Killing Tiamat inside a Forcecage [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

Eldariel

2021-04-24, 01:28 AM

Revisiting her statblock, I don't see it.

You forcecage her. What does this accomplish besides delaying the actual fight? A thing you absolutely want to do while you deal with the army of Abishai and cultists she absolutely has in the throne room or organizing the legendary hoard, etc.

Being extremely generous, let's assume you have 2 Sharpshooters in your party. They can hang out outside of her breath range and attempt to pepper her with arrows. Did they bring enough arrows to deal 600 damage while you deal with that army of adds? Is one a ranger? She ignores every spell the ranger uses, no hunter's mark, no hex, no eldritch blast, etc.

As a Wizard, cleric, etc, you have your 9th level, 8th level, and 2 6th level slots left to do something to her, she will ignore everything else. Note: you're cage is giving her a +2 to saves due to cover. Your animated object swarm won't bypass Immunities and will all die in the first breath. Magic missile, up to Bigby's hand, all ignored. Sunbeam, one of the handful of spells she won't be outright immune to, you're now in her breath range.

If you have a barbarian or fighter, they're getting into melee to try and beat down that 600+hp as well, making them vulnerable to her 6 attacks per round. And if one of them gets dropped low enough she might slay them outright.

I agree, she is not the best designed boss but it definitely isn't because she's a chump.

In my ideal Tiamat fight she's rising out of a volcano or fissure and you've spent the campaign getting allies to occupy other sides so your party can focus on one head at a time. Periodically her wings and tail emerge and risk squandering your actions (poisoning or knocking back).

Not enough allies and it's like fighting multiple ancient dragons at once, but that's me.

The particular fight takes place where she enters the material plane and basically has no help. So no army, no adds, no nothing. Just Tiamat, in her CR30 glory (you can even weaken her). You literally press Forcecage and then kill her with anything.

EDIT: Or I should say, there's armies on both sides outside the location but in the fight itself it's probably mostly PCs and Tiamat spends a couple of rounds eating her own allies and laughing and then comes for you.

Your Wizard can literally just cast Tenser's, get Haste from Simulacrum, and shoot her until she dies through her regeneration. It takes a couple of minutes. 100 arrows is plenty. The alternative is of course having your Simulacrum/yourself ready an action to cast any damage over time spell: level 7 Cloud of Daggers, level 8 Wall of Light or whatever kills her without any further input. Forget about a party, a single level 13 PC suffices (15 for a spell-based kill since self-Simulacrum won't obviously have a 7th level slot since that's spent to craft the Simulacrum).

Honestly, I don't get why a literal god only has one spell and one that does nothing at that. That runs counter to everything Clerics can do (and Warlocks while at it), let alone everything Gods supposedly stand for.

This only matters when whiterooming how to kill her, a DM would look at the size and then just decided how much space she occupies, which will likely be literally anything above 20/20

Obviously, DM can also give her some useful abilities and in general make her not a loser. Doesn't change what was printed.

How is she a derp? Her statblock is formidable and the party fighting her would be 14th level. Even if you could somehow face her without any minions AND with full resources, it's not an easy to win fight, if you can win at all.

She's basically just a big Tarrasque: lots of big numbers but no abilities of note. She's supposed to be a God. Gods are supposed to grant mortals spells and shape reality and be completely beyond mortal kin. She just doesn't really live up to her hype. She's a bit more scary than Big T in that she can at least fly and has a 120' attack but ultimately, I'd fear a Solar much more for instance since it actually has tactical mobility. Tiamat is still a fight you can win without having to overcome her numerically: something like a Lich or a Solar doesn't give you that option (though even Solars have an Achilles' Heel lacking Dispel Magic for no good reason).

EDIT: To clarify my position, I'm adding something I wrote later on.
What I mean by her being a "chump"
To me, a CR30 God that can lose to Tier 3 mortals is a "chump". That may be a definition not everyone agrees with but that's what I'm using. I expect more out of a veritable, real God (one of the few actual Gods we have stats for) and I expect more out of a CR30. And I'm sure you know this: we're really only discussing semantics without actually discussing the semantics.

Like, if you want me to formulate my argument more concisely:

- I believe a God who can lose to under Demigod level creatures (EDIT: as a further clarification, "demigod"-level includes stuff like Demon Lords, Dukes of Hell, etc. - big movers with a lot of power but not necessarily divinity) is most definitely not much of a God. And she's supposedly an Intermediate one at that, not even a lesser one or a demigod. So she should be pretty high up the divine hierarchy. To me, a God who can lose to non-epic mortals is a chump of a God.

- I believe a CR30 creature who can lose to Tier 3 parties is most definitely not worth their CR. And I believe a good way to describe a seriously over-CR'd creature is "chump".

You're free to tell me I'm using the word wrong or to disagree with me. Indeed, we can even agree to disagree. But I doubt that's going to change anything: I'm probably going to keep thinking of her as a chump as written, for both of those reasons. Mostly it's a schism between expectation and presentation: you say you're going to stat a friggin' God and then the only magic it can use is Divine Word. That alone is a massive disappointment. No environmental effects or anything. Another one. Inability to destroy objects with breaths. A third one. No interesting abilities, no way of saying "you puny mortals, I'm above you", etc. There's just way too many disappointments in her statblock for me to really come to any other conclusion. Her lack of listed size is just one of the myriad of issues.

Arguments in this thread
So far, people disagreeing with me have done so on the following grounds:
- "I as a DM would not allow this." My response: Sure, but that's not an assumption being made here in the first place. Nobody is saying you would actually DM it RAW, but discussing what's in the book.
- "Even with Forcecage she's a tough fight." My response: This is a position I simply can't understand. Is shooting a fish in a barrel a challenge? I completely reject this position, on the grounds that killing an enemy who can't fight back isn't very impressive nor much of a challenge. Sure, she has lots of immunities, high AC and regeneration. It's not trivial. But if you put your back to it, I posit that most level 14 parties should be able to do it.
- "It's not RAW that Tiamat is 20'/20'." My response: So what is RAW? RAW assumes no DM just the rules as written, so "DM call" isn't a valid answer. I don't see any other valid answers so if every other answer is wrong, it has to be the right answer or at least the least wrong answer if there are no other answers and this one is inconclusive.

Now, I haven't found these positions very convincing. Is it due to my bias in this? I think not, I don't think they're logically sound. Am I protecting my ego? Maybe on a subconscious level, but on a conscious level I have absolutely no problem with being wrong. However, I do not have a reason to believe so until a solid counterexample from the rules text somewhere comes up, which doesn't seem to exist within 5e paradigm (given how much we've mulled over this point). All the counterexamples have been backported from earlier editions, which makes them irrelevant WRT 5e RAW.

Curiously, I have received straight-up angry comments for this and much of the logic behind many of the counterarguments seems to have been clouded by emotion - in many cases, people have expressed exasperation or straight-up anger at the idea of Tiamat's statblock being weak, or that's how I've read it. This leads me to believe that I'm less likely to be the illogical one here: arguments made while emotionally invested in something are more likely to be biased than ones made when emotionally neutral. Of course, it's possible for both parties to be biased, but in the light of the evidence here I see no reason to believe that to be the case.

The other line - what if Forcecage doesn't work?
Then there's the aside of "But what if she didn't fit into a Forcecage?", which I found intriguing and which I'm exploring right now. That was the point of our test with DF and that is indeed something I'm not certain about, though it seems to me like a strong level 14 party can still do it (but there's of course some variance though with the amount of rolls the fight inevitably takes, not that much I don't think). I think it's a suitably challenging endboss fight for a level 14 party without Forcecage: I'd peck it at like CR 24-26. A bit over the daily XP budget but certainly not 3 times that.

As an aside, this hasn't been at all wasted. I learnt that there's boons to high level Valor Bard: while it's rare to get to play on level 14, Battle Magic is actually pretty darn useful in conjunction with ranged weapons and Dimension Door, especially with a good buff spell and Haste. It isn't as strong as just full attacking of course, but it's way better than just DD and do nothing. It might actually be that the Valor Bard in this encounter is performing better than the equivalent Swords Bard would have as a consequence in spite of me bewoeing the lack of Swords Bard in the first case (I would still pick Swords over Valor for all the levels up until level 14 but it's worth noting that level 14 Valor has few nice tricks). And of course, it seems like the best use for Inspiration in this case is hit boosting in conjunction with Sharpshooter, which makes Swords Bard less impressive since the whole point is the action economy being freed up to use the Bonus Action with Hand Crossbow and Crossbow Expert.

Also, I did learn that core only Cleric and Druid just are pretty darn bad at ranged combat especially if Conjure Woodland Beings is random or doesn't get you what you want (I didn't end up using it at all since I came to the conclusion that the likelihood of being given something useful was too small to bother with in the case where DM appears to dislike the spell in the first place).

Tests:
Level 14 PHB only no magic items party vs. Tiamat Run 1 (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?631082-Tiamat-vs-level-14-party): This run featured two significant rules mistakes [Elemental Weapon damage & Whirlwind Concentration] not to mention a plethora of terrible tactical choices.

Level 14 PHB only no magic items party vs. Tiamat Run 2 (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?632872-Level-14-party-vs-Tiamat-Take-2): This one should be largely RAW-accurate. Here we have shown that it is quite possible to defeat Tiamat on level 14 even as she was in release.

PattThe

2021-04-24, 03:47 AM

In order to fit her in you need a barred cage, which I assume you're firing into. Her line attacks are 120ft reach. How far away can you be while still dealing significant damage? With bounded accuracy, longbow arrows and even attacking spells would be hard pressed to achieve the KO in banishing her in time for the spell to run out. Also, think of the terrain. Everywhere within 90 feet of her after just a couple of minutes would be a plagueland above and below her in a sphere of elemental chaos and draconic rage. Blade of Despair would be good actually.

No DM would make an hour of Tiamat's raging go unanswered. The terrain would be chaos enough to start spawning elementals every round. You'd turn her into a true multiphase abomination. Her roars would attract any remaining evil dragons for miles. She'd combine her black and green breath weapons to cloak the air within three hundred feet with chlorine gas. Ten 90-foot cones of fire in a minute multiplied over the hour would begin burning up oxygen and causing a smokescreen worthy enough of the term "obscured"- that or she would sublimate her ice breath into a suitable fog cloud for even more obscurement from targeting spells. Constant lightning would tear at the atmosphere above her, not to mention the plasma created from repeatedly zapping a fire-tornado of vaporized silica and carbon with almost a hundred points of damage. Better hope you have control weather, because if all of this blows in your direction then you'd have to relocate hundreds of feet around her like dodging the smoke from a bonfire- losing valuable time. You keep this thing in one location for multiple minutes and her HP total would be the least of your worries.

Not here to shut you down- I honestly want to hear how you'd take the practical response to openly force-caging this thing and thinking that you'd be safe. What's your best 121ft combat option?

Edit: Black and green wouldn't mix acid with gas, I meant to say water and gas. Right? I forget the old saying about mixing chemicals with Green Dragons' breath weapons.. So, sublimate that ice into a fog cloud with fire breath and then spray poison gas into that mist. Idk. Point is, twenty breath weapons a minute is still apocalyptic even if held in a cage. If she can mortar-bomb you and break your concentration, or stall for time behind smokescreens and fog clouds, you might run out of spell slots capable of punching through her spell immunity.

Edit 2: And just for ****s and giggles, imagine your DM gave Tiamat's avatar (reasonably so) draconic 5e spellcasting. Her CR is 30 and that means that her default spellcasting capabilities extend to all levels including tenth if your DM wanted to go crazy with it. +18 to hit and the same monstrous 26 save DC. She wouldn't have spell slots, as this feature uses once per day spells. Still, it wouldn't be outlandish for her to also have spells to augment her helplessness. I would not be surprised if in response to her imprisonment she threw a Meteor Swarm at you. Not sure if casting Demiplane inside the cage would also allow her to just wait out the timer for 59 minutes. Earthquake and Incendiary Storm are also stylish ways to assail you from 150 feet away. Alternatively she could try teleporting out and use a legendary action to break the forcecage's check. Definitely a fail-forward scenario there. Move Earth creates total cover on one side. Arcane Gate funnily enough has no described size limit and is not described as teleportation nor ethereal travel- but that could be debated. Turning invisible is curious, as she'd be stuck in a single spot yet nonetheless not a creature within sight. She could also cast enlarge-reduce on herself if you made the mistake of telling her ahead of time that you're putting her in a forcecage. Imagine just as you cast it she Enlarges to an unexplored 5e Colossal size just big enough to be shunted outside of the forcecage.
Damn that was fun.

Unoriginal

2021-04-24, 04:16 AM

Being able to channel divine power through Clerics does not mean a god can use their RAW divine might whenever, even during a fight. Same way they can't just do Divine Interventions anywhere in the world.

So let's take Tiamat's statblock as it is.

Yet Tiamat, on top of being a goddess, is an Archfiend and the toughest dragon. Even if you did manage to Forcecage her, how are you killing her given that she STILL is immune to all spells below the 7th level, STILL has her enormous AC and divine immunities, and on top of that your own Forcecage protects her?

Also, you can easily overcome a Lich numericaly.

PattThe

2021-04-24, 04:22 AM

Being able to channel divine power through Clerics does not mean a god can use their RAW divine might whenever, even during a fight. Same way they can't just do Divine Interventions anywhere in the world.

Tiamat, on top of being a goddess, is an Archfiend and the toughest dragon. Even if you did manage to Forcecage her, how are you killing her given that she STILL is immune to all spells below the 7th level, STILL has her enormous AC and divine immunities, and on top of that your own Forcecage protects her?

Also, you can easily overcome a Lich numericaly.

She literally has divine word. That's WOTC letting you know that this Divine Avatar may not be an exarch rolling around with epic divine power accessible at will but she's still undeniably a divine powerhouse- instead of cleric casting she uses a more carnal manifestation summoning raw elemental strength over positive or negative energy drawn from followers or what have you. Their 7th level cloud of daggers is actually sick, but you still have legendary resistances to count in. Still, you're getting in the danger zone even casting Cloud of Daggers with Distant Spell, as 120ft is still dangerously close. Their use of Haste is very smart, but Haste will make you lose a round before the hour is up. Tiamat would have to survive until your haste runs out, then bust a move. Forcecage too has a 100ft reach, and the caster would have to escape her breath weapons without suffering loss of concentration. What I love about this is it's still a fight, even with her chained in place. Because you gotta get close enough to start it, then get out of range without dropping any of your limited 7+ level magics.

Eldariel

2021-04-24, 04:40 AM

Not here to shut you down- I honestly want to hear how you'd take the practical response to openly force-caging this thing and thinking that you'd be safe. What's your best 121ft combat option?

I believe I already mentioned Tenser's + Haste [needs to be recast a couple of times by your Simulacrum but it has enough slots for this to not be an issue] from a level 13 Wizard with 16 Dex and a +1 Longbow. It does enough damage to overcome her Regen and kill her in about 4* minutes (150' range). If you happen to have Elven Accuracy (e.g. you're a Bladesinger or an Evoker-type interested in Scorching Ray + Spirit Shroud), you can do 45 DPR which translates to 15 damage a turn counting her regeneration. 585 [615-30 - she drops to 0 before regen]/15 = 39 rounds so about 4 minutes, give or take. If you have an 18+ Dex (e.g. from Magic Jar: this adventure features plenty of good targets, e.g. the Dragonsoul Cultists which give you +3d6 on an attack with advantage and 18 Dex) body, you don't need Elven Accuracy - 18 Dex and +1 weapon would do 40ish DPR which amounts to 6 minutes to kill her (and 180 arrows, which is indeed a lot but between the party you probably have that much - the opportunity cost for carrying lots of arrows is pretty minor). But even a standard Dex 16 Wizard 13 would need only minor help from literally any source to get the job done (Magic Weapon spell or Elemental Weapon or such if there are no magic bows in the party and someone capable of doing any damage whatsoever).

Other options, well, if you have a slot left (say, another level 13 Wizard in the party or you're level 15 [which the adventure sets as a plausible level for this point]) is to use magic. Cloud of Daggers only lasts 1 minute so it's impractical but the perennial companion of Forcecage/Wall of Force, Wall of Light, cast out of 8th level slot does do 7d8 per turn for 31,5 which adds 1,5 damage a turn. You need your Simulacrum to add a spell on top of it (another Wall of Light works as does Cloud of Daggers) for a total of 63 damage a turn which kills her in a bit under two minutes (18 rounds on average) and lasts for 10 minutes. Indeed, two Cloud of Daggers of course suffice too; 80 damage a turn from Cloud of Daggers VIII x2 does her in in 12 turns - not quite enough but if you have literally any source of damage on top of that (a source of 8,5 damage a turn would suffice). But of course, you're more likely to have Wall of Light than Cloud of Daggers anyways if you're using Forcecage since it's the better spell to go with it (for, among others, the reasons mentioned here).

If you have a Cleric, there's Summon Celestial VI or VIII, which works great. Summon Undead VI or VIII would work too. 17 DPR for Celestial 6 (or 35 if you can give it Advantage with Concealment, by e.g. casting Silent Image of Darkness or Greater Invisibility [you're outside True Seeing range] or whatever to let it attack from Concealment giving it advantage) or 13/30 for Summon Undead 6, and 20/45 for Summon Undead 8 and 22/49 for Summon Celestial 8. It goes without saying that it doesn't take a lot of these to kill her. Both spells last an hour so one casting is enough as long as they can do enough damage. On a party level, that shouldn't be a problem. For a single character, the best option depends entirely on your build but there are plenty of tools that work here.

She literally has divine word. That's WOTC letting you know that this Divine Avatar may not be an exarch rolling around with epic divine power accessible at will but she's still undeniably a divine powerhouse- instead of cleric casting she uses a more carnal manifestation summoning raw elemental strength over positive or negative energy drawn from followers or what have you. Their 7th level cloud of daggers is actually sick, but you still have legendary resistances to count in. Still, you're getting in the danger zone even casting Cloud of Daggers with Distant Spell, as 120ft is still dangerously close. Their use of Haste is very smart, but Haste will make you lose a round before the hour is up. Tiamat would have to survive until your haste runs out, then bust a move. Forcecage too has a 100ft reach, and the caster would have to escape her breath weapons without suffering loss of concentration. What I love about this is it's still a fight, even with her chained in place. Because you gotta get close enough to start it, then get out of range without dropping any of your limited 7+ level magics.

Forcecage doesn't have Concentration. The DoTs do but you don't need to be in range of her breaths at the end of your turn. Legendary Resistance doesn't matter since these DoTs are no-save damage. Well, casting Cloud of Daggers is risky but it lasts a short enough duration anyways: Wall of Light is better (as per usual).

PattThe

2021-04-24, 04:52 AM

I believe I already mentioned Tenser's + Haste [needs to be recast a couple of times by your Simulacrum but it has enough slots for this to not be an issue] from a level 13 Wizard with 16 Dex and a +1 Longbow. It does enough damage to overcome her Regen and kill her in about 4* minutes (150' range). If you happen to have Elven Accuracy (e.g. you're a Bladesinger or an Evoker-type interested in Scorching Ray + Spirit Shroud), you can do 45 DPR which translates to 15 damage a turn counting her regeneration. 585 [615-30 - she drops to 0 before regen]/15 = 39 rounds so about 4 minutes, give or take. If you have an 18+ Dex (e.g. from Magic Jar: this adventure features plenty of good targets, e.g. the Dragonsoul Cultists which give you +3d6 on an attack with advantage and 18 Dex) body, you don't need Elven Accuracy - 18 Dex and +1 weapon would do 40ish DPR which amounts to 6 minutes to kill her . . .

Do you think the calculation would get a lot riskier with events causing you to have to move about the arena? I mean, like, imagine that everyone agrees on this as the plan in and out of character- including the DM. Imagine you have a board-game challenge scenario where you have to keep moving to other cardinal directions from the forcecage as Tiamat's avatar slowly transforms the arena into a hellscape of obscuring atmospheric effects, raging wildfires fifty feet wide, literal pools of acid, icy terrain, and clouds of gas piling up on the arena. Nothing she could do would make her obscured from all directions, but she could definitely force you to have to move around her a lot if the DM ruled that she can produce effective Fog Clouds with her breath weapons. ......

.......not to mention her spending all her actions on the Dodge action and her breath weapons on her legendary actions out of turn. :smalleek:

Eldariel

2021-04-24, 06:13 AM

Do you think the calculation would get a lot riskier with events causing you to have to move about the arena? I mean, like, imagine that everyone agrees on this as the plan in and out of character- including the DM. Imagine you have a board-game challenge scenario where you have to keep moving to other cardinal directions from the forcecage as Tiamat's avatar slowly transforms the arena into a hellscape of obscuring atmospheric effects, raging wildfires fifty feet wide, literal pools of acid, icy terrain, and clouds of gas piling up on the arena. Nothing she could do would make her obscured from all directions, but she could definitely force you to have to move around her a lot if the DM ruled that she can produce effective Fog Clouds with her breath weapons. ......

.......not to mention her spending all her actions on the Dodge action and her breath weapons on her legendary actions out of turn. :smalleek:

Well, of course environmental damage would potentially require Concentration checks. In this case that's probably the primary threat. Dodge we'd be looking at needing two sources of damage. For example Summon Undead VI and an archer Wizard; together they can output sufficient damage to get through the Regeneration. Same with most of the other suggested damage sources. It's mostly a matter of pumping at-will damage or DOT at rates that exceed her regen and don't hit her immunities but of course, I'd just give her some mobility tools to make her harder to lock down.

Silly Name

2021-04-24, 06:50 AM

Are we assuming the hypothetical party faces Tiamat at full strength? And I mean the party's - full HP, spell slots, class features and all that stuff. I haven't played Rise of Tiamat, but I'd assume there would have been some resource attrition before the big boss fight, as well as some possibility for reinforcements to arrive.

We are also running on the assumption that Tiamat fits in the Forcecage. Remember, Gargantuan is 20 by 20 or larger, so could simply be too large to be stuck. For example, the tarrasque is fifty feet tall and seventy feet long, and it's Gargantuan too, and one of Tiamat's old statblocks has her at 60 feet long.

Even if stuck, she can use her Frightful Presence to make your aim worse, and that thing has 240 feet of range.

Regarding Tiamat's spellcasting in 5e, I take her use of Divine Word to be more for flavour than for actual power. She can drop down a bunch of lowly creatures with just a word, banish fiends and celestials, and perhaps even force a melee combatant to save or suck once she has whittled down their HP. But it's not her primary method of attack.

Unoriginal

2021-04-24, 07:10 AM

Bobthewizard

2021-04-24, 07:14 AM

I don't think Tiamat fits in a 20'x20' force cage. She's much bigger than that.

I don't think arrows can attack through a force cage's 1/2" openings. 1/2" is smaller than medieval arrowheads I've seen. You'd have to use spells. Attack spells would have 3/4 cover since 3/4 of the cage is force field, but I don't know if that matters.

If you could fit her in the force cage, I'd think an upcast sickening radiance would be your best bet. 100 CON saves, fail 6 and you're dead. I think upcast spells count as the level they are cast from, as opposed to globe of invulnerability, which says "even if the spell is cast using a higher level spell slot." Tiamat's doesn't say that so upcasting should be fine.

Eldariel

2021-04-24, 07:15 AM

Silly Name

2021-04-24, 07:27 AM

Yeah, but by the book she's just Gargantuan with no mention of size so there's really no proviso for anything but 20'/20' assuming DM isn't changing stuff (which they should be). The frightful presence wears off in a minute and grants immunity so it isn't all that impactful.

As I said, we technically have older editions putting Tiamat at bigger than 20'/20'. A DM may simply look up info on Tiamat and decide that she should maintain her old size, without even considering that this makes it impossible to fit her in a Forcecage.

Frightful Presence is still a way to increase Tiamat's chances to be missed from your attacks and have her regeneration overtake your damage output.

Eldariel

2021-04-24, 07:39 AM

As I said, we technically have older editions putting Tiamat at bigger than 20'/20'. A DM may simply look up info on Tiamat and decide that she should maintain her old size, without even considering that this makes it impossible to fit her in a Forcecage.

Frightful Presence is still a way to increase Tiamat's chances to be missed from your attacks and have her regeneration overtake your damage output.

Depends on how it goes but if you get frightened before casting Forcecage, you can just wait it out before commencing killing. Of course, it doesn't matter for the spell-based method.

But yeah, of course I'm only talking about this statblock. Never has Tiamat been this weak: transplant literally anything from earlier editions and she'll be a fight on a whole different ballpark.

Silly Name

2021-04-24, 07:51 AM

Eldariel

2021-04-24, 08:00 AM

By the way, I'm currently planning on having Tiamat as the end boss for my current campaign, which is why I've been looking at both her 5e stats and older stuff.

Is the proposed scenario the one faced in Rise of Tiamat? While I agree her statblock is far more manageable than in earlier editions, it seems to me the proposed starting point is heavily stacked against Tiamat, with no minions or reinforcements, a battlefield that lets you move away and the assumption the party starts far away from the Dragon Queen, or at least far away enough that this strategy is easy to perform.

It's by the book. You can prevent her from coming through and even weaken her but even if you don't, she spends few rounds eating her summoners laughing all the while and only then comes for you and the location is MASSIVE (to the tune of 400' diameter with over 100' elevation.

If you wanna run her, give her some cool breath shape abilities (3e has great inspiration) and at least rudimentary spellcasting ability (she's a god, she has magic). This way Force obstacles can buy turns but can't just negate her whole threat level. If she has to spend her turns using Disintegrating Breath on a Wall of Force, that's totally worth it for PCd but means she's still coming for you though buying you time to harm her of try and debuff her.

Silly Name

2021-04-24, 08:18 AM

It's by the book. You can prevent her from coming through and even weaken her but even if you don't, she spends few rounds eating her summoners laughing all the while and only then comes for you and the location is MASSIVE (to the tune of 400' diameter with over 100' elevation.

... Uh. I bought RoT and have been skimming it, so saw the statblock and the potential to stop the summoning/weaken her (planning to insert something similar, but I want to use Orbs of Dragonkind instead), as well as taking inspiration on how her cult could act. I had missed her doing something so dumb. :smallsigh:

If you wanna run her, give her some cool breath shape abilities (3e has great inspiration) and at least rudimentary spellcasting ability (she's a god, she has magic). This way Force obstacles can buy turns but can't just negate her whole threat level. If she has to spend her turns using Disintegrating Breath on a Wall of Force, that's totally worth it for PCd but means she's still coming for you though buying you time to harm her of try and debuff her.

Hm, may be time to dig out my old 3rd edition Dragonlance books. I remember the campaign setting having a few nice feats for dragons... Draconomicon too.

I'm not sure I want to give her too much spellcasting, but perhaps something on top of Divine Word could work. The idea of her channelling magic through her breath weapons is neat, however: some sort of primal, pure draconic might. Maybe toss in Power Word Stun and Power Word Pain, since I love the idea of gods speaking a single word of pure power.

Unoriginal

2021-04-24, 08:28 AM

... Uh. I bought RoT and have been skimming it, so saw the statblock and the potential to stop the summoning/weaken her (planning to insert something similar, but I want to use Orbs of Dragonkind instead), as well as taking inspiration on how her cult could act. I had missed her doing something so dumb. :smallsigh:

Less dumb when you consider the PCs in question are a bunch of lvl 14 max PCs (unless I'm mistaken).

.
I'm not sure I want to give her too much spellcasting, but perhaps something on top of Divine Word could work. The idea of her channelling magic through her breath weapons is neat, however: some sort of primal, pure draconic might. Maybe toss in Power Word Stun and Power Word Pain, since I love the idea of gods speaking a single word of pure power.

You could give her the capacity to turn into the different substances/energies her breaths are made of.

But yeah, gods do use the Words of Creation to create and alter worlds.

Eldariel

2021-04-24, 08:29 AM

3e Breath Enhancing spells (among others Dispelling and Disintegrating Breath) seem really cool and flavourful for her (they're in Draconomicon and Spell Compendium) - could try something like that. Also Breath Shape Feats from Draconomicon and Races of the Dragon are really cool: lets her breathe out elementals, lingering damage clouds, napalm, energy walls and such. Combined with her Legendary Actions, feels awesome to me.

JackPhoenix

2021-04-24, 08:37 AM

Do you think the calculation would get a lot riskier with events causing you to have to move about the arena? I mean, like, imagine that everyone agrees on this as the plan in and out of character- including the DM. Imagine you have a board-game challenge scenario where you have to keep moving to other cardinal directions from the forcecage as Tiamat's avatar slowly transforms the arena into a hellscape of obscuring atmospheric effects, raging wildfires fifty feet wide, literal pools of acid, icy terrain, and clouds of gas piling up on the arena. Nothing she could do would make her obscured from all directions, but she could definitely force you to have to move around her a lot if the DM ruled that she can produce effective Fog Clouds with her breath weapons. ......

.......not to mention her spending all her actions on the Dodge action and her breath weapons on her legendary actions out of turn. :smalleek:

Well, the problem is that she can't do any of that. Dragon's breath is one-and-gone thing. No pools of acid, no lingering clouds of poison gas. It can't even set stuff on fire, for Gygax's sake, as it only damage screatures.

MaxWilson

2021-04-24, 09:28 AM

It's true that Tiamat may just be too big for Forcecage.

But even without that, Tiamat is immune to spell of 6th level or less. It doesn't matter if you're using higher level spell slots, level of the spell slot =/= level of the spell. So Could of Dagger and Wall of Light are out.

And if you want to attack her with a bow, well, let's be generous and assume your Wizard has Sharpshooter for some reasons, so the cover from being in the cage doesn't apply. Even then, there is *nothing* preventing Tiamat from using the Dodge action, negating any advantages you have.

Unoriginal, I think you may be mixing up Tiamat's immunity with Globe of Invulnerability. Globe of Invulnerability would negate Wall of Light VIII, Magic Missile VIII, etc. Tiamat's immunity would not. Like a Rakshasa's, her immunity only cares about the final spell level after upcasting, not the original level.

IMO Dodge is a good strategy but insufficient to make her interesting because it just requires you to use more than a lone PC to kill her. "Aha, Tiamat at full strength requires TWO OR THREE PCs to kill her!" isn't much of a message for PCs who have spent the whole campaign apparently doing nothing, failing at or ignoring opportunities to weaken her eventual manifestation. Players who do that deserve to see something awe-inspiring, the in-game equivalent of Rocks Fall Everybody Dies (And I Mean EVERYBODY).

Cthulhu's Stage 4 influence, if you let it get that far, requires everyone within TEN MILES to make DC 23 Wis saves every round to avoid Domination, DC 23 Dex saves every round to avoid being restrained by tentacles, and DC 23 Str saves every round that you're restrained to avoid being consumed and instantly destroyed. He also distorts spell ranges, etc., although I don't have the details memorized. And he moves 2400' per round (because he's implied to be thousands of feet tall) and has 449 HP and (like all Elder Influences) is immune to all spell effects except damage, and regains 100 HP every round he eats someone, which is pretty much every round if any people are within 10 miles. And he constantly spawns allies like shoggoths and Mother Hydra and Father Dagon. While he is technically vulnerable to mere combat kills a la Teleport + Unload a bunch of magic arrows in his face, if you bring enough guys along on the Teleport and expect to take a lot of casualties in the process, you'd have to be insane to want to let things escalate to the point where that kind of gamble is necessary.

Tiamat at full strength should feel like THAT.

Silly Name

2021-04-24, 09:29 AM

Less dumb when you consider the PCs in question are a bunch of lvl 14 max PCs (unless I'm mistaken).

I mean, it's still dumb because she spends a couple of rounds doing the whole "look at how eeeeevil I am" shtick rather than just blast the fools with hails of fire and ice and lightning and acid. I'm checking the section on her rising from the Hells right now, and I can't figure out why she would prioritise engaging in some traditional "your reward is death" before dealing with the opposition.

Unoriginal

2021-04-24, 09:46 AM

I mean, it's still dumb because she spends a couple of rounds doing the whole "look at how eeeeevil I am" shtick rather than just blast the fools with hails of fire and ice and lightning and acid. I'm checking the section on her rising from the Hells right now, and I can't figure out why she would prioritise engaging in some traditional "your reward is death" before dealing with the opposition.

Isn't killing them necessary to complete the ritual?

PattThe

2021-04-24, 09:49 AM

PattThe

2021-04-24, 09:58 AM

I don't think Tiamat fits in a 20'x20' force cage. She's much bigger than that.

Y'all are squaaaares. It's her avatar, not Tiamat proper. The cloud of daggers is cast at 7th level. You only need to beat frightful presence once ti gain 24 hours of immunity. And what DM WOULDN'T let their players get away with trying this highly risky but smart plan?
:smallsigh:

Eldariel

2021-04-24, 10:01 AM

Unoriginal, I think you may be mixing up Tiamat's immunity with Globe of Invulnerability. Globe of Invulnerability would negate Wall of Light VIII, Magic Missile VIII, etc. Tiamat's immunity would not. Like a Rakshasa's, her immunity only cares about the final spell level after upcasting, not the original level.

IMO Dodge is a good strategy but insufficient to make her interesting because it just requires you to use more than a lone PC to kill her. "Aha, Tiamat at full strength requires TWO OR THREE PCs to kill her!" isn't much of a message for PCs who have spent the whole campaign apparently doing nothing, failing at or ignoring opportunities to weaken her eventual manifestation. Players who do that deserve to see something awe-inspiring, the in-game equivalent of Rocks Fall Everybody Dies (And I Mean EVERYBODY).

Cthulhu's Stage 4 influence, if you let it get that far, requires everyone within TEN MILES to make DC 23 Wis saves every round to avoid Domination, DC 23 Dex saves every round to avoid being restrained by tentacles, and DC 23 Str saves every round that you're restrained to avoid being consumed and instantly destroyed. He also distorts spell ranges, etc., although I don't have the details memorized. And he moves 2400' per round (because he's implied to be thousands of feet tall) and has 449 HP and (like all Elder Influences) is immune to all spell effects except damage, and regains 100 HP every round he eats someone, which is pretty much every round if any people are within 10 miles. And he constantly spawns allies like shoggoths and Mother Hydra and Father Dagon. While he is technically vulnerable to mere combat kills a la Teleport + Unload a bunch of magic arrows in his face, if you bring enough guys along on the Teleport and expect to take a lot of casualties in the process, you'd have to be insane to want to let things escalate to the point where that kind of gamble is necessary.

Tiamat at full strength should feel like THAT.

See, THIS is what I'm talking about. Bloody hell, Elder Evils did it better too: they actually alter the world with their signs and stuff and when they come, even the aspects are deadly. Tiamat is a literal deity. She should be cut above a Great Old One. Definitely three cuts above mere Demon Lords or Dukes of Hell but I'd rather face her than any of the demon lords or similars. She shouldn't necessarily be a spellcaster outside her own domain (Alter Reality backported from 3e) but she definitely should have enough power at least have the tools to avoid the simplest, most obvious magical tricks and be a threat beyond just being a Tarrasque with Breath Weapons. At least make the breath weapons interesting! 3e did great stuff with this. And obviously she should have, if not massive power, at least basic spellcasting like Dispels and Disintegrates and at least Misty Step-level teleportation and perhaps stuff that synergises well with her abilities like Sleet Storm, Enlarge, Dragon's Breath, etc.

While the world around is burning (fire), freezing (ice breath), melting (acid), exploding (lightning) and under a miasma (poison). World-warping is the first thing deific figures should do around themselves.

PattThe

2021-04-24, 10:20 AM

See, THIS is what I'm talking about. Bloody hell, Elder Evils did it better too: they actually alter the world with their signs and stuff and when they come, even the aspects are deadly. Tiamat is a literal deity. She should be cut above a Great Old One. Definitely three cuts above mere Demon Lords or Dukes of Hell but I'd rather face her than any of the demon lords or similars. She shouldn't necessarily be a spellcaster outside her own domain (Alter Reality backported from 3e) but she definitely should have enough power at least have the tools to avoid the simplest, most obvious magical tricks and be a threat beyond just being a Tarrasque with Breath Weapons. At least make the breath weapons interesting! 3e did great stuff with this. And obviously she should have, if not massive power, at least basic spellcasting like Dispels and Disintegrates and at least Misty Step-level teleportation and perhaps stuff that synergises well with her abilities like Sleet Storm, Enlarge, Dragon's Breath, etc.

While the world around is burning (fire), freezing (ice breath), melting (acid), exploding (lightning) and under a miasma (poison). World-warping is the first thing deific figures should do around themselves.

I swear that this is an avatar of Tiamat. She's IMPRISONED in Avernus! She CAN'T leave! It's an avatar come to collect the hoard to take to Tiamat. Waht, did you think she was going to sleep in her hoard HERE? This is just a mighty feast worth having picked up and delivered to you! I swear, the book has got to call it an avatar. We all know it doesn't make sense otherwise.

I also say that Demogorgon's stat block is its minimum power state when entirely disconnected from abyssal power sources. He's supposed to smash up other demons and swell with power. Have a plotline of a Nabassu obtaining vast power all campaign, then getting split in half and devoured by Demogorgon pumping him up to CR30 and able to grow better with the CR boost of their lair- which should be a lair with terrain effects at-will to the extent of their entire layer of the Abyss.

Eldariel

2021-04-24, 10:36 AM

I swear that this is an avatar of Tiamat. She's IMPRISONED in Avernus! She CAN'T leave! It's an avatar come to collect the hoard to take to Tiamat. Waht, did you think she was going to sleep in her hoard HERE? This is just a mighty feast worth having picked up and delivered to you! I swear, the book has got to call it an avatar. We all know it doesn't make sense otherwise.

The whole point of such a massive, elaborate ritual is to let her escape though. The book goes in great length to state that this is the real thing, further supported by the discorporation-ability. Not that I'd mind, I'd be totally on board with Aspects of Tiamat. But frankly, I'd still want to see some magic and some more interesting abilities in that regard. Though that's an issue with monster design in 5e by and large: mostly just sacs of HP that hit you for some HP. Big things in particular don't really feel thay big.

PattThe

2021-04-24, 10:44 AM

The whole point of such a massive, elaborate ritual is to let her escape though. The book goes in great length to state that this is the real thing, further supported by the discorporation-ability. Not that I'd mind, I'd be totally on board with Aspects of Tiamat. But frankly, I'd still want to see some magic and some more interesting abilities in that regard. Though that's an issue with monster design in 5e by and large: mostly just sacs of HP that hit you for some HP. Big things in particular don't really feel thay big.

Isn't that just what the cultists think? Am I conflating the 1-4 adventure with the greater campaign? Because I swore that she was just here to collect the end-of-campaign superhoard. Maybe I should watch that silly animated trailer for the campaign again to see if there's anything there about her escaping explicitly..

Edit: Perhaps she just isn't fully here yet, and that the ritual has a clause that she needs enough time to fully manifest?

Unoriginal

2021-04-24, 11:01 AM

Well, if we want to go into the details (where the Devil is), no actual god can incarnate at full power.

5e gods have a weird semi-ubiquity which let them influence large amount of world, but how much and the kind of influence they depends on the nature of each specific Crystal Sphere. Meaning that on different world the same deity can be Major, Lesser or a barely known footnote.

On Faerun, Tiamat is a Lesser Goddess, but Ao said "full gods can't walk on Faerun, reeee", so all the gods who do want to do it have to adopt lesser forms. Which is why the Dead Three are currently in perfectly killable bodies.

We know of at least one demigod who tried to 1-vs-1 Tiamat in her Lair on Avernus, and he got his donkey cursed into an ironic punishment by the God-Queen of All Evil Dragons faster than you can say it. And Zariel won't even try to take on Tiamat even if she has her armies with her

Now, that is all post-facto lore. I agree that the Tiamat statblock should have more, but not because it's weak or "easily beatable" as it is. It's just Tiamat deserves more awesomeness. At the very least she should get country-sized Regional and Lair effects by her mere presence.

I'll honestly never understand what motivated WotC to have *this* particular adventure written by a different team, before the MM was finished, and with a level range unsuitable for its epic scope.

PattThe

2021-04-24, 11:12 AM

Well, if we want to go into the details (where the Devil is), no actual god can incarnate at full power.
Exactly!! With the world of 5e (Post Second-Sundering) being as it is, this material plane is only permitted to manifest a cr 30 power level. Or, whatever Zargon the Returner is.

Blame Ao, and thus blame wotc. :P
Of course, that's only if the DM permits it. Wotc and DMs are kind of like over-overgods. I wonder if that would make players (who can have god-level PC's that reshape reality "because it looks cool") on-par powers with things like Ao and their usage of the gods' reach into the crystal spheres. Meh, tangential.

We know of at least one demigod who tried to 1-vs-1 Tiamat in her Lair on Avernus, and he got his donkey cursed into an ironic punishment by the God-Queen of All Evil Dragons faster than you can say it. And Zariel won't even try to take on Tiamat even if she has her armies with her

Now, that is all post-facto lore. I agree that the Tiamat statblock should have more, but not because it's weak or "easily beatable" as it is. It's just Tiamat deserves more awesomeness. At the very least she should get country-sized Regional and Lair effects by her mere presence.

And think about Zariel's Demon-Lord level stat block at 24 or 26 or something. If we take CR to be at least somewhat exponential in terms of material manifestations for both participants (leaving the outer planes out of this and having both of them be present and banished back to Avernus if slain as if conjured, which is kind of what all living things with souls are doing.. :smallconfused:) She would be seriously scared into a rout away from that 6 grade boost. Just think about how horrified a CR 24 Demon Lord would be seeing Demogorgon's base form swagger in with two arbitrary levels of badass on them, and just how many lower CR minions you'd need to fodder just one round of their actions and legendary action, and healing up the damage they deal.

Also, why not apply those effects stylishly over a few rounds, turning the battlefield into terrain-lair effects by the aftermath of their offensive assault? I am absolutely still gunning for thematic dynamic combat maps, heh.

Edit:
I'll honestly never understand what motivated WotC to have *this* particular adventure written by a different team, before the MM was finished, and with a level range unsuitable for its epic scope.
New consumer walk into store see book with dragon on cover "oh hey is that dungeons and dragons oh hey it is"

MaxWilson

2021-04-24, 11:23 AM

I swear that this is an avatar of Tiamat. She's IMPRISONED in Avernus! She CAN'T leave! It's an avatar come to collect the hoard to take to Tiamat. Waht, did you think she was going to sleep in her hoard HERE? This is just a mighty feast worth having picked up and delivered to you! I swear, the book has got to call it an avatar. We all know it doesn't make sense otherwise.

Nope, according to Chris Perkins at least it's not just an avatar. See: https://mobile.twitter.com/chrisperkinsdnd/status/844726037204238336

Q: @ChrisPerkinsDnD Is the stat block for Tiamat in ROT a full representation of her capabilities as a deity or would she be even stronger?

A: Tiamat's stats represent the real deal. #WOTCstaff

PhoenixPhyre

2021-04-24, 11:46 AM

JonBeowulf

2021-04-24, 11:56 AM

MaxWilson

2021-04-24, 11:59 AM

Yeah, this. She won't fit in the box. I thought I was going to be the first to point out that her heads have reach of 20' and her tail has a reach of 25' (and then there are the wings) but there's a lot of text in this thread.

Counterpoint: humans have a reach of 5' but they are not 10' in diameter, let alone 15'.

I think this mostly just shows that the MM needs to show size as well as Size Category, because you can't meaningfully infer actual size from Size Category. It's too inconsistent.

Eldariel

2021-04-24, 12:06 PM

Exactly!! With the world of 5e (Post Second-Sundering) being as it is, this material plane is only permitted to manifest a cr 30 power level. Or, whatever Zargon the Returner is.

Blame Ao, and thus blame wotc. :P
Of course, that's only if the DM permits it. Wotc and DMs are kind of like over-overgods. I wonder if that would make players (who can have god-level PC's that reshape reality "because it looks cool") on-par powers with things like Ao and their usage of the gods' reach into the crystal spheres. Meh, tangential.

And think about Zariel's Demon-Lord level stat block at 24 or 26 or something. If we take CR to be at least somewhat exponential in terms of material manifestations for both participants (leaving the outer planes out of this and having both of them be present and banished back to Avernus if slain as if conjured, which is kind of what all living things with souls are doing.. :smallconfused:) She would be seriously scared into a rout away from that 6 grade boost. Just think about how horrified a CR 24 Demon Lord would be seeing Demogorgon's base form swagger in with two arbitrary levels of badass on them, and just how many lower CR minions you'd need to fodder just one round of their actions and legendary action, and healing up the damage they deal.

Also, why not apply those effects stylishly over a few rounds, turning the battlefield into terrain-lair effects by the aftermath of their offensive assault? I am absolutely still gunning for thematic dynamic combat maps, heh.

Edit:
New consumer walk into store see book with dragon on cover "oh hey is that dungeons and dragons oh hey it is"

Yeah, but CR is a poor measure of danger level. Tiamat is a hundred times more challenging than Tarrasque in spite of both being CR30 and e.g. Zariel would have a fair shot vs. Tiamat if her damage portfolio weren't so terrible (she basically does only fire damage and doesn't even have magic weapons; any level 17 PC could probably Rofl at her with Shapechange). And Solar is way more dangerous than both, in spite of under half the HP and resistances, simply by virtue of having a solid ranged attack combined with tactical mobility. And that's at CR21.

So we can say that CR30 is peak power but there's absolutely nothing to determine, what CR30 entails (since, as has been well established in many threads, CR doesn't measure the overall power or danger of a creature but moreso slugfest trading blows no non-damage abilities power, which is obviously largely irrelevant).

Silly Name

2021-04-24, 12:07 PM

Isn't killing them necessary to complete the ritual?

I can't seem to find anything stating this. She even starts eating her cultists after she's fully manifested (all five heads plus body out of the pit).

I haven't read the whole campaign, just skimmed through RoT's chapters that seem relevant, so maybe this is stated in other books? But eating a bunch of wizards who just summoned her on the plane instead of commanding them to go forth and destroy and conquer in her name doesn't seem very strategically sound, and Tiamat is supposed to be frighteningly smart and cunning from what I understand.

MaxWilson

2021-04-24, 12:11 PM

Yeah, but CR is a poor measure of danger level. Tiamat is a hundred times more challenging than Tarrasque in spite of both being CR30 and e.g. Zariel would have a fair shot vs. Tiamat if her damage portfolio weren't so terrible (she basically does only fire damage and doesn't even have magic weapons; any level 17 PC could probably Rofl at her with Shapechange). And Solar is way more dangerous than both, in spite of under half the HP and resistances, simply by virtue of having a solid ranged attack combined with tactical mobility. And that's at CR21.

So we can say that CR30 is peak power but there's absolutely nothing tl determine, what CR30 entails.

What CR 17 form would you use to kill Zariel? I'm drawing a blank on "immune to fire, magic weapons, necrotic damage, and Blade Barrier, plus has high mobility and can beat Zariel's regen rate."

IMO Zariel is tougher than a Solar or Tiamat.

Unoriginal

2021-04-24, 12:27 PM

and Tiamat is supposed to be frighteningly smart and cunning from what I understand.

Oh she is. But, well, she's also the personification of evil dragonhood, and that comes with having to deal with a liiiiiittle bit of an ego problem, and anger problem, and impulse control problem when her plan has succeeded at last.

But also important to note that since she's their goddess, Tiamat get those wizards' souls to serve her after their deaths. So the only difference to her is if those folks serve her in the Material Plane or in the afterlife. Still a bad tactical move in this instance, though.

In Descent into Avernus, Tiamat's actions are incredibly more tactically and strategically sound, including her not succumbing to the "nothing can stop me now!" villain near-victory effect.

JonBeowulf

2021-04-24, 12:56 PM

Counterpoint: humans have a reach of 5' but they are not 10' in diameter, let alone 15'.

I think this mostly just shows that the MM needs to show size as well as Size Category, because you can't meaningfully infer actual size from Size Category. It's too inconsistent.

There's a big difference between 5' reach arms and a 25' reach tail, but I certainly get your point about needing two measurements.

Okay, so she can "fit" in the box similar to how cats pull off that stunt. But they're deliberately wrapping their appendages around themselves when they do that. Tiamat's active and not all curled up and cute**. Perhaps if you caught them sleeping...?

**I gotta see if there's some fan art of that.

BerzerkerUnit

2021-04-24, 01:06 PM

The OP's assertion is that Tiamat can be killed casually if the dragon is forcecaged. That's simply not the case. They've also repeatedly stated the statblock from Rise of Tiamat is to be used as is with no additional inferences/adjustments concerning size etc. Using that as our baseline we'll have to think about some other particulars.

They're also stating that the statblock should be run RAW^n wherein specifics like igniting objects is impossible for fiery breath weapons because there's no text saying it can in the monster statblock (understood to require adjudication and written with brevity for reference). I think that's a flawed approach willfully chosen to reinforce their position, but since we don't want to get caught in a "where do we draw the line with handwaiving" trap, we'll go with it.

First, the viability of forcecage is questionable. There's the expensive material component, a thing you may or may not have had access to. How DMs choose to rule how that material component can exist is something that may vary by table. Since we're RAW^n, would 2000 1gp rubies crushed count? Does it have to be the crushed remnants of a 2000gp ruby. Gem value is traditionally defined by rarity, color, clarity, further modified by cut. I've ruled in some games that relatively cheap gems can have their value increased by a skilled artisan. In some cases it's been the only way to obtain such valuable components. Ruby dust itself might not even have a gold value unless it's in questionably large sums for art projects and the like. I've also ruled that 100gp pearls will cost a lot more than 100gp because pearls come from the ocean and importing to landlocked areas is expensive.

But let's assume you do get the chance to use one of the two best 7th level spells in the game to fight what is supposed to be one of the toughest monsters.

I'll be the first to admit, white room builds to solo Tiamat are a thing. I will also admit that in the given scenario she's written to afford the players time to heal and buff.

So we look at the scenario- Assume she spends 3 rounds murdering cultists, stopping only if she is antagonized.

Let's give the Wizard a bag of holding and any "assistance" a +2 weapon. Since "party of snipers" isn't generally a thing I'll say a rogue and a ranger are there. I've played and run consistently for the last 20 years, I've seen 1 ranged fighter in that time, I'll assume he's not here for this.

Round 1 takes care of "dailies" everyone forgets to mention until they realize they might need them. Aid, Inspiring leader, equipping their shield, etc. Depending on how the DM chooses to run "eats worshippers" it might be necessary to forcecage here.

Round 2 gives you bless (maybe), You get your tensers up, the simulacrum (it it's alive after forcecaging) hastes.

Round 3 is positioning.

Forcecage has a range of 100 feet, so at the end the of the caster's turn there's a chance they'll be taking 88ish damage from a breath weapon. That's cutting down margin for error on later actions. If they don't then go immediately (meaning coordinated readied cast of the spell or they're soloing the encounter), they're going to take another ~67.

Wizard, let's assume 14 con, 8+18x7+20 (assume a 5th level Aid from Cleric) add 21 more from Inspiring Leader. 143 hp, 20 temp. 163 functional. So if you cast it yourself, there's a chance you'll be reduced to 0 for your trouble.

Let's look at a Hasted Tenser's Bladesinger. Since this build has no synergy with bows, you're not likely getting a lot out of it.

With Tiamat's AC of 27 (her norm +2 for the cover the cage grants), your bonus to hit is likely +10/+11 with a bow. Did you, the wizard, get a magic bow for some reason? If not, the bow's damage and your dex mod are ignored. So you'll need 16 or 17 to hit. You have advantage from tensers and maybe a d4 from bless, call it a 30% chance x 3 attacks per round (2 from tenser's and 1 from haste courtesy of simulacrum). You're concentrating on tensers, let's assume your Simulacrum (a thing you may or may not have but since I'm already affording time to buff let's say you've managed to keep it and all those top end spell slots intact), peppers tiamat with upcast save or sucks to burn through legendary resistances we'll go with Hold Monster. Oh wait, no, if it moves within 120 feet it's one shot with a legendary breath unless it somehow manages to over come the +9 minimum save bonuses with it's DC 19 saves... and 5 legendary resistances. Wait, forgot, it's hasting you so none of those spells are going to work out either... So upcast disintegrates? I recall wall of light. Well come back for that one.

So in this one you're dealing your damage: ~2d12 force damage ~14 each round for 10 minutes. Fails to overcome Regen. Fail. Add magic bow d8+5+2d12= ~23 damage/round. Fails to overcome regen.

Add in a ranger, Assume sharpshooter to ignore cover and +2 weapon. +13 to hit a 25 AC. If I'm not mistaken you're looking at -25% chance to hit if you do sharpshoot for ~100% more damage but I'm not sure it's worth it. A lot of attacks Bless would flip to a hit will would miss anyway. So Now we're seeing ~11 more damage/rd.
but it's fair to assume 60 arrows per person because you can't store them in a bag of holding without risking the bag puncturing. It might be possible to have other characters carry more for you, but I don't think asking your undaunted warrior buddy to schlep arrows is cool, so we won't.

