Lichdom

[kromey]

Yeah, thats one way to look at it, but how exactly is he "repairing" the damage of its body? Imagine the PC-Lich getting destroyed like hundred times and reanimatet all the time again. Looks like that lich will really need some incredible powerfull illusion spells :P.

Well, he's not repairing the damage, at least not fully, not from the phylactery-reincarnation anyway. Remember, that's how you become a demilich -- you get killed as a lich, and the phylactery goes *BOOM!* and *poof* you're up again, albeit significantly weakened.

 

After that, you have repair your phylactery and then cast a powerful spell again in order to return to your former glory, and until then you aren't immune to being killed for real this time...

 

As for how that damage is repaired this time, well, healing spells seem to repair massive amounts of damage already -- I mean, a giant swings his giant club and gives you a giant wallop that sends you flying higher than a giant's head, and all you gotta do is down a couple of healing potions to survive what almost certainly broke every single bone in your body multiple times over!! In a world where this is possible, is it really a stretch to envision an undead creature that is capable of repairing its own body like that? Actually, the lich doesn't even have that much power -- he needs to get to the Lunar Forge to repair his phylactery and then cast a new spell to repair his body, which is a far cry more effort going into it than merely quaffing a potion or two!

 

What i wantet to mention too: You might try to give the PC-Lich some more unique (!) weaknesses/downsides. The only true one is the fire vulnerability, but thats not a thing you cant overcome easily.

Very true. I like the ideas that someone suggested that the lich is especially vulnerable to damage from certain weapon types (e.g. blunt or sharp weapons do extra damage), as well as the idea that the lich has no natural health or stamina regeneration. That means without healing magic/potions, the lich cannot repair the little nicks and scratches that any other PC can shrug off -- suddenly those little mudcrabs roaming about are actually a serious threat, because those little claws do a bit of damage that actually sticks around and adds up!!

 

I'm not opposed to adding more cons to help balance out what indeed is a very powerful creature. Which is not to say that a lich should be on par with a like-leveled non-lich PC -- in fact, it absolutely should be more powerful! That's the whole point! But it should not be a walking god.

 

Also it is a bit wired that the PC-Lich will probaly the only one, that can run around 100% of the time in normal appearance withhout downsides.

PC werewolves can walk about in human form all the time without any downsides...

 

Sure, PC vampires have some cons to be wary of, but that doesn't mean every PC enhancement has to.

 

How about stuff like if the PC Magicka is empty, he gets automatically transformed into a undead form that is as powerfull as the normal form but hostile to most factions? I know that you dont want to make a second one. Its just a idea. Maybe it coud just let something of its undead nature "shine through" like glowing eyes or such stuff.

I like this -- your Magicka runs out, and you lose the ability to maintain the illusions that allow you to walk about town without being recognized as a lich -- so don't run yourself out of Magicka! (Actual implementation would probably actually be more along the lines of running yourself down to under X% of your total, e.g. under 5% or something.)

 

In all honesty this probably won't be in the initial release, but I really like it!

 

Random idea: The PC-Phylactery gets sometimes attacked by dawnguard/hostile lich/whatever and they try to "purge" it. The PC got now a certain amount of time to reach it (mark/teleport spells anyone? :P) and destroy the attackers before they finished the ritual.

Awesome idea! Of course, the lich's phylactery is kept on their person, but if I do ever implement the distant phylactery option (and/or the "superlich" which keeps a distant phylactery) it would be really sweet to script random encounters like this that the PC has to respond to or else be destroyed! :thumbsup:

[Nereidian]

Would you be able to implement the code or scripts or whatever (again not so good with coding or CK) from the floating ability from the Dragon Priests or Vampire Lord? I like the idea of a floating Lich, it takes me back to my time playing Oblivion. Also how would the demilich cast spells? would they come from the hands like the vampire lord or would you be able to equip staves for example.

 

i have an idea, could the lich be able to teleport to and from the soul cairn or the environment like inside Azuras Star? the soul cairn being the more obvious place a necromancer would go because of the near limitless amount of souls on offer. just a thought. :turned:

[kromey]

Any levitation abilities are at this point not on the radar -- once I get something working and released, then I'll see about adding nice-to-have flavor features like this. That being said, though, if Dragon Priests can hover a foot or so off the ground, then so can the lich -- it's just a matter of figuring out how the Dragon Priests do it and copying that.

