Baldur's Gate : The Sword Coast Chronicles : NWN2 Persistent World

Hi everyone, I've spent the last couple of weeks studying Icehauptannarthanyx and everything I could possibly read about the server and NWN2 in general.

With a bit of help from ED223, I have come up with a strategy to solo this boss, I believe it's completely viable. But, I am new to the server and my highest level is 5. As such I don't have the items, gold, or xp to even attempt my theory. Though, the build and strategy I have in mind is actually rather simple.

However, there's some more questions I have that I'd need to get figured out in order to more optimally min/max the build:

1. Does Icehauptannarthanyx have adamantine claws, e.g. would spells like Shadow Shield or Ethereal Visage provide any DR against him? (My current working assumption is that no DR spells in all of the game will be effective.)

2. Icehauptannarthanyx appears to have 25% fire weakness, but also 10/- fire resistance. Which gets applied first? Resistance then weakness, or weakness then resistance? (My current assumption is resistance is applied first.)

3. How many rounds until Icehauptannarthanyx despawns? (Current assumption is 300 rounds or 30 minutes.)

4. Icehauptannarthanyx appears to be hasted at all times. Is the last attack in this schedule his hasted attack 62/57/52/47/42/37/32? (Current assumption would allow for two attacks per round at 62 as well as rest of attack schedule)

5. Is it true Icehauptannarthanyx has 20/- to all physical damage, or is this actually being confused for his 25% physical immunity across the board? (Current assumption would allow for him to have both 20/- and 25% physical immunity)

6. Is it true Icehauptannarthanyx's total hp is 10,000? (Current rumors suggest this, it's important to have an accurate total in order to assess that the dps requirement can be met before the despawn timer.)

7. Icehauptannarthanyx's total AC is what? (Current theory suggest 65 AC.)

8. Does Icehauptannarthanyx have the blind-fight feat for purposes of better dealing with concealment? (Current theory would assume he has the feat.)

9. What are Icehauptannarthanyx saves? And is he immune to auto failure on 1? (Current theory would assume no DC in the entire game would work on him.)

1. Does Icehauptannarthanyx have adamantine claws, e.g. would spells like Shadow Shield or Ethereal Visage provide any DR against him? (My current working assumption is that no DR spells in all of the game will be effective.)

Ethereal Visage protects from attacks from the white dragon

5. Is it true Icehauptannarthanyx has 20/- to all physical damage, or is this actually being confused for his 25% physical immunity across the board? (Current assumption would allow for him to have both 20/- and 25% physical immunity)

He has both

4. Icehauptannarthanyx appears to be hasted at all times. Is the last attack in this schedule his hasted attack 62/57/52/47/42/37/32? (Current assumption would allow for two attacks per round at 62 as well as rest of attack schedule)

He has probably just a BAB > 30 and thus gets 7 attacks.



I wish you good luck

Ok so bear with me here.

Assuming the White Dragon does not have Blind Fight and the player is able to keep up 50% concealment through spells such as Displacement or Greater Invisibility, then he must roll a d100 and achieve greater than 50 in order for each hit to land. Also, after passing the concealment check the dragon must roll any value higher than 1 on his attack roll or miss, assuming the player has less AC than his minimum attack's ab.


Additionally, the White Dragon deals 50 physical damage and 10 cold damage per strike. Assuming the player is able to keep up Ethereal Visage which provides 20/admantine and is able to obtain 10 cold resistance then this reduces the White Dragon's attacks to 30 physical per hit. Further, we assume Iron or Stone Body is kept up preventing critical hits.

Through use of the bionmial distribution we can see that the probability of n of 7 attacks hitting a round against 50% concealment (excluding rolls on 1):

p(n) = (n choose 7) * (.5)^(7) * (1-.5)^(7-n)

This avails us these probabilities:

Hits in Round:	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
Probability:	0.0078125	0.0546875	0.164063	0.273438	0.273438	0.164063	0.0546875	0.0078125

By multiplying the columns and summing the results we find that we have 3.5 hits per round on average.

Now, accounting for auto-failure we multiple this by .95 to obtain 3.3 hits per round. Which would be 99 damage per round. Now, we can't have a fraction of a hit, so it's closer to either 90 or 120 damage per round, with rare occasions that you take 0 damage or a maximum of 210 damage.

It's a little more complicated than flat out multiplying all the probabilities above by .95, because some of your 7 hits would become 6 hits if only one auto failure happened, or your 4 hits would be come 2 hits if 2 auto failures happened, and so on. So because of auto-failure we actually bias the probabilities to the left.

Through simulation I have approximated the probabilities to:

Hits in Round:	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
Probability:	0.010985	0.069803	0.189182	0.28541	0.257138	0.139519	0.042437	0.005526
Damage:	0	30	60	90	120	150	180	210

This means in the worst possible case scenario, say the dragon did two rounds where all 7 hits in a row, the probability of that happening would be: (0.005526)^2, which is a very, very small chance of happening. So small I wouldn't even count on it.


Anyways, let's digress to healkits for a moment. Healkits can be used twice per round and invoke no attack of opportunity.

