How would a Lv 2 Fighter survive a Bulette?

[heavyfuel]

Picture this:

You're a Lv 2 Lawful Stupid Fighter and your job is to survive in melee combat against a Bulette (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/bulette.htm). Your goal is to keep the stupid beast away from the villagers you're sworn to protect for as long as possible until the heroes arrive.

You can't run away, you must stay and fight, though there's no need to kill it.

You have Elite Array stats, standard wealth for a lv 2 NPC (2000 GP), you get to choose your feats, both PF and 3.5 feats are available, and you can be of any race from the PHB.

How do you do it?

[Particle_Man]

Weapons with INT poison might neutralize it. But that targets its strong save.

You could be an elf, since they don't eat elves, but then you have to have a way to get it to fight you instead of ignoring you and going underground towards that village.

[Eldonauran]

Well, the very first thought I had is: Don't.

Then, I thought outside the box. Get eaten. No, really. All it takes is just surviving ONE bite attack and then the acid/bludgeoning damage of the rounds to follow. Then, you are free to rip the thing apart from the inside without eating a full attack action from it. So, focus on what you need to do that. Jump into its mouth and dive down that gullet

Acid resistance
Bludgeoning Resistance
Natural attacks
LOADS of HP

[InvisibleBison]

Well, given that you're Lawful Stupid...

2,000 gp lets you buy 22 doses of oil of taggit (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#poison). Put them in flimsy bottles, strap them to your shirt and jump in the bulette's maw. It's got an 80% chance to pass the save, but against 22 doses of poison that's a 99.26% of failing at least one of them, rendering it unconscious. No need to wait for the heroes to arrive, the villagers can finish it off with coups de gras.

[emulord]

Its' burrow speed is 10', you may be able to run circles around it, distracting it until heroes arrive. If it emerges onto the surface you'll get run down however (speed 40').

If you are on a roof, you may be able to get it to attempt to eat a herd of sheep, then throw acid flasks or something on it.

[Trandir]

Well with 2000 gp you can buy 39 firestones and a net, throw that thing at the bulette's feet and it takes 39d6 fire damage. That's gonna kill it since with so many dice rolls we can assume the average of at least 3 per die.




Well, given that you're Lawful Stupid...

2,000 gp lets you buy 22 doses of oil of taggit (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#poison). Put them in flimsy bottles, strap them to your shirt and jump in the bulette's maw. It's got an 80% chance to pass the save, but against 22 doses of poison that's a 99.26% of failing at least one of them, rendering it unconscious. No need to wait for the heroes to arrive, the villagers can finish it off with coups de gras.


This is intresting but the math is off.

With Fort +11 a bulette has 85% chances of passing the first save and 97.75% to pass the second one. So that thing has 1-0.9775^22 chances to survive (roughtly 40% chances that the plan works) still decent for our dumb fighter but not optimal.

[Mike Miller]

Bulette-proof armor?

[Trandir]

I do not know if you can hire NPCs since the OP doesn't say anything about that but you could hire a sorcerer to true strike and ray of stupidity the bulette and then coup the grace the thing to death.

[Muninn]

With Fort +11 a bulette has 85% chances of passing the first save and 97.75% to pass the second one. So that thing has 1-0.9775^22 chances to survive (roughtly 40%) still decent for our dumb fighter but not optimal.

It would be a 1-(0.85^22) chance of success (97.2%). The bulette still has to make the second fortitude save even if if it succeeds in the first, so it would be a 15% chance of success for any given dose to knock it out

[Trandir]

It would be a 1-(0.85^22) chance of success (97.2%). The bulette still has to make the second fortitude save even if if it succeeds in the first, so it would be a 15% chance of success for any given dose to knock it out

No. Not at all.


Poisons secondary effects apply only if you fail the second saving throw. This means that the boulette has 85% chances to succesfully make the first save, and another 85% to make the second so it has a 2.25% chance to fail both saves. So it has 97.75% to suffer no effect from a bottle. To calculate the chances against 22 bottles you do this: 100×(97.75/100)^22. And that is a little over 60% chances to survive.




Anyway this debate is meaningless since the true mass murdering stuff is aboleth mucus. That **** forces whoever touches it to take a Fort saveing throw with DC 19 or lose the ability to breathe air for 3 hours.

