No.

Because if you could become a Lich then no normal NPC could reasonably interact with your character.

"Oh, you look like a helpful Lich, can you help me retrieve this heirloom I lost, Mr. Lich?",

"You want to join the Fighters Guild Mr. Lich? Sure Liches are no problem here as long as you don't have a bounty. Now go help this lady with her rat problem!"

If its not in vanilla its in mods, but personally, I think this is something that would be handled better by the devs.

I want to see this, and maybe, some race specific Lich meshes? I'd like to be an argonian lich of course, I mean, how much cooler than being an undead wizard lizard does it get? Also, make it so NPC liches can be all the races as well.

Obviously, this should be something that you are allowed to do only at higher levels, and you will NEED high magic skills, most likely restoration being the main one. It will be one long epic quest to lichdom of course.

On the topic of cheating in a single player game, just because its single player doesn't mean its not cheating. Cheating is cheating. You are right, that once you payed your money the incentive for the dev team to care goes down. But that doesn't mean they no longer care if you like the game or not after you buy it. They do give a damn, contrary to popular belief. They want everyone to have a good time and to enjoy the game they made. They didn't need to come up with the mountain of lore that they did, but they did. And its really confusing too, there's a real mystery to it. They didn't need to do all that side stuff, but they did for some reason. I happen to think that reason is that they want everyone to feel like this world they are making is a real one, with a past, a present, and a future.

Maybe its out of my respect of creative writers that I feel that not reading these things is an insult to them. The lore is amazingly complex, and to not read what they created is a waste. I'm sure they know full well that many people couldn't care less, but to me that is an insult to them. That's just my opinion, and you can very well think I'm crazy for it. Whopdy do, its not the first time I've been called crazy or an idiot on a forum before.

But how does all that I just said tie back to why cheating is unfair to the developers? Simple. They just spent five years working on something, and you undue everything in the time it takes to mod around it or cheat. The reason they allow people to mod is because they are fine with it, and they enjoy seeing the things the community can come up with. I however dislike that, but I by no means think that you shouldn't be able to do it. I just happen to dislike it and find it unfair. Disagree with me and call me stupid, I honestly really don't care. Its just what one person thinks.

Balance is important for every game, single player or not. I really can't think of a game that didn't have balance, because that would be one messed up game. Becoming a demi-god with magic or becoming a litch should be possible, but it should be near imposible because its so hard, and it should have drawbacks.

So instead the player should be forced to systematically stay away from game breaking objects and effects if he want to play the game as it is supposed to be? A game should not be developed with that though in their head as it will ruin all games.

Sure as hell hope they aren't wasting their time hand holding toddlers who can't control themselves. You are never going to get a bug/exploit free game world as big and as open ended as bethesda makes, regardless.

Never say never, it's jusr carelessness that allows unintended exploits of a game. Bugs again come with trying too much in too a short a time.

It's not carelessness, mister arm chair computer programmer/world designer, it's just the simple reality there are only so many man hours they can invest in this game.


Blizzard has been patching WOW at least monthly for over 6 years it still has bugs/exploits and go ask how many people think it's balanced in PvE or PvP. No one with a functional brain cell thinks it is.

I agree that a should be balanced even if it is a singel-player game. Also, if memory serves, I recall that Todd said that they make games that they(the development team) would want to play in on of the video-interviews. Basicly they really care about how the game turns out.
Edit: I think that modding isn't a problem in most cases, but I dislike the mods that add things that makes no sense, like keyblades or the Lich Kings armor. Then again I play on console and couldn't even use mods if I wanted too.

I like the idea. But this has to be done okay, with a very difficult and long quest, and of course, immortality should be done in a very special way.

IMO this would be one boring way to play the game

Why would that be boring?

You are confusing cheating and justice. Sure, abusing unbalanced things is cheating, but that does not make it unjust. It can only be unjust if it effects someone else. Your argument about the developers caring is nonsensical to a degree. Yes, the devs want you to enjoy the game; for that means you will probably buy the next game. The thing is, they don't care if you cheat in the game since cheating and enjoying are not mutually exclusive. Since you are free to cheat at a game and still enjoy it it is in NO way unfair to cheat in a single player game. If you cheat in a way that ruins the experience I could see an argument for it being unfair but it would be illogical to do such a thing anyway so it's a moot point.

To conclude the point of this whole discussion, throwing in something that is a chore to achieve but itself unbalanced is not unfair for developers. It is a restricted option (through it's difficulty) that allows people to play the game in a different way, thus increasing replayability.

So human error says nothing to you and every single game programmer is perfect and no careless mistakes happen in the making of the game and all the bugs/exploits are simply there because they didn't spend enough time on it, nothing to do with carelessness and human error then?

A game that has became boring will usually only appeal to players if there are shortcut exploits and such, I doupt a person who have had over 20 characters in WoW wants to start it over again if there wouldn't be an easy way to get things and level up high. But if those kind of exploits exist in a game for everyone to use right from the start, it quickly ruins the whole point of the game. Why would the developers even bother putting gold as quest reward if players have already an infinite pourse full of them? It's the same thing with exploits and bugs, if they exist on purpose ,and not by carelessness/human error, then the whole point of giving players new things would be pointless because nothing is better than what you already have.

