Liches and spell protections?

[czacki]

I kinda don't understand this - during the battle with Deirex, I used time stop+alacrity, then bombarded him with 8 x ruby ray of reversal followed by 3 x breach, then a couple of dragon breaths and horrid wiltings. It did completely NOTHING. Not only his spell protections were intact, but combat protections as well. What the? Is he spell immune or something? I counted - he had only 5 spell protections on him and iirc 4 combat ones. Eight ruby rays of reversal were overkill and the followup breaches as well (I have the component that allows breach on liches installed). Even if we count spell turning in it should only redirect two rays of reversal and collapse, allowing the remaining six to strap him out of protections.

 

I don't get it. Is he fire/magic immune too by default? Because neither Dragon breath, nor horrid wilting put a dent on him.

 

I tried many various combinations like 3x pierce shield + 3 x pierce magic + 2x spell thrust and 2x breach but nothing seemed to work, his protections were irremovable

 

I eventually won because he cast so many time stops his protection from magic weapons ran off and I right clicked him to death with my melee guys

 

Still, I feel a little confused. No, he didn't have Spell Immunity: Abjuration on him, I checked twice. Also, he did not use spell trap. I don't remember exactly what spells he used with his chain contingency/trigger but iirc: shield, blue fireshield, red fireshield, PfMW, Spell turning, Protection from magic energy, Protection from Fire and maybe two or three minor ones more. Nothing that would explain his complete immunity to spell protection removal.

 

 

 

Also, what level is he, exactly in SCS2 (and liches in general) ? my level 24 Cleric doesn't even make him afraid with turn undead, yet alone explode. Is it even possible to turn liches in SCS2? I recall that in Vanilla a turn undead level of 18 explodes regular Liches and 26 (not sure) explodes the elemental ones. 31 explodes Kangaax.

 

Also, would Inquisitor (unnerfed) and his Dispel be of any use in this situation? Unless Liches are level 40 or something by default which means Inquisitors are useless in SoA against them.

[n-ghost]

Not sure about protections (it's always more of 'outlive' rather than 'go and destroy' type of battle for me when it comes up to liches), but undead should be immune to horrid wilting (in SR, at least) ;d

[Demivrgvs]

I'll try to see if I can help...but first of all I'd need to know one thing, are you playing with Spell Revisions or not?

 

Because SR's Breach doesn't work on liches as per vanilla/PnP unless you force SCS tweak onto it.

 

Then, as n-ghost says, SR's Horrid Wilting doesn't affect undead creatures as per PnP.

 

That being said multiple Pierce Shield should indeed tear any lich apart (Spell Shield can block it, but only once). If that doesn't work I'm lost...

[polytope]

If you cast all the aforementioned spells in the space of one TS + IA then there's a chance the Breaches hit before the Ruby Rays, thus were wasted. When casting spells under time stop I usually take a step backward in between each, so they impact in the right order. Also note that a single Spell Thrust will take down all Spell Immunities with SCS (even on a Lich or Rakshasa) and is more efficient than multiple RRs.

 

If your cleric isn't high enough level to turn a lich, Holy Word should still work to disrupt their casting (unless they have SI:Conjuration, of course); False Dawn can briefly disable them as well - liches (like vampires) are not immune to confusion.

[czacki]

I have noticed that Time Stop does this. it feels like the spells hit exactly in the same time but don't cumulate (so multiple breaches still bounce off spellturning before spellstrike destroys it). it's just not worth it to cast time stop against casters (unless I will do that trick with going a step backwards - might help). However, killing liches before spellstrike is a b***h. After it's cake. Auto-pause on casting spell, greater alacrity->spellthrust (to get rid of spellshield) -> spellstrike ->breach and it if done correctly it should leave the lich naked while he is still casting his time stop, making it possible to interrupt it via right click of a fighter. If he gets contingency or fires a trigger of spell protections just repeat the last two steps. With robe of vecna and amulet of power you can fire a spellstrike instantaneously.

 

I just wonder on what level I can turn liches, tho. My priest is level 27 now. Still can't pop a lich if he's hostile. i popped a non-hostile lich though (the guardian from Edwin's quest). Don't know if in SCS2 spell protections prevent undead turn.

 

Earlier on I used to kill Liches using boots of speed. 90% of the time his first spell is time stop, but he's so slow he can't make any use of it if you bait him with a character wearing those and run during his cast time, effectively making him waste all his time stops.

[Shaitan]

Earlier on I used to kill Liches using boots of speed. 90% of the time his first spell is time stop, but he's so slow he can't make any use of it if you bait him with a character wearing those and run during his cast time, effectively making him waste all his time stops

Nice one, one should think a lich had learned something over the years, but apparently not

[czacki]

Well, there's no way around it, unless Liches had their own time stop with very short cast time. But that would be pushing it, I think. SCS2 is cheesy enough with triggers and chain contingencies.

 

Just nailed Kangaax. Wild mage rules A spam of Alacrity, Spellstrike and Breach using Reckless Dweomer was kinda battle-breaking. The rest was done by my improved-haste F/M/T and his daystar. Not sure why people prefer Sorcerer over Wild Mage when powergaming - WM's potential is considerably higher.

[Topos]

I've found that the easiest way to kill liches using a low-level party is to simply cast the level 6 spell Acid Fog (Death Fog if you haven't installed SR). Liches are typically defenseless against it.

[DavidW]

Realistically you're fairly unlikely to be high enough level to turn liches, but they're not actively protected from it.

 

I think polytope is probably correct about what happened here: you can't Breach a lich until you've dropped his spell protections, and your own Timestop gets in the way here.

 

Running away and taking advantage of a Lich's slow movement is exactly the kind of semi-exploit that I deliberately don't block. I'm not the police.

 

czacki: what is "cheesy" about SCS triggers/chain contingencies? If there's a situation where I'm breaking the rules with them, let me know.

[czacki]

In the battle with Tanova (the Vampire mage from Bohdi's crypt), she used spell sequencer/trigger multiple times. She didn't re-cast those. I'm fairly sure she had more than one sequencer available, which iirc isn't available for regular mages. it was a pain to dispel her multiple invisibility-pfmw-stoneskin-spellshield combos that she just kept using.

 

So, liches are level 30 or something, right? Well my cleric reached 33. Gotta check if he can turn them now. I'm in watcher's keep. Guess an inquisitor is really good to have

 

I'm going to replay BGT with 6-man party, I guess. I did with with custom-made 4-man party, and the biggest problem was the lack of spellstrike for 2/3 of the game. Guess an Inquisitor would have been a fine replacement for that until chapter 6 of BG2. Once my wildmage hit spellstrike, all spellcaster problems stopped.

[DavidW]

If that's right, it's a bug. I'll have a look. (I'd be reasonably surprised - the code has a fairly robust check - but anything's possible.)

[czacki]

Ah yeah, the wish spell used by enemies is massive cheese too. i really hate pre-generated wish spells that ALWAYS offer the option to dispel magical protections - I'm sorry but the effect has like 5% chance to pop up. It's not fair, and it's highly annoying That Anadramatis dragon in Abazigal lair that always casts it within first 3 seconds of combat and always gets that option. Wasn't SCS2 supposed to play fair? if yes, he should have 5 random options like the player. I managed to get rid of him because greater malison+spell sequencer 3x lower resistance + power word blind got rid of his saving throws and my Berserker/Mage got a vorpal hit with axe of unyielding on his timestop, but I have no clue how to beat this guy with normal, non-powergamed party.