "Jannys Shadowgaunt": female Drow Lich whose phylactery was... a Greater Iron Golem (shaped like a spider). Unfortunately, her entry isn't available currently, so we can't read how, exactly, it was done.

Interesting. The archive seems to have every entrant except that one. It must have been an oversight.

[ericgrau]

It would be cool for one of the PC's favorite magic items to turn out to be a phylactery. A permanent magic aura spell could be part of the crafting, meaning a secretly rolled will save is required to identify it. Everything seems fine until a slain lich appears next to the PCs. Maybe he pops there, maybe he takes over a weak willed body within a few miles (as described in a WotC web column), maybe some other DM determined method. The first time the lich might even attack the PCs and get destroyed again. The 2nd time he teleports away. Maybe he does this as a way to get new magic items whenever he is slain and doesn't believe most random adventurers can kill him. Then he sticks it in a mediocre dungeon and repeats. But since the DM isn't mean he waits for the PCs to level up before the lich dies. So now you have a lich going back to his business and potentially dying again until the PCs get suspicious. Or he spies on the PCs and waits for an opportunity to either assassinate them or grab their stuff. Perhaps they outgrow the phylactery and sell it. Perhaps they store it away and the lich spies on them to try to find out where, if it doesn't have a built in locator already. Etc.

[Jack_Simth]

Interesting. The archive seems to have every entrant except that one. It must have been an oversight.

A combat golem is also a bad choice for a phylactery. Folks will want to destroy it even without specifically knowing that's what it is. A burrowing construct that keeps moving around underground? Excellent pick! A flying construct normally used as a messenger or spy? Viable. A combat one? Really bad idea. Folks will automatically go after it. Now, if you make folks think that big bad construct is (or is directly guarding) your phylactery (Magic Aura up something on it, cast Misdirection on it, etcetera; cast similar spells on your actual phylactery, then hide it)? That makes sense - folks will want it dead, yes, but when someone more powerful than it attacks, you don't die forever next go round, you just need to restock.

[the_tick_rules]

i'd start with hardening and anything else that makes it harder to destroy. arcane mark so you can find it and whatever effects would make it harder dor anyone else to find.

[FauxKnee]

As Jowgen noted in his voidstone arsenal (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?480986-The-Voidstone-Arsenal-For-when-you-really-want-stuff-gone) thread, voidstone would be a really thematic material to use for a phylactery. It's a sort of condensed negative energy that acts as a miniature Sphere of Annihilation.

[ShurikVch]

A combat golem is also a bad choice for a phylactery. Folks will want to destroy it even without specifically knowing that's what it is.
The thing is - their description says:

Finding this drow lich's lair in the Underdark is difficult enough without bringing in the phylactery that stores her life force: A greater iron golem, cast in the shape of a giant mechanical spider, lurks somewhere in the world above.
"Above" means "not in the Underdark" - i. e. nowhere near Jannys herself (good luck to locate it!)

[Promethean]

As Jowgen noted in his voidstone arsenal (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?480986-The-Voidstone-Arsenal-For-when-you-really-want-stuff-gone) thread, voidstone would be a really thematic material to use for a phylactery. It's a sort of condensed negative energy that acts as a miniature Sphere of Annihilation.

Wouldn't the prospective lich risk having their soul eaten in a very unresurrectable way doing that?

It's possible using the phylactery counts as "coming in contact" with the void stone, in which case the lich would be making a DC 25 fortitude save Every Round as it waits the 1D10 days it takes it's new body to grow.

With a 5% chance of Permanent Death regardless of save bonuses, I personally wouldn't take those odds.

[FauxKnee]

With a 5% chance of Permanent Death regardless of save bonuses, I personally wouldn't take those odds.

It's not too difficult to get your modifiers high enough (+24) and Steadfast Determination (player's handbook ii) can ensure you don't automatically fail the save just because of a natural 1. I haven't actually used a voidstone phylactery in game before, but I have used a combatant with that feat plus a voidstone weapon against players. One of them made the knowledge check to identify the weapon's material before the fight broke out and it radically changed their combat tactics. They found it a really fun encounter.

[InvisibleBison]

Wouldn't the prospective lich risk having their soul eaten in a very unresurrectable way doing that?

It's possible using the phylactery counts as "coming in contact" with the void stone, in which case the lich would be making a DC 25 fortitude save Every Round as it waits the 1D10 days it takes it's new body to grow.

With a 5% chance of Permanent Death regardless of save bonuses, I personally wouldn't take those odds.

The rules don't say anything about how a lich respawns, as far as I know. It's perfectly possible for a DM to rule that the process doesn't involve a new body growing out of the phylactery.

[Promethean]

It's not too difficult to get your modifiers high enough (+24) and Steadfast Determination (player's handbook ii) can ensure you don't automatically fail the save just because of a natural 1. I haven't actually used a voidstone phylactery in game before, but I have used a combatant with that feat plus a voidstone weapon against players. One of them made the knowledge check to identify the weapon's material before the fight broke out and it radically changed their combat tactics. They found it a really fun encounter.

Fair enough. Muscle-Lich(Nemesis of Muscle-Wizard) is more mechanically viable than I thought.


The rules don't say anything about how a lich respawns, as far as I know. It's perfectly possible for a DM to rule that the process doesn't involve a new body growing out of the phylactery.

Could also side-step it entirely if they use a lich variant that possesses new bodies like 1e liches did and Dracoliches still do. Forget which book it was though.

The only issue that could still come up from that is whether a soul can come into contact with voidstone. Liches must "return to there phylactery" on death, but as the user above pointed out, Muscle-Lich is OP.