FluxWing

Doing Crägholdt at lvl 12-13 seems quite early. Finish off the bounty quests to gear up and clear out the two Dragons before tackling the Lich. Most encounters Crägholdt's in can be solved by standing in a tight group on top of a moonwell (+20 def)(scribe a scroll), Priest casting Perdition of the Faithful (+20 accuracy for you and -20 accuracy for them is a lot). Then complement by Potions of Elemental Barriers and various immunity Scrolls if needed. Those enemies have 67 deflection, and mostly low defense(compare with Sabel's stats). Debuff them further with your Wizard, blindness, hobbled. And knockdown and prone from your pet and warrior. I just remember the skellies spent the whole fight buffing themselves up. The floating weapon apprentice is waay more annoying imho. They are immune to almost everything and cast multiple ray-spells across your party after the latest patch, super annoying.

In my opinion defense against CC is more important than DR or damage boosts, especially in the higher difficulty settings. My highest rated equipment has either of the following, Loyal, Defiant - resistance against charm, confuse and dominate. Preservation - defense while stunned or prone. (Against stunned is very important considering it is very difficult to find defense against these) Break-Out - half duration of stun and knock-down Sturdy - defense against prone and push Freedom - defense against stuck, hobbled and paralyzed. Clarity - defense against all debuffs. Two of the same don't stack, so don't wear a Break-Out armor if you property on your helmet etc. Spell-defense, pure Will and Fortitude bonuses and/or useful spell procs are secondary. Special treatment for my PC, since a lot of conversation checks he priorities bonuses to pure stats lore to cover most situations. In general Tanks usually have the highest DR possible, especially early since there are so few alternative tactics. When buffs and CC are very limited. I have tried Chanter/Fighter/Paladin/Cipher/Monk tanks so far. I personally do not like Sanguine plate, reckless tactics depending on procs and self debuffs. But I don't like Frenzy, I even made my barbarian without it believe it or not, and he did just fine damage-wise. My favorite for sturdy melee brawlers are the (also mentioned above) Wayfarer's Hide. Superb hide (11 Dr, -25% rec), Freedom(!). Or Blaidh Golan, Fine Hide (7 DR, -25% rec), Break Out & Preservation (!!). As an attempt to make a front-line battle mage last run, I randomly slapped on the Hand and Key, Fine Breastplate (10 DR, -40% rec) Loyalty(!). Oddly enough I never found a reason to take it off. Because of the relatively high DR she was rarely targeted, so there was less time needed to cast defensive spells and more time casting CC on the enemy team. For archers I like to use plain clothes if enchanted as much as as affordable at the time. But only if you can guarantee their safety such as letting them stay back-against-the wall with companions all around, so no monks can come flying at them.

This encounter begs for cheesy strategies imho. Simply because it is such a big difficulty spike compared to the rest of the enemies you encounter on your way down. For others the Adra Dragon at level 9, my advise is as follows: Build the warden's logdge in your keep, so you can to the ~20 bounty quests. Those quests provide a good source of experience and items are both more suitable for your level. Also do the expansion's quest area, perhaps even before the bounties. The expansion is not like Throne of Bhal, in that it should be played after the end. And the best all the non-cheesy advise I found on this forum for the actual dragon fight was to place the Mage spell Force Wall and the Druid equivalent to land Hobbled and Sickened. Drink a deflection potion for the tank, and after that, the Dragon is quite manageable. This is the alternative to using save and reload stun-lock tactic, which I just couldn't get myself to use, no offence to people who prefer it that way. Perhaps I will have to resort to just that when I try PotD-difficulty next.