Hey there.

I am trying to collect words of power and I was directed to find one in the ruins of Ragnvald. This is by far, the toughest dungeon I have attempted to clear.
It is harder than Hag's End was, it was harder than Labyrinthian, this one takes the cake. All dungeons before this one were easy/moderate in difficulty. This bad boy is impossible.

I knew I was in trouble when the "basic" enemy found in the ruins were Draugr Wights, I am level 10, so when I fight 2-3 of them, I am chugging health pots. The ruins then have 2 mini bosses that were a fight to the death for me.
After each I had to leave the ruins and resupply... something I have never had to do before. My companion was only remotely useful, when she tanked a few hits, etc.

I slugged through it though, determined to get that word of power. I am now at the final obstacle, the dungeon boss. It is a powerful lich, almost identical to the one I fought in Labyrinthian on another file. He does tremendous damage, two bolts of lightning and I am dead. He has a whopping amount of health, we slug away at him and we take a quarter of his health.

This is the most epic enemy I am grateful to fight. Realizing my inability to win a standoff, I change my strategy to incorporate the dungeon in creative ways. There are spots of fuel on the ground which I did not use earlier and a path of swinging blades that are still working. My plan was to wake the lich up, whomp him as much as I can while he is finishing his "hey guys, I am leaving my coffin now" animation, fall back to the fuel, try to poke him with whatever limited damage I have (warrior class), ignite him while on the fuel and then duke it out, using the swinging blades as a retreat point.

I thought it sounded like a decent plan, so I execute. I get him down to about half health with the fuel and my attacks before I realize that he is REALLY strong. I chug my last pots and barely make it to the retreat point alive. I have a few useful words of power, such as ethereal movement, so the blades won't hurt me, so I can keep them moving forever.

The lich camps outside of the swinging blades, hoping I will pop out and he will blast me with the final lightning bolt, but I am too cautious and he does not get a clear shot. He gets greedy and decides that a few blades won't hurt him, so he runs right into them, they tear him up. For how much damage, I don't know, wasn't close enough to tell. He falls back though realizing he cannot get to me.

So now I've been fighting this guy for maybe... 20-25 minutes. Then something awesome happens.

When he gets below 40% health, the game freezes. Always. This is not an isolated incident, it happens every time. Every time I retry killing him, it freezes. It is like his ultimate weapon. When he knows I got him, he freezes Skyrim.
I've never fought an opponent who was literally impossible to kill.

Sorry for the long story, I'm sad.

You called?

No, but really, either use a lot of potions or just come back later.

"Freeze Skyrim" is a very powerful spell that only Bethesda can counter.


I was fighting a dragon near Riften last night and just as I was about to land the killing blow, the game closes and shoots me back to the Desktop.



Luckily, I just reloaded the last save and the Dragon was still there and I was able to kill him without any issues.

There are definitely some annoying bugs in this game.

If this is the one that was locked up in a blue bubble, he was hard fro me to, i was just hiding form distance and spamming all creatures i could make with my staff collection.

...hags end was hard?

Lol I now read to the bottom.

My brother was having a similar problem with the main quest. He said he eventually had to restart with a new character

i just walked in and 1-2 hit killed all the witches inside (lvl25 warrior)

Some things are leveled higher than you on purpose.. your not meant to defeat it yet. Go elsewhere level a bit and comeback. The good thing about leveling now that you've been in the dungeon is the level will be locked to whatever it is now. So if you come back at say , level 30.. you'll feel all that more awesome when you one hit the guy that you couldn't originally kill at all.

Well here is the thing, it isn't the level that is beating me. I can wittle him down and eventually defeat him, given enough time. Which I don't get because the lich can freeze my game.

This is the whole point.

Sometimes actually reading a thread before responding is a good idea. At the very least, read the first post!

You should use spoiler option or go into the section where you are allowed to post spoilers.

Ragnvald iirc that's Dragonpriest Otar that you are fighting wich drops a awesome heavy helmet
Did him around lvl 15-16 as a warrior 1h/resto, im not sure if the fight is different but atleast on master what you really need to look out for is the lighting that he leaves on the ground, aka u have to move out of it.
Beside that u just interupt his 'channeling lighting' with shield bash or unrelenting force shout or power strike or combination of the above.

And the game freezing is weird, does it also happens when he's near his "spawning" location when he reached 40% ?

I like how only one of the above posters actually read the whole OP. If you're on xbox you could try clearing your cache or the other generic xbox fixes. Other than that I don't really know how to help.

Confused at how you've seemingly done so much but are only level 10? My new guy is 13 and has only cleared 3 bandit camps outside Whiterun and not done any other questlines. Hags End I didn't get to in my first character till she was 37 or so and she one shot the boss.

Definitely agree with coming back later with more perks and equipment if you're struggling. I tried to kill Knevel four times. Each time I was dead within moments, even at level 25. Then I came back at lvl 35 and killed him in three shots. Had a bit more tactics too that time though.

Hes level 10.

Being stronger wont' do jack [censored] for the game freezing up every time he tries to fight the boss.

That amount of people that don't read the OP on this forum is staggering.

Thats sounds all too difficult to me. I used to kill all caster type bosses just by turning into a werewolf when i was at those levels. Including dragon priest. They just cant seem to do anything against a werewolf. You can knock them around with the power attack for the whole fight. They cant cast even once if you dont miss with the attack. And you can sprint away very fast to recover if you fail. You will just have to survive the other things before the boss.

I'm a 360 gamer, and have not had a crash yet. Only one interesting glitch relating to passing through the invisible doors.

But I haven't encountered any dragon priests yet. There's just too many other things to kill/do, dammit.

Even if he could attack the thing with impunity, how's he supposed to stop his entire game from freezing up when he lands any significant amount of damage against the boss?

Unstoppable attacks don't do any good when the game itself locks up.

Please read the OP's actual complaint.

You're not meant to, but kick his ass anyways. It's fun ^_^.

Unless he uses the CTD spell of course. Then you're [censored] until Bethesda nerfs it.

SPOILER..SORRYI DON'T KNOW HOW TO PUT THAT SPOILER BUTTON

did the same one mate i had to go become a werewolf to beat him then he is easy

I did actually. But it seems to me he does all this weird stuff around the dungeon trying to kill it. Maybe the game freezes because of that. Im not a game designer or a coder, but its worth a try at least.

A dungeon you can't beat on level 10?
Hell yeah! At least something in this game isn't scaled. Gonna move there with my character now

I haven't done this one yet
but I do remember another word of power hidden in a very similar dungeon (as some guy asking me to help him defeat some ancient power using some vessels with blood or something)
draugr wights and deathlords everywhere
so I just ran trough the room got the word of power and vessels and got my ass out of there XD
could work for you if the word of power is reachable