How do you normally beat Firkraag?

inkblowout

Well I finally defeated Firkraag after 3 hours I think... (Thank god, he was tough.)

I kinda semi-cheesed it to beat him. Used wand of cloudkill (only the wand with 6 shots) so I softed him up and he was still in 3/5 bars of health. And still even then he destroyed me most the time. So here is what I did...

My Party (Who was hasted 100% of the time)

CHARNAME (Paladin) - Melee & Tank & Healer (It was most effective when Firkraag was targetting CHARNAME most of the time so I just attack while I'm constantly healing myself and the others can just lay on the hits.

Keldorn - Melee & Dispelled Firkraag

Anomen - Melee

Viconia - Dispelled Firkraag & provided buffs and heals and attacking once in a while

Hear Dalis - Magic Missle/On and off Melee as well with default swords and buffed his CON up

Jan Jansen - Magic Missle and ranged attack with piecing arrows.

Once Firkraag was 1 bar left. Everyone rushed in with haste and he didn't stand a chance. Keldorn was the only one that died which broke my rule. But Firkraag was really hard and just killing him was good enough. I restored Keldorn, Got the Carsomyr sword for myself and I was glad.

How do you guys normally beat him? I know some people have done it so easily with level 12 character/solo and I'm just in shock because Firkraag was hard.

tbone1

Resist Fear is your friend. Also, heavy summons (elementals) help. But you did mostly what you should. I did have an assassin backstab the bejabbers out of him once, but I think I got a nearly perfect roll on that attack; I wouldn't want to depend on it.

Overall, it looks like you did well. Firkraag can be a real pain in the gluteus sometimes.

unavailable

protect from fear and fire

wand of monster summoning

breach

repeat step 2 until he stops using abilities

haste
hit him to death.


try to micro manage your party so that your people aren't standing next to each other and are positioned to put as much distance between each other just in case firkraag uses an area of effect that you might not like. You don't want your whole group to have haste taken away.

UnderstandMouseMagic

I think people tend to use magic a lot more. Or rather use magic to rip away his defences and for summons.

So breach obviously, then lower magic resistance a few times (at least 3 I'd say), then feeblemind or emotion or rigid thinking ect.
Then he just stands there and you can mess around.

I like to have every NPC with at least one "big kill" to their name on the record so after rendering him harmless, I decide which NPC gets to kill him off. Everybody gets a dragon kill eventually, it's good for party morale.

But I never melee dragons, they are far too big, so well done.

Lord_Tansheron

Playing on LoB with SCS, IR, and SR mods, Firkraag (and dragons in general) are surprisingly easy to defeat, and less of a bother than many of the regular packs in that very dungeon.

Tank with a properly protected character, either a mage hybrid of some kind (shield against dispels is a must) or a high-damage-reduction dwarven defender (dragon scripting doesn't seem to break off focus at the usual 75% DR threshold).

Everyone MUST be protected against fire in some way (potion, scroll, etc.).

Then just tank and spank, the classical way. Reposition if and when needed (usually wing buffet is not used on the tank). Dispel protections with Breach as required, refresh buffs on yourself as they run out/are consumed.

Cvijeta

What - you have two paladins, viconia, anomen, haer-dalis and jan...

PaulaMigrate

Every time I face him (or any other oponent of course), I have a different party, a different protagonist, and consequently different equipment/stats/spells etc. The new mixture makes the fun, it's a new challenge each time around instead of repeating *the formula*.
It's not always harder settings or loads of mods that can make a fight interesting, I rather try something different each time around, never any routine.

tbone1

PaulaMigrate said:

Every time I face him (or any other oponent of course), I have a different party, a different protagonist, and consequently different equipment/stats/spells etc. The new mixture makes the fun, it's a new challenge each time around instead of repeating *the formula*.
It's not always harder settings or loads of mods that can make a fight interesting, I rather try something different each time around, never any routine.

If I were from Chicago I'd upvote this five times on behalf of undead relatives. (Hi, @Anduin and his bored of older men!)

One of the things that made the Infinity Engine games great was the replayability. Nowadays this is expected, but "back in the day" it was unusual. And to this day I find it interesting how people use strategies I'd never think of, like having Jan cast Ghoul Touch, Web, and Polymorph Self into a sword spider on a contingency.

Raduziel

Jan is an illusionist. How the hell does he casts Ghoul Touch?

Zaghoul

With the type of characters I usually play, and no-reload, just workin for him seems to take care of any issues, as I have other concerns that take priority.
Problem solved.
I always think he would be more interesting if he could offer more quests for the opportunistic employee.

