The problem with D&D Liches (and also that OGL thing)

I see you made it to my evil lair get ready for some leg and dairy actions hello I’m Antonio D’Amico this is pointy hat and welcome to DND with a Twist the show where I randomly select a DND thing could be a class could be a race could

Be a monster you saw the title so guess I give you a round out on that thing and then I decide to give it a Twist that you can use in your own games for free and we need to talk about something yep you guessed it it’s it’s the OTL thing

Look if you don’t know what’s going on first of all I envy you and second of all here’s the quickest possible summary I can think of DnD has a thing called the ogl which is basically a legal document that allows anyone to create content for d d it’s the most Baseline

Rules of the game stuff like roller Constitution saving throw this document which was supposed to be irrevocable forever and ever and existed for ages I’m talking decades here allows us to create DND content and now they’re taking it away yep they are making a new ogl and this new ogl will kill your

Hobby creating DVD content under the new ogl is basically impossible I can’t and won’t get into the minutiae of it there are great videos about it I’m gonna link some of them in the description if you want to get into it deeper but this change is an attack on the very

Community that made DND 5e a thing I love this game I love it enough to basically say goodbye to weekends as I juggle a full-time job finishing a DND book and making content for this YouTube channel which is all free I want to keep making content for y’all but under the

New ogl I’m just not sure I could even keep doing it and I’m not alone in this author party content creators are equally out of loss we don’t know what we’re gonna do so while we figure it out and while I figure it out I can only say

Make your voice heard so many of you have asked to support me financially or in any way and I’m deeply deeply thankful for that so here’s how you can support me make a huge think about this email Hasbro email Wizards maybe it’s time to reconsider that DND Beyond

Substance that’s what they are looking at apparently keep boosting the people on Twitter that are also making a stink make your own stink I don’t know but keep voicing your opinion because I frankly do not see how we will continue on in this hobby if this comes through

Yes I know the Alternatives I know the orc thing I know that this has happened before but what do we do until the dust has settled I have a YouTube channel I cannot wait to take a year-long break until the big players sort themselves out so yeah I did not think that this

Would happen less than a year into it not a fun way to start a video but I have not been having fun this week okay so thank you anyway back to what you actually came for and let’s keep doing it while we can so when I think of liches I think of

Glitches are segmented parasitic or predatory worms that comprise the subtask hyridinia within the phylum analyta they are closely related to no no wait oh no it’s not the right Google search cut cut glitches are Undead spellcasters that have found a way to escape death through the power of AP classes and

Generally being a nerd I’ve made a whole video on Undead go check it out please thank you but I conveniently left out a lit-shaped hole in it because today we’re addressing it that hole was made for this video and now you’re watching it so what are liches well let’s first

Take a look at where liches come from so the word Lich has been used in fantasy fiction for most of the 20th century Lich is just an Old English word for corpse so in a lot of early fantasy liches were just funky reanimated skeletons so where does the concept of

The powerful wizard turning themselves Undead so they can live forever come from well surprisingly Dungeons and Dragons itself yes there were examples of sort of proto-litches as in spellcasters that turn to undeath to continue to be annoying as far back as the late 20s but DND basically codified

The Trope of the Lich as we know it then books inspired by DND happened then Video Games inspired by those books and by DND used it and now it’s just a general fantasy Trope full circle moment so if d d codified glitches what does DND tell us about glitches let’s get into it

So when d d litted are the undead remains of a powerful spellcaster that decided that his brain was way too wrinkly to Simply die like those dumb jocks lichdom is basically always something that the Lich decides to undergo Ergo this is one of the rare Undead creatures that chose on death

Legend is also something that is most commonly associated with Wizards as in like a good 90 of them are wizards but there are a few examples here and there of clerics and Sorcerers that decided to turn themselves into liches full discretion here I don’t like this at all

And I’ll get into why later for now let’s just say that for all intents and purposes glitches Are wizards that turn to Undead to spend eternity studying the secrets of the arcade and making bad memes with way too much text about how jocks are stupid and nerds are cool it’s

Like undeath by way of Big Bang Theory and Jewelers stuff of nightmares okay so if one chooses to become a lich the question needs to be asked how does one become a lich well it’s sort of complicated D has flip-flopped on this a bunch the only thing that has stayed

Consistent is that glitches need to make a phylactery basically a tupperware container for the latest sole that ensures that the Lich will perform after being killed by the party in 1 to 10 business days what has changed a bunch is the actual way to turn yourself into

A glitch there have been additions where the way to lichten was very plainly written hell second edition even told you the actual recipe to make the spooky potion that was involved and there have been additions where it remains something kind of vague something in the realm of the most powerful School of

