Open grave Excerpt: Demilich (and other lich lore)

[I'm A Banana]

I'm not concerned about the level. As mentioned above, Level 20 lets you have gods and Nightshades and Strahd and the like as "pinnacles of the Undead." Demiliches are amongst the most potent, but they don't have to be THE most potent (Acererack and Strahd and Vecna and other "unique" undead can be that).

The "fail three saves and die" thing is pretty interesting. It solves the problem of "save or die" being binary, but still lets the Lich bypass HPs and all of your stats (basially) to kill you, which is cool and very thematic for one of the "ultimate undead." I also like that when you fail a save, it imposes a penalty on your next one -- that should get some PC's going "oh crap!" pretty quickly.

The fluff is very good there at the end -- a lot of direct inspiration for neat kinds of oliches that both kill the PC's and might help them (baelnorn!).

Not many complaints about this one at all. Good show.

 

[hamishspence]

hand demilich

Sharalee in Epic Handbook, trying to write down every spell in the multiverse, was hand-shaped.

 

[Pbartender]

Has anyone noticed that save or die making a comeback in 4E?

Actually, it's more like failed save, failed save then die.

And things have been in 4E since the beginning... The Beholder Eye Tyrant's Petrifying Ray and Death Ray both do the same thing, as does the Gibbering Orb's Souleating Ray, the Iron Gorgon's petrifying breath the Basilisk's, Medua Archer's and Medusa Shroud of Zehir's Pertrifying Gazes.

There are several otehr monsters in the MM that use similar mechanics for less deadly effects, but the Demilich's ability is hardly new to 4E.

 

[Fifth Element]

Has anyone noticed that save or die making a comeback in 4E?

No, it's save or save or save or die, and this isn't the first instance of it in 4E. The issue wasn't that a save is needed to save your life, just that there was only one save allowed, with no decision points in between the effect triggering the save and the death/no effect.

 

[JohnRTroy]

They need to put in an explanation of why it's called DEMI lich, like in the older descriptions. Demi- has a specific meaning in the English language.

 

[chaotix42]

Yeah! It should be a minilich!

I can't wait to use this guy. Lots of abilities to use across the span of an encounter, many of them straight-up nasty and simple to manage for the DM. Approved!

That healing ability is evil too!

 

[SlyFlourish]

I'm building my own five encounter D&D 4e-lite version of Tomb of Horrors based on this guy.

 

[Shroomy]

The demilich excerpt makes me even more curious about Monday's article on Acererak. Since I doubt they will be reprinting stats, I wonder what they will ultimately include?