There's something I just need to wrap my head around. We're a group of 4 running the encounter in the Well of Dragons, trying to stop the summoning. We got in quick and in the first 3 rounds took out 4 Red Wizards plus Rath Modar), but then the rest all used Greater Invisibility. We've only got one Cleric as full-progression caster, and the rest of the group is a Paladin, Monk, and Rogue. Our Artificer betrayed us and joined the bad guys, and is actively working against us in this encounter. Don't get me started on that...
Now my issue (and frustration) is that these Wizards are all using fly, and invisibility, and holding actions to avoid AoEs, moving about the place, and participating in a summoning at the same time? Isn't that a bit too many concentration requirements? Even if every single Red Wizard had a potion of flying, I still question the ability for them to maintain Invisibility while performing the summoning ritual. And when we get relatively close to one and use perception to try and isolate the chanting, they go quiet, and the ritual seems to keep progressing.
Concentration is required when casting any spell, including a ritual version, for longer than 1 action (see Players Handbook, 202).
I'm fairly sure a 10+ person summoning ritual to bring forth a God into the Prime Material should have some concentration requirement involved. No? I'm not trying to get ammo to retro the game, or confront the DM. Tiamat's there now, and we're about to scrap. I'm just honestly perplexed, and I don't want to be the guy who downloads the adventure just to double-check if what's happening is legit. We're about to enter round 11 of the encounter, and Tiamat's got 2 heads in and it's turned real ugly. I've already told the party they need to get to me cause I'm going to Word of Recall us out of there to regroup and prep for a later confrontation.
Anyhow, I just want to know I'm not crazy. If there's a legit reason we're utterly impotent here, like the ritual doesn't require concentration, and all the flying is potion based, and people are holding actions without it impacting the ritual, and an arcane caster with see invisibility was an absolute requirement - I get it. It just seems like we walked into a no-win situation and anything we've done was just fruitless.
In any event, once we get out of there, I'm just planning on going into hiding for 30 days while I summon an Angelic Host & Planar Bind them. 30 Avenger Celestial Spirits takes Tiamat out in short order. Heck, I had 5 of them planar bound going into this final encounter, but then we started running into Red Wizards with Divine Word to get rid of them. Don't get me started on that...
How much do you want to know? I don't know how to, like, warn you what each spoiler tag is covering without partially defeating the purpose of the tag. I'll just... assign an arbitrary order, I guess.
The ritual to summon Tiamat is not a spell and does not require concentration.
The ritual to summon Tiamat requires 5 actions per round to maintain - fewer than that for 1 round causes the ritual to stall, and for 2 rounds in a row causes it to start over. This means cultists contributing their action to the ritual can't take the Ready action as well.
None of those actions require chanting unless the DM says they do.
The ritual to summon Tiamat takes 10 rounds, not including stalls, which is 1 minute, which means a cultist could have fly pre-cast before the ritual starts, or could cast it round 1 and then begin the ritual. That's not enough time for Greater Invisibility, which itself is 1 minute - if a cultist casts greater invisibility and then begins the ritual, they'll be visible during the final round, and likewise if they start the ritual and then greater invis during it, causing a stall, they'll be visible at the start of the ritual. There's no way they could be invisible for the entire ritual.
Red Wizards all know the fly and greater invisibility spells, and the module has no rules for them being potion dependent or even knowing how to make potions, since they're proficient in neither alchemy nor herbalism kits. I would guess your DM had them cheat if they were flying and invisible at the same time - even if they were willing to slow the ritual down to cast those spells (and casting both would restart the ritual from scratch, requiring a fresh 10 rounds), they'd need to concentrate on both, and they can't.
I haven't read the spoiler responses just because I don't want to give myself potential behind-the-screen info, but given I'm seeing 5 specific spoilers, I'm just going to assume the adventure was written such that this is per the norm and you're citing references. I'll come back after the next session and review.
I dunno, maybe it's just the adventure, which has felt like a railroad from start to finish, that has me soured. The arcs where the party met with the Dragon council and journeyed to Thay were wastes of time, and left everyone feeling like those aspects would just have been better to be narrated than to have the party interact for multiple sessions only to later learn no matter what they said or did would achieve nothing because it all came down to pre-set conditions or a die roll.
