Could your party take him?

Could your party take him?

Sure, he doesn't look that heavy.

Stat him and we'll see

...

...

Please do not take this lich.

A staple lich? Eeasy, even below twenty. An epic party should be able to fuck up everything but primordials. An epic party heavy on clerics and druids with one-two arcanists should be able to fuck up everything but Mordenkainen.

Not if he's played in-character, as the most powerful, most prepared caster on the planet. By fluff, Larloch could probably have pursued godhood or taken over the world with an iron fist, and turned both down. He has a stable of ordinary lichs linked in a hive mind, just to maintain his wards and be lab assistants.

Take him where?
I mean, we do a lot of escort quests, but if he needs to go another plane or something that'd probably cost extra.

Puhleaase. He's neither most powerful, even among ordinary casters, nor most prepared. All he is is a dumb munchkin that took the cheapest way to longevity and every IWIN ability the DM allowed him to take. He even fights like forementioned run-of-the-mill wizard munchkin. One in our group is better at it, though.

Even among the liches he's far from the top twenty. Vecna, Vlaakith, all the demi- and dracoliches, whoever had backstabbed their way to the top of Thay, his counterparts from other D&D settings, even some vidya bosses would erase this cockroach with barely a thought.

Not to say you should take him on without some preparation at the very least, and better not at all, since loot isn't even that good, but hardly a threat way over the CR he's at.

First post best post

What's the point of sacrificing spell slots to get SLAs of specific spells at these spell levels?

No point, unless your DM is being a giant dick that does everything in his power to inconvenience the wizard. Taking away the book, component pouch, preventing you from casting (mute, motoric impediments, bullshit "no arcane casting" places). And usually you won't survive to the point when such an option present itself.

Larloch is actually the strongest non-divine character in Faerun.

You know that guy who backstabbed his way to the top of Thay? He basically was Larloch's errand boy and general bitch all because the one item he desired more than anything else happened to be one of the many trinkets that Larloch had tucked away. Szass is on record for being scared of nothing, except for being genuinely terrified of Larloch.

Larloch has a collection of many of the most powerful artifacts in existence, access to the rarest and most secret spells with the rare capability of actually casting them, and widely considered to be the biggest threat to all life on Faerun, even moreso than most gods because he has no limitations to his power on the Material Plane like they do.

Somehow I don't think any of these would ever be a problem for dudes like Larloch.

How effective would the Initiate of Sevenfold Veils spell Kaleidoscopic Doom be on someone wearing so many persisted spells?

Bearing in mind that it's cast by a Master Specialist Abjurer with high bonuses to dispel checks.

>Larloch is actually the strongest non-divine character in Faerun.
Even written as the worst evil sue ever Larloch is what, CR 26-34, edition pending? There are *beasts* twice that, so, no. Again, any dumbass can permahaste-allprotections-teleport-instanttimestop-die-die-die combo or just nuke/shift the fuck of the place and munchkins acquire greater hoards of nasty artefacts if given half the chance.

That thing between Szass and Larloch was more equivalent exchange than Szass being errand bitch to Larloch. Of course Larloch is a threat to Szass, being well over ten times older than him, but let me put it this way: he has enough recent hands-on experience in disposing of such threats. Yep, Thayan mage is the weakest of the list by a colossal margin, but as someone that specializes in disposing of the mages, and achieved more than L-roach did in a thousand years I felt he deserves a place on the list.

CR 34 only represents a bare bones Larloch, and not Larloch at the height of his power. That's just him on a casual day when you might find him relaxing at home. When appropriately equipped, thanks to having access to some of the most bullshit artifacts and spells ever to exist, he's basically the Batman and can theoretically defeat anyone.

It's actually rather hard to find anyone with an Intelligence higher than 34 either, putting him as one of the smartest non-divine characters in the game, and when you combine that with the single greatest collection of forbidden spells and items in Faerun, there's really nothing a munchkin could do that he couldn't foresee and counteract decades before it happens. He hits way above his weight as far as CR goes.

And, the business with Szass was literally Szass becoming Larloch's pawn in exchange for not even one of Larloch's most powerful artifacts, but something that was beyond the scope and power of Szass's imagination. It wasn't a deal made between equals, it was Larloch throwing a bone at a hungry dog because the dog had enough sense to lick the shoes of its master.

