Can anyone give me any tips in fighting the dragon? (non-cheesy way)

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I'm always having trouble when fighting dragon. Especially the red dragon. I can win but two of my party members always dead.
my party:
-Inquisitor
-Aerie
-Minsc
-Imoen
-Jaheira
-Mazzy
My party right now at the lvl between 12-14.

I heard about Aerie trick (greater malison and finger of death) is it actually work? (just wondering i am not planning to use it)

 

If people keep saying about it, then i'd assume it works

 

i believe firkraag only has one salvo of dispel magic so take your stogest member in and wait until uses it then run in with everyone else and make sure everyone has a +2 weapon or better. Give jaheira the Belm scimitar from the druid grove and she becomes a tank. give minsc a couple of +2 maces or morning stars (fairly common) and he will rip through the dragons stoneskins with ease. cast lower resistance with aerie or imoen then hammer him with magic missiles. use your main character and mazzy just as support with melee weapons and he should go down fairly quickly. that is my usual stratergy anyway.

 

Have Imoen and Aerie cast Breach, Lower Resistance on Firkraag. Have Jaheira cast Insect Plague. Have your fighters pound on him and your Inquisitor cast Dispel Magic if things get really dicey.

Try to get people to circle Firkraag from all sides. If he focuses on one person, have them run around as bait. Drink lots of extra healing potions.

From Aerie: have her memorize a minor spell sequencer with Doom and Chromatic Orb in it (and in that order). Have her cast protection from evil 10' and resist fear.

From Imoen and Aerie: use wands of lightning! Yes, someone in the party usually gets toasted, but just try to aim so the bolts don't bounce through party members.

 

keumper's suggestions are excellent, and definitely non-cheesy. It's a pretty good setup for any dragon really, not just Firkraag.

There are a couple of things you need to do in any dragon fight, and order is important:

1. Resist fear is an absolute must. Dragons are tough hombres to begin with, and they only get that much harder if half your party if fleeing in terror. There aren't many non-cheesy ways to take down a dragon in a round or two, so you have to have the entire party helping out.

2. Dragon's usually have spell protections on them, and will live a really long time if you don't take the protections down quickly. Keldorn's dispel magic usually does the trick, but keep in mind that it will dispel friendly modifiers too, like resist fear, so use sparingly. The much better tactic is to use mage spells like Breach. If some of your mages don't have Breach (although I doubt that would happen as it's a pretty common spell), the 4th level mage spell Secret Word will work in a pinch, and the 6th level spell, Pierce also lowers magic resistance in addition to removing spell protections. High level spells like Pierce Magic and Spellstrike also work, although you won't have access to them early in the game.

3. Tossing in spells like Chromatic Orb and the like following a cleric casting Doom and/or a mage casting Greater Malison certainly will work, although I find that once you get rid of the stoneskins and whatnot that the dragon puts up, your fighters tend to make quick work of him. The SoA dragons don't have great AC (I think Firkraag's is AC 1) so your tanks should be hitting with great frequency.

I tend to remove protections first, and then work on the dragon's magic resistance and saving throws to kill him with spells, although more than once I've had my tanks take him out before all the spells got off.

 

Actually, all dragons in the game have ACs of -11 or -12 (Firkraag's is -11), with the exception of a Brown Dragon with an AC of -10 that is unused in the game. All dragons also have a 2 point AC bonus against missile weapons.

 

Felinoid, where are you getting this stuff? Are you examining the game's code or something. How in the world would you know what Firkraag's ac is?

 

Infinity Explorer is a wonderful tool. Tells you everything you need to know. Just remember when calculating THAC0s to factor in proficiency, STR, and weapon bonuses. Dragons may be listed at -5 or thereabouts, but their end THAC0 is somewhere in the -20s.

 

Another way (if you've got less than 6 characters) is to Control-Q them. They join the party and you can look at their stat sheet.

As for fighting dragons, always spread out around a dragon. If you've got 3 tanks and 3 non-tanks (spell casters or ranged attackers) make sure they are about 120 degrees from each other. Same goes with summons. This will prevent a single wing-buffet from knocking everyone out of there.

 

Cast lower resistance then polymorph others and turn those dragons into rabbits.

Hehehe, I haven't tried it but saw a screenshot once of Firkraag turned into a rabbit. But I guess it was more luck than a tactic.

 

^I guess you mean squirrel, unless you have a new version of the spell, Polymorph Other (mage, level 4, alteration) turns everything into furious squirrels, not fuzzy rabbits.

Anyway,

Dragons are tough enemies as they have heavy AI scripts. They can use their wingbuffets, breath weapons, and spells strategically to give you a lot of pain and trouble!

You MUST break their script to survive in most cases.

There is one non-cheesy way of doing this:

Dragons had a save vs spells of 5, IIRC. Add a GM and you will bump it to 9. Now, cast a Chaos spell. Chaos gives additional -4 penalty, which means the poor dragon should roll a 13 or higher to resist the spell. Which also means he should fail %60 of time and become confused.

Confused monsters lose their AI script. Which is GREAT news when fighting dragons, they will never use their lethal weapons, wing buffets, breath weapons, AND spells. They may just wander around or attack nearest person with melee, while stil dangerous, he is now completely random and stupid!

Ofcourse, cast at least three high level Lower Resistances before that.

You can add a doom spell for additional -2 penalty, which icreases the chance of succes to a whopping %70!

I tried that against Shadow Dragon. I was VERY afraid of its breath weapon cos it drains so many levels that the NPCs are dead permanently (drained into nothingness). Once he was confused though, he just became our target practise dummy, no wing buffet, no breath weapon, no spells, nothing. And my chorister PC killed him easily.

