D&D Lich

[Balkash]

Ok, so in the monster manual for 3.5 (im pretty sure its 3.5), the template for a lich says that is must be any evil alignment. Yet, when i researched it, i found that Archliches are good liches, and that liches can be good (though it is very hard to keep good alignment since becoming a lich is a very evil thing) and usually good liches became such due to a need for revenge or to finish some quest in they didnt in life. well ive got a lich character, and even before i knew i might be able to be my old alignment (Chaotic Neutral), he became a lich so that he could topple this ruler and not have to rush or worry. so basically my question is can anyone tell me, for sure, if a 3.5 edition lich possibly not be evil?

[Setra]

Sorry to be off topic, but there is a forum specifically for D&D.

[Gorbash Kazdar]

Moved on out.

[Ichneumon]

It is certainly possible. Here I quote from Libris Mortis:

Though conceptually an oxymoron, the idea of a good-aligned creature who chooses undead immortality over a normal lifespan is a compelling one. Such creatures typically dedicate themselves to some noble cause--protection of a sacred location, the tending of knowledge or learning, and so forth.

Now, next in Libris Mortis, there are stats for a Good Lich, but quoting them would be against copyright.

EDIT: Let I assure you of the fact that the differences between the two templates are minimal and you can just use the normal lich template.

[horseboy]

Man, didn't we just do this one?

[Draz74]

The inconsistency comes from various campaign settings or worlds, where the nature of undead-ness is slightly different.

The Archlich is a Faerun-specific concept. Or at least it was at some time in the past.

Regardless of the Archlich, the amount of inherent "evil-ness" in undead creatures and lichdom varies widely. Any world that includes the unmodified Dread Necromancer class seems to accept that neutral beings can become liches. Some settings have "Deathless" or similar good-aligned, positive-energy undead; in those cases, good liches certainly make sense.

[RandomNPC]

i'm still stuborn about a lich being evil just so my players don't go "im gonna hide my soul over here then march across three continents to go to war." then become an annoyingly hard to kill opponent. thats reserved for the BBEG.

i'm all for a lich good guy, just don't tell my players. but then the idea of self sacrifice..... it would take a lot. a paladin may leap in the face of a dragon to save his friends. a lich paladin will leap into the face of a dragon because he knows he will be back a week or two later. not as much fun.

anywho, a lich doesn't need divine evil gods to help, not specifically, but i've been toying with the idea of a good deity that doesn't mind undead granting lichdom instead of sainthood.

there was also a few magic items, i remember a necklace on the archmage of menzoberanzen (sp) that keeps him at the peak of his age, among other things. i assume it would make a human early twentys, and an elf in the 200-300s (i think, i don't have the age chart here) if your story doesn't have good lichs you can look for something like that.

[Evil DM Mark3]

Whenever I do Liches, Vampires, Mummies or any other undead except perhaps ghosts I use the following justification.

"The torment of the undead existence, the half life between the living and the grave, is too much for mind and soul to bear. It warps and twists the viewpoint until the creature is evil, regardless of what they where in life. Often the creature cannot perceive the change, turning from elven paladin to vampire blackguard almost without noticing the change in its own mentality."

[Lord_Kimboat]

I've got a solution for you Random. Make the becoming of a good lich so godawful expensive that it isn't worth while. I mean, Paladin 1 leaps into the dragon face because he's a good lich. Unfortunately, the making of his philactory (is that spelled right?) cost him 20,000gp and must be recharged with 7,000gp of stuff when used. Also, his body suffers stat damage when it regenerates.

Meanwhile, the monk, that was also killed by the dragon, loses 5,500gp and is raised like normal adventurers.

[bosssmiley]

Man, didn't we just do this one?

Yes, yes we did. Not more than a few weeks ago. Use the Force mook.

Personal take: 2nd Ed fluff involved the Lich sacrificing the souls of others to bind his life force to his phylactery. Using other's souls for one's own ends = evil in my book. Cheers.

You might want to download the pdf of "Van Richten's Guide to the Lich" from paizo.com for a "Ravenloft" take on it. Reminds me, still haven't read his "Guide to the Ancient Dead" yet...

