Jeez, you guys all take him straight up in melee? I'll see how it goes this run, but he seriously hits like a train full of trains and none of my "tanks" can tank him long enough to kill him before he kills them. I'm currently thinking ranged is the way to go. If I dispel his haste via arrow I can kite him around and pelt him with missiles until he goes down, BG1 style.
I found the answer to the Nature's Beauty thing - he's actually immune to blindness. That's likely an SCS change. I think the reasoning is that dragons can overcome invisibility via other senses (smell, sound) so they can also overcome blindness the same way.
Skeleton warriors die very fast to dragon breath in my experience, because it bypasses magic resistance.
Yes, this is a SCS thing because I had the message "Firkraag: Blinded". Also, I soloed Shadow Dragon the same way, only cooler because I lowered his save and managed to kill him with my second Chromatic Orb (my Druid is Avenger).
Heh, I appreciate the suggestions but to be honest I consider chromatic orb spam too unreliable (and a little cheesy). @kryptix, I thought you used SCS? Dragons in SCS are supposed to be immune to the slay effect (55), the one that chromatic orb uses. I suppose you could try and petrify him but then you don't get any loot...
Anyways, never fear, I figured out a strategy I'm satisfied with so I have something positive to contribute. A trick with dragons, I've discovered, is that it's actually possible to dodge their breath attack. It takes one or two seconds to cast, and if you can spot it in time and your party is hasted then you can move them out of the way.
How do you tell when it's going to breathe? It's one of the few ranged attacks it uses. If you have a bunch of ranged characters on one side of the dragon and it suddenly turns towards them, you can bet a breath is coming. The tank should sit on the opposite side so that it's very clear when the dragon is turning to breathe.
Wing buffet also ruins the fight because it throws everyone all over the place. There are a couple of triggers for it but the big one is having two characters in melee range. The dragon will try and knock them away. So you want at most one character in melee tanking the dragon (no summon) and the rest of your party at range, ready to dodge at a moment's notice.
Tanking and killing the dragon is its own puzzle and each dragon has a unique spellbook that must be countered, but in this respect it works just like a solo fight. In my game Firkraag's offenses are fear, breach, breath, melee, remove magic, slow, silence, magic missile and lower fire resistance. I used Nalia as my tank and she countered with remove fear, minor spell deflection (for breach), fire resistance from items/cleric spell/fireshield red, stoneskin/mirror image, SI:abjuration, SI:alteration (silence and slow), and shield. It's not too complicated when you break it down but if you leave a crack in your defenses it can screw you over. On the damage front - Firkraag defends himself with spell deflection, PfMW, Stoneskin and great AC. My counters were secret word, breach, and Mazzy with arrows of piercing and a bless/chant sequencer from Aerie, which pushed her thac0 low enough to hit Firkraag reliably.
With that approach I took down both dragons pretty early and consistently with no damage to my party, so it should be usable in a no-reload run.
This time around I just improve hasted my fighter illusionist with the acid frost axe and kundane along with Jahiera with club and belm on one side a steady stream of skele warriors and fire elementals on the other and dropped both dragons in about 2 turns...
I don't know if it's cheating but let me tell you what i do to kill easyly all the dragons in the game.
First of all, the group. I do a great combination of melee and magic :
PC character --> monk. With the gauntlets of crushing and a good level, is THACO and damage is great (unarmed. i use only fists).
Anomen --> Cleric. built like a first line tank, shield and flail of the ages.
Minsc --> 2 weapons, tank.
Viconia --> Same as Anomen.
Aerie & Nalia --> Mages that i use mostly only as characters aimed to lower protections and destroy shields. Nothing more.
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As you see, i have 3 clerics, 2 mages and 4 characters that i use as tanks ( Viconia and anomen both cast spells and fight in melee)
The result is a party that can be buffed fast with all kind of spells.
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Killing dragons :
With my party is simple. Mages cast 2 Pierce Shields. Then 2-3 lower resistances. Greater malison only if i feel like using it.
