How do you make Liches interesting?

[Plane Sailing]

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.

Another very interesting suggestion - I think it would still suffer from the 'paucity of options' issue, but it would be a neat way of relatively quickly getting to an appropriately nasty solo.

Thanks

 

[Aegeri]

You know, as I am bored and not doing much at the moment what kind of solo do you want and what level? I would be quite happy to make you a solo lich if you would like.

 

[Dausuul]

I tend to build my monsters from scratch. I haven't had occasion to build a lich yet, but just tossing out ideas... I think the general concept here ought to be "chessmaster supreme."

• I would make it an elite leader. Give it some undead servants (a few levels lower so it can have 4-5 of them), and a power that lets it move them around the battlefield. Perhaps at the start of its turn, it can slide all undead allies 1-2 squares.
• Lots of battlefield control, preferably with themes of cold and darkness. Have it throw around walls of ice, clouds of life-draining fog, freezing gales that hurl enemies away from it, et cetera.
• 1/encounter ability: Teleport up to 20 squares and resurrect all slain non-minion allies as undead minions.
• Make it an artillery monster, with the attendant low hit points and defenses, but give it a hard-hitting melee attack and a nasty damaging aura. The lich's tactics are delaying and controllery as long as it can hold the PCs at range, but once they get it cornered, it turns into a vicious attacker. Paralyzing touch is traditional, but I would avoid that--don't debuff the PCs' offense. They've already slogged through a lot of crap to get to the lich, make the finale quick but painful.
• A power that creates an illusion of another creature and operates at extreme range--like, miles, and no line of sight required. The lich can use this power to screw with the party in all sorts of ways before they ever come face to face.

This is fun. I love liches, always have. I may have to stat one up this evening.

 

[Rechan]

1) Look for a monster that I like and refluff it,

or

2) Just give it powers that I think feel Lich-y and appropriate.

For instance, if I really wanted to get the PCs attention, I'd take one of the powers from one of the Devourer monsters (forgive me, I don't have my books in front of me). The one that lets the monster basically take a PC off the battlefield and suck life from it to power various attacks. I'd give the Lich that, and target any PC that can throw Radiant damage around or, barring that, target the leader.

That power feels lich-y. It's like the Demi-Lich's gem powers. Either the PC is caught in the Lich's ribcage, or trapped in a mirror housed within the lich's ribcage.

Or perhaps a "Possession" power. Something that allows the Lich to possess a target.

Basically, make it something that not only feels like an undead spellcaster, but one that is the Top of its game. This guy should be unique, in that Could do anything.

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.

The above suggestion is good, but I have another idea.

Instead of Minions, use arcane traps. They aren't minions per se, but the lich's lair is a dangerous field to maneuver, with something in the corner generating bolts of lightning, on one side is sucking PCs towards it and not letting them go, another is a living wall that gets in the PCs way, etc. In order to get to the Lich, one needs to disable the magical traps protecting him.

Or the Lich is protected by a defensive barrier, one that eats various energy types and prevents engaging in melee; in order to break the sphere, they must destroy various magical generators around the room.

Ultimately, the fight with the Lich should be an event; the Lich should be the centerpiece, but remember, he has had an unlimited time with lots of power to design his lair to his suitable needs. He should be Prepared. This is not just some jerk wizard in a robe, this is a Lich.

if this were a movie or a book and you could do anything, what would the encounter look like; then design it to look like that.

 

[TerraDave]

I think one issue here is the gap between what NPCs have and what PCs have in 4E.

Now, 99.9% of the time, I fully support this gap. But this might be a special case.

One option, to fit with the traditional lich, is to use the CB and go ahead and make a wizard PC at whatever level seems good. Will take some time, but you will get all of those powers (the online CB is better, since it has more death and shadow stuff from HoS). THEN, plug some of those back into your base elite and solo monster (4E lich?) of whatever level. THEN, next time the lich is encountered, rotate some of the powers.

Will take some time, but, it could be interesting.

 

[DracoSuave]

In terms of how to make it interesting... i agree with homebrewing. PC powers are a known. Many players know a class's options by rote. To make it memorable, make it unique.

Players might not remember Orbizard clone 5. Theyll be surprised by the guy who restrains one pc with breakable chains of bone that might explode into deadly shrapnel.

 

[NewJeffCT]

I would take the standard lich, and give it a couple of extra powers that seem appropriate - the replies above have a lot of good suggestions.

I would also give him a disposable unique magic item or two as well that he can use while the party is dealing with minions and other allies of the lich. Maybe some item that causes the PCs to lose healing surges or make them vulnerable to certain types of attacks.

 

[Rechan]

In terms of how to make it interesting... i agree with homebrewing. PC powers are a known. Many players know a class's options by rote. To make it memorable, make it unique.

Players might not remember Orbizard clone 5. Theyll be surprised by the guy who restrains one pc with breakable chains of bone that might explode into deadly shrapnel.

Something to note here.

Even if your players know the power, if you reflavor it, suddenly it feels different or isn't quite placable.

Take the Goblin Hexer's power that prevents targets from moving or they take damage. Suddenly, that can be a field of razor-edged bone tethered by webs of tendons, tangling people up and if they move the bones shred into their skin.

Also. Instead of just looking through Wizard powers, look through classes you wouldn't normally go through for inspiration (and your players don't play). The Druid, Invoker, and Seeker are all controllers. Changing damage types might very well get you a suddenly new effect. The same with Sorcerer, Warlock, Assassin, or Avenger powers, all of which fall into Artillery territory or have controller-related effects.

Start with Daily powers, then look through Encounters and utilities.

 

[Rechan]

An additional thing.

Were I handling an encounter with a lich, I'd look to either give him powers that lets him do multiple things in a round, or perhaps have multiple encounters with the lich. He teleports into a current encounter, releases a power, and then flees while the PCs are still entangled with the room's denizens.

Let him release one of those daily powers in an encounter he doesn't stay in, just so the PCs get to see the powers he might not get to bring to bare. Or the power he releases is not actually a power, but an effect like a zone or a trap, but it's flavored as a spell he's unleashing.

Because let's face it, it's wholly likely the players will kill him before all his powers are used. Or all his powers hit.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

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.

I'm not sure which editions you were talking about previously, but I didn't find this to be the case. They were wizards with minor additional powers (and unkillable). In 3.x I don't think they were even worth the CR adjustment, although in 3.x they did have some pretty gnarly damage reduction.

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

True, but that's not the edition's fault.

A lich is an NPC and should be a named one, since they are rare. There shouldn't be such a thing as a "standard lich". At minimum, you could make a mage-flavored NPC and give them some special undead powers.

But of course you can (and should) go further. Any lich may have had hundreds of years to work on obscure rituals and new spells. As a result, any lich will be a surprising encounter. Worse if the PCs stumble upon their lair. When you've had hundreds of years to build defenses (and have had to test them many times) they get scary.

Picture a trap combat encounter: an encounter where the traps are obvious and not hidden (well, not most of them) but are instead taking an active role in the fight. A rogue or arcanist might be spending their time taking down the traps rather than fighting the lich, keeping the lich "alive" longer. Alternatively, they might focus on the lich, but then must withstand the power of the arcane machine made by said lich.

I guess I'm saying I see little point of beefing up their "lich theme" and would rather treat them as individuals. I would also avoid the lich template; it seems kind of weak and uninspired anyway, although stealing a few ideas (like their paralyzing touch) isn't a problem.