Black Dragon

Ender · Post by **Ender** » Tue Sep 18, 2001 2:40 pm

How the heck do you kill this thing?

THE JAKER · Post by **THE JAKER** » Tue Sep 18, 2001 3:33 pm

do you mean the umar hills dragon or Irenicus's dragon???

If you mean the umar hills one, well, you can consult my thread "shade lord's pet goes down easy" for my strategy for killing Thaxsylvania with a fatigued party with no summons, no good spells, and only a few decent weapons

However, this is not necessarily the ideal way to kill dragons...You haven't said who's in your party or what level they are, but here are some general dragon slaying tactics:

-Use plenty of preparation spells like haste and protection from fear, and potions like strength potions.

-if you're fighting irenicus's dragon cast free action on your warriors so they won't get stuck in entangle.

-call up whatever summons you have before the battle and haste them as well. Try to put them in front of the dragon where the worst attacks will be, while your warriors flank the dragon and attack from behind. Spread out your party to keep the dragon from wasting everyone at once.

-dragons have very good saving throws and resistance to magic, so cast "lower resistance" and "doom" multiple times and "greater malison" once before you waste any good spells. One good trick is to use a cleric to cast "magic resistance" on the dragon before the battle starts.

-dragons CAN be killed with physical attacks from highly enchanted weapons, magic missiles, etc, but often the most successful spells in stopping a dragon are: feeblemind, nature's beauty, and spook - spells that will succeed if the dragons saving throws have been lowered with dooms and grtr malison.

-dragons cast stoneskin on themselves, so if you see them do this hit them with a breach or carsomyr to dispel the stoneskins, otherwise you'll waste time.

Anyway, I don't know if this helps any...I say if you don't lose more than two party members, that's a pretty good victory - it's a DRAGON, after all

Disco Stew · Post by **Disco Stew** » Tue Sep 18, 2001 3:49 pm

1)cast lower resistance
2)cast it again
3)cast greater malison
4)cast feeble mind
5)chunk the dragon with magic missles

Easy.

Aramant · Post by **Aramant** » Tue Sep 18, 2001 7:38 pm

Snares. Ha! I am the Wuss King!

Enigma · Post by **Enigma** » Wed Sep 19, 2001 5:01 am

Shadow Dragon: Let someone from your party (Aerie, Nalia or another mage) cast lower resistance as much as possible. The dragon won't attack you, unless your primary character is a mage and he casts it.
You can just hack away with tanks and with magic. Greater Malison, ray of enfeeblement and other such spells are also great to use.
He can be down in about 1-2 minutes

[ 09-19-2001: Message edited by: Enigma ]

Loredweller · Post by **Loredweller** » Wed Sep 19, 2001 8:06 am

3 skeleton warriors + 1-2 Mordenkainen's Sword + 3 Lower Resistances + 1-2 Bolt of Glory + some MM or MMM = dead dragon.
Just make your summons attack from different sides and place a pair of SW behind him ( there won't be any harm from wing buffet)

[ 09-19-2001: Message edited by: Loredweller ]

Craig · Post by **Craig** » Wed Sep 19, 2001 11:48 am

Cast Insecty plague this goes though almost any thing

Wag · Post by **Wag** » Wed Sep 19, 2001 12:05 pm

SPOILER INFO

Shadow dragon is annoying, I tried the straight-up tactics I killed Firkragg with on it and got creamed repeatedly. After a little bit of thought I came up with this routine which I have found to be highly reliable:

1- Cleric casts Magic Resistance, lowers dragon's resistance to the level where you can land a few spells

2- Mage casts Lower Resistance, dropping the resist most of the rest of the way to zero, do twice if you like just to be sure, also Pierce Magic will lower resists some as well.

3- Cleric/Druid cast Doom, lowering saves by 1 each spell. I land two since they cast quick and stack

4- Mage casts Greater Malison, lowering save by 2 more.

5- Mage casts Finger of Death. Zap, dead dragon.

While this is going on, your fighters should be making the dragon mad and generally attracting attention. Having them souped up with bless, chant, aid, prot. evil, haste, potions of constitution (if neccessary) and heroism, plus a low low AC and acid resistance help a lot. Their job is to distract the dragon long enough for the casters to do their work.

