My first dragon ...

Sorl the Sorcerer and his party by a narrow stairway entered the ancient assembly hall, where many a splendid celebration to the honor of Anamator had been held, but which now lay bare like the skeleton of a once beautiful elven queen. The reek of evil entered their nostrils and attacked their souls trying to beat them into submission, even before they saw the its source. But there it was, right in the middle of the giant hall, lay the dark worm watching them closly but restraining his murky but yet incredible powers of destruction. Sorl instinctivly clenched his fist holding the warden stone, and gave orders quickly not trusting the fragile silence. Nalia, Imoen, Jaheira and Viconia circled around the dragon, while Valygar snorted viciously, as he was to watch from afar this lecture on how true heroes fight.

The stone fell, and clanged twice on the marble floor before it came to a rest. Thje sound wasn't loud but even its echos could be heard as tension tightened on our adventurers.

Then the Warden roared; it's evil breath letting the horns of Baldurans cap sag down on Viconias hair, who spell attacked immediately throwing flames on the evil beast. Jaheira got sick on the floor and would join the fight later on. Dragon scales glimmered for a moment then turned to a stone hard dull grey. Valygar, breaking orders ran to the dragon, both swords drawn, speeded by his boots, even before the first spell hit, Fighters (argh)!!! Imoen broke into the enemies defenses, fissures showed on the surface of the scales, so Valygars second blow send stone splinters flying in all directions while Nalia used Khelben whip to render the wardens defenses obsolete for good. Sorl streched the limits of his mind to sense the constitution of the dragons magic, finding the intricate pattern with which allowed him to resist the onlaught of the attackers. Once, twice Sorl broke the code and reduced the dragons magic resistance. Now was the time for death to reign, time to draw on the raw powers of the elements and turn them loose on the pitiful something that had chosen to stand in the path of Sorl the Brain.

Suddenly a narrow void formed right before Viconia. Space and time could no longer stand the strain of the terror and hate - catpulted from the enraged drow towards the warden - and were ripped apart to form a blidingly dark, many fingered nothingness reaching out to engulf and anihilate. Viconia barely took notice, sidestepped and continued flinging the fabric of death against the enemy.

A moan could be heard, a sound quickly growing and changing to a cave shaking, nerve shattering rumbling.

Yes indeed, the dragon was purring: "Yeaaah, lower, lower, and to the right, ... that's where the itch is. ... Ouuuuh, goooooooood! Right on the spot, now a little bit stronger! Aaaaaaahhhhhh .... No! don't tickle ahh ha ha haaaa STOP ha ha haaaa aaaargh ......

EMBARRASSING!!!!

I'm out of the underdark at high level (lvl 15-16) and can't honorably kill that son of a drake and a dragonfly. 'Finger of death' should be renamed to 'tickle to death'! I used up half of my spells before the miserable beast went down.
I don't mind hard enemies but then comes along a skinny little baldheaded guy, dressed in a colored tablecloth and tells his tale how he kissed his fist and said good bye to the dragon with one punch!

Thats not fair! Meelee weapons are heavily overpovered! They are cheats, exploits, only used by cowards!

The real hero fights by spellpower alone!


May magic prewail forever

Sorl


I think I'm gonna cry now.

[Rakanishu]

At least you still killed him.

In my game I fought him while I was low level, and he level-drained the Carbon-14 from Aerie and Viconia's bones!

Firkraag is next on my list! I have it all figured out! Finger of Death + Harm + Champion Strength + Call Upon Holy Might, Jaheira might just bring him down in ONE BLOW! Not only that, by the time I pop out of the Underdark I should have Wyvern Call and Summon Stalker and all that, and Ice Storm, etc! It will be a good fight.

Don't cry, dear Sorl, at least the battle inspired you to write that beautiful tale of the dragon that was not to be defeated
I'm not very familiar with AD&D rules and to me dragons always were magical creatures that are beyond the human strugles of good and evil. I just can't make myself think of them as foul beasts, maybe at least on of the dragons could be good so u could discuss with him the questions of life, universe and everything...and do some obscure quests which grant u eternal youth or something
Having said I found dragons rather easy to slay. My low level party (Lola kensai/mage lvl 9/11, Nalia lvl 11, Minsc lvl 10, Jaheira lvl 9/12, Yoshimo lvl 13) killed Firkraag in the first go without much injuries at all.
I have told him that I will free Garren's child and come back for him, why he didn't attack me then I guess only dragons know.
When I did come back I summoned some lesser elementials (we were only level 11 mages) and 2 of Jaheira's fire elementials. Cated haste on everyone incl elementials. Improved invisibility on Minsc. Put elementials around dragon together with Minsc with his dragonslayer sword, shield and helmet. I casted greater malison while Nalia did lower resistance, and the fight began.
Me and Nalia helped elementials and Minsc with magic misssiles while the rest of the party used their best ranged weapons. For a while it looked like the fight wasn't going to last and then in a second my elementials together with the brave Minsc, were scattered around the room, lying on the floor, looking rather fatigued
Me and Nalia continued to attack with every offensive spell we had (primarily magic missiles really and to my amazement the great dragon didn't do anymore damage to my party. Were we standing just far enough? Eventually the elementials picked themselves up from the floor, Minsc awakened from his enchanted fatique and ran to battle, like they really were fresh from sleep, and not overpowered by Firkraag.
It wasn't long till He was lying on the floor dead, still surrounded by my elementials with the last drop of evil blood being sucked out of him by one of those trite magic missiles, belonging, alas to Nalia, and not to me
This is probably not the "bravest" way to fight dragons, but it is one of the "smart" ones, without using any cheats... I think with enough preparation any creature in BG2 is deafeatable and u don't really have to be at very high level to do it.
There is the possibility of monsters becoming more difficult to fight as u go up levels, but this would affect the quantity of monsters not the skill of individual ones?
I will have to go back and kill that dragon hand to hand, or I'll start thinking about putting that slider on insane

[Shura]

Heh, nice one. Despite my earlier posts, I enjoy fighting it out with the dragons. Anyway, my first time against the dragon was an absolute disaster with a Kensai/mage. My PC walked up to Firkragg, casted lower resistance twice and was promptly roasted. After a reload, I had Viconia summon a couple of skeletons, hasted them along with my PC and Minsc, casted Bless and Chant. Activated my PC's Draw Upon Holy Might and sent the skeletons in first to be roasted by the Red Dragon's breath. Leading my Kensai/mage and Minsc were a couple of lower resistance spells by Edwin followed by a greater malison. Insect swarm by Jaheira worked wonders after those 2 spells. After a while of whacking with both Minsc and my PC, we ran off to drink potions while Edwin hit Firkragg with lighting bolts. ( Does anyone realise that lighting bolts does hell to dragons? ) After Edwin has exhausted his lighting bolts, he fired off all his magic missile spells. The great wyrm eventually fell after a critical hit by my Kensai/mage. None in my party was seriously hurt. Yoshimio spent the whole battle hiding in shadows. I had totally forgotten about him then.