This is second in the series of Wrath of the Righteous power builds. This is designed to be competitive on Unfair difficulty, and will readily conquer on easier difficulties. This is an arcane caster build, with some added martial power. This build features 10 levels of Exploiter Wizard and 10 levels of Eldritch Knight, with variants including Brown Fur Transmuter or Sylvan Sorcerer. I will give a briefer description than my last power build, but I’ll include the essentials. What all three Lich builds have in common is the tremendously powerful ability to combine spellbooks with the Lich Mythic Path. Recall from my previous post that merging increases your caster level by stacking with mythic levels, so at the end game you can reach caster level 30. This is beautiful because Lich damage spells have no level cap. It also gives access to higher level spells earlier. This allows a character to cast spells beyond the usual limitations of its class level.
The Lich path is extremely powerful. It is one of only two paths that offer level 10 spells, and Lich-exclusive spells like Feast of Blood and Negative Eruption are so powerful that once you get them you almost don’t need to cast anything else. There are also some terrific story-line events and opportunities that occur only for Lich-path PC’s.
You also have the option of building a Brown Fur Transmuter, which moves into Eldritch Knight at level 10 instead of level 6, but the build is virtually identical. BFT’s get the cool Powerful Change and Share Transmutation abilities, and that build gives fantastic spell support, but BFT’s have drawbacks too. This build is viable as a Sylvan Sorcerer with no levels in EK, who has a great pet (dog), and SS can leverage their Charisma for spell casting as well as applying the Lord Beyond the Grave ability twice! I’ve seen SS/Lich builds with a Charisma as high as 55 and nearly 600 hit points, the tradeoff being lower melee capabilities. Click here for a list of changes to the wizard class for the video game, and here for changes to the sorcerer class.
Build Progression
1: Human Exploiter Wizard, background Healer so we can use Intelligence for Lore skills. There is also the reliable Pickpocket as well, you have options.
- Str 14, Dex 12, Con 14, Int 19, Wis and Cha are up to you (Cha 19 instead of Int for SS build)
- Skills: All Knowledge and Lore skills of course, Perception, and Athletics
- Feats: Martial Weapons Proficiency, Spell Focus Conjuration, Greater Spell Focus Conjuration
- Exploit: Potent Magic
3: Shake it Off
5: Combat Reflexes, (Metamagic Bolster Spell if Exploiter)
6: Eldritch Knight Prestige Class. Feat: Seize the Moment (if Exploiter)
Lich Mythic Path: Ascension Ability: Danse Macabre, Abundant Casting
7: Outflank (Seize the Moment here if SS, and Imp Initiative bloodline feat)
9: Improved Initiative (Outflank if SS)
10: Weapon Focus Falchion or another weapon of your choice, such as Fauchard (nothing for SS)
11: Improved Critical Falchion (Bolster Spell if SS)
13: Spell Focus Necromancy (and bloodline feat Dodge if SS)
15: Greater Spell Focus Necromancy, Greater Weapon Focus Falchion (if Exploiter)
17: Weapon Specialization Falchion (Imp Critical if SS)
19: Up to you, Power Attack could work here though (Lightning Reflexes a nice second feat with SS)
Mythic Progression
2: Improved Abundant Casting
3: Merge Mythic Spellbook (Wizard); Skeletal Marksman; Enduring Spells; Fear Control
4: Skeletal Fighter (to increase his BAB); Greater Abundant Casting
5: Greater Enduring Spells
6: Up to you from here on, Improved Critical Mythic: Falchion; Weapon of Death (or Deadly Magic)
7: Elemental Barrage (this is easy to proc with Geniekind and Firebrand spells)
8: Power Attack Mythic, Skeletal Cleric (bunch of new spells, channel negative energy also)
9: Archmage Armor; Deadly Magic (or Weapon of Death)
Standout Lich Spells
3: Power from Death, absolutely awesome, and you can increase its duration through your abilities; Mastery of Flesh is also excellent
4: Vampiric Blade, incredible damage bonus and heals you at the same time, it’s nuts
5: Deny Death, an outstanding buff that can save your life; Exsanguinate is an awesome offensive spell, and it doesn’t really matter if the enemy saves or not–couple this with the Devouring Lust rod; Repurpose is awesome, cast it, kill an enemy and it raises as your slave. Do it even to unique named enemies. Just make sure to loot the body before combat ends
6: Bone Shield is a flat upgrade to the Shield spell; False Grace pimps out your entire party
7: If you thought the earlier spells were great, just wait. Feast of Blood is Exsanguinate on steroids, spam it as much as you can; Blessing of Unlife grants every party member undead immunities–bye bye mind-affecting spells! Your party also gets healed from other spells like Negative Eruption or Harm. This spell changes the game in that you don’t need to have undead companions, just keep BoU up all the time.
