D&D 5E How to tear a pc's arm off?

[MG.0]

Why people are so against lich pcs?

You can do whatever you like in your game. In my experience it may be fun in the short run, but tends towards the disruptive in the long run. Players looking to play monsters are typically just looking for a quick power boost, making them the center of action/attention of the party. As for allowing a lich to remain under player control - I assume the lich (which seeks power and extending its unlife above all else) is immediately abandoning his party to continue his lichly pursuits, right? No? Why not? Continuing to adventure with a party of humanoids doesn't sound very lich-like, does it? Why aren't there hordes of lich-adventurers in the world? Why is a non-evil party content to tag along with a powerful evil undead being instead of destroying it? These are things to consider. If you can answer all of them them to your satisfaction, then great. Often I've found DM's allowing monster player characters haven't thought much beyond "The player thought it would be cool".

I fully agree with the section "The monster as a player character" from the 1st Edition DMG (page 21):
"...As to other sorts of monsters as player characters, you as DM must decide
in light of your aims and the style of your campaign. The considered
opinion of this writer is that such characters are not beneficial to the game
and should be excluded. Note that exclusion is best handled by restriction
and not by refusal. Enumeration of the limits and drawbacks which are
attendant upon the monster character will always be sufficient to steer the
intelligent player away from the monster approach, for in most cases it
was only thought of as a likely manner of game domination. The truly ex-
perimental-type player might be allowed to play such a monster character
for a time so as to satisfy curiosity, and it can then be moved to non-player
status and still be an interesting part of the campaign -and the player is
most likely to desire to drop the monster character once he or she has
examined its potential and played that role for a time. The less intelligent
players who demand to play monster characters regardless of obvious con-
sequences will soon remove themselves from play in any event, for their
own ineptness will serve to have players or monsters or traps finish them off.
So you are virtually on your own with regard to monsters as player
characters. You have advice as to why they are not featured, why no
details of monster character classes are given herein. The rest is up to you,
for when all is said and done, it is your world, and your players must live in
it with their characters. Be good to yourself as well as them, and everyone
concerned will benefit from a well-conceived, well-ordered, fairly-judged
campaign built upon the best of imaginative and creative thinking."

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

You can do whatever you like in your game. In my experience it may be fun in the short run, but tends towards the disruptive in the long run. Players looking to play monsters are typically just looking for a quick power boost, making them the center of action/attention of the party. As for allowing a lich to remain under player control - I assume the lich (which seeks power and extending its unlife above all else) is immediately abandoning his party to continue his lichly pursuits, right? No? Why not? Continuing to adventure with a party of humanoids doesn't sound very lich-like, does it? Why aren't there hordes of lich-adventurers in the world? Why is a non-evil party content to tag along with a powerful evil undead being instead of destroying it? These are things to consider. If you can answer all of them them to your satisfaction, then great. Often I've found DM's allowing monster player characters haven't thought much beyond "The player thought it would be cool".

I fully agree with the section "The monster as a player character" from the 1st Edition DMG (page 21):
"...As to other sorts of monsters as player characters, you as DM must decide
in light of your aims and the style of your campaign. The considered
opinion of this writer is that such characters are not beneficial to the game
and should be excluded. Note that exclusion is best handled by restriction
and not by refusal. Enumeration of the limits and drawbacks which are
attendant upon the monster character will always be sufficient to steer the
intelligent player away from the monster approach, for in most cases it
was only thought of as a likely manner of game domination. The truly ex-
perimental-type player might be allowed to play such a monster character
for a time so as to satisfy curiosity, and it can then be moved to non-player
status and still be an interesting part of the campaign -and the player is
most likely to desire to drop the monster character once he or she has
examined its potential and played that role for a time. The less intelligent
players who demand to play monster characters regardless of obvious con-
sequences will soon remove themselves from play in any event, for their
own ineptness will serve to have players or monsters or traps finish them off.
So you are virtually on your own with regard to monsters as player
characters. You have advice as to why they are not featured, why no
details of monster character classes are given herein. The rest is up to you,
for when all is said and done, it is your world, and your players must live in
it with their characters. Be good to yourself as well as them, and everyone
concerned will benefit from a well-conceived, well-ordered, fairly-judged
campaign built upon the best of imaginative and creative thinking."

If you want to go the "restrictive" route, here's an easy one:

Monster PCs cannot gain experience. If you've a 5th level fighter, and you get Vampirized, and you continue to play the character as a PC... you'll always be a 5th level fighter, no more. You could apply the same thing to the lich PC, if you were so inclined. If you think the other liches are laughing are you now, just wait a couple centuries and see how they guffaw when you still can't cast Wall of Force.

 

[MG.0]

If you want to go the "restrictive" route, here's an easy one:

Monster PCs cannot gain experience.

Yep. Monsters don't level. No feats, no abilities beyond the Monster Manual stats, etc. That's enough to scare off most would be monster players.

 

[Sunseeker]

Yes. In fact, there's a whole court of powerful undead (a dracolich, a vampire, a death knight, a death tyrant, and an actual lich) that will be way pissed off when they hear about this wannabe death lord

Then perhaps the silver dragon does a little evil to do a greater good (destroying the party upstart) and is granted some kind of boons from these folks in order to destroy a common foe. The enemy of my enemy is my friend sort of thing.

Why people are so against lich pcs?

For two reasons:
1: a full on lich is a CR 21. He's designed for a party of 4-5 players of roughly 20th level. Your party is level 6.
2: large power discrepancies can lead to problems. I've been on both ends of this. Dominating the party is fun for one person until the party gets sick of it to the point of not playing. Then you have no game, that's not fun.


