Help me prepare to defeat my fellow PC- the Lich!

[FoxWander]

One of the PCs in the campaign I'm in is a Dread Necromancer who's five levels away from becoming a lich. That in itself is not a problem. The fact that he started out neutral (like the rest of us), has now slid into evil and is wholly embracing his evilness is the problem. In fact, he's made a pact with a god (Toldoth, DD p210) who is pretty much the incarnation of evil and death! The only reason this isn't a campaign stopping problem right now is that we HAVE to finish our quest or magic ceases to exist EVERYWHERE- a situation that nobody wants, not even the incarnation of evil and death.

Everything is fine for now. Our characters are actually getting along fine, we are functioning well as a group and proceeding with our quest. But the two of us that aren't evil and making pacts with evil can foresee that all bets might be off the moment the magic destroying crisis is over and its just us and him (and his army of undead, his scary undead cohort and the evil deity on his side!!!). So I'm looking for some help, advice, tips and tactics for dealing with him IF that's how this winds up going. I don't plan to annihilate him as soon as I get my chance, but I want to be well prepared to do so if I have to.

Here's a little more detail on the PCs involved. Warning- much craziness here. The campaign started out kinda munchkinny (not OUR doing- it's the DMs fault) and just got weirder from there

The "enemy" - He's a dread necro, like I said, but he'll be a full-on lich before we're finished and working on some other spell-casting class by then. He is currently undead, having managed to give himself the corpse creature template to do it (in fact, I helped him acheive this). He's taking undead leadership either next level (15th) or at 18th and wants to get a death knight cohort.

Myself - Warforged wizard/warmage/ultimate magus. I'll be finishing out ultimate magus next level and moving into spellwarped sniper as soon as I take one level in "something" that will give me sneak attack so I meet the prereqs. I also am taking Leadership next level (but not the undead kind) and plan to get an Artificer cohort. In fact I've talked the DM into allowing my cohort to be a very intelligent and well-cultured guttersnipe raggamoffyn (MM2 p174). I plan to have the bulk of my followers be either warforged or some kind of constructs.

My wife's character- I've lost track of her actual classes. She's a mix of swordsage, cleric, something else and has moved into jade phoenix mage (actually jade phoenix cleric, the DM let her tweak the PrC a bit). Her main tactics are being extremely fast, extremely stealthy (she's a whisper gnome with the dark creature template) and very versatile. She mainly fights but can do a little of everything with her various abilities/spells.

The DM PC- our 4th character is the DMs. He's our tank. Fighter/whirling dervish/something else that hits things with pointy things. He too has become a freak since our encounter with a Kython lair which left him as some kind of 'half-kython'. When the big PC brawl breaks out I'm not sure which side he'll be on.


So that's what I'm dealing with- in a nuthsell. Resources are not a problem (see the post HERE for more detail on the resources and some more campaign background). I've got plenty of cash and spare magic items to feed my artificer and his retain essence ability to build whatever I might need. I just need some help deciding WHAT I might need. And how I can get it without making the lich-to-be suspicious!

If it hits the fan, it might be RIGHT after the huge quest-resolving, world-saving battle with the BIG BAD. So I need something I can hold in reserve (a very secret reserve) and be able to pull it out at a moment's notice. And we'll need to be able to deal with not only the Lich, but his Death Knight buddy, whatever of his undead horde that might be left AND whatever potential curve balls his pact with the other big bad might give him!!

Any ideas, advice or tactics for epic spellcasters against an epic lich and all his friends? I have some initial thoughts to get advice on, but I'll add them in another post tomorrow- it's late and this is long enough as it is. Thanks for reading and I appreciate any help you can give.

 

[Storme]

Well, before I go on, please bear with me as I comment first.

The worst thing in the world that can happen to a group of players, next to a nuclear holocaust, is inter-party strife. I have heard faint legends of such incidents NOT shattering a play group, but those are few and far between. But normally, they break up or fragment groups, or, at worst, cause genuinely hard feelings between friends. Two weeks ago, a guy I play with was commenting on how wrong my feelings about interparty strife is...and seemed to fail to remember that just last month we lost a husband and his wife (he was the guy some of the other players decided to kill), and she...is his wife. So they both left with, "We're stll friends, but don't really want to play with you guys."

I know, I know...lots of people might say, "They're thin skinned," or "They're stoopid!" or some such. But in reality...we're just people, man. Very few of us can truly seperate the emotional interaction that goes on between the characters and with us. We don't really work that way.