As far as accomplishments go, it's actually not an exaggeration to say that nothing happens in Faerun without the consent of Larloch. His plots span centuries, and even Szass's rise to power (and the entire country of Thay as well) can be attributed to the grace of Larloch. It usually takes a team of the strongest epic-level characters in Faerun to unite against him for any of his plans to fail, and even then they only ever suffer temporary setbacks as far as he's concerned, because even the strongest people in Faerun united against him can't really do any significant damage to him or his assets. They might kill several of the liches he has as his bitches, but those are basically expendable resources as far as he's concerned.

Not effective enough, sadly. Bastard shrugs veils like nothing. Still fun, about as much as fucking up his will and Disfunctioning him into irreversibly losing all spellcasting abilities.

How can you talk about an NPC that way in a world that has Elminster? He's like the literal definition of a Marty Stu. He's D&D's Caine, whose character sheet reads simply: "You Lose."

If he's so powerful why does he still look like a nasty corpse?

Elminster's character sheet would read "You get smoked."

I have a spell that basically teleports my spellbook to an undisclosed location in the ethereal plane away from any danger that I don't even know and doesnt' return till I want it. Pretty cool for those situations, I'm in a level in where every morning after preparing spells I cast it

Because Larloch is the guy that Elminster checks under the bed for.

Elminster has to assemble the Justice League in order to save Faerun from Larloch whenever Larloch gets a little frisky, and for every ridiculous sue power or sue contigency that Elminster has, that's really nothing but a pale shadow of what Larloch has. As much as people would like to criticize Elminster for being an overpowered Mary Sue, he's really only playing in the field where his Archnemeses are people like Szass Tam and Manshoon, who are not even in the same league as Larloch. Larloch is the guy that made Szass Tam rethink lichdom because he was all "I want to be scary, but I don't want to be THAT scary."

CR 34 is Larloch at the height of his power with all his trash and hangouts. And with all that power he's often afraid on taking on mortal mages. Batman is that parental issues guy who gets his teeth kicked in weekly by a loony clown? What sort of idiot allows his intentions to be foreseen? You might as well send him the 'kill me' card. Mage fights are never fair, and players would cheat better. That's kind of the whole idea of epic mage battle. Drop by unforeseen and unload enough destruction before other side can do anything. Divine the location now that he isn't around to prevent that and repeat to his phylactery(es).

Mordy, or, hell, LoP I wouldn't fight for Ao's throne. Larloch is sorta rite of passage for aspiring to godhood necromancers. Ole Elmo is way worse.

>players would cheat better.
>than the DM

When we're talking Larloch, we're talking about a hyper paranoid guy with access to some of the most powerful scrying items and spells, alongside spies and agents all over the world. Being unforeseen to this guy just doesn't work.

And, I don't think you realize that Batman is the guy who has, on more than one occasion, defeated the entire Justice League.

>CR 34 is Larloch at the height of his power with all his trash and hangouts.

It literally says in the statblock that they didn't bother to list all his items and spells, and that you should just assume that if he wants it, he has it. It even just casually mentions that he has custom spells, has unlisted and undefined artifacts, been subjected to unknown magical rituals, and generally is a mystery wrapped in an enigma with a puzzlebox for a lock.

I really don't know what you're even trying at this point, because as far as Faerun is concerned, Larloch is the the final boss. Ed Greenwood basically said as much. He's more powerful than Deities on the Material Plane, because Deities can't manifest their full power there. He's the kind of guy who could have become a deity centuries ago, but dismissed the idea as simply not his style. This is a guy who thinks becoming a god would be beneath him.

Remember, this guy was the Netherese Wizard King, a greater mage than even Karsus, who attempted to become a god with a 12th level spell. And Larloch can cast 21st level spells.

Some lich? Sure. What's the pay?

>all those Ioun stones
Larloch is such a fucking pimp. Didn't some fluff say that he is sometimes spotted with what appears to be a smal prismatic cloud hovering around him but it turns out he's got a million ioun stones on him?

Paranoia is actually detrimental to caution. Divination is an active and more often than not useless at preventing your death magic. It is best used for finding or learning stuff or preparing for the attack. Not 'I always know when I'm gonna get attacked, your argument is invalid'. No matter how much powerful your villain sue is, an abjurer or illusionist (depending on whether or not your DM thinks that TS should work with D) would wreck or mislead diviner. Even a thinnest lead coating nulls all divination attempts. Besides, if Divination worked even relatively similar to what you believe, most of D&D history simply wouldn't happened. Only an idiot would blab about planning to kill someone to their agents. Or to anyone, really.