Magic in the Multiverse NPC magic so things that NPCs can do but players can’t and this vagueness is for good reason in my opinion there are questions in DND that the game is better for if it just decides not to answer what happens exactly if you don’t listen to your

Warlock Patron what happens if you kill a God how do you turn into a lich who knows your DM does and in their game you turn into a lich by sacrificing a thousand Souls as you play Sheldon funny moment compilations at full blast in my opinion questions like these are better

Left up to each DM to explore in their games but what if you want to explore those questions but don’t know where to start well let’s see how achieving glitch them has been been handled in 5th edition 5V Falls somewhat in the middle when it comes to detailed instructions

On how to become a lich these dark secrets are kept closely guarded in a little-known tone if you have ever heard the name of the monster manual yep but that’s where it is but it’s it’s in the monster manual okay so I’m going to read these

But in order to make it fun for myself and for you let’s do so by applying a 2010 DIY YouTube filter to it hit it hi guys pointy here and welcome back to my channel today’s DIY is not other than my ultra super secret recipe for becoming

An Arcane vestage of your own self in order to achieve what is ultimately just a poor imitation of eternal life in your futile quest to avoid the unavoidable fate of all living things being completely and utterly forgotten and buried by the merciless sands of time super cool Step 1 learn the imprisonment

Spell that’s it this is a nice level spell though so it implies you playing in a campaign long enough to make it to at least level 17 as a wizard so good luck with that step 2 learn the secrets of religion yep just learn those this is

What I mean when I say 5e is sort of in the middle regarding how detailed these instructions are the only thing said here is that the secrets are extremely well guarded it states that you can learn these in exchange for making a pact with an entity like demons or

Devils but not exclusively so I guess you’re multiclassing into warlock now fun there are also other ways to get them some of them being campaign specific and all like in cursive Strat you could get a Dark Gift okay moving on step 3 fill actory DIY project as I said

The phylactery is the Tupperware container where you will shop what little remains of your mortal soul in your quest to annoy your friends at trivia night for the rest of Eternity in 5e these are surprisingly easy to make you need any item so our Tupperware be good at crafting so just grab the

Nearest iPad kit with access to Minecraft 5 000 gold pieces which at level 17 you will have in Spade seeing how broken the 5e economy is and at dc20 Arcana check which you better be good at at level 17 or so help me God step 4

Potion DIY project yes more DIY this is a thing since the oldest Edition Legend can only be attained by the power of dark cocktails now if you’re wondering why our list is evil so far they just seem like really dedicated diy-ers well here’s one of the reasons the actual

Recipe of this post is not known in 5e that’s literally the secrets of lichdom in step two but what we do know is that it does involve sacrificing a person and feeding it to your Tupperware of Doom so you know think about it really hard it’s

A hard choice or just start playing any mini minimo with the rest of the party I don’t know step five ookie spooky ritual drink your dark cocktail of Doom and torment and die neat GT easy I mean what did you expect this is literally a recipe to become Undead as my grandma

Used to say can’t be Undead before being dead step six Factory feeding a minigame congrats after that you are now back to unlife and a lich but not for long you see in 5e your Arcane Tupperware actually works by Tamagotchi rules which means it gets hungry and very possibly

Poops yep if you had any doubts about the whole liters are evil here’s a second reason for that if you want to stay Undead and not just dead you gotta feed the phylactery with sacrifices Souls of sentient beings people so have fun and without your done you’re now a lich congrats Was it worth it because you look like that now I mean not that not that there’s anything wrong with that if you’re into it Different Strokes for different folks I guess okay so that’s neat we know how lit has happened at all but what are the actual glitches we can

Fight in d d well let’s get to them first up the Lich this is the OG but is it the goat not really I mean not to me your run of the male Undead wizard of darkness and despair is a full cr-21 Beastie which means we should look at

This statbook and see how it measures against pretty high level adventurers the Lich has an abysmally low HP at a measly 135 hit points the AC is fine at 17 but nothing to write home about and its highest stat is a 20 on intelligence second highest being 16 on decks Khan

And Charisma so honestly not amazing for a cr-21 thing cr20 creatures often have stats above 20 and I would expect at least a 20 to 1 Intelligence on something like a lich they do get a bunch of damage resistances and even immunity to normal non-magic attacks as well as your traditional Undead

Condition immunities but the actual meat of this statbook is its abilities and actions of course this thing gets legendary resistance not gonna get into that advantage against turning on dead to make your cleric cry paralyzing touch as an action which you guessed it paralyzes along with doing some damage

And of course it has the Rejuvenation ability which allows the Lich to erase fine lines and other signs of aging restoring the collagen bonds naturally present in its skin bringing back the soft and supple elasticity in the dermis oh and it also allows the Lich to