8: This is not a great spell level for Lich spells, all of them are either relatively weak or have drawbacks. Just prepare Feast of Blood Heightened or Bolstered.
9: Okay, it’s nuke time. Negative Eruption my friend. You will be able to do up to 300 damage, even with a save that’s amazing, and that’s not counting using an Empower metamagic rod. But wait, we’re not done, because it also heals all of your party members too! There’s even more, this spell is pure gold. Corrupt Magic is a more powerful version of Greater Dispel Magic, and it debuffs the enemy for every magical protection you strip away.
10: Yep, level 10. Absolute Death is insta-kill, though on Hard and Unfair you’ll need to debuff their saves to make it work. What’s beautiful is that whether they save or not they still take untyped, unstoppable damage anyway.
Equipment/Gear (Updated to include DLC and EE content)
Weapons: Several options here. Glaives are great in the early game as they provide reach. Bardiches are wonderful, including special ones like Death’s Consonant or Decimation. Quarterstaff of the War Mage is also cool. Remember you can cast spells on them such as Greater Magic Weapon, Crusader’s Edge, Weapon of Death, you can give it the Holy quality, etc.
Head: Headbands of Intelligence, culminating in Draven’s Hat, and later headbands of mental perfection
Eyes: Glasses of Undeniable Truth, Goggles of Piercing Gaze are also good
Neck: Vellexia’s Magnifying Amulet, earlier in the game amulets of natural armor or the rare amulets that increase initiative are great
Armor: Haramaki of Divine Guidance–no dex penalty
Chest: Robe of Determination, Robe of the Seven Sins
Belt: Display of Power give a nice bonus and reduces others’ will saves, or a bonus to whichever physical attribute you like, belts of Perfection are always great, just remember after the Lich transformation in ch 5, constitution no longer matters to us
Gloves: Up to you. Gloves of the Ambassador if you want to enhance skills, Fencer’s Gift if you want to enhance your weapon damage, Embroidered Gloves are great, as are Gloves of Twisted Temptation
Boots: For every build under the sun, Ronneck’s Sacrifice is what will always go here. If you love charting, Boots of the Stampede, and there are also Abyss Walkers
Bracers: Eventually this will be your phylactery, before that stick to the Engraved Lucky Bracers or whatever else you like
Rings: Ring of Evasion is terrific, Ring of Luck is nice to help saves, Ring of Imminent Demise is also cool
Cloak: Bound of Possibility is terrific for Liches, as is Cloak of the Darkest Rites and Wrath of the Undead
Consumables: Similar to the previous build, Metamagic rods such as Quicken, Grandmaster’s Rod (in ch 5), Devouring Lust rod. Greater Empower Rod to pimp out Negative Eruption. With an Extend rod along with Greater Enduring spells, even buff spells that last 1 round/level now last 24 hours
That’s it for this build, feel free to leave a comment if you have any questions or suggestions. I’ve covered two powerful caster builds thus far but no worries, next up is a martial build. Check out my complete guide to rule changes and power builds here.
Saga of the Jasonite 