Went/WTF/Rise Tiamat Spoilers(Spoilers)

[Mechaviking]

Just finished a fight with Tiamat, and this is was the most boring ass fight I´ve ever fought in d&d.

We killed her, mostly thanks to a Dwarf barbarian and a human Ranger the gnome rogue helped a bit, but decided to multiclass into level 3 druid for some odd friggin reason.

Level 14 Party: Dwarf Barbarian, Human Ranger, Tiefling Druid/Monk, Gnome Rogue/druid & me a storm sorcerer 13(Unearthed arcana version)/cleric 1.

This fight consisted of me casting 1 seventh level spell that was saved against(cause legendary resistance) and then using animated spikes to help the party with 1 attack per round until I failed the save for concentration, then I dual cast haste on barbarian, Ranger and ended up forcecaging myself(got it from an epic artifact enhancement) and spending the rest of the fight giving Tiamat the finger. Barbarian did most of the work.

Casters suck, worst statblock of a final monster ever: Immunity to all elements, immunity to all spells of 6th level or lower. GG wizards, GG warlocks & GG sorcerers.

Probably not playing a caster for a year and a half, maybie bladesinger since it can ACTUALLY do something in melee.

DM did a lot of homebrewing so we werent exactly 14 level, we got a free feat late adventure as a boon from Bahamut, the artifact weapon was changed a LOT each player had an artifact of sorts that got enhancements at certain points lategame:

Artifacts were:
Barbarian The Axe of many; axe capable of changing forms and absorbing the enhancements and powers of other weapons.
Druid/Monk; Staff of the wild with some extra features, able to make a spells wild once or twice rolling extra on the wild surge table and later granting +2 wisdom.
Ranger: Arrow of the pheonix which worked as a bard boost on attack rolls and later turned into an ACTUAL pheonix that helped us, flew away and turned the rangers bow into a +1 +2d6 fire damage bow.
Rogue/Druid: Leaf that gave him resistance to all dragon breaths & immunity to dragonfear for all creatures in 100´.
Sorcerer/Cleric: Ring of Elemental Air, Giving Immunity to lightning & Ability to cast Forcecage.

I did not enjoy this last fight since I as a caster had NOTHING to do. The other stuff was fun and epic at times.

Hope someone else enjoyed their stint against Tiamat.

[Fuzzy Logic]

Why didn't you forcecage tiamat?

[Quintessence]

Why didn't you forcecage tiamat?

Isn't Tiamat too large for the forcecage?

[Angelmaker]

Casters suck, worst statblock of a final monster ever: Immunity to all elements, immunity to all spells of 6th level or lower. GG wizards, GG warlocks & GG sorcerers.

.

See the problem is, it's either this or "oh, tiamat? Well, ok. I cast baleful polymoprh amd turn her into a chicken. What's her save? Oh, she got a one? Well, too bad. It's tiamat fried dragonwings time then." Which is way more anticlimatic than what you described. I am sorry you didn't habe a good time, but with melee's in 5E there are no uberchargers and even great weapon mastery users damage output can be calculated and dealt with. Using a single save or suck spell to negate a goddess sounds silly to me.

I understand your argument, i really do- i never bring a "boss" like this alone without added spellsupport like counterspell or similiar, but it's basically the same in a nutshell. I need to be able to defend my monsters against the most outlandish spells out there to prvent my players from roflstomping over significant enemies. It's hard to strike a balance here.

[TurboGhast]

See the problem is, it's either this or "oh, tiamat? Well, ok. I cast baleful polymoprh amd turn her into a chicken. What's her save? Oh, she got a one? Well, too bad. It's tiamat fried dragonwings time then." Which is way more anticlimatic than what you described. I am sorry you didn't habe a good time, but with melee's in 5E there are no uberchargers and even great weapon mastery users damage output can be calculated and dealt with. Using a single save or suck spell to negate a goddess sounds silly to me.

I understand your argument, i really do- i never bring a "boss" like this alone without added spellsupport like counterspell or similiar, but it's basically the same in a nutshell. I need to be able to defend my monsters against the most outlandish spells out there to prvent my players from roflstomping over significant enemies. It's hard to strike a balance here.

The reason the battle isn't satisfying for casters, especially as a final battle, is because they prohibited from using the vast majority of their abilities. While defeating the final boss of a campaign with one spell is an unsatisfying anticlimax, having your abilities hosed so completely that you can't properly contribute in the final battle is also unsatisfying.

Giving spell immunity to a single enemy might prevent them from getting roflstomped by this game's few save-or-sucks, but it does this at the cost of making party members sit out the fight while still fighting fit. I think adding few key immunities (Immutable form so no Polymorph, immunity to the charmed condition) would have done the job of preventing roflstomping better while still allowing the boss to fight alone. (Certain fights might be better thematically if you're fighting a lone enemy, final battles especially.)

[Mechaviking]

Isn't Tiamat too large for the forcecage?

Indeed she is too big for a forcecage :D

I can make do with legendary resistance, but both immunity to 6th level or lower spells and legendary resistance is kinda not great, for casters.

That said, she is a deity so, she should get some leeway :D

I could have done with either legendary resistance or immunity not both.

thanks for the input :D

[RulesJD]

1. Your DM cake-walked the fight for you. Period, full stop.

2. Besides that, yes the last Tiamat fight sucks bigtime for casters. You have to suck it up by realizing that casters and roflstomp (at that level) most everything else up to that point (including the several adult dragons, other casters doing the ritual, etc).

[Mechaviking]

1. Your DM cake-walked the fight for you. Period, full stop.

2. Besides that, yes the last Tiamat fight sucks bigtime for casters. You have to suck it up by realizing that casters and roflstomp (at that level) most everything else up to that point (including the several adult dragons, other casters doing the ritual, etc).

He probably had the kid gloves on. And not if you are a sorcerer you don´t destroy everything in your path.

But everyone mostly seems to agree :D