D&D 5E (2024) The Price of a Soul (Lich Path problems)

[Brendan Byrd]

< tangent >
5e UA pseudo-lich vs. OD&D elf hero…
Just to get into the spirit of things.
< /tangent >

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The idea that there is a part of a being that normally goes to one of the outer planes on body death is pretty established in the D&D multiverse. The idea that you can capture and use it as an energy source is also established. Soul Coins aren’t just in Decent to Avernus, they are in BG3, which means more people have used them than actually play tabletop D&D.

In D&D, players can choose to make evil choices. Nothing new here.

 

[Kobold Stew]

The idea that there is a part of a being that normally goes to one of the outer planes on body death is pretty established in the D&D multiverse. The idea that you can capture and use it as an energy source is also established.

Yes.

Soul Coins aren’t just in Decent to Avernus, they are in BG3, which means more people have used them than actually play tabletop D&D.

In D&D, players can choose to make evil choices. Nothing new here.

No.

Soul Coins do not destroy the soul, they trap it. Unless I am mistaken, the soul can be released with a level 3 spell (with no material component), or using the charges (e.g. asking it three questions).

What is proposed here is completely new for 5th ed.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

No.

Soul Coins do not destroy the soul, they trap it. Unless I am mistaken, the soul can be released with a level 3 spell (with no material component), or using the charges (e.g. asking it three questions).

You destroy it if you use it to power one of the vehicles or Karlach's heart. Players can choose to free the soul (not implemented in BG3). It's up to them, just as they can choose not to be a lich. I don't see the problem.

 

[Kobold Stew]

I am not talking about BG3. Maybe we should stick to D&D and the UA, and not bring in a videogame.

Here, there is no choice: with this feat, at level 4 (well before you are a lich, and you need not become one), any use of Soul Siphon creates damage to the humanoid opponent on a level that is not paralleled anywhere else in the D&D, and is, for all intents and purposes, irrevocable. The designers aren't leaving it up to the table, or up to the player, as they could do, but they are giving a power at 4th level that necessarily does more enduring violence than any other effect in the game (it's not even an attack).

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I am not talking about BG3

It was in Decent to Avernus before it was in BG3. Destroy a soul to power your car. I smell a metaphor.

Maybe we should stick to D&D and the UA, and not bring in a videogame

Since more people are familiar with D&D lore through BG3 than through the tabletop game, it carries more weight.

Here, there is no choice: with this feat, at level 4 (well before you are a lich, and you need not become one), any use of Soul Siphon creates damage to the humanoid opponent on a level that is not paralleled anywhere else in the D&D, and is, for all intents and purposes, irrevocable. The designers aren't leaving it up to the table, or up to the player, as they could do, but they are giving a power at 4th level that necessarily does more enduring violence than any other effect in the game (it's not even an attack).

So what? I don’t see a problem. Being a lich isn’t supposed to be nice.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

We actually know a lot about souls in 5E continuity. They come from the Positive Energy Plane, the Bastion of Unborn souls to be specific. Some settings have specific afterlives, like the Fugue Plane in the Forgotten Realms or Dolurrh in Eberron, but on a general level souls will drift through the Astral Plane to the plane that most befits their alignment, or default to Hades if the souls alignment is unclear. Atheists go straight to Asmodeus in Nessus for him to consume (confirmed in continuity by Chains of Asmodeus).

Chains of Asmodeus is only semi official (would call it a second party product rather than a first or third party)

 

[MonsterEnvy]

There are already multiple monsters, and enemies that explicitly try to screw over souls. This is not new.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

It's a little odd that the little "initiate" wannabe lich is arguably much more evil than the full-on lich. I mean devouring souls to prolong your foul simulacrum of life is one thing, but consuming them just for a minor benefit on your next attack (and I guess "for practice") is kind of cartoonishly evil.

I think the initiate level should just capture a part of the escaping souls, and that full on lichdom should not come until you've done it a certain number of times (or a range of times with some rolling, or something). But that would be for a game that cared more about the roleplay and worldbuilding implications of abilities and less about just keeping them balanced (or the illusion of keeping them balanced).

 

[Thommy H-H]

This is like Bastions though, isn't it? What we have here is a basic mechanical framework for implementing a narrative. Just like how Bastions aren't intended to pop out of the ground when you hit 5th level, but instead represent some kind of storyline it's assumed the characters will be involved with, the path to lichdom ought to be something that has consequences in the game world outside of the mechanics.

It's not just a random feat chain for granting a buff, and I think suggesting that reading it that way has metaphysical implications for the game world is kind of disingenuous! Just like all the bad faith readings of the Bastion rules that claimed every owner of a pub in D&D worlds had to be a 13th level character, as if the game's mechanics defined the physical reality they purported to represent. If you treat game mechanics as the only component of the experience of playing D&D (or any other game), you're going to find all kinds of odd narrative implications, which is why that isn't how it works.

In other words, if you want characters to treat becoming a lich with the appropriate weight, that's something the DM has to put in place over the course of the campaign. You shouldn't expect it to be built into the rules for a few feats, in the same way that the process of building or obtaining a stronghold is only incidental to the Bastion rules, or indeed how haggling over the price of a sword with a local blacksmith isn't part of the weapon rules.