Necros should have the option of actually becoming a Lich.

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Deathpoint

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I started thinking about necros because of another post. I wanted to make a post just for this idea.

The Idea: Necros should be able to become Liches at the peek of their power. ** Look to any D&D monster manual for lore on liches-- SOD would definitly need it's own lore for this idea, but the conceptual lore is in these manuals.

Necros have always been one of my favorite classes and I view them in a specific way. I consider them, specificly at higher levels, liches. The game mechanics don't really potray the power of a necromancer in a good way. IE: Lich Form, which doesn't at all make sense to me from an RP point of view.

Details: How it would work.

1. Everything would stay the same up until you could turn into a lich. This should be at least level 65, and maybe even give it an AA req too of maybe 70-100 AA's.

2. It would be an option.

3. It would NOT be an option everyone would want. Becoming a lich would have its benifits and detrimets. Liches are RARE beings of immense power.

4. Becoming a lich could be a Quest, an AA, or simply a /cmd that every necro gets after a ceartin period of time: level 65/ 100 AA etc. I don't recommend the later as it isn't very RPish.

Why it Makes sense:

1. A lich, as I have come to know it, is the highest point of an Evil Undead Caster's power. It is the point that which they become themselves one of the undead. Let us say, for reasons of balance and ease, that up to this point the limited power of the caster has simply allowed them to remain in a similar form for a limited amount of time. It isn't until they have mastered the dark arts do they truely become supreme commanders of undeath. It is at this point they become immortal.

What it would Do:

1. Perma Lich form. At no time would it remove itself or clicked off. It would take a spell buff slot(whatever deemed necessary for balance).

2. It would completely ruin (KOS to all) all in game faction to the character. Liches are feared undead beings. Nobody would let them come near. They would also be barred from having merchants. This would be one of the main weaknesses of being a lich.

3. It would add some perks else no power gamer would be one. But this idea isn't about power, and Lichs are suppose to be rare, so this section isn't even necessary. But still a Lich has no equal in the dark arts. They should have some benifits.

Some ideas are:

1. No need to eat or drink, as a Lich is undead. --
2. Ultimate blasts with lifetaps.
3. Increase in DOT damage.
4. Unique Spells-- if possible
5. Ability to summon more then one pet-- if possible
6. Unparalleled undead charming ability

These are just a few ideas. Obviously some of these sound too strong. So the extent of the benifits would have to be relative to the weaknesses. I already discussed one of the main possible weaknesses. There is so much you could do with lich lore. The key things to keep in mind though would be:

1. Balance
2. And the rarity of liches

These two factors would be modified by the benifit/weakness ratio as well as the difficulty of actually becoming one. If it's a hard ass quest the benfits can be a little bit better. If it's a /cmd or an AA there still needs to be some benfit and still some weakness but balance would have to be more thought out. And limiting the amount of liches would be too hard without making them really crappy. I personally believe it should be a quest. A hard quest.

Please tell me what you think.
 
Now that you've gone and explained in detail your concept I actually like it. Ruining faction so that bearly anyone outside of the necromancer guilds would sell to you would kill just about everyone's desire to become one of the dead simply because of the walk from whatever spawn point they have to nps to sell things then back to wherever, since necro does not get a portal system to abuse, would most definatly in of itself just about totally balance out the amazing rise in power.

If at all possible litch's should get an illusion ability to assume a living form(basicly of what they looked like before litchdom). It would take up a buff slot and it would last say...maybe a half hour, and its only real use would be a temporary faction increase, depending on towns, to either dubius or apprehensive(again depending on town, grobb would likely get you to apprehensive). This spell primarily being just so you can get through town to wherever without being swarmed.

there's my two copper.

Edit: The main problem with keeping life drain in place as opposed to simply lopping off the total HP avalible is this:

How would you handle a constaitn drain that, supposedly at some point would normally go away, if its a permenent spell? If the drain effect is permenent and you get, say...a percent lopped off every couple tics you're going to have to constaintly eye your health, which defeats the whole point of roleplaying since rp takes time and unless a druid is handy to heal up you'll have to rush off and murder something for health.

To counter this I say the litch AA would, this is all hypothetical, not represent a personal health drain but instead if you have a summoned pet out it would drain your health, which would then go towards a beefed up pet since your own life force is being taxed simply to hold your unlife together it would be further strained in animating a being totally dependent on you for sensory input as well as direction(if you can't see something/too far away from a thing the pet will nnot do what you tell it to but instead tell you that its too far off/cant see its objective).
 
Thank you for replying. I was actually thinking about adding the possibility of an illusion as some Lich lore has them being able to do this.

