buffs for liches

[King of Nowhere]

long story short, my main enemies at the moment are a party of 20th level liches (the campaign reached high level). I decided that one of them is a cleric specialized in buffing his team. he's got the fell energy spell feat (buffs affecting undead are increased by +2), and with a party of undead he should make extensive use of it.
On the down side, most buffs are for hitting stuff in melee, and nobody in this lich party has that kind of build, leaving me with few useful spells.
Prayer is the first option, with fell energy spell it would give +3 to saving throws, always useful.
then I have divine agility, it's a nice buff to AC and reflexes, useful because the party martials hit hard.
But I know of no other useful buff spell.

I'm looking for some suggestions on what buff spells I could prepare with this guy; especially spells that synergize with fell energy spell.

[Kaleph]

Made some quick research, here are the suggestions:

- aid, mass (temp HP)
- adept spirit (various spellcasting bonus)
- azuth's spell shield (SR)
- desecrate (various bonus to undeads)

[Melcar]

long story short, my main enemies at the moment are a party of 20th level liches (the campaign reached high level). I decided that one of them is a cleric specialized in buffing his team. he's got the fell energy spell feat (buffs affecting undead are increased by +2), and with a party of undead he should make extensive use of it.
On the down side, most buffs are for hitting stuff in melee, and nobody in this lich party has that kind of build, leaving me with few useful spells.
Prayer is the first option, with fell energy spell it would give +3 to saving throws, always useful.
then I have divine agility, it's a nice buff to AC and reflexes, useful because the party martials hit hard.
But I know of no other useful buff spell.

I'm looking for some suggestions on what buff spells I could prepare with this guy; especially spells that synergize with fell energy spell.

Epic Spell Reflection (Ritual)
Eternal Freedom (Ritual)
Widen Anticipate Teleportation, Greater (Permanent Emanation)
Heightened, Widened, Selective Temporal Repair (Permanent Emanation)
Selective, Widen Spellbane (PF) (Chose 9 spells) (Permanent Emanation) (antimagic field, Forcecage, Otiluke's telekinitic sphere, mordenkainen’s distjunction, orb of acid, 4 spells left)
Foresight (Permanent)
Haste (Permanent)
True Seeing (Permanent)
Detect Magic (Permanent)
Read Magic (Permanent)
Dragonsight (Permanent)
Eyes of the Avoral (Permanent)
Deeper Darkvison (Permanent)
Detect Scrying (Permanent)
Widened Battlemagic Perception (Permanent)
Rune Delver’s Fortune x3 (Permanent)

Crafted contingencies:
Heightened Harm on self at 75%, 50% and 25% health
Elminster’s Evasion at 30 or below hit points.


Make sure to use the lich from Monsters of Faerun, since it contains more interesting options and special abilities which really enhances the lich

[Oberron]

Check out my guide

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?586132-Fell-Energy-Spell-For-the-copperpinching-Necromancer-wanting-buff-undead

It's devoted for buffspells with fell energy spell. Clerics have a lot of good options.

[King of Nowhere]

Check out my guide

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?586132-Fell-Energy-Spell-For-the-copperpinching-Necromancer-wanting-buff-undead

It's devoted for buffspells with fell energy spell. Clerics have a lot of good options.

your guide has at least one mistake. It lists (greater) magic weapon and vestment as good spellls for fell energy, but it does not apply, because they are spells that target the weapon or armor, not the undead wearing them.
shield of faith is a nice way to get another +2 deflection bonus over a ring of protection +5, but everything else is either for hitting people, or it is already covered by 20th level equipment. fell energy barkskin would be another useful buff, if any of the lich was a druid.
Unfortunately, it seems there isn't much stacking with fell energy that is of use to a party of high level undead casters with full equipment.

[Segev]

Fell energy greater resistance would be a +8 resistance bonus to all saves, pre-epic, for an undead target. That's something, at least, that any character can use, not just melee beatsticks.

The cleric should maintain an altar to his god that is carried around like the Ark of the Covenant by his minions, and keep widened fell energy desecrate on hand to cast on it. Also, he DID make sure all of his buddies were transformed into liches in the AoE of a fell energy desecrate with that altar sharing the AoE, right?