Never read the comic. I only know him as one of those men in silly suits fighting other men in silly suits. Prolly should, but it doesn't sounds to have nearly enough tragedy, murder and sex to sound interesting, and other things I do enjoy in more sophisticated literature.

Ed Greenwood physically unable to not write mary sues. Of course his wizard would be the best wizard, of course his villain would be the best villain. Karsus was a dumbass. Anyone taking the easy route is.

All that said, he kinda is what you make him to be. Maybe one of the strongest liches in Faerun, maybe someone more powerful than deities. We've killed him enough times, got killed by him even more. I wasn't kidding you when I've told you our munchkin would whizz past Larloch given slightest chance, and try to murder him given even less.

I still think you don't really appreciate who or what Larloch is.

Larloch is a hyper-genius millenia-old lich who is a fundamental founding block of the very nature of magic in the world he lives in. He's the guy who they named warlocks after. He's the guy who ruled a nation of mages at the highest point of magical knowledge that has ever been or will ever be, and has magic that predates the limitations and restrictions that the Goddess of Magic has imposed on all other mages. He's got spells that next to no other mage has a way of getting, including 10th+ level spells that he preserved before the fall of the Netherese Empire. Even though other mages can have 10th+ level spell slots, they really can only use them to apply metamagic to pre-existing spells, while Larloch has access to 10th, 11th, and 12th level spells, and potentially higher, all of which he can apply absurd amounts of metamagic to.

Keep in mind that a 12th level spell was what was used to draw all the power of the Goddess of Magic into the Material Plane, a spell that despite not being properly cast had enough power to catastrophically destroy an empire and nearly destroyed all magic. Larloch potentially has access to even greater spells, spells that legitimately make the powers of deities on the Material Plane look minor in comparison.

If you've killed him, that largely just means that your DM really wasn't playing him to his true strength, because it's just about impossible for any non-divine character to exceed him in strength, and divine characters cannot manifest their full power on the Material Plane to be a sufficient challenge for him.

Now, he's not the strongest in the Multiverse. Far from it. But, on the Material Plane, he really has no equal.

larloch is the shit, man.

Why did Forgotten Realms love Magic Missile so much?

Stronger and wiser beings fell to weaker foes.
"I win, you lose" is not a mentality DM should ever adopt. At worst he should exploit every mechanical trick character offers.
>If you've killed him, that largely just means that your DM really wasn't playing him to his true strength
He was. Why do you think we'd died way more times than we'd killed him before we'd started to put him under? He's probably one of the worst ordinary liches you could fight, a honest fight would likely end in your loss unless you're approaching his level, and he's cowardly enough to run at the first sign, even suspicion of trouble - which isn't a plus when every second he's your enemy is fatal, even if he isn't anywhere near. If you waste time on ashtrays instead of killing him, you will end dead even if you are near his level.

However, on scope of things a true demilich with all the power and cunning one should possess (rather than those floating ashtrays he employs) is way worse than Larloch. An ancient dragon wizard/dracolich, especially one of rarer breeds? Plane is wrecked. A God? An epic psychic aberration? You're already gone, your mind just hadn't caught up yet. Even a Tarrasque, when dropped suddenly, could be more of a problem.

user, if his statblock has "he has any items, skills or spells that the DM sees fit", it's quite clear that he's meant to be as beatable as the group wants him to be.

Your group wants to cockmeasure with the greatest heroes and enemies in the setting. That's fine, some campaigns work like that. THe other user wants a campaign that plays true to the characters and setting; again, that's fine, some people like more characterful campaigns.

You insisting that the character "can be easily beaten" over and over again doesn't really matter because your DM might play him as just a mook but another DM might be more clever with how he uses him or, give him more gravitas.

Wrong, the Strongest FR character is the fucking Lich Elder Brain.

That Said, Larloch is the inspiration for Ainz Ooal Gown/Momonga if you didn't notice it already.

One also has to take into account that they didn't carry over his Salient Abilities, Vassaliches, Lichspells and Lich Power rituals he had access to in 2e and a number of older edition adventures featuring him, so you've got to adapt those also.

On the whole same thing I've already said at the end of We, ah, insisting in equal measure. I am not insisting Larloch's a weak and easily beaten mook. Larloch's hardly a mook being one of the strongest wizards in the Faerun. Top bracket, ever top bracket. Most of low-level campaigns you wouldn't have a chance against his weaker servants. I insist he isn't invincible, nor is he nearly the most dangerous or intelligent being you could fight. Not even not the top dozen with the demons and dragons and aberrations filling the pace. Even among the undead pre-ascension Vecna is worse.
Given the choice among the most powerful mages of the D&D I'd rather kill him than even think of attacking the likes of Asmodeus and Vecna pre-godhood, Mordenkainen, Elminster, or pretty much anyone else that has a popular spell invented. Mordenkainen's especially scary. Without being a giant honking sue. Just read into his philosophy, just look at the spells he deems insignificant enough to share with everyone like candy and think of what he might be capable of. Thank Ao he's fanatically neutral.

