Help - in the middle of a fight vs a Lich

[Artanthos]

Mathwei ap Niall wrote:

Roran Strax wrote:

That's terribly uncreative and short minded. Why play an RPG instead of a video game if there's not some creative measures allowed?

Oh, so you want your GM to have the next creature you fight to politely chop off your arm/jaw now? The no decapitation or called shot to remove limbs is there to protect the players more then the monsters. Once you all put that on the table expect your GM to start removing parts from you now.

It's a game and it's there to keep it a game.

This

I've been on both sides of the table when this happens. It kills entire campaigns and breaks groups up. It is simpler to stick to RAW or house rules that are agreed upon before the campaign starts.

[Old Fighter]

So to bring some closure to my story, here's what happened.

The Lich stood as a move action and then tried reading his scroll again, which again he failed. Dunno what game mechanic the GM was using. The AoO this provided the Fighter allowed him to attempt to sunder the material components pouch (attack missed).

The DPS fought the air elementals. The Wizard managed somehow, with some combination of spells, to teleport nearby.

The Fighter grappled the lich.

---

The Lich used paralyzing touch which the Fighter resisted, and then drained his life. The Ninja came over to the Lich. The Wizard summoned a celestial triceratops... Some kind of triceratops. The rest of the DPS fought the elementals. The Fighter pinned the Lich's hands.

---

A whirlwind elemental followed the ninja to the lich. The lich again tried to paralyze the fighter and failed, and again death touched. The ninja used a special attack to push the lich into the whirlwind. The rest of the DPS fought the elementals. The fighter chose to hang on and got sucked in too.

---

The lich again tried to paralyze the fighter and failed, and again death touched. Chaos reigned. Dps fought things. Wizard waited for an opportunity.

---

Seemingly many rounds of the lich trying to paralyze and death touching while the two grappled opponents were in the whirlwind. Everyone was unsure what to do.

---

Eventually the lich paralyzed the fighter, got out of the whirlwind, paralyzed the ninja and generally started to F the party up. The DPS goes nuts on him. The triceratops charges him.

---

The lich uses expeditious retreat. The rogue and the monk stay with the disabled fighter and ninja to guard them. The wizard chases the lich into the darkness.

---

The lich turns around and polymorphs the wizard. The wizard rolls a nat 1 to resist the poly, and a nat 1 to resist having his intellect changed into the int of the new form. The wizard is now a bunny. The lich picks up the bunny and goes back to his tower.

---

end of the night.

Thanks everyone for your input. We didn't win, but it wasn't a total party wipeout.

[aegrisomnia]

Old Fighter wrote:

Stuff

Wow. Didn't see the fight going like that. Sounds like you did great, though, so there's that. Always nice when the "god" wizard gets turned into an adorable house pet. That said, you'll probably need to get some help if you plan on beating two liches... who know you're coming... probably a caster or two.

Still, good job on your part - you couldn't have done any better.

[Mathwei ap Niall]

Glad your GM went light on you but your party is still pretty much destroyed. The fighter is permanently paralyzed and the wizard has lost his mind and all his spellcasting ability. Without a HIGH level caster joining you like right now you have no chance. The fighter will die in about 3 days without someone coming to release him from the paralysis and even if you could free the wizard he'll need at least a day to recover all the spells he lost from being polymorphed (and I believe the spell the Lich used was baleful polymorph which is NASTY!)

A monk, rogue and ninja could MAYBE sneak into the lich's tower to recover the bunny but have no way of undoing the effects on these two and considering how far from town the party is it's really unlikely they can get help in time to prevent the fighter's death. Ugh.

[Old Fighter]

Mathwei ap Niall wrote:

Glad your GM went light on you but your party is still pretty much destroyed. The fighter is permanently paralyzed and the wizard has lost his mind and all his spellcasting ability. Without a HIGH level caster joining you like right now you have no chance. The fighter will die in about 3 days without someone coming to release him from the paralysis and even if you could free the wizard he'll need at least a day to recover all the spells he lost from being polymorphed (and I believe the spell the Lich used was baleful polymorph which is NASTY!)

A monk, rogue and ninja could MAYBE sneak into the lich's tower to recover the bunny but have no way of undoing the effects on these two and considering how far from town the party is it's really unlikely they can get help in time to prevent the fighter's death. Ugh.

Yup. We have no way ourselves of un-paralyzing the Fighter or the Ninja, and very little hope of rescuing the bunny, and no way ourselves of un-polymorphing the bunny back into a wizard.

We do have a support structure though, and we may be able to get help from NPCs who are friendly to us. But... over the next week people will be thinking about how to move forward. Maybe some people will re-roll.

A complication is that, if assuming the fighter is un-paralyzed before he dies, then he will insist on rescuing the wizard after we recoup. "No one gets left behind".

