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Breaw
2008-10-21, 03:22 PM
I'm sure there have many such challenges that have passed through these boards, I hope this one is unique. If it is a pure repeat (that I haven't found) please direct me to the thread in question.

The challenge

Fluff

The Tarrasque is (slowly) heading towards your Kingdom. The King has posted a contract for the destruction of the Tarrasque, using any means necessary. The King will hire the contractor that offers the cheapest viable solution to killing the Tarrasque. If you require a high level NPCs for your plan then monsters will be imported to be slain to power-level the necessary characters, at roughly a cost of 1 gp per XP. As such he values XP and gold equally. Do not consider the cost of casting wish, as the King has obtained a scroll of wish and is willing to cast it for you. All standard items and forms of training will at your disposal.

Crunch

1) Kill the Tarrasque. Use any means available in the PHB, MM or DMG (v 3.5)
2) Keep track of the total XP and gold cost of your strategy (XP to level up characters, GP to buy items)
3) Do not concern yourself with casting the wish scroll.
4) Level 1 commoners cost 1 gp, level 1 NPC classes cost 200 XP, level 1 PC classes cost 1000 XP. ** Assuming LA +0, pay for LA as if it were PC levels **
Example: A level 1 fighter would cost 1000 XP
A level 4 fighter would cost 1000 XP + 6000 XP = 7000 XP
5) Take all damage done to the Tarrasque as average damage.
Example: If an attack has a 25% chance of success and deals 2d6 damage on success, assume it dealt 1.75 damage. 100 people doing such an attack are assumed to have done 175 damage.
6) Do not consider the cost of the scroll of wish or the need to cast such a scroll. That aspect of slaying the Tarrasque will be dealt with at any time you desire.
7) You are fighting on an infinite, featureless plane.
8) Assume the Tarrasque is played perfectly optimally.
9) Assume you can arrange your men as you see fit and you get the surprise round.
10) Assume all players have straight 16s for stats at level 1.

11) Solution with the lowest cost (sum of XP and gold) wins!

Example solutions to follow!

Please try to avoid obvious cheese. No hiring pun-pun to kill him, or hiring Michael J. Fox to go back in time to kill his mother... (Bag of holding, I'm looking at you)

Breaw
2008-10-21, 03:24 PM
Example solution 1

For this initial attempt, I will send an army of level 1 commoners with elemental arrows at the Tarrasque.

A single arrow of shock will do on average 3.5 damage to the Tarrasque. As such, if we want to deal 858 damage to it all at once, that will require:

858/3.5 = 246 successful hits

Only 5% of our commoners will actually hit the Tarrasque with their arrow of shock, so we will need:

246*20 = 4920 commoners

All armed with (at least) 1 shortbow and 1 arrow of shock.

50 arrows of shock cost 8302 gp and 5 sp. Which means each arrow costs approximately 166 gp. Each commoner will also need a 30 gp bow, which makes the cost per commoner 196 gp. This results in a total cost of:

(196.041 gp)*(4920) = 964521.72 gp

All the commoners fire their arrows in the surprise round, dealing 861 damage, at which point wish is cast and the Tarrasque is defeated!

Total cost: 964521.72

P.S. This is actually a terribly expensive strategy and is only for demonstrative purposes.

Breaw
2008-10-21, 03:25 PM
Example solution 2

Instead of throwing an army of commoners at the Tarrasque, we will throw an army of sorcerers.

This sorcerer is then given a wand of Acid Arrow with only 1 charge in it. Such a wand would cost:

4500/50 = 90 gp

This averages to 5 damage per round for 2 rounds. This damage bypasses SR and DR. Acid Arrow is on the sorcerers spell list and therefore doesn't have to worry about UMD, however a touch attack must be made in order to successfully hit the Tarrasque. The touch AC of the Tarrasque is only 5, so if we assume 16 agi on these sorcerers then there is a 2/20 chance that the attack will miss. This effectively means that each sorcerer will do on average 9 damage (over 2 rounds). ** Note, Acid arrow cannot crit, as it is not a ray, if it was a ray, the Tarrasque would reflect it **

In 2 rounds of damage dealing the Tarrasque will have regenerated 80 damage, so in total 938 damage must be dealt.

for 938 damage to be dealt (over 2 rounds), 105 casts must be made.

This will cost 1000 XP and 90 gp per sorcerer, coming to a total of:

1090*99 = 114450

This is still far from my best result. This is just another example of an acceptable solution. Please read the guidelines and post solutions that fit the rules laid out if you wish to participate.

I'll post my best solution once I've gotten some positive feedback.

BRC
2008-10-21, 03:28 PM
Operation Matador, Get a portable whole and a bag of holding. Lure the Tarrasque into the portable whole through some method, perhaps abunch of 1st level commoners throwing things at it, once it falls in the hole, throw the Bag of holding in there. A rift to the astral plain opens up and everything in the hole (the Tarrasque) gets killed.

Alternatly, one trained giant eagle (Or magic carpet, or fly spell, some method to get airborne) some method of making a rnaged attack, and time.

So, Trained Hippogriff (3000 GP), 1st level fighter with 3 ranks in ride (1000 XP), Exotic MIllitary Saddle (60GP), Longbow (75 GP), Lots and lots of arrows.
Lessee, 1 GP for 20 arrows, Tarrasque has 858 HP, with its damage reduction each arrow will only deal 1 damage and our fighter will only hit on a nat 20. So Statistically, every 20 arrows will deal 1 damage, so thats 858 GP.

So our total is 3993 GP and 1000 XP.

RPGuru1331
2008-10-21, 03:37 PM
Alternatly, one trained giant eagle (Or magic carpet, or fly spell, some method to get airborne) some method of making a rnaged attack, and time.

I was going to remind you that they got past that bug, but then I rememberred that though there's no edition specification, he is in fact speaking as if he refers to 3rd ed XD

Stupendous_Man
2008-10-21, 03:39 PM
Seven Ways to Kill the Tarrasque
on thirteen experience levels or less

The Tarrasque. It looks approximately like a mammoth, if a mammoth was 70 feet long and had better armor and more weaponry than a squadron of tanks.

It's BIG, arguably the biggest creature in the Monster Manual. (Well,
arguably some dragons can get bigger. But killing dragons is a whole
nother essay.) It's a CR 20 creature all by itself, meaning a party of
20th-level adventurers stands a somewhat better than 50-50 chance of
killing it.

But what fun would there be in that? A party of 20th-level adventurers is
already the biggest team on the block! Until WotC publishes the
20+-char-level expansion, they won't even benefit from the experience
they'd get for killing it. (And it's not like the Tarrasque has pockets
to carry treasure in, so they wouldn't get any richer for it either.)
No, if you want to kill the Tarrasque for experience, you should try and
do it at as low a level as possible.

*** Level Requirements

How low a level is low enough? There's a table in the DMG that says how
much experience a party gets for defeating a monster of a given Challenge
Rating. A 13th-level party that kills the Tarrasque, for example, earns
46800 experience in the process. If you kill the Tarrasque from a level
lower than 13, the DMG doesn't list a value. Instead, it has a footnote
reading that "...If the party survived this encounter, either your players
are munchkins or you are doing something wrong. Probably both. See the
section on Assigning Ad-Hoc Experience Awards for how to handle this."
Throughout this text, then, we will assume that your average party level
is at least 13.

But wait. There's a difference between "average party level" and "level
of your characters." What if your 17th-level wizard decides to take his
9th-level little brother with him for a Tarrasque hunt? The average party
level is 13, but the party has access to ninth-level spells. How do we
deal with this sort of thing?

Well, one way to deal with it is to take advantage. Add enough
first-level characters to your party to bring the average down to 13.
The trouble is that your DM won't let you do this. Or, worse, he will let
you do it but won't count the weenies into the party average. Besides,
your first-level party members will soak up an equal share of the
experience you get. If they bring the party level down far enough, it
might still be worth it - but sharing the experience from your kill with a
bunch of first-level weenies is just morally repugnant.

I would suggest that party level be determined the same way monster
Challenge Rating is determined. Four level-13 characters are a level-13
party, right? The DMG says that, if you cut the number of monsters in
half, you decrease the CR of the encounter by 2. So, four level-13
characters should be the same as two level-15 characters or one level-17
character.

There's still some funkiness in this system: a level-17 wizard is rewarded
twice for fighting alone. The first reward comes from dropping his party
level from 17 to 13; the second reward comes when he doesn't have to split
the experience from his kill four ways. It's still interesting to think
about, though.

Anyway, we will assume throughout most of this document that your
party contains characters of at least Level 13. Actually, almost all
of our methods involve the use of +5 weapons, and you need to be
caster level 15 to make a weapon +5 with Greater Magic Weapon - but
you can still use spell scrolls to do this, and there's only a 10%
chance of failure. We'll come back to this subject at a later point.


*** Knowing Thy Enemy

Now, conceivably you could go and attack the Tarrasque without any idea of
his abilities. If you were a high enough level, you might even win. But
you'd have no way of knowing your chances ahead of time. More
importantly, there's no point in discussing methods for killing the
Tarrasque if you don't know what it can regenerate from. So, throughout
this document, we'll assume that your character has near-perfect knowledge
of the Tarrasque. Explaining how your character acquired this knowledge
is left as an exercise for the reader - though we do note that the
Tarrasque's spell resistance does not protect it from divination.

Tarrasque has a nasty set of special abilities. Fortunately,
most of his abilities are defensive in nature: he's really hard to kill
but doesn't have much of an attack. His abilities are as follows:
Size: 70ft by 50ft
Damage Reduction 25/+5
Spell Resistance 32
HP: 840 (Hit Dice: 48)
AC 35
Attack damage: 4d8+17, 1d10+8, 1d10+8, 1d12+8, 1d12+8, 3d8+8.
All attacks have at least +52 to-hit. You can forget about armor.
Stats: STR 45, DEX 16, CON 35, INT 3, WIS 14, CHA 14
Saves: Fort +38, Ref +29, Will +20
Regeneration 40/round
Indestructible: Tarrasque can regenerate from all forms of damage. In
order to kill him, you must reduce him to -30HP and cast Wish or
Miracle over his remains.
Imposing Presence DC 20 (when Tarrasque attacks, enemies make Will saves
or are Shaken)
Anti-Magic Carapace: Tarrasque's natural armor reflects magic, sometimes
onto the caster.
Rush: Once per minute, the Tarrasque can move at "a speed of 150 feet."
Is that the total it moves in a round, or its base speed?
Spot: Tarrasque has +21 to Spot checks, with an additional +8 to spot
invisible creatures. Invisibility will not protect you.
Listen: Tarrasque also has +21 to Listen checks. Don't try to sneak up
on him unless you're very, very good.
Fire Immunity
Poison Immunity
Disease Immunity

All of these except for Imposing Presence are extraordinary abilities.

*** Wish and Miracle

One of these abilities is particularly worthy of note: Tarrasque can't be
permanently killed unless you cast Wish or Miracle over his remains.
Since you're not a level-17 caster, you're not going to be able to
naturally cast either of these spells.

You can buy a spell scroll of one of these spells for 28825gp. (As an
exercise in munchkinning, you might try to convince your DM that using
Miracle to finish the Tarrasque doesn't count as a "major request", so it
shouldn't require an XP cost. This will save you 25000gp if it works.)
But any such spell scroll will have caster level 17. If you, as a
13th-level caster, try to use that scroll, you have a 20% chance of the
scroll being wasted. (If you're very unlucky, the spell might suffer a
mishap instead of just fizzling. This causes random effects in proportion
with the spell's power. You should try to avoid this.) As your caster
level drops, the chance of failure increases.

But you might not need a spell scroll at all. There's a magic item called
a Ring of Three Wishes that costs 97950gp. After three uses it becomes
nonmagical, so it seems reasonable to assume that you could buy a Ring
with only one wish left for one-third of that, or 32650gp. Anyone can use
a Ring, so you wouldn't need a caster level at all for this.

We will occasionally revisit this topic as we discuss different techniques
for killing the Tarrasque. But, for most of the techniques described
below, you should expect to pay at least 30000gp to finish the Tarrasque
off.

*** Evaluation

Some of the suggestions we'll make in this Guide are things that,
according to the Rules and to common sense, would actually work. Some of
them are not. Everything we suggest is rated at the end according to the
following criteria:

Cost (in gp) - a 13th-level character has about 110000gp in wealth, so
we'll take this as an upper limit on what one character can spend.

Level required - 13 is optimal. Note that a lot of things get easier for
a level-15 character, as he can cast Greater Magic Weapon
naturally rather than buy spell scrolls of it.