[Belial_the_Leveler]

Naah, if you want to be immortal, plane-shift to the Astral Plane. No aging there. Then, use Astral Projection to create a new body in the material plane and do your adventures. You won't age and you can't die in the material plane-though someone could kill your body in the astral if it is not defended.

[Dausuul]

I've got a solution for you Random. Make the becoming of a good lich so godawful expensive that it isn't worth while. I mean, Paladin 1 leaps into the dragon face because he's a good lich. Unfortunately, the making of his philactory (is that spelled right?) cost him 20,000gp and must be recharged with 7,000gp of stuff when used. Also, his body suffers stat damage when it regenerates.

Meanwhile, the monk, that was also killed by the dragon, loses 5,500gp and is raised like normal adventurers.

Hmm, I think my preferred approach for PC liches would be to take a leaf out of 2E's book and say that a lich that has been driven into its phylactery must have a living creature of the same race to possess before it can get out. (I think that's how it worked in 2E. If not, it should have been.) That prevents the old "I bury my phylactery under a mountain in the deepest wilderness" trick... particularly if you require extended physical contact for the possession to work.

Then, of course, any time your PC lich starts getting arrogant about how he can't die, somebody swipes his phylactery. Heh.

Oh, and good liches? Gah. Hate 'em. I know good-aligned liches are legal by RAW, but as far as I'm concerned, turning into a lich corrupts you forever. You may think you're still good, but you are in fact EVIL.

[Starbuck_II]

Hmm, I think my preferred approach for PC liches would be to take a leaf out of 2E's book and say that a lich that has been driven into its phylactery must have a living creature of the same race to possess before it can get out. (I think that's how it worked in 2E. If not, it should have been.) That prevents the old "I bury my phylactery under a mountain in the deepest wilderness" trick... particularly if you require extended physical contact for the possession to work.

Then, of course, any time your PC lich starts getting arrogant about how he can't die, somebody swipes his phylactery. Heh.

Oh, and good liches? Gah. Hate 'em. I know good-aligned liches are legal by RAW, but as far as I'm concerned, turning into a lich corrupts you forever. You may think you're still good, but you are in fact EVIL.

Granted, everyone will think he is good too. He will act like a good hero though detect as evil? Well, Paladins can't prove he is evil since detect spells detect whether undead first.

[Maerok]

I've got a solution for you Random. Make the becoming of a good lich so godawful expensive that it isn't worth while. I mean, Paladin 1 leaps into the dragon face because he's a good lich. Unfortunately, the making of his philactory (is that spelled right?) cost him 20,000gp and must be recharged with 7,000gp of stuff when used. Also, his body suffers stat damage when it regenerates.

Meanwhile, the monk, that was also killed by the dragon, loses 5,500gp and is raised like normal adventurers.

Lich is only available to CL 11+ characters. It costs 120,000 gp and 4,800 XP to make a phylactery in the first place, which could have been used for some nifty gear. He already has a regen time of 1d10, where it misses out on more gp and XP. Plus, someone could loot the body.

[horseboy]

Granted, everyone will think he is good too. He will act like a good hero though detect as evil? Well, Paladins can't prove he is evil since detect spells detect whether undead first.

You know, that's an interesting point. What would be the legal ramifications to so much magic everywhere? Would detect evil from a paladin be admissible in court?
Lawyer: "You claim to be a paladin, correct?"
Paladin: "Yes."
Lawyer: "How do we know this?"
*Smite Evil*
Judge: "Please stop smiting the lawyers, we're running out of them."
Lawyer2: "So you claim that my defendant the currently former wizard and liche 'Ub3rpwnzr' registers as evil. How do we know this?"
Paladin: I swore an oath to tell the truth. I said it, and it's true. Otherwise I wouldn't still be a paladin. We need to reestablish that?"
Lawer2 (Backing away): No, no, we can take your word for it."

[ShneekeyTheLost]

The process of becomming a litch is an inherintly evil process, including the sacrifice of an unwilling sentient being and ending with your own suicide to finish the process. It requires several evil acts to be able to gather the necessary ingredients, which are too gruesome and abominatable to mention in polite company. Therefore, the process of becomming a litch is only available to those who already have no morals or qualms concerning these evil acts. If one starts out not evil, and still does these, he will be corrupted both by the horrid acts and by the magic inherent in the transformation so that the end result is quite evil.

