Lich carries some kind of hidden spell protection spell

[ancalimohtar]

Lich that spawns in Ghoul Town if you're a high level has an SCS script. Most times, he has these spell prot spells:

 

SI: Abj

Spell Trap

Spell Turning

 

I cast Ruby Ray to get rid of Spell Trap. His avatar doesn't really change, because Spell Trap shares that blue oval animation with SI, which is still on him. Fine.

Then Secret Word to get rid of Turning. I can tell that the white disk under his feet is gone.

Then Secret Word again to get rid of SI. I can tell that finally the blue oval around him is gone.

 

After a True Seeing, if I cast Breach on him, it says the spell is ineffective. Hmm. Maybe I missed a spell somewhere. Fine. Cast another Ruby Ray. Breach? Nope. Two more Secret Words. Nope.

 

Sometimes he fires a different set of spells:

 

SI: Abj

Spell Trap

Spell Shield

 

In which case I secret word, which says Spell Shield dispelled, then Ruby Ray (Spell Trap gone), then Secret Word again (SI gone). Breach? Nope. More Ruby Rays and/or Secret words, then Breach? Nope.

 

But when I Ctrl+R him, Breach affects him. Or when one of his summons cast dispel magic and it accidentally hit him, I could breach him. What am I missing? This hasn't happened before.

[Jarno Mikkola]

Isn't the Secret Word a 4th level spell... yes, liches are immune to spells under the 5th level... yes, they have a ring that enables this... just like all the dragons are immune to level 3 and under. In the vanilla game. And the Demilich is immune to all spells except the level 9. There's also the Raksasha who should be immune to level 7 and under.

[April]

Secret Word works, even though it's a lvl 4 spell. Breach however won't work if you only modify it with SR.

 

To get Breach to work on liches you have to install the corresponding part of SCS or a similar mod. The latest versions of SCS are bugged however and also makes Breach skip all spell protections.

[kreso]

... just like all the dragons are immune to level 3 and under. In the vanilla game.

No, they aren't.

[ancalimohtar]

Secret Word works, even though it's a lvl 4 spell. Breach however won't work if you only modify it with SR.

 

To get Breach to work on liches you have to install the corresponding part of SCS or a similar mod. The latest versions of SCS are bugged however and also makes Breach skip all spell protections.

 

Sorry I forgot to mention--I do have that component of SCS. Like I said in my post, when I Ctrl+R him, or he gets dispelled by his own Glabrezu, Breach affects him. So it's not an innate immunity.

 

Edit: Okay, fought the Shade Lich. Bit more complicated, as this one casts Aegis (HLA from Refinements) as well, which is a spell whose mechanics I don't really understand. It seems to make even Ruby Ray ineffective...? But whatever, I just waited out his Aegis while I pounded on his summons. Once Aegis was gone, basically the same thing happened. I unloaded at least 4 Secret Words and 2 Ruby Rays; after all that, Breach still elicits "Spell Ineffective."

 

Something with a duration of at least 1 round/level is not getting dispelled by Secret Word/Ruby Ray, and it protects against Breach. Can't be Spell Immunity as there's no blue oval animation. Or if it is, its bugged so the animation's gone but the effect remains.

[InKal]

Lich that spawns in Ghoul Town if you're a high level has an SCS script. Most times, he has these spell prot spells:

 

SI: Abj

Spell Trap

Spell Turning

 

I cast Ruby Ray to get rid of Spell Trap. His avatar doesn't really change, because Spell Trap shares that blue oval animation with SI, which is still on him. Fine.

Then Secret Word to get rid of Turning. I can tell that the white disk under his feet is gone.

Then Secret Word again to get rid of SI. I can tell that finally the blue oval around him is gone.

 

After a True Seeing, if I cast Breach on him, it says the spell is ineffective. Hmm. Maybe I missed a spell somewhere. Fine. Cast another Ruby Ray. Breach? Nope. Two more Secret Words. Nope.

 

Sometimes he fires a different set of spells:

 

SI: Abj

Spell Trap

Spell Shield

 

In which case I secret word, which says Spell Shield dispelled, then Ruby Ray (Spell Trap gone), then Secret Word again (SI gone). Breach? Nope. More Ruby Rays and/or Secret words, then Breach? Nope.

 

But when I Ctrl+R him, Breach affects him. Or when one of his summons cast dispel magic and it accidentally hit him, I could breach him. What am I missing? This hasn't happened before.

 

 

 

there should be info like "lich: spell protections dispelled/removed", "one of the spells has failed" x 3

 

my wild guess is: secret word doesn't work on a lich and you need ruby ray x3 for sucsessful dispel OR first ruby ray removes spell trap, immunity abjuration and spell turning still works - secret word is useless... so you still need ruby ray x 3, one for spelltrap, one for spell turning and one for immunity abjuration. or try pierce magic spell.

[ancalimohtar]

there should be info like "lich: spell protections dispelled/removed", "one of the spells has failed" x 3

 

my wild guess is: secret word doesn't work on a lich and you need ruby ray x3 for sucsessful dispel OR first ruby ray removes spell trap, immunity abjuration and spell turning still works - secret word is useless... so you still need ruby ray x 3, one for spelltrap, one for spell turning and one for immunity abjuration. or try pierce magic spell.

