How would you create and then protect YOUR lich phylactery?

[Vaern]

Now another feature of the class is the ability to cast while wearing light armor with no penalties. They also have slightly better than wizard BAB and health. With four feats (two from core and two from the book that gave us warmages) i can run around in full plate mail and cast spells without penalty. This may sound like a tagent but it is not.

Why so many feats? I would think that battle caster and medium armor proficiency to wear mithral full plate would be good enough. Or even just mithral medium armor for no feat tax - I'll generally do mithral breastplate as a bard.

[Segev]

3. Secretly not being a lich at all, but an immortal wizard who uses shapechanging, illusion, and the Clone spell to fake it. Enemies waste time searching for a phylactery that doesn't exist.

I like this because it's a good reminder that lichdom is not the only option. Serial clone spells work very well, as do a few other options. Lichdom has the benefit of requiring nothing beyond its 1d10 days of downtime if you do get destroyed, as well as some nice perks in terms of power-ups, but it also (if you are fully aware of mechanical costs) has a level adjustment that can slow your magical advancement.

There's a fragility to dispel magic or disjunction that would need special attention to overcome, but a magic item that is permanently a use-activated magic jar would enable you to body-hop more or less at will. Including into undead.

I personally think serial cloning is a BETTER overall solution to immortality. It's cheaper in the short run, more immediate for recovering from death, and can keep you young. Lichdom/undeath is mostly attractive for long-term expense (unless the phylactery is destroyed, it's a one-off cost), and the lack of need to sustain yourself. (This is actually one of the reasons I loathe 5e's change to liches. Making them need to feed souls to their phylacteries defeats the primary purpose to tolerating lichdom's downsides rather than becoming something more fun, like a vampire. The whole point for a lot of liches is being able to withdraw from the world and just do research on their own for years on end. If you have to emerge to feed regularly, that's entirely defeating the purpose!

[Zerryzerry]

1)put the strongest Endure Elements spell on it
2)Put Permanency on the spell
3)put the strongest NonDetection Spell on it
4)repeat the Permanency
5)glue it on something that the wind can move
6)Set a Twinned/delayed/echoed spell of Gust of Wind on the item is glued on
7)Cast a Twinned/echoed Teleport on everything into outer space
8)Sleep 20 years

My philactery should be at enough distance from whatever planet i am living on to be outside of range even from epic magic.
Oh, and i need the spell that brings me back to a set location no matter the distance as a contingency. I cannot remember the name now

[GrayDeath]

In my opinions Horcruxes are just voldemort using the human heritage feat (it is specified that voldemort is half human) in order to be able to get the lich template multiple times.
(Hence the horrific evil act for each Horcruxe and Horcruxes lasting forever and voldemort saying that by making multiple horcruxes he would be more powerful: all points toward staking the lich template multiple times and not toward that epic spell)

That...makes an awful lot of sense.

Also why he is so insane. He must be, all that RAWness in his brain^^

Well let's see...


As a lich i won't have the physical needs of the living. My phylactery will likely radiate Evil with a capital E. Additionally it will radiate other magical auras as i make it resist 20 versus the usual damages (fire, cold, electric, acid and sonic). So what i will want to do is to physically place this object someplace you can't walk to.

So i will build a tomb for me. A small two room affair. In my unmarked casket will be some random dude with great bone structure. Decked out like some viking warlord. A few feet below that is a 5 by 5 by 5 cell lined with lead with a simple pedestal with my phylactery sitting on it. Formed from spells the cell is technically encased in stone and lead. Not like i need to breath, right?

It will be an adamantine mace with a hollow handle. If the handle is also adamantine then it will still have hardness 20.


Now another feature of the class is the ability to cast while wearing light armor with no penalties. They also have slightly better than wizard BAB and health. With four feats (two from core and two from the book that gave us warmages) i can run around in full plate mail and cast spells without penalty. This may sound like a tagent but it is not.


I want to be known for my martial abilities. I want others to think death knight or some avenger spirit thingie. I don't just want it to be hidden; i want my phylactery to be unlooked for. I want my phylactery to come in a shape that people will find value in. You don't toss an awesome mace into mount doom...


My defense is shattering all notions and expectations of what a lich should be.

Mind if I steal that?

[Elbeyon]

I mean, erasing the greatest force for Good from history is arguably even worse than killing a bunch of people.

