Aaargh. I thought BGII had too many of these guys in it, and now I've found one in HotU on the Golem Island.

How do you defeat someone who seems to have unlimited access to every spell and is immune to everything? I can't get him to less than 'Barely Injured'.

I have a Wizard 14 / Rogue 2 / Arcane Archer 5 with Valen and Deekin.

Heh, i probably shouldnt be writing, since i've always had problems with those guys. I only encountered them a few times and struggled through those. One was OC - the same one you're fighting against. At the time i had a dex monk with kamas. I suppose i simply bashed through him.

The other was on a module in multiplayer. Played a wizard, something like lvl14 at the time. Luckily, i was adventuring with a sorceress. As Demilich is simply immune to spells, we really, really struggled, but eventualy found a way. Using summons to make him waste his spells and surviving that long. Then he attacks in melee. Low attack bonus but high damage. What did enable two of us pure arcane casters to destroy him was Mestil's Acid Sheath. 2x lvl acid damage everytime he strikes. Sorceress held him of, while i went away and rested with as many of Sheaths i could memorise. Then i simply let him hit me. Note that he uses Harm Self at least once, when his HP's are low enough. Being undead, it's like full heal.

Third time was a shifter and easiest of them all. Seems like Demiliches damage reduction is somewhere along the lines of y/+x, so as long as you have more than x enchantment on your weapon, your physical damage goes through. Epic Manticore has a freaky +20, from it's 5/+20 damage reduction. While it's not strong overall, it's still an awsomely effective weapon against the likes of Demi-lich, when you cant even scratch them otherwise.


Enough of my babbling now :heh:

Valen should be able to deal some damage to him, i'd think. IIRC, there's also some undead/construct specific items on the way down. A demilich isnt that hard to hit, Deekin could try to use one of those weapons. You, yourself probably wont be much of use. Summon things to distract him and waste his best spells on them, while you and your guys stay back. When you do attack, yourself attack first with lots of Spell Mantles memorised, to reduce his offensive power. After all, he's still only a lvl21 wizard with CR28.

Most of all, try to wear him down. Learn what spells he casts, how he behaves on ranged combat, how on melee. Running still is the best technique of them all ;)

Interesting. I'll give it a try. In BGII, you just used Keldorn to Dispel everything but it seems more complicated in NWN.

How does he actually manage to kill you? If properly equipped, you should have large enough saves so damage-dealing spell do not connect. Use a Shadow shield (lev 7) so you are protected against negative energy (Abu Dazim and such). Make sure you have protection for evil cast on party members (gives +2 to saves, and immunity to mind spells). Make sure Deekin sings (also make sure that he used all his spells before entering combat, so he does not get any great ideas like casting balagarn's iron horn or such :) ).

So the lich should not be able to kill you easily. How do you kill him: well, obviously spells won't work (your wizard level is kind of low). Since you use an archer build, you probably are not able to deal enough damage to matter. So you have to rely on Valen. Make sure he has a decent weapon (I took Nathyra as a henchman when I played, so I don't know what Valen uses by default) so he can deal some damage. You can cast a greater magic weapon on him (grants +4 enchantment to weapon in main hand) if this would help. Anyhow, I suspect that the reason you are not able to damage the lich is not so much damage resistance, but spells like greater stoneskin. Have a couple of greater spell breach memorized (and a couple of lesser spell breach). By that level, Deekin should also be quite proficient in melee fighting. If the three of you succeed in surrounding the lich, he should be toast easily.

OK - sounds like Greater Spell Breach must be the answer because the main problem is that we don't seem to be able to scratch him, even bull-strengthed Valen with his great flail and four attacks per round. The only damage I ever managed to do to him was with my fireball arrow (go the Arcane Archer) and a couple of times when he failed to resist an empowered Magic Missile.

Greater spell breach also reduces magic resistance, so you might have more luck with Magic Missile or Isaac Greater Missile Storm. Also, Gothmog mentioned acid damage; if you have arrows with acid damage, you might try using those (physical damage won't go through a stoneskin, but elemental will).

So does Greater Spell Breach have a saving throw or spell resistance factor, or is it guaranteed to always work?