 

I've thought about that possibility, but it doesn't make sense because:

 

1) Every time I cast Secret Word, it DOES seem to work. It says:

One of the spells has failed.
Lich: Spell Protections Dispelled
Lich: Spell Protections Removed

 

In addition, the animations for Turning and SI go away one by one when I cast Secret Word.

 

RRR, Secret Word, True Seeing, they all work. The only thing that doesn't work is the last step--Breach. That brings a "Lich: Spell ineffective" line in the combat log.

 

2) If I Ctrl+R (dispel everything/heal everything) on the Lich, and wait for him to re-cast PfMW, then Breach him, I no longer get that Spell ineffective text. Instead it says "Lich: Combat protections dispelled" and PfMW definitely goes away.

[April]

Might be that he cast the lvl 8 spell shield and not the lvl 5 spell shield? Don't think secret word works on the lvl 8 version and it makes it's caster immune to spells below lvl 6, ie breach among them.

[ancalimohtar]

Might be that he cast the lvl 8 spell shield and not the lvl 5 spell shield? Don't think secret word works on the lvl 8 version and it makes it's caster immune to spells below lvl 6, ie breach among them.

 

Holy crap that could be it. I didn't even think of the possibility of SCS v24 using the level 8 Spell Shield from SR v3. See this is why these spells all need unique animations.

[Demivrgvs]

Might be that he cast the lvl 8 spell shield and not the lvl 5 spell shield? Don't think secret word works on the lvl 8 version and it makes it's caster immune to spells below lvl 6, ie breach among them.

Holy crap that could be it. I didn't even think of the possibility of SCS v24 using the level 8 Spell Shield from SR v3.

It's unlikely imo considering the lich is already immune to 5th level spells, but considering the spell would be an alternative way to protect from Breach it could be a very expensive move to get such protection.

 

@ancalimohtar, do you know how to rename SR's Spell Shield into Greater Globe of Invulnerability? That could help tracking down the issue. I thought I already uploaded such change but it seems like the hotfixes don't include it. I'll upload an hotfix for it asap if necessary.

[ancalimohtar]

Might be that he cast the lvl 8 spell shield and not the lvl 5 spell shield? Don't think secret word works on the lvl 8 version and it makes it's caster immune to spells below lvl 6, ie breach among them.

Holy crap that could be it. I didn't even think of the possibility of SCS v24 using the level 8 Spell Shield from SR v3.

It's unlikely imo considering the lich is already immune to 5th level spells, but considering the spell would be an alternative way to protect from Breach it could be a very expensive move to get such protection.

 

@ancalimohtar, do you know how to rename SR's Spell Shield into Greater Globe of Invulnerability? That could help tracking down the issue. I thought I already uploaded such change but it seems like the hotfixes don't include it. I'll upload an hotfix for it asap if necessary.

 

Yes those instructions would be really helpful for figuring things out.

 

In addition, I thought about it some more, and I don't think it's SR's level 8 Spell Shield (Greater GoI), because that has the same animation as the other GoIs, the blue sphere. This Lich had zero animations around him when I failed to Breach him.

[Demivrgvs]

In addition, I thought about it some more, and I don't think it's SR's level 8 Spell Shield (Greater GoI), because that has the same animation as the other GoIs, the blue sphere. This Lich had zero animations around him when I failed to Breach him.

Mmm...could it be that Breach has not been patched correctly and it's working as per vanilla or SR, thus not ignoring lich's immunity to level 5 spells?

 

Have you any change to test it again, and maybe try SR's Pierce Shield to see if the lich seems immune to it too?

[ancalimohtar]

In addition, I thought about it some more, and I don't think it's SR's level 8 Spell Shield (Greater GoI), because that has the same animation as the other GoIs, the blue sphere. This Lich had zero animations around him when I failed to Breach him.

Mmm...could it be that Breach has not been patched correctly and it's working as per vanilla or SR, thus not ignoring lich's immunity to level 5 spells?

 

Have you any change to test it again, and maybe try SR's Pierce Shield to see if the lich seems immune to it too?

 

But again, he's NOT immune to Breach when a high-level fiend successfully Dispels him. So that's not it. I'll console in a scroll of pierce shield, and try it out.

[kreso]

I think Wisp mentioned somewhere that Breach (within SCS) is missing a custom sec type or something, and therefore doesn't affect Liches. In my game, Liches are immune to all level 5 spells, but I didn't install that particular component of SCS.

EDIT:

It does (should) affect Liches, and it bypasses (and it shouldn't) Spell Turning according to Wisp's post.

[ancalimohtar]

Okay, I tried a bunch of stuff, and this is what happens:

 

1. Tried consoling in a bunch of Spellstrikes. The first takes off Aegis (though the gametext says "Spell Ineffective" instead of a more useful indicator). The second takes off Spell Shield (meaning this IS the level 5 one). The third takes off everything else. Cast yet another Spellstrike just to be sure. Breach STILL doesn't work.

 

2. Tried consoling in Pierce Shield. It works. Gets rid of PfMW and Stoneskin etc.

 

This makes it seem like Liches are just immune to Breach in my game. But...

 

3. Ctrl+R Lich, Breach now works. Did this right after the Lich cast a PfMW and Stoneskin too, so it wasn't accidental.

 

Is the way Liches are programmed to be immune to Breach dispelled through Ctrl+R? That would be the only explanation I can come up with. Alternatively, is there some way of looking through my files via NI and figuring out whether Liches are immune to Breach in my game?