Then Anomen, Viconia , Aerie cast Finger of Death.
If i am lucky --> Instant death
Else --> Great deal of damage. Anomen level 19 last time dealed 33 points of damage. (And i got lucky, because if it is 2d8 + 1 level of the caster, it means that my dice did 7.) But still, 3 Fingers of death are good.
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If Finger is considered cheating, my party simply chop slowly the dragon. 3 Clerics means buffs and a lot of healing spells. In the long run, i am the one who will win
With my party is simple. Mages cast 2 Pierce Shields. Then 2-3 lower resistances. Greater malison only if i feel like using it.
That one being a level 8 spell, you either need two scrolls of it or the two casters at level 16 or higher. That's no option for an early party that wants to defeat Firkraag early, such as before returning from The Underdark.
Other than that, yes, two mages can make a difference in such fights. 2x Lower Resistance + Breach is a standard strategy also for monsters other than a dragon. It makes them vulnerable.
Well, to tell the truth i like killing bigger and stronger foes when i can cast almost all the spells. 9th level spells are an exception, i unlock them only in TOB.
I balance myself, afterall i never use the special ability you get after ( level 20 ? ). Wirlwind, etc etc... never used.
@Ollmer I never would have considered using that weapon and did not realize how low Firkraag's wisdom is. Unfortunately, his save v. death is equal to his wisdom. But, that is a strategy I have never heard of before and I thank you for sharing it.
That has to be a bug doesn't it? I checked every other dragon and they all have a relatively high wisdom score. What is the justification for Firkraag to have a 3?
Without using trap or fake-talk exploits you're gonna have a hard time beating Fiirkraag with anything less than a party with around 1-1.3 million XP. First and foremost, buff that crap out of everyone. Bless, defensive harmony, fear protection, haste, protection from evil, strength buffs, etc.
Next, make sure you have a mage with breach, preferably more than 1 just in case. Finally it doesn't hurt to have equipment that resists fire damage; and there's plenty of potions, spells, and even gear (which you could find in that dungeon) that protects your party from fire damage. With that, either talk to him and challenge him or attack him right away. Either way, once he goes red get your mage ready as he'll throw a stone skin contingency almost instantly the moment he gets hit (or when the battle starts; hard to say which.
From then you gotta Breach him and hit him with everything you got. You should have a ton of healing potions available and at least 3 melee characters attacking him in a circle pattern. If he does his wing buffet, then your party will be scattered; no matter, just keep the back-line characters away from him. Any caster with summons should do this during the attack cycle, as he will be extremely vicious and attack the nearest opponent after a wing buffet, which is usually the caster(s).
If a character in melee gets low on health from attacks, back him or her out and drink up the healing potions while another melee character attracts the dragon's attention. Keep doing this and eventually (hopefully) the mighty red dragon will go down.
This is probably the most viable pre-Spellhold strategy you can use on the dragons without any lower-resistance + Harm/Instant Death cheese.
Alternatively if you want to make this fight easier, use Yoshimo or another Bounty Hunter and just plant as many special traps as you can around his feet, resting when you run out and repeat until you reach the maximum traps; this'll take half his health away right at the start of the fight when you decide to make him hostile. This is legal cheating basically, but if you want to beat Firkraag at a reasonable level without struggle, cheese is what you need.
i just beat firkraag in vanilla bg2ee (hard level) with a party between level 10 and 12 by using a combo of buffs and traps, along with a timely attack. 1. told him I was going to fight him another day, and went on to slay his wizard lackey 2. have jan place 3 traps in front of him 3. drink potions of power/heroism 4. cast barskin/stoneskin on every character + armor of faith on divine casters and mirror images on arcane casters 5. cast a spell to protect averyone from fear 6. cast improved haste on everyone 7. place Anomen, Minsc and Jaheira at his back 8. dragon disciple charname, Jan and Neera started the fight by casting magic missile 9. as soon as the missiles start flying, have the melee npc hack him from behind
to be honest, I got lucky because the missiles striked at the very same time as my melee squad dealing a ton of damage (both Jaheira and Minsc went for critical hits too) and prompting Firkraag to turn hostile, therefore taking more damage from the traps. at this point he was already 'near death'... not sure what happened next about his stoneskin contingency, maybe it got delayed because charname, Jan and Neere where peppering with dars, bolts and bullets but he got hit again by Jaheira and Minsc - the two melee npc with a better speed factor - and went down...
