Lich is an interesting ability from a RP standpoint. It's also one of the most complained about skills, right up with Wisp, Flow and Demesne summons.

However, since liching gives you a few positive buffs (Correct me if I'm wrong) I think it shouldn't be a way of escaping death, but rather a positinve buff Necromancers will want to have on at all times.

First, Liching would work differently; there would be no experience loss at all. Howver, preparing yourself to become a Lich would require some herbs and a small amount of Power; it would also take some time and make you prone. If you move after that, the ritual is ruined. Becoming a Lich strips all defenses.

If you're killed after preparing to lich, the Deathsight message would change:

Murphy has been sacrificed by Kaervas, and rises again as a Lich.

Liching would give the player a few substantial advantages:
+2 Strength, +2 Intelligence, +2 Constitution.
Resistance to cold and fire damage (Liches can't be burned and don't suffer from frostbite.)
Can use TOUCH to cause some mild cold damage (Undead are immune to this, but the attack is marginally better than cosmic fire.)
Liches can use Vitae normally; dying as a Lich involves reforming again as a Lich somewhere, after a while. You can go back t being alive only by being ressurected through a Resurgem or Sacrifice, as liches don't leave corpses.
Liches influence Begging, Empower, Villlages and Paranoia much more slowly and less effectively, as if they had massively reduced Charisma, because they're hideous. They have a slight advantage at Weaken influencing, because they're intimidating. These effects don't apply when they influence other Undead.
Liches can't influence seduction at all.
A lich that can MASK himself to influence normally and without any penalties, only if he's wearing clothes to cover all his body, at a constant endurance drain (Tailors can already make gloves and masks, and robe hoods can be raised.)

They would also have a few balancing disadvantages:
Vulnerability to crushing damage - Liches are just bags of bones waiting to be broken.
Vulnerable to magic damage - Liches are held together by magic.
Liches suffer a constant mana, ego, and health drain when they're not standing on Tainted ground. Not much; it would take several minutes for it to be noticed.
A prone lich can be ressurected by in any way a dropped corpse can. That brings him back to life, stripping all defences, lowering Power to 0, and removing all the Lich buffs.

Liches have two descriptions, one for when they're alive, and one for their Lich form, much like changelings. This is so we stop having people who stay attractive months after starting to decompose.

Umm. No not feeling it. Lich is not as bad as sacrafice end of story. I am done. So if your going to screw with lich go change sacrafice too.

Not a nerf? You gotta be kidding.
Your view on lichdom isn't correct too, I believe. For example, liches are not just bags of bones held together by magic. They breathe, bleed, have to eat, etc.

So you're proposing annihilating 2/3s of Magnagoras influencing and reducing the power cost of Lich in exchange for 2 con and being vulnerable to bonecrushers, cosmicfire/moonburst and an instant "You're screwed" attack for people who can resurrect, as well as the "no exp" part going away.

Yes, I'm thinking the answer is no. Unless people who are deepbonded with animals have similar severe disadvantages, as well as sacrifice and those who've resurrected with Vitae (It IS a new body) I'm thinking no. Liches can already be smacked by the Sacraments ability (Or I think it's sacraments) that hurts the undead, and we have stat loss during the day, the greater part of game time, and it costs a LARGE amount of power.

Yes, I'm thinking a resounding "no." And resurgem user needs to be a moon user, and noone will sacrifice for a Magnagoran player.

Let's break this down.
Current lich advantages:
+2 int/str at night.
Breathing contagion for 3 power instead of 6.
Immune to ectoplasm (Magnagoran skill)
Contagion can't be blown away while a lich is in the room.
The ability to run and hope you don't run into an eye or just get caught leaving anyway to avoid exp loss.
I believe we already have the touch skill, although it has something like four seconds of balance. Or perhaps it was removed, I'm not sure.
Nifty "undead" thing added to your race.

Disadvantages:
10% reserves. (five to put up, five when you reform.)
-1 str and int during the day, (65% of the time)
Hittable via the sacraments ability.

Personally, I'd say that's fine for a transcendant skill. You want to remove the usefulness of it, making it to the point where it'll be a purely RP ability - I know I wouldn't bother with lich, and I'd probably forget Necromancy and just relearn to Ghost and leave it at that. Ghost, Carrion, Mastery, Ectoplasm, Omen and Lich are the only good abilities in Necromancy, but they make up for the rest of the deficiencies in the skillset. Reforming as a lich after a while? You reform now anyway. Why would you list that as an advantage?

God. And what disadvantages, if any, does Deepbonding have? You leave your animal tucked nicely in a corner of Serenwilde and noone will murder it, thus murdering you. And the power cost, I suppose. Sacrifice? 1-2% exp loss, considering I've never seen it done outside Celest and Clise, a lower level, seems to exist for the sole purpose of sacrificing herself.

*pant, pant*

Okay. That's enough.

It is a positive buff necromancers want on... most necro skills aren't that great (imo as a warrior) and lichdom is what every necromancer works for when they trans necro



Preparing to become a lich sucks 10 power.. and alot of mana.... also the eq balance takes a while to recover from (on first preparation)


Liches do get str and con benifits and a reduction in int tho... I cant remember if the get any other stats raised but all of these are lowered (str and con wise) or raised back (int wise) in the daytime.
Liches can touch and freeze people much like the spectres can... but not real effective really. Resistant to cold and fire would be nice


Once liched you may "liche" again so when you die you reform into a lich.... then you can also vitae so that if you die the next time your vitae kicks in (which is what has most people upset). Like I said before tho in a large fight it isnt super useful in the aspect of you can be cut right back down without your defenses up and when you reform into a lich you lose another 10 power so you have no power until it rebuilds back


That would be interesting.... I think we may have a char negative mod in there too but Im not positive about that... but masking yourself would be nice.


