What Happens When You Go Lich?

[Bastoche]

Rendarkin,

Consider a normal campaign.

Definition of a normal campaign:

A campaign in which these is 4 or more players each playing a different character.

definition of a sane DM:

A DM that insure that every characters a balanced with each other.

That's what I meant.

It's not because there's no statement in the book that says that "templates" aren't allowed for PC (I'd have to double check that, but I bet that it is explicitly written taht templates are intended for NPCs. It's probably not written that they aren't allowed, but I'm sure it's discouraged) that a DM should let it go at that.

If one of the four or more characters in normal campaign gets the "whatever" template, there is no balance anymore. A DM who doesn't car about balance is an insane DM in my book.

Personnally, I'd hate to play in a campaign where a DM decides to give a template to everybody for sake of balance because some crazy old wizard wanted to be immortal. But that's just me. If all characters turns into vampire, it lacks of originality and if they all turn into different templates, it lacks credibility.

If a player wants his character to turn vampire, the DM will tell him: "Ok if you want to become a vampire, no problem, but once it's done, your PC will turn NPC." That's what I would do.

If he's the only player in the party, I don't care. But if there is many players, there is some sign of insanity.

I thought we were discussing the rules as written (I could have been wrong).

That's exactly what I consider not being an argument. The rule books have been printed not so you may create virtual scenarios. That were printed to PLAY with them. The rule allow what doesn't break balance. That's what 3E D&D is all about ! The rest is meaningless.

 

[Bastoche]

Rendarkin,

I read you following post more or less about balance (what you call "party power").

I think you're missing a few things.

This is my personnal view of balance and it worked very well so far:

There is three aspect of balance:

- Ability scores
- character level
- treasures

If each part of these are balanced within themselves, except some extreme case, every thing will be balanced within themselves.

In other words, unless one has a lot of experience, it's hard, if ont impossible, to balance a 5th level party with a 7th level party by adjusting either the scores or the treasures.

If your characters use 32 point buy, every other adventurer should use 32 point buy. For sake of balance. If your party gains 110% of normal treasure, everybody should get 110% normal tresure.

A 14th level party is balance with a 14th level lich (12 levels of wizard and 2 levels of template, remember that 4 characters here are balance with 1 villain !!)

Hope this helps.

 

[Voadam]

Wow, Bastoche

That's quite a view of insanity. My campaign and the ones I have played in are quite the insane ones I guess.

I have no problem using ECL to balance a starting character's options. If I say make a 5th level character for my campaign then you can make a 5th level human or a 4th level ECL 1 or a 1st level ECL 4 character. That is balanced options.

However, new PCs don't start out as powerful as existing PCs in my game. They are always lower level than the existing PCs. This discourages PC suicide for power ups and encourages PCs to stick with characters and aids in campaign continuity.

For starting a campaign, everybody starts out equal, but from then on things happen, both good and bad and it is rare for PCs to be exactly balanced.

In my current campaign, characters range from 6th to 10th, and that is before the templates, curses, dark powers, pact abilities etc. they have aquired in game. Magic items also further affect the balance, I don't determine who gets what from what they find, they do and they make deals among themselves, sometimes even betting magic items and gp in poker. It all leads to a random mish mash of power and resources but this is how things have developed and it works well in my campaign.

What happens if a character can't make a few games for a while, should he get sympathy xp for not being there? A few random magic items to keep up. I wouldn't have that happen in my campaign.

Let insanity rule. It can be fun and make sense.

 

[Voadam]

I said I'm done, and I am, but I wanted to help rendarkin with a site link that really helped me. It's got a lot of good insight into 3e and monsters as PC's and gives a lot of good advice you can pick and choose from buffet style.

Check this site out sometime. If it connects with you, bookmark it and come back to it when you really want to dig into something.

3e is about what you can do, not about setting down rules about what you can't. If you want to play the reluctant vampire without spoiling anyone elses fun, you actually can in 3e. If you want to play a big dumb ogre without totally making the fighter feel useless, you can. Check out this site, it's a lot better thought out than I'll ever be.

http://www.webspawner.com/users/enbsoldarin/index.html

Jeremy,

Thanks for the link, I like it a lot. I still won't apply ECL after creation but it is very useful for determining ECLs for new characters.