Now if your party is having fun with it, that's fine, and you've already mentioned he's only got the lich physical attributes and not the caster abilities, which makes a big difference.


It's worth noting that a young silver dragon isn't really much of a challenge. It's CR 9, but honestly a part of 4-5 level 6's can handle it if they play smart and are well-built for their class. It's worth noting in general that dragons are VERY weak in 5th edition compared to their counterparts in almost every other edition.

Yep. Monsters don't level. No feats, no abilities beyond the Monster Manual stats, etc. That's enough to scare off most would be monster players.

If that's your goal, that's fine but I think that ruling is counter-intuitive to logic. There's no reason a monster shouldn't gain experience, there really isn't other than a DM not wanting players to play monsters. If that's your imperative, that's fine, but don't argue the rationale of it because there isn't any. Non-sentient creatures may not gain classes but that doesn't mean that they won't grow in strength and power as they defeat foes and generally survive. There's no rational reason why sentient creatures can't gain classes, provided they find someone to train them. It may take them more time (50% XP) due to attempting to convert the way a human casts a spell or channels ki into the way a dragon does, but theres no reason they couldn't learn how to do it and no reason why the basic concepts of XP (gaining knowledge and power over time) wouldn't apply to any sentient creature with the desire and drive to do so.

I'm not saying don't do it. I'm just saying don't attempt to rationalize it. There's nothing wrong with the DM simply saying "No because I say so." if the DM wants a certain outcome. It may not be the most popular move, but a DM's first and foremost duty is to run a good game, not be popular.

 

[redrick]

I can't really speak to the lich-ness of your character. We've never dug into monsters as PC's.

I would say, as far as maiming a PC in combat, you should have to reduce the PC to 0 hp. The dragon grapples the PC's arm as per grappling rules, and then continues to attack that arm every round until the PC hits 0. Then the dragon has successfully chewed the arm off. I might say that the dragon auto-hits with his bite once the PC is grappled, or I might just give advantage, or I might just leave it as a normal attack. By the rules, grappling affords very little advantage to the grappler, other than being able to control the movement of the grappled target. Generally, I'd say maiming a PC should be only a tiny bit easier than killing one, if at all. It feels more like a fun way to narrate a monster trying to bring a character to 0 hp than an effective strategy to overcome a powerful foe. (Which isn't that unrealistic, I imagine. If you can bite somebody's arm off, you could probably bite their head off.)

Obviously, if you're not overly worried about finding a "fair" way to model what you want to have happen mechanically, anything's good.

 

[MG.0]

If that's your goal, that's fine but I think that ruling is counter-intuitive to logic. There's no reason a monster shouldn't gain experience, there really isn't other than a DM not wanting players to play monsters. If that's your imperative, that's fine, but don't argue the rationale of it because there isn't any. Non-sentient creatures may not gain classes but that doesn't mean that they won't grow in strength and power as they defeat foes and generally survive. There's no rational reason why sentient creatures can't gain classes, provided they find someone to train them. It may take them more time (50% XP) due to attempting to convert the way a human casts a spell or channels ki into the way a dragon does, but theres no reason they couldn't learn how to do it and no reason why the basic concepts of XP (gaining knowledge and power over time) wouldn't apply to any sentient creature with the desire and drive to do so. I'm not saying don't do it. I'm just saying don't attempt to rationalize it. There's nothing wrong with the DM simply saying "No because I say so." if the DM wants a certain outcome. It may not be the most popular move, but a DM's first and foremost duty is to run a good game, not be popular.

It's not rationalization. It's assuming that not every creature has the kind of flexible intelligence to go beyond its natural limits as in-game humanoids do. If you want monsters to level and gain class abilities, that's fine, but then you have to accept the logical conclusion to that reasoning...namely monsters gaining levels and class abilities as a matter of normal play - even when not controlled by players. For practically immortal creatures like liches that means liches who are not only Level 20 wizards, but level 20 fighter/assassins too. Level 20 Beholder/Monk anybody? I wonder how it manages Quivering Palm? You will unavoidably break tons of game assumptions when you allow undead/non-humanoid characters. Be prepared.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

If that's your goal, that's fine but I think that ruling is counter-intuitive to logic. There's no reason a monster shouldn't gain experience, there really isn't other than a DM not wanting players to play monsters.

Actually the rationale comes from the MM. If gaining class levels like PCs was normal, every vampire would be a wizard and every ancient dragon would be a zillionth level wizard. Do you realize how far you could level up in a thousand years of solo adventuring backed by a dragon's special abilities? Even a bog-standard troll could easily become an 11th level fighter, if kill XP is all it takes.

It's cool if you want to let monsters level up as a common thing, but don't say there's no non-metagame rationale for disallowing it. Clearly there is, and it's a basic necessity if you want a humanoid-dominated world.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

Within the letter of the rules and supporting material (items, spells) it's probably not possible.

Within the spirit of the rules, I agree with the above comment on incapacitation and strength rolls.

If you want an alternative, how about the dragon got his jaws enchanted as per the 1E Sword of Sharpness? Although vorpal jaws would probably be more fun.

 

[Psikerlord#]

Within the letter of the rules and supporting material (items, spells) it's probably not possible.

Within the spirit of the rules, I agree with the above comment on incapacitation and strength rolls.

If you want an alternative, how about the dragon got his jaws enchanted as per the 1E Sword of Sharpness? Although vorpal jaws would probably be more fun.

I love the sword of sharpness style idea. Pretty sure in 13th Age when the owlbear crits it takes a limb off

 

[Lidgar]

We have a wonderful crit table (adapted from MERP) just for these types situations. Not that we often have 6th level lich PC's running around.