I feel bad for shooting down everyone's suggestions and I have no idea if your advice is directed at me, but if it is I want to point out that SCS dragons get angry if you start trapping up their lair. Which makes sense, really. You make a great point about magic though. They have few spell defenses besides resistance so spamming low level spells should do a lot of damage.
I guess the non cheese yet still reliable way to kill him is to spam a round of malison and doom and lower resistance followed by 3-4 sequencers of chromatic orb, odds are he will roll a 1 and die...
just replace chromatic orb with magic missle. The damage should be enough. Add sequencers or contingencies with lower resistance in there before that.
Not sure if mentioned but you can cast mage spell Strength and priest spell magic resistance on Firkraag; He will stay neutral but Strength and Magic resist will be lowered a lot.
I can't recall the exact method, but I remember my PC was a sorcerer. I think I buffed up my tank with as much FR and Armor as I could and just wailed on him until he died. I had to revive 3 people but it was a glorious Melee bloodbath.
Comments
Anyways, never fear, I figured out a strategy I'm satisfied with so I have something positive to contribute. A trick with dragons, I've discovered, is that it's actually possible to dodge their breath attack. It takes one or two seconds to cast, and if you can spot it in time and your party is hasted then you can move them out of the way.
How do you tell when it's going to breathe? It's one of the few ranged attacks it uses. If you have a bunch of ranged characters on one side of the dragon and it suddenly turns towards them, you can bet a breath is coming. The tank should sit on the opposite side so that it's very clear when the dragon is turning to breathe.
Wing buffet also ruins the fight because it throws everyone all over the place. There are a couple of triggers for it but the big one is having two characters in melee range. The dragon will try and knock them away. So you want at most one character in melee tanking the dragon (no summon) and the rest of your party at range, ready to dodge at a moment's notice.
Tanking and killing the dragon is its own puzzle and each dragon has a unique spellbook that must be countered, but in this respect it works just like a solo fight. In my game Firkraag's offenses are fear, breach, breath, melee, remove magic, slow, silence, magic missile and lower fire resistance. I used Nalia as my tank and she countered with remove fear, minor spell deflection (for breach), fire resistance from items/cleric spell/fireshield red, stoneskin/mirror image, SI:abjuration, SI:alteration (silence and slow), and shield. It's not too complicated when you break it down but if you leave a crack in your defenses it can screw you over. On the damage front - Firkraag defends himself with spell deflection, PfMW, Stoneskin and great AC. My counters were secret word, breach, and Mazzy with arrows of piercing and a bless/chant sequencer from Aerie, which pushed her thac0 low enough to hit Firkraag reliably.
With that approach I took down both dragons pretty early and consistently with no damage to my party, so it should be usable in a no-reload run.
This time around I just improve hasted my fighter illusionist with the acid frost axe and kundane along with Jahiera with club and belm on one side a steady stream of skele warriors and fire elementals on the other and dropped both dragons in about 2 turns...
First of all, the group. I do a great combination of melee and magic :
PC character --> monk. With the gauntlets of crushing and a good level, is THACO and damage is great (unarmed. i use only fists).
Anomen --> Cleric. built like a first line tank, shield and flail of the ages.
Minsc --> 2 weapons, tank.
Viconia --> Same as Anomen.
Aerie & Nalia --> Mages that i use mostly only as characters aimed to lower protections and destroy shields. Nothing more.
