Café de Nuit

Whaddya think of lichs as player characters?

Personally, I allow it, but I also allow people to play evil characters and backstab each other, so letting someone sacrifice their mortality for the endless pursuit of knowledge isn't so outrageous.

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I'd say its a bad idea.
Firstly, it strikes at party diveristy. Everyone's a wizard, everyone's undead, and everyone had the same strengths and weaknesses. Even if your plan is to rule that liches can come from other clasess (clerical liches, bardic liches) most of the same similarities remain. So, it will be basically like playing with clones.

Next, your characters are all but immortal in the world. They can go anywhere, do anything, but still be assured that if they lose the body they will be ressurected. While its certain that you can dream a few unique challenges, it will soon become repetitive.
"Oh, your in another anti-magic field. Oh, and also, this is another circle of protections." ect...

Besides which, the best reason not to do it is because players won't be able to roleplay a real lich. Liches don't do adventures! They lair in the depths of the earth and plot and plan for centuries before making their move. Its their thing.

ScS of the Fraternity wrote:Firstly, it strikes at party diveristy. Everyone's a wizard, everyone's undead, and everyone had the same strengths and weaknesses. Even if your plan is to rule that liches can come from other clasess (clerical liches, bardic liches) most of the same similarities remain. So, it will be basically like playing with clones.

Whoa whoa! We don't want a whole party of liches! If all my players wanted to be liches, I'd either say no, or throw a party of undead slayers at them out of spite.

In Libris Mortis, there are some neat descriptions of weaker lich characters - you might want to check that book for fleshing out a more concrete concept of how things are supposed to work.

I would very much like if my chars would play liches. One of the best campaigns I have run was with two mage characters... alone. They weren't evil so there was no mention of lichdom.

About Liches in lairs: Yes, but you need money and arcane knowledge. So a lich has to go out of its lair every so often. And about plans... I have rules for rituals and arcane persuits that span decades. So that would not be a problem.

In the mage campaign I told you about, the problem was actually time. The PCs would need centuries for their plans to come to fruition. Sure, they managed to pull some big things (like exterminating an army of 2000 people in one large ritual), but they never managed to make an earth shattering spell, like blowing up a mountain or making a plane of their own.

Yes... I would like my chars to play liches. I have proposed them to actually some times, but they mostly said "not yet"

I have had a wide range of interresting characters played in my campaigns and I think the liche sorcerer/cleric was one of the best. It does of course depend on the player. In the campaign in question the liche knew he had all the time in the world to get things done, so he never hurried to do anything. If he had actually played pro-actively, there might have been issues.

Of course, my opinion is based on the games I've run, and most people consider those very bizarre.