So you and your ranger friend have 30 rounds of firing time with net damage each round of about 3. You're definitely whittling away, but you'd need to have brought a lot more arrows. Since I don't think it's reasonable to have a cartload of arrows you could maybe have a Demiplane full of them. Now we need to calculate the number of rounds you lose entering, resupplying and exiting. Is it more than 1? Yes. So the dragon god will be nearly fresh when you exit. Wait. You only have 28 rounds of uptime here bc haste will stun you twice during that time.

Wait, I forgot, she's not an idiot. Realizing she's in a fix, she'll dodge on her turn. Now your net damage fails to overcome her regeneration again.

So let's assume the Simulacrum is upcasting cloud of daggers. This spell doesn't say it summons magical daggers, doesn't say it's dealing magical slashing damage or slashing damage from magical weapons. Nothing about the daggers described in the spell description says the daggers glow or radiate magical nature like stuff from minor conjuration does... we're RAW^n so her immunity to slashing from nonmagical weapons ignores this...

Wall of light, ignored unless upcast. So the simulacrum can cast this 4 times for 5d8, 6d8, or 8d8. But if it's casting this it's not hasting you either, so your tenser's damage is negligible. She will definitely take some damage from this. ~22.5/27/36 at the end of her turn and... maybe 5 additional instances of the same. Since she's dodging your simulacrum's bonus to hit is probably +11, you need a 14 or better to hit with disadvantage... Wait, the range is 120, so there's a change the simulacrum gets popped by another breath weapon when they get in range to cast...

coupled with the ranger's likely 10 per round... wait she's dodging now. We're probably not reliably overcoming the regen speed on most rounds without the use of that 9th level slot.

Whirlwind, a lot of others, it's all like this. Without an extended duration of 10 minutes, the spell will have negligible effect. You'll need the whole party wailing on her, even if it's plinking away with magic'd longbows. And even then, if the party isn't designed for ranged combat as a whole, there's a chance they won't deal 600+ damage before running out of ammo.

And even if they do, even in that scripted Tiamat fight, under Adventurer's league rules, Tiamat can either have a spell other than divine word like teleport or have the full 900 hp. Or the cultists can all have max hit points so they stay in the fight on her side like misguided children desperate for a bad parent's love.

Wait, I remember saying she's not an idiot, and having heard about the heroes presumably from the souls of all the worshippers they've slain or the prayers of those that want revenge, would she choose to move into range rather than stay airborne and rain acid and lightning on the party from 120ft up rising back up to 180 ft until a PC moved to within 120? Then pouncing on them while they're so high up and maybe even flying higher for a minute so their carcass can't be revivified? Possibly eating it before coming back down to spit more lightning and acid?

If you read this far, I appreciate it. I take issue with the entire premise of the OP's position. It assumes a player and DM style that aren't at 100% of tables. They also fall into an if/then trap of rules interpretations that are then held inconsistent for players and monsters. They use Cloud of Daggers as an example of an easy way to kill the god even though getting close enough to cast it might result in their death, the god ignores its damage, and even assuming the damage is magical, it's insufficient to overcome regen.

The primary issue with the approach is asserting that because this one very powerful tool can be brought to bear, it then sucks all the drama out of the encounter, when in reality, it can create the potential for much more as the heroes herd the disillusioned followers of a mad god to safety while she's contained and come up with a plan to deal with her when she escapes. Because dawizard read the module and can math that plinking her with enough magic arrows for an hour will do the trick is horse bologna.

Were I the DM and a player tried to nuke the end of the campaign that way I'd absolutely allow her to be wounded, maybe lose an eye, even have one of the heads die. Then the spell would end and she'd flee to lick her wounds. Then I'd epilogue how the world was a worse place now. Other faiths were falling and she operated from the shadows. The party would find their lovers, friends and more murdered or twisted to dragon cultists. Whatever legacy they had imagined would be forever tarnished because they attempted to defeat a god without being willing to risk their lives.

Tiamat would have a supercool dracolich head instead of the white one. Or maybe grow a few more to represent the ascension of chromatics with purple and orange and brown heads, even deadlier now that she's no longer restrained by the hells. She'd fall out of the sky under cover of night, crushing churches and government buildings, he cultists would be present in the aftermath offering food and sundries at extortionate prices and the PCs would be outcasts and villains, known for waging a war on religious freedom, etc.

My point is, use the cage. Lock her down until you have your stuff together and then come back with everything you have.

Eldariel

2021-04-24, 01:49 PM

Wizard, let's assume 14 con, 8+18x7+20 (assume a 5th level Aid from Cleric) add 21 more from Inspiring Leader. 143 hp, 20 temp. 163 functional. So if you cast it yourself, there's a chance you'll be reduced to 0 for your trouble.

Let's look at a Hasted Tenser's Bladesinger. Since this build has no synergy with bows, you're not likely getting a lot out of it.

With Tiamat's AC of 27 (her norm +2 for the cover the cage grants), your bonus to hit is likely +10/+11 with a bow. Did you, the wizard, get a magic bow for some reason? If not, the bow's damage and your dex mod are ignored. So you'll need 16 or 17 to hit. You have advantage from tensers and maybe a d4 from bless, call it a 30% chance x 3 attacks per round (2 from tenser's and 1 from haste courtesy of simulacrum). You're concentrating on tensers, let's assume your Simulacrum (a thing you may or may not have but since I'm already affording time to buff let's say you've managed to keep it and all those top end spell slots intact), peppers tiamat with upcast save or sucks to burn through legendary resistances we'll go with Hold Monster. Oh wait, no, if it moves within 120 feet it's one shot with a legendary breath unless it somehow manages to over come the +9 minimum save bonuses with it's DC 19 saves... and 5 legendary resistances. Wait, forgot, it's hasting you so none of those spells are going to work out either... So upcast disintegrates? I recall wall of light. Well come back for that one.

So in this one you're dealing your damage: ~2d12 force damage ~14 each round for 10 minutes. Fails to overcome Regen. Fail. Add magic bow d8+5+2d12= ~23 damage/round. Fails to overcome regen.

I recommend that you use e.g. damage calculator (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?582779-Comprehensive-DPR-Calculator-(v2-0!)) to do the math. You're forgetting to account for crits. Further, BS is likely to have Elven Accuracy, since it's really good on the class. The math is thus inaccurate: 43 DPR is the actual number for 16 Dex +2 weapon Bless build. Without Advantage it's 17 (or 25 if you're playing Sharpshooter BS, which is actually a solid build I've recommended time and time again (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?628446-Best-race-for-Bladesinger-post-tasha-s&p=24966950&viewfull=1#post24966950)), where you need a friend. But add that whatever ally that can do 11 damage and you'll largely be fine. And why wouldn't an ally give you arrows if they let you literally kill the BBEG and said ally can't do anything with them? That seems stupid. 18 Dex, +2 weapon and Bless would already be an overkill at 61 DPR or 29 with Dodge. You don't need to add much to overcome its regeneration alone: e.g. Archery Style from Fighting Initiate (again, a solid build) would put you at 37 damage at which point you're able to kill her single-handedly though slowly (90 * 7 = 630 damage, which is of course more than enough - this means you don't need the whole 10 minutes of Tenser's). Though you do need a lot of arrows. It's possible you've got a Quiver of Arrows or something that completely negates this issue but otherwise, well, if you're an archer you've got some way to carry them (you need way more than 200 over an adventuring campaign if you're actually an archer - and given 200 arrows weights 10lb they basically weight nothing [8 Str carrying capacity is 120 lb where you probably have Studded Leather weighting 13lb as your heaviest equipment] so carrying them isn't a problem since you aren't even using heavier armor so what do you have that weights anything of note?).

So let's assume the Simulacrum is upcasting cloud of daggers. This spell doesn't say it summons magical daggers, doesn't say it's dealing magical slashing damage or slashing damage from magical weapons. Nothing about the daggers described in the spell description says the daggers glow or radiate magical nature like stuff from minor conjuration does... we're RAW^n so her immunity to slashing from nonmagical weapons ignores this...

All damage dealt by spells is magic damage by default though of course DM is free to rule otherwise.

Wall of light, ignored unless upcast. So the simulacrum can cast this 4 times for 5d8, 6d8, or 8d8. But if it's casting this it's not hasting you either, so your tenser's damage is negligible. She will definitely take some damage from this. ~22.5/27/36 at the end of her turn and... maybe 5 additional instances of the same. Since she's dodging your simulacrum's bonus to hit is probably +11, you need a 14 or better to hit with disadvantage... Wait, the range is 120, so there's a change the simulacrum gets popped by another breath weapon when they get in range to cast...

Uhm, it can only use breath as a legendary action, which is taken after turn. Simulacrum literally just moves within 120', casts it, and moves out. It's not a normal action so it can't even ready it. There's literally no way to get hit by breath weapon after getting Forcecage down unless you need to get much closer than 120'.

Wall of Light x2 is obviously going to cook her 10 times over. Wall of Light + Tenser's is obviously going to kill her. Cloud of Daggers + Wall of Light is going to kill her. Tenser's + Haste + 1 other damage dealer kills her. All of this just works.

Composer99

2021-04-24, 02:37 PM

The cover art of Rise of Tiamat shows her emerging from the portal with Severin there, conveniently providing scale.

There is no way she fits in a forecage.

Dork_Forge

2021-04-24, 02:39 PM

The particular fight takes place where she enters the material plane and basically has no help. So no army, no adds, no nothing. Just Tiamat, in her CR30 glory (you can even weaken her). You literally press Forcecage and then kill her with anything.

EDIT: Or I should say, there's armies on both sides outside the location but in the fight itself it's probably mostly PCs and Tiamat spends a couple of rounds eating her own allies and laughing and then comes for you.

Your Wizard can literally just cast Tenser's, get Haste from Simulacrum, and shoot her until she dies through her regeneration. It takes a couple of minutes. 100 arrows is plenty. The alternative is of course having your Simulacrum/yourself ready an action to cast any damage over time spell: level 7 Cloud of Daggers, level 8 Wall of Light or whatever kills her without any further input. Forget about a party, a single level 13 PC suffices (15 for a spell-based kill since self-Simulacrum won't obviously have a 7th level slot since that's spent to craft the Simulacrum).

At the level you're meant to fight her, full casters have a single 7th level slot as their highest slot. That means if you Forcecage, well then you can't really use your magic for much else against her. No Wall of Light upcast, no Simulacrum 7th level slots in play, it's just not happening. I assume the role of Tesner's in this is to buff damage? But she would be immune to the additional damage that Tenser's adds.

Even if you can force cage her, this just doesn't work, especially since she can do the incredible power move of... going prone. Now all of those arrows are at disadvantage or at best straight rolls.

You have to bring in characters of much higher level than intended to fight her for your strategies to really apply and even then, it relies on Force Caging her, which regardless what the minimum size of her category is, I can't see any DM allowing that to happen unless they were delliberately trying to make things easier.

Honestly, I don't get why a literal god only has one spell and one that does nothing at that. That runs counter to everything Clerics can do (and Warlocks while at it), let alone everything Gods supposedly stand for.

Just because their power manifests as spells in Clerics doesn't mean that it has to manifest that way in them too, otherwise, she's a god weak enough to actually be allowed to walk the world, that reigns in things like spellcasting massively.

Obviously, DM can also give her some useful abilities and in general make her not a loser. Doesn't change what was printed.

What was printed was enough...

She's basically just a big Tarrasque: lots of big numbers but no abilities of note. She's supposed to be a God. Gods are supposed to grant mortals spells and shape reality and be completely beyond mortal kin. She just doesn't really live up to her hype. She's a bit more scary than Big T in that she can at least fly and has a 120' attack but ultimately, I'd fear a Solar much more for instance since it actually has tactical mobility. Tiamat is still a fight you can win without having to overcome her numerically: something like a Lich or a Solar doesn't give you that option (though even Solars have an Achilles' Heel lacking Dispel Magic for no good reason).

She can straight ignore spells of 6th and lower, just say nope to them with so many Immunities and beyond normal uses of Legendary Resistance, she's pretty godly in how difficult she is to kill, of and the sheer amount of breath she can put out in a single round. Heck, she can close to full effective melee range from 135ft away in a single turn without dashing.

Then there's the fact that it is literally impossible to actually kill her, she'll just go back to Avernus and become physical again, that seems pretty godly to me.

I would be very interested to see a 14th level party of 4 that could beat her in a straight fight without:

-Relying on Force Cage, just assume she's ruled as too big

-Being an organic party that would actually be played, none of this Bladesinger archers that don't actually Bladesing nonesense, it doesn't make sense in character or as a choice to play outside of building something to kite in a specific scenario.

So here's some scenario parameters for anyone interested in proving she's such a chump (OP included):

-The fight starts 60ft distance between Tiamat and the party (the whole party, not the closest member)

-The rules (and thus statblocks) don't assume magic weapons, but let's say +1 magic weapons are available

-HARD MODE: No DM provided items, magic weapons need to be PC generated by features (not crafting rules)

Frogreaver

2021-04-24, 02:53 PM

At the level you're meant to fight her, full casters have a single 7th level slot as their highest slot. That means if you Forcecage, well then you can't really use your magic for much else against her. No Wall of Light upcast, no Simulacrum 7th level slots in play, it's just not happening. I assume the role of Tesner's in this is to buff damage? But she would be immune to the additional damage that Tenser's adds.

Even if you can force cage her, this just doesn't work, especially since she can do the incredible power move of... going prone. Now all of those arrows are at disadvantage or at best straight rolls.

You have to bring in characters of much higher level than intended to fight her for your strategies to really apply and even then, it relies on Force Caging her, which regardless what the minimum size of her category is, I can't see any DM allowing that to happen unless they were delliberately trying to make things easier.

Just because their power manifests as spells in Clerics doesn't mean that it has to manifest that way in them too, otherwise, she's a god weak enough to actually be allowed to walk the world, that reigns in things like spellcasting massively.

What was printed was enough...

She can straight ignore spells of 6th and lower, just say nope to them with so many Immunities and beyond normal uses of Legendary Resistance, she's pretty godly in how difficult she is to kill, of and the sheer amount of breath she can put out in a single round. Heck, she can close to full effective melee range from 135ft away in a single turn without dashing.

Then there's the fact that it is literally impossible to actually kill her, she'll just go back to Avernus and become physical again, that seems pretty godly to me.

I would be very interested to see a 14th level party of 4 that could beat her in a straight fight without:

-Relying on Force Cage, just assume she's ruled as too big

-Being an organic party that would actually be played, none of this Bladesinger archers that don't actually Bladesing nonesense, it doesn't make sense in character or as a choice to play outside of building something to kite in a specific scenario.

So here's some scenario parameters for anyone interested in proving she's such a chump (OP included):

-The fight starts 60ft distance between Tiamat and the party (the whole party, not the closest member)

-The rules (and thus statblocks) don't assume magic weapons, but let's say +1 magic weapons are available

-HARD MODE: No DM provided items, magic weapons need to be PC generated by features (not crafting rules)

What's the ruling we are going with on spells upcast to 7th level?

Dork_Forge

2021-04-24, 02:59 PM

What's the ruling we are going with on spells upcast to 7th level?

Based purely on the claritive text from Globe of Invulnerability I'd say that if you upcast something to 7th it'd work, just be subject to her other defenses.

Frogreaver

2021-04-24, 03:27 PM

Based purely on the claritive text from Globe of Invulnerability I'd say that if you upcast something to 7th it'd work, just be subject to her other defenses.

We will go with that.

But just because those words are added in globe of invulnerability doesn't mean that her stuff works any different. Sometimes words are just added for extra clarification.

Dork_Forge

2021-04-24, 03:32 PM

We will go with that.

But just because those words are added in globe of invulnerability doesn't mean that her stuff works any different. Sometimes words are just added for extra clarification.

I'm trying to come to a ruling that people will deem fair without resorting to unfair rulings for any ineffective strategies that are presented.

I overall agree with your notion mostly based on the fact that the claritive text would add another line to an already cramped and bloated statblock.

Eldariel

2021-04-25, 12:34 AM

-Being an organic party that would actually be played, none of this Bladesinger archers that don't actually Bladesing nonesense, it doesn't make sense in character or as a choice to play outside of building something to kite in a specific scenario.

It feels like poor form to tell others what they should play or what makes sense. I've played a Bladesinging Archer and it works great. It allows you to conserve Bladesong for when you melee: when you fight at long range you don't need Bladesong (though you can still use it it: it just ends next round, but you can Bladesong just fine to get the defensive benefits including Song of Defense which goes great with Tenser's and indeed, enables you to tank some high power ranged enemies while fighting them), and due to chassis you can naturally fight great in melee making you a solid ranged and melee type while only having to invest in the ranged half (plus the ranged half works great with the ability to use cantrips in lieu of attacks too - Mold Earth and Minor Illusion in particular). It just so happens the Wizard spell list is insanely good for anything (including martial combat) so of course complementing Wizard-spells with the appropriate feats helps.

That said, yeah, an organic level 14 party that could take her out without using any kind of trap should be a fun exercise. I'd probably tend towards the same party I suggest as the optimal party for anything: Illusionist/Diviner/Chronurgist/Bladesinger Wizard, Arcana/Twilight/Peace Cleric, Shepherd/Moon Druid, Lore/Eloquence/Swords Bard (as a nod towards having a weapon damage user). Either Bard or Wizard has to be the archer of the party (it isn't just this fight, you should always have long range options in the party and archer is the easiest way of going about that), and since we didn't want the Bladesinger Archer, Swords Bard with Crossbow Expert and Sharpshooter it is. I think "true victory condition" would obviously be landing a permanent Polymorph-like effect on her and sealing her away for as long as needed until you can take over her body and destroy her essence (since killing her only stops her from taking shape for a while, kinda like killing Sauron vs. ending Sauron) but since you don't have access to True Polymorph-type effects on this level, that would be difficult (basically the only way is to get Divine Intervention to proc to turn downed and Legendary Resistance depleted Tiamat into a Humanoid that you could Magic Jar). Bard Magical Secrets are Holy Weapon, Counterspell, Magic Jar, Simulacrum. Bard and his self-Lacrum are both Magic Jar'd into Dragonsoul Cultists, because those bodies are plentiful in the adventure and you have no reason to leave them hanging around when there's better use for them. Notably they have 18 Dex and Pack Tactics.

Let's see what we could do with damage. I think Illusionist and Chronurgist both work equally well here and you probably want Peace since it isn't Arcana A'Clock yet and obviously Shepherd (Moon is only for 1-4) and then we have to go Swords since we didn't go Bladesinger. Illusionist is obviously grand since while adamantine can be melted, trapping her in repeated Concentration-free Adamantine Cages buys the rest of the party plenty of time to start wailing on her and nothing is stopping an Illusionist from just making another obstacle each round - as long as you've got Images lying around or you cast Mirage Arcana earlier. Chronurgist's Tiny Hut Arcane Abeyance would incidentally be rather effective against her as well so let's go Diviner so as to not have an unfair subclass-based advantage. Diviner + Simulacrum means we've got 6 Portent dice and all the information we could want. Given we know we're potentially facing Tiamat today, we'll probably partake in Heroes' Feast in the morn' of the battle. Everyone will obviously be Death Warded and level 5 Aided (assuming 16 Con, that's 8+5*13+3*14+20 = 135 HP for others and 130 for the Dragonsoul Bodysnatchers). The earlier fights can largely be cleared with usual caster stuff using 3rd-5th level spells: they're pretty weak. Since Holy Weapon lasts an hour, it seems reasonable to assume that the Swords Bard has used that and on this level, they even have free Flourishes every turn ad nauseam so even Inspiration dice are unspent.

Party is Vumans. Obviously Alert/Lucky/Res: Con/18 Int on Wizard, XBE/SS/Res: Con/Fighting Initiate: Archery/16 Cha on Bard, War Caster/Res: Con/20 Wis on Cleric and Res: Con/Lucky/20 Wis on Druid. No reason for Wizard and his Simulacrum to not take e.g. Dragonsoul bodies too. We can assume that such a party could pretty effortlessly clear most of the earlier encounters with level 5- spells. We can also assume that stuff like Peace Cleric Bond, 1 min casting duration spells and such can be cast before entering the temple. I think it's prudent to start with Conjure Fey 7 for the Druid since it doesn't really get that much else and just get a Giant Ape and Planar Bind that. It can't fly natively (though I guess nothing is stopping one of the Wizards from casting Fly on it) but its main job is of course to try and grapple Tiamat should she come close. At Mighty Summons, the Ape does have 187 HP so it can tank a couple of breath weapons or full attacks from her plus of course 16 more temporary HP from Bear Totem which will obviously be deployed (plus Advantage on Strength-checks). Summon Celestial VI, two Crossbow Expert Swords Bards and the Druid/Cleric (should the enemy come close) will largely be left to take care of the DPR part of the equation while the Wizard(s) handle stuff like blocking breath weapons with walls and trying to trap Tiamat if she ever positions herself near walls or otherwise so that two Walls of Force could do it.

The Swords Bards can do surprisingly decent damage: assuming +1 Hand Crossbows at 120' and +1 Light Crossbows otherwise they can attack at 3x +12 +1d4 Bless for 1d6+4+1 + 2d8 and additional +1d10 on first 3 rounds (+1d6 thereafter). Together they can DPR for 70/110 (depending on if the party can arrange a creature next to Tiamat to proc Pack Tactics - suicide familiars and homunculi and potentially Magens or any fliers from Conjure Animals trying to sneak around drawing breath weapons and getting next to her to proc Pack Tactics and Fanatic Advantage seems solid) damage a turn at 120' and 47/83 (at over 120' she's vulnerable to Silent Image-based Concealment so advantage is easy to get) at basically any range. Cleric can have a Planar Bound Couatl helping out (for 10 days from a level 6 slot): for starters it'll just Bless the Attackers. Wizards can of course pitch in on the DPR department if need be too and they could Planar Bind something like Armanite or Dybbyk to help out, but mostly they'll probably focus on the breath weapons and Tiamat's movements with Walls. In this scenario, the Summoned Celestial could benefit of Bless too allowing it to pitch in for 8/20/32 damage. Overall, at very long ranges Tiamat is ticking down at over its Regeneration which limits her options for positioning and at shorter ranges she's taking significantly more damage. If she ever closes in to melee, the Giant Ape can grapple her (with the presence of two Diviners, Tiamat's chances of winning the opposed check are pretty much nil) and her Divine Word to banish it can be Counterspelled (again, with the presence of the two Lucky Diviners the chances of failing that check are pretty low - 13% that both the Diviners fail if no suitable Portents are available and 4% chance of no Portents that automake it and then 49% that the Bards fail it too for a total failure chance of 0,25%).

If Tiamat does get her breath through, she needs ~2-3 per character (or 4-6 for either Wizard or the Druid since they have Absorb Elements and poison immunity from Heroes' Feast and Bards and Wizards all have one random elemental resistance from Dragonsoul) after which said character gets Healing Worded back up (if Death Ward didn't do it first). It seems to me like it would be awfully difficult for her to actually take down characters. Frightful Presence is of course countered by Heroes' Feast too. The most brutal effect of her breath is the DC 20-40 Con save to Concentrate (pretty much automatic fail for Bards and Cleric which is why the Wizards and the Druid have to protect them - Protective Bond allows them to take the damage instead but obviously it's impossible to both take the damage and Absorb Elements though Wizard and Simulacrum could easily just cast Fire Shield and Ice Shield and block their respective elements with resistance leaving lightning and acid that are lines and don't multihit as easily as the full damage ones - readied actions to block the breaths with Wall-type spells can do a good job of slowing down the attrition too) - the only characters that have a shot at making the Dex-save are the Bards (they'll have +9 Dex +1d4 Bless for +11,5 on average; they need a 15+ from Portent or die to make it unless they have their Peace roll left in which case they get by on 12).

Tiamat is going down at 6 rounds at 120' range from just the archers or ~10 rounds if she tries to keep her distance. If she comes close, the timer is obviously cut short though she'd have more of a chance to do something before dying; just downing a character a round to waste a Goodberry or Healing Word isn't gonna win her the fight.

Overall, Tiamat's best shot seems to be to escape before she gets worn down; if she comes to melee she gets shut down hard and if she kites at 120' breathing (note, due to needing to use legendaries to breathe she can't breath kite like a normal dragon but has to end her turn within 120' to breathe) she's taking very significant damage and if she stays outside that range she is outside her operational radius while still taking damage. But given her personality I don't think she'd ever even consider that and the place is pretty hard to get away from anyways (there's only two entrances).

What CR 17 form would you use to kill Zariel? I'm drawing a blank on "immune to fire, magic weapons, necrotic damage, and Blade Barrier, plus has high mobility and can beat Zariel's regen rate."

IMO Zariel is tougher than a Solar or Tiamat.

Hmm, I don't think you really need immunity to all those. Zariel's only Necrotic abilities are Finger of Death and Horrid Touch, of which latter is on a 3 round cooldown and it doesn't really do all that much damage: as long as you're immune to the poison rider, the 44 damage (or half that) is something you should easily be able to tank on level 17. Finger of Death does a bit more at 61 so you probably want necrotic resistance (though Legendary Resistance would allow you to just save against it 3 times) but necrotic immunity isn't necessary. Fire and magic weapons, there's at least one creature that does that (Sea Fury at CR18) though just immunity to fire makes her attacks pretty anemic especially if you couple it with resistance to nonmagical weapons. Blade Barrier is 6d10 slashing magic damage so it's basically something you can't avoid except with Counterspell or Dispel but OTOH she only has it 3/day and at 33 damage on average, you can probably tank that too.

Except I just realised that her Fiery Weapons says "Her weapon attacks are magical" so that part is actually fine. So what you really want to beat her is fire immunity. The big problem with Shapechange into fire immune form is that most fire immune forms rely on fire damage to do stuff which obviously isn't gonna work out terribly well against her. Adult Gold Dragon would have a decent match-up otherwise but it lacks magic weapons. Her mobility is great but sadly for her, her ranged capacity is not so it's mostly for getting in there or running away, not for fighting itself. Indeed, her resistances are more of a problem than her offense: it's pretty easy to reduce her offense to anemic proportions but not so easy to do so on a form that can easily harm her and keep up with her.

Still, I maintain that I'd rather fight her than Solar: Solar's combination of Slaying Arrows at +13 and Teleport and Flying Sword is actually scary. Though of course, Solars lack Legendary Resistance which does make them extremely vulnerable to getting save-or-ganked but the ability to operate at long range + teleport up to 3 times per turn is a pain to deal with, compared to Zariel or Tiamat who have to get relatively close to do their thing.

Dork_Forge

2021-04-25, 01:27 AM

It feels like poor form to me telling others what they should play or what makes sense. I've played a Bladesinging Archer and it works great. It allows you to conserve Bladesong for when you melee: when you fight at long range you don't need Bladesong (though you can still use it it: it just ends next round, but you can Bladesong just fine to get the defensive benefits including Song of Defense which goes great with Tenser's and indeed, enables you to tank some high power ranged enemies while fighting them), and due to chassis you can naturally fight great in melee making you a solid ranged and melee type while only having to invest in the ranged half (plus the ranged half works great with the ability to use cantrips in lieu of attacks too). It just so happens the Wizard spell list is insanely good for anything (including martial combat) so of course complementing Wizard-spells with the appropriate feats helps.

If you've actually played it then good for you, playing an archer primary Bladesinger is not only weird lorewise, but comes up in whiterooms like this, this is also the first time I have ever heard of anyone playing a wizard as an archer primarily, because they're terrible archers compared to anyone actually meant to do it. You like doing it, your fun is your own.

That said, yeah, an organic level 14 party that could take her out without using any kind of trap should be a fun exercise. I'd probably tend towards the same party I suggest as the optimal party for anything: Illusionist/Diviner/Chronurgist/Bladesinger Wizard, Arcana/Twilight/Peace Cleric, Shepherd/Moon Druid, Lore/Eloquence/Swords Bard (as a nod towards having a weapon damage user). Either Bard or Wizard has to be the archer of the party (it isn't just this fight, you should always have long range options in the party and archer is the easiest way of going about that), and since we didn't want the Bladesinger Archer, Swords Bard with Crossbow Expert and Sharpshooter it is. I think "true victory condition" would obviously be landing a permanent Polymorph-like effect on her and sealing her away for as long as needed until you can take over her body and destroy her essence (since killing her only stops her from taking shape for a while, kinda like killing Sauron vs. ending Sauron) but since you don't have access to True Polymorph-type effects on this level, that would be difficult (basically the only way is to get Divine Intervention to proc to turn downed and Legendary Resistance depleted Tiamat into a Humanoid that you could Magic Jar). Bard Magical Secrets are Holy Weapon, Counterspell, Magic Jar, Simulacrum. Bard and his self-Lacrum are both Magic Jar'd into Dragonsoul Cultists, because those bodies are plentiful in the adventure and you have no reason to leave them hanging around when there's better use for them. Notably they have 18 Dex and Pack Tactics.

Let's see what we could do with damage. I think Illusionist and Chronurgist both work equally well here and you probably want Peace since it isn't Arcana A'Clock yet and obviously Shepherd (Moon is only for 1-4) and then we have to go Swords since we didn't go Bladesinger. Illusionist is obviously grand since while adamantine can be melted, trapping her in repeated Concentration-free Adamantine Cages buys the rest of the party plenty of time to start wailing on her and nothing is stopping an Illusionist from just making another obstacle each round - as long as you've got Images lying around or you cast Mirage Arcana earlier. Chronurgist's Tiny Hut Arcane Abeyance would incidentally be rather effective against her as well so let's go Diviner so as to not have an unfair subclass-based advantage. Diviner + Simulacrum means we've got 6 Portent dice and all the information we could want. Given we know we're potentially facing Tiamat today, we'll probably partake in Heroes' Feast in the morn' of the battle. Everyone will obviously be Death Warded and level 5 Aided (assuming 16 Con, that's 8+5*13+3*14+20 = 135 HP for others and 130 for the Dragonsoul Bodysnatchers). The earlier fights can largely be cleared with usual caster stuff using 3rd-5th level spells: they're pretty weak. Since Holy Weapon lasts an hour, it seems reasonable to assume that the Swords Bard has used that and on this level, they even have free Flourishes every turn ad nauseam so even Inspiration dice are unspent.

Party is Vumans. Obviously Alert/Lucky/Res: Con/18 Int on Wizard, XBE/SS/Res: Con/Fighting Initiate: Archery/16 Cha on Bard, War Caster/Res: Con/20 Wis on Cleric and Res: Con/Lucky/20 Wis on Druid. No reason for Wizard and his Simulacrum to not take e.g. Dragonsoul bodies too. We can assume that such a party could pretty effortlessly clear most of the earlier encounters with level 5- spells. We can also assume that stuff like Peace Cleric Bond, 1 min casting duration spells and such can be cast before entering the temple. I think it's prudent to start with Conjure Fey 7 for the Druid since it doesn't really get that much else and just get a Giant Ape and Planar Bind that. It can't fly natively (though I guess nothing is stopping one of the Wizards from casting Fly on it) but its main job is of course to try and grapple Tiamat should she come close. At Mighty Summons, the Ape does have 187 HP so it can tank a couple of breath weapons or full attacks from her plus of course 16 more temporary HP from Bear Totem which will obviously be deployed (plus Advantage on Strength-checks). Summon Celestial VI, two Crossbow Expert Swords Bards and the Druid/Cleric (should the enemy come close) will largely be left to take care of the DPR part of the equation while the Wizard(s) handle stuff like blocking breath weapons with walls and trying to trap Tiamat if she ever positions herself near walls or otherwise so that two Walls of Force could do it.

The Swords Bards can do surprisingly decent damage: assuming +1 Hand Crossbows at 120' and +1 Light Crossbows otherwise they can attack at 3x +12 +1d4 Bless for 1d6+4+1 + 2d8 and additional +1d10 on first 3 rounds (+1d6 thereafter). Together they can DPR for 70/110 (depending on if the party can arrange a creature next to Tiamat to proc Pack Tactics - suicide familiars and homunculi and potentially Magens or any fliers from Conjure Animals trying to sneak around drawing breath weapons and getting next to her to proc Pack Tactics and Fanatic Advantage seems solid) damage a turn at 120' and 47/83 (at over 120' she's vulnerable to Silent Image-based Concealment so advantage is easy to get) at basically any range. Cleric can have a Planar Bound Couatl helping out (for 10 days from a level 6 slot): for starters it'll just Bless the Attackers. Wizards can of course pitch in on the DPR department if need be too and they could Planar Bind something like Armanite or Dybbyk to help out, but mostly they'll probably focus on the breath weapons and Tiamat's movements with Walls. In this scenario, the Summoned Celestial could benefit of Bless too allowing it to pitch in for 8/20/32 damage. Overall, at very long ranges Tiamat is ticking down at over its Regeneration which limits her options for positioning and at shorter ranges she's taking significantly more damage. If she ever closes in to melee, the Giant Ape can grapple her (with the presence of two Diviners, Tiamat's chances of winning the opposed check are pretty much nil) and her Divine Word to banish it can be Counterspelled (again, with the presence of the two Lucky Diviners the chances of failing that check are pretty low - 13% that both the Diviners fail if no suitable Portents are available and 4% chance of no Portents that automake it and then 49% that the Bards fail it too for a total failure chance of 0,25%).

If Tiamat does get her breath through, she needs ~2-3 per character (or 4-6 for either Wizard or the Druid since they have Absorb Elements and poison immunity from Heroes' Feast and Bards and Wizards all have one random elemental resistance from Dragonsoul) after which said character gets Healing Worded back up (if Death Ward didn't do it first). It seems to me like it would be awfully difficult for her to actually take down characters. Frightful Presence is of course countered by Heroes' Feast too. The most brutal effect of her breath is the DC 20-40 Con save to Concentrate (pretty much automatic fail for Bards and Cleric which is why the Wizards and the Druid have to protect them - Protective Bond allows them to take the damage instead but obviously it's impossible to both take the damage and Absorb Elements though Wizard and Simulacrum could easily just cast Fire Shield and Ice Shield and block their respective elements with resistance leaving lightning and acid that are lines and don't multihit as easily as the full damage ones - readied actions to block the breaths with Wall-type spells can do a good job of slowing down the attrition too) - the only characters that have a shot at making the Dex-save are the Bards (they'll have +9 Dex +1d4 Bless for +11,5 on average; they need a 15+ from Portent or die to make it unless they have their Peace roll left in which case they get by on 12).

Tiamat is going down at 6 rounds at 120' range from just the archers or ~10 rounds if she tries to keep her distance. If she comes close, the timer is obviously cut short though she'd have more of a chance to do something before dying; just downing a character a round to waste a Goodberry or Healing Word isn't gonna win her the fight.

Overall, Tiamat's best shot seems to be to escape before she gets worn down; if she comes to melee she gets shut down hard and if she kites at 120' breathing (note, due to needing to use legendaries to breathe she can't breath kite like a normal dragon but has to end her turn within 120' to breathe) she's taking very significant damage and if she stays outside that range she is outside her operational radius while still taking damage. But given her personality I don't think she'd ever even consider that and the place is pretty hard to get away from anyways (there's only two entrances).

I read through all of this but I'm pretty tired, so I'm oing to highlight some massive red flags here:

You assume the context of her being summoned from the module so you can grab bodies for Magic Jar. If you want to assume the context of the module then notion that the party got through to this point, without being injured and/or otherwise significantly depleted of resources is absurd.

At one point you write off anything 5th to get to his point, but:

-They've pretty much all burned a 6th level slot to attempt to Magic Jar, stating the amount of bodies ample, but not how you're actually getting that many to fail Charisma saves reliably whilst still having portents and Lukcy available for Tiamat

-There's still slots left to Counterspell Tiamat apparently, which I see no reason why that would work unless you upcast it. It's a 3rd level spell that is targeting her. No upcast, no dice.

-Tbh your post was a little hard to follow as you mixed what you suggest would happen with the builds you were presenting, but it sounds like Tiamat is just... on the ground? The scenario explicitly states that the combat starts at 60ft distance and she has a flight speed of 120ft, why is she not just on top of the party breathing down on them repeatedly?

-You're assuming walking into this with Planar Bindings that you not only assumed you could do and bring into the combat, but you assume they made it to the combat through the rest of the module. I'm honestly surprised undead army wasn't mixed in for the heck of it.

-Not only multiple Simulacrums are in play, but they are still alive depsite being unhealable and with half hp and still have meaningful resources left?

-Swarms of Magens etc. but the casters aren't even mentioned being at severe risk of dying from voluntarily reducing their hp to face a god?

I see no reason why this would actually work, it's primarily built around the assumption that she'd fight like a moron, despite having a full suite of mental stats to make the casters blush. You assume essentially building a Planar Bound army of summons and other long term summons/constructs to support this. There isn't even mention of her fearing everyone in range when you're assuming kiting.

Heck given that you literally describe how everyone will 'obviously' be buffed by various non trivial level spells (Hero's Feast, Death Ward, level 5 Aid) you even took for granting getting off a shorter term buff from the Peace Cleric in advance.

So I have to ask, and I genuinely don't feel like I'm moving goalposts here, do you actually think that this can be done without assuming everything going in your favour? Having all the portents and Luck unused despite choosing to fight for this point? Securing multiple bodies to magic jar, being able to get Planar Bound summons through the rest to here, having all the resources you need despite the fact that getting to that point wouldn't be trivial?

See, you chose to assume fighting to this point, I don't think I stated that you had to, I just proposed a party of 4 and the distance to fight. Your way gives you the opportunity to enlist a million and one prefight things to potentially win, but there is no reflection of fighting to get there shown in your party.

Eldariel

2021-04-25, 01:59 AM

-They've pretty much all burned a 6th level slot to attempt to Magic Jar, stating the amount of bodies ample, but not how you're actually getting that many to fail Charisma saves reliably whilst still having portents and Lukcy available for Tiamat

Magic Jar has been cast long ago. They've gone through this campaign and run across Dragonsoul Cultists as early as Chapter 7 latest (this is Chapter 9). Magic Jar is permanent: there's ample time to get this out of the way.

-There's still slots left to Counterspell Tiamat apparently, which I see no reason why that would work unless you upcast it. It's a 3rd level spell that is targeting her. No upcast, no dice.

That's fair enough, I always assume it targets the spell not the creature. Well, it can Divine Word the Ape; I don't think that massively changes anything but it does make the plan of approaching the party easier (though in the case of party member being low, level 7 Counterspell can be a reasonable call).

-Tbh your post was a little hard to follow as you mixed what you suggest would happen with the builds you were presenting, but it sounds like Tiamat is just... on the ground? The scenario explicitly states that the combat starts at 60ft distance and she has a flight speed of 120ft, why is she not just on top of the party breathing down on them repeatedly?

Yeah, that's what I'm assuming, hence why counting the ranged damage sources. Of course it's impossible to accurately model a fight where the options are not limited since there are about a hundred movement options for each character each turn; point is, if Tiamat wants to get in and use her full damage she needs to close in at which point she's within melee range while otherwise she gets peppered to death.

-You're assuming walking into this with Planar Bindings that you not only assumed you could do and bring into the combat, but you assume they made it to the combat through the rest of the module. I'm honestly surprised undead army wasn't mixed in for the heck of it.

I'm assuming few high end summons survive. I'm assuming you Bound them before Well of Dragons - given the amount of restoration in the party that seems reasonable.

-Not only multiple Simulacrums are in play, but they are still alive depsite being unhealable and with half hp and still have meaningful resources left?

Simulacrums are Magic Jar'd so their unhealable bodies are left behind. They should be healable just fine at this point: being unhealable is a physical ability after all. Either way, you deploy Simulacrums in the back of your formation as support: you obviously don't have them tank stuff unless you have to (in this final fight the Wizard Simulacrum is probably well-advised to do so given it probably has a unique resistance).

-Swarms of Magens etc. but the casters aren't even mentioned being at severe risk of dying from voluntarily reducing their hp to face a god?

Well, you can reduce your HP in your own form but you're using your Magic Jar form's HP in this fight. I didn't count swarms of Magen and Homunculi; I just mentioned few things you could be using to proc the advantage. I didn't even factor in their offensive contributions or any such. the HP remains in the 130 true/150 temporary region.

I see no reason why this would actually work, it's primarily built around the assumption that she'd fight like a moron, despite having a full suite of mental stats to make the casters blush. You assume essentially building a Planar Bound army of summons and other long term summons/constructs to support this. There isn't even mention of her fearing everyone in range when you're assuming kiting.

Heroes' Feast renders you immune to fear, among other things.

Heck given that you literally describe how everyone will 'obviously' be buffed by various non trivial level spells (Hero's Feast, Death Ward, level 5 Aid) you even took for granting getting off a shorter term buff from the Peace Cleric in advance.

You have 1 full minute before she appears. You also know you're entering the final battle to stop Tiamat from appearing or to beat her in the morning of the adventure before you enter the Well of Dragons. You even have your armies and everything. There's no reason to hold back at this point: you put together everything you can.

So I have to ask, and I genuinely don't feel like I'm moving goalposts here, do you actually think that this can be done without assuming everything going in your favour? Having all the portents and Luck unused despite choosing to fight for this point? Securing multiple bodies to magic jar, being able to get Planar Bound summons through the rest to here, having all the resources you need despite the fact that getting to that point wouldn't be trivial?

See, you chose to assume fighting to this point, I don't think I stated that you had to, I just proposed a party of 4 and the distance to fight. Your way gives you the opportunity to enlist a million and one prefight things to potentially win, but there is no reflection of fighting to get there shown in your party.

Well, I'm assuming many 3rd-5th level spells have been burnt. I'm not going to play through the entire module in my head: there are plenty of ways for it to go, from teleporting or Mirage Arcanaing inside the chamber and just ignoring the whole dungeon to simply swarming the dungeon with Shepherd and Wizard summons. Too many variables, any particular telling of it would be inconclusive so there's little point.

But the fights you encounter on the way there are the likes of CR 1-2 creatures (Dragonfangs & Dragon Wings), one lone CR11 (Naergoth Bladelord, which isn't necessarily even a combat encounter), few golems & elementals (CR 5-6), few Guard Drakes (CR 3), etc. Basically nothing that should meaningfully challenge Tier 3 party, to the point that you don't even need to burn resources aside from maybe healing up with yesterday's Goodberries (you have a level 14 Druid so you can have like 170 HP worth of Goodberries without burning any slots on the day of the encounter since you basically get to rest up to full after Mission to Thay). Thus, no matter how you go about it, they don't meaningfully affect your combat ability: they are trivial difficulty fights.

Thus it indeed is an encounter where you basically full power (minus few lower level slots to more quickly clean up the lower level encounters or alternatively, one higher level slot if you bypass the Well and head straight to the temple). You might lose some lesser minions but losing minions on the level of Couatl or Giant Ape would take actively trying to murder them yourself. Mostly you'll be losing Goodberries and maybe the occasional Aura of Vitality or whatever. Nothing that requires Portent, Lucky or the like. Those are high value resources and killing some CR 5-6 enemies, you can do that with cantrips and at-will attacks and maybe one Conjure Animals from Shepherd and some healing and maybe few control spells from the Wizard.

Then, at the temple you've got 1 full minute (10 rounds) before she actually appears during which the summoners are all occupied. By the module you should use that time to prevent her from appearing but since we wanna fight her, we use that time buffing up instead. Thus even short duration buffs (Peace Cleric, Fire Shield, etc.) that take under 1 minute to cast are easily accessible.

Anyways, I do think that a level 14 party, at least a caster party using their abilities to the fullest, has a pretty solid shot at taking her out even without being able to trap her. Staying at 120' - 90' to breathe opens her up to your full damage so at that point she might as well be next to you, while further away she has no relevant actions. Mostly because her offensive options are pretty bad at actually killing anyone (good for downing people) and her offensive portfolio is a tad limited.

Basically, her problem is her lack of long range breaths. If she could operate at 300'-600', her flight speed would be more meaningful. But as it stands it's only useful for sticking within 120' of the PCs and breathing on them.

Overall, far as this module goes, if you go through the module and do things (like Planar Bind and find items and pick up bodies to Magic Jar and then Magic Jar until it succeeds and so on) and then fight her at the end, you should be more than fine. In real play, this is how it goes with casters. Most of these "you appear in a room, fight"-threads have the issue that they can't represent what permanent and long duration spells really do over a campaign. But here we have a real framework: we have data for what you can Magic Jar, what time you've got before the fight, what kinds of chances for prepping you've got (this is also underrated in many of these threads - in real campaigns, you've often got ample warning to precast shorter duration buffs before you head into the fray and so too here, both the Temple entrance and Well entrance are easy times to cast 10 min non-Concentration buffs), et cetera.

With those in play, it's pretty easy to ennumerate what can actually be on the table. I didn't list most of the small stuff: assuming some gets squashed randomly by Tiamat's breaths and others suicide next to it and give some assistance before dying and so on. But Conjure Celestial and Summon Fey are pretty big parts of Cleric and Druid respectively so those I did bring up especially since they're relevant to this encounter. This location is also explicitly large enough that there's no problem for Gargantuan creatures to move around (most of the tubes are stated to be 15'-25' across so Ancient Dragons and Dracoliches can easily move there) so none of the usual objections so such things apply.

If we just had an encounter of "Tiamat appears, fight!" it'd probably be a bit different but it would also have to be framed. Without framing, adjudicating long duration abilities is difficult. This doesn't make those abilities bad, it just means the random fights aren't really representative of actual campaigns and your options therein. But even there, we can probably assume Simulacrums, Magic Jars and such at least. In which case I do believe the suggested party would have a reasonable chance.

EDIT: It's worth noting that for a CR30 to truly be anywhere near its CR, it should easily be able to wipe the floor with any number of level 14 parties. Like it shouldn't be close: it shouldn't even be a fight. With this baseline, I think it's plain as day that the CR30 of Tiamat is quite overstated. CR30 should be about 7xDeadly for a level 14 party. Given Deadly is a fight where a single party member death is possible, this sounds more like a 4x Deadly encounter to a strong level 14 party if giving Tiamat a few more spells. Maybe like CR 25-26, with those spells.

Forum Explorer

2021-04-25, 02:43 AM

Note: Size category is
a) area controlled, not space taken up. A regular Young dragon has a wingspan way over 10' wide, by necessity.
b) for Tiny and Colossal, unbounded on one side. A fly is Tiny. As is a cat. They are not the same size. Ships are colossal, but are also noted as being well over 20' long.

So no. I'd say that any winged creature of Large size or larger doesn't fit in a forcecage. Period. Same with a giant (many of whom are over 20' tall by RAW). Sorry, just not going to happen.

Seconding this. She's simply too big to fit in a forcecage and depending on convincing your DM that she can as your go to strategy is a good way to get yourself killed. You could argue that she could fit in a forcecage if she was curled up, but why would she be curled up? She's lashing out and eating cultists. She's likely in motion and fully extended.

Magic Jar has been cast long ago. They've gone through this campaign and run across Dragonsoul Cultists as early as Chapter 7 latest (this is Chapter 9). Magic Jar is permanent: there's ample time to get this out of the way.

That's fair enough, I always assume it targets the spell not the creature. Well, it can Divine Word the Ape; I don't think that massively changes anything but it does make the plan of approaching the party easier (though in the case of party member being low, level 7 Counterspell can be a reasonable call).

Yeah, that's what I'm assuming, hence why counting the ranged damage sources. Of course it's impossible to accurately model a fight where the options are not limited since there are about a hundred movement options for each character each turn; point is, if Tiamat wants to get in and use her full damage she needs to close in at which point she's within melee range while otherwise she gets peppered to death.

I'm assuming few high end summons survive. I'm assuming you Bound them before Well of Dragons - given the amount of restoration in the party that seems reasonable.

Simulacrums are Magic Jar'd so their unhealable bodies are left behind. They should be healable just fine at this point: being unhealable is a physical ability after all. Either way, you deploy Simulacrums in the back of your formation as support: you obviously don't have them tank stuff unless you have to (in this final fight the Wizard Simulacrum is probably well-advised to do so given it probably has a unique resistance).

Well, you can reduce your HP in your own form but you're using your Magic Jar form's HP in this fight. I didn't count swarms of Magen and Homunculi; I just mentioned few things you could be using to proc the advantage. I didn't even factor in their offensive contributions or any such. the HP remains in the 130 true/150 temporary region.

Heroes' Feast renders you immune to fear, among other things.

You have 1 full minute before she appears. You also know you're entering the final battle to stop Tiamat from appearing or to beat her in the morning of the adventure before you enter the Well of Dragons. You even have your armies and everything. There's no reason to hold back at this point: you put together everything you can.

Well, I'm assuming many 3rd-5th level spells have been burnt. I'm not going to play through the entire module in my head: there are plenty of ways for it to go, from teleporting or Mirage Arcanaing inside the chamber and just ignoring the whole dungeon to simply swarming the dungeon with Shepherd and Wizard summons. Too many variables, any particular telling of it would be inconclusive so there's little point.

But the fights you encounter on the way there are the likes of CR 1-2 creatures (Dragonfangs & Dragon Wings), one lone CR11 (Naergoth Bladelord, which isn't necessarily even a combat encounter), few golems & elementals (CR 5-6), few Guard Drakes (CR 3), etc. Basically nothing that should meaningfully challenge Tier 3 party, to the point that you don't even need to burn resources aside from maybe healing up with yesterday's Goodberries (you have a level 14 Druid so you can have like 170 HP worth of Goodberries without burning any slots on the day of the encounter since you basically get to rest up to full after Mission to Thay). Thus, no matter how you go about it, they don't meaningfully affect your combat ability: they are trivial difficulty fights.

Thus it indeed is an encounter where you basically full power (minus few lower level slots to more quickly clean up the lower level encounters or alternatively, one higher level slot if you bypass the Well and head straight to the temple). You might lose some lesser minions but losing minions on the level of Couatl or Giant Ape would take actively trying to murder them yourself. Mostly you'll be losing Goodberries and maybe the occasional Aura of Vitality or whatever. Nothing that requires Portent, Lucky or the like. Those are high value resources and killing some CR 5-6 enemies, you can do that with cantrips and at-will attacks and maybe one Conjure Animals from Shepherd and some healing and maybe few control spells from the Wizard.

Then, at the temple you've got 1 full minute (10 rounds) before she actually appears during which the summoners are all occupied. By the module you should use that time to prevent her from appearing but since we wanna fight her, we use that time buffing up instead. Thus even short duration buffs (Peace Cleric, Fire Shield, etc.) that take under 1 minute to cast are easily accessible.

Anyways, I do think that a level 14 party, at least a caster party using their abilities to the fullest, has a pretty solid shot at taking her out even without being able to trap her. Staying at 120' - 90' to breathe opens her up to your full damage so at that point she might as well be next to you, while further away she has no relevant actions. Mostly because her offensive options are pretty bad at actually killing anyone (good for downing people) and her offensive portfolio is a tad limited.

Basically, her problem is her lack of long range breaths. If she could operate at 300'-600', her flight speed would be more meaningful. But as it stands it's only useful for sticking within 120' of the PCs and breathing on them.

Overall, far as this module goes, if you go through the module and do things (like Planar Bind and find items and pick up bodies to Magic Jar and then Magic Jar until it succeeds and so on) and then fight her at the end, you should be more than fine. In real play, this is how it goes with casters. Most of these "you appear in a room, fight"-threads have the issue that they can't represent what permanent and long duration spells really do over a campaign. But here we have a real framework: we have data for what you can Magic Jar, what time you've got before the fight, what kinds of chances for prepping you've got (this is also underrated in many of these threads - in real campaigns, you've often got ample warning to precast shorter duration buffs before you head into the fray and so too here, both the Temple entrance and Well entrance are easy times to cast 10 min non-Concentration buffs), et cetera.

With those in play, it's pretty easy to ennumerate what can actually be on the table. I didn't list most of the small stuff: assuming some gets squashed randomly by Tiamat's breaths and others suicide next to it and give some assistance before dying and so on. But Conjure Celestial and Summon Fey are pretty big parts of Cleric and Druid respectively so those I did bring up especially since they're relevant to this encounter. This location is also explicitly large enough that there's no problem for Gargantuan creatures to move around (most of the tubes are stated to be 15'-25' across so Ancient Dragons and Dracoliches can easily move there) so none of the usual objections so such things apply.

If we just had an encounter of "Tiamat appears, fight!" it'd probably be a bit different but it would also have to be framed. Without framing, adjudicating long duration abilities is difficult. This doesn't make those abilities bad, it just means the random fights aren't really representative of actual campaigns and your options therein. But even there, we can probably assume Simulacrums, Magic Jars and such at least.