I'm also trying to not be too hard on the GM. It's his first time (well, second if you count Horde of the Dragon Queen as the first adventure) and he's done a remarkable job both in keeping up with a pair of power gamers and in allowing the development of two relative newbies, all while keeping everyone not just entertained, but letting characters develop distinction presences and niches. Because of that, I'd more than happy accepting this adventure arc is poorly written, and chalk it up to that. :)
You'll probably need to read the encounter after you have played it. However, after reading it over, there is nothing obvious that jumps out as completely contradicting the module in the scenario you've described.
Stuff that isn't really a spoiler. The ritual being performed is just that - a ritual and not a spell. It doesn't appear to have any concentration requirements. You also saw a number of wizards flying at the start of the encounter (method of flying is left as an exercise).
The DM may have modified some of the details but I won't second guess someone else running it or the objectives they want to achieve. Your DM is most familiar with your party and their capabilities and is best suited to judge the suitable level of challenge.
This book isn't well written, I think its a bit better than HoDQ but running it currently myself I plan to heavily change parts of it. Your DM might not be following strict RAW with the spells but the ritual isn't a spell and doesn't follow any of those rules even though you might logically expect it to, spoiler my opinion on what the authors expected
I don't think the authors really expect the players to stop the ritual completely, it could be done but I think they were expecting the average party to fail that hurdle.
Are we cool with players coming to the DMs Only section of the board asking for advice on a module they're playing? It seems to defeat the purpose of this section. This is the second time I've seen someone clearly in a player capacity solicit DMs for strategy in a section with the implied honor system of "DM's Only."
1.) Since we're not the player's DM, who knows how the DM is adapting the written seen, as mentioned Tyranny of Dragons needs some TLC to function well.
2.) while not technically a reportable offense, it again goes against the spirt of this section where DMs consult other DMs on how to run the game.
One thing to keep in mind, anything that is happening in the module is automatically "legit" since that is the way the DM is running it. NPCs and modules often bend or break rules that apply to players. DMs can do the same though most minimize it to maintain a consistent world but sometimes modifications are needed to either alter the challenge of a particular encounter or to adjust for something that is unclear or not well written.
The DM may also be making modifications on the fly to adjust encounter balance since "We got in quick and in the first 3 rounds took out 4 Red Wizards plus Rath Modar)".
This is relevant to the last thread where a player came in to ask for help on strategy in DitA. The thing was, the particular event the player wanted to help with dealt with a location that wasn't really built in the module for combat encounter/assault (no map to the structure).
So basically we're again at a position where DMs on the internet can't really contest another DM's perogative at the OP's table, and I still say it's tantamount to cheating to do so.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Are we cool with players coming to the DMs Only section of the board asking for advice on a module they're playing? It seems to defeat the purpose of this section. This is the second time I've seen someone clearly in a player capacity solicit DMs for strategy in a section with the implied honor system of "DM's Only."
1.) Since we're not the player's DM, who knows how the DM is adapting the written seen, as mentioned Tyranny of Dragons needs some TLC to function well.
2.) while not technically a reportable offense, it again goes against the spirt of this section where DMs consult other DMs on how to run the game.
Just pointing out I wasn't asking for advice. I'm of the opinion that what's happening at our table is happening, and I'm not trying to meta-game it. Hence, why I'm not reading anything labeled as "spoiler" until after we complete the adventure. What I came here to ask, from DMs who'd likely run the adventure, is whether or not the in-game progression we're experiencing is something written into the module, or if it's something just being played out as it unfolds by a first-time DM. Either is fine. Not looking for ways around it. In fact, I've got my answer earlier from David42 in that the ritual "doesn't appear to have any concentration requirements." That's what I couldn't understand. I mean, casting an identify as a ritual breaks concentration from other spells. I find it rather confounding that any ritual summons, even a specialized one in which one must spend round over round actions in dedication would not break concentration of existing spells - but so be it.
