Killing Tiamat inside a Forcecage

[MaxWilson]

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/chrisperk...26037204238336

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]

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.

[JonBeowulf]

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.

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.

[MaxWilson]

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]

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.. ) 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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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 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), 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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

-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]

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]

-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]

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]

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. Stacking bonuses are one hell of a drug.

[Forum Explorer]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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!

[Eldariel]

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]

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]

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!