I'm napkin mathing this portion but supposing:

+33 skills ranks
+02 Self-Sufficient Feat
+03 Skill Focus Heal
+10 Epics Skill Focus Heal (This feat is indeed in BG - it appears to stack with SF)
+03 (From wisdom modifier of 16 wisdom; that is 12 with a +4 item to boost it)
-----
51

Now, with other things like heroism, and items and using +10 heal kits it seems reasonable to obtain:
75 healing


So then the strategy looks like this:

Cast (extended) Iron Body, Greater Invisibility, and Ethereal Visage.

Incoming damage on average will be 90-120 per round. With much rarer occasions of 210, and rare occasions of 0, and somewhat rare occasions of 30 or 180.

If we have enough HP to survive two 210 rounds in a row, say 440 hp, then even in the most rare of circumstances we'll have enough buffer to stay alive.

Couple this with two 75 heal kits per round, we effectively have 150 regen.

I'm hand-waving here, but hopefully this is sufficient evidence to convince you that while spamming heal kits with a large enough hp buffer pool and the above arcane defensive spells up that you'd essentially be able to tank the dragon until he despawned even with having a low enough AC that the dragon must roll a 1 on any attack to miss.


Ok great, so the dragon is hitting me about 3.3 times per round and I'm taking about 99 damage per round, but I have enough defenses and healkits to tank it. How do I actually kill the dragon?


Well enter Elemental Shield. This spell at 30 CL will deal 1d6+30 fire damage, or 33 fire damage on average. The dragon having 10/- fire resistance will make this 23 damage on average, but due to his 25% weakness to fire it then increases to 28 damage. Ergo, the dragon is dealing about 3.3*28 damage to itself per round.

Then take into account Death Armor, which is 1d4+5, or about 7 damage per hit. Reduce this by 25% for his magical damage reduction then this adds about 3.3*5 damage per round.

So in total 10,000hp/ (3.3*5 magical/round + 3.3*28 fire/round - 20 regen/round) = about 101 rounds (around 10 minutes).

This 10 minutes is within most people's accounts of the despawn timer.

Further, all defenses at 30CL extended would last 60 rounds (or 6 minutes). So we'd only have to rebuff once during the encounter (Perhaps jaunting to do so).

In conclusion, any 30CL arcane build with a focus on min/maxing the heal skill and having a large hp pool with at least 2 extended casts of each spell mentioned above should be able to solo the White Dragon.

Ok so, apparently there's an undocumented change on BG where if you cast any spell that grants you DR it makes Elem Shield and Death Armor not function. (Need to confirm if this is true?)

So same strat, except it must be a PM with EDR, potentially with Dragonslayer and greater resiliency to obtain 12/-. I'd have to re-run the numbers, but it should still be possible, just the build would be much more constrained. You'd just have to not cast any spell that grants DR, so no ethereal visage or iron/stone body.


*Update* I'm told it works just fine, just that if the creature ended up doing 0 damage to you due to DR the shield won't cause any damage.

does his spell resistance protect him from elemental shield?

No, there is no sr check on elem shield. Even if there was it could be easily handled with assay resistance and/or epic spell penetration.

was that the actual attack values he has or are you guessing from what people said? because when we fought him last he had multiattack which decreases your attack penalty from -5 to -2

so it wouldnt be 62/57/52/47/42/37/32

it would be 62/60/58/56/54/52/50

so he hits all the damn time... if you dont have displacement up you are gonna die quick

He does not have Multiattack

https://prnt.sc/meb2kg

Ok, that's fine. Multi-attack won't really change the core strategy.

Ummm the dragon hitting on every attack will change the strategy cause you can not out heal his damage solo........

@PlayerDrivenRP I don't think you read the strategy. The beginning reads

assuming the player has less AC than his minimum attack's ab.

The strategy already assumes that the only missed attacks are due to concealment or the dragon's one rolls. So the AB on each attack is irrelevant. More important is the number of attacks per round.

Nathaniel wrote: ↑Fri Feb 05, 2021 6:53 pm I would like to add that it's possible to solo him as well with a wisdom monk. Zymorian did it yesterday

Congratulations! I am genuinely fascinated by the mechanics of your success. I RCR'd a 30th level Wisdom Monk because he took damage on nearly every opponent's first attack in spite of having an armor class in the low 70's. Even if the opponent's AB was inadequate to hit him without a 20... he still got hit and took damage.

I paired him with a 30th level Dragon-Druid to take on the Icehauptannarthanyx multiple times... He kept aggro and was beat like a baby kobold. What Zymorian did is no small task.

Cheers!

A Level 30 Monk should have 3 minutes of Empty Body (50% concealment) two times per rest.

This is one of the most powerful powers in the game, concealment. 50% to miss is huge, and this should be a big part of a Monks ability to take down Bosses single handed, considering a total of 6 minutes of concealment for a Boss fight.

I’m the most recent case, I’m sure the racial SR helped quite a lot!!

Dragons in 3e have Blindsight 60ft which means automatic success on Spot/Listen and ignore Invisibility and all forms of concealment within that radius.

If Displacement etc are working against them then they probably shouldn't be.

Same goes for Oozes.

I think this was changed in later editions though since it was widely regarded as unbalanced. They could still see through some forms of concealment like Invisibility/Displacement, but not Stealth. So if you were invisible (to their normal vision) and rolled successful Move Silently (against their Blindsight) you could still go undetected.