Fair dragonslaying

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Almost every tactic I have tried to kill dragons seem to be cheesy. Any ideas for a hard but fair fight? I've got the whole lot in my party, tanks and magic, so feel free to give ideas.

 

- Summon some creatures.
- cast Haste and Resist/Remove Fear on summons and everyone who can fight.
- Send everyone who can fight + a mage forward
- When Combat is started, charge in with everyone.
- When dragon has some buff spells on, cast a spell to remove them.
- Keep hacking, he dies in 5 rounds. (for me at least)

 

You wanna make it hard for yourself?
Talk to the Dragon without using any buffs, sommons beforehand.

Enjoy.

 

Nah, nah... use all teh buffs you can. After all it is reasonable to expect to need them if you see an ancient red before you

So... All the buffs you can get, greater malision and lower resistance and then offensive is not cheesy at all.
Try to decide whether you want the dragon hacked or devastated by magical fury. Then attack it appropriately

And try to keep everyone busy at all times. Even if its a mage hurling bullets

 

Try to protect one character extremely well, and get the dragon to focus on killing that character. If it works right, the dragon will only attack your one protected character, while the rest of the party can attack relatively safely.

Watch out for wing buffet though. If your tank goes out of sight, he might switch targets.

 

Summons won't work on a dragon. They just cast death spell.

 

...Which they have only one. (I.E: summon skeletons, send one forward, and say good-kiss-good-night to the dragon )

Even easier way to kill a dragon: buff against his element, cast stonekin, let him whack the stoneskinned char while others hump his back.

Easy way to get a new suit for yourself (did it to Firkraag today, with only lv 9 characters)

 

The only real problem in "fair" dragon slaying is the ******* wing buffet. To avoid it's worst effects make sure your tanks have a wall at their back that is closer to the dragon then your mage(s) is/are. My biggest problem was getting my tanks to close in again on the dragon after the buffet before he started to chump on the non-meleers. I must admit I only killed the shadow dragon (in my first run through) in a "fair" way and my mage(protagonist) just managed to give the last damage just before the attack of the dragon that would have killed him. Aside from the main character, only Viconia survived (thanks to which the others got revived) I also had with me Jaheira, Minsc, Keldorn and Imoen. After several "fair" tries against Firkraag in the same game I gave up and since then everytime I see a dragon, I kill him with Chromatic Orb.(still want to give them a decent chance)

 

When ever I fight a dragon I tend to have Keldorn in my party. He casts that lovely dispell magic and removes all the dragons buffs, meanwhile my character, Minsc and whatever other tank I have keeps on chopping, with Aerie and whoever dropping spells on the drago's head.

 

I find the most 'fair' way to fight a dragon is sword against claw. Grab yer' most magical weapons, get your mage to cast breach on him then pound away with your cleric on steriods/speed.

Other times I try mage vs. dragon and go crazy on the Greater Malison then finger of death him Rather funny watching a dragon fail his death save and die from 100% health.

 

You want a fairer fight? Get tactics and improved firkragg. As for the other drags? Buffs are ok, and summons are too, but dont do **** in the dragons vision. Cause thats cheesy, I think he would realize your getting ready to fight if you start summoning skeleton warriors, and blessing your party.

 

I find I can usually kill the Dragons without many fatalities just by being careful. Keep your main fighter and mages back, send in the middle ground people to get hit by Wing Buffet, then as soon as they are charge in there with the big guns. It works most of the time, with or without summonings.

 

Try beating Improved Firkraag on Insane with a lvl 13 Blade. Now that's a tough fight.

 

The best way around to kill a Dragon is by melee. Get your fighters to their full potential and have the mages and clerics buff your party the instant the fight begins, and charge those fighters in.
Have the spellcasters summon something (not at the same time) so the Dragon can have something to hit when the fighter get winged-buffeted. Summons like Mordenkainen's Sword, Mountain Bears and The Aerial Servant can work wonders against most dragons.
When the party-enhancment/defensive spells have been cast, have the spellcasters cast Lower Resist on it (Two to Three times) before bombarding it with offensive spells.
In the end, everyone should be a)Hacking away b) Casting away c) Firing away until such time that you are winged-buffeted away.
Rinse, Repeat.

I don't know what your definition of "fair" is, but casting Finger of Death is fair. So what if the Dragon dies in one hit? Cheesy, but still fair. Too bad he wasn't immune to it.
Dragons are among most powerful things in the Realms, so you have to rely on other means other than raw power.
Of course, this is the reason why I download Mods - so Dragons don't go down with a Finger of Death the first time round, are to make battles against them more enjoyable.

[ December 17, 2003, 03:24: Message edited by: Scythesong Immortal ]

 

Depends what you call cheese. A trick may be cheesy but quite legitimate. Doesn't it happen in the books too? Anyway. Perhaps you mean killing dragons without abusing the rules.

So:

1. Lower resistance until it drops to 0. Bane. Whatever throw-lowering spells you have. Feeblemind until it works.

2. Stoneskin, ironskin, improved invisibility, mirror image, armour of faith, fireshield, whatever protects you. Buffs - so many as you can get. Draw upon holy might rules. Charge!

 

Your best hopes to kill drags legitamtely is to simply finger of death them. And it usually works as well. To make it happen quickly however, ure gonna need at least 2 mages.

 

a good spell is the 5th level druid spell magic resistance as it will set the magic resistance to the amount the druid is capable of, lowering it if the opponents magic resistance is above this.
The magic resistance lasts for 3 rounds +1 round per level and sets the magic resistance to 2% per level of the caster.

So a 9th level priest could lower the magic resistance of a dragon to 18% for 11 rounds, which is a lot better than could be contrived through a lower resistance spell.

happy dragon hunting

 

While I certainly don't agree with it, there are many that consider that a cheesy tactic.

 

You want to make it hard on yourself? Try my dragon scripts. It makes Firk 10 times harder than Tactics does (right Beren?)

I've always found dragons pretty easy to beat without using Magic Resistance, Finger of Death, or Summons. Lots of magic missiles help, so will Lower Resistance (I've never bothered with Malison). You're going to have a very tough time beating them this way before Chapter 6. Keep your fighters charging at him and start pelting with everything your mages can come up with. Make 100% sure that your mages are buffed up pretty well.

[ Actually, I meant to get back to you on that. I found my own dish of cheese to serve to your Super Firkraag. I'll try to send a PM for details. ] - Beren

[ December 17, 2003, 06:15: Message edited by: Beren ]

 

Firk x 10... No way! Last night I had difficulties beating Shadow dragon with 10/18 lvl solo thief dualled to mage. I know I know, I'm not very good with mages, but I'm still learning. I tried about 6 times before I memorized few lower resistances after which I just threw an incendiary cloud over him and ran around it.
Most hilarious attemp to beat him was when I summoned two skeleton warriors and a horde of rabbits (at that point I didn't know it would be rabbits).