How do I kill a lich or demi-lich with a solo sorcerer

IntoTheDarkness

Any tips? I find it difficult to dispel their protections as

1. breach won't work cuz they are immune
2. dispel doesn't work because my sorc's level is much lower
3. they use chain contingency to put up defense protections which take 3 turns to take down at which point they simply put it up again with spell shields.

Anton

You may find this one useful:
Protective spells and counter spells https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AoLScCUe7V__dE1RaEhCbm5na0VlakQwYVMxOFJVc1E#gid=0
Also use scrolls and summon creatures if you are low level.

Shin

A component of SCSII will make breach work on liches and rakshasas - but it'll also remove its vanilla ability to ignore spell protections, so it's a bit of a difficulty trade-off. In vanilla I'd say this change makes things easier as breach is often critical, whereas with the Spell Revisions mod pierce shield can also remove combat protections, so once you get that you aren't as dependant on breach anymore. And if you solo, you'll get it very early.

For more general tips, liches can be killed with above-level-5 offensive magic like most other enemies; it's just a matter of being able to tank their spell assaults and stripping away their protections. A common cheesy tactic is to polymorph yourself into a mustard jelly and enjoy 100% magic resistance while the lich exhausts its stored spells, though you still need to watch out if he gates in fiends. Another severely cheesy method is the protection from undead scroll.
In vanilla, liches are quite sensitive to power word silence or blind once you manage to create an opening in their defenses. The vanilla AI isn't very adept at vocalizing, and there's no good arcane vanilla blindness counter. If you nail them with either, they often won't be able to do much harm for several rounds.
Physical-damage summons like earth/air elementals, fiends and planetars also work quite well, both as a distraction and for inflicting damage.

Demiliches are a different matter. They will be immune to almost everything you can do. You'll want long-term protection from death effects and imprisonment, and will then have to whittle them down with the few abilities you have that are capable of damaging a demilich, such as vanilla minute meteors, energy blades or mordenkainen's sword. As demiliches take very little damage from all sources, it'll obviously take a bit of time.

ryuken87

You can still use Breach from a Wand of Spell Striking.
You can still hit it with AoE spells not targetted on the lich itself e.g. ADHW, Death Fog, Incendiary Cloud.

raywind

use sling+5 and protection from undead scroll and put alot of skulltraps there.

moody_mage

Sorcerers can't use the Staff of the Magi right?

sandmanCCL

Is it that they are immune to breach, or they have spell shields that absorb a breach once cast? I always assumed the latter.

That said,


Scroll of Protection from Undead

This is how you beat all undead, forever. You're welcome.

Shin

They're immune to 5th level spells and lower, including breach.

elminster

decado said:

Sorcerers can't use the Staff of the Magi right?

No clue but if that were the case that would suck.

sebas

@decado
@elminster

They can use it.

elminster

sebas said:

@decado
@elminster

They can use it.

Confirmed. To be honest I forgot I even wrote anything here haha.

moody_mage

Awesome, then scroll of Protection from Undead and bash away with the Staff of the Magi.

swnmcmlxi

decado said:

Awesome, then scroll of Protection from Undead and bash away with the Staff of the Magi.

You might want to make that two scrolls if you're talking Kangaxx. I recently played a bard PC instead of my customary FMT, so Aerie was the only one to do the deed with the SoMagi. It took her so long that the protection spell wore off before Kang was down (yes, it lasts 10 turns, that fight was riveting!). It didn't end well. Better buffing might have helped, though, I'm lazy with that.

Bazza

A totally cheese tactic I used recently was to get two scrolls of protection from magic and the ring of the ram. You can put the ring of the ram into your gem back and take it out again and it replenishes the charge, rinse and repeat. Did the whole kangaxx quest with this tactic

Raelon

Hmm I remember when doing a solo barbarian run on bg2, I just transformed into Slayer and whacked the demilich. Just reload and try again if it takes too long and you can't transform back cause of taking damage constantly. It'll work

moody_mage

On my solo run Kangaxx kept getting morale failure then legging it round the area *cue Benny Hill music*.

That combined with his regeneration and massive damage reduction added to the encounter. In the end I penned him in with summons so he couldn't actually run anywhere then commenced with the whacking.

ankheg

If you don't want to lose the scrolls create a simulacrum and use the copy scrolls.

Dogmatix

ankheg said:

If you don't want to lose the scrolls create a simulacrum and use the copy scrolls.

...Or you could use project image for the same. But remember always to shield the "projected image" from abjuration and divination accordingly in tough battles.

raywind

improved haste/protection from undead scroll/energy blades and 10sec and its down

ankheg

raywind said:

improved haste/protection from undead scroll/energy blades and 10sec and its down

Energy blades give you improved haste, do they not?

raywind

Not sure but anyways its a win

ZanathKariashi

Polfmorph Self: Mustard jelly for form 1 (run away while he's talking after beating him down) and prep for phase 2), Spell Immunity: Abjuration, IH (optional), and pound form 2 with Melf's Meteor's (if you're going for an early game kill, otherwise use Energy blades).

Shrimp

But if he's high enough level to use Energy Blades... couldn't a Deva do all the work for you? And IIRC, Dragon's Breath should work as well: demilichs aren't immune to level 10 spells, and don't have any elemental resistance (why would they, no elemental spell or weapon could hit them - prior to ToB... an oversight, really).