D&D 5E Mythic Tiamat

[NotAYakk]

For a 5 head blast, you could have everyone within 500' roll 5d6.

If they get a 1 through 5 means they are hit with breath from that head (discard duplicates).

Then they take 10d8 of each energy type of each head that hit them, save for half.

That'll be brutal, but not 320 points of damage at the end of one turn brutal.

Simulating 10000 such rolls I get this:
0 heads 1 times
1 heads 195 times
2 heads 2278 times
3 heads 5106 times
4 heads 2268 times
5 heads 152 times

so basically an average of 3 heads breathing on each person, for 30d8, or 135 damage each. Some getting 4 heads for 180, some 3, and rarely 1 or 5.

0 is possible, but exceedingly rare (requires 5 6s).

Scale the "damage per head" up or down; I'd keep it uniform, just to avoid having to count out dice as often.

This could also cost less than 5 legendary actions, but would use up every head's ability to do a legendary action.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Good luck! Perhaps you said before and I don't remember, but what are you looking to play next?

Thanks! Well, most of my AD&D years were with a 1E/2E hybrid. I am going to try to convince the table to give that a try. It won't be fore another 4-6 months though... I just depends on how long it takes to finish our current campaigns.

Honestly, I am torn a bit because there are a lot of elements in 5E that I do like---it just feels unfinished. I know that was by design, but I wish that had done it all and just left us to remove/revise what we don't like instead of having to make up everything to fill in the gaps.

P.S. Love the new avatar! Nice homage to the D&D cartoon!

 

[dave2008]

Thanks! Well, most of my AD&D years were with a 1E/2E hybrid. I am going to try to convince the table to give that a try. It won't be fore another 4-6 months though... I just depends on how long it takes to finish our current campaigns.

Honestly, I am torn a bit because there are a lot of elements in 5E that I do like---it just feels unfinished. I know that was by design, but I wish that had done it all and just left us to remove/revise what we don't like instead of having to make up everything to fill in the gaps.

Interesting, obviously our personal play style is less about the details than yours (for example, we don't track money at all. We don't keep track of gold or silver. Really only magic items), but we are still playing the game with a 1e mindset IMO. I know you feel a lot is missing, have you thought about giving PF2e a try? The CRB is like 600 pages. I doubt it has everything you wnat at this point, but it probably is closer than what is provided by WotC for 5e.

I assume you are not interested in 3pp content to fill the gaps?

P.S. Love the new avatar! Nice homage to the D&D cartoon!

Thanks! I think that is when I fell in love with Tiamat

 

[Marandahir]

That's like 20th level fare. Also in no way assured. The above wouldn't be a staple.

Probably would want to get more than a few Epic Boons too, before attempting this big bad evil girl.

 

[Zio_the_dark]

Also, I just wanted to clarify that I makes epic monsters for fun, I enjoy making them. This Tiamat or the monsters I've made over 5e Epic Monster Updates are much to strong for my group. I think my play style is actually closer to yours:

Like this too, I never play high level and on the otherside just like imaginating epic foes just for the fun of it!

 

[dave2008]

You might want to emphasise and expand on her multi-headed nature: she does not die if she loses a head - unless it's her last - but she loses 1 Legendary Action, perhaps to a minimum of 3. Perhaps heads take a Short Rest or Long rest to regenerate.

I thought about mimicing the Mythic Kraken's 4 hearts with Tiamat's five heads. However, I realized each time you take out a head it makes her significantly weaker and basically leads to a death spiral. It did want that for my favorite dragon goddess

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Maybe you could use Prismatic Spray as the template for her mythic breath attacks, or just use the spell as is, costing 2 (?) actions 1/turn ?

 

[THEMNGMNT]

This is great. Tiamat is the big bad for the end of one of my campaigns, currently at 14th level. There's a good chance this will see play at my table within the next 12 months. Thanks!

 

[dave2008]

For a 5 head blast, you could have everyone within 500' roll 5d6.

If they get a 1 through 5 means they are hit with breath from that head (discard duplicates).

Then they take 10d8 of each energy type of each head that hit them, save for half.

That'll be brutal, but not 320 points of damage at the end of one turn brutal.

Simulating 10000 such rolls I get this:
0 heads 1 times
1 heads 195 times
2 heads 2278 times
3 heads 5106 times
4 heads 2268 times
5 heads 152 times

so basically an average of 3 heads breathing on each person, for 30d8, or 135 damage each. Some getting 4 heads for 180, some 3, and rarely 1 or 5.

0 is possible, but exceedingly rare (requires 5 6s).

Scale the "damage per head" up or down; I'd keep it uniform, just to avoid having to count out dice as often.

This could also cost less than 5 legendary actions, but would use up every head's ability to do a legendary action.

Neat idea, I will consider it when I take a closure look at the design.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Interesting, obviously our personal play style is less about the details than yours (for example, we don't track money at all. We don't keep track of gold or silver. Really only magic items), but we are still playing the game with a 1e mindset IMO. I know you feel a lot is missing, have you thought about giving PF2e a try? The CRB is like 600 pages. I doubt it has everything you wnat at this point, but it probably is closer than what is provided by WotC for 5e.

I assume you are not interested in 3pp content to fill the gaps?
Thanks! I think that is when I fell in love with Tiamat

It is awkward at times, stressing over the details. I've looked into PF2e a bit, but it doesn't seem right. Part of what I don't like is all the baked in features of classes in 5E, and PF2e seemed to have even more "junk" (as I liked to call it). I'm more the type of player who gets satisfaction out of what my character accomplishes than "what can I do". Maybe that doesn't make sense, but I don't want to hijack your thread any more so I'll leave it at that.

I'm not really interested in 3pp either. I never have been since I make a lot of homebrew myself. Sorry, it just strikes me as laziness on WotC's part, not cunning design, that so much is missing or unfinished. It also means that "rules" change from one group to the next because each DM can rule differently on things. Anyway, again, I'll let it go since I it's not the purpose of the thread.