Favorite class and noobish questions

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With a solo bard or what?

 

Agree. UAI should be a bard-only HLA. The thieves already get three special set trap skills in their HLAs, all of which are absolutely baller. There is a mod that allows bards to continue to get spells beyond level 6. It's a much slower spell progression than the mages, but you'll get a few 7th level spells, and even a 8th level spell or two by late ToB.

LMAO.

Well, there are a couple of uber-cheesy ways of dealing with him involving lining the floor with traps and fake-talking him, but I'm assuming your asking for at least a semi-honorable way of taking him down.

IMO, surviving a battle with any dragon involves two things: taking down his defensive protections, and having all of your fighter-types absolutely work him in melee. If you can beat the Shadow Dragon, many of the same tactics apply to Firkraag. Easier said than done of course, so here's a more detailed explanation.

Obviously, you want to pre-buff before the battle. (Note: I do not think pre-buffing against either the shadow dragon or Firkraag to be cheese. The shadow dragon doesn't see you because of the wardstone, and Firkraag thinks so little of you that he doesn't consider you a threat.) Do all the obvious stuff like Bless, Chant, Draw Upon Holy Might, Protection from Evil and most importantly, Resist/Remove Fear. (Nothing ruins a dragon battle more than half your party running around in panic.)

While summons will not carry the day for you, they do serve as useful distractions. Just don't do something silly like cast Monster Summoning I and expect that to do anything. You need somewhat beefy summons against dragons. Mordekein's Sword if you have it is great. If you have Jaheira in your group she has that 6th level summon bears spell. You get two spirit bears and they take an absolute beating before going down. An unusual, but decent choice would be a Nishuruu, as they will steal spells, but as soon as Firkraag starts attacking them they go down fast. So I really think Mordy Swords and Spirit Bears are the way to go.

Secondly, if you want your fighters and summons to actually be doing damage, you have to get through the spell protections. If you have Keldorn in your party, that is accomplished easily by busting out a dispel magic every couple of rounds. Otherwise, the task falls to your mages. Breach is great, and you should definitely have that by then. Secret Word will work in a pinch. Obviously things like Pierce Magic, Ruby Ray, and Warding Whip would be better, but you may not have a mage capable of casting that level of spell depending on when you go after Firkraag.

The one thing that your mages probably shouldn't do is cast direct damage spells. Dragons have a fairly high magic resistance, so you might fire off a volley of 5 magic missiles, but perhaps only one of them will get past the magic resistance. If you would like to use direct damage spells, it's a good idea to chuck a Lower Resistance spell at him first to improve the odds that your subsequent spells will work.

All the while, all of your fighters have to focus on bringing him down. Any clerics or druids with decent hitpoints (Anomen, Jaheira) can of course help. The key with that is to cycle them out of combat. Once Firkraag starts attacking one of them, he usually continues attacking that one. But if you have multiple fighters engaged with him, when the first guy is hurt badly, you pull him out and chug a couple of extra healing potions while the rest keep working on him. Since Firkraag is engaged in melee with multiple enemies, when you pull one of your guys off of him, he doesn't chase him - he turns to attack another guy engaged in melee. By the time the second guy takes enough damage that you need to pull him out, the first guy is usually able to re-enter the fray.

 

Interesting. Now I usually do it roughly the same way because it seems the most effortless one, but when I was weaker and dragons were strong and scary, I found magic to be the best way.
Firkraaag has 65% magic resistance, so 3 castings of lower resistance are roughly what you need to take it down. Then spam him with whatever you have that is not fire based. At the same time let fighters do their jobs. He should be down soon. He has a mere 184 HP, so you have to cast magic missiles ~10 times to kill him. 2 mages do it in 30 seconds w/out help from other party members, w/out sequencers, w/out attacking between castings. Lightning bolts do ~25% more damage (because he saves often), but are slightly risky.
Once I even managed to disintegrate him. I was hugely disappointed. I did so much preparations only to get 3 seconds of fun, so I had to reload and I never used the spell since then.

Most importantly, protection from fire. Having everybody dead after the first attack ruins the fight even worse.
And I'd say that haste is 3rd. Not critical, but much better than ones like chant.

Yes, it's absolutely critical. Though I'd like to add that the person can attack from distance while healing. Quaff a potion, pause, attack for 5.5 seconds, order the person to take another one, pause, attack and so on.

Otherwise, I agree with you, Aldeth.

 

I had that happen to me once too - most of his loot gets disintegrated with him, which both sucks and is unrealistic. Surely, he has a hoard, but it's not like he's carrying his hoard on his back or something that it would be disintegrated... I mean I can see not getting the scales, but other than that...