With 2000 gold you could buy 100 doses, but let's just say the fighter bought 50 and the rest went to something to throw the sack of mucus at the bulette.
Against a single dose there is 35% chances that the bulette will fail the save. Against 50 the chances to survive are 0,0000000004 and then the dukb thing will die of suffocation after 4 minutes

[Saintheart]

Bulette-proof armor?

:smallsigh:

Let's not give the punsters any more ammunition.

[Tytalus]

No. Not at all.

Poisons secondary effects apply only if you fail the second saving throw.

That's not correct:



When a character takes damage from an attack with a poisoned weapon, touches an item smeared with contact poison, consumes poisoned food or drink, or is otherwise poisoned, he must make a Fortitude saving throw. If he fails, he takes the poison’s initial damage (usually ability damage).Even if he succeeds, he typically faces more damage 1 minute later, which he can also avoid with a successful Fortitude saving throw.

[mouser13]

Law Devotion make use of your lawful stupid
Dodge
Full plate
natural armor potions
shield of faith.
tower shield
combat exp 2
fighting defense
Martial Stance Stonefoot Stance(Take as level 2 bonus fighter feat so you are effect 1)
GIves you 37 ac. GIve you chance of holding for a few rounds but not likely killing it. Moving each round to reduce it attacks on you to 2 a round one for attack of op and one normal(Make sure you move just 5 ft out of it range so it can do charge attack on you) assuming the 4 claws with jump is ruled a full round action doesn't say but it reasonable sense standard is fullround for multiple attacks.

assuming your human for the 4 feats. Take the dodge away I guess as only need 36. For something else.

Makes all of it attacks need 20 to hit you but with 3 to 5 attacks a round it could kill you in a few rounds.

more broken way.
Do all change the find one or more ac somewhere to get Martial Spirit instead other one. WOrding says successful melee attack, switch targeting is opp hit only. So you could ask some on it the village to do subduel damage to the triggering switch target to you. SO now it is you can hit with successful melee attack giving you 2 hp. THough would still be hard to hit the ground at -8(-2ts,-4fd,-2ce) to hit but still give you some extra to stay alife a bit longer. keeping up with the damage until you potions run out for ac. I don't think many dm would like this so why giving it a broken way


More More broken way..... cheese like some bad video came just block all day long.

Though really comes down to it you can break tower shield of abilities I don't see often total cover option. Making you immune to it attacks. Just sit and wait . Sense fighting a stupid animal doesn't have the int to attempt to sunder your shield so it can just hit all day. When walks away provoke attack of op(questionable give up no line could be read as no threaten) making it mad most likely attacking you again.

[Aegis013]

Its' burrow speed is 10', you may be able to run circles around it, distracting it until heroes arrive. If it emerges onto the surface you'll get run down however (speed 40').

If you are on a roof, you may be able to get it to attempt to eat a herd of sheep, then throw acid flasks or something on it.

How about maxing ranks in ride and using your gp on a mount that's faster than the Bullete? Horses have move 50' (edit: or 60' for light horses).

Ride around it in circles and try to ping it down with arrows.

A human fighter 2 could take Mounted Combat, Mounted Archery, Improved Mounted Archery and one extra feat (maybe Wild Cohort to improve your mount's defense in case it takes a bite, also frees you up to spend more money on items instead of spending gold on a mount).

With its Int of 2 and desire to eat anything edible, as long as you don't go too far away from the Bulette it should pay attention to you until it's too hurt and flees.

[Thurbane]

How set in stone is melee only? Potion of Fly (or Levitate) + strength adjusted composite longbow (or even javelins) would result in the bulette dying or fleeing. I mean, it might just burrow back under the surface, but they are very aggressive and not very bright, so if you stay just out of its reach it might try to keep jumping up to attack.

[Aegis013]

I missed the melee only.

Depending on cheese tolerance, a Troll Blooded Human can "survive" indefinitely in melee with it, since it doesn't have swallow whole.


Edit: it may also be possible with Ride-by Attack, if you count that as melee, particularly if you can feed your mount potions of like Longstrider and/or Expeditious Retreat to further widen the speed gap.

