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The Lich has long occupied a singular place in tabletop RPG lore as the ultimate arch-mage meets arch-villain. A twisted spellcaster who chooses immortality over death, a curse which grants them everlife in exchange for the loss of their own humanity.

The Lich is not like you or me, watching the day go by as they wonder what the next best move might be. Instead, the Lich's advanced grasp of the fabric of reality allows the creature to think in centuries, meaning every encounter with a Lich is nothing more than a carefully calculated step in their grander scheme. The Lich is, arguably, D&D's most iconic antagonist, who haunts players from the first moment they meet in a tavern.

While there may be villains who are more powerful or more sinister, there is no creature in Dungeons & Dragons that holds all the cards quite like the Lich. And thanks to recent updates made to the Lich in the 2024 Monster Manual, the Lich is only getting stronger.

The Path to Lichdom

You wouldn’t wish Lichdom on your worst enemies, and yet, the best way to come to understand the Lich is to become one. The path to Lichdom is a journey into madness. A descent into darkness and suffering that demands sacrifice, determination, and even worse, your soul.

To understand how a spellcaster transforms into one of D&D’s most feared monsters is to understand just how much power a Lich truly has. There are no official rules on what the exact process of becoming a Lich is, but lore research done by fans concludes that it’s a process requiring high-level magic, rare artifacts, and the ultimate sacrifice… your own life.

Here’s how the process typically unfolds:

1. Craft a Spirit Jar (Formerly a "Phylactery"): A spirit jar is a vessel that holds the Lich's literal soul. Every Lich is bound to a spirit jar of some sort and must protect it with their lives, as it ensures the continued existence of the Lich. The spirit jar is a rare, high-value object, typically worth no less than 120,000 gp. To acquire one, you'll either need to pay a highly skilled arcane artisan to craft one, or you'll need to buy one of equal value.
2. Cast the 9th-level Imprisonment spell. This is the "spell-component" of the ritual and a step that is crucial not to overlook. You'll need to find a high-level spellcaster who can cast Imprisonment on the target, trapping their soul within the spirit jar itself.
3. Drink the Potion of Transformation. This part of the ritual is a gamble. It can trigger permanent death, with no recourse to reverse the spell's effects. However, for the lucky few, the potion will reanimate you within 48 hours, cursed to roam the earth as an undead archmage, while your soul remains trapped within the spirit jar.
4. Feed souls to the spirit jar. The lasting curse of Lichdom is that you never stop walking its path. To continue living as a Lich, you'll need to do the unthinkable: consume souls. Held within your spirit jar, the souls of your victims will empower you, enabling you to continue in your Lich form. Neglect this responsibility, and you'll soon devolve into a Demilich, a far less powerful variant of the Lich.

From the process alone, it’s clear that the cost (both in GP and HP) is very high. However, this is an appropriate fee to pay, as the power of the Lich is some of the greatest power the Forgotten Realms has to offer.

The Lich in History: From Acererak to Vecna

Throughout D&D history, the Lich has shaped D&D lore as an iconic figure who threatens, time and time again, to plunge the world into chaos and darkness, and who, every once in a while, actually succeeds.

• Acererak: Perhaps the most feared lich in all of D&D, Acererak is a half-demon demilich known for building the multiverse's most deadly deathtraps, including the infamous Tomb of Horrors. Acerak is the Lich who transcended everything, including the limits of mortality itself. His spirit jar is so well hidden that even the most seasoned adventurers consider it to be lost to time.
• Vecna: The popular antagonist to 80’s teenagers was once known as D&D’s Undying King, a Lich who ascended beyond lichdom to become a god. His severed Hand of Vecna and Eye of Vecna are cursed artifacts of immense power with a price that costs their wielder in the form of a horrid and gruesome fate.
• Szass Tam: A lich-archmage who commands one of the most formidable magical nations in the Forgotten Realms: Thay. Of the many iconic Liches of D&D lore, Szass Tam possesses a cunning nature that makes him the perfect fit for political plots and schemes.
• Vlaakith CLVII: A Githyanki Lich-queen, perhaps most recognizable from the many references made to her in Larian's Baldur's Gate 3. From the Astral Plane, Vlaakith rules over the Githyanki with her terrifying Lich powers. She's sustained herself for centuries by consuming the souls of her own most powerful warriors, and remains today as a chilling reminder that lichdom takes many forms across the planes.

The Liches of the past have already had their impact on the Forgotten Realms. Still, with the 2024 Monster Manual’s latest ruleset, the Lich is set to reshape the multiverse with an entirely new degree of ferocity.

