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| #1fylthApr 24, 2015 9:29:10 | A little back story: I got two groups in my campaign for Rise of Tiamat, both are based on the book itself, but I put in extra things and take some stuff out etc. one group is running up and down the Sword Coast dealing with CUltists and trying to track the Masks down while my other player ( he lives in Vancity so we run that adventure over skype, he will be back in Edmonton soon so both campaigns will merge) is doing the smaller side quests like Dragon Council and other various things to keep the adventure going.
Now what I need to know is if anyone has done the final battle yet. If so, how did you work the different factions into the battle itself? Did you just say "ok the allied factions fight the bad guys and you guys run against the boss, did you give the players some kind of temporary buffs? etc. I was thinking of doing sort of an "overhead" battle like an RTS before they get to the Well of Dragons, where maybe each player would command a 'unit' of X amount of soldiers to weaken the enemies before they actually get into The Well itself, but I am not sure how to handle the factions as they have been doing quite well and have at least 3 factions that will work with them.
I am mostly looking to get some ideas and feedback on how to run this last encounter. We still have plenty of time to get there as we are on Episode 3 right now. They have had some close calls against the Cult and nearly had some of them assassinated while they were in the 'safety' of Waterdeep. My group is always on their toes and they have told me OOC that they like how everything is running and the feeling that they are up against a powerful force and could die at anytime.
Any help or ideas would be greatly appreciated!
na'zdravi !
- Kryptkeeper Fylth |
| #2transcendantviewerApr 24, 2015 11:35:39 | I haven't particularly ran the module and haven't picked up the second book for it, but based on what I've heard from other DMs, I'll recommend the following: DON'T CHANGE ANYTHING. Changing anything will just detract from the feeling that you and your Adventuring Party are fight a GOD. She's weakened, but still a god. The entire scenario is difficult. Don't even make the means of weakening her obvious. It's a reward system for good play so victory can actually be possible. If they die, they die. |
| #3BuddhaKaiApr 24, 2015 18:09:04 | I ran it as DM for a group of four; a warlock/cleric, fighter, ranger, druid, and a paladin. everyone was level 14 except the warlock/cleric who was 15th.
As stated above, change nothing. The final battle on it's own is how it should be, with opportunities to even the battle against Tiamat if the PCs manage to do certain things. If the PCs kill an important NPC or destroy one of the many artefacts related to Tiamat, they weaken Tiamat by just a little, NEVER GIVE THESE BONUS TO THE PLAYERS FOR FREE- let them figure this stuff out by giving them clues about it, the adventure mentions over and over not to mess with what the writters have set up, the PCs CAN win, but there is an even likelyhood that they die. This fits the tone of the attack on Tiamat, and I whole heartedly agree with it's philosophy.
Now onto my run of the Tiamat fight.
The party was down one player, the druid, but they still stood a chance. The way I ran the player's armies was by putting them in the background. While the PCs slipped into the caldera to stop Tiamat and the ritural, the armies of the council took to fighting Tiamat's forces outside. Just put it in the background, maybe roll a few checks for both sides to see who's doing better, and let it be, focus on the PCs, who NEED to be getting into Tiamat's temple.
My PCs found the temple right away. This is neither good nor bad, it just meant that they had to stop the ritural altogether, because they failed to get the "Tiamat weakening bonuses" that litter the area outside the temple. I'd advise stearing your party around a little, so they can at least get one or two benefits by clearing out portions of the caldera. But no, my party went straigt for the temple, they still had a shot, but only one. They climbed the outside wall- 5 ancient dragons, one of each chromatic type, were outside the front doors, eating commoners. This aids the ritural in serving as the massive loss of life force that's needed to fuel the ritual itself. My party did not want to go through the front door, and they never searched around to find the secret entrence.
They climbed the tower's outside and made it to the roof, the portion where Tiamat's portal would open. Around them were 5 red wizards casting the ritual, and the leader of the cult was above them. They quickly killed the five red wizards and took down the leader of the cult in a few rounds. This was good for the PCs, because they never did anything within the caldera to weaken Tiamait if she were ever summoned, killing the red wizards is a good back up plan to stop the ritural completely. The party only needs to kill 6 red wizards performing the ritural and the leader. Altogether there where 10 red wizards and the cult leader, but my party only killed the five red wizards on the roof- there were 5 more INSIDE the temple, where they dared not go. Had they killed those wizards, Tiamat would never be summonened- day saved. But because the PCs never whent into the temple to look, there were still 5 red wizards to comple the ritural.