[Kelb_Panthera]

If you're going for unconscious, the oil of taggit has a 85% chance to hit per dose (the initial save is irrelevant) but that doesn't take hold for a minute so you've got to survive 10 rounds against the blighter at minimum. Given the odds, probably longer and that's gonna be -rough-.

Drow poison, on the other hand can drop it instantly but requires you to injure it and it only fails the save on a 1. With a to-hit of +5 you need a 17 to hit. So that's 20% chance to hit by 5% chance to fail the save so it's only a 1% chance per attack to actually drop it.

Now here's the gold if you're going with the poison angle: id moss. Only a 10% chance per save but it does int damage to a creature with int 2 and both saves matter. Get some, roll a bunch of meat in it or smear it on a bunch of live stock, and let it the bullette do what a bullette does. Then coup-de-gras the bastard once it's down.

Realistically though; every version of this challenge, pretty much no matter what you do, is a suicide mission. The fighter is almost certainly going to die if he tries to actually fight the thing. If it tries to hit, it's probably going to succeed and the fighter is probably going to be dropped on the spot.

Really, unless the "fighter 2" is a paragon creature (ELH) or some other high-power non-standard race he's just sacrificing himself.

[Tvtyrant]

Picture this:

You're a Lv 2 Lawful Stupid Fighter and your job is to survive in melee combat against a Bulette (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/bulette.htm). Your goal is to keep the stupid beast away from the villagers you're sworn to protect for as long as possible until the heroes arrive.

You can't run away, you must stay and fight, though there's no need to kill it.

You have Elite Array stats, standard wealth for a lv 2 NPC (2000 GP), you get to choose your feats, both PF and 3.5 feats are available, and you can be of any race from the PHB.

How do you do it?
Walk up to it, throw Dust of Sneezing and Choking in the air. You and the Bulette are stunned for several minutes, long enough for villagers to hog tie it or kill it. 2400 GP.

Psions can cast minor creation as a level 1 power, so the psionic scroll of it is actually very cheap. Invest in use psionic device if possible, put a block of Terinav Root, Black Lotus Extract or Greensickness in a bag and then get eaten holding it. The beast is going to die from the poison.

[ericgrau]

Picture this:

You're a Lv 2 Lawful Stupid Fighter and your job is to survive in melee combat against a Bulette (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/bulette.htm). Your goal is to keep the stupid beast away from the villagers you're sworn to protect for as long as possible until the heroes arrive.

You can't run away, you must stay and fight, though there's no need to kill it.

You have Elite Array stats, standard wealth for a lv 2 NPC (2000 GP), you get to choose your feats, both PF and 3.5 feats are available, and you can be of any race from the PHB.

How do you do it?
2,000 gp you say?



A bulette attacks anything it regards as edible, choosing the easiest or closest prey first.




2 cp One pound of flour, or one chicken"

100,000 chickens. Next challenge please.

If we limit consumables to 1/4 WBL per the DMG, then 25,000 chickens will have to do.

But, seriously, gather a bunch of livestock from the village and throw it to the Bullette until help arrives. He'll get full eventually and you'll buy the village days if not weeks of safety. Compensate the poor farmer with a few coins from your belt pouch.

[Tvtyrant]

2,000 gp you say?




100,000 chickens. Next challenge please.

If we limit consumables to 1/4 WBL per the DMG, then 25,000 chickens will have to do.

But, seriously, gather a bunch of livestock from the village and throw it to the Bullette until help arrives. He'll get full eventually and you'll buy the village days if not weeks of safety. Compensate the poor farmer with a few coins from your belt pouch.
That gets into the weirdness of buying monster pets at game prices. The Fighter could have his pet Roc eat the Bullete for him.

[ericgrau]

That gets into the weirdness of buying monster pets at game prices. The Fighter could have his pet Roc eat the Bullete for him.

Not quite. A griffon is 8,500 gp to raise from young and may take time to obtain. Dunno what a roc price is since it's not in the SRD but it's much stronger than a griffon. Chickens are right down the street. Yeah, 100,000 was a joke, but there are enough to keep the Bullete sated.

If time is an issue, tell all the villagers to run. That leaves all the penned livestock, and now you just have to run behind one and start shouting.

