How the Tarrasque was won

[RedMage125]

My group ran against the Tarrasque about a year ago, 3.5e game.

The DM had 2 games he was running (Forgotten Realms), and for a finale, he wanted to run a Tarrasque fight, because he never had before. He combined both groups, so we had a large group for the fight.

My character at the time was a Sun Elf Wizard5/Incantatrix10/Archmage2 at the time.

The fight was pretty standard fare, nothing spectacular. I don't keep up on errata, however, so was a bit disappointed when Shapechange didn't turn out the way I expected. I did get to turn into 2 19-HD Planetars though (via share spells with my familiar), and it was kind of amusing to turn into a wraith and walk out of it's stomach when it swallowed me.

At any rate, what makes the story interesting is the way I went about "killing" the Tarrasque. My character, not wanting to simply kill a unique creature-which was, after all, created by the gods for some specific purpose-came up with an alternative. I used Fabricate to fashion a staff of crystal from the desert sand. Then, when Big T was at "nonlethal -10", I cast Wish.

But not to kill it.

I really wish I could recite my exact wording of the Wish right now, but I made it pretty foolproof. The basic gist of it is that I bound a portion of the Tarrasque's life essence-specifically the part that controls its waking/sleep cycle-into the staff, under the guidelines that the Tarrasque could not wake again until the staff was intentionally shattered.

Now, my character had a good rapport with the headmaster of Myth Drannor's school of magic (Myth Drannor was in the process of being reclaimed by the elves), who's consciousness had been merged with the school itself. Reasoning that an ancient archmage would have knowledge of magic practices that have been forgotten in modern times, I went to him for assistance in crafting a Staff of the Magi, with the crystal staff as the core. My reasoning being this: even if I were to be killed and the staff taken, most mages would prefer to USE the staff, and not shatter it. The DM was gracious enough to allow it (especially since the campaign was over anyway, and that was more of an epilogue).

How have you dealt with the Tarrasque? Not looking for hypothetical means of dealing with Big T. I'd like to hear from people who have actually encountered it in a game, and what you did to defeat it. Even if it ends with "used Wish to kill it", have you come up with a unique solution to the combat itself?

[Vanitas]

In my previous game, the party found the tarrasque trapped by an evil organization. They were mass producing tarrasque simulacra (I made them smaller than the tarrasque because it felt cooler). The party fought several smaller tarrasques (they were about level 15, IIRC) and they were quite exhausted when they found the actual tarrasque. They couldn't just leave him there, since the evil organization could simply keep getting an armay out of him, but they did not want to kill him, specially since they were not even sure they could do it. So they just released it.
After the campaign finished (one or two sessions after that), one of the players (a hellbred Saint Tashalatora Ardent) decided he would go after the tarrasque to make sure he couldn't hurt anyone else. It was one hell of a fight, but he eventually overpowered the tarrasque and prayed for a miracle so that he wouldn't come back. Divine lightning destroyed both the tarrasque and the saint. In our new campaign, that character is the god of redemption and heroic sacrifice.

[Zweisteine]

I once designed a character for a one-shot "tarrasque hunt," which never actually happened, sadly.

I made a thrallherd, and boosted my save DC high enough that the tarrasque couldn't hit it, which would have made the tarrasque my loyal mount.

[maniacalmojo]

Forgot how but a charecter in a game i was in transported a ship above it and it hit the tarrasque at terminal velocity.

So it hit somewhere in the vicinity of 30,000 d6 worth of damage.

[Psyren]

1) Knock it out - unconscious creatures are considered willing.
2) Cast teleport, which gets past both its save and SR due to it not being an object. (If your DM rules it gets those anyway, just cast it until you breach both defenses.)
3) Teleport to the ocean floor, which is a "surface capable of supporting it."
4) Leave.

It will be trapped in an endless cycle of drowning and reviving for perpetuity; problem solved.

[malonkey1]

One time I chucked the Tarrasque into the negative energy plane. It basically was in a constant state of decay and regeneration (the DM was cruel and had banned wish and the like). We didn't ever kill it, but we did eventually return and raise some wards around it (as well as founding a fortress-colony round its body in the shadow plane) in case somebody got funny ideas.

[Captnq]

I play Wishing him dead simply puts him to sleep for a while somewhere else, at random. It leaves a neat corpse behind.

The players killed it, hollowed it out, and turned it into a folding boat. Then they put a planar wheel at the helm and pilot it between universes.

[RedMage125]

Re: the underwater teleport

Did you actually do that, or was that a hypothetical solution?

Not interested in "this could work" scenarios. Heard too many of those.

Actual game experiences only, please.

Thank you.

[RedMage125]

One time I chucked the Tarrasque into the negative energy plane. It basically was in a constant state of decay and regeneration (the DM was cruel and had banned wish and the like). We didn't ever kill it, but we did eventually return and raise some wards around it (as well as founding a fortress-colony round its body in the shadow plane) in case somebody got funny ideas.

You had a DM ban wish and then throw the tarrasque at you?

Forces you to get creative, I guess.

[heavyfuel]

After "killing" him, we felt bad about for-real-killing a unique creature and unanimously decided that it was not up to us to make the decision of whether or not he should be left alive.

I was reluctant at first, because my character had the habit of paying huge sums of gold to have major enemies stuffed. These include, but are not limited to, a legendary white dragon, a colossal prime evil and, later, the gnome BBEG.

So, instead of killing-killing it, we just wished him teleported to the meeting place of the world's deities, and let them deal with him.

The DM said the tarrasque made an excellent pet.

[Captnq]

Actual in game play.

