Posted: Sun May 09, 2004 4:24 pm
did WoTC do alot of really stupid things in the name of balance? yes!
but you must realise what their intentions were, they wanted to make a game that is more enjoyable to most people, and thus have attempted to make the game alot more balanced, that balance has led to alot of artificial and stupid limiting (oh you cant do that, thats unfair cause it makes you too strong), you must remember it is a game, if you want to add a touch of realism to it you may remove many of those restrictions (compare it to people who claim the existance of nuclear weapons isnt fair cause they are too effective and strong, and thus must be impossible to use)
Playing 2nd edition will not solve the problem, for the most part 3rd edition, and even 3.5 has alot of great features, an experienced player and dm (you NEED to go through both) with alot of time on his or her hands, and alot of creativity and who is also very smart can go through and remodel the game in a perfect universal manner, since this isnt likely (how many such people do you know? will it even be legal since its copyrighted) you just have to make your own local changes, just discuss it with the other people in your group and it will all be fine.
As for the demiliches, a demilich is the ULTIMATE undead, it is an extremely powerful necromancer wizard who has transformed himself into a lich, and then transformed himself further into a demilich, gaining immortality, alot of power and inteligence, and even more wizarding powers, a demilich is stricktly an epic monster, you shouldnt be able to even TOUCH it before level 30 unless you are EXTREMELY smart and creative and min maxed with well thought of characters and strategy. It had countless generations to weed out all his weaknessesit will not be taken out by a bunch of weaklings, just as a level 50 wizard isnt gonna have too much trouble against non epic characters.
Any spellcaster can gain spell like abilities and the like through the use of feats, and sacrificing spellslots, there are hard requirements (basically all your feats for the first 16 or so levels need to go into prerequisites), but a dedicated character can overcome them.
You can use a feat AND sacrifice a slot 2 levels higher as the minimum to gain something as a Spell Like Ability, it gives certain amout of uses per day, those multiply with the number of slots higher you give up, eventually at 8 slots higher it becomes at will!
if you allow epic levels, then your magic users keep on gaining slots, which can be used for slot sacrificing, or metamagic.
highest regular spell level is 9 (for the actual spells, greater spells arent going by spell level anymore but are considered epic spells) add 8 to it, its 17, times 2 minus 1 thats 33, however, that level doesnt confer a feat, as soon as a level 33 caster gains another feat he can use it to allow himself to cast a single level 9 spells of his class AT WILL (actually its not really at will, its only once per round, so he cant cast it 10 times a second). a demilich has 3 open level 10 slots and a ton of at will abilities that would have each sapped a whole slot so he is at least level 30 wizard, plus it has a ton of epic items, its extremely intelligent, it has the ability to rip and devour 8 souls per day (he should use it first, only if he has 8 souls trapped will he not take any new souls, and its not 8 uses a day, its 8 commulative souls trapped, so even if he succeded 8 times, and then you wish for a single soul to be freed, it can just devour another, and the devouring destroys the body too)...
So if a normal mortal spellcaster at level 36 (when they get their next feat after level 33) can cast level 9 spells at will, there is no reason why a demilich which is an immortal spellcaster with tens of thousands of years of experience at least, aswell as a ****load of powers, could not cast a mere harm spell at will? not only that but the demilich specialises in that type of spells and has gained the ability to cast that at will through his demilich transformation NOT just mere basic magical class. Oh and a mere level 22 cleric can, if designed right, cast cure moderate wounds at will.
I could go on, basically you completely underestimate a demilich, your characters should MAYBE be meeting normal liches, demiliches are creatures of immense power who gives the GODS a pause, mere mortals are no match for it, when characters become epic they can ascend into deitihood or goodhood (or maybe it was demigoodhood) after a long arderous quest, IF they survive it, then they are able to take on a lich (cause it probably cannot suck out the souls of gods), then you have a "fair" fight, even though it can still fly at a perfect 180 ft and has 30 unpassable damage reduction and can cure itself with harm at will.