Time required - If the Tarrasque is heading for the capital city, you
need a method that works _now_, not in three weeks.

Experience gained - the most important aspect of any plan, right?

Sensibility - does it actually make sense that you could do this, or is it
a loophole in the rules?

Legality - do the rules explicitly state that you can do this, or is it
just something that it seems like you could do?

Eldariel
2008-10-21, 03:40 PM
Operation Matador, Get a portable whole and a bag of holding. Lure the Tarrasque into the portable whole through some method, perhaps abunch of 1st level commoners throwing things at it, once it falls in the hole, throw the Bag of holding in there. A rift to the astral plain opens up and everything in the hole (the Tarrasque) gets killed.

Alternatly, one trained giant eagle (Or magic carpet, or fly spell, some method to get airborne) some method of making a rnaged attack, and time.

So, Trained Hippogriff (3000 GP), 1st level fighter with 3 ranks in ride (1000 XP), Exotic MIllitary Saddle (60GP), Longbow (75 GP), Lots and lots of arrows.
Lessee, 1 GP for 20 arrows, Tarrasque has 858 HP, with its damage reduction each arrow will only deal 1 damage and our fighter will only hit on a nat 20. So Statistically, every 20 arrows will deal 1 damage, so thats 858 GP.

So our total is 3993 GP and 1000 XP.

Tarrasque has Regeneration 40. Killing it is going to take a wee bit more than that. Like an optimized charger. And that costs you a lot of exp. Unless using Candle of Invocation. That's the cheapest - buy a Candle of Invocation, summon Efreet, Wish for Candles, repeat, at some point wish for a few scrolls of handy spells, or just Solars or something and Wish it dead for good measure.

Innis Cabal
2008-10-21, 03:41 PM
Wish One: Take the Big T. to just as much damage that it requires him to be at -35 hitpoints.
Wish Two: I wish the Big T dead.

Stupendous_Man
2008-10-21, 03:41 PM
Without further ado, let us proceed to:



Method 1: Well, it works in Starcraft...

Tarrasque has some nasty Spell Resistance, meaning that our Level 13
wizard has only a 20% chance of affecting him with any given spell, even
with the Spell Penetration feat. That's assuming that he can get
underneath Tarrasque's carapace and attack him point-blank from underneath
- which is usually a bad idea anyway since most high-damage spells tend to
be area effects. But there are a lot of spells that bypass Spell
Resistance entirely since they don't directly affect the enemy. A good
example of this type of spell is Illusions. No amount of Spell Resistance
will let Tarrasque see through an Invisibility spell, nor will it tell him
that any illusions you create aren't actually there. And with an
Intelligence of only 3, he's not likely to figure it out on his own.

How does this help? Well, the obvious tactic would be to augment your
army with illusionary warriors. If you maneuver your troops right,
Tarrasque will waste his time trying to kill the fake creatures while the
real ones hit him from behind. The trouble is, no pure-illusion spell has
the power to take damage - the Tarrasque's attacks will go right through
it, and it won't be long until he figures out something is up.

* Simulacrum

There is, however, a solution. There's a seventh-level spell called
Simulacrum which creates an illusionary double of a creature. The double
is real enough to take (and to deal) damage, but it exists under your
absolute control. The catch is that it only has 51% to 60% of the
original's "hit points, level, skills, speech, and personality". Well, no
loss - we aren't cloning the Tarrasque for its personality anyway.

(One worrisome point: do abilities like Regeneration count as a "skill"?
It would be really nice if our duplicate had a way to regain hit points.
A Simulacrum can be repaired by a process requiring "one day, 100gp per
hit point, and a fully equipped magical laboratory". This seems to imply
that standard healing has no effect on it, so the Regeneration ability is
really important. If your DM brings this up, you might try to bargain
that the Regen is still there, but only operating at 51-60% capacity.)

There are other hurdles to clear. Creating a Simulacrum requires a piece
of the original creature - nails, hair, et cetera. Blood would probably
do. You might be able to find some shed scales or something near its
tracks; if you can't, you'll have to remove them from Tarrasque itself.
With Invisibility to guard your approach, Flight to let you charge up to
Tarrasque before he can spot you and react, and Contingency Dimension Door
to let you escape, this ought to be possible without _too_ much trouble.
You'll need a +5 axe (a caster-level-15 scroll of Greater Magic Weapon
costs 1125gp) and a True Strike spell in order to actually dent the
creature's hide; if you target the tip of one of its toenails, you ought
to do okay.

Simulacrum also costs 1000xp per casting. This is a small price to pay
compared to the 46800xp you'll get if you're thirteenth-level, but still
nothing to sneeze at. You only need to create two Simulacra if you're
generous with the magical support - but when creating an unstoppable army
of illusionary Tarrasques, there's no point in being stingy. Create as
many as you can afford; once you finish the Tarrasque off, you can take
over the world as an encore.

* Combat

Now, your Tarrasques are somewhat weaker than the original. They have
a crucial advantage, though: magical support. You can cast Improved
Invisibility on all your Tarrasques, letting them avoid 50% of the enemy's
attacks. (Tarrasques have +52 to-hit and only AC35, so this is the only
way your creatures can avoid attacks. Tarrasque himself will get hit by
every attack you make.)

If your Tarrasques didn't gain the 25/+5 Damage Reduction ability the
original had, you'll need to correct that too. (25/+5 Damage Reduction
means your creatures can hurt other creatures as though their attacks were
+5 weapons.) You could cast Greater Magic Fang on your creatures at
caster level 15 (using spell scrolls) if you have a Druid in the party.
Failing that, you'll want to equip your creatures with weapons (similar to
brass knuckles but much much bigger) and cast Greater Magic Weapon
to make them all +5.

How, then, is this going to work?

Tarrasque's attacks deal an average of 112.5 damage each round if you just
add the damage up. After accounting for critical hits on 18-20 and
automatic misses on a 1, the damage goes up to 140 - but half of his
attacks will miss every round due to Invisibility, so the actual value is
70 per round. (It's probably okay to work with the average damage: when
you're rolling as many d8's and d12's as Tarrasque is, the actual damage
will probably be very close to the average.)

Your creatures have approximately 440 HP each, so even if they're not
regenerating, one of them can survive Tarrasque's attacks for 6 rounds
before going down. (If your creatures have the full Regeneration: 40,
they can absorb his attacks for more than twice as long. If some of your
creatures have it but others don't, make sure to put the ones that do have
it in front.)

Your creatures, on the other hand, are each dealing the full 140 damage
per round. With only two Simulacrums you can deal 280 damage per round;
even with Regeneration, Tarrasque will go down after only four rounds.
(You won't even have to Wish him dead! Just set a Simulacrum to stand
over him and keep beating him down. After two weeks, he'll still be
alive, but with negative 20 million hit points; every day your Simulacrum
spends costs Tarrasque three days to heal.)

Summary.

Cost:
1500gp - focus for Contingency spell (you should have one of these anyway)
1135gp - longsword and Greater Magic Weapon scroll
200gp, 2000xp (OR 14550gp for scrolls) - two Simulacrum spells
6000gp - 12 brass-knuckle-equivalents, Tarrasque sized
13500gp - 12 spell scrolls Greater Magic Weapon

Total: about 22000gp, more if you don't want to spend xp on Simulacrum,
much less if your Tarrasques inherit the original's Damage Reduction
ability. A-.

Level: Level 13 is a must for Simulacrum. A.

Time:
one day (hopefully) - acquire a piece of Tarrasque
two days - create two Simulacra
one day - defeat Tarrasque

In the best case, you could do this in four days - not _too_ much of a
stretch. B-.

Experience: You get the full 46800, no need to share. A+.

Sensibility: How were we going to acquire those Tarrasque nail clippings
again? B.

Legality: If the spell wasn't supposed to do that, it wouldn't be
in the PHB. A.

Overall: Sounds good to me. A.

----------

Method 2: An Exercise in Logistics

The illusion idea from Method 1 was a good one, but the Simulacrum idea
wasn't entirely faithful to it; the creatures we created with Simulacrum
were real, not fakes. That technique also cost a bunch of experience to
prepare: 1000xp per Simulacrum created. There's another, more common way
to use illusions that can serve us well in this method: the illusionary
floor.

The idea is this. Dig a big hole. Put an illusion over the top so
Tarrasque falls in. Fill the hole with water. Tarrasque falls in.
Tarrasque drowns. We'll work on this one step at a time.

* Step 1: Dig a big hole.

How big a hole do we need? Tarrasque is 70 feet long and 50 feet wide, so
he's about 90 feet along the diagonal. He has a reach of 25 feet beyond
that. We'll make the hole 140 feet in diameter for reasons described
below. A 140-foot-diameter hole is 15393 square feet in area, and if the
hole is 200 feet deep then we need to remove about 3.1 million cubic feet
of earth.

We'll want to dig the hole in solid stone so that Tarrasque can't dig his
way out of it. There's a fifth-level spell called Transmute Rock To Mud
that transmutes two 10-foot cubes of rock per level into mud. We can use
a sixth-level spell, Move Earth, to remove the earth from the pit. Our
13th-level wizard can cast five Transmutes and one Move per day if he uses
his higher-level spell slots as well; that's just enough to deepen the
hole by ten feet. He should be able to finish the hole in about three
weeks.

We'll see later that the hole doesn't need to be quite so deep: Tarrasque
isn't going to be in any condition to climb out of it, so all that matters
is that the water be over his head. Our wizard can get away with one
week's work instead of three if he's in a hurry. The principle is the
same, though.

* Step 2: Put an illusion over the hole.

This part is easy: the fourth-level spell Hallucinatory Terrain targets
one thirty-foot cube per level. We can cover the whole thing with two
castings. They last two hours per level, which at 13th-level works out to
one day.

* Step 3: Fill the hole with water.

This could be a bit of a problem, actually. Probably your best bet is to
divert a river into the hole - not too difficult a task compared to
creating the hole in the first place. Four Transmute spells and two Move
spells can create a 10ft x 10ft channel 1000 feet long in solid rock; if
you can find a suitable river five miles away, you can finish digging the
channel in three weeks.

If you can't find an area of rock that's near a river, but the season is
summer, you can use the sixth-level spell Control Weather to change the
weather to "torrential rain". The duration is 4d12 hours, and you can
cast the spell three times per day, so you can keep the rain up as long as
you like. It's not clear from the rules how long it will take until you
have 200 feet of water in the hole, but it shouldn't take too long.

If neither of the above conditions applies, you may have to settle for
digging a hole in standard dirt near a river. Or you could use Move Earth
on a lake that's already there, making the sides much steeper and the
bottom deeper.

* Step 4: Tarrasque falls in.

This step is really easy. Shoot an arrow at Tarrasque; keep shooting
until you have his attention. Run away, very fast, using a Fly spell.
(Your base move with Fly is 90 feet; you'll have no problem evading
Tarrasque. If you're worried about his Rush ability, you can polymorph
someone into a Pegasus and add Horseshoes of Speed, granting a base fly
speed of 240.) Eventually Tarrasque tries to run over the empty air, and
falls in.

...Wait a second here. Isn't there some sort of Reflex save associated
with falling into a pit? Well, ordinarily there would be. However, if a
character is "running or moving recklessly" on encountering a covered pit,
the save is negated.

* Step 5: Tarrasque drowns.

This step is much harder. Here, for your reference, is the drowning rule:

Any creature can hold its breath for a number of rounds equal to twice
its Constitution score. After that, it has to make Constitution checks;
the DC starts at 10 and increases by 1 per round. When it fails a save,
it dies in three rounds.

Now, Tarrasque's Constitution score is 35, so Tarrasque can last between
9.5 and 11.5 minutes underwater. During this time it can do any of
several things. It can try to dig at the sides of the hole. It can try
to swim to the surface. It can also try to climb the side of the hole.
We need to make sure that none of these things will get it out of the
water within, say, 15 minutes.

The easiest variable to control is Tarrasque digging at the sides of the
hole. The walls are made of stone, which has a hardness of 8 and has 15HP
per inch of thickness. (Presumably these numbers are for one five-foot
square of rock, but the table doesn't explicitly state this, so we won't
assume it.) If Tarrasque can deal 100 damage per round to the rock (after
subtracting 8 hardness for each of five attacks), that's 6 inches of rock
per round, so Tarrasque can tunnel through 60 feet of rock in 12 minutes.
The pit is 200 feet deep, and Tarrasque is only 70 feet long, so no matter
what he does he's still underwater.

The other possibilities, swimming and climbing, are harder to control.
The Monster Manual doesn't give us any indication of how well Tarrasque
can swim or climb. Both of these abilities are based on Strength, though,
and Tarrasque has a Strength of about 45. How can we make sure that
Tarrasque won't be able to get out of the pit?