>"I win, you lose" is not a mentality DM should ever adopt.

In the case of Larloch, it might as well be.

He's the cap. He's there so that players don't even bother with trying to go beyond a certain level, because beyond that point the game becomes a bizarre circle-jerk like the kind you get playing something like Exalted. Killing Larloch is kind of on the same tier as killing an Elder God in Call of Cthulu, where if you do it, the game you're playing is really more of a laughable joke than a story worth sharing, and whatever lead you to that point is simply your GM not really fathoming what a millenia old intelligence is capable of.

You also seem to still think Larloch is an "ordinary lich". He keeps "ordinary" liches as slaves and even has a spell that lets him devour their essence if he feels peckish.

You also really need to stop looking at CR34 and thinking that's anything except a rough estimate based on a pure and simple calculation of his levels plus a +2 for being a lich. But, also keep in mind that even Asmodeus only has a CR of 32 in that edition. Larloch is literally stronger than the Devil on the Material Plane.

user, it doesn't matter what you insist. If the character can have access to any and every spell/tool he needs, the only reason he is beatable is becuase the campaign was designed with him being beatable in mind. The fact that he is the sole character with "he has whatever tools he can imagine/DM sees fit" makes it clear that while his spell level/character level may not be as high as others, he is still the most potent character in the setting. Plus, this is Faerun, not Eberron or Ravenloft. You have to view the characters from the Faerun setting, not across them all.

Now, since i can't think of any narrative/story reason why his presence/loss is essential and with how you keep insisting your murder hobo could merc him, I'm going to assume your DM has made him beatable because you guys would bitc about god modding.

Also, a character who is strong is not necessarily a mary sue. Gilgamesh the King was not a Mary Sue. Sauron and Melkor were not Mary Sues. Iron Man is not a Mary Sue. If it makes sense for Larloch to be that strong in the setting, which it does, he is not a Mary Sue.

Is he just a standard lich? Then yes, probably. We got 6 overpowered level 10s right now.
If he has powerful minions, it would be a damn slog

If he's a super lich...then no

That's because the Assman is technically wounded, and is also not really the Assman but a Giant unstattable Space Snake.

And if he's not, they still have the same Modus Operandi.

And the Assman isn't in his wargear with his old sword to boot.

I mean, it's like fucking Orcus, who is CR40+ something if you actually follow his lore and power-backing which is so fucking broken that he still has the last Word, power armour Infinite Undeadspam, Fastest deployable army in the Abyss, and a number of PrCs domains and massive chunk of undead hierachies and cults attributed to him you have to account for.

We play 5e so all these scaling stats don't scale for us all that much. 5e is so cucked...I'd like to think that if our characters translated to 3.5, we could take him.

>Orcus
>CR 40+

Try CR 28 in 3rd Edition. Demogorgon is actually the stronger of the two, with CR 30.
Orcus lost the power of the Last Word and much of his strength after being killed and resurrected, though he is close to becoming divine. The problem is that Divinity doesn't translate to pure power, it means power in certain dimensions but not all dimensions. This is especially true with Faerun, where Deities can't even bring a fraction of their power into the Material Plane.

Keep in mind that these are their official CRs, and are meant to give you a scale of their immediate, personal power in what you could call the "lowest state." The DM is actively encouraged not to forget all the other silly business and what powers they potentially have that wouldn't fit conveniently on one page. Hell, they gave Larloch two pages for his stats and that still wasn't enough.

Asmodeus can cast his spells at will, nigh-invulnerable, has the entirety of the hells at his call, and played and won the game far longer than Larloch existed. Larloch is just an old lich with tomes overfilled with spells, cellars with heaps of dusty trinkets and feeble-minded wizard corpses wiping his rotten ass. Asmodeus is the Satan.
So can the munchkin, and helluva lot faster at that. No reason to put him on pedestal.