Demiliches are found in between dimentions either furthering their power amoung the gods and the planes they do not, EVER EVER EVER make a random encounter, and they should NOT be turnable. if they give gods a pause a mere mortal chanelling a fraction of a god's power is not gonna make them turn to dust!
Mortals COULD, with careful planning and a cunning plan take one down without nerfing, at very high epic levels, and ALWAYS in a large group since a single mortal will immidiatly have its soul sucked away. The bottom line is dont nerf those, rather just dont have them as part of the plot, how to fix that in an ongoing campaign? there are rules for BOTCHED demilich transformations, a botched demilich will STILL be insanely powerful, either have it turn out that the demilich was a botched and not full demilich, or that the demilich was actually a normal lich who is just putting a facede of being a demilich so that people will be too afraid to oppose him (and they SHOULD, your characters should be ****ting their pants not charging valiently to fight it).
A demilich is ALOT more powerful then a great wyrm, although it isnt as powerful as the turasq, the turasq eats great wyrms for breakfast (mmmm, spicy green dragon's heads with some sweet silver ones tails cereal, two whole scoops of dragon parts per bowl), the turasq is DEFINED as the most powerful creatures of your dimention, only one exist per dimention, if it is killed, you need to immidiatly wish for it not to autoressurect, if you do then it is reborn elsewhere (no dimention can be without a turasq, but not dimention can have more then one).
Rather then resent the dash being non passable damage, change it for some monsters, make house rules for damage passing, declare that on something that should resist all your damage (a dash, a lawful only weakness etc), you bypass 3 to 5 reduction per +1 enchantment, that if you have some of the qualifications, you bypass that percentage (so if a creature has for example 30 damage reduction unless the item is both magical and silver, make it so that a silver only item does has 15 damage reduction, and that a magic only 15, and that both bypass it completely, and if its magic only then scale it, so lets say a +2 sword bypasses 20, and +3 25, and a +4 one bypasses it all even though it isnt silver)
That is what most people do anyways and what is mostly suggested by players on the WoTC forums...
Oh and a few suggestions on ways to fight a demilich
1. teleport away from him if you encounter him, preferably to a different dimention, wish for its phalancy and everything a few feet around it to be trasfered to an open space near you, the body (usually they leave their phalancy and equipment on their body which they hide somewhere) will likely be hidden in a well gaurded hidden location with traps and the like (probably in a pocket dimention), well once you got its body, loot all the awesome equipment (The sample demilich “wears” bracers of armor +8, headband of intellect +6, pink Ioun stone, ring of wizardry I, ring of protection +2, and gloves of Dexterity +2) and destroy the phalancy, now you can face the demilich
2. to further reduce the demilich's awesome power, after doing step one, prepare a wish spell, and a moment before attacking the lich (you mustnt, ever, face a demilich unprepared, you attack it by suprise if you want to survive, not vice versa) wish for a temporary supression to its soul sucking capablitiy, maybe his flight too if you have an extra wish or would prefer to do that instead.
3. Cannon fodder, if you are evil get others to attack it beforehand to have it fill up its 8 gems with souls (although it might not work, i think he might be able to release a soul at will which makes this move useless), if good, you might do it if you promise to resurrect them all...
4. prepare the right spells, namely the ones that damage it...
5. Epic spells are your friends, the argument of weather its stronger then a great wyrm can be put to the test by summoning one to fight the demilich...
6. get the right fighters, use keen weapons that magically bestow (unless you already have it), improved critical and epic improved critical for that kind of weapon, the rules say that two multiplications are a tripling etc since it all affects the base, so with a keen and both those feats you end with a quadrupled critical range, that means that an item like an axe which crits on 20 only will now crit on 17-20, a sword which crits on 19-20 will crit on 13-20, and an item that crits on 18-20 will crit on rolls of 9-20.... that pretty much gaurentees a crit, remember that a crit also multiplies your strength bonus, the magic enchantment, etc etc.... it becomes really impressive damage, get a bunch of items that boost strength, add to it strength boosting spells, make the item a highly enchanted one.... and its going to do over 30 damage before you even roll any dice!
