Lich Lord (5e Subclass)
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This page is of questionable balance. Reason: undeath affinity should probably be spent, and regained after a short/long rest. The servants grant up to five additional attacks per turn, which is a lot in the combat economy. The whole subclass should be looked over for balance.
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Lich Lord
Sorcerer Subclass
Your innate magic comes from your connection to necromatic magic that was either inherited from your ancestors or infused into you by your dark studies into death. Over time your connection and control of the undead manifests into the ability to overcome death itself and become a Lich. A warlock who attempted to make a pact with a powerful lich sometimes becomes a sorcerer instead, by taking his/her undying patron's magic into themselves.
- Necromantic
The necromancy magic within you grants a number of arcane magic you can control. You learn the spare the dying cantrip, which counts as a sorcerer cantrip for you. Additionally, you gain the following spells at the listed sorcerer level. These spells do not count against the number of sorcerer spells you know. If you gain a spell that does not appear on the sorcerer spell list, the spell is nonetheless a sorcerer spell for you.
| Sorcerer Level |
Spells |
|---|---|
| Cantrip | mage hand, prestidigitation, ray of frost. |
| 1st | inflict wounds, ray of sickness, thunderwave. |
| 2nd | detect thoughts, invisibility, mirror image, acid arrow. |
| 3rd | animate dead, counterspell, feign death, ray of enfeeblement, silence. |
| 4th | blight, dimension door. |
| 5th | control undead, vampiric touch. |
| 6th | disintegrate |
| 7th | aura of life, death ward, finger of death |
| 9th | antilife shell, contagion |
- Undeath Affinity
At 1st level, the necromancy magic within your body renders you less hostile toward undead creatures. You have advantage on Charisma checks when interacting with undead.
Additionally, you can disrupt an undead creature when it attempts to harm you. When an undead targets you directly with an attack or a harmful spell that requires an attack roll, you can use a reaction to impose disadvantage on that attack roll.
- Empowered Necromancy
Starting at 6th level, when you cast a necromancy spell that requires an attack roll, you can spend 1 sorcery point to gain advantage on the attack roll. Additionally, necrotic damage dealt by your sorcerer spells ignores resistance to necrotic damage and you can add your Charisma modifier to damage.
As part of your immersion into the undead your start to age at a reduced rate and 10 years now equals 1 year. This ability stakes with other similar abilities e.g. racial aging.
- Spawn Undead Minions
Starting at 7th level, you can expend one sorcerer spell slot as an action to create a number of undead servant. For each level of spell slot you expended, choose a pile of bones or a corpse of a Medium or Small humanoid within 10 feet of you, to a maximum of five piles. You imbue the chosen pile of remains with necromancy magic, raising the remains an undead creatures. The chosen pile becomes a skeleton if you chose bones, or a zombie if you chose a corpse.
The DM has your undead minions' game statistics. Your undead minions act independently of you, but they always obey your verbal commands. In combat, you roll initiative for your undead minions as a group, which has its own turns. They obey any verbal commands that you issue to them (no action required by you). If you do not issue any commands to them, they defend themselves from hostile creatures, but otherwise take no actions. Once you use this feature, you cannot use it again until you finish a long rest.
At 8th level you can spend a Sorcerer point to use the ability of paralysing touch as a Melee attack spell. Hit: 3d6 cold damage. The target must succeed on a DC 18 Constitution saving throw or be paralysed for 1 minute.
- Lich Initiate
Starting at 12th level, you learn the secret of undeath from the necromancy magic within you to become a Lesser lich. You can perform a 8-hour ritual to create a pseudo-phylactery that holds a strain of necromancy magic that will sustain your life at the moment of emergency. The ritual can be performed during a long rest, and you must provide a rare gems, herbs, and other magical components worth at least 12,000 gp, which are consumed during the ritual.
When you die while you have prepared a pseudo-phylactery, your deceased body crumbles into dust and your soul is transferred into your pseudo-phylactery, where you prepare your new life for 1d12 days. After the duration, you are resurrected, as if your pseudo-phylactery has cast the true resurrection spell on your soul. After the process, your pseudo-phylactery is destroyed.
Your pseudo-phylactery takes a form of a small metal box that contains a strip of parchment with magical sigils written on it. Your pseudo-phylactery has AC 20 and half the hit points of the caster. A dispel magic or remove curse cast as a 9th-level spell upon your pseudo-phylactery automatically destroys it. If your pseudo-phylactery is destroyed while your soul is contained within it, your soul is also destroyed with it, and nothing short of divine intervention can restore you to life.
You can have only one pseudo-phylactery at a time. If you attempt to create a second pseudo-phylactery, you must first destroy your current pseudo-phylactery.
- Lich
At 14th level you gain the ability to create undead for any size creature and are able to command it at will.
- Lich Lord
At 16th level you fully embrace the powers of the Lich fully embracing its undead form with the ability to control undead around you. Any undead that is not under your control must pass a Wisdom DC save (DC 25) or become enthralled by the Lich Lord.
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