[Red Hand of Doom SPOILERS!] Endarire's Revised Stats for Aspect of Tiamat

[Endarire]

Greetings, Giants!

Here's the updated link to Endarire's higher difficulty Aspect of Tiamat from Red Hand of Doom from the RHoD Handbook. The stats are otherwise the same. Note that this is meant to be opened in Microsoft Word and NOT a web browser! Opening this in a web browser like Firefox or Chrome or Edge may cause spaces to be misaligned!

Enjoy!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1a-35IsF7PEYm7NAvdEjf6b_MKFdiC-nb/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=105431936210541578735&rtpof=true&sd=true

[smetzger]

Thanks, I plan on running this at some point and have started gathering resources.

[ksbsnowowl]

Nice. I also plan to run this in the future. These stats could be very useful!:biggrin:

[Biggus]

Why does the dracolich only get +2 initiative from Nimble Bones?

[Seward]

I've always been bemused at the idea that the Aspect is too weak. Our level 9 party, after a grueling battle just to get there had her pop out after we'd blown all our conserved resources winning what we thought was the final fight. We took one look and ran like hell, and one of us got left behind, although at least that final demise bought us the round of lead to allow the others to escape.

Big parties, higher level parties, pathfinder parties, high charop parties, sure, she needs a buff. Maybe also if the party cleared the entire fane, rested and encountered the Aspect glowing with buffs still running from jumping the Wyrmlord's ritual fresh and strong she'd seem like a pushover with an expected 4-5 person 9th level party, but even then, it depends on the party mix and the exact buffs. Unlike most single opponents she has a bunch of pretty effective actions each round, and is in a confined space where spellcasting isn't easy if you aren't in a killbox spot for her.

I guess we should have rested more and not pushed so hard to get to the end. But we didn't know when the stupid ritual would finish and had interrogated some of the priests, so pushed until we were out of tricks. I think we cleared it in two goes, and that includes fighting 3 dragons the first day (we couldn't stop Ozzie and Reggie from fleeing back when we were level 5-6...they'd been upgraded to large and were just too tough to burst down. The rematch at level 9 went better for us, even with their lightning buddy helping).

[Endarire]

@Biggus
Consider the +2 init from Nimble Bones a typo. The feat gives it +4 instead. Apologies.

[Elder_Basilisk]

I've always been bemused at the idea that the Aspect is too weak. Our level 9 party, after a grueling battle just to get there had her pop out after we'd blown all our conserved resources winning what we thought was the final fight. We took one look and ran like hell, and one of us got left behind, although at least that final demise bought us the round of lead to allow the others to escape.

Big parties, higher level parties, pathfinder parties, high charop parties, sure, she needs a buff. Maybe also if the party cleared the entire fane, rested and encountered the Aspect glowing with buffs still running from jumping the Wyrmlord's ritual fresh and strong she'd seem like a pushover with an expected 4-5 person 9th level party, but even then, it depends on the party mix and the exact buffs. Unlike most single opponents she has a bunch of pretty effective actions each round, and is in a confined space where spellcasting isn't easy if you aren't in a killbox spot for her.

I guess we should have rested more and not pushed so hard to get to the end. But we didn't know when the stupid ritual would finish and had interrogated some of the priests, so pushed until we were out of tricks. I think we cleared it in two goes, and that includes fighting 3 dragons the first day (we couldn't stop Ozzie and Reggie from fleeing back when we were level 5-6...they'd been upgraded to large and were just too tough to burst down. The rematch at level 9 went better for us, even with their lightning buddy helping).

I think the words, "level 9" address why your party had trouble. I've played once by the book 3.5 what the probably mid op characters and the party crushed the aspect but that was a higher level party. At the end it was something like clr 11, wiz 11, ranger 10, fighter/barbarian 8, and ranger 9 with the elf bard along for the ride and inspiration al boosted inspire courage. Level 11 casters and mid optimization made a big difference (hero's feast and chained +4 GMW (bead of karma and other clvl boosts were in play) and magic vestments made a lot of things much easier).

I ran the adventure in Pathfinder for a mid to low op party with a pretty straightforward conversion of the aspect of tiamat (not nearly as tough as this) and the level 10 party with moderate optimization (also 5 members plus a cohort) won but it was close and one or two PCs died.

Level 9 by itself would make things hard without addressing party size, optimization etc. I think level 10 is probably a little more typical by the end of the adventure though.

[Seward]

I think the words, "level 9" address why your party had trouble.

Given that you're supposed to start at level 5 and advance about 1 level per chapter, I'd have thought level 9 was normal.

Indeed since we had 6 characters with Living Greyhawk-level optimization and WBL-access the GM made things tougher on us at points (like the larger dragons in chapters 1 and 2, swapping skullcrusher ogres in for ogres in a few spots, things like that).

I think we'd made it to that chapter with only two deaths (one in Marked for Death, the player leveled his character back up in other play opportunities to not fall behind) and in the last chapter I'd swapped my character who died for one that was already 9th level (since after Battle of Brindol, having my 8th level pc be 7th level for the finale seemed...suicidal and dangerous for the party and I had no opportunities to make up the levels in other play before we were to meet again. As it turned out an archer was better than a wildshape-pounce-druid for that chapter, given the DR on many enemies, and being a straight dungeon crawl her druid utility wasn't as needed as in earlier chapters when she was travelers-mount/easy-trailing the party around and scouting with camouflage or as a local bird etc). Our third death, the only unrecoverable one, happened in the Aspect battle.

We had less deaths than some playthroughs, more than others, but found it to be a consistently decent challenge throughout. We all had fun, even those of us who had character deaths. When you do high fantasy with big stakes, bad things happen sometimes. Even being 9th level for Battle of Brindol will make a big difference, and yeah, if they are really level 11 by final chapter you have to make major changes all through to keep it interesting.