Shadow Dragon? What a push over.

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That must be it then. I reloaded a previous unfinished game and even though my tanks were pummelling him with weapons, and no level drain protections, he never used his breath weapon. I just presumed the level drain came from melee attacks; not his dragon breath. Kind of interesting.

I didn't realize that iron golems drained levels. They have that cloud spell they seem to cast incessantly, but never noticed anything other than that. May have to reload yet another game to see.

First lesson when combating dragons - lower resistance! Interestingly enough if you have the fifth level priest spell Magic Resistance, that can be used offensively as well. Depending on what you're up against, and your level, you could bring it down even further than one Lower Resistance spell will do. The MR spell, IIRC, sets MR to 2%/level of the caster to a max of 40%. A 9th level priest could cast this on, say, a dragon and the end result would be 18% MR. Pretty handy! Lasts a little longer than Lower Resistance too.

 

Err, I believe there has been a slight misinterpretation... golems don't drain levels. I was talking about following situation.

You know about the cheese tactic that involves luring golem into a doorway which he cannot get through and killing him, with a halberd, 2-handed sword or spear, without taking any damage yourself by positioning your characters carefully.

Well, it doesn't work for me on core level and higher - no matter how I position my characters, they are still in golems reach. It would be nice if someone could confirm that I am not just seeing things.

 

I have another simple tactic
(1) protection from evil 10' radius (P)
(2) farsight (P)
(3) Gate (P)
(4) another gate if the first one dies

All without getting anwhere near it.
This will often work on most high level opponents

actualy this makes it all a bit too easy

 

The Shadow Dragon was rather easy for me too. I beated him in melee with a few buffs, and the highest leveled character were me (Swashbuckler) and Mazzy, both at level 14. Aerie cast Haste, Mazzy used her Resist Fear ability, and Cernd summoned Werebears (darn powerful, EoU Mod) and then we smitted him and made the Shadow Dragon Armor for my Swashbuckler.

As for Firkragg, I casted a lot of Fire Protection spells, summoned two batches of Werebears and then he died pretty quickly.

 

Man, I don't know how some of you did it but every dragon is a pain to me. And I usually cast silence on them, that means they only had dragon's breath and wing buffet. Although, I seldom have any members killed but it is still a struggle to me.

 

@Stu,

That tactic is ridiculously similar to the "fire a bunch of cloudkills and keep a distance" tactic. The only difference is you do not get the experience for the kill if the pit fiend kills the dragon.

BTW, why are you waiting so long to go after dragons? Gate is a 7th level priest spell which means you're, at minimum, 14th level. If you are having to sometimes cast it a 2nd time, which I can't imagine since the spell lasts so long, then you're at least 17th level. Just curious.

[ April 15, 2003, 14:12: Message edited by: Spelladonna ]

 

I used it on another dragon in the game. I did not realise the required level and I assumed that it could be used on the Shadow dragon.
I didnt realise that you didn't get the XP for the Fiend killing your opponents
what a gip, I mean the dragon died as a result of your spell casting, why should the fiend take all of the credit.
I dont think I'll use this tactic again
To regain the lost XP that the fiend kills you could kill it afterwards with the potection from evil still on. It may take a few times though (to regain the lost xp)

 

Yea, you'd have to kill a lot of pit fiends. Dragons give some hefty XP. I think most are in the 50-60K range.