Taking a cue from my idea of trying Whirlwind + The Answerer versus The Imprisoned One, I suspect that Whirlwind/Greater Whirlwind + Kachiko's Wakizashi might be pretty effective given that it drains 2 points of wisdom per hit. The drawback is that the penalty lasts for only two rounds and the target gets to save. Of course, we can get past that by layering Greater Malison and Doom on the target. Still....I am pretty certain that most dragons has a save vs death that is pretty low.
On the other hand, Firkraag's wisdom stat is only a 3.....
Yeah, charge is the most fun way to kill a Dragon. But in Watcher's Keep, in the "Courage Test" against the green named "Dragon", I duelled him in 1 vs 1 fight against my main character (Elf-Berserker). I had to use Hardiness and 2 Critical Strikes, but in the end I was able to win the fight (he damaged 70% of my HP). It was cool, but not as fun as the old Charge.
I've just completed Abazigal's Lair, and both Draconis and Abazigal were very fun battles. I don't understand why people say Draconis is harder. I found Abazigal much harder. The damage he was dealing was simply insane! Both in humanoid and even worst in Dragon form. I had to run away 2 times with Korgan to receive Heal from Viconia, or he would be dead (is it possible he had "Kai" active while in Dragon form?).
Well... I have True Seeing in Book of Infinite Spells, that stays with Haer'Dalis, and I also have True Seeing memorized 3 times with Viconia. I casted it, and just had to breach once before exploding him with Critical Strike and Greater Whirlwind Attack with 3 strong Fighters.
Well... other people don't have True Seeing in the Book of Infinite Spells, three castings of True Seeing on Viconia, a Breach that was not interrupted by invisibility (even a second of invisibility, immediately dispelled by True Seeing, can interrupt a spell being cast), and three fighters all in the right place.
You asked why "people say Draconis is harder." Nobody's saying it was hard for you, @Vitor.
Well... other people don't have True Seeing in the Book of Infinite Spells, three castings of True Seeing on Viconia, a Breach that was not interrupted by invisibility (even a second of invisibility, immediately dispelled by True Seeing, can interrupt a spell being cast), and three fighters all in the right place.
You asked why "people say Draconis is harder." Nobody's saying it was hard for you, @Vitor.
Honestly, I fought him twice and neither time seemed that hard.
Then again my normal strategy is to swarm people without death spells with summons. And finish up with my party. Killcthem all and let the gods sort it out.
My favorite way of beating most dragons involve soloing and beating the hell out of them with Soul Reaver + 4.
I'm surprised no one mentionned this awesome greatsword. It increases THAC0 by 2 on hit for 2 turns (2 TURNS!!!), the effect can be stacked and it doesn't even check on magic resistance nor any resistance (even enemy monks, Balthazar, the Ravager and Amelyssan are affected!). The downsides are that you need a good THAC0 and number of attacks per round, Soul Reaver + 4 can't be used on good alignment chars and it's located in the Underdark (far in the main quest).
To add insult to injury, I equip it on my wizard slayer (my favorite class, single class OR dual-class). Humongous THACO after a few hits + increased (or 100 %) spell failure after a few hits on dragons (or anyone actually) = long lasting punching bag until it breaks lol. Just charge, drink some healing potions in the first few rounds to survive in order for Soul Reaver (and that 10 % cumulative miscast magic effect) to connect and enjoy the many, MANY missed attacks by the affected enemy. No Stoneskins on contingencies/sequencers nor Heal/healing spells can bypass the enemy's penalty of not being able to hit you forever.
It's by FAR my favorite solo way to kill Draconis (spell failure on Invisibility and Invisible Stalker makes him easier to manage him) and Abazigal (he can cast Maze at long range now in BG2:EE, so spell failure on that spell is EPIC lol).
My favorite way of beating most dragons involve soloing and beating the hell out of them with Soul Reaver + 4.
