Tactic advice needed for red dragon

Nae'run · Post by **Nae'run** » Mon May 13, 2002 12:03 am

I'm playing BG2 for the first time, and I'm a paladin! I have heard of the two handed paladin sword, and where it is. But I'm getting sick of my failure against the red dragon (Firchrag or something like that) So I wondered if any of you had a little advice for me???

Tamerlane · Post by **Tamerlane** » Mon May 13, 2002 12:17 am

You could always use the guide from Game Banshee

Heres the link

Sojourner · Post by **Sojourner** » Mon May 13, 2002 12:25 am

Have your mage memorize several Lower Resistance and Breach Spells. Before the battle starts, buff your party with Fire Protection, Remove Fear, Chaotic Commands, and Chant. Your mages should have StoneSkin. When you approach Firkraag, spread your party out. Summon some monsters to help out, if you wish.

When the battle starts, have your mages immediately nail Firkraag with Breach, a couple of Lower Resistances, and Greater Malison, while your tanks hack at him. Have them back off and heal as necessary. Sometimes Firkraag will focus on one party member - you take advantage of this by running him around while the rest of the party pelts Firkraag with missile weapons and spells like Magic Missile, Spook, Acid Arrow, Lightning Bolt, etc.

Nae'run · Post by **Nae'run** » Mon May 13, 2002 1:00 am

And down it went

And now for my beatyful paladin sword...... Thanks

UserUnfriendly · Post by **UserUnfriendly** » Mon May 13, 2002 3:28 am

try having every mage in party hit him with spell sequenced spooks...-7 or so to save, at high levels, will render him completely helpless...have immie whack with butter knife of balduran, for laughs...

Perroxx · Post by **Perroxx** » Mon May 13, 2002 7:04 am

kinda out of topic, but what's the "butterknife of Balduran"... ?

smass · Post by **smass** » Mon May 13, 2002 8:53 am

User is referring to the "Sword" of balduran - which is available from the bonus merchant in the collectors edition.

dolonjha · Post by **dolonjha** » Mon May 13, 2002 9:23 am

Firkragg

You know what I did?
I left the bugger alone first time around .. and completed the Winspear section .. then I went off and completed several other quests till I got good fighter levels and deadly equipment like Mace+3 and Staff of Rhynn and dragon slayer stuff.
Later in the game I paid the bugger a visit .. and made my best fighters with all fireproofing and dragon slaying quipment (which you will have found in teh Winspear area earlier ) encircle him neatly, invisibly, magic protected, blessed, aided and made the most weakling in the party go up to talk to him and simultaneously made the others blugeon and slash away furiously at haste speed. The fool had no clue .. the speaker kept him busy and all the others cracked away.

Believe it or not Firkragg collapsed without once turning blue cirlce into red!! I was sooooooo thrilled .. got the Carsomyr out of it.

Nae'run · Post by **Nae'run** » Mon May 13, 2002 9:28 am

Thanks dolonjha! I think I will try that the next time I meet a dragon... I lost to many HP, and two of my NPC's died (Thank god for the raise dead-spell)

frogus · Post by **frogus** » Mon May 13, 2002 9:43 am

once you start 'fake-talking', it's difficult to stop. Every time you have to fight someone solid, a little voice will come into your head 'faaakke talk him...faaaake talk hiiimmm..... (This ruined my third time through the game so much that I stopped at level 14

). I would advise against it...

dolonjha · Post by **dolonjha** » Mon May 13, 2002 10:10 am

Fake talk

You know what .. this "fake talk" does not always work .. like it did not work so much with the shadow dragon .. he turns red soon as you approach it .. so the idea there was to get the first crucial blows and breach and remove spell protections etc thrown before the deadly creature keeps making my team unconscious and flying out at great speed. But they recover fast.