I of course dont like the unbalancing thing because Im biased but I would deal with some of it except for the tainted ground issue... its hard enough to find tainted ground to stand on anywhere in the basin... Its not like the geos are running around like the puddlejumpers are tainting everything



I dont see what you mean here.... unless you mean by our basic description.... it wont really change anything charisma wise... I guess the option could be there so people can see us in a putrid decomposing sense but only if they desire to look at us....

I think I wasn't clear with the point of this suggestion. This would turn Lich from a second layer of death protection (Which acts on top of Vitae) and make it a set of positive buffs that stay on at all times; Liching would be mostly permanent, as the only way to get back to being a normal mortal would be to either learn Moon/Stag and get resurgemed, or to be ressurected by a Sacraments user. Comparing it to resurgem and Sacrifice is silly; you come out of resurgem with no defs and 1 hp, same for Sacrifice. You come out of Lich with a few positive buffs, and on the place of death.

Also, several 'disadvantages' are actually RP things. The influence thing, for example, which can be easily negated and only dangerous in village influences, where you can get vestiphobia occasionally. The loss of health and mana while not on Tainted ground is an RP thing, too; like I said, so slow that it takes a while before you notice it, and you probably won't have to sip mana, health and bromides more often than every 20 minutes standing outside Tainted land. Another interesting buff is simply to make Liches faster when they're using Necromancy.

The reason for multiple descriptions is that, at least according to the stories, Undead are scabby and ugly decomposing corpses. Ladantine used magic to mask that (He was Dreamweaver, and likely an Illusionist too.) Masking has a slight endurance drain, but not enough to cause trouble during influencing; it just represents the strain of trying not to speak with a rasping voice or smell too bad.

You can only use vitae+lich if you're a member of the "old boys" network in Magnagora, those who have infinite power access. You also come out of Resurgem and Sacrifice with grace and status, with Lichdom you get neither. You appear off balance with zero power, but you DO have full health and mana. I'd rather put it up constantly with the power cost rather than suck up those disadvantages of yours Did Ladantine constantly lose health/mana off of taint? No. He was far more resilient than a normal merian would be, as well (See his lack of need for fluids after so long in the Pyramid, so why would liches be vulnerable to magic and blunt weapons if they're undead creatures of MAGIC that use their powers to bolster their forms?). (As a side note, imagine the screaming if the mugwump penalties were dropped so that I had 12 con and only level 2 fire/electricity vulnerabilities?)


The influence thing is just another requirement added to liching for no reason at all. As I said, Ladantine didn't get harmed while off tainted ground, why should we? He was the first lich transformed by Kethuru, after all. And Ladantine wasn't shown to be rotting and evil, he just had red eyes, a touch as cold as ice and his skin was more somewhat charred as his soul didn't coalesce, but was raised directly while in his body by Kethy darling. Not hideous. Hell, since Yrael is always undead, I messed around with his description a bit. Parts of his skin are rotting, and his eyes are similar to Ladantine's. I've seen Celestians with the eye part (The Holy Power of Sacraments!) and skin is likely to be covered by robes. You don't instantly decay a month after becoming a lich, your soul coalesces into a new body altered by the lich seed you planted to feed from "the powers of night and darkness!", and has no relation to your death. My description isn't QUITE as exotic, incidently, as those I've seen with lichdom up.



Ladantine didn't stink, he didn't have a rasping voice. He could dominate people with his mind, but that required effort to use, by the looks of things, it wasn't just something that leaked out of him.



Hey, if you want to change lich, add a flat 5% exp loss on death, and so after you put it up and die with it, it's permenant. From then on, on death, you lose 5% exp, mana is set to 1500 and type REFORM as a soul to resurrect yourself, and as soon as you hit 0 mana you start losing further exp.

To put it bluntly, this is possibly one of the worst ideas I have ever read. I don't think you have a clue what you are talking about.



Ok first off, the few stat bonuses and resistences to compensate for a skill that is designed to make up for an already rather lacking skillset don't add up at all. You are eliminating its primary use by deleting the fact that it is Magnagorians 'rezz' skill. The influencing is pretty pointless and even more nerfs that aren't required.



Once again your counter balances are absurd and eliminate the actual use for the skills. I could elaborate on this but I really see no point. You idea is off base and makes no sense. This would make us have a small advantage to some barely used damage types and make us take damage by most mobs let alone people. Don't fix something that isn't broken.

way to give em the one two, and I agree i think this is a crap idea no offense just think before you post something like this and saying not a nerf....

Yeah, even I have to agree this is a pretty bad idea for the most part.

The immunity to heat and ice just bothers me... I'm not sure how it works, but how would Aquas pull off that freezing instakill? (assuming it requires you to be frozen)

I think he meant that you get a resistance, which would instantly make mugwump liches overpowered.

Especially with 12 con, we'd basically become faster, non water breathing Merian.

..I still want to be a permenant lich and be able to reform on command, though. *cough*

Meh, I was bored and decided to suggest something crazy. Why not? People keep bitching about Lich, might as well change it into something completely different. Give it even more buffs, maybe?

I don't like the suggestion

and a note



I'm a little confused, I thought Landantine was hideous like the others but that he used Illusions to conceal the fact?

Hey, lets take the worst influence-related specialised race in the game and then make it even worse by completely neutering their already weak influencing That will get people to want to be Viscanti!

He was crispy, not hideous. He did have glowing red eyes and a chilling touch, though.

Well he was kind of dread awe fear or something inspiring. Loli said he looked like a monster. But yea its not a great idea and lich dosnt seem that much of a problem at the moment.