Tiamat is one of DnD’s greatest villains. She is the Queen of Chaos, the Prime Evil, Mother of Evil Dragons, and many many more titles.
Tiamat is one of the iconic DnD monsters and is usually the final boss of many DnD campaigns. In a game with “Dragon” in the name, you’d expect to have an incredible fight if you ever come face to face with the queen.
Today we’re taking a look at DnD 5e’s Queen of Dragons, Tiamat.
Table of Contents
Who is Tiamat 5e?
Tiamat is the Evil Queen of the Chromatic Dragons. In the lore of DnD 5e, Tiamat is usually trapped within the infernal realm Avernus. It’s said that she was sealed away by her brother Bahamut, the Platinum Dragon and King of the Metallic Dragons.
Tiamat has been part of DnD lore since the first edition and has always been one of the toughest creatures to face. She is represented as a massive five-headed dragon with one head for each of the chromatic dragons, black, blue, green, red, and white.
Tiamat was one of the original panthea of draconic gods spawned by Io.
Tiamat 5e Stats
Tiamat is a legendary creature and her stats reflect that. She’s one of the most powerful creatures in all of DnD 5e.
- AC: 25
- Hit Points: 615 (30d20 +300)
- Speed: 60ft
- Fly: 120ft
| Ability | Score | Modifier |
| Strength | 30 | +10 |
| Dexterity | 10 | +0 |
| Constitution | 30 | +10 |
| Intelligence | 26 | +8 |
| Wisdom | 26 | +8 |
| Charisma | 28 | +9 |
Tiamat 5e Abilities
Tiamat’s abilities and stat block can be found in the Hoard of the Dragon Queen sourcebook.
- Saving Throws: Str +19, Dex +9, Wis +17
- Skills: Arcana +17, Perception +26, Religion +17
- Damage Immunities: acid, cold, fire, lightning, poison; bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from nonmagical attacks
- Condition Immunities: blinded, charmed, deafened, frightened, poisoned, stunned
- Senses: darkvision 240 ft., truesight 120 ft., passive Perception 36
- Languages: Common, Draconic, Infernal
- Challenge Rating: 30 (155000 XP)
Tiamat 5e Actions
Regular Actions
- Multiattack.
- Claw.
- Tail.
- Frightful Presence.
Legendary Actions
- Bite
- Black Dragon Head: Acid Breath
- Blue Dragon Head: Lightning Breath
- Green Dragon Head: Poison Breath
- Red Dragon Head: Fire Breath
- White Dragon Head: Cold Breath
Tiamat 5e Encounters
Tiamat is a literal god in the DnD world. Your party of adventurers is not going to be traveling in the woods and coming across a god of the universe and having to fight her randomly. It’s simply not going to happen.
Because she’s so important to the lore, a legendary creature, and one of the strongest, there really are only two ways to face her.
Tiamat as a Deadly Encounter
Tiamat as a deadly encounter is most likely going to be a one-shot game. Players typically create high-level characters and attempt to fight the Queen of Dragons in an arena-style fight.
This can be really fun considering that it doesn’t involve a lot of time. Actually getting to max level in a campaign is a time commitment. Going after Tiamat as a one-shot allows more casual players to experience end-game content without having to play for months or years in real life.
You could simply drop your players into the center of an arena and have them fight the Queen of Dragons, but that would become a bit of a slog after a while. She does have a massive pool of health and a pretty hefty AC.
A more interesting encounter for your one-off is to have your players fight in a city or another plane of existence. This allows the fight to be broken into stages and allows the players something more to do than simply blast away with all of their spells.
They could also have to evacuate a certain number of civilians, find a way out of another realm, or simply fight through several different stages slowly chipping away at the five heads of Tiamat.
If you plan on having a one-shot encounter try to come up with a secondary objective or break the fight into different stages with different objectives, otherwise your characters will end up spamming their best attacks over and over until she’s dead and that’s just not as fun.
Tiamat in a Campaign
Tiamat is typically going to be the final boss of any campaign if you decide to include the Queen of Dragons. If you want to include her in a campaign the easiest way to do it is to use the Tyranny of Dragons module. It’s actually two of the first modules that Wizards of the Coast released for 5e.
Tyranny of Dragons takes level 1 adventurers on a quest to uncover a cult of the dragon and ultimately attempt to stop Tiamat from being released from her prison.
It’s a bit of a railroad campaign and plays more like a video game RPG where players can choose from a set number of options. That’s typically not the draw of tabletop RPGs, but it’s a good starting point for a beginner DM and a veteran will be able to adapt the campaign to their own liking.
Bryan Truong
Before starting GameCows with his wife Kendra, he used to teach English Language Arts in the US. He combined his love of gaming with education to create fun game-based learning lessons until he eventually decided to run GameCows with Kendra full-time. He’s known for pouring over rulebooks in his spare time, being the rule master during game night, and as the perma DM in his DnD group. Bryan loves board games, writing, traveling, and above all his wife and partner in crime, Kendra.
