Indestructible Items?

[Blue]

I'm thinking of a way a Lich would protect its phylactery. Seeing as they're powerful spellcasters, and immortal so long as their phyllactery is intact, what would they build it into so that it couldn't be ruined?

Adamantine?

I mean, what is out there that can't be overcome? Other than plot, i guess (and clever players foil that all the time)

Traditionally in D&D, even the most powerful of artifacts, created by the gods themselves, have ways to be destroyed. I remember a chart from one of the TSR editions of D&D, with entries like "crushed under the heel of a humble ant".

Just like The One Ring has it's weakness, I think everything in D&D is possible to break, even if it takes an epic quest.

Though to talk about something hard to destroy, in one game I ran in a different edition (well, a d20 game called 13th Age), the Lich King's phylactery was an entire floating city left over from Ages past when he was the Wizard King. Stopping him from coming back by smashing the city was a century long plot from the Elf Queen. That city was the jewel of the human empire and the center for magical study for the entire kingdom, and not known to be the phylactery to most.

 

[Laurefindel]

Something to also keep in mind, lich(es?) don’t spend 200 years making indestructible phylacteries. Phylacteries are made by mortal wizards seeking to achieve lichdom (sometimes desperately so) and by the time they have the knowledge to do so, they already may be racing against old age. Its possible that some had to satisfy with “good enough”, or else placed too much importance on strong emotional connection or poetic significance in the object (e.g. Voldemort).

I’m sure many liches look back at their phylactery with disdain as a reminder of their own fragility and humble, mortal origins, knowing that they could make a much better one now. The best they can do is hide it well, and set deadly traps around it.

 

[Maxperson]

I'm thinking of a way a Lich would protect its phylactery. Seeing as they're powerful spellcasters, and immortal so long as their phyllactery is intact, what would they build it into so that it couldn't be ruined?

Adamantine?


I mean, what is out there that can't be overcome? Other than plot, i guess (and clever players foil that all the time)

Use an artifact or relic. They can't be destroyed unless you run it under a waterfall that flows into the river styx while simultaneously playing the grand piano with an entire choir of angels led by a dwarven conductor, or something else equally ridiculous.

 

[kigmatzomat]

Straightforward approach is to make a simulacrum of yourself, hand it the philactery, then use Imprisonment, with a release condition of "I die". Now if you die, you appear next to the phylactery and an expendable clone of yourself who can teleport you somewhere (preserving whatever spells you get on res) and acting as a decoy. It can even have a bag full of supplies and/or multiple Instant Summons jewels.

As for not having a phylactery, just havd one. Keep a dummy phylactery in your home that is well protected....and releases some kind of monster when destroyed.