All that is operating on you knowing exactly what is going to happen in the fight. Or in other words, that you are playing exactly by the book, have read the book ahead of time, and you know the DM won't adjust what is happening due to your actions.

I mean, I know if I'm DMing something and a player casts Simulacrum, even once? I immediately make everything much more difficult. Because the game kinda sorta aims for people playing with a lower level of mastery. Or to put it another way, you should be able to beat the book without needing something to resort to things like Simulacrum. And if you are casting things like Simulacrum, I need to adjust the difficulty or else you'll breeze through the game. The same assumption that the DM will let you have time to find magic items, or continually cast Magic Jaw at stuff is also doing the DM the disservice of them not adjusting the game or world to your actions.

Change the perspective slightly. Instead of thinking it will be exactly like Rise of Tiamat, you know your DM is only cribbing the storyline from the book, and the statlines. What monsters are where, locations, treasure types, what characters are doing what, all that may or may not be changed. So you get to the final dungeon and you know that you only have 1 Long Rest to stop Tiamat from being summoned. How much do you hold back throughout the dungeon? How willing are you to bet that Tiamat will eat her servants, or that the servants won't summon her faster, or even just turn and attack you?

Eldariel

2021-04-25, 03:03 AM

All that is operating on you knowing exactly what is going to happen in the fight. Or in other words, that you are playing exactly by the book, have read the book ahead of time, and you know the DM won't adjust what is happening due to your actions.

I mean, I know if I'm DMing something and a player casts Simulacrum, even once? I immediately make everything much more difficult. Because the game kinda sorta aims for people playing with a lower level of mastery. Or to put it another way, you should be able to beat the book without needing something to resort to things like Simulacrum. And if you are casting things like Simulacrum, I need to adjust the difficulty or else you'll breeze through the game. The same assumption that the DM will let you have time to find magic items, or continually cast Magic Jaw at stuff is also doing the DM the disservice of them not adjusting the game or world to your actions.

Change the perspective slightly. Instead of thinking it will be exactly like Rise of Tiamat, you know your DM is only cribbing the storyline from the book, and the statlines. What monsters are where, locations, treasure types, what characters are doing what, all that may or may not be changed. So you get to the final dungeon and you know that you only have 1 Long Rest to stop Tiamat from being summoned. How much do you hold back throughout the dungeon? How willing are you to bet that Tiamat will eat her servants, or that the servants won't summon her faster, or even just turn and attack you?

Can't do math that way. I'm not assuming the PCs know anything beyond what they can glean. The dungeon is literally CR 1-6 enemies; you don't need more than like Conjure Animals and some cantrips to clear it at minimal losses. Why would you ever do anything but minimum possible to easily breeze through obstacles when you know a god is being summoned? (and yes, PCs know that much by this point) Similarly, none of the suggested prep is anything you wouldn't do anyways. Magic Jar strongest body you can find. Simulacrum yourself when available. Cast Heroes' Feast on the morning of a huge dungeon + potential boss fight. Planar Bind strong things. All of that is just common sense. Changing things around wouldn't matter one bit. But it would mean I can't do math because it's impossible to quantify inquantifiables, such as what a random DM might do.

To reiterates, I'm not building PC based on what they fight. That's just a generically good party with generically good tactics and tools against anything. I built that party by picking the 4 strongest classes in the game and random strong archetype from each, save the archer which has to be built to round the party out since only two classes make decent archers out of the bunch and every well-rounded party should have a long range expert (even that isn't campaign, just party optimisation; this goes for whatever the campaign - so 3 random strong characters and one character built with the party in mind, no heed paid to the campaign). Then I went through the campaign, checked what they could pick up and picked few random things (not all the good ones) which suffice to this end and mathed out the fight with what they've got. I, as a person, am using information from the campaign module to ennumerate what the party tactics get them as opposed to dictate, which tactics they use. This is all "blind mode" beyond the obvious divination/scouting/campaign info from the PC side.

EDIT: It actually occurs to me, Elemental Weapon is generally better than Holy Weapon for the Bard. Same duration, upcast on level 5 gives you +2/+2 and +2d4 (admittedly of lesser elements than Radiant but Thunder is on the list, which is rarely resisted) and it has the option of upcasting it to level 7 for +3/+3 and +3d4, which would be brutal here. It would even let you -5/+10 Tiamat while gaining damage while at advantage though 2 points of attack bonus short of being able to do it without advantage. :smallbiggrin: Stacking bonuses are one hell of a drug.

Forum Explorer

2021-04-25, 03:59 AM

Can't do math that way. I'm not assuming the PCs know anything beyond what they can glean. The dungeon is literally CR 1-6 enemies; you don't need more than like Conjure Animals and some cantrips to clear it at minimal losses. Why would you ever do anything but minimum possible to easily breeze through obstacles when you know a god is being summoned? (and yes, PCs know that much by this point) Similarly, none of the suggested prep is anything you wouldn't do anyways. Magic Jar strongest body you can find. Simulacrum yourself when available. Cast Heroes' Feast on the morning of a huge dungeon + potential boss fight. All of that is jjust common sense. Changing things around wouldn't matter one bit. But it would mean I can't do math because it's impossible to quantify inquantifiables.

To reiterates, I'm not building PC based on what they fight. That's just a generically good party with generically good tactics and tools against anything. I, as a person, am using information from the campaign module to ennumerate what the party tactics get them as opposed to dictate, which tactics they use. This is all "blind mode" beyond the obvious divination/scouting/campaign info from the PC side.

The part I'm challenging you on, is that why would the DM keep the dungeon at CR 1-6 creatures when you are pulling things out like Magic Jar and Simulacrum? I mean, I don't disagree with your plan at all, in the sense that yeah, it's just generally good buffs and strong tactics. Honestly, they are too strong for this module at least. Like you said, with the team you've proposed, you don't need to cast a spell above level 3 in order to clear the dungeon. Which is ridiculous for the final dungeon.

So yeah, if I was DMing and you were using those tactics? Instead of CR 1-6, it'd be more like CR 12-16. Not to penalize the party or anything, but because otherwise you'd breeze your way through the dungeon without any tension or challenge at all. If you just sat buffing yourself while waiting for Tiamat to be summoned? She certainly wouldn't eat her mages, so you'd have to fight her, all ten mages, and the Severin guy at the same time. And they'd probably open with dropping a 5th level dispel magic on everyone because they just watched you cast buffs for the last ten rounds. Mind you, if you are using Magic Jar frequently, that you enemies are often going to be casting dispel on you because dispelling Magic Jar is an easy 2 for 1 play, so maybe you'd have a counter in mind for that already.

EDIT: To put it another way. If your reaction to Tiamat, the Goddess of Evil Dragons, being summoned is to sit back and let it happen, then I feel like a failure of a DM. This should be an earth shattering event to be prevented at all costs, not a boss fight to run by the numbers.

Eldariel

2021-04-25, 04:50 AM

The part I'm challenging you on, is that why would the DM keep the dungeon at CR 1-6 creatures when you are pulling things out like Magic Jar and Simulacrum? I mean, I don't disagree with your plan at all, in the sense that yeah, it's just generally good buffs and strong tactics. Honestly, they are too strong for this module at least. Like you said, with the team you've proposed, you don't need to cast a spell above level 3 in order to clear the dungeon. Which is ridiculous for the final dungeon.

So yeah, if I was DMing and you were using those tactics? Instead of CR 1-6, it'd be more like CR 12-16. Not to penalize the party or anything, but because otherwise you'd breeze your way through the dungeon without any tension or challenge at all. If you just sat buffing yourself while waiting for Tiamat to be summoned? She certainly wouldn't eat her mages, so you'd have to fight her, all ten mages, and the Severin guy at the same time. And they'd probably open with dropping a 5th level dispel magic on everyone because they just watched you cast buffs for the last ten rounds. Mind you, if you are using Magic Jar frequently, that you enemies are often going to be casting dispel on you because dispelling Magic Jar is an easy 2 for 1 play, so maybe you'd have a counter in mind for that already.

Mhm, I see. I don't think it's really that ridiculous: the climax of the final dungeon is supposed to be the big fight against the boss so it's doable: and Tiamat should be such a boss that even solo against a party at their full power, the party should be FUBAR (since Tiamat itself appearing in the first place, let alone at full power, is already a failure condition: it should mean "you lose"). Already the fact that we're saying "Btw, Tiamat appears at full power" is making the module a lot harder than it is as written - that is, exactly what you're suggesting.

Obviously I think fighting Tiamat and 10 mages simultaneously is a very different fight from just Tiamat. But I also don't think that's a fair test of Tiamat's statblock since Mages themselves are pretty excellent support creatures, at least if we pick spells for them smart (I don't think the default loadout of Mage is very scary to be honest though - they don't e.g. get Dispel Magic - against 10 default Mages and Tiamat, the fight is probably quite winnable though you'd obviously spend the first rounds annihilating the mages which would tax your resources). I think Tiamat itself should be so overwhelming that, if you fail at literally everything, you should have no chance. So that you'd have to weaken her through the myriad of ways outlined in the adventure to stand a reasonable chance of defeating her in a fight. I don't think a level 14 party should have much of a chance against a CR30 enemy in the first place.

In a way, you're reinforcing my hypothesis: that Tiamat statblock really isn't as strong as it should be. If Tiamat needs 10 mages to support her to fight a level 14 party that gave her every advantage in the book, even a high powered one, something is wrong. It's supposed to be a "rock falls, everybody dies"-level encounter if you fail everything, but it's really not. Which is what I'm complaining about: the statblock really doesn't live up to the hype. Please see MaxWilson's earlier post about Cthulhu's statblock in the book if you want to see what I'd like for it to be like, unweakened at least.

As for defeating Dispel Magic, the usual answers are:
- Contingency: Out of range (typically Dimension Door) or Block Line of Effect (typically Resilient Sphere). The most obvious and simple counter.
- Counterspell: This requires that you get in range somehow, which of course depends on positioning and terrain.
- Portent/Chronal Shift: Make enemies fail/reroll the Dispel roll (Magic Jar is a level 6 spell so most characters have to roll Dispel Magic at under 50% chance of success).
- Act first: As with all caster duels, going first and disabling the enemy caster before they get to act is extremely important. Same goes against basically anything they might throw at you - enemy mage getting to land CC or AOE damage on the party can go pretty horribly for the PCs. This is why I so like Alert (and to lesser extent Lucky) on casters.
- Fake targets: Spells like Seeming and Magic Aura are excellent for hiding the real targets. One good trick is to have Animate Dead minions around and cast Seeming. Make them all look the same, or alternatively everyone look random. Enemy won't know which is the real target and all of them are magical so any is a fair target for Dispel Magic. Similarly, Magic Aura can give e.g. Rod in your (and some clones') hand a magic aura. As below, enemies will have to be cognizant of the fact that it could indeed be a Rod of Absorption, which makes targeting you with a Dispel a rather bad idea.
- Magic items: Don't think this module has them available but there are some great magic items that enable you to not only counter but also benefit of Dispel Magic such as Rod of Absorption, Staff of the Magi and company.

It is true that a successful Dispel Magic is dangerous to a Magic Jar user and there's no perfect answer (I sometimes take Metamagic Adept: Distant Spell and Extend Spell with one of the latter feats to raise Counterspell range to 120' to match Dispel Magic range but generally I wouldn't take that this early since unless stats were rolled freeing up feats) but there are things you can do. Especially fake targets: I didn't bother listing the obvious obscurement stuff since against Tiamat and her True Seeing and immunity to nonmagical weapons, Animate Dead and such is of course largely irrelevant but for the dungeon it's highly relevant and useful. One of the best defenses is obscurity: enemy has no way of knowing that you're Magic Jar'd nor what spells are on you so they don't really have any good way to determine whom or what to target.

For example, even without any confounding spells in effect, this party has the following possible choices for Dispel Magic. They don't know what spells are active on everyone has but targets they could Dispel:
- Giant Ape
- Couatl
- Bard's Bow
- Bard
- Wizard
- Wizard's Simulacrum
- Bard's Simulacrum
- Cleric
- Druid
- Any other possible summons still remaining from the dungeon

Of course, once you add fake targets to the list, getting the right hit with Dispel Magic especially if you lack True Seeing is extremely difficult (and even with True Seeing, you don't get knowledge of what magical effects are actually in effect so you could just as easily end up Dispelling e.g. Mage Armor or Magic Aura as Contingency or Shapechange).

EDIT: If I were to rework Tiamat, I'd at least give her the following:
- Fearsome presence: Even those immune to being frightened might cower before Tiamat. Immunity to fear only amounts to advantage on the saving throw against her frightful presence.
- Majestic presence: Every being within 240' of Tiamat must roll a Charisma-save (DC26) or prostrate themself before her (prone, unable to take actions other than look in awe). She is a god.
- Breath weapons: Her breath weapons have additional effects.

Lightning breath works as Dispel Magic on everything hit (cast out of a 9th level slot).
Acid breath works as Disintegrate on all creatures and objects hit (cast out of a 9th level slot).
Fire breath lingers lights the area ablaze. The area hit by the fire breath is turned into a fiery hellscape, dealing half the damage of the fire breath each round to every creature in the area. The fire burns so hot that even creatures immune to fire are treated as only having resistance to fire, and creates resistant to fire take normal damage. Those not resistant to fire take damage as if they were vulnerable. The fires burn for 1 minute.
Poison breath instantly kills everyone who fails their save. Damage dealt is on a successful save.
Cold breath freezes all hit targets solid. For creatures on a failed save, target is restrained and incapacitated and can't take any action unless they are melted by fire taking at least 50 fire damage. The restrained creatures can retry their save at the end of each of their turns.

- Rip reality: Tiamat uses all her five heads to rip a hole in reality. This enables her to tunnel to another spot within 600' as the Dimension Door spell.
- Additionally, she can use one breath as an action in addition to her Legendary Actions. Every breath has a recharge timer of one round so she can at best use 3 breaths, then 2 breaths, then again.

Then some effects of her presence like DC23 save vs. despairing to everyone within 100 miles of her, all the primal forces associated with her chromatic dragons like lava, lightning, acid, poison and cold working out of control, et cetera.

Forum Explorer

2021-04-25, 05:31 AM

Mhm, I see. I don't think it's really that ridiculous: the climax of the final dungeon is supposed to be the big fight against the boss so it's doable: and Tiamat should be such a boss that even solo against a party at their full power, the party should be FUBAR (since Tiamat itself appearing in the first place, let alone at full power, is already a failure condition: it should mean "you lose"). Already the fact that we're saying "Btw, Tiamat appears at full power" is making the module a lot harder than it is as written - that is, exactly what you're suggesting.

Obviously I think fighting Tiamat and 10 mages simultaneously is a very different fight from just Tiamat. But I also don't think that's a fair test of Tiamat's statblock since Mages themselves are pretty excellent support creatures, at least if we pick spells for them smart (I don't think the default loadout of Mage is very scary to be honest though - they don't e.g. get Dispel Magic - against 10 default Mages and Tiamat, the fight is probably quite winnable though you'd obviously spend the first rounds annihilating the mages which would tax your resources). I think Tiamat itself should be so overwhelming that, if you fail at literally everything, you should have no chance. So that you'd have to weaken her through the myriad of ways outlined in the adventure to stand a reasonable chance of defeating her in a fight. I don't think a level 14 party should have much of a chance against a CR30 enemy in the first place.

In a way, you're reinforcing my hypothesis: that Tiamat statblock really isn't as strong as it should be. If Tiamat needs 10 mages to support her to fight a level 14 party that gave her every advantage in the book, even a high powered one, something is wrong. It's supposed to be a "rock falls, everybody dies"-level encounter if you fail everything, but it's really not. Which is what I'm complaining about: the statblock really doesn't live up to the hype. Please see MaxWilson's earlier post about Cthulhu's statblock in the book if you want to see what I'd like for it to be like, unweakened at least.

As for defeating Dispel Magic, the usual answers are:
- Contingency: Out of range (typically Dimension Door) or Block Line of Effect (typically Resilient Sphere). The most obvious and simple counter.
- Counterspell: This requires that you get in range somehow, which of course depends on positioning and terrain.
- Portent/Chronal Shift: Make enemies fail/reroll the Dispel roll (Magic Jar is a level 6 spell so most characters have to roll Dispel Magic at under 50% chance of success).
- Act first: As with all caster duels, going first and disabling the enemy caster before they get to act is extremely important. Same goes against basically anything they might throw at you - enemy mage getting to land CC or AOE damage on the party can go pretty horribly for the PCs. This is why I so like Alert (and to lesser extent Lucky) on casters.
- Fake targets: Spells like Seeming and Magic Aura are excellent for hiding the real targets. One good trick is to have Animate Dead minions around and cast Seeming. Make them all look the same, or alternatively everyone look random. Enemy won't know which is the real target and all of them are magical so any is a fair target for Dispel Magic. Similarly, Magic Aura can give e.g. Rod in your (and some clones') hand a magic aura. As below, enemies will have to be cognizant of the fact that it could indeed be a Rod of Absorption, which makes targeting you with a Dispel a rather bad idea.
- Magic items: Don't think this module has them available but there are some great magic items that enable you to not only counter but also benefit of Dispel Magic such as Rod of Absorption, Staff of the Magi and company.

It is true that a successful Dispel Magic is dangerous to a Magic Jar user and there's no perfect answer (I sometimes take Metamagic Adept: Distant Spell and Extend Spell with one of the latter feats to raise Counterspell range to 120' to match Dispel Magic range but generally I wouldn't take that this early since unless stats were rolled freeing up feats) but there are things you can do. Especially fake targets: I didn't bother listing the obvious obscurement stuff since against Tiamat and her True Seeing and immunity to nonmagical weapons, Animate Dead and such is of course largely irrelevant but for the dungeon it's highly relevant and useful. One of the best defenses is obscurity: enemy has no way of knowing that you're Magic Jar'd nor what spells are on you so they don't really have any good way to determine whom or what to target.

For example, even without any confounding spells in effect, this party has the following possible choices for Dispel Magic. They don't know what spells are active on everyone has but targets they could Dispel:
- Giant Ape
- Couatl
- Bard's Bow
- Bard
- Wizard
- Wizard's Simulacrum
- Bard's Simulacrum
- Cleric
- Druid
- Any other possible summons still remaining from the dungeon

Of course, once you add fake targets to the list, getting the right hit with Dispel Magic especially if you lack True Seeing is extremely difficult (and even with True Seeing, you don't get knowledge of what magical effects are actually in effect so you could just as easily end up Dispelling e.g. Mage Armor or Magic Aura as Contingency or Shapechange).

Well it's because the CR is based off an 'average' party. You know, Champion Fighter, Trickster Rogue, Evoker Wizard, and a Cleric of some sort. Against a team like that, Tiamat is nigh unbeatable. And she's actually pretty severe for most parties to beat. You really do need to know what you are doing to beat her. But if you do know what you are doing? You can really punch way above your weight in CR.

She is supposed to be beatable. Maybe not without casualties, but beatable. So her statline is set in such a way that she should be a challenging fight. But she is very much designed to be a straight up fight. Because D&D is set up to be high fantasy, where slaying the monster with brute force should always work.

And also WotC thinks people are idiots and don't know the game that well. Which to be fair, is true of a lot of players. Just someone like you who knows the game better than they do is not the opponent they had in mind when they made the Tiamat statblock.

So it falls to the DM to make sure the fight is that TPK threat it should be. Either by altering the statblock directly, or by altering the fight. Or even by altering the dungeon around the fight, so that by the time you get to Tiamat, you are too damaged to think trying to fight her is winnable. Though I do feel like her profile is mostly fine. I'd personally give her divine magic because she's a literal goddess and all. And probably buff her speed/range just so that kiting is never an option. But even without that, played intelligently, she can be quite the monster.

Eldariel

2021-04-25, 06:03 AM

Well it's because the CR is based off an 'average' party. You know, Champion Fighter, Trickster Rogue, Evoker Wizard, and a Cleric of some sort. Against a team like that, Tiamat is nigh unbeatable. And she's actually pretty severe for most parties to beat. You really do need to know what you are doing to beat her. But if you do know what you are doing? You can really punch way above your weight in CR.

She is supposed to be beatable. Maybe not without casualties, but beatable. So her statline is set in such a way that she should be a challenging fight. But she is very much designed to be a straight up fight. Because D&D is set up to be high fantasy, where slaying the monster with brute force should always work.

And also WotC thinks people are idiots and don't know the game that well. Which to be fair, is true of a lot of players. Just someone like you who knows the game better than they do is not the opponent they had in mind when they made the Tiamat statblock.

So it falls to the DM to make sure the fight is that TPK threat it should be. Either by altering the statblock directly, or by altering the fight. Or even by altering the dungeon around the fight, so that by the time you get to Tiamat, you are too damaged to think trying to fight her is winnable. Though I do feel like her profile is mostly fine. I'd personally give her divine magic because she's a literal goddess and all. And probably buff her speed/range just so that kiting is never an option. But even without that, played intelligently, she can be quite the monster.

I don't think she is supposed to be beatable. Not as such anyways. The module says she can easily take on several level 15 adventuring parties. That's why she taunts the party and laughingly swallows all her summoners: to show how hopeless it is. You have 10 rounds to prevent her from coming. The fact that you even fight her means you "lost" already. It should have devastating repercussions even if you do manage to banish her: not just dead ally or two but leveled cities, destroyed armies, new volcanoes, reshaped geography, etc.

For her to be beatable, she should at least have to be weakened. I think her full strength self should definitely be 100% unbeatable for a Tier 3 (maybe not Tier 4) party but her weakened self a maybe 20/80 or 30/70 fight for a party: they still failed but they should have maybe a glimmer of hope to defeat her if they get lucky. That's what the "weaken her"-options are for!

Angelalex242

2021-04-25, 10:11 AM

Eldariel

2021-04-25, 10:52 AM

Most parties aren't all ranged specialists.

There's likely to be some melee types...like the Paladin who wants to get in her 5 faces and smite for all he's got. He's immune to fear, naturally, so nuts to that. It's just pumping out that radiant damage as quickly as he knows how. Unfortunately, his spell smites won't be helping him here because he can't upcast them...so his magic will be spent on defensive concentration type effects.

Which is too bad. Sir Smitey sure wishes he could use Banishing Smite!

Yeah, my example party had that too, in the Druid. I made sure to cover all the bases: skill monkey (Swords Bard) & ranged specialist (Swords Bard), melee specialist (Shepherd Druid), arcane caster & secondary ranged (Diviner Wizard), divine caster & secondary melee (Peace Cleric). Of course, as spellcasters they can fluently perform in their off-roles; Cleric can just Summon Celestial to operate at range, Wizard can Summon Undead or Tenser's (16 Dex + Tenser's works more than fine in this scenario provided you can have a +1 weapon and as +1 weapons don't even take Attunement in this game and nobody else in the party is interested, that's kinda fine) + Haste, they both can also leverage damage spells (but obviously those are fairly useless vs. Tiamat specifically since these folks only have 7th level slots so it's one damage spell per long rest that actually affects her and generally you want to just default to utility or defensive/buffing/utility spellcasting instead) and so on. Of course, Bard can seamlessly switch-hit in melee; hell, he even has the fighting style to either TWF or Duel from class.

And Shepherd can kinda operate at range with her spells though of course this is definitely the weakest link and one of the big reasons the party needs a ranged specialist: Druids just aren't very good at over 100' ranges over even semi-mobile enemies and this fight definitely sees the Druid relegated to a support/zone control role. Druid's big problem is that their summons don't really have ranged attacks (Giant Ape actually does but with a range of only 100') and most of the flying ones aren't good against enemies of this magnitude (Pixies can't really save spam her though they can of course use Polymorph defensively and Fly for utility, and the likes of Giant Owl don't have a good means of reaching her and even if you surround her with them [24 from CAVII] they're only hitting for 18-odd damage even if you can negate the Disadvantage) and their other spells are largely subject to limited magic immunity, meaning he's the best candidate for healing and support (with Absorb Elements, poison immunity & co. he isn't going down easily). Even if she does come near ground, Quicklings from CWAVI can do ~20 DPR and Velociraptors from CAVII likewise - this and Big T are about the only printed monsters where those spells appear kinda balanced (since they get off the dice vs. mass summons and Tiamat has plenty of good AOE too). Legendary Actions allow her to fry a bunch even in that case before they get to act so it just isn't that impressive. Really, the Druid could just Concentrate on CAV to get a ton of mounts for the party with plenty on standby every time one gets breathed one; Feather Fall would be really key though (the other option is defensively using stuff like Wall of Stone and the Peace Cleric reaction and perhaps of the energy resistance or immunity spells - or just massive a Fog Cloud to deny everyone all vision and thus ensure all attacks are made normally in spite of Dodge or whatever). But on the flipside, the Druid cleans up all the dungeons up until the fight really efficiently and still gives a bunch of temporary HP and support/healing in the final fight (a single Heal can undo two Legendary Breaths and he can cast either one or two depending on who cast Heroes' Feast in the morning) so I don't think it's a bad inclusion at all and I'd never regret it in spite of the bad match-up here.

If you do have a Sorcadin or similar, there's something to be said for e.g. a Wizard using offensive Dimension Door combined with some source of flight at an opportune time with a melee type. E.g. Pally 6/Sorc 8 or Pally 6/Sorc 7/Hexblade 1 could unload a fairly scary nova over a full round though given Timmy is probably Dodging, they'd need some help from the Diviner to land hits reliably as there's no Archery style for melee combat making their max hit bonus like +12 given a +2 weapon, 20 Stat and +5 Proficiency and they even have a hard time getting advantage - but should they manage, 3 hits including possible crits at 1d10+6-7+6d8 could actually seriously hurt her: a crit is looking at ~72 damage and normal hits are still 39ish damage so if you, between the two Diviners, have 3 rolls in the 13+ region including one 20, you can guarantee almost 150 damage nova. Or 120 without the 20.

Waazraath

2021-04-25, 01:34 PM

Well, to begin with, I think it's obvious she doesn't fit in the forcecage, from the entire context, artwork, the fact that guargantuan can be larger than 20x20, etc. The spell explicitly states that there are creatures not fitting, which makes no sense if we interpret 'guaraguan' as max 20x20 (despite it explicitly says it can be larger than that). And that's disregarding the fact that any guargantual dragon will have pieces of wing and tail be larger than 20x20. A DM ruling that Forcecage works is in my view cozying up on the wizard and clearly going against the intent of the game (in general) and the scenario (in specific).

Having said that, that this point can be made in the first place is testament of 'making things simpler isn't per se better', and 5e does a lousy job of monster descriptions - no height, no weight, no good description and sometimes not even artwork. Extremely sub-par compared to 3.x. /rant.

spoilers ahead, so stop when wanting to play the module (though to be fair, you shoulndn't be reading here anyway)

Can't do math that way. I'm not assuming the PCs know anything beyond what they can glean. The dungeon is literally CR 1-6 enemies; you don't need more than like Conjure Animals and some cantrips to clear it at minimal losses. Why would you ever do anything but minimum possible to easily breeze through obstacles when you know a god is being summoned? (and yes, PCs know that much by this

I don't get this. You enter the room, and there are 9 CR 6 mages, and 2 big fat mages. When you kick in the door, most of them are out of sight, and they can cast greater invisibility (or better, 5 the first round and 5 the second, not to disturb the ritual. All of them have fireball, they can cast them at your party from outside of counter range, and (don't have the exact layout of the room right) I even think a few can move, FB, and move back out of line of sight (and resume chanting the next turn). Any summons, simulacra, etc. and even some party members should be toast with 5 fireballs, and another 5 the next turn, etc. If they move into close range, several wizard can counter your spells (and as long as they are invisible, you shouldn't be able to counter their spells). Of course, the party can make tactical choises as well, but if anything, this is more like a very complicated chess game, where team monster has the advantage. And Tiamat only comes when you loose this encounter, or at least, aren't able to prevent them from summoning Tiamat.

So, any scenario's with lots of high level spell slots unused, simulacra still being there, concentration spells running from the moment you entered the final room, seem highly optimistic. It makes me wonder what the assumptions is on how the 11 wizards summoning Tiamat react to the party walking in the ritual.

Angelalex242

2021-04-25, 01:54 PM

No, no, not Sorcadin.

I'm talking about a pure level 15 (In my case) Oath of Ancients Paladin.

Heck, let's even give him his Holy Avenger for optimal kickass.

Go to town!

Eldariel

2021-04-25, 02:11 PM

I don't get this. You enter the room, and there are 9 CR 6 mages, and 2 big fat mages. When you kick in the door, most of them are out of sight, and they can cast greater invisibility (or better, 5 the first round and 5 the second, not to disturb the ritual. All of them have fireball, they can cast them at your party from outside of counter range, and (don't have the exact layout of the room right) I even think a few can move, FB, and move back out of line of sight (and resume chanting the next turn). Any summons, simulacra, etc. and even some party members should be toast with 5 fireballs, and another 5 the next turn, etc. If they move into close range, several wizard can counter your spells (and as long as they are invisible, you shouldn't be able to counter their spells). Of course, the party can make tactical choises as well, but if anything, this is more like a very complicated chess game, where team monster has the advantage. And Tiamat only comes when you loose this encounter, or at least, aren't able to prevent them from summoning Tiamat.

So, any scenario's with lots of high level spell slots unused, simulacra still being there, concentration spells running from the moment you entered the final room, seem highly optimistic. It makes me wonder what the assumptions is on how the 11 wizards summoning Tiamat react to the party walking in the ritual.

If we wanna fight Tiamat at full strength, we sadly can't really fight the summoners. At 40 HP and 20 AC, they die to a slight breeze (Swords Bard, Shepherd, Diviner can all pretty easily take down one with their lower level slots so given how spread out they are, it's fully possible you would just kill all before they even get to act - their Initiative is nothing to write home about) so you pretty much just have to not go bother them if you want to face Timmy properly. And if you did fight, the Fireballs are really nothing to write home about; Absorb Elements, Dex-saves, 130+ HP & company (seriously, the minions are mostly tankier than the PCs and this place had more than enough space to split out so your whole team doesn't get hit). And you can start restoration as soon as you take damage; between Druid, Cleric and Bard there's plenty availablr.

But since the premise is defeating Timmy at her prime, the only option is 10 rounds of waiting, let them bring Timmy in without engaging them, let Timmy eat 'em and then fight because otherwise it's really hard to fight her at full.

Forum Explorer

2021-04-25, 02:43 PM

I don't think she is supposed to be beatable. Not as such anyways. The module says she can easily take on several level 15 adventuring parties. That's why she taunts the party and laughingly swallows all her summoners: to show how hopeless it is. You have 10 rounds to prevent her from coming. The fact that you even fight her means you "lost" already. It should have devastating repercussions even if you do manage to banish her: not just dead ally or two but leveled cities, destroyed armies, new volcanoes, reshaped geography, etc.

For her to be beatable, she should at least have to be weakened. I think her full strength self should definitely be 100% unbeatable for a Tier 3 (maybe not Tier 4) party but her weakened self a maybe 20/80 or 30/70 fight for a party: they still failed but they should have maybe a glimmer of hope to defeat her if they get lucky. That's what the "weaken her"-options are for!

You really really really are overestimating the average party. I mean, the last party I was in was something like a Ranger, Fighter, different kind of Ranger, a Wizard and a Cleric. With that team, with how we were playing? I don't think it would be possible for us to beat Tiamat. The modules are designed so a party of any composition can make it through them. That's what they consider baseline and average. Literally any composition. The fact that you are running an all caster team with no overlap and summoning minions? You are S++ tier as far as the developers are concerned.

Though if you want to change things up a bit? The ritual works by causing Tiamat to be born into the world and that statline is her Hatchling state.

JackPhoenix

2021-04-25, 03:18 PM

PhoenixPhyre

2021-04-25, 03:36 PM

I'd like to point out half of the options Eldariel mentions wasn't available when RoT was released. No Absorb Elements, Tenser's Transformation, Shephard, Bladesinger, Peace domain, Chronurgist (which is even setting-specific and doesn't exist in FR). Lot of options still worked, of course, but it's telling you're matching a stat block released before DMG was with later power creep.

Not only that, they're matching a stat block from the very first, 3rd-party-written adventures, written before the core books were finalized, based at least mostly on playtest material. Basically, those first adventures are full of holes and oddities that wouldn't fly now, 6+ years later.

Eldariel

2021-04-25, 03:54 PM

You really really really are overestimating the average party. I mean, the last party I was in was something like a Ranger, Fighter, different kind of Ranger, a Wizard and a Cleric. With that team, with how we were playing? I don't think it would be possible for us to beat Tiamat. The modules are designed so a party of any composition can make it through them. That's what they consider baseline and average. Literally any composition. The fact that you are running an all caster team with no overlap and summoning minions? You are S++ tier as far as the developers are concerned.

Though if you want to change things up a bit? The ritual works by causing Tiamat to be born into the world and that statline is her Hatchling state.

Well, if the party is so weak as to not have a chance against this version, what difference does her strength make? She obliterates the party at her full power regardless of the version you run: might as well make it flashy. In general, I find lack of environmental and descriptive mechanics not only underpowered for a creature of her power level, but boring. She should be making miasmas and seas of fire and just plain disintegrating rock and so on. Her power should show in what happens to the environment instead of being just damage.

The module is designed primarily so that you don't fight her. You have every chance in the world and then some to not fight her. And if you do fight her, well, you probably at least managed to delay the summoning by two rounds and there's plenty of ways to have stopped the sacrifices and to take down the Mask and so on. The book assumes for you to stand a chance you have to get all 5 debuffs on her. That's where the fight should, according to the book, be winnable. So we're really talking about Timmy at ~240 HP, 20 AC, +14 to hit for 9/13 damage (Claw/Bite), DC 21 breaths (for 76-52 damage and only one per round) and DC21 frightful presence, etc. A day in the office for a level 15 party; no more special than fighting a solo Pit Fiend or a Balor.

So if you fight her, she won't be anywhere near her supposed CR30 glory: apparently she's supposedly around CR18. All 4 first nerfs are pretty massive: losing 15 damage on everything makes her breaths much more manageable and losing the physical damage makes her basic attacks barely worth registering, losing regeneration removes an entire strategy from her toolbox, losing limited spell immunity suddenly makes her vulnerable to all sorts of nuking and longer save-or-die spam (her Cha, Int and Dex are all abusable though you do need to burn through 5 Legendaries first so this is kind of a focus-point strategy alternative to damage) and obviously -5 to AC, -300 HP, etc. is pretty massive. You could just write those to target some of the more brutal effects of the empowered breaths too. Reduce them by a scale of severity: disintegration becomes just shatter-level explosion, dispel becomes a level 3 dispel, death becomes poisoned condition, sea of fire becomes a one-round non-penetrating napalm field instead, etc. Still impressive but no longer completely overwhelming.

But to reiterate the expectations of the module:
- The real final boss is Severin + goons.
- If you fail against them, Timmy takes care of them for you before you fight.
- If you fight Timmy and are expected to not get roflstomped, she will have lost basically everything.
- In the light of this, the CR30 Timmy should not only be overpowered but so ridiculously overpowered that nobody could ever even imagine it being anything but a deity made flesh, able to roflstomp most level 20 parties with ease (for record, CR30 solo is supposed to be a Deadly x3 or the whole daily XP budget vs. a level 20 party).
- This is not the case. She deserves a buff into her base form and then, if one wants for the PCs to actually fight her in spite of their low level, make the debuffs more severe but keep it interesting. One of her worst sins is how uninteresting the fight really is; she just flies around and breathes on you until one of you stops breathing for good. To be fair, that goes for most of 5e monster design.

No, no, not Sorcadin.

I'm talking about a pure level 15 (In my case) Oath of Ancients Paladin.

Heck, let's even give him his Holy Avenger for optimal kickass.

Go to town!

Yeah, sure. To me, Pally and Sorcadin are basically the same character so I don't bother differentiating between the two but either can go and land some solid smites at this point. Provided they get some help.

MaxWilson

2021-04-25, 04:02 PM

Eldariel

2021-04-25, 04:22 PM

5E power creep is real.

Well. Simulacrum, Magic Jar, Shapechange, True Polymorph, Wish, Planar Binding, Conjure Animals, Conjure Woodland Beings, Counterspell, Shield, Forcecage, Animate Dead, Polymorph, etc. I do think the PHB has the worst track record again, as with every edition, though as always, some power creep (especially broadening of horizons) does take place with every splat. The party would largely be doable with PHB only; Swords Bard would become Valor Bard, Peace Cleric would become a Life Cleric or whatever, Shepherd would become probably Land Druid (it doesn't really matter, the stuff he does for the party is independent of the subclass aside from the temp HP stuff which you'd need another source for). Losing Absorb Elements is the big loss but there at least the primary plan is blocking as many of the breaths as possible. I do think there's a lot of especially subclass power creep but these aren't really those aside from the Shepherd, whose strengths ironically don't really matter here.

Dork_Forge

2021-04-25, 07:45 PM

Magic Jar has been cast long ago. They've gone through this campaign and run across Dragonsoul Cultists as early as Chapter 7 latest (this is Chapter 9). Magic Jar is permanent: there's ample time to get this out of the way.

So this is meant to be more long term/permanent body stealing, that doesn't sound like a heroic party, nor does Magic Jar sound like a natural MS choice for the Bard. I don't think I've ever seen Magic Jar recommended for any Bard.

Either way a good deal of this stuff will be clarified starting with this:

There might be ambiguity about this in general seeing as you assumed it to begin with, but as the one laying out the challenge I may as well act as DM. Simulacrums cannot Magic Jar, they're snow golems, they don't have souls.

These seems pretty common sense to me, you couldn't revivify a Simulacrum, so why should it be able to Magic Jar and overcome the few built in limitations of the spell?

That's fair enough, I always assume it targets the spell not the creature. Well, it can Divine Word the Ape; I don't think that massively changes anything but it does make the plan of approaching the party easier (though in the case of party member being low, level 7 Counterspell can be a reasonable call).

I can see the reasoning, but there's nothing about the spell being the target, whereas the trigger is a creature casting a spell. If the targer was a spell then it wouldn't matter if the source was a creature or anything else.

I don't think she ever had any issue approaching the party, she has unchallenged air superiority and now it's clarified that even if summons are in place she can deal with them should she choose with Divine Word.

Yeah, that's what I'm assuming, hence why counting the ranged damage sources. Of course it's impossible to accurately model a fight where the options are not limited since there are about a hundred movement options for each character each turn; point is, if Tiamat wants to get in and use her full damage she needs to close in at which point she's within melee range while otherwise she gets peppered to death.

There is no reason why she wouldn't close and just remain airborne. And her closing doesn't mean melee range either, her shortest reach is 15ft. She could fly over, throw all melee attacks then even fly higher to maximise AOE coverage.

She's literally smarter and wiser than any PC could ever be and was in charge of Avernus, an eternal military battleground. Her staying on the ground or not immediately closing makes no sense.

Likewise it only makes sense that she'd focus fire and kill the party one by one (with the others weakening by collateral breath), as each PC drops and slots diminish it becomes a downward spiral.

I'm assuming few high end summons survive. I'm assuming you Bound them before Well of Dragons - given the amount of restoration in the party that seems reasonable.

And that's a lot of assuming, it looks like given the choice you assumed normal module (with meta knowledge) and then picked and chose what the final outcome of the party would be: overall stronger than they likely would be actually playing through it

Simulacrums are Magic Jar'd so their unhealable bodies are left behind. They should be healable just fine at this point: being unhealable is a physical ability after all. Either way, you deploy Simulacrums in the back of your formation as support: you obviously don't have them tank stuff unless you have to (in this final fight the Wizard Simulacrum is probably well-advised to do so given it probably has a unique resistance).

Just to reiterate, Simulacrum Magic Jar'ing is a no go, I don't think it's RAI, and I don't even think it's supported by RAW tbh.

As for them staying in the back... kinda irrelevant with the amount of breath weapons flying around, even if the save, even if they pick up resistance... their hp pool is just too small to survive.

Well, you can reduce your HP in your own form but you're using your Magic Jar form's HP in this fight. I didn't count swarms of Magen and Homunculi; I just mentioned few things you could be using to proc the advantage. I didn't even factor in their offensive contributions or any such. the HP remains in the 130 true/150 temporary region.

I'd also lean on this not being possible, since it's magic and the spell explicitly states that only a Wish can get you out of it.

Heroes' Feast renders you immune to fear, among other things.

It has a limit of 12 on the participating creatures, not normally an issue but with the sheer number of constructs and summons involved it was worth mentioning (especially for any summons brought up during or immediately previous to the fight.

You have 1 full minute before she appears. You also know you're entering the final battle to stop Tiamat from appearing or to beat her in the morning of the adventure before you enter the Well of Dragons. You even have your armies and everything. There's no reason to hold back at this point: you put together everything you can.

You have a minute to stop her appearing, you can't pick and choose what elements of the module you follow or not. That's not a minute to chill and buff, especially since a large number of enemy mages can y'know, Fireball you (as another poster pointed out already).

Well, I'm assuming many 3rd-5th level spells have been burnt. I'm not going to play through the entire module in my head: there are plenty of ways for it to go, from teleporting or Mirage Arcanaing inside the chamber and just ignoring the whole dungeon to simply swarming the dungeon with Shepherd and Wizard summons. Too many variables, any particular telling of it would be inconclusive so there's little point.

You weren't asked to, this was meant to just be a straight whiteroom fight with Tiamat, you chose to make it module based and that choice came along with a lot of empowering assumptions for your party.

But the fights you encounter on the way there are the likes of CR 1-2 creatures (Dragonfangs & Dragon Wings), one lone CR11 (Naergoth Bladelord, which isn't necessarily even a combat encounter), few golems & elementals (CR 5-6), few Guard Drakes (CR 3), etc. Basically nothing that should meaningfully challenge Tier 3 party, to the point that you don't even need to burn resources aside from maybe healing up with yesterday's Goodberries (you have a level 14 Druid so you can have like 170 HP worth of Goodberries without burning any slots on the day of the encounter since you basically get to rest up to full after Mission to Thay). Thus, no matter how you go about it, they don't meaningfully affect your combat ability: they are trivial difficulty fights.

A Tier 3 party of casters that aren't using most of what makes them Tier 3, that's a massive handicap, and assuming such a massive stores of Goodberries... I mean come on. There's so many assumptions here that distort the dymanics involved.

Thus it indeed is an encounter where you basically full power (minus few lower level slots to more quickly clean up the lower level encounters or alternatively, one higher level slot if you bypass the Well and head straight to the temple). You might lose some lesser minions but losing minions on the level of Couatl or Giant Ape would take actively trying to murder them yourself. Mostly you'll be losing Goodberries and maybe the occasional Aura of Vitality or whatever. Nothing that requires Portent, Lucky or the like. Those are high value resources and killing some CR 5-6 enemies, you can do that with cantrips and at-will attacks and maybe one Conjure Animals from Shepherd and some healing and maybe few control spells from the Wizard.

Hard disagree about the difficulty and extent of resources required, especially once the 170 berries aren't considered.

Then, at the temple you've got 1 full minute (10 rounds) before she actually appears during which the summoners are all occupied. By the module you should use that time to prevent her from appearing but since we wanna fight her, we use that time buffing up instead. Thus even short duration buffs (Peace Cleric, Fire Shield, etc.) that take under 1 minute to cast are easily accessible.

The proposition was just fighting her, not twisting the module in favourable ways.

Anyways, I do think that a level 14 party, at least a caster party using their abilities to the fullest, has a pretty solid shot at taking her out even without being able to trap her. Staying at 120' - 90' to breathe opens her up to your full damage so at that point she might as well be next to you, while further away she has no relevant actions. Mostly because her offensive options are pretty bad at actually killing anyone (good for downing people) and her offensive portfolio is a tad limited.

She has no reason to not close and obliterate the party one by one, I don't see why her offense is bad at killing people?

Basically, her problem is her lack of long range breaths. If she could operate at 300'-600', her flight speed would be more meaningful. But as it stands it's only useful for sticking within 120' of the PCs and breathing on them.

Why would she want to kite them? She has the hp and defenses to just take the battle to them, flying away to regen if it suits her.

Overall, far as this module goes, if you go through the module and do things (like Planar Bind and find items and pick up bodies to Magic Jar and then Magic Jar until it succeeds and so on) and then fight her at the end, you should be more than fine. In real play, this is how it goes with casters. Most of these "you appear in a room, fight"-threads have the issue that they can't represent what permanent and long duration spells really do over a campaign. But here we have a real framework: we have data for what you can Magic Jar, what time you've got before the fight, what kinds of chances for prepping you've got (this is also underrated in many of these threads - in real campaigns, you've often got ample warning to precast shorter duration buffs before you head into the fray and so too here, both the Temple entrance and Well entrance are easy times to cast 10 min non-Concentration buffs), et cetera.

I assume by pick up bodies, you mean abduct living people.

I have a similar issue however, the way you're presenting it doesn't seem representive of an actual campaign, you're assuming that there is both time to do these things, that the PCs would want to and these things survive to the camaign's conclusion.

With those in play, it's pretty easy to ennumerate what can actually be on the table. I didn't list most of the small stuff: assuming some gets squashed randomly by Tiamat's breaths and others suicide next to it and give some assistance before dying and so on. But Conjure Celestial and Summon Fey are pretty big parts of Cleric and Druid respectively so those I did bring up especially since they're relevant to this encounter. This location is also explicitly large enough that there's no problem for Gargantuan creatures to move around (most of the tubes are stated to be 15'-25' across so Ancient Dragons and Dracoliches can easily move there) so none of the usual objections so such things apply.

I don't think anyone has any issue with a conjure or summon spell that you can cast in combat, as you can actually reasonably have them no matter what.

If we just had an encounter of "Tiamat appears, fight!" it'd probably be a bit different but it would also have to be framed. Without framing, adjudicating long duration abilities is difficult. This doesn't make those abilities bad, it just means the random fights aren't really representative of actual campaigns and your options therein. But even there, we can probably assume Simulacrums, Magic Jars and such at least. In which case I do believe the suggested party would have a reasonable chance.

That is what this was meant to be, and I don't really find the approach presented representative of campaigns in general. Most players I've played or ran for aren't particularly eager to jump out of their bodies and bind creatures to servitude.

EDIT: It's worth noting that for a CR30 to truly be anywhere near its CR, it should easily be able to wipe the floor with any number of level 14 parties. Like it shouldn't be close: it shouldn't even be a fight. With this baseline, I think it's plain as day that the CR30 of Tiamat is quite overstated. CR30 should be about 7xDeadly for a level 14 party. Given Deadly is a fight where a single party member death is possible, this sounds more like a 4x Deadly encounter to a strong level 14 party if giving Tiamat a few more spells. Maybe like CR 25-26, with those spells.

I'm not seeing how this isn't an easy stomp, provided that she doesn't stand there like a schmuck for no reason and I don't think the assumption of any statblock is that the players have a mountain of goodberries and small army of powerful summons.

Eldariel

2021-04-26, 12:57 AM

*snip*

Re@Magic Jar: If PCs don't have trouble with murdering cultists in cold blood and sending their souls to Hell for eternal torture and to bolster the forces of evil, I don't see why they'd have trouble with taking over said bodies instead, not sending the souls to hell and making some good out of the whole lot while at it. Considering using Magic Jar on people trying to end the world that you're actively trying to kill somehow morally dubious would be the double standard of the century.

Re@Simulacrum: Well, there's absolutely nothing in RAW that suggests anyone, even a golem, with access to the spell would be unable to cast the spell or take over a body. Similarly, True Polymorph can create perfectly normal creatures out of e.g. rocks. Do rocks have souls? I'd rather think the spells just don't really need a soul, just a guiding will. Neither has any proviso for "creature without soul is somehow deficient". Not that it really matters: non-Magic Jar'd version of Simulacra are equally useful. You just have to deploy them further to the back of your formation.

Re@Heroes' Feast: Well, all the longterm minions obviously partake. Most of the minions are naturally immune anyways: Summon Celestial, Summon Undead, etc. You probably have like all the 6 PCs, the Ape, the Couatl (not that it really matters if it gets feared) and...I guess familiars and homunculi? Why not.

Re@Planar Binding: It's not necessarily doing it against their will. The true function of the spell is to let the bound creature to remain on this plane without Concentration. If you ask a Couatl "I beseech thee, please help us prevent the arrival of the Lady of Dragons, the triumph of evil and the end of the world as we know it." they're most likely to be fairly sympathetic to your cause and Planar Binding is merely the tools that lets it remain. There's nothing wrong with it as long as you aren't forcing things against their will (and if you're forcing things composed of evil against their will, that's probably fine too).

Re@Bard with Magic Jar WTF?!: It's the best spell in the game for its level far as buffing self offensively goes. If you're a damage dealer and want some longterm buffs, it's a great call. Given many people don't seem to play on this level that often (based on stuff I read about Tier 3) they might not appreciate it and it of course depends on the campaign but it really is a nice boost in power around Tier 3. Of course, in this case the Bard wouldn't really need it and could easily take e.g. Contingency or whatever instead. It's just +1 to hit and damage and some cool stuff on advantage + pack tactics plus some HP and saves, but since I'm assuming Timmy is Dodging, one can't get Advantage against her anyways so most of that is largely irrelevant and the advantage is just cancelling out disadvantage (which could be accomplished via simple Fog Cloud given Timmy doesn't even have Blindsight).

Re@Tiamat attacks in melee: Well, the reason I didn't assume it is because she really kinda sucks at melee , and getting within 15' means she can only get 75' away. This opens her up to getting locked down with grapple or walls or whatever. Like if her Divine Word does get Counterspelled? The Ape can get Fly/DD'd next to her, grapple (succeeds because Diviners are nearby), bring her down and let Druid, Wizard, Simulacrum, and Cleric swarm her with minions/spells in melee. Cleric gets to add Spiritual Weapon VII, Wizard gets to e.g. SGD an Armanite, Druid gets to in general do something beyond blocking breaths, [e.g. Pixies or PCs] Polymorphing anyone lets the additional PC Apes that can't be Divine Worded tie her down, it just seems like way too much of a risk of losing her primary asset, her mundane mobility. Plus taking the attack and frightful presence action means she's not taking the Dodge-action, which means she's vulnerable to advantageous attacks which chew through her HP like knife through butter: high AC gets way less valuable when crits and double rolls become a thing. Like those 24 Animals dealing 20 damage to her normally? It suddenly becomes 37 with Pack Tactics. An advantageous Giant Ape could smash for 23 (or 30 with Bless). Everything suddenly begins to almost double in damage if she gives them the chance; it's 3 rounds and goner if everyone gets to do their worst. Her own attacks over that time amount to maybe a similar amount of damage but there's a lot of targets to take down and the party has all the tools to simply split the damage as they see fit and Heal/Polymorph (or in general, Temp HP dump)/whatever as necessary. I don't see her winning that: getting swarmed is the worst thing that can happen to a big solo bad guy.

Her best bet to me seems to be to fly at 120', use Dodge-action, and rely on her Legendary Actions for damage; her mundane attack action is pretty weak with most of the damage coming from the breaths anyways (her breaths do roughly twice as much damage per round as her attack action and at no cost at that), and closing in lets the PCs add ~50-100 damage onto the pile even in this case: god forbid there be some Smitey PC in the party. As ever, getting swamped by action economy in melee is generally pretty disastrous. Given her primary strength is her regeneration and fairly high HP total combined with lots of AC and immunities/resistances, anything that doesn't utilize that seems like a terrible tactical call.

Dork_Forge

2021-04-27, 07:06 PM

Re@Magic Jar: If PCs don't have trouble with murdering cultists in cold blood and sending their souls to Hell for eternal torture and to bolster the forces of evil, I don't see why they'd have trouble with taking over said bodies instead, not sending the souls to hell and making some good out of the whole lot while at it. Considering using Magic Jar on people trying to end the world that you're actively trying to kill somehow morally dubious would be the double standard of the century.

Taking authority over a being's immortal soul is not the same as just killing them for their actions, for them to then be sent to whatever afterlife they are destined for.

Magic Jar also assumes a willingness to just abandon your original body, which becomes a logistical problem if you want to return to it, or becomes the biggest lifestyle change you can make if you make it permanent. I can't think of, well any players I've ran over the years that would permanently abandon the body they chose and built a story around, just to get some mechanical benefits and a dead spell.

Re@Simulacrum: Well, there's absolutely nothing in RAW that suggests anyone, even a golem, with access to the spell would be unable to cast the spell or take over a body. Similarly, True Polymorph can create perfectly normal creatures out of e.g. rocks. Do rocks have souls? I'd rather think the spells just don't really need a soul, just a guiding will. Neither has any proviso for "creature without soul is somehow deficient". Not that it really matters: non-Magic Jar'd version of Simulacra are equally useful. You just have to deploy them further to the back of your formation.

