I'm curious how other groups handled this lich. Our group ran right past him, literally. The ranger, warlock, and swashbuckler while buffed with haste, ran right past him with not but a wave, leaving a bewildered lich behind. We then used message to tell the clerics and duskblade to buff and run , to meet us. They had to take some aoo form some summons but all in all, the lich was a non factor.
My players just finished this chapter a couple of weeks ago.
The party fought a lot of the summons, but the lich refused to come out of that energy field, so the PCs decided to run by him and head up the stairs (to the final room).
The lich was fine with that for the time being, but then went up after them a short time later to see what was happening, a little worried that these newcomers (who seem a little on the goody-two-shoes side of things) might actually succeed at the test and start futzing around with the Skull (and thus his research).
The PCs just completed the test, and the one who is now lord of the plane threatened the lich - who decided it wasn't worth a fight and bugged off (since at that point he was relatively low on spells anyways) and wasn't sure how powerful the Smoking Eye dude just became...
Was pretty fun, and the PCs getting to verbally threaten a lich (and make it meaningful (something they've never done in almost 20 years of gaming) was a great accomplishment for them.
My players just finished this chapter a couple of weeks ago.
The party fought a lot of the summons, but the lich refused to come out of that energy field, so the PCs decided to run by him and head up the stairs (to the final room).
The lich was fine with that for the time being, but then went up after them a short time later to see what was happening, a little worried that these newcomers (who seem a little on the goody-two-shoes side of things) might actually succeed at the test and start futzing around with the Skull (and thus his research).
The PCs just completed the test, and the one who is now lord of the plane threatened the lich - who decided it wasn't worth a fight and bugged off (since at that point he was relatively low on spells anyways) and wasn't sure how powerful the Smoking Eye dude just became...
Was pretty fun, and the PCs getting to verbally threaten a lich (and make it meaningful (something they've never done in almost 20 years of gaming) was a great accomplishment for them.
Our ranger became the smoking eye dude and he spoke with the litch and said, don't cause any trouble and you can stay.