He is beatable because he's beatable. Unlike, say, his allegedly weaker nemesis. Larloch is a powerful, overpowered even, old lich. Not a wizard dragon; not a demilich - a death incarnate, just step away from a god, and even that because most of them couldn't care less for godhood, all the things you keep rather mistakenly attributing to Larloch; not giant aberration and nowhere near a god. He is perfectly killable at his CR.

They aren't. But Larloch is a Mary Sue. Because there is no sense or reason other than EG boner for making his villain the bestest there is.

Everything you said just re-iterates my point that because you want fundamentally different things from the game then OP, things that involve ignoring author intent and making a hit list of all the prime characters, you are going to both treat Larloch differently.

You saying he's strong/overpowered is irrelevant when you lead with "so can the munchkin and better too!" It has essentially made the rest of your post moot.

Now you're not even trying.
OP wants to know if our parties can take him. Mine can. Yours can't. It's as simple as that.
Alas, I cannot indulge you further. Have a good day.

user, my party have beaten a neutronium golem when we built ourselves for it. That's not what was asked.

Mordenkainen is Level 21 in the LH IIRC.
The true alpha bitch in Greyhawk is Tasha.

>Szass genuinely terrified of Larloch
fuck

He is dr doom

The issue is that Asmodeus can't do even half that on the material plane. Hell, he can't even visit it in any form other than an aspect (or in his case, an aspect of an aspect). On the other hand, Larloch is free to use the full scale of his power, which is much more considerable than simply being any old lich.

Even Asmodeus didn't have an entire empire dedicated to researching magic. Even if Larloch wasn't a lich, he would be terrifying as a king who ruled the most powerful country that ever existed through pure cunning and magical talent. He's someone who had been the greatest wizard in a time of the greatest wizards, and who was already an epic level wizard before Elminster could tie his shoelaces. He's a lich that other liches are afraid to talk about. He rules and commands other liches with fear, something he had mastered ages ago as the wizard king of a nation of the most powerful and cruel wizards that ever existed.

Wizard Dragon? Demilich? Compared to a guy who STARTED as the most powerful wizard of the most powerful magical empire, and only went up from there?

Bitch you never read his Fucking Dungeon Magzine articles did you?

Shut the fuck up.

Are you really being elitist about comic books during your undead wizard dick measuring contest?

What part of listing his official 3rd edition CR would suggest that?

yeah sure. we got a cart and two oxen. where does he want to be taken? (we got a bard and a dumb half-orc just in case you meant it 'that way')

>Lives in the fucking Abyss AKA hazard TPK hellhole
>Has a sentient wand that can warp landscape, instantly kill on Touch, and attempts to turn a wielder CE to take a trip to an Abyssal Layers transforming them into a Demon Lord over the course of 6 days or weeks and is an encounter magnet worse than the Book of Vile Darkness
>To get rid of this wand you need to Dip it in blood from Tiamat's heart and have Bahamut Eradicate it, and even then it only gets rid of the thing for a century because Fat Fuck Orcus makes a new one (Somehow)
>You have to of course, trek to
>Has an instakill Death word that works on gods that can also kill him in turn if he's unlucky can use this as much if he likes if deity
>Died a total of two times, became a Deity Twice in a fucking row First time for a while till he was killed off by Kiaranshalee, the other due to running out of time as an 'Undead deity' with the last word
>HAS ACCESS TO EVERY SINGLE NECROMANTIC SPELL PUBLISHED EVER In his libraries
>Literally has a fucking Library dedicated to himself in his own narcissism
>Has the Fastest Deployable army in the Abyss
>Allied with the King of Ghouls
>Has Direct heralds that have access to Lichdom no matter their race that can eschew materials using blood sacrificed in his name
>All the Undead, just all of them
>Can't kill the fucker because you have to get rid of his wand, and even if you did kill him via sphere of annhilation, he just meets with his Tennebrous Vestige and becomes a god
>All of his cults, simply has so fucking many
>Has a dedicated gods-blooded template to himself
>Has a multitude of offspring
>Can Grant Divine spellcasting
>Can Cast Cleric and Wizard Spells
>Is specialized in Necromancy as a wizard but has no prohibited school 20th CL, (Was a Wiz/cleric in life) (This changed multiple times, to boot) Can also cast spells limited to undead only (lichspells)
>Aura of undead Command
He had a total of FIVE statblocks published in 3e-3.5 man.

Infact this isn't the half of it, those listed stablocks he got have a long history behind them to boot, that Aura of undead Command being in his Actual official Statblock post Fiendish Coxed 1 in 3.5 is in Dungeon Magazine, is a fucking power all the way back from FUCKING Immortals handbook with mention of his undead control ability.

