Need Dragon Slaying Help

Remove all ads!

I'm in the temple ruins outside of Umar Hills, and faced with a Shadow Dragon. I know I can skip by him, but I want to kill it. I've tried 12 times now, and only succeeded in killing it 4 times. But of those 4 times, 1 or more of my party got killed BEYOND resurrection, so I reloaded and tried again. When I finally killed the damn thing without anyone dying permanently, The loot was missing. The dragon scales and the gold were not in the dragons loot. So evidently I am going to have to try yet again to kill that Dragon. Ug!

So my question is, is there a good strategy for killing this Dragon?

I usually start, before it starts its dialogue, with a silence 15' radius right next to it, then I start blasting away with magic missiles while my fighters charge in. Before I start, I cast all the protection spells I have available.

The big problem is, that my fighters cant even hit the thing except if I disable all its protection spells with a breach spell and dispel magic spell. And then, the fighters can only hit on a critical hit, and just barely. And thats with them using +3 weapons.

The only things that seem to damage the Dragon so far are magic missiles and fireballs and the wand of frost. But the area of affect spells rip apart my fighters as well.

Any advice?

 

Well, since you have already beaten him, I guess that it might not be considered cheating to use traps.
Use all your traps with your thief. Then sleep. Set traps. Sleep. Set traps, and so on.
This is kind of considered the coward way, but since you HAVE beaten him already I say do it that way anyhow.
Otherwise, if you don´t want to be cowardly, use Lower Resistance (Is that the name?) and bomb him with Magic Missiles while your fighters kick the shit out of him. Also try and summon some elementals to aid you. These are just a few tip, but let me know how it went anyhow.
Good luck!

[This message has been edited by Zaragoth (edited July 13, 2001).]

 

Feeblemind! Turns them into giant, bat-winged vegetables (except when their magic resistance cancels it -- then you're just lunch).

[Grammar in this post has been edited by Mrs. Lochbreaker... poor henpecked Gnolyn...]

[This message has been edited by Gnolyn Lochbreaker (edited July 11, 2001).]

 

Spook is a suprisingly effective spell - you should try casting this just before you attack - if you're lucky the dragon will fail to save vs spell and panic .

 

hmmm. Well I must have hit a bad streak of luck. It resisted Feeblemind all 12 attempts. It resisted all 5 of the lightning bolts I tried on it. I was beginning to think it was invincible until I finally damaged it. I will try again with feeblemind and more lightning though.

I heard this dragon is the weakest of all the dragons. If thats the case, I dread facing the next one! Thanks for all the advice!

 

Lower resistance is the spell you need, otherwise most spells you throw at it will just increase your frustration. Also, I just sent in Vicky with the amulet thingy and powered her up while everyone hung out in the background, seemed to work pretty well.

 

If you have thieves in your party, use Hide in Shadows and backstab it if you can. That, and encircle your fighters around it rather than all at one side. Whenever it wing buffeted me, itd cast spells that hit all my fighters becuase they were together unti I seperated them around it.

For spells against it, I found lightning bolt, cone of cold, and melfs minute meteors to be the most useful damage wise.

 

If I remember correctly, this dragon uses some high level necromantic spells like finger of death or so, besides his breath is level draining. So first you need to ward your party members against death(death ward -cleric lvl 4 spell), then protect them from level drain(negative plain protection lvl 4). Haste everyone, and let your mage cast lower resistance about 2 times. Don't try to cast necromantic spells against it, it has a very good save vs. death. Flame arrow, lightning bolt and flamestrike works wonders on this foe, not to mention the fast meele and missile pressure. When the dragon starts to meele with one of your warriors I suggest that let him/her flee, there is no chance to beat a dragon alone in meele! When your character flees from the dragon's attacks your other units can "safely" fireing it with missile weapons or spells.

 

As mentioned above the Shadow Dragon uses a lot of the death spells, especially on summoned creatures. It even got some Skeleton Warriors I conjured one time. So summoning is not the best choice for that dragon, stick with Lower Resistance (level 5, can be bought in Trademeet for sure and in Athkatla also I think) and your favorite spells. Lightning sounds good, I've never tried that one on a dragon before, and spooking a dragon, well that's just hilarious.

 

Setting traps is a goodway, if you do not have the expansion installed you can set as many traps as possible, however if you have the expansion installed you can not set more than 6 or 9 I guess. Nevertheless, do lay some traps, and you do not have to rest just reform the party kick Yoshimo out and then when he asks you to reconsider tell him to come back to the group he will come with his traps refreshed...another strategy which I accidently came upon was the finger of death spell, if the dragon fails his save throw he dies instantly (worked on Firkraag at the first try but I never tried it a second time), another strategy that worked for me was to fill the area (stay out of the dragon's sight however) with cloudkill...5 cloudkills by Nalia brought him down even without setting the traps off...(worked twice with the shade dragon), other that that I accidently tried the polymorph other, took me 6 tries to get past the resistance and save throws, but it worked, however he kept all his abilities in a squirell form...that's all for now I would be glad if this will help you in anyway

 

Actually, summoned creatures work just fine on him. Just realize that he *will* vaporize the first wave of them.