I'm surprised no one mentionned this awesome greatsword. It increases THAC0 by 2 on hit for 2 turns
I believe it actually decreases enemy thac0, which is certainly useful vs dragons. Personally I prefer Belm or Kundane wielded in the offhand for a wizardslayer.. or Scarlet Ninjato if you dual to a thief. FoA in the main hand to be particularly disruptive against casters. resulting in 5 attacks if you have grandmastery for your main hand weapon, improved haste doubles attacks, meaning you can stack your WS miscast debuff very fast on opponents
On topic,
I summon skeletons and keep em away for the beginning of the fight untill the first knockback occurs,then i haste the summons and send em in to keep the Dragon busy while my frontliners recover. 2 or 3 skeletons will be enough. Fighter (s) return(s) Summon more skeletons. Dispel,breach. Keep hackin at the Dragon till its downed. Skeletons are the preferred summons cause of their immunity against fear
That's how I usually do it. Tho a Kensai flanker dualwielding the Answerer and Belm was fun to see. Just remove the magical protections and its over real fast.
Cast a bunch of Lower Resistance and fry them with wands of lightning. Use some summoned creatures to keep him busy all the while. Most dragons go down real quick like that. By the time I get to Draconis and Abazigal I usually just use a bunch of spike traps for instant kill. They're so full of pride and I show my contempt by killing them in the quickest and cheesiest way possible.
In the original game, I played a pally, and took the direct approach. And pincushioned him with archers. Lately I've been using gate. I've yet to see Firkraag take out the summons from a gate.
Latest playthrough I beat Firkraag with double dropping Lower Resistance, then following up with Greater Malison, burning off his protections, an Insect Plague, and then I just wailed on him with every spell and blade I had left. I actually poisoned him if I recall, nor sure though.
At lower levels... Buff up or shut up, keep the party spread out and continuously send them in and out (healer in the way back), mass summons for the front line, traps, lower resistance, doom, greater malison, and don't be afraid to use those hoarded consumables.
I remember killing Firkraaag with archer in old vanilla BG2.
Party of 4 chars played in multiplayer... my first run. Anyway archer equiped with Thaumaril, using that nice bow ability.. lowering Thaco I think. I used archer ability.. decrease Th on hit... and arows of piercing. Used some potion of dexterity i think for max Thaco. All slightly buffed by cleric, hasted.
Undead hunter tanking in fire equip (shield, helm, ring - 90 res fire) cant remember weapon - Foa probably. Cleric (duhm+others) - off tank.
80 percent off dmg did by Archer, firinf so quickly I interupt casting few times. Dwarf-Cleric surprisngly saved almost against everything while Paladin almost died. Drinking healing potions like hell, but it was a relatively quick fight. No debuffs, no traps. Core difficulty, no mods. Bealive or not party was lvl 9 max.
Shadow Dragon was even easier, no fire equpip needed on tank- Paladin equiped with Carsomyr, archer again killed the ugly lizard vey quickly.
My friend showed me really easy cheese killing Firkraag. U need only staff of cloudkill and let say 2-4 charges outsie visible range.. and a cigaret break.
It was working in Original BG2 SoA. Not talking about moded game. If AI intelligence is grown dragons will probably not stay in the area of cloudkill. Never tried, becasue it is a little cheat for me, only saw this.
I try to kill Firkraag later with same group of four only in close combat, and my best result was *Near death* on dragon side and my death. (Pal-Uh, R-Arch, C-PrLa, M-T -is not so good melee party) But I think it is still possible even for melee party under lvl 10. I will try in my actuall run, although again not full party.
I think my personal favorite was an old aged cheddar of mine back in the day.
I removed all his MR and defenses with Aerie and Keldorn.................and giggled as he lost his saved v an insta death chromatic orb
How can u low ressistance of a dragon..? I dont play so much casters, seldom I use doom ..
