A Dungeon Master's Guide: How to Run a Lich Like a Chad

Hey there, in this video I wanted to run through how to really run a lich if you want them to actually be scary.

[The_Archlich]

Pinning this as a correction: Overlapping spell effects do not stack! So you might want to sequence the cloudkills and replace them with more symbols and walls of force. My apologies for the incorrect info acolytes.

ANOTHER EDIT: The contingency with the sending spell would not work. Replace it with Far Step or a similar spell.

[strangebird]

To me, the point should be that it will be almost impossible to kill a lich if approaching it on its terms. If a campaign calls for the destruction of a lich, I think the campaign should include the laborious steps to research the lich, find out its weaknesses and countermeasures to its wards, slowly stripping the support from it or maybe luring it out. The destruction of a lich should not be an encounter, but an entire campaign.

[RurikLoderr]

So the party once left their wizard stuck 10, 000 years in the past during a cataclysm known as The Fall. They could have, at almost any time, went back and opened the portal up to look for him (they basically had the key and the wizard didn't). Instead, they just left. When they finally got back to the main city they found it under siege by a Lich that had built up a staggeringly massive undead army without anyone noticing. Well, he did have 10, 000 years and the knowledge of how history played out to help him along.

[TheSolitaryEye]

I like to imagine Liches meeting for symposiums to discuss immortality tactics, and the passive-aggressive mind games that would ensue.

Lich 1: "I've got over 40 cloudkill glyphs surrounding my phylactery."
Lich 2: "Bah, you should always diversify your phase 2 glyphs. It only takes one jackass with poison immunity to get through all that magic. I use a combination of cloudkill, circle of death, and prismatic sprays to keep them guessing."
Lich 1: "That's overkill. After the ten shield golems (all of whom are carrying a pair of magic missile wands), my ever-expanding collection of standby skeletons, and the anti-magic field airlock, there's no chance a warforged ends up at my phase 2 line."
Lich 3: "Oh, to be a young lich again. It's nostalgic, listening to you two go on about glyphs. I long for that lost passion."
Lich 1: "Don't tell me you don't use glyphs, I won't buy into your paranoia psy-op."
Lich 3: "Oh I do. I just prefer Modify Memory."
Lich 2: "What?! That doesn't even kill them! What memory could you possibly erase that would stop them?"
Lich 3: "It's not about the memory you take, but the one you give. I just make them think we talked out our differences, bonded over a cup of tea, and agreed to stop fighting. They always leave after. I like to think of them as... hyper-competent familiars. Sometimes they'll learn the Sending spell *just* so they can chat me up later. I've got a lot of information out of random heroes that used to hate me, I have my homunculus compile it all. I need six archive demiplanes just to fit it all. One even sent me a post card last month with a picture of his newborn. He named him after me. So precious."
Lich 1 & 2: "... What the hell is wrong with you?"

[MogofWar]

Bonus points, his decoy phylacteries are the actual phylacteries of rival liches that he's stolen the way one would a rival mascot.

[Renewablefrog]

Thumbnail: I'm behind 7000 skeletons
Video: I'm behind 7000 demiplanes

[archhexer]

My favorite lich I ran had a portal that went to a "desert"

It was the location of his second tower on the moon. The players were horrified that they no longer had oxygen or gravity (things the lich really didn't need to worry about)

[lbmember]

I love how the early game is trying to keep the players alive, while the endgame is trying to keep the monsters alive

[lawpiecla]

"Planeshift runes to the worst places you can think of"
Imagine pulling up on a lich and he just instantly sends you into a room full of people trying to make small talk with you.

[definatelynotalpharius]

I always loved the idea of a Lich that works for a township. The town keep sending adventuring parties to their doom and in return he provides them with menial labour. He even gets invited to festivals and is quite the storyteller. Town needs that dangerous, dryad infested forest cleared out? Need some help building that log cabin? Too cold to hunt for game/food? Want help planting crops? Ask the Lich that lives in the tomb down the road. Skeletor won't mind as long as you keep sending "adventurers" his way.

[joshmeyer]

My personal fave: prep a 2nd lich lair, completely different and significantly easier than the real one. Put some glyphs of modify memory around each entrance to the lair. If ALL party members fail the save, the lich modifies their memory so to believe they've already defeated the lich. Don't tell your players this, RP it by running your fake dungeon. Killing the lich and destroying their phylactery should feel a little too easy. Be sure to railroad them to leave the way they came. As they walk over that area on their way out, reality resumes, and they'll hopefully return home thinking they've defeated the lich. They'll likely realize their mistake eventually, especially if they looted anything. Since any memories they have of the inside of the lair are fake, anything they think they took isn't in their packs like they'd expect. It's best not to have any magic equipment in the fake dungeon that a PC might want to equip. Depending on the circumstances, you might let them notice that their spell slots and abilities haven't actually been expended. Also, in reality, no time would've passed while their memories were being modified. If they left the lair with serious wounds, they should immediately notice they're healed. Keep in mind, just because they realize something's off, doesn't mean they automatically know their memories have been modified and the entire dungeon was fake. Let them figure it out. But, if the confusion ends up ruining everyone's fun, you can have a helpful NPC detect that their memories have been modified. If and when they return, the fact that the layout of the dungeon is completely different should serve as confirmation that their previous experience was fake. Depending on how long it takes them to solve the mystery, the lich might add more defenses or relocate entirely by the time they return.

