Spell Casting Failure

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Well in my travles through Amn I have noticed something that is bothering me. I just got done fighting with some of the liches in Athkatla, trying to get as much exp as possible before I go to Suldanesselar. (I already have the Lanthorn)
Well what's troubling me is when I'm fighting these liches, I'll get text saying "Lich: The spell has failed." These battles with these liches are pretty hard to keep up with what's going on, with them casting spells, and Nalia, Aerie, and Imoen casting spells at the same time. So when it says the spell has failed does it mean we interrupted the Lich and his spell failed, or one of the spells we cast on him failed because he is resistent or whatever.
It really confuses me because the Liches cast Time Stop and it says "Lich: The spell has failed" and its in the middle of a Time Stop. How can we be interrupting the Lich or doing anything to him if we are frozen in time. Ah confused, confused.

 

Just a guess..but it could be that before the time stop went into effect the lich got successfully hit with something like miscast magic--that causes an 80% chance of spell failure and last for several rounds.

 

Yeah Aerie has that spell, but it was not memorized, plus I turned party AI off, so they don't do things without me telling them to. I thought back to see if I had poisoned them with one of my weapons and that was causing it, but no that's not the case either.
My main concern is when it says "Lich: the spell has failed" does that mean I through some means caused him to fail his spell or a spell I cast on him failed to do anything?

 

My understanding (which could be faulty, I guess) is that the message means one of the Lich's spells failed. When I, or my party casts a spell that is unsuccessful, the message is something like "magic resistance" or "casting failure". Perhaps you had some other spell or action that was continuing to disrupt his casting over time. "Melf's Acid arrows" or "Insect Swarm/Plague" or maybe even "Greater Malison" (not sure if that would cause spell failure or if it's limited to saving throws).

Now I think about it, I'm not real sure my first thought "miscast magic" continues for more than the one round anyway. But you say you didn't cast it anyway. Hey, maybe he was just having a bad day and losing spells thru nothing you did. Wow, what a concept!

 

IIRC, one of the lich's defensive spells failed. How that would have happened is beyond me, unless maybe you had a Nishruu on him or something

 

OK I thought it meant that his spells were failing but I just wanted to be sure. I remember using Bolt of Glory and Sunray and Khelben's Warding Whip on him before he cast Time Stop, could any of these have costed him to fail his spells? Sunray has a chance of blinding the target, but blindness affects AC and hit rolls. Hmmm, oh well I'm not complaining, just curious.

 

No. A message "Lich: the spell has failed" means that he is resistant or protected and you didn't get him. If you interrupt a lich it would say "Lich: Casting Failure". There is also another type of message: "Lich: Casting *any name of spell*". That means it cast something. Every other message deals with how that spell affects your chars.