But here is the part I don't understand at all, you don't like exploits that much, you try to avoid them and not use them, but yet you want them to be in the game and ruin the whole point of the game for everyone who happens to stumble upon it or use wiki to find it. And what I said about balance, that it is a good thing is really important. Otherwise there could be 1 skill that basically lets you beat the whole game with only that, so far in both OB and MW there has sadly been such skills that are just too OP. If there would be a skill called "Auto Killing" and it would let you kill anyone with a little mastery with one hit, we shouldn't be forced to simply ignore it as we try to master Skyrim and play it as it should be played, it's the wrong way of "balancing" it by having it optional. If the option is there for anyone to use that ruins all the efforts made on combat and such, I highly doubt even you can say it would be a good thing. Which you so far have because you argue for the option of being overpowered. I'm sure you'd like a starting class named "Immortal", that seems to fit you just perfectly.

I don't see how it is any worse than werewolf or vampire. There are only so many turn your self into monster things out there, I'd put this one in before werewolf that is for sure. With vampire that has been in for ages you already have your oops I was bitten and I need to be fixed turn into monster quest. A lich is the other side of the turn into monster quest, it isn't a curse, it is something you intentionally turn your self into so the quest would be coming from the other side, So 1 turn into monster quest chain where you are trying to break a curse and become "human" again, one quest chain where you intentionally give up your humanity to become a monster.

The only real problem with liches is they are very mage class focused. On the other hand werecreatures are traditionally pretty much not for mages.

If you want to turn into a lich, stop eating until advanced anorexia and laught like a minsless jackal, throw bones and curses at peasant and thats it.
Not much fun IMO but if you like it...

Kinda like wanting to become a god in Morrowind but not being given the chance.

HELL YES! I think having the option to become a lich would be totally awesome. Something I wanted to do, since, Tribunal.

There has to be a downside and a consequence to becoming a lich though. Perhaps you cannot interact friendly with any NPC unless you are wearing clothes that cover your entire body (including a mask). Also, you can't talk anymore, but communicate through magical means. Also, your persuasion/personality should go down the drain.

Also, the process you go through to become a lich should involve some really dark (read evil), stuff.

It should NOT be a quest though. What it should be is just an opportunity if you go through the right process in the game world. For example, you find a book that leads you to another book that leads you to some ancient dark place to find a third book which contains the instructions for becoming a lich. Then you have to follow the instructions almost exactly (the instructions are actually wrong and only through superior intellect, magical ability, and luck would you be able to discover the secret). Thought the entire thing is kept out of the quest book, once you complete the steps, you become a lich and gain power over the undead.

well it would be interesting but they should have powerful unique abilities to distinguish them from just a skilled mage with leprosy

I would love to become a lich, they are my favorite fantasy creatures of all time. Liches aren't always evil, there are liches called archliches that are able to retain their sanity and be good. I personally think demiliches are the best though.

i think that instead of a spell that makes you look human for a set period of time you turn into a human but it makes you extremely weak like say you have 50HP, 60MP which doesn't regenerate so you are really weak if the guards find out if you are really a lich, once you cast the spell you can't turn back till 6 hours have past , you can't stand in a church or on holy ground or you suffer damage and your magicka and magic skills are deminished so you can't do even cast the most basic of spells and the camo spell gets turned off and everyone can see you for what you really are.

please comment if you agree with me or disagree. :wavey: :banana:

I don't see the option to become lich being in any TES game in the near future. Actually, I think the whole idea sounds very cool in concept, but when you really think about it, what would you do as a lich? It's not like you could just go from town to town like a normal person. You'd essentially be a creature of the wilderness. It's not like there would be quests for you to complete as a lich.

Not to mention, the amount of work this would take would be pretty crazy. I don't think this is something that the developers are even looking into.

Still, I don't mean to dis the idea. Like I said, I still think it sounds like a very creative idea.

I love this idea! I believe I saw a Morrowind mod about this. It would make sense that everyone would see you as a monster and attack you on site unless you are disguised. You cannot fight while disguised and once you're a lich you're stuck that way.

Well a "fresh" lich, wouldn't look undead.

Hell it can work just like Vampirism, when you absorb a soul into your life-force you regain your original appearance. The longer you go without the more undead you look. (Only way you can explain Mannimarco looking normal)

I agree wholeheartedly. You should need some kind of special way of keeping yourself hidden (even if it is just wearing robes and a hood) to keep the regular NPCs from attacking you. It should definitely make you lose a lot of your physical strengths and personality things. And it should not be a regularly attainable thing. It should be hard to do and hidden from anyone who isn't specifically looking for it. No quests.

the thing is that as a lich ur a very dead looking corpse, and liches probably would likely talk very strangely. Vampires actually look (and i think sound and smell too) almost just like normal persons.
Sorry about my language though, just so tired of seeing all these threads with dumb ideas. Even gunpowder in Skyrim is more smart than this 1 in my opinion.

Did you not meet Mannimarco in oblivion? He was a lich you know.