D&D 5E "The" Lich?

[ruleslawyer]

The cave is riddled with over 600 magic mouth spells. Detect magic will go off like a siren. Its a honeypot.

Wow, most drastic digression ever from the OT. My apologies...

That said, with all due respect, this strikes me as a misreading of the scenario. Certainly, from how my players reacted (and I don't really editorialize when DMing), a "cavern full of overlapping magical auras" is not really that interesting; to them, it has meant "an area covered in traps," "an area covered in Nystul's magic aura spells," or "an area that radiates weird Underdark magic just like those places that let the drow weapons and armor work or let our magic contact lenses function." If there were specific detectable sources of magic in the cave, I would agree 100%, but, especially coupled with the warning, this seems like a setup for an easily avoidable encounter.

 

[pedro2112]

To be fair, Asberdies just wants to be left alone. According to the DM notes, it should be REALLY unlikely that the PCs fight him.

When my guys went into the cave, they heard the "warning" issued by the lich via ventriloquism, used detect magic and detect invisibility to look around, decided it was a dead end and left. I think that's probably the typical expected response to that encounter.

When I ran D1, the as soon as the party figured out it was a lich they "wall of stoned" the cave entrance, left promptly and never looked back. Ever.

 

[Luz]

My vote goes to Vecna. Since an icon is an exemplary representative of something (in this case, lichdom), I'm not sure the arguments of his godlike status or whether he has personally shown up in a module qualify. He was first and foremost an arch lich, which is how he gained infamy and is remembered among old school gamers. Sure, it was his artifacts that catapulted him into the stuff of legend, but that only serves to drive home the point: he was such a badass lich that he has not one, but two artifacts named after him ( discounting the silliness of the Die! Vecna Die! module ). How many other liches can make that claim? The problem is that many of those who grew up on 3rd edition or later are not familiar with the pre-god Vecna or the mystique he carried back in 1st edition.

With all this talk about iconic vampires and liches, how about the iconic vampire-lich lol? I only know one published module that had such a horrific thing!

 

[Ancalagon]

I think we are not agreeing about what "iconic" means. In this case it means "average member who's stats should be used in the monster manual". So you have for the generic goblins not the stats of Selchak the Shower of Blade or Graznol who calls the Dark, but rather JoeBob TurnipFace.

 

[Grumpy RPG Reviews]

Even so, what lich are still lich (and not gods, or anything else well outside of PC ability to deal with) but very memorable and compelling?

 

[TwoSix]

I think we are not agreeing about what "iconic" means. In this case it means "average member who's stats should be used in the monster manual". So you have for the generic goblins not the stats of Selchak the Shower of Blade or Graznol who calls the Dark, but rather JoeBob TurnipFace.

Can't say I agree with that meaning of "iconic". It'd be like asking someone to name an iconic superhero, they say, "Superman", and you say, "Nah, he's a little too powerful to be iconic."

I'd probably go with "representative" to be a little more clear.

 

[Iry]

Vecna does a good job being an iconic lich precisely because we never see him until he is exploding onto the scene in a tremendous bid for power. Your bog standard lich is usually hiding somewhere, researching, and amassing arcane knowledge. That is part of what makes them so scary. You NEED to find them and stop them before they do something terrible. The possibility of a lich doing something heinous at the bottom of a dungeon is bread and butter dungeon crawl material (right beside pillage a dragon hoard).

Xykon and Tam are proof that you can be a socially active lich, but they are not the norm.

 

[Ancalagon]

Can't say I agree with that meaning of "iconic". It'd be like asking someone to name an iconic superhero, they say, "Superman", and you say, "Nah, he's a little too powerful to be iconic."

I'd probably go with "representative" to be a little more clear.

Exactly - are we talking about iconic in the superman sense or "should be used as stats for the monster manual"? I was talking the second when I favored Szass Tam. But if you want iconic, then Vecna is much better.

So erm... what are we talking about again?

 

[Cascade]

I'm an Azalin fan - a phylactery that is a dragon head is pretty cool.

Given that the Ravenloft comparison, he's probably best.

Overall D&D, I'm kinda partial to Acererak - He went the cycle. Tomb of Horrors for the win.

 

[Maxperson]

When I ran D1, the as soon as the party figured out it was a lich they "wall of stoned" the cave entrance, left promptly and never looked back. Ever.

Did they truly believe that doing that would accomplish anything other than irritating a lich with a wall that would only be there briefly?