Artona

Haste, bless, remove fear and fire resistance on party, positioning warriors around Firkraag so that he can't target with fire breath more than one fighter. Mages/support far away from him and each other. Everyone has speed oil and fire resistance potion in case of his dispell; of course bunch of healing potions.
After that setup, everyone hits him as hard as possible to do maximum damage before his wings attack and stoneskins kick in (non-LoB Firkraag is killable that way). Usually he won't go down that easy, so fighters do heavy lifting, while mages lower his magic resistance and then bombard him with magic missiles. If needs arise, cleric casts another remove fear, and mage throw in additional haste.
Of course, much depends on party, but this is the drill in most cases.

tbone1

Raduziel said:

Jan is an illusionist. How the hell does he casts Ghoul Touch?

Shocking grasp. I'm blaming altitude for this. I'm only 130 meters above sea level, but it's still altitude.

Borek

i usually play solo, so tend to be higher level when i meet the dragons, but obviously surround and swarm isn't much of an option.

My favourite is using just arcane spells, pre-buff with remove fear, prot.fire, stoneskin, Spell Immunity Adjuration.

Robe of Vecna and Amulet of power extremely handy for casting speed reduction.

Improved Alacrity
Luck
Lower Resistance x 2/3 depending on level
Greater malison
Skull Trap until dead

Raduziel

I usually poke Firkraag with the sharp end of whatever the fighters are carrying until he stops moving.

Darts + Oil of Speed to take down the Stoneskin faster.

Lots of potions of extra healing and/or regeneration.

Joan_Daro

Borek said:

i usually play solo, so tend to be higher level when i meet the dragons, but obviously surround and swarm isn't much of an option.

My favourite is using just arcane spells, pre-buff with remove fear, prot.fire, stoneskin, Spell Immunity Adjuration.

Robe of Vecna and Amulet of power extremely handy for casting speed reduction.

Improved Alacrity
Luck
Lower Resistance x 2/3 depending on level
Greater malison
Skull Trap until dead

Keeping 3 or less people (Charname, his/her romance, random people with a personal quest) in the group actually makes the game easier.
Solo would be tougher, since you are greatly limited. How does a mage fight himself out of Sendai's lair?

fateless

In the past I used my tank to get his attention while being immune to fear and resistant/immune to fire and turn him so his breath weapon could only one person. Then I breach and lower resistance him. Then I pound on him with ranged and multi-turn spells like ice storm that he's not resistant or immune to the damage. He usually goes down fairly easily.

Borek

Joan_Daro said:

Borek said:

i usually play solo, so tend to be higher level when i meet the dragons, but obviously surround and swarm isn't much of an option.

My favourite is using just arcane spells, pre-buff with remove fear, prot.fire, stoneskin, Spell Immunity Adjuration.

Robe of Vecna and Amulet of power extremely handy for casting speed reduction.

Improved Alacrity
Luck
Lower Resistance x 2/3 depending on level
Greater malison
Skull Trap until dead

Keeping 3 or less people (Charname, his/her romance, random people with a personal quest) in the group actually makes the game easier.
Solo would be tougher, since you are greatly limited. How does a mage fight himself out of Sendai's lair?

Well i would always have a dual or multi class mage and be extremely high level due to all the XP going to 1 character before i reached Sendai's Enclave. Arcane power is beyond broken once you get HLA's, most of the time i just play it lazy and make liberal use of Summon Planetar, Staff of the Magi trivializes many encounters as you can go invisible at will and dispel magic on hit. Enemies that have True Seeing or naturally see through invisibility are a bit more challenging, but as a mage you can make yourself immune to whatever they throw and dish out mind-blowing levels of damage in return.

I actually spend most of my fights deliberately conserving spells by this point, because there's so many great items horded that you can usually get past the majority of stuff by simply using a mix of potions, scrolls and items like wands, of which you'll have way, way more than you could possibly need by mid-TOB.

Pure single class mage/sorcerer would have to cast more though, usually i'll have at least 1 other class to use whilst i conserve my spells for the big bads, but by that point in TOB i'd be level 50 as a mage and abusing wish rest via PI and PI in general to let me cast my entire spell list for 1 7th level slot. For a solo Mage you become brokenly powerful in chapter 2 if you do all side quests, although you do need to do the majority of Watchers Keep to get the scroll of Wish from the gambling Demon with the DoMT. Watchers Keep is definitely a challenge for a solo mage at times though, make no mistake.

Raduziel

Joan_Daro said:

How does a mage fight himself out of Sendai's lair?

Simulacrum + Project Image + Wish-spam.

Joan_Daro

Borek said:

Pure single class mage/sorcerer would have to cast more though, usually i'll have at least 1 other class to use whilst i conserve my spells for the big bads, but by that point in TOB i'd be level 50 as a mage and abusing wish rest via PI and PI in general to let me cast my entire spell list for 1 7th level slot. For a solo Mage you become brokenly powerful in chapter 2 if you do all side quests, although you do need to do the majority of Watchers Keep to get the scroll of Wish from the gambling Demon with the DoMT. Watchers Keep is definitely a challenge for a solo mage at times though, make no mistake.