Funny thing was, they killed him, then found out nobody had a wish. They blew them all for stat gain. So the fighters gathered around and just kept pounding on him to make sure he stayed down while the wizard started teleporting around trying to find a wish on no notice. The monk specialized in getting multiple attacks when you provoke an AoO. Tarrasque stand up. Monk takes 4 attacks or something, tarrasque fall back down. Repeat. The rest of the party started taking fatigue checks but damned if the monk arranged to be immune to fatigue and exhaustion. 7 solid minutes of beating down the tarrasque before the wizard managed to show up after over paying for a wish to the tune of 100,000 gp.

[Immabozo]

I read about a player on these boards who manifested True Mind Switch and switched his/her mind into the Tarrasque's body and the Tarrasque's into his/hers and then killed the Tarrasque in this old body and retired the campaign as a almost epic level Psion in the Tarrasque's body.

Was hilarious.

[Psyren]

Re: the underwater teleport

Did you actually do that, or was that a hypothetical solution?

Not interested in "this could work" scenarios. Heard too many of those.

Actual game experiences only, please.

Thank you.

No, we did Plane of Water and Miracle. I changed it to Teleport above to avoid T's defenses, and the Miracle solution felt fiat-y at the time.

[Vhaidara]

My cousin told me the tale of a campaign when he was 6 where a barbarian got a pet Tarrasque by beating it in a farting contest. I have no evidence of this, but it's funny.

[Immabozo]

My cousin told me the tale of a campaign when he was 6 where a barbarian got a pet Tarrasque by beating it in a farting contest. I have no evidence of this, but it's funny.

sounds like a 6 year's old campaign

[Hytheter]

I haven't done it, but I had the idea of deliberately keeping the Tarrasque alive, but unconcious (ie keep its nonlethal damage way up) and then cutting off pieces to sell as food. I imagine such an exotic food would attract some high payers, and either way it's an effectively unlimited source of food.

[Erberor]

Something about tarrasque meat strikes me as being potentially dangerous...

[Arbane]

I haven't done it, but I had the idea of deliberately keeping the Tarrasque alive, but unconcious (ie keep its nonlethal damage way up) and then cutting off pieces to sell as food. I imagine such an exotic food would attract some high payers, and either way it's an effectively unlimited source of food.

RPG.net took this idea about as far as it can go. (http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?261519-D-amp-Dish-The-city-built-around-the-tarrasque)

[Sir Chuckles]

One DM I played against once got sick of our "Overpowered Munchkin crap*", and he threw five Tarrasques at us, with slightly different flavor for each.
One was make of pure water. I, being a fire-based gish-y type at the time, unleashed as much fire as I could, boiling it to death.
Thematically, he said that "Whenever it rains in this region, the rain feels sad."

* I was an Afflicted Human Weretiger Rogue 4/Sorcerer 12/Duelist 2. The second guy was a Ranger 4/Bard 16. The third was a Druid 22, who the DM allowed to have an "unlimited" Wish, giving him 22,864 Wisdom.

[Vanitas]

RPG.net took this idea about as far as it can go. (http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?261519-D-amp-Dish-The-city-built-around-the-tarrasque)

That thread is so cool. Wish we got more threads like that around here, instead of endless tier debates.

[tzar1990]

I haven't done it, but I had the idea of deliberately keeping the Tarrasque alive, but unconcious (ie keep its nonlethal damage way up) and then cutting off pieces to sell as food. I imagine such an exotic food would attract some high payers, and either way it's an effectively unlimited source of food.

That was the idea for the City Built Around the Tarrasque, a setting from a few years back.

The tarrasque was held immobile at the center of the city, pinned with immovable-rod javelins, hundreds of workers constantly carving its flesh to both provide food (the city was in a desert with no nearby farmland) and prevent it from getting strong enough to break free.

IIRC, they started getting into things like figuring out what happens when all your crops are watered with Tarrasque-blood, what torturing a borderline-sentient creature for centuries does to the surrounding area with respect to good, evil, and druids/psions, and just how screwed you are when enough life-energy builds up that bits of its blood start spontaneously animating.

EDIT: Swordsage'd!

[TuggyNE]

That thread is so cool. Wish we got more threads like that around here, instead of endless tier debates.

There's only so much awesomeness even the Internet can handle at one time. Be careful what you wish for!

[TrueJordan]

A druid, a wizard, a fighter, and a rogue really pissed off their DM.
All level 13.
Druid turned into a bird, wizard casted fly on himself and the others.
We each had about 20 feather token trees. Each turn we flew just out of its reach above it, and dropped one. I think the reflex save is DC 15 and it has a +28 or so, BUT! everyone fails on a nat one. So yeah, took about 4 rounds to hit it with 368d6 (due to the approximate weight of the tree) of damage. A few more rounds to hit it twice.
GG.

I think the same could be said for aboleth mucus, but I don't remember.

[Vrock_Summoner]

Well, I tried my usual solution to problems (burying the problem under a small army of Vrocks) but this was one of those rare situations where it didn't work out. My character went into a major depression for a while, further exacerbated when the fighter, in an effort to "beat some sense" into my character resulted in my character thinking "wow, I'm even more useless than the one who can't use magic."

Cue the next fight against it, where I refused to use magic :smallbiggrin: The entire rest of my party died. I got a chase scene and eventually tricked it into charging into a plot portal that led to the Plane of Fire. The archmage, who had been uselessly pelting it with blasting spells from the air, destroyed the portal.

I eventually sighed and realized I should probably get my friends rezzed, and the campaign went on.

[137beth]

I haven't done it, but I had the idea of deliberately keeping the Tarrasque alive, but unconcious (ie keep its nonlethal damage way up) and then cutting off pieces to sell as food. I imagine such an exotic food would attract some high payers, and either way it's an effectively unlimited source of food.
Sounds like Hydra head (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0326.html).