Well, I've tried 6 times now, different things, luring, etc. and nothing.. I get him to Hurt then I start losing party members.. got him to Badly Injured once with only my mage left, she cast that 7th level sword spell that does damage at a distance + haste, not bad. This battle wouldn't be that hard if 1) haste lasted longer, 2) there was mass protection from fear and acid (well, in that case the dragon would hardly have a chance), but damn, i don't have any of those, I have 2 protection from acid scrolls and nothing to offset fear/panic.. damn, i don't know if I'll be able to beat him.

any strategy ideas?

Trypt

have a cleric??? then the lvl 1 spell remove fear is good for 10 rounds, if not get back to kuld and look at different scrolls... Disintegrate worked for me :D

Disintigrate? you serious? i didn't even want to try that, i thought the dragon would laugh it down. I know its a powerful spell but I've never had it work even on a damn goblin.

Trypt

Trypt ... I had a little discussion with Quint on this battle in this thread:

http://www.sorcerers.net/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=14&t=000794#000014

good luck!

Here's what worked for me:

- Any party member that can't hit the dragon (physically or with spells) or cast healing spells on other party members stays far away from the battle. No point getting them killed off.

- Cast a lot of summons, and cast Tortoise Shell on them to give them an extra 100 hp; they'll distract the dragon from hitting your party members at least some of the time, and the Tortoise Shell will let them take more than one or two blows. If your game is unpatched, Otiluke is even better.

- Flame strike and Chain Lightning. They only work on him some of the time, but when they do, they do enough damage to make it worthwhile.

- Emotion: Hope and Mass Haste gives your party a surprising edge. Improved Invisibility is good too, even with the patch.

Good luck!

oh oh.. I JUST patched my game about 5 mins ago, sholdn't have I done that? What has the patch done to Otiluke and improved invisibility? is there something else I should know about?

Trypt

i cannot understand why all of you are praying for summons vs the guardian ... maybe i am playing another game version ?
the guardian has the ability to slay summons with one hit. no i did not summon cats and dogs ...
i saw the dragon killing a grizzly with 20 damage but grizzly has ~100 hp ... i don't remember about summon undead (spell not wand) but i think did not work too.
anyway, disintegrate.

Well i found that even though summons are crap they still have their use...

For example I summoned a Earth and Fire elemental and monster summoning VI (which gave me a umber hulk)

The fire elemtal seemed to last about 5 miniutes
the earth one 3 miniutes funily the umber hulk lasted 4 minutes but didnt make a hit.

The dragon tends to get through your protection spells alot.. I had remove fear, storm shell protection from elements the works basicaly..
He still gets trough...

Your best warror must do damage +3 or weapons that have magic propeties of that level to hit him.. Moonblade is also quite effective.

Basicaly I beleave you just have to over summon him... but its proberly a last resort tactic...

[ December 05, 2002, 14:37: Message edited by: Deepcut ]

What difficulty are you playing at? I just wonder as I didnt have any problem at all with the guardian dragon, I even found him to be a bit of a disapointment. I used the regular dragon tactics that have been used on dragons since SoA. Buff up all your chars as much as possible, especially your tanks and position them around where you think the dragon appear. Summon some monsters and spread them out as well. After that it is only to chop the dragon up. I had my mage and cleric bombard it with spells and now and then dash in to heal a tank. Try to make the dragon concentrate on the summons while you just slice and dice it with your tanks. Shouldnt be any greater problem.

Hey Joacqin, you confused jerk (that's what your by-line says ;) )

I'm playing it at just under HOF mode.

My problem wasn't killing the dragon ... it was doing so without anyone dying, because if I did, they are forced to rest and I loose all their stuff.

On the SUMMONING note ... my summons lasted very long. Creeping Doom actually did some damage against the dragon, and my greater boneguards (there is an Animate Dead spell, works much better than the wand, Clerics and Arcane spell casters can use it) had some good resistance against the breath weapon.

That dragon is kicking my ass! Part of the reason I've come to these boards.

I equip all my fighters with at least +3 weapons, my drow fighter has a bastard sword +4 but she's not even hitting him, though my dwarf fighter and druid/ranger do some mediocre damage. I haven't tried using disintegrate, yet, or the finger of death, but I'm going to have to try them because even using Call Lightning and Otiluke's Freezing Sphere doesn't do but about 30 damage to him. Most of my other spells just get shrugged off. I'm only getting the thing down to "Hurt" and it kills off my tanks. I'm considering going back into the Yuan-ti lair and butchering everything (not just Jezrael and Ojaiha) in there to level up three of my people, but it's debateable if that'd do me any good in the long run.

I think when I finally kill the thing, I'll get up and do a victory dance around my room just to spite the accursed thing.

In HoF mode the guardian slays constructs and most summons with one hit. Elemental Legion and the other elementals basically become stall spells for your mages. +5 weapons barely deal any damage. Basically the strategy is either to outlast it with spells or run fighters at it with constant mass heals. Try to lower its resistance a few times (tho it may get hard to do so in HoF mode.) Basically I fight and spell till half my party's dead.. run like hell, resurrect them.. then fight again until another half dies.. repeat - and that should do it. :)

[ December 12, 2002, 02:54: Message edited by: vf6alpha ]

I didn't find this too difficult, maybe even a little disspointing. I buffed and hasted, then my tanks penned him in, while my wizard went to work and my cleric healed the tanks as they took damage. After a lower resistance I used a disintegrate or finger of death type spell and did a ton of damage.

how about the classic BG2 way to kill drags(iwd2 does have that spell)... one of the cleric/druid resist spells sets the targets resist to liek 12 +1 for every lvl of there cleric druid.... that drops drags magic resistance to like 20/30% from there on its nuke it while trying to keep tanks alive... summons help keep the attention away from the main fighter as well, even those crapy lvl one ones... they may not be able to hit it but they are extra bodys for it to hit.
edit: i also heard that after u use the reist spell if you can get the cause critical wounds spells off then its all over... but thats boring

EDIT: nm jsut looked closely at the spell again.. its changed sence BG2 :( now only effects allies or party members ... thu you can use the lower resistance spell on them doubt that works very oftine thu

[ December 18, 2002, 23:36: Message edited by: ShakuaZar ]

Ok, this might be a liiiiiittle bit cheap, but I've found a reliable way to kill him. Cast invisibility on a party member and position them on the steps, and get all your other party members far enough away that they can hold the dragon's attention, but he can't hit them.

Then empty your spell lists on him.

Boom. One dead dragon.

First time I used this method, it took a few tries, and by the end my Sorcerer and Cleric both were out of spells. If you have a decent ranged attacker, you can let them pelt him from a distance too. Though the bugger can be hard to hit. You should space your party members out in order to minimize how many of them will get dragon fear at a time. Oh, and hope your blocker doesn't get it, or if they do, hope they don't run off and let the dragon by, otherwise, it just got a lot harder.