Similar idea. Turn the phylactery into pandora's jar. Store the greatest evils ever to exist inside the prison phylactery. If anyone wants to destroy it, they have to release armageddon. As long as having the lich around is less worse than all the stored combined evils in the phylactery it should be fine. A bonus if paladins fight to protect a lich's phylactery in order to protect the material plane from being scourged. Helping the lich is the lesser evil than damming the world.

[Celestia]

Similar idea. Turn the phylactery into pandora's jar. Store the greatest evils ever to exist inside the prison phylactery. If anyone wants to destroy it, they have to release armageddon. As long as having the lich around is less worse than all the stored combined evils in the phylactery it should be fine. A bonus if paladins fight to protect a lich's phylactery in order to protect the material plane from being scourged. Helping the lich is the lesser evil than damming the world.

That would certainly work, too. See, all these plans to make the phylactery unfindable/unreachable/indestructible/etc. are dooned to fail because they don't take into account the sheer willpower and persistence of heroes. No matter how hard you try, they will always try just a little harder, and they will always find/reach/destroy your phylactery. The trick, then, is to make the heroes not want to destroy it. If destroying your phylactery is worse than leaving you be, they won't destroy it. That's what Morgoth did when he turned all of Middle-Earth into his soul jar, and look! He didn't die! Of course, you do have to come up with a plan to avoid eternal imprisonment, but that was a problem, anyways.

[TheStranger]

Alternatively you POA your phylactery into a newborn baby via a chain of castings that give it a permanent duration. Place the baby in a loving foster home in some backwater. When they die you just collect the corpse and POA it into a new baby. This is compatible with all of the above.

Having a lich’s soul inside him has got to have some side effects for that kid. I want to play a game as that character.

As a GM, though, I’d probably rule that, by virtue of having placed your soul in a living body, you’ve effectively reincarnated yourself and are at risk of losing your status as a lich. Not as a “gotcha” thing where you just lose all your powers because I’m a jerk, but as a plot hook for some kind of zany adventure.

[Malphegor]

I’m tempted to go full koschei the deathless on this.

Step 1: My phylactery is a needle, as thin as one can get.

Step 2: It is (via magic presumably) placed inside an unfertilised egg.

Step 3: This egg is (via magic presumably) placed inside a undead rabbit.

Step 4: The rabbit is in a ordinary chest.

Step 5: The ordinary chest is in a magically sealed super chest.

Step 6: The magically sealed super chest is inside a much larger but ordinary cargo trunk.

Step 7: Now we’re gonna take a Baba Yaga approach and nail this trunk to an effigy of a large bird built with a sort of house instead of its rearward torso.

Step 8: Chuck it into a demiplane where failure to state the key phrase ‘I am koschei the deathless. Go away intruders’ every 9 hours causes one to be dismissed from that plane.

Step 9: expect the inevitability of someone trying to destroy it if I make myself known as a lich to the world because OF COURSE. The Inevitables alone are enough, but the adventurers are going to come for me eventually, but I’ll give them a fight worth prolonging my life for. Gather spells, weapons, minons, techniques, and prepare for battle with anyone who dares come for me

[sleepyphoenixx]

I like this because it's a good reminder that lichdom is not the only option. Serial clone spells work very well, as do a few other options. Lichdom has the benefit of requiring nothing beyond its 1d10 days of downtime if you do get destroyed, as well as some nice perks in terms of power-ups, but it also (if you are fully aware of mechanical costs) has a level adjustment that can slow your magical advancement.

My go-to would be Astral Seed if i can get it. It lacks Clone's downside of having to take 2d4 months to grow a new clone when you need to use it.
It also lacks any of the moral complications of lichdom and the heroes coming to kill the undead monstrosity, though if you're evil anyway Body Leech is also an option.

There's a fragility to dispel magic or disjunction that would need special attention to overcome, but a magic item that is permanently a use-activated magic jar would enable you to body-hop more or less at will. Including into undead.

Something like the Amulet of Spirit Storing?
It's pretty nice since you can use the MIC rules to also make it an Amulet of Wisdom or something else relatively common and use Magic Aura to hide the spirit storing aspect.
Also significantly cheaper than lichdom.

I personally think serial cloning is a BETTER overall solution to immortality. It's cheaper in the short run, more immediate for recovering from death, and can keep you young. Lichdom/undeath is mostly attractive for long-term expense (unless the phylactery is destroyed, it's a one-off cost), and the lack of need to sustain yourself. (This is actually one of the reasons I loathe 5e's change to liches. Making them need to feed souls to their phylacteries defeats the primary purpose to tolerating lichdom's downsides rather than becoming something more fun, like a vampire. The whole point for a lot of liches is being able to withdraw from the world and just do research on their own for years on end. If you have to emerge to feed regularly, that's entirely defeating the purpose!