Now I don't know what kind of relationship your group has. I know you and your wife are married. But ultimately it doesn't matter. if you chose to move forward with this...you will end the game. If by some freakish miracle, the "evil" players doesn't leave disgusted, it's very possible that you may create something of a rift between you. Could be...or not. Either way, I hope you take my meaning in the spirit it was intended.

As a DM I will NOT abide inter-party strife. In 30 years of role-playing I have yet to see it end in a non-destructive fashion (outside the game) and so, do not put up with it.

As a player, I politly excuse myself as soon as is convenient for myself and the party, and leave the game. I won't put up with it, as the game means far less to me than my friends do.

That being said (sorry for ranting...this IS my number one pet peeve), I have two suggestions to resolve the situaton.

1) When in Rome. Some people just don't get it. There are some folk in the world that just can't understand good. These naive folk say things like, "Evil is stronger than good," or "Goodguys are wimps." Those of us that know better usually just snicker behind out hands at these morally bankrupt clods, but...they're out there. You may have one in your group. Since this is, as you said, a "Neutral Game," (I'd be interested in why the DM encouraged this course from the "evil" player anyway...), and Neutral is, of all the alignments, as close to being non-commital as any, just decide to tag along with the "evil" guys course of action. Encourage him and cheer him on. Offer to do little things to help, but stay true to your Neutral and don't get your hands dirty. In this way, it won't escallate into inter-party violence. Your characters shouldn't really care one way or the other (regarding the concept of evil that is..." If he was diving into a deep commitment to a Good god, starts taking Vow feats and stuff...your neutrals would probably be equally concerned. Neutral is a pretty weird alignment. hehe.

2) Nothing says "WHOSE YOUR DADDY!" better than trap the soul. NOTHING. NADDA. If a greater diety decided to smite the guy....trap the soul would STILL work better. hehe. No save. No spell resistance....youre DONE! Best part is...it doesn't actually KILL the guy, and you can keep him on ice till your group (and him) work something out. But, you'll need a little set up. Getting an artificer is a great start right there. Get the "evil" character used to the artificer walking up and buffing his belt with +4 intelligence, or adding neat armor buffs to his armor (or robe?), like magic eater (which he will truly LOVE and start to hunger for). Or buffing a dagger with so, and so cool weapon buff and handing it to him. Only very silly people refuse a friendly artificer buff, and then only for a short time as soon as they see the fantastic benefit it gives to the rest of the party. Anyway...he's used to her (MAKE YOUR ARTIFICER COHORT A HER...it's improtant psychologically) handing him stuff and walking up out fo the blue and touching him so that he's way more powerful. "When she hands me something its nice." "When she touches me, its good." Right? Now...buy a Trap the Soul scroll if you don't have the ability to cast it. And on the morning your group goes after the big badguy, cast Trap the Soul, along with inscribing his name onto that dagger she's been handing him for weeks. Then, after the badguy drops, have her hand him the dagger. TRAP THE SOUL. NO SAVE. Then yell to his cohort, "We'll RETREAT! YOU HOLD OFF HIS UNDEAD" and teleport OUT.

Scry back to him and watch him get killed by the guys undead horde, or gets away or goes away. You can deal with him or not as you please. Another Trap the Soul or a Baleful Polymorph would put him on ice.

No one's dead, and you've got you're (hopefully still) friend in the gem. Then...since the game is about to come to an abrupt end...have your two characters planeshift and go visit some powerful entity associated with your wife's cleric diety (I once dragged a guy kicking and screaming to St. Cuthbert's Basila). Then the two of you inform the diety (or high ranking alternative) what this fella has been up to and request that he pass judgement on hm. If it's your wife's diety or an aspect of him, the DM will now have to pass judgement on the "evil" guy. Maybe destroy him. Maybe bound him into service. Or you can just toss the gem out into the void of Acheron and be done with it. Bahamut's palace is a good place too. Hehe.

3) Resolve it before it gets out of hand. It sound like it's just the four of you. Your wife, the DM, the "evil" guy and you. Invite them over to dinner early before the game begins next week. During dinner, talk to him and the DM. Let him know your concerns. Tell them you and your wife feel like the game is getting a bit out of control, and they aren't sure if your characters feel they can trust the "evil" guy. Tell them you don't want this to end with bad feelings between any of you then ask the DM what he thinks the group can do to make sure it doesn't end bad.

It might work. But whatever you do, try and avoid getting into a fight with this guys, or even using my Trap the Soul idea if you can possibly avoid it. If there's conflict, it probably won't end well.


