Improved Liches and Teleport Fields

[Cerek the Barbaric]

What are the best strategies against these things? I've been able to defeat a couple of them, but only after receiving a healthy dose of humiliation. And there is one in the Temple Ruins (in the hallway leading to the "Chessboard Floor") that I simply cannot defeat.

My party consists of -
Kelric Val'Caern - (PC Assassin)
Korgan
Valygar
Edwin
Viconia

I also had Jaheira originally, but I finally just left this area and headed for De'Arnise Keep and she was suddenly summoned to the Harper's Hold in Athkala.

My party is only around levels 10-11, so maybe I just need to wait till I'm a little stronger, but here are some of the strategies I tried.

My assassin had scouted down the hallway looking for traps when he spotted the lich, 2 skeleton warriors and 2 greater mummies lurking in the hallway waiting for us. We had just finished a very tough battle with a similar group a couple of rooms back. In that fight, we had eventually managed to lure most of the creatures out of the room one or two at a time. The fact that they were kind enough to walk through that big fire pit to get to us helped in defeating them. So using the lessons learned there, my assassin backed up the hallway he had just come down. The rest of the party was waiting in the room the bone golem had come out of, so we figured we were a safe distance away from these nasty beasts.

My assassin started to set his snares when the we suddenly found ourselves transported into the middle of hallway with all these undead monsters. How had the lich heard my character setting his traps? Stealth is his forte', as his chosen profession relies heavily on being silent and invisible. No matter how hard I tried, or how far away I set the traps, the lich noticed it right away. Time to change tactics.

I gave Valygar the Daystar sword we had found after defeating the first lich we met (in that tavern by the City Gates). He is quite stealthy himself, so he hid in the Shadows and snuck down the hallway until he could see the Queasy Quintet. He then use DayStar to blast them with a SunRay spell. This was pretty effective and did some serious injury to them, but it also resulted in his death more often than not...and my group was teleported from the safety of the Bone Golem Room right into the midst of battle before we were fully prepared.

OK...if that's how you want to play, I can do that too. I reloaded and sent Valygar back down the hallway again (since I'm an assassin, I wasn't sure about keeping Valygar around anyway). I have Edwin and Viconia buff the party before he casts Sunray...since I'm going to be thrust into battle anyway. A quick round of Haste and Bless (and a Repulse Undead from Vicky for good measure) and Valygar strikes again.

Well, all of my best efforts were for naught. I end up getting "teleported" onto that chessboard floor (in the wrong spot of course) so I get struck with Flamestrike and other unpleasant effects before I can work my way back to the lich (who is buffed to the max by now). After many many tries, I had to admit defeat (for now) and leave.

After completing De'Arnise Keep, Viconia had risen a level and gained some more powerful spells - including False Dawn. Aha, I thought....NOW that treacherous lich shall taste my wrath. The SunRay would sometimes knock him down to "Badly Injured" by itself...so if I could follow it with another, more powerful spell designed to fry the undead, then surely this would be his doom.

The plan looked great on paper, but wasn't nearly as successful in reality. In fact, even with two "Undead Zapper" spells being unleashed, the lich and his cohorts still managed to had us a humiliating defeat most of the time.

So what can I do to beat this guy. The False Dawn and Sunray will take the lich to "Near Death", but it also usually results in Valygar (at least) being killed. I can handle that, but a I can't lose Viconia. I've tried sending Korgan into his beserker rage, which prevents the Fear and Chaos spells from working on him, but I can't get around the lich's protection from magical weapons (even though Edwin is hitting him with Breach, Pierce Magic, etc). If I can ever kill the lich, the rest of the crowd shouldn't be too hard, but I can never manage to do it before losing 2-3 members of the party.

What can I do differently?

[Xen]

For Telepot Field->Spell Immunity:Alteration should work.

Bone Golem is not an undead creature!


Liches see through invisibility!


Do you have Azuredge or Mace Of Disruption+2?


After unleashing spells to get him Near Death,just throw Azuredge if you have it and hope that Lich will fail the save.


Now if you have Jaheira,you can cast Insect Plague!


I hope some of this will help!


Edit:you beat Lich but you lose 2-3 party members?
Rod of Resurrection to the rescue!

The main factor in this game is...how to protect yourself form something!!!

