How to kill Tiamat [Requires 3.0, 3.5, and a single Dragon Magazine feat]

[MrWoodchip]

While I'm sure there are other methods, this is the plan my current party has come up with for killing Tiamat as statted in Deities and Demigods:

Book list:

[FCII] = Fiendish Codex 2
[DMG] = Dungeon Master's Guide
[DMGII] = Dungeon Master's Guide II
[PHB] = Player's Handbook
[PHBII] = Players Handbook II
[Drac] = Draconomicon
[MIC] = Magic Item Compendium
[SC] = Spell Compendium
[CA] = Complete Arcane
[CD] = Complete Divine
[SoX] = Secrets of Xen'drik
[DM] = Dragon Magazine #358



The Setup:


Epic levels help. You could technically do this before then, but the extra hit dice and BAB help. The saves not so much.


+4 or more enchanted weapons. Tiamat has DR45/+4, which will shut you down entirely without them. You can pull off a dragon bane +2 weapon, as they are treated as having 2 extra tiers of enchantment against their banees, so functionally +4.


You need a rogue 16[PHB]/Fighter 1[PHB]/Warlock 3[CA]. You will need Undo Resistance[FCII] and Eldrich Claw[DM]. The more sneak attack dice the better. Rogue's Vest[DMGII] and Bracers of the Hunter[SoX] both give +1d6 sneak attack. You will also need a Ring of Blinking[DMG], as getting someone to help flank and stay flanking will be a problem. A higher CL one will be better, as the basic model only functions for 7 rounds at a time. Just as crucially, you'll need cold iron gauntlets.


You will also need a spellcaster with arcane spell progression and Heighten Spell[PHB], and the Scale Weakening[Drac], Dimensional Anchor[PHB], and Dimensional Lock[PHB] spells. The Dimensional X spells are also available for divine casters, such as your cleric.


You will either need a Ring of Nine Lives[MIC] (or two. Dozen.), or a spontaneous caster cleric with RevenanceSC and Revivify[SC], as well as Reach Spell[CD]. The cleric should have a Ring of Nine Lives and enough diamonds to rez the entire party.


The Plan:


This is a little cheesy, but you might be able to get away with it. As a spontaneous caster, cast word of recall, and set the destination to "next to Tiamat". Being a spontaneous caster you can arguably set the destination when you cast the spell, rather than designating one beforehand.
Otherwise, make your way to Tiamat and try to get close before combat starts. Combat reflexes and insane reach are not fun. The rogue should activate their ring of blink before the combat starts.


As the rogue you must win initiative. If you fail, skip to the next step. Otherwise, you must make a full attack on Tiamat using the eldrich claws. Two-Weapon Fighting helps, improved and greater more so. This is a melee touch attack (21 AC), and deals your eldrich blast damage, plus your unarmed strike damage, which is of the cold iron type. Undo Resistance removes SR equal to your sneak attack dice if you deal damage with a cold iron weapon. This will drastically reduce Tiamat's SR. At this point, you will have to just hope that Tiamat is arrogant enough to think that your puny 20-30 damage hits are doing nothing important, or she can just plane shift or teleport away. Being both a dragon and a god, it's not that unreasonable of a hope.


Tiamat's turn. You will most likely be killed. Not to worry, you have the ring/a badass cleric casting Revenance every time you drop. Don't bother with Revivify. That's for post-combat. Go to the previous step and repeat until Tiamat has no SR left and move onto the next step.


As the caster, you must heighten all spells to SL6 in order to beat Tiamat's immunity to SL5 or weaker spells. First cast Dimensional Anchor on Tiamat to prevent her escaping, then Dimensional Lock around her to stop her summoning aid in a 20ft radius. The cleric can cast one of the two to reduce the casting times to a single round total. At level 20, you must cast Scale Weakening 4 times to remove Tiamat's natural armour completely.


Now your party just has to win an extremely tough battle against a lesser god with 930 or so HP. And 21 AC. No problem. Let the Rogue use their +2 dragon bane rapier and handaxe, the cleric just keep rezzing people, and the spellcaster doing their spellcaster thing until Tiamat drops.


Congratulations, you now all inherit an evil dragon god's power. Now you can kill each other to get even more.

Sorry about the poor formatting.

[Nohwl]

my preferred method of god hunting is to take a level in dweomerkeeper, boost your caster level a bit, and then start hitting things with supernatural holy word.

[Grand Poobah]

As the caster, you must heighten Scale Weakening to SL6 in order to beat Tiamat's immunity to SL5 or below spells. At level 20, you must cast it 4 times to remove Tiamat's natural armour completely.


Does this ignore the stacking rules for spells?

[MrWoodchip]

Does this ignore the stacking rules for spells?

I'm pretty sure that only applies to buffs and debuffs with specific types. The spell gives no type.

[Ganorenas]

If I was the Dm for a group using this plan, I would be very proud of my players. :)

They would all still die, multiple times, and very quickly, eventually losing to Tiamat (Barring her enjoying the match enough not to hop over the melee types to eat the cleric or cast XYZ to end them).

Still a neat plan though, as a player I would love to see how it would play out, preferably as a Paladin21+ to really join in on slashing Tiamat, maybe last 1-2 rounds before the cleric would have to help me out.
You could definitely get away with it in some groups!

Once I get home I'll look at her stat block in D&Demi to see if she has any outright immunities to this plan, though I expect you have checked and I will be wasting my time. =)

[Renen]

Well all you really need is a lvl 20 caster, and the playground optimizing said caster.

[MrWoodchip]

-snip-

I feel I should note that in this session Tiamat is, if not one of the BBEGs herself, at least bankrolling the BBEG (we're in hell, the BBEG is a devil who, given time, will have enough power to dethrone Asmodeus. Long story.), so just having the fight be completely hopeless would be a bit crappy. In any other context though, I agree wholeheartedly with killing the whole party.

There is a way to make it so Tiamat can't completely kill us, even with a very trigger happy DM, though it's ultimate cheese:
Wearing a ring of nine lives on every finger. The fluff says you can wear as many magic rings as you want but only two work. You could argue that a ring of nine lives stops being magic after all its charges are used, and so another ring would become active. For all ten digits though, this would cost around half a million gold. Bit pricey.

To save you time looking for a failure in the plan: I forgot to account for Tiamat being able to plane shift and greater teleport at will, so the spellcaster would need to cast dimensional anchor to stop Tiamat running, and dimensional lock to block summoned dragons in a 20ft area around her. This would, of course, have to rely on draconic arrogance (encouraged by the very little damage that eldrich claws would do) for her to not just do it before her SR is gone. I will add this to the OP.

[illyahr]

Just a quick nitpick: Damage Reduction was updated from 3.0 to 3.5. DR X/+Y is no longer a thing. It would probably be updated to DR 45/good and silver or something like that.