-------------
As you see, i have 3 clerics, 2 mages and 4 characters that i use as tanks ( Viconia and anomen both cast spells and fight in melee)
The result is a party that can be buffed fast with all kind of spells.
---------------
Killing dragons :
With my party is simple. Mages cast 2 Pierce Shields. Then 2-3 lower resistances. Greater malison only if i feel like using it.
Then Anomen, Viconia , Aerie cast Finger of Death.
If i am lucky --> Instant death
Else --> Great deal of damage. Anomen level 19 last time dealed 33 points of damage. (And i got lucky, because if it is 2d8 + 1 level of the caster, it means that my dice did 7.) But still, 3 Fingers of death are good.
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If Finger is considered cheating, my party simply chop slowly the dragon. 3 Clerics means buffs and a lot of healing spells. In the long run, i am the one who will win
Other than that, yes, two mages can make a difference in such fights. 2x Lower Resistance + Breach is a standard strategy also for monsters other than a dragon. It makes them vulnerable.
Well, to tell the truth i like killing bigger and stronger foes when i can cast almost all the spells. 9th level spells are an exception, i unlock them only in TOB.
I balance myself, afterall i never use the special ability you get after ( level 20 ? ). Wirlwind, etc etc... never used.
That has to be a bug doesn't it? I checked every other dragon and they all have a relatively high wisdom score. What is the justification for Firkraag to have a 3?
Edit: Saladrex also has a 3
Red Dragons lean toward having very low wisdom, IIRC.
Next, make sure you have a mage with breach, preferably more than 1 just in case. Finally it doesn't hurt to have equipment that resists fire damage; and there's plenty of potions, spells, and even gear (which you could find in that dungeon) that protects your party from fire damage. With that, either talk to him and challenge him or attack him right away. Either way, once he goes red get your mage ready as he'll throw a stone skin contingency almost instantly the moment he gets hit (or when the battle starts; hard to say which.
From then you gotta Breach him and hit him with everything you got. You should have a ton of healing potions available and at least 3 melee characters attacking him in a circle pattern. If he does his wing buffet, then your party will be scattered; no matter, just keep the back-line characters away from him. Any caster with summons should do this during the attack cycle, as he will be extremely vicious and attack the nearest opponent after a wing buffet, which is usually the caster(s).
If a character in melee gets low on health from attacks, back him or her out and drink up the healing potions while another melee character attracts the dragon's attention. Keep doing this and eventually (hopefully) the mighty red dragon will go down.
This is probably the most viable pre-Spellhold strategy you can use on the dragons without any lower-resistance + Harm/Instant Death cheese.
Alternatively if you want to make this fight easier, use Yoshimo or another Bounty Hunter and just plant as many special traps as you can around his feet, resting when you run out and repeat until you reach the maximum traps; this'll take half his health away right at the start of the fight when you decide to make him hostile. This is legal cheating basically, but if you want to beat Firkraag at a reasonable level without struggle, cheese is what you need.
1. told him I was going to fight him another day, and went on to slay his wizard lackey
2. have jan place 3 traps in front of him
3. drink potions of power/heroism
4. cast barskin/stoneskin on every character + armor of faith on divine casters and mirror images on arcane casters
5. cast a spell to protect averyone from fear
6. cast improved haste on everyone
7. place Anomen, Minsc and Jaheira at his back
8. dragon disciple charname, Jan and Neera started the fight by casting magic missile
9. as soon as the missiles start flying, have the melee npc hack him from behind
to be honest, I got lucky because the missiles striked at the very same time as my melee squad dealing a ton of damage (both Jaheira and Minsc went for critical hits too) and prompting Firkraag to turn hostile, therefore taking more damage from the traps.
at this point he was already 'near death'...
not sure what happened next about his stoneskin contingency, maybe it got delayed because charname, Jan and Neere where peppering with dars, bolts and bullets but he got hit again by Jaheira and Minsc - the two melee npc with a better speed factor - and went down...