The 2024 Lich

The 2014 Lich was very much a monster to be feared, but even then, the wise adventuring party did have some tactics they could pursue to circumvent the sheer power of the Lich. The 2024 update makes the Lich encounter much harder to “cheese”, thanks to a fortified stat block that makes the Lich significantly harder to hit. This solves the problem of the 2014 Lich, which allowed players to dump all their highest-level spells and attacks in the first round and cut the Lich off at the knees before the fight even gets started.

As of 2024’s update, the Lich earns an AC of 20, a marked improvement from the Lich’s AC 14 of 2014. Combined with their new Hit Point average of 315HP (up from 135 in 2014), the Lich is, all around, a tougher creature who will take a lot more work to take down. You can explore the full 2024 stat block on Roll20 to see exactly how deep these changes run.

The Ultimate Spellcaster

One of the players’ biggest hang-ups with the 2014 Lich was its reliance on the traditional spellcasting system. In older editions of D&D, to run a Lich meant constantly tracking and managing their spell slots like you would with a player character, but at high-level play, that amount of information can be too much to handle for most GM’s. The 5e 2024 Lich stat block trades the old spell slot grid for a focused set of Actions, meaning they’re able to achieve much of the same devastating impact of their original spell list, without the resource drain. For those familiar with D&D, this is a terrifying amount of power for a villain to have. And it only gets worse from there-

As far as the Lich’s list of spells goes, the 2024 Lich maintains its roster of magic abilities, but now with the ability to cast their spells “at-will”. In other words, spells that once needed to be carefully tracked before being expended are now usable by the Lich with a simple snap of their fingers.

The full spellcasting ability of the 2024 Lich includes:

At Will: Detect Magic, Detect Thoughts, Dispel Magic, Fireball (level 5 version), Invisibility, Lightning Bolt (level 5 version), Mage Hand, Prestidigitation 2/Day Each: Animate Dead, Dimension Door, Plane Shift

Of course, even for the Lich, some abilities are too powerful to be cast at will. The following are Lich spells that can only be cast once a day:

1/Day Each: Chain Lightning, Finger of Death, Power Word Kill, Scrying

If that weren’t enough, the Lich’s new set of Actions means they gain access to two devastating spell attacks.

Eldritch Burst (Ranged). Ranged Spell Attack: +12 to hit, reach 120 ft., One Target. Hit: (4d12 + 5) Force damage.

Paralyzing Touch. Melee Spell Attack: +12 to hit, reach 5 ft. One Target. Hit: (3d6 + 5) Cold damage. The target has the Paralyzed condition until the start of the lich’s next turn.

Put simply, with the 2024 Lich updates, it’s now virtually impossible for the Lich to run out of tricks to pull out of their long, decrepit, and cobwebbed sleeves.

The Legendary Lich

With 2024’s ruleset, now more than ever, the Lich is one of D&D’s most deadly adversaries, and easily some of the Forgotten Realm’s most devastating antagonists. On average, the typical adventuring party doesn’t walk away from an encounter with a Lich unscathed. As creatures-beyond-life itself, the Lich is a supremely powerful spellcaster who shapes the battlefield as easily as they shape reality itself.

To run an encounter with a Lich, you’ll need to look further than their hit points and spells to find a truly devastating list of legendary actions, resistances, and reactions that make this monster a momentum-stopping threat for high-level parties.

Legendary Actions

According to the 2024 Monster Manual, the Lich has 3 Legendary Actions:

• Deathly Teleport. The lich teleports up to 60 feet to an unoccupied space it can see, and each creature within 10 feet of the space it left takes 11 (or [[2d10]] (2d10)) Necrotic damage.
• Disrupt Life. Constitution Saving Throw: DC 20; each creature that isn’t an Undead in a 20-foot Emanation originating from the lich. Failure: 31 (or [[9d6]] (9d6)) Necrotic damage. Success: Half damage. Failure or Success: The lich can’t take this action again until the start of its next turn.
• Frightening Gaze. The lich casts Fear, using the same spellcasting ability as Spellcasting. The lich can’t take this action again until the start of its next turn.

The frightening thing about the Lich’s legendary actions is how frequently they can be used. The Lich has 3 uses of Legendary Actions, which replenish entirely at the start of their turn. Because Legendary Actions are used immediately after another creature’s turn, 3 Legendary Action uses means the Lich can use multiple Legendary Actions each round. Fortunately for your players, Disrupt Life and Frightening Gaze can only be used once before the Lich’s next turn, but Deathly Teleport suffers from no such limitation, able to be cast up to 3 times before the Lich’s next turn.

The Lich Awaits

A villain as iconic as the Lich deserves a stage worthy of its legend. Build your Lich encounter with the full power of the Roll20 Marketplace behind you, complete with token art, sourcebooks, and Lich-centric adventures, all designed to integrate seamlessly with Roll20’s Virtual Tabletop.