Heh. When my friend used Elrond to go dragon slaying he killed several in a row and never came close to dying. But I don't recall what his exact challenge rank was -- I know he had the three +50 elven Rings, plus the command artifact that is anti-dragon, a weapon that is anti-dragon, and I think one other minor mage artifact. The command item of course didn't bump his challenge rank up much, he had it for the anti-dragon feature. Pretty sure his overall challenge rank was in the high 200s, not all the way to 300 though. At least to start with... I don't think he had Tinculin, I believe that was being passed around to various mages for learning Curses. But a base Elrond M70 could add +190 with three rings and a harp and get to effective M260 before adding in other skill ranks, weapon, and whatever the anti-dragon artifact effect is.
But any challenge CAN go wrong -- I have seen characters at +40 or so over their opponent (verified with the other player) get their butts handed to them due to a critical success on the opponent's part. That extra +(1-100) points can really make a difference... So even a pumped Elrond using more mage artifacts than he should CAN miscalculate, dodge left when he should dodge right, and get wasted. Dragon hunting is serious business... 
Losing a random commander hurts less -- what hurts more at that point may just be the need to go collect all the artifacts again...most should just be lying there but it still takes several orders and commanders may well fail to find them. If the dragon slayer has a "guide" though, i.e. is a member of a company with someone else as the company commander, then there is a good chance the company commander will grab some, most, or even all of the artifacts. (No guarantee though, unlike a character in an army.)
Brad -- when doing this, does your guy actually challenge the dragon with the 210 order or does he attack the dragon as part of a reaction to the encounter, or both? I have heard -- don't know if this is true or not -- that the "aids in encounters with dragons" (and similar hidden powers) actually only applies during an encounter, does not affect a personal challenge. Of course, the advantage of a challenge is that you know you are using your full challenge rank at least, and will gain some command or mage rank (whichever version of dragon-slayer you are using). Plus in a challenge you kill the dragon before some DS weenie can recruit it with the encounter reaction. But slaying a dragon within an encounter, if doable, could be worth gold or lost list spells or something. For me, it is all academic anyway -- have not actually done it, and don't meet any dragons in the 4th Age (there is supposed to be one around the Iron Hills area but I have never seen it) anymore...but I am curious.
-- Ernie III
路路路
-----Original Message-----
From: bbme@rogers.com
To: mepbmlist@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Fri, 16 Feb 2007 9:16 AM
Subject: Re: [mepbmlist] pc vs dragon
--- Rener <renerdl@uol.com.br> wrote:
> How hard is it to get a commander up to 200? Throw
in
> 2 "bonus vs dragon" type artifacts and you can
> consider him over 300 vs Dragons. Dime a dozen
> commander. I guess it's an opinion thing, but I'll
> take a +20 mage toy over any 3 +20 com toys for
the FP
> any day.
>
I did that. Twice.
The first time, I tried a commander 250 vs dragon,
in a duel, and lost.
The second time I tried a commander 225, with two
artifacts with bonus
against dragon, on a combat, and lost.
I麓m willing to try again, who knows. Maybe I麓ve
tried against too
powerful dragons. Maybe we should only try this with
aivnec, smaug etc...
Rener
Aivnec yes, Smaug no. Dragons are unique and have
unique strengths, or at least they vary (ie, unique 50
com's all have 50 com/50challenge...). Young dragons
that galavant around on the ground slashing and eating
enemy troops are weaker than the older flying spell
casting dragons... Estimated challenge ranks for
dragons range from 190 through beyond 300. Give
yourself 5 com's (including the bonus one) and a bonus
sword and you would consider yourself the almost equal
of the best dragons, superior to the rest. I've
killed a number of them. Flipside, when one dies, one
dies quite quickly. But I've never had a real dragon
killer die without killing at least 2 beforehand. The
biggest difficulty is finding the dang things...
After the early game, I haven't seen dragon *sit* long
enough to move to the pop they're appearing on. One
starts to get tempted to put the dragon killer in
combat zones looking to challenge/kill the DS nuke
protectors on site - dangerous due to agents at that
point.
Brad
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