How to dispel combat protections?

[Bruce Lee]

I am playing a solo sorceror now. I thought I'd try it out since everyone says it is so hot. Question is: How do I dispel prot form magical weapon and mantle and the like on liches?
Also how do I kill clay-golems and magic golems?
I haven't gotten that far yet but I would like to be prepared, i.e. choose the right spells.

[bjornsemb]

Melfs minute meteors works on golems but it will take some time and stoneskins might be needed to defeat them...

[Silvanerian]

Fireshield Red also work against golems - and seeing they don't have that many hitpoints, a Mirrorimage, Stoneskin and a Fireshield should do the trick. Or you can use your boots of speed and do run around hitting them with Melfs Minute Meteors.

But with the non-clay golems you can use summons.

And if you really don't feel like wasting a lot of energy on a synkope golem, just go invisible and move on. I don't think there's any golem that actually needs to be destroyed.

As for the liches: be advised that they're immune to all spell levels below 6th. But Khelbens warding whip should work.

-Sylvanerian

[Loredweller]

Regarding golems - Melf Minute Meteors work very fine on them. There is +4 staff in Ribald's shop, +5 sling in CC (bonus merchant). You can also consider some Lower Resistances + Disintegrate.

As for liches - IMHO you should relay on spells level 6 and more.

[UserUnfriendly]

My tech, which I plan to try out later, is based on a whole lota forum shadowing and reading up on just about every damned mage tactic on the forum.

Mantle and prot from magic weps lasts only 4 rounds, just wait it out.

to kill liches if you do not have delay action fireball, is to summon skellies, then send them in waves. first wave gets munched by symbol death, the rest make it and will keep the lich busy while you use melf or whatever.

inc cloud is best lich killer ever, will consistantly disrupt lich spell casting in soa nd tob.

[Kovi]

You can't Breach the combat protections from the Lich. You can wait until it wears off or use higher weapons (Mordenkainen's Sword is still effective against Mantle and Melf Minute Meteors is still effective against Absolute Immunity). But it is better to have some higher (>=6) level attack spells (like Abi Dalzim) against them.
MMM and Stoneskin/Mirror Image is perfect against Golems any time. You can also use Polymorph Self (Gnoll) against the early "non-Clay" golems. Unfortunately the Mustard Jelly's 100% resistance is in piercing, not in crushing. In later fights you can use Mordenkainen's Sword (don't use other summons), which can kill the "non-clay" golems and hold the others while you pound them with MMM.

[Bruce Lee]

Okay thanks for the tips. I don't have fireshield red but I do have MMM. I have also bought the rod of smiting nad actually killed a few golems in melee. I have reached a fairly high level now, meaning I have timestop and improved alacrity. I have to say wow! Everything goes down so fast, except claygolems... I hate claygolems, next time I am gonna play as a claygolem.
I haven't reached ToB yet but the latter part of SoA will be very easy.
Is there any way to keep summons from hitting claygolems?
Quite often when you encounter golems you get a couple of clay ones and a couple of stone ones and maybe an Iron or adamatite one. I want to keep my summons from hitting the clay golem and concentrate on teh other ones but I cannot seem to control that even if I turn off party AI.

[Xyx]

Liches are innately immune to level 1-5 spells, so they cannot be Breached. They're also immune to lightning damage, so Chain Lightning won't affect them either.

Easy way to deal with combat protections: have someone with the Boots of Speed run in, trigger the Chain Contingency, then run away. Liches move very slowly, and you can easily keep out of its sight for four rounds, which is all it takes for Protection from Magical Weapons to wear off.

[Bruce Lee]

Xyx, Yes that is a good tip but i like tro stand my ground. I think it is a bit cheesy to be immune to the only spell that gets rid of combat protection and to be immune to normal weapon and then cast prot from magical weapons.
However i found that it is really easy to kill them with spells.
With a high level sorceror almost all battles are won with just one casting of project image.

[Bruce Lee]

Btw Xyx, really good spell guide you have got. I read it and I think that my spell selection ended up to be really good. I haven't got any save or else spells and you really don't need them.