In any event, I've already made up my mind we can't win in our current scenario and we've got to get out. We knew going in that if we didn't stop the ritual we were going to be in a bad spot. We've got no arcane casting, so no counter-spells, and with Tiamat appearing we're now getting hit with Cone of Cold, Ice Storm, and Fireball from all sides, meanwhile every time the Cleric casts, he gets counter-spelled. Tiamat already went after the Paladin and dropped him to single-digit HP in one round.
The thing is, we went from having a wonderful play experience to 4 players being utterly frustrated for 4 hours. And not the good frustrated where you've got a way out or can MacGyver yourself a solution. Being told repeatedly by your DM that, "there's nothing you can do" is deflating. If that's the fault of the module, so be it. If that's the DM over-correcting for what he thought might be too easy of an adventure's ultimate arc, I want to be able to tell him afterward, privately, that if he's going to upscale an encounter's difficulty to affect greater challenge, he's got to be sure to not make it an impossible scenario given the party's composition. If adventure-as-written we were doing everything right to prevent the summoning because we went in prepared to do so, and the only reason we failed is because of upscaling beyond intent, I'd like to be able to give him some advice down the road, as I've been a DM for half a dozen different groups over the past 35 years.
This is relevant to the last thread where a player came in to ask for help on strategy in DitA. The thing was, the particular event the player wanted to help with dealt with a location that wasn't really built in the module for combat encounter/assault (no map to the structure).
So basically we're again at a position where DMs on the internet can't really contest another DM's perogative at the OP's table, and I still say it's tantamount to cheating to do so.
Quoting myself: I'm not trying to get ammo to retro the game, or confront the DM.
You're assuming a lot of my intent in asking. My ask had no intent to challenge or cheat, as you've bluntly assumed. I'm trying to wrap my head around how this is all mechanically possible; or whether it's the errs of a first-time DM (which we have all had, and likely still have on occasion), or if the adventure is allowing that much to happen as intended. It's a DM's ask.
I don't know about your table, but at ours we appreciate feedback, given respectfully, after adventure arcs concludes. I'm just trying to figure out if this is feedback that should be directed as mentioned in my last post, of if it's feedback with direction more towards being able to on-the-fly see when you're losing a table because the adventure has put people in a no-win. The whole point of the matter is that people stopped having fun because they could no longer engage. What started as everyone having facility in "the big encounter" of the game quickly turned into narration as our hopes of stopping it ended. It's difficult for new(er) DMs to spot that happening because as a DM you're always fully engaged.
I'm just honestly perplexed, and I don't want to be the guy who downloads the adventure just to double-check if what's happening is legit.
I would have a huge issue with that, as a DM, if I even thought that was something you would do...
This is in the running to be one of the adventures I'd DM for another group I game with in a few months, and if it's this poorly written, I need to do more than the normal prep for it or disregard it. While I really enjoyed the arcs to hunt down Wyrmspeakers, and Maze at Xonathal's Tower, and the Assassination attempts, I haven't been a fan of a few of the arcs in here from a player perspective. The Dragon Council and Wizards of Thay bits were just awful railroad nightmares. In the former, nothing we could bring forth via role-play or our character abilities had any possible effect. It was just how much we could buy off the dragons with pre-set expectations. The latter may as well have just been a giant "you fail" arc. Being told to make a Persuasion checks at -10, -12, and -16 modifiers was the first step of insanity. It was brutal. There was very little RP / Interaction - it was just go to bed and do a whole lotta rolls and get teleported back before getting a word off. Meh.
And thus far, this final chapter has left a bitter taste. But that many also be due to my play & DM style. I personally loathe adventure that seek to narrate instead of immerse. Once you have a campaign that removes the player's facility, and they're unable to affect events around them, then the adventure's turned into a novel, and it's not interactive anymore. HotDQ did that a lot, and while RoT is better, it still suffers from that more than I'd like.
I think one thing I may do for this campaign, if I run it, is allow PCs to make 2 character each to have diversity and allow them to create "teams" based on task. Like, don't send a Dragonborn Paladin of Justice who views Dragons as ancestral oppressors into an Elder Dragon Council. Maybe, don't send that same Paladin & an Aasimar Cleric into Thay.
