Beating Lich Legit?

[GrandMajora]

How the heck do you do this fight, without going over the spending cap on your gear?

The amount of money you have to spend while still getting the trophy is ridiculously small compared to how powerful the Lich actually is. This is a level 8, extreme difficulty encounter, and the amount of gear you need to just not get two shot by him straight off the bat is enough to put you over the budget.

[GrandMajora]

Only strategy I can think of, would be to have one melee fighter loaded up with all the gear you can afford, then have the other 3 party members be dedicated spell casters and spam the Lich with their strongest spells.

[Atlas0042]

i beat him with 4 identical monks. not even kidding.

[GrandMajora]

Originally posted by Atlas0042:

i beat him with 4 identical monks. not even kidding.

I'm planning to use MONKS for the Loot Only Run achievement.

But this LICH encounter is horrendously broken. I can not find any way to actually defeat him, while staying within the 4,400 gold budget.

[Sentient_Toaster]

With spells... what, at level 8, you should have Expert in the class DC and +4 from the casting stat, for +16. Your reflex save if you're a rogue, is +18 (dex +4, +14 from master and level 8); +1 item more for resilient, for 19. OK, you could get a +1 status if you have a Bard using Inspire Defense, for a +20.

Lich's worst save is Fort +17 (+21 reflex, +23 will), and it's got an AC of 31 and a spell DC of 36. Even the rogue has a rather good chance of failing that save vs. the chain lightning and not benefiting from evasion (would need a 16+).

Outside of... uh, getting really lucky and somehow landing a Stupefy (good luck with that +16 vs +23), or.... hm, is Superstition Instinct barbarian in, with the remastered version of Mage Hunter? (Good luck landing a critical hit to disrupt as needed by the legacy version).

Yeah, this is pretty brutal.

[Velensk]

Lich fight is very tough. However, noticing a couple things will make it easier.

1: Once sent into attack mode, he'll start at the top of it's highest level spell list and work his way down in order. He's also entirely willing to blow his big AoE spells on a single target. This means that you can trigger him and then bait out his spells one vs a single party member at a time matching best saves to effects while having a healer hidden out of LoS to keep him up. Even better with a few bottled omens to give you advantage on the rolls and/or other buff spells to mitigate the incoming damage.

2: Much of the difficulty getting good positioning comes from the difficult terrain. Potions of leaping are a very cheap way to mitigate that issue and make it easy to trigger attack mode and get back early.

During the period where you're baiting out spells you can do chip damage with a highly mobile ranged attacker by moving out of cover, shooting across the pond and then moving back out of LoS. Once you have gotten past all his nastiest spells, a team of a grappling monk and rogue can actually beat him down surprisingly quickly.

[Sentient_Toaster]

There's a magic item that summons wolves to attack, right? I was wondering whether that would be useful for baiting out spells, hah.

[SpyreX]

If you can survive the first few rounds of lightning, I had good luck with 3 clerics and just healspamming 3 action heals, chipping away and just trying to land a good fighter hit when I could.

[GrandMajora]

Originally posted by SpyreX:

If you can survive the first few rounds of lightning, I had good luck with 3 clerics and just healspamming 3 action heals, chipping away and just trying to land a good fighter hit when I could.

I tried using the Tiefling ancestry feat to give two of my party members resistance to electricity damage. Didn't exactly help, since they were a Wizard and Sorcerer.

[SpyreX]

Overall (and especially for the lich) I've been underwhelmed by arcane versus the others, especially divine. I'd lean heavy healing and give it another shot

[GrandMajora]

Originally posted by SpyreX:

Overall (and especially for the lich) I've been underwhelmed by arcane versus the others, especially divine. I'd lean heavy healing and give it another shot

I noticed in the shop that you can buy 10th level spell scrolls. But they cost 8,000 gold each. Given how the budget limit for this fight is 4,400, I'm assuming those scrolls aren't meant to be used if you're trying to earn achievements.

[⎝⧹Quirken⧸⎠]

Originally posted by SpyreX:

If you can survive the first few rounds of lightning, I had good luck with 3 clerics and just healspamming 3 action heals, chipping away and just trying to land a good fighter hit when I could.

this is how I did it... I tried a number of other builds, and nothing else I tried could overcome
his stupidly high AC and saves. I tried various stuff with Monk, Strategist Dedication, etc... nothing could hit the guy because of his 32ish AC.

That, and the stupid chain lightning that can easily cause a party wipe due to chaining.

Party of 4 clerics, using the feat that gives d10 for Heal dice, 3 action heal spam every turn. Pretty easy victory that way. 2-heal action he'll just save against.

[Sentient_Toaster]

...yup, four Cloistered Cleric healbots worked.

I used Potions of Speed and Flying just to be able to approach easier and still use the full three actions. I had party members going down from crit fails and one got Dominated while the lich fairly often crit-succeeded vs. the heals, but... when just about all your spell slots are heals, it was enough.

[GrandMajora]

Originally posted by Sentient_Toaster:

...yup, four Cloistered Cleric healbots worked.

I used Potions of Speed and Flying just to be able to approach easier and still use the full three actions. I had party members going down from crit fails and one got Dominated while the lich fairly often crit-succeeded vs. the heals, but... when just about all your spell slots are heals, it was enough.

"Be GAWN, Foul Spirit-uh!" - Chaotic Good Barbarian