 

[Bastoche]

Well Vaodam, let's just say I oversimplified and the choice of the word "insane" is not quite appropriate.

I agree with your ECL suggestiond, that's exactly my point.

And I concess the dying rule too, anyway, a resurected player also lose a level. But a lich template !!! That's not the same game !

 

[Mercule]

Our party consists of a Neutral Revenant/Barbarian /Fighter/Beserker
Neutral Grey Elf Necromancer (Lichy)
Lawful Good Paladin
Lawful Good Half Celestial Cleric/Fighter
This is not including my character

Let me get this straight....

A primarily good-aligned party, including a paladin, has been piling their pennies to create a dreaded, wholly evil, undead creature?

First of all, the DM's on drugs unless the paladin is stripped of his favor and everyone becomes neutral, at the very least. That aside I'll give my thoughts on the answer.

Give the lich some negative levels, equal to the ECL modifier. Then, the next few levels just take off the negative levels, bringing him up to what his ECL should be. I had a player in my game who wanted to play a half-dragon at low levels. We did this and were both happy with the results.

 

[Voadam]

Mercule,

Just to keep it straight

Hello


The Celestial C/F knows about it and says he has no problem with it aslong as he is not evil. (Mosnter of Faerun Lich) I should hae ben specific, but I am ceartain he is only taign that lich because he knows he is not allowed to be evil.

[/B][/QUOTE]

The Monsters of Faerun book provides options for non-evil liches.

So a primarily good party is pooling their money to make a non evil party mage more powerful.

 

[Valdier]

Ok, having read through 5 pages of this now...

I currently became a lich on a campaign I play in. It went well with story, and was sort of an assassination plot against my good cleric by an evil character.

Now that I am a lich, we get along much better, and can work much easier to accomplish our goal like he suspected would happen.

To handle it, we increased my ECL from 14 to 18 (+4 I believe from dragon magazine).

We use the FR xp system, so not only do I have a long ways to go to get my level back up... but the other characters are catching up to me fairly quickly.

Lets see really what you can get out of the DMG for 120,000 gold that will bring you close to a lich... fair?

5000 xp = Hide Life (you pay the xp cost to make it equal to the lich cost)

3840 gp = 6 slotless rings for skills: +8 hide, listen, move silent, sense motive, spot. 640 gp each x6

50,000gp = amulet of natural armor +5

24,000 = slotless bracelets of intelligence, charisma, wisdom.

22,800 = Vestement of lesser faith 15/+1

= 100,640.

So what are we missing? Fear aura, paralyzing touch and undead immunities right?

Ok, a holy avenger offers dispel magic in an area at the wielders level, we will steal that and call it fear instead.

we will make a wrist strap with a special purpose, slay all living beings. It has no ability other than, upon touch it permanently paralyzes any creature. These straps also do 1d8 damage with a cold d6. Fair?

78,000 = wrist straps of the lich (8,000 +1 cold straps, 50,000 special purpose[from ELH], fear aura at will 20,000.)

This still leaves us close to a lich for just about the same cost right?

The only thing we are short on is undead immunities... that shouldn't be too hard to get. All of this with none of the lich drawbacks, and for much cheaper than it takes to be a lich... how again is the lich unbalanced? (btw to stop the argument of "it requires a 17th level caster" you still have money left over to buy a scroll of hide life instead.)

 

[Darkness]

3840 gp = 6 slotless rings for skills: +8 hide, listen, move silent, sense motive, spot. 640 gp each x6

Heh. At these rates, I'd like to buy as many as you can supply, please!



See, these rings ought to cost a bit more than this: 6* (8*8 *20 *2 = 2,560) = 15,360 gp

Which is 11,520 gp more than your price.

 

[Darkness]

BTW, someone said that vampirism couldn't be cured.

It is possible, though (if somewhat unpleasant): Kill the vampire, then cast resurrection.