My problem with this whole thread is that it doesn't need to be here, at least not in the format you have entered. You could have asked if the module was this brutal as written, but you made it sound like you were looking for excuses to challenge the DM's handling of it.
Just my guess on what the DM may have been doing - you can read it afterwards.
The following is my guess about what might be going on in this situation. I think it may have to do with an inexperienced DM or it might be that the DM wants the campaign to continue after Tiamat manifests and have the party level up and eventually defeat her. It is hard to tell.
Anyway, the setup for the ritual has 4 red wizards at ground level and 4 flying - two in each chapel. The two additional named ones are on the ground and the other is levitating at the highest part of the temple. In the first three combat rounds the party in this case killed the four red wizards and the named NPC at ground level.
This may be a big problem for the DM depending on their objectives. The ritual requires 5 wizards using their action every round to perform the ritual. If there aren't 5 in one round the ritual pauses. If it is missed for two rounds the ritual has to restart. The ritual requires 10 total rounds to open the portal and let Tiamat through. Tiamat then takes something like 7 rounds to fully pass through the portal. Depending on what the party has achieved in the lead up to the well - Tiamat can be significantly weakened. (There are at least 5 things the party can do to reduce the number of hit points and abilities that Tiamat will have when she manifests). In this case, we don't know how many of these the party may have accomplished.
Anyway, assuming the DM wants to railroad the party into either defeating Tiamat to climax the adventure or force them to flee and come back later - then the early success of the party is a problem. The DM then had the wizards all cast greater invisibility in order to save them since if another red wizard is killed the ritual will automatically fail. Apparently the DM insisted that the ritual would succeed. The wizards can't hold their actions to do something else since if they don't all use their actions on the ritual it will fail. Being invisible and flying, it would not be unreasonable for a DM to rule the wizards as automatically hidden. This would mean that the party would have guess where the opponents were unless they come up with a way to detect them. It isn't clear what level the party is - so we can't really make suggestions on what they could have done but assuming that they are at least 10th level then the cleric could try for a Hail Mary divine intervention though the odds are it won't work - but the return of Tiamat is something that might get a DM to roll behind the screen to see if divine intervention happens.
Assuming the party is at least 14th level - which would be required to cast a planar binding that lasts 30 days, then the rogue might be able to use blindsense to fly around looking for an invisible creature. If the players could summon a couatl - it has truesight and could see through the invisibility - at least letting the party know where to find the wizards.
However, the wizards managed to stay away from the players for 5 rounds - mostly by DM fiat and the players not coming up with a good idea to catch one leading to Tiamat coming through the gate. Unfortunately, the wizards and Tiamat are likely too much for the players - however, Tiamat isn't friendly towards anyone here except dragons. One of the first things she does is to slaughter the wizards so it is possible that the DM plans to have Tiamat attacking the wizards some of the time giving the characters a chance to succeed. Without something like that though the players are likely going to have to flee which will either be the players losing the campaign or a continuation of the campaign where the players continue to adventure and later manage to defeat Tiamat - depends what the DM has in mind for the ongoing campaign.
Anyway - I hope the DM ran the rest of the session to a fun and interesting conclusion!
... you made it sound like you were looking for excuses to challenge the DM's handling of it.
"I'm not trying to get ammo to retro the game, or confront the DM." -- OP
"I'm just honestly perplexed, and I don't want to be the guy who downloads the adventure just to double-check if what's happening is legit."
Your point? Getting an answer to whether or not a mechanic being played is game-rules-legit vs. DM-concocted isn't "looking for excuses to challenge the DM's handling of it" - it's simply trying to learn how something is happening, because in my 35+ years of playing D&D, much of them as a DM, I'm always perplexed when the fundamental rules are being suspended.
From my experience, all official modules are railroads to a greater or lesser degree. I usually just use them as sources for my homebrew adventures, taking what I like, adapting it to my world, and tossing the rest on the trash heap.
From my experience, all official modules are railroads to a greater or lesser degree. I usually just use them as sources for my homebrew adventures, taking what I like, adapting it to my world, and tossing the rest on the trash heap.