He even had a fucking set of POWER Armour made for him in a Demon Lord Artefact article, he's broken as fuck when tallied up over the course of his canon ventures and limitless resources at hand.

Truth be told there's no reason why Graz'zt holds a candle to him, It's really just him and Monkey Trouble and it all comes down to the minion spam, but as the dungeon adventures showed us, Demogorgons duality gives him an actual weakness of beign unable to react to overstimuli, and by 3.5 Orcus Allied himself with Iggwilv to kill monkey trouble dead, which he almost succeded in doing.

Hell, even I'm trying to tally it all, but the bottom line is, he'd have killed everyone by this point if not for him being too lazy to do it.

Infact, Fiendish Codex Orcus and all the other Demon Lords in that Offcial book are in fact- not the real ones you should be using as power references, the actual Demon Lord Statblocks are in dedicated DMG articles dedicated to them, and trust me, they're fucking Powrful.

Orcus in fiendish codex is even weaker than his BOVD statblock, it's that underwhelming as a whole.

He's really fucking broken.

Next to me making an average of just how powerful the years of Orcus is, we've the like of the fact he's one of the few Demon Lords you could stat from scratch, because he has two published versions of how he progressed as a Human to Demon Lord based on his stats, his shit actually goes back this Far that you could make it all the way to his last published Article in Dungeon Magazine by following his potential stats as a Wiz/Cleric Combo and his demonic progression, he's that detailed above all.

Hell, even his layer of the Abyss (namely landmarks Landscape features and denizens) remained the same, despite Layer number and name change post Throne of Bloodstone, he still is confirmed to have imprisoned baphomet per that Adventure in Baphomets Article in DMG, and much, much more.

He's one of the most Consistent Characters over the course of D&D, his shit is just all over the fucking place in terms of people trying to get how broken he is, but to give it form, just think of how Autistic a person playing a Necromancer can get, and take that to a Massive Table on a field Wargame Tier size, and you've got an idea about how far you can take the like of an actual Orcus Fight.

>you get playing something like Exalted. Killing Larloch is kind of on the same tier as killing an Elder God in Call of Cthulu, where if you do it, the game you're playing is really more of a laughable joke than a story worth sharing
OBJECTION!
The story of Old Man Henderson by WHM is a good example that going to the point of destroying something that's not meant to be destroyed is a great basis for a story.

As for killing him, it's out the question, he's got too many cults, and as Dead Gods showed, his followers are fully capable of resurrecting him, and by 3.5 he's got the last word so there's a Party member loss with no hope to recover- and he's still got Tennebrous cultists by that stage and his wand you have to deal with or he comes back to life.

To get rid of that Fat fuck you either throw him into the Far Realm or shove him in the Fucking Prison wells, which is a dumb idea anyway because the Cunt who runs it is using it to become a Diety, so that's another shitshow of a plan.

There is almost No way to win against him, You do anything, you plain fucking lose, he's too big to fail.

If he becomes a god, he kills everyone with the last word, and potentially what Gygax said he could do before Mystra's Magic Ban that was referenced in 4e, but that may as well be the last word now anyway, probably uses his control undead abilities to just ride Atropus, and other stupid Necroautist shit, laughing his fat ass off all the way.
And killing him with annihilation without resurrection in mind will do just that because he either fucks off the wheel and becomes a Vestige, which already exists and him making contact with his Tennebous self is a game over, and the entire reason he became Tenebrous is because he was reanimated by his own being spread out on the Astral Plane, so he'd probably just come back as Tennebrous again anyhow or some shit like that, or even come back as another sort of undead Deity, where negative energy is concerned the whole thing is up in smoke.

And again, his followers, he just has so fucking many, they'd go into overdrive to bring him back, and trust me, his followers are not pushovers, each one is a minmaxed super Munchkin Lich Template stacked Deathwhore.

Henderson is just a bad story in general, and him "killing" an Elder God was not only stupid, it basically broke any suspension of disbelief that any of the Henderson stories happened by how many leaps of logic needed to be taken in order for his bullshit to have carried through.

He would have to have been sucking his GM's dick in order to convince him to rewrite the entire Lovecraftian Cosmos, ignore basic logic of cause and effect, and to otherwise mangle together the heap of bullshit that was that particular story.

Wether or not the story is fabricated or is actually true matters little to my point being that reality destroying events can be cool stories.