* Never Swim on a Full Stomach

Tarrasque has a strange habit: he likes to swallow whole anything that
attacks him. Usually this doesn't hurt him, as he has a Fortitude save of
+38, making him immune to all types of poison. In certain cases, though,
this can work against him.

Suppose that we craft an iron statue and place it in Tarrasque's path as
it approaches our trap. Perhaps we create an illusion so that it seems to
be shooting arrows at Tarrasque. Tarrasque eats it, of course, and
continues chasing us. How does this affect Tarrasque's ability to swim?

Tarrasque can swallow one Huge creature at a time, so let's make our
statue Huge. A Huge creature is twice as large in every dimension as a
Large creature, which is twice as large as a Medium creature - so our Huge
statue has a volume 64 times the volume of an equivalent Medium-sized
statue.

Actually, we can do better than this - we cast Reduce on the statue before
Tarrasque sees it. Reduce will decrease all of its dimensions by 50%, so
if the statue is Huge when Tarrasque swallows it, it will grow to be
Colossal after the spell wears off, with a volume of 512 times that of a
medium-sized creature.

Now, a medium-sized human can weigh 200 pounds or more - we assume our
statue is somewhat portly. If our statue was a Colossal human, it would
weigh a little more than 100000 pounds, or 50 tons. It's not human,
though; it's iron. A human's density is approximately 1, the same as the
density of water; iron has a density of 7.874. Our statue weighs 800,000
pounds when the Reduce spell has worn off!

...Wait, now. How would we buy such a statue? We don't need to pay for a
great work of art - actually, we'd prefer a cube or a sphere, and our
illusion spell can make it look like a creature just the same. But where
are we going to find 400 tons of iron? How are we going to transport it?

Well, it turns out there's a fifth-level spell called Wall of Iron which
can create a wall with area one five-foot square per level. The thickness
of the wall is three inches at caster level 13, so one casting will
produce up to 80 cubic feet (or about 20 tons) of iron. We'll want to use
Shrink Item on the iron as we produce it, decreasing its mass and volume
by a factor of 1727; we can then use use the fifth-level spell Fabricate
to mold it into any form we please.

(This might actually be an abuse: Fabricate doesn't work on magic items,
and it's a bit unclear whether magically shrunken iron counts as a "magic
item". The alternative is to melt down the shrunken iron in a forge and
re-cast it - not too impractical, actually, provided you can be certain
the spell won't dispel itself partway through.)

We have no lack of spells, so let's be extravagant: we'll use 43 castings
of Wall of Iron to create 3375 cubic feet of iron. (This is enough to
make a 15-foot cube of iron.) This will take a little more than a week.
We'll cut the walls into manageable 26-cubic-foot sections (four five-foot
squares of iron three inches thick) using whichever method is simplest
(perhaps some Fabricate spells targeting the small amounts of iron between
the sections we want). We can then cast Shrink Item on each individual
section. Our 13th-level caster can cast Shrink Item 16 times per day
(assuming an 18 INT), so this will take nine days, at the end of which all
the iron will be less than two cubic feet in size. We'll only need one
more Fabricate spell to collect it into a nice 18-inch cube, and we'll
then have three days until the Shrink Item spells wear off. (The spells
would wear off over a period of nine days, and they're all mixed together
in that little iron block. The process would be interesting to watch.)

We should cover the block to a thickness of another six inches or so with
some of the leftover unshrunken iron. Shrink Item spells are a little
finicky - they sometimes dispel themselves when they suffer an impact, and
we don't want that to happen too soon. We should probably also put the
block inside a cow or something so Tarrasque won't get confused when
eating it.

How can we make sure the block will expand just after Tarrasque eats it?
Shrink Item can be deactivated with a command word. Once Tarrasque falls
in the pit a simple Shout spell should be audible inside his stomach,
which will expand the block quite nicely. We'll use the same command word
for all the spells.

* Tarrasque drowns.

Okay, so Tarrasque is stuck at the bottom of a pit with an 844-ton iron
block in his gullet. Anything in Tarrasque's stomach takes 2d8+8 acid
damage and 2d8+10 crushing damage per round; we need to make sure that he
can't digest the block before he drowns.

The Tarrasque has a strength of 45, and he's a Colossal sized creature, so
his maximum load is roughly 200000, or 100 tons. If he tries to carry
more than that, he "can only stagger around with it", meaning he can't
move more than 5 feet per round. Our cube will weigh 100 tons when its
diameter is 5.85 feet; we want to show that it won't get smaller than that
before Tarrasque drowns.

Iron has a hardness of 10 and 30 hp per inch of thickness. It also takes
half damage from acid attacks. We'll ignore the acid damage as
negligible, but the block is taking 9 crushing damage, destroying about a
third of an inch of iron on each side, per round. After 15 minutes
(150 rounds) the block will have lost 50 inches, or a little more than
4 feet, from each side, leaving it with a diameter that's a little less
than 7 feet. It'll be close.

(Well, actually, if you think about it, crushing damage shouldn't _really_
be able to harm a block of iron, should it? The DMG says the DM can rule
that certain items are immune to certain types of damage. But a true
munchkin does not rely on his DM for favorable rulings; accordingly, we
have performed the calculation as though crushing dealt full damage.)

(Actually, there's one more thing we might worry about. Tarrasque is
known for rampaging across the landscape, eating entire towns when it
encounters them. Who's to say it can't just drink all the water? Sure,
the volume of the water is much greater than that of the Tarrasque - but
so are all those towns it eats. Also, when water encounters a strong acid
(such as exists in Tarrasque's stomach) it produces a great deal of heat.
Can Tarrasque's stomach acid boil the water in fifteen minutes' time? One
would hope not.)

After Tarrasque has been at the bottom of the hole for fifteen minutes, he
will be thoroughly drowned, which automatically reduces him to -10 hit
points. (There's some question here about his regeneration. The
regeneration effect gives him +40HP at the start of each of his moves, and
it's not clear when the drowning effect drops him back to -10. Is
Tarrasque jerked back to consciousness every six seconds? One would hope
not.) All that remains is to go down there and put him out of your
misery. You need to drop him to -30 hit points in order to kill him; if
you have a +2 STR mod, you can do this with coup-de-grace with a +5 heavy
pick. Immediately after you hit him, you use a Haste partial action to
finish him with Wish. (There are some details here about spellcasting
underwater. Make a diving bell or something.)

...Actually, why bother with the Wish finisher at all? Tarrasque is
stuck, unconscious, at the bottom of a deep pit. He's not going anywhere.
Why not leave him there?

Well, eventually he's going to digest that iron block you fed him.
Presumably his stomach action slows down after he drowns, but you
shouldn't bet on it stopping. Once the iron block is gone, he might float
to the surface and start breathing again, and you really don't want that
to happen.

If you go down there and attach some kind of shackles to him, though, he
won't float to the surface no matter what happens. If you cast Wall of
Iron some more, you can probably bury him under enough iron that he won't
come to the surface for quite some time. (And the water will turn a
pretty red color from all the rust. Years from now, Tarrasque Pool will
be a tourist attraction...) You'll also need to make some provision for
keeping the water level above his head: there's a 9000gp item called a
"Decanter of Endless Water" that can produce 30 gallons of water every
round, but you're probably better off diverting a river. You might also
want to worry about theft of the Decanter or sabotage of the Shackles by
various evil types; we will leave precautions against such occurrences as
an exercise for the reader.

Summary.

Cost: 2500gp if you have the spells already. A+.

Time:
21 days - dig a deep hole
?? days - fill hole with water
7 days, 2500gp for spell components - create 840 tons iron
? days - break iron into chunks
9 days - cast Shrink Item on the iron
1 day - fabricate, illusion spells
15 minutes - showtime
This would require much planning. D.

Level: We never actually use any spell above sixth level, but we need a
13th-level caster to cast all the Shrink Item spells before they start
expiring. A specialist (or someone with Extend Spell) might be able to do
this in less. A.

Experience: You get the full 46800, no need to share. A+.

Sensibility: Is Tarrasque vulnerable to drowning? Uncertain. B.

Legality: Can you use Fabricate on Shrunken iron like that? Can your
Shout spell be heard inside Tarrasque's stomach? C.

...But if you've got time to burn, and your DM is okay with the legality,
this is a fine method.

----------

Method 3: Flying Army

One thread common to every method we suggest is this: it's _very
important_ that you not let Tarrasque get the chance to attack you.
Tarrasque has a lot of maneuverability, but there's one thing he can't do
at all, and that's attack air units. So why come near him at all? You
can just cast Fly on everyone in your party and shoot him from the sky.
The only problem you have then is finding a way to deal Tarrasque more
than 40 damage per round.

Tarrasque has an Armor Class of 35, 30 of which is from his Natural Armor
bonus. In order to hit him with a roll of 19 you would need an attack
bonus of +16. With a +4 DEX, a +5 weapon, and Weapon Focus, you could get
that at Fighter level 6. But it would take a lot of level-6 Fighters to
deal Tarrasque 40 damage per round. Fortunately, you don't have to hit
Tarrasque on a 19 in order to hurt him. Why bother with Level-6 Fighters
when a Level-1 Fighter can still automatically hit Tarrasque every time he
rolls a 20? If he takes the Rapid Shot feat, in fact, your Level-1
Fighter has two 5% chances to hit Tarrasque every round.

If your fighter is using a +5 strength longbow with +5 arrows he can deal
1d8+14 damage with every hit, for an average of 1.85 damage per fighter
per round. If you have 50 archers shooting each round, you can deal an
average of 92.5 damage, of which Tarrasque will heal 40 and suffer 52.5.
At that rate, you'll finally kill him after 17 rounds, or about 34 arrows
per archer.

** Outfitting an Army

Wait! There's a problem. How are you going to equip 50 people with +5
longbows? Where are you going to get 50 people with 18 strength in the
first place? Who can memorize enough Fly spells to get them in the air?

Well, as to the manpower question, there's a feat called Leadership that
allows you to collect followers as you gain levels. A 16-Charisma wizard,
at 13th level, has a Leadership Rating of 16, which is enough to collect
28 followers of first-level or better. If you have two such characters in
your party, that's fifty people right there. If you don't, you have to
hire people. A first-level fighter doesn't cost very much at all to hire
out for a day, but you do have to be careful not to give him anything he
might be tempted to steal.

You certainly can't cast all the spells you need to outfit your army in
one day. If you're creative, though, you can get most of them for free.
Need 18 strength? There's this great spell called Polymorph Other that
permanently changes the target into another creature... There are some
funny restrictions on what you can choose, but one of the allowed
creatures is the Annis Hag, an ugly-looking creature with a strength of
25. That's plenty strong enough to use a strength bow.

Need your army to be flying? Polymorph some warhorses into Pegasi; once
they get used to the idea of flying, they'll be the best mounts you could
ask for, moving 240 feet per turn with no trouble. Your DM may give you
trouble about retraining your new Pegasi. Natural pegasi are supposed to
require 3000gp and several months to train; you might point out that
natural pegasi have like a 12 intelligence, and your polymorphed ones only
have a 2. If this is a problem, you can recruit some commoners as
polymorph subjects. The experience you're offering is totally unique:
your subjects will become magnificent winged horses, able to fly under
their own power, able to return to human form when it's over, PLUS they
get to be first-hand witnesses to one of the greatest battles ever fought,
PLUS they're defending their families from the Tarrasque's attack! What
girl, boy, or adult could resist? You can probably sell tickets.

There's one last problem: you need everyone in your army to have +5
strength bows and +5 arrows. Sadly, Polymorph can't help you here; you'll
have to cast Greater Magic Weapon yourself. This is the expensive part:
you can get a pair of wands to cast the spell (you need 100 castings, one
for bow and one for arrows, for each of 50 soldiers), but your wands need
a caster level of 15 if you want your arrows to be +5. Market price on
this is (750*3*15) = 33750 gold pieces per wand. If you're caster level
15, you can make the wand yourself for half that (and try the Magical
Artisan feat from Oriental Adventures to deduct 25% from that cost), but
this still isn't cheap.

On top of that, you're paying 25000gp to outfit all your people with
mighty composite +4 longbows. (Hold on there, says the DM - you can't use
a longbow while mounted! Ordinarily you couldn't, but Annis Hags are
Large size, which means that a longbow to us looks like a shortbow to
them. Again, if your DM gives you trouble, you can replace the Pegasi
with a wand of Fly.) Be sure to remind your soldiers that the longbows
are a LOAN, not a GIFT, and anyone who tries to steal from you will suffer
the same fate the Tarrasque did. It could be a major pain to find this
many longbows, since they take forever to make; fortunately, there's a
fifth-level spell called Fabricate which lets you create them yourself, if
you have at least a +15 to Craft: Bowmaking. (This also cuts the price by
two-thirds.)