Well I could go on forever but I'll keep a few secrets to myself
but you must realise what their intentions were, they wanted to make a game that is more enjoyable to most people, and thus have attempted to make the game alot more balanced, that balance has led to alot of artificial and stupid limiting (oh you cant do that, thats unfair cause it makes you too strong), you must remember it is a game, if you want to add a touch of realism to it you may remove many of those restrictions (compare it to people who claim the existance of nuclear weapons isnt fair cause they are too effective and strong, and thus must be impossible to use)
Playing 2nd edition will not solve the problem, for the most part 3rd edition, and even 3.5 has alot of great features, an experienced player and dm (you NEED to go through both) with alot of time on his or her hands, and alot of creativity and who is also very smart can go through and remodel the game in a perfect universal manner, since this isnt likely (how many such people do you know? will it even be legal since its copyrighted) you just have to make your own local changes, just discuss it with the other people in your group and it will all be fine.
As for the demiliches, a demilich is the ULTIMATE undead, it is an extremely powerful necromancer wizard who has transformed himself into a lich, and then transformed himself further into a demilich, gaining immortality, alot of power and inteligence, and even more wizarding powers, a demilich is stricktly an epic monster, you shouldnt be able to even TOUCH it before level 30 unless you are EXTREMELY smart and creative and min maxed with well thought of characters and strategy. It had countless generations to weed out all his weaknessesit will not be taken out by a bunch of weaklings, just as a level 50 wizard isnt gonna have too much trouble against non epic characters.
Any spellcaster can gain spell like abilities and the like through the use of feats, and sacrificing spellslots, there are hard requirements (basically all your feats for the first 16 or so levels need to go into prerequisites), but a dedicated character can overcome them.
You can use a feat AND sacrifice a slot 2 levels higher as the minimum to gain something as a Spell Like Ability, it gives certain amout of uses per day, those multiply with the number of slots higher you give up, eventually at 8 slots higher it becomes at will!
if you allow epic levels, then your magic users keep on gaining slots, which can be used for slot sacrificing, or metamagic.
highest regular spell level is 9 (for the actual spells, greater spells arent going by spell level anymore but are considered epic spells) add 8 to it, its 17, times 2 minus 1 thats 33, however, that level doesnt confer a feat, as soon as a level 33 caster gains another feat he can use it to allow himself to cast a single level 9 spells of his class AT WILL (actually its not really at will, its only once per round, so he cant cast it 10 times a second). a demilich has 3 open level 10 slots and a ton of at will abilities that would have each sapped a whole slot so he is at least level 30 wizard, plus it has a ton of epic items, its extremely intelligent, it has the ability to rip and devour 8 souls per day (he should use it first, only if he has 8 souls trapped will he not take any new souls, and its not 8 uses a day, its 8 commulative souls trapped, so even if he succeded 8 times, and then you wish for a single soul to be freed, it can just devour another, and the devouring destroys the body too)...
So if a normal mortal spellcaster at level 36 (when they get their next feat after level 33) can cast level 9 spells at will, there is no reason why a demilich which is an immortal spellcaster with tens of thousands of years of experience at least, aswell as a ****load of powers, could not cast a mere harm spell at will? not only that but the demilich specialises in that type of spells and has gained the ability to cast that at will through his demilich transformation NOT just mere basic magical class. Oh and a mere level 22 cleric can, if designed right, cast cure moderate wounds at will.
I could go on, basically you completely underestimate a demilich, your characters should MAYBE be meeting normal liches, demiliches are creatures of immense power who gives the GODS a pause, mere mortals are no match for it, when characters become epic they can ascend into deitihood or goodhood (or maybe it was demigoodhood) after a long arderous quest, IF they survive it, then they are able to take on a lich (cause it probably cannot suck out the souls of gods), then you have a "fair" fight, even though it can still fly at a perfect 180 ft and has 30 unpassable damage reduction and can cure itself with harm at will.