Greater consumptive field benefits interestingly from Fell Energy, because it gives discrete packages of bonuses (unlike, say, greater magic weapon, which gives one bonus dependent on CL). Each dead victim thus grants not +1 to Str and CL, but +3.

Your party does have a half-dozen or so Slaymates that hang out with them, of course. Sure, not all spells that benefit from Fell Energy are necromancy, but those that are benefit from a number of metamagic feats not costing higher-level spell slots!

Look into undead lieutenant. I forget if its increased number of HD of minions it lets you control is listed as a "bonus" or not.

[King of Nowhere]

The cleric should maintain an altar to his god that is carried around like the Ark of the Covenant by his minions, and keep widened fell energy desecrate on hand to cast on it. Also, he DID make sure all of his buddies were transformed into liches in the AoE of a fell energy desecrate with that altar sharing the AoE, right?

Of course. though I did houserule that the +2 from fell energy would apply after the *2 from the altar, not before, leading to +4 hp/hd instead of +6.
There is a fine line to walk between having competent, well prepared villains that will make for memorable challenges, and having cheesy villains that get the rules applies in their favor every time/get benefits that the pcs are forbidden. i decided to draw the line there. For that reason I also curtailed the CL-increasing sheanigans, otherwise (greater) consumptive field would have been great.

Oh, since we're here, an additional inquiry: ever since those liches were revealed as major enemies, the party cleric has been preparing lots of mass heal. Is there some ways the liches can protect themselves against it?

[Segev]

There is a fine line to walk between having competent, well prepared villains that will make for memorable challenges, and having cheesy villains that get the rules applies in their favor every time/get benefits that the pcs are forbidden.My usual solution to that is to let the PCs do it, too. :smallcool:


Oh, since we're here, an additional inquiry: ever since those liches were revealed as major enemies, the party cleric has been preparing lots of mass heal. Is there some ways the liches can protect themselves against it?High will saves? Though that only halves, barring splashing odd classes to get the fort/will version of evasion whose name left my brain just as I tried to type it.

It's a level 9 spell; he can't have THAT many.

I'd suggest decoys. Normal skeletons dressed up to look like the liches, sent out to bait out the mass heal spells. Heck, illusions might work, depending on if the PCs are cautious with their divination magic.

I believe there's a magic weapon enhancement that renders somebody immune to specific spells, but that's getting a bit...tailored.

[Kaleph]

My usual solution to that is to let the PCs do it, too. :smallcool:

High will saves? Though that only halves, barring splashing odd classes to get the fort/will version of evasion whose name left my brain just as I tried to type it.

It's a level 9 spell; he can't have THAT many.

I'd suggest decoys. Normal skeletons dressed up to look like the liches, sent out to bait out the mass heal spells. Heck, illusions might work, depending on if the PCs are cautious with their divination magic.

I believe there's a magic weapon enhancement that renders somebody immune to specific spells, but that's getting a bit...tailored.

The weapon is the spellblade from the PGtF; although is reasonable that a lich has one, there are a bit too many dangerous spells they could be afraid of (the first one being heal, since it's probably more common/cheaper than mass heal).

Anyhow your idea with decoys is really nice. Maybe couple it with projected image/trickery devotion? At least if they have time to prepare...

Coming back to protection spells, positive energy protection (3.0) and protection from positive energy (3.5) may help. The former is better, but I guess the latter supersedes it.

Another way to avoid the damage is to increase the spell resistance. Azuth spell shield (3.0) seems ok, but you have to check if it was updated.

[King of Nowhere]

My usual solution to that is to let the PCs do it, too. :smallcool:


that's my usual modus operandi. But the PCs can't be liches, so I can't apply it in this case :smalltongue:



It's a level 9 spell; he can't have THAT many.

He's got 2 spells for being level 18, plus 2 for a +14 to WIS, totaling 4. And then I let the pc casters have 10th level spells, hoping to entice them into trying metamagic stuff (the casters are casual players; half the time they let someone else pick their spells); this gives him two more 10th level spells, and guess what he did with them? two more mass heal.
Of course he also has a greater rod of quicken, so combat against those liches, as far as the cleric is concerned goes like that: mass heal, quickened mass heal. Is it my turn again? Mass heal, quickened mass heal. Is there someone still standing? Mass heal, quickened mass heal. Even with good saving throws, and even with DR 30 against positive energy (you can get DR 30 against elemental damage, I figured getting the same against positive energy wouldn't be a problem), it's still 120 damage per round.