I did this with 2 mages (Edwin, Imoen). You might be able to pull it off with one, but it makes it more likely one of your guys will get killed before you are done, and leaves you no backup mage if the dragon decides to eat one, knocks them unconscious with wing buffet, etc.

To set up, I spaced my 6 guys evenly around the dragon, fighters on one side, casters on the other, then dropped the stone that hides you when you're ready to start the fight.

Xyx · Post by **Xyx** » Wed Sep 19, 2001 1:02 pm

Some more general anti-Dragon tips...

If you don't have ToB installed, send a Wizard Eye up to it before anything else. It'll soak all the Dragons attacks!

Place various summons spaced evenly around it. It'll use the annoying Wing Buffet in a certain direction, so if a summon on the other side gets it, you're safe.

(very general battle tip) Use clone spells, the Sequencers and Spell Trigger (and Chain Contingency if you have it).

Quitch · Post by **Quitch** » Wed Sep 19, 2001 2:09 pm

Lastly, taking a new angle, for those of you who want harder Dragons (come on, those things are generally a walk over), get the Baldurdash patch and then the improved Dragon AI from IEEAIS.

Now that's more like it.

Yuusuke · Post by **Yuusuke** » Wed Sep 19, 2001 3:50 pm

Again, it's tough tell you just exactly what you should do since we don't know anything about your party status.

I'm going to assume that you're refering to the Black Dragon in Sullanesallar. In which case, you probably have alot of kick ass items already at your disposal. The first thing this dragon casts is haste, and it's really a *****. To remedy this, just run up to him with haste and the Flail of Ages to give him a good whack to slow him down. Then use Khelben's Warding Whip, one of the more under-appreciated spells IMO, on the dragon. Keep and eye out to see if he casts Spell Trap, if he does, use Pierce Magic to take that down first before using Khelben's. Then just use breach to strip down Protection from Magical Weapons everytime he tries to put it up. All the while, smashing him with your fighters/melees. Keep one caster outside of the dragon's range, and use that person to dispel your "real" caster if she'he gets hit with Miscast Magic. In my case, it was Jaheira, since she really can't fight as well as the others and her druid spells aren't really all that vital when it comes to dragons. I just used her to dispel Imoen while Imoen was busy casting Breaches on him.

If you're talking about the Shadow Dragon underneath the Temple Ruins, then it's a wild card, your equipment and party make-up can literally be anything. But the general tip for dragons is don't pile a bunch of offensive damage spells on your mages and a bunch of healing spells on your clerics. Use support spells like Pierce Magic, Breach, Dispel, Spell Thrust, fear protection, etc. Use potions for healing instead of clerics and druids. Don't panic, and PAUSE...alot!

[ 09-19-2001: Message edited by: Yuusuke ]

THE JAKER · Post by **THE JAKER** » Wed Sep 19, 2001 4:06 pm

A lot of great dragon slaying advice in this thread. I want to just reiterate one thing from my post at the beginning - Cast Remove Fear on your party before the fight!

There's nothing worse than having one of your crucial people running around like a big idiot when you're trying to fight a dragon! Dragon fights are decided on a second-by-second basis where one wrong move can cost you the whole fight, so take the time to do your preps before hand.

Xyx · Post by **Xyx** » Thu Sep 20, 2001 12:39 pm

Originally posted by Yuusuke:
<STRONG>Khelben's Warding Whip, one of the more under-appreciated spells IMO</STRONG>

Unless you play solo, this thing sucks. You don't need it to Breach stuff, since Breach is totally unaffected by Spell Trap and the like. Neither are Lower Resistance and area spells, for that matter.

UserUnfriendly · Post by **UserUnfriendly** » Thu Sep 20, 2001 12:54 pm

Xyx is a recognized authority on spells, but I think he's a bit off about kelbens warding whip. it seems to do not much, but the way it hits is interesting. when you hit a spell caster, lich, dragons, etc, even with tob installed and the GODLY kevin patch, the creature goes into "raise protections mode. You need to be imp inv and spell immunity from div to see this, but liches in particular keep wanting to put their spell prot us, so for the next few round, they keep trying to raise spell trap, prot from magic wes and other protections, giving your spell caster a feew rounds of free spell casting.

my favorite dragon whomp is dirty as it is simple, but even works with kevin patch. the patch has a few nasty tricks, and tweeks to ai, your summons get death spelled whenever it comes near the dragon. at least with the old soa patch, it does.

my main char is always a sorc, and I've racked up a few kills using thi. hit time stop, greaater alacrity, hit with spell strike and kelbens, 5-8 elemental damage...fire or inc cloud for black, cone of cold for red. this will get him nice and pissed when timestop wears off. hit time stop again, inc acuity and this time hit with 8 abu dahzim. this always wastes the dragon, with maybe one more cone or inc cloud to finsih him off.

