Coldhearth OP? *SoD Spoilers*

Mush_Mush

Does anyone else feel like Coldhearth is just a *tad* too powerful? It's right near the start of the game my characters are all level 7-8 barely kitted out with gear (edwin cant even cast level 5 spells yet) and I have to fight a shiny new lich that casts time stop, chain contingencies, PWK, PWS, a seemingly endless supply of PfMW casts, death spell (killed half my party instantly) and to top it off in case that wasnt enough... happens to be immortal (until you do the thing with the thing in the fiery thing).

On my first play through it was pretty much the only fight that I found difficult throughout the whole game but it didnt bug me *too* much because my party, having gone through BG1 fully, was heavily fortified and all my party members were level 10+. But even then I had to cast breach 4-5 times and lost a couple people bringing him down...twice.

I remember thinkin "wow this is shaping up to be a really hard game" but then the rest of the game I found to be significantly easier. I mean I like a challenge but it felt somewhat out of place...especially since it was so much harder than the final fight. So I think it's not so much that I dislike the challenge more that the pace felt off and imo no fight should be as hard as the final boss fight especially not one near the starrt of the game.

What are peoples thoughts on the matter? Am I crazy?

joluv

Did you use the item that Brother Deepvein gives you?

Mush_Mush

I literally just went back in game and decided to look for alternatives and got that gem from Deepvein lol havnt tried it yet omw back to Coldhearth.

Mush_Mush

....wow that was easy xD

lansounet

There's another lich to be found in the game, with the Secret Revealed item it's also a walk in the park

Mush_Mush

I actually feel kinda proud for not needing it the first time round. Its like meeting Kangaxx for the second time only this time carrying carsomyr and a prot. from undead scroll lol

Mush_Mush

Odd that I only had to kill him once this time aswell. Last time he respawned before I could get a hold of his phylactery. Maybe a bug

matrice

Wait, since when are lich affected by breach ? I thought they were immune to lvl <=5 spells

Mush_Mush

Mechanically I dont think he's an actual lich probly just your run of the mill level 31 mage >.>

lansounet

He's actually a lich in all aspects, it's just that the item casts a spell that is an innate with no spell level, specifically design to weaken liches.

Ammar

lansounet said:

He's actually a lich in all aspects, it's just that the item casts a spell that is an innate with no spell level, specifically design to weaken liches.

The item, yes. But @Mush_Mush said she used the Breach spell.

lunar

Mmm I rushed SoD so fast that I missed lots of quests, never even saw the lich. Well, replayability value is good at least.

Mikey205

Hmm I fought the lich without any special item twice. First time he seemed really weak and was a walk over. Second time he was much tougher and killed me a few times until I got lucky. Resting made him immediately spawn so I hasted everyone, grabbed the phylactery and sprinted to the fire room and rested there to get my breach casts back. I then wailed on him whilst my char and Dyna (main is a sorc) cast breach repeatedly. He went down pretty quickly. Timestop was a death sentence the times he got that off. Key to the fight was breach im going to chalk the lack of immunity up to his being a recently resurrected lich. Favourite fight of the game so far.

Metal_Hurlant

Here's a way I figured out to make the fight easier and you only have to fight him once instead of him coming back a second time.

When you talk to him, don't provoke him. Say you'll think over his request.

Then have your thief pick pocket his key but don't open the door to his phylactery room. Opening the door will trigger him into attacking you.

Prepare your characters for the battle. Either start the battle through dialogue (which is what I do) or opening the door.

Have your character with the boots of speed open the door if you haven't already, get his phylactery, and zoom across the map to the Fire Portal and drop his phylactery in it.

The Lich should teleport across the entire map to the Fire room.

Have your character speed back to your characters and the Lich will follow you but won't be able to catch up to you, wasting precious time and hopefully one or some of his spells will wear off.

And because his phylactery has been destroyed, he won't come back again.

Mush_Mush

Metal_Hurlant said:

Here's a way I figured out to make the fight easier and you only have to fight him once instead of him coming back a second time.

When you talk to him, don't provoke him. Say you'll think over his request.

Then have your thief pick pocket his key but don't open the door to his phylactery room. Opening the door will trigger him into attacking you.

Prepare your characters for the battle. Either start the battle through dialogue (which is what I do) or opening the door.

Have your character with the boots of speed open the door if you haven't already, get his phylactery, and zoom across the map to the Fire Portal and drop his phylactery in it.

