K, I'm at the temple ruins and got everything i need to go to the last, everything but any idea of wot to do. Smbdy said smthing about hiding from the dragon with the stone i got but im not sure where to fight the shadow lord blokie. Would anybody be kind enough to give me some advice on how to handle it.

I have Me(fighter), Jahiera, Minsc, Korgan, Nalia and Yoshi.

I also have Daystar(still not done the lich though!), Blade of Roses, Illabratha and Lilacor!

[ 11-21-2001: Message edited by: Silk ]</p>

Well, i'm kinda confused, but here's an explanation. After you assemble all 3 key pieces to make the weird amuantor symbol, you go to the end of the long hallway. Use it, then proceed down the stairs. You enter the domain of the S-dragon. With the stone, it can't see you, so continue walking around until you see another exit. Go through there, and you'll find the shade lord.

Is everybody hidden by the stone or just one??

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Silk:
Is everybody hidden by the stone or just one??<hr></blockquote>

Everyone's hidden.

Ant tactics for shade lord?

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Silk:
Ant tactics for shade lord?<hr></blockquote>

Hit him, then hit him again until you can't hit him anymore. ;)

Seriously though folks, before going up to meet him, cast Resist/Remove Fear and Free Action on your front-line fighters. When you go up, get your back-line fighters to concentrate on the Shadow Altar, while you split your front-line fighters between the Shade Lord and Shadow Patrick. Your best front-line fighter should be handling the Shade Lord by the way. Having one of your back-line fighters to summon stuff will help too, Aerial Servants and Fire Elementals work well here.

Why? Shadow Lord was as crappy as the shadow muts in the forest heh. Basically I got the Shadow Dragon wardstone, what I used to throw into the eye of the Shadow Dragon. SD turned cranky but it didn't really help SD and down it went. Probably easiest of the dragon fights I have had so far. Minsc was wounded down to 60% though, couple of big heals fixed him up. Then entered the Shade Lord area and he was really a pushover. Sent main char after him, and rest I just let to have fun with the Party AI turned on. He was dead before he finished his laugh..

Buffs what I used before the SD were the clerical lower level spells a la Chant, Aid, such as that to get the bonuses and such. Spreaded chars all around the SD to minimize the chance that SD will smack all away at once. Main char (human berserker) used Boots of Speed, Oil of Speed, Enrage, Draw Holy Might. Minsc used Enrage, Oil of Speed. Also slapped on Barkskin to weaker chars. Everyone took a gulp of Oil of Speed. That was it. Levels of chars were from 12 to 16 (main char was highest, 16). Minsc was using Lilarcor, main char Blade of Roses and Sword of Balduran. In the party I had at that time:

Me (human berserker)
Minsc
Jaheira
Aerie
Yoshimo
Mazzy

Basically only fight broke loose with the SD. Shade Lord was simply knocked out of his socks as soon as he finished his speech. So if you take out SD without problems, then the Shade Lord definately should be rather easy [img]smile.gif[/img]

While simple brutality may win the day, I like to make sure that there are no loopholes when I fight. ;)

There are no loopholes in the fight, when all what's left of the enemy after you hit it very hard are empty pair of boots, standing there lonely... :D

But all in all, I don't know.. I have fought Shade Lord before too, when I went through the game previous times and with even lower level chars. Only real fight in that whole place was always the Shadow Dragon, rest were really nothing compared to it. OK, this time I had couple more fights on my hand as there were liches, whom I don't remember to be in the dungeon during previous times. Though my char was now higher lvl as well, and that may be very well the reason those 2 were there. They were though just a minor inconvenience, my berserker soloed them and all their cronies.

As for Shade Lord.. He really was just something relaxing after the SD. It was just as I said - I finished the SD, I still had some buffs left on the party members and so I decided to do it with one swift swoop and not waste time on rebuffing. Exited the lair of SD and hit the pause. Managed to pause the game before Shade Lord started yappin'. Forced the full party attack on Patrick, then selected the main char and forced the attack on Shade Lord. Unpaused and Shade Lord went on talking. Once he was done with that, he got some mouthful of sword steel to chew on - double the amount from a dual wielding char - and fell shortly after the Patrick. I didn't even need any buffs to knock him out tho. So to the original posted of the topic - if your team can handle the Shadow Dragon, then no worries, the Shade Lord will be no problem whatsoever. If you cannot handle Shadow Dragon, then buff up before you go to Shadow Dragon room, then run through it to the Shade Lord room. I personally actually never tried, but I suspect that starting spellcasting at the Shadow Dragon (to buff for the Shade Lord) might tick off the dragon [img]smile.gif[/img]

And a minor spoiler - if you didn't kill the Shadow Dragon, then definately do it later (I think it should still be there later, I haven't tried though), as it has something what you may really want.

As for dragons - Aerie stole Firkraag from my main char! Heh.. We went in; talked the talk; I set up the party;, engaged and main char did most of the job, most of the damage; and then Aerie blasted it with MM and it fell over... Bah! Only one missile managed to hit it and it fell over, because it was so beaten up already.. Wonder if I have the savegame left from the preparation cycle heheh..

I agree - the Shade Lord is pushover.

I fought Firkraag about 5 times and never came close to killing him. I finally used a legitimate (if somewhat cheesy) solution posted in the forum and beat him easily.

I expected a tough fight from the Shadow Dragon too, but he wasn't nearly as tough as Firkraag. My party managed to kill him on their very first try. Valygar and Yoshimo were down about 40% on their hit points and the rest of the party had some minor damage - but nothing serious.

I had planned to "rest and restore" before fighting the Shade Lord, but decided to go ahead and give him a try. The plan was to find out what he would hit me, then fall back and regroup. However, before I knew it, the Shade Lord was nothing but a memory and none of the party took any serious damage in the entire fight.

Good Luck!