Also reminds me of the story of the newbie player who intimidated reality into doing his biding by granting him essentially the ability to cast Wish and send himself and all his fellow players to their personal heavens together

>Wether or not the story is fabricated or is actually true matters little

When the story shatters any suspension of disbelief and the character succeeds on pure and simple bullshit, that's exactly what we call a bad story. It becomes "I won because my GM went out of his way to make me win."

That's not simply lame, it's actually pretty sad.

Hey everybody, how's it going

Since these are early 3rd edition and only use the rough stuff they published for that (note he has twelve "epic levels" which mean something very different to what actual Epic Level Handbook levels involve), I went to see if he was updated at any point.

>Larloch is a onetime Netherese sorcerer (still possessed of a lot of Netherese scepters, which he knows how to make) who is now a quite insane "ultra-lich" (in this case, the term means he has many unknown powers which are up to you the DM, among them the fact that he can still learn and develop new spells, increase in levels, etc.). He's probably a 46th level evil-aligned wizard right now, and he crafted many of his own undead abilities prior to undeath, which argues that he found his own 'process' for achieving lichdom.
>Larloch is served by many (60+ ?) liches, formerly archwizards, whom he guides in concert, as the leader of a telepathic-web 'Overmind.' Thus far, neither psionics nor mind-influencing magics have ever been effective against him or any of his serviotr mages, because the others in the link can withstand and overcome such influences, causing them to fail.
>In theory, an attack could reach all of them through the link, but some quite powerful Red Wizards have tried and failed (Szass Tam didn't try such an attack, which may be why he survived...he remains fearful of approaching Larloch and his mages, but fascinated by the details of their lichdom, hoping it might yield him some powers.)
>One of Larloch's given-to-himself powers (which - in a long, involved, and secret, personally-developed process - cost him 10 years of life and some vitality, irrelevant of course given his goal of lichdom) is automatic spell reflection (of all magic cast upon him). He can by act of will override this ability, for example when he wants to work a spell on himself; otherwise, it always operates.

You literally cannot fight him with spells unless he allows you.

Larloch was trying to become the new god of magic during the Herald.

He absorbed the power of the wards of Candlekeep, and was trying to absorb the power from Myth Drannor.

It took Elminster, the Srinshee, Alustriel, and Laeral pulling the Weave from one end, and Telamont with a circle of wizards in Shade pulling the Weave from the other end to make it to difficult to grab.

He's also started referring to himself as the "Last Chosen of Mystyrl."

The best time to try to kill him would have been during the Spellplague, or when the Weave was stabilizing right after the Sundering.

>He's also started referring to himself as the "Last Chosen of Mystyrl."
Because he WAS the last Chosen of Mystryl. He views all the current Chosen of Mystra as half-trained children.

>views

It was explicitly demonstrated in the Sundering series book that Greenwood wrote. They are half-trained children compared to him, he knows and can do far, far more than they can dream of with magic. He even knows more about their own silver fire than they do, and he can't even use it without risking his own destruction.

He's the equivalent of a world-renowned nuclear physicist compared to a ten year old building a volcano from paper mache.

I love liches and I want to read more about them. What books can I get to read up on Larloch? Does he have any novels?

There was a Thread a while back which listed all of them over the course of D&D, but I've since forgotten the number.

For Larloch:

>Realms of the Dead: The Haunted Lands Anthology
>Realms of the Elves: The Last Mythal Anthology
>The Herald, by Ed Greenwood
>Baldur's Gate 2

For Szass Tam:
>The Haunted Lands series
>Realms of Magic
>Realms of Infamy

That's off the top of my head. I think those two are the most famous in Faerun.

Thanks user. I never knew Larloch made an appearance in BG2, I guess I'll finally give videogames a try.

He appears in the Enhanced edition.

For my Pathfinder game that takes place in 1368 DR, the PCs will go through some Imaskari ruins for treasure.

One of the items will be a crown that radiates no magic. There is a cabal of Thayan wizards that need this crown for Velsharoon's ascension from demilich to demigod. The PCs are currently level 3. The PCs will probably sell the crown since it's worthless to them. After the next Winter Solstice, the new god of Necromancy might give them a boon for being so helpful.

Here's a Vola that's got like- everything.
/r/d7gk1txg

1e Lichdom
Blueprint for a Lich (Dragon 026? 028?) In Best of Dragon Magazine Volume 1, this followed on to Van Richten's guide to the Lich (2e) which was this described process revised once more, though featuring less detail on the poison to injest. Then 3e-3.5 came, and we have what is featured in the Web Enhancement Savage Progressions, Lich and weretiger, where the transformation is centric the the Phylactery and it's construction which played on an old concept introduced involving spontaneous Liches in 1e of all things.