 

The lich would cast spells from his hands just like any other PC, as well as from staves just like any other PC. The lich won't be restricted from any equipment that PCs can wear (although the same may not hold true for the demilich).

 

I would like to include some sort of "inner realm" for the lich, maybe the inside of its phylactery. It could be the place where it ends up when its body is destroyed, for example, although this only makes sense in the case of a distant phylactery -- which, at least initially, is not what the lich will have. In fact, traveling inside the phylactery is one thing I'm considering for the quest to become the "superlich", although as noted previously that is an ability/option that won't be available in the initial release, and isn't even guaranteed to ever be done.

 

I am unlikely to tie anything to the Soul Cairn, because there are already too many mods unavailable to true vanilla Skyrim players -- Soul Cairn, being added by Dawnguard, is therefore only available to players who have bought Dawnguard; my goal is a mod available to anyone regardless of other mods or purchased DLC. Still, there are bound to be other soul-heavy places in the world (or Oblivion) similar to the Soul Cairn...

[Nereidian]

ah okay, the super lich idea sounds really awesome, would the super lich be deformed? i like the idea of going into the phylactery, what do you have envisioned for the design of the inside? would it be a dark evil type place?

 

Thanks for the info and i understand your point about the soul cairn. could you use something like Sheogorath's quest like a small realm but tweak it so it is dark and evil?

[kromey]

I can't tell you anything about what the "superlich" would be like, because at this point it is merely an idea -- one that I'm not even sure I'm going to run with at all, in fact. Similarly I can't tell you what the "inner realm" would look like, because again it's only the barest of concepts that I'm not even sure I'll ever actually use.

 

Basically anything about the "superlich" is way down the road, and should be considered to be unconfirmed rumor at best. At least for now.

 

At present the lich will not have any new teleportation powers. However, I do like the idea of the lich being able to teleport to some realm similar to the Soul Cairn. It would probably indeed look dark and scary, however I won't describe it as being "evil" because, well, see multiple previous comments about magic being a tool and therefore neither "good" nor "evil".

[Nereidian]

Okay, thanks for all the information, a lot of my questions have been answered. good luck with the rest of the mod :thumbsup:

[KILLERZombie135]

Random idea: The PC-Phylactery gets sometimes attacked by dawnguard/hostile lich/whatever and they try to "purge" it. The PC got now a certain amount of time to reach it (mark/teleport spells anyone? :P) and destroy the attackers before they finished the ritual.

 

That was my Idea (4th page) but that would be really cool lore wise and it would be immersive.

[Zephyr2011]

Random idea: The PC-Phylactery gets sometimes attacked by dawnguard/hostile lich/whatever and they try to "purge" it. The PC got now a certain amount of time to reach it (mark/teleport spells anyone? :P) and destroy the attackers before they finished the ritual.

 

That was my Idea (4th page) but that would be really cool lore wise and it would be immersive.

 

If we really want to get in to who came up with it first, you'll note that I posted about the idea of having a distant phylactery that would be hunted down and need defending first. But that's completely unimportant. The fact that it's a good idea, however, is important and should definitely be considered for the possible super lich.

 

On the new world space: I really like the idea of being able to enter your phylactery and explore its depths. I think this would be a really great way to introduce some lich specific quests for boosting different aspects of your form and magical expertise. I think it'd be very cool if at first you barely had any of the benefits and had to find a way to enter your phylactery and slowly unlock the secrets to your power, this would also balance out the might you get from being a lich as you'd have to do a lot of questing and such to truly be powerful. I also think making the upper echelons of lich power exclusive. For example: you could learn to summon a very large number of creatures (say 5 or so) and make them stronger and stick around longer but the flip side would be that you could never master some lichdom granted illusion perks like being able to mask your evil nature without concentration or totally dominate the minds of anyone or anything or other such fun things. Another option would be to be able to overcome the inherent weaknesses of being a lich, an incentive for the warrior or thief turned lich, allowing them to completely reverse the negative weaknesses of lichdom and even gain some resistances but nullifies the magical benefits of lichdom and etc. Something this developed would probably have to be fore the "Super Lich" mod, someone earlier mentioned that the TES equivelant to a demilich (DnD that is) is the Nether Lich, that could be a good name for the super lich aspect and it fits. You could incorporate this by calling the new space something with Nether in the title, so a Nether lich is one who has mastered the Nether. That would be a very fun mechanic and one that would be quite easy to build upon and branch in a myriad of directions.