Try Chaos, it works wonders!

 

And the 3rd lvl cleric spell Rigid Thinking does the same thing!

In my latest game I did the Shadow Dragon in that way. Didn't even need to lower the magic resistance. Of course that would've helped, a lot, but what can you do.

I always keep some Rigid Thinking in store in case of some nasty single enemies.

But I find it to be a cheesy way of disposing such a magnificent creature a dragon is.

I defeated Firkraag by using my F/M/T as a tank and having the rest shoot arrows at him. He wasn't confused, rigid thinking or disabled in any way. My crew were all under level 13. It worked, but it was unbelievably difficult. Didn't work in a one go, it needed lots of reloading, but it was doable. Just make sure your bows, arrows and archers are good enough.

Of course reloading in any combat might be considered cheesy.

edit: and dragon's wing buffets work even if it would be polymorphed into a squirrel!
editII: wrong spell lvl...

[ June 15, 2006, 18:14: Message edited by: Iku-Turso ]

 

Positioning is very important. Use summons and your tank characters to help keep the dragon's business end pointed away from the weaker characters. Lower resistence is your friend for getting spells to stick. Have your mages cast it as many times as you feel neccessary. Magic missile may end up being your primary damage source, so feel free to load it up in (minor) spell sequencers. Insect Swarm/Creeping Doom is godly against dragons, but you'll need to kill their magic resist first and it's a high enough level spell that you don't have many tries to get it to stick. This is where positioning comes in, you want your summons and tanks to be the only ones getting the major attacks. Dragon breath is deadly against casters especially.

Of course, don't be afraid to use expendables and specialty gear. Before a major fight go through your bags and set yourself up for victory. Do the same with your spellbooks. Pre fight cast your buffs as efficiently as possible to maximize duration. If possible you want to attack the dragon while he's still non hostile to get the initiative. It also allows you to set your characters in a good position. Once the fight starts feel free abuse the pause key to make sure everyone is working to their maximum level. If anyone but your tanks or summons getsa aggro then run. Pop heal pots whevever somone gets hurt. If your fighter is taking damage faster than he can heal with potions (which will happen a lot) then run him away and have the priest cast Heal while your other fighter and summons keep the dragon's attention. You simply cannot risk bringing a priest close in to the dragon, especially close in on the front end where the ae attacks (breath, wing buffet) can work.

My experience is that you can tell if the fight is winnable very near the start. You will wipe and have to reload a lot, but the attempt that ends up succeeding will most likely go pretty quickly. It's just a matter of everything falling into place correctly. The longer the fight lasts the worse off you will be in general, so you have to get off to a good start and continue almost flawlessly. When you finally develop a winning strategy and make it work you will be surprised the results.

 

Thanks guys, I think my weakness is I dont use magic very effectively, I can't tell when the magic is worn off and when and what kind of magic to use.
I think up until now my char survive mostly because of my magic equipment not my skill.

By the way what the sign when a magic is worn off?

 

You get a dispel effect, spell protections removed, resistiance lowered, etc ... messages. You may need to turn on some game options to get all the messages, though. I like turning on all the messages. It's a lot of text but VERY useful for picking your next tactic!

 

Buff up. For Firkraag: Everyone should have fire resistance -- frontliners need nearly 100% resistance. Have Jaheira cast stoneskin on herself before the fight. Have Mazzy use her courage special ability. Use weapons that will cause extra damage to dragons (there's a halberd and a long sword).

Don't allow the spell casters near the dragon. Have Aerie put the Rod of Resurrection in her quick spot -- it completely heals a character from a distance (don't wait for someone to die to use it).

 

I've heard poison also works really well. so breach him and use arrows of biting. I once killed firkraag after he was injured or barely injured, i forget, with the silver sword. is that considered cheese? cause if not it is a very easy way to kill him...

 

Weeeeeeeell, technically the sword itself is slightly cheesy because of the percentages (and how they're handled). A vorpal sword in 2e would decapitate on a natural attack roll of 17-20 (20% chance), 18-20 if the target was larger than man-sized (15% chance), or 19-20 if the target was solid metal or stone (10% chance). So it's only cheesy in regards to it being more likely to kill him that way; 25% instead of 15%.

But that's too picky even for me. Heck, a DM could make "enhanced vorpal" to match up with this if they thought it was appropriate.

 

Anytime I fight a dragon I try to take at least two people with mage spells along. While my tanks and summoned creatures distract the beast my mages cast cast Breach, Lower Resistance, Greater Malison, and from that point on Magic Missle, Glyph of Warding, Holy Smite, Lightning Bolt, and just about any other damage spell I can cast usually ends the fight pretty quickly.

 

Dragons are an easy foe if you remember to do a few things.

Firstly, and by far the most important thing you *must* do, is buff! Basically, if your mage of cleric can cast it, use it!

Secondly, send all your fighters forward to attack the wyrm on all sides, while bringing your mages and/or clerics back.

I like to have my mages do a one-two punch on spell removal. Have one mage cast Breech and have the other cast Pierce Magic on the dragon. Immediately after that have one mage cast Pierce Magic one more time to remove any protection spell left (while taking the dragon's resistances down a bit more), and have the other mage cast Lower Resistance.
By lowering the dragon's resistances down 3 times, it is time for your cleric to cast Insect Plague or Creeping Doom.
At this point, even low level offensive mage spells will do damage, so start blasting it with what ever you have.

With this combo of magical and melee offense, any dragon will go down in no time at all...just be sure to bring plenty of healing potions with you.