No saving throw or magic resistence is taken into account. On the other hand, it does not dispell all protection spells; the description says "strips an enemy mage of up to four magical defenses". So there is an element of chance.

Actually, if you have problems with the spell resistance of enemy creatures, you could try casting both a greater spell breach and a lesser spell breach, for a total of 5+3 = 8 reduction in SR. Then your spell most probably would connect. I'd still go the melee variant with the lich, though.

It is funny, I don't remember that lich posing much of a challenge. I think I died once (to a summoned water elemental and its instant death attack); but typically spellcasters use stupid spells like Weird, Meteor Swarm and chain lightning, which I can simply shrug off.

Strange, how can you affect him with magic missiles?

As much as i seem to recall, the problem wasnt Spell resistance, but complete immunity to spells.

I think i'll go and check one out with a wizard right now.

EDIT:
Yup, tried taking one on with a wizard. Complete spell immunity, from 1 to 9.
Seems like the one in OC is a somewhat weaker version of it.

The maker is not immune to spells 1-9, in fact the easiest way to drop him is either IGMS or Heal.
He has however a spell resistance of 32. Also: 100% immunity to cold, electricity, 50% to piercing, slashing, partial fire, acid, sonic reduction and damage reduction +20/ soak 10.
So use blunt weapons and try M's Disjunction scrolls (if you have UMD healing scrolls).

If the game becomes too frustrating you could always use the DebugMode to relevel and drop the AA.

I definitely managed to get an empowered magic missile past his spell resistance but only once. What makes the missile storm any better?

It's a storm of missiles :D - if used against single creatures (with no other targets presents) all of them hit that creature. 2-3 empowered IGMS and 99% of the time the recipient is dead (the other 1% having magic damage reduction or spell immunity).

Oh, so this spell still has still get past his damned spell resistance.....

Mordenkainen's Disjunction lowers the SR by 10, try using a scroll.

Cool! Greater Spell Breach did the trick, after which Valen beat him up and Magic Missiles finished him off.

But even better than that is that I now have a pet Golem that follows me around! It's just as cool as the pet Flesh Golem in Icewind Dale II, although I haven't heard it say anything yet.

I wonder how long he will hang around for and whether he will be much help.

I think it sticks around until it's dead. Once it's dead you can't bring it back.

I'm glad you're having fun with your Arcane Archer, HB, but I'm not fond of your build. I think this fight shows its weaknesses. 1) your wizard levels are too low to get past anything with half decent spell resistance, which is ALOT of critters in the Underdark. In addition your damage dice aren't very good.

2) as an archer you're not so hot and if you face anything with piercing resist (like a Demi Lich) you're screwed. Fireball arrows? Please! You'll be facing plenty of fire-immune enemies in the battles to come.

I think the best builds are ones that are focused on doing one thing really well. Want to be a powerful archer? Fine, but focus on that from the beginning, taking only 1 arcane caster level to qualify for AA and focusing on skill with the bow. Want to be a caster? Fine, but focus on that from the beginning so that by the time you are fighting a spell resistant, damage resistant, element resistant monstrosity, you'll have the firepower to kill it.

If your build is a little of this and a little of that; a little bit of "hmmm... think I'll take a level of AA for the heck of it..." you're going to get beat up real bad by some of the tougher denizens of the Underdark. The good news is Bioware included insanely powerful loot in this campaign and even a pet golem!

The pet golem has been pretty awesome so far. He and Valen just carve through illithids like butter. He's amazing - I'm not sure that he has even been damaged yet. It helps that illithid mind powers don't affect him much.

I agree with your comments re this build, but I hate making characters just so they can be the most powerful ones possible.

Arcane Archer doesn't really add that much to a wizard. Yes, wizards tend to run out of spells quickly, but they are also much more succesful at meleeing the weaker mobs then with a crossbow. With Flame Weapon, Bull's Strength, Keen Edge and the overpowered equipment you find in HoTU a wizard can dish out enough damage, while at the same time thanks to protective spells rarely gets damaged himself. And if, they are always Elemental Shield and Mestil's.