I don't actually see any benefit to lichdom that you couldn't also get with a Ring of Sustenance and an Endure Elements spell.
Sure, undead immunities are nice, but they also come with new vulnerabilities and many automatic enemies. If all i wanted was to be left alone i'd rather not have the latter.

[Segev]

Having a lich’s soul inside him has got to have some side effects for that kid. I want to play a game as that character.

As a GM, though, I’d probably rule that, by virtue of having placed your soul in a living body, you’ve effectively reincarnated yourself and are at risk of losing your status as a lich. Not as a “gotcha” thing where you just lose all your powers because I’m a jerk, but as a plot hook for some kind of zany adventure.

Technically, the phylactery stores the "life force," not the soul.

[GrayDeath]

Soooo, does it help one aiming for immortality (though not necessarily as a Lich, they tend to have stupid requrements) if one is the new owner of Baba Yagas Hut?

`Cause my Character just happened to manage that via a combination of subterfuge, punching the hut KO, and having a sure way to keeep the Witch somewhere where she cant get out.

(I really might post the Campaign Journal some time, this is after all the first mostly proactive Evil Group I have played in that simply worked so far, and once we CENSORED well...)

[Segev]

Soooo, does it help one aiming for immortality (though not necessarily as a Lich, they tend to have stupid requrements) if one is the new owner of Baba Yagas Hut?

`Cause my Character just happened to manage that via a combination of subterfuge, punching the hut KO, and having a sure way to keeep the Witch somewhere where she cant get out.

(I really might post the Campaign Journal some time, this is after all the first mostly proactive Evil Group I have played in that simply worked so far, and once we CENSORED well...)

Not inherently, to my knowledge, but it sure can't hurt! Nice job! And good luck keeping the hag (I assume she's a hag?) contained; she's dangerous.

[GrayDeath]

Well, for now she is fighting the other problem mage we tricked into the "entrapped area". While we assume she will win, they are both very powerful and have deep reserves (luckily they hate each other^^), so we have a few days we think.

Lets hope we find a way to off her till then, ^^

[ross]

The phylactery is a proton selected at random from all protons in the observable universe, and covered by customized epic anti detection spells cast by enslaved deities.

[Fouredged Sword]

Another great option to hide your phylactery is to ensure the adventurers defend it for you. You can assume that the adventurers are going to find it eventually. There are spells to mess with the aura a magic item gives off so there is no reason your phylactery needs to LOOK like something evil.

The Sword of True Death is said to be a blade as old as the Lich Smarmypants himself. It is a +1 undeadbane greatsword. Legends of lore and divination all say that it holds the key to defeating the awful lich Smarmypants once and for all.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Another great option to hide your phylactery is to ensure the adventurers defend it for you. You can assume that the adventurers are going to find it eventually. There are spells to mess with the aura a magic item gives off so there is no reason your phylactery needs to LOOK like something evil.

The Sword of True Death is said to be a blade as old as the Lich Smarmypants himself. It is a +1 undeadbane greatsword. Legends of lore and divination all say that it holds the key to defeating the awful lich Smarmypants once and for all.

The problem with having your enemies unknowingly protect your phylactery is that you presumably reappear near it if killed.
Without your gear and probably with most of your spells expended (or you wouldn't have died).

I think even the most naive adventurer would get suspicious if the same naked lich keeps reappearing around him every 1d10 days.

[Aldrakan]

Another great option to hide your phylactery is to ensure the adventurers defend it for you. You can assume that the adventurers are going to find it eventually. There are spells to mess with the aura a magic item gives off so there is no reason your phylactery needs to LOOK like something evil.

The Sword of True Death is said to be a blade as old as the Lich Smarmypants himself. It is a +1 undeadbane greatsword. Legends of lore and divination all say that it holds the key to defeating the awful lich Smarmypants once and for all.

Although you're gonna feel really embarrassed if they use it to kill you then work it out what it is and you made a totally accurate fake prophecy about your own defeat.

[Fouredged Sword]

Although you're gonna feel really embarrassed if they use it to kill you then work it out what it is and you made a totally accurate fake prophecy about your own defeat.

The problem with having your enemies unknowingly protect your phylactery is that you presumably reappear near it if killed.
Without your gear and probably with most of your spells expended (or you wouldn't have died).

I think even the most naive adventurer would get suspicious if the same naked lich keeps reappearing around him every 1d10 days.

