Rise of the the Tiamat questions (Spoilers here!)

[Roman.Zhy]

Hello! I've almost finished with DMing HOTDQ and soon will DM rise of the Tiamat. Having read this campaign I have several questions.

1. In the final battle in the Temple of the Tiamat portal opens if at least 5 red wizard do ritual for 10 rounds. There are near to 10 red wizards, Rath Modar and Severin (who can't leave his place). My party will wipe out all of them in 10 rounds without struggle - they will be 15th level adventures. It's an absurdly easy and dissapointing final or do I undestand something wrong?

2. All the things adventurers previously did shape the final battle in particalar involvement of the all factions. Is it only a flavor thing? Becouse anyway they will sneak in the Temple alone.

3. What about good Giants that can join their forces? Do I need write this adventure myself?

[Kurt Kurageous]

I get your point, but that's how they wrote it.

Real life tactics and given an option, generally a rational aggressor will not attack unless they think they can win. Your players don't really have an option but to attack, so the game made the win very very likely if they can get at the wizards.

There are distractions that can delay the party, and they might arrive too late, but that would be due to bad play.

It is what it is, the conclusion of the first thing 5e had. I just wish WotC would learn to write books that were easier on the DM to use.

[mormon_soldier]

You could have half of the wizards concentrating on Leomunds tiny huts around the other half. The huts drop at the end of round 9.

[Talij]

I'm currently DMing RoT after taking the part all the way through HotDQ.

I too was underwhelmed a little bit by this thinking it seemed too easy to stop. I will say that the players don't know what the time limit is and the temple is huge (450-500ft diameter). A dashing dwarf/halfling/gnome would take almost 10 rounds to reach the other side. Melee characters are going to have a rough time contributing and the flying ones are 50ft up in separate spires so likely won't have line of site until close to being in that branch. If the mages focus their attention on the ranged damage dealers and using their counterspells to try and shut down the spell casters, they can delay their fate. And they know that's all they have to do. It also mentions possibly putting any of the other remaining Wyrmspeakers in the Temple as well, which seems necessary to me.

Still seems like taking out 5 should be pretty doable in 10 turns. I plan to make the mages a little less squishy though (I have a party of 6). Also planning on having them fight Tiamat, one way or another. If they "stop" the ritual, Tiamat will still break through, just in an even weaker form. Haven't figured out what tha means yet.