[Kayachlata]

Here's a thing I did once. I made a Lich that invented a new type of phylactery called a "Bio-Phylactery" that was tied to every person he managed to subjugate on his island lair. Whenever he took a significant amount of damage, it'd automatically transfer into an NPC, causing them to drop dead instead. It was a bit of a puzzle fight where if they kept charging him blindly, they'd kill every person they were trying to save in the process. The people were also cursed so that they could not tell the party about this mechanic. The only thing they could say was "we'll all die if you fight him" It was very fun to run.

[notleviathan]

I had my Lich place their phylactery on a rather nice blue sapphire that was a family relic passed down in the royal family, the heroes of my story literally didn't know that it was underneath their nose at all locked away in the kingdoms vault, or draped around the princesses neck at the ball. It was amazing watching them scramble for a solid in game three months to find this thing. Eventually one of them was like 'wait a minute.' While they DID kill the Lich, they're now fugitives of the kingdom because they failed persuasion checks.

Everyone thinks hiding them is the best thing to do. I say, put it somewhere that's so common nobody thinks it's bad. If you REALLY want a fun lich, change their stats around. I once made a Paladin Lich. Party went in thinking it was some Wizard only to be met with what is basically a Warlock on steroids. Dude was throwing eldritch blasts, swinging a warpick, and wearing heavy armor while floating around. One of my greatest creations.

[avakio]

I like this, though I think its worth mentioning the Lich breaking a staff of the magi is a great way to really scare your players, since that explosion is no joke.

[Holy_Grapefruit]

I still like the idea of a Lich tricking an ancient dragon into protecting his phylactery, by just using a priceless artpiece as phylactery, I'm pretty sure it's easy to get that into the hoard of an Ancient Dragon.

[dissolution]

I think one of the funnest ideas for a Lich's phylactery is the realization the lich might have had that "Simpler is often better".
Step 0: Cast Nondetection on yourself, really just keep that on all the time. You're a powerful caster, a level 3 spell and 25gp worth of diamond dust every 7.5 hours for safety isn't too much to ask.
Step 1: Construct as small a Phylactery as possible, preferably in the form of some small opaque gem that might casually be mistaken for a rock. If otherwise possible: an object of such extreme insignificance as a bead of sand or a mustard seed. The original phylactery may even have had a powerful transfiguration spell cast upon it.
Step 2: Cast Sequester on Phylactery.
Step 3: Cast potent arcane wardings upon the Phylactery as normally afforded all Phylacteries - making it very difficult for conventional methods to destroy or harm. Often times such protections include immunity to non-magical damage.
Step 4: Place the phylactery in the most obscure non-magical place imaginable - preferably far from civilization. Such valid locations as buried deep in a desert, the bottom of an ocean, in the top of a mountain too high for mortals to breathe, at the bottom of an acid lake and of course - my favorite: an insignificant crater on a moon.
Step 5: Finally cast other contingency related spells that trigger in emergency if the phylactery is actually somehow damaged or moved too far and other emergencies.
Step 6: Stand back and revel in your simple budget phylactery defense plan, now you won't have to divest entire countries of their magic scrolls over the course of centuries in order to adequately protect your soul!
Step 7: Meanwhile, build up that dream phylactery vault you've always wanted, you deserve it! Mean time your phylactery will be safely guarded by its gross mundanity and obscure locale.

[alexjensen]

Had a lich build his tower over a river with a seemingly docile water elemental beneath, the faces my players made when the nearly dead lich just opened a chute and dropped his phalactery into the river for his bound elemental to carry to a sea base… beautiful. If I run a lich he’s either got a (literal) list of exit plans or a painful gut wrenching gauntlet to get through before you even see him.

[thepopemichael]

The negative energy thing always got me too. Even in the background lore, there have been liches who made their home in the negative energy plane due to their own unique physiology.

Having them even vulnerable to negative energy is like having a fire elemental getting damaged by alchemist fire.

[fhuber]

A lich was a high level wizard... level 18 to 20, before undeath. They have potentially had a thousand years of more to research or gather EVERY ARCANE SPELL EVER CREATED.

I never run the book stat block spell list.

The lich has a lot pile that would make Tiamat drool in envy... and it's mostly magic as they have little use for gold.
They might just have their undead servants cart the gold out in wheelbarrows and dump it.

The lich is a magical researcher, obsessed with seeking new, better, more powerful spells and magic items. They would have accumulated spell scrolls in ceiling high stacks. They'd have rooms lined with shelving for potions. (and only potions the lich could use... no healing potions)

They'd have permanent "Guards and Wards" spells cast to cover almost their entire lair. They'd have glyphs of warding cast in ways a mortal could not, because the lich is not mortal.

Unseen servants, undead, and possibly even some living persons who might even worship the lich as if it's a deity (which would amuse the lich greatly)

Now... run THAT lich....

[NuclearCharm]

My lich's phylactery is an amulet given to their champion who's decked to the nines in magic armour and weapons, whose only job is to circumnavigate the world and slaughter everything in his path

This way, his phylactery is constantly being filled by death and constantly on the move

If he dies, he'll rejuvenate near someone who is basically a bodyguard and he can just teleport back to his lair (the bodyguard has a spellscroll of teleportation circle that the lich will supply him after every rejuvenation)