Black Dragon Trouble

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Dragons definately aren't overrated, they are the strongest monsters in the game. Everytime I fight a dragon I do so at least level 14 with GREAT equipment, and I put on all the buffs I can, and I always end up losing aparty member, (which I res in the middle of the battle and restock his weapons ), or I have to reload because the dragon killed my main char or too many party members.

 

Dragons are only easy when you've been through the game a few times and know how best to defeat them. You know what the black dragon is going to try because you've fought him before so you can adjust your combat to take advantage of his weaknesses. If you were just wandering along one day and he jumped out from behind a particularly tall tree at you, he'd take you down without even breaking into a sweat.

Who in all honesty can say they beat Firkraag the first time they ever fought him? I know I didn't. My first time through the game I never managed to kill him at all. The first fight ended in the space of ten seconds when he breathed fire on the party. The second ended after twenty seconds when he breathed fire on the party then whacked the PC with his claws (no fire resistance spells alas). I did better on subsequent attempts and I seem to think Minsc even got him for a truly damaging critical - alas, a second later Firkraag stomped him (and poor Boo!) into the ground.

Yet knowing what Firkraag is like, I now have very little difficulty in beating him. Haste the entire party, set snares around the evil dragon, stoneskin on my fighters, mages at the ready with pierce magic and lower resistance. He falls with no problem.

 

I recently slaughtered the shadow dragon with a level 11-12 party with no problems at all.. Positioned everyone with Aerie in one end, having negative energy protection at her since he for some strange reason always breaths it at her, and only her. Mazzy at the side hailing arrows from the Tansheron (sp?) bow, Jan casting a few breaches along with aerie, my PC fighter running around twacking around with Lilarcor, Minsc with two maces+3 IIRC, and Valygar with two katanas landing the wery first blow in his back.

The backstab seemed to fail though, but he fell swiftly, with only my fighters loosing a few HP from his claws. I find no cheesing in that, since the wardstone renders me invisible to him so i can buff up my characters as i wish before i take him on. Mazzys inside courage, a improved haste scroll at my PC IIRC, and all other standard buffs, bless, aid, chant, etc. Piece of cake. A few reloads since he kept blasting Aerie with his breath untill I figured it was negative energy protection that would do the trick.

 

The backstab failed because IIRC dragons are immune to backstab.

And beating the shadow dragon first time is different than beating Firkraag or the black dragon. The shadow dragon is easy. Even I managed to beat him the first time I met him and the first time I played the game I was pretty damn awful (Minsc and Yoshimo got butchered by a skeleton warrior and when the PC ran to help them I mistimed a fireball and killed him as well).

Anyone here beat Firkraag or the black dragon or Adalon the first time they fought them? I doubt it.

 

Dragons have blind sight 60-120 feet I believe, so if you're invisible it doesn't matter, they'll feel/smell your position. And yes, I beat the shadow dragon without even thinking my first time... he wasn't so hard, I just had my fighters attacking and aerie/anomen casting restoration

 

personally i have only tried the shadow dragon one time, and i beat the snot out of him, i didn't think i could take him with a group of lvl 9 chars, but i tried neways, and we tore him up cuz all he did was follow aerie and chase her down, so the rest of my team equipped slings and bows and shot the crap out of him while he ran in stupid circles after aerie, although that may have just been a momentary glitch, it worked well for me, and firkraag is no sweat, i just use protection from evil radius 10' and then use the biggest demon summon thing, the large like 4-6 armed thing that is under noones control, thats also how i take out the silver dragon, it saves time

 

If you're at the stage where you can summon a Pit Fiend (which I assume is what you mean by "the biggest demon summon thing, the large like 4-6 armed thing that is under noones control") then of course you're not going to have any trouble with Firkraag. You've already gone over the XP cap in SOA and so nothing much in the game is likely to pose much of a challenge for you.

Try him again with a party of 12th level characters and see if you find him such a pushover.

 

yes this is true, however, firkraag is only trouble when you are stupid like i was the first time i fought him because i had a party of lvl 9's and i was terribly overmatched, i didn't even use any defensive spells, just ran in and started wacking, i lasted all of 20 seconds. But besides that point, the shadow dragon is still easy as pie, i believe it may have been a slight glitch that he followed aerie like he did, but he still is not much of a problem for me even had he not done that.