How do you make Liches interesting?

In earlier editions the Lich was one of my favourite foes to pit against players. On top of the undead status and phylactery (making for a great recurring villain) they had such a range of magical power they could use, giving tons of variety in an encounter.

So, 4e. Not so much that out of the box, as it were.

I can give them lots of rituals, but that is largely backstory and plot related, but doesn't have much to do with the face to face conflict.

So, who has used Liches in 4e? Have you done anything to spruce them up a little? What has been your experience of them?

Cheers

Whenever I look for interesting monster for the PCs to play against (and I'm don't mind unleashing hell on them) I just take a monster I'm interested in (in your case, a Lich) and give it PCs powers. For example, look at the Wizards powers and see if there's anything interesting there for your Lich. I did that with a Dragon and sorcerer's powers and it turned out really cool.

I'm currently plotting out a "Fourthcore" Dungeon Crawl, and I want the BBEG to be a level 15 solo lich. Clearly, I have my work cut out for me; solos are generally too weak to really threaten the party, and since this will "Fourthcore" style, I need to really threaten the party. So here are my ideas so far:

1) Some sort of safeguard against stun, daze, and domination. This is just a plain necessity for higher-level solos, but in the case of liches, I think this should be something inherent. You could tie it narratively to the phylactery. What is a lich but a magical marrionette of bones, controlled by powerful magic and the soul hiding away in the phylactery? Attempts to confuse or muddle the lich's mind should mess up unless the player targets the phylactery... because that's where the lich's "center of thought" truly lies.

2) Grab the Wizard class template. Class templates are something I don't see used alot, but in the bad old days of pre-MM3 damage values, slapping a class template on a creature was one of the few things that could transform a monster from a weakling into a serious threat, if only because it let you poach some of the scarier PC powers. An NPC casting 'Sleep', I've found, always makes an impression.

3) Spawning minions. Liches should be scary in their own right, but liches have resources. They're intelligent casters who have centuries to craft atrocities and prepare for thieves and intruders. It stands to reason that they'll have some allies handy. I'm planning to add a triggered action to my lich; when he's bloodied, he summons a bunch of undead minions as a free action.

It reinforces the "master of undead" and "always has a back-up plan" qualities that an ultra-paranoid, ultra-powerful lich should have.

Hope some of my ideas help you.

Once I was playing an adventure and the DM threw a total curveball.
One of the players had been a cleric and the party was in trouble with a drow raiding party and the cleric sacrificed himself so the rest of us could get away.
Later in that campaign, the DM brought the cleric back as a lich.
It had a bunch of the players powers and it had a twisted version of the characters personality.
It was trying to kill us because we left him to die with the drow. It was pretty fun. He had a dracolich pet (which I think the DM got from the ruins of myth drannor book) and his phlactery was a necklace that was a big part of his backstory.
I think that that was a pretty good way of making that lich more interesting.

If I felt the lich didn't have the array of combat powers or abilities I think it should have access to, I'd just give it whatever powers or abilities I think it needs until I've convinced myself it's good enough. I'd base the new abilities on those used by other wizard- or spellcaster-themed monsters of a similar level.

Unless the lich is a reoccurring enemy who the PCs will face multiple times in combat, the only problem I see will be some "wasted" effort at giving the lich a bevy of neat abilities that the players probably will never see. Unless you give the lich a suite of abilities that have daily-level potency but can be used at-will, I doubt any mechanics issues will arise.

If you want a recurring lich just make it so. You don't need any pc resource to justify it. You never did. Your villain doesnt die permanently because mind your damn business mr player and stop nosing thru the mm trying to rules lawyer your way out of an epic quest with loot and xp thats right your friends want xp so lets go on a quest to find the sage of nerull to learn why this guy is different and why youll need an awesome artifact to beat him oh now i have your attention.

As with so many questions related to monsters in 4e, I believe the answer is "pick another monster that's more interesting" and refluff it.

The Monster Vault Elder Blue Dragon could make a nasty solo artillery if you retype the damage from lightning to necrotic, reflavour the physical attacks to magical ones, and change the nature of some of the effect (weakening and healing surge loss seem appropriate for a lich).

I'd even throw in some sort of "summon minions" power to make up for losing the dragon's reach 3.

2) Grab the Wizard class template. Class templates are something I don't see used alot, but in the bad old days of pre-MM3 damage values, slapping a class template on a creature was one of the few things that could transform a monster from a weakling into a serious threat, if only because it let you poach some of the scarier PC powers. An NPC casting 'Sleep', I've found, always makes an impression.

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Just so you know, you never had to do this in the first place. You can give monsters any powers you feel like and there are monster powers that are *far* superior to any PC power. For example the Astral Kraken's pseudodominate that can make a PC use hurricane of blades on another PC is just amazingly powerful. If you've never seen that happen with the parties cleric getting auto-gibbed by a couple of Barbrian crits, then you have not had the fully satisfying MM3+ DM experience yet.

In any event, you can give monsters whatever powers you want. You don't need class templates to give them wizard spells at all. Actually I find templates pretty pointless and always have. I much prefer themes like the Demonomicon powers that replace something, like variable resistance. In saying that, I might use templates more if they were supported in the "Monster Builder" (I say that most liberally in its current state).

Also it isn't true that solo monsters are worthless, because with the current design ethos they are actually very efficient - even in epic tier. You do need to give them considerations about stun, dominate and daze of course. Other than that, if you design their powers well, they will kick ass and take names. Really the best place to start is looking through solos in MM3 and ESPECIALLY those in MV. The Dragons are probably a great example of new solo design principles and should be the model of solos going forward.

DarkMasterBR said:

Whenever I look for interesting monster for the PCs to play against (and I'm don't mind unleashing hell on them) I just take a monster I'm interested in (in your case, a Lich) and give it PCs powers. For example, look at the Wizards powers and see if there's anything interesting there for your Lich. I did that with a Dragon and sorcerer's powers and it turned out really cool.

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This is the approach I was mostly considering, good to hear it has worked out well in your experience

DracoSuave said:

If you want a recurring lich just make it so. You don't need any pc resource to justify it. You never did. Your villain doesnt die permanently because mind your damn business mr player and stop nosing thru the mm trying to rules lawyer your way out of an epic quest with loot and xp thats right your friends want xp so lets go on a quest to find the sage of nerull to learn why this guy is different and why youll need an awesome artifact to beat him oh now i have your attention.

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Completely missing the point here, unfortunately.

The issue isn't the best way to make it a recurring villain (heck, of all the monsters it is the one that has it built in). The issue is how people have made it an interesting foe along the lines of the traditional lich.