Storme

 

[Archimedes314]

The worst thing in the world that can happen to a group of players, next to a nuclear holocaust, is inter-party strife.

I think the OP is afraid that the Dread Necro PC will turn on him, and is just asking what to do if this happens.

That said, give your artificer cohort craft contingent spell (from Complete Arcane). A suite of contingent effects that go off if your lich buddy attacks your or your wife's character (note: be very careful in your wording, DMs love twisting it so it either doesn't trigger when you need it or triggers at an inopportune time) would be extremely effective, basically granting your character the advantage of a preemptive strike, without having to worry about the ethical implications of such. I would have, at the very least, an attack spell of some kind (preferably one based off of a fort save), a disjunction (which will probably screw him royally), a healing spell, and a greater teleport or planeshift to a pre-determined location (along with a contingent true resurrection triggered by your character's death, also, I'm away from my books and can't remember exactly what types of spells can be made contingent). Once your character and your wife's character have reached the safehouse (which should be underground on another plane, with lead sheeting in the walls, and once you get there your wife's cleric should ward it with a forbiddance [which you take down before you leave]), heal and shore up your defenses (do this as quickly as possible, he is probably doing the same thing). Then immediately teleport/plane shift back and attack him. His fortitude save is probably horrible, so hit him with another disintegrate. Once you destroy his physical body finding his phylactery is priority number one. I can't really provide any tips on doing that, though (other than, "Use legend lore!"), seeing as I don't know the guy and thus the likely places he would hide it. Also, epic spells will make this a lot easier, especially if you can finagle it so they have absurdly low DCs (like 1 or 0).

 

[Shin Okada]

IIRC, if he already has Corpse Creature template and is undead, he cannot become a lich. As lich template (and the Dread Necromancer's class ability) is only applied to humanoid creatures.

Anyway, if he and his minions are undeads, pure Cleric or Servant of Palor will be the ultimate weapon against them. Sun domain, Glorious domain, various feats and magic items (such as Phylactery of undead turning) will help them.Your PC and your wife's PC can take Leadership feat and may get such cohorts instead of artificer. As the party is lacking dedicated healer/undead slayer, wanting such reinforcement is quite reasonable. You don't need to say that you are preparing for the future infight.

Edit: I found the OP was trying to get an artificer cohort.

 

[FoxWander]

Since this is, as you said, a "Neutral Game," (I'd be interested in why the DM encouraged this course from the "evil" player anyway...), and Neutral is, of all the alignments, as close to being non-commital as any, just decide to tag along with the "evil" guys course of action. Encourage him and cheer him on. Offer to do little things to help, but stay true to your Neutral and don't get your hands dirty. In this way, it won't escallate into inter-party violence. Your characters shouldn't really care one way or the other (regarding the concept of evil that is..."

It's interesting you should say this because, so far, this is EXACTLY how our game has gone. The neutrals in the party are simply dedicated to our mission of saving the world and have gone about it with ruthless pragmatism. Nothing overtly evil but certainly not very good either, as one might expect from "save the world" types. The necro on the other hand has slowly developed an 'after saving the world' end goal of the stereotypical "increase my undead might until I fill the world with the walking dead, BWA-HA-HA-HA". We had a lot of fun and laughs recently when our characters found out in-game that he had gone evil. (the end result was our neutral characters stating "eh, I never really liked this world anyway. As long as it's not destroyed so magic keeps working I don't care what it's filled with.")

Problem is, we've recently been forced into a follow-on quest (long story, I won't bother you with it) which will specifically interfere with Toldoth's (the evil/destruction big bad our necro friend recently aligned himself with) plans and significantly dampen his evil powers. Hence it will be directly opposed to what our necro will want to do. So once our current quest is over we might have ourselves a problem.

And even without all that, we had to fight each other this past session when his character got taken over by the spirit of the latest temple we're exploring. It's only by chance that he managed to slip it's control and come back to our side.

EIther way, it showed me that we need to be prepared in case that happens again OR things go bad. And there's no reason to worry about it affecting our friendship or breaking up the group. We had plenty of fun throwing down against each other last game. Any inter-character problem will only happen because it's exactly what our characters would have to do and we'd both understand that.

 

[FoxWander]

Ok, about those tactics- both what I thought up and what's been mentioned so far.

First, what's been mentioned. Trap the Soul is a brilliant idea! I totally forgot that the item version of that with no SR and no save. I'd like to figure out some way of delaying the actual trapping the soul part or somehow making it remote activated. I don't want to move against him unless he forces me and a trap the soul item is pretty much a pre-emptive strike. If he could accept the trigger object and then have the trap only come into play if he turns on us that would be ideal. There are a few items I know he's wanted for a while that my artificer could make and give to him now. That way, when/if he turns, he's been carrying the trap all along. Would it still work right as a contingency item?