And that just leads us into a worse situation.

[Velix Okah]

Rule 1: Always bring along a cleric.

[Artanthos]

Old Fighter wrote:

And that just leads us into a worse situation.

An average day for the adventurer, "We survived. Let's find something tougher."

[Titania, the Summer Queen]

Um this is one of those times the wizard should of realized he forgot he left the stove on when he heard there were two lichs and not one cleric.

[Scott Wilhelm]

What were your fighter's grappling feats and abilities? I really like grappling. I have made more than 1 character that would have shut down most liches in 2 rounds.

My preferred tactic in r/t would be to surround the lich and keep readied actions against spellcasting until your fighter has a chance to grapple, then you all lay on.

The 1 magic dweomer your party should really want to have is Antimagic Field.

[Kayerloth]

Wowser
If there's no divine caster I'd strongly think about someone in the group picking up and investing in UMD.
The idea of the Lich picking up the bunny is a bit amusing ... how did the Lich not scare the living daylights out of the bunny and end up chasing it all over the place if for no other reason than his fear aura.
Why will the Fighter be dead in a few (3?) days? Some ability the Lich used I'm left thinking (and probably related to PF specifically).
Your Wizard has a bonded object rather than a familiar I'm gathering.

[Serious Frog]

That was about what I expected to happen. I had high hopes the wizard was going to do some nasty damage....The fighter went down fighting awesome. Ninja...well he did too. what an interesting story. Would like to hear where this goes.

[Mathwei ap Niall]

Kayerloth wrote:

Wowser

If there's no divine caster I'd strongly think about someone in the group picking up and investing in UMD.
The idea of the Lich picking up the bunny is a bit amusing ... how did the Lich not scare the living daylights out of the bunny and end up chasing it all over the place if for no other reason than his fear aura.
Why will the Fighter be dead in a few (3?) days? Some ability the Lich used I'm left thinking (and probably related to PF specifically).
Your Wizard has a bonded object rather than a familiar I'm gathering.

Whether he scared the buny or not is unimportant, the lich is flying at 60' while the bunny is stuck moving at 50 across the arctic plain (difficult terrain), lich will catch the bunny easily and it's paralysed as soon as it's touched.

A paralyzed character can't eat or drink so will die on average in 3 days by dehydration.

[Artanthos]

I would assume characters of this level will manage to pay a cleric to cure their friends before they starve.

[yeti1069]

Artanthos wrote:

I would assume characters of this level will manage to pay a cleric to cure their friends before they starve.

They may be too far away from such a cleric to succeed. And starving isn't the problem, it's thirst--you can go a long time without eating anything, but a few days without any water will kill you.

That...was quite the fight. Reading the first half of that, I felt like your GM wasn't really playing the lich to his full potential (I'd imagine such an intelligent character wouldn't continue to try a strategy that has repeatedly failed), but it seems to have worked out in the lich's favor nonetheless.

[Kayerloth]

Mathwei ap Niall wrote:

<snip> ...

Whether he scared the buny or not is unimportant, the lich is flying at 60' while the bunny is stuck moving at 50 across the arctic plain (difficult terrain), lich will catch the bunny easily and it's paralysed as soon as it's touched.

A paralyzed character can't eat or drink so will die on average in 3 days by dehydration.

LOL yes game mechanics-wise the Lich is faster and but needs a touch ... and the bunny probably has a very short life expectancy if not an Arctic Hare if the Lich doesn't catch him

As for paralyzed you die in 3 days I was just checking to make sure there wasn't some RAW for this that I was unaware of. While not an unreasonable assumption (dehydration/starvation) it is also just that a GM judgement call, this isn't real paralysis it's a supernatural and magically induced effect of a Lich so who the heck knows just how long the victim might actually survive (plenty of wiggle room for the GM to allow 4 or 5 (or longer) days for the victim to get help ... maybe the party hits the character(s) with a healing spell(s) daily or what not etc. etc..

[Ishpumalibu]

Arctic plane means ice, water shouldn't be an issue.

[yeti1069]

Ishpumalibu wrote:

Arctic plane means ice, water shouldn't be an issue.

I believe the assumption was that paralysis would extend to things like the character's esophagus, meaning that they cannot swallow that water, and pouring water into someone's mouth who can't swallow is liable to drown them.

That said, if we are to assume that level of paralysis, why not also assume that the victim's cardiovascular system is also paralyzed? In THAT case, death will come in minutes, rather than days, as the victim ceases both to breath and pump blood.

Given that the lich's paralyzing touch doesn't seem to imply THAT outcome, it may be safe to assume that the paralysis also induces a sort of stasis "Anyone paralyzed by a lich seems dead, though a DC 20 Perception check or a DC 15 Heal check reveals that the victim is still alive."

So, probably don't need to worry about eating or drinking.