This is why every lich should have set up a contingency clone and then on top of that a contingency true resurrections set to go off in some empty but otherwise secure location with a spare spellbook.

To kill you they need to break your phylactery. Then they have to kill you. Then you have returned to life in a cloned body and they need to hunt you down and kill you before you can turn back into a lich. Then they have to hunt you down and do that a second time because you revived again.

You can set up a clone spell before turning yourself into a lich and the spell remains functional until you need it. True resurrection also can be used to revive you if you actually kick the bucket.

You could even treat it as a vacation. You're alive again. Go out and enjoy a tankard of ale and maybe spend a few decades getting married and raising some kids. Then you can turn yourself back into a lich and return to your research relaxed and refreshed.

[Segev]

This is why every lich should have set up a contingency clone and then on top of that a contingency true resurrections set to go off in some empty but otherwise secure location with a spare spellbook.

To kill you they need to break your phylactery. Then they have to kill you. Then you have returned to life in a cloned body and they need to hunt you down and kill you before you can turn back into a lich. Then they have to hunt you down and do that a second time because you revived again.

You can set up a clone spell before turning yourself into a lich and the spell remains functional until you need it. True resurrection also can be used to revive you if you actually kick the bucket.

You could even treat it as a vacation. You're alive again. Go out and enjoy a tankard of ale and maybe spend a few decades getting married and raising some kids. Then you can turn yourself back into a lich and return to your research relaxed and refreshed.

Technically, I don't think you count as "destroyed" until your body and your phylactery is destroyed, if you're a lich. Therefore, you're not a valid target for resurrection nor true resurrection while your phylactery remains intact.

Clone is a stickier matter. It doesn't specify that being undead prevents you from coming back. Interestingly, it ALSO specifies that your original body becomes "inert flesh, and cannot thereafter be raised from the dead." While taken as a whole, this would probably refer only to the limit on not bringing the now-inert flesh back to life as "you," one might also argue that as "inert flesh" it is no longer a valid target for anything that brings the dead to unlife, either. If you wanted to make very spurious claims, you could even suggest that it might turn an extant skeleton, zombie, lich, wight, or other undead into "inert flesh," instantly ending the undead existence as the person wakes up, alive, in the cloned body.

Now, since a lich would still technically have a phylactery, it's possible that even killing the clone just turns him back INTO a lich, so....

[Alcore]

Why so many feats? I would think that battle caster and medium armor proficiency to wear mithral full plate would be good enough. Or even just mithral medium armor for no feat tax - I'll generally do mithral breastplate as a bard.

Yeah... if DM rules that mithral also reduces proficiencies. I can see some of the logic there but full plate still doesn't quite move like a breastplate or chainmail.

Mind if I steal that?

Thank you. Yes.

(Though you have now failed at stealing for i am giving)


Be sure the decoy corpse has good bone structure. If the party is going to be spending time purifying it in the hopes of dispelling you as an undead vengeance spirit thingie it should be a corpse you want to look at. It's supposed to be you....

[Celestia]

Yeah... if DM rules that mithral also reduces proficiencies. I can see some of the logic there but full plate still doesn't quite move like a breastplate or chainmail.

By RAW, it does not. You need heavy armor proficiency to use mithral full plate. It just counts as medium for encumbrance and movement.

[Alcore]

By RAW, it does not. You need heavy armor proficiency to use mithral full plate. It just counts as medium for encumbrance and movement.

I know that. The person i had replyed to does not.

[Eldonauran]

By RAW, it does not. You need heavy armor proficiency to use mithral full plate, without taking penalties. It just counts as medium for encumbrance and movement.

Just a bit of clarification, for the benefit of others.

[Oberron]

I'd put my phylactery in a solid wall forcecage with a wierdstone in a hole about 100ft underground on the moon. Then slowly cover hundreds of other spots on the moon with the same set up except instead of a covered hole each will have their own tomb filled with undead elemental and other creatures that don't breath and have silent spell type SLA so they can still cast, but mostly magical traps of dispell magic and areas of anti-magic zones to remove possible buffs/items that would protect adventures from the lack of oxygen and atmosphere.

This set up alone should protect me until space ships and nonmagical travel to the moon is more common and by then I should be able to think of a new plan. Meanwhile when/if I die I reappear in an indescribable cube of force and greater teleport back to the planet into one of the many other tombs/crypts left as "fake" lair s with fake phylactery in, maybe check up on tombs once and a while and improve with other traps and creatures if I come across any adventures that might contain undead/outsiders/whatever.

