Need Help Beating Draconis!

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Well, my party is all in the mid 20's, and so far ToB has been pretty easy, but all teh sudden i hit this dude and it's like a brick wall; here's my party:

Me: Monk
Sarevok
Imoen
Jaheira
Minsc
Keldorn

I can kill his first form easily enough, but when he transforms i just get my ass kicked, i'm thinking about substituting Imoen out and bringing in Jan Jansen, who travelled with me previousely, but i'm not sure he'll be up to snuff because i tossed him when i got Sarevok because I figured Imoen could substitute as Mage, but alas, she sucks.

Any general advice/tips would be great, i'm willing to try just about anything to take him out, I mean, AC -10? I can barely touch the dude! The best i've done yet is get him down to "Barely Injured." Thanks for your help

 

Well, the way I did it was that I had my monk (who was more or less immune to magic) fight his first form alone, while I had a theif set spike traps down by the entrance to the area. Once he turns into a dragon, you just lure him onto the traps and they should do the rest. Of course, you don't HAVE the spike trap HLA, so I think you should definately get Jan and maybe level him up until you do if possible.

 

His breath is acidic, IIRC, so try protecting your weaker party members from that.
Spread your fighters around him so one of them actually manages to do something once you activate your HLAs. (Draconis will flee)
Have Imoen cast Timestop, then Lower Resist, then every offensive spell she has in order of high-to-low levels.
Improved Haste is a must should your warriors run out of HLA's.

Have Keldorn and Jaheira use True Sight. Have Jaheira memorize as many stoneskins as she can and use her as bait. Summon Jaheira's Fire Elementals or Mountain Bears and haste them.
Try to keep your fighters nearer to a corner so the winged buffet doesn't send them flying too far off.

Lastly, the secret to beating his dragon form is killing him as quickly as possible, so pull out everything you think you can spare on him.
He likes casting the heal spell on himself.

[ February 15, 2004, 08:45: Message edited by: Scythesong Immortal ]

 

Make Imoen cast Project Image to conserve spells.

Let her Use Chain Contingency with these spells to Draconis after he changes forms to a Dargon.
* Lower Resist
* Lower Resist
* Timestop
Then cast Improved Alacrity.
Then use spell trigger with this spells
* Lower Resist
* Greater Malison
* Silence
Then cast all the rest of the mage spells from high level to low. If it's not enough, Let the Original Imoen again cast another project image and finish the job.

**Abuse the staff of the magi and try making Imoen invisible from him all the time when the timestop duration ends. She alone can handle Darconis. If the silence spell doesn't work, let the image cast true sight or you can let Jaheira do that as to avoid interrupting Imoen's spell run and let Jaheira silence him again to make it sure that he won't be able to heal himself. The Fighters will serve as baits and if lucky, to make the criticals. Also, make sure Jaheira has lots of Iron Skins memorized so that she'll be your good bait. Summon as many as you can to annoy Draconis.

Before engaging Draconis, make sure you have protections cast to the whole party and try to replenish that when the duration ends (Especially the fighter as they really need that).

Abuse the fighters HLAs.

 

You know I soled this guy with a level 29 Cavalier...

All I did was equip Carsomer get my saving throws down to (roughly) -9 (10) you may want to try a potion of invulnerability to get it that low, and used hardiness and Armour of Faith spells, along with summon Deva because she can see him when he goes invisible so all I have to do is keep up with her, and used a smite followed by a GWW and he was gone, and also it's important to stack on acid protection.

 

Timestop, lower resistance, lower resistance, feeblemind

Last time I played, I had my paladin fight him with Carsomyr and the casters hurl in the highest possible level fire spells of divine and arcane nature alike. Being a cavalier and having Jaheira, Imoen, Nalia, Anomen and Minsc in my party, I got him fried in seconds.

As you don't have enough casters for that, you should rather use what you have to buff up your legions of tanks. You're not going to get much, as Keldorn belongs to a non-casting subclass and Jaheira being a druid doesn't have buffs but rather protections, but the innate potential of a five warrior group is a power on its own.

 

I haven't known that Feeblemind works on Draconis. You must be right, I checked all of his protections (to disprove you ) and didn't find any protections which would stop Feeblemind. It is still too hard to believe that Feeblemind worked on a dragon. Are you sure it worked for you?
While browsing its data, I have found something interesting. Theoretically, Draconis is immune to Sarevok's Deathbringer Assault! I don't know why but I remember that it could be slain by this ability... I must confuse it with another dragon.