You're referring to raw, but then say that 'I'd rather think the spelsl just don't really need a soul, just a guiding will' well... The spell refers to your soul.

If you'd like to argue whether a not a constructed creature has a soul, that's large grey area, but here's a shot:

-Could you resurrect a Simulacrum?

-Warforged are specifically called out as being a living humanoid even though they were constructed, the implication here seems to be that it needed to be called out to separate them from constructs.

-The sword Blackrazor devours the soul of any creature it kills, apart from undead and constructs. That seems like a very strong indicator that constructs don't have souls.

The argument of a soul could go else where, you say about a guiding will, you could arguably talk about the fact that a Simulacrum is bound to obey it's master's commands. It has no free will.

Either way, it's fair to say it's certainly a DM call, and as the proposer of the challenge I think it's fair to say no, the construct you got from an overpowered spell cannot abuse another potentially powerful spell to overcome the few restrictions it does actually have.

IMO the fact that you called Tiamt a chump, but then resort to assuming things like taking over monster bodies, doesn't really say chump at all.

Re@Heroes' Feast: Well, all the longterm minions obviously partake. Most of the minions are naturally immune anyways: Summon Celestial, Summon Undead, etc. You probably have like all the 6 PCs, the Ape, the Couatl (not that it really matters if it gets feared) and...I guess familiars and homunculi? Why not.

It doesn't really matter if they're already immune, I assumed you also wanted the hp bump and poison perks.

HF also wouldn't protect any summons brought up immediately before or during the fight. So all the summons potentially brought up during combat are liable to fail their saves and at best roll straight (thinking about the Wolves etc. here).

Re@Planar Binding: It's not necessarily doing it against their will. The true function of the spell is to let the bound creature to remain on this plane without Concentration. If you ask a Couatl "I beseech thee, please help us prevent the arrival of the Lady of Dragons, the triumph of evil and the end of the world as we know it." they're most likely to be fairly sympathetic to your cause and Planar Binding is merely the tools that lets it remain. There's nothing wrong with it as long as you aren't forcing things against their will (and if you're forcing things composed of evil against their will, that's probably fine too).

Without actually roleplaying that with a DM, you're just assuming that they'll agree, though when the spell specifically calls out that the creature is 'typically' trapped to facilitate the spell assuming cooperation doesn't seem like a safe bet. You're also assuming that they'll fail (the reality is that they might just not). I'm assuming there's actually a point in the module immediately that makes sense to even be doing this since it'll be costing the party their higher slots for the day?

Assuming Planar Binding doesn't make much sense to me, nevermind assuming complicit binding, it's one thing to help, it's another to be bound into servitude.

Re@Bard with Magic Jar WTF?!: It's the best spell in the game for its level far as buffing self offensively goes. If you're a damage dealer and want some longterm buffs, it's a great call. Given many people don't seem to play on this level that often (based on stuff I read about Tier 3) they might not appreciate it and it of course depends on the campaign but it really is a nice boost in power around Tier 3. Of course, in this case the Bard wouldn't really need it and could easily take e.g. Contingency or whatever instead. It's just +1 to hit and damage and some cool stuff on advantage + pack tactics plus some HP and saves, but since I'm assuming Timmy is Dodging, one can't get Advantage against her anyways so most of that is largely irrelevant and the advantage is just cancelling out disadvantage (which could be accomplished via simple Fog Cloud given Timmy doesn't even have Blindsight).

There's so many reasons I can think of why it isn't popular:

-a lot of players get attached to their characters, which includes their bodies, there's a million and one roleplay reasons why they might not want to lose the body they got from their family/god, the moral ambiguity (at best) of it is just one.

-It's the kind of spell that you rarely use, it makes some sense on a Wizard that gets a million and one spells, but on a Bard a Magical Secret it precious and using it on a spell you'll cast probably once, maybe twice just feels bad regardless the potential benefit.

-It's a very awkward spell to use, it's a minute cast time, leaving you a disembodied soul, that you then need to attempt to jump into a creature, which likely means the logistics of keeping a prisoner from a combat encounter.

-The race the player chose could have a feature that is important to their build/to them

-It'll cost you 500GP for a non consumable component that you'll barely use

-At this level it's competing with a lot of other spells, heck a swords Bard would get some good mileage out of Tasha's Otherwordly Guise for example

Re@Tiamat attacks in melee: Well, the reason I didn't assume it is because she really kinda sucks at melee , and getting within 15' means she can only get 75' away. This opens her up to getting locked down with grapple or walls or whatever. Like if her Divine Word does get Counterspelled? The Ape can get Fly/DD'd next to her, grapple (succeeds because Diviners are nearby), bring her down and let Druid, Wizard, Simulacrum, and Cleric swarm her with minions/spells in melee. Cleric gets to add Spiritual Weapon VII, Wizard gets to e.g. SGD an Armanite, Druid gets to in general do something beyond blocking breaths, [e.g. Pixies or PCs] Polymorphing anyone lets the additional PC Apes that can't be Divine Worded tie her down, it just seems like way too much of a risk of losing her primary asset, her mundane mobility. Plus taking the attack and frightful presence action means she's not taking the Dodge-action, which means she's vulnerable to advantageous attacks which chew through her HP like knife through butter: high AC gets way less valuable when crits and double rolls become a thing. Like those 24 Animals dealing 20 damage to her normally? It suddenly becomes 37 with Pack Tactics. An advantageous Giant Ape could smash for 23 (or 30 with Bless). Everything suddenly begins to almost double in damage if she gives them the chance; it's 3 rounds and goner if everyone gets to do their worst. Her own attacks over that time amount to maybe a similar amount of damage but there's a lot of targets to take down and the party has all the tools to simply split the damage as they see fit and Heal/Polymorph (or in general, Temp HP dump)/whatever as necessary. I don't see her winning that: getting swarmed is the worst thing that can happen to a big solo bad guy.

She sucks at melee? Really? A +19 to hit with average damage of an average of 24 or 28 damage depending what attack it is. Even if the bond is used to distribute damage, people will start dropping between focused melee + 2 breaths +legendary bite. Nevermind concentration saves affecting things, there's nothing to suggest that a party could withstand that much damage on an ongoing basis and nothing you've shown has proven they can take it either.

I don't know why you're bringing up Counterspelling her Divine Word, this was already addressed and going back and ignoring that just looks like you're grasping at things.

Even then, being 15ft away from whatever she's attacking is not 'melee range' for anyone that doesn't have a 15ft reach. You can talk about Fly and Dimension Door, but that's going to do squat the turn she arrives and it's going to chew up actions, slots and concentrations to give the Ape (if it's there at all, for multiple reasons) a chance to grapple her. Saying 'but portent' doesn't change that.

Not only that, but if things do somehow go badly for her, if she is actually grappled... so what? Why would she just lie there and take it for 3 whole turns? How on earth is a Giant Ape even surviving 3 turns grappling her?

Her best bet to me seems to be to fly at 120', use Dodge-action, and rely on her Legendary Actions for damage; her mundane attack action is pretty weak with most of the damage coming from the breaths anyways (her breaths do roughly twice as much damage per round as her attack action and at no cost at that), and closing in lets the PCs add ~50-100 damage onto the pile even in this case: god forbid there be some Smitey PC in the party. As ever, getting swamped by action economy in melee is generally pretty disastrous. Given her primary strength is her regeneration and fairly high HP total combined with lots of AC and immunities/resistances, anything that doesn't utilize that seems like a terrible tactical call.

Her action isn't weak, the breaths are just stronger, those are not the same thing. A +3 Con Wizard has what, 110hp normally? In a single round her melee options could chew through the majority of that.

Simulacrums are likely to die in a couple of hits.

The party does not win a melee of attrition against her in the manner you propose. Heck, if all of those summons do pose a problem? The most expedient thing for her to do is kill the caster. If in the mean time others drop from transferring around damage (which is pretty likely, seeing as the party doesn't have the self regeneration or depth of healing to pass around damage like that without a tank character) then all the better.

I'm perfectly happy to run this scenario out in Discord or something, but right now all you've presented is primarily favourable assumptions.

Eldariel

2021-04-28, 12:17 AM

If you'd like we can play it out, though I'd prefer to do it over the forums since:

A) We likely could never find enough common time to get it done in one session. PbP would enable us to play it out over multiple days without having to cut a chunk of our times for it (especially mine since I'd be controlling 4 rather complex ones).

B) It would be potentially interesting to other people and it would be easier to spectate here.

It would take a while though since I'd have to actually write out the spell lists, skills, equipment, etc. for 4 characters.

@Divine Word/Counterspell: Like I said when you first brought it up, in the right circumstances using a 7th level slot to Counterspell isn't out of the question. 7th level slots do exist and if it means you can lock Timmy down, it can be totally worth it.

@Binding: Well, you've got common agenda and the Bard has like +13 Persuasion + Guidance + Enhance Ability: Cha + potential Portent so that's one thing: it should be pretty trivial to persuade the Couatl and Ape to help especially since the term has a clear end: help us until we have either stopped Tiamat from coming or defeated her. Obviously the slots aren't used on the day of battle; it lasts for 10 days out of a 6th level slot, you've cast the Conjurations while coming back from Thay latest and they are currently active. The saves are automatically failed due to Portent in like 99% of the cases (Cleric has save DC 18 and the Couatl has +6 Charisma so there's a 0,8% chance of not having a die low enough to autofail the save).

The Summon spells only last an hour, they're something you cast in combat generally: no point in trying to have them for a feast. Note that Timmy needs take an action to use her Frightful Presence so fresh summons have a pretty reasonable shot of getting a full attack off before she gets to fear them. She can't use it as a Legendary Action so it takes her turn and an attack action at that to use it.

Re@Tiamat chump: If a CR30 creature can, under any circumstances, lose to a level 14 party I think it's fair to say they're a chump and not worth the CR. It's supposed to be CR30 and a god. CR30 should be like Deadly x 7 to a level 14 party: it shouldn't be a fight. It's over 2,5x their daily XP budget (their daily XP budget is 60k while a solo CR30 is 155k). And Gods should be rolling over mortals not in the cusp of epichood without effort. The fact that said mortals are using spells they have access to efficiently shouldn't change that. Note, we're already assuming that the #1 chumphood, the fact that Force Cage stops her singlehandedly, isn't working. We're already making allowances in favour of the friggin' God so as to even make it a fight instead of a one-sided curbstomp. And we're assuming the party went through a dungeon first and then fights her.

greenstone

2021-04-28, 06:37 PM

Valmark

2021-04-28, 07:21 PM

Dork_Forge

2021-04-28, 07:42 PM

Tipically if you can trap someone in a Forcecage you can also hurt them big time- it isn't like, say, Wall of Force. You can pick the cage version and leave an enemy vulnerable to whatever Concentration spell you want to throw- or, if you don't want to use one blast it repeatedly through cantrips or ranged weapons or even leveled spells.

And given you need to be a level 13 caster you will have spells to throw (or at least it's likely you will).

"Filling the air around the cage" doesn't really mean much, her breaths don't produce lasting effects. And if she Divine Words herself you kinda still win- she's banished back to where she belongs and can't even come back for a day. Being a Fiend whatever her plane of origin is it's still probably not an happy place (at least in the view of most humanoids).

Even if you could trap her in a Force Cage, the usual tactics don't really apply to her because she has Limited Spell Immunity and a bunch of damage resistances. If it could happen you're resorting to using magic bows/crossbows whilst trying to stay out of breath range. Given that she can just dodge or, even easier, lie down, that isn't a promising position against her regeneration and fat hp pool.

Valmark

2021-04-28, 08:02 PM

Even if you could trap her in a Force Cage, the usual tactics don't really apply to her because she has Limited Spell Immunity and a bunch of damage resistances. If it could happen you're resorting to using magic bows/crossbows whilst trying to stay out of breath range. Given that she can just dodge or, even easier, lie down, that isn't a promising position against her regeneration and fat hp pool.

I think many of the posts in the previous pages point out how it's doable- I like Bob's suggestion the most personally, throw an upcasted Sickening Radiance on Tiamat and wait her out. Statistically she should go down before Sickening is up (unless I'm misremembering and the supposed level isn't 15).

There's something poetic in tiring a god to death. And also imagining Tiamat going prone and somehow being harder to hit with a bow- I figure she curls like a cat hiding eyes and whatever other squishy bit she has.

Dork_Forge

2021-04-28, 08:10 PM

I think many of the posts in the previous pages point out how it's doable- I like Bob's suggestion the most personally, throw an upcasted Sickening Radiance on Tiamat and wait her out. Statistically she should go down before Sickening is up (unless I'm misremembering and the supposed level isn't 15).

There's something poetic in tiring a god to death.

The proposed level is meant to be 14 when you face her, and was in the challenge I proposed.

Sickening Radiance is a good call if someone can upcast it, ten minutes is a long time, though with a +10, advantage on the savse until the 3rd level, and 5 Legendary Resistances lucky dice may hold sway, especially if the casters eskew stat bumps to go feat laden like already proposed.

And also imagining Tiamat going prone and somehow being harder to hit with a bow- I figure she curls like a cat hiding eyes and whatever other squishy bit she has.

Evil dragon gods aren't meant to be cute, but that imagery certainly is.

Valmark

2021-04-28, 08:38 PM

The proposed level is meant to be 14 when you face her, and was in the challenge I proposed.

Sickening Radiance is a good call if someone can upcast it, ten minutes is a long time, though with a +10, advantage on the savse until the 3rd level, and 5 Legendary Resistances lucky dice may hold sway, especially if the casters eskew stat bumps to go feat laden like already proposed.

Evil dragon gods aren't meant to be cute, but that imagery certainly is.

Yeah, if I saw correctly the average is just enough to kill her or similar. I don't know how to compute the saves changing midway but if she didn't get disadvantage (which would negate the advantage) she'd fail 12 saves so luck holds a lot of sway.

And yeah, given that it's 14th there would need to be two different spellcasters who can cast those two specific spells (which falls into the realm of a possible scenario although maybe not a likely one).

Eldariel

2021-04-28, 10:54 PM

I think this is a symptom of a fault in D&D 5E, namely solo melee monsters are weak.

I also think forcecage is a trap (no pun intended). If you put someone in a cage, now what? They can't touch you but you probably can't touch them. Forcecage is a spell of taking one foe out of the combat temporarily, giving you time to take care of other foes, not for disadvantaging a single foe.

In Tiamat's case, assuming you trap her, she is either going to sit there waiting for you, filling the air around the cage with breath, or she will divine word herself back to her home plane.

I think we covered that already (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?630508-Killing-Tiamat-inside-a-Forcecage/page2#post25020160). Option #1:
- Shoot her full of holes. With a longbow. Wizard himself with Tenser's + Haste (from Simulacrum) can do it. Swords Bard can do it. Resident party archer can do it, especially if you cast some buffs. If you've got a full party, this is trivial. Buff up an archer or two and start shooting.
- Upcast Wall of Light high enough. Level 7 suffices, of course. She can't escape so she autotakes 8d8 which is just enough to overcome her DR. Add literally any damage and you're killing her quickly enough (Cloud of Daggers, Wall of Light, Summon Celestial, Summon Undead, Summon Aberration etc. work).

If she banishes herself with Divine Word, well, good riddance, we win. Due to Discorporation, that's little different from killing her. And yeah, since she lacks Magic Resistance, DoT overcoming her Legendary isn't actually that difficult. The expected value for Sickening Radiance (for whatever reason she also lacks Exhaustion immunity) with DC17 (18 stat, +5) is 30 fails, which with 5 Legendaries leaves her failing 25 times (of course, after 8 failures she's actually rolling at disadvantage so after the first 27 rolls, among which she's likely to have 8 rolls, her chance of success drops to 51% (down from 70%) which means for the remaining 73 rolls she's failing about 36 meaning she's dying 7 times over).

Dork_Forge

2021-04-29, 12:22 AM

I think we covered that already (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?630508-Killing-Tiamat-inside-a-Forcecage/page2#post25020160). Option #1:
- Shoot her full of holes. With a longbow. Wizard himself with Tenser's + Haste (from Simulacrum) can do it. Swords Bard can do it. Resident party archer can do it, especially if you cast some buffs. If you've got a full party, this is trivial. Buff up an archer or two and start shooting.
- Upcast Wall of Light high enough. Level 7 suffices, of course. She can't escape so she autotakes 8d8 which is just enough to overcome her DR. Add literally any damage and you're killing her quickly enough (Cloud of Daggers, Wall of Light, Summon Celestial, Summon Undead, Summon Aberration etc. work).

If she banishes herself with Divine Word, well, good riddance, we win. Due to Discorporation, that's little different from killing her. And yeah, since she lacks Magic Resistance, DoT overcoming her Legendary isn't actually that difficult. The expected value for Sickening Radiance (for whatever reason she also lacks Exhaustion immunity) with DC17 (18 stat, +5) is 30 fails, which with 5 Legendaries leaves her failing 25 times (of course, after 8 failures she's actually rolling at disadvantage so after the first 27 rolls, among which she's likely to have 8 rolls, her chance of success drops to 51% (down from 70%) which means for the remaining 73 rolls she's failing about 36 meaning she's dying 7 times over).

She does have Magic Resistance, it's just built into her Limited Magic Immunity trait instead of being listed separately.

Why does the Wizard cast Tenser's btw? Unless they upcast it they won't benefit from the added damage or advantage and a Bladesinger already has Extra Attack.

I'll reply to your other post when I have more time btw, it'd be interesting to take you up on the PbP, does the forums have a dice rolling feature for PbP?

Eldariel

2021-04-29, 01:16 AM

She does have Magic Resistance, it's just built into her Limited Magic Immunity trait instead of being listed separately.

Why does the Wizard cast Tenser's btw? Unless they upcast it they won't benefit from the added damage or advantage and a Bladesinger already has Extra Attack.

Advantage is inherent property of the attacker so obviously they benefit of it. They also get Longbow proficiency if they don't already have it: this was in the context of a generic Wizard rather than Bladesinger in particular. Magic immunity protects against stuff that affects the target, not the caster. The bonus damage is...arguable. But generally magic immunity cannot affect buffs; no more Haste extra attack than any damage buff.

I'll reply to your other post when I have more time btw, it'd be interesting to take you up on the PbP, does the forums have a dice rolling feature for PbP?

Yes, the forums have fairly robust PbP functionality including die rollers. I played few arenas and even some adventures here back in the day.

EDIT: Ah. For advantageous saves the EV is 9 fails, of which 8 first come in 89 rolls and then 3 more fails when the advantage and disadvantage cancel each other out meaning the EV is 6 fails (and 5 LR used) over 100 rolls so she just barely dies. If it's a DC18 instead (so 20 casting stat), it's 66 rolls to the 8 fail mark where she gains disadvantage on saves and thus about 10 more fails afterwards; meaning she dies twice over. So it's close with DC17 and almost guaranteed with DC18 (though due to the shift, the exact math is a bit hard; it's basically a multiplication of two probability density functions, which is doable but not what I intend to spend my afternoon on right now; looks to be in the 70%+ region though).

Dork_Forge

2021-04-29, 02:58 PM

Advantage is inherent property of the attacker so obviously they benefit of it. They also get Longbow proficiency if they don't already have it: this was in the context of a generic Wizard rather than Bladesinger in particular. Magic immunity protects against stuff that affects the target, not the caster. The bonus damage is...arguable. But generally magic immunity cannot affect buffs; no more Haste extra attack than any damage buff.

Judging by the mess of answers on the internet (including one not short thread here), resolving Limited Magic Immunity isn't obvious at all. The Temp HP and proficiencies make sense, the extra damage I can only see being a no since it's damage from a spell being applied to her, the advantage is questionable imo. I couldn't even find a clear answer to Bless, nevermind something more recent like Tenser's.

Yes, the forums have fairly robust PbP functionality including die rollers. I played few arenas and even some adventures here back in the day.

Cool, I'll look into how it works and start up a thread.

EDIT: Ah. For advantageous saves the EV is 9 fails, of which 8 first come in 89 rolls and then 3 more fails when the advantage and disadvantage cancel each other out meaning the EV is 6 fails (and 5 LR used) over 100 rolls so she just barely dies. If it's a DC18 instead (so 20 casting stat), it's 66 rolls to the 8 fail mark where she gains disadvantage on saves and thus about 10 more fails afterwards; meaning she dies twice over. So it's close with DC17 and almost guaranteed with DC18 (though due to the shift, the exact math is a bit hard; it's basically a multiplication of two probability density functions, which is doable but not what I intend to spend my afternoon on right now; looks to be in the 70%+ region though).

So with DC 17 (the feat laden build) it's pretty much down to the swing of the dice then, a handful of lucky rolls and she ends up annoyed.

It's weird that a god wouldn't have Exhaustion immunity, but exhaustion is a niche condition from the player side and Sickening Radiance came out years after RoT did.

MaxWilson

2021-04-29, 03:37 PM

EDIT: Ah. For advantageous saves the EV is 9 fails, of which 8 first come in 89 rolls and then 3 more fails when the advantage and disadvantage cancel each other out meaning the EV is 6 fails (and 5 LR used) over 100 rolls so she just barely dies. If it's a DC18 instead (so 20 casting stat), it's 66 rolls to the 8 fail mark where she gains disadvantage on saves and thus about 10 more fails afterwards; meaning she dies twice over. So it's close with DC17 and almost guaranteed with DC18 (though due to the shift, the exact math is a bit hard; it's basically a multiplication of two probability density functions, which is doable but not what I intend to spend my afternoon on right now; looks to be in the 70%+ region though).

And of course you can always recast it, and this time you won't have to fight through Legendary Resistance.

So with DC 17 (the feat laden build) it's pretty much down to the swing of the dice then, a handful of lucky rolls and she ends up annoyed.

It's weird that a god wouldn't have Exhaustion immunity, but exhaustion is a niche condition from the player side and Sickening Radiance came out years after RoT did.

She winds up dead either way, it's just a question of whether it takes 10 minutes or 15ish. Edit: oh, I see, you are worried about not having enough 7th+ level spell slots. I forgot this was a Tier 3 solo wizard scenario under discussion.

Dork_Forge

2021-04-29, 05:02 PM

She winds up dead either way, it's just a question of whether it takes 10 minutes or 15ish. Edit: oh, I see, you are worried about not having enough 7th+ level spell slots. I forgot this was a Tier 3 solo wizard scenario under discussion.

Not solo Wizard necessarily, but ideally an organic party not one that is built specifically to defeat this statblock.

So even if she could be Forcecaged (the scenario I'm going to be running for Eladriel does not allow this), you'd need 2 7th level slots just on the first attempt. That makes it pretty unlikely that the remaining members of the party are both single classed fullcasters and have the needed spell.

I'll throw this out for crowdsourcing as well, what would be an appropriate grid footprint for Tiamat?

MaxWilson

2021-04-29, 07:50 PM

Not solo Wizard necessarily, but ideally an organic party not one that is built specifically to defeat this statblock.

So even if she could be Forcecaged (the scenario I'm going to be running for Eladriel does not allow this), you'd need 2 7th level slots just on the first attempt. That makes it pretty unlikely that the remaining members of the party are both single classed fullcasters and have the needed spell.

I'll throw this out for crowdsourcing as well, what would be an appropriate grid footprint for Tiamat?

It might not be unlikely though for the other PCs to have spells they can use once Legendary Resistance is burned and she's exhausted enough to have disadvantage on saves (canceling out advantage). That is, even if they're only upcasting Polymorph or something, that still has some chance to tip the scales against her. But yeah, it works better at level 17, or 15 if your wizard can Simulacrum himself per RAW (i.e. if your DM allows a horribly broken spell in their game).

What do you mean by "grid footprint"? If you're asking for actual size, personally I'd make her quite large, bigger than Anomander Rake and almost as large as Olar Ethil. Say, 300 yard wingspan and a body about 150 yards long by 50 yards wide (would be 30 yards but she has three heads so I figure that's a wider body to match). She's smaller than a nuclear aircraft carrier but bigger than any animal in the real world.

She's still smaller than a Great Wyrm Celestial Dragon (400 yards long) much less a Stellar Dragon or a Constellant, but that's Spelljammer for you: ridiculously huge and I love it.

Dork_Forge

2021-04-29, 08:15 PM

It might not be unlikely though for the other PCs to have spells they can use once Legendary Resistance is burned and she's exhausted enough to have disadvantage on saves (canceling out advantage). That is, even if they're only upcasting Polymorph or something, that still has some chance to tip the scales against her. But yeah, it works better at level 17, or 15 if your wizard can Simulacrum himself per RAW (i.e. if your DM allows a horribly broken spell in their game).

Not particularly unlikely, the issue being the PCs risking when to use it since RAW they no indicator of what level she's at after the first, and then you're betting on a single save when her Wis is +17.

More options definitely at higher levels, but I think that's something that's lost when her block normally comes up.

What do you mean by "grid footprint"? If you're asking for actual size, personally I'd make her quite large, bigger than Anomander Rake and almost as large as Olar Ethil. Say, 300 yard wingspan and a body about 150 yards long by 50 yards wide (would be 30 yards but she has three heads so I figure that's a wider body to match). She's smaller than a nuclear aircraft carrier but bigger than any animal in the real world.

She's still smaller than a Great Wyrm Celestial Dragon (400 yards long) much less a Stellar Dragon or a Constellant, but that's Spelljammer for you: ridiculously huge and I love it.

I meant how many squares would she be on a grid, I know it's a variant rule technically, but it's the most convenient way of tracking distances and positioning.

She has five heads, does that effect your size recommendation?

I've never heard of any of those things, but from what I know of Spelljammer, it certainly tracks!

CapnWildefyr

2021-04-29, 09:38 PM

First, apologies -- I only skimmed this thread's replies, because it's very late for me right now and my brain is mush.... however.... I think there are 2 points, one of which I am only reiterating.

1. Tiamat won't fit in a force cage. I mean, my family room is like 20 feet, and her tail alone has to be at least that long, let alone everything else. And with a +12 on a CH save, do you really think you'd catch her in the cage if part of her is outside the AOE?

2. Let's say you actually do catch her in a force cage. Good job. Her turn. She Wishes the party/caster into the cage with her and leans against said party/caster until they squish through the bars like play-doh through a cheese grater, and mops up what's left with a spoon and some naan bread.

I just don't see trapping her in a forcecage as viable.

JNAProductions

2021-04-29, 09:40 PM

BerzerkerUnit

2021-04-29, 10:04 PM

I think we covered that already (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?630508-Killing-Tiamat-inside-a-Forcecage/page2#post25020160). Option #1:
- Shoot her full of holes. With a longbow. Wizard himself with Tenser's + Haste (from Simulacrum) can do it. Swords Bard can do it. Resident party archer can do it, especially if you cast some buffs. If you've got a full party, this is trivial. Buff up an archer or two and start shooting.
- Upcast Wall of Light high enough. Level 7 suffices, of course. She can't escape so she autotakes 8d8 which is just enough to overcome her DR. Add literally any damage and you're killing her quickly enough (Cloud of Daggers, Wall of Light, Summon Celestial, Summon Undead, Summon Aberration etc. work).

If she banishes herself with Divine Word, well, good riddance, we win. Due to Discorporation, that's little different from killing her. And yeah, since she lacks Magic Resistance, DoT overcoming her Legendary isn't actually that difficult. The expected value for Sickening Radiance (for whatever reason she also lacks Exhaustion immunity) with DC17 (18 stat, +5) is 30 fails, which with 5 Legendaries leaves her failing 25 times (of course, after 8 failures she's actually rolling at disadvantage so after the first 27 rolls, among which she's likely to have 8 rolls, her chance of success drops to 51% (down from 70%) which means for the remaining 73 rolls she's failing about 36 meaning she's dying 7 times over).

Actually, banishing herself back to her home plane would definitely not be a win condition and could be quite bad. Besides the host of potential RP reasons (like the Cleric's god sending a Solar to smack the party for ******* around instead of actually thwarting her or Asmodeus himself showing up to help smack them for letting Tiamat run around the hells unhindered, and note: Hell might not even count as her home plane now) she would presumably go to wherever her nigh infinite horde is. You're asking the DM to have her come back covered in legendary regalia with a flight of ancient chromatic wyrms in tow.

There's nothing hard and fast in the modern lore to explain why the gods don't roll on Toril anymore, but its pretty clear that in the wake of this ritual, Tiamat is now willing and able to do so. So again, the Forcecage, awesome as it is, is just a delaying tactic.

Eldariel

2021-04-30, 12:08 AM

Actually, banishing herself back to her home plane would definitely not be a win condition and could be quite bad. Besides the host of potential RP reasons (like the Cleric's god sending a Solar to smack the party for ******* around instead of actually thwarting her or Asmodeus himself showing up to help smack them for letting Tiamat run around the hells unhindered, and note: Hell might not even count as her home plane now) she would presumably go to wherever her nigh infinite horde is. You're asking the DM to have her come back covered in legendary regalia with a flight of ancient chromatic wyrms in tow.

There's nothing hard and fast in the modern lore to explain why the gods don't roll on Toril anymore, but its pretty clear that in the wake of this ritual, Tiamat is now willing and able to do so. So again, the Forcecage, awesome as it is, is just a delaying tactic.

She can't come back without another ritual. Otherwise killing her accomplishes no more than banishing her. She uses discorporation, reforms and then comes back. Whatever the case, at that point you need to **** up her saves and True Polymorph her into a rock or something.

Forcecage isn't a factor here. She can always banish herself back (though she has to roll twice at +9 so she has an almost 50% chance of making the save and this game doesn't have rules for choosing to fail saves) whether you damage her or Forcecage her so that's irrelevant: it's not a property of Forcecage but the whole fight. The only way to prevent that is to be close enough to use Counterspell (potentially from 7th level slot as talked earlier with Dork_Forge); incidentally my party could do that.

But y'know, if it really were advantageous for her to banish herself, she could start the fight by banishing herself back immediately. The party would autolose that way. I'm really not buying that. When you just were released from your captivity by an extremely elaborate ritual involving a massive amount of resources and forces in a very unique site, you probably can't assume it gets repeated any time soon. Plus, she has discorporation. Her retaking form probably takes less time than arranging another ritual so it likely doesn't make any difference whatsoever whether you kill or banish her.

Understand this: Best case scenario for a level 14 party is that you either prevent her arrival or banish her. Either way, you can only stop this ritual, not any future incursions. By default you win if she fails to appear. Not even banishing her or forcing to discorporate, just by stopping the completion of the ritual. This does even less to stop any future manifestations than killing or banishing her but it's the default win condition. Therefore, any reading where banishing her is anything but total victory makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

Put short:
1) It can't be stopped. She can literally Divine Word herself in Hell at any time.
2) She gets banished and can't return to Toril anyways.
3) Her running around Hells "unhindered" is not our problem and frankly she's plenty hindered by all the Dukes of Hell and Demon Lords and other powers messing around in Avernus.

If your God sends a Solar to smack you for saving the world, it's time to start a deicide.

First, apologies -- I only skimmed this thread's replies, because it's very late for me right now and my brain is mush.... however.... I think there are 2 points, one of which I am only reiterating.

1. Tiamat won't fit in a force cage. I mean, my family room is like 20 feet, and her tail alone has to be at least that long, let alone everything else. And with a +12 on a CH save, do you really think you'd catch her in the cage if part of her is outside the AOE?

2. Let's say you actually do catch her in a force cage. Good job. Her turn. She Wishes the party/caster into the cage with her and leans against said party/caster until they squish through the bars like play-doh through a cheese grater, and mops up what's left with a spoon and some naan bread.

I just don't see trapping her in a forcecage as viable.

There are three flaws here:

A) She doesn't have Wish. If she did, she'd certainly be more deific and I argue she certainly should have it but as written, she doesn't.

B) By the books she does fit in there. This is an issue you'll have to take up with the writers.

As such, I agree, her statblock is weaker and smaller than it should be. But it is what it is.

@Dork_Forge: FWIW I made a StackExchange question about the ruling (https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/184501/does-tensers-transformation-force-damage-work-vs-rakshasa) and the consensus is about what you'd expect: DM call. Though I would, by parallel to magic weapons (which work just fine) and spell that make weapons magic weapons (Magic Weapon, Holy Weapon, Elemental Weapon) argue that the too damage is self-facing effect and thus not subject to magic immunity. And as advantage isn't gained vs. any specific enemy but all attacks in general, I'd definitely argue it's more akin to Samurai's Fighting Spirit than an enemy-applying effect like Hex or Hexblade's Curse.

It might not be unlikely though for the other PCs to have spells they can use once Legendary Resistance is burned and she's exhausted enough to have disadvantage on saves (canceling out advantage). That is, even if they're only upcasting Polymorph or something, that still has some chance to tip the scales against her. But yeah, it works better at level 17, or 15 if your wizard can Simulacrum himself per RAW (i.e. if your DM allows a horribly broken spell in their game).

What do you mean by "grid footprint"? If you're asking for actual size, personally I'd make her quite large, bigger than Anomander Rake and almost as large as Olar Ethil. Say, 300 yard wingspan and a body about 150 yards long by 50 yards wide (would be 30 yards but she has three heads so I figure that's a wider body to match). She's smaller than a nuclear aircraft carrier but bigger than any animal in the real world.

She's still smaller than a Great Wyrm Celestial Dragon (400 yards long) much less a Stellar Dragon or a Constellant, but that's Spelljammer for you: ridiculously huge and I love it.

Yeah, that just speaks volumes for how stupid small stuff in D&D is. The whole cathedral, let alone the portal, is nowhere near enough for her to fit if we give her a reasonable size. And Tarrasque is literally a baby seal by comparison.

PhoenixPhyre

2021-04-30, 12:11 AM

She can't come back without another ritual. Otherwise killing her accomplishes no more than banishing her. She uses discorporation, reforms and then comes back. Whatever the case, at that point you need to **** up her saves and True Polymorph her into a rock or something.

Forcecage isn't a factor here. She can always banish herself back (though she has to roll twice at +9 so she has an almost 50% chance of making the save and this game doesn't have rules for choosing to fail saves) whether you damage her or Forcecage her so that's irrelevant: it's not a property of Forcecage but the whole fight. The only way to prevent that is to be close enough to use Counterspell (potentially from 7th level slot as talked earlier with Dork_Forge); incidentally my party could do that.

But y'know, if it really were advantageous for her to banish herself, she could start the fight by banishing herself back immediately. The party would autolose that way. I'm really not buying that. When you just were released from your captivity by an extremely elaborate ritual involving a massive amount of resources and forces in a very unique site, you probably can't assume it gets repeated any time soon. Plus, she has discorporation. Her retaking form probably takes less time than arranging another ritual so it likely doesn't make any difference whatsoever.

Understand this: Best case scenario for a level 14 party is that you either prevent her arrival or banish her. Either way, you can only stop this ritual, not any future incursions. By default you win if she fails to appear. Not even banishing her or forcing to discorporate, just by stopping the completion of the ritual. This does even less to stop any future manifestations than killing or banishing her but it's the default win condition. Therefore, any reading where banishing her is anything but total victory makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

Put short:
1) It can't be stopped. She can literally Divine Word herself in Hell at any time.
2) She gets banished and can't return to Toril anyways.
3) Her running around Hells "unhindered" is not our problem and frankly she's plenty hindered by all the Dukes of Hell and Demon Lords and other powers messing around in Avernus.

If your God sends a Solar to smack you for saving the world, it's time to start a deicide.

There are three flaws here:

A) She doesn't have Wish. If she did, she'd certainly be more deific and I argue she certainly should have it but as written, she doesn't.

B) By the books she does fit in there. This is an issue you'll have to take up with the writers.

As such, I agree, her statblock is weaker and smaller than it should be. But it is what it is.

@Dork_Forge: FWIW I made a StackExchange question about the ruling (https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/184501/does-tensers-transformation-force-damage-work-vs-rakshasa) and the consensus is about what you'd expect: DM call. Though I would, by parallel to magic weapons (which work just fine) and spell that make weapons magic weapons (Magic Weapon, Holy Weapon, Elemental Weapon) argue that the too damage is self-facing effect and thus not subject to magic immunity. And as advantage isn't gained vs. any specific enemy but all attacks in general, I'd definitely argue it's more akin to Samurai's Fighting Spirit than an enemy-applying effect like Hex or Hexblade's Curse.

B is flat out false (or at least not determined). You can't say "well, gargantuan is 20x20, so she fits". Gargantuan is 20x20+. It's unbounded on the upper end. Ships are gargantuan and have sizes larger than 20x20. So you can't claim that all gargantuan things are 20x20. Which is what it takes to say that by the book she fits. Size category is not physical size, and physical size is what matters for the spell.

Eldariel

2021-04-30, 12:13 AM

B is flat out false (or at least not determined). You can't say "well, gargantuan is 20x20, so she fits". Gargantuan is 20x20+. It's unbounded on the upper end. Ships are gargantuan and have sizes larger than 20x20. So you can't claim that all gargantuan things are 20x20. Which is what it takes to say that by the book she fits. Size category is not physical size, and physical size is what matters for the spell.

Gargantuan is 20'+ and if it doesn't say anything beyond that, it defaults to 20'. That's the point. The monsters (e.g. Tarrasque) that are bigger say so. She doesn't. Size category is what space she takes on the grid and thus where she'd fit. Else DM can't know how to run them other than "wing it". There has to be a default and in an half-open group, the only defined number is the lower bound.

Dork_Forge

2021-04-30, 12:24 AM

B) By the books she does fit in there. This is an issue you'll have to take up with the writers.

As PhoenixPhyre pointed out, this is just not true. It's like arguing a mouse and a cat can both fit inside your small belt pouch because th they're both tiny. There's just a finite number of siza categories, it is what it is, which is open ended on the far end.

@Dork_Forge: FWIW I made a StackExchange question about the ruling (https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/184501/does-tensers-transformation-force-damage-work-vs-rakshasa) and the consensus is about what you'd expect: DM call. Though I would, by parallel to magic weapons (which work just fine) and spell that make weapons magic weapons (Magic Weapon, Holy Weapon, Elemental Weapon) argue that the too damage is self-facing effect and thus not subject to magic immunity. And as advantage isn't gained vs. any specific enemy but all attacks in general, I'd definitely argue it's more akin to Samurai's Fighting Spirit than an enemy-applying effect like Hex or Hexblade's Curse.

I've also seen StackExchange (and I think here) backing that weapons made magical by spells wouldn't cut it, backed by JC tweets so... eh?

Thinking about the advantage I'm leaning on yes just because of how things like Guiding Bolt work, but in no way can I see the extra damage not being a spell effecting her.

It's like casting a Smite spell and saying well, the spell doesn't actually damage the target directly. It's additional damage that comes directly from a spell, if it was something like you gain a +2 to Str then sure, it's an indirect damage buff, but this isn't that.

Gargantuan is 20'+ and if it doesn't say anything beyond that, it defaults to 20'. That's the point. The monsters (e.g. Tarrasque) that are bigger say so. She doesn't. Size category is what space she takes on the grid and thus where she'd fit. Else DM can't know how to run them other than "wing it". There has to be a default and in an half-open group, the only defined number is the lower bound.

Is there actual a written rule somewhere that says it defaults? Or are you just assuming because some blocks include the size ,I think all should but that isn't a reason to conclude if it doesn't everything defaults.

Eldariel

2021-04-30, 12:26 AM

As PhoenixPhyre pointed out, this is just not true. It's like arguing a mouse and a cat can both fit inside your small belt pouch because th they're both tiny. There's just a finite number of siza categories, it is what it is, which is open ended on the far end.

When you have a book that says "Gargantuan" and fails to specify size beyond that, any number but the "X" in "X or larger" is arbitrary and thus DM fiat.

Dork_Forge

2021-04-30, 12:33 AM

When you have a book that says "Gargantuan" and fails to specify size beyond that, any number but the "X" in "X or larger" is arbitrary and thus DM fiat.

That is not the same thing as defaulting to the smallest size, it's an edition that built itself upon DM rulings.

Heck, just look at the portal she comes out of, I just mapped out a 20x20 and it was insignificantly small in the middle. Whilst it doesn't say the exact size, it's readily apparent it isn't meant to be the Force Cage convenient default...

Fun thought exercise, if she's the smallest possible size, where is she meant to come out of the portal where she could actually do anything (and the party has a decent chance of doing anything to her)?

CapnWildefyr

2021-04-30, 08:44 AM

She doesn't have Wish, far as I can see.

I do not own the module, so I looked online. The stats blocks I saw there for her avatar show wish as a spell for the red dragon head, so that's what I was going by. (Wonder which stat block is newer, or if the one is "dumbed down"? )

That is not the same thing as defaulting to the smallest size, it's an edition that built itself upon DM rulings.

Heck, just look at the portal she comes out of, I just mapped out a 20x20 and it was insignificantly small in the middle. Whilst it doesn't say the exact size, it's readily apparent it isn't meant to be the Force Cage convenient default...

Fun thought exercise, if she's the smallest possible size, where is she meant to come out of the portal where she could actually do anything (and the party has a decent chance of doing anything to her)?

Yes. Gargantuan is 20 x 20 or larger. I agree, you cannot just say anything gargantuan fits into a 20 x 20. Yes, a DM has to make a decision. Yes different DMs will come up with different numbers. They should at least have given rough dragon sizes like they used to do. [FWIW I recall stats like an ancient red was maybe 300 feet + tail?? Might be misremembering. I once has the satisfaction of plunking a foot long dragon fig down onto a battlesystem map and saying, 'that's to scale.']

If you assume something of gargantuan size defaults down, it leads to some absurd possibilities. For example, why not pole vault a mountain? If nothing in the module says how big the mountain actually is, it must fit into a 20x20 square! Of course, we all "know" how big mountains are, but if the module doesn't specify it exactly...

I guess you can say "well, I decide 20 feet long" but that's kinda tiny for a dragon goddess... unless maybe pseudodragon goddess...

Waazraath

2021-04-30, 08:54 AM

Yes. Gargantuan is 20 x 20 or larger. I agree, you cannot just say anything gargantuan fits into a 20 x 20. Yes, a DM has to make a decision. Yes different DMs will come up with different numbers. They should at least have given rough dragon sizes like they used to do. [FWIW I recall stats like an ancient red was maybe 300 feet + tail?? Might be misremembering. I once has the satisfaction of plunking a foot long dragon fig down onto a battlesystem map and saying, 'that's to scale.']

If you assume something of gargantuan size defaults down, it leads to some absurd possibilities. For example, why not pole vault a mountain? If nothing in the module says how big the mountain actually is, it must fit into a 20x20 square! Of course, we all "know" how big mountains are, but if the module doesn't specify it exactly...

I guess you can say "well, I decide 20 feet long" but that's kinda tiny for a dragon goddess... unless maybe pseudodragon goddess...

If you look at earlier editions a guargatuan red dragon had an overall length of 85 ft, a colossal one 120 ft... (3.5 Draconomicon). Yeah, I know, other edition other game and all that, but for context, I think it's telling, added up with the artwork, the size of the portal, the whole idea that the goddess of dragons is supposed to be bigger than normal dragons, etc. etc.

CapnWildefyr

2021-04-30, 09:56 AM

If you look at earlier editions a guargatuan red dragon had an overall length of 85 ft, a colossal one 120 ft... (3.5 Draconomicon). Yeah, I know, other edition other game and all that, but for context, I think it's telling, added up with the artwork, the size of the portal, the whole idea that the goddess of dragons is supposed to be bigger than normal dragons, etc. etc.

Yep. The thing is, even at minimum gargantuan size, if a creature is anywhere near 20 long or wide or tall, it should get a save vs being trapped, and in Big T's case, she's got a big bonus and does she also get advantage?

One fighting tip that popped into mind -- what about illusions of 1 or 2 beholders. Beholders, with that big anti-magic ray, could be a bother to Tiamat... she might focus on them for a few rounds, if she believes the illusions, letting others get in a few good shots.

Dork_Forge

2021-04-30, 10:08 AM

Yep. The thing is, even at minimum gargantuan size, if a creature is anywhere near 20 long or wide or tall, it should get a save vs being trapped, and in Big T's case, she's got a big bonus and does she also get advantage?

One fighting tip that popped into mind -- what about illusions of 1 or 2 beholders. Beholders, with that big anti-magic ray, could be a bother to Tiamat... she might focus on them for a few rounds, if she believes the illusions, letting others get in a few good shots.

I'm not sure why she'd be bothered by Beholders really, but she has Truesight so there's no real chance of tricking her with an illusion.

Forcecage would only proc a save if she tried to teleport out of it, I don't really understand the point of the spell tbh.

Eldariel

2021-04-30, 01:50 PM

That is not the same thing as defaulting to the smallest size, it's an edition that built itself upon DM rulings.

Heck, just look at the portal she comes out of, I just mapped out a 20x20 and it was insignificantly small in the middle. Whilst it doesn't say the exact size, it's readily apparent it isn't meant to be the Force Cage convenient default...

Fun thought exercise, if she's the smallest possible size, where is she meant to come out of the portal where she could actually do anything (and the party has a decent chance of doing anything to her)?

Well, the Great Apse is about 120' across but nothing suggests the portal is that size. It could easily be a 40'/40' portal, which is just fine for a 20'/20' creature.

As for 3e comparison, 5e is struck by a curious case of creature miniaturism where few creatures are truly all that big. Surely it's reasonable to say that the board size means nothing or that the creature takes an arbitrary number of squares but there's little in the game supporting that outside few specific creatures.

Dork_Forge

2021-04-30, 02:30 PM

PhoenixPhyre

2021-04-30, 03:17 PM

Well, the Great Apse is about 120' across but nothing suggests the portal is that size. It could easily be a 40'/40' portal, which is just fine for a 20'/20' creature.

As for 3e comparison, 5e is struck by a curious case of creature miniaturism where few creatures are truly all that big. Surely it's reasonable to say that the board size means nothing or that the creature takes an arbitrary number of squares but there's little in the game supporting that outside few specific creatures.

You're still thinking in grid terms. Grids are explicitly a variant rule. So that whole thing about being 20x20 unless specified otherwise? Yeah. That's not a system assumption. Gargantuan creatures

a) control at least a 20x20 region.
b) have indeterminate size
c) several of them are noted (in the description but not the stat block) as being substantially larger.
d) usually have minis that are way bigger than 20x20 physically, despite being on a 20x20 base. I have an ancient blue dragon mini (official) that has a wingspan of ~100' to scale. And blues aren't even the biggest dragons.
e) are big enough that a hostile Large creature (usually 8+ ft tall) can walk underneath one with only difficult terrain. That puts their bodies at 8-10' off the ground at the bottom.

Krakens explicitly have a 30' reach. That means 30' tentacles at a minimum.

Giants are huge, but most of them are taller than 20' explicitly. Size category =/= space occupied. And forcecage only cares about the latter, not the former. We have spells that refer to size categories. They do so explicitly. Forcecage does not. So it must be referring to physical size. So you're not catching a giant in a forcecage either. And what you can is up to the DM.

MaxWilson

2021-04-30, 05:23 PM

I meant how many squares would she be on a grid, I know it's a variant rule technically, but it's the most convenient way of tracking distances and positioning.

She has five heads, does that effect your size recommendation?

I've never heard of any of those things, but from what I know of Spelljammer, it certainly tracks!

150 yards x 50 yards is 90 squares by 30 squares, so that's what I'd use.

Five heads is why I made her 50 yards wye instead of 30--needs more shoulder room and torso width to support the extra heads.

Krakens explicitly have a 30' reach. That means 30' tentacles at a minimum.

Not a minimum. Humans have 5' reach on punches, but not 5' long arms. Reach apparently includes (the possibility of) some movement.

Dork_Forge

2021-04-30, 06:24 PM

150 yards x 50 yards is 90 squares by 30 squares, so that's what I'd use.

Five heads is why I made her 50 yards wye instead of 30--needs more shoulder room and torso width to support the extra heads.

Thanks for the recommendation, I'll go with that.

I was clarifying because in the post I replied to you said she had three heads, so was just making sure.

PhoenixPhyre

2021-04-30, 06:37 PM

Not a minimum. Humans have 5' reach on punches, but not 5' long arms. Reach apparently includes (the possibility of) some movement.

Ok. So say 27.5' tentacles. Because otherwise you'd have to move enough to end up in another square. But either way, body + tentacles >> 20'.

Dork_Forge

2021-05-01, 12:19 AM

I made the thread for testing the statblock, for accuracy of the statblock any context of the module itself is ignored. Thread here (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?630866-Testing-Tiamat&p=25029318#post25029318) all welcome to run a proposed party through or make any suggestions about the scenario.

MaxWilson

2021-05-02, 08:50 PM

Thanks for the recommendation, I'll go with that.

I was clarifying because in the post I replied to you said she had three heads, so was just making sure.

Oh! I see. I don't know how my fingers typed "three" instead of five. That's strange, but not the strangest typo I've ever made. Thanks for clarifying.

I wasn't recommending per se, just stating my own preference/imagination, but am glad you found it useful.

Dork_Forge

2021-05-06, 12:56 AM

N7Paladin

2021-05-06, 11:00 AM

Eldariel

2021-05-06, 11:32 AM

I've been following this for a while. I read the test. It was must certainly not inconclusive.
{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}

:smallconfused: Considering I specifically conceded every single point we discussed:
- Diviner Simulacrum not regaining Portent
- Magic Jar (I simply agreed to not use it in spite of it being a 6th level spell and excellent for these characters)
- No magic items
- Only 7th level+ buffs working on weapons dealing full damage
- Going PHB only
- Ignored the obvious terrain
- Gave her whatever dimensions desired (even though the original point was that she goes down to Forcecage by RAW, so this makes for a whole different discussion)
- Removed context from the challenge in spite of the context of her appearance making her much weaker

And then had a disagreement that had nothing to do with how the test itself goes (specifically about readied actions that I didn't want to waste time asking about since I assumed Dork_Forge would understand what I mean and would want an efficient run for what amounts to a test of mechanical strength, not actual play), where Dork's ruling would obviously result in the test being invalid since it's got nothing to do with party and everything to do with player-DM miscommunication, this seems very surprising to me. I have a hard time understanding the amount of vitriol I see in this post, unless you feel somebody you care about has been personally insulted.

This phenomenon seems to occur more broadly though: it is actually very surprising to me that calling Tiamat a chump seems to be raising emotions. Is criticizing monster statblocks really such a sensitive topic? In your post specifically, I notice how you even highlight Goddess Tiamat and calling the given statblock a chump to be somehow negative. That's not at all my goal: I want to give her the statblock she deserves. And the statblock she was given (same with many other 5e monsters, Tarrasque of course being the easiest example) simply doesn't match up. I'll probably end up showing you that a level 14 party can kill her (even though that isn't at all required for her to be a chump - a CR30 creature should be able to beat a level 14 party effortlessly), but of course you can take what you will out of that.

Still, I plead that you at least don't equate me studying a point (e.g. in this point whether a party can kill a monster by RAW) to me playing the game. That's a massive disservice. Not that there's any need for us to ever play with each other, but I'd still rather you don't you presume such amount of knowledge without ever interacting with me personally.

JNAProductions

2021-05-06, 11:35 AM

If Tiamat is really such a chump, one thing going wrong shouldn't matter much, right?

Eldariel

2021-05-06, 11:44 AM

If Tiamat is really such a chump, one thing going wrong shouldn't matter much, right?

When you're playing a level 14 no magic items core only party banned from using certain spells with no prep at 60' starting distance in an arena she shouldn't even really be able to move in, you have far less margin for error than if you were running it normally... Again, there's more it takes for a CR30 God to be decent than beating a level 14 party with a lot of stipulations and a DM misinterpretation. It might be winnable after that but I'm simply not interested in "btw, you worded this wrong so take 96 damage to the whole party after I randomly force you to start at 60' and in Fireball formation in an unbounded fight" - that's so far from the original point of the thread it's not even funny.

{Scrubbed}

Dork_Forge

2021-05-06, 12:09 PM

:smallconfused: Considering I specifically conceded every single point we discussed:

Okay, let's discuss why you're painting this very one sidedly, despite the fact that the party you chose was up to you and had allowances that highly favoured you.

- Diviner Simulacrum not regaining Portent

Worst case scenario here, oh no you don't have a maximum of 6 portents! But this is also something I mentioned but did not make a ruling on, I explicitly left it up to you to avoid seeming biased against your proposed outcome. BTW I was under the impression that the Simulacrum was going into it with all portents available.

- Magic Jar (I simply agreed to not use it in spite of it being a 6th level spell and excellent for these characters)

Boohoo you didn't get to grab stronger monster bodies for the PCs? Magic Jar is campaign dependent and neither of us had interest in playing the module out, assuming you could esily grab multiple bodies is not particularly reasonable towards proving your claim.

- No magic items

You chose this, I offered every character a +1 weapon.