 

Also on the world space: For before the whole Super Lich thing, I think it would just be a neat place to store magical gear or find some interesting things like what your soul is like, some fun little scripted encounters would be cool like having faction related creatures (non-hostile) wander inside the fortress of your soul. There's no real kharmic stuff in Skyrim so factions would be the way to go. I think it would also be cool to see little 'slivers' of your soul, different NPC's that represent different facets of your existence (that could later lead to the Super Lich pathways thing).

 

I ramble a lot about this Super Lich thing, I really like the idea of having more dynamic power through it so that's why. If there's anything I can do to help with this let me know. If you can make your mod's base stuff a master file and then have plugins to control the rest I'd love to work on the "Super Lich" module. This is a very promising mod and has gotten me to check the forums almost constantly for news and updates. Keep up the good work Kromey and keep up the awesome ideas everybody.

[kromey]

On the new world space: I really like the idea of being able to enter your phylactery and explore its depths. I think this would be a really great way to introduce some lich specific quests for boosting different aspects of your form and magical expertise. I think it'd be very cool if at first you barely had any of the benefits and had to find a way to enter your phylactery and slowly unlock the secrets to your power, this would also balance out the might you get from being a lich as you'd have to do a lot of questing and such to truly be powerful.

Ooh, this is a good idea. Turn yourself into a lich but don't gain all the power at once -- you have to quest through the depths of your own soul to find and unlock your power.

 

I also think making the upper echelons of lich power exclusive. For example: you could learn to summon a very large number of creatures (say 5 or so) and make them stronger and stick around longer but the flip side would be that you could never master some lichdom granted illusion perks like being able to mask your evil nature without concentration or totally dominate the minds of anyone or anything or other such fun things.

Love this idea! Not necessarily for the "plain" lich, but to be able to choose in which direction the powers of your "superlich" form lean is awesome -- especially as going down one path locks you out of the others!

 

Another option would be to be able to overcome the inherent weaknesses of being a lich, an incentive for the warrior or thief turned lich, allowing them to completely reverse the negative weaknesses of lichdom and even gain some resistances but nullifies the magical benefits of lichdom and etc.

This is a pretty sweet idea, too. One or two "superlich" paths that result in new abilities to basically cancel out your weaknesses, perhaps in the process gaining new weaknesses that cancel out previous abilities. Ooh, I really like this, the ability to customize your "superlich" form to whatever you desire it to be.

 

Although as I think about it now, perhaps it would be better from a game play perspective if choosing one path doesn't lock you out of going down another one, but any path you choose immediately revokes the benefits you gained from another -- like the standing stones or the shrine blessings, only one can be active at a time but you're always free to change which one is the active one.

 

This is so wildly different from anything I've previously considered, so this is going to take a lot of thought to really grasp how I want this to work and work out the details of what's involved.

 

I love the idea of the regular lich still having to unlock some of its power instead of getting it all at once. I'm going to have to think about this one, too, and work out how I want it to play out -- but I already know that the "basic" lich will have all the same access to all the same powers and abilities, it just might take a bit of effort to "unlock" some of them.

 

Something this developed would probably have to be fore the "Super Lich" mod, someone earlier mentioned that the TES equivelant to a demilich (DnD that is) is the Nether Lich, that could be a good name for the super lich aspect and it fits. You could incorporate this by calling the new space something with Nether in the title, so a Nether lich is one who has mastered the Nether. That would be a very fun mechanic and one that would be quite easy to build upon and branch in a myriad of directions.

Quite! I'll have to look more into the lore of the Nether Lich to see if it fits with how I envision things to be, as well as make sure that in TES lore "Nether" doesn't already refer to something specific and different from what you're thinking here.

[skulleris]

I'm pretty sure a Nether lich is a lich who's phylactery got damaged and is trying to fix it.

Nether Liches were normal liches, but, for a certain time were weakened by a destruction of one of their Phylacteries.

From UESP

Edited January 15, 2013 by skulleris