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Message: <blockquote data-quote="FormerlyHemlock" data-source="post: 6990148" data-attributes="member: 6787650">Liches, weak? You're worried that a (nigh-)unkillable creature with supergenius intellect and basically infinite 1st-8th level spells (thanks to lair action) plus the 9th level spells of an archmage is too weak?I'll give you that has a relatively weak spell list (although Cloudkill VIII combined with a nigh-infinite horde of skeletons/zombies thanks to the aforementioned nigh-infinite 8th level Animate Dead spells is a pretty good synergy, since skeletons and zombies are immune to poison damage), though the MM page 10 outright says, "You can change the spells that a monster knows or has prepared, replacing any spell on a monster's spell list with a different spell of the same level and from the same class list," so you don't have to feel married to that list anyway. Even if you don't change it, the Lich has a ton of mobility spells, AC 22 thanks to Shield (unless the lich's reaction is busy with Counterspell, another excellent spell on its list), the ability to exile a PC to another plane via Plane Shift, Power Word Kill to kill the party wizard, Fireball to deal with minions, immunity to normal weapons, etc.The lich is one of the stronger CR 20+ creatures in the MM. It's weaker than a Tarrasque in a cage fight, but so what? D&D isn't a game about cage fights. I had a 5E DM once tell us the story of a legendary lich who took down armies, and then he had the lich fight one of the PCs in basically a punching match, using its Paralyzing Touch over and over against that PC inside of a Minor Globe of Invulnerability IX that the PC had set up (BTW, the PC was immune to paralyzation due to a ring that it had) until it finally ran out of HP. Then it died. That lich was weak, and it was totally on the DM for playing the lich like a moron and failing to adapt to circumstances. (E.g. by exiting the Minor Globe of Invulnerability and coming back in sixty seconds, after it expired.) 5E liches are (nigh-)unkillable supergenius archwizards with nigh-unlimited 1st-8th level spells. If you roleplay them in even a vaguely plausible fashion they will be nightmares for the PCs.I love the idea of a lich who sets himself up as basically a combination patron/archnemesis for the PCs from low level and basically cherry taps them into unconsciousness (beats them with implausibly weak weapons just to demonstrate mastery; "I will defeat you without using more than a single spell the whole fight") whenever he feels bored, while being careful never to kill them permanently (because that would end the game!) and also occasionally leading them to good magic items, in the same way that I donate technology and systems to the AI when playing Master of Orion II and am careful to never quite kill off the Antaran homeworld even as I practice destroying it with successively-smaller task forces. I mean, it's not like the PCs are a threat or anything. Even if they win a combat and destroy the lich's body, it just reforms in 1d10 days. The PCs are just an amusement.Until one day they aren't, and suddenly everything gets serious.</blockquote>

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