 

Well, if you played good aligned in SoA, the human form of this guy is veeeeeeery easy. Just choose immunity to +1 weapons or less with the Bhaal's tears in the Nine Hells and instead of importing the final save to ToB, save after you have hit that eye and import that savegame to ToB, so you are immune to +1 weapons or less, and Draconis won't be able to hurt your character. Just whack him to death. As for his Dragon form, cast a scroll of protection from acid on your fighters, Sarevok, Minsc and Keldorn and haste them, protect them from evil and cast every other protection spell you have on them and make his dragon form charge head on towards them. At the same time, place Imoen and Jaheira on both sides of Draconis and far away from him and start breaching, magic-missileing,and casting lower magic resistance, Greater Malison, Slow and other weakening spells on him while he deals with Keldorn, Minsc and yourself. It shouldn't last you more than a few rounds with the proper equipment- weapons +4 or more, girdles and potions of giant strenght and other nasty stuff-

 

None of the replies here address what is to me the real problem with beating Draconis, which is that his Dragon form starts off with a spell trigger of Immunity to Magic Weapons, Spell Immunity: Abjuration, and Minor Spell Reflection (?) (I don't remember precisely what the 3rd one is called).

The immunity to abjuration means his immunity to magic weapons can't be dispelled, or so it seems. Am I supposed to haul around a compliment of *non* magical weapons just for this battle?

Or should I try to survive the four rounds until his immunity to magic weapons wears off and then nail him? The problem with that is that 4 rounds seems to be an eternity when fighting him. He already seems unnaturaly fast, even before he hastes himself, which he does soon after he fires his spell trigger, and that acid breath breath of his does awesome damage. Trying to run my charachters around distracting him with multiple targets so that the wounded ones can use healing potions while someone else then takes the brunt doesn't seem possible - between the wing buffets, acid breath, invisible stalkers, etc., etc. He always nails somebody before I can even get one whack in. I thought of brining in summoned creatures to help distract him, but no go - his "death field" kills anything you've brought in before the dragon change as soon as he changes, and after the change, there isn't much time.

Direct damage spells don't seem to be an option either, as even with the Robe of Vecna, they take too long to get off, and he's either gone invisible, cancelling the spell, or moved out of range, or acid-breathed the caster out of existence. And besides, it would take one helluva lot of damage spells to nail him - he's got a lot of hitpoints, and likes to go invisisble and heal himself.

Help!!!

 

Actually...

Here's how I did it.

This is when I finally began to use stuff like Whirlwind Attack and Critical Strike. This is when you should start using them. Whack him normally with normal attacks, with your magic weapons (If you whack him with normals, it'll be invincible). Actually, use Carsomyr, if you have it, because if you hit it, then you might dispel it. Or you can have the spell used on it.

As soon as you start dealing damage to him (And try a few Lower Resistances/Breach's, Greater Malison REALLY helps) Start unloading your special attacks. Whirlwind Attack, Crit Strike, Don't use Smite or Power Attack, it's wasted on something his size. Time Stop+Improved Aclarity+Horrid Wilting is always good. Of course, if your mage has the amulet of power, then you can just cast improved aclarity, and unload Magic Missle and Chromatic Orb on his sorry arse.

Oh, and True Sight is a must, and should have been casted before he turns into a dragon. If you beat Watcher's Keep, you may have gotten the Thief's Hood, which, when improved with Cespenar, gives you the ability to cast True Sight 3 times a day.

With Keldorn in your party, though, it should be no problem with True sight.

Oh, and make sure that Imoen is well protected; She, at the least, can shoot magic arrows.

That's why I like Imoen; She can do anything. She can pick locks, shoot arrows, backstab with potions, scout, cast decent magic, and she can be a temp meatsheild with the right spells. That's what fighters are, basically in my party; Meatshields. Actually, same with almost everyone else. Except Imoen. Who can keep my mage alive without help. Well, Sarevok for meatsheild purposes.

 

The current Screenshot of the Week is my fight with Draconis. Thought you might want to know.

 

*Laughs*

That one was classic. Can you point out to our questionare here what exactly you did to unload that much firepower?

 

Ok.... This is getting more than a little frustrating.

I decided to try a direct damage spells approach.

Comet: does nothing.
Implosion: does nothing.
Incendiary Cloud: did a whopping 13 damage before Draconis was smart enough to leave the area of effect.
Horrid Wilting: did nothing, as he'd left the area by the time it went off.

Nothing in the descriptions of Comet or Implosion imply that there is any way to avoid the damage done (saving throw for half damge on the Implosion, iirc, Comet seems to indicate it should do 10D10 regardless).

By far the most effective thing that happened was the sling bullet that was apparently in the air as the change to Dragon form was taking place: that did 20 damage an instant before his spell trigger went off.