...Hey, wait, level 50??? Is there a mod to remove the exp cap???
I once tried a mage(or was it cleric/mage?) solo but the maze in wk level 3 just seems impossible. And I had scs installed then, which means the rob of vecna was in wk level 4, so I basically gave up before trying.
PI is really effective in saving spell slots but I don't use wish spells that often. I usually send a project image to do all the fighting, and when I run out of PIs I'll just, well, sleep.
So a scroll of Wish might not be necessary and perhaps I can simply skip wk if I can buy the robe in Amn & get my 8 million elsewhere...?

*noticing the title about Firkraag*
Ohhhh but we are just too far off the topic...

Balrog99

"Hey Firry, look over there. A rabbit with ears of a dragon!" (hastily places another trap while Firkraag's head us turned)

Rinse and repeat until all traps are placed.

"Hey Firry, your mother is a hamster and your father smells of elderberries!"

Red circle - Death...

ThacoBell

Soften with traps (my traps are modded and are not broken instakills), have my Bard dispel his protections as necessary, and whack with hasted fighters. I don't use many casters in my parties.

Thalyr_the_Green

ThacoBell said:

Soften with traps (my traps are modded and are not broken instakills), have my Bard dispel his protections as necessary, and whack with hasted fighters. I don't use many casters in my parties.

Which mod is that?

ThacoBell

@Thalyr_the_Green Might and Guile. Its pretty great.

Reliant

I have my character, an Inquisitor, dispel his protections and while my fighters and summons keep him busy, Nalia and Aerie hit him with lower resistances and a greater malison. Then Nalia and Aerie open up with chromatic orbs. Once mages reach level 12, chromatic orb is an instant kill spell. With his resistance down and a saving throw penalty, he goes down easy.

Benny89

Blackguard with Posion weapon (pre-nerfed) and anything that can hit him and hit him manytimes. At some point he will have so many stacks of posion you can just wait till his dead. He doesn't have that many hit points.

Also summons are always a good way.

Traps and Coulds are the usual, best way.

Lehigh96

This is a rather cheesy way to kill Firkraag but it is easy and I rarely find uses for the limited wish spell in battle so I see no need to save them. Since you know you are going to face Firkraag you can prepare yourself with spell selections without worrying about metagaming.

So have your mage memorize two limited wish spells. Prior to battle make sure you are hasted and that if your mage's wisdom is less than 14 that you take a potion of insight. Cast limited wish, choose one time spell, choose "I wish to be anything I desire" which will cast shapechange on yourself. Then cast limited wish a second time, choose one time spell, choose "I wish for control over time" which will cast time stop. Then simply transform into a mind flayer, attack Firkraag, hit him 4 times, and he is dead.

Elendar

I typically just load up on fire resistance and send everyone in to bash on him while my mage removes his protections. Sometimes I summon a few skeletons and such to help out with the bashing.

jacob_

3 Lower Resist + deadly Sequencers/Abi will easily defeat any dragon in the game

Durenas

It helps that my main is dual wielding warhammers. I buff up with fire resist potions and gear, resist fear, bless, chant, stoneskin, ironskins, pretty much anything else, Draw Upon Holy Might, then Berzerk, improved haste on my melee. then I spread out and engage combat. Anytime someone takes about 30 damage, i chug a healing potion and whale away at him until he dies. If he fears someone, resist fear to bring them back into the fight. It really shouldn't take that long.

Edit: Oh and Lower Resistance, Greater Malison, Breach, etc to make him easier to hit.

Elendar

Durenas said:

It helps that my main is dual wielding warhammers. I buff up with fire resist potions and gear, resist fear, bless, chant, stoneskin, ironskins, pretty much anything else, Draw Upon Holy Might, then Berzerk, improved haste on my melee. then I spread out and engage combat. Anytime someone takes about 30 damage, i chug a healing potion and whale away at him until he dies. If he fears someone, resist fear to bring them back into the fight. It really shouldn't take that long.

Edit: Oh and Lower Resistance, Greater Malison, Breach, etc to make him easier to hit.

You should use remove fear before the fight. Makes everyone within range (the whole party) immune to fear for a time.

Durenas

Elendar said:

Durenas said:

It helps that my main is dual wielding warhammers. I buff up with fire resist potions and gear, resist fear, bless, chant, stoneskin, ironskins, pretty much anything else, Draw Upon Holy Might, then Berzerk, improved haste on my melee. then I spread out and engage combat. Anytime someone takes about 30 damage, i chug a healing potion and whale away at him until he dies. If he fears someone, resist fear to bring them back into the fight. It really shouldn't take that long.

Edit: Oh and Lower Resistance, Greater Malison, Breach, etc to make him easier to hit.

You should use remove fear before the fight. Makes everyone within range (the whole party) immune to fear for a time.

I do. The thing is, sometimes they get feared anyway. Whether the spell drops off somehow, or is dispelled, or just overpowered by his fear effect, it does occasionally happen.