- Only 7th level+ buffs working on weapons dealing full damage

A reasonable interpretation backed by posts on a website you made a post on yourself trying to prove a point (oh and also a tweet by JC)

- Going PHB only

Don't say that this was a point brought up, this was entirely your own decision. People speculated that you originally chose a party that was heavily composed of post RoT materials. I said nothing regarding you not using anything and was surprised when you elected to.

- Ignored the obvious terrain

What?

- Gave her whatever dimensions desired (even though the original point was that she goes down to Forcecage by RAW, so this makes for a whole different discussion)

Gargantuan defaulting to the smallest size is not RAW, that's your opinion and to avoid bias i sourced a size from a 3rd party publicly in this thread.

- Removed context from the challenge in spite of the context of her appearance making her much weaker

Lol whut? Is this about the optional ways to weaken her where you decided the minute beforehand would be just sitting around whilst the priests conveniently ignored the party?

You blanketly labeled the statblock as a chump, fighting the statblock at full strength should not have been an issue but rather the point of the exercise. If you issue was the encounter design, which at no point did it seem to be, that's entirely separate and all to do with the party meant to have a meaningful way to interact with the game and try to win.

And then had a disagreement that had nothing to do with how the test itself goes (specifically about readied actions that I didn't want to waste time asking about since I assumed Dork_Forge would understand what I mean and would want an efficient run for what amounts to a test of mechanical strength, not actual play), where Dork's ruling would obviously result in the test being invalid since it's got nothing to do with party and everything to do with player-DM miscommunication, this seems very surprising to me. I have a hard time understanding the amount of vitriol I see in this post, unless you feel somebody you care about has been personally insulted.

Yeah, no. You assumed you could do something that isn't RAW nevermind RAI or a ruling I would make, you got it wrong and didn't like when I didn't let you have a do-over. I didn't allow such a thing because the action taken seemed reasonable and still had value in the situation. You assuming things is not efficient, it's the opposite since it's more likely to either 1)cause arguments after the fact (like the one you stormed off from) and 2) leads to you making favourable assumptions that do not relect RAW nevermind reality. Once more with feeling, not my ruling it's literally RAW and it's not my problem that you chose to assign your party names and genders in a simulation but couldn't be bother to be specific about a mechanical trigger.

This phenomenon seems to occur more broadly though: it is actually very surprising to me that calling Tiamat a chump seems to be raising emotions. Is criticizing monster statblocks really such a sensitive topic? In your post specifically, I notice how you even highlight Goddess Tiamat and calling the given statblock a chump to be somehow negative. That's not at all my goal: I want to give her the statblock she deserves. And the statblock she was given (same with many other 5e monsters, Tarrasque of course being the easiest example) simply doesn't match up. I'll probably end up showing you that a level 14 party can kill her (even though that isn't at all required for her to be a chump - a CR30 creature should be able to beat a level 14 party effortlessly), but of course you can take what you will out of that.

You made a claim many challenged, based on things people challenged,are you surprised that people on the internet have emotions regarding things they discuss? You seemed to have an emotional response when you stormed away from the game, so... is it really surprising?

Still, I plead that you at least don't equate me studying a point (e.g. in this point whether a party can kill a monster by RAW) to me playing the game. That's a massive disservice. Not that there's any need for us to ever play with each other, but I'd still rather you don't you presume such amount of knowledge without ever interacting with me personally.

We have examples of you discussing pre and during game, this is an odd thing to request imo.

When you're playing a level 14 no magic items core only party banned from using certain spells with no prep at 60' starting distance in an arena she shouldn't even really be able to move in, you have far less margin for error than if you were running it normally... Again, there's more it takes for a CR30 God to be decent than beating a level 14 party with a lot of stipulations and a DM misinterpretation. It might be winnable after that but I'm simply not interested in "btw, you worded this wrong so take 96 damage to the whole party after I randomly force you to start at 60' and in Fireball formation in an unbounded fight" - that's so far from the original point of the thread it's not even funny.

EDIT: To further explain myself, it's obvious after this DF is being an adversial DM and will obviously rule everything against me. I'm not wasting my time on trying to lawyer-proof every single word I write. That's just not worth my time.
hoo-boy this wow.

Please tell me how I'm being an adversarial DM here?

-Was it when I agreed to you spamming divinitations to gain metaknowledge of her statblock?

-Was it when I allowed a massive amount of pregame buffing?

-Allowing 'a 14th level party' to also consist of a cadre of summoned and bound creatures?

-Was it when I was discussing things with you pregame and taking on board your comments?

The game started, you took a turn, didn't like how it was resolved so wanted to start it over.

I have read your own thread DMing youself, where the party just endlessly put walls in front of her breath weapons, ruling that the breath itself doesn't even damage the walls etc.

Oh and that whole line about taking 96 damage after I randomly forced you to do something? starting at 60ft was a pretense of the scenario, if you don't like it don't play to begin with or mention it before the game, don't complain about it to others after the fact and paint me as adversariel because of it.

Your party composition is not convincing to being able to take down Tiamat and your way of playing/DMing just serves your own point more than proving anything.

N7Paladin

2021-05-06, 12:12 PM

If Tiamat is really such a chump, one thing going wrong shouldn't matter much, right?

Ooooh I think you'll find this is exactly the case here XD

Snip

You're saying you conceded the removal of context that would render her weaker... But in saying this you're also waving off context that would render your party (usage of resources, probable unavailability of long rest, etc) weaker as well. {Scrubbed}

BerzerkerUnit

2021-05-06, 12:29 PM

When you're playing a level 14 no magic items core only party banned from using certain spells with no prep at 60' starting distance in an arena she shouldn't even really be able to move in, you have far less margin for error than if you were running it normally... Again, there's more it takes for a CR30 God to be decent than beating a level 14 party with a lot of stipulations and a DM misinterpretation. It might be winnable after that but I'm simply not interested in "btw, you worded this wrong so take 96 damage to the whole party after I randomly force you to start at 60' and in Fireball formation in an unbounded fight" - that's so far from the original point of the thread it's not even funny.

EDIT: To further explain myself, it's obvious after this DF is being an adversial DM and will obviously rule everything against me. I'm not wasting my time on trying to lawyer-proof every single word I write. That's just not worth my time.

If you felt adversarial DMing was really the issue here, it really shouldn't have mattered in any case bc rd one would really have gone like this:

Druid runs back, readies spell. Mistimes it
Dragon God breathes, party takes a bunch of damage.
Wizard's turn: Forcecage and move away
Everyone else, move away
Begin magic arrow barrages.

This was the thrust of the entire OP. That Tiamat is trivialized by forcecage. If successfully breathing on most party members is a loss condition, she's definitely not a chump. And the emotions raised aren't in response to Tiamat, they're in response to posters appearing hypocritical in the text. It might be miscommunication, but it's more likely the notion that the internet is a place full of faceless voices constantly shouting contradiction and when any of them challenge something one believes or feels, the default response has to be an adamant stance in defiance instead of one prepared for compromise. Even the fruit hanging so low its on the figurative olive branches being sent via pneumatic pipeline underground is ignored, probably because collectively people seem to think the sources of the other posts aren't properly people.

Most have said Tiamat is a tough fight, even with Forcecage in play. Getting a win is a steep climb, doable but with a low margin for error and death as the likely consequence. They have also, in the same posts, admitted that she is not a well designed monster (coming as early as she did in the publication history) and power/flexibility creep of later supplements have made her easier still.

The OP (and maybe other's) insistence that she is trivially easy because some players might have access to one overtuned spell isn't the thing creating emotional reactions, it's the dismissive tone used to insist. It's the unwillingness to recognize that statistically a challenge exists, even if its not the most insurmountable. The equating of "not a statblock that gives the DM carte-blanche to wipe the party" with "mind numbingly simple to defeat" is hyperbolic, its a kind of trash talk, and that's what stirs the emotions.

I've had arguments with some of the worst people about some of the most polarizing topics imaginable and while I've been repulsed by some mentalities and beliefs, I've only gotten angry when A) the belief is something that hurts other people or B) their argument boiled down to "nuh uh" and then smirking as if my inability to change their mind was somehow them winning the argument.

Honey, I don't argue to make people feel differently, I argue to make sure we all understand each other and sometimes that makes people feel differently.

CapnWildefyr

2021-05-06, 12:37 PM

Well the results of the first attempt appear inconclusive. (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?631035-Testing-Tiamat-Eladriel-attempt&p=25036171#post25036171)

My offer stands for anyone that would like to take it.
If you're trying to test the idea of whether X number of Level 14 PCs can take out a tiamat using a given stat block, arguing over game mechanics for the planned action isn't the best way to do it. I would suggest instead a less adversarial approach -- as in, you are two DMs playing out the same fight. You are not trying to test whether a player/DM correctly states a Ready action, or any other rules, so don't run it like a game. Let all of that go. Ask 'are you trying to do X?' and 'why wouldn't she do Y at this point?' Work out the consequences of each action then erase and try something better/different. You're not trying to beat 1 person, or beat 1 party, or beat 1 avatar, you're testing possible punches and counterpunches. You're trying to run through multiple scenarios with spells and items and tactics. You're not actually playing the game, just talking about playing the game. Just a suggestion.

Eldariel

2021-05-06, 12:39 PM

Druid runs back, readies spell. Mistimes it
Dragon God breathes, party takes a bunch of damage.
Wizard's turn: Forcecage and move away
Everyone else, move away
Begin magic arrow barrages./

It wouldn't matter except in this case Tiamat was made 450'/150' so she's not gonna fit in Forcecage or any kind of obstacle (frankly, she shouldn't even be able to manoeuvre in the arena we had but whatever). DF wanted to "test" her without Forcecage; it's kind of a given that if she fits in, it's enough to take her out. The only challenge is to have enough damage to overcome her Regeneration after that, which most level 14 parties should manage (especially if not going with "no magic items PHB only" like I did - adding Holy Weapon, Summon Celestial, Summon Undead, Summon Aberration, Tenser's Transformation, etc. to the buff pool makes it quite easy to buff the party Fighter/Ranger enough to kill it, or create something that can kill it).

But that's not interesting nor something worth playing out. The point of playing it out was to test the hypothesis of her being beatable regardless of size on level 14, which I maintain is the case. She's not easy that way but if you can beat her at all on level 14, I would definitely argue she's way too weak to be a CR30 (Deadly x 7 or something) threat. Again, it wouldn't be hard to rework her to be a more viable threat but as it stands, inability to deal with force constructs in addition to lack of good mobility options (even just Legendary Action "move" would be a huge improvement) and inability to deal with magical obstacles more broadly hurts her more than it should. On level 14 she may be rough but level 15 adds 8th level spells and the adventure can end on that level too and she should be more than a match for a level 20 party, which I really doubt.

JNAProductions

2021-05-06, 12:41 PM

It wouldn't matter except in this case Tiamat was made 450'/150' so she's not gonna fit in Forcecage or any kind of obstacle (frankly, she shouldn't even be able to manoeuvre in the arena we had but whatever). DF wanted to "test" her without Forcecage; it's kind of a given that if she fits in, it's enough to take her out.

All she needs to be is more than 20' in any given dimension to prevent Forcecage from working.

A Huge Storm Giant is 26' tall. Why would the Gargantuan Queen Of Chromatic Dragons be smaller than that?

Eldariel

2021-05-06, 12:45 PM

All she needs to be is more than 20' in any given dimension to prevent Forcecage from working.

A Huge Storm Giant is 26' tall. Why would the Gargantuan Queen Of Chromatic Dragons be smaller than that?

Not the point. The book just gives her no dimensions, just size category, and I'm specifically talking about the RAW there. I've yet to see a good argument for why RAW she'd be anything but 20'/20'. Given her shape, the idea that she'd be taller than she's long also seems suspect. But anyways, that's trivial: whether or not you accept the premise, the fact that she's in general vulnerable to getting Force Walled in is pretty sad for a God.

Dork_Forge

2021-05-06, 12:51 PM

If you felt adversarial DMing was really the issue here, it really shouldn't have mattered in any case bc rd one would really have gone like this:

Druid runs back, readies spell. Mistimes it
Dragon God breathes, party takes a bunch of damage.
Wizard's turn: Forcecage and move away
Everyone else, move away
Begin magic arrow barrages.

This was the thrust of the entire OP. That Tiamat is trivialized by forcecage. If successfully breathing on most party members is a loss condition, she's definitely not a chump. And the emotions raised aren't in response to Tiamat, they're in response to posters appearing hypocritical in the text. It might be miscommunication, but it's more likely the notion that the internet is a place full of faceless voices constantly shouting contradiction and when any of them challenge something one believes or feels, the default response has to be an adamant stance in defiance instead of one prepared for compromise. Even the fruit hanging so low its on the figurative olive branches being sent via pneumatic pipeline underground is ignored, probably because collectively people seem to think the sources of the other posts aren't properly people.

Most have said Tiamat is a tough fight, even with Forcecage in play. Getting a win is a steep climb, doable but with a low margin for error and death as the likely consequence. They have also, in the same posts, admitted that she is not a well designed monster (coming as early as she did in the publication history) and power/flexibility creep of later supplements have made her easier still.

The OP (and maybe other's) insistence that she is trivially easy because some players might have access to one overtuned spell isn't the thing creating emotional reactions, it's the dismissive tone used to insist. It's the unwillingness to recognize that statistically a challenge exists, even if its not the most insurmountable. The equating of "not a statblock that gives the DM carte-blanche to wipe the party" with "mind numbingly simple to defeat" is hyperbolic, its a kind of trash talk, and that's what stirs the emotions.

I've had arguments with some of the worst people about some of the most polarizing topics imaginable and while I've been repulsed by some mentalities and beliefs, I've only gotten angry when A) the belief is something that hurts other people or B) their argument boiled down to "nuh uh" and then smirking as if my inability to change their mind was somehow them winning the argument.

Honey, I don't argue to make people feel differently, I argue to make sure we all understand each other and sometimes that makes people feel differently.

Slow clap well said

If you're trying to test the idea of whether X number of Level 14 PCs can take out a tiamat using a given stat block, arguing over game mechanics for the planned action isn't the best way to do it. I would suggest instead a less adversarial approach -- as in, you are two DMs playing out the same fight. You are not trying to test whether a player/DM correctly states a Ready action, or any other rules, so don't run it like a game. Let all of that go. Ask 'are you trying to do X?' and 'why wouldn't she do Y at this point?' Work out the consequences of each action then erase and try something better/different. You're not trying to beat 1 person, or beat 1 party, or beat 1 avatar, you're testing possible punches and counterpunches. You're trying to run through multiple scenarios with spells and items and tactics. You're not actually playing the game, just talking about playing the game. Just a suggestion.

This is the second time I have been labeled as adversarial, how is what happened adversarial? How is any of the prep and discussion in the run up adversarial?

Here's a thing, we were playing the game, we were explicitly playing out the scenario to see what happened, both sides being the DM in that situation is problematic, why? See Eldariel's thread Dming themselves where readying a wall neuters Tiamat's Legendary actions, despite it not being clear RAW.

If the reason the party loses to Tiamat is player error, then at minimum that shows that she's clearly not that easy to defeat and said player shouldn't be so adamant about it.

It wouldn't matter except in this case Tiamat was made 450'/150' so she's not gonna fit in Forcecage or any kind of obstacle (frankly, she shouldn't even be able to manoeuvre in the arena we had but whatever). DF wanted to "test" her without Forcecage; it's kind of a given that if she fits in, it's enough to take her out. The only challenge is to have enough damage to overcome her Regeneration after that, which most level 14 parties should manage (especially if not going with "no magic items PHB only" like I did - adding Holy Weapon, Summon Celestial, Summon Undead, Summon Aberration, Tenser's Transformation, etc. to the buff pool makes it quite easy to buff the party Fighter/Ranger enough to kill it, or create something that can kill it).

But that's not interesting nor something worth playing out. The point of playing it out was to test the hypothesis of her being beatable regardless of size on level 14, which I maintain is the case. She's not easy that way but if you can beat her at all on level 14, I would definitely argue she's way too weak to be a CR30 (Deadly x 7 or something) threat. Again, it wouldn't be hard to rework her to be a more viable threat but as it stands, inability to deal with force constructs in addition to lack of good mobility options (even just Legendary Action "move" would be a huge improvement) and inability to deal with magical obstacles more broadly hurts her more than it should. On level 14 she may be rough but level 15 adds 8th level spells and the adventure can end on that level too and she should be more than a match for a level 20 party, which I really doubt.

You agreed (and self imposed entirely on your own) anything that could remotely be a nerf to the party in the circumstances.

If the 'party' (two of which had resistance and one of which is a Life Cleric) can not tolerate being breathed on once then what are you proving? By trapsing in with a bunch of summons what are you proving about a level 14 party? That adding medium CR creatures to a player party is a buff?

You utterly failed to demonstrate how the statblock as written could be handled by a party of 14th level unless things went your way, against the rules, RAI and ruling of a DM.

JNAProductions

2021-05-06, 12:52 PM

Not the point. The book just gives her no dimensions, just size category, and I'm specifically talking about the RAW there. I've yet to see a good argument for why RAW she'd be anything but 20'/20'. Given her shape, the idea that she'd be taller than she's long also seems suspect. But anyways, that's trivial: whether or not you accept the premise, the fact that she's in general vulnerable to getting Force Walled in is pretty sad for a God.

RAW is that she controls a minimum of a 20' by 20' area.

If I have my PCs roll for HP, am I justified in saying they gain 1+Con Mod HP because that's the minimum they can gain? That's similar to what you're saying with Tiamat's size.

Eldariel

2021-05-06, 12:53 PM

RAW is that she controls a minimum of a 20' by 20' area.

If I have my PCs roll for HP, am I justified in saying they gain 1+Con Mod HP because that's the minimum they can gain? That's similar to what you're saying with Tiamat's size.

Well, can we at least agree that she should have ways to deal with force obstacles to truly feel like a divinity? This is an aside I'm not really interested in discussing anymore since all the relevant arguments have been given a dozen times already.

JNAProductions

2021-05-06, 12:55 PM

Well, can we at least agree that she should have ways to deal with force obstacles to truly feel like a divinity? This is an aside I'm not really interested in discussing anymore since all the relevant arguments have been given a dozen times already.

Sure-Tiamat's statblock is an early one, and moreover, Forcecage is a badly designed spell.

No one is saying Tiamat cannot be improved, to make her feel more deific. But even as written, she's not a chump.

Eldariel

2021-05-06, 01:04 PM

Sure-Tiamat's statblock is an early one, and moreover, Forcecage is a badly designed spell.

No one is saying Tiamat cannot be improved, to make her feel more deific. But even as written, she's not a chump.

That really depends on how you define a "chump". To me,CR30 God that can lose to a Tier 3 mortals is a "chump". That may be a definition not everyone agrees with but that's what I'm using. I expect more out of a veritable, real God (one of the few actual Gods we have stats for) and I expect more out of a CR30. And I'm sure you know this: we're really only discussing semantics without actually discussing the semantics.

Like, if you want me to formulate my argument more concisely:

- I believe a God who can lose to under Demigod level creatures (EDIT: as a further clarification, "demigod"-level includes stuff like Demon Lords, Dukes of Hell, etc. - big movers with a lot of power but not necessarily divinity) is most definitely not much of a God. And she's supposedly an Intermediate one at that, not even a lesser one or a demigod. So she should be pretty high up the divine hierarchy. To me, a God who can lose to non-epic mortals is a chump of a God.

- I believe a CR30 creature who can lose to Tier 3 parties is most definitely not worth their CR. And I believe a good way to describe a seriously over-CR'd creature is "chump".

You're free to tell me I'm using the word wrong or to disagree with me. Indeed, we can even agree to disagree. But I doubt that's going to change anything: I'm probably going to keep thinking of her as a chump as written, for both of those reasons. Mostly it's a schism between expectation and presentation: you say you're going to stat a friggin' God and then the only magic it can use is Divine Word. That alone is a massive disappointment. No environmental effects or anything. Another one. Inability to destroy objects with breaths. A third one. No interesting abilities, no way of saying "you puny mortals, I'm above you", etc. There's just way too many disappointments in her statblock for me to really come to any other conclusion. Her lack of listed size is just one of the myriad of issues.

Valmark

2021-05-06, 01:08 PM

Slow clap well said

This is the second time I have been labeled as adversarial, how is what happened adversarial? How is any of the prep and discussion in the run up adversarial?

Here's a thing, we were playing the game, we were explicitly playing out the scenario to see what happened, both sides being the DM in that situation is problematic, why? See Eldariel's thread Dming themselves where readying a wall neuters Tiamat's Legendary actions, despite it not being clear RAW.

If the reason the party loses to Tiamat is player error, then at minimum that shows that she's clearly not that easy to defeat and said player shouldn't be so adamant about it.

You agreed (and self imposed entirely on your own) anything that could remotely be a nerf to the party in the circumstances.

If the 'party' (two of which had resistance and one of which is a Life Cleric) can not tolerate being breathed on once then what are you proving? By trapsing in with a bunch of summons what are you proving about a level 14 party? That adding medium CR creatures to a player party is a buff?

You utterly failed to demonstrate how the statblock as written could be handled by a party of 14th level unless things went your way, against the rules, RAI and ruling of a DM.

I think the point is that it was not a player error. It was the DM giving a ruling different from what the player thought was going to be and then being adamant about not changing the action once the misunderstanding was solved.

In such a situation you can't expect the experiment to be indicative since it's affected by people's bickering.

If Tiamat wins (or loses by a narrow-ish margin) it's null since a player with all the needed informations wouldn't have done the same mistake.
And testing it with mistakes is pointless, so it makes sense to want to retcon it.

Eldariel

2021-05-06, 01:10 PM

Since there was a question in the other thread, here's the thread I'm running the test in myself:
Testing Tiamat (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?631082-Tiamat-vs-level-14-party)

Forum Explorer

2021-05-06, 01:22 PM

Is there actual a written rule somewhere that says it defaults? Or are you just assuming because some blocks include the size ,I think all should but that isn't a reason to conclude if it doesn't everything defaults.

It's a typical RAW argument where if it isn't explicitly defined, than it defaults to whatever supports the argument of the poster the best, regardless of how a DM would actually rule on that argument.

Eldariel

2021-05-06, 01:29 PM

It's a typical RAW argument where if it isn't explicitly defined, than it defaults to whatever supports the argument of the poster the best, regardless of how a DM would actually rule on that argument.

No, it's a typical RAW argument where it defaults to the only defined number if nothing else is defined. By definition, anything else would be undefined, which is useless far as RAW ruling is concerned.

Dork_Forge

2021-05-06, 02:00 PM

I think the point is that it was not a player error. It was the DM giving a ruling different from what the player thought was going to be and then being adamant about not changing the action once the misunderstanding was solved.

In such a situation you can't expect the experiment to be indicative since it's affected by people's bickering.

If Tiamat wins (or loses by a narrow-ish margin) it's null since a player with all the needed informations wouldn't have done the same mistake.
And testing it with mistakes is pointless, so it makes sense to want to retcon it.

The intent was to block the breath weapon, I understood the intent and ignored that the specific word attack was used. I then read the readied action text and researched to see if my initial reasoning was correct/reasonable. It was and so I went through with my ruling, provided evidence as necessary.

The player not reading something thoroughly, not being clear in a PbP about a readied action trigger, and not asking if it would be kosher is the player's doing. The question isn't: if everything goes the party's way can they win? It's a poster putting their money where their mouth is regarding the situation and then making tactical errors.

If getting hit with a breath weapon that two of the characters are resistant to and one isn't even in the area of, is something so dire that it warrants storming away with the simulation then clearly the party winning wasn't so clear cut to begin with.

And the fact remains that the PC could have just cast the wall spell on their turn to provide protection if that is what was wanted, readying was a risk and it did not pay off. All this has really proven is that apparently her being a chump is so easily derailed the original claim is just more suspect than before.

It's a typical RAW argument where if it isn't explicitly defined, than it defaults to whatever supports the argument of the poster the best, regardless of how a DM would actually rule on that argument.

That makes sense.

No, it's a typical RAW argument where it defaults to the only defined number if nothing else is defined. By definition, anything else would be undefined, which is useless far as RAW ruling is concerned.

The RAW does not say it defaults, artwork explicitly shows her being larger than the default, assuming the default does not make sense except to try and shoe horn her into a Force Cage.

DrLoveMonkey

2021-05-06, 02:25 PM

CapnWildefyr

2021-05-06, 02:58 PM

Slow clap
This is the second time I have been labeled as adversarial, how is what happened adversarial? How is any of the prep and discussion in the run up adversarial?

I only meant that as "if you play it out and make it side A versus side B" it's adversarial -- there are two sides, therefore adversarial. No implications beyond 2 sides. Didn't mean it personally, I should have thought of a better term, but all I can think of right now is "confrontational" that's even less appropriate!

Trying to suggest working it out without there being any sides or dice -- more an exchange of ideas, rather than the round-by-round you do something, I do something. No "DM" and no "player." What you're trying to do is just really hard without live conversation, too many variables.

Dork_Forge

2021-05-06, 03:02 PM

I only meant that as "if you play it out and make it side A versus side B" it's adversarial -- there are two sides, therefore adversarial. No implications beyond 2 sides. Didn't mean it personally, I should have thought of a better term, but all I can think of right now is "confrontational" that's even less appropriate!

Trying to suggest working it out without there being any sides or dice -- more an exchange of ideas, rather than the round-by-round you do something, I do something. No "DM" and no "player." What you're trying to do is just really hard without live conversation, too many variables.

I now understand what you're getting at thank you for clarifying.

I appreciate the suggestion, but it just defeats the point for me to not actually roll something out when the purpose is to see what's happening and as long as you're playing there will always be a DM or player. Otherwise you will end up DMing yourself, which opens up bias as factor when the simulation is intended to prove something.

Forum Explorer

2021-05-06, 03:07 PM

No, it's a typical RAW argument where it defaults to the only defined number if nothing else is defined. By definition, anything else would be undefined, which is useless far as RAW ruling is concerned.

No, it seriously is. So many RAW arguments, and not just in D&D, basically run under that logic. Painfully so. 'It's not defined, so I'm going to give a definition. The fact that this definition benefits me immensely is a mere coincidence honest!" Yeah, uh huh. Just like every other person who interprets RAW. It's always a coincidence that it just happens to be supporting your argument. Seriously, I don't buy it. I can't see someone arguing in good faith that Tiamat should fit in a Force Cage. Or that you can bisect buildings with Force Wall. Or you can taken short rests to build up an infinite amount of sorcery points.

Eldariel

2021-05-06, 03:28 PM

I’m pretty sure that being able to custom build a party of level 14 characters that have a chance of beating Tiamat says much more about broken character options than Tiamat’s strength. I’ve been in and DMed a bunch of parties up to level 15 and not a-one of them would stomp Tiamat.

Wow, so this is a custom build? In this case the party I made is specifically just a generically strong party, one I'd be happy to play in in basically any campaign, particularly if it were challenging. And if we were building a strong party, we'd probably end up building something of the sort with the other players. As it happens, it's a pretty poor party for this fight:

- Cleric is really kinda anemic, especially with the Core-only stipulation (Cleric loses much of its luster due to that). It doesn't have any offensive spells aside from that single 7th level slot (and they're hard to deliver to a flying enemy with their short range) and it lacks any Walls and any vision denial (aka. the useful forms of defense). Currently their only function is giving the party Heroes' Feast, Aid and Death Ward (which isn't available to other classes in Core only) followed by Bless, useful things but Heroes' Feast could be cast by the Druid or even just a Bard taking it, and the other buffs are replacable (obviously you want some source of Bless but .

- Druid does some useful stuff but compared to a Wizard or Bard, it's pretty much nothing. I'm including this here because Druid is generally a class you want when you want a generalist and when you need to clean up a lot of Hard-Deadly encounters. Obviously Shepherd would be more useful but as it stands, it doesn't have any useful damage features or any such. Indeed, as we saw in the fight I'm running, the Ape was more a hindrance than assistance (though admittedly mostly because I played the module straight and started Tiamat up in the air which meant the Ape had precious few options to get in there and it was very hard to cover with Walls).

No, it seriously is. So many RAW arguments, and not just in D&D, basically run under that logic. Painfully so. 'It's not defined, so I'm going to give a definition. The fact that this definition benefits me immensely is a mere coincidence honest!" Yeah, uh huh. Just like every other person who interprets RAW. It's always a coincidence that it just happens to be supporting your argument. Seriously, I don't buy it. I can't see someone arguing in good faith that Tiamat should fit in a Force Cage. Or that you can bisect buildings with Force Wall. Or you can taken short rests to build up an infinite amount of sorcery points.

...or I made this thread because RAW leads to hilarity? You have the cause and the effect totally inverted: it's not that I tried to get some tortured RAW reading to kill Tiamat with Forcecage and posted it here, it's that I noticed that RAW pretty much has to go this way and posted it here because I found it interesting.

I appreciate the suggestion, but it just defeats the point for me to not actually roll something out when the purpose is to see what's happening and as long as you're playing there will always be a DM or player. Otherwise you will end up DMing yourself, which opens up bias as factor when the simulation is intended to prove something.

It's hard to argue for the impartiality of any party in a discussion like this. A neutral DM and someone to run the monster would be optimal but would of course would involve a third party and it's hard to find a neutral party who's interested in the whole affair in the first place. And of course, any given run is always open to random chance: you get more generally applicable data by solving it rather than by rolling it out (but of course, rolling it out can reveal things that might get overlooked otherwise so there's value to doing both, hence why I'm rolling it out right now).

Forum Explorer

2021-05-06, 03:35 PM

...or I made this thread because RAW leads to hilarity? You have the cause and the effect totally inverted: it's not that I tried to get some tortured RAW reading to kill Tiamat with Forcecage and posted it here, it's that I noticed that RAW pretty much has to go this way and posted it here because I found it interesting.

Considering how invested you are into the idea that Tiamat would fit in a force cage by RAW, I don't believe that you are doing this because you found the interaction amusing and decided to share it.

Valmark

2021-05-06, 03:36 PM

No, it seriously is. So many RAW arguments, and not just in D&D, basically run under that logic. Painfully so. 'It's not defined, so I'm going to give a definition. The fact that this definition benefits me immensely is a mere coincidence honest!" Yeah, uh huh. Just like every other person who interprets RAW. It's always a coincidence that it just happens to be supporting your argument. Seriously, I don't buy it. I can't see someone arguing in good faith that Tiamat should fit in a Force Cage. Or that you can bisect buildings with Force Wall. Or you can taken short rests to build up an infinite amount of sorcery points.

Is this circular reasoning? Not sure that's the correct term, never used it. Basically it's obvious that a ruling will benefit the ruler's side of the discussion- they wouldn't argue something they think it's wrong.

If I think that a rose is red I'm not going to argue that it's blue, am I?

JNAProductions

2021-05-06, 03:38 PM

Dork_Forge

2021-05-06, 03:43 PM

Wow, so this is a custom build? In this case the party I made is specifically just a generically strong party, one I'd be happy to play in in basically any campaign, particularly if it were challenging. And if we were building a strong party, we'd probably end up building something of the sort with the other players. As it happens, it's a pretty poor party for this fight:

- Cleric is really kinda anemic, especially with the Core-only stipulation (Cleric loses much of its luster due to that). It doesn't have any offensive spells aside from that single 7th level slot (and they're hard to deliver to a flying enemy with their short range) and it lacks any Walls and any vision denial (aka. the useful forms of defense). Currently their only function is giving the party Heroes' Feast, Aid and Death Ward (which isn't available to other classes in Core only) followed by Bless, useful things but Heroes' Feast could be cast by the Druid or even just a Bard taking it, and the other buffs are replacable (obviously you want some source of Bless but .

- Druid does some useful stuff but compared to a Wizard or Bard, it's pretty much nothing. I'm including this here because Druid is generally a class you want when you want a generalist and when you need to clean up a lot of Hard-Deadly encounters. Obviously Shepherd would be more useful but as it stands, it doesn't have any useful damage features or any such. Indeed, as we saw in the fight I'm running, the Ape was more a hindrance than assistance (though admittedly mostly because I played the module straight and started Tiamat up in the air which meant the Ape had precious few options to get in there and it was very hard to cover with Walls).

Hmm

https://i.ibb.co/jR4sWH0/received-323093999148340.webp

https://i.ibb.co/Cs2nfxJ/received-432822164364948.webp

You should really phrase that: "especially given my choice to only use the PHB"

...or I made this thread because RAW leads to hilarity? You have the cause and the effect totally inverted: it's not that I tried to get some tortured RAW reading to kill Tiamat with Forcecage and posted it here, it's that I noticed that RAW pretty much has to go this way and posted it here because I found it interesting.

The sheer number of people that have disagreed with you in this thread shows that RAW does not clearly go there.

It's hard to argue for the impartiality of any party in a discussion like this. A neutral DM and someone to run the monster would be optimal but would of course would involve a third party and it's hard to find a neutral party who's interested in the whole affair in the first place. And of course, any given run is always open to random chance: you get more generally applicable data by solving it rather than by rolling it out (but of course, rolling it out can reveal things that might get overlooked otherwise so there's value to doing both, hence why I'm rolling it out right now).

Yes finding true impartiality is hard.

Yes there is value in rolling.

Forum Explorer

2021-05-06, 03:53 PM

Is this circular reasoning? Not sure that's the correct term, never used it. Basically it's obvious that a ruling will benefit the ruler's side of the discussion- they wouldn't argue something they think it's wrong.

If I think that a rose is red I'm not going to argue that it's blue, am I?

It isn't the right term. Circular reasoning is where your premise is the proof.

Yes, it is obvious that they would argue for a ruling that benefits them, but they totally would argue something that they think is wrong or at least, not RAW, if the interpretation benefits them. People do that all the time.

Chaos Jackal

2021-05-06, 03:58 PM

Nobody benefits from Tiamat or the tarrasque or something fitting in a forcecage though. Nobody "wins" because Tiamat's unspecified actual size allows for a size interpretation that makes her autolose to a 7th-level spell with no cost other than 1500gp, unless someone is that eager for their final boss of the game to be a complete cakewalk.

That's the thread's entire point. It's not beneficial to have a reading like that. It's sad. It's a shame. It shouldn't be thus.

Eldariel

2021-05-06, 03:58 PM

Considering how invested you are into the idea that Tiamat would fit in a force cage by RAW, I don't believe that you are doing this because you found the interaction amusing and decided to share it.

You're of course free to believe what you want, but that is not the case and I'm sorry if I've lead you to believe I'd live or die by Tiamat's size. I'm saying by RAW that's the case because I believe that to be the RAW but I'm not invested in it as such that I'd ever actually use it in that way in an actual game (as I would never use Tiamat's statblock in general). Indeed, if I ever ran the creature in a proper campaign myself, obviously it would be bigger and it would have cooler abilities and powers. But what I play and what the books say are two different things and this thread is about what the books say, not about what I play.

Nobody benefits from Tiamat or the tarrasque or something fitting in a forcecage though. Nobody "wins" because Tiamat's unspecified actual size allows for a size interpretation that makes her autolose to a 7th-level spell with no cost other than 1500gp, unless someone is that eager for their final boss of the game to be a complete cakewalk.

That's the thread's entire point. It's not beneficial to have a reading like that. It's sad. It's a shame. It shouldn't be thus.

Thank you. Frankly, all the ill will getting attributed to my goals and intentions is reaching absurd proportions when I wanted to discuss something stupid/hilarious (depending on your perspective) in a book. Perhaps it's my 339 background or something but I'm used to discussing game objects as such and having theoretical discussions without any assumptions that anyone would actually play as such.

PhoenixPhyre

2021-05-06, 04:02 PM

It isn't the right term. Circular reasoning is where your premise is the proof.

Yes, it is obvious that they would argue for a ruling that benefits them, but they totally would argue something that they think is wrong or at least, not RAW, if the interpretation benefits them. People do that all the time.

And honesty would compel someone to argue for a position that they think is both right and disadvantageous to them. It's called an "argument against interest" and is generally considered pretty persuasive.

Of course that's really hard to do reliably, human nature being what it is.

MaxWilson

2021-05-06, 04:36 PM

And honesty would compel someone to argue for a position that they think is both right and disadvantageous to them. It's called an "argument against interest" and is generally considered pretty persuasive.

Of course that's really hard to do reliably, human nature being what it is.

What is "disadvantageous" to a DM? Eldariel is arguing that Tiamat's stat block is ludicrously weak, and he would never use it as written. Is that arguing against interest (because Eldariel could hypothetically be a player someday who faces a much stronger Tiamat), which adds extra credibility to Eldariel's argument?

I honestly don't think argument against interest makes much sense to talk about, in a design discussion amongst DMs.

Dork_Forge

2021-05-06, 04:40 PM

What is "disadvantageous" to a DM? Eldariel is arguing that Tiamat's stat block is ludicrously weak, and he would never use it as written. Is that arguing against interest (because Eldariel could hypothetically be a player someday who faces a much stronger Tiamat), which adds extra credibility to Eldariel's argument?

I honestly don't think argument against interest makes much sense to talk about, in a design discussion amongst DMs.

I understand where you're coming from, but I believe disadvantageous in the context given is purely going with something that contradicts your own stance or held belief, rather than gaining literal benefit from it within a gaming sense.

Forum Explorer

2021-05-06, 04:49 PM

What is "disadvantageous" to a DM? Eldariel is arguing that Tiamat's stat block is ludicrously weak, and he would never use it as written. Is that arguing against interest (because Eldariel could hypothetically be a player someday who faces a much stronger Tiamat), which adds extra credibility to Eldariel's argument?

I honestly don't think argument against interest makes much sense to talk about, in a design discussion amongst DMs.

In this case, I'd say it is more a desire to be right. Eldariel says Tiamat is too weak for such and such reason and is invested in that opinion. Anything that goes against that opinion is argued against.

I don't think it is possible to argue against interest here, for anybody. After all, any agreement here will just give you the joy of being right. There is no objective interest to be had.

PhoenixPhyre

2021-05-06, 06:41 PM

I understand where you're coming from, but I believe disadvantageous in the context given is purely going with something that contradicts your own stance or held belief, rather than gaining literal benefit from it within a gaming sense.

Exactly. "Your own interest" in an internet discussion, most of the time (myself very much included), is in being right (or at least not being wrong) and having the rule-interpretation match your own normative beliefs about what the rule should be. So something like

I believe the best reading of the text is XYZ. I hate that, because I really want it to be ABC. But it's XYZ as far as I can tell

is an argument against interest in that context. Basically, any honest interpretive method[1] should return results you don't personally like at least some notable fraction of the time. If you're always finding that your interpretive methods only return results you're pleased with, if it always matches your preconceptions, you've probably fallen prey to a form of cognitive bias and should check your thought process for biases.

[1] and yes, "RAW" as that term is used on the forums is very much an interpretive method. There is no meaning without interpretation. This is not post-modernism--there are meanings that cannot be gotten from honest interpretations of text, so it's not subjective. It's just the plain statement that text must be interpreted by a reader to have meaning. <code>cat rules_text.txt</code> does not provide meaning.

Eldariel

2021-05-06, 11:04 PM

In this case, I'd say it is more a desire to be right. Eldariel says Tiamat is too weak for such and such reason and is invested in that opinion. Anything that goes against that opinion is argued against.

So I'm curious. What has lead you to believe that it be the case that I am arguing a point for my desire to be right? Moreover, what makes you believe that my argument be not sound and in good will? Perhaps the word "chump" is something I should've defined in the start or chosen a different, less loaded term like "weak": I believe our miscommunication with JNAProduction was resolved by defining what I meant or why I used the term. But that alone doesn't account for the amount of ill intent being attributed to me in this thread.

So far, people disagreeing with me have done so on the following grounds:
- "I as a DM would not allow this." My response: Sure, but that's not an assumption being made here in the first place. Nobody is saying you would actually DM it RAW, but discussing what's in the book.
- "Even with Forcecage she's a tough fight." My response: This is a position I simply can't understand. Is shooting a fish in a barrel a challenge? I completely reject this position, on the grounds that killing an enemy who can't fight back isn't very impressive nor much of a challenge. Sure, she has lots of immunities, high AC and regeneration. It's not trivial. But if you put your back to it, I posit that most level 14 parties should be able to do it.
- "It's not RAW that Tiamat is 20'/20'." My response: So what is RAW? RAW assumes no DM just the rules as written, so "DM call" isn't a valid answer. I don't see any other valid answers so if every other answer is wrong, it has to be the right answer or at least the least wrong answer if there are no other answers and this one is inconclusive.

Now, I haven't found these positions very convincing. Is it due to my bias in this? I think not, I don't think they're logically sound. Am I protecting my ego? Maybe on a subconscious level, but on a conscious level I have absolutely no problem with being wrong. However, I do not have a reason to believe so until a solid counterexample from the rules text somewhere comes up, which doesn't seem to exist within 5e paradigm (given how much we've mulled over this point). All the counterexamples have been backported from earlier editions, which makes them irrelevant WRT 5e RAW.

Curiously, I have received straight-up angry comments for this and much of the logic behind many of the counterarguments seems to have been clouded by emotion - in many cases, people have expressed exasperation or straight-up anger at the idea of Tiamat's statblock being weak, or that's how I've read it. This leads me to believe that I'm less likely to be the illogical one here: arguments made while emotionally invested in something are more likely to be biased than ones made when emotionally neutral. Of course, it's possible for both parties to be biased, but in the light of the evidence here I see no reason to believe that to be the case.

Then there's the aside of "But what if she didn't fit into a Forcecage?", which I found intriguing and which I'm exploring right now. That was the point of our test with DF and that is indeed something I'm not certain about, though it seems to me like a strong level 14 party can still do it (but there's of course some variance though with the amount of rolls the fight inevitably takes, not that much I don't think). I think it's a suitably challenging endboss fight for a level 14 party without Forcecage: I'd peck it at like CR 24-26. A bit over the daily XP budget but certainly not 3 times that.

As an aside, this hasn't been at all wasted. I learnt that there's boons to high level Valor Bard: while it's rare to get to play on level 14, Battle Magic is actually pretty darn useful in conjunction with ranged weapons and Dimension Door, especially with a good buff spell and Haste. It isn't as strong as just full attacking of course, but it's way better than just DD and do nothing. It might actually be that the Valor Bard in this encounter is performing better than the equivalent Swords Bard would have as a consequence in spite of me bewoeing the lack of Swords Bard in the first case (I would still pick Swords over Valor for all the levels up until level 14 but it's worth noting that level 14 Valor has few nice tricks). And of course, it seems like the best use for Inspiration in this case is hit boosting in conjunction with Sharpshooter, which makes Swords Bard less impressive since the whole point is the action economy being freed up to use the Bonus Action with Hand Crossbow and Crossbow Expert.

Also, I did learn that core only Cleric and Druid just are pretty darn bad at ranged combat especially if Conjure Woodland Beings is random or doesn't get you what you want (I didn't end up using it at all since I came to the conclusion that the likelihood of being given something useful was too small to bother with in the case where DM appears to dislike the spell in the first place). That's something I knew already but it bears highlighting.

You know, I'm editing this into the OP. Perhaps at least something of value can come out of this.

PhoenixPhyre

2021-05-06, 11:47 PM

RAW by itself isn't a game at all. Without a DM, the game is null. The rules were never intended to stand on their own. None of the content has meaning except in the context of a game at a real table. By explicit intent of the developers.

The game rules are just a toolkit for DMs and players to bring their own games to life. They have no meaning outside of that.

Saying she fits in a 20x20 cube is just as much a DM choice as saying otherwise.

Eldariel

2021-05-06, 11:55 PM

PhoenixPhyre

2021-05-07, 12:11 AM

Nevertheless, it's quite interesting to discuss about. Discussion isn't a game either but that doesn't stop it from being an object of interest with features of its own.

But it means that it's all opinion. So yes, if you make all the choices that make Tiamat weak, she's weak. And the other way around, too. So in the end, all that has been determined is that tautologies are tautologies. It's proof by definition. Nothing about Tiamat or the rules is learned, only that base assumptions are controlling. Yay.

So I disagree. Taking about RAW in the absence of any real scenario with defined assumptions not chosen by the discussants is utterly pointless. Sound and fury, signifying nothing, as the quote goes.

Eldariel

2021-05-07, 12:34 AM

But it means that it's all opinion. So yes, if you make all the choices that make Tiamat weak, she's weak. And the other way around, too. So in the end, all that has been determined is that tautologies are tautologies. It's proof by definition. Nothing about Tiamat or the rules is learned, only that base assumptions are controlling. Yay.

So I disagree. Taking about RAW in the absence of any real scenario with defined assumptions not chosen by the discussants is utterly pointless. Sound and fury, signifying nothing, as the quote goes.

There's more of a definition for point A (her size being 20'/20') than anything else. In the absence of anything else, that's not a bad base to go off. Further, if her ability to survive a single level 7 spell hinges on her size being something specific and bigger than the baseline given, I don't think that speaks highly of her strength. A divine being should definitely have more options to deal with stuff like that, whether in a human or a draconic form of whatever size. If making her a 20'/20' makes her weak and the rules say she could very well be 20'/20', then she is weak even if you make her something else. But I digress, this is of course a discussion we'll never reach an agreement on since you're as firmly entrenched in your position as I am in mine. Thank you for the sparring though.

EDIT: Even the strongest counterargument can't deny that she could be 20'/20' in this edition. The fact that she could be something else is pretty irrelevant. As such, that's something you'll have to account for when analysing her by RAW regardless of what size you would make her personally.

MaxWilson

2021-05-07, 01:55 AM

EDIT: Even the strongest counterargument can't deny that she could be 20'/20' in this edition. The fact that she could be something else is pretty irrelevant. As such, that's something you'll have to account for when analysing her by RAW regardless of what size you would make her personally.

I mean, that's true, but doesn't everyone pretty much realize at this point that that leads straight to her dying ugly and alone?

IMO the more interesting discussion is the other branch: assume Tiamat is pretty large, on the order of 100 to 200 yards long. Is that enough to make her as scary as Cthulhu? IMO no.

Eldariel

2021-05-07, 02:04 AM

I mean, that's true, but doesn't everyone pretty much realize at this point that that leads straight to her dying ugly and alone?

IMO the more interesting discussion is the other branch: assume Tiamat is pretty large, on the order of 100 to 200 yards long. Is that enough to make her as scary as Cthulhu? IMO no.

I agree, but there seem to be people who don't believe that to be the case for reasons I cannot fathom. I didn't make her that big for my test but big enough (about as big as she can be given the environment). Her exact size matters less than her movement speed and her reach (given her written reach of 20', it obviously doesn't make very much sense for her to be incredibly big without also adjusting her reach and range...and her breath weapons begin to feel pretty anemic if she's four+ times as big as her longest breath). And when you're adjusting her reach and range, you're actually altering the statblock and buffing her directly. And of course, size is far from an advantage at many points: at realistic, massivee size she simply can't fit most places and most of her attacks are against cover, it's easy to disadvantage her, you can attack her from basically anywhere without problem or penalties, etc.

Kane0

2021-05-07, 02:20 AM

So we’re all in agreement that Forcecage is a bad spell, yeah?

Forum Explorer

2021-05-07, 03:07 AM

So I'm curious. What has lead you to believe that it be the case that I am arguing a point for my desire to be right? Moreover, what makes you believe that my argument be not sound and in good will? Perhaps the word "chump" is something I should've defined in the start or chosen a different, less loaded term like "weak": I believe our miscommunication with JNAProduction was resolved by defining what I meant or why I used the term. But that alone doesn't account for the amount of ill intent being attributed to me in this thread.

Because we are five pages in and you are still a very active participant in this thread. You've put a lot of effort into proving your point, to the point where you have both participating in and are running mock battles against Tiamat. You clearly care about this subject. As winning this argument is ultimately pointless as none of us are running the module right now, nor do any of us work for Wizards of the Coast and have even the smallest chance of actually editing Tiamat's statline, the only motive I can see for continuing to post is personal satisfaction.

Also because you came back with the insistence that Tiamat fitting in a force cage was RAW, makes me think it is more about being right than anything else.

To be clear, I don't think there is anything wrong or negative about arguing for your own satisfaction. It is a good mental exercise in my opinion and you end up learning things you might not have known before. But it does colour all of your arguments with a bias.

Though to be fair, I immediately lose a fair bit of...oh I don't know what the word is. But basically, I find calling something RAW to be rather pointless. What the DM actually would rule is much more important and relevant. So if the consensus seems to be that Tiamat would be too big for a forcecage, continuing to try to hold up RAW as a situation where she would fit is just a waste of time. Pretty much no one actually plays by pure RAW with no interpretations. It's almost impossible to actually do so simply because words can mean different things and the rulebook isn't written by lawyers.

So if you feel like I am attributing ill intent to you, then it is likely because of that.

Eldariel

2021-05-07, 03:23 AM

Because we are five pages in and you are still a very active participant in this thread. You've put a lot of effort into proving your point, to the point where you have both participating in and are running mock battles against Tiamat. You clearly care about this subject. As winning this argument is ultimately pointless as none of us are running the module right now, nor do any of us work for Wizards of the Coast and have even the smallest chance of actually editing Tiamat's statline, the only motive I can see for continuing to post is personal satisfaction.

That battle is a hyperbole that has little to do with the original point though. Incidentally, it's also the main point that keeps me engaged in this discussion. It is an interesting hyperbole, as we discussed with Max, interesting enough that I wanted to test it out. Someone (I think it was PhoenixPhyre?) said that Tiamat was built when PHB wasn't released yet and thus latter power creep shouldn't be accounted for, which is fair enough. Someone else (I think it was Dork_Forge?) said that magic items aren't accounted for in CR, which is also fair enough. Then someone (I don't remember who) made the claim that it isn't possible for an organic level 14 party to take down Tiamat that doesn't fit in a Forcecage. These stipulations add up to a challenge that's pretty far removed from the original, but it also sounds non-obvious so it's worth testing out whether it can be done, and how much it requires (at the present it looks like "all the resources of a strong non-specifically built level 14 party suffice, but it is a rough fight"). I might be interested in running more of these in the future for different creatures (I'm thinking the Demon Lords) just to stress test the system a bit and see where the power level of the various creatures in combat lies when accounting for high-powered parties.

But the original question? I'm not terribly invested in it, though I'm still of course responding to everything that concerns me (as opposed to the point itself) and in the side, rehearse what's come up whenever old points get repeated (which tends to happen with some frequency here: not terribly efficient but perhaps somebody gets something out of it). For most of this thread (and the last one this spawned from) my interest was in seeing whether there actually was a counterexample or something that would further define sizes buried somewhere in the rules but it seems to me like that would've come up by now if that existed, so that point doesn't feel important to me anymore.

This actually opens up the broader hyperbole of why I (or anyone) might be participating in forum discussions in the first place. Part of it is of course social belonging of sorts, even though people might not realise it. Certainly an important contributor to the popularity of forums, social media, etc. and a powerful subconscious motivator. Another one is, at least in my case, the desire to gain and give knowledge. That is to say, in threads like these I'm looking to test ideas with others and see if others can see something I don't on whether something that feels like it oughtn't work works. On the other hand, I also try to offer similar information to others; that is, to increase the amount of knowledge in the whole forum population (and perhaps to even create something of use to others) and perhaps to even produce some useful collections of information for future use, increasing the knowledge base of the forum (of course, this being the goal doesn't mean it always pans out that way). Which of course has both social and intrinsic motivations: it's as much about gaining attention and respect (or infamy, just as good) as it is about the enlightenment-aspects (both, self-improvement and helping others learn more). One important motivator behind the "learning"-part is probably the kind of mathematical mindset that sees system as a matrix of information where I want the ability to solve given aspects, gaining satisfaction out of the act of solving complex problems within a framework.

Jakinbandw

2021-05-07, 08:37 AM

EDIT: Even the strongest counterargument can't deny that she could be 20'/20' in this edition. The fact that she could be something else is pretty irrelevant. As such, that's something you'll have to account for when analysing her by RAW regardless of what size you would make her personally.

I can easily deny it. Her statblock comes from a module that depicts her on its cover. The cover is part of the scenario and thus needs to be accounted for. For this to be run truly RAW one would only need to work out her size from the picture on the front of the book. That said, it's clear that she is larger than a force cage.

Pictures are used in rules throughout the game so when we have an actual picture showing scale we can't ignore it, as doing so breaks raw as it ignores the rules.

DrLoveMonkey

2021-05-07, 08:59 AM

Wow, so this is a custom build?

I mean, yes, you did just build the whole thing yourself. My last two parties were:

Evo wizard
Berserker barb
Ancients paladin
Horizon Walker ranger

And

Thief rogue
Dragon Sorcerer
Bladelock
Samurai fighter

I don’t think either of those would have a good time against a full strength Tiamat at level 14.

