A Lich is simply a Lv12 spellcaster, that means Druids can be Lich...

A Lich is simply a Lv12 spellcaster, that means Druids can be Lich. What reasons would there be for a Druid becoming a Lich despite their hateboner for the undead?

They could've become an Archlich (Good Lich in 3.5) so as to guard something important for perpetuity.
They alone would shoulder the shameful burden of forfeiting the natural order, because their task is too great to have the passage of time undo it.
Say, keeping eternal vigil over the seal of a devil god, or slaying anything that steps through an open portal to the far realms that cannot be closed.

Mother Earth keeps the Lich Druid around for her mysterious reasons.

>What reasons would there be for a Druid becoming a Lich despite their hateboner for the undead?
There's nothing about the Druid that says you need This is just something most people assume. You're average druid might have a problem with them, but the druid code says nothing about undead.

You could be a blight druid or a druid that revers death and decay.

>a druid that revers death and decay
This feels familiar.

>A Lich is simply a Lv12 spellcaster
What? That doesn't sound right. Usually liches are on the high end of power scale.

But anyhow, becoming a lich is a direct refusal of the cycle of life and death. An action that entails such a disregard for the natural order doesn't really sound like something a druid would do.

In 3.PF becoming a Lich requires you making a phylactery which requires a Caster level of like 11.

A druid revering decay would be the last person to usurp the cycle of decay and bring it to an unnatural halt.

Death is a natural part of the cycle of life.

The druid has judged that there is too much life in the world at this time. As a lich, his ability to bring death increases dramatically. The path is clear. Once his task is complete, he will persist and await a time when the balance is once more out of tune.

Depends on edition.
3.5 lich just needs 11 caster levels,120,000 GP, and 4,800 XP, and willingness to go through the Ceremony of Endless Night. (The specifics of the Ceremony of Endless Night has never been expressly detailed, but is generally implied to include supremely evil acts that normal evil folk would be utterly repulsed by.) The end result gives a functional +4 LA template, making them around the power of a level 15 character, at least if LA worked at all (it doesn't).

5E lich however are phenomenal beings, level 18 spellcasters at minimum and given Legendary Actions, Lair Actions, and Legendary Resistance, 5E's staple "boss" abilities. One proper lich is a serious challenge to any party due to powerful magicks and versatile abilities. How to become a Lich in 5E is a closely-guarded dark secret, in other words, only the DM can let you figure it out.

Lich's and undead still decay

Sadly these.

Lich Druid makes about as much sense as a Paladin of Apathy.

What if the druid were an already non-"mortal" fungusman using fungal spores to temporarily animate undead, before shoving them back in the ground for decomposition?

>non-"mortal" fungusman
If he's already non-mortal, what would be the point of becoming a lich?

But that is a good idea in and of itself, though. OP should endeavor to become something like that rather than a lich.

Maybe revise it so that the fungus-man IS the lich. IE: the way you become a nature-lich is get infected with a certain magic fungus.

He wants to swap his bones out for living wood.

(going by standard 3.5, which is clearly what's assumed by the OP)
liches have to be evil
druids have to be neutral
a Druid Lich has to be NE
not only could it model itself after Nerull and become a bringer of death (Nerull also makes massive use of undead)
but an NE Druid Lich could also choose one area, and watch over it forever, destroying anyone who would touch or taint his chosen region

Druid lichs just don't really make much sense. They already live really long anyway, but directly cheating death seems kind of at odds with their basic concept. Unless he's like the druid equivalent of an ur priest I'd sooner imagine more druids try to turn themselves into trees as a long lived retirement plan than becoming a lich.

Pretty cool that the alignments line up like that to guarantee he has to be the biggest asshole on the spectrum.

... Sounds like you are running a B/G characters.

Death feeding life. Time for Plant Zombies and Plant Skeletons.

I wonder if 4e got around to doing primal undead user.

... Maybe Heroes of Shadow covered it.

there's also a prestige class for Druids called Blighter
check that out, and make a lich out of it

It's rad as hell

This whole thread just worries me, how so many of you think every member of an entire class acts a single way.

Druids have access to Contagion, for example, which is an [Evil] spell.

A druid who believes they're the only one who can safeguard a particular area, and that if they die from old age then everything they worked for would be wasted. Could be malevolent (the evil druid that kills strangers who wander into the sacred part of the forest) or benevolent (a good druid who maintains a bastion of peace and tranquility that even the surrounding monster tribes and abberations respect).


An angry druid out for revenge, the kind of revenge that might take a long time to prepare for.

>The natural order of life is death.
>Let's kill everybody.
>Shit, it takes a long time to kill everybody.
>How can I make myself live long enough to kill everybody, while also making myself better at killing everybody?

I'd think a Druid that needs to stay around for an open-ended length of time would find a non-undeath way of doing so.
It wouldn't be hard to implement in a thematically appropriate way, either, since Druids generally get Timeless Body as a class feature at some point, and become ever more fluid shapeshifters, and biological immortality is a real thing for some entirely natural creatures.

I'd fluff it as a spell functionally equivalent to the Lich-ening spell, except the requirements are a Druidic Purpose and a bond to the land. They don't age any more. If killed, they are automatically subject to the effects of Reincarnate, minus the "lose two levels" bit and minus the remaining body part requirement. The land itself is their not-phylactery.

Lose the Purpose, lose the land, or break their Druid vows, and they lose the benefits. These requirements naturally make them rarer than Liches, since they've got prerequisites the Lich doesn't have, and potential natural end dates the Lich also doesn't have. The lack of obvious phylactery makes them harder to put down in the short term.

This basically turns them into something closer to a local nature spirit. And not necessarily a Good one. I mean, they might have been Neutral Asshole aligned and took a vow of "Humans and Elves STFU and GTFO forever", and their land might be a noxious swamp full of superheated sulfur springs and dire headcrabs. I guess you just sort of mark part of the map off as "Druids be here" until someone high enough level decides to do something about it.

Mushroom Druid Lich?

>>The natural order of life is death.
The natural order of life is equilibrium, which is maintained by death balancing birth.
Someone has to enforce it.

Quick question. Can a necromancer make himself a lich and then spend eternity throwing kick ass parties going town to town?

Bonus question; can a lich ever develop magic that can restore his flesh temporarily and return his sense of touch.

Yes. Although the townsfolk may flee in fear.

Yes. Transmutation magic exists for a reason.

You can do those, but it's pure lolderp.

That's the idea.

>but the druid code says nothing about undead.

It's only been 16 years, try reading the rules sometime.

D&D3
>While druids accept that which is horrific or cruel in nature, they hate that which is unnatural, including aberrations (such as beholders and carrion crawlers) and undead (such as zombies and vampires).

D&D5
>Druids accept that which is cruel in nature, and they hate that which is unnatural, including aberrations (such as beholders and mind flayers) and undead (such as zombies and vampires).