Tiprotection from Undead scroll can be more useful,than just lying in you backpack!

[ 07-09-2003, 06:17 AM: Message edited by: Xen ]

[Bloodtitan]

those liches do not hear combat or wands, they hear casting and special abilities. i had a wand of monstersummoning ( sold the starter one and bought it back with 50 charges ) and divided the enemy forces. the mummies and skeleton warriors charged the summons and got into my sight. they finished them and i finished them. wand of fire/agannazars vs. mummies = fun.
now to the lich. i cast true sight and the lich hears it, teleports me to him. teleport does not interrupt casting. viconia could do this for you, yes?
edwin should have khelbens warding whip ready and cast it on the lich when he is in sight. 2 'whip' rounds later cast breach, before this 'remove magic'. if his defenses are not down at this time you have to hope. hope because the new liches have 2 different 'programs' of spells and one includes imprisonment -> powerword:reload. the other one is not dangerous and you can wait him out if he still has some defenses working.

[Cerek the Barbaric]

Originally posted by Xen:
For Telepot Field->Spell Immunity:Alteration should work.

Thanks. That should help some.

Bone Golem is not an undead creature!

Yes, I know. I'm using the room he was in as the "staging area" to prepare for the battle. The bone golem is just a bad memory now.

Liches see through invisibility!

I noticed that. They also ignore Sanctuary. I had Viconia cast Sanctuary the first time she tried her False Dawn spell. When she walked out where the lich could see here, he immediately threw up all his pre-cast buff spells. I decided to try another "tried and true" tactic and just stand there waiting for his pre-cast spells to go down. Since I wasn't attacking, I thought I would be safe. WROOOOOOONG!!! He hesitated 1-2 rounds, then began blasting Viconia with spells - which is BOGUSSSSSS!!! So now I just have her go Invisible too...he seems to ignore her longer that way.

Do you have Azuredge or Mace Of Disruption+2?

I haven't found the Mace of Disruption yet. My assassin managed to "acquire" Azuredge, only to discover that Korgan couldn't use it because of his alignment. Until I got Valygar, I had no good-aligned characters in the party. I may try that if I can ever get past his Protection from Magical Weapons. (of course, I could have each party member carry a regular sword, club, or arrows and hit him with those...but I think he is immune to normal weapons automatically...so that probably won't work either).


After unleashing spells to get him Near Death,just throw Azuredge if you have it and hope that Lich will fail the save.

It's worth a try. All my other strategies have fallen flat so far. (well, not completely...I DID actually manage to kill the lich one time...only to have my assassin teleported back onto the chessboard where he was crispy fried by yet another Flamestrike [img]graemlins/dontknowaboutyou.gif[/img] ) DANG! The one time I finally kill the cursed creature and he ends up taking me with him.


Now if you have Jaheira,you can cast Insect Plague!

I keep Jaheira around primarily for that spell alone. During my first series of attempts, her opening move was to cast Insect Plague. It's one of the best spells in the game, IMHO


I hope some of this will help!

It has. Thanks! [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img]


Edit:you beat Lich but you lose 2-3 party members?
Rod of Resurrection to the rescue!

Yep. That's one of the first items I plan to look for now that I'm back in the City. Viconia can cast Raise Dead...but not if she is one of the ones killed.

BTW, my Reputation is pretty low (7), so these greedy, bigoted merchants are charging me outrageous prices for their stuff (not that I was planning to pay for the stuff anyway, but it's just the principle of the matter). What quests are good for raising my Rep? (I know I could donate a substantial sum to a church, but I just hate to part with my hard-earned gold).

The main factor in this game is...how to protect yourself from something!!!

Tiprotection from Undead scroll can be more useful,than just lying in you backpack!

Yeah, this is my second trip through BG2, so I'm familiar with most of these encounters. But the first campaign was different for two reasons. 1) I was playing a Wizard Slayer and found some nice items to boost his innate Magical Resistance. Mages and clerics didn't really present a big problem to him. 2) I did not have Weimer's Tactics Mods installed...so the encounters were a LOT easier.

My assassin is having to take more precautions...so I definitely plan to visit the Scroll Merchant in Waukeen's Promenade before heading back to the ruins. The thing that actually worries my assassin is that there is supposedly a dragon located somewhere among the ruins. If the liches and other undead are this difficult, he doesn't even want to think about what the dragon will be like.