My party failed to stop the ritural, so as they killed the cult leader, they saw a golw of white arcane energy on the platform below them; Tiamat's white read broke through the portal. The party fought, but couldn't do much to Tiamat- Killing the cult leader gave them a small bonus against Tiamat but they failed to do any other side objectives that would weaken her more. Then a glow of black arcane energy- Tiamat's black dragon head broke through. Each head does a breath weapon attack and seriously wounds the party. Then a glow of blue energy- the Blue head arrived. The party flees the temple's roof; climbing, jumping, teleporting off, any way they could. Soon a burst of green energy, then red; Tiamat was fully present on the material plane.
Though the party and their armies were winning the fight- the party did everything right for the council and got EVERYONE's support- they couldn't stop the ritural, or fend off Tiamat. The world burned on that day, and it was eunanimous- sometimes, the heroes don't win, or save the day. We all agreed that a resistance would cook up later on in the years following Tiamat's rule, but by then, Tiamat would have charred the world and moved on to another one to conquor.
It was a great game. |
| #4KentusApr 25, 2015 3:52:44 |
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| #5BRJNApr 25, 2015 15:39:01 | I'm going to take over as DM for my group when we transition from HotDQ to RoT. This is due to end of IRL School Year. My Paladin will leave our group at Waterdeep because he's going to be asked by the Council to help organize the army and its supplies. This makes good sense because he's a "Warlord" prototype and organizing others for best effect is right up his alley. It also makes sense because my group got clobbered outside the huntng lodge; he stayed to fight while the rest of the group scattered (what's a Paladin for?). He had a near-death experience with Death Saving throws - fail two before succeeding on any because getting stomped - and is no longer at his physical best (I changed his stats). Metagaming, it makes sense because DMPCs are a bad idea.
If you have an arcane caster -heavy group, consider this side trek: There has not been a recorded instance of a dragon flying over and raiding Waterdeep for several centuries. There must be a reason for this.* Could it be duplicated? If so, can the reason be made into something a ship can carry? Could it be moved in a wagon? (So the Cult's dragons cannot mess with the Army as it advances on them.) I foresee a 4e-style Skill Challenge to figure out a solution, and/or quests to get special supplies.
There also may be a way to involve Elven High Magic, assuming the Elven King will cooperate. (I see a lot of reasons he will refuse his cooperation.) They could for instance Earthquake the temple from long range, which will mess with the Cult's ritual. Note that the history of EHM involves unanticipated consequences, so don't let your PCs expect a brute-force approach to be used here. Instead a light touch and background work that makes the Cult's job harder. (My original idea was to use EHM to forcibly modify the Red Wizard ritual, diverting Tiamat into a journey from Avernus to Dragon Eyrie or some other Outer Plane. (But: like Severin won't notice.). Further reading in Realmslore convinced me I was creating a deus ex machina.)
Finding the ways to weaken Tiamat: using 4e mechanics, a Very Hard skill challenge involving Investigate, Religion, Arcana, Insight, and Persuade / Intimidate could represent discovering sources of lore and researching the "ways and means", then putting all the clues together into a usable form. If somebody thinks of a spectacular way to gain information - say casting Speak with Dead on Gilgeam's corpse (because the fallen god-king fought Tiamat hand-to-hand once) - then set aside the skill challenge and play out the quest.
Does anybody know how to figure out the number of dragons their Council offers to the small folk? Are any of them tied to Dragons of Faerun?
* Waterdeep has an ancient mythal around it, which has been adapted to new uses several times - one such time involved a dragon raid. My opinion for follow-up questions: Yes. Ma-a-a-y-y-ybe, by the will of Gond and Mystra's surviving Chosen. Probably not, for much the same reason why gunpowder is not common in FR.
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| #6sirkaikillah11Apr 26, 2015 13:32:46 | Has any one used the mass combat rules to fight the fial battle between the alliance ad the cultists army of undead and dragons.