I felt that went without saying. I assumed that damedog was quite aware that having any items/spells that give protection from fire would be a good idea against a fire breathing dragon.

It gives your clerics something to do, and heck, having a little bit better saving throws never hurts. It's not like there's a ton of uber useful 2nd level spells that you can't spare a slot for a Chant. How many Slow Poison and Hold Person spells do you need?

 

Aerie can kill Firkraag with "Chromatic Doom" (Doom followed by Chromatic Orb in a sequencer). I had a solo cleric/thief who killed him with "Harm" and a single trap (it took a couple of reloads -- he has a good saving throw). I also liked "Implosion" and a spiked trap (same solo).

During a slugfest the Rod of Ressurection heals at any distance. One cleric standing back can heal anyone at any time.

 

You can heal with a rod of resurrection? I thought the only function it had was resurrecting people...

 

I found out once when I was in a rush and clicked on the wrong picture.... It's the ultimate cheese ... the cost to recharge the rod isn't really that bad either. You just don't want to use it up before recharging.

 

Anyways someone mentioned Bard spell progression isn't far behind wizard... it is because of THE RING- atm I have at level 8th - 3,3&1 Dynaheir at level 8 + the ring has 10,4,4,4...- well even without the ring it is not so great for bard.. not that it matters much I have so many wands I don't know where to keep them anymore lol
sucks bards can't use this ring

 

Bard/Wizard spell progression is basically the same up until wizards gain enough XP to reach level 5. While wizard spell progression is actually faster than a bard's, the speed at which the bard gains levels offsets this at wizard levels 1-4.

 

When fighting Firkraag, I've found that using a protection from magic scroll on him works wonders. It stops him from healing himself or renewing his protections. Hitting him with the second level mage spell Strength also helps lower the amount of damage he does in melee, but most consider it cheese. He should get a saving throw for that. If you've lowered his resistance using Ray of enfeeblement is better, but you need to hit him with it before using the Protection from Magic scroll.
Having a cleric cast "magic resistance" first can save your mage a casting of lower resistance.

Myself, I usually just use strength and then protection from magic, and let the fighters do their jobs. The clerics & druids will join the fun in melee until somebody needs healing, while I let the mages use missile weapons (unless they use staffs and darts, as I usually don't have good enough darts to hurt him).

Oh, I of course prebuff the party with haste and everything I can to help melee. Summons are also useful. Even summon monster 1 is useful for making him waste his first salvo on canon fodder while I'm casting strength & PFM. I'll use the wand, send them in a few at a time and cast those spells.

 

I never even thought about using a Protection from Magic Scroll on him. I mean, I guess that would work, as you wouldn't be affect by magic... I guess it's a good idea to take down his spell protections first...

 

I've heard that "beneficial spells" do not cause him to go hostile. So Protection from Magic, Magic Resistance and the like do not initiate combat even though they significantly weaken the dragon (and should cause a hostile reaction) -- seems kind of cheesy to me.

 

I like how tough dragons are in this game as opposed to other DnD games like NwN and Icewind Dale. You have to do a lot of preparation and be skilled at the game, and even then there is an element of luck involved. Sure, it may be simple for masters, but a 2 ed. beginner like me couldn't do it without outside help, which is the way it should be. I felt disappointed when I could just run in and slay a dracolich like in HotU.

 

I can guarantee that you'll love playing the expansion. >: )

 

In SoA, the dragons are not that tough and you can generally just tank them with a few fighters. In ToB, on the other hand, the dragons are quite a lot more dangerous.

 

well 2e is hard for beginners, the ton of arcane and divine spells
at first people have little idea what to use other than Fireball and Lightning hehe
I guess the fact that it is complicated and so multifaceted(magic system) is what makes it satisfying to learn

 

I don't think they are that much different. Initially hard, but once you learn how to play with them, not problematic.
The hardest dragon for me was the 1st that I met, Firkraag. In ToB there were 2 that caused troubles too (especially 1), but still less than Firkraag.

 

Yeah, all the different spell types make it really interesting, and the enemies are certainly much harder than in most 3 ed. games. Anytime I saw someone about to cast a spell I suddenly got very worried, as they always tried to cripple my party in some fashion. All the strategy that goes into making a good party and spell selection makes it satisfying. Is a single class paladin going to be weaker than a multi-classed character though? I'm worried that the lack of hp will make him weaker at higher levels.

 

He'll have more HP than a multiclass character. By multiclassing A/B your HP is between pure A and pure B.

 

The Paladin is possibly weaker than a multi-classed spellcaster as the MC will end up with maxed out spell ability where the Pally will have a very limited spell selection. HP wise the Pally beats any MC except he is about even with a 19 Con Dwarf or Half-Orc F/C. Both are strong by end game.