Red Hand of Done

This past week, my players finished the Red Hand of Doom, slaying High Wyrmlord Azzar Kul, vanquishing his summoned Aspect of Tiamat, and saving the human lands of Elsir Vale from diabolical infestation. Only two characters died in the process!

The amazing thing is how well their plans worked.

How a normal D&D plan works
At the beginning of any major set piece, the players develop a loose plan of action.
Round 1: Deploy plan.
Round 2: Something unforeseen manifests, and the plan is left swinging on one hinge.
Rounds 3-10: Everyone runs around relying on their best tricks until somebody's out of hit points.

That is how pretty much every D&D fight goes that I've ever run or played in. The interesting parts are coming up with the plan, and then coping during the plan's lumbering demise.

How this one was different
The plan more or less worked like they meant for it to. The hitters flew up a 100 foot shaft invisibly, wailed on the bad guy in a surprise round, and finished him before he ever got a chance to respond. The rest of the group clambered up just in time to see Tiamat manifest. Judicious application of resources made the fight hard, but winnable.

Several times in their adventuring careers, the party has been in worse shape, and far less certain of outcome. At first, I wondered if I did them a disservice by making it too easy. But today I decided I didn't. I mean, it was no half-speed move action among cakes. They took their lumps. Two PCs died (conveniently, the two whose players had dropped out of the game), and everyone else took serious damage (except for the monk whom Tiamat quickly surmised as a minor threat).

The feeling of mastery and completion though, made it seem like, for once, the players leveled up. They put together a plan, hit their marks, and used gumption to solve the problem. Yay players! Yay D&D!

Some weeks, the game is totally 20 minutes of fun packed into 4 hours. But it never seems like it's not worth it.