I could see doing two scenes the battle between Tiamat and the Pcs within the temple. Then a mass combat battle between the armies on the side of the mountain. |
| #7Byakugan01Apr 26, 2015 20:13:28 | Tiamat is basically a guaranteed TPK unless the DM gift wraps her for the party. |
| (Reply to #7)transcendantviewer |
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| #9fylthApr 30, 2015 9:06:31 | Thanks for the input, BuddhaKai and everyone else. I think I am going to have a seperate table to have the "outside" battle and just roll a few dice now and then to give them a sense of what is happening outside as they battle Tiamat. We still have some time before the battle happens, but so far the group is: A Pally, Rogue, Barbarian, Fighter, Warlock, Monk, and a Ranger with a chance the rogue may not be there. They all work really well together, but they know that their lives may end with that fight due to the fact that they have had many near-death experiences recently as the cult tries to stop them from becoming a bigger nuisance.
cheers! -Kryptkeeper Fylth |
| (Reply to #9)tubadancross |
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| (Reply to #10)fylth |
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| #12QwertyAzertyApr 30, 2015 11:19:08 |
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| #13transcendantviewerApr 30, 2015 13:30:38 | How? You're party should only be level 15 when they're going at Tiamat. How could you pump out more than 600 damage in 2 rounds? |
| #14Byakugan01May 01, 2015 1:37:08 | This topic was talked to death in a different thread. Qwerty's group was min-maxed and pre-read the module, they stood outside the temple for 1 minute without fighting the 5 chromatic dragons that were eating sacrifices so the druid could cast earthquake, they were never challenged and no new players ever played at their table so they had all da magic items, or not depending on which version of his story u read. They saved every potion from 2-3 modules which they pre-buffed with and at least 3 members were described as having haste and fly. They only had to fight 1 red wizard at a time because the DM decided they thought it was a good idea to do the ritual out of sight of each other. severin didn't attack them at all as far as we can tell. Other people that play this fight usually take several rounds and take heavy damage just to fight him. Then the DM had tiamat start appearing on round 6 while all the buffs were still going.
Then their DM In the first round their druid both healed the fighter who ate a breath attack then flew up and tried to use contagion on her and the fighter flew in and hit her with 8 attacks including crits. But she could only aim her breath weapon to hit 1 character for some reason...even though there were 3 people flying and in melee with her. The round her 2nd head popped out she apparently didnt breath on anyone even though she could have breathed 2 more times as the first 2 people went. The fighter was the only one who got breathed on and bitten.
All these things he says is the fault of the designers, and he thinks Gods should be played as robots(which is exactly how his DM ran it, apparently).
Most everyone else that does the fight can only win by stopping the ritual...because getting all 5 bullets -should- be impossible because there isnt even enough XP in season 1 to get 4 characters to 15th level unless you use milestones which isnt allowed in AL. A lot of people are likely to get 3 bullets, but fighting the chromatic dragons and casting earthquake -should- be beyond the partys ability. Also there was no Rath Modar or wyrmspeakers present, and no one replaced them.
So yes, DM gift wraps can happen.
that is a pretty close summary |
| #15QwertyAzertyMay 01, 2015 11:03:35 |
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| #16NoctaemMay 01, 2015 12:35:07 | She can simply auto-succeed on the save vs your spell level 6 contagion and again, vulnerability + immunity = 0. Making her vulnerable to any of the damage she's already immune to means nothing. |
| (Reply to #15)MasterNamer |
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| (Reply to #15)dave2008 |
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| #19Byakugan01May 02, 2015 2:24:19 | You have stated a few times already how your group -never- used buff spells the WHOLE campaign. We get it...your DM didn't just gift wrap tiamat for you, he gift wrapped the whole campaign. It is also a bit ironic that you couldn't bare to bend the rules when it came to new players, but you guys were perfectly fine ignoring a bunch of other AL rules along the way. I wonder how many potential new players you guys ran off so you could hoard all da magic items to yourselves? You clearly knew what was coming and planned ahead. I'm not judging, half of our table had read the module too, but we kept our mouths shut for the other half that hadn't and new players joined our table on nearly every session. We can only surmise how many other rules you guys ignored along the way since you argued for a week that contagion negated immunity, and you said it was no problem for gnomes to whip up a batch of magic gnome explosives or whatever to blow up tiamats temple. Also, scrolls and other magic items that cast spells have to be concentrated on just like regular spells, but most potions do not(only the ones that specifically say they don't).
The druid can -try- to cast contagion on tiamat...but that would require flying into melee range and hitting her AC 20, which is an achievment in itself for a druid. plus you should have 0 idea that she even has spell immunity to begin with. So making that assumption and upcasting a spell that gains no benefit when cast higher is an entirely meta-game situation. not to mention the meta gaming u use for your party's positioning. It's tragic more than anything because it takes around 6 months of playing and then you have such an anti-climactic final battle. According to you, your party used near 0 resources to get to the temple, and your whole party was little more than buffbots and a taxi to get hazirawn to tiamat. *yawn* |
| (Reply to #19)dave2008 |
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| #21Byakugan01May 03, 2015 6:17:57 | from what I can tell they were fighting tiamat with something equivalent to 3 bullets. Depending on which version of his story you go with. he said her ac was reduced to 20, but he also said she still had spell immunity. so /shrug
The buff list sofar as I can tell is fly, haste, protection from evil, hill giant strength, bless. Basically his whole party knew tiamat was resistant/immune to everything but Hazirawn so their entire strategy was to buff the greatsword taxi. I have him pegged at around +14-15 to hit. So a 20-25% miss chance on his 8 attacks. He says he hit all 8 of his attack including 2 crits. It could happen.