Demiliches are found in between dimentions either furthering their power amoung the gods and the planes they do not, EVER EVER EVER make a random encounter, and they should NOT be turnable. if they give gods a pause a mere mortal chanelling a fraction of a god's power is not gonna make them turn to dust!
Mortals COULD, with careful planning and a cunning plan take one down without nerfing, at very high epic levels, and ALWAYS in a large group since a single mortal will immidiatly have its soul sucked away. The bottom line is dont nerf those, rather just dont have them as part of the plot, how to fix that in an ongoing campaign? there are rules for BOTCHED demilich transformations, a botched demilich will STILL be insanely powerful, either have it turn out that the demilich was a botched and not full demilich, or that the demilich was actually a normal lich who is just putting a facede of being a demilich so that people will be too afraid to oppose him (and they SHOULD, your characters should be ****ting their pants not charging valiently to fight it).
A demilich is ALOT more powerful then a great wyrm, although it isnt as powerful as the turasq, the turasq eats great wyrms for breakfast (mmmm, spicy green dragon's heads with some sweet silver ones tails cereal, two whole scoops of dragon parts per bowl), the turasq is DEFINED as the most powerful creatures of your dimention, only one exist per dimention, if it is killed, you need to immidiatly wish for it not to autoressurect, if you do then it is reborn elsewhere (no dimention can be without a turasq, but not dimention can have more then one).
Rather then resent the dash being non passable damage, change it for some monsters, make house rules for damage passing, declare that on something that should resist all your damage (a dash, a lawful only weakness etc), you bypass 3 to 5 reduction per +1 enchantment, that if you have some of the qualifications, you bypass that percentage (so if a creature has for example 30 damage reduction unless the item is both magical and silver, make it so that a silver only item does has 15 damage reduction, and that a magic only 15, and that both bypass it completely, and if its magic only then scale it, so lets say a +2 sword bypasses 20, and +3 25, and a +4 one bypasses it all even though it isnt silver)
That is what most people do anyways and what is mostly suggested by players on the WoTC forums...
Oh and a few suggestions on ways to fight a demilich
1. teleport away from him if you encounter him, preferably to a different dimention, wish for its phalancy and everything a few feet around it to be trasfered to an open space near you, the body (usually they leave their phalancy and equipment on their body which they hide somewhere) will likely be hidden in a well gaurded hidden location with traps and the like (probably in a pocket dimention), well once you got its body, loot all the awesome equipment (The sample demilich “wears” bracers of armor +8, headband of intellect +6, pink Ioun stone, ring of wizardry I, ring of protection +2, and gloves of Dexterity +2) and destroy the phalancy, now you can face the demilich
2. to further reduce the demilich's awesome power, after doing step one, prepare a wish spell, and a moment before attacking the lich (you mustnt, ever, face a demilich unprepared, you attack it by suprise if you want to survive, not vice versa) wish for a temporary supression to its soul sucking capablitiy, maybe his flight too if you have an extra wish or would prefer to do that instead.
3. Cannon fodder, if you are evil get others to attack it beforehand to have it fill up its 8 gems with souls (although it might not work, i think he might be able to release a soul at will which makes this move useless), if good, you might do it if you promise to resurrect them all...
4. prepare the right spells, namely the ones that damage it...
5. Epic spells are your friends, the argument of weather its stronger then a great wyrm can be put to the test by summoning one to fight the demilich...
6. get the right fighters, use keen weapons that magically bestow (unless you already have it), improved critical and epic improved critical for that kind of weapon, the rules say that two multiplications are a tripling etc since it all affects the base, so with a keen and both those feats you end with a quadrupled critical range, that means that an item like an axe which crits on 20 only will now crit on 17-20, a sword which crits on 19-20 will crit on 13-20, and an item that crits on 18-20 will crit on rolls of 9-20.... that pretty much gaurentees a crit, remember that a crit also multiplies your strength bonus, the magic enchantment, etc etc.... it becomes really impressive damage, get a bunch of items that boost strength, add to it strength boosting spells, make the item a highly enchanted one.... and its going to do over 30 damage before you even roll any dice!
Well I could go on forever but I'll keep a few secrets to myself