[Tvtyrant]

Not quite. A griffon is 8,500 gp to raise from young and may take time to obtain. Dunno what a roc price is since it's not in the SRD but it's much stronger than a griffon. Chickens are right down the street. Yeah, 100,000 was a joke, but there are enough to keep the Bullete sated.

If time is an issue, tell all the villagers to run. That leaves all the penned livestock, and now you just have to run behind one and start shouting.

I could have sworn there was a TO build where you buy a roc egg using your starting wealth and raise it as part of your back story. But looking at egg prices that doesn't seem feasible, excepting maybe selling a spellbook as a wizard.

[Thurbane]

That gets into the weirdness of buying monster pets at game prices. The Fighter could have his pet Roc eat the Bullete for him.

Without some kind of weirdness, exploit or shenanigans, the good old Fighter 2 is dead in 1 to 2 rounds at most.

Given that griffon (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/griffon.htm) (CR 4, 7HD) eggs go for 3500gp and young for 7000gp, and the cost to train them is 1500gp, I doubt any sane DM would give access to a roc (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/roc.htm) (CR 9, 18HD) for a mere 2000gp.

I mean, technically Bubs the Commoner (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=7097263&postcount=38) could defeat the landshark using Handle Animal abuse, so...

https://pics.me.me/modern-problems-require-modern-solutions-38762430.png

[ninja'd quite badly - got stuck on a phone call after I started reply]

[Lvl 2 Expert]

If you are on a roof, you may be able to get it to attempt to eat a herd of sheep, then throw acid flasks or something on it.

This gets easier if it's attacking a dwarf village. Disliking their taste (why did it pick this village again?) it will go after any animal near it first. Have cages set up throughout the village from where you can release some sort of animal with 40 move. That can keep it chasing for a while.

Or release a single elephant. The bulette will have eaten enough for now and come back in three days.



(By the way, what's up with this thing's sense of taste? It doesn't care whether it's having horses, humans, troll or troglodytes, but it dislikes dwarfs and draws the line at elves? That's the one thing in the world it won't eat? What, everything else just tastes like chicken?)

[Morty_Jhones]

Lots of replies using force to overcome the Bulette.

personally i think BRAINS not brawn is what is going to keep this person alive.

Buletts rely on there tremor-sence to hunt there pray so confusing it or delaying it is easy. you just need a big hammer and a couple of peps willing to take a MASSIVE risk.

what you do is wate till the Bulette burrows to attack and then smash the ground with a hammer, when the Bulette turns toward you you run away and let your mate do the same thing as you just did.

hopefully between the multiple sets of pounding if should get confused enough for you to hot step out of the way.

A device like the Thumper from dune would be very useful here 2. :)

Is this a common event in these part?

[heavyfuel]

I didn't think of using consumables or kamikaze solutions because the scenario in my mind was that the Fighter would want re-usable resources (such as armor and weapons) so that he can continue to defend the village from future threats.


I do not know if you can hire NPCs since the OP doesn't say anything about that but you could hire a sorcerer to true strike and ray of stupidity the bulette and then coup the grace the thing to death.

If a spellcaster was available, then I would've asked for how a spellcaster could deal with a Bulette. They are, technically, available. But the Fighter would have to run and get his help, which kind of defeats the purpose of this exercise.


Law Devotion make use of your lawful stupid
Dodge
Full plate
natural armor potions
shield of faith.
tower shield
combat exp 2
fighting defense
Martial Stance Stonefoot Stance(Take as level 2 bonus fighter feat so you are effect 1)
GIves you 37 ac. GIve you chance of holding for a few rounds but not likely killing it. Moving each round to reduce it attacks on you to 2 a round one for attack of op and one normal(Make sure you move just 5 ft out of it range so it can do charge attack on you) assuming the 4 claws with jump is ruled a full round action doesn't say but it reasonable sense standard is fullround for multiple attacks.

assuming your human for the 4 feats. Take the dodge away I guess as only need 36. For something else.