[UserUnfriendly]

Except finger of death, that is possibly the only decent save or else spell, along with chromatic orb. orb is low enough so you can have it for fun, and finger, in a timestop with greater malison and lower resist are good solid hitter. I also like disintegrate, for the sheer amusement factor.

I like having a few, but not in the incredisbly important level 7, where by far the best spells seem to live, and I keep finger only cause its like a part of a sorcs dignity, you know the part of the sorcs innate sense of dignity, what kinda sorc would you be if you have no spells that flash, bang and obliterates your enemy with a gesture? mass effect spells are the bread and butter of the working sorc.

[Bruce Lee]

Yeah disintegrate is kinda cool but I opted out on that one aswell. I do have one save or else spell, I have chromatic orb... sorry.
I am all for the mass destruction spells. Skull trap seems to be one of the most effective ones, and my own mirror image seems to prevent me from taking damage which is useful.
The flashiest spell in the game could be power word kill, however I didn't pick it, I thought about for a long time but then I got Imprisonment instead.
For anyone interested here is my spellbook if you are not interested then don't read beyond this point)
Level 1
MM, Chr orb, Identify, Burning hands, spook(oops another save or else)
Level 2
Blur, Mirror Image, Knock, Resist fear, Melfs acid arrow
Level 3
MMM, Skull trap, haste, minor spell deflection, remove magic
Level 4
Stoneskin, Wizards eye, Spider spawn, Improved invisibilty, minor sequencer
Level 5
Lower resistance, breach, animate dead, spell immunity, minor spell turning
Level 6
Death spell, true sight, conjure fire elemental, prot from magical weapons, mislead
Level 7
Project image, Mordenkainen's sword, spell sequencer, mass invisibilty, rubys ray of reversal
Level 8
Horrid Wilting, Power word blind, Simulacrum, Spell trigger,Incendiary cloud
Level 9
Chain contingency, timestop, Imprisonment, Spellstrike, whish
I have as you see removed the cap and have just hit level 40.
Any comments?

[Xyx]

An excellent list, I think. Only the Ruby Ray of Reversal and Spellstrike have me puzzled. You only need those to cast your Magic Missile, Burning Hands, Chromatic Orb or Spook. Would be odd if you were to use a level 9 spell simply to cast level 1 spells. The Skull Traps, Horrid Wiltings and Power Word Blinds go straight through all that Spell Trap cr@p because they're area spells.

[Kovi]

Nice choices. I agree with Xyx though, that you might not need (so many) protection removals. If the opponent has Spell Immunity and you want to cast just from that school or he have a Spell Turning/Trap and you want to Imprison, it might worth to keep the Ruby Ray. But on the 9th level you could use something different eg. Shapechange.
I think two minor spell turning/deflection is also a waste (especially because neither can protect from Maze/Imprisonment). Keep the minor spell deflection, but use Sunfire on level5.

[ 11-25-2001: Message edited by: Kovi ]

[Bruce Lee]

Aha thanks, i didn't know about power word blind being an area spell. So you are saying that I don't need any spell protection removals at all. Then I could get spell turning instead of ruby.
Thanks for the advice!
I read somewhere that melfs minute meteors could be used to remove spell traps and such. Is this true?
Perhaps it was in your guide I read it Xyx.

[ 11-25-2001: Message edited by: Bruce Lee ]

[Bruce Lee]

Okay I used SK to change my spell list... call it cheating but I strive for perfection.
I only use Imprisonment on clay golems so I took away both ruby and spellstrike and added spell turning and shapechange. Adnd also I replaced conjure fire elemental with tensers transformation( I believe I need this for shapechange to be effective) and replaced minor spell turning with sunfire. There are not so many good spells at level 5 imo.

[Kovi]

Yes, MMM is good to "remove" any protections at a speed of 15 level/round (5x3) if all meteours are hit. You could remove spell trap within two round, but you can't use it with Project Image (as PI can't attack).

[Bruce Lee]

But you can use it with simulacrum. I found that at higher levels simulacrum is better than project image. I am at level 40 and that means my simmie is at level 20 and has acces to all the level 9 spells!!
Only thing is takes longer to cast simulacrum then project image.
Anyway thanks for the help, I am on my to greatness now with this character. Best I have played so far.