So, the plan is simple. You use your two wands to give all 50 of your
people +5 bows and arrows. Then they all get on their pegasi and fly over
to wherever Tarrasque is, staying a good 100 feet up in case he can jump
higher than it looks. They open fire, with the Pegasi pacing Tarrasque so
it doesn't get away, and it takes a little less than two minutes until he
collapses. Once he's collapsed they fire a few more rounds to make sure
he's dead, then you finish him off with Wish. What could go wrong?

** What Could Go Wrong

There's a little problem you might run into, particularly if your DM is
(justifiably) feeling annoyed with you. This plan hinges on the rule that
a natural 20 is an automatic hit - but, for every roll of 20 one of your
soldiers makes, somebody else is likely to roll a 1. On a natural roll of
1, bad things can happen. If you haven't been careful in arranging your
soldiers, they might shoot each other in the backs - but even if they
avoid that, they're hovering high in the air, and if they drop their bows
it will be tough to get them back. Make sure to tell your DM the soldiers
have their bows attached to their wrists by straps, have covered quivers
that they open one at a time so that they won't lose all their arrows if
they turn upside down, et cetera.

Tarrasque has an Imposing Presence ability which can scare your soldiers,
giving them -2 to damage. Fortunately, to use this ability he has to
"charge or attack", which he can't do since your soldiers are in the air.
So this, at least, shouldn't be a problem.

** Optimizations

We've played fast and loose with the logistics involved here; you don't
need quite the damage output we described, so some tinkering with the
figures could make a big impact on your budget.
- You could use magic of your own (Prayer, for example, and bardsong) to
increase your soldiers' damage rate; you could then save some money by
using a cheaper wand of Greater Magic Weapon on the longbows. (The arrows
need to be +5, though, or they won't hurt Tarrasque at all.)
- A caster-level-5 wand of Enlarge can boost your soldiers by a size
category, increasing their base longbow damage from 1d8 to 2d6;
unfortunately, this only works if they're not riding Pegasi. (There's
some funniness here since annis hags are just barely Large creatures
anyway; best to work out the details with your DM.)
- If you have good damage per soldier, it will let you get by with a
smaller number of soldiers. Your wands won't be totally depleted after
the battle, so you can sell the spare charges and make back some of what
you spent.
- Your soldiers run out of magic arrows after 25 rounds, so you need to
make sure the Tarrasque dies before then. How close you want to cut it is
up to you.

Summary.
Cost:
67500gp - two wands of Greater Magic Weapon
25000gp - 50 mighty +4 composite longbows
1000gp - 20000 arrows
32650gp - Wish finisher (from Ring of Three Wishes)

Total cost: 126150gp. This isn't _too_ outrageous, as a 13th level
character should have about 110000gp worth of equipment to start - but
it's not good. D.

Level: No problem; a seventh-level wizard could cast the Polymorph spells
needed, and everything else is just wands. A+.

Time: A thirteenth-level wizard gets ten Polymorph spells per day, so
figure ten days to polymorph the entire army. It takes about 34 days to
craft a wand of GMW, though. C.

Experience: Well, if you could afford the price tag, you wouldn't need any
other party members... except, wait. You just got help from fifty other
people. 46800 experience split 50 ways is 976 experience. F.

Sensibility: This method relies on the fact that anybody, no matter how
weak, can always hit his target 5% of the time. This is probably not the
case. C.

Legality: This method is entirely legal. A.

Summary: This is the sort of method a government would use: lots of cash,
no finesse at all.


---------

Method 4: Flying One-Man Army

...But wait. Using Method 3, you're going to kill Tarrasque with FIFTY
OTHER PEOPLE? Sure, they'll bring down the average level of the party
somewhat - but do you really want to end up splitting the experience for
this kill fifty ways? The most you can say for that method is that you
rid the country of a threat. Unless you're a government, a much better
way is to kill Tarrasque by yourself. Assuming, of course, that you
happen to be a thirteenth-level cleric.

We've only got one person, so we need rather a lot of damage output.
Fortunately, we've only got one person, so buff spells are cheap. Our
cleric will use the following:

- The Magic domain allows our cleric to cast arcane spells off scrolls.
- The tried-and-true mighty composite +4 longbow, enchanted to +5 with
Greater Magic Weapon.
- Fifty +5 arrows, similarly enchanted.
- Our cleric will be polymorphed (from a scroll) into a Girallon, which
has 26 strength and 17 dexterity. (And four arms!)
- Our cleric will also read a scroll of Maximized Cat's-Grace; this will
boost his dexterity to 22.
- Our cleric will wear a mithril chain shirt with the "of Speed"
enchantment from Defenders of the Faith. This makes him permanently
hasted. It's a little pricey, but he really should have one anyway.
- The Fly spell, from a scroll, and the Expeditious Retreat spell, from
another scroll, gives him a base flying movement of 180.
- The Improved Invisibility spell doesn't provide protection since the
Tarrasque can spot invisible creatures, but it does grant +2 to-hit.
- Divine Power is a fourth-level cleric spell that grants the caster a
base attack bonus equal to their total character level - in this case, 13.
It lasts one round per level.
- Divine Favor is a first-level cleric spell that grants the caster a +1
luck bonus to attack and damage per three caster levels. It lasts one
minute.
- Righteous Might is a fifth-level cleric spell that doubles the caster's
size, granting -1 to-hit and increasing his weapon's damage die by one.
It lasts one round per level.
- Bless is a first-level cleric spell that grants a +1 morale bonus
to-hit. It lasts one minute per level.
- The Weapon Focus (composite longbow) feat grants +1 to-hit.
- The magic item "Bracers of Archery" grants the wearer +2 to-hit. It
also grants +1 to damage, but only at close range.
- The Rapid Shot feat grants our cleric an extra attack at his highest
bonus, but inflicts -2 to all attacks made that round.

Previously, we've needed to get Greater Magic Weapon on scrolls in order
to reach caster level 15. Here, that won't be needed. There's a magic
item called a Necklace of Karma Bead that, when activated, grants a cleric
a +4 boost to caster level for ten minutes. That will increase our
cleric to caster level 17, which is plenty for our purposes.

We'll try to kill the Tarrasque in two minutes or less, which poses a
small problem since most of our spells don't last quite that long. To
solve this we'll use the Extend Spell feat, which makes a spell one level
higher and doubles its duration.

This gives us values of:

To-hit Damage
Base attack bonus +13 1d8
Rapid Shot -2
Divine Power -1 +2d6-1d8
Strength +4
Bow enhancement +5 +5
Arrow enhancement +5 +5
Divine Favor +5 +5
Dexterity +6
Invisible +2
Bracers of Archery +2
Weapon Focus +2
Bless +1
--------- ---------
+38 26 (average)

Our cleric gets a total of five attacks, at +38/+38/+38/+33/+28. Of
course, the Tarrasque will probably be moving, so he'll need to use his
Haste partial action to give chase; this means he usually gets four arrows
per round, at +38/+38/+33/+28. The third arrow has a 95% chance to hit
the Tarrasque's 35 AC, and the fourth one has a 70% chance to hit, for an
average of 3.65 hits per round. At 26 damage per shot, that's an expected
yield of 94 damage per round; the Tarrasque heals 40 damage, so we get 54
damage per round of firing. That kills the Tarrasque in under two
minutes, during which time our cleric fires about 80 arrows. As usual, he
uses a Miracle finisher. He can cast the spell off a scroll since he's
caster level 17 anyway (though that doesn't save much money).


Summary.
Cost:
17250gp - +1 mithril chain shirt of speed
6000gp - necklace of karma bead
5100gp - bracers of archery
500gp - mighty composite +4 longbow
1125gp - scroll of maximized cats-grace
700gp - scroll of polymorph
700gp - scroll of improved invisibility
325gp - scroll of fly
100gp - scroll of expeditious retreat (caster level 4)
various cleric spells - free
28825gp - Miracle finisher scroll

28850gp for equipment we should have anyway, 2950gp for scrolls, and
28825gp for the Miracle finisher. B.

Level: Everything works with caster level 13. A.

Time: You'd need to prepare spells specifically for this, so figure about
a day. A.

Experience: 46800 experience, all to one person. Perfect. A+.

Sensibility: Everything more-or-less works. A.

Legality: This method is entirely legal. A.

Summary: If you're going to build your D&D character into a one-man army,
this is the way to go.


----------

Method 5: The Macross Way

There's an extremely cheesy anime called "Macross" in which we learn that
the power of song can defeat any evil. This example demonstrates the
truth of that lesson.

Bards have an ability called "Inspire Courage" which grants all who hear
it a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls. This ability is usable even at
Level 1. So, get an army of 50 bards with slings and march, singing, on
the Tarrasque. Each of your bards has +50 to-hit and deals something like
1d4+50 damage. Since your weapons aren't magical, Tarrasque's damage
reduction will ignore the first 25 points of damage, but he still takes at
least 25 damage per hit. 50 hits at 25 damage each is 1250 damage total,
which puts him way into the negative hit points in one round.

Now, you could follow this up with a 30000gp Wish spell. But why bother?
Let each of your fifty bards draw a knife and, singing happy
chopping-up-the-Tarrasque songs, cut the monster into hundreds of little
pieces, each of which can go in its own little jar. (Actually, you'd need
a whole lot of jars. Tarrasque is a Colossal sized creature, and he
weighs 130 tons. That's 2.5 tons of Tarrasque per bard. Maybe you'd
better invite some guests from the nearest village.) Tarrasque meat is
one of the rarest things in the universe, even if there's rather a glut of
it on the market just at the moment - in a hundred years, each of these
pieces might be worth a fortune.

Cost: Hiring a bard costs a gold piece per day. Getting that many bards
to come to one place might be a problem unless you lure them there with
the promise that they'll witness the demise of Tarrasque. This exercise
is cheap (or free) to implement, and if you hold onto your chunk of
Tarrasque for a while before selling it, you can probably turn a hefty
profit. A+.

Level: A level-1 character could do this. Fifty level-1 characters are
equivalent to approximately a level-8 party, but that's still way below
the Level-13 experience threshold. A.

Time: Figure about a week for the bards to gather in one place. B.

Experience: The experience would get split fifty ways or more; a bunch of
Level 1 bards would go up to Level 2. D+.

Legality: ...Unfortunately, morale bonuses don't stack. This tactic is a
complete fraud, as you have hopefully realized long before now. F.

Sensibility: See Legality. This only works in bad anime. D-.

-------

Method 6: One-Hit Finisher

A lot of our efforts thus far have been concentrated on reducing Tarrasque
to -10 HP through some death effect, then using coup-de-grace to drop him
to -30 so we can kill him. This method does things the other way around.

Tarrasque is kind of a heavy sleeper. He usually sleeps for five to ten
years at a time in between devouring helpless villages. If you're quiet
about it (and if you can find his lair - tricky at best), you could sneak
right up next to him while he was asleep - close enough, in fact, for
coup-de-grace.

Coup-de-grace is an interesting action. You hit the enemy and
automatically deal a critical, plus Rogue Sneak Attack damage if
applicable. With most mundane enemies this is enough to finish them -
but, if it's not, they still have to make a Fort save (DC 10+damage) in
order to survive. Tarrasque has a +43 Fort save, so we need to deal him
54 damage if we want to be certain he won't make his save.

What weapon shall we use? We have two nice options. A Heavy Pick has the
best critical in the game - 1d6 points of damage but a x4 multiplier. A
bow, on the other hand, gives us a x3 multiplier but lets us stack weapon
enchantments on both the bow and the arrow. We'll assume we have at least
an 18 strength:

Bow:
1d8 damage (mean 4.5) 4.5
+5 arrow enchantment 9.5
+5 bow enchantment 14.5
+4 strength bonus 18.5
x3 critical 55.5

Pick:
1d6 damage (mean 3.5) 3.5
+5 weapon enchantment 8.5
+4 strength bonus 12.5
x4 critical 48.5

The bow seems to be the better choice. Note that we can also apply such
benefits as Point Blank Range, Bracers of Archery, and Weapon
Specialization to the bow damage - and it's probably a good idea to apply
as many of these as possible, since the 55.5 damage figure is only an
average, not a guarantee. There's an Icy Burst enchantment we can put on
the bow if we like, dealing an extra 1d6+2d10 cold damage. (Actually,
there's a question here: does Icy Burst get negated by spell resistance?
Spell resistance has no effect on weapon enhancement bonuses, but it might
work against magic damage from weapons.) If you're a Rogue, your Sneak
Attack bonus will also add to the total.

