Well, our group hasn't played for two weeks, due to holidays and other things going on. Our last session, they had a climatic fight with Thessalar and his Lich Cohort involving Earthquakes and Sunbursts and other flashy magic. (Using an earthquake to announce your presence is pretty darn bold) This all got the the attention of Brazzemal and a Wyrm Black Dragon that I used in the Dragon Siege (replaced Vermirox), who subsequently assaulted them. They handled both dueling liches and dragons without any loss of life and are feeling pretty sure of themselves.
They have all the soul fragments and have heard everything Balakarde has to say on Dragotha and the Writhing Sanctum. Our next session will be on New Year's Day, and they've all stated to me, "We want to fight Dragotha on New Years Day. We're tough enough that we can take him." Obviously based on some threads, I'd have to agree that Dragotha by himself as written with Balakarde's buffs will be no match for my group of six PCs (average 20th level), four cohorts, a gated in Solar, and Zulshyn's aid. However, they're going to teleport right in. I'm almost 100% sure they will do this. This gives Dragotha access to all of his minions, but how does this go down exactly? Have other PCs had this happen in their Dragotha showdown, and how did they handle it? In what order do minions arrive, what actions do they take, and so forth?
The only changes I've made to the minions are substituting the three nightcrawlers for a Favored Spawn of Kyuss Crawling Head (Fiend Folio, calling it Wormshrieker). adding four Kyuss knights to Dragotha's lair, and upping Mahuudril to an 18th level sorcerer.
I'm not sure how this will all go down. My player's characters are quite powerful and well played, and there's a chance that this could be the most exciting encounter of the campaign...or a completely horrific TPK.
Wow. Yeah, let us know how that goes...
(I'd give advice but I'm way behind, just heading into HoHR myself)
I don't have the adventure with me to look at your actual question, regarding how long various minions should take to arrive.
However, I wanted to say that I would recommend giving Dragotha access to either the regular or the Greater version of the Anticipate Teleportation spell from Spell Compendium (spell levels 3rd or 6th, respectively). This will result in a 1-round (3-round w/Greater version) delay in the PCs appearing when they teleport in, with Dragotha (or whichever minion of his you give the spell to) aware of their impending arrival and where they will appear. This would allow Dragotha to call his minions to his side for this epic battle.
Dragotha doesn't really have any good 6th level spells to give up in order to take the Greater version (I assume he's using Geas/Quest somewhere...), but on 3rd level he could trade out Ray of Exhaustion for it, I believe. Or maybe he had someone else build a Permanent version of the spell into his lair many years ago, and it needn't be on his spell-list at all.
Although I do not have the stats in front of me, I am pretty sure that the majority (if not all) of Dragotha’s minions have the ability to teleport. Couple this with Dragotha’s Sending ability, and his support could be there in one round. Given Dragotha’s Intelligence and Wisdom, its fair to say (assuming he is gathering good intelligence reports) that he doesn’t even need the single round: that they are all there ahead of time. Have Balakarde warn the PCs for the last time about this threat, even insinuate that this move is suicidal. PCs that ignore this warning are clearly over confident and in need of a reality check.
His minions:
6-12 Avolakia (remember, there are Avolakia stationed in various rooms throughout the Tabernacle)
6+ Overworms
Mahuudril
Venk and Zyrith
1 or more Wormdrakes (the most powerful of all Kyuss’ creations….all this monster has to do all day long is dispel buffs due to Greater Dispel Magic CL 20 at will)
Unless your PCs are Epic level, they have no hope. Give Dragotha Damage Reduction Epic/20 and slaughter your PCs.
Outside of players getting their feelings hurt by certain slaughter, the only other issue I see with running an encounter featuring all of his minions is the sheer complexity of the combat. Multiple overlapping Gaze Attacks, Fear Auras, about a hundred buffs, power attack variations….uhhhh, I feel for you. Our fight with just Dragotha and Mahuudril was a 4+ hour marathon.
Good luck…hopefully they wisen up and weaken Dragotha’s combat effectiveness by traveling through the Tabernacle.
I've got reach explained why this would be suicide in great detail...
Definitely remember that Venk and Zyrith are mind linked with Dragotha. In the absolutely unlikely event that they get the total drop on Dragotha, they shouldn't have more than a single round alone with him. Help should start arriving, and keep right on arriving.
And definitely the wormdrakes should spell the end of the fight for your PC's. Start targeting those dispells and counterspells and that should do for that.
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Unless your PCs are Epic level, they have no hope. Give Dragotha Damage Reduction Epic/20 and slaughter your PCs.
I must say I can never agree when one DM advises to "slaughter" another's group of PC's, no matter the circumstances. These are characters your players have put a lot of time and effort into building, and a TPK would probably put a premature end to what sounds like a really good campaign.
Replacing an entire group of characters this late in a campaign can be game killing. What is the motivation for the new characters, I mean other than the whole end of the world thing? There is little emotional investment at that point, so the players may not be as motivated to keep going.
I suggest and alternative; make it undesirable/impossible to teleport directly into the sanctum. Anyone attempting to teleport into the inner sanctum could be shunted to a holding area or another location (like the front door). There are probably a dozen different spell effects to make this work. It could be a new defensive measure taken very recently in anticipation of some very high profile do gooders paying an unwelcome visit so close to The Big Day, so Casper the Tormented Ghost might not be aware of it.
Some sort of plot device like this can keep the adventure going as intended, avert a TPK from BBEG and minions, and keep everyone happy. Actually, it would be a wise defensive measure for a dracolich who has lost his phylactery to take, especially since he knows there are people gunning for him.
Hell, they can always run away. I say bring it on! 20th-level PCs are extremely powerful, but even they need to learn that some things are over their heads.
This may sound really wish-washy, but after some time to reflect, I am having second thoughts about mobbing on the PCs like I suggested earlier; Xuttah may be right. That’s not to say that I wouldn’t slaughter them, but it really depends on your gaming table.
At our table, if I am unwilling to kill a PC (or all of them), then my players don’t find the game nearly as engaging. If I am unwilling to kill my PCs, my players will recognize this and make decisions such as teleporting directly to Dragotha without concern. In the most extreme cases, players may EXPLOIT the DMs inability to off PCs in manners that might be considered metagaming.
All that said, as Kenobi would say, there are alternatives. None that I can think of that sound appealing and/or are not heavy-handed, but yes, there are alternatives (such as dimensional lock Dragotha’s lair).
And to address your assertion that a TPK would result in a story ending disaster; your right. If my game ends in a TPK at this point in time (we just finished Dragotha), the game is over. There are no "new group of heroes"; we pack up and play Savage Tide, Shackled City, or checkers. My players already know this.