Respawn next to the collectory in one to ten business days if the party throws a legend to a wood chipper of course the undead spellcaster also gets spell casting this is an old stat block though so of course this version of the spell casting ability is an absolute nightmare

To the end have fun let’s just get a good mix of crowd control and damage with no particularly thematic Vibe other than like a vague penchant for Necromancer spells they also get basically every spell that players use to absolutely demolish their DM’s hopes and dreams we have all the hits counter

Spell the spell magic disintegrate the only thing missing here is polymorph and banishment to achieve ultimate frustration it feels like this was written as karma against players that ended one too many boss encounters early with a particularly annoying spell oh and of course they can cast power word

Kale the Rocks fall everyone dies of spells in the legendary actions category they either cast a cantrip use the paralyzing touch action threatening gaze which frightens and they can use all three legendary actions to use disrupt life this is basically a big boy AOE attack that hurts not Undead by 66.

Pretty decent if it didn’t consume all of the lich’s legendary actions it did less damage to the dragon’s breath weapon okay so real talk here threw this at a group of four level 17 players and this thing is going down in like three turns hell I think even a level 15 party

Can still dispatch this no problem yes maybe someone does go down to powerboard kill so just make sure you have Rebel fight ready you’ll be fine as it’s written I will lower the Lich down like two to three CRS it’s clear that the style block is begging to be used

Alongside some Hefty Minions that could tank hits while the Lich Pals the party with spells from a safe distance but it’s not like the Lich has anything on its stat block to summon these beefy bodyguards it can definitely pose a problem to a party just not by itself my

Main problem with the garden variety lit stat block is how unthomatic it feels other than one anime dead spell and the phylactic ability this could literally be any wizard the stat block offers plenty of ways to mess with your players which sounds like a great way to frustrate them rather than pose an

Interesting challenge but nothing that screams Undead spellcaster it’s it’s a bit too vanilla where’s the flavor where’s the drama where’s the pizzazz I’m missing dojoness perhaps we can find it among the lich’s weird cousins first up ahoos ahoons are mindfully or liches mind players in general are not fans of

Arcane magic so ahoons are sort of the red tentacle stepchild of Mind flavor Society they went against what the colony wanted and started to dabble in Arcane magic which I find very funny because it feels like something a Mormon mom will write about DND during the

Satanic Panic of the 80s this of course leads to them deciding that dying is not for them and they would much rather not die or go glitches their whole brand of legitim is combining the traditional Arcane aspect of normal glitches with the Mind slayer’s natural pension for

Psyotics a fun tip but I found is that their psionics actually kind of messed with the lithification yes I’m calling it that process which is why they look Dusty these ashy boys have to slather themselves in cocoa butter and take decadent baths 24 7 in order to keep

Their skin well moisturized we love a self-care focused on dead monster next up Demi liches if you’re not familiar with them you might think these guys are worse than liches or have liches or something but nope a demilish is what happens when a lich decides that they

Have grown past their need for having a body they replace their body with gems and put these gems on their skull these gems all act as phylacteries which means that demolitions should be harder to take care of than liches since they have like 8 horcruxes to go through before

They can actually be put to rest and shut up once and for all but in practice it’s way easier let’s just tend to hide their factories very well filling the storage space where the soul Tupperware is guarded with like a thousand traps and stuff demiliters just have the mud

Their face sugar skull style pretty easy to kill and finally yes I’m not talking about Draco witches it’s an undead dragon you can figure it out on your own hyper if you used to talk about dragons you can’t make me among the most powerful Lich cousins we have the arch

Glitches Arch glitches are glitches that are not technically evil they don’t create phylacteries or at least not in the traditional sense they tie their souls to other magic items go through a different spooky ritual and boom archlich why would anyone go through the trouble of becoming a lich when for all

Intents and purposes becoming an artist is easier who knows once again the actual process is pretty vague we don’t have it in 5V so it could very well be that there’s something about the arch lithification yes I’m calling it that too that makes it much harder than the normal litification method Arch letters

Tend to be good or at least are not required to be evil and it’s also said that they couldn’t be any spellcaster so we have Clarity cards glitches that have been granted glitch them by their God sorcerer art glitches and even barred Arch glitches honestly I’m really really

Not a fan of this I think glitches work well as Undead Wizards exclusively the entire process feels like it was written with wizards and my the emphasis on intelligence Arcana brewing potions making magic items it feels like the other spellcasters added to the can become a lich or Arch glitch category

Where an afterthought it feels even more like an afterthought when we look at another monster very similar to the Lich that was made with a different class in mind I talked about this in the undead video I made but we already have a cleric equivalent for the Wizards Lich

The Mummy Lord mommy Lords are basically liches with a Divine magic twist to it the ritual is religious in nature they get a ton of cleric spells and they just fight much better with clerics than with any other class I think that because its name and aesthetic is so tied to like