The Magic Resistance divine spell grants target creature 2% magic resistance per caster level up to 40% at 20th level. Value of magic resistance is set so if target has higher spell resistance than one he receives with spell his magic resistance is actually lowered.
The Lower Resistance arcane spell lowers the magic resistance of a creature by 10% + 1% per level of the caster.
My favourite way is using Peridan. It is such a useless weapon which barely helps fight the dragon, that it is almost an insult to the dragon to use it! In the main hand is something like Flail of Ages or Celestial Fury.
I take it you've never given Peridan to a Cavalier against a dragon? Yes, the blade doesn't help cut through the dragon's magical protections, but once they are removed, that weapon is probably the most dangerous out of the bunch against them, being 2d8 and double your strength value, and double the cavalier bonus.
Therefore your lil 1h sword, is capable of doing 2 (minimum die roll)+4(Enchantment Bonus)+14 (strength)+6 (Cavalier bonus to Dragons), 16(maximum die) + other values listed.
Or to put it another way, your little 1h sword is doing 26-40 damage per attack on the dragon. I'd say that's definitely a good weapon to use against the Dragons.
Compare to to Carsomyr 1d12+5 (and another +5 v Chaotic Evil). Minimum would be (1+5+7+3) to the Maximum (12+5+7+3) so 21-32 damage. (I've checked, and all evil dragons in BG2 are CE)
And Flail of Ages: 1d6+3, +1 acid, +1fire (Firk would be immune), +1 cold. Minimum then is (1+1+1+1+3+7+3) to Maximum (6+1+1+1+3+7+3) for 17-22 damage.
And this is only assuming you have 19 strength, the numbers grow in discrepancy as your strength goes higher.
While a disappointing weapon against most enemies, against actual dragons, Peridan's Dragonslayer comes into its own when fighting its chosen enemy. Furthermore, when you fight Firkraag, you won't even have Carsomyr yet.
I literally just killed Firkraag in my SoA campaign and this was my strategy: Total wreckage. Two characters died, but Fallen Planetars are a thing, so...
Comments
It's priceless watching a mighty dragon quickly succumbing to poison with no saving throw allowed.
On the other hand, Firkraag's wisdom stat is only a 3.....
I've just completed Abazigal's Lair, and both Draconis and Abazigal were very fun battles. I don't understand why people say Draconis is harder. I found Abazigal much harder. The damage he was dealing was simply insane! Both in humanoid and even worst in Dragon form. I had to run away 2 times with Korgan to receive Heal from Viconia, or he would be dead (is it possible he had "Kai" active while in Dragon form?).
You asked why "people say Draconis is harder." Nobody's saying it was hard for you, @Vitor.
Then again my normal strategy is to swarm people without death spells with summons. And finish up with my party. Killcthem all and let the gods sort it out.
I'm surprised no one mentionned this awesome greatsword. It increases THAC0 by 2 on hit for 2 turns (2 TURNS!!!), the effect can be stacked and it doesn't even check on magic resistance nor any resistance (even enemy monks, Balthazar, the Ravager and Amelyssan are affected!). The downsides are that you need a good THAC0 and number of attacks per round, Soul Reaver + 4 can't be used on good alignment chars and it's located in the Underdark (far in the main quest).
To add insult to injury, I equip it on my wizard slayer (my favorite class, single class OR dual-class). Humongous THACO after a few hits + increased (or 100 %) spell failure after a few hits on dragons (or anyone actually) = long lasting punching bag until it breaks lol. Just charge, drink some healing potions in the first few rounds to survive in order for Soul Reaver (and that 10 % cumulative miscast magic effect) to connect and enjoy the many, MANY missed attacks by the affected enemy. No Stoneskins on contingencies/sequencers nor Heal/healing spells can bypass the enemy's penalty of not being able to hit you forever.
It's by FAR my favorite solo way to kill Draconis (spell failure on Invisibility and Invisible Stalker makes him easier to manage him) and Abazigal (he can cast Maze at long range now in BG2:EE, so spell failure on that spell is EPIC lol).