Me too although I tend to only do minor modifications. I may change some monsters around or even the BBEG, or change locations.
He is your DM. Everything he says or does in HIS campaign is legit. If you don't like it, stop playing with him.
We, the DM's will change everything we want always for good reasons.
We also have the power to fix things if we make a mistake. It's so easy and simple.
It's very possible he readjusted the difficulty of the encounter and then, it went "out of control" but he is the DM and such thing like "out of control" doesn't exist for a DM.
Reality here is you don't trust him.
You might want to look for a different DM.
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Hey All,
First off... SPOILERS!
There's something I just need to wrap my head around. We're a group of 4 running the encounter in the Well of Dragons, trying to stop the summoning. We got in quick and in the first 3 rounds took out 4 Red Wizards plus Rath Modar), but then the rest all used Greater Invisibility. We've only got one Cleric as full-progression caster, and the rest of the group is a Paladin, Monk, and Rogue. Our Artificer betrayed us and joined the bad guys, and is actively working against us in this encounter. Don't get me started on that...
Now my issue (and frustration) is that these Wizards are all using fly, and invisibility, and holding actions to avoid AoEs, moving about the place, and participating in a summoning at the same time? Isn't that a bit too many concentration requirements? Even if every single Red Wizard had a potion of flying, I still question the ability for them to maintain Invisibility while performing the summoning ritual. And when we get relatively close to one and use perception to try and isolate the chanting, they go quiet, and the ritual seems to keep progressing.
Concentration is required when casting any spell, including a ritual version, for longer than 1 action (see Players Handbook, 202).
I'm fairly sure a 10+ person summoning ritual to bring forth a God into the Prime Material should have some concentration requirement involved. No? I'm not trying to get ammo to retro the game, or confront the DM. Tiamat's there now, and we're about to scrap. I'm just honestly perplexed, and I don't want to be the guy who downloads the adventure just to double-check if what's happening is legit. We're about to enter round 11 of the encounter, and Tiamat's got 2 heads in and it's turned real ugly. I've already told the party they need to get to me cause I'm going to Word of Recall us out of there to regroup and prep for a later confrontation.
Anyhow, I just want to know I'm not crazy. If there's a legit reason we're utterly impotent here, like the ritual doesn't require concentration, and all the flying is potion based, and people are holding actions without it impacting the ritual, and an arcane caster with see invisibility was an absolute requirement - I get it. It just seems like we walked into a no-win situation and anything we've done was just fruitless.
In any event, once we get out of there, I'm just planning on going into hiding for 30 days while I summon an Angelic Host & Planar Bind them. 30 Avenger Celestial Spirits takes Tiamat out in short order. Heck, I had 5 of them planar bound going into this final encounter, but then we started running into Red Wizards with Divine Word to get rid of them. Don't get me started on that...
How much do you want to know? I don't know how to, like, warn you what each spoiler tag is covering without partially defeating the purpose of the tag. I'll just... assign an arbitrary order, I guess.
The ritual to summon Tiamat is not a spell and does not require concentration.
The ritual to summon Tiamat requires 5 actions per round to maintain - fewer than that for 1 round causes the ritual to stall, and for 2 rounds in a row causes it to start over. This means cultists contributing their action to the ritual can't take the Ready action as well.
None of those actions require chanting unless the DM says they do.
The ritual to summon Tiamat takes 10 rounds, not including stalls, which is 1 minute, which means a cultist could have fly pre-cast before the ritual starts, or could cast it round 1 and then begin the ritual. That's not enough time for Greater Invisibility, which itself is 1 minute - if a cultist casts greater invisibility and then begins the ritual, they'll be visible during the final round, and likewise if they start the ritual and then greater invis during it, causing a stall, they'll be visible at the start of the ritual. There's no way they could be invisible for the entire ritual.
Red Wizards all know the fly and greater invisibility spells, and the module has no rules for them being potion dependent or even knowing how to make potions, since they're proficient in neither alchemy nor herbalism kits. I would guess your DM had them cheat if they were flying and invisible at the same time - even if they were willing to slow the ritual down to cast those spells (and casting both would restart the ritual from scratch, requiring a fresh 10 rounds), they'd need to concentrate on both, and they can't.
