Ding dong the Dragon's Dead!

[Khazad]

Ok...This might be old hat to a lot of you more seasoned adventurers, but I just made my first cheese-free kill of a dragon! Thought I would pass along the methods that I used to get the job done...Just in case any other new adventurers like myself have been having problems....So, without further ado.....spoiler alert!
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This battle was against the black dragon in the Umar Hills.

First, I had Nalia and Edwin cast all of their spell defense spells. Then I had Nalia Haste the party. Korgan, Viconia, and my character drank magic resistance potions. Korgan drank a stone giant strength potion and then went into berserk state. Viconia summoned a bunch of skeletons (did not realize that the dragon would dispell them).....At this point I was ready for the battle.

1st the dragon dispelled my skeletons, but while he was doing that, Edwin hit the dragon with lower magic resistance and Nalia hit it with pierce magic. Then Korgan, Viconia, and my character charged into battle. Edwin, Nalia, and Jaheira all cast doom on the Dragon.

My three tanks in this battle actually were able to get in a few hits before getting knocked silly by the wing flap. Then at this point, the dragon decided to chase my character who was running in circles in a panic. Most all of the dragon's magic attacks focused on my characters with the magic resistance. This gave Edwin and Nalia a moment to hit the dragon with Fire balls. Jaheira also hit it with an insect swarm (Jaheira was never really attacked during the battle and was able to get in numerous hits with missle weapons during the battle).

At this point the dragon was badly injured....Korgan recovered and charged back into battle. While the dragon's back was turned, Edwin got in a vampiric touch taking the dragon to near death. Then the dragon swung around to attack Edwin and my character, finally recovered, hit the dragon with another vampic touch and the dragon fell over dead!

Yeah!!!! I was able to somehow complete this battle getting no one killed - although all of my characters were between 50% - 90% injured....I think that I was fortunate in this battle in that the dragon seemed interested in chasing around my panicked charcters while my fully functioning characters were able to concentrate on their spell casting and attacks....

[Lost One]

Spoiler alert!
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Well, the shadow dragon (not black, as I recall) was soooo easy! A lot easier than the red dragon IMO. I had no interest in killing the dragon in my past adventurers, but then curiosity hit me...why not?
After 3 goes, with a party of 4 'newbie' characters, Mr.Complicated-name-I-bet-I-can-eat-all-you-humans-with-one-bite died!
My tactic was quite simple...I can't remember if I summoned any creatures...but I had very little preparation. Basically, all you gotta do is see when his dragon breath or wing buffet is comin', so then (with all your characters hasted) you can pause, and move your character out of the way. I easily sidestepped all the terrible life-draining breaths! The combat was hard with only 2 melee tanks, but improved invisibility helped one of 'em to avoid getting hit so much. The dragon didn't stand a chance.

[Bruce Lee]

Congrats Khazad!
It is a nice feeling isn't it?
I remember the first time I killed the shadow dragon, made me really proud hehe.