But I decided against it because it would

A. Give liches a way around their main weakeness, thereby increases the amount of people actually wanting to be one and in so doing making liches not rare.

B. Decrease what can be done with the benfits aspect of the class. We couldn't really do too much here for balance reasons if a lich could simply illusion his way past his weakness.

Thanks again for the support.

Edit:

It would drain your pets health? I think that's what you meant. Definitly an idea. It would all depend on balance. Again I saw the life draining as a main weakness. I would want the lich to be unique. Or it would drain your health and give it to your pet? Also possible as you still have the weakness of the life drain but also a benifit of being a lich.
 
This is a short response but:

considering fear pathing isnt even done , arent you going ahead of yourself?

I like the idea but its bound to become one of those really controversial things.
 
Solution:

A. The simple fact that even with the illusion you only get up to bearly non KoS on only some factions(cents/giants/dragons would be unaffected by this illusion meaning you'd be KoS reguardless to them since they're magial in nature and would be sensetive to your unnaturalness.

B. Have the spell have a long recast delay time say...about an hour between castings. Makes those trips to the city for rekit/selloff things that have to be better timed. I'd make it two hours or so but some people have only an hour or so to play and so I don't want to leave them totally out in the cold here dispite the risk/benefit thing going on. Still an hour is a long time to wait, especially if you're overburdened and your bind point is in the middle of town.

C. Have some sort of mass charm ability that mezzes NPC's on a grand scale so they won't attack, which can't relaly be done since this would be abused during combat.

Hmm since litch's are so powerfull why not have fear come into play here? Granted they want to kill you but unless there's a ton of 'em like...say...middle of town type situation, they wont' do anything to or against you because theyr'e bloody terified of you.
 
The fear aspect was also one I thought about. It would have to be of limited use. Isolated shop keepers. I didn't list it for similar reasons and because I couldn't figure out if it would be possible or not. Some type of temporary alliance type spell representing the liches control over the npc via fear and magical ability? Does alliance even work yet? Good idea though.

Edit: Again I think the key to a lich would be its uniqueness via his strengths and weaknesses. If one of the liches strengths is simply one that reverts one of its weaknesses ( also key to the uniqueness of liches) it simply goes against what makes them unique in the first place.
 
The biggest problem here, and it would require some spell or some other ability would be how to get bankers to do business with you. Granted there are the necro bankers but what of bankers everywhere else?

Edit: Also while I thought things over creating a whole new race ltch woudl be reletivly easy. Wit hthat you could make racial generalizations on factioning, bonuses, as well as racial specific armor and spells(meaning litch only spells/armor/weapons/ect ect.
 
Quite simple really. Bankers wouldn't do business with you. I personally don't like the idea of a whole new race, unless it was a quest related race that necros could become only after gaining a ceartin amount of power(lowbie liches would just be dumb). Then yes it would be perfect. But I don't know if races are part of the client. It doesn't seem likely to be able to add races.
 
Well byu race I ment once this takes effect your racial falg changes from whatever to litch(though it would be cool to have iksar-litch just to have the diff set of bones running 'round.

Now bankers not doing business with yout(outside of necro bankers) would DEFINATLY put a crimp in most players want of becomming and or using this race I believe.
 
Your version of the lich idea is, from a roleplay standpoint, very good. However, people would easily get around the KoS/no selling handicap by dual boxing or using friends/guildmates to transfer/sell.

One way to keep the lich population down and enforce a real advantage + coolness/disadvantage ratio, though, would be to do something a little more drastic. Picture this, if a necro were to transform into a lich, all their items would be destroyed except for say, hand-helds/rings (your anatomy doesn't fit your old clothes) and their stats frozen as they were with whatever gear they were wearing. This could be justified twofold by explaining that the process of becoming a lich allows the necro to absorb the magical properties of his/her equipment, and that of course liches don't have the correct anatomy to wear humanoid gear except rings, books, scythes, etc. In exchange, the lich would gain enormous powers over the undead, extremely powerful and varied pets with different strengths/weaknesses (perhaps even a caster pet!), devastating dots, life tap spells, and even limited mana leech spells.
 
"However, people would easily get around the KoS/no selling handicap by dual boxing or using friends/guildmates to transfer/sell. "

Just giving the idea because I think it is very cool. I'll leave the technical stuff up to those that know it better then I. If it isn't known by now--I think faction is the most important way of implementing a Lich disidvantage RP wise. If it can't be done I think it would take a lot of the fun away of being a Lich. :(

Some possible ways of preventing Lich abuse:

1. Disable trading on lich characters (if possible)

--- Quests wouldn't matter as one wouldn't have faction that most quests require. Another disadvantage of being a Lich-- no quests.