Makes all of it attacks need 20 to hit you but with 3 to 5 attacks a round it could kill you in a few rounds.

more broken way.
Do all change the find one or more ac somewhere to get Martial Spirit instead other one. WOrding says successful melee attack, switch targeting is opp hit only. So you could ask some on it the village to do subduel damage to the triggering switch target to you. SO now it is you can hit with successful melee attack giving you 2 hp. THough would still be hard to hit the ground at -8(-2ts,-4fd,-2ce) to hit but still give you some extra to stay alife a bit longer. keeping up with the damage until you potions run out for ac. I don't think many dm would like this so why giving it a broken way


More More broken way..... cheese like some bad video came just block all day long.

Though really comes down to it you can break tower shield of abilities I don't see often total cover option. Making you immune to it attacks. Just sit and wait . Sense fighting a stupid animal doesn't have the int to attempt to sunder your shield so it can just hit all day. When walks away provoke attack of op(questionable give up no line could be read as no threaten) making it mad most likely attacking you again.

That's more what I had in mind. I think Shield of Faith and Natural armor potions might be a tad too limiting, but those are some nice ways to increase AC. Hadn't though of either Martial Stance or Dodge. Thanks!


How about maxing ranks in ride and using your gp on a mount that's faster than the Bullete? Horses have move 50' (edit: or 60' for light horses).

Ride around it in circles and try to ping it down with arrows.

A human fighter 2 could take Mounted Combat, Mounted Archery, Improved Mounted Archery and one extra feat (maybe Wild Cohort to improve your mount's defense in case it takes a bite, also frees you up to spend more money on items instead of spending gold on a mount).

With its Int of 2 and desire to eat anything edible, as long as you don't go too far away from the Bulette it should pay attention to you until it's too hurt and flees.

Nice thinking outside the box. Good ride check plus fast mount means you can kite dumb monsters for a good long time.


I missed the melee only.

Depending on cheese tolerance, a Troll Blooded Human can "survive" indefinitely in melee with it, since it doesn't have swallow whole.

Dragon Mag is usually banned in our games, but I suppose it works


Realistically though; every version of this challenge, pretty much no matter what you do, is a suicide mission. The fighter is almost certainly going to die if he tries to actually fight the thing. If it tries to hit, it's probably going to succeed and the fighter is probably going to be dropped on the spot.

Really, unless the "fighter 2" is a paragon creature (ELH) or some other high-power non-standard race he's just sacrificing himself.

That's the whole point of the exercise. Can he stay alive long enough for reinforcements (in the form of PCs) arrive?


2,000 gp you say?




100,000 chickens. Next challenge please.

If we limit consumables to 1/4 WBL per the DMG, then 25,000 chickens will have to do.

But, seriously, gather a bunch of livestock from the village and throw it to the Bullette until help arrives. He'll get full eventually and you'll buy the village days if not weeks of safety. Compensate the poor farmer with a few coins from your belt pouch.

Ok, so I know I said "no consumables", but at 2cp a piece, I think I'll allow this one lol

[Feantar]

:smallsigh:

Let's not give the punsters any more ammunition.

Yeah, let's dodge that bulette.

[Trandir]

I didn't think of using consumables or kamikaze solutions because the scenario in my mind was that the Fighter would want re-usable resources (such as armor and weapons) so that he can continue to defend the village from future threats.



If a spellcaster was available, then I would've asked for how a spellcaster could deal with a Bulette. They are, technically, available. But the Fighter would have to run and get his help, which kind of defeats the purpose of this exercise.



I see so my ideas break the rules. Oh well time to bring a reusable solution.

[daremetoidareyo]

Strap some ingested poisons onto 50 chickens?

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Strap some ingested poisons onto 50 chickens?

The only thing it won't eat is elves, not poison. It should work.


what you do is wate till the Bulette burrows to attack and then smash the ground with a hammer, when the Bulette turns toward you you run away and let your mate do the same thing as you just did.

hopefully between the multiple sets of pounding if should get confused enough for you to hot step out of the way.

