Dragons, they hurt me :(

[Pop 'n Fresh]

I decided to skip SOA( damn bag of holding ) and start right at ToB.
I'm trying to make my way through Abazigal's Lair but my mage duo is hopeless against dragons. I havent even found a way to kill Draconis yet. I have jan in my group and my pc, my pc being a wild mage.

I've tried, summoning planetars, efreeti, djinni, earth elementals, fire elementals, hakeshears, the whole shibang but they all get scared and run around, or die.
I've tried using succesive horrid wilting, cloudkills, incendiary clouds, dense fogs but he is immune.

Mass buffing of jan with his runehammer and buffing of either 1 of my planetars still doesnt work, no matter how many spellstrikes or breachs.

I have robbed the entire Arcana Archives so i have almost every spell.

[ 12-16-2005, 04:19 AM: Message edited by: Pop 'n Fresh ]

[Iron Greasel]

The hovering sword. I can' remember what it's called, but I think it's lever 5 or 6. It's immune. Dragons can't hurt it. At least not any dragon I've fought. The other strategy I can think of is loading a spell trigger with Lower Recistances and then bombarding it with normal magic missiles.

[Kyrvias]

Mordenkainens Sword. LEvel 9 spell that summons a sword to attack anything. Is immune to almost everything except "Death Spell"

[Iron Greasel]

Are you sure it's 9th level? Because Imoen can cast three of those but no time stop.

[Brainless One]

It's not ninth level. I believe it is 7th level, but he still has plenty of abilities that should be able to blow it to pieces or unsummon it, he is just unable to slash it to death. And for future reference, Draconis was the hardest part of ToB for me (yes, even the final battle), when I first ran through it. Just hang in there!
-Brainless One

[Balintherlas]

Buff yourself then pull a tenser's transformation.

[ 12-17-2005, 03:08 AM: Message edited by: Balintherlas ]

[Cam_H]

I guess it's easy to say in theory what should be done without testing it (which I haven't), but much of the below tactics have been used by others...

Possible spoiler (Ctrl-A or click-and-drag-over area below):

For starters, you'll want your Wild Mage to have Chaos Shield (or similar), so they don't summon a cow or change colour or whatever, and start wasting your good spells.

You'll also want some Acid protection ... just in case. It shouldn't get to that, but as I said, just in case.

I'd have Jan set seven traps at the foot of the steps as escape insurance. Yes - it's cheese, but there's worse cheese.

If you can summon Planetars (as you've indicated), you should use their Remove Fear spell (three castings per Planetar) as a buff as well as any mid-battle protection if the buff is unexpectedly dispelled. Also, human Draconis will struggle against a Planetar, particularly one with Globe of Blades.

Kyrvias' point on Mordenkainen's Sword I think is right as I believe it acts as a good decoy (as does Ras +2, albeit not in your game since you've not come from SoA), while Iron Greasel's approach with the Lower Resistances is a common spell-based softening-up tactic for mage-based dragon-slaying (see below).

There's a ton of threads on this (use the search facility on 'Draconis'), but to quote SixOfSpades;

"The (best) way to beat Draconis is to cast True Sight, Time Stop, and Improved Alacrity. This gives your Wizard 3 rounds (during which Draconis cannot go Invisible) to pelt him with some Lower Resistances and a horrifying barrage of damaging spells."

... damaging spells include; Abi Dalzim's HW, Comet, and Dragon's Breath.

Another approach (apparently) is Improved Haste > True Sight > Improved Alacrity > Timestop > Shapechange : Mind Flayer > Brain-gnaw, although I suspect you might need to have Draconis visable during the Time Stop to have this work if he's become the dragon. Allegedly you can do this to him in human form and get the whole battle over and done with in one swoop.

[Illumina Drathiran'ar]

Originally posted by Balintherlas: Buff yourself then pull a tenser's transformation.

That's not a very good idea. You can't afford to lose spellcasting power in a battle like that.

Now, if you had a simulacrum pull a Tenser's Transformation, that would be a little better. Unfortunately. starting in ToB means you miss out on the... um.. The Vhalior's Helm? Valhior's Helm? Whatever, you know the one I'm talking about.

[Balintherlas]

I never really use that many spells when fighting dragons, i dont think they work that well unless your removing the dragon buffs, but a tenser'd high level mage becomes a high level fighter and that should be able to take down any of the dragons, especially with a black blade spell cast before.

[SixOfSpades]

Originally posted by Balintherlas: I never really use that many spells when fighting dragons, i dont think they work that well unless your removing the dragon buffs, but a tenser'd high level mage becomes a high level fighter and that should be able to take down any of the dragons, especially with a black blade spell cast before.

Fighting dragons without using many spells is all well and good for a party that is light in the spellcaster territory (I once ran an all-Warrior party, where the only people who could cast any spells at all were Valygar and my Archer), but that advice really doesn't apply to someone whose party consists of Jan and a Wild Mage.

A high-level Mage under Tenser's Transformation does not become a high-level Fighter--he becomes dead. All he gets is double hitpoints and marginal THAC0 and AC bonuses, which don't count for jack when you're trying to kill something. Tenser's is the kiss of death for a pure Mage (it's all right for Fighter/Mages) because it blocks Wizard spellcasting, Priest spellcasting, AND all innate abilities during its duration. Translation: Your ToB-level Sorcerer just became an SoA-level Bard who can't cast spells.

If you want to use spellpower to take out Dragons through physical force (which I commonly do with such overpowered monstrosities as Ira'koud'neg, I refuse to be bothered with whittling down his ever-replenishing stack of protections), these are good methods:

1) Shapeshift, Time Stop, Shapeshift Iron Golem, another Time Stop scroll in quickslot
2) Strength Girdle, Improved Haste, Time Stop, Belm & Kundane, another Time Stop (for Multi- and Dual-classed Mages only)
3) Time Stop, Harm, spit (Cleric/Mages only)

Feel free to experiment and come up with variations.