Is there any item that grants a permanent foresight spell effect? That, of course, would be awesome for making sure he can't get the drop on us. Then I just have to make sure I have a whole raft of support and buff spells ready to go. Is there an item that can hold a bunch of spells and trigger them all at once? Something based off the spell sequencer series of spells?

Celerity would give me an immediate action- as close as I can probably get to a guarantee that I can act first. With that action I'd cast time-stop. What I do after that, I'm not sure. Trigger that theoretical spell sequencer item maybe. Use my very high UMD to cast favor of the martyr off a scroll (to avoid the daze from celerity and a bunch of other stuff.). Then I'd need assay spell resistance to make sure I can get past his DR. To protect myself from his necromancy, the construct essence infusion is pretty good. Then maybe a maximized, empowered shivering touch on his cohort. Finish up with a targeted sonic meteor swarm or two.

Maybe I just make a gate to the positive energy plane and use a pair of Bigby's crushing Hands to shove him and his cohort thru. Then hit them with dimensional anchor so their trapped and being crushed. That should finish them both off fairly quick.

Those are a few of my ideas. Thoughts? Comments? What other ideas/tactics do you guys have?

 

[Storme]

I'm not a smasher type. If it came down to it, I would either drop an antimagic shell and beat the guys up, or teleport out and deal with him from afar. If it were my wizard in your group, I would obtain a piece or two of his body, hair or what not and make a simulacrum right away and keep them somewhere. Nothing like asking a sim what the original is likely to do. Start collecting pieces of badguys and have your Sim army fight his Undead army. Yours will win.

If he gets the drop on you, escape and deal with him subtly. Otherwise, the Trap the Soul idea is the only real way to guarantee success.

If you're not able or willing to deal with him subtly over time to eventually release the Trap the Soul, then consider effects for which there are no saves for. There are many effects that just tear us up as players. Most of them are very low level. One thing you can do is to set up Contingent spell on everyone, and either make a wand or scroll to everyone else in your party to fire...Ray of Stupidity. Its the ultimate effect vs arcane casters. There is no save, but SR can work but if a bunch of you shoot this and keep it up till hes a blithering idiot, he's helpless. If the guy has a 24 intelligence, then just one folly of these from 4 of you will make it so he can't cast higher then level 2 spells. And another will drop his int to 1. And as far as dealing with his minions...undead have so many weaknesses it's not funny. There should be little or no threat to a party.

Still, sublty is much better than a heavy hammer.

Also, remind the DM and him that with a Corpse Template, he cannot become a lich. That might put a stopper on things without any problems.

 

[Elethiomel]

I just want to add in a counterpoint to the "inter-party strife leads to out-of-game conflict" post. Recently in a Werewolf game (Werewolf is one of the most party-based games ever), my character sacrificed one of his packmates (that's "party members" in DnDese) to the big bad in order to get in her good books, and then joined her side. This led to no hard feelings outside the game. The player whose character I sacrificed is still my friend, and so is everyone else in the game. My new character is getting along with the party just famously.

If your players are mature individuals who know how to separate game and reality, inter-party conflict should not destroy your out-of-game relationships. Especially not if everyone can see this inter-party conflict coming a mile away. In this case, it seems like the evil party member may turn on the other party members, and the other party members are readying for such a conflict. If that is the case, then everybody is on board with inter-party conflict, and there should be no problem.

 

[joshjurg]

Most often though - everyone is not on board. And it is usually never even, usually a single instigator vs the rest of the party. This almost never ends well when the instigator realizes how powerful his teammates can be when they team up on him.

Honestly though, we had this issue tonight with a player that does not play very often and has only a cursory understanding of the rules. A chaotic neutral (Seriously, who lets a new player play this alignment?) rogue holding the remedy of our friends' petrification refuses to dole it out until he has searched the Gorgon's chamber for secret treasure that he publicly claimed he had no intention to divide with anyone. Luckily, my gaming group put it to him like this : "Look, you can play the game any way you want. We play the game this way. If you want to play with us, then you must play our way, if not then go home." and we took a 5 minute break. When everyone came back things were just fine.

Most of the time, the playgroup should not need to threaten in game violence, just the prospect of moving the game to a new location with the offending player excluded.

 

[Rvdvelden]

Isn't an undead supposed to be devoid of any soul, rendering Trap the Soul useless???