D&D 5E A Lich with a Clone?

[Balfore]

Your simulacrum is a copy of you, so he also counts as you. If he tries to create a second copy of you, he disappears.

Isn't the wording "If 'YOU' cast this spell again, any currently active duplicates 'YOU CREATED' with this spell are instantly destroyed.

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[Caliban]

Isn't the wording "If 'YOU' cast this spell again, any currently active duplicates 'YOU CREATED' with this spell are instantly destroyed.

Don't really care. If I'm the DM, that's gonna be your answer, like it or not.

If I'm not your DM...why the hell are you asking me?

 

[Balfore]

Don't really care. If I'm the DM, that's gonna be your answer, like it or not.

If I'm not your DM...why the hell are you asking me?

... didn't know if you had considered that wording...
...didn't know you were the DM.
...didn't know you didn't care.

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[FormerlyHemlock]

RAW seems to support it, and I can't see any philosophical objection to it. Granted, if one of my players pulled this one off, I'd probably screw with him a bit on the return to living flesh. Forgetting to eat or sleep or bathe, periodic Wisdom saves to avoid flipping out at the inconveniences of biological existence, that kind of thing.

Given that one of the parties to this trick is a lich, it seems overwhelmingly likely that the trick will only ever be used by NPCs. Perhaps that biases me in its favor, but my current thinking is "Go for it, lichie!"

Also, I find the idea of being zapped back into the land of the living after your phylactery is destroyed by adventurers indescribably poignant.

 

[Caliban]

... didn't know if you had considered that wording...
...didn't know you were the DM.
...didn't know you didn't care.

Sorry, I was considering it from the viewpoint of a DM with player wanting to have their PC do it. I've seen the Simulacrum threads, and that was I how I decided to handle it if it ever came up in my game. i.e. nip it in the bud right away. (It may technically be possible, but I have no qualms about house-ruling it to a definite "NO".)

I wouldn't allow it for an NPC either - it sets a bad precedent.

 

[Balfore]

Sorry, I was considering it from the viewpoint of a DM with player wanting to have their PC do it. I've seen the Simulacrum threads, and that was I how I decided to handle it if it ever came up in my game. i.e. nip it in the bud right away. (It may technically be possible, but I have no qualms about house-ruling it to a definite "NO".)

I wouldn't allow it for an NPC either - it sets a bad precedent.

Gotcha... I am limiting it to their secondary stat modifier, and only after level 18.
Seemed like a happy median.

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[gyor]

Okay I have to ask, if you have the clone spell, why the heck would you ever become a Lich?

Existing as a Lich sounds horrifying, having to feed on souls, being undead in the first place, no world pleasures. The only reason to be come a Lich is to avoid death which the clone spell does alot better, because you don't have to feed your clone souls to keep from becoming a demilich.

Plus you can have multiple clones, make loved ones clones, and are basically immortal as long as you have clones.

Actually True Polymorph and Wish are also good for immortality too, all of them better then being a Lich.

 

[Pauper]

Don't really care. If I'm the DM, that's gonna be your answer, like it or not.

Should be noted, for those who care, that this interpretation of Simulacrum -- a Simulacrum is copy of you and thus counts as you -- is also the functioning interpretation for Adventurers League. (This does make for interesting corner cases with spells and class abilities that you can't use on yourself, because with this interpretation of Simulacrum, you also can't use them on your Simulacrum, nor can it use them on you.)

There's a lot of interesting story potential in the idea, though, so I might allow it. One wrinkle -- as per the Clone spell, if the soul enters the Clone, "[t]he original creature's physical remains, if they still exist, become inert and can't thereafter be restored to life, since the creature's soul is elsewhere." This suggests to me that destroying the phylactery of a lich with a Clone that he'd cast while living effectively destroys the lich, but re-creates the original wizard.

--
Pauper

 

[Dausuul]

Okay I have to ask, if you have the clone spell, why the heck would you ever become a Lich?

Because you are the in-game equivalent of a munchkin.

"My body will be unbelievably tough. I won't have to sleep. I'll have a paralyzing touch, the ability to cast multiple spells in the time it takes a normal mage to cast one, the ability to shrug off spells that would destroy any mortal, the ability to see through any illusion... and I live forever, and if I ever do get defeated somehow, I just come back! So what if I have to eat souls? So what if I can't enjoy food or sex or love? POWER! UNLIMITED POWWWAAAAAAHHHHH!"

Clone is how normal, sane, healthy wizards live forever. Lichdom is for the power-obsessed lunatics. If you go down the list of canonical D&D liches, about eighty percent of them are trying to become (or have become) gods. There's a reason for that.

 

[Rossbert]

I don't know if sane and live forever can coexist. The mind eventually breaks down under the weight of memories and you begin to care as much about those short-lived Humans as much as you care about your pet goldfish, fun but disposable and it doesn't really matter if they die today, they didn't have that much life ahead of them anyway. It is part of why dragons can be so slow to act, 10, 20, even 50 years to them feels as long a wait as a week or so to you.

I'm also suspicious of elves, but at least most of them choose to die after a few centuries, if only to alleviate the boredom.