PhoenixPhyre

2021-05-07, 09:50 AM

There's more of a definition for point A (her size being 20'/20') than anything else. In the absence of anything else, that's not a bad base to go off. Further, if her ability to survive a single level 7 spell hinges on her size being something specific and bigger than the baseline given, I don't think that speaks highly of her strength. A divine being should definitely have more options to deal with stuff like that, whether in a human or a draconic form of whatever size. If making her a 20'/20' makes her weak and the rules say she could very well be 20'/20', then she is weak even if you make her something else. But I digress, this is of course a discussion we'll never reach an agreement on since you're as firmly entrenched in your position as I am in mine. Thank you for the sparring though.

EDIT: Even the strongest counterargument can't deny that she could be 20'/20' in this edition. The fact that she could be something else is pretty irrelevant. As such, that's something you'll have to account for when analysing her by RAW regardless of what size you would make her personally.

There isn't more evidence for 20x20. Because that's here size category which only and exclusively refers to area controlled. Not longest dimension, not volume, not physical size. And forcecage (to repeat a point you've studiously ignored) only cares about the latter. Physical size. Which is (for her) only defined through context. Heck, any listed dimension for physical size would be wrong--the answer to the question "does she fit in a force cage" and the answer to the question "what is her largest dimension" aren't necessarily the same. She might fit if she's curled up into a minimum-size ball, while if she's stretched out she wouldn't fit. A fire giant is (slightly) under 20' tall, so he fits, right? But what if he's raising his hand? Or is tall for a fire giant? A storm giant is roughly 26' tall, so he doesn't fit, right? What if he's sitting down?

Therefore, the answer to "does she fit in a forcecage" can only be "ask your DM". It's not something RAW at all.

And analyzing anything by RAW is utterly pointless. Because the DM is a critical moving part of the game, without which the game does not exist. It'd be like analyzing a video game by looking at the content of the AI scripts and the art assets without the actual game engine involved.

Eldariel

2021-05-07, 09:55 AM

I mean, yes, you did just build the whole thing yourself. My last two parties were:

Evo wizard
Berserker barb
Ancients paladin
Horizon Walker ranger

And

Thief rogue
Dragon Sorcerer
Bladelock
Samurai fighter

I don’t think either of those would have a good time against a full strength Tiamat at level 14.

Yup, but neither of those is a particularly strong party either. Indeed, both have about a half of characters in weak or average classes and very few truly powerful options and the builds are likely not very optimised either. So those are simply not optimised. Which is fine as a baseline but at no point has the claim been made that a weak, random or even "average" level 14 party could beat it; just that a strong one could, disqualifying both. It's possible for a party to be organic and optimised, organic and unoptimised, specially built and optimised or specially build and unoptimised. That is to say, organichood and optimisation are not on the same axis - they're independent and of course depend on table style and player system mastery.

Though if we're talking about the original point of the thread in Forcecaging Tiamat, both parties (depending on magic items, spell selection, etc.) probably would have a reasonable shot at being able to kill her using it but without it, I agree that they would probably go down pretty easily. But that just speaks for the amount of spread in power in this game (and especially on this level); most high CR threats would probably wipe the floor with those parties and that isn't a feature of said threats but just the parties not having that strong of a set of options for combat.

MaxWilson

2021-05-07, 10:32 AM

I agree, but there seem to be people who don't believe that to be the case for reasons I cannot fathom. I didn't make her that big for my test but big enough (about as big as she can be given the environment). Her exact size matters less than her movement speed and her reach (given her written reach of 20', it obviously doesn't make very much sense for her to be incredibly big without also adjusting her reach and range...and her breath weapons begin to feel pretty anemic if she's four+ times as big as her longest breath). And when you're adjusting her reach and range, you're actually altering the statblock and buffing her directly. And of course, size is far from an advantage at many points: at realistic, massivee size she simply can't fit most places and most of her attacks are against cover, it's easy to disadvantage her, you can attack her from basically anywhere without problem or penalties, etc.

Excellent points about reach, etc. You're correct that that implies a relatively small Tiamat still. I didn't check to see how large you made her but I'm guessing something on the order of maybe 50' long by 40' wide?

Eldariel

2021-05-07, 10:40 AM

Excellent points about reach, etc. You're correct that that implies a relatively small Tiamat still. I didn't check to see how large you made her but I'm guessing something on the order of maybe 50' long by 40' wide?

For simplicity I kept her size square and made her 50'/50' with 20' reach and the usual 90'/120' breath weapon. 40'/40' would've probably been fine too, but might as well make her a bit more impressive. That feels about consistent: about the size of the Tarrasque with similar reach (Tarrasque is stated to be 50' tall and 70' long). It also fits the environment where she's being summoned so that also adds up (though of course, any smaller size works too - but bigger sizes begin to have trouble with her fitting there as the levels are only 50' high - even 50'/50' is pushing it as it basically means if she's 50' tall she has to land to pass to the chapels, though I've handwaved that in my test by making level 1 60' high instead).

Dork_Forge

2021-05-07, 04:05 PM

langal

2021-05-07, 05:20 PM

An amusing thought occurred to me about the various ways Tiamat could actually choose to handle a fight including the following:

-If a party cannot fly or effect her from extreme range, there's nothing stopping her from just ascending and taking a breather most of the time, in battles of attrition the party with Regeneration is the one with the edge

-She could literally body slam entire parties, simply fall (both her and the characters taking fall damage), with her then dodging and flying back up 60ft, positioned to breathe

Totally right. I haven't read this whole thread but one can't white room Tiamat in some enclosed space where a wall of stone would essentially end the fight. She can fly and is smarter than any of the PCs. While I wouldn't quite metagame her actions it would be pretty close to that. She can just hover and breathe right?

Dork_Forge

2021-05-07, 06:38 PM

MaxWilson

2021-05-07, 06:58 PM

Totally right. I haven't read this whole thread but one can't white room Tiamat in some enclosed space where a wall of stone would essentially end the fight. She can fly and is smarter than any of the PCs. While I wouldn't quite metagame her actions it would be pretty close to that. She can just hover and breathe right?

Well, the problem though is that when you have limited options, sometimes all Intelligence can let you do is calculate your rapidly-worsening odds of escape. If Tiamat had Teleport or something, her high Int would make her an absolute strategic monster. As it stands... if a cabal of four archmages decided to take out Tiamat, there is relatively little she could do about it. The problem with the module is that a cabal of archmages and dragons does decide to take out Tiamat, but it's an adventure path so somehow the PCs wind up becoming central to the effort, and those archmages and dragons basically don't do anything--they don't even Simulacrum the PCs out of courtesy to double their DPR, how rude!

PattThe

2021-05-07, 09:05 PM

Well, the problem though is that when you have limited options, sometimes all Intelligence can let you do is calculate your rapidly-worsening odds of escape. If Tiamat had Teleport or something, her high Int would make her an absolute strategic monster. As it stands... if a cabal of four archmages decided to take out Tiamat, there is relatively little she could do about it. The problem with the module is that a cabal of archmages and dragons does decide to take out Tiamat, but it's an adventure path so somehow the PCs wind up becoming central to the effort, and those archmages and dragons basically don't do anything--they don't even Simulacrum the PCs out of courtesy to double their DPR, how rude!

Maybe in-world her 28 charisma and unheard of (for 5e) 240ft Frightening Presence is meat to the notion of supposing that your PC's are the only people who don't start crying just looking at her, regardless of whether or not an NPC mage could just give themself a buff spell for the wisdom check. I mean, it's not like anyone in that army is remembering to cast heroism on the actually important people.

On the notion of her charisma, shouldn't that stat (and the five heads to shout from for miles) represent that even if a party got her in a forcecage, she would still be able to call for Dragons and command her forces and taunt the various factions into turning to her side or to charge close enough for her to massacre infront of the party. Or even better, how wise is your Forcecage caster?
Could your caster resist the urge to end the spell early when they see Tiamat reel back, keel over, and fake falling in battle? Or worse, begin baiting the party with very real riches you might be interested in. "Oh you found a flametongue sword how cute, how about you and the five of I get out of this material plane and get you a real blade. Come on, drop the spell and I promise to get you a +5 Holy Avenger Vorpal blade on your birthday."

Eldariel

2021-05-08, 12:18 AM

Maybe in-world her 28 charisma and unheard of (for 5e) 240ft Frightening Presence is meat to the notion of supposing that your PC's are the only people who don't start crying just looking at her, regardless of whether or not an NPC mage could just give themself a buff spell for the wisdom check. I mean, it's not like anyone in that army is remembering to cast heroism on the actually important people.

On the notion of her charisma, shouldn't that stat (and the five heads to shout from for miles) represent that even if a party got her in a forcecage, she would still be able to call for Dragons and command her forces and taunt the various factions into turning to her side or to charge close enough for her to massacre infront of the party. Or even better, how wise is your Forcecage caster?
Could your caster resist the urge to end the spell early when they see Tiamat reel back, keel over, and fake falling in battle? Or worse, begin baiting the party with very real riches you might be interested in. "Oh you found a flametongue sword how cute, how about you and the five of I get out of this material plane and get you a real blade. Come on, drop the spell and I promise to get you a +5 Holy Avenger Vorpal blade on your birthday."

Well, in her apse where nobody can see her except the allies she so cunningly ate and the people killing her, I don't think the chances of her commanding any creatures are very good since said creatures can't probably even hear her (the Temple is pretty big and thick and she lacks long range telepathy of any kind because why would a god be telepathic?) meaning they might not even be aware of her existence or the ritual being completed (plus they're probably busy with the PCs' army of metallic dragons, archmagi and such). And the PCs...well, curiously her only proficiencies are in Arcana, Religion and Perception so she's actually way worse of a persuader than the Bard in my party for example (who has +13 and easy access to Enhance Ability whereas Tiamat has +9 Persuasion: all the presence, but none of the skill) - my example party has two (telepathic) characters with +10 Insight so she'd have to roll really well and both of them would have to roll really poorly for the PCs to fall for it.

I do think that's a good argument for giving her charm/mind altering powers though: this is indeed precisely why I suggested those "Majestic Presence" and "Fearsome Presence"-abilities for her statblock earlier. They would actually encapsulate her being a true divinity with all that entails. One doesn't simply stand up to a deity like to a random Orc. Indeed, I think that's one of the biggest failings of the statblock (well, alongside not even giving her proficiency in any Charisma-skills).

Kane0

2021-05-08, 04:06 AM

Doesnt this ultimately come back to ‘if it has a statblock it can be killed’ ?
Also wasnt this really early on in 5e’s lifespan, with just the core books and relatively little experience amongst the campaign writers? HotDQ didnt even have the MM/DMG to work with IIRC.

Not saying its excusable, but perhaps more understandable to have such a... lacklustre statblock by our standards at this point.

Eldariel

2021-05-08, 06:00 AM

Doesnt this ultimately come back to ‘if it has a statblock it can be killed’ ?

Well, not in this case. The original point is that basically any party with a ranged attacker and the ability to cast Forcecage can defeat her. Which is way easier than "if it has stats, it can be killed". The aside is about a core only not-specifically-built no magic items level 14 party can kill her, which is again way, way more specific. There's a huge difference between level 15 and 14 parties, parties with and without magic items, parties built for a challenge and not built for a challenge.

In this case, I'd argue that Forcecage potentially beating her and a level 14 party having a reasonable shot at defeating her is definitely an argument in favour of not just "she has stats and can this be killed" but her statblock being very weak for what it should be and in need of serious buffs in many ways. It's possible to, especially in a numerically bounded system like 5e, to design statblocks that can't be beat by lower level PCs. Tiamat just isn't it.

Jakinbandw

2021-05-08, 07:23 AM

In this case, I'd argue that Forcecage potentially beating her and a level 14 party having a reasonable shot at defeating her is definitely an argument in favour of not just "she has stats and can this be killed" but her statblock being very weak for what it should be and in need of serious buffs in many ways. It's possible to, especially in a numerically bounded system like 5e, to design statblocks that can't be beat by lower level PCs. Tiamat just isn't it.

You can't forcecage her because she is bigger than 20x20. Look at her on the cover of the book. Are you really ignoring the official art? Saying she can be defeated by forcecage is intentionally misreading the scenario.

Valmark

2021-05-08, 07:52 AM

You can't forcecage her because she is bigger than 20x20. Look at her on the cover of the book. Are you really ignoring the official art? Saying she can be defeated by forcecage is intentionally misreading the scenario.

I mean... The statblock is also ignoring the cover art since her maximum reach in melee is 25 feet only (the tail).

Speaking of which, for what's worth wyrmlings have a maximum reach of 5 feet, youngs have a mr of 10 feet, adults of 15 and ancients of 20 feet (assuming all dragons are like that, I didn't check them all).

With a maximum reach of 25 feet on the tail it's reasonable that she wouldn't fit in a Forcecage just barely, but she's likely not much bigger then what she'd have to be.

EDIT: On a side note I find it very funny that the monster manual talks about Tiamata's "formidable spellcasting"- a level 7 cleric spell three times a day. Formidable.

Eldariel

2021-05-08, 09:28 AM

Well, for those who care I finished the fight between Tiamat and a level 14 party. (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?631082-Tiamat-vs-level-14-party)Tactical blunders did occur as is to be expected. Turn 6 is especially bad: Wizard Simulacrum should've used more resources and dropping Haste in a place without a protective Wall was just bad - lead to the Bard getting straight-up killed with poor roll on Dex save, natural 1 on Cha save and Tiamat rolling 20 points over average on the breath weapon damage - but I figured the party wanted to finish it quickly seeing Tiamat so hurt. But ultimately, burning just about all the big resources (including a Forcecage not to trap the Tiamat but to complete a barrier created by Wall of Force!) the party came out victorious with one Raise Dead off their shoulders after the fight. And the Giant Ape died for good - it was worse than useless here, giving Tiamat conveniently timed Legendary Actions.

Rules mistakes were made (as is to be expected when running this like this): I forgot about Couatl's Leadership ability working after changing shape so I retroactively made it change into Orc War Chief, and I forgot about Tiamat's Magic Resistance so I had her use way too many Legendary Resistances (I retroactively rolled these back, not that they were likely to matter unless she actually ran out opening her up to Plane Shift) and I retroactively Divine Worded the Bard dead since I forgot it's a bonus action.

But ultimately I believe it's about a fair account: Tiamat is a beatable if rough fight for a strong level 14 PHB only no magic items party. It favours the party (and would favour it more if the players didn't make retarded decisions, but the decision trees get rather complex with essentially 5 casters juggling Concentrations and protections and only one character really dealing damage, though Whirlwind did add up to a fair bit too and Cloud of Daggers would have if the Simulacrum hadn't been forced to use Forcecage to prevent Tiamat from getting inside the bubble). Tiamat could've killed the Cleric and probably the Druid too at one point (doesn't really matter, the party has 4 characters capable of casting Raise Dead or similar) but I played it as her trying her best to win the fight: those choices would've gotten her killed much faster.

It's also a huge headache to play 5 relatively complex characters (4 casters + Couatl) and a monster with relevant decision trees at the same time.
What I learned:

- I feel the dice favoured Tiamat a bit. The attacks were landing a bit less than was probable (including that ridiculous triple advantage +2d4 turn with 1 reroll and still 3 misses), she was rolling higher on her breath weapon damage than was probable, etc. E.g. the breath that killed Cleric did so by 2 points of damage and 6 points more than average. The Bard breath did 20 (!!) points more than average with 16 dice which is just ridiculous. But ultimately, it just cost the party basically all of the Wizard Simulacrum's resources. However, while the party had bad luck with some attacks (towards the end it evened out with a total of 3 crits after ~30 attacks with none) they did make all their important saves so this probably wasn't all that impactful.

- Spiritual Weapon just isn't all that good for a fight like this. I kinda knew it but still, the party would've been much better off propping the Cleric to cast like Inflict Wounds with Portent to land it (of course, a 20 on Portent would've made this twice as good). SW was just a waste of time: even the Inspiration needed to land that third hit would've probably been better off on the other Bard.

- Inspiration and Sharpshooter is a really sweet combo. I knew it of course, but I wasn't expecting to get this much out of it against a 25 AC enemy that frequently has the luxury of using Dodge, especially without Archery style.

- Wall positioning...could've been a lot better. It's easy to block her from entering areas at all since she's so big and with two Walls it's easy to make a cover she attack past at all while still being able to attack (and she can't really run from Hasted Bardchers with Sharpshooter due to being so big either). But this was played almost like an open arena except with limited mobility distance for the party - another handicap.

- Battle Magic was surprisingly important. It added up to a lot of attacks over the fight with Dimension Door + Battle Magic and Elemental Weapon VII + Battle Magic (obviously Simulacrums don't spend high value long duration resources as prep since they obviously only use those slots when absolutely necessary).

- Cleric's ranged offensive weakness was highlighted. Mostly she contributed Death Wards and Aids and Heroes' Feast and Conjure Celestial. Which were all huge but she could've been so much more if she had useful attacks (Xanathar's would've given her Holy Weapon and Tasha's Summon Celestial, which would've been iterative improvements). Of course, half of the problem is the fact that she got exposed way earlier than intended due to some poor play and thus instead of being a HP battery just had to protect herself. Couatl was able to pick up the Bless duty though which made this less relevant.

- Druid's too to a degree though Haste and Whirlwind did do a fair bit of job so it's not fair to say he didn't have power but much of it was because the arena forced Tiamat to get hit by Whirlwind again and again. The open arena would've made it harder (in this regard but would've of course made kiting almost trivial: 600' Dimension Doors would've taken Tiamat 3 turns to reach instead of 1 and in an even more open space Druid/Wizard/Wizard/Cleric just cast Haste + Fly IV + Haste + Bless while hanging around in e.g. Forcecage, Bards just Dimension Door out and kite her dead at 260' Fly speed with Haste Dash probably opening up plenty of Haste attacks for one or the other too just DDing back when needing second Haste), Shepherd would've probably done better (no need for Inspiring Leader and damaging summons) and made Tiamat much more wary of coming close. I didn't use Conjure Animals at all since I know how controversial the spell is due to how it can be really strong or really weak depending on how much your DM hates you/the spell.

- After the fight, with a short rest, the party is actually largely fine once the Bard gets picked up. The Cleric heals everyone to half, they get Inspiring Leader THP from the Druid, they still have plenty of Elemental Weapon slots left on the Archers (though the Bard needs Revivify once the Cleric is gotten up), Wizard gets to Arcane Recovery a couple of slots, their long duration spells are still gonna be running, Druid gets to Natural Recovery a couple of slots, etc. Obviously they couldn't take another threat of this calibre but they could take on plenty of CR14 threats still and potentially even a Deadly or two (depending on the exact enemy).

PhoenixPhyre

2021-05-08, 09:30 AM

I mean... The statblock is also ignoring the cover art since her maximum reach in melee is 25 feet only (the tail).

Speaking of which, for what's worth wyrmlings have a maximum reach of 5 feet, youngs have a mr of 10 feet, adults of 15 and ancients of 20 feet (assuming all dragons are like that, I didn't check them all).

With a maximum reach of 25 feet on the tail it's reasonable that she wouldn't fit in a Forcecage just barely, but she's likely not much bigger then what she'd have to be.

EDIT: On a side note I find it very funny that the monster manual talks about Tiamata's "formidable spellcasting"- a level 7 cleric spell three times a day. Formidable.

Reach starts at the edge of your space, not the center. So a reach of 25 feet on a 50x50 body (numbers chosen arbitrarily) is different than 25 foot reach on a 5x5 body.

A tail reach of 25' means her tail can hit something 25' from her square area of control. Which suggests she's bigger than 20', since her body isn't less than 5 ft. An estimate of her total length would be tail reach + bite reach + x (body size, which is unknown but not zero).

BerzerkerUnit

2021-05-08, 10:24 AM

Reach starts at the edge of your space, not the center. So a reach of 25 feet on a 50x50 body (numbers chosen arbitrarily) is different than 25 foot reach on a 5x5 body.

A tail reach of 25' means her tail can hit something 25' from her square area of control. Which suggests she's bigger than 20', since her body isn't less than 5 ft. An estimate of her total length would be tail reach + bite reach + x (body size, which is unknown but not zero).

I'm starting to this a creature's space is intended to be just the area a similarly sized creature can't reasonably move into or through because too much of it is occupied by the creature's body.

Since an Ogre can walk through tiamat's space (or she can step over one, I can't remember if the rule works both ways), we know from the description and art she's a broad torso'd wyvern type, I think it's fair to assume her legs probably keep her about 10 feet off the ground, her back could rise a foot or 2 into the 25 foot block above but not enough to prevent a cloud giant from flying through it that close. Width of the body would be expanded to accommodate 5 necks and heads of gargantuan dragons, so she's probably at least 15 across (assuming a kind of
"olympic rings" orientation for neck arrangement) before shoulders and hips which could add another 5 on either side.

Obviously her heads are swinging much farther above and around, same for tail and wings. Since all of those elements are probably in perpetual motion to counterbalance each other so she remains bipedal and upright, that might explain why she was only given a 20ft block. You can't count on the heads, tail, or wings to stay in one place long enough to obstuct a creature's movement significantly.

My personal belief about her size though is that Grid combat wasn't considered a core assumption for this edition (to distance it from 4th) and that size categories were going to be considered more fluid (to distance it from 3rd) and Gargantuan was going to be "anything too big to really interact with normally" Leading to rules in the DMG written for fights with exceptionally large creatures you climbed onto. But by the time those were published the community had already codified Gargantuan is 20x20 even though literally every Giant description makes it clear they are all nearly 20 feet tall and every huge creature's reach indicates they are taller or longer than their statblock.

Forcecage isn't a bad spell, it's just not written with the "natural language" approach a lot of the rest of 5e was. If they instead said "This spell creates a cage that traps 1 Gargantuan or smaller creature or creates a cage 20ft on a side, its application would be obvious, the Tarrasque could be bound and we'd call it a day. But its very clear the cage is supposed to be limited to 20 feet on a side and the the rest of the rules regarding size and reach make it clear, that's probably not going to be big enough.

I've maintained that an organically built party that comes into this encounter as is will probably fail, even with Forcecage as an option. An organically built party that plans to face tiamat at full power can probably win, but there would have to be some shenanigans (simulacrum for another concentration buff or an extra days worth of healing, etc).

Chaos Jackal

2021-05-08, 11:33 AM

snip

Do you think that, in a PHB-only environment, the Cleric is replaceable? The long-term buffs are excellent, of course, but like you noted once the fight actually started they didn't get to do much.

Also, it was early on in the fight, but I gotta say, I expected the breaths not fully damaging the wall of stone to be a more important point of contention. Turns out it doesn't matter too much though.

As a supporter of Tiamat's statblock being disappointing, I admit, it turned out to be harder than I imagined. Of course, like you yourself noted, the restrictions are quite many. The expanded spell lists for all the classes could've made a massive difference here, and stuff like Bladesinger could potentially achieve a lot more than Valor (though I'll say, the bard did turn out better than I thought).

Thanks for taking the time to run this.

MaxWilson

2021-05-08, 12:03 PM

Well, for those who care I finished the fight between Tiamat and a level 14 party. (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?631082-Tiamat-vs-level-14-party)

I may have missed something, but I was surprised to see so many rounds of Tiamat fighting at half health. What prevented her from backing off (Dashing away) for sixth seconds or so to regenerate back to full health? Why did she kamikaze herself to death?

Eldariel

2021-05-08, 12:43 PM

Do you think that, in a PHB-only environment, the Cleric is replaceable? The long-term buffs are excellent, of course, but like you noted once the fight actually started they didn't get to do much.

Also, it was early on in the fight, but I gotta say, I expected the breaths not fully damaging the wall of stone to be a more important point of contention. Turns out it doesn't matter too much though.

As a supporter of Tiamat's statblock being disappointing, I admit, it turned out to be harder than I imagined. Of course, like you yourself noted, the restrictions are quite many. The expanded spell lists for all the classes could've made a massive difference here, and stuff like Bladesinger could potentially achieve a lot more than Valor (though I'll say, the bard did turn out better than I thought).

Thanks for taking the time to run this.

Well, if we do a quick list of stipulations favouring Tiamat that would not apply to real game here:
- Real game would not feature starting distances of 60' for a fight like this [we're taking the minimum level from the adventure but then ignoring all the advantages the party can get and the free 10 rounds of prep they get if they do let Tiamat through without contest - it has nothing to do with the original context at that point; imagine Blesses and Leaderships and Hastes and such were up by the time Tiamat appeared and she appeared like 150' in the air without the ability to LA breathe before moving, it'd have been a massacre]
- Real game would not have a level 14 party without Magic Items (martial classes would be SCREWED otherwise)
- Real game would have Magic Jar accessible
- Real game would probably not be core only

Further, Initiative was quite unlucky (optimal would be Force waller > Buffers > Attackers but we got Stone waller > Attacker > Buffer > Attacker > Buffer) and this highlighted much of what I hate about 5e Initiative and Legendary Actions: Tiamat breaths not being Actions not her having meaningful Reactions really screwed her over. She doesn't even have a chance of hitting when the shields are down, no checks or anything (not that her Dex checks would be anything to write home about anyways). And Legendary Actions + no way to delay/skip turns means it can be actively detrimental to have extra allies; the Cleric would've almost certainly been better off staying home. Too much of Initiative is down to the luck of the roll and no tools aside from Portent to fix it. I would never play by RAW Initiative normally. Then there's the whole "Familiars have their own turns, Simulacrums act on others' turn, Summons have their own turn except when they don't"-pile of nonsense confusion too, which interacts particularly poorly with Legendary Actions.

The biggest mistake was dropping Concentration on Haste so poorly. My party tried to finish her off burning resources even though it was risky play and that was the consequence. Could've easily just cast domed Wall of Force (or DDd back to the last one), dropped Haste and taken a turn off (all it would cost is 30 HP of Regen), but I didn't want to do over since there's more margin for error than that. But ya, of course Tiamat can kill a helpless character with no protection over one and a half rounds.

Also, lacking Absorb Elements was of course huge. As was lacking Magic Jar; this meant less Cha for Bards (given how much damage Inspiration added up to making those Sharpshooter attacks hit, this was actually quite huge), less Dex and no real offensive martial ability for Wizards and less HP for Simulacrums.

EDIT: Regarding the level of play
But to be clear, the play here was way below my level due to having to DM and play so many complex characters at once and due to constantly being pressed for time (including having a 3yo frequently "help" me out while playing). If I had only one character to play and 3 other experienced players with decent system mastery to play the others and a DM to the same effect, the play would've been of far higher quality, let alone if I had been able to focus fully on the game and take the time I needed. But the cognitive load of having to manage the whole scenario and all the characters and monsters combined with duress lead to straight-up stupid mistakes.

Further, no acclimation to these characters. I'm pretty confident in the decision paths of the Diviners and the Cleric (aside from the Inflict Wounds/Spiritual Weapon choice), but the decision paths (and prep) of the Druid and the Bards leave a lot to be desired. That's simply because I haven't played these particular characters and certainly not this particular party before so the decision making process is completely unoptimised and I'm not sufficiently familiar with all the relevant tactics and options of these parties to make correct plays under this amount of duress.

In short, my own estimate would be that mechanically I'm generally a fairly solid player. Not a Master by any means, but say I were in the 1900's or low 2000's normally, this play would be closer to 1300's level (someone who knows basic rules and has a basic idea of tactics but generally relies on gimmicks and has little idea of strategy beyond "center is important" in Chess) and that's mostly due to the nature of this exercise. It's simply too much effort for too little gain to strive for tight mechanical play with this amount of complexity for what amounts to proof of concept. It would've taken about 4 times as long had I stopped for a minute or two to think through each character's turn and then played them out and wrote them down and played on the map instead of just trying to think through the whole team's turns at once followed by Tiamat's turn so I'd be here 4 weeks from now with the amount of time I have available for this right now. Especially since I have to switch tactical view between decision-making process for each character.

This goes for both, mechanics (I did forget a lot of things due to the amount of moving parts and the dearth of time to focus) and decision making of course, but mechanics I tried to correct retroactively where I could (and decision-making as far as it was doable without completely changing the course of the game: I went and readded Divine Words and Couatl transformations since they simply added actions where old ones were empty instead of replacing weaker actions with superior ones - turn 1 party positioning [when protecting party with Walls, squeezing is a must; the Wall was way overtaxed which killed the Ape], turn 2-3 party/Wall of Force positioning [these should be as far from the center as possible to make room for Dimension Dooring] and turn 6 Haste dropping/positioning [should never drop Haste without protection for the lethargied character] are massive mistakes costing the party a character each but ones I didn't want to replay them since it'd be just a completely different game at that point).

In short, if the party were played welled, it'd be far cleaner, far less risky, and far fewer resources burnt on average. Probably nobody downed, quite possibly no breath weapons landing, etc. But the Initiative would make a huge difference too of course.

Willowhelm

2021-05-08, 12:47 PM

I have been following this thread since the start but I may have missed someone else posting this.

This is how things played out in a totally different group 6 years ago. I think this is fairly representative of how “normal” players might play?

https://youtu.be/4hSjPNxtYcw

There are plenty of mistakes made throughout. Again I think that is fairly normal.

Eldariel

2021-05-08, 12:57 PM

I may have missed something, but I was surprised to see so many rounds of Tiamat fighting at half health. What prevented her from backing off (Dashing away) for sixth seconds or so to regenerate back to full health? Why did she kamikaze herself to death?

600' attack range and 50'/100' vertical dimension (by the book; I ran it as 60'/120' but didn't make much difference) + size. She's attackable by PCs pretty much regardless of positioning; only compounded by the Bards having Longstrider and Haste on them (and Wizards being able to cast Fly or DD on any free round). Any round of dashing away is thus two free rounds of (probably advantageous due to Major Image) attacking for the PCs. In fact due to PC mobility this goes almost regardless of terrain:her only chance is taking at least one (and it turns out both) of the damage dealers out before escaping.

Portent and Lucky also match up exceptionally well against Dodge (though I didn't utilise Lucky RAW since I wouldn't allow it in my table), meaning Dodge wasn't all that valuable. Indeed, Bless + Leadership does too - getting a lot of bonuses (what amounts to +5 on average with decent average tendency due to two dice means they're rolling for 8 to hit which drops the Disadvantage value significantly) makes disadvantage far less relevant. The Couatl never got to use Fog Cloud to negate Disadvantage due to turn order, actually.

Couatl positioning was one of the biggest problems in Initiative Order: it's a pure buffer/utility creature but its buffs are always one turn late (acting behind the whole party) with the way the Initiative shook out. Which is a pain since it actually moves at 100' so it keeps up with Phantom Steeds just fine and isn't much behind Tiamat either. Acting just behind Tiamat (meaning it has to predict Tiamat's move if it's relevant) is the worst possible place for it and of course, since readied actions screw spellcasters over (taking Concentration meaning you can't ready spells if Concentrating on something without dropping it, and there's no way to drop Initiative instead; that's why there needed to be two Wallers most of the time instead of one), there's no way to fix that by RAW.

Eldariel

2021-05-08, 11:49 PM

Sorry for the doublepost, but I added the missing images to the posts in the combat thread.

Now, updated list of my problems with the Tiamat statblock:

- No reason to use Poison breath pretty much ever. Poison immunity was actually irrelevant since she only gets two breaths per any given turn and she has two higher damage cones that deal less resisted damage types. She doesn't have a way of knowing of it but it didn't even matter.

- Inability to use breaths as an action. This means inability to ready action to use breaths which means they occur at set intervals.

- Inability to move as a Legendary Action.

- Such useless spellcasting. The only use for Divine Word is to bypass deathgate and kill characters outright, which can be valuable but deities are supposedly quite magical (even granting spells to Clerics) so the idea that she could only cast one spell is preposterous.

- Breaths are so uninteresting. They don't damage objects, Cold-breath uses Dex-save for whatever reason (screw consistency, am I right?), let alone having some interesting riders.

- She doesn't have any broad effects on the world or around her. Her greatest AOE is the 240' fear effect. That's piddly squat. Someone is a football field (~410 feet) away? Our mighty god is less able to affect them than a commoner with a Longbow. Let alone actual combat ranges: real medieval Longbow had an effective range of ~1000'.

- As ThePatt pointed out, her skills really need help.

Let's rewrite her:
- HP/saves/regen/etc. are largely fine. Could use slightly lower save DCs (those are really high for a bounded accuracy system meaning few characters even get to roll) but it does pan out of 8 + 10 Con + 9 Prof. And they are doable if you are proficient and have maxed stat and some magical bonuses.

- Her physical attacks need help. The claw/claw/tail routine just isn't all that. She at least needs to be able to Bite in lieu of her attack action.

- She needs the option of breathing on her turn, and I think it'd be pretty cool for a 5-headed Dragon to have some kind of combination breath weapon. Something with a Recharge 6 that just obliterates things.

- She's a Dragon. She should have Blindsight.

- Let's expand her spellcasting to make her feel like a deity capable of granting spells. I like my previous additions of Fearsome presence and Majestic presence but if we're to make her a God they should have more range than half a football field.

Tiamat
BWAAARGH, I'M A DRAGON GOD!

Gargantuan (50'/50'/50') Dragon

AC: 25
HP: 615 (30d20)
Skills: Arcana (+17), Religion (+17), History (+17), Insight (+26), Perception (+26), Persuasion (+19), Intimidate (+28), Deception (+19)
Damage immunities: Chromatic dragon immunities
Damage resistances: Radiant & necrotic (she's a god)
Condition Immunities: Blinded, charmed, deafened, frightened, poisoned, stunned
Senses: Darkvision 600', Blindsight 240', Truesight 240' [Dragons are unusually perceptive, a Dragon God should be absurdly so], Arcane Sight 240' [able to discern magical auras, their strength and school as per Detect Magic]
Languages: Draconic, all languages (as per permanent Tongues)

Discorporation: Sure, whatever

Magic Weapons: Yeah, obviously

Limited Magic Immunity: Sure, as written.

Legendary Resistance: Sure, 5/day.

Reactive: Sure, she can take a reaction per turn. Further, let's say she has an extra Reaction per turn so she can take 1/round and one each turn. Other stuff is irrelevant: she's already immune to stunning and basically nothing causing unconsciousness offers a save anyways.

Regeneration: Regen 30

Fearsome presence: Even those immune to being frightened might cower before Tiamat. Immunity to fear only amounts to advantage on the saving throw against this. Everyone within 10 miles of Tiamat aware of who can sense her (her voice can reach up to 10 miles if she wishes) must roll a DC 27 Wisdom-save against being frightened for 1 hour. Without immunity, a character frightened this way can only cower. Character can repeat the save at the end of each of their rounds. A character who succeeds their save has advantage on iterative saves, but must keep making saves every round. Tiamat can turn this ability on and off as a reaction but it can only force a save once per round.

Majestic presence: Every being within 1 mile of Tiamat must roll a Charisma-save (DC25) or be charmed by her and prostrate themself before her (prone, unable to take actions other than look in awe). She is a god. Those who succeed on this save are immune to this effect for the next 24 hours.

Innate spellcasting: All spells are Charisma-based (DC 25).
At-will: Thaumaturgy, Prestidigitation, Detect Magic (no Concentration, constantly active), Major Image (as 6th level spell), Mass Suggestion (as 9th level spell), Command (as a 5th level spell), Charm Monster, Geas, Dominate Monster, Power Word: Pain, Dispel Magic, Counterspell, Magic Circle
3/day: Power Word: Heal, Power Word: Kill, Power Word: Stun, Divine Word, Dimension Door, Planar Ally (any Abishai or Chromatic Dragon, no payment required), True Polymorph
1/day: Wish, Gate, Antimagic Field, Antilife Shell

Actions:
Multiattack: Tiamat can either Bite and use two Claw attacks or use one Claw and Tail attack.

Bite: +19 to hit, reach 20 ft., one target. Hit: 32 (4d10 + 10) piercing damage plus 14 (4d6) acid damage (black dragon head), lightning damage (blue dragon head), poison damage (green dragon head), fire damage (red dragon head), or cold damage (white dragon head). Large or smaller target hit is restrained (escape DC 27) and automatically takes full damage of breath weapon next time this head breathes. The head cannot attack new targets until it either lets go of the bitten or the target dies. Each head can only bite or breathe once per round.

Claw: +19 to hit, reach 15 ft., one target. Hit: 24 (4d6 + 10) slashing damage. Huge or smaller opponent hit must roll a Strength saving throw (DC 27) or be knocked prone by the attack.

Tail: +19 to hit, reach 25 ft., any number of targets within a 50' arc. Hit: 28 (4d8 + 10) bludgeoning damage. Huge or smaller opponents hit must roll a Strength saving throw (DC 27) or be knocked back 10'.

Wing Buffet: Tiamat decides a spot within 100' of her. Each creature within 50 ft. radius of that spot must succeed on a DC 27 Dexterity saving throw or take 43 (6d10 + 10) bludgeoning damage and be sucked up by a whirlwind unable to act, flying 60' up and then falling on their next turn (DC 27 Con-save at the start of their turn to recover and be able to take action). Those who save take half damage.

Breath weapon: Each head can only breathe every 1d4 rounds. After a breath, roll 1d4 for that head. The head recharges after that time.

Blue breath: 16d10 lightning damage in a 480' line of 10' spread. DC 27 Dex for half. Lightning breath works as Dispel Magic on everything hit.
Black breath: 15d8 acid damage in a 480' line of 20' spread. DC 27 Dex for half. Acid breath works as Disintegrate on all creatures and objects hit.
Red head: 26d6 fire damage in a 180' cone. DC 27 Dex for half. Fire breath lingers lights the area ablaze. The area hit by the fire breath is turned into a fiery hellscape, dealing half the damage of the fire breath each round to every creature in the area (same save DC). The fire burns so hot that even creatures immune to fire are treated as only having resistance to fire, and creates resistant to fire take normal damage. Those not resistant to fire take damage as if they were vulnerable. The fires burn for 1 minute (additional breaths in the same area extend its duration).
Green head: 180' cone. DC 27 Con save vs. death. 20d6 damage on a successful save.
White head: 22d8 cold damage in a 180' cone. DC 27 Con save for half. Cold breath freezes all hit targets solid. For creatures on a failed save, target is restrained and incapacitated and can't take any action unless they are melted by fire taking at least 50 fire damage. The restrained creatures can retry their save at the end of each of their turns.

Legendary actions: 5 points.

1 point: Bite me.
1 points: Tail slash
2 points: Wing buffet + move half speed
2 points: Breath weapon
2 points: Cast an at-will spell

Dork_Forge

2021-05-09, 12:05 AM

600' attack range and 50'/100' vertical dimension (by the book; I ran it as 60'/120' but didn't make much difference) + size. She's attackable by PCs pretty much regardless of positioning; only compounded by the Bards having Longstrider and Haste on them (and Wizards being able to cast Fly or DD on any free round). Any round of dashing away is thus two free rounds of (probably advantageous due to Major Image) attacking for the PCs. In fact due to PC mobility this goes almost regardless of terrain:her only chance is taking at least one (and it turns out both) of the damage dealers out before escaping.

Portent and Lucky also match up exceptionally well against Dodge (though I didn't utilise Lucky RAW since I wouldn't allow it in my table), meaning Dodge wasn't all that valuable. Indeed, Bless + Leadership does too - getting a lot of bonuses (what amounts to +5 on average with decent average tendency due to two dice means they're rolling for 8 to hit which drops the Disadvantage value significantly) makes disadvantage far less relevant. The Couatl never got to use Fog Cloud to negate Disadvantage due to turn order, actually.

Couatl positioning was one of the biggest problems in Initiative Order: it's a pure buffer/utility creature but its buffs are always one turn late (acting behind the whole party) with the way the Initiative shook out. Which is a pain since it actually moves at 100' so it keeps up with Phantom Steeds just fine and isn't much behind Tiamat either. Acting just behind Tiamat (meaning it has to predict Tiamat's move if it's relevant) is the worst possible place for it and of course, since readied actions screw spellcasters over (taking Concentration meaning you can't ready spells if Concentrating on something without dropping it, and there's no way to drop Initiative instead; that's why there needed to be two Wallers most of the time instead of one), there's no way to fix that by RAW.

It's almost as if fighting her in a situation where the PCs can freely move where they want but she doesn't have verticle options is benificial to killing her.

I'll go through the post more thoroughly later, but I'm curious about this part:

How is the Bard benefiting from being an unseen attacker, but not not also gaining disadvantage from not seeing his target?

langal

2021-05-09, 12:22 AM

Btw. Most players don't know Tiamat's stats. The game designers try to make a game that appeals to the general public. I think that should be kept in mind when dissecting things and finding loopholes, etc.

Eldariel

2021-05-09, 12:24 AM

It's almost as if fighting her in a situation where the PCs can freely move where they want but she doesn't have verticle options is benificial to killing her.

Not really; it's actually completely irrelevant. Her moving away vertically is a suicide unless there are some convenient alcoves to hide inside (but the Temple doesn't; and she's so big there are few places she could take cover in without having a small part of her visible and since Sharpshooter is a stupid feat, the tip of her tail being visible from a 5 inch/5 inch hole is enough to attack without penalties). PCs are as fast as or faster than her and have longer attack range so any action that sees her take distance is just free damage for the PCs.

Even at Disadvantage and using Haste action to Dash, the Bards do over 30 DPR without consuming resources. Bigger arena would only favour the PCs: if there were significant elevation available (to the tune of 600'), group-casting Fly and Dimension Dooring that way would be three free rounds of attacking as opposed to one. This was literally almost as favourable a terrain for her as possible.

How is the Bard benefiting from being an unseen attacker, but not not also gaining disadvantage from not seeing his target?

Bard is inside Major Image so he's able to interact with it and thus automatically sees through it. I didn't bother going through the details but it's pretty easy to craft an image that's apparent that it's an image when inside it, but not from far outside let alone far away (include some blocks of wood or whatever inside the cloud of darkness/fog/whatever: one can put a hand through as a free action to see they aren't real which lets one autosee through the illusion up close).

Do you think that, in a PHB-only environment, the Cleric is replaceable? The long-term buffs are excellent, of course, but like you noted once the fight actually started they didn't get to do much.

Well, Lore Bard and Valor Bard can both kinda fulfill the same function if built for it but it'll take most of their Magical Secrets. Probably ultimately stronger options here, but for a generalist party, Cleric is still great. Spirit Guardians and Spiritual Weapon are both really good in general, just not against Limited Magic Immunity high speed ranged enemies. In this case, if the party had to slog through another couple of CR14s, having access to both from the Cleric would be a very useful thing indeed. And one can't understate the Life Cleric's restorative abilities even though they didn't come up here; if the party had a couple of non-Simulacrums low, single Channel Divinity + Mass Healing Word would've put them out of breath weapon range most probably.

Also, it was early on in the fight, but I gotta say, I expected the breaths not fully damaging the wall of stone to be a more important point of contention. Turns out it doesn't matter too much though.

In this case, the fact that they could be damaged at all meant they wouldn't last more than 1 round which basically meant "how much damage" didn't really matter - it's almost impossible for her to destroy them in one round and equally impossible to not get through on the second. Wall of Force is of course much better for this reason (among others).

MaxWilson

2021-05-09, 12:38 AM

- Breaths are so uninteresting. They don't damage objects, Cold-breath uses Dex-save for whatever reason (screw consistency, am I right?), let alone having some interesting riders.

Dex save for cold?... Huh. Never noticed that before. Seems like an outright mistake.

Eldariel

2021-05-09, 12:47 AM

Dex save for cold?... Huh. Never noticed that before. Seems like an outright mistake.

Probably related to her statblock being finished before MM. I think that's something they went back and fro on in design and ultimately decided on the "3x Dex-save, 2x Con-save" split we have now. Frankly, it feels so strange that you can't dodge a poison or a cold cloud but can a fire cloud, but you can facetank a cold cloud or a poison cloud by being tough. But I guess that's just an attempt to avoid having multiple resolution rolls for a single effect.

MaxWilson

2021-05-09, 01:00 AM

Probably related to her statblock being finished before MM. I think that's something they went back and fro on in design and ultimately decided on the "3x Dex-save, 2x Con-save" split we have now. Frankly, it feels so strange that you can't dodge a poison or a cold cloud but can a fire cloud, but you can facetank a cold cloud or a poison cloud by being tough. But I guess that's just an attempt to avoid having multiple resolution rolls for a single effect.

Frankly I think Tiamat's designers made a better decision than the MM designers did. It feels so strange and arbitrary for Evasion, Mounted Combatant, and Shield Master to work against red dragon flames but not white dragon frost.

But consistency is still valuable, and Tiamat's cold breath should be aligned with ancient white dragon breath, one way or the other.

Eldariel

2021-05-09, 01:03 AM

Frankly I think Tiamat's designers made a better decision than the MM designers did. It feels so strange and arbitrary for Evasion, Mounted Combatant, and Shield Master to work against red dragon flames but not white dragon frost.

But consistency is still valuable, and Tiamat should be aligned with ancient white dragon breath, one way or another.

I agree but I also feel like that's a problem with those feats: Thunderwave and Cone of Cold are equally stupid and arbitrary in this sense. Not to mention Cover-rules. Overall, I think Con-based AOE damage effects are an addition that was never thought through. I personally extend the "save for none"-effects to cover all AOE damage effects, not just AOE Dex.

MaxWilson

2021-05-09, 01:15 AM

I agree but I also feel like that's a problem with those feats: Thunderwave and Cone of Cold are equally stupid and arbitrary in this sense. Not to mention Cover-rules. Overall, I think Con-based AOE damage effects are an addition that was never thought through. I personally extend the "save for none"-effects to cover all AOE damage effects, not just AOE Dex.

I think it's fine for poison breath to ignore Evasion, partial cover, etc.

I have no strong opinion on Cone of Cold and Thunderwave, would need to think about it. At minimum I think WotC failed by, as usual, providing raw game mechanics but no diegesis explaining those mechanics. I could not Cone of Cold as a sort of heat vacuum sucking in heat over the course of a few seconds, and therefore ignoring cover, etc., but it's annoying to have to do WotC's job for them that way, and arguably D&D history makes it more of a sudden blast of cold, implying that cover etc. should matter after all and that it should be a Dex save.

5E's designers just didn't care about simulationism or verisimilitude, only gamism and game balance, and it shows. And that's why 5E has T-Rexes that can squeeze into a 10' x 10' x 10' cube, and square Giant Constrictor Snakes.

Eldariel

2021-05-09, 01:20 AM

I think it's fine for poison breath to ignore Evasion, partial cover, etc.

I have no strong opinion on Cone of Cold and Thunderwave, would need to think about it. At minimum I think WotC failed by, as usual, providing raw game mechanics but no diegesis explaining those mechanics. I could not Cone of Cold as a sort of heat vacuum sucking in heat over the course of a few seconds, and therefore ignoring cover, etc., but it's annoying to have to do WotC's job for them that way, and arguably D&D history makes it more of a sudden blast of cold, implying that cover etc. should matter after all and that it should be a Dex save.

5E's designers just didn't care about simulationism or verisimilitude, only gamism and game balance, and it shows. And that's why 5E has T-Rexes that can squeeze into a 10' x 10' x 10' cube, and square Giant Constrictor Snakes.

Yeah, well, if a dragon is breathing a poison cloud, it feels obvious to me that you should be able to dodge it the same as a fire breath or a cold breath. Spells like Cloudkill and Stinking Cloud where the spell probably just appears are different...though even there a case could be made for reacting supernaturally fast to get out (exactly the same as with AOE damage spells). But yeah, I do agree, much of this is victim of oversimplification and gamism. Though I posit that many of those gamist decisions have lead to mechanics that are terrible game balance- and game enjoyment-wise (see e.g. Legendary Actions, Legendary Resistance, space rules, size rules, unseen attacker-rules, etc.) not to mention a huge headache for designers.

Dork_Forge

2021-05-09, 01:32 AM

Not really; it's actually completely irrelevant. Her moving away vertically is a suicide unless there are some convenient alcoves to hide inside (but the Temple doesn't; and she's so big there are few places she could take cover in without having a small part of her visible and since Sharpshooter is a stupid feat, the tip of her tail being visible from a 5 inch/5 inch hole is enough to attack without penalties). PCs are as fast as or faster than her and have longer attack range so any action that sees her take distance is just free damage for the PCs.

It's not irrelevant, the arena chosen (and it is chosen) significantly caps her verticle options whilst giving PCs ample horizontal options to exploits through dashing steeds.

PCs are not inherently faster, they are dependent on the steeds, which actually I haven't read, how quickly were steeds lost?

Even at Disadvantage and using Haste action to Dash, the Bards do over 30 DPR without consuming resources. Bigger arena would only favour the PCs: if there were significant elevation available (to the tune of 600'), group-casting Fly and Dimension Dooring that way would be three free rounds of attacking as opposed to one. This was literally almost as favourable a terrain for her as possible.

Without consuming resources? Isn't concentrating on on a 7th level (upcasted) spell you cast resources?

Spending actions, slots and concentration on bridging the mobility gap seems free to you, it isn't it costs all of those things I just listed.

Bard is inside Major Image so he's able to interact with it and thus automatically sees through it. I didn't bother going through the details but it's pretty easy to craft an image that's apparent that it's an image when inside it, but not from far outside let alone far away (include some blocks of wood or whatever inside the cloud of darkness/fog/whatever: one can put a hand through as a free action to see they aren't real which lets one autosee through the illusion up close).

This seems incredibly faulty and abusive of rules text: The spell says that physical interaction with the illusion reveals it, it doesn't say that each creature has to interact with it. Even with the wood or what ever: "you create the image of an object, a creature o some other visible phenomenon" Just throwing in some planks etc. is dividing the image into multiple things. This isn't as clear cut obscurement to me as you think it is, and if it was actually causing Tiamat trouble, then she could either interact with it or just investigate it with her action.

There's a number of things that you ruled on that dramitcally shift favour, here's one that didn't even come up:

You have the Couatl shapechange into a V.Human with a feat and spell choice that benefited the strategy. That doesn't seem kosher at all, and I'm not even sure how you got there when the only way I read the ability is choose a statblock and use it, not modify it to suit your needs.

Or readying walls that can go off in front of her breaths, something that she shouldn't fall for repeatedly if it's allowed in the first place.

All your particular simulation seems to have shown is that under certain DM rulings, a party that has done nothing but prepare for a single fight for the last few days (literally up to the start of the fight) can have a chance of success against Tiamat in an arena that favours their preparation, which... doesn't really seem to say anything at all

Eldariel

2021-05-09, 01:47 AM

@DF: The PCs have Haste, Longstrider and the ability to cast Fly; they have 130'/260' fly speed if she takes actions that are irrelevant.

And yeah, Elemental Weapon is a "resource" but it lasts 1 hour so it's not gonna run out while the fight lasts a minute or two at most. It's not a limited resource far as the encounter is concerned, which is the point: Tiamat cannot survive by trying to run and bleed the PCs out of resources as the damage without expendables suffices to outpace her regeneration. This means her only strategic option of note is trying to remove a damage dealer or find total cover/heavy obscurement.

The Major Image rulings also don't really matter that much (not that it's really unclear - write "This is an illusion" on the inside of opaque, hollow darkness with blocks of mist or whatever); two were cast so they probably didn't matter overtly much in the grand scheme of things. I don't think any but the most unfavourable anti-PC rulings would really make a difference.

You have the Couatl shapechange into a V.Human with a feat and spell choice that benefited the strategy. That doesn't seem kosher at all, and I'm not even sure how you got there when the only way I read the ability is choose a statblock and use it, not modify it to suit your needs.

Couatl changes into Knight, which can be of any race including Vuman.

Or readying walls that can go off in front of her breaths, something that she shouldn't fall for repeatedly if it's allowed in the first place.

It's not a matter of falling for it, she simply doesn't have any choice. Either she breathes and forces them to use the Wall, or doesn't and spares them resources. She has no option that allows her to go around it, especially since she can't even ready breaths by RAW.

Intelligence doesn't matter in a solved game: if there's only a certain group of decisions, how good one is at making decisions doesn't matter. This is like an endgame where she's a piece down - the best play just loses slower.

Dork_Forge

2021-05-09, 02:13 AM

@DF: The PCs have Haste, Longstrider and the ability to cast Fly; they have 130'/260' fly speed if she takes actions that are irrelevant.

You talk like Haste is at zero risk of being lost, or like Fly just happens...

You haven't once considered that when this becomes relevant the slots to upcast it may not be available, or that casting it might require dropping concentration on something else, after all the only ones that can cast it are the Wizard and their Simulacrum.

So colour me unimpressed that your handwaving includes a spell that renders a PC useless for a round when it ends and a spell that may not even be availble at the level you assume it will be.

