How does one become a Lich? Is there any way to do it without

Depends on the setting.

It typically involves destroying your soul so that it can't enter the afterlife but continues to animate your corpse. Typically this drives you crazy if you weren't before.

>>55322032
>It typically involves destroying your soul so that it can't enter the afterlife but continues to animate your corpse.
The fuck are you talking about, no it doesn't. It involves TRAPPING your soul, not destroying it.

>>55321891
The specific rituals behind lichdom are purposefully vague. The point is that whatever you need to do to acquire eternal undeath is so heinous and foul that it will doubtlessly make you an evil individual, if you weren't in the first place. You will need to do things that no one with a conscience could ever stomach doing.

The details are up to you but in most settings where lichdom is a thing, the rituals required to obtain it will inevitably turn you evil.

>>55321891
Van Richten's Guide to the Lich has some details on the ritual. Pathfinder also has a lichdom ritual detailed in one of the occult books, I think(not sure if it's in the SRD or not).

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>>55321891
Depends on the setting, but this is the oldest explanation for how it works, from Dragon #26 (1979).

>>55321891
D&D4e had a nice bit on this.
Technically there is nothing evil about binding your soul to the wold for immortality, but it requires an understanding of life and death bordering on divine.
So almost every Lich is someone who sold their soul to Orcus for a shortcut, thinking they could sucker him out of it by just never dying afterwards. The demonic pact, and accompanying heinous sacrifices, are what makes "standard" lichdom evil.
If you're not a lazy fuck and you stick it out without asking a demon prince for the cheatsheet, you can become a true Lich as a epic-level path, giving all the standard benefits and the complementary bonus of being able to laugh at all the pleb lichens who couldn't bone hard enough to do it on their own.

>>55322373
>"Chaotic" misspelled as "Choatic" literally three times in a single paragraph
I guess they didn't have editors back in the '70s.

>>55321891
I remember reading about a good way of becoming a lich. Some sort of ritual that Elves did to individuals to guard over their dead.

>>55322786

They did not.

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>>55323179
Baelnorn lich.

>>55321891
A bit off topic, but non evil/insane lich's are great.

My groups DM created this npc and occasionally dmpc lich called Om, the Obliterator (which is more of an endearing name than a menacing one) that appears randomly in just about every campaign we play. He's says he's from the first age, making him the oldest lich in existence and has become so powerful that he is on par with most God's, although he's apparently on bro terms with most of them. Whenever our party runs into him he's in the middle of doing something rather mundane under extreme conditions.

For example, one time our party had just finished clearing a dungeon and in the final chamber he was there collecting mushrooms for what he said was "a dwarf repellent". When the paladin attempted to attack, he lifted him in the air and told him his armor (which was badly damaged by a rust monster earlier in the dungeon) needed some repair and gave him the number of a nearby hidden magic blacksmith that could fix it for him before disappearing into a puff of smoke which was just an actual smoke bomb that let him walk out of the room. We were all confused as to what just happened, but seeing as there was nothing we could do, we collected the treasure in the room and left.

>>55321891
In my setting becoming a lich requires an unspeakably evil ritual, but doesn't necessarily mean that one is crazy or evil for its own sake. A recurring NPC in my campaigns is a lich bard who just wants to collect and tell stories forever.

>>55322129
What if someone else did the ritual to you?

>>55323711
Later, in another game, the party was visiting a city tavern and there he was, drunkenly singing merry songs with the other drunks, much to the terror of the bartender and other people at the bar. After they were done singing, the lich noticed the bard and said drunkenly "You're a singing type, aren't ya?" and tossed him a ring that he said "Makes you sound like fuckin Sinatra!" Which of course non of the PC's understood. He stumbled out the door and the bard told everyone not to tell the cleric and paladin, who were at the temple at the time.

>>55322564
Arcane Power had nice options indeed. Loved the Archlich.

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/tg/ only likes liches because they are NEETs of the undead world. Real Chad wizards become vampires.
>Don't need to become Orcus' anal slave
>Don't need to consume souls to survive
>Don't lose your emotions and humanity
>Look like a supermodel for your entire life

>>55324058
Someone who actually think this way does not understand how Vampirism works...

>>55324058
>Can't go out in sunlight. Ever.
>Hand dozens of stupid weakness
>Need to constantly sustain yourself by killing people, leaving a bunch of bodies behind you
>Look gay as fuck

>>55324058
>>Don't need to become Orcus' anal slave
>>Don't need to consume souls to survive
Neither do liches, unless you're playing 5e like a retard.

>>Look like a supermodel for your entire life
So can liches, polymorph spells are a thing.

>>55324393
Hat of Disguise or Dwarfkind Belt, even more ez

>>55324058
Vampires are junkies, trenchcated gay junkies.
But all undead are cool in my book.

>>55324119
You can also be killed. A lich can't unless someone gets his phylactery, and there's no reason that should ever happen.

>>55324393
>Neither do liches, unless you're playing 5e like a retard.
Or any edition that isnt 3.x or 4. In every edition besides 3.x, PF, and 4e liches must consume souls regularly or go insane and wither away.

>>55324058
Both of you are neets, real chad wizards figure out an immortality elixir and use their original penis to bone ladies for the rest of time.

And vampires lose their humanity and emotions eventually, as they are parasitic predators of who lust for blood.

>>55323711
It's not that liches are insane, they just seem it to people whose plans involve a month instead of a millennia. That's the thing that D&D often gets wrong, if adventurers are giving you trouble you can just sleep off a hundred years and come back to it later.

>>55324393
>Neither do liches, unless you're playing 5e like a retard.
t. newfag, whose first edition was 3.5