Total damage done to Draconis: 38. 20 from the sling bullet, 13 from the incendiary cloud, 5 from the lightning damage from a hit by Crom Feyr.

Total damage done to party: somewhere around 400, I'd guess. Anomen and Jaheira were both brought to near exticnction and had the chance to run off and cast Heal on themselves, my protagonist was moderately damaged, but out of the battle, as a Symbol:Stun got through his MR just before the Dragon change, and I think he got attacked once and then wing-buffeted off into some corner, where he reamained stunned for the duration. Kedorn and Minsc were hurt on several occasions, but recovered through the use of Potions of Extra Healing. Oh, and I almost forgot: he killed the Deva I summoned, and I was forced to kill the Earth Elemental I summoned myself, as it went hostile when caught in the Incendiary Cloud - guess Devas are immune to fire - so I guess I learned *something*

I gave up and went off to bang my head against a wall for a while after Anomen was disintigrated by an Acid Breath that did 147 damage in an instant.

I've read a number of posts on this board regarding this battle, and many of them don't even seem to be talking about the same game. Quite a few players seem able to just hack Draconis to bits without trying: does he not start their battle with the spell trigger I described a few posts up?

After what seemed like an eternity, filled with all the events I've described, his Immunity to Magic Weapons *still* hadn't worn off. I get the impression that Draconis' AI is the *real* AI for the game, and every other monster was dumbed-down so players wouldn't hang themselves while still in Athkatla...

 

Have Imoen hit the following spells:

Time Stop - Improved Alacrity - Spellstrike - Spell Trigger (Lower Resists/Pierce Magics, Breach) - all the pain you can inflict in the remaining 11 seconds of Time Stop you have.

Won't fix the problem completely, but it gets rid of his protections. As I recall, Spellstrike isn't Abjuration, and it strips all protection spells. I could be wrong, in which case, use Ruby Rays Of Reversal (Alteration) to do the same. Also, as everyone else has suggested, have both Keldorn and Jaheira use True Sight to deal with that disappearing act.

 

NonSequitur: Many thanks. Ruby Ray of Reversal proved to be the key. I'd checked almost all the other dispell-type spells, and all of them were abjuration. I looked at Spell Strike per your advice, and that is abjuration/alteration, so I wasn't sure if it would work - going with Ruby Ray seemed safer. I also indulged in a Time Stop, which I'd been refusing to do up until now, as somehow I can't stretch my suspension of disbelief far enough to encompass it. Seemed justified when fighting this guy, though.

A couple other things about this battle I found interesting. As far as I can tell, Silencing Draconis has no real effect on him - seems his spell-like powers are innate abilities. Its also possible that such things as spell triggers and contingencies have no verbal component, or maybe I dispelled the Silence on him myself. In any case, the Power Word: Silence I employed didn't prvent him from healing, or bringing up Stoneskins or calling Invisible Stalkers. Something else is especially galling: a player can't duplicate his spell trigger. Players don't get to put a Spell Immunity into one.

Final word for others who run into this Prince of Dragons: Have Ruby Ray ready, and one helluva lot of instances of Breach .

 

Are you talking about the tactics module Draconis...?

Anyway, haven't got really much trouble with him, but then I usually do Sendai's Enclave before meeting with him. As usual, conserve your HP and spells until he changes form. It might be a good idea to retreat a bit before that, unless you want to get your characters stunned and thrown back. If you have Robe of Vecna (or not), summon the strongest creature you can (skeleton warriors do pretty well, and Animal Summoning conjures 2 bears Plus, he cannot even damage Magical Swords). This should give you enough time to summon the max 5 creatures.

Now, keep at least 2 of those behind, but at the front of your party. Draconis will use his spells, summon cretins (death spell kills them all at one go), and probably quite quickly kill your summons or throw them back. Just send those you left behind to take the punishment while the others lumber back/die (summon more). If he tries to come for you, just retreat until he gets at your summons again. Notice that as long as he is fighting your summons, your mages and archers are free to do whatever they want with him.

Personally, since I have 4 mages/sorcerers in my party (Char, Imoen, Aerie, and SK'ed Viconia), it's a simple matter of casting time-stop with each of them and hammering his resistances down, malison/doom, finger of death (or whatever you can cast). Normally that is more than enough to chunk him. Add Mirror Image or Simulacrum (scrolls or not), and you have a personalized hell ready for 'im.

 

hah, what a quincidence i just beat draconis, there are many effective ways of dealing with him, might i suggest you go back to amkathren and buy the rod of reversal from the smugglers, it will make the battle MUCH easier. using a mage (abi-dalzim's horrid wilting or dragon breath) works well, deals heavy damage that dragons cant take much of. I Hope this helps.