A Companion grabbed by Tiamat is probably going to be soul-killed. Same with the Hells."Just in case", basically.
If one of our Companions gets grabbed by Hells or Timmie's Avatar here...
Well, half of a Companion is better than none of a Companion, eh?
This would be an amazing followup.
This is another reason why "lol come on kill some of our guys" causes risk aversion in players. No one wants their favorite characters to be permakilled, so we do everything any anything possible to avoid that.
That stance is a lot less happy-go-lucky than you're making it out to be. Obviously companions being permakilled would suck beyond measure, but it'd also be more believable than this string of never-ending victories we've been through so far. The first important death we've had in the quest on our side was an Erinyes in the Plane of Fire, and she was resurrected with little fanfare after the fact. This trend doesn't exactly help DP trying to build suspense in these fights. It's hard to be worried when we've never had things go truly badly for us, more inconveniencing.
looks at viserys dying during surgery cauzing the whole tiamat deal with dany to happen. i mean in combat you aren't wrong but that was pretty damn major
So just to clarify, @DragonParadox, JonCon comes in, in a mad rage strikes at Viserys, and the Seeker attacks him enough that he might as well be flanked form three directions by multiple BAB +16 melee fighters?
"So you have chosen death."
I'm more pointing out that, because this is so obviously the case, and if any Companion dies during these kinds of fights, that's it, they're gone for good, forever, that means that players will over-prepare and try to stack the odds no matter what, which leads to contortionist responses from the DM to try to keep those stakes high, or a steam roll.
And it was reversed, and here we are cleaning up after ourselves as we speak. While there were consequences, when we're looking at us there wasn't much in the way of permanent consequences.
Did Viserys' Dragon's Roar spell affect any of the ritual casters?
I don't know about you but for me every death is terrifying to me for one simple reason.
Dany going from child to a dragon in human skin happened before the deal with Tiamat, DP. We weren't watching her closely enough and then she soul-forged herself and "sacrificed her childhood on the altar of power". I distinctly remember this happening before Dany became a cleric. Tiamat even wanted her to sacrifice her coin as the focal point for her Holy Symbol.
I agree it's terrifying. That actually makes it more absurd we've had such incredible luck.
and that is what it is, luck and a lot of fucking prep work. and i would rather that streak of luck continue than it runs out becouse i don't want anyone here erased from existanced forged into currency or anything else that can happen with how fucked the planes are
I find it less us being lucky and us being paranoid fuckwits that just happen to be magically charismatic enough not to look like it.
How can it be anything but empirical if the author says its so?
Sorry guys, my suspense of disbelief is long since dead and buried in regards to this quest. There's only so much "luck" I can believe.
Luck only goes so far, but prepwork carries the day. It's not just the immense amount of gear we have, but also in the spell selections (such as Alter Fortune) and party composition. We don't do things in half measures, and that includes stacking groups with more high level characters than are strictly necessary, to cover each other's weaknesses and dominate the action economy.