D&D 5E [SPOILERS] Final encounter in Tyranny of Dragons and playing a wizard for 16 levels

[mach1.9pants]

I haven't played the end, but just re-read it now to see the points raised. For me, the party are expected to do what I consider the logical thing, stop the summoning. The scenario is a bunch of things are happening that are causing a 5 headed dragon god to appear here. Are you going to a) attempt to stop the ritual (classic trope) or b) attack the goddess? Personally I would go for A! You guys didn't follow what the Kobold author's thought process was, how the encounter would pan out. However, and the reason I don't find this a bad scenario, is that you still won. Against a CR 30 goddess! Although it was rough on your character from a spotlight perspective, as a party you GUYS ROCK. TEH OrESUM!!!11!!

Oh and steal the bards double concentration item, too good for him

 

[Celtavian]

**SPOILERS**
Two key points to make in response to the original poster. As a point of background, I'm the DM of a 5e campaign, and we completed the scenario in discussion, and have been an alpha playtester throughout. I also played 1e, 2e, 3e, 4e, extensively.

First point - your primary concern is about high-end game design, and the addition of immunity to 1st-6th level spells. True! Resistance to all would have played much more elegantly, with the notable exception of my second point. It's worth considering in the future. 3e's epic design played this way, and on the whole, it wasn't fun. Agreed. 4e high-level fixed this flaw, and it should be considered even for big bosses. At a minimum to make them "last" longer - give them triggered or lair effects to maintain a heaping helping of high level hit points. There's always more than one way to design through the obstacle, and your point is this solution isn't very fun for wizards. I agree with your point.

Second point - Prism mentioned it, but it should be reinforced - my reading of the last encounter was ENTIRELY different than what you described. As I ran it, you were NOT supposed to fight Tiamat, but PREVENT her from being summoned. There were ARMIES, including "as many dragons as you want", purple-robed cultists, giants, and even dragon leaders in ten different temples throughout the massive Well of Dragons. You had only 10 rounds to outsmart the armies, guardians, defeat the cultists, stop the summoners, and ultimately confront and defeat Severin. For us, this was ultimately a raucous slogging climb, resources completely spent, finally reaching Seveerin, their deadly leader, with one chance to kill him before he unleashed his full wrath on one PC at a time, eliminating them. I found it a fantastic captsone fight to the end of our campaign. All the villians I described were all susceptible to all forms of magic, and abilities from the characters, and it took everything they could muster to survive the death march. Also, our highest level character was 14, with average party being around 12. It sounds like you had a decided advantage on our PC's.

After reading this, sounds like we accidentally took the path of least resistance.

It makes sense. We're one of those few parties of players that have been playing together for going on 25 to nearly 30 years. We discuss things thoroughly before a battle and use teamwork to the point of picking spells that work in perfect unison. We have no problem allowing someone else to shine if the encounter calls for it. I wasn't happy sitting around as a wizard. It seemed like the smartest option for our survival. I was ready to kill, banish, or slow down any adds or to get us out of there. We positioned perfectly to avoid major breath weapons. We attacked in a very coordinated manner. Hard for any module to withstand that level of coordination.

I've had to put a lot of work into encounter design to challenge a group as well coordinated as ours. They like to min-max individually and as a group on top of using ideal tactical options. It makes for a very rough time as a DM. It's fun when you do design something to give the group a hard time.

You want to know why we didn't do the expected method to stop the ritual? we calculated the amount of time to move around the area with fly and kill each enemy, no way we could do it in 10 rounds. So we decided to coordinate with dimension door to attack what we perceived as the central point of the summoning. Severin didn't have the full mask because we held onto the black one, so he ended up much weaker than if he had the full mask. The encounters we survived to hang onto those masks were hard as hell. We had to work hard to survive them. Took everything we had to do it. But we held on to that black mask, it made all the difference in the end.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I haven't played the end, but just re-read it now to see the points raised. For me, the party are expected to do what I consider the logical thing, stop the summoning. The scenario is a bunch of things are happening that are causing a 5 headed dragon god to appear here. Are you going to a) attempt to stop the ritual (classic trope) or b) attack the goddess? Personally I would go for A!

(C) cross the streams!

 

[MerricB]

[MENTION=5834]Celtavian[/MENTION], how did your DM and group handle the allies you had during the final episode?

