Shadow dragon

quote:

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Originally posted by Downunda:
This isn't cheesy - just outright exploitive, with the wardstone surround the dragon with all your party 'cept for your weakest and get your weakest to initiate conversation with said dragon, pause the game, get your five stronger party members to force an attack and move weakest away from dragon, after two attacks repeat and in a few minutes you should have a dead dragon at your feet.
BTW: I tried the wand of cloudkill thing and it seems as though this AI fault has been fixed in one of the later patches as both Firkraag and dark dragon attacked me even though I was off screen. Is this just me?

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what does the wardstone do?

[Morgeruat]

quote:

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Originally posted by Downunda:
This isn't cheesy - just outright exploitive, with the wardstone surround the dragon with all your party 'cept for your weakest and get your weakest to initiate conversation with said dragon, pause the game, get your five stronger party members to force an attack and move weakest away from dragon, after two attacks repeat and in a few minutes you should have a dead dragon at your feet.
BTW: I tried the wand of cloudkill thing and it seems as though this AI fault has been fixed in one of the later patches as both Firkraag and dark dragon attacked me even though I was off screen. Is this just me?

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yes this problem in th AI was fixed with the TOB expansion, and most likely with one of the patches

[Morgeruat]

quote:

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Originally posted by Radiant_Memphit:


what does the wardstone do?

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the wardstone makes you invis to the dragon until you let it know you're there, ie attacking casting harmful spells on it, etc

[Sir Kenyth]

If you have a 10-12 level party, you should have no problem dicing the big scaley beasties up. You just need to make sure and take down the dragons defenses right when they're put up. It's no use beating on something protected from magical weapons. ALWAYS juice up the party with spells before going in. The most important are protection from fear and chaotic commands. It should be just a matter of surrounding it and whacking it to death.

quote:

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Originally posted by Sir Kenyth:
If you have a 10-12 level party, you should have no problem dicing the big scaley beasties up. You just need to make sure and take down the dragons defenses right when they're put up. It's no use beating on something protected from magical weapons. ALWAYS juice up the party with spells before going in. The most important are protection from fear and chaotic commands. It should be just a matter of surrounding it and whacking it to death.

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I have-

A level 12 drow battle warrior- and the following npc's-

Xzar lvl 13
Jan lvl 9/10
Vicona lvl 12
Cernd lvl 13

[Whailor]

Spoilers possible
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First of all, there isn't ANYTHING cheesy in using the spells you have to buff your party before entering the lair of any mob. That is outright silly statement. Not to mention the clerical spells like Bless, Chant, Defensive Harmony etc. Blah.. These are totally valid spells.

How I did it every time, without casualities and with usual "non-cheesy" ways:

you get the shadow dragon wardstone to pass the beast. You can always fight it later, not fight it at all, or fight right away. I usually fight right away. Basically, before entering the Shadow Dragon lair, I buff my party up. Stoneskins and Blur on mage(s). Bless, Chant, Defensive Harmony on all (group spells). Haste (group spell). Negative Plane Protection on those what who will be up, close and personal with the worm (tanks usually). During all this buffing, of course, make the good use of the "Pause" feature, so that you can cast these spells in a short time, almost at once. Without the pause it takes time to select the char/spell, aim if needed.. By the time you're done, the spells wear off heh.. Let the caster summon MMM's (Melf's Minute Meteors), ready the debuffing spells (like Secret Word or Breach etc) and enter. Immediately set the chars up, all APART from each other. Do NOT talk to dragon - because of the stone, he/she/it doesn't see you. Spread all the ranged chars like mages (with slings) and bowyers on all sides, tanks on different sides of the dragon, FAST. Keep using the "Pause" button while setting the people up [img]smile.gif[/img]

Once all are set up, ATTACK it immediately! Don't talk, as the talking means that the dragon will attack you first, and it's advantage to the dragon. You attack first and you will already get some attacks in. Dragon starts to talk to you, since the wardstone doesn't help anymore - after all, the ghost told you not to do anything to get the attention, and you just did the other way around. Once the talk is over, it will slap protections on. Now, since you're already attacking, it may not succeed doing it. And it may also. It will be damaged already tho.. As soon as the protections are up, let the mage shoot the protection removing spells. Amulet of Power combined with Robe of Vecna would be good here, short spellcasting time.. Make sure that the tanks do have the Neg. Plane Protection on, Shadow Dragon can and will drain levels, four at a time even.

Basically I have slapped the dragons down like this with a party of lvl 10'ish every time. Isn't so hard. After the end of the fight, I still have some buffs usually on (because we usually kill the work so fast), that I just run further to the Shade Lord, which is total pushover, and beat the holy bejezus outta him even before he can blink the eyes. All in all, these fights are not so hard, just takes tad to become used. When I first time met the dragons, the fight were disastrous, to my party that is. Now in SoA it's a good day for the (now dead) dragon if he/she/it manages to bring someone down to 75% of HP even.

Of course, I have also done the Firkraag, the Shadow Dragon and the Black One with a single hit as well - I once went to them pretty late and had the Vorpal Blade with me. Funny as it is, I only made one hit at each of them and wham! they were dead on the spot. Kind of made all that buffing (what I did before the fight) feel like a worthless waste of time/spells hehe.. Basically you buff up, run to the overgrown worm, hit and poof! The little "ghost" raises up..

[666]

If you think about it the only "cheesey" way of killing it is to use cheats all other methods no matter how sneaky (with the possible exception of the "reload 'till it works/quivering palm" method) are simply applications of tactics, many of which have been around since before BG1 in the 'real' ad&d (pen,dice et al)...

[fable]

Not meaning to speak for Ralph, but I think he may mean that casting those spells in advance of coming down the stairs was cheesy because it acknowledged you knew that a big battle awaited you. I don't call that cheese, however, because you *know* from the dead child that the Shade Lord has put a huge guardian in place. In fact, if you tiptoed past the Shadow Dragon the first time to get at the Shade Lord, you could simply rest up after killing the latter, power up your protections, and return to deal with the dragon--nothing cheesy about that, since his location has been duly noted by your party when they came the other way.

As for killing the Shadow Dragon, I used summoned creatures while softening him up with Lower Resistance spells. The dragon has a tendency to follow one party member and vent his rage, so the best thing to do is play a game of violent tag: have one character score a strike, then run while they're chased, then bring in another to score a strike, run, etc. Meanwhile, Breach the dragon's defenses (which he regularly recasts). I actually ended up doing the last bunch of damage with a series of Melf's Meteors slowly chipping away at his defenses. But it was a long fight, with characters fleeing, screaming, in the process. Fun for the whole family.