...That brings up an interesting question. What class are we dealing with
here? We need a Wizard to cast Greater Magic Weapon on the bow and
arrows, but we've made mention of effects like Weapon Specialization and
Sneak Attack that aren't available to Wizards. We also have to have a
Silence spell to cover our approach to Tarrasque, and only Clerics and
Bards can cast Silence.

Well, it turns out that we're going to need more than one character anyway
if we're going to pull this off. Once we finish the coup-de-grace,
Tarrasque will fail his save and drop to -10 hit points. His Regeneration
effect will then kick in, boosting him back to 30 hit points. This is
bad. Clearly we need an accomplice to hit Tarrasque as well. The
accomplice can also coup-de-grace, since Tarrasque will be at -10 hit
points until his turn. But he only needs to deal 30 damage or so, so he
can just as easily be a wizard, and the first attacker can be a fighter.
We can pay a cleric 60 gold to cast the Silence spell.

...So, both players coup-de-grace the Tarrasque on the first round,
dropping him below -30 hit points. (Actually, there's some question of
whether you can coup-de-grace during a surprise round, before Tarrasque is
aware of you. If your DM gives you trouble about this, your characters
can take the Death Blow feat from the Fighter/Monk handbook, which makes
coup-de-grace into a partial action which you can easily perform during a
surprise round.) On subsequent rounds the players continue to
coup-de-grace, dealing more than 40 damage total, so Tarrasque's hit
points drop until he's at -100 or so. Then one of the players leaves the
area of Silence and uses the Wish to finish Tarrasque off. That's really
all there is to it.


Summary:

Cost:
1000gp - two mighty +4 composite longbows
4500gp - four scrolls Greater Magic Weapon (caster level 15)
32650gp - Wish finisher (from Ring of Three Wishes)

Total cost: about 40000gp, plus you have to find where the Tarrasque
sleeps. That last could be tricky. B.

Level: The wizard should have a high caster level in order to use the
scrolls. The fighter should have an 18 Strength (though this can be
augmented with Bull's-Strength if needed.) Level 13 will certainly
suffice. A-.

Time: Tarrasque never stays awake for more than about a week at a time.
On the other hand, once he's woken up, it's probably too late
to stop him from destroying the city. C.

Experience: 46800xp split two ways isn't too shabby. A-.

Sensibility: Wait - you're going to kill a monster the size of a village
with _one arrow_? Maaybe if you shot through its eye and into its brain.
Maybe. B.

Legality. This is completely legal. A.

---------

Method 7: The Big Sleep

The Tarrasque has 35 AC and 840 hit points, which is pretty impressive.
However, most of that AC is from natural armor. There are some attacks
that ignore natural armor, and against those the Tarrasque has a total AC
of 5. Most importantly, incorporeal touch attacks ignore natural armor.
This method will describe how to kill the Tarrasque, not through hit point
loss, but through Wisdom drain.

There's a particularly nasty kind of undead creature called an Allip.
Allips are noncorporeal, which means they can travel through the ground
beneath your feet to attack you. They don't deal normal damage, either;
instead, when an Allip hits its target, the target takes 1d4 permanent
Wisdom damage. Unlike hit point damage, this damage doesn't heal
naturally; only a Restoration spell (or some higher-level variant) can
cure it. And an Allip makes its attack at +3 to hit, so it will hit the
Tarrasque's touch AC of 5 ninety percent of the time.

How can we get some Allips? Well, the most obvious way is through Rebuke
Undead attempts. Allips are 4HD creatures, though they count as 6HD for
purposes of turning; if you roll a Rebuke attempt powerful enough to
rebuke 12HD creatures or better, you can use it to control the Allips
instead of rebuking them. You can control up to your cleric level worth
of undead at any one time, so that's three Allips per cleric. Not a bad
start, but Tarrasque can kill an average of three Allips every round (he
misses half the time because they're incorporeal), so you'll need
more than just that to finish him off.

One way to handle this would be to use two thirteenth-level clerics, each
with the Magic domain so they could cast arcane spells off scrolls. Each
cleric would cast Haste off of an arcane scroll on each of his three
allips. Tarrasque gets three attacks of opportunity as they charge; even
if all three attacks hit, the other three allips can make two attacks
each, for an average of 15 wisdom damage. Tarrasque only has 14 wisdom,
so this probably finishes him.

There's a little problem we haven't discussed. Allips are LOUD: an Allip
"constantly mutters and whines to itself, creating a hypnotic effect."
The hypnotic effect won't actually harm the Tarrasque, since it's a DC15
will save, but it will certainly alert it to your presence. One way to
handle this would involve a few well-placed Silence spells; with that,
your shadows could travel underground and attack the Tarrasque from
underneath. Otherwise, Tarrasque will hear you coming, and you have to
hope it won't run away. Seems like a fair bet, since Tarrasque is the
most powerful thing in the world as far as it knows, but better not to
take chances.

A more interesting way to deliver your Allips to their target would
make use of the "Master of Shrouds" prestige class from Defenders of the
Faith. A thirteenth-level cleric can have six levels of Master of
Shrouds, which among other things gives him the ability to summon four
Allips at a time (as a Summon Monster spell), (3 + CHA mod) times per day.
(The summoned Allips are a little hard to control if you don't have
something for them to attack, but a thirteenth-level cleric should have no
trouble with it.)

Unfortunately, there's some messiness involved in spellcasting in
Tarrasque's presence. Ordinarily you'd just do it while flying, but you
have to summon to a stable surface even though Allips don't need one; you
might try a Wall of Force spell to create a stable surface high in the
air. Otherwise, you can do your summoning somewhere safe, then send your
Allips into battle as in the above method.

Once Tarrasque drops to zero wisdom, he falls into a coma; he doesn't wake
up until his wisdom returns. The only way for this to happen is if some
cleric is (a) skilled and wise enough to cast a Restoration spell, (b)
clever enough to get around Tarrasque's spell resistance and Will save,
and (c) stupid enough to think Tarrasque won't kill him when he wakes up.
This seems very unlikely, so Tarrasque ought to be down for quite a while.

Summary:
Cost: YOUR IMMORTAL SOUL! Well, not necessarily that - but dealing with
the undead is definitely an evil act, so this route isn't available to the
good-aligned. Monetarily - well, finding Allips isn't easy, and creating
them involves a lot of messy torture. But you don't have to spend any
gold on this method at all. B.

Level: You'd need level 12 to command three Allips, or to summon four per
round with Master of Shrouds. Fortunately, level 13 is still the
standard. A+.

Time: The only time needed is that to find (or create) the Allips. If
you're summoning them, you don't need any preparation at all. A+.

Experience: 46800xp split two ways, or you can keep it all for yourself
with Master of Shrouds. A.

Sensibility: Is the Tarrasque vulnerable to wisdom drain? I don't
see why not. A.

Legality: There aren't any rules for finding or creating Allips (though
what we've suggested seems reasonable), but you can summon them just fine.
A.

Siegel
2008-10-21, 03:47 PM
Wall of text

O.o ....

oh my god

Breaw
2008-10-21, 03:48 PM
Operation Matador, Get a portable whole and a bag of holding. Lure the Tarrasque into the portable whole through some method, perhaps abunch of 1st level commoners throwing things at it, once it falls in the hole, throw the Bag of holding in there. A rift to the astral plain opens up and everything in the hole (the Tarrasque) gets killed.

Assume the Tarrasque played optimally. Explain to me why the optimally played Tarrasque jumps in your hole?


Alternatly, one trained giant eagle (Or magic carpet, or fly spell, some method to get airborne) some method of making a rnaged attack, and time.

So, Trained Hippogriff (3000 GP), 1st level fighter with 3 ranks in ride (1000 XP), Exotic MIllitary Saddle (60GP), Longbow (75 GP), Lots and lots of arrows.
Lessee, 1 GP for 20 arrows, Tarrasque has 858 HP, with its damage reduction each arrow will only deal 1 damage and our fighter will only hit on a nat 20. So Statistically, every 20 arrows will deal 1 damage, so thats 858 GP.

The Tarrasque regenerates 40 HP per round. You will keep shooting at it indefinitely.

I feel neither of these are solutions to the challenge.

Stupendous man: Please (please) just post the link to that site, rather than cluttering up this thread with something only tangentially related.

Shishnarfne
2008-10-21, 03:54 PM
<text shortened to keep under 50k char limit>

I seem to recall seeing this before online... If this is the case, a simpler URL link (http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dkb1/dnd/tarrasque.txt)would have been a little bit tidier.
Also, this refers to the 3.0 version of Big T, with its DR/+5. The 3.5 version has DR 15/epic IIRC, making the exact tactics less appropriate.
Personally, I'm partial to the flying archer, myself... Only with enough levels and a nice enough bow to actually hurt the darn thing faster than it heals...

Edit: How I found the link: Google "Seven ways to kill the tarrasque" First hit.

Stupendous_Man
2008-10-21, 03:56 PM
I don't *have* the link anymore, so the text.doc I have on my computer was the best I could come up with.


O.o ....

oh my god

Stupendous_Man will do nicely, thank you.

Edit: So I was lazy.

Eldariel
2008-10-21, 04:01 PM
So yea, I buy a Lawful Evil Candle of Invocation (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#candleofInvocation) for 8400gp, wish for an Efreet (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/genie.htm#efreeti), which is forced to obey me for the Gate (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/gate.htm)'s CL, or 17 rounds. I spend 3 of those rounds making it grant me wish (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/wish.htm)es, one of which is used to make another Candle of Invocation and the other two Wishes either for more Candles, spell effects or whatever else. Eventually one could summon an army of Solars (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/angel.htm#angelSolar), or whatever and kill it.

Alternatively, find one Allip (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/allip.htm) and command (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/commandUndead.htm) it. It's incorporeal, so the Tarrasque cannot touch it, and peculiarly it's not immune to Wisdom drain. Also, it has a crappy Touch AC, so an allip will dispatch it in minutes. This means, a level 3 Wizard could deal with the Tarrasque (3 days is plenty, and a Gray Elf Wizard can make it a DC 18 or so, with many tries so the Command is going to work, and 3 days is plenty - 1d4 points of Wisdom damage is negligible). This relies on an Allip existing in this world though. Otherwise it will take far more resources to generate the Allip, thus pushing it more expensive than Candle of Invocation-kill. Else this is favourable as it's only 3000XP and nothing else.

Stupendous_Man
2008-10-21, 04:03 PM
So yea, I buy a Lawful Evil Candle of Invocation (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#candleofInvocation) for 8400gp

It's amazing how many problems can be solved by doing this.

JaxGaret
2008-10-21, 04:10 PM
Nigh-infinite level 1 Commoners armed with Quarterstaves.

0 GP, 0 XP.

Eldariel
2008-10-21, 04:14 PM
Nigh-infinite level 1 Commoners armed with Quarterstaves.

0 GP, 0 XP.

They can't deal damage. DR, remember?

Breaw
2008-10-21, 04:14 PM
So yea, I buy a Lawful Evil Candle of Invocation (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#candleofInvocation) for 8400gp, wish for an Efreet (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/genie.htm#efreeti), which is forced to obey me for the Gate (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/gate.htm)'s CL, or 17 rounds. I spend 3 of those rounds making it grant me wish (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/wish.htm)es, one of which is used to make another Candle of Invocation and the other two Wishes either for more Candles, spell effects or whatever else. Eventually one could summon an army of Solars (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/angel.htm#angelSolar), or whatever and kill it.

Alternatively, find one Allip (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/allip.htm) and command (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/commandUndead.htm) it. It's incorporeal, so the Tarrasque cannot touch it, and peculiarly it's not immune to Wisdom drain. Also, it has a crappy Touch AC, so an allip will dispatch it in minutes. This means, a level 3 Wizard could deal with the Tarrasque (3 days is plenty, and a Gray Elf Wizard can make it a DC 18 or so, with many tries so the Command is going to work, and 3 days is plenty - 1d4 points of Wisdom damage is negligible). This relies on an Allip existing in this world though. Otherwise it will take far more resources to generate the Allip, thus pushing it more expensive than Candle of Invocation-kill. Else this is favourable as it's only 3000XP and nothing else.

Tarrasque is immune to ability damage. Allip does nothing to Tarrasque.
Damn you ability drain!
I'm only going to say this 1 more time.

Please avoid clear and obvious cheese. It's not helpful to the discussion because the answer has already been hashed out in many other threads: Either I sic Pun-Pun on you, or you wish for more wishes until the universe explodes. Neither is interesting or helpful.