The pop culture image of ancient Egypt we tend to forget that mommy Lords could be made to any God there are plenty in Canon and they are even good guys so that’s nice we’ve looked at liches their history their place in d d the different types of glitches that are in the game

And that’s all well and good but what if we gave glitches a new twist so you want to fight a lich I am I don’t give a so as I said I’m not a big fan of glitches as a casual monster for all Undead spellcasters and I think the

Mummy Lord is the perfect example of how cool this flavor of monster can be if instead of jamming every spot Caster into the Lich box get it let’s box because let’s just meet flag trees which are boxes anyway we give them their own variant it’s just a shame that the only

Ones that get this treatment are clerics so what if we did that what if we made the Lich equivalent for other spellcasters what would that look like hear me out Lich bards When we think of acquiring eternal life we think of deals with a knowable Eldritch entities of secret Arcane rituals of packed with fiends of immense power but we rarely think of the method most easily available to most of us memories a piece of us stays alive through the memories that others have of

Us pouring a glass for those that are not there reminiscing about the moments we spend with them we call these rituals ways to keep their memory alive we understand that this is a way to extend the life of someone past their lifespan and toners understand this too and take

It to its most logical extreme if they can manage to live in the memories of those around them if they can make people wish they would live forever they will never truly vanish never truly die the process in which a Bard becomes an entoner starts with of course a song

They call this melody their magnum opus and a hopeful and toner can spend decades writing it this is not a simple musical piece but a verbal spell in the shape of a song on a Arcane Melody the rituals needed to make a magnum opus vary by discipline and by culture but

The effects are the same a true magnum opus carries a piece of The Bard sold within it as long as someone remembers the melody the interner can’t really die once her magnum opus is finished the internal to be travels and plays their Arcane song to those willing to listen

For some this Arcane song will resonate in a particular frequency it will become an earworm that will wriggle its way into their brain forever they will never forget the in toner song and in turn they will never forget the interner themselves to ensure their full transformation into a true and toner The

Bard will die when they feel enough people have heard their magnum opus and toners call this their swan song the last performance a Bard will give in life before dying and Rising again as an interner those that have heard their magnum opus will then act as the interners live in phylacteries for as

Long as they live the memory of the interner will live with them if the entoner dies they will perform and rise again for as long as their magnum opus lives on in the memories of those that have heard it but there’s a catch there is a reason why the last performance

Before turning into an interner is called as swansong once the dead bod rises again as an entoner they will never be able to perform their magnum opus again they must rely on the people that have heard their magnum opus to keep it alive so many toners ensure their Arcane song continues to resonate

With new people by becoming beloved composers that Inspire new aspiring musicians to learn how to play and in toner’s magnum opus whereas others become tyrants that Force others to learn their songs so that they may continue to live within the memories of new generations which sort of in toner a

Bard becomes Only The Bard in question knows imagine that an internal could be an amazing big bad evil guy for an arc or hell even the big bad evil guy of an entire campaign imagine meeting this evil in toner and trying to find all those that have heard their magnum opus

Maybe some are unwilling phylacteries and the party must help them forget through magical means but maybe some do want to help the interner out of love and respect for their craft the party starts to learn more of who this and toner is their life what they did right

And what they did wrong maybe they decide that the internal can be forgiven and hunt down their phylacteries only to realize that they themselves have become phalactories to the internal in the process having heard the magnum opus in their travels what do they do then the

Drama I think it’s a cool monster very evocative and all someone should write it and guess what I did that’s right the interner is right in the description of this very video you are now watching and you can access it for free so go out there wrestle the aux cord away from

Whoever is driving and force the entire car to listen to your Nightcore magnum opus and that’s it that’s the video on liches as I said I’m a big fan of liches but not a big fan of liters being every single Undead spellcaster so I wanted to

Make a Bard variant as you know clerics are my favorite but bards are my second favorite and since clerks already have the mummy Lord they felt like the very best candidate for lichdom I think the interner feels very much like a lich while still having its very own flavor

You also know that I’m not a big fan of this monster is evil across the board and they’re always evil so I wanted the interner to feel like a thing that could be evil or could be good because I feel like it makes for better NPCs and better

Antagonists I think they’re cool but you would let me know okay thank you so much for making it to the end of the video if you did let me know what existing song would be your in toner magnum opus mine would be all I want for Christmas is you

I know I didn’t write it but if we bend the rules a little it means that there’s no way I will ever ever die what I’m saying is Mariah Carey is a bartlettch prove me wrong and she is the most powerful of all okay that’s enough thank

You so much drink water and hydrate do your vocal exercises before exerting your voice don’t damage your vocal cords I don’t know much about singing enough advice okay love you bye