Anti-Magic Field and Lichdom

[CrusadeDave]

If a Lich is stuck in an Antimagic field, what are the results?

Obviously he loses all spellcasting ability and Supernatural effects. Wat I'm curious is, if the antimagic field negates the connection the Lich has with the Phylactery, while the lich is in the field.

Similarly, what happens if the phylactery comes in the Antimagic Field, does it stop working?

 

[dragonsworn]

From the 3.5 SRD:

THE LICH’S PHYLACTERY
An integral part of becoming a lich is creating a magic phylactery in which the character stores its life force. As a rule, the only way to get rid of a lich for sure is to destroy its phylactery. Unless its phylactery is located and destroyed, a lich reappears 1d10 days after its apparent death.

IMO, if the Lich dies while in an anti-magic field I do not think there would be an issue with its connection to the phylactery. Its life force is only stored in the phylactery. However, since the phylactery is a magical item its ability to re-spawn the lich in 1d10 days would be suppressed as long as it remains in the anti-magic field. The 1d10 days duration would not begin to take effect until the anti-magic field drops or the phylactery is removed from its area of effect.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

As a bit of a tangent...

If you go the traditions of myth and legend, there are a number of creatures that are so pulsing, breathing, and blood flowing with magic it is difficult to conceive of them existing within a AMF. Seems like they should quickly sicken and die and the very least.

But that would not work well for a game.

Player: "I cast Anti-Magic Field"
DM: "Um...the lich falls unconscious."

 

[Sejs]

Heh, my group actually had a character that was like that when we ran thru the DMs GURPS conversion of Dragon Mountain - one of the PCs was a monk basically, who looked like an elf. In actuality he was a silver dragon. Sorta. His backstory ran something along the lines of his mother was a silver dragon that secretly protected this one elven community without the elves being any the wiser. She and her mate spend alot of their time in elf form, and she falls pregnant during such. Fast forward a while, she's nearing the end of her term and some big bad villian type attacks. She and her mate leap to the defense of the town - she's about half-way thru her shapechange back into a silver dragon when the bad guy blasts her dead on in the chest with some big juju, killing her. Mate sees her die, loses it, and ends up sacrificing his own life purposefully to defeat the baddie. Ho-hum, so tragic. Anyway. One of the pair's confidants and friends knows the female was with child and goes to see if the baby can be saved. Which he can.. but he's not... right. His body is still half way between being an elf and being a silver dragon, and his body doesn't have his mother's echo to copy from any more. His body isn't working properly, he's only viable by the loosest possible definition and he's going to die. In response, the elves do some kind of magic to him that binds him in elven form and keeps him stable, and that's how he grows up. Looks like an elf, quacks like an elf, but isn't like the other elves in certain fundamental ways.

The spells that kept him working right, were basically permanant but they still needed mana to keep going. Step into an antimagic field and all of a sudden they stop working until he would leave the field and they could be fueled again. Any time he was in a no-magic area, he would essentially take 1 point of Con damage per round until he would hit 0 Con and die. Once out of the no-magic area, he would recover Con at the same rate that anyone else would, which is to say not quickly at all. He needed mana to survive, even moreso than a fish needs water, because his body was just utterly unfit to deal with itself unaided.