Cheers!

 

[Falling Icicle]

I really hate blanket immunity to spells. Fortunately, I think only the rakshasa and Tiamat have spell immunity, so we're only talking about a couple of monsters, one of which is a CR 30 goddess.

Speaking of which, I don't know how the spell immunity is even supposed to work. Does the immunity only apply to spells that directly target the creature, or does it apply to any spell effect, direct or not? If I conjure an elemental with a spell, can it harm a rakshasa? If I use the transmute rock spell to turn the mud beneath its feat into rock (an instantaneous effect that targets the ground, not the rakshasa), can it be trapped in the stone?

 

[Celtavian]

[MENTION=5834]Celtavian[/MENTION], how did your DM and group handle the allies you had during the final episode?

Cheers!

Our surly fighter insulted the representative from the good dragons, so we didn't get their help directly. The DM inserted a silver dragon disguised as the pseudodragon familiar of the wizard. All it did was take Severin's mask outside the area to help us weaken Tiamat after we killed Severin.

The DM mostly narrated what the armies did. I think he made them engage the bad guys in the area around Tiamat while we fought her. He wasn't sure how the Tiamat fight would go, so he didn't add any allies to help her. It was a hard read on that final fight. Tiamat looked amazingly strong. It would have been a very different fight had we known for sure that breath weapons weren't magical effects. The Circle of Power spell prevented a few hits from the breath weapons. Would have been nice had the rules clarified at the time that breath weapons weren't magical effects. Not sure how the game designers expected everyone to know what is and isn't a magical effect without designating which ones were and weren't. There is a lot to like about 5E, but some of the rules are a bit too light when it comes to being sure. Fortunately, I now have confirmation that dragon breath is not a magical effect from Jeremy Crawford. Not sure how you were adjudicating it Merric, but magical effects must be a spell (innate casting), require a spell or magical attack roll, or be designated magical (as in the word magical appears) somewhere in the ability text, otherwise not a magical effect and any abilities that give adv or bonuses don't provide a bonus.

That's how our DM handled the armies. Narration to provide a reason why no allies of Tiamat from the surrounding area engaged us. The dragon council provided support to the armies, but not to us.

 

[MerricB]

Thanks! Our final session of the adventure will be sometime before the end of the month - next session will be the final council meeting (and likely the Cult Strikes Back!)

Cheers!

 

[Celtavian]

Thanks! Our final session of the adventure will be sometime before the end of the month - next session will be the final council meeting (and likely the Cult Strikes Back!)

Cheers!

Let me know how the final battles goes. I'd enjoy hearing alternate methods for victory.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I really hate blanket immunity to spells. Fortunately, I think only the rakshasa and Tiamat have spell immunity, so we're only talking about a couple of monsters, one of which is a CR 30 goddess.

5e set out to make magic feel more magical, and to be more versatile, powerful, and greater in scope - all (along with many other things) to re-capture the feel of the classic game. That means resorting to the same sorts of tricks the classic game did to counter such magic, including spell immunity. There's probably quite a lot of other immunities that aren't as (wet) blanket, but still apply to lots of spells. 5e doesn't seem to have gone for anything quite as impactful as old-school magic resistance, though. I'd consider adding something like that back in to make demons/devils/etc a little scarier.

Speaking of which, I don't know how the spell immunity is even supposed to work. Does the immunity only apply to spells that directly target the creature, or does it apply to any spell effect, direct or not? If I conjure an elemental with a spell, can it harm a rakshasa? If I use the transmute rock spell to turn the mud beneath its feat into rock (an instantaneous effect that targets the ground, not the rakshasa), can it be trapped in the stone?

That's intentional. The DM can make those rulings as he sees fit to get the best results for his campaign. If the party casters /haven't/ been dominating throughout the campaign, he can be a little more liberal, and let a 'clever' indirect use of the spell by pass immunity or legendary resistance; if he's still trying to reign in the weird wizard show of his campaign, he can extend it to immunity to the bonus damage from a buff or even to protective spells cast on allies being useless against the immune creature's attacks and the like.

 

[TarionzCousin]

Let me know how the final battles goes. I'd enjoy hearing alternate methods for victory.

Or failure!

#teamtiamat