I'm not sure that would work. That's like saying you can distract a creature with eyes by using flashlights. Yes, you can shine in my eyes, probably partially blind me if you have a strong enough lamp, but I can still see your buddy running away. It gets a bit better if you compare it to sound, but even in that comparison the bulette doesn't have to forget your buddy exists the moment he hears you. Plus he can still surface and he's faster than you on foot. So any plan that relies on disorienting the thing below ground should count on it coming up. In fact, that should be the purpose of the plan. Prepare a nasty surprise above ground, something hard to tremorsense, lead the bulette towards it, disorient it enough to make it think it's better off coming up. That's the perfect moment to hit it with the surprise. Maybe a siege weapon or something? A rock slide? A mammoth with a tower shield strapped to its face? 100 villagers with a bow and a poisoned arrow each? It doesn't have to be accurate, but it needs to be quick to release and pack an opening punch.

In fact, I don't think you want this guy to be a level two fighter at all, more like an expert. :smallbiggrin: Maybe a gnome or a kobold for good measure. And preferably named B.A. Baracus.

[Trandir]

Ok let's do this




Race and Stats: Human put 15 in Cha, 14 in Con and 13 in Dex

Feats: Skill Focus (handle animal), Shape Soulmeld (Riding Bracers)

Trait: Uncivilized

Flaws: Slow, Vulnerable

Extra Feats: Animal Affinity, Nymph's Kiss

Age: wait untill you are middle aged to get Cha 16 and Con 13

Equip: a masterwork tool for animal handling (anything between 50-100 gp), a magic item to boost handle animal (1600 gp), bows and arrows

Skill: 5 ranks in handle animal


Now to rear a wild animal the DC is 15+ HD of the creature. So a roc has a DC 33 to be reared

With that setup we can get: 10 (take 10 on the d20)+ 3 (skill focus)+ 4 insight bonus (riding bracers)+ 1 (Uncivilized)+ 2 (Animal Affinity)+ 2 (Nymph's Kiss)+ 3 (Charisma modifier)+ 2 circumstance bonus (Masterwork Tool)+ 4 competence bonus (magic item)+5 (Skill ranks)= 36

Tame a roc or whatever dinosaur or beast you like and let him do the heavy lifting while you sit in the back.


Edit: without the race and class limitations the "fighter" could get an handle animal bonus high enough to even tame the bulette

[Thurbane]

Agony Touch feat (Gh): touch attack that deals 1d4 physical ability damage. Problem there is even if you target Dex, minimum of 4 hits. Also requires you to be a Ghostwalk Ghost.
Maiming Strike feat (EoE): allows you to swap 2 dice of Sneak Attack damage for a point of Cha damage. Two problems: getting 2d6 SA on a Fighter 2; and it would take up to 6 hits to drop the bulette's Cha to 0.
Debilitating Strike feat (HoH): allows you to inflict 4 points of Wisdom damage to an opponents, if your Depravity is high enough. Again, would take 4 hits to neutralize the bulette, so not ideal.


Vow of Peace feat (BoED) would force it to make a will save or be affected by Calm Emotions; with a will save of +6, this might be one of the better options.

[tiercel]

Yeah, let's dodge that bulette.

Just buy a potion of haste and move so fast that you enter...

...bulette time :cool:


———

Playing dodgem amongst livestock seems like the easiest way to not only not die but survive for minutes or longer and not merely rounds (depending how long it takes a bulette to eat, and how much it can eat).

[Lord Haart]

By getting a drop on it (https://youtu.be/AAzja2tWAg8?t=206).

[Telonius]

(By the way, what's up with this thing's sense of taste? It doesn't care whether it's having horses, humans, troll or troglodytes, but it dislikes dwarfs and draws the line at elves? That's the one thing in the world it won't eat? What, everything else just tastes like chicken?)

This is such a weird point (and one that I honestly never noticed before) that I had to look it up. Apparently it's because Gary Gygax (and possibly Tim Kask as well) was an evil DM (https://dungeonsdragons.fandom.com/wiki/Bulette).