I haven't read the spoiler responses just because I don't want to give myself potential behind-the-screen info, but given I'm seeing 5 specific spoilers, I'm just going to assume the adventure was written such that this is per the norm and you're citing references. I'll come back after the next session and review.
I dunno, maybe it's just the adventure, which has felt like a railroad from start to finish, that has me soured. The arcs where the party met with the Dragon council and journeyed to Thay were wastes of time, and left everyone feeling like those aspects would just have been better to be narrated than to have the party interact for multiple sessions only to later learn no matter what they said or did would achieve nothing because it all came down to pre-set conditions or a die roll.
I'm also trying to not be too hard on the GM. It's his first time (well, second if you count Horde of the Dragon Queen as the first adventure) and he's done a remarkable job both in keeping up with a pair of power gamers and in allowing the development of two relative newbies, all while keeping everyone not just entertained, but letting characters develop distinction presences and niches. Because of that, I'd more than happy accepting this adventure arc is poorly written, and chalk it up to that. :)
You'll probably need to read the encounter after you have played it. However, after reading it over, there is nothing obvious that jumps out as completely contradicting the module in the scenario you've described.
Stuff that isn't really a spoiler. The ritual being performed is just that - a ritual and not a spell. It doesn't appear to have any concentration requirements. You also saw a number of wizards flying at the start of the encounter (method of flying is left as an exercise).
The DM may have modified some of the details but I won't second guess someone else running it or the objectives they want to achieve. Your DM is most familiar with your party and their capabilities and is best suited to judge the suitable level of challenge.
This book isn't well written, I think its a bit better than HoDQ but running it currently myself I plan to heavily change parts of it. Your DM might not be following strict RAW with the spells but the ritual isn't a spell and doesn't follow any of those rules even though you might logically expect it to, spoiler my opinion on what the authors expected
I don't think the authors really expect the players to stop the ritual completely, it could be done but I think they were expecting the average party to fail that hurdle.
Are we cool with players coming to the DMs Only section of the board asking for advice on a module they're playing? It seems to defeat the purpose of this section. This is the second time I've seen someone clearly in a player capacity solicit DMs for strategy in a section with the implied honor system of "DM's Only."
1.) Since we're not the player's DM, who knows how the DM is adapting the written seen, as mentioned Tyranny of Dragons needs some TLC to function well.
2.) while not technically a reportable offense, it again goes against the spirt of this section where DMs consult other DMs on how to run the game.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I'm just honestly perplexed, and I don't want to be the guy who downloads the adventure just to double-check if what's happening is legit.
I would have a huge issue with that, as a DM, if I even thought that was something you would do...
One thing to keep in mind, anything that is happening in the module is automatically "legit" since that is the way the DM is running it. NPCs and modules often bend or break rules that apply to players. DMs can do the same though most minimize it to maintain a consistent world but sometimes modifications are needed to either alter the challenge of a particular encounter or to adjust for something that is unclear or not well written.
The DM may also be making modifications on the fly to adjust encounter balance since "We got in quick and in the first 3 rounds took out 4 Red Wizards plus Rath Modar)".
This is relevant to the last thread where a player came in to ask for help on strategy in DitA. The thing was, the particular event the player wanted to help with dealt with a location that wasn't really built in the module for combat encounter/assault (no map to the structure).
So basically we're again at a position where DMs on the internet can't really contest another DM's perogative at the OP's table, and I still say it's tantamount to cheating to do so.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Just pointing out I wasn't asking for advice. I'm of the opinion that what's happening at our table is happening, and I'm not trying to meta-game it. Hence, why I'm not reading anything labeled as "spoiler" until after we complete the adventure. What I came here to ask, from DMs who'd likely run the adventure, is whether or not the in-game progression we're experiencing is something written into the module, or if it's something just being played out as it unfolds by a first-time DM. Either is fine. Not looking for ways around it. In fact, I've got my answer earlier from David42 in that the ritual "doesn't appear to have any concentration requirements." That's what I couldn't understand. I mean, casting an identify as a ritual breaks concentration from other spells. I find it rather confounding that any ritual summons, even a specialized one in which one must spend round over round actions in dedication would not break concentration of existing spells - but so be it.