I'm not blaming the players, it's a very sensible strategy against liches who are otherwise immune to almost all other effects, have massive damage resistances, and AC above 50.

I forgot about spell resistance, it's a 5th level spell for clerics, and I can use fell energy on it, giving those guys SR 34.

Not that buffs are going to be of much help, when the wizard took the archmage arcana to cast a spell as spell like ability two times and applied it to disjunction, twice. So the wizard is not disjunction, quickened disjunction. Is there something that's not disjoined? Disjunction, quickened disjunction. Again, not blaming them because it's effective; the liches themselves have done it.

[lord_khaine]

Your party does have a half-dozen or so Slaymates that hang out with them, of course. Sure, not all spells that benefit from Fell Energy are necromancy, but those that are benefit from a number of metamagic feats not costing higher-level spell slots!

Yeah.. well having more than one around.. and you start getting into trouble with explaining why.
Or worse, flying PHB's

[Kaleph]

that's my usual modus operandi. But the PCs can't be liches, so I can't apply it in this case :smalltongue:


He's got 2 spells for being level 18, plus 2 for a +14 to WIS, totaling 4. And then I let the pc casters have 10th level spells, hoping to entice them into trying metamagic stuff (the casters are casual players; half the time they let someone else pick their spells); this gives him two more 10th level spells, and guess what he did with them? two more mass heal.
Of course he also has a greater rod of quicken, so combat against those liches, as far as the cleric is concerned goes like that: mass heal, quickened mass heal. Is it my turn again? Mass heal, quickened mass heal. Is there someone still standing? Mass heal, quickened mass heal. Even with good saving throws, and even with DR 30 against positive energy (you can get DR 30 against elemental damage, I figured getting the same against positive energy wouldn't be a problem), it's still 120 damage per round.

I'm not blaming the players, it's a very sensible strategy against liches who are otherwise immune to almost all other effects, have massive damage resistances, and AC above 50.

I forgot about spell resistance, it's a 5th level spell for clerics, and I can use fell energy on it, giving those guys SR 34.

Not that buffs are going to be of much help, when the wizard took the archmage arcana to cast a spell as spell like ability two times and applied it to disjunction, twice. So the wizard is not disjunction, quickened disjunction. Is there something that's not disjoined? Disjunction, quickened disjunction. Again, not blaming them because it's effective; the liches themselves have done it.

Disjunction may be a risky spell, since it has a huge area. How big is the place where the fight takes place? I guess using the environment to your advantage (either keeping the liches very close to the PCs, or scatter them in a vaste area) is fair game. A less fair game is using a ring of spellbattle.

[Segev]

Yeah.. well having more than one around.. and you start getting into trouble with explaining why.
Or worse, flying PHB's

I don't foresee trouble explaining why. "They're useful and travel-size."

What? Evil necromancer!

And the liches are NPCs, so the DM is hardly likely to hurl a PHB at their player.

[Oberron]

your guide has at least one mistake. It lists (greater) magic weapon and vestment as good spellls for fell energy, but it does not apply, because they are spells that target the weapon or armor, not the undead wearing them.
shield of faith is a nice way to get another +2 deflection bonus over a ring of protection +5, but everything else is either for hitting people, or it is already covered by 20th level equipment. fell energy barkskin would be another useful buff, if any of the lich was a druid.
Unfortunately, it seems there isn't much stacking with fell energy that is of use to a party of high level undead casters with full equipment.

As already discussed in the guide fell energy spell doesn't care what the target of a spell is just what the bonus affects. No mistake there.

Also barkskin is target living creature.

[RNightstalker]

I'd suggest decoys. Normal skeletons dressed up to look like the liches, sent out to bait out the mass heal spells. Heck, illusions might work, depending on if the PCs are cautious with their divination magic.


How would you mask them as decoys? Wouldn't a simple Knowledge: Religion check see through it?

[Segev]

How would you mask them as decoys? Wouldn't a simple Knowledge: Religion check see through it?
If they stop to make the check. For each group.