Killing Tiamat inside a Forcecage

[Eldariel]

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

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

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

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

[Forum Explorer]

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

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

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

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

[JackPhoenix]

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

[PhoenixPhyre]

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

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

[Eldariel]

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

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

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

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

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


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

No, no, not Sorcadin.

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

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

Go to town!

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

[MaxWilson]

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

5E power creep is real.

[Eldariel]

5E power creep is real.

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

[Dork_Forge]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Eldariel]

*snip*

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Dork_Forge]

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

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

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

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

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

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

-Could you resurrect a Simulacrum?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Simulacrums are likely to die in a couple of hits.

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


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

[Eldariel]

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

[greenstone]

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

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

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

[Valmark]

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Dork_Forge]

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

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

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

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

[Valmark]

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

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

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

[Dork_Forge]

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Valmark]

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

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



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

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

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

[Eldariel]

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

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

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

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

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

[Dork_Forge]

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

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

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

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

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

[Eldariel]

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

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

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

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

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


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

[Dork_Forge]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[MaxWilson]

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

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

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

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

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

[Dork_Forge]

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

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

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

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

[MaxWilson]

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Dork_Forge]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[CapnWildefyr]

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

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

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

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

[JNAProductions]

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

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

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

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

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

[BerzerkerUnit]

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

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

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

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

[Eldariel]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There are three flaws here:

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

[PhoenixPhyre]

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

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

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

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

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

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



There are three flaws here:

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

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

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


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

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