In any event, I've already made up my mind we can't win in our current scenario and we've got to get out. We knew going in that if we didn't stop the ritual we were going to be in a bad spot. We've got no arcane casting, so no counter-spells, and with Tiamat appearing we're now getting hit with Cone of Cold, Ice Storm, and Fireball from all sides, meanwhile every time the Cleric casts, he gets counter-spelled. Tiamat already went after the Paladin and dropped him to single-digit HP in one round.
The thing is, we went from having a wonderful play experience to 4 players being utterly frustrated for 4 hours. And not the good frustrated where you've got a way out or can MacGyver yourself a solution. Being told repeatedly by your DM that, "there's nothing you can do" is deflating. If that's the fault of the module, so be it. If that's the DM over-correcting for what he thought might be too easy of an adventure's ultimate arc, I want to be able to tell him afterward, privately, that if he's going to upscale an encounter's difficulty to affect greater challenge, he's got to be sure to not make it an impossible scenario given the party's composition. If adventure-as-written we were doing everything right to prevent the summoning because we went in prepared to do so, and the only reason we failed is because of upscaling beyond intent, I'd like to be able to give him some advice down the road, as I've been a DM for half a dozen different groups over the past 35 years.
Quoting myself:
I'm not trying to get ammo to retro the game, or confront the DM.
You're assuming a lot of my intent in asking. My ask had no intent to challenge or cheat, as you've bluntly assumed. I'm trying to wrap my head around how this is all mechanically possible; or whether it's the errs of a first-time DM (which we have all had, and likely still have on occasion), or if the adventure is allowing that much to happen as intended. It's a DM's ask.
I don't know about your table, but at ours we appreciate feedback, given respectfully, after adventure arcs concludes. I'm just trying to figure out if this is feedback that should be directed as mentioned in my last post, of if it's feedback with direction more towards being able to on-the-fly see when you're losing a table because the adventure has put people in a no-win. The whole point of the matter is that people stopped having fun because they could no longer engage. What started as everyone having facility in "the big encounter" of the game quickly turned into narration as our hopes of stopping it ended. It's difficult for new(er) DMs to spot that happening because as a DM you're always fully engaged.
This is in the running to be one of the adventures I'd DM for another group I game with in a few months, and if it's this poorly written, I need to do more than the normal prep for it or disregard it. While I really enjoyed the arcs to hunt down Wyrmspeakers, and Maze at Xonathal's Tower, and the Assassination attempts, I haven't been a fan of a few of the arcs in here from a player perspective. The Dragon Council and Wizards of Thay bits were just awful railroad nightmares. In the former, nothing we could bring forth via role-play or our character abilities had any possible effect. It was just how much we could buy off the dragons with pre-set expectations. The latter may as well have just been a giant "you fail" arc. Being told to make a Persuasion checks at -10, -12, and -16 modifiers was the first step of insanity. It was brutal. There was very little RP / Interaction - it was just go to bed and do a whole lotta rolls and get teleported back before getting a word off. Meh.
And thus far, this final chapter has left a bitter taste. But that many also be due to my play & DM style. I personally loathe adventure that seek to narrate instead of immerse. Once you have a campaign that removes the player's facility, and they're unable to affect events around them, then the adventure's turned into a novel, and it's not interactive anymore. HotDQ did that a lot, and while RoT is better, it still suffers from that more than I'd like.
I think one thing I may do for this campaign, if I run it, is allow PCs to make 2 character each to have diversity and allow them to create "teams" based on task. Like, don't send a Dragonborn Paladin of Justice who views Dragons as ancestral oppressors into an Elder Dragon Council. Maybe, don't send that same Paladin & an Aasimar Cleric into Thay.
My problem with this whole thread is that it doesn't need to be here, at least not in the format you have entered. You could have asked if the module was this brutal as written, but you made it sound like you were looking for excuses to challenge the DM's handling of it.
Just my guess on what the DM may have been doing - you can read it afterwards.
