The Fatal Flaw of Session 1, or Lich is OP Plz Nerf

[LuminousWarrior]

Okay, here's the deal. I'm about to start a new campaign with my group, and I need some help setting up the first session. The game is Pathfinder, homebrew setting, players start at level 3. The players, listed in order of how well-developed their characters are at the time of writing, are: An ex-detective “Human” Investigator on a soul-searching journey after a near-death experience revealed that one of his ancestors was a psychopomp; an Android Gunslinger, who was recently activated and has been wandering aimlessly before encountering the rest of the party; the basic Human Fighter who left his small town to seek his fortune; and one more player who I haven't quite talked to about his character yet. I think he's planning on playing a cleric or an oracle, but that might change. Everyone in my group are friends already, but the party is a group of complete strangers. The first couple sessions are intended to introduce the party and set up the basic ideas of my campaign. I had a plan for the first session, but I realized that there's a fatal flaw. See if you can find it. Also, to my players, if you're reading this please leave.

Spoiler: Kinda big, so SPOILERS

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My plan for the first session is this. The players are all heading toward the same location, your traditional “City of Adventure”. At this point they haven't met yet and are all traveling separately. While they're on the road the sun sets and rain begins to fall. They need shelter. At this point I'm planning to have them roll Initiative. The player that wins Initiative finds shelter first, a cave, and the other players arrive in order. Players talk, introduce their characters, and set up camp.
After some time the characters hear noises from deep inside the cave. If they choose to investigate they find the hidden lair of a cult to an undeath god. For the sake of simplicity, let's call him Vecna. The players arrive just in time to see the cult about to preform some sort of ritual, with a few cultists in heavy robes chanting and bowing as another cultist is preparing an unconscious woman to be stabbed on an altar. The players will most likely at this point fight the cultists and save the woman. This is where the twist comes in. Unless my players succeed at a Knowledge (Arcana) check they'll misread the situation, and I know them well enough to know that they won't even try. They'll think that they're saving a young girl from being sacrificed to Vecna, but what they actually did was stop a ritual to turn the cult's high priestess into a lich.
The girl wakes up soon after she's “saved”. She realizes what happened and acts friendly, latching onto one of the players as her “hero”, and telling them a fake story about what happened. She says that those horrible cultists kidnapped her and a number of other girls, and were planning to sacrifice them to their evil god. She then leads them to “save” the rest of the cult's prisoners, leading them deeper into the lair.
They'll have an encounter or two with some undead as the girl leads them through the dungeon, but soon they'll find where the girl is leading them. The girl will then attack them, along with a few minions, revealing her true identity as the cult's high priestess and an aspiring lich. Players have a boss fight against her and her minions. If they win, they escape as a team, bonds forged in fire, along with whatever loot they manage to find. If they're defeated, they're captured and the next session or two will be about them trying to escape.

So, as you can see, I have a decent plan in place for the first session. I also have contingency plans for most foreseeable deviations, players don't investigate, players figure out the thing to early, et cetera, et cetera. However, as I was reading the Bestiary to find the stats I needed, the fatal flaw in my plan hit me. A lich is a CR 12 monster, and my players are level 3.
Now, hopefully my party isn't going to have to fight an actual lich, as that would mean that they failed. But, in order to become a lich the person must first have the Craft Wondrous Item feat and be an 11th level caster. I could use the Undead Creator from the NPC Codex, but that's still a CR 10 encounter for a 3rd level party, plus whatever minions are used.
I don't want to give my players an unwinnable boss fight for their first session, so how should I go about nerfing this boss? I was thinking of removing the higher level spells and an HP reduction, explaining it as a result of preparations for becoming a lich. Any other ideas? Nothing is set in stone yet, so if I need to do a complete rewrite, tell me.

[Captn_Flounder]

Lich template is only +4 LA.

But why is the she-cultist a lich if they interrupt the ritual? I'm just a little confused.

[LuminousWarrior]

Lich template is only +4 LA.

But why is the she-cultist a lich if they interrupt the ritual? I'm just a little confused.

She's not a lich yet, and hopefully she won't become one. But to even become a lich she needs to be at least an 11th level spellcaster, which will bump her CR up too high for my 3rd level party. That's my problem.

[Captn_Flounder]

Oh I see. Perhaps use the Bone Creature template instead of Lich. A Bone Sorceress is basically a Lich. Or DM fiat it.

[Zanos]

Yeah, I'd use a different kind of undead. Lich's are typically very powerful and the result of a personal ritual, not a gift granted by a god.

