The "Lords"

[CopperElfCleric]

A Werewolf Lord.
A Vampire Lord.
A Lich Lord.
A Ghast Lord.

Who is the most powerful in every day life among common folk and adventurers?

I have my opinions but will save them until you all have a chance to answer.

[Zanos]

What does Lord mean in this context? From the presented creatures, I'm going to say that generally D&D depicts a Lich as being the most powerful and feared of them, being a creature who can only come into existence as a consequence of a mage already being powerful, rather than their defining power coming from the transformation itself. A lich is at minimum a nearly immortal and Evil 11th level wizard, which puts them a pretty major cut above the minimum for a true vampire(5 levels of any class), werewolf(could literally be farmer joe stapled to a wolf), and a ghast(4hd). Hell, the Legend Lore spell even defines anything 11th level or above as "legendary", meaning that there is no such thing as a lich that isn't considered legendary.

That said, a Lich usually has little reason to interact with mortals. The other three creature types are prone to actively prey on human civilizations, so they may be more immediately feared by specific populaces that have trouble with them.

[Asmotherion]

Lich +1.

Not only are they full casters, which is awesome, but their abilities are pretty fearsome.

Next in order I'll put the Vampire, then the Ghast and last (but not least) the Werewolf.

I'm assuming all of them are 20 ECL by the way.

[MonochromeTiger]

A Werewolf Lord.
A Vampire Lord.
A Lich Lord.
A Ghast Lord.

None of these can really be compared reasonably without full context. Sure we know what the monsters are but everything else we've got nothing on.


Who is the most powerful in every day life among common folk and adventurers?

I have my opinions but will save them until you all have a chance to answer.

First we need to know what you mean by "Lord." Is it something with actual power behind it like abilities? Is it just a title to be handed out because they own land or are/were part of some local nobility before becoming what they are? What is the actual context of the label and why do they have it?

Then we need further context in the specifics of things like rule set, setting, and if these are unique examples or just generic monsters of their type. The rule set/edition goes a long way to determining their capabilities while the setting could be the difference between "they are all able to think for themselves and plan and strategize" or "half of them are just very clever monsters with no ability to reason or think beyond getting the next meal." If they're unique examples attempts can be made to actually even out their power, otherwise everyone is just going to do the easy cheap answer of "Lich was supposed to be a super powerful magic user before death so they're best because magic even if they don't have anything really useful or impressive learned and prepared." Even without that cheap answer forum bias is going to favor Lich on the assumption that they're going to or already have spent time building up some laundry list of spells and scrolls to counter everything because, well, instantly countering everything because Wizard is the kind of power fantasy that's popular on these forums.

[Quertus]

A Werewolf Lord.
A Vampire Lord.
A Lich Lord.
A Ghast Lord.

Who is the most powerful in every day life among common folk and adventurers?

I have my opinions but will save them until you all have a chance to answer.

Although potentially the most powerful, the Lich Lord will have the least inspiring reputation with the peasantry. After a thousand years, they've likely forgotten that the guy they pay taxes to is a Lich, and they would just grumble about the tax collectors, except one was destroyed a few hundred years back, and the Lich was too busy researching to even notice, so one town has been tax free, and grown into a thriving metropolis trade hub.

The Vampire Lord ought to be terrifying; however, he is held back by 2 big issues. The first is, his crushing +8 LA means it's almost impossible for him to level, so he's likely a wuss. With LA buyoff, 24 levels from now, he'll reduce that to a mere +7 LA, and that's awesome, right? The 2nd big issue is, all he needs is a few human slaves who've grown up in the castle from birth and never been taught any other life to feed off of, and the rest of the population is safe from ever seeing him. So he's just a nerfed version of the Lich, whose closet slowly gains more skeletons.

A Ghast's a what now? Fear of the unknown is likely the only fear a reclusive Ghast Lord is likely to engender. That said, I think they have less control over their hunger, so... they'll likely depopulate their kingdom... leaving no one to fear them if they succeed, and them dead, with no cause for anyone to fear them if they fail.

So the winner of the most terrifying of the group is the Werewolf Lord. They go bonkers and slaughter people on a monthly basis, likely creating additional threats out of the survivors. Seems like it's terror all around when you've got a Werewolf Lord in charge of your territory.

[Maat Mons]

Vampire Lord is from a web article, if memory serves. It requires a minimum of 10 class levels to qualify. You also get Wild Shape as a 12th-level Druid at-will, Control Weather as a 12th-level Sorcerer at-will, and Telekinesis at caster level 12 at-will. You continue to have at-will Dominate Person. Your wolf minions are upgraded to unlimited duration. Your Create Spawn ability is upgraded to always create full-fledged Vampires, even when used on weenie 1st-level peeps. And you get to survive 24 hours after being slain, with the option to prepare an unlimited number of coffins to reform in. Seems like it should be pretty easy to rule a bunch of peasants.