The other danger of fake talk is .. sometimes a helpful character with quest can get wiped out .. so I always save and check out which are the buggers that are going to turn hostile and then go at them. And fake talk uses a lot of concentration because if you slip up and not notice that you have failed to engage him he can deal out a crucial blow.

But I pretty much love using it ..

Frogus .. What hassles happen at higher levels? Pleeese tell me .. because I am a regular fake talker?

Astafas · Post by **Astafas** » Mon May 13, 2002 10:19 am

Re: Fake talk

Originally posted by dolonjha
You know what .. this "fake talk" does not always work .. like it did not work so much with the shadow dragon .. he turns red soon as you approach it ..

Probably because you don't have the stone that makes you invisible to the Shadow Dragon. You get it from the sprit of the little girl whose bones you find in the room north of the entrance to the ruins.

UserUnfriendly · Post by **UserUnfriendly** » Mon May 13, 2002 2:13 pm

install balderdash patch...this will remove temptation and fix a lot of bugs tooo....

smass, the butter knife of balduran is a lootable dagger from bg 1....

often referred as the ultimate weapon of bg1 in a joking sense...

if you manage to spook a dragon, and keep it spooked you can have aerie pound away in meelee and still kill it...

no magic, no heal, no breath, just a really big target,,,

have you tried natures beauty???

perma blind and then encircle, whack away...

Bruce Lee · Post by **Bruce Lee** » Mon May 13, 2002 3:49 pm

It is always a good idea for a low level party to kill dragons with ranged attacks.

gregatkins · Post by **gregatkins** » Mon May 13, 2002 4:30 pm

Cloudkill him

Keep out of his range, then sit back and launch 8 or so cloudkills from the wand that you get from the lich at the city gates. Run some fodder around Firkraag to keep him from casting heal spells, instead he'll be busy wing blasting them and casting defensive spells that he'll forget how hurt he is and *argh* . .he's dead.

island007 · Post by **island007** » Mon May 13, 2002 5:03 pm

Hi

For a nice challenge. When you first get down there, stop. Summon a weak creature like a wolf or something. Walk forward to you see the mage, stop. Have weak creature tap the mage, he should go red. The walk forward and the dragon will be red with all protections on. Then fight the dragon and the mage with no cheese (traps, cloudkill, etc.). Excellent fight!

BG2 made the dragons to easy.

Thanks

The Z · Post by **The Z** » Mon May 13, 2002 9:03 pm

For me it took a lot of tries, but a combination of lower resistance and feeblemind worked well for me. I didn't use magic a lot when I went through the game (I know...I missed a lot) and I was wondering...could you put those two spells in a contingency or spell trigger?

UserUnfriendly · Post by **UserUnfriendly** » Mon May 13, 2002 9:17 pm

try the sola patch improved dragons, or for a slightly smaller challenge, patch with balderdash...any summons get death spelled, and will turn dragon hostile, any magic cast in sight will turn dragon hostile, with sola mod they go hasted, cast stone skin and deathward befoer you come into view, and open up with breath weapon....seriously nasty, pre attack elemental buffs are a must...if you install bladerdash patch, well...

prot from elements and prot from energy no longer stack, so you have to cast both to keep weaker party members alive after the opeing dragon fire..

they move fast, and attack viciously, with opening round breath weapons, can wipe out half party on insane mode, and use claw and wing buffets to knock you down...

deathward prevents cheap tactics like lower resit, malison, and use silver sword to get in a sing le vorpal hit...

mynamewasstolen · Post by **mynamewasstolen** » Tue May 14, 2002 12:34 am

I like cloud spells, eg cloud kill. Experiment until you get the right range and luanch as many as possible. I killed Firkraag this way with my main pc, the rest of the party just waited at the stairs. With a protection from Fire spell my resistance was high enough that his breath weapon did little.

clacka · Post by **clacka** » Tue May 14, 2002 1:54 am

experience trap?

Be careful with traps. I think I remember that if you trap something to death you miss out on the experience points.

I could be wrong.