And please stupendous man, FTLOG please at least /spoiler the copy/paste of the other tarrasque thread, which isn't even particularly relevant here.

streakster
2008-10-21, 04:18 PM
They can't deal damage. DR, remember?

Yes, but enough of them will create a black hole, thus ending both the Tarrasque and the world.

The Glyphstone
2008-10-21, 04:19 PM
They can't deal damage. DR, remember?

Sure they can. You line them up next to each other for 10 miles. The first commoner creates a free quarterstaff and uses a move action to hand it to the next commoner....:smallbiggrin:




Tarrasque is immune to ability damage. Allip does nothing to Tarrasque.

I'm only going to say this 1 more time.

Ability damage IS NOT ability Drain. They're different, that's why the Allip works.

Jack Zander
2008-10-21, 04:19 PM
Nigh-infinite level 1 Commoners armed with Quarterstaves.

0 GP, 0 XP.

Change that to one quarterstaff and line them all up on that infinite plane. Then order them to ready an action...

Asbestos
2008-10-21, 04:23 PM
It's amazing how many problems can be solved by doing this.

But then Quaruts hunt you down and wish you out of existence.

Ganurath
2008-10-21, 04:24 PM
You majesty, I am but a humble transmuter (L3), with two apprentices of even more modest skill than I (L1). However, I am very much convinced that the three of us can not only subdue the Tarrasque, but provide your kingdom with an unending bounty of food.

The key lies in our familiars and whetstones. You see, if I were to cast the spell Bull's Strength upon each of our owl familiars, the birds would be able to carry a bag holding a half-dozen whetstones(2cp*18stone=36cp) to a height of twenty poles over the great beast. From there, the birds release their burden. From that height, the weighted orbs would inflict sufficient damage to shatter the beast's hide and render it unconcious for about a minute.

That duration, however, assumes that no further harm comes to the great beast. Even without the augmentations, the owls can retrieve a pair of the whetstones, or any pair of rocks summing three pounds or less, and maintain a steady bombardment to keep the beast subdued. Eventually, however, the owls will succumb to fatigue. That is where the people of your kingdom come in.

A villager of sufficient strength (14+) could use repeated blows with a scythe (18gp) to neutralize the beast's regenerative abilities. By regularly cycling the villagers, one can keep the beast subdued indefinitely. Now, this may seem like a commitment of villagers, but they aren't hacking blindly. They are slicing off meat for harvest.

You see, your majesty, the meat of the beast is edible. I estimate that you could keep your entire nation fed, and still make a steady profit exporting the excess. All this for an initial investment of less than two platinum. What do you say?

(Final Cost: 6,018.36-Wish Scroll-Infinite Profit)

Eldariel
2008-10-21, 04:28 PM
Tarrasque is immune to ability damage. Allip does nothing to Tarrasque.

I'm only going to say this 1 more time..

It's NOT ability damage. It's ability drain. Tarrasque is not immune to ability drain. Check it out yourself. They're separately defined behind at least in Monster Manual and many monsters have listed immunity to ability drain too. The Tarrasque does not.


Also, the cheapest way is probably some variety of "cheese". Isn't that kinda what we're after - the absolute cheapest way to kill T?

Douglas
2008-10-21, 04:31 PM
Assume a single level 1 human sorcerer has 16 Cha, and has taken the feats 'Skill focus: UMD' and 'Magical Aptitude'. This sorcerer has full ranks (4) in UMD, giving him a total of +12 to his UMD. (+5 from feats, +4 from skills, +3 from stats)

This sorcerer is then given a wand of Acid Arrow with only 1 charge in it. Such a wand would cost:

4500/50 = 90 gp

60% of the time the sorcerer will succeed in his UMD attempt, doing 2d4 damage for 2 rounds. This averages to 5 damage per round for 2 rounds. This damage bypasses SR and DR.
First, UMD is a cross-class skill for Sorcerers so the max ranks is 2, not 4. Second, Acid Arrow is on their class list so they don't need UMD to use the wands anyway. They do, however, have to succeed on the ranged touch attack. This amounts to not rolling a 1 vs the Tarrasque's touch AC of 5, but it still needs to be accounted for.

Eldariel
2008-10-21, 04:33 PM
First, UMD is a cross-class skill for Sorcerers so the max ranks is 2, not 4. Second, Acid Arrow is on their class list so they don't need UMD to use the wands anyway. They do, however, have to succeed on the ranged touch attack. This amounts to not rolling a 1 vs the Tarrasque's touch AC of 5, but it still needs to be accounted for.

And the fact that Tarrasque regenerates everything. Including Acid. So you need to deal over 40 damage per turn to make a dent. Of course, the result works. Still, I think the 3000-cost result of one level 3 Gray Elf Wizard commanding an Allip works best. Followed by buying a Candle of Invocation and having a commoner use it. Both are way under 10000.

Innis Cabal
2008-10-21, 04:33 PM
But then Quaruts hunt you down and wish you out of existence.

I think destroying the Big T counts as a good useage of wish's. Two is more then enough.

Douglas
2008-10-21, 04:36 PM
And the fact that Tarrasque regenerates everything. Including Acid. So you need to deal over 40 damage per turn to make a dent.
That's why he's got 100+ of them doing it at once.

Breaw
2008-10-21, 04:40 PM
First, UMD is a cross-class skill for Sorcerers so the max ranks is 2, not 4. Second, Acid Arrow is on their class list so they don't need UMD to use the wands anyway. They do, however, have to succeed on the ranged touch attack. This amounts to not rolling a 1 vs the Tarrasque's touch AC of 5, but it still needs to be accounted for.

Thank you, I thought I had forgotten something there. I will adjust it accordingly.

On the topic of Allips:

1) First of all the point of this challenge is to assign the cost to this strategy. What is the minimum XP/ gold required to make the Allip and then control it?

2) The Allip can run indefinitely, as it has no constitution score, which means that it travels at a maximum of 4*30 = 120 feet per round.


Once per minute the Tarrasque can move at a speed of 150 feet. This means that each minute (if running) he can travel 1320 feet. He can run for 35 rounds (his constitution score) before making any checks, then he can run for an average of 12 more rounds before he fails his constitution check and stops running. He will only move at 1 move action per round for the next minute before running again.

This cycle lasts a total of 57 rounds (47 running, 10 'resting') In those first 47 rounds he travels:

5*150*4 + 42*20* 4 = 6360 feet

in the 10 rounds of 'rest' he can only travel:

150 + 9*20 = 330 feet

6690 feet in 57 rounds, which comes to a speed of 117 feet per round.

If the Allip were run for 56 rounds, then charge and attack on the 57th, he could cover 6780 feet, giving it just enough distance to attack the fleeing tarrasque once every 6 minutes or so.

It (seems) that 1 evil cleric with an allip would (eventually) destroy the Terrasque. Interesting.

Eldariel
2008-10-21, 05:05 PM
You have infinite commoners. Make a wall of flesh.

quick_comment
2008-10-21, 05:07 PM
The tarrasque can be defeated by bards!

The DC(perform) to take an enemy and make it fanatic for you is 150.


Assuming 10s on all rolls, you only need 71 bards using aid another to hit that DC. They play a merry jig, and kindly ask the tarrasque to imbibe some sort of terrible toxin.

Eldariel
2008-10-21, 05:08 PM
The tarrasque can be defeated by bards!

The DC(perform) to take an enemy and make it fanatic for you is 150.


Assuming 10s on all rolls, you only need 71 bards using aid another to hit that DC. They play a merry jig, and kindly ask the tarrasque to imbibe some sort of terrible toxin.

Fanatical isn't in DMG, PHB or MM. It's in SRD, but that's beyond the scope of the character.

Ganurath
2008-10-21, 05:10 PM
You have infinite commoners. Make a wall of flesh.Ah, but there's also gp cost for their outfits! The infinite commoners are only free in XP, and only PC classes get their first outfit free.

Eldariel
2008-10-21, 05:12 PM
What's wrong in infinite naked commoners? However, the point is moot, since you can't create an Allip for under 8400 XP/GP reasonably, meaning a Candle of Invocation is still the cheapest means of slaying the big T.

EDIT: Wait! A scroll of Polymorph Any Object is 3000gp. A level 3 Wizard is a 4000 more XP and can use the said scrolls without problems (as the spell is on their class list). Have the Wizard read Scroll while the commoner wall blocks the Tarrasque. Turn himself into an Allip. The duration is 3 hours, which is plenty to kill the Tarrasque as the commoners prevent it from moving efficiently.

Ganurath
2008-10-21, 05:13 PM
What's wrong in infinite naked commoners?The fluff: You need to persuade the king to accept your proposal, and he needs to persuade the commoners to play along.

Go go whetstone owls!

Edit @ Edit: Whetstone owls is a little over 6,000 GXP.

BRC
2008-10-21, 05:16 PM
Idea! 1st level commoners are free.

The OP never specified what Race of 1st level commoner!

Unlimited 1st level Stone Giant Commoners!

Ganurath
2008-10-21, 05:18 PM
Idea! 1st level commoners are free.

The OP never specified what Race of 1st level commoner!

Unlimited 1st level Stone Giant Commoners!LA and racial HD are equivolent to class levels. Even if they're counted as NPC class levels, it's still a heavy investment. Good effort, though.

Tokiko Mima
2008-10-21, 05:22 PM
Tarrasque is immune to ability damage. Allip does nothing to Tarrasque.

Ummm... the second statement is not true.

I feel compelled to point out that Big T is immune to energy drain (negative levels), and ability damage (naturally healing lowered stats). Allips do ability drain (permanently drained stats) which is different. So you can't Shivering Touch Big T to death, or drain his levels, but I've had more than a few people remind me on these boards that drain =/= damage when it comes to abilities. Nothing in his SRD description protects Big T from ability drain. Yeah, it's a technicality and a DM would Rule 0 that away, but it works per RAW.

JaxGaret
2008-10-21, 05:26 PM
They can't deal damage. DR, remember?

The Tarrasque isn't immune to falling damage, now is it? That's why you make a mountain of Commoners... and have the ones at the top pole vault down with their Quarterstaves.

Onto the Tarrasque. Until it's dead.

The Quarterstaves also provide some nice structural stability to the mountain.

greenknight
2008-10-21, 05:27 PM
What's wrong in infinite naked commoners? However, the point is moot, since you can't create an Allip for under 8400 XP/GP reasonably, meaning a Candle of Invocation is still the cheapest means of slaying the big T.

But since level 1 commoners are free, all you need to do is get a whole bunch of them and arm them with quarterstaffs (also free). Order them all to melee the Tarrasque. Granted, they aren't going to do any good, until...


An allip is the spectral remains of someone driven to suicide by a madness that afflicted it in life. It craves only revenge and unrelentingly pursues those who tormented it in life and pushed it over the brink

^ That happens (thanks to Big T's frightful presence). Since we aren't worrying about casting the Wish spell, that means you can defeat the Tarrasque for free.

lord_khaine
2008-10-21, 05:27 PM
feed it burning commoners until it goes down from the 1d6 fire damage they would do?

Ganurath
2008-10-21, 05:29 PM
You guys are forgetting a very important detail:

Your goal is not to kill the Tarrasque. Your goal is to kill it before it can kill the people of the kingdom. Namely, the commoners you're sending to die.

Dublock
2008-10-21, 05:30 PM
so how many commoners do you need to stack to kill T? Now how many people have you seen on top each other with only themselves and a staff? I betcha you would have killed infinite amount of commoners before you kill it due to regeneration and the difficulty of making the mountain of commoners.

And how are you going to burn commoners? That costs money and don't forget about you needing to do more damage before the T heals.

JaxGaret
2008-10-21, 05:31 PM
You guys are forgetting a very important detail:

Your goal is not to kill the Tarrasque. Your goal is to kill it before it can kill the people of the kingdom. Namely, the commoners you're sending to die.


The King has posted a contract for the destruction of the Tarrasque

I beg your pardon?

quick_comment
2008-10-21, 05:31 PM
Other uses of Polymorph any object:

Polymorph the ground beneath the tarrasque into a deep lava pit.

Polymorph the ground into a deep pit, which your infinite commoners then fill with water. The tarrasque then drowns.

Throw a rock in the air above the tarrasque, and have the wizard ready an action to polymorph it into a gigantic adamantium weight. It squashes the tarrasque.


Get your infinite commoners to all pray to a level 1 PC. He gains Divine Ranks, and then kills the tarrasque. (Yes, Dieties & Demigods isnt core, I know)

Breaw
2008-10-21, 05:32 PM
Ummm... the second statement is not true.