On topic,
I summon skeletons and keep em away for the beginning of the fight untill the first knockback occurs,then i haste the summons and send em in to keep the Dragon busy while my frontliners recover. 2 or 3 skeletons will be enough. Fighter (s) return(s) Summon more skeletons. Dispel,breach. Keep hackin at the Dragon till its downed. Skeletons are the preferred summons cause of their immunity against fear
That's how I usually do it. Tho a Kensai flanker dualwielding the Answerer and Belm was fun to see. Just remove the magical protections and its over real fast.
At lower levels... Buff up or shut up, keep the party spread out and continuously send them in and out (healer in the way back), mass summons for the front line, traps, lower resistance, doom, greater malison, and don't be afraid to use those hoarded consumables.
Party of 4 chars played in multiplayer... my first run.
Anyway archer equiped with Thaumaril, using that nice bow ability.. lowering Thaco I think.
I used archer ability.. decrease Th on hit... and arows of piercing.
Used some potion of dexterity i think for max Thaco.
All slightly buffed by cleric, hasted.
Undead hunter tanking in fire equip (shield, helm, ring - 90 res fire) cant remember weapon - Foa probably.
Cleric (duhm+others) - off tank.
80 percent off dmg did by Archer, firinf so quickly I interupt casting few times.
Dwarf-Cleric surprisngly saved almost against everything while Paladin almost died.
Drinking healing potions like hell, but it was a relatively quick fight.
No debuffs, no traps.
Core difficulty, no mods.
Bealive or not party was lvl 9 max.
Shadow Dragon was even easier, no fire equpip needed on tank- Paladin equiped with Carsomyr, archer again killed the ugly lizard vey quickly.
My friend showed me really easy cheese killing Firkraag.
U need only staff of cloudkill and let say 2-4 charges outsie visible range.. and a cigaret break.
It was working in Original BG2 SoA. Not talking about moded game.
If AI intelligence is grown dragons will probably not stay in the area of cloudkill.
Never tried, becasue it is a little cheat for me, only saw this.
But I think it is still possible even for melee party under lvl 10.
I will try in my actuall run, although again not full party.
I removed all his MR and defenses with Aerie and Keldorn.................and giggled as he lost his saved v an insta death chromatic orb
And yes, you still get XP and loot from creatures killed by vorpal hits. It's cheesy like that and I love it.
The Lower Resistance arcane spell lowers the magic resistance of a creature by 10% + 1% per level of the caster.
Both spells don't have a saving throw.
I take it you've never given Peridan to a Cavalier against a dragon? Yes, the blade doesn't help cut through the dragon's magical protections, but once they are removed, that weapon is probably the most dangerous out of the bunch against them, being 2d8 and double your strength value, and double the cavalier bonus.
Therefore your lil 1h sword, is capable of doing 2 (minimum die roll)+4(Enchantment Bonus)+14 (strength)+6 (Cavalier bonus to Dragons), 16(maximum die) + other values listed.
Or to put it another way, your little 1h sword is doing 26-40 damage per attack on the dragon. I'd say that's definitely a good weapon to use against the Dragons.
Compare to to Carsomyr 1d12+5 (and another +5 v Chaotic Evil). Minimum would be (1+5+7+3) to the Maximum (12+5+7+3) so 21-32 damage. (I've checked, and all evil dragons in BG2 are CE)
And Flail of Ages: 1d6+3, +1 acid, +1fire (Firk would be immune), +1 cold. Minimum then is (1+1+1+1+3+7+3) to Maximum (6+1+1+1+3+7+3) for 17-22 damage.
And this is only assuming you have 19 strength, the numbers grow in discrepancy as your strength goes higher.
While a disappointing weapon against most enemies, against actual dragons, Peridan's Dragonslayer comes into its own when fighting its chosen enemy. Furthermore, when you fight Firkraag, you won't even have Carsomyr yet.