Exactly.

Arcane archer tends to work with 20+ levels. They tend to be either 23 or 29. There are monk/wizard/AA's (wis path) and fighter/wizard/AA's (dex way).
There's also some freakish RDD/bard/AA's, if you have access to high end Mighty longbows (+10 and more).

Well, at this point in the game, it doesn't seem to matter, because my golem is doing all the work for me. He's got to be one of the most overpowered 'items' in the game.

Actually, the most overpowered henchman can be...
Deekin if you tell him to level up as an RDD until he reaches 10 levels in it.
The kobold that conquered Underdark :D

Aren't you supposed to use dimplomacy on the mindflayers? :D

And enjoy your golem while you can. Just wait til you get to the undead citadel. The 'boss' there will shred it to pieces.

And another side note: Don't use that dark elf women as a henchman. She is utterly useless in fights. First, she protects herself with spells (what takes her a very long time) and then stands there doing nothing.

Aren't you supposed to use dimplomacy on the mindflayers? Are you? They and their thralls all just attacked me (and my Golem) so I never had a chance to talk to any of them - other than the Elder Brain.

My Golem is now carving his way through Beholders.

I believe you can use diplomacy on the mind flayers. They only attacked me when I got into an argument with the guard of the Elder Brain's place. Were you wearing the helmet that blocks their psionic powers? If you arent I believe they will eat your brains first chance they get.

I agree about Deekin. I got him all the RDD bonuses, gave him a strength belt and a morningstar (which he wields as a 2 handed weapon for an additional 50% strength modifier to damage :D ). He did loads of melee damage, although he was still fairly fragile. Not so ready to dismiss Nathyrra, though. I had her level up as a wizard, giving her an intelligence helmet so she could cast all her spells. By the end of the game she was summoning dire bears, buffing herself up and then sneak attacking from behind Fergus (my Blackguard) and Deekin. She wasnt amazing, but she was certainly a better complement to my Blackguard than Valen would have been. Unfortunately there seemed to be some manner of bug with her, because there were a couple of times when she died after what seemed to be some kind of prolonged death attack, usually from undead, and when I ressurected her she would just stand at the entrance to whatever area I was in and refuse to follow me or participate in battle.

Just started a soon-to-be Paladin 2/Sorceress 8/Arcane Archer x, so I'll have to look out for this golem you speak so highly of, Harbourboy, and hunt out the demi lich. I must have missed a lot last time I went through.

[ January 17, 2006, 00:09: Message edited by: Will ]

Were you wearing the helmet that blocks their psionic powers? If you arent I believe they will eat your brains first chance they get. What helmet? All I know is that no mindflayers were ever available to talk to. I had to fight them all. I thought that was what was supposed to happen: fighting your way to get in to see the Elder Brain.

The Golem is really a bit too powerful. Even Valen sometimes doesn't get chance to get a shot in, because the Golem can crush a mindflayer or beholder in one hit.

When you enter the ilithid caves, you are supposed to met a party of duergars. Before they attack you, they have a conversation where they tell you that merchants visiting the ilithid should wear some special helmet to protect them from the ilithid's psionic power. Obviously, they carry such a helmet :)

If you equip that helmet, the ilithids will speak with you, (you have to pretend you are a slaver), and you can actually convince them not to attack the Seer (well, you have to give them an artifact of power; you also have to forgo freeing their slaves, so I don't know if it's really worth it). If you are not wearing it, the ilithid will attack you on sight, I suppose.

possible spoiler below
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By the way, I do not know if you're aware that after you finish three quests (of the five available), returning to the Seer will trigger the Valsharess' attack. So if you want to finish all five, don't go back till the end.

you can actually convince them not to attack the Seer (well, you have to give them an artifact of power This still sounds like the same outcome that I got from killing all the illithids, even though it wasn't deliberate.

Oh, I see. I assumed that if you start killing the ilithids, the brain won't be willing to make a deal with you.

Anyhow, the ilithids are not such fearsome oponents that you need to worry about them taking the side of the Valsharess. They are welcome to the fight :) . Playing as a good character I would much rather free their slaves and kill the brain.