I feel compelled to point out that Big T is immune to energy drain (negative levels), and ability damage (naturally healing lowered stats). Allips do ability drain (permanently drained stats) which is different. So you can't Shivering Touch Big T to death, or drain his levels, but I've had more than a few people remind me on these boards that drain =/= damage when it comes to abilities. Nothing in his SRD description protects Big T from ability drain. Yeah, it's a technicality and a DM would Rule 0 that away, but it works per RAW.

Indeed, it does appear that controlling an Allip is the way to go. As I show on the previous page it is *just* faster than a full-running Tarrasque, and would therefore eventually be able to drain it to zero.

It seems for the challenge to be meaningful I need 2 stipulations.

1) Commoners now cost 1 gp. (simply to rule out infinite solutions)

2) The Tarrasque must be killed within an hour. (which still allows the Allip cheese).

Hrm... oh well. Back to the drawing boards.

Ganurath
2008-10-21, 05:39 PM
I beg your pardon?I made the critical text white so that it would draw attention when the post was quoted. Apparently, it did not work.

Jack_Simth
2008-10-21, 05:41 PM
However, a Ghost can pick up the Draining Touch ability... and Mr. T has no native ability to hurt an incorporeal critter (he only strikes as magic for purposes of overcoming damage reduction - which does not technically include the Incorporeality a Ghost gets while Manifesting).

A Ghost (LA +5) Commoner-1 could theoretically take down Big T that way. Con drain him to death.

As Commoner-1 doesn't cost XP, that +5 LA is treated as five class levels, for 10,000 xp, which means 10,000 gp.

The Wizard/Allip plan is probably better overall... but requires finding an Allip, which may or may not be available within the bounds of the Challenge. The Candle abuse is very cheap, but is probably excluded under "well known cheese"

Rei_Jin
2008-10-21, 05:46 PM
I would employ a slightly different method. My method is slow, but effective.

I present to you, General Tinkerbell!

General Tinkerbell is a Pixie. She can fly, is permanently invisible, and has a ranged attack.

She will be firing Sleep Arrows at the Tarrasque until it is hit, and fails its Fort save against the Sleep effect. The Sleep Arrows of a Pixie are an (Ex) effect, and the Sleep effect itself works regardless of hitdie. Big T gets a Fortitude save against it of DC15, which he can only fail on a 1. In addition to this, he also has to make a Will save against DC15 or lose his memory. He may just stay asleep where he falls, not even realising that he was rampaging through the realm.

Once Big T is unconscious, she flies down to her loyal attendant, Lieutenant Crush. Lieutenant Crush is an Orc Barbarian who was hiding off the battlefield out of the range of the Tarrasques Scent ability. He will have 8 minutes to get to the Tarrasque from when it falls. His job is to make sure that Big T stays unconscious. He walks up to the Tarrasque, and hits him with a Scythe Coup de Grace.

Lieutenant Crush will go into the encounter with a base 22 Strength, then he will rage and his strength goes up to 26.

26 Strength + BAB of +1 = +9 to hit, and 2d4+12 damage. He then decides to Power Attack, for his maximum. He now hits at +8, for 2d4+14 damage. As a critical hit, that's now 8d4+56 damage. If he rolls average for the 8d4, we're looking at 76 damage. Subtract 15 for his Damage Reduction, leaving us at 61 damage.

The Fort Save is DC 71 against the Coup De Grace, leaving the Tarrasque with the need to roll a natural 20 or drop down to -10 hitpoints.

Once this has been done, the Scroll of Wish is used by the king, and the Tarrasque is dead.



The cost?

2 level 5 characters, total Experience cost is 12,000xp, and 18gp for the Scythe.

General Tinkerbell
Race: Pixie
Class: Sorceror
Level 1:
ECL: 5

Lieutenant Crush
Race: Orc
Class: Barbarian
Level: 1
ECL: 1


Other details of note

1. This method should result in no loss of life, asides from the Tarrasque
2. Time taken to complete this method? On average, General Tinkerbell will strike the Tarrasque once per every 20 rounds. On average, he will fail his Fortitude save once every 20 hits. This gives us an estimated time of completion of duties of 40 minutes, plus the time it will take Lieutenant Crush to arrive at the Tarrasque and attack it once.
3. IF the Tarrasque rolls a successful Fortitude save against the Coup de Grace (Statistically quite unlikely), then Lieutenant Crush will, in all likelyhood, die. He is only a Lieutenant though, and is quite replaceable.

JaxGaret
2008-10-21, 05:47 PM
I made the critical text white so that it would draw attention when the post was quoted. Apparently, it did not work.

Ah, I missed the second part before:


Your goal is not to kill the Tarrasque. Your goal is to kill it before it can kill the people of the kingdom. Namely, the commoners you're sending to die.

I see no such stipulation in the OP :smallsmile:

Jack_Simth
2008-10-21, 05:55 PM
She casts True Strike on him,
Doesn't work, because True Strike is a Personal spell, but it doesn't matter, because...

he walks up to the Tarrasque, and hits him with a Scythe Coup de Grace for an average of 72 points of damage before damage reduction kicks in. In order to strike the flat footed Tarrasque, he needs to roll a 2. ...a Coup De Grace against a Helpless opponent (which a sleeping Terrasque is) is full-round action that is an auto-hit, auto-critical. He can Power Attack for Full, and not risk a miss on the Scyth's x4 Crit multiplier with no issues whatsoever.

Rei_Jin
2008-10-21, 06:02 PM
Ah, I missed that part. Shows how often I actually reference combat related arcane spells, doesn't it?

Lieutenant Crush will go into the encounter with a base 23 Strength, then he will rage (also using the Reckless Rage feat) and his strength goes up to 29.

29 Strength + BAB of +4 = +13 to hit, and 2d6+13 damage. He then decides to Power Attack, for his maximum. He now hits at +9, for 2d6+21 damage. As a critical hit, that's now 8d6+84 damage. If he rolls average for the 8d6, we're looking at 112 damage. Subtract 15 for his Damage Reduction, leaving us at 97 damage. The Fort Save is DC107 against the Coup De Grace, again, leaving the Tarrasque with the need to roll a natural 20 or drop down to -10 hitpoints.

Jack_Simth
2008-10-21, 06:23 PM
Ah, I missed that part. Shows how often I actually reference combat related arcane spells, doesn't it?

Lieutenant Crush will go into the encounter with a base 23 Strength, then he will rage (also using the Reckless Rage feat) and his strength goes up to 29.

29 Strength + BAB of +4 = +13 to hit, and 2d6+13 damage. He then decides to Power Attack, for his maximum. He now hits at +9, for 2d6+21 damage. As a critical hit, that's now 8d6+84 damage. If he rolls average for the 8d6, we're looking at 112 damage. Subtract 15 for his Damage Reduction, leaving us at 97 damage. The Fort Save is DC107 against the Coup De Grace, again, leaving the Tarrasque with the need to roll a natural 20 or drop down to -10 hitpoints.
You don't want a Goliath. They're only +4 Racial strength; same as an LA +0 Orc. You save XP (and thus, gp) by going with the Orc.

AgentPaper
2008-10-21, 06:26 PM
I'll do it for free with commoners and slings. Slings have a range of 500 feet, so you can fit 22,200 of them in around the Tarrasque. You need, on average, 17,360 shots to down the beast. (868 HP, 1 out of 20 will hit doing 1 damage) If you don't want commoners dying, you can easily keep them all 200 feet away, loosing 4080 shots, which is still enough to kill the tarrasque in one round on average. Slings are free, as is ammunition. (bullets are not, but you can use stones at -2 to attack with no problems)

Final Tally:

17,360 peasants - free
17,360 slings - free
17,360 stones - free
wish scroll - free

0 gold

Rei_Jin
2008-10-21, 06:27 PM
*Shrug*

A level 3 Orc then, as that's all you need. Level 3 gets him Power Attack and Reckless Rage, not that you really need to worry about that extra +2 Strength.

I'm sure that it can be refined further if need be, but the theory is sound.

A level 1 Orc with Rage and Power Attack, hits for 2d4+14 damage. On average, that's 19 damage per hit, multiplied by 4 for a Critical hit. Thus, you get 76 damage.

76-15 for Damage Reduction gives us 61. Add 10 for the DC, and you have a DC 71 Fort Save or die.

I guess that saves us 10,000xp.

JaxGaret
2008-10-21, 06:27 PM
DR 15/epic. Each of those sling bullets is doing zero damage on a hit.

AgentPaper
2008-10-21, 06:30 PM
DR 15/epic. Each of those sling bullets is doing zero damage on a hit.

I thought damage reduction couldn't reduce below 1 damage?

Bleh, just checked, thought it worked that way. Back to the drawing boards!

Rei_Jin
2008-10-21, 06:31 PM
Adjusted the attempt to drop it to a level 1 Orcish Barbarian


And, just so there is no confusion, DR cannot drop damage taken BELOW 0, not Below 1. You can do 0 damage thanks to DR, but it can't heal them.

Commoners are like appetisers to the Tarrasque.

Eldariel
2008-10-21, 06:42 PM
The Wizard/Allip plan is probably better overall... but requires finding an Allip, which may or may not be available within the bounds of the Challenge. The Candle abuse is very cheap, but is probably excluded under "well known cheese"

Scroll of Polymorph Any Object works and is the cheapest I've been able to come up with thus far. Wizard has higher Int than Allip and is the same size. Commoner 2/Wizard 1 has the required HD, can use the scroll and becomes an Allip for 3 hours. If necessary, it could be made permanent with another casting, but I think 3 hours is enough for this exercise.

Rei_Jin
2008-10-21, 06:49 PM
I'd like to see someone else come up with a method that doesn't require killing hundreds of commoners, or using allips (or other stat removing undead) that is actually a serious attempt at this.

There's other loopholes out there, and the Tarrasque is, in all honesty, just not that tough if you take a few moments to think about it.

AgentPaper
2008-10-21, 06:54 PM
912 peasants with heavy crossbows do an average of 41 damage a round (half reload one round, other half reloads the other), just enough to counter regen. It takes 868 rounds, under 15 minutes. You have to keep moving away from the tarrasque, but you can move and shoot, staying out of range the entire time.

912 peasants - free
912 heavy crossbows - 45,600 gold
791,620 bolts - 79,162 gold

124,762 gold

RebelRogue
2008-10-21, 06:55 PM
I fail to see why the Tarrasque just wouldn't slay the Allip/polymorphed wizard before it ever got to drain away those 14 points of Wisdom :smallconfused: Scores of them could pose a problem sure, but a single one shouldn't!

Tokiko Mima
2008-10-21, 06:56 PM
I'd like to see someone else come up with a method that doesn't require killing hundreds of commoners, or using allips (or other stat removing undead) that is actually a serious attempt at this.

There's other loopholes out there, and the Tarrasque is, in all honesty, just not that tough if you take a few moments to think about it.

Trick it into a box canyon with a Chicken Infested commoner? :smallwink:

Rei_Jin
2008-10-21, 06:56 PM
I fail to see why the Tarrasque just wouldn't slay the Allip/polymorphed wizard before it ever got to drain away those 14 points of Wisdom :smallconfused: Scores of them could pose a problem sure, but a single one shouldn't!

Well, the problem is that the Tarrasque has no way to actually hit said Allip. Its attack only counts as magical for getting through Damage Reduction. It therefore has no way to damage the Allip. It can however, run away faster than the wizard can follow it.

Breaw
2008-10-21, 07:00 PM
Ah, I missed that part. Shows how often I actually reference combat related arcane spells, doesn't it?

Lieutenant Crush will go into the encounter with a base 23 Strength, then he will rage (also using the Reckless Rage feat) and his strength goes up to 29.

29 Strength + BAB of +4 = +13 to hit, and 2d6+13 damage. He then decides to Power Attack, for his maximum. He now hits at +9, for 2d6+21 damage. As a critical hit, that's now 8d6+84 damage. If he rolls average for the 8d6, we're looking at 112 damage. Subtract 15 for his Damage Reduction, leaving us at 97 damage. The Fort Save is DC107 against the Coup De Grace, again, leaving the Tarrasque with the need to roll a natural 20 or drop down to -10 hitpoints.

Sadly:


(Under 'Regeneration')
Certain attack forms, typically fire and acid, deal damage to the creature normally; that sort of damage doesn’t convert to nonlethal damage and so doesn’t go away. The creature’s description includes the details. A regenerating creature that has been rendered unconscious through nonlethal damage can be killed with a coup de grace. The attack cannot be of a type that automatically converts to nonlethal damage.

Therefore, unless your scythe is an 'epic' scythe, the coup de gras is ineffectual.

