D&D 5E (2024) The Price of a Soul (Lich Path problems)

[Kobold Stew]

If by completely new, you mean there from the beginning, you are correct.

The 5e MM says that liches feed mortal souls to their phylacteries.

The 5e MM says that souls that descend to the lower planes(abyss) are turned into Manes. Demon lords feed on manes, destroying them utterly. Soul consumed and destroyed.

The 5e MM says that a specter is doomed to the material plane, it's only end is the oblivion that comes with the destruction of its soul.

The 5e MM says that a yugoloth who has been permanently destroyed can be restored through a ritual requiring the expenditure of souls.

Thanks for these. None, I believe, has mechanical implications though.

The 5e DMG includes Blackrazor which has a devour soul ability with similar can only be restored by a wish language.

The 5e DMG includes the Eye of Vecna which has a chance to tear your soul from your body and devour it when you use the Eye's powers.

Unique items, such as these, do have mechanical implications.

The only real issue with the lich feat is that it happens at 4th level. It really should just consume a portion of the soul, marking it for later consumption when the jar is turned into a true phylactery.

Yes, exactly.

 

[DEFCON 1]

But do liches have to be evil? I use non-evil liches all the time. For example, when I ran my revised White Plume Mountain a few months back, I made the Big Bad the lich Kerpatis, who, like a Deravkin lich, was held together by his magical experimentations and a kind of fungus. He was mad, due to his rotted brain, but not evil.

I would argue that the evil here is very much coming from the soul mechanic and not from wanting to extend one's existence through undeath.

Fair point, and I would imagine it comes down to every DM's definition of terms.

Can a lich be good? Depends on whether the DM's world defines what a "lich" is as strictly evil, or variable. I know for me, I wouldn't call a undead spellcaster that was created by positive energy or who has a good morality a "lich". I'd use a different word to define them, because to me the term "lich" is defined as an evil undead spellcaster of certain power.

As another example, I call incorporeal undead that are neutral or good as 'ghosts' or 'spirits', whereas only evil negative energy incorporeal undead are 'spectres' and 'wraiths'. But this is just my own usage of the terms and terminology, and I don't expect others to be required to follow my definitions.

Thus in my campaigns, if a player wanted to have their PC follow the path of becoming a lich, that would be a major storyline that could potentially cause issues unless the players and I could work out how that could go without causing issues to the table and other players. Because a lich by definition would be an evil creature and thus a potential disruption to the group.

If others define the concept of lich differently? Then maybe those issues don't crop up.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Can a lich be good? Depends on whether the DM's world defines what a "lich" is as strictly evil, or variable.

This goes into both philosophy and etymology. As most people know, the word "lich" is just an old word for corpse, applying it to an evil undead spellcaster is a D&D-ism. However, the concept of the evil undead spellcaster without the name was a well established fantasy trope well before D&D. There are several in Conan for example. And they have these common factors: they are evil, they cast spells, and they use their power and knowledge to artificially extend their lives well beyond their natural span.

It's the last point that gets into the philosophy. There are lots of stories beyond the fantasy genre, and some real life examples, of people trying to artificially extend their lives. Clarke's Law comes in here. The cost is always high, and the person is always evil (discuss). Why? Because wanting to extend your life beyond its natural limits is a fundamentally selfish thing to do. Even if you think of yourself as doing it "for the greater good" the idea that the world can't get along without you shows massive hubris.

 

[Maxperson]

It's the last point that gets into the philosophy. There are lots of stories beyond the fantasy genre, and some real life examples, of people trying to artificially extend their lives. Clarke's Law comes in here. The cost is always high, and the person is always evil (discuss). Why? Because wanting to extend your life beyond its natural limits is a fundamentally selfish thing to do. Even if you think of yourself as doing it "for the greater good" the idea that the world can't get along without you shows massive hubris.

Maybe you just have things you still want to do and don't want to die. No need to think the world can't get by without you or that you're doing it for the greater good.

As for it being selfish, pretty much everything we do is selfish. We eat because we don't want to feel hunger pain. We work so we can get stuff. We gift things to others, because it makes us feel good to do nice things. And so on.

 

[ECMO3]

The Path of the Lich in the latest UA provides an unparalleled power to players at level 4: through the Soul Siphon ability associated with the Lich Initiate feat, you have the ability to consume the soul of a humanoid. D&D doesn’t mess with souls much (I talk briefly about soul-language in point 4 here), and the metaphysics that restrict it to humanoids is problematic in and of itself. At a minimum, though, there is something in all humanoids, that is valuable (to them) and worth more than life itself. I don’t say this flippantly: death can be overcome with less cost and smaller expense than the recovery of a soul, which requires a Wish (with the attendant risks associated with casting that spell for any use other than replicating a level-8-or-below spell) or True Resurrection (which in addition to requiring a 9th-level spell consumes a material component worth 25k gp; compare a level 7 spell and 1000 gp to overcome death at any time within a century). And so, a rich PC spellcaster level 17 or higher could reverse this effect, but given the effect is a consequence of a level 4 ability, the power associated with it is, frankly, astronomical. I can think of no similar effect in the game that involves so great a disparity between cause and cure.

Further, the benefit to the would-be Lich for the consumption of a soul is effectively trivial: +1d6 damage within the next 6 seconds. The benefit is the equivalent of a mediocre level 1 spell (or a cantrip cast by a level 5 caster). It is a more terrifying ability, with more severe consequences for the victim than anything available to anyone in the Monster Manual.

It is also unquestionably evil. Despite the fluff text that not all liches are bad and the mechanical opportunity to take the feat if you are a good character, to use this ability against any opponent is more extreme than murder; more extreme, again, for the victim, than any other act available to anyone in the game, for a negligible benefit. Anyone who ever used this would be, without any nuance or doubt, evil.

WOTC designers have played with souls before, and the UA version of the Phantom Rogue pre-Tasha’s had similar soul-language on an ability available at level 9, which (thankfully) they removed. I get recovering a soul should be hard; Greater Restoration is out of reach of most individuals who would be victims, at level 4. But to require Wish or True Resurrection effectively says it is not going to happen, and makes any use of Soul Siphon truly horrific.

I am not a fan of the Lich subclass. Even if they change the ability. The description of a Lich in the MM5.5 even says they are "nefarious".