Skeletal Champion would probably suit your ECL range better.

[LuminousWarrior]

Well, she's not actually supposed to become a lich. Just trying to. The problem comes not from the lich itself, but from the prerequisites, which are caster level 11 and Craft Wondrous Item and a ton of gold but that's not important. In the NPC Codex there's a premade necromancer that fits those prerequisites, and he's CR 10.

However, I will file away the Skeletal Champion template. That'll be helpful.

[ATHATH]

Well, she's not actually supposed to become a lich. Just trying to. The problem comes not from the lich itself, but from the prerequisites, which are caster level 11 and Craft Wondrous Item and a ton of gold but that's not important. In the NPC Codex there's a premade necromancer that fits those prerequisites, and he's CR 10.

However, I will file away the Skeletal Champion template. That'll be helpful.

The ritual could be one to turn her into a skeletal champion (instead of a lich), which means that she wouldn't have to meet the prerequisites to become a lich and could instead be 5th level Cleric or something.

[Crake]

You could also use the necropolitan from 3.5 as a suitable undead stand-in, and the ritual to make one fits the description of your ritual quite well. Plus it works on any level, and is perfect for a mid-level cultist leader. She would be greatly weakened by the first part of the ritual, which would explain why she didn't just outright attack the players as well.

[Bucky]

Perhaps her ritual is unusual in that it bypasses some of the prerequisites - or it says it does, but it's just bogus.

[ATHATH]

You could also use the necropolitan from 3.5 as a suitable undead stand-in, and the ritual to make one fits the description of your ritual quite well. Plus it works on any level, and is perfect for a mid-level cultist leader. She would be greatly weakened by the first part of the ritual, which would explain why she didn't just outright attack the players as well.

Ooh, changing my vote to this.

[Talverin]

I used a similar ploy once.

Short version? They used the skull of a man who was a Lich as the focus for the ritual - the target didn't meet the pre-reqs, but in a 'Frozen Throne' style 'Lich Fusion', the plan was to force his ascended soul to bond to the target's own, thereby raising her to full Lichdom, even if not fully as himself.

[Firebug]

Perhaps a Graveknight? http://www.archivesofnethys.com/Mons...me=Graveknight
CR+2, kind of uncommon, immunity to a damage type, free feats, controls 5 HD/level undead, with rejuvenation may end up being a recurring enemy.
No actual requirements besides dying a horrible death.

Maybe the setup is they are going to burn her alive, or are in the process of dunking her in acid.

Maybe the twist is, she has bracers of armor +1(or higher) instead of physical armor? Or a Ring of Force Shield that is what she rejuvenates from?

[LuminousWarrior]

The twist is that she looks like a typical damsel in distress, but she's actually the leader of the cult and is currently attempting to become a powerful sentient undead. Once she's "saved" she leads the party into an ambush as revenge for foiling her plans.

[tstewt1921]

I just want to say that the first encounter is actually pretty awesome, I will probably steal this idea and use it at some point in my game. I love the twist. It's simplistic yet amazing. My party that I'm running through a game at the moment has already been backstabbed a couple times, one of them being a character specifically about knowledge. I wonder if they will try and figure out what is gong on.

[LuminousWarrior]

Yeah. My group has thus far been a little bit too trusting, so I feel the need to beat that out of 'em. I don't want to beat them too hard though, just enough to give them a healthy amount of paranoia.

I think that I know what I'm going to do now. The necropolitan ritual looks a lot more interesting than the one I had planned, and it's got much looser prerequisites and will be a lot less punishing if the party fails to stop it. It'll adapt easily enough into Pathfinder, so that's what I'm going with. A couple levels in cleric and she'll be ready. Maybe I'll lead my players on into thinking she's a DMPC. This is going to be fun.

[GrayDeath]

Maybe I'll lead my players on into thinking she's a DMPC. This is going to be fun.

And that discourages them from instantly killing her how? ^^

As that would be the reaction of most of my groups to a "Real DM PC" impression

[Malimar]

Perhaps her ritual is unusual in that it bypasses some of the prerequisites - or it says it does, but it's just bogus.

This.

Or, alternatively, she thinks she has met the prerequisites, but actually hasn't. It's not like people IC know what level they are, let alone what level they need to be to perform an obscure evil ritual whose details are found only in the library's Restricted Section. (This would lead to some irony that if the PCs don't interfere and the ritual goes off "successfully", the villain just dies and doesn't come back to bother them, or comes back as a lich shade (which are created by botched lichification rituals).)