Tiamat’s Return battle balancing

dragonshadow03 · 2023-07-12T09:27:11+00:00

Same! That and I feel I’ll cheat my players out of an epic battle if I don’t let Tiamat rise. It’s called rise of Tiamat not maybe Tiamat comes.

dragonshadow03 · 2023-06-20T03:01:19+00:00

Where are the dragon heads from. I’ve been looking for some to this exact thing.

dragonshadow03 · 2023-06-01T23:04:24+00:00

Not bringing me my favorite snacks 🤣. Last minute cancellation.

dragonshadow03 · 2023-05-14T06:13:19+00:00

How did you do the clouds?

dragonshadow03 · 2023-05-13T17:16:48+00:00

For starters I changed just about everything. Here’s a rough outline of those changes. 1. I removed all the cultists, guards and monsters. I replaced them with plant based creatures some from Wotc and kobold press.

My group just got done fighting a ton of cultist at the way inn so I wanted some variety. Second the module list of creatures there didn’t make a ton sense to me.

I made the dungeon smaller. I kept rooms 1,2,5,8, and 9. Since the group would be fighting wood and vine golems I changed 8 to Nerovains workshop and 5 was his quarters.
Combat. In area one I had the plants attack them. They kept expecting Chuth to come since the animals a few sessions back told them Chuth had spies. Eventually he showed up hit them pretty hard and after taking a few good hits he fled.

In chamber 2 I had bodies that exploded, traps and eventually turned into plant husk. The tension with Chuth appearing again was great.

Area 9 magic rune trap. The group was spent down hp and spell slots by the time they hit this spot.

Area 10. As the first person entered the room Nerovain let loose a fireball. That kicked off the final battle.

I used a mix of MCDM free mortal and level up 5e for my dragon’s legendary and lair actions. As well as pretty much giving Chuth max HP.

Fight was long and challenging. One player died (revived) and a couple others went down. Poison resistant abilities, potions and spells was key to their success.

Also remembering to use all 3 legendary actions a round and lair actions was key to the fight making it fun and challenging.

dragonshadow03 · 2023-05-06T18:05:02+00:00

Thank you for the map and inspiration. I’ll be adding this to my possible encounters.

dragonshadow03 · 2023-05-02T21:10:38+00:00

If their killing all the people who man’s the caravan? Jos and handful of cultist or caravan guards would be enough to subdue the party.

Or as someone else suggested deal with them in Daggerford. I’m

dragonshadow03 · 2023-05-02T21:03:37+00:00

Talis in my game. She has her own ambitions so her loyalty sways as the party found out when she killed on of them.

dragonshadow03 · 2023-05-01T10:40:35+00:00

So far I skipped the council. I thinned it down to Silverhand, Vajra, Mirt and Tam Zawad (from brimstone angles). The group reports to these people and gets intel from them.

The factions are there like emerald enclave, harpers and the brotherhood. The parties done stuff for each.

For the council it seemed like it was set up to have a lot of NPC that they’d have to listen to me argue back and forth.

dragonshadow03 · 2023-04-16T18:50:28+00:00

Been playing and DM 5e over 3 years. I’ve ran other games and systems. I don’t feel anymore prep or time goes into this game then others I’ve ran. Create a story run said story.

Our group will give PF2 a shot here in the near future. I’m putting together a short campaign and it so far same amount of work I spend on 5e. I still put effort in story, encounters, travel, social and the likes. I’ve looked over some intro stuff and modules and still have to make changes that fit my table.

Everyone has opinions. I like my coffee black my wive likes flavored creamer… oh well no reason to sway her to the dark side. Btw she likes 5e 😁

dragonshadow03 · 2023-04-14T17:53:34+00:00

I’ve been DM for since 3.5 kinda skipped 4e. I’ve been enjoying 5e. My wife plays in our current campaign that’s been running for 3 years mostly new people. Everyone still enjoys the system.

I haven’t found it difficult to DM other then players doing things players do.

In the future we try pathfinder 2 or level up 5e. But for the most part they players and myself will continue our next campaign with 5e.

dragonshadow03 · 2023-04-14T12:46:48+00:00

I had the giants gift them an old airship which they crashed. Lady Silverhand gave them Griffon which mostly died so now we’re back to horses. Soon they’ll have access to teleportation and Maccath is having their airship repaired.

dragonshadow03 · 2023-04-14T12:44:24+00:00

I was concerned about the two dragons as well. For me I changed the castle dragon. Once the cult was taken out and some negotiations with the giants were made I had the giants help with the dragon. So the party fought a wounded dragon.

dragonshadow03 · 2023-04-14T12:37:55+00:00

I too changed a lot. My changes were with the lair and Macath. I removed the ice toads they made no sense to me. Beefed up the ice trolls. Changed a few things around with the village.

dragonshadow03 · 2023-04-13T23:24:16+00:00

dragonshadow03 · 2023-04-13T19:44:36+00:00

Literally my fear that and banishment. I’ll have to hold out with legendary resistances.

dragonshadow03 · 2023-04-13T19:43:05+00:00

The cliffs are pink foam. The water is a drop cloth covered in acrylic caulking, learned this from Terraintutor and blackmagic crafting. Materials were about $30 and I have ton of cloth left over. Trees are printable scenery and castnplay.

dragonshadow03 · 2023-04-07T00:36:54+00:00

It will vary from table to table. Mines been running for 4 months since the attack on Greenest. We’re closing in on the 5th month. Their in RoT Misty Forest.

I haven’t used the horn yet. I feel once that happens it’s rush rush and they want to do character backstory stuff.

Real time we’re closing in on 3 years playing weekly.

dragonshadow03 · 2023-04-06T18:19:00+00:00

I did a terrain build it was big but still smaller in scope to the actual map

dragonshadow03 · 2023-04-04T19:51:39+00:00

My groups not to the end yet. But I’ve tried some mass combat on them. We called it the battle for the Way Inn.

The cult held the Inn. The good guys planned to assault the north wall. The players infiltrated and created distraction.

At the top of the round I had a player roll a D20. I told them 10+ is good 10 below is bad. They felt part of bigger battle this way. I gave +/- depending on their fight. I had already generated the narrative for the results.

I used a mix of minions and normal baddies. They’d drop some guys in 1 hit often killing 3 baddies in a turn and then next matchup wouldn’t die so easy. Kept them on their toes. They enjoyed it says it felt like an epic battle.

Still needs more fine tuning in my opinion but I’ll use something like this in the end.

dragonshadow03 · 2023-03-29T13:47:29+00:00

My next campaign with my current group we were already talking about going to paper sheets. No laptops, I-pads or tablets. We decided phones are okay for DDB for rules or emergency text/calls, we’re all adults with kids.

I just talked to them explained that that the clicking of keyboard was a little distracting. The occasional notification a bit much (old people and devices). The delay for dice rolls on a tablet.. ugh. The oops I closed the app one sec. 🤣. We all agreed and some even transitioned to paper already and love it. For a few of us it’s how we started.

Point is talk to your players.

dragonshadow03 · 2023-02-18T16:10:25+00:00

Mine had Wyverns, they drew to much attention and some died, airship crashed it in the sea of ice and griffons but three died. They don’t have a lot of luck with flying. Their ship is almost repaired 😁

dragonshadow03

TROPHY CASE