The bulette was created by Tim Kask, an early TSR employee for whom the Sword of Kas is named. Unlike many of D&D's iconic creatures, Wizards of the Coast does not own copyright on the bulette, which is instead claimed by Kask. In a Q&A session at Gary Con 2016, Tim explained how it was created.[10]

The bulette was inspired by a cheap plastic toy which Gary Gygax acquired in a bag of toy creatures. Other iconic early D&D creatures which share this origin include the rust monster and owlbear.[11] Blogger DMDavid describes these toys as based on kaiju from Japanese television, with the bulette's inspiration in particular based on the monster Gabora from Ultraman episode 9.[12]

Gary had nicknamed it the "bullet", which Kask mockingly pronounced in a French accent as "boo-lay". In 2018, Kask joked that the pronunciation "boo-lay", which is not accurate French, is actually from Makandan, the language of his homebrew campaign setting.[13]

A Saturday Night Live skit inspired by the 1975 movie Jaws used the phrase "land shark"[14], which in turn inspired the bulette's nickname and its ability to tunnel underground.

The bulette's love of horse meat was an intentional counter to a perceived overuse of dwarven pack horses capable of carrying a lot of equipment and treasure. Similarly, its preference for chasing hobbits was a reaction to the popularity of that race.

[Thurbane]

An odd number of AD&D 1E monsters has a taste for particular PC races. Halflings seemed to be a favorite.

There was one monster , can;t remember which - that had a fondness for the taste of shriekers: which meant if you carried around a tin of diced shrieker, you could open it up, drop it and run to escape the creature.

[Ashiel]

Lead a local militia with alchemist fires against it. When the bullet emerges from the ground, have all of them throw the alchemist fires at it.

Not even counting splash damage, you only need about 12 hits of alchemist fire to either kill the bullet or drive it to fleeing (bulletes in Pathfinder have 84 hp, 12 alchemist fires equals 24d6 which is an average of 84 damage). The bullet can't kill more than one person per turn, so the moment the bullet shows its maw, you carpet bomb it.

Incidentally this is probably how most mundane communities deal with big beefy but relatively flammable monsters.

[Troacctid]

What about flight? They're admittedly pretty good jumpers, but they're still limited to melee attacks. 2,000 gp is more than enough to afford a flying mount. Then you just do hit-and-run attacks until you can wear it down.

[Sgt. Cookie]

Pathfinder:

Step 1: Be an Elf. The Bulette won't eat elves. Preferably an elf subrace that boosts Intelligence.
Step 2: Make Intelligence your highest stat.
Step 3: Choose that trait that makes UMD run off Inteligence, and maybe another trait that *gives* UMD as a class skill.
Step 4: Buy a scroll of Teleport.
Step 5: Pray you don't fumble the skill check and teleport the hell outta there.

[Thurbane]

What about flight? They're admittedly pretty good jumpers, but they're still limited to melee attacks. 2,000 gp is more than enough to afford a flying mount. Then you just do hit-and-run attacks until you can wear it down.

That would probably work. For it to still technically be melee, it would be nice if you could have more reach than the Bulette. If your mount has Flyby Attack, you're golden.

Reach weapon + Willing Deformity (tall) or Inhuman Reach maybe? Would a Bulette be smart enough to ready an action to jump up and attack? How aggressive is it - once it works out you're hard to hit, it may just burrow away and head for easier prey in the town.

[Calthropstu]

Many of these suggestions do not actually work within the rules. For example, there are rules for throwing alchemists fire, but not a bag of alchemist fire. Going outside the scope of the game design should not be the intent here.

So let's be within the scope of the rules. Assuming prep time is available, gather all the metal available and smelt it into panels. Lay those on the floor. When the land shark burrows beneath it it has to spend a round going through it. Place ladders on all the buildings. Put all the villiagers in the sturdiest building and reinforce it. Get them on the roof and knock out the stairs. Remove the doors (huge cannot squeeze through medium doors.)

This allows you to lead it on a near infinite chase. The doorways slow it down. If it chews through the door, use that time to go up the stairs and through more doors. Then, climb down the ladders. Taunt it to make sure it follows you then run to the next building. If it burrows instead, just head upstairs. The idea is to keep just out of reach using the buildings to hinder its movement. You can keep this up as long as it doesn't start demolishing buildings completely.

When the heroes arrive, the fighter will be near exhaustion. The damage to nearby buildings is extensive, they witness the lone man running towards a bauilding half demolished to use its last remaining door to slow encroaching doom. The bullette, frustrated into a wild rage explodes out of the building he just left. It is clear the fighter will soon be out of options. A single building can be seen in the distance, untouched.

What do you do?