Strange CR Situation

[the Jester]

Okay, so I've got a very hard to judge situation in my Epic-level game.

The bad guy is a 35th level lich wizard. CR is normally set to 37. However, he's been whacked once before and just returned from his phylactery; he's only got backup gear. So instead of having the gear of an epic-level npc, he's prolly got the gear of a high-level npc instead.

Furthermore, the party has an artifact that can remove his lich template. This drops his CR to 35 under normal circumstances. They got the artifact strictly to use on this bad guy (which is how they eliminated all the other insane weird powers he had going on, like rust monster tentacles and a central beholder eye).

How should I treat his CR when the party fights him (tonight)? Assuming they defeat him- he's already scared of them, they dropped him down from a mighty CR 47 down to a mere lich with their artifact.

 

[Thanee]

Why is that important?

You don't need an EL for this encounter obviously, because it's set already, and XP can be awarded in some ad hoc way, since they already got the XP for defeating him, I suppose. If not, they are obviously calculated from his starting CR.

Bye
Thanee

 

[the Jester]

The main thing is the equipment.

 

[d20Dwarf]

I agree with Thanee. This is a special situation that you've set up, giving them the means to bypass most of this guy's abilities. Assigning a CR to him isn't really relevant since you're not trying to figure out if he's an appropriate challenge or not. I'd just give them an ad hoc XP award based on what you think it's worth to the story to have them defeat him.