How did the last fights go for your group? Specifically the Embermead and Veshumirix fights. They seem quite hard on paper. As they should be, but im curious if any of these TPK'd your group, or if things went better for the players then expected.
My group consist of a giant instinct barbarian, champion paladin, ruffian rogue, and warpriest cleric. So far they have been really good with damage mitigation. Otherwise i'm pumped to run a dragon encounter.
My 6 person group had some problems but smart gameplay invalidated them.
The first fight was fairly standard with additional ice devil backup (6 person party). Our spirit barbarian ignores the adamantine DR on golems so he just corralled them while the rest of the party dove in on Embermead. She separated the party with blade barrier, but the party went in and got her anyways. Divine Wall means that enemies can't Step away to cast spells, so she had to spellcast in their face. A crit canceled that and she whiffed her attacks to boot.
Veshumvirix's dungeon looked tough but the party had multiple resist energies on hand and salamander potions. They didn't really expend resources getting to the dragon. Things seemed scary but his breath wasn't tough to beat and the party druid laid down a wall of stone above the lava to give the melee somewhere to stand on. Everyone rushed him. See, here's the cool thing-- they all had items that gave them flight. So when he smashed the wall of stone, the party flew away from the lava.
I have notoriously awful dice rolls though so ymmv on my experiences. I just went through the final battle of the campaign against the last boss and he didn't roll above 10 on any of his melee attacks the entire battle.
My group just met with king Harral last night and hit level 14. So should be entering the temple of all gods next week. Their dice were on fire last night too, back to back crits from my barbarian on the random encounter i made before the Kings summons. Plus the ST members in the old workshop could barely put up a fight against my guys. The champion hit 40 AC last night too. That amazing shield in the hidden forge, and that amazing full plate in the workshop made him more of a power house then he already was. Giant instinct barbarian got whirlwind too. (good bye large groups of enemies)
After the encounter with the Grikkitog my group keeps at least one potion of fly on each of them at all times now. Constantly being held by a maw in the ground wasn't fun for them.
Thank you for your feed back Ice Titan. This is quite far into a new AP so I wasn't sure how many groups would really be passed this point. I'll post how and what my group ends up doing. Just in case it gives another GM some insight. After all this is the highest level I've ever ran through any system and I'm sure other GMs may be in the same boat.
My group ended up finishing last night. They did survive! In a lot of regards Embermead ended up being more of a slog fest for them. I had her blade barrier to separate the group, and the golems tried to push, grapple, and hit them back into the barrier. While Embermead was casting spells and tossing her hammer. Spiritual epidemic went off on the titan barbarian. So once they struggled to hit her they moved on to grappling. They eventually got Embermead restrained and cuffed in multiple sets of scarlet triad manacles and tossed her holy symbol into one of the forges.
The dragon fight they went in very prepared. Potions of flying, quickness, salamander elixirs. As well everyone forked over the money for an ice rune before going in. The dragons first breath weapon attack goes off on the whole party. 3 crit saves, 2 nat 20's, but the cleric crit failed and would have went down had the paladin not taken all of his damage for him. They then proceeded to knock the dragon from the sky once. The rogue got a great crit off. The cleric also crit failed vs the 2nd breath weapon attack, but barely had enough health to take it.