And yeah, Elemental Weapon is a "resource" but it lasts 1 hour so it's not gonna run out while the fight lasts a minute or two at most. It's not a limited resource far as the encounter is concerned, which is the point: Tiamat cannot survive by trying to run and bleed the PCs out of resources as the damage without expendables suffices to outpace her regeneration. This means her only strategic option of note is trying to remove a damage dealer or find total cover/heavy obscurement.

It's an hour long concentration spell, and maybe it's just me, but at least to me there's a difference between at will DPR kind of resourceless and under the effect of a 7th level slot that you could lose any time you take damage.

She doesn't need to kill the damage dealers, if the spells ended (say, by being breathed on once) then the damage dealers become... nothing.

That's the huge sticking factor here that doesn't seem to have hit home, in your self selected cirumstances all damage done to her hinges on 7th level slots, which are vanishing rare and easily wasted. Once those resources are gone... then what? The PCs flail about trying to defend themselves whilst Tiamat heals and watches them squirm and run out of whatever they have left.

The Major Image rulings also don't really matter that much (not that it's really unclear - write "This is an illusion" on the inside of opaque darkness with blocks of mist or whatever); two were cast so they probably didn't matter overtly much in the grand scheme of things. I don't think any but the most unfavourable anti-PC rulings would really make a difference.

You not only ignored the Couatl thing you're missing the forest for the trees:

So many things have to go in the PCs favour to even justify the chance here, DM rulings are a heavy factor in that of which multiple ones you made seemed to just support the PCs, even ones that were mentioned but ultimately not used (the Coatl changing into anything but a stock block, the notion that Leadership works for a minute regardless despite the text very much not indicating such) .

As I read through the thread it just unravels more...

So on Turn 3 the Druid casts Whirlwind

Then on Turn 4 they cast Haste

...yet the Whirlwind persists and does damage etc.? Whirlwind is concentration.

It'll be interesting to hear your opinion of how concentrating on two spells at once didn't really affect the outcome of your simulation.

Eldariel

2021-05-09, 02:22 AM

Ah. Whirlwind is my bad, yeah: I read it as a non-Concentration spell due to the unclear marking on the site I found it on. I should run it again without the Whirlwind but I doubt it'd make a huge difference, though it'd certainly extend the fight by some rounds.

Ultimately, I think RAW is pretty clear on all the other points though and my rulings are correct. You're free to rule otherwise but those tend to be RAW-supported readings.

Dork_Forge

2021-05-09, 02:30 AM

Ah. Whirlwind is my bad, yeah: I read it as a non-Concentration spell due to the unclear marking on the site I found it on. I should run it again without the Whirlwind but I doubt it'd make a huge difference, though it'd certainly extend the fight by some rounds.

Very rough count of 103 damage that shouldn't have happened if Haste was cast, though your proclivity to handwave the factors brought up is impressive.

Replying to your edit: You're literally just saying that

Please direct me to the RAW that saws you can sub in the race for a creature statblock when using Shapechange, without it just being a favourable DM ruling.

Please direct me to the RAW of creating... what seems to be a hollow ball of darkness with mist writing on the inside for Major Image, whilst maintaining it being a single thing an not a perceivable thing for Tiamat. Heck, you could make a very solid RAW argument that arrows passing through it show that it's an illusion.

Eldariel

2021-05-09, 02:35 AM

Please direct me to the RAW that saws you can sub in the race for a creature statblock when using Shapechange, without it just being a favourable DM ruling.

What does "any race" mean?

Please direct me to the RAW of creating... what seems to be a hollow ball of darkness with mist writing on the inside for Major Image, whilst maintaining it being a single thing an not a perceivable thing for Tiamat. Heck, you could make a very solid RAW argument that arrows passing through it show that it's an illusion.

It's outside her true seeing range and automatically seeing through illusions requires interaction, so it's pretty obvious. There's nothing to this.

Dork_Forge

2021-05-09, 02:46 AM

What does "any race" mean?

Perhaps I should be more clear then, what RAW directs you to choose a variant race option and then further detail the feat and subchoices for that feat. Because Shapechanging into a V.Human with a feat seems less RAW and more 'I'm both the player and DM'

I'm not seeing how adding a feat to a block does not inherently change the block beyond intention.

It's outside her true seeing range and automatically seeing through illusions requires interaction, so it's pretty obvious. There's nothing to this.

Again, it just says physical interaction, it does not state that you have to interact with it yourself, in fact it actually says at the end of that sentence "because things can pass through it" and arrows would by physical things... passing through it that she can see.

You're arguing RAW, when strict RAW supports shooting through it as revealing it's an illusion.

All of these rulings that you think are so fair and obvious, all fall in favour of the PCs and all aren't so obvious.

Eldariel

2021-05-09, 02:48 AM

Well, you're free to play as you want, of course. Have a nice day.

Dork_Forge

2021-05-09, 02:56 AM

Well, you're free to play as you want, of course. Have a nice day.

I am, as are you, personally though I'd avoid making claims about creatures that are then supported by said preference of play.

Valmark

2021-05-09, 04:42 AM

I am, as are you, personally though I'd avoid making claims about creatures that are then supported by said preference of play.

Well, everybody is going to judge a statblock based on how they see the rules- the claim would be invalid only if Eldariel used houserules.

Eldariel

2021-05-09, 06:15 AM

But the Whirlwind point is relevant enough that I'm gonna rerun the encounter at some point and optimise the decision paths and tighten up the play to hopefully produce a more accurate depiction of how it would go without an awful amount of mistakes. But it'll have to wait. For what it's worth, I'm pretty sure Tiamat was net beneficiary of mistakes this time.

Dork_Forge

2021-05-10, 04:53 PM

Just to illustrate the direction the simulation likely should have gone, we have two core errors to be highlighted:

-Whirlwind persisting and dealing damage after Haste is cast

-Elemental Weapon incorrectly applying +3 damage to attacks

At the time of the 'victory' the Bard is dead, the Cleric is unconcious but stable, the status of the others not abundantly clear and I didn't want to track their hp, but I doubt everyone is rosy cheeked.

Total incorrect Whirlwind damage: 103

Total incorrect Elemental Weapon damage (between Bard and Bardulacrum): 99

Total damage taken incorrectly by Tiamat: 202 or 32.85% of her total hp

Ignoring that damage Tiamat would be sitting roughly at 223hp at the point where the simulation was ended, with a Regeneration of 30hp coming her way on that turn.

Pretty much everything so far has been handwaved for the most part as being inconsequential, not enough to actaully tilt things in her favour or written off as DM differences etc.

I'm curious how the current state of the party (running on fumes with one real damage dealer left) would be seen in light of Tiamat still being at around a 3rd of her health?

langal

2021-05-10, 09:06 PM

Kane0

2021-05-10, 10:03 PM

The game isn't designed for optimizers who know the stat block of every encounter and run simulations. It's like there should be a "hard mode" for those who seek system mastery. For example, Force Cage should NOT work on Tiamat, especially for expert players who have her stats memorized and already know the best counters and strategies based on their metagame knowledge.

Wouldnt hard mode just be the DM changing things so player knowledge isn’t perfect?

Edit: for example, tomorrow night i’m running my usual game and figured i’d dig out some of my 3rd ed monster manuals to populate the dungeon crawl. Even if the players recognised the creatures and remembered the 3.5 versipn stats exactly they still wouldnt know how i’m converting them

MaxWilson

2021-05-10, 10:07 PM

Wouldnt hard mode just be the DM changing things so player knowledge isn’t perfect?

Yes. The key thing that makes Tiamat beatable at level 14 is player knowledge of how her Magic Immunity and Legendary Actions work.

However, that's not true at level 20. A cabal of archmages taking their best guess at how to kill Tiamat, based on prior knowledge of demon lords/etc., can guess her stats well enough to make her dead without using any unusual tactics. That's essentially why she's not a plausible strategic threat, and therefore doesn't fit into the story.

Eldariel

2021-05-10, 11:18 PM

Wouldnt hard mode just be the DM changing things so player knowledge isn’t perfect?

Edit: for example, tomorrow night i’m running my usual game and figured i’d dig out some of my 3rd ed monster manuals to populate the dungeon crawl. Even if the players recognised the creatures and remembered the 3.5 versipn stats exactly they still wouldnt know how i’m converting them

The game isn't designed for optimizers who know the stat block of every encounter and run simulations. It's like there should be a "hard mode" for those who seek system mastery. For example, Force Cage should NOT work on Tiamat, especially for expert players who have her stats memorized and already know the best counters and strategies based on their metagame knowledge.

Yes. The key thing that makes Tiamat beatable at level 14 is player knowledge of how her Magic Immunity and Legendary Actions work.

However, that's not true at level 20. A cabal of archmages taking their best guess at how to kill Tiamat, based on prior knowledge of demon lords/etc., can guess her stats well enough to make her dead without using any unusual tactics. That's essentially why she's not a plausible strategic threat, and therefore doesn't fit into the story.

With DF we just used Contact Other Plane and Commune before the fight so basically all the relevant information was acquired through questioning over a 1 hour interval using no slots (Wizard with Lucky in a party with a Couatl, a Cleric, a Druid, and a Bard doesn't have to worry about failing the save but Portent was used just to be safe). 5e made COP spamming really easy. Basically, the assumption was that the party knows they'll fight some big thing the next day and thus they used their divinations to figure out the key features (damage immunities, magic immunity, best offense, enemy spellcasting ability, etc.). Which you should do every single evening in game on this level anyways because there's literally no reason not to (you get one Commune and as many COPs as you can make the saves for, which Portent and Lucky really extend if you have leftover middling Portent rolls or a downtime day).

Though in this case, her magic immunity and weapon immunity didn't really matter; the Bardchers did what they would do against any big thing. Cast high level Elemental Weapon and attack until the target stops moving while avoiding getting hit. Similarly, Wizards just did the same they'd do against any big thing with Legendary Resistances: try to contain it and protect the party, buff damage dealers and let them kill it. I did have Forcecage prepared on multiple characters (and indeed ended up using it: non-Concentration 20' box of "no go zone" is surprisingly useful even if you can't fit the enemy in there) - it's just a spell that's great to have around.

Indeed, usual precaution taken when fighting against high level threats mostly solve this because:
- No threat is immune to magical weapons so that's a safe way to go.
- No threat is immune to no save effects so those can always be used.
- Basically no threat can influence the party without line of effect so the safest protection is just not giving them line of effect.
- Your own defensive suite is relevant against any threat so maximising HP, damage mitigation, immunities, etc. is a good idea (the party also had e.g. Freedom of Movement active that doesn't matter against Tiamat but is just a good idea in general against high level threats).
- They usually have Legendary Actions and Legendary Actions work the same for everything (though Legendary Actions as is are pretty metagamey and I hate playing around them - they lead to stuff like Tiamat actually potentially being better off not killing the Ape to get to Legendary Action before the Druid gets to go)

This was basically a normal boss fight routine. You use the options that nothing is immune to and hit target with those while using defenses and protections nothing is immune to. This is because higher up immunities get more and more frequent. It isn't like the party would abuse a specific weakness of Tiamat: it's just the party uses what works on anything. The only "unusual" prep was Heroes' Feast and it's something I'd use whenever I knew we were headed into a dangerous fight - basically everything has a fear effect and extra HP on top of Aid is always nice especially thinking about Power Words and such.

Of course, in real game you'd change her up though changing her up easily makes her much more dangerous since the reason she isn't all that is a very specific set of issues (lack of Wing Buffet is a huge one: if she got a Legendary Action move, that'd do a lot for her and if she also got a way to deal with force effects, she'd be a tactical level monster) against the most common high level tactics in the game. Without those issues, she'd be much closer to her suggested CR. So while changing her up, you'd have to figure out where you want to draw the line and what level of threat you want her to be - as it stands, she's mid Tier 3 threat in that a mid Tier 3 party has a reasonable shot at her but by changing her up you could easily make her a Tier 4 or even Epic threat (where she belongs IMHO).

Dork_Forge

2021-05-10, 11:43 PM

With DF we just used Contact Other Plane and Commune before the fight so basically all the relevant information was acquired through questioning over a 1 hour interval using no slots (Wizard with Lucky in a party with a Couatl, a Cleric, a Druid, and a Bard doesn't have to worry about failing the save but Portent was used just to be safe). 5e made COP spamming really easy. Basically, the assumption was that the party knows they'll fight some big thing the next day and thus they used their divinations to figure out the key features (damage immunities, magic immunity, best offense, enemy spellcasting ability, etc.). Which you should do every single evening in game on this level anyways because there's literally no reason not to (you get one Commune and as many COPs as you can make the saves for, which Portent and Lucky really extend if you have leftover middling Portent rolls or a downtime day).

Though in this case, her magic immunity and weapon immunity didn't really matter; the Bardchers did what they would do against any big thing. Cast high level Elemental Weapon and attack until the target stops moving while avoiding getting hit. Similarly, Wizards just did the same they'd do against any big thing with Legendary Resistances: try to contain it and protect the party, buff damage dealers and let them kill it. I did have Forcecage prepared on multiple characters (and indeed ended up using it: non-Concentration 20' box of "no go zone" is surprisingly useful even if you can't fit the enemy in there) - it's just a spell that's great to have around.

Indeed, usual precaution taken when fighting against high level threats mostly solve this because:
- No threat is immune to magical weapons so that's a safe way to go.
- No threat is immune to no save effects so those can always be used.
- Basically no threat can influence the party without line of effect so the safest protection is just not giving them line of effect.
- Your own defensive suite is relevant against any threat so maximising HP, damage mitigation, immunities, etc. is a good idea (the party also had e.g. Freedom of Movement active that doesn't matter against Tiamat but is just a good idea in general against high level threats).
- They usually have Legendary Actions and Legendary Actions work the same for everything (though Legendary Actions as is are pretty metagamey and I hate playing around them - they lead to stuff like Tiamat actually potentially being better off not killing the Ape to get to Legendary Action before the Druid gets to go)

This was basically a normal boss fight routine. You use the options that nothing is immune to and hit target with those while using defenses and protections nothing is immune to. This is because higher up immunities get more and more frequent. It isn't like the party would abuse a specific weakness of Tiamat: it's just the party uses what works on anything. The only "unusual" prep was Heroes' Feast and it's something I'd use whenever I knew we were headed into a dangerous fight - basically everything has a fear effect and extra HP on top of Aid is always nice especially thinking about Power Words and such.

Of course, in real game you'd change her up though changing her up easily makes her much more dangerous since the reason she isn't all that is a very specific set of issues (lack of Wing Buffet is a huge one: if she got a Legendary Action move, that'd do a lot for her and if she also got a way to deal with force effects, she'd be a tactical level monster) against the most common high level tactics in the game. Without those issues, she'd be much closer to her suggested CR. So while changing her up, you'd have to figure out where you want to draw the line and what level of threat you want her to be - as it stands, she's mid Tier 3 threat in that a mid Tier 3 party has a reasonable shot at her but by changing her up you could easily make her a Tier 4 or even Epic threat (where she belongs IMHO).

You're referencing my simulation (which you bailed on after the 1st turn of the 1st round) whilst ignoring context important here:

-Tiamat was the only combat of that day

-There was no combat for multiple days before hand

-You took the prep from one simulation but are using your own DM rulings from your own simulation

You need multiple days to prepare, since you want to bypass the Simulacrums not having their 7th level slots missing (which btw was not the case when I okayed the prep), do you not see anything wrong with needing multiple days of favourable conditions and active preparation to kill a lone enemy in favourable terrain?

Are you going to keep ignoring the fact that she shouldn't have died in your version of the simulation?

langal

2021-05-11, 12:24 AM

Eldariel

2021-05-11, 03:17 AM

Exactly! Keep them on their toes.

While Tiamat May very well be weaker than a CR 30, I think "evidence" would be some regular players kicking her butt. I just don't the the true litmus test involves players that know every nook and cranny and stayblock in the book. It almost argues the opposite.

Nevertheless, normal high level threat plans work against her. That is to say, she's a big ball of numbers with nothing special about her except her immunities and durability. But the same things that work against everything else work against her too (all the best damage types: Radiant, Force, Necrotic, Thunder, Magical weapons - all the usual tactics in kiting, movement restriction via force effects or summons, vision denial [surprisingly enough] - the usual builds).

While obviously it's optimal to have a party kill her organically, there's no module written for that to happen (because the only module where you actually are against her so that you might fight her, Tyranny of Dragons, specifically is designed so that you would do everything in the world to not fight her and if you still ended up fighting her, she would be severely weakened anyways) so it's pretty hard to find completely random encounters involving her out of the blind.

And given her status as a divine threat, she isn't just a random encounter: there's always build-up which inherently comes with PCs being able to glean information on her on this level, from divinations or otherwise. So while no complete knowledge of her statblock should of course be assumed, broad idea of her capabilities ("can she teleport?", "can she [move between turns]?" (however you wanna fluff Legendary Actions in-universe), "what is her maximum range of attack?", "can she defeat force effects?", etc.) is pretty natural if you spend e.g. an hour divining her. This alone does much to negate how unrealistic such an example really is: in-universe, high level PCs should always spend time researching big bads before engaging them.

Though again, in this case the only surprise is how few surprises there actually are: she does pretty much exactly what you'd expect of a big dragon and a little less actually (compared to real dragons, Fiend type, no Wing Buffet, minimal spellcasting, no blindsight).

XmonkTad

2021-05-11, 02:15 PM

Though again, in this case the only surprise is how few surprises there actually are: she does pretty much exactly what you'd expect of a big dragon and a little less actually (compared to real dragons, Fiend type, no Wing Buffet, minimal spellcasting, no blindsight).

I hadn't looked at her stat block before this thread and I quite agree with this. Tiamat feels a lot like a regular dragon with 4 bazookas of various flavors strapped to her. Lots of damage output, just really huge AoE damage and the speed to deliver it. Looking at the PbP, the party really needs to interrupt her damage because you couldn't possibly tank that much for any extended period. Walls seem like a good way to do that.

Eldariel

2021-05-11, 02:59 PM

I hadn't looked at her stat block before this thread and I quite agree with this. Tiamat feels a lot like a regular dragon with 4 bazookas of various flavors strapped to her. Lots of damage output, just really huge AoE damage and the speed to deliver it. Looking at the PbP, the party really needs to interrupt her damage because you couldn't possibly tank that much for any extended period. Walls seem like a good way to do that.

Yeah, the issue is with her legendary actions she gets two breaths (or five bites) in the span of a single turn which is tankable for two rounds at best short of something like Blink (which would be a fine defensive option if the party needed help keeping the Wizards alive but they kinda don't, really, and this would mess up readied spells at times which would be a net negative really). For defeating her durability wise, elemental resistances would be mandatory; more prevalent Warding Bond would help there (with Warding Bond, a character could tank 3-4 breaths before needing healing which is enough for Life Cleric to sustain through for a round or two and since all the relevant healing is AOE, this works against the splitoff damage too) but of course, with Cleric as the only character with the spell it's obviously something you cast on the most vulnerable party member instead (in this case, the Bard Simulacrum).

Outside Core, Absorb Elements would really help there. Of course, there's the option of Polymorphing the characters but ultimately that didn't just pan out because you'd really need to Polymorph someone who's Warding Bonded to have enough durability to keep her down (and in this case, the Warding Bonded character is someone who wants to avoid taking hits).

PattThe

2021-05-11, 09:00 PM

Yeah, the issue is with her legendary actions she gets two breaths (or five bites) in the span of a single turn which is tankable for two rounds at best short of something like Blink (which would be a fine defensive option if the party needed help keeping the Wizards alive but they kinda don't, really, and this would mess up readied spells at times which would be a net negative really). For defeating her durability wise, elemental resistances would be mandatory; more prevalent Warding Bond would help there (with Warding Bond, a character could tank 3-4 breaths before needing healing which is enough for Life Cleric to sustain through for a round or two and since all the relevant healing is AOE, this works against the splitoff damage too) but of course, with Cleric as the only character with the spell it's obviously something you cast on the most vulnerable party member instead (in this case, the Bard Simulacrum).

Outside Core, Absorb Elements would really help there. Of course, there's the option of Polymorphing the characters but ultimately that didn't just pan out because you'd really need to Polymorph someone who's Warding Bonded to have enough durability to keep her down (and in this case, the Warding Bonded character is someone who wants to avoid taking hits).

Polymorph HP totals being typically low + Divine Word is yikes if you're close.

Hael

2021-05-11, 11:06 PM

Eldariel

2021-05-11, 11:09 PM

Polymorph HP totals being typically low + Divine Word is yikes if you're close.

Well, the only really relevant form here is Giant Ape, which has 157 HP (188 with Aid and Heroes' Feast) and if you were Warding Bonded, it would take her more than 3 actions to drop you within Divine Word range by which time you should be able to refresh Polymorph (she can do about 50 per successful breath and about 12-14 per successful attack or 26 per bite for a total of 164 over Breath + Breath + Bite + Full Attack OR Bite x5 + full attack though of course the Warding Bonded person would have to be healed too; Life Cleric can heal half of that easily enough with Channel Divinity twice in the fight [heals 70 points] but the other half would take a Heal-spell or similar). Really, the big issue isn't keeping the Polymorphed guy alive (you can refresh Polymorph 1/turn) but the Warding Bonder alive - this would take a couple of Concentrations which would make protecting the rest of the party and dealing damage questionable (to really get value out of a Giant Ape, you have to grapple her [easy enough with Portent and Bardic Inspiration] and cast something like Cloud of Daggers VII, which is another Concentration). But it's true, the spell is potentially dangerous for shapeshifting specifically (though first could be tanked by the Death Ward), especially because as a bonus action, it improves her action economy if it does something. This is one of the reasons I didn't end up opting for Polymorphing.

Had the Giant Ape survived, it could be different: Polymorphing Giant Ape into Giant Ape and letting it hang onto her could be good or at least worth a turn or two but since in my scenario Tiamat starts in the portal above and Ape is dead last in Initiative, it never gets the chance to grapple her.

Dork_Forge

2021-05-11, 11:25 PM

Peace domain clerics really wreck this fight. Its not too hard to procur bodies (magic jar) or summons with elemental resistance (acid/lightning), fireshield (fire/cold) and even better immunities. smoke mephits for instance will cancel out hundreds of points of aoe damage every turn. You're looking at what could be an effective 50%+ damage removal.

How are smoke mephits cancelling out hundreds of damage each round?

It's a little amusing at this point how a lot of claims of Tiamat being an easy fight/weak god include the assumption of Magic Jarring into superior bodies. Doesn't the fact that you go there say something about the fight to begin with?

The acid resist seems like the hardest, but its only a line ability on a con save (between aura, bard inspiration, bless and bond its definitely passable), which limits how much damage or AEs need to be used. Between a peace cleric, warding bond and another dedicated healer (say a life cleric or something optimized like life shepherd) its hard to see how how Tiamat can do enough damage if this turns into a close range affair where the frontliners and summons can go all in.

Warding Bond keeps coming up to... how is this really helping anything when the issue is aoe? The target takes half damage... which is also applied to the caster. It's just going to end in a dead Cleric with a lot of useless Cleric inbetween.

As Eldariel said, the best tactic for Tiamat is to kite, and thats not particularly great design for a god that has to cheese a fight to win.

Why is her closing a bad idea..? What summons are posing a problem to the god 20' up in the air above everyone? What summons are surviving the sheer number of breath weapons...?

Of course the pcs can also cheese this fight (hard to see how Tiamat can deal with leomonds tiny hut by a chronurgist abeyance)

With the end goal of what? Tiamat standing there hopelessly whilst the PCs step out? The only thing this guarantees, is a Wizard that is both very difficult to kill and essentially useless outside of casting one concentration buff at a time on allies.

Hael

2021-05-12, 12:52 AM

How are smoke mephits cancelling out hundreds of damage each round?

If the cleric has 5 prof, thats two protective bonds on smoke mephits, three on the party in melee range (maybe a warding bond on another party member to have them involved in the shared hp pool), and the rest at range (with ae). if two of the party gets caught in the fire breath, the mephits can zero the blow. Perhaps waste yet another turn where tiamat melees one of them to kill them off. Yea.. easily hundreds of damage of potential savings.

It's a little amusing at this point how a lot of claims of Tiamat being an easy fight/weak god include the assumption of Magic Jarring into superior bodies. Doesn't the fact that you go there say something about the fight to begin with?

We are talking about the BBEG to end all BBEGs! It makes sense that people spend time preparing for the fight using their most powerful spells. Why is this controversial, and not simulacrum?

Warding Bond keeps coming up to... how is this really helping anything when the issue is aoe? The target takes half damage... which is also applied to the caster. It's just going to end in a dead Cleric with a lot of useless Cleric inbetween.

Keeping a shared hp pool is a big deal. It allows for aoe heals, temp hp heals (shepherd/arti/twilight) which vastly improves the party wide heal efficiency. But you know that...

Why is her closing a bad idea..? What summons are posing a problem to the god 20' up in the air above everyone? What summons are surviving the sheer number of breath weapons...?

Bc entering melee range against a party of frontliners exposes her to a lot more potential ways to actually restrain and hurt her. If the eg rune knight grapples her, that opens up a a lot of potential dpr by the summons. upcast shepherd druid summons can do very large dpr per turn (even if they all die the following turn) even against impossible ac b/c of bounded accuracy. If she stays at range from those eventualities, her odds are dramatically improved.

With the end goal of what? Tiamat standing there hopelessly whilst the PCs step out? The only thing this guarantees, is a Wizard that is both very difficult to kill and essentially useless outside of casting one concentration buff at a time on allies.

Come on, i'm sure you can think of a few uses for an invulnerability chamber....

Dork_Forge

2021-05-12, 01:28 AM

If the cleric has 5 prof, thats two protective bonds on smoke mephits, three on the party in melee range (maybe a warding bond on another party member to have them involved in the shared hp pool), and the rest at range (with ae). if two of the party gets caught in the fire breath, the mephits can zero the blow. Perhaps waste yet another turn where tiamat melees one of them to kill them off. Yea.. easily hundreds of damage of potential savings.

And if the 26 Int deity decides to use a cold breath..? Mephits go poof and the party takes damage regardless. There's no reason to assume she'd make stupid choices whilst the PCs game the snot out of her.

We are talking about the BBEG to end all BBEGs! It makes sense that people spend time preparing for the fight using their most powerful spells. Why is this controversial, and not simulacrum?

It requires you to posess a living creature's body either giving up or putting your own in danger?

Besides never seeing Magic Jar actually coming up outside of these things, it's assuming you can secure bodies favourable to you to begin with and that the players/PCs are eager to just nope out of their natural bodies. Simulacrum just needs you to spend some expensive components and time, you don't see why that's more reasonable?

Keeping a shared hp pool is a big deal. It allows for aoe heals, temp hp heals (shepherd/arti/twilight) which vastly improves the party wide heal efficiency. But you know that...

Protective Bond is great for saving people from/sharing the damage from individual attacks and maybe small aoe. Literally all this would do is make some characters take double damage, which is not sustainable against those breath weapons. Warding Bond is the same thing, if the Cleric is also in the aoe, then it's just making things worse for the Cleric.

You're not making party wide heals more efficient, you're creating damage inquality. You're going to just end up with some characters substantially more injured than others and you haven't actually provided a mitigation factor for that.

As for your temp hp thing:

-Shepherd is one lot of temp hp when the aura is summoned, bad choice
-Artificer, the protector turret just doesn't dole out enough temp hp to really matter and the turret will quickly die, you'd be better off choosing a Force Ballista
-Twilight Cleric is the best option here because it's so overtuned, but it also isn't enough to tank repeated breaths and makes the Cleric a target for swift execution (though if this Cleric is casting Warding Bond like all the others seem to, targeted execution may not be needed)

Do you have any actual healing suggestions that could come close to making this strategy work?

Bc entering melee range against a party of frontliners exposes her to a lot more potential ways to actually restrain and hurt her. If the eg rune knight grapples her, that opens up a a lot of potential dpr by the summons. upcast shepherd druid summons can do very large dpr per turn (even if they all die the following turn) even against impossible ac b/c of bounded accuracy. If she stays at range from those eventualities, her odds are dramatically improved.

Tiamat's melee range =/= the party's melee range

IF there is a Huge PC, then she isn't going to fly low enough to hit the smaller PCs unless there's a tactical reason for doing so.

Since this Rune Knight is Huge then there must be an Enlarging effect in place, that just becomes a case of killing/forcing concentration loss on the caster if she actaully ends up grappled. Otherwise What makes you think dropping a Gargantuan dragon god literally on top of the party is a good idea?

Spam summons are only useful if someone somehow manages to grapple her, which besides more instances of Shrodinger's party there's been nothing but people saying that it's bad for her so she should gimp her own options at range.

A lot of these examples revolve around a Cleric, so here's a simple example:

Between Legendary Breath weapons + Bite +Turn attacks she just kills the Cleric.

...Now what? There's going to be very few niche builds that can survive single targeting by Tiamat, and whatever Cleric is inserted here will not be one of them. Now the party is devoid of *insert whatever gimmick ability here* and probably their actual healer.

Come on, i'm sure you can think of a few uses for an invulnerability chamber....

So no then, this is literally just meant to be her sitting there whilst PCs take turns stepping out of the hut.

Saying 'come on, you can think of stuff' is not helping your argument, it's trying to get someone else to make it for you.

You seem very confident in this, so I'd be interested to see what actual set 4 person party of 14th level you'd choose, not assuming you could highjack medium CR Monsters to add to party power would be a bonus to your argument.

Hael

2021-05-12, 02:46 AM

And if the 26 Int deity decides to use a cold breath..? Mephits go poof and the party takes damage regardless. There's no reason to assume she'd make stupid choices whilst the PCs game the snot out of her.

Why would she know who is bonded or not.. In principle there are a lot of summons/planar bindings running around. Moreover the whole point of this exercise is to create numerous redundant immunities/resistances so that at least one character can take the damage for another and thus zero the damage. If she never uses fire b/c the smoke mephits are there? Great, they've done their job. Now the party can focus on ice (say hello to fireshield, elementals and old croakers) or acid (reflections). When she's wasting her heads actions taking care of summons, they're doing their job. I'm not saying no damage gets through, but there will be a very significant reduction in her overall dpr efficiency with this feature.

It requires you to possess a living creature's body either giving up or putting your own in danger?
Besides never seeing Magic Jar actually coming up outside of these things, it's assuming you can secure bodies favourable to you to begin with and that the players/PCs are eager to just nope out of their natural bodies. Simulacrum just needs you to spend some expensive components and time, you don't see why that's more reasonable?

Not really. Creating a copy of yourself seems pretty morally grey to me. It seems to behave just like you, so you might start asking existential questions about the nature of how it feels pain if it's just a snow cone.

Again clone/magic jar/shapechange/polymorph/true polymorph all involve some level of weirdness and body alterations that some pcs might object too. I don't really think that's a great argument though on why you wouldn't use it when you are fighting a potential civilization ending threat. Maybe the paladin throws a tantrum!

Protective Bond is great for saving people from/sharing the damage from individual attacks and maybe small aoe. Literally all this would do is make some characters take double damage, which is not sustainable against those breath weapons. Warding Bond is the same thing, if the Cleric is also in the aoe, then it's just making things worse for the Cleric.

Thats more a question of positioning (and there is a RAW argument about exactly how to treat simultaneous AOEs with protective bond present, but lets not go there). You make sure that the warding bond cleric is *not* in the same aoe line/cone. Presumably he's on some sort of steed that allows him/her movement to get in and out of range . Or maybe he's sitting in the aforementioned Leomonds hut sixty feet away constantly rebonding new summons which he can do a lot of during the fight.

As for your temp hp thing -snip-

You say this is useless, but it all adds up and the effective result is that it adds up multiplicatively with a peace cleric present. Lets take the weakest case with a druid. When you have a shared resource pool that all get temp hp you are looking at party members in range * (lvl of druid + 5). Ok at lvl 20, for a party of 5 (not including summons) thats 125 temp hp into the pool.. That's 2-3 breath weapons worth of damage depending on resistances etc. Thats a single bonus action

A life shepherds healing is the same thing (and even more optimal for this fight). If he casts a heal spell with unicorn totem up thats (druid level+2+spell lvl)* number of party members present just for the aoe component. Again, NOT small amounts of healing when you start sharing hp pools.

Tiamat's melee range =/= the party's melee range

Since this Rune Knight is Huge then there must be an Enlarging effect in place, that just becomes a case of killing/forcing concentration loss on the caster if she actaully ends up grappled. Otherwise What makes you think dropping a Gargantuan dragon god literally on top of the party is a good idea?

Obviously the rune knight decides when and where to grapple and that it perhaps might not be a good idea to grapple her onto his party. Again you just made the claim that Tiamat in melee range was ok for her. I merely pointed out that it just increases her risk substantially. If you want, the chronurgist can use his "useless" combo and create a tiny hut the turn before this takes place, so that she crashes down on top of the invulnerable hut protecting the rest of the party. I reject the premise that she can outright kill the cleric for the same reason (and b/c she needs to beat 5-6 protective bond tanking hits)

You seem very confident in this, so I'd be interested to see what actual set 4 person party of 14th level you'd choose, not assuming you could highjack medium CR Monsters to add to party power would be a bonus to your argument.

I'm currently not arguing for lvl 14 parties beating Tiamat (although I think that it is indeed a priori possible with sufficient preparation, items and metagaming assuming the DM doesn't kite the party to death). I was however arguing for the general ability of certain newer subclasses to really cause a problem for her. For what its worth, Long death monks and redemption paladins strike me as another really bad matchup for her. Same thing for the new draconic UAs.

Dork_Forge

2021-05-12, 03:20 AM

Why would she know who is bonded or not.. In principle there are a lot of summons/planar bindings running around. Moreover the whole point of this exercise is to create numerous redundant immunities/resistances so that at least one character can take the damage for another and thus zero the damage. If she never uses fire b/c the smoke mephits are there? Great, they've done their job. Now the party can focus on ice (say hello to fireshield, elementals and old croakers) or acid (reflections). When she's wasting her heads actions taking care of summons, they're doing their job. I'm not saying no damage gets through, but there will be a very significant reduction in her overall dpr efficiency with this feature.

I never said she'd know who is bonded or not (though that will become readily apparent once people start usnig the bond, since teleporting to each other is kind of visible), it's a deity level intelligence choosing to use a breath weapon she knows will also wipe the board of the mephits... because why wouldn't she?

You assume that you can pick and choose how to counter, the reality is you need to choose your element type for flame shield ahead of time, so are you going to rely on the mephits to protect?

You don't seem to be taking into consideration that to use the bond creatures need to clump up (teleporting to each other) and expend their reactions. You're making it sound like a free propistion of just sharing one big pool of hp... which it isn't.

I don't understand what you're talking about with wasting heads actions either, you're tying your party together with the bond and she primarily uses aoe. There's no waste here, cold breath takes down the mephits and damages some PCs at the same time, rapidly shrinking that shared hp pool and forcing the Cleric to expend another use (drawing them closer in).

Not really. Creating a copy of yourself seems pretty morally grey to me. It seems to behave just like you, so you might start asking existential questions about the nature of how it feels pain if it's just a snow cone.

Creating a construct is anywhere near the same level to you as ripping another creature's sould out of their body (denying them their afterlife) and then living in that body?

Again clone/magic jar/shapechange/polymorph/true polymorph all involve some level of weirdness and body alterations that some pcs might object too. I don't really think that's a great argument though on why you wouldn't use it when you are fighting a potential civilization ending threat. Maybe the paladin throws a tantrum!

And maybe you don't get the bodies you want or botch the attempt to nab them, Magic Jar doesn't automatically give you whatever body you want.

Thats more a question of positioning (and there is a RAW argument about exactly how to treat simultaneous AOEs with protective bond present, but lets not go there). You make sure that the warding bond cleric is *not* in the same aoe line/cone. Presumably he's on some sort of steed that allows him/her movement to get in and out of range . Or maybe he's sitting in the aforementioned Leomonds hut sixty feet away constantly rebonding new summons which he can do a lot of during the fight.

...What RAW argument? You have teleported into an aoe if you were not already there. You will get affected by that aoe directly and then also take the other PCs damage through the bond.

Positioning is also not really something up for much debate here. Bonded creatures need to be within 30ft of each other and when they use the bond in that way they will clumps themselves together. Protective Bond actively hinders the kind of mobility a party would need to reduce effectiveness of the breath weapons.

So you're... just handwaving that the Cleric is on an unnamed steed and allowed the postioning to affect the battle without repurcussions? The easiest way to facilitate that steed is Phantom Steed, which is trivial to end, leaving the Cleric mounted on a stationary horse.

You say this is useless, but it all adds up and the effective result is that it adds up multiplicatively with a peace cleric present. Lets take the weakest case with a druid. When you have a shared resource pool that all get temp hp you are looking at party members in range * (lvl of druid + 5). Ok at lvl 20, for a party of 5 (not including summons) thats 125 temp hp into the pool.. That's 2-3 breath weapons worth of damage depending on resistances etc. Thats a single bonus action

That's assuming that the breathweapons see this as a single pool... which assumes that only a single person is taking damage from any given breath, that's ludicrous to assume.

A life shepherds healing is the same thing (and even more optimal for this fight). If he casts a heal spell with unicorn totem up thats (druid level+2+spell lvl)* number of party members present just for the aoe component. Again, NOT small amounts of healing when you start sharing hp pools.

I assume 'life shepherd' is a Life Cleric Shepherd Druid multiclass. There is no reason why Disciple of Life would work with the Unicorn totem. Those creatures are being healed by a feature, not by a leveled spell. The creature that gets Heal cast on them gets the bonus, no one else does besides the standard Unicorn bonus.

Obviously the rune knight decides when and where to grapple and that it perhaps might not be a good idea to grapple her onto his party. Again you just made the claim that Tiamat in melee range was ok for her. I merely pointed out that it just increases her risk substantially. If you want, the chronurgist can use his "useless" combo and create a tiny hut the turn before this takes place, so that she crashes down on top of the invulnerable hut protecting the rest of the party. I reject the premise that she can outright kill the cleric for the same reason (and b/c she needs to beat 5-6 protective bond tanking hits)

The word obviously is used a lot on the other side of this argument, what is obvious about the Rune Knight being able to control jack? You still haven't addressed how they're Huge either...

So everyone is in the hut besides the Rune Knight? So all of her attacks and breaths are being aimed at a single creature that the rest of the party is unable to help with anything since I think you may be missing something here:

The bond won't work through the hut. That Rune Knight just has to take hundreds of points of damage in a single round since no other targets are available. This isn't strategic, it's handing over a PC for no real reason.

I'm currently not arguing for lvl 14 parties beating Tiamat (although I think that it is indeed a priori possible with sufficient preparation, items and metagaming assuming the DM doesn't kite the party to death). I was however arguing for the general ability of certain newer subclasses to really cause a problem for her. For what its worth, Long death monks strike me as another really bad matchup for her. Same thing for the new draconic UAs.

So you're instead arguing for level 20 PCs? That clarifies some things, however you still haven't presented a party of 4 nor have you said how this party is going to actually kill her?

Shrodingers party so far nebulously includes:

-A Chronurgist Wizard

-A full Shepherd Druid

-Also a Shepherd Druid but with a dip in Life Cleric

-A Rune Knight

-A Peace Cleric

-Maybe a Twilight Cleric or Artillerist Artificer

You're just pick an choosing abilities and things that can cause speed bumps... but not actually showing how any of those things fit together in a party. Your argument primarily is 'shared hp pool' which is a flawed concept against an aoe based opponent, 'resistances' which have been scarce in actually being shown and assuming you can freely do the right thing at the right time against an opponent smarter than the Wizard and wiser than any druid or cleric can ever dream to be.

I also have no idea why the Long Death Monk is meant to be problematic here and I'm not going to look back at the dragon Monk's UA because it's UA so... not applicable.

Hael

2021-05-12, 06:20 AM

I dont have time to reply fully atm, but I thought to create a new thread to discuss some relevant mechanics here (http://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?631362-Rules-Question-Protective-Bond-and-AOEs)

Eldariel

2021-05-13, 03:29 AM

I'm currently not arguing for lvl 14 parties beating Tiamat (although I think that it is indeed a priori possible with sufficient preparation, items and metagaming assuming the DM doesn't kite the party to death). I was however arguing for the general ability of certain newer subclasses to really cause a problem for her. For what its worth, Long death monks and redemption paladins strike me as another really bad matchup for her. Same thing for the new draconic UAs.

I think kiting is in the PCs' favour, not Tiamat's. Tiamat moves a maximum of 240' a round and has an attack range of 120'. The PCs do have options that enable them to surpass those (Haste + Fly + Longstrider is 260' flight if using the Haste-action to Dash while still having Action leftover, or 390' with double Dash - and basically all ranged weapons surpass 120' range; it's pretty trivial to cast those spells, leave the buffers in e.g. Forcecage or Wall of Force or burrowed or whatever and have the attackers kite Tiamat for 10 turns, teleport or whatever in for rehastes if need be and repeat). And I'm not sure metagaming is even needed; in the example fight I posted all the information was accessible in-character and no magic items were used. And it was a PHB only party.

If you mean "hangs around at 120' while dodging and breath", I agree that's a good strategy for her though it depends on the circumstances and it seems like the PCs have sufficient tools to deal with that (at least my party). Of course, in the fight I ran Tiamat was pretty much forced to come close anyways so as to try and breathe around the Walls. In general, her attacking gives her ~30% more damage while her Dodging lets her take ~40% less damage. As her offense suffices even without physical attacks, I think cases where she wants to attack physically are pretty sparse (basically when an enemy is at low HP or absolutely must go down that turn) - overall, given she has regeneration and high defenses, Dodge to multiply her defenses is generally her best option.

Indeed, if we consider her optimal decision paths, a vast majority of her actions should be either Dash or Dodge. Attack is occasionally useful and Disengage is marginal but relevant. But given how much damage her legendary actions have (with AOE and range no less), attack is mostly poor and Disengage is often unnecessary unless enemy has a really heavy melee hitter (some BB War Caster Rogue) and Dodge doesn't suffice (generally speaking, she should always Dodge over Disengage since that helps her avoid extra damage on enemy turns).

Valmark

2021-05-13, 03:51 AM

Chaos Jackal

2021-05-13, 05:11 AM

By the by, what would happen if you just put a Forcecage or Wall of Force on top of Tiamat?

Imagine that you're lying on your belly/back and someone put a weight you can't lift on you- that'd pin you in place, assuming you can't wiggle out.

That is basically the same thing- Wall of Force pushes in the direction you decide, while Forcecage pushes out of its center, they both wouldn't be hard to position.

Wouldn't this neuter Tiamat into uselessness? Or anybody else who has no teleportation, no disintegration etc.

I did actually consider something of the kind, but arguing about a force construct's weight is... difficult (personally I don't think it has any, but it's not like anything supports this or the other opinion in the rules).

What is plausible in a similar vein, however, is to use multiple force constructs to trap Tiamat, assuming you win initiative (Portent helps here) and Tiamat isn't too massive.

With enough people that can cast the spells, and with her not being humongous, you could place a combination of wall of force and forcecage around her to lock her into place (her squeezing needs at the very least 15ft, if you scale it down to Huge regardless of how big you actually make her). Given that wall of force gives you 10 10x10 panels to work with, a party of bards and wizards could certainly surround Tiamat with wall of force and one forcecage side (so you can hit her), with another wall of force over her head.

If you add simulacrums, and a party of four lv14 bards and wizards can have up to four, you can throw down seven walls of force alongside the required forcecage in a single round, as long as Tiamat is last in the initiative order. Assuming you start by covering the side of Tiamat facing the party, you'll be able to prevent her breaths from hitting you between turns.

So yes, with enough castings of the spells, it's still technically possible to kill even a larger Tiamat inside a custom-made force prison, using nothing but a bunch of core-only lv14 casters. Of course, with a truly massive Tiamat that's not gonna be the case, but it still means you can make a Tiamat bigger than 20x20 and still be able to punish her lack of spellcasting, teleportation and general ability to go through force constructs.

Dork_Forge

2021-05-13, 12:23 PM

I think kiting is in the PCs' favour, not Tiamat's. Tiamat moves a maximum of 240' a round and has an attack range of 120'. The PCs do have options that enable them to surpass those (Haste + Fly + Longstrider is 260' flight if using the Haste-action to Dash while still having Action leftover, or 390' with double Dash - and basically all ranged weapons surpass 120' range; it's pretty trivial to cast those spells, leave the buffers in e.g. Forcecage or Wall of Force or burrowed or whatever and have the attackers kite Tiamat for 10 turns, teleport or whatever in for rehastes if need be and repeat). And I'm not sure metagaming is even needed; in the example fight I posted all the information was accessible in-character and no magic items were used. And it was a PHB only party.

So there needs to be:

-An upcasting of Fly
-Multiple castings of Haste
-A casting of Wall of Force, since Force Cage won't protect against AOE if it's the bar version and the solid version prevents teleporting straightforwardly

So that's what, 4+ PCs to sit around and maintain concentration? Even with Simulacrums that doesn't leave many PCs to actually fight and this strategy needs literally an entire round to set up.

If you mean "hangs around at 120' while dodging and breath", I agree that's a good strategy for her though it depends on the circumstances and it seems like the PCs have sufficient tools to deal with that (at least my party). Of course, in the fight I ran Tiamat was pretty much forced to come close anyways so as to try and breathe around the Walls. In general, her attacking gives her ~30% more damage while her Dodging lets her take ~40% less damage. As her offense suffices even without physical attacks, I think cases where she wants to attack physically are pretty sparse (basically when an enemy is at low HP or absolutely must go down that turn) - overall, given she has regeneration and high defenses, Dodge to multiply her defenses is generally her best option.

Debatable, getting in melee range allows her to kill a single PC dramatically faster, the death spiral continues from there.

(some BB War Caster Rogue)

Limited Magic Immunity makes any melee build that relies on a SCAGtrip, Shadow Blade etc. useless.

By the by, what would happen if you just put a Forcecage or Wall of Force on top of Tiamat?

Imagine that you're lying on your belly/back and someone put a weight you can't lift on you- that'd pin you in place, assuming you can't wiggle out.

That is basically the same thing- Wall of Force pushes in the direction you decide, while Forcecage pushes out of its center, they both wouldn't be hard to position.

Wouldn't this neuter Tiamat into uselessness? Or anybody else who has no teleportation, no disintegration etc.

I don't think this would actually pin her, I think the force constructs more hold their place rather than have weight that applies a downward force. If one was put on top pushing her down, well you could argue if she's on the ground it can't be cast since there's no space for her to move, but for the sake of argument if it did work she could just squeeze out.

I did actually consider something of the kind, but arguing about a force construct's weight is... difficult (personally I don't think it has any, but it's not like anything supports this or the other opinion in the rules).

What is plausible in a similar vein, however, is to use multiple force constructs to trap Tiamat, assuming you win initiative (Portent helps here) and Tiamat isn't too massive.

With enough people that can cast the spells, and with her not being humongous, you could place a combination of wall of force and forcecage around her to lock her into place (her squeezing needs at the very least 15ft, if you scale it down to Huge regardless of how big you actually make her). Given that wall of force gives you 10 10x10 panels to work with, a party of bards and wizards could certainly surround Tiamat with wall of force and one forcecage side (so you can hit her), with another wall of force over her head.

If you add simulacrums, and a party of four lv14 bards and wizards can have up to four, you can throw down seven walls of force alongside the required forcecage in a single round, as long as Tiamat is last in the initiative order. Assuming you start by covering the side of Tiamat facing the party, you'll be able to prevent her breaths from hitting you between turns.

So yes, with enough castings of the spells, it's still technically possible to kill even a larger Tiamat inside a custom-made force prison, using nothing but a bunch of core-only lv14 casters. Of course, with a truly massive Tiamat that's not gonna be the case, but it still means you can make a Tiamat bigger than 20x20 and still be able to punish her lack of spellcasting, teleportation and general ability to go through force constructs.

Even with extremely favourable initiative, how is she being killed here? Presumably some kind of archer is still the choice (since I don't see anything otherwise suggested) but now they have to overcome her Regeneration, whilst dodging and with at least half cover from the bars of Force Cage.

Eldariel

2021-05-13, 12:59 PM

So there needs to be:

-An upcasting of Fly
-Multiple castings of Haste
-A casting of Wall of Force, since Force Cage won't protect against AOE if it's the bar version and the solid version prevents teleporting straightforwardly

So that's what, 4+ PCs to sit around and maintain concentration? Even with Simulacrums that doesn't leave many PCs to actually fight and this strategy needs literally an entire round to set up.

Well, my party for example has Druid & two Wizards. That's enough for two Hastes and the upcast Fly. Solid Forcecage can be DDd out of and the turn when Haste would end, it's easy enough to drop the spell and rince and repeat (though it's fully possible that Tiamat is dead in 10 turns - that depends on the archers and the dice). Wasteful to be sure; an extra Concentration would be handy but sadly the Cleric doesn't really have any useful talents in Core. If there were a need to TP out, Portent could be used to accomplish that without hassle.

Debatable, getting in melee range allows her to kill a single PC dramatically faster, the death spiral continues from there.

Well, it's about one-two turns to kill anyways depending on character defenses. Unless it's a key damage dealer, not worth it.

Limited Magic Immunity makes any melee build that relies on a SCAGtrip, Shadow Blade etc. useless.

Fair enough, even less relevant then. A level 14 Rogue does 1d8+7d6+5 on OA, which isn't really worrisome enough especially since melee attack bonuses are generally worse than ranged ones.

Valmark

2021-05-13, 01:02 PM

I don't think this would actually pin her, I think the force constructs more hold their place rather than have weight that applies a downward force. If one was put on top pushing her down, well you could argue if she's on the ground it can't be cast since there's no space for her to move, but for the sake of argument if it did work she could just squeeze out.

Even with extremely favourable initiative, how is she being killed here? Presumably some kind of archer is still the choice (since I don't see anything otherwise suggested) but now they have to overcome her Regeneration, whilst dodging and with at least half cover from the bars of Force Cage.

While it's true that they hold their place if she's pushing against it (because the wall is placed in such a way that she doesn't have space to stand without pushing back) then the force is already being applied by reflection. And if it's pressed enough there could be no space for her to squeeze through- you can be pressed in such a way that you can't actually pass under something.

Dork_Forge

2021-05-13, 01:08 PM

Well, my party for example has Druid & two Wizards. That's enough for two Hastes and the upcast Fly. Solid Forcecage can be DDd out of and the turn when Haste would end, it's easy enough to drop the spell and rince and repeat (though it's fully possible that Tiamat is dead in 10 turns - that depends on the archers and the dice). Wasteful to be sure; an extra Concentration would be handy but sadly the Cleric doesn't really have any useful talents in Core. If there were a need to TP out, Portent could be used to accomplish that without hassle.

To teleport out of ForceCage requires a Cha save, looking at it this is actually the case regardless if it's barred or not. Since ForceCage isn't concentration the casters are just locking themselves in for an hour and no matter what happens, the characters Hasted will lose a turn since recasting the spell is still the original spell ending.

Portent is only able to accomplish something without hassle if a characters Cha save bonus is decent and the portent rolls have some higher numbers, you can't just say 'it's okay bc Portent'

I'm not seeing how Tiamat is dying in 10 turns here, in any way. The dice would have to be incredibly lucky for that to even be a possibility.

Well, it's about one-two turns to kill anyways depending on character defenses. Unless it's a key damage dealer, not worth it.

Depends on the party, support characters can easily be valid targets for swift removal, Twilight Cleric was already mentioned here, killing a Wizard would significantly hamper the buff dependent party.

Fair enough, even less relevant then. A level 14 Rogue does 1d8+7d6+5 on OA, which isn't really worrisome enough especially since melee attack bonuses are generally worse than ranged ones.

I agree, there's no good reason for her to use disengage pretty much ever.

While it's true that they hold their place if she's pushing against it (because the wall is placed in such a way that she doesn't have space to stand without pushing back) then the force is already being applied by reflection. And if it's pressed enough there could be no space for her to squeeze through- you can be pressed in such a way that you can't actually pass under something.

For this to work the cage/wall would have to compress her beyond what she can squeeze through, which I don't think they could achieve logically, but primarily I just don't think there's any rules support for this restraining her in any way.

MaxWilson

2021-05-13, 03:18 PM

Perhaps I should be more clear then, what RAW directs you to choose a variant race option and then further detail the feat and subchoices for that feat. Because Shapechanging into a V.Human with a feat seems less RAW and more 'I'm both the player and DM'

If it makes you feel better, think of this thread as more "I'm the DM, not a player", measuring whether PCs or NPCs with full information but without custom builds/magic items are a plausible in-world threat to Tiamat as written, so you can decide whether or not to tweak her stats before adding her to an adventure.

