Become an Archlich?

[Indignus_Antiphonum]

Please hear me out before criticizing the idea.

I got the inspiration for this idea when I discovered that in D&D, Archliches do exist and are of non-evil alignment:

http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Archlich

http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.a...d/4ex/20090410

Could it not be an endgame achievement for an arcane spellcaster after level 20?

The benefits I would envision:

Permanent deathblock.
Immunity to disease, poison and fatigue effects.
Permanent natural resistance to elemental damage equal to resist energy at the 11th level.
Player is healed by negative energy spells.
Player can heal themselves by using their own negative energy spells like death aura and negative energy burst.
Upon "death" by melee, ranged or spell damage, player is not bound to a soul stone and can thus travel anywhere within a dungeon to resurrect at a shrine.

The drawbacks:

Player must reach level 20 in their casting class with no multiclassing.
Player is damaged by positive energy spells and potions such as "cure light wounds", etc.
Resting at a shrines will not restore healthpoints, only spellpoints.
Player can never again reincarnate their character.


Please tell me if this would be insanely overpowered or underwhelming and your reasons why.

[bryanmeerkat]

Its not a terrible idea but there are some terrible ideas in there

[Anneliese]

Lets compare your Archlich to a WF Palemaster


Permanent deathblock. -> I can wear an item for that


Immunity to disease, poison and fatigue effects. -> Like WF?


Permanent natural resistance to elemental damage equal to resist energy at the 11th level. -> Unless we are in a place that debuffs - I can cast that np as a Wizard. If I get debuffed, I usually only need 1 of the resists, an item covers it.


Player is healed by negative energy spells. -> Like a palemaster


Player can heal themselves by using their own negative energy spells like death aura and negative energy burst. -> Like a palemaster


Upon "death" by melee, ranged or spell damage, player is not bound to a soul stone and can thus travel anywhere within a dungeon to resurrect at a shrine. -> Could potentially break many dungeons. Just die, run to rez shrine at end, rez - finish quest.

[Zharfie]

I don't think the drawbacks would be severe enough to balance out the benefits... and to be honest, the benefits aren't worth the drawbacks either

only thing in the benefits that might be "useful" is the not being bound to a soul stone... not that useful imo...
everyone has pretty much "permanent" resistances already anyway, and I believe regular lich form already gets deathblock/disease/poison/fatigue immunity and they can heal themselves in the same manner...

can you make a reincarnated character into an archlich? if so you can just do that when you hit completionist

[chrisgina39]

so whats the
archlich>lich
and
lich>archlich

[Indignus_Antiphonum]

Lets compare your Archlich to a WF Palemaster

Permanent deathblock. -> I can wear an item for that

Immunity to disease, poison and fatigue effects. -> Like WF?

Permanent natural resistance to elemental damage equal to resist energy at the 11th level. -> Unless we are in a place that debuffs - I can cast that np as a Wizard. If I get debuffed, I usually only need 1 of the resists, an item covers it.

Player is healed by negative energy spells. -> Like a palemaster

Player can heal themselves by using their own negative energy spells like death aura and negative energy burst. -> Like a palemaster

A Sorcerer cannot become a palemaster. I had this idea for any arcane caster to adopt.

I also thought that the benefits like deathblock, elemental resistance, etc would mean you'd free up item slots to use iems that had other benefits, and you'd save on spellpoints from not having to cast certain buffs. (Beholders would certainly be a walk in the park to deal with.)

Upon "death" by melee, ranged or spell damage, player is not bound to a soul stone and can thus travel anywhere within a dungeon to resurrect at a shrine. -> Could potentially break many dungeons. Just die, run to rez shrine at end, rez - finish quest.

But you still can't pull a lever to open any closed off shrine rooms, making it kind of balanced, right?

I believe regular lich form already gets deathblock/disease/poison/fatigue immunity and they can heal themselves in the same manner...

I didn't know you could become a "regular" lich already in the game. The whole idea of an archlich is one that is not evil aligned. D&D makes a point that regular liches are evil aligned.

can you make a reincarnated character into an archlich? if so you can just do that when you hit completionist

For the sake of not overpowering it, you could possibly only become an archlich so long as your character has not undergone a true reincarnation even once, thus denying the completionist benefit.