The following is my guess about what might be going on in this situation. I think it may have to do with an inexperienced DM or it might be that the DM wants the campaign to continue after Tiamat manifests and have the party level up and eventually defeat her. It is hard to tell.
Anyway, the setup for the ritual has 4 red wizards at ground level and 4 flying - two in each chapel. The two additional named ones are on the ground and the other is levitating at the highest part of the temple. In the first three combat rounds the party in this case killed the four red wizards and the named NPC at ground level.
This may be a big problem for the DM depending on their objectives. The ritual requires 5 wizards using their action every round to perform the ritual. If there aren't 5 in one round the ritual pauses. If it is missed for two rounds the ritual has to restart. The ritual requires 10 total rounds to open the portal and let Tiamat through. Tiamat then takes something like 7 rounds to fully pass through the portal. Depending on what the party has achieved in the lead up to the well - Tiamat can be significantly weakened. (There are at least 5 things the party can do to reduce the number of hit points and abilities that Tiamat will have when she manifests). In this case, we don't know how many of these the party may have accomplished.
Anyway, assuming the DM wants to railroad the party into either defeating Tiamat to climax the adventure or force them to flee and come back later - then the early success of the party is a problem. The DM then had the wizards all cast greater invisibility in order to save them since if another red wizard is killed the ritual will automatically fail. Apparently the DM insisted that the ritual would succeed. The wizards can't hold their actions to do something else since if they don't all use their actions on the ritual it will fail. Being invisible and flying, it would not be unreasonable for a DM to rule the wizards as automatically hidden. This would mean that the party would have guess where the opponents were unless they come up with a way to detect them. It isn't clear what level the party is - so we can't really make suggestions on what they could have done but assuming that they are at least 10th level then the cleric could try for a Hail Mary divine intervention though the odds are it won't work - but the return of Tiamat is something that might get a DM to roll behind the screen to see if divine intervention happens.
Assuming the party is at least 14th level - which would be required to cast a planar binding that lasts 30 days, then the rogue might be able to use blindsense to fly around looking for an invisible creature. If the players could summon a couatl - it has truesight and could see through the invisibility - at least letting the party know where to find the wizards.
However, the wizards managed to stay away from the players for 5 rounds - mostly by DM fiat and the players not coming up with a good idea to catch one leading to Tiamat coming through the gate. Unfortunately, the wizards and Tiamat are likely too much for the players - however, Tiamat isn't friendly towards anyone here except dragons. One of the first things she does is to slaughter the wizards so it is possible that the DM plans to have Tiamat attacking the wizards some of the time giving the characters a chance to succeed. Without something like that though the players are likely going to have to flee which will either be the players losing the campaign or a continuation of the campaign where the players continue to adventure and later manage to defeat Tiamat - depends what the DM has in mind for the ongoing campaign.
Anyway - I hope the DM ran the rest of the session to a fun and interesting conclusion!
"I'm not trying to get ammo to retro the game, or confront the DM." -- OP
"I'm just honestly perplexed, and I don't want to be the guy who downloads the adventure just to double-check if what's happening is legit."
Your point? Getting an answer to whether or not a mechanic being played is game-rules-legit vs. DM-concocted isn't "looking for excuses to challenge the DM's handling of it" - it's simply trying to learn how something is happening, because in my 35+ years of playing D&D, much of them as a DM, I'm always perplexed when the fundamental rules are being suspended.
From my experience, all official modules are railroads to a greater or lesser degree. I usually just use them as sources for my homebrew adventures, taking what I like, adapting it to my world, and tossing the rest on the trash heap.
Me too although I tend to only do minor modifications. I may change some monsters around or even the BBEG, or change locations.
He is your DM. Everything he says or does in HIS campaign is legit. If you don't like it, stop playing with him.
We, the DM's will change everything we want always for good reasons.
We also have the power to fix things if we make a mistake. It's so easy and simple.
It's very possible he readjusted the difficulty of the encounter and then, it went "out of control" but he is the DM and such thing like "out of control" doesn't exist for a DM.
Reality here is you don't trust him.
You might want to look for a different DM.