Kingdoms of Kalamar Villians design handbook has a similar transformation process in line with the 2e one, the variance being it is a religious ceremony.

For 2e-3.5 stuff you Want to Read Blueprint for a Lich, Van Richten's Guide to the Lich, the Savage progressions Lich, Monsters of Faerun, which did some Conversions of the salient abilities mentioned in VR's guide to 3.5, then the S&S Ravenloft books for the like of other converted rules from Ravenloft that were not officially ported over by WoTC during 3.5's run.

The Psionic Lich for 3.5 is in Hyperconcious, Drow Lich in Complete Guide to Liches (Didn't need to post because it's the only relevant thing from it) and I've posted the shade template so you can understand what Umbran would be like in 3.5. There's also the two Lichfiend Lich templates in here, Suel Lich, and a few others, including both 3 death knight articles. And a notepad containing what I think is all the 3.5 necromancer classes you can get.

Effectively, you've the means to the history of the Lich over 1-3.5 and means to convert the Van Richten's technically still canon Lich Rules over to 3.5 by a variety of resources presented.

There's fun in big stat blocks, I agree. But thanks for reminding me that the CoC method of statting big powerful things is just better at telling players "this is a big bad guy, run away or die", with its "roll a D6, that's how many people instantly die this turn".

>>One of Larloch's given-to-himself powers (which - in a long, involved, and secret, personally-developed process - cost him 10 years of life and some vitality, irrelevant of course given his goal of lichdom) is automatic spell reflection (of all magic cast upon him). He can by act of will override this ability, for example when he wants to work a spell on himself; otherwise, it always operates.
Fucking what.

>>>One of Larloch's given-to-himself powers (which - in a long, involved, and secret, personally-developed process - cost him 10 years of life and some vitality, irrelevant of course given his goal of lichdom) is automatic spell reflection (of all magic cast upon him). He can by act of will override this ability, for example when he wants to work a spell on himself; otherwise, it always operates.
So he's basically Accelerator.

If it was roll initiative and fight, then yes my party could take him although I would be the first to die, probably.

But getting past his resources would be impossible for us.

What about attacks coupled with abilities that bypass damage protections, or non Clerical/Wizard spells like Warlock Invocations?

That said, the only way to beat him is throw him into a fucking Sphere of Annihilation

If it is a spell, then it won't work. Personally, I would say that if it functions as a spell like a warlock invocation then it counts as a spell for the ability, myself.

Larloch is also a Warlock patron in I think SCAG, so there's that to consider. He's at least on that level.

He has a phylactery, he'll regenerate from a sphere. If he knows Aumvor's spell for splitting a phylactery, he'll be even harder to kill, and he probably knows it.

He was affected by the Sundering just as much as everyone else and now plays by the 5e Lich rules.

He probably still has access to just about every spell under the sun, including a bunch he made up himself, but his spell slots are now limited to "just" that of a 20th level wizard. More to the point, he can no longer sit in Warlock's Crypt and waste away the decades, he *explicitly needs* to consume souls on a regular basis or else he'll turn into a demilich.

Could my party at the end of Rise of Tiamat take him? Probably not. But they were getting there.

>but his spell slots are now limited to "just" that of a 20th level wizard
I'd be willing to bet he still has probably a huge pile of extra 9th level slots.

correct me if im wrong here, but in 3.5 ballistas do 3d8 dmg (so an average of 12) with a silver tip all it would take is around 6 1st level mages with true strike to end his bitch ass

Good luck getting those ballistas there.

>he *explicitly needs* to consume souls on a regular basis or else he'll turn into a demilich.
How is that bad?

Demilich>Lich.

Unless that poster is misinformed, have Demiliches reverted to their older 1e-2e state?

5e demiliches are basically just senile liches. They are dangerous if woken but otherwise just lie around in a puddle of their own metaphorical drool.

asuming he's in his lair yeah, but considering hes a 32 lvl insane litch putting up a trap for him and luring the fucko out might be easier than you think

remind yourself that overconfidence is a killer or however that saying goes

>5e demiliches are basically just senile liches

That, or they'll go on some bizarre mental Zen LSD voyage through time and space and leave their bones behind. In either case, they'll absolutely stop caring for material things and worldly affairs - unless they're in immediate danger of losing them.

I'm inclined to say that in 5e, Larloch gets to play like he's in 3.5e.