You might want to throw him a party of dire wolves from the wand of monster summoning or something first. After he smokes these, you can whip up some elementals or whatever you like. While he is engaged with the summoned critters (you may need to make more as the battle progresses), your characters can all stand around him and ding him with missile weapons while your mage is frantically casting breach, mm, lightening, etc.

A few traps set around him first would be nice, but personally I'd avoid the cheats mentioned above (keep kicking and re-inviting Yoshi indeed ). You can cheat and kill the dragon, but that really doesn't seem like all that much fun.

[This message has been edited by Trunculo (edited July 11, 2001).]

[This message has been edited by Trunculo (edited July 11, 2001).]

 

Jander, I can only disagree about using traps in a dragon's lair ... do you really think that a dragon is so stupid to allow you to prepare his death under his watchful eyes without resistance ???! And it's getting worse: Cloudkill from the fog of war (no problem, Thaxx'ssiliyia sits just there: "Hell, where is this smell from, it's terrible ?" ... and of course she doesn't come to the idea of looking after the origin ... no, she waits and thinks and drops dead finally) and finger of death on dragons ... AAARGH !!! these so called "tactics" exploit stupid monster AI or game flaws and are the ultimate cheater tricks to take about *every* fun out of a dragonfight using the search engine you can find some topics about this ... How about using killsword? That's almost as funny !

So I think that BTAs advice is the most prudent: Come back later, at highter level you'll much more enjoy the fight.

[This message has been edited by Ragusa (edited July 11, 2001).]

 

I hate traps!!!

Fight a dragon toe-to-toe or magic vs. magic.
If you beat the dragon only with traps(possible) then you lose the excitement and the self convinience, that you triumphed over one of the most powerful creatures on Faerun.

Damn those traps!!!

[This message has been edited by TIN_MAN (edited July 11, 2001).]

 

I agree, there are a lot of bugs in monster AI which make the gaming less interesting if you use them.
However, for the Shadow Dragon, it might be legitimate to use the traps "cheat". You have the wardstone, so the dragon can't detect you unless you talk to it or attack it; and when setting traps, it makes sense that you'd disguise them, or a sensible enemy would simply avoid them. So the shadow dragon might really not notice you putting a lot of traps around it.
Still, it's a lot less fun than using your party as a team to defend each other and overcome it.

 

thanks for the tips. I tried the feeblemind, and it worked great. It just sat there and never highlighted red. It stayed blue and I was able to just keep thumping away until it died. No one got a scratch!

note: I had to do something, cause my fighters were all 8th and 9th level, and could only hit if I got a natural 20 rolled. I bumped my personal character up with a frost giant strength potion giving him 22 str. 9th level paladin, using +3 halberd of dragon slaying. He's proficient with it, so no minuses from using halberd. double proficient with two handed weapon, so I gain additional pluses there. Plus I had a bless spell, haste, and an aid spell on him. And I still could only hit him with a natural 20, of which I only hit the dragon once in 13 tries to slay it. Each attempt went well over 20 rounds. Long enough that all my enhancements and protections left half way through the battle. Thats alot of swings!

Anyways, I'm glad I was able to take him out without using traps. The feeblemind I had tried the 1st 12 times, but the dragon resisted all of those tries. The 13th try, I feebleminded twice in a row, and I think both worked. It ended up being the difference! Big difference. And this time the dragon scales were there, which is why I had to repeat killing it in the first place!

I dont think it would have been fun to set up traps and such. I enjoyed killing it within the normal ideals of the game. It was just frustrating that when I finally did kill it without anyone dying permanently, the scales and gold were missing. So I needed some advice, rather than go another 12 attempts at getting it!

Anyways, thanks to everyone for the suggestions!

[This message has been edited by Retro (edited July 11, 2001).]

 

Good work

***Edit out ToB question***
Post it in the proper forum, please.




[This message has been edited by Darien Noella (edited July 11, 2001).]

 

Ragusa my friend, believe it or not but I totally agree with you. When I played the game for the first time, even if a friend suggested me to use the trap thing with kicking yoshi in and out I tried the hard way dying and reloading for a dozen times maybe, but now I am going through the game for the ? time (god knows how many times I restarted)and I am starting to get a little bored by long fights. I finished the game without cheating or taking advantage of stupid bugs, but now I am free to exploit them all, and seek new bugs. Please understand, I am offering lame solutions but to use them or not is his own choice, but that does not mean that I am a lamer myself...
By the way, I swear the finger of death just worked fine...yes I admit it does sound funny but it really did Anyway thanks for your concern....

 

finger of deat is responsible for the lamest and most disappointiong dragon fight I ever had: It happened in Sundalessalar and I was ready for battle. I had prepared all my protections and potions and all my fighters were ready to engage and my main char, a dc figher-mage, casted finger of death on the black dragon. It dropped dead and the fight was over before it even began