2. Label trading with liches as cheating and enforce it as such.

Haphesto-- I like to collect equip :( big part of the game for me. That's just me though. All ideas are helpful so keep them coming.

Gives me some new ideas:

Disallow Liches from being in guilds. I could see that hampering some people. Or how about disallow Liches from joining groups :p Now we are really getting somewhere Rp wise. Or how about force Liches to be PVP enabled at all times. I think we are getting somewhere now :D
 
No.

Simply because we would then have to design something like that for every class or people would feel left out.
 
I oppose how totally dramatic a change that would be, plus the logistical nightmare of implementing it.

I'd like a permalich spell, though. Perhaps a level 60+ necro spell that gives you a bunch of benefits and some downsides:

+ Flowing Thought/better than KEI mana regen
- Diseases you so you don't gain health sitting
- You cannot be healed/gain life in this form
- Slow permanent DOT on you
- KOS to everything not undead/evil
+ more powerful dots/lifetap
+ makes spells resist less

So I guess in not so many words, in this form you'd always be dying, but you'd be a more powerful caster. Theoretically, if you took this form and just sat down and did nothing, you'd eventually die in a few minutes unless you steal the life from others. This makes the spell high reward, but also high risk.
 
*Looking over this post it is very disorginized.. sory it is late. Hope you can get out of it what little content is withen. Thanks for reading.*

Yea, I was sure that would come up. It's too bad really as it's just plain cool :D

I mean what could you do for other classes. Warrior into a warlord? How would that differ from a warrior? Just seems like a stronger warrior to me. The lich transformation wouldn't be a one of an increase in power, but more a shift in power and identity. Which is why I wanted to emphasize the fact that not everyone would want this. I mean there are quests added for specific classes that I'm sure others might want-- in the form of items, yet not everyone can have those items. Yes, this is a very cool idea and I'm sure other classes want cool class defining ideas too, but why ignore a cool idea just because someone else can't have it? We should just give all the items to every character, and all the quests to every character.


I'm sure there are creative quests and or ideas that could be made for other classes(I did hear epics were in the works awhile back) Why not get creative and add this in as part of the necro epic where at the end you get two choices? 1 a sweet ass item or 2 become a lich. Just an example. That would be quite the difficult choice for the gamer I imagine. I'm sure the big bad warrior wouldn't mind if he had a choice of some sweet goods too. The fact is though Lich's are pimps and warriors can't be one sorry. Although if others can think of cool RP things for other classes then why not fit it into epics or other works in progress?

The reason I bring up epics is because I know I am not the one who has to work on this game-- hence the reason for "we would then have to design something like that for every class" and why I can't really debate it. BUT-- if you are making epics? Why not? My other reason I bring up epics is because it seems like the perfect way to disguise this type of change :D I mean who can argue that they are being left out if they also got an epic quest? This just seems like a perfect opprutunity to add something cool, and more importantly, original.

Still I can't think of anything using my example of warrior that people would trade hundreds of hp and stats a nice proc or effects or whatever, (just trying to imagine epic type stuff here) in order to be different. Having the best equip by definition makes you different not to mention better at the same time. Liches are just that bad ass that I think there are some who would forgo other benifits and take a lot a other hits in order to be one. I just don't see anything like that for any other class.

As a side note I actually don't play a necro here (although I have a lot of live experience-- I do have a necro but that's because any necro lover can't have is character screen going without one) which is why I tried to stay away from balance issues. However, I love the class and play them in almost every rpg. I kind of played them out so I made something different when I started here. I do have a 65 with aa's in case that somehow affects the reception of my statements in anyway. If I could think up something as cool for my main class for something epic like this in scale I would post it here. I'm kind of tired of the buff my class posts though, and this is not meant to be one of those. Just because I don't play a necro doesn't mean I wouldn't want to keep those from nice RP like this-- and yes I admit I would roll out my necro immediatly just because I always wanted to RP a badass Lich.
 
Zombu your idea just sounds like a binary on/off version of mine. You want the cake and be able to eat it too. Yea you would have to die to get the effect off but still that is nothing. There is so much more to being a lich then some illusion spell, and that is all that would be. I'm not looking for a way to make the class more powerful but instead give the player some options. In this case being a bad ass lich. Heh, I love saying that. :D
 
Deathpoint said:
Zombu your idea just sounds like a binary on/off version of mine. You want the cake and be able to eat it too. Yea you would have to die to get the effect off but still that is nothing. There is so much more to being a lich then some illusion spell, and that is all that would be. I'm not looking for a way to make the class more powerful but instead give the player some options. In this case being a bad ass lich. Heh, I love saying that. :D
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Well, from a technical standpoint, I don't think what you're asking for is even possible. In not so many words, you're asking for a permanent change in the character itself. How could we go about coding this? Perhaps creating a lich race/class? Is it even possible to alter characters to switch races/classes on a permanent basis? Can you even create a race/class that doesn't exist in EQ from scratch on an EQ emulator?

