Nerd question for all you RPGers out there...

What? RPG is a sweeping genre. It sounds like you’re talking about a specific game.

if you drop your iPhylactery in the toilet your dude is toast!

Seems like all the spells would be lost. Though an electromancer would be able t oeasily repair and recover the data!

Well hopefully you would have backed it up via iTunes.

No offense man, but an iPhone would make a terrible phylactery. You’d want something unassuming that can be easily hidden. A good lich never carries their phylactery around with them.

You can be tricky and protect your iPhone with spells of invisible to everyone else but me and never have to charge it up and things… if the DM allows such spells. When I DM I do, but you have to go on some quests and talk to some people and pay money to get them.

Wouldn’t it work like any other phylactery if it were destroyed? And would probably receive some extra magical protection by virtue of being a phylactery, like any other… I’d say that the battery dying just messes up your spells—a phylactery works on the object itself, not the electricity of the object :) But, the question you want to ask yourself… what happens if it gets lost in the couch? That’s what my phones always seem to do..

what happens when someone calls your phylactery? Do they speak directly with your soul? Man, I could go on forever like this

@Crayon—I dunno, iPhones are not uncommon these days… hiding it on yourself would be just what they’re not expecting, don’t you think? Everyone’s got a phone, it wouldn’t be weird.

@Sink, yes, that’s a specific game—D20 Modern, one of many RPGs. Phylacteries are pretty common, though—but you’ll note I’m not talking about any specific rules, since I don’t actually play Modern.

@MindErrantry: Yeah, but why would a lich carry their phylactery around with them? That doesn’t make much sense to me. What good is it to keep your fail safe in your pocket and risk it getting destroyed right along with whatever kills you?

All depends on how you die!

I’d have to agree, this is far too specific for just “RPG”. However, if you used an iPhone, consider how smudgy it would get every time you used it. What about a blackberry, with some sort of voice recognition bluetooth, so you could call upon them without using your blood-smeared fingers?
However, just make sure your txt msg don’t go over, or you might be out of service, which would be like contracting the flu…

I lurve this thread

I would imagine (and if I were the GM, house rule) that the battery would be irrelevant; the iPhone powered by the enchantment that turned it into a phylactery.

By the same token, many systems make magical items more resistant to damage (like a saving throw bonus in D&D) due to their nature. It would also be the only iPhone that wouldn’t short out in a steam-filled room :P

However, I would rule that it is no more resistant to intentional disassembly; it is designed to come apart. It may resist being stabbed or bludgeoned, but not a toolset. Fortunately, iPhones are more difficult to disassemble than other phones anyways, rendering it almost moot.

Lich don’t need to remember spells they cast them freely and without limit.. you would not need an IPod.

@talljasperman I think we’re talking about a different edition dude.

@Thammuz d20 Modern hasn’t been through many iterations as the D&D/AD&D line though; WotC only did one edition, and that is based on D&D 3.5 rules. As the line started in 2002, it was too late for 1e or 2e, and since it was shut down in 2006, it never got the 4e and 5e treatment.

So a little bit depends on whether it’s actually d20 Modern or just one of the D&D editions in a different setting, and if it’s the former, whether it’s the “official” WotC version or some home-brew stuff like this but more depends on the GM. After all, what the rulebooks say is often less important/relevant than what the miscreant cackling behind the GM screen says.

@jerv The question states D20Modern, so i assumed they meant the official one :/

I would assume that myself, so the whole Lich/phylactery thing would work according to 3.5 rules.

I think this might shed a little light on things.