[Lord Arkon]

My phylactery would be a gold coin of a kingdom completely unconnected to my life. I would, of course, use what magic I could to suppress its magical aura. It would be pressed into a book of coins, with several of its contemporaries. The book would be kept in my private library, which would only be accessible by teleportation through lead lining, and once I was capable would be on my personal demiplane. If my DM rules that a coin wouldn't be a valid phylactery, I would instead make it appear to be a common brick in my private library.

I would also keep some tombs defended with traps and undead minions across the land, with fake phylacteries in each one. These fake bases would also serve as laboratories for my important research, and I would operate under a different name for each one. My decision of which laboratory to use would be guided by my desire to avoid drawing attention to my activities. I might need to use a different lab every decade, but that just lets the mortals forget about the last time I needed test subjects.

[Vaern]

Yeah... if DM rules that mithral also reduces proficiencies. I can see some of the logic there but full plate still doesn't quite move like a breastplate or chainmail.

By RAW, it does not. You need heavy armor proficiency to use mithral full plate. It just counts as medium for encumbrance and movement.

I don't see how you figure that. It says it's considered one category lighter for movement and other limitations. "Other limitations" would include proficiencies, armored casting, and anything else that is limited by your armor's weight class.
There is a description of some non-magical mithral chainmail in the DMG which says it is considered light armor. It doesn't say it "counts as light for encumbrance and movement" - it is simply light armor. There's also the mithral full plate of speed, albeit enchanted, which explicitly says it is medium armor. As far as I can tell, there's all of the evidence to indicate that mithral full plate is medium armor that requires medium armor proficiency and none to indicate otherwise.

MIC also specifically notes that mithral armor is treated as a category lighter for the purpose of proficiencies. Races of the Wild also has a table of armors made from special materials listing mithral scale mail, chainmail, and breastplate as light, and full plate, half-plate, splint mail, and banded mail as medium armor. That seems like a pretty open-and-closed argument, but since I fully expect to hear "They're not core so they don't count" I thought it would be better to lead with examples from the core book that defines the material to begin with instead. There's nothing in the DMG to indicate that the armor's weight change doesn't affect its proficiency requirement and everything in the DMG and every book since to indicate that it does.

[Segev]

My phylactery would be a gold coin of a kingdom completely unconnected to my life. I would, of course, use what magic I could to suppress its magical aura. It would be pressed into a book of coins, with several of its contemporaries. The book would be kept in my private library, which would only be accessible by teleportation through lead lining, and once I was capable would be on my personal demiplane. If my DM rules that a coin wouldn't be a valid phylactery, I would instead make it appear to be a common brick in my private library.

I would also keep some tombs defended with traps and undead minions across the land, with fake phylacteries in each one. These fake bases would also serve as laboratories for my important research, and I would operate under a different name for each one. My decision of which laboratory to use would be guided by my desire to avoid drawing attention to my activities. I might need to use a different lab every decade, but that just lets the mortals forget about the last time I needed test subjects.

If you're making it an unremarkable coin, why not just put it into circulation? Good luck finding a specific quarter amidst all the coins in the USA.

[Celestia]

If you're making it an unremarkable coin, why not just put it into circulation? Good luck finding a specific quarter amidst all the coins in the USA.

That's where I thought that post was going, and I was confused when it turned out I was wrong.

[noob]

It is a double twist.
The oracle says "the phylactery is a coin" thanks to the divine portfolio sense of some deity.
Then the heroes seeks among all the towns all the coins and remelts all of them.
None of them was the phylactery.
Then the lich goes and taunts them and dance about how they are never going to find the phylactery among all the coins in circulation.
Afterwards the heroes goes on a dragon rampage and melts all the hoards.
The cycle of taunting continues indefinitely.
I think it was the intent.
What is the point of becoming a lich or any other form of BBEG if you can not taunt heroes?

[Lord Arkon]

If you're making it an unremarkable coin, why not just put it into circulation? Good luck finding a specific quarter amidst all the coins in the USA.

Paranoia. If I don't know where it is, someone could could be melting it down to make some noble a new goblet, or feeding it to an golden gorger, or it could be in the hoard of some dragon that decides to melt its bed into a new shape. Setting up in a coin collecting book increases its perceived value without screaming 'magic object'. It gets framed as an art piece the thieves can sell for a greater quantity of gold.

Of course, this is all for if I were a player lich. As a DM, I would be a bit less inconspicuous; to avoid my PCs melting every coin they get and tearing every dungeon down to the last brick. There's a point where the paranoia of the PCs just gets tedious, and I don't want to drive them there.