It is not a matter of undead being inherently evil, the ritual which is required to become a litch certainly is.

[lukelightning]

Personally I would rule that the only way a lich could become good and redeem itself from evil would be to destroy itself and cease to exist. I see a lich's very existance as a perversion of natural laws and against all that is Good; its very act of being is an Evil Act.

This seems unpopular with many people, but I would argue that allowing good liches to exist would be like Luke Skywalker turning to the darkside and joining Darth Vader and still being a hero. Or Frodo giving himself to One Ring and saying "now all I need is a helm of opposite alignment and I'll be good!" Sorry, it doesn't work that way.

[lord_khaine]

actualy yes it does, all being a lich entails is to have hidden your lifeforce in a suposedly safe place, all the rest is just different versions of fluff and house rules, including things like having to kill some poor bugger to complete the transformation.

[nagora]

Natural life is Good=>undead is unnatural life => undeath opposes life =>Undead are Evil. QED.

What to do if you are Good and find that you are undead: kill yourself. Properly.

[Dausuul]

Granted, everyone will think he is good too. He will act like a good hero though detect as evil? Well, Paladins can't prove he is evil since detect spells detect whether undead first.

Actually, what I meant was that you might cling to some twisted justification for your wicked deeds that would, in your mind, make your actions perfectly right and good... but you would still, in truth, be an evil undead horror doing evil horrible things.

In my world (and yes, this is a house rule, I know), becoming a lich corrupts your mind and spirit. Becoming a lich is the equivalent of Gandalf taking the One Ring and using it. No matter how good your intentions are to start with, you end up a Dark Lord.

[Just Alex]

Man, I run Liches weird compared to you guys. The last lich my party ran into was just a crochety old man that wanted to get those damn kids off his proverbial lawn.

[Belteshazzar]

Same here. My undead come in all colors well most colors anyway. If you want to be a good spellslinging skeleton then sure but it is going to force you to make some choices. Do you take the easy evil way? Or do you earn your immortality the hard way with sanctity intact?

If you try to be a good aligned litch or mummy I would make the character work for it harder than Mr. Collects Babies for Satan who is on a fast track program to undead badassery.

[Jasdoif]

Granted, everyone will think he is good too. He will act like a good hero though detect as evil? Well, Paladins can't prove he is evil since detect spells detect whether undead first.

This is where a cleric with detect good prepared would be useful.

[Collin152]

What to do if you are Good and find that you are undead: kill yourself. Properly.

Yes, but how many people when faced with what is good and what is easy choose the more difficult path?

[horseboy]

I'm surprised noone has brought it up. The easiest modern day example would be the philosopher's stone from Full Metal Alchemist. Do you sacrifice all those people for your own personal power?

[nagora]

Yes, but how many people when faced with what is good and what is easy choose the more difficult path?

"I will diminish, and go into the West and remain Galadriel."

[puppyavenger]

I make it so that anyone of any alignment can become a lich. It's just that the easist way is to is to sacrifice a puppies soul/ transmut your loyal companions into a mural of pain that forces them to exist forever in pain/ etc.
But there are plaenty of other ways, like just filling your soul with negative energy, or twisting the negative energy oround you so that you are unaffected by entrophy.

[dungeon_munky]

What I have done is create a good lich equivalent. It becomes an outsider rather than undead, and it has good abilities; lay on hands, aura of courage. The final part of the ritual sacrificing your life in a good act deemed worthy by the resident good god (I use Pelor.) Naturally this results in many deaths of people doing acts that Pelor doesn't think is good enough.

[lukelightning]

The final part of the ritual sacrificing your life in a good act deemed worthy by the resident good god (I use Pelor.) Naturally this results in many deaths of people doing acts that Pelor doesn't think is good enough.

Or these poor deluded fools have been tricked by an evil lich-to-be into thinking they are sacrificing themselves for Pelor...but instead they are sacrificing themselves to power the creation of the evil lich-to-be's phylactery.

[Starbuck_II]

This is where a cleric with detect good prepared would be useful.

Nuertal Cleric or Evil Cleric?
If Evil Cleric: Why is anyone trrusting him.

If Neutral: Paladin won't like him casting evil spells.