Is he tough, or what? My 16th level party hasn't been able to beat him. Is there a way to weaken him?

[ 12-18-2002, 02:44 PM: Message edited by: Attalus ]

Well... what is your party?

Paladin, 16th level
Barbarian, 16th Level
Cleric, 15th level
Rogue, 17th Level
2 15th level mages.

Have your mages memorize as much stoneskin as possible. One for each characters would be ideal. Make sure one can cast Emotion:Hope too. Cast every buffs you have, then summon as much monsters as is possible. If he keep targetting the same character all the time and this character is about to die, just run around with him while the other characters attack the dragon. Memorize as much of the "heal" spell as you can. It completely restore your character, and it,s very fast to cast.

If you really can't beat him, and you have access to that spell, you could cast Delayed blast fireball and spells like that on the altar on which the dragon will appear, that will soften him up before the fight.

how do you get to fight the guardien? i can never find him so i always end up killing every yuanti i see

Scattered in the jungle are pillars you can take, and one is inside the temple. Take them all, go outside on top of the temple, and put them there in the place for them.

[ 12-18-2002, 06:41 PM: Message edited by: Luvian ]

and what exactly is the guardian?

BIG ass dragon!!

It's actually recommanded, if you can, to fight the guardian. Aside from the exp., you'll also get some other nice 'rewards'.

Fighting him is a pain but if you can, cast lower resistance and follow that up with things like disintigrate and finger of death. He'll probably make his save towards these spells but it will do a nice amount of damage. Aside from that the usual buffs from a cleric and mage are very good to cast beforehand and protection from acid on your front line would be a nice touch too.

and what are these "rewards"

some permanent resistances ....

spoiler
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.........and hitpoints

Aside from the fairly standard party buffing, I also suggest some undead summons to keep the Guardian busy. If you happen to have any protection from acid spells or scrolls, now is the time to use them. Melee fighters should get first dibs.

Furthermore, I also suggest not trying to fight him on the platform where he is summoned. It's too constricted and give the Guardian an advantage. Arrange your characters and summons a bit away from the platform. To the right of the bottom of the stairs is fine. You want some room to maneuver. This also allows your archers to have more room to fight at range. This makes it harder for the Guardian to affect your party with Fear.

Use your summons to keep the Guardian's attention. Don't use any acid spells. The Guardian is vulnerable to electrical spells.

Mordenkainen's Sword is a wonderful spell to use in this fight, inflicts a bucketload of damage.

I always killed him on the platform. The first time, I saw the message about the portal closing soon, and I said "OH OH! Time to run!". I think I didn't even loot.

I killed him on the platform the first time as well, but it was really tough. For one thing, when the Guardian spits the acid (or whatever it does) it covers the entire platform and the stairs are the only way to escape. Furthermore, I found that any ranged combat had to be fired up the stairs. All in all, I found that fighting this battle on the platform was completely to the Guardians advantage.

Fighting away from the platform allows any ranged attackers to get further away from the guardian and spread out. This usually keeps them well away from any fear effects and the acid attacks on any melee attackers. If you can use summoned allies to keep the Guardian occupied, you can turn the guardian into a pincushion with a bad case of static cling.

where do you get a mordenkainens sword scroll?

Ehhhh I'm not quite sure, I might've gotten it in the temple however so long as you don't kill the guardian you can come and go as you please between Kuldahar and Chult so you can check to see if the guy who sells scrolls in the tower has any to sell.

Yup,
It took me a couple of saved games and hours later to defeat the dragon. My characters were about lvl 14 so it was tough for me. But what i did was, cast haste on my barbarian, protection from fear and acid. went in there and started fighthing the dragon. Every now and then when my barbarian gets hurt, i pull him back while my undead fight the dragon and then my clerics heal my charcter. But at the end of the fight, most of my characters are dead except my mage and my cleric. The final blow came from my mage with Mordenkainen's sword. That spell as well as disintegrate kicks ass.

Have a nice time.

Did you get enough time to pick all the stuff from your dead NPC and still take the portal?

You're all making this combat far too difficult. :) I put a character who was useless in this combat (rogue because not enough +3 or better arrows) at the bottom of the stairs from the platform and cast Otiluke's Resilient Sphere on her. The dragon couldn't get to me and my characters pelted it with missle weapons while summoned creatures got up close and personal.

This was with high lvl characters in HOF, so I suppose summoned critters might not be able to damage the guardian if lower lvl characters summoned them.

I thought about using one of my undead as the Otiluke's Sphere blockade but I was afraid it might resist the spell or something.

I find Otiluke's Resilient Sphere to block a path too cheesey to use. Why shouldn't anyone be able to move the sphere aside? I'll only use it to "turn off" the target.

The only battle that I use it in is in the Lava Fields (you know that battle).

Uuuuh . . . ok. I tend to use the best tactics and weapons in my arsenal. Many people have been writing about maintaining the RP in RPG. I know that if I were one of characters and fighting a dragon the size of a double decker bus, I wouldn't tell the mage of the party, "Don't use that silly Otiluke's Sphere thing again. That takes all the sport out of the fight." I would want to do anything and everything I could to prevent that dragon from biting, shredding, or swallowing me. Not using a potent part of my arsenal would be like our (the U.S. military) saying, "Let's not use the stealth fighters and bombers. It's nearly impossible for anyone to target us. Let's get some WWII fighters. That will make things far more sporting! And let's outfit our infantry with muskets instead of automatic weapons!"

Yeah Luvian,

I managed to get all of my dead character's items and then raise them and gave them back. But even though i managed to deter the dragon with my undead minions, the dragon will simply unsummon them. That was really tough. Actually to kill the dragon it was more of luck rather than skill hehehehe. But the mage did help a lot. Without my mage and her spells, i would be doomed.

Dmouse

To a previous poster,

The mordekainen's sword scroll is in the Yuan-ti treasure room in the temple along with finger of death, power word stun and one other 7th lvl mage scroll.

Lower resistance and protection from acid are the keys to killing the Guardian. Lower his resistance and hit him with finger of death from the mage and destruction from our cleric. Both of them do damage even if he makes his save. Making sure your front line fighters are covered by PoA will keep the damage they take down to a minimum. Having a remove fear spell or two is also useful. Summoned monsters do get banished but they are useful for distracting the guardian for a while.

When I was fighting him I found the acid damage negligible compared to the tremendous phsyical damage he inflicted on my party however I do agree that you need Lower resistance and Resist fear to succeed.