I'm not Wiz, but I'm assuming no, because I'm sure Wiz would have done something like that now. I'm sure he would have realized that creating your own races/classes from scratch would have been a huge draw to getting people to play on SoD.

So we have to assume that what you want, a permanent change of race/class on top of creating a brand new race/class, is technically not even possible. Hence my alternative, which could easily be implemented as it works within the constructs of the game as it stands right now. Is balances risk (kos to everything, disease and self-dot) with reward (mana regen, more powerful spells) well enough as well as it could be done in the next patch with a simple new spell.
 
What about this set of events?

High level necro completes epic Lich quest and chooses Lich over the item, then the following things accur.

1. The caracter receives a perma lich buff that cannot be removed somehow. Perhaps using the same code that negative spells use but giving a positive benifit and infinite duration? Or perhaps an instant casting perma is cast everytime the user trys to click it off. I am not the expert here I do not know. But for some reason it sounds doable to me. The graphic for the new high end relic lich buff would suit a Lich nicely. Or whatever global graphic best decided on. I think it might be possible to change a characters model permanetly.

2. The caracter would instantly take numerous faction hits for all factions in the game. Whatever is necessary to be KOS to all. Faction hits seem to be easily assinged to many mobs and events as it is? Your telling me this can't be done?

3. The benifits part could be tricky. But the benifits are the part most open for discussion and change.
 
Deathpoint said:
What about this set of events?

High level necro completes epic Lich quest and chooses Lich over the item, then the following things accur.

1. The caracter receives a perma lich buff that cannot be removed somehow. Perhaps using the same code that negative spells use but giving a positive benifit and infinite duration? Or perhaps an instant casting perma is cast everytime the user trys to click it off. I am not the expert here I do not know. But for some reason it sounds doable to me. The graphic for the new high end relic lich buff would suit a Lich nicely. Or whatever global graphic best decided on. I think it might be possible to change a characters model permanetly.

2. The caracter would instantly take numerous faction hits for all factions in the game. Whatever is necessary to be KOS to all. Faction hits seem to be easily assinged to many mobs and events as it is? Your telling me this can't be done?

3. The benifits part could be tricky. But the benifits are the part most open for discussion and change.
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First of all, the idea that an epic would be detrimental as well as beneficial is, to me at least, retarded. But that's just me.

#1. All buffs are gone when you die. If the spell is treated as a dot that has infinite duration (you can't click off a dot) but gives benefits too (which I don't know if it is possible to have benefits to an offensive spell, but it might be), it can always be dispelled via nullify magic.

#2. Faction hits can be done, but faction hits are permanent. It would be silly to lose faction throughout the entire game for a buff, especially if you lose that buff when you die. I'd be more inclined to give someone a perma-lich spell that screws your faction as long as you're using it, not a permanent faction hit so you're screwed well after its gone. And even then, you can always rebuild the faction by lets say killing gnolls in newport. Only the illusion is what makes you KOS, so a faction hit is unneccessary as long as you have the illusion on.

#3. I'm pretty sure the only illusions available throughout every zone is a skeleton and a specter, so its one of those illusion-wise.

#4. At the risk of sounding like a jerk, nothing in this game equipment/spell/etc wise should be set around roleplaying. You argue that this is better for roleplaying, but I'd argue that creatures not falling from the sky, appearing out of thin air, hundreds of lore weapons throughout the server, etc, isn't good for roleplaying, either. I mean, there's only one sword in the stone, so why is everyone level 65 melee walking around with Excalibur?
 
zodium said:
No.

Simply because we would then have to design something like that for every class or people would feel left out.
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I pretty much expected thsi response sooner or later , but for the point of discussion.

If you were to become a lich , ect It would make alot of sense if you could never talk to the majority of players , I mean come on , WHAT LICH TALKS TO THE WOOD ELF WARRIOR.


Locking liches into only chatting with necromancers , would make a decent punishment for the choice.

that would also remove the lich from ooc.


The ways you look at the lich idea it becomes more of a WOW IM GONNA PLAY THIS LIKE A SINGLEPLAYER game, instead of WOW IM IN A MMORPG
 
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