It's really not that different from not using Black Puddings as a city-destroying threat against a city of tool-user humans (read: faster than puddings + ranged weapons). Yeah, the Black Puddings could eat a lot of buildings and kill unwary civilians, but they are easily "solved" without PC involvement, as soon as the NPCs get themselves organized. Therefore anything you do to foreshadow the coming Pudding Explosion MacGuffin monster to the players also serves to undermine the threat even if the PCs do nothing more than pass on a warning that says "Black Puddings incoming." Ergo, Black Puddings are not really a good choice of MacGuffin monster unless you want a farcical adventure about NPCs getting themselves unnecessarily killed in gruesome ways by ignoring clear warnings.

Tiamat as written is not a credible threat as a world-ending monster. Try Gobogeg or Ghroth the Harbinger instead (or the Nothing that Ghorth brings).

Dork_Forge

2021-05-13, 03:31 PM

If it makes you feel better, think of this thread as more "I'm the DM, not a player", measuring whether PCs or NPCs with full information but without custom builds/magic items are a plausible in-world threat to Tiamat as written, so you can decide whether or not to tweak her stats before adding her to an adventure.

It's really not that different from not using Black Puddings as a city-destroying threat against a city of tool-user humans (read: faster than puddings + ranged weapons). Yeah, the Black Puddings could eat a lot of buildings and kill unwary civilians, but they are easily "solved" without PC involvement, as soon as the NPCs get themselves organized. Therefore anything you do to foreshadow the coming Pudding Explosion MacGuffin monster to the players also serves to undermine the threat even if the PCs do nothing more than pass on a warning that says "Black Puddings incoming." Ergo, Black Puddings are not really a good choice of MacGuffin monster unless you want a farcical adventure about NPCs getting themselves unnecessarily killed in gruesome ways by ignoring clear warnings.

Tiamat as written is not a credible threat as a world-ending monster. Try Gobogeg or Ghroth the Harbinger instead (or the Nothing that Ghorth brings).

The thread came off more as a PC party dealing with her, but I get where you're coming from.

In terms of her being a world shaking threat, I think that primarily comes from:

-The might of the world being useless, my FR lore isn't the greatest but I don't think there's entire armies equipped with magical weapons and mages are largely ineffectively compared to how they may have normally addressed an issue

-She would unite the chromatic dragons into a flight that would devastate the land, it's not just about her statblock, but the fact that she's a rallying point and general for some of the most powerful evil creatures on the plane.

Edit: I took a quick look at Gobogeg, though there's an apocalypse ability built in, one of the ways to stop that is just reducing them to 0hp, and the Elder Evil doesn't have Legendary Resistances (?) and has a weaker suite of defense than Tiamat? So whilst in the block there's a clearer world ending threat, the fight itself doesn't seem as difficult or problematic?

I may be missing something I literally just looked at the PDF for the first time.

MaxWilson

2021-05-13, 08:17 PM

Edit: I took a quick look at Gobogeg, though there's an apocalypse ability built in, one of the ways to stop that is just reducing them to 0hp, and the Elder Evil doesn't have Legendary Resistances (?) and has a weaker suite of defense than Tiamat? So whilst in the block there's a clearer world ending threat, the fight itself doesn't seem as difficult or problematic?

I may be missing something I literally just looked at the PDF for the first time.

Gobogeg Stage 1 summary:
Immune to all spell effects and other effects except HP damage;
saving throws +10 across the board;
AC 19, HP 294;
always win initiative;
resistant to acid, lightning, thunder; bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from nonmagical attacks;
immune to fire, necrotic, poison;
movement 0', burrow 30';
can't be moved against its will;
everyone coming within 1 mile must make a DC 19 Wisdom save or suffer Unnameable Doom, meaning two levels of Dread for 24 hours (basically the same as the Frightened condition), or if you're not using Dread then it becomes Frightened except with the ability to eventually overcome the Frightened condition's restriction on moving closer;
sighted creatures within 1 mile and not under its control have disadvantage on Wisdom saves;
regains all lost HP every sunset;
typically has two CR 9 Elder Things (9th level spellcasters) and three CR 4 Bhakyee (flying semi-invisible bloodsuckers) hypnotized and guarding it.

Even killing Stage 1 Gobogeg is a moderately tough job that probably requires Earth Elementals just to catch up with Gobogeg underground, and the problem is that if Stage 1 Gobogeg gets away, the escalation condition is so easy to meet (one Dreamwrack saving throw failure by one creature can escalate Gobogeg to the next phase of influence) that it's very likely to escalate to Stage 2.

By the time it gets to Stage 2 it's tougher (409 HP), has a 10 miles radius on its Influence/Unnameable Doom, and create earthquakes every round (including an extra volcanic attack with each of the 1d6 fissures that come with the spell, each volcanic rock attacking at +12 for 4d6 fire and 4d6 bludgeoning) and its speed increases to 60' burrow. If you couldn't kill Stage 1 Gobogeg I can't imagine how you'd kill Stage 2 Gobogeg.

At that point, your best hope may be to simply depopulate the entire 10-mile radius in hopes of starving Gobogeg to death before it can escalate to a a 100 mile radius and then a 1000 mile radius, and then blow a Pacific Ocean-sized hole in the planet.

Basically, Stage 1 is killable, and Stage 3-4 is infeasible to kill through normal means, so there's a lot of time pressure for PCs to act before it's too late, but not so early that they fail. IMO that makes Gobogeg a good villain. coughcoughcough

Dork_Forge

2021-05-13, 09:35 PM

Gobogeg Stage 1 summary:
Immune to all spell effects and other effects except HP damage;
saving throws +10 across the board;
AC 19, HP 294;
always win initiative;
resistant to acid, lightning, thunder; bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from nonmagical attacks;
immune to fire, necrotic, poison;
movement 0', burrow 30';
can't be moved against its will;
everyone coming within 1 mile must make a DC 19 Wisdom save or suffer Unnameable Doom, meaning two levels of Dread for 24 hours (basically the same as the Frightened condition), or if you're not using Dread then it becomes Frightened except with the ability to eventually overcome the Frightened condition's restriction on moving closer;
regains all lost HP every sunset;
typically has two CR 9 Elder Things (9th level spellcasters) and three CR 4 Bhakyee (CR 4 thugs) hypnotized and guarding it.

Even killing Stage 1 Gobogeg is a moderately tough job that probably requires Earth Elementals just to catch up with Gobogeg underground, and the problem is that if Stage 1 Gobogeg gets away, the escalation condition is so easy to meet (one Dreamwrack saving throw failure by one creature can escalate Gobogeg to the next phase of influence) that it's very likely to escalate to Stage 2.

By the time it gets to Stage 2 it's tougher (409 HP), has a 10 miles radius on its Influence/Unnameable Doom, and can force disadvantage on Wisdom saves and create earthquakes every round (including an extra volcanic attack with each of the 1d6 fissures that come with the spell, each volcanic rock attacking at +12 for 4d6 fire and 4d6 bludgeoning) and its speed increases to 60' burrow, which means even a Longstridered Earth Elemental can't keep up with it.

At that point, your best hope may be to simply depopulate the entire 10-mile radius in hopes of starving Gobogeg to death before it can escalate to a a 100 mile radius and then a 1000 mile radius, and then blow a Pacific Ocean-sized hole in the planet.

Basically, Stage 1 is killable, and Stage 3-4 is infeasible to kill through normal means, so there's a lot of time pressure for PCs to act before it's too late, but not so early that they fail. IMO that makes Gobogeg a good villain. coughcoughcough

Ahh I see, it's characteristics of being an Elderbeing in general rather than everything being listed in its own statblock.

It definitely seems more like a apocalypse in creature form to stop, though it does greatly depart from 5e design to achieve it. I can see the appeal this kind of thing could bring, personally for my own tastes it seems... convoluted, like lair actions and adventure context have been shoved together into a statblock.

I'm a little confused by the escalation thing though, from how it reads it doesn't look easy:

-A character that can cast spells has be targeted by Dream, and roll a 1 on their save

-A second D20 then has to be rolled and the roll has to be equal to or lesser than the highest spell level the character can cast

Between characters that are entirely ineligible to trigger it, it seems pretty unlikely to happen. Have I misunderstood? Genuinely asking it was not the most straightforward of reads.

Edit: It's interesting that the most capable to stop this thing seems to be martials though, pleasant surprise.

PattThe

2021-05-13, 09:41 PM

By the by, what would happen if you just put a Forcecage or Wall of Force on top of Tiamat?
You start calculating the siege potential of five breath weapons pointed at the temple's rear wall or start burrowing at half speed. You can't squish someone with a forcewall in their own space, so the worst you could do is put an obstacle between you and her. If that were the case, she'd just go around it and destroy anything in her path.
Even if you tried to get her prone (isn't immune) she'd still be able to attack the terrain around her. If you define the obstacle of a Force Wall as being more resilient than the surrounding terrain, then (as I said in the first post) I'd imagine that she'd start destroying terrain to get herself out.
Acid, Fire, pressurized air, electric scarring. I stated it as a funny idea for her to destroy everything near her forcecage prison but if you put a wall in front of her and she doesn't' have disintegrate, what DM WOULDNT have her just bust out of there by some other means? She's part white dragon, she should have a burrow speed. Since she doesn't, I'd still consider her able to tunnel bore with her claws at half speed, which would be 30ft.
Wish they gave her siege monster smh.

MaxWilson

2021-05-13, 10:30 PM

-A character that can cast spells has be targeted by Dream, and roll a 1 on their save

-A second D20 then has to be rolled and the roll has to be equal to or lesser than the highest spell level the character can cast

Between characters that are entirely ineligible to trigger it, it seems pretty unlikely to happen. Have I misunderstood?

You misunderstand slightly: the target can be any creature, not just a spellcaster.

But it turns out I misunderstood too: didn't realize they were two separate rolls. So Gobogeg escalates 20 times slower than I thought, what a relief! PCs will have months or years to find and deal with Gobogeg's nightmares instead of weeks or months.

It's certainly hard to read in PDF form (at least in Edge)! I prefer hardcopy, but clearly I still misread at least one thing.

Dork_Forge

2021-05-13, 10:53 PM

You misunderstand slightly: the target can be any creature, not just a spellcaster.

But it turns out I misunderstood too: didn't realize they were two separate rolls. So Gobogeg escalates 20 times slower than I thought, what a relief! PCs will have months or years to find and deal with Gobogeg's nightmares instead of weeks or months.

It's certainly hard to read in PDF form (at least in Edge)! I prefer hardcopy, but clearly I still misread at least one thing.

Oh, is it meant to read as the second roll is a 1 for non casters and the range for failure (from the world's POV) expands based on the power of the caster?

MaxWilson

2021-05-13, 10:57 PM

Oh, is it meant to read as the second roll is a 1 for non casters and the range for failure (from the world's POV) expands based on the power of the caster?

Yes, that's what it looks like to me.

Eldariel

2021-05-13, 11:33 PM

To teleport out of ForceCage requires a Cha save, looking at it this is actually the case regardless if it's barred or not. Since ForceCage isn't concentration the casters are just locking themselves in for an hour and no matter what happens, the characters Hasted will lose a turn since recasting the spell is still the original spell ending.

At worst they can always Disintegrate it.

Portent is only able to accomplish something without hassle if a characters Cha save bonus is decent and the portent rolls have some higher numbers, you can't just say 'it's okay bc Portent'

Well, in this case the teleporters would likely be Bards who have +8 Cha saves (Forcecage > buff up > DD out). But anyways, when you have enough Portent dice, you're like to get some 18s and 19s so even +0 Cha characters can do it (save DC is 17 in this case). Though obviously you'd preferably save them for damage in this case since they can guarantee Sharpshooter hits, which can be nice when Tiamat is Dodging.

I'm not seeing how Tiamat is dying in 10 turns here, in any way. The dice would have to be incredibly lucky for that to even be a possibility.

Well, resources matter. The party I tested for example has 6 Inspirations and 6 Luck points (albeit those being kinda inconvenient for attacking) in addition to the normal attacks. The Inspiration dice are a bit tricky to count since they're only expended if you don't hit natively (but roll high enough to make using Inspiration reasonable) and they open up Sharpshooting so they have a huge impact. Like, normal 1 round damage without resources (aside from the constantly active ones) is about 53 (so 23 after regen meaning she'd survive 25 rounds until death) but with Inspiration, we're suddenly looking at up to 90ish DPR depending on how many SS hits land, which triples the standing damage.

Forcecage is also transparent so Portent can still be used which guarantees few more high damage hits. Overall, it's not all that unlikely for Tiamat to die in 10 turns though so I'd still assume two Hastes, but it's not impossible either. 6 Portents (of which ~3 are gonna be high generally), 6 Inspirations and 6 Luck points overall adds up to ~200-300 extra damage over the course of those turns and since Tiamat's primary defense is Regeneration, any spikes in damage are all the more effective.

Gobogeg Stage 1 summary:
Immune to all spell effects and other effects except HP damage;
saving throws +10 across the board;
AC 19, HP 294;
always win initiative;
resistant to acid, lightning, thunder; bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from nonmagical attacks;
immune to fire, necrotic, poison;
movement 0', burrow 30';
can't be moved against its will;
everyone coming within 1 mile must make a DC 19 Wisdom save or suffer Unnameable Doom, meaning two levels of Dread for 24 hours (basically the same as the Frightened condition), or if you're not using Dread then it becomes Frightened except with the ability to eventually overcome the Frightened condition's restriction on moving closer;
sighted creatures within 1 mile and not under its control have disadvantage on Wisdom saves;
regains all lost HP every sunset;
typically has two CR 9 Elder Things (9th level spellcasters) and three CR 4 Bhakyee (flying semi-invisible bloodsuckers) hypnotized and guarding it.

Even killing Stage 1 Gobogeg is a moderately tough job that probably requires Earth Elementals just to catch up with Gobogeg underground, and the problem is that if Stage 1 Gobogeg gets away, the escalation condition is so easy to meet (one Dreamwrack saving throw failure by one creature can escalate Gobogeg to the next phase of influence) that it's very likely to escalate to Stage 2.

By the time it gets to Stage 2 it's tougher (409 HP), has a 10 miles radius on its Influence/Unnameable Doom, and create earthquakes every round (including an extra volcanic attack with each of the 1d6 fissures that come with the spell, each volcanic rock attacking at +12 for 4d6 fire and 4d6 bludgeoning) and its speed increases to 60' burrow. If you couldn't kill Stage 1 Gobogeg I can't imagine how you'd kill Stage 2 Gobogeg.

At that point, your best hope may be to simply depopulate the entire 10-mile radius in hopes of starving Gobogeg to death before it can escalate to a a 100 mile radius and then a 1000 mile radius, and then blow a Pacific Ocean-sized hole in the planet.

Basically, Stage 1 is killable, and Stage 3-4 is infeasible to kill through normal means, so there's a lot of time pressure for PCs to act before it's too late, but not so early that they fail. IMO that makes Gobogeg a good villain. coughcoughcough

Yeah, burrowers have always been a royal pain in D&D; there's few good ways to get rid of them or trap them and in this case, since all Gobogeg needs to do is literally stay alive while it's exerting its influence and hanging around, you actually do need to go dig underground and find it while at its worst, it'll try not to be found (especially if it finds out the party can be actually dangerous)! Ground is the most hostile terrain for PCs. On high levels (with Tier 4 characters) it's still fairly doable with Shapechange or True Polymorph giving you access to Gobby fairly easily (you get Tremorsense and Burrow Speed in e.g. Core Spawn Worm shape or Ancient Brass Dragon so if you've divined its approximate location, you might be able to catch it - Longstrider or a second character with Haste needed for the Worm-forms to catch it and Dragon-forms lack Tremorsense so they're effectively blind underground though) but before level 9 spells enter the battlefield, there's just so few options (which all basically come down to "summon something to tunnel for you" or Polymorph into...Cave Badger, I guess?).

And of course, the stage 2 60' burrow speed is pretty crazy - the fastest CR20- creatures are 40' (Ancient White, Ancient Brass, Core Spawn Worm) with most at 30' (Purple Worm, Frost Worm, Adult Blue Dragon, etc.) or under. Even 40' form + Longstrider doesn't suffice: Haste is pretty much the only solution at that point (or if it gets close to surface, trying to move enough ground to uncover it I guess? But Wish > Move Earth doesn't work in this edition due to how Move Earth is worded - it still takes 10 minutes to move all the Earth; Wish > Mirage Arcana perhaps if you could see underground somehow?).

Dork_Forge

2021-05-14, 12:27 AM

At worst they can always Disintegrate it.

If you go to 'they can always use a 6th level spell' then it's probably not as good a strategy as your first thought.

Well, in this case the teleporters would likely be Bards who have +8 Cha saves (Forcecage > buff up > DD out). But anyways, when you have enough Portent dice, you're like to get some 18s and 19s so even +0 Cha characters can do it (save DC is 17 in this case). Though obviously you'd preferably save them for damage in this case since they can guarantee Sharpshooter hits, which can be nice when Tiamat is Dodging.

This is starting to sound more and more resource intensive for little gain, the Wizards/Druid/Cleric are safe... but effectively useless apart from burning portent and luck points.

Well, resources matter. The party I tested for example has 6 Inspirations and 6 Luck points (albeit those being kinda inconvenient for attacking) in addition to the normal attacks. The Inspiration dice are a bit tricky to count since they're only expended if you don't hit natively (but roll high enough to make using Inspiration reasonable) and they open up Sharpshooting so they have a huge impact. Like, normal 1 round damage without resources (aside from the constantly active ones) is about 53 (so 23 after regen meaning she'd survive 25 rounds until death) but with Inspiration, we're suddenly looking at up to 90ish DPR depending on how many SS hits land, which triples the standing damage.

Forcecage is also transparent so Portent can still be used which guarantees few more high damage hits. Overall, it's not all that unlikely for Tiamat to die in 10 turns though so I'd still assume two Hastes, but it's not impossible either. 6 Portents (of which ~3 are gonna be high generally), 6 Inspirations and 6 Luck points overall adds up to ~200-300 extra damage over the course of those turns and since Tiamat's primary defense is Regeneration, any spikes in damage are all the more effective.

I'm so confused by this, there's going to be an entire round lost to just buffing and bunkering if not a round and a half, the Druid isn't going to be throwing out Whirlwind overall damage potential has actually fallen compared to what you actually did.

The simulation you did ran for about 12 rounds, and at the end Tiamat should have been at over 200 hp with one PC dead and the other down, but you think the two Bards (one with half hp) are going to have a shot at taking her down in less rounds with less damage output? Or that they can maintain concentration on their Elemental Weapon VIIs?

I really don't understand where the continued confidence in this comes from when your own simulation doesn't support the results.

Eldariel

2021-05-14, 12:38 AM

I'm so confused by this, there's going to be an entire round lost to just buffing and bunkering if not a round and a half, the Druid isn't going to be throwing out Whirlwind overall damage potential has actually fallen compared to what you actually did.

The simulation you did ran for about 12 rounds, and at the end Tiamat should have been at over 200 hp with one PC dead and the other down, but you think the two Bards (one with half hp) are going to have a shot at taking her down in less rounds with less damage output? Or that they can maintain concentration on their Elemental Weapon VIIs?

I really don't understand where the continued confidence in this comes from when your own simulation doesn't support the results.

One round is 30 HP; it's basically one round more to kill her, but in the grand scheme of things it's not gonna make a huge difference. The simulation had me randomly kill off one of the party's damage dealers by having the party make a tactical blunder (not even a mistake, a straight-up blunder) - but I didn't want to redo entire two-three turns so I played it out anyways. I'm pretty certain 200 HP was not it: Whirlwind didn't do nearly that much after the initial procs that would've happened regardless and that was the only real rules violation (but it's something you can't just remove since Whirlwind being Concentration changes the whole decision process and probably leads to Wizard casting Haste instead making it far lesser of a DPR loss than it might seem basically just costing the party a Major Image or two, casting Minor Illusion instead). If both parties played perfectly and I didn't randomly kill off two party members, the result would've probably been about the same number of rounds except with two more living PCs.

But like I said, I'll rerun the simulation later when I have more time. Though you're free to run it yourself of course. If you can navigate the decision-making trees you'll probably notice the party can actually manage just fine. I'm actually kinda surprised you are so adamant in your position - at the very least I recommend testing your hypothesis. I would've imagined that this even being close would prove that the party is a credible threat to Tiamat and that Tiamat can be managed on level 14.

Dork_Forge

2021-05-14, 01:39 AM

One round is 30 HP; it's basically one round more to kill her, but in the grand scheme of things it's not gonna make a huge difference. The simulation had me randomly kill off one of the party's damage dealers by having the party make a tactical blunder (not even a mistake, a straight-up blunder) - but I didn't want to redo entire two-three turns so I played it out anyways. I'm pretty certain 200 HP was not it: Whirlwind didn't do nearly that much after the initial procs that would've happened regardless and that was the only real rules violation (but it's something you can't just remove since Whirlwind being Concentration changes the whole decision process and probably leads to Wizard casting Haste instead making it far lesser of a DPR loss than it might seem basically just costing the party a Major Image or two, casting Minor Illusion instead). If both parties played perfectly and I didn't randomly kill off two party members, the result would've probably been about the same number of rounds except with two more living PCs.

But like I said, I'll rerun the simulation later when I have more time. Though you're free to run it yourself of course. If you can navigate the decision-making trees you'll probably notice the party can actually manage just fine. I'm actually kinda surprised you are so adamant in your position - at the very least I recommend testing your hypothesis. I would've imagined that this even being close would prove that the party is a credible threat to Tiamat and that Tiamat can be managed on level 14.

In regards to the damage, it isn't just Whirlwind, it's also adding the +3 on EW to the damage, which is incorrect and is a decent chunk of damage from the Bards.

Just to illustrate the direction the simulation likely should have gone, we have two core errors to be highlighted:

-Whirlwind persisting and dealing damage after Haste is cast

-Elemental Weapon incorrectly applying +3 damage to attacks

At the time of the 'victory' the Bard is dead, the Cleric is unconcious but stable, the status of the others not abundantly clear and I didn't want to track their hp, but I doubt everyone is rosy cheeked.

Total incorrect Whirlwind damage: 103

Total incorrect Elemental Weapon damage (between Bard and Bardulacrum): 99

Total damage taken incorrectly by Tiamat: 202 or 32.85% of her total hp

Ignoring that damage Tiamat would be sitting roughly at 223hp at the point where the simulation was ended, with a Regeneration of 30hp coming her way on that turn.

This is why I'm so adamant ^ it wasn't close at all and that's the only evidence actually provided to support the 'weakness' of her block. My hypothesis is simply: 'the god block we have is not a chump and not an easy fight at all' Which I feel is less of a theory and more the default.

As for running the simulation I offered, I started and we know how that turned out. I don't think I'm unjustified in thinking the 'Tiamat is a weak block' is the side that has something to prove here.

Eldariel

2021-05-14, 01:54 AM

This is why I'm so adamant ^ it wasn't close at all and that's the only evidence actually provided to support the 'weakness' of her block. My hypothesis is simply: 'the god block we have is not a chump and not an easy fight at all' Which I feel is less of a theory and more the default.

Don't conflate Tiamat the narrative entity (a God) with her statblock (a big dragon without some of their key abilities like Wing Buffet, movement modes, and their innate spellcasting). She may be a god in lore but her statblock doesn't reflect that: this entity could not grant even the lowliest level 1 Cleric any spells of note nor make Divine Interventions happen. She's just a big brute with lots of HP, AC and damage and little else to it. This is a problem with her statblock, not her narrative entity. Indeed, my whole beef with her statblock is that it simply doesn't come close to what the lore suggests she should be capable of - dissonance between mechanics and fluff.

Which is why I recommend testing it yourself. Run the party how you would optimally speaking and don't give preferential treatment to Tiamat just because you think she should win: run both sides to the best of your ability and see which actually comes out on top. The whole discussion is pointless if you aren't even open to the idea that Tiamat statblock could be weak - but it sounds like you've decided your stance from the start and are trying to make things align with that as opposed to starting from a blank slate and seeing what happens.

Dork_Forge

2021-05-14, 02:30 AM

Don't conflate Tiamat the narrative entity (a God) with her statblock (a big dragon without some of their key abilities like Wing Buffet, movement modes, and their innate spellcasting). She may be a god in lore but her statblock doesn't reflect that: this entity could not grant even the lowliest level 1 Cleric any spells of note nor make Divine Interventions happen. She's just a big brute with lots of HP, AC and damage and little else to it. This is a problem with her statblock, not her narrative entity. Indeed, my whole beef with her statblock is that it simply doesn't come close to what the lore suggests she should be capable of - dissonance between mechanics and fluff.

Giving someone Clerical powers or whatever doesn't need to be reflected in a block, why on earth would it?

What spellcasting abilities do other dragons have that she lacks? I even checked the ancient dragon blocks, not one of them is a spellcaster. The closest is that metallics can Change Shape, which is entirely irrelevant to Tiamat.

What does the 5e lore say she should be capable of that is not represented here? Just in case, I'll reiterate: Divine Intervention and granting Clerical casting has literally nothing to do with her statblock.

Which is why I recommend testing it yourself. Run the party how you would optimally speaking and don't give preferential treatment to Tiamat just because you think she should win: run both sides to the best of your ability and see which actually comes out on top.

Everytime the inaccuracy of your simulation is brought up you entirely side step it, yet you also keep using it as a reference point and support of your argument. No the party did not kill Tiamat RAW, and removing inaccurate damage it was not even close. You can handwave PC death as tactical blunders if you want, but you can't handwave the massive amount of incorrect damage.

As for:

The whole discussion is pointless if you aren't even open to the idea that Tiamat statblock could be weak - but it sounds like you've decided your stance from the start and are trying to make things align with that as opposed to starting from a blank slate and seeing what happens.

I literally set up a simulation to run this, you bailed on turn 1, please don't say I'm not open to testing things as I have already invested time setting up a test once for it to fall through. Again, the ones saying the block is weak are the ones with something to prove, and so far you have proved nothing besides ruling that you can ready walls to block breaths hinders a breath based enemy.

As for her block: Is it ideal? No, it was written before the core was finalised, it was never going to hold up that well. I'd like to see consistency with other dragons in the wing thing, blindsight, and burrowing but that's pretty much it. She's a goddess of evil dragons, and she can do pretty much everything evil dragons can do, but better bar the previously mentioned inconsistencies.

Is she lacklustre compared to previous editions and their lore and dragons? No idea, I think that may be where some of this comes from to some degree, but the fact is that other editions don't mean squat to anything but themselves. New edition, new game, new context.

Hael

2021-05-14, 03:15 AM

You assume that you can pick and choose how to counter, the reality is you need to choose your element type for flame shield ahead of time, so are you going to rely on the mephits to protect?
You don't seem to be taking into consideration that to use the bond creatures need to clump up (teleporting to each other) and expend their reactions. You're making it sound like a free propistion of just sharing one big pool of hp... which it isn't.
I don't understand what you're talking about with wasting heads actions either...

I do assume that, and I am allowed to by assumption. If we pick out smoke mephits before the fight, then I want ice resistance from the fireshield before the fight begins. I just need enough resistances/immunities to ensure enough redundancy so that i'm always covered (in practice 2 bonds with fire, 2 bonds with ice, one acid, one lightning). If I only have 5 proficiency due to being eg lvl 14, there will be scenarios where one reaction has already been utilized and a needed resist is unavailable, but those are edge cases. And edge cases that I can plan for with additional uses of fireshield or items/potions etc

Moreover, I don't care about smoke mephits. For instance, suppose she cold blasts two people and a smoke mephit. Party member 1 can take the damage for party member 2, and the smoke mephit can take the damage for party member 2.. Thus getting obliterated with 3 applications of aoe damage. The net effect (whether the aoe was fire or ice), is that my party members were able to use their reaction to *zero* a potentially huge amount of damage from a head at the worst case cost of only a single summon (and the peace cleric can reapply bond to a new summon victim next round). I can keep doing that for 5 or 6 rounds before I run out of bonds.

So you're... just handwaving that the Cleric is on an unnamed steed and allowed the postioning to affect the battle without repurcussions? The easiest way to facilitate that steed is Phantom Steed, which is trivial to end, leaving the Cleric mounted on a stationary horse."

Ok w.r.t to positioning. First of all, some assumptions about the high level party should be made here. For instance that at least one or two have some flight or movement ability (find greater steed, a flying mount or summon, flying boots, flight from a class feature etc, maybe a simulacrum concentrating on flight etc). So even if everyone needs to be in 30 foot range (60 if the peace cleric is higher lvl), with a z axis, a 30 by 30 by 30 sphere is a lot of space that people can spread out in. Moreover, you only have to be within 30/60 feet of a single member to have access to the bond (allowing even more space). Its not trivial for Tiamat to always be able to clip everyone that have that sort of mobility. Certainly not with the line elements while she is restrained, and the cone portion's conic section struggles against a third axis or when facing eg Leomonds tiny hut (which can be thought of as an obstacle or cover for dex saves, even if not inside).

That's assuming that the breathweapons see this as a single pool... which assumes that only a single person is taking damage from any given breath, that's ludicrous to assume."
See above and related discussions about how protective bond works. In practice, its going to be zeroing *at least* one heads aoe, and likely still have some reactions or disposable summons left over to resist a portion of the second heads. We haven't even discussed how Leomonds hut is working... Allowing the cleric, druid, wizard to sit in there concentrating on spells, healing each other and moving in and out to cast things. Indeed, once Tiamat is grounded her only realistic strat is to break out of the grapple and run off to regenerate.

I assume 'life shepherd' is a Life Cleric Shepherd Druid multiclass. There is no reason why Disciple of Life would work with the Unicorn totem. Those creatures are being healed by a feature, not by a leveled spell. The creature that gets Heal cast on them gets the bonus, no one else does besides the standard Unicorn bonus."
Fine. I happen to not agree with this ruling, but I know that Crawford does. Regardless it's still not small amounts of aoe healing with druid lvl * number of party members + the primary heal + lifecleric bonus. The familiars will also be providing lifeberries etc Also, If team members get low, they can come in the hut to restore hps.

The word obviously is used a lot on the other side of this argument, what is obvious about the Rune Knight being able to control jack? You still haven't addressed how they're Huge either...So everyone is in the hut besides the Rune Knight? So all of her attacks and breaths are being aimed at a single creature that the rest of the party is unable to help with anything since I think you may be missing something here:"
Why is that a problem? Bonded Summons and melee can be outside, people that are inside can step out, cast, and step in (just not the wizard, or the wizards simalucrum that AA'd the initial hut) or alternatively stay inside and cast summon spells/bond etc. The bonded summons can eat the damage for the RK and other melee combatants who are outside, and people can step out and drop big heals on the RK or do damage etc. I don't really care if Shepherd druid summons eat a lot of aoes. He has a lot of slots and Tiamat doesn't have that many rounds before she simply dies to the combined mass of DPR. I don't think you properly account for how much damage upcast summons, planar bound creatures and assorted simulacrums are capable of outputing once she's grounded.

So you're instead arguing for level 20 PCs? That clarifies some things, however you still haven't presented a party of 4 nor have you said how this party is going to actually kill her?
Shrodingers party so far nebulously includes:"
Again, im arguing that certain subclasses really hurts her statblock in a way that was likely not intended. Peace clerics are essentially a huge nerf to Tiamats dpr (easily zeroing 2 points of her legendary action, likely taking a chunk out of the second heads dpr, and making hp shared for the melee component). Chronurgists are ridiculous against her, with tiny hut protecting two or three members at a time, the massive boost to party initiative, arcane abeyance for extra concentrations and the even more ridiculous convergent future (which the simulacrum can use to zero various attack rolls or head attacks until the simalucrum is too exhausted to continue). For that matter, maybe the chronurgist has magic jar'd an exhaustion proof body, in which case now you have two convergent futures PER ROUND to deal with.

For a good party, Eldariels party was an excellent start. The hard part of the fight is the initial restraint. If forcecage isn't accessible, grappling seems like the way to go. So one of the optimized RK grappling builds (with enlarge) that you can find on the forums. A life shepherd, a peace cleric (maybe with some arti lvls for utility), an arti/chronurgist + simalucrum. A fifth party member would likely be dpr.. So maybe a sorlock or a hexadin with aura (note that the RK will likely be making a nonzero amount of his dex saving throws with aura, bless, bond, artificer infusions/items, cover from the summons etc

You're just pick an choosing abilities and things that can cause speed bumps... but not actually showing how any of those things fit together in a party. Your argument primarily is 'shared hp pool' which is a flawed concept against an aoe based opponent, 'resistances' which have been scarce in actually being shown and assuming you can freely do the right thing at the right time against an opponent smarter than the Wizard and wiser than any druid or cleric can ever dream to be.
Speed bumps isnt exactly what I would call not being able to hurt 3 out of four party members, and having most of your dpr negated, all the while taking massive amounts of damage by dozens of summons with pack tactics. It turns out that optimized parties can solve most of 5es problems pretty efficiently.

Eldariel

2021-05-14, 06:41 AM

@DF: I'm simply ignoring the issues since I don't have the time to run it again yet so I can't fix them. Regardless, it looks obvious to me that the blunders by the party were more impactful than the rules mistakes. But whatever, I'll just run it again and we can talk about it then, if there's anything to talk about.

I'm saying "run it yourself" as in play both sides yourself: that way you don't have to argue rules or waste time waiting for turns. You could just play both sides instead. I gave you the party already and you have Tiamat's statblock and even the arena - just run it once and see what happens. That way you don't have to guess how the DM is gonna rule something or whatever - arbitrariness gets cut out.

Dork_Forge

2021-05-16, 01:13 AM

I do assume that, and I am allowed to by assumption. If we pick out smoke mephits before the fight, then I want ice resistance from the fireshield before the fight begins. I just need enough resistances/immunities to ensure enough redundancy so that i'm always covered (in practice 2 bonds with fire, 2 bonds with ice, one acid, one lightning). If I only have 5 proficiency due to being eg lvl 14, there will be scenarios where one reaction has already been utilized and a needed resist is unavailable, but those are edge cases. And edge cases that I can plan for with additional uses of fireshield or items/potions etc

Moreover, I don't care about smoke mephits. For instance, suppose she cold blasts two people and a smoke mephit. Party member 1 can take the damage for party member 2, and the smoke mephit can take the damage for party member 2.. Thus getting obliterated with 3 applications of aoe damage. The net effect (whether the aoe was fire or ice), is that my party members were able to use their reaction to *zero* a potentially huge amount of damage from a head at the worst case cost of only a single summon (and the peace cleric can reapply bond to a new summon victim next round). I can keep doing that for 5 or 6 rounds before I run out of bonds.

If everything works perfectly let's say you are zeroing one aoe a turn... you're also tying up a significant amount of resources to do it. Pretty much every bonded person's reaction? Replacing these summons so frequently (both the slots and action economy).

Even if this works so well (which I am in no way convinced of, primarily because you're choosing to handwave how you're acquiring all of the resistances you need, this is basically shrodinger's party), you're eating a breath weapon a turn and if she choose to melee there isn't even going to be reaction abilities availble to help.

Ok w.r.t to positioning. First of all, some assumptions about the high level party should be made here. For instance that at least one or two have some flight or movement ability (find greater steed, a flying mount or summon, flying boots, flight from a class feature etc, maybe a simulacrum concentrating on flight etc). So even if everyone needs to be in 30 foot range (60 if the peace cleric is higher lvl), with a z axis, a 30 by 30 by 30 sphere is a lot of space that people can spread out in. Moreover, you only have to be within 30/60 feet of a single member to have access to the bond (allowing even more space). Its not trivial for Tiamat to always be able to clip everyone that have that sort of mobility. Certainly not with the line elements while she is restrained, and the cone portion's conic section struggles against a third axis or when facing eg Leomonds tiny hut (which can be thought of as an obstacle or cover for dex saves, even if not inside).

Yeah, nope, more schrodingers here. You're just assuming flight capability without hammering in where it's coming from, the action economy or even if there's enough concentration to achieve it.

And she's restrained now? Is this just a casual way of saying grappled or do you literally mean the condition?

You're already spending the time typing out the replies, this would be a much more convincing argument if you specified a party and how they're meant to keep on top of this defence that needs constant maintenence.

See above and related discussions about how protective bond works. In practice, its going to be zeroing *at least* one heads aoe, and likely still have some reactions or disposable summons left over to resist a portion of the second heads. We haven't even discussed how Leomonds hut is working... Allowing the cleric, druid, wizard to sit in there concentrating on spells, healing each other and moving in and out to cast things. Indeed, once Tiamat is grounded her only realistic strat is to break out of the grapple and run off to regenerate.

In practice I don't think this will reliably work every single round, especially the first round. Even if it can be zero'd... eating a dragon breath weapon every round is still devastating to the party before melee focus fire considertations.

Fine. I happen to not agree with this ruling, but I know that Crawford does. Regardless it's still not small amounts of aoe healing with druid lvl * number of party members + the primary heal + lifecleric bonus. The familiars will also be providing lifeberries etc Also, If team members get low, they can come in the hut to restore hps.

Crawford doesn't really matter here and I didn't even see if he had made a ruling on it, it's clearly neither intent nor RAW on the ability.

So now there's also familiars, that are surviving the AOEs, carrying Goodberries and... what? What supports a familiar feeding someone a Goodberry?

I get the feeling that at least part of the durability you think a party would have is based around rulings you either personally prefer or incorrectly though was RAW.

This isn't even considering that by using the Unicorn, you're forcing everyone to be inside a certain, nice aoe-able space.

Why is that a problem? Bonded Summons and melee can be outside, people that are inside can step out, cast, and step in (just not the wizard, or the wizards simalucrum that AA'd the initial hut) or alternatively stay inside and cast summon spells/bond etc. The bonded summons can eat the damage for the RK and other melee combatants who are outside, and people can step out and drop big heals on the RK or do damage etc. I don't really care if Shepherd druid summons eat a lot of aoes. He has a lot of slots and Tiamat doesn't have that many rounds before she simply dies to the combined mass of DPR. I don't think you properly account for how much damage upcast summons, planar bound creatures and assorted simulacrums are capable of outputing once she's grounded.

Why is it a problem? The Rune Knight will die very, very quickly. These bonds are now getting real sketchy, if multiple summons are bonded then you're not covering the party, not that you were covering them and the simulacrums to begin with if you assumed a bonded Mephit.

Again, im arguing that certain subclasses really hurts her statblock in a way that was likely not intended. Peace clerics are essentially a huge nerf to Tiamats dpr (easily zeroing 2 points of her legendary action, likely taking a chunk out of the second heads dpr, and making hp shared for the melee component). Chronurgists are ridiculous against her, with tiny hut protecting two or three members at a time, the massive boost to party initiative, arcane abeyance for extra concentrations and the even more ridiculous convergent future (which the simulacrum can use to zero various attack rolls or head attacks until the simalucrum is too exhausted to continue). For that matter, maybe the chronurgist has magic jar'd an exhaustion proof body, in which case now you have two convergent futures PER ROUND to deal with.

And I'm saying that just naming some abilities does not win a fight, especially when you're doing it haphazardly with no real regard to if these things actually work together in the way that you expect them to.

Any argument that relies on Magic Jar, magical items gained from outside of class features, or any assumptions that you can't actually point to how they are more than just favourable assumptions don't strengthen this argument. They just make it more contingent on things going the party's way over an increasing large amount of time before the fight.

For a good party, Eldariels party was an excellent start. The hard part of the fight is the initial restraint. If forcecage isn't accessible, grappling seems like the way to go. So one of the optimized RK grappling builds (with enlarge) that you can find on the forums. A life shepherd, a peace cleric (maybe with some arti lvls for utility), an arti/chronurgist + simalucrum. A fifth party member would likely be dpr.. So maybe a sorlock or a hexadin with aura (note that the RK will likely be making a nonzero amount of his dex saving throws with aura, bless, bond, artificer infusions/items, cover from the summons etc

So, where is the Enlarge coming from? If you just keep saying it, I'll just keep asking, just think about it and put down how this actually works.

Do you actually think this is reasonably achievable before Tier 4, which your assumptions seem to be based around given the abilities and multiclassing you want.

This all just feels like you pointing at various things and saying look! This stuff will make an easy/winnable fight.

Speed bumps isnt exactly what I would call not being able to hurt 3 out of four party members, and having most of your dpr negated, all the while taking massive amounts of damage by dozens of summons with pack tactics. It turns out that optimized parties can solve most of 5es problems pretty efficiently.

Dozens of summons with pact tactics?

You're just going to throw that out there with absolutely zero justification?

I'm not seeing 'most' of her DPR being negated and I'm not seeing any actual significant damage output.

@DF: I'm simply ignoring the issues since I don't have the time to run it again yet so I can't fix them. Regardless, it looks obvious to me that the blunders by the party were more impactful than the rules mistakes. But whatever, I'll just run it again and we can talk about it then, if there's anything to talk about.

I'm not saying you have to run it again period, nevermind right now. My problem is that whatever your opinion on the weight of the mistakes was, you keep pointing to a simulation she undeniably RAW should not have died in. If you stopped pointing to it as a victory then I wouldn't mention it again, as it stands it just looks like you're choosing to ignore your mistakes and use what you consider victories to back your argument.

I'm saying "run it yourself" as in play both sides yourself: that way you don't have to argue rules or waste time waiting for turns. You could just play both sides instead. I gave you the party already and you have Tiamat's statblock and even the arena - just run it once and see what happens. That way you don't have to guess how the DM is gonna rule something or whatever - arbitrariness gets cut out.

Okay, and I would rather not. It is a considerably time sink to do everything yourself and I have two games a week, work and personal committments. So seeing as I don't feel like I have any need or desire to do this myself (again, my firm belief is that the onus of proof is on the one's saying she's weak to begin with) I won't invest my limited free time.

Just stop pointing to the thing as proof and it'll stop coming up.

Hael

2021-05-16, 08:02 AM

So, where is the Enlarge coming from? If you just keep saying it, I'll just keep asking, just think about it and put down how this actually works.
Any of these (http://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?627043-Tasha-s-Tarrasque-Tackler-the-Big-Game-Grappler-Rune-Knight&highlight=rune%20knight%20grappling) builds or proto builds will do, but in particular lets pick the armorer X/RK3 as it nicely solves stubborn DMs not giving out flying instruments/mounts to tier3/4 parties going up against world ending threats. The build now provides winged boots at lvl 15. The build also provides a very high grappling roll (combined with convergent futures) pretty much ensuring a grapple as well.

If everything works perfectly let's say you are zeroing one aoe a turn... you're also tying up a significant amount of resources to do it. Pretty much every bonded person's reaction? Replacing these summons so frequently (both the slots and action economy).
Good, we now both agree that we can zero a breath weapon! Progress! Note that if there is only one melee (say the RK, while the wizard, druid and cleric sit in the hut) 4 or 5 of the bonds are summons depending on prof.. Even before considering immunities, those can tank nearly 2 full rounds of breath weapons with their reactions assuming we spread them out well enough initially. Note that immunities and resistances aren't even that important here, as they could be wolves or velociraptors doing the tanking instead. Immunities really just saves us a little action economy.

You're already spending the time typing out the replies, this would be a much more convincing argument if you specified a party and how they're meant to keep on top of this defense that needs constant maintenance.
Sorry, I thought we mostly already had. Peace cleric, Armorer/RK, life Shepherd, Chronurgist..

Why is it a problem? The Rune Knight will die very, very quickly. These bonds are now getting real sketchy, if multiple summons are bonded then you're not covering the party, not that you were covering them and the simulacrums to begin with if you assumed a bonded Mephit.
I thought that it was clear that we wouldn't be bonding people sitting in a hut, as they don't need it. The only bonds are summons and melee. If the party only has the RK in melee, then it's just the summons and the RK that remain exposed.

And I'm saying that just naming some abilities does not win a fight, especially when you're doing it haphazardly with no real regard to if these things actually work together in the way that you expect them to.
I've done more than name abilities, and I think the path to win seems pretty clear at this point, if not to you then to others reading.. Despite rather tedious nitpicking on completely inconsequential details like the matter of 4 or 5 extra hps due to a ruling on aoe heal features or the denial of class spells b/c *feelings*. I concede all these points if you want.

You're just going to throw that out there with absolutely zero justification? I'm not seeing 'most' of her DPR being negated and I'm not seeing any actual significant damage output.
A life-shephard is present. Upcast conjure animals for wolves/raptors? A 7th lvl slot gives you 24 of them by my count. That's something like 40 dpr. The lvl 14 shepherd feature.. 4 CR2s (which we can get trivially by having someone grab him pre fight). DPR ~15. Two planar bound upcast celestials are like 35 dpr each. Then there are the actual summons by the peace cleric (maybe a coautl for bless and healing), another summon by the simulacrum (~30 with upcast aberations).. Thats a lot of damage before we even get to the damage done by the party and the simulacrum himself (crown of stars etc)... (40 + 15 +35 +35 + 30 ~ 155 dpr or 125 dpr per round after regen).. Some of these summons (many of which are ranged) will die off during the fight, but then Tiamat is wasting actions hurting them which is a net win for the party as we can simply resummon/bond and she doesn't have the action economy to keep up. I just don't see her living for more than 5 or 6 rounds of this type of collective pounding.. I'm not really even trying very hard to create dpr here (say by using high lvl blasting spells or using items)..

Meanwhile the RK tank that's grappling.. Every turn he has his lvl in temp hp from defensive field.. he gets at least 8 hp per round in regen (two familiars, and anything else we want that can carry lifeberries to him, like eg one of the wolves or presummoned tiny servants that we can keep in the hut with us). He will also have access to healing by the peace cleric, couatl and shepherd druid every turn (including upcast healing words, potential channel divinities + life shepherd bonuses and aoe effects as well as big shot heals like the heal spell). For the purpose of this exercise, we can warding bond him with the cleric or ideally the druid if we get access to that spell (say via a mark). He's going to have immunity to poison (feast), resistance to fire and cold (fire shield), 4-5 tanking creatures per round, and access to the usual crazy high arti ac and great saves from bless+peace+arti features. We also now have runes to deflect unwanted head attack... I haven't even spent much time wondering what magic items to give him, simply b/c I don't see why it really matters, the fight seems easier and easier the more I keep writing.

Dork_Forge

2021-05-17, 01:06 AM

Any of these (http://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?627043-Tasha-s-Tarrasque-Tackler-the-Big-Game-Grappler-Rune-Knight&highlight=rune%20knight%20grappling) builds or proto builds will do, but in particular lets pick the armorer X/RK3 as it nicely solves stubborn DMs not giving out flying instruments/mounts to tier3/4 parties going up against world ending threats. The build now provides winged boots at lvl 15. The build also provides a very high grappling roll (combined with convergent futures) pretty much ensuring a grapple as well.

None of those builds are Artificer based, the thread linked to one that has what you refer to (Rune 3 on an Artificer) and is incredibly heavily invested into grappling.

Winged Boots are a 10th level Artificer infusion... so there's 5 levels of Rune Knight? This might seem nitpicky but there's so many assumptions and small mistakes that get thrown around in this conversation as a whole that they most certainly add up.

So...who is casting Enlarge?

Good, we now both agree that we can zero a breath weapon! Progress! Note that if there is only one melee (say the RK, while the wizard, druid and cleric sit in the hut) 4 or 5 of the bonds are summons depending on prof.. Even before considering immunities, those can tank nearly 2 full rounds of breath weapons with their reactions assuming we spread them out well enough initially. Note that immunities and resistances aren't even that important here, as they could be wolves or velociraptors doing the tanking instead. Immunities really just saves us a little action economy.

Please don't oversell my willingness to engage in a hypothetical.

Who you're bonding is all over the place. So it's the grappler and then just a bunch of summons that are close enough to use the bond but far enough away to not get slaughtered en masse?

And of course the Druid is able to manage to get these summons out there and bonded before the hut comes up... Or the hut can come up before anyone gets breathed on right?

Sorry, I thought we mostly already had. Peace cleric, Armorer/RK, life Shepherd, Chronurgist..

You've been very explicit in naming abilities you want to combine, this is the first time you've actually put down a party. It's still... undefined as you haven't given races, level splits or any ASI decisions, but it's progress.

I thought that it was clear that we wouldn't be bonding people sitting in a hut, as they don't need it. The only bonds are summons and melee. If the party only has the RK in melee, then it's just the summons and the RK that remain exposed.

And the hut going up on the first turn whilst everyone you want to be able to get in is inside the area, how is that handled?

I've done more than name abilities, and I think the path to win seems pretty clear at this point, if not to you then to others reading.. Despite rather tedious nitpicking on completely inconsequential details like the matter of 4 or 5 extra hps due to a ruling on aoe heal features or the denial of class spells b/c *feelings*. I concede all these points if you want.

You can think all you like, up until this point you've primarily discussed using the bond to create a shared hp pool and abeyance to abuse tiny hut. Here's something rather hilarious though:

When you talk about a shared hp pool everyone's hp is somehow magically a giant pool that bond does not provide. When I point out a rules error that amounts to 3+ hp per person every time the Druid heals I'm nitpicking? If you're shared hp pool idea is to be believed, then isn't even the low end of that actually an additional 12hp per spell use?

Making an argument for something being easy or a block being weak is not something I find convinvcing when it is full of favourable rulings and favourable rules errors. This has been the case with multiple posters advocating for the Tiamat weakness point of view.

If the block is so weak, then surely all of those favourable errors and rulings shouldn't matter right?

As a general rule of thumb I find 'Magic Jar into a better body' less of an argument and more of a handwave. You can't guarantee anything but an attempt to take over a body, that includes success and that a desirable body is even available.

A life-shephard is present. Upcast conjure animals for wolves/raptors? A 7th lvl slot gives you 24 of them by my count. That's something like 40 dpr. The lvl 14 shepherd feature.. 4 CR2s (which we can get trivially by having someone grab him pre fight). DPR ~15. Two planar bound upcast celestials are like 35 dpr each. Then there are the actual summons by the peace cleric (maybe a coautl for bless and healing), another summon by the simulacrum (~30 with upcast aberations).. Thats a lot of damage before we even get to the damage done by the party and the simulacrum himself (crown of stars etc)... (40 + 15 +35 +35 + 30 ~ 155 dpr or 125 dpr per round after regen).. Some of these summons (many of which are ranged) will die off during the fight, but then Tiamat is wasting actions hurting them which is a net win for the party as we can simply resummon/bond and she doesn't have the action economy to keep up. I just don't see her living for more than 5 or 6 rounds of this type of collective pounding.. I'm not really even trying very hard to create dpr here (say by using high lvl blasting spells or using items)..

So we're adding that the player chooses the creatures onto the favourable rulings then? And that once the summons are established as a threat Tiamat is just going to tolerate getting bitten? They'll have their own initiative, so once they're an established threat there is basically zero chance they will get to act without their numbers being decimated.

To end up with a horde of summons that are literally useless the moment Tiamat isn't on the ground. And if so many party members are concentrating on summons, then they can't concentrate on other buffs or effects.

Meanwhile the RK tank that's grappling.. Every turn he has his lvl in temp hp from defensive field.. he gets at least 8 hp per round in regen (two familiars, and anything else we want that can carry lifeberries to him, like eg one of the wolves or presummoned tiny servants that we can keep in the hut with us). He will also have access to healing by the peace cleric, couatl and shepherd druid every turn (including upcast healing words, potential channel divinities + life shepherd bonuses and aoe effects as well as big shot heals like the heal spell). For the purpose of this exercise, we can warding bond him with the cleric or ideally the druid if we get access to that spell (say via a mark). He's going to have immunity to poison (feast), resistance to fire and cold (fire shield), 4-5 tanking creatures per round, and access to the usual crazy high arti ac and great saves from bless+peace+arti features. We also now have runes to deflect unwanted head attack... I haven't even spent much time wondering what magic items to give him, simply b/c I don't see why it really matters, the fight seems easier and easier the more I keep writing.

Everyturn up to his prof mod he has his artificer level as a bonus action, which will compete with other bonus actions on at least the going Huge round. You may feel that's nitpicky, I think it all adds up and if not accounting for things properly, then what's the point?

There's nothing in the game to suggest that familiars (or anyone) can feed another creature a Goodberry, and whether or not they even benefit from Disciple of life is debated on here.

For the purpose of this exercise? You either include other PCs in the bond as part of your strategy or you don't, your plan seems to be changing depending on what part you're talking about a little bit.

Warding Bond is severely overrated, you're saving damage on the RK, but the whole point of the hut was to protect the others and now the casters are taking automatic damage forcing Con saves. And that's IF it works through the hut, since it's certainly a magical effect.

I'm sure it does seem easier to you, you also seem to think a lot of things will go the parties way, like Tiamat even getting in grappling range, summons being able to do any damage, getting into the hut without catching damage first etc.