Xyx · Post by **Xyx** » Fri Sep 21, 2001 10:44 am

Well, I figure it's like this...

Instead of wasting a slot on Khelben's Warding Whip, I can instead memorize Delayed Blast Fireball (which will toast Liches through any of their protections), Summon Hakeashar (which will suck Liches dry of spells simply by drawing their fire), Mordenkainen's Sword (which will chop Liches to bits after the Protection from Magical Weapons wears off, and draw fire pretty well), or Project Image (which can wipe the floor with Liches on it's own and still summon some Skeleton Warriors for future use).

I'd never use Khelben's Warding Whip to keep Liches occupied when I can practically kill them with another level 7 spell.

Dragons are a completely different story, though. Will they keep raising protections to the extent of attacking and ignoring Wing Buffets and their breath weapon?

Valyissiun · Post by **Valyissiun** » Fri Sep 21, 2001 7:12 pm

*sigh* Romance is indeed dead. Gone are the days of reeling adventures armed with but sword and spirit. No longer there be a thrill of battle, the quickening before the beast. *sigh* Why intrepidly venture long and deep into the sordid lair only to cower behind sortilege? See the drake as you do a fine wine, to be savored too the fullest, not gorged in adolescent flurry. Drink your fill.

Valyissiun

UserUnfriendly · Post by **UserUnfriendly** » Fri Sep 21, 2001 8:30 pm

Valyissiun, dragons are over grown aligators with bad breath, and they never shower. they're worse than korgan after a weekend bender.

Besides, what person in his right mind would take on a dragon with weps that are essentially tooth picks??

ANyway, I think I try khelbens with dragons and demo gorgy,a nd see if major monsters will be more preoccupied with trying to raise defenses than with what it should be worried about, your sorc or mage.

Xyx, I do have to agree with you about delay action fireball, but have found that with tob, quite a lot of major bosses will gate in or be in the room already with deffenses up! My goodness, the first time I saw the black dragon in watchers keep, I naturally hit with inc. cloud...you know, the one that is one of the tests and is already hostile. he already had some energy defense up! Did squat to it, so I hit with shield breakers and hit with a massive abu dahzim volley under time trap.

sometimes, you need shield breakers, and it feels pretty bad to have none. But I agree about most cases, mugging the bugger is best.

I also notices most of the heart seal crew comes in with spell prot up and hummin. in my first trap detonation only got one bugger, and the messages told me the rest were almost unaffected. luckily I had cast a few inc clouds just in case, and retreated behind my sorc with cloak of mirrors and aerie with shield of baldy.

my philosophy is simple when it comes to spells. have them, and keep for rainy days.

at least the ones that are not useless....

but this tiem around, strictly for torture purposes i got ray of enfeeblement and contagion... plan to try out kovi's trick on chromatic demon...

Valyissiun · Post by **Valyissiun** » Fri Sep 21, 2001 9:45 pm

*sigh*

Well, Korgan single-handedly brought down Firkraag. The little Jugernaught beserked'in wielding Horthgar +3, covered by Anomen, protected by Dragon's scale Shield and Helm ..and perhaps the most valuable asset when it comes to facing a drake toe to toe - balls.

'Twas a glorious battle to behold, almost as precious as when he sank the same bloody Axe into Aerie’s neck. - Id never heard an Avariel wail like that

Valyissiun

[ 09-21-2001: Message edited by: Valyissiun ]

THE JAKER · Post by **THE JAKER** » Fri Sep 21, 2001 10:03 pm

Originally posted by Valyissiun:
<STRONG>perhaps the most valuable asset when it comes to facing a drake toe to toe - balls</STRONG>

Well said...

Valyissiun · Post by **Valyissiun** » Fri Sep 21, 2001 11:35 pm

..the roleplayers are revolting!

Valyissiun