I’m not sure about these other “Lords.” I’ll see what I can find.

Wasn’t there a Mummy Lord too?

Edit: Mummy Lords are only slightly upgraded from standard Mummies, unless you count the line saying they're "often potent spellcasters." The example Mummy Lord is a 10th-level Cleric, which is pretty formidable.

Edit: Werewolf Lord just uses Dire Wolf instead of regular Wolf for the Lycanthrope template. Still really just a brute, so no special ability to spread its influence.

[Crake]

Wouldn't a "lich lord" just be a demilich? Like, the ELH demilich, not the sad, watered down demilich that pathfinder and 5e gave us.

In terms of power in every day life amongst commoners, the vampire lord wins hands down I think. They are practically unkillable, and there's a spell which makes you perpetually in shadow that they can use to access their vampire powers in the midday sun but are otherwise capable of simply waltzing about in what is considered the vampire's bane, and at the end of the day, nothing can actually permanently kill them, as, if their ritually prepared body is disturbed, they can come back to life. Comparing those innate powers to that of a lich, the lich really seems to come back with an L here, even as a demilich.

On the other hand, against ADVENTURERS, the lich's raw power definitely comes in handy, but I still think I'd give the upper hand to the vampire lord. I might just be biased though, as a powerful vampire lord has a fairly prominent place in my campaign setting, wheras liches aren't so center stage.

[KillianHawkeye]

If we're just adding the word "lord" to various monsters, then my vote is on Dragon Lord. :smallamused:

[Remuko]

If we're just adding the word "lord" to various monsters, then my vote is on Dragon Lord. :smallamused:

*has flashbacks to Dragon Quest 1* :eek:

[Maat Mons]

I was getting entirely different flashbacks. (https://youtu.be/qkdV1I6UtNo)

[Zanos]

None of these can really be compared reasonably without full context. Sure we know what the monsters are but everything else we've got nothing on.
First we need to know what you mean by "Lord." Is it something with actual power behind it like abilities? Is it just a title to be handed out because they own land or are/were part of some local nobility before becoming what they are? What is the actual context of the label and why do they have it?
I'm just going off themeing in the absence of further context. As far as I know none of these are real templates other than Vampire Lord, which is obviously a better template than Lich(although maybe not demilich).


Then we need further context in the specifics of things like rule set, setting, and if these are unique examples or just generic monsters of their type. The rule set/edition goes a long way to determining their capabilities while the setting could be the difference between "they are all able to think for themselves and plan and strategize" or "half of them are just very clever monsters with no ability to reason or think beyond getting the next meal." If they're unique examples attempts can be made to actually even out their power, otherwise everyone is just going to do the easy cheap answer of "Lich was supposed to be a super powerful magic user before death so they're best because magic even if they don't have anything really useful or impressive learned and prepared." Even without that cheap answer forum bias is going to favor Lich on the assumption that they're going to or already have spent time building up some laundry list of spells and scrolls to counter everything because, well, instantly countering everything because Wizard is the kind of power fantasy that's popular on these forums.
That's not just forum bias, it's the bias of the genre. A Lich is often depicted in any setting where they exist as being the most powerful and feared of the undead, because old wizards are powerful so an evil wizard that's immortal and paranoid is 10x worse than a normal wizard. The sort of wizard that's obsessive enough to pursue immortality at the cost of their humanity is probably not the kind of layabout who doesn't care to research or prepare spells that would be useful to defend themselves. I'm just speaking in generalities; while there's no reason(other than ECL, which who cares for NPCS) you can't make a vampire that's as feared and magically powerful as a lich, it's not generally the theme of the creature. Vampires tend to, thematically, be more focused on social domination to indulge their hunger and pride, rather than paranoid insane wizards that intentionally gave up all physical pleasures in exchange for a (theoretical) infinity of studying magic. You can just look at the creatures in popular settings to see it play out; Larloch, The Whispering Tyrant, Szass Tam, Vecna, Acerak. Even Ravenloft, where the most recognizable of the Darklords is definitely Strahd, has Azalin, who is a Wizard 18(CR 23) total to Strahd's Wizard 10(CR 15), and Van Richten's Guide to the Undead goes into great detail that a Lich is by far the worst type of undead to face, and goes into how finding someone who had faced one in combat and was still alive was nearly impossible. If you pick any 3.5 setting there's a very good chance that the most powerful non-deity character that exists in the setting is a Lich, and if not they're usually 2nd or 3rd.

Again, there's no reason that you can't make your big bad guy a vampire wizard(or barbarian) instead of a lich wizard, assuming you aren't bothered by the higher CR adjustment. It's just now how the creatures are normally used when both exist in the same setting; finding vampires that serve a lich is common; the inverse is fairly rare.