[Teharahma]

My advice to you is;
Learn some more about the game before starting to make suggestions..

It makes you look like an idiot

[hityawithastick]

To the issue of liches being evil or not:

It's always been my personal opinion that a lich is not, automatically, evil. That said, the neighborhood paladin is probably not going to be looking into lichdom anytime soon, since it is insinuated that the rituals to become a lich are bowel-evacuatingly unpleasant. I play my necromancer as chaotic neutral--prone to random fits of violent destruction.

To the original post: It would be awesome to have a permanent "archlich" form/capstone for the PM, maybe something to get at 18th level with Pale Master III. However, I will have to say I do not support players being harmed by heal spells. Go look at all the screenshots on the forums--some of those spells crit for 11k!

P&P D&D liches originally were immune to petrification, stunning, ability damage, death effects (duh), level loss, cold damage, and mind-affecting spells. Pale Master shrouds already give immunity to pretty much every necromancy spell except Halt Undead. The only thing to add would be immunity to cold, petrification, or stunning (and if THAT one happens, expect a lot of nerdrage on the PvP forums :P).

And finally: Liches are really cool.

[Indignus_Antiphonum]

My advice to you is;
Learn some more about the game before starting to make suggestions..

It makes you look like an idiot

I will gladly accept if my suggestions are bad if the reasons are pointed out to me, however my advice to you is:

You should work on your response, because it makes you look like a complete douuchebag.

[sephiroth1084]

Pale Master already gets most of that and more.

As for sorcerers...they can do something else. It's not like negative energy would be of much use to them: no enhancements to boost it and too few spell slots to be burning 2 just for self-healing at level 20 when they could have been WF for levels 1-19.

[Talias006]

<snip>

D&D makes a point that regular liches are evil aligned.

</snip>

Eberron makes it a point that no creatures are absolutely bound to a particular alignment. You could run into a LG Adult Red Dragon as much as you could a CE Ancient Gold Dragon. And the deathless revered of one sect of elves really puts that into perspective as well.

[Teharahma]

I will gladly accept if my suggestions are bad if the reasons are pointed out to me, however my advice to you is:

You should work on your response, because it makes you look like a complete douuchebag.

Didn't you know ?
I ám a complete douuchebag

[budalic]

... or stunning (and if THAT one happens, expect a lot of nerdrage on the PvP forums :P).

It already happened - Pale Masters are immune to stunning. Pale master are subject to Tomb of Jade, though, so light monks can still disable them... if they get near.

The only things that can screw up Pale Master, from my experience with playing one, are pertrification, tripping and snare effects (ie. what Momma Dragon in Mired in kobolds does), and some of the ability damage stuff (I think we're supposed to be immune to this, but some of it is bugged, or something like that. So ability drain is kinda lottery right now.)

[sephiroth1084]

It already happened - Pale Masters are immune to stunning. Pale master are subject to Tomb of Jade, though, so light monks can still disable them... if they get near.

The only things that can screw up Pale Master, from my experience with playing one, are pertrification, tripping and snare effects (ie. what Momma Dragon in Mired in kobolds does), and some of the ability damage stuff (I think we're supposed to be immune to this, but some of it is bugged, or something like that. So ability drain is kinda lottery right now.)

Yup. Just frustrated a bard friend of mine in the PvP pit because my PM is immune to everything she can bring to bear.

In fact, a PM is looking to be better suited for PvP, as much as that means anything of relevance, than just about any other character. They have equal or better saves than any other wizard thanks to +4 Con, +2 Int and +2 Wis, more immunities than WF, and enough passive healing to survive being tripped some of the time as well.

Run! Run for your life h4x!

[donfilibuster]

There gotta be some other undead worthy of shrouds, like ghost, but that archlich is just a non-evil lich.
And like all shrouds, the shroud of lich don't really make you a lich so you only gain a few benefits on top of the undead immunities.

Now the demilich, that one could be an epic shroud, if that thing would ever exist.
Of course let's let the other classes get their toys before wanting more for wizard again.