Average damage on 40d6+64 is 204 damage. But since they didnt kill her on the first round, it is unclear why she didnt hit multiple people with 2x 70+ damage breath weapons. Magical christmas land where the party all starts the combat in exactly the right 5 ft squares, kills 10 9th level wizards and severin, without anyone even losing a concentration check, is exactly in the right spot when the DM starts making tiamat appear at the 'wrong' time while buffs are still going, the party rolls exactly the optimum initiative order, so that fighter goes, then tiamat, then healer,then paladin, and everyone hits all their attacks and makes all their saves. He could have a 20 con and 169 hitpoints, as long as he goes first and then only healers go until legendary actions are gone and all they do is move in range, heal fighter then move away...
It is obvious that every group's play experience should be just like this! lol |
| (Reply to #12)dave2008 |
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| #23QwertyAzertyMay 04, 2015 7:48:16 |
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| #24dave2008May 04, 2015 9:23:03 |
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| #25Byakugan01May 05, 2015 0:09:44 | nobody can survive her more than 2 rounds if she has 2 or more heads out. that is the point. Unless the DM does things like skip her breath weapons and use bite attacks. the rules don't include any way to be immune to her breath weapon except for rogues with evasion, or possibly circle of power depending on DM. season 2 somewhat fixes this problem.
the absolute max hitpoints a 15th level fighter can have with 20 con is 169. just for her to appear in the first place means that there are at LEAST 5 red wizards still alive on round 1 and NONE of them have to concentrate. |
| #26NoctaemMay 05, 2015 4:07:05 | Can I just point out here that he says contagion level 6 as a melee touch attack by the druid and then when we point out once again that she's immune to level 6 or lower, he changes it to level 7? Seems everytime there's a whole in his story he just changes it. Now it's 5 concentration spells going at the same time in a 4 player party IIRC. I mean it makes less and less sense the more you read the different versions. |
| #27QwertyAzertyMay 05, 2015 5:53:52 |
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| #28BRJNMay 05, 2015 17:49:58 |
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| (Reply to #23)MasterNamer |
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| #30BuddhaKaiMay 07, 2015 15:10:54 | Good god people, I hope the OP at least got the information they needed.
Stop bitching about your over powered party/game/whateverthef*ck.
Tiamat, as written, is tough enough for people playing D&D as D&D should be played-and nobody cheated to read ahead. I didn't play in the AL, I ran it at a friend's house for my weekend game- My party got whipped- had they stayed to fight Tiamat, everyone would have died. No, we didn't play HotDQ, we only played RoT, but my party was still stomping dragons, and the adventures, left and right. By the second dragon encounter (green dragon), I killed one PC outright with mass damage, but the party pollymorphed the dragon into a fish, cast haste, and the warlock/cleric smite this **** out of it, killing it in one round with 3 attacks (I let the dragon "forget" to auto save vs polymorph as the party had managed to catch it off guard-NOT gift wrapping the dragon to my players, but rewarding them for playing their characters-not their mechanics). The third dragon encounter (a black dragon durring the third assassin attack) supprised the party and kept another PC KOed for 4 rounds-but that dragon got smacked and killed as well. by the time my party reached the Tower and the blue dragon, they were cocky. They didn't espect the dragon's immunities to lightning (a tacktick the party used was frying everything with lightning bolt), but they killed it after a few rounds.
My party did well against the planned dragon encounters, as well as doing fine in the assassination attempts. My party was not kitted out for this adventure, but they knew how to make characters that worked. The first (white) and last (blue) dragon encounters gave them the most trouble, asside from Tiamat, who flat out murderd them, then kicked their puppy.
I could have change Tiamat to be tougher as well. ****, the way I run a god in my game is to not stat it to begin with. A god in my game can't be killed by PCs, it's a f*cking god, it kills the party, roll new characters. Tiamat as written is tough enough. If the party manages to weaken her, good, they have a chance to ACTUALLY save the day- otherwise they have a better chance of dying or being run off.
Now stop measuring dicks. I hope the OP got what they needed. |