Raid

A raid is a highly difficult and tactically challenging quest designed for 12 players with great rewards of experience points, treasure and more--if you survive its dangers.

A raid zone is a wilderness adventure area with raid characteristics.

Special rules
Raids are meant to be the most challenging content in the game. Raids have special rules and restrictions that you won't find in other quests:
 * You can take up to 12 players into a raid, versus the usual limit of 6 for standard quests.
 * You cannot bring hirelings into raids.
 * You cannot use certain DDO Store items in raids: Siberys Spirit Cakes (simply because the cake is a lie), Ethereal Rest Shrines or Summoned Repair Shops.
 * Difficulty Scaling is disabled in raids. Whether one player or 12 players enter the raid, the enemy difficulty remains the same.
 * For many raids, re-entry is blocked out at some point in the raid. Be careful not to release if you're unsure of the lockout mechanic. Three raids are exceptions to this rule: Tempest's Spine, The Chronoscope, Hound of Xoriat, and Caught in the Web.
 * The Chronoscope has one special ability unique to any other raid: Should you die and release, you will return to The Rusty Nail tavern instance within the raid itself.

Flagging and other prerequisites
Most raids in DDO require the player character to complete prerequisite quests—that is, to be flagged before you may enter a specific raid. The Chronoscope and Tempest's Spine are raids that don't require flagging.

As with most quests, raids have a minimum level requirement necessary for the quest to grant experience points to the character.

In addition to a flagging requirement, some raids may require gathering of ingredients or collectibles as "keys," in a sense, that also qualify you to enter a raid.

Raids often contain specialized ingredients for things such as Green Steel items as well as much of the game's very specialized and useful raid loot.

Pre-raids
Some raids have what's known as a pre-raid, a six-player quest that serves as a final key to entering a raid. Earlier versions of some DDO adventures required pre-raids to be completed before entering a raid—even if the player had completed the pre-raid before their last adventure into the me raid. The Against the Demon Queen adventure is one example, consisting of a pre-raid and the raid itself.

Pre-raids are a bit challenging because it requires potential raid parties to split into two 6-party groups to complete the pre-raid separately, then reunite for the raid itself.

Completing a raid, end-reward loot and raid timers
A raid often has the most experience points, loot and Favor you will encounter in the game.

In addition to loot found in the many chests while in the raid itself, all raids, as with most normal quests, have end-reward loot available from the NPC quest giver. Picking up this end-reward immediately after completing a raid is extremely important, and not just for the benefit of named loot.

Every raid (except for Tempest's Spine) has a raid timer that prohibits a character from repeating the raid for 2 days and 18 hours from its last completion. The raid timer begins AFTER you have received your end-reward loot from the quest giver, so it's very important to speak to the quest giver immediately after a raid. Else, three days might have passed for you, but to the quest giver, you haven't fully completed the last adventure and must wait 3 more days before re-entering a particular raid.

You can type  in your chat window to get a list of all raid lockouts you currently have. The Raid Timer Bypass Hourglass, purchased from the DDO Store, can circumvent the raid's timer.

Repeating raids is a good thing
Raids have another special counter that records how many times a character has entered and completed a specific raid.

Characters who complete their 20th run in many raids will often be given access to select one item from the entire named raid loot list of that raid from the end-reward list.

In addition, some raids will also give tomes that permanently increase your abilities, like Strength or Wisdom.

The Shroud raid provides one rare ingredient that is prized for Green Steel wearers: a "Cleansing Essence" that allows the use of more than one Green Steel accessory (not weapon) without succumbing to the Taint of Shavarath, which slowly kills you without the use of the Essence.

The special reward repeats every 20th cycle, at 40 completions and 60 completions.

To check on how many times that a character has completed a raid while actually in-progress inside that raid, look on the XP summary from the quest objectives window.

When you're not in the raid and need to know how many times you've completed one, type in /raid completions (displays only raids) or /quest completions in your chat window to show a list of all raids completed.

To see all raid timers marking elapsed time remaining before you can re-enter, type in /quest in your chat window.

Epic vs Heroic: Running particular raid 20 times - all on epic difficulties - adds 5-7 epic shards to the 20th completion reward list.

Essentials for entering any raid
New players to raids can start with the article, "What should I bring to a raid?" for the material basics for both your game and your character.

Once you think you will meet the raid's needs, see "Help! Am I Raid Ready?" for summary information on the tactical needs of each raid.

You might be interested as well in how loot is distributed in a typical raid.