[Xen]

If your Reputation is low,do some good quests,wich are easy and gives you Reputation. Other Undead are easy,with the slight exception of Greater Mummies maybe. Even Improved Bodhi is easy.(Though this is sometimes hard to belive [img]tongue.gif[/img] ). Dragons are easy or not. It is about what equipment do you have,what do you know from first encounters and so on...
Jaheira can be excellent tank. Ironskins come to mind.


Good luck to you!


Edit:this will be a little [img]graemlins/offtopic.gif[/img] :when i come out of JI` dungeon i immediatly sell and steal those Wands you got in the dungeon. It makes a lot of encounters easier. So this is a good thing to do. For any Thievs(Assasin in your case!) or Bard.

[ 07-09-2003, 10:22 AM: Message edited by: Xen ]

[Raistlin Majere]

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you can get a RoR from Mekraths lair(temple sewers)

tip:while you're waiting for PfMW to wear off, beat the other undead creatures! also, use viccy to boost your fire resistance and magic resistance(potions can be used aswell). i believe liches mainly use fire and magic damage spells.

[weimer]

Cerek, you raise a number of good points about the slightly smarter mages script ... but I'm unable to address them because of game engine limitations. There's no scripting trigger that will distinguish between, say, the PC casting Draw Upon Holy Might (clearly very loud) and the PC setting a trap (very quiet). So we err on the side of being conservative. Similarly, the game engine effect "invisibility detection by script" tends to see through invisibility and sanctuary -- I don't know of any way to make it more specific.

Everyone else here gave good advice, and I applaud you for trying to do all of this without any pro-undead scrolls. More power to you.

One thing you may not have considered is Vic's control undead ability. The Lich shouldn't "hear" it, and if you manage to charm one of the mummies before the fight starts you may be able to convince the Lich to waste spells on it instead.

Breach is presumably not working on the Lich because (1) it is immune to level 1-5 spells and (2) it may have Spell Immunity: Abjuration up.

Level 11 is somewhat low to be taking on a lich (aren't they supposed to be level 26 mages in this game?) ... you may have to come back later.

[Cerek the Barbaric]

WOW!!! A personal reply from Weimer himself!!! [img]graemlins/wow.gif[/img] I'm truly flattered.

May I say, good sir, that I have cursed your name mightily since downloading the Tactics Mod [img]graemlins/laugh3.gif[/img] - especially the first time I faced Improved Illyach (it took an entire weekend to beat him and his crew the first time through).

Seriously, though, they have made the game much more challenging and enjoyable. I also enjoyed the "Ease of Use" Mod. The unlimited ammo and the combination of several items into more powerful versions is a godsend. My first BG2 character (Cerek the Wizard Slayer) has yet to complete BG2, only because I've spent about 3 months at Cromwell's Forge combining all those miscellaneous rods, wands, daggers, rings, boots, etc into the more powerful combo's provided.

Now, down to business. I appreciate ALL the advice I've recieved so far. It gives me some good ideas about how to attack this encounter again. Yes - I did finally realize that I just was not powerful enough the first time through...that's why I left for De'Arnise Keep. But once Viconia got her 6th level spell, I thought I would be able to handle it (still do, since I'm knocking the lich down to "Near Death" with the two "Crispy-Fried Undead" spells) Just a matter of getting a lucky shot in before the lich breaks bad on the party.

Weimer - I have a semi-related question to this quest. I read somewhere that the Acid Kensai can actually be triggered by a katana other than Celestial Fury. I can't remember which one it was, but I wondered if it might be Valygar's katana?? Or if his weapon could trigger the Acid Kensai since it is a "unique katana"? It would be soooooo nice to have that Acid Katana before going after the group with Celestial Fury. With the changes made to the big bosses, I'm really dreading facing that group.

[Xen]

You cannot have the Acid Katane before going to the fight fo Celestial Fury.
You can only have Acid Katana after you obtain CFury!

[Dace De'Briago]

Originally posted by Xen: You cannot have the Acid Katane before going to the fight fo Celestial Fury. You can only have Acid Katana after you obtain CFury!

Wrong, I believe Kuriosan is curious (ha! I got it in!!!) about Malakar as well.