The Lich should teleport across the entire map to the Fire room.

Have your character speed back to your characters and the Lich will follow you but won't be able to catch up to you, wasting precious time and hopefully one or some of his spells will wear off.

And because his phylactery has been destroyed, he won't come back again.

My second run was even easier than that: I used the sacred gem on him twice then everyone threw a volley of bullets/arrows/throwing daggers at him and he died in about 5 seconds then grabbed the phylactery used an oil of speed ran to the fire room gulped down a potion of invisibility ran in destroyed it whilst stood next to 2 oblivious fire eles and poof got the XP, he didnt respawn. The whole thing took about 2 minutes.

SirBatince

Its probably worth noting he uses different spells depending on the difficulty. On easy he just spams skull traps.

also you can just immediately reclose doors he opens indefinitely. lol

Drachyench

A lot of people are forgetting the tried-and-true methods for defeating a Lich: Make them blow their limited spell selection against oodles and oodles of summoned minions. It's relatively easy to get into Coldhearth with at least one Wand of Monster Summoning (if you imported your party from BG:EE), some scrolls of Monster Summoning (likewise), to rest up preemptively with a few Monster Summoning spells memorized (overall), or throw a bunch of Animate Dead Skeleton Warriors their way (if your party includes 1-2 Clerics).

The advantage of this method is that your party is rarely threatened directly until you're sure they've ran out of spells. The disadvantage is that it's very, very un-realistic (if you prefer to role-play your characters / gameplay experience) and mechanically exploitative (if you prefer to actually fight challenges).

GrimLefourbe

I fought him without the item too the first time, it's a great memory, I remember going through my bag of holding thinking about how to use every single item in there. I didn't know he would respawn so I killed him a first time using the golem invocation and biting arrows but I had no invocations left when he respawned and he would just insta kill me with power word : kill most of the time. I ended up trying to lure him in a corner of the map with charname (he spawns next to charname) who would cast protection from undead instantly but the lich casts remove magic to remove the protection so I had to "dodge" the remove magic 2 times in a row before being able to attack him while under protection from undead, a great memory!

I think he's inferior to a lich by himself but since he potentially respawns it can be problematic. I was too low level for Breach when I got to him by the way since I had only a sorcerer and no mage.

I think it's pretty nice though, the item to kill liches make the fight into an optional fight sort of and that's pretty healthy for the gameplay I think.

Mush_Mush

Drachyench said:

A lot of people are forgetting the tried-and-true methods for defeating a Lich: Make them blow their limited spell selection against oodles and oodles of summoned minions.

Mikey205

Ye he kept using power word on poor dynaheir. Anyway it was a fun encounter.

Sirdent

Drachyench said:

A lot of people are forgetting the tried-and-true methods for defeating a Lich: Make them blow their limited spell selection against oodles and oodles of summoned minions.

That was my Sarovak strategy too. Summon minions at 3 o'clock, stand with arrows at 6, lob fireballs from 4 to 12, run mage back to 6 everyone shoots the casters leaving one guy with a wand of summoning tossing gnolls and hobgoblins and spiders at your brother long enough to kill and loot the mages (because i play in multiplayer so i can always import my loot in and not deal with the youve lost your gear nonsense). Same thing with this guy except party at 12 and still lobbing summons at 3.

Artona

I kinda cheesed in that fight, but my CHARNAME is evil thief, so, y'know, cheating and dirty tacitcs are his thing. I simply used scroll of magic protection (in fact two of them because I kinda panicked late in the fight) I stored from BG1, with boots of speed + haste grabbed his phylacterium, threw it into the fire, and then kill him with poison weapon + darts of wounding.

OUT51D3R

I was actually able to one shot the lich with a backstab on core rules with my Berserker/Thief. Was only buffed with Berserk and DUHM at the time.

Dealing with him after he got back up wasn't so easy(time stop was definitely a surprise!). Had to reload. Popped a oil of speed and almost one shotted him again(he died from my second attack of the round). Grabbed the phylacetry, sprinted to the fire, killed the guys there and destroyed the phylacetry before he got back up.

Juris

I used the anti-lich gem on him to start combat (he dies quickly). Then I grabbed his phylacetry and let him play with summoned creatures while my party ran off to blow up his soul. Eventually the summoned creatures killed him because they use non-magic weapons lol