Rei_Jin
2008-10-21, 07:04 PM
Hmmm... I know another way around it then, but it will cost a lot of gold.

Probably less than everyone else will be using though.

BRC
2008-10-21, 07:06 PM
Therefore, unless your scythe is an 'epic' scythe, the coup de gras is ineffectual.
In killing the Tarrasaque yes, However it can still deal lots of nonlethal damage to Big T, until he is unconcious and therefore can be Wished away.

RebelRogue
2008-10-21, 07:07 PM
Well, the problem is that the Tarrasque has no way to actually hit said Allip. Its attack only counts as magical for getting through Damage Reduction. It therefore has no way to damage the Allip. It can however, run away faster than the wizard can follow it.
Ah, I see. I forgot the wording that the natural weapon are only magic/epic with regard to overcoming damage reduction. Still seems a little ridiculous, but well, that's the RAW, I agree.

Breaw
2008-10-21, 07:08 PM
912 peasants with heavy crossbows do an average of 41 damage a round (half reload one round, other half reloads the other), just enough to counter regen. It takes 868 rounds, under 15 minutes. You have to keep moving away from the tarrasque, but you can move and shoot, staying out of range the entire time.

912 peasants - free
912 heavy crossbows - 45,600 gold
791,620 bolts - 79,162 gold

124,762 gold

#1 How do these crossbows bypass DR 15? Only 1 out of 20 peasants will hit the tarrasque at all, all of them doing sub 15 damage (therefore no damage), only 1 out of 400 peasants will confirm a crit, only 1 out of 64 peasants that crit will deal 16 damage (which will net only 1 damage).

so you need... 25600 peasants firing normal crossbows to statistically do 1 point of damage to the tarrasque (which he will regen)

Rush (Ex)
Once per minute, the normally slow-moving tarrasque can move at a speed of 150 feet.

Frightful Presence (Su)
The tarrasque can inspire terror by charging or attacking. Affected creatures must succeed on a DC 36 Will save or become shaken, remaining in that condition as long as they remain with 60 feet of the tarrasque. The save DC is Charisma-based.

All your Villagers die.


In killing the Tarrasaque yes, However it can still deal lots of nonlethal damage to Big T, until he is unconcious and therefore can be Wished away.

I bet he wakes up after you smash him one? He then eats your orc. And regens the damage. NOM

Ganurath
2008-10-21, 07:11 PM
I'd like to see someone else come up with a method that doesn't require killing hundreds of commoners, or using allips (or other stat removing undead) that is actually a serious attempt at this.Was it the fluffy presentation? (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=5148268&postcount=23) Here's the crunchy restatement, removing the infinite food plan since I didn't notice the free Wish scroll:

What you need:

1 Level 3 Transmuter specialist wizard with owl familiar: 4,000 gp in xp
2 Level 1 wizards with owl familiars: 1,000 gp in xp each, or 2,000
3 Tiny Sacks with 6 Whetstones each: 66 cp

What you do:

The Transmuter casts Bull's Strength on the three owl familiars, which take flight over Mr. T, each carrying a Tiny sack of Whetstones, just within their enhanced Light Load's limit of 6.5 lbs. When they're high enough to deal 20d6 per whetstone, they empty the bags. Mr. T takes 70 average per stone, or 55 after DR (does it apply to falling damage?) or 990 damage, well within the range needed to use the Wish scroll.

End cost: 6,000.66 gp

AgentPaper
2008-10-21, 07:15 PM
Damn. Could always put them on horses, but that is costly. As for the crossbow math:

1/10 is a natural 19 or 20, critting. The bolts do an average of 3 damage after DR if you roll a 8, 9, or 10 for damage, which is a 3/10 chance. .05*.3*3=.09 damage average. Times 456 gives you a bit over 41 damage. You need twice that of crossbows since it takes a round to reload.

Edit: Blegh, just remembered the silly crit confirmation rules that me and my players have never even though of using. :smallyuk:

Breaw
2008-10-21, 07:17 PM
Was it the fluffy presentation? (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=5148268&postcount=23) Here's the crunchy restatement, removing the infinite food plan since I didn't notice the free Wish scroll:

What you need:

1 Level 3 Transmuter specialist wizard with owl familiar: 4,000 gp in xp
2 Level 1 wizards with owl familiars: 1,000 gp in xp each, or 2,000
3 Tiny Sacks with 6 Whetstones each: 66 cp

What you do:

The Transmuter casts Bull's Strength on the three owl familiars, which take flight over Mr. T, each carrying a Tiny sack of Whetstones, just within their enhanced Light Load's limit of 6.5 lbs. When they're high enough to deal 20d6 per whetstone, they empty the bags. Mr. T takes 70 average per stone, or 55 after DR (does it apply to falling damage?) or 990 damage, well within the range needed to use the Wish scroll.

End cost: 6,000.66 gp


8) Assume the Tarrasque is played perfectly optimally.

The Tarrasque takes a step forward.



Damn. Could always put them on horses, but that is costly. As for the crossbow math:

1/10 is a natural 19 or 20, critting. The bolts do an average of 3 damage after DR if you roll a 8, 9, or 10 for damage, which is a 3/10 chance. .05*.3*3=.09 damage average. Times 456 gives you a bit over 41 damage. You need twice that of crossbows since it takes a round to reload.

I did mis-represent Heavy crossbow as d8 instead of d10, however...

I crit is not an auto hit if by rolling a 19 you still would not hit the target. As such, only rolling a 20 will constitute a guaranteed hit. Also, unless you confirm the crit, no damage will be done. So only 1 out of every 400 peasants will do any damage at all.

The number of peasants required is much more than you are listing.

JaxGaret
2008-10-21, 07:18 PM
You don't count volleys for total damage, unless you're using rules out of Heroes of Battle.

You have to take each individual arrow's damage, which is zero for all but the crits. Those do 1 damage.

Flickerdart
2008-10-21, 07:20 PM
The Tarrasque takes a step forward.
Surprise round. Tarrasque doesn't have any Divination spells, and the Wizards have enough INT to have their familiars account for Mr T.'s cruise speed. And if they miss, then get more and try again. The bags aren't very expensive.

ShneekeyTheLost
2008-10-21, 07:20 PM
Two things I note people forget about Big T:

1) DR is applied per attack Unless average damage is over 15 per attack, you can have an infinite number of peasants firing an infinite number of weapons and it won't do jack squat.

2) Reflective Carapace. If you launch ranged touch attacks at him (like the Conjuration Orb Of series), you've got about a 30% chance of it comming right back into your own face, and otherwise NEGATED. Try again.

I suppose a Hulking Hurler or King of Smack build would be outlawed, as it could solo a Tarrasque by about level 10?

Ganurath
2008-10-21, 07:21 PM
9) Assume you can arrange your men as you see fit and you get the surprise round.Only takes 1 round for the whetstones to connect from the maximum damage height. Do the familiars count as my men?

Edit: Thank you, Flickerdart.

Flickerdart
2008-10-21, 07:23 PM
1) DR is applied per attack Unless average damage is over 15 per attack, you can have an infinite number of peasants firing an infinite number of weapons and it won't do jack squat.
Physicists, count the total kinetic energy that infinite number of peasants firing infinite crossbows will do. With enough guys, we can kick the beastie off the planet.

Breaw
2008-10-21, 07:24 PM
Only takes 1 round for the whetstones to connect from the maximum damage height. Do the familiars count as my men?

Edit: Thank you, Flickerdart.

An object falls 150 feet in 1 round. How are you dealing 20d6 damage with 1 lb weights from 150 feet?

As far as I can read, for a 1 lb object, it gains 1 d6 of damage for every 70 feet it falls. So at 150 feet it is doing 2d6 or 3d6 damage. You haven't even bypassed DR yet.

-B

AgentPaper
2008-10-21, 07:24 PM
1) DR is applied per attack Unless average damage is over 15 per attack, you can have an infinite number of peasants firing an infinite number of weapons and it won't do jack squat.

I remembered that. a heavy crossbow does 1d10, and on a crit does double that. If you roll a 8, 9 or 10, you do damage. 8*2 is 16, so 1 damage, 9*2 is 18, so 3 damage, and 10*2 is 20, so 5 damage. That averages to 3 damage when you do damage, and you do damage 3 times out of 10. The only thing I missed was that you have to confirm a crit, and I really don't care to learn the rules on that. It always seem really silly to me. (I got a natural 20! Critical hit! woot! Now let's see if I ACTUALLY got a critical!)

Rei_Jin
2008-10-21, 07:25 PM
In killing the Tarrasaque yes, However it can still deal lots of nonlethal damage to Big T, until he is unconcious and therefore can be Wished away.

Ah, yes. Very true.

So, so far I've got a total cost of 12,000xp and 18gp. Asides from the familiars dropping rocks, I'm in with the best chance (and that depends on the DMs interpretation of what will be effective)


I bet he wakes up after you smash him one? He then eats your orc. And regens the damage. NOM

I don't see that as being an issue. He can't wake up when he's on negative hitpoints, and you said the wish can be cast whenever it is needed to be cast. The Tarrasque is coup de graced, drops to -10 hitpoints, and is wished to death the next instant.

He doesn't get a chance to regen until his initiative, which if you want to be particular about, I will delay until the end of the round for the Orc, and just after that for the spellcaster. Unless the Tarrasque is going to delay his actions WHILST UNCONSCIOUS, he can't go after me, and Regen kicks in on his order in the initiative.

streakster
2008-10-21, 07:27 PM
I am such a genius. Such an awesome genius.

I take 2 level 1 commoners.

Commoner #1 digs a 4 - mile deep hole. Then covers the top with sticks, and sits there.

Commoner #2 redirects a nearby river to near the hole, but dams it to prevent it running in. He hides.

Big T attempts to eat Commoner #1 (who has been instructed to insult the Tarrasque's mother). He falls in. Commoner #2 breaks the dam.

Tarrasque drowns. Cast wish, Kingy.

Total Cost: 4gp (for 2 shovels.)

arguskos
2008-10-21, 07:28 PM
I am such a genius. Such an awesome genius.

I take 2 level 1 commoners.

Commoner #1 digs a 4 - mile deep hole. Then covers the top with sticks, and sits there.

Commoner #2 redirects a nearby river to near the hole, but dams it to prevent it running in. He hides.

Big T attempts to eat Commoner #1 (who has been instructed to insult the Tarrasque's mother). He falls in. Commoner #2 breaks the dam.

Tarrasque drowns. Cast wish, Kingy.

Total Cost: 4gp (for 2 shovels.)
The only issue here is how long it would take to do this. You may wish to acquire more Commoners (maybe, 1000 total, for 2000gp worth of commoners and shovels) to make the project go faster.

-argus

AgentPaper
2008-10-21, 07:29 PM
An object falls 150 feet in 1 round. How are you dealing 20d6 damage with 1 lb weights from 150 feet?

As far as I can read, for a 1 lb object, it gains 1 d6 of damage for every 70 feet it falls. So at 150 feet it is doing 2d6 or 3d6 damage. You haven't even bypassed DR yet.

-B

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/environment.htm#tableDamagefromFallingObjects

He would have to drop them from 1,200 feet to get the effect, plus the height of the tarrasque. Takes 8 rounds to drop, so the tarrasque is gone by then. Still, they can try as much as they want, and try to predict where the tarrasque will be. If it's moving a leisurely pace of 20 feet a round, they just have to drop the bags 160 feet ahead of the thing.

Ganurath
2008-10-21, 07:30 PM
Another problem: How do(es) the digger(s) get out of the Four Mile Pit Trap?

streakster
2008-10-21, 07:30 PM
The only issue here is how long it would take to do this. You may wish to acquire more Commoners (maybe, 1000 total, for 2000gp worth of commoners and shovels) to make the project go faster.

-argus

I saw no time limit, so way I'll buy more shovels. Those things cost money, ya know.:smallsmile:

Say, the commoners could dig with their hands, couldn't they...


Another problem: How do(es) the digger(s) get out of the Four Mile Pit Trap?

The OP said don't kill hundreds. I killed one.

I'll get him a statue soon as I'm off-budget, kay?

Ooh, wait! He's an aventi, and therefore aquatic, and so swims out.

Man, I even give my Tarrasque fodder a chance of survival.

Flickerdart
2008-10-21, 07:31 PM
An object falls 150 feet in 1 round. How are you dealing 20d6 damage with 1 lb weights from 150 feet?

As far as I can read, for a 1 lb object, it gains 1 d6 of damage for every 70 feet it falls. So at 150 feet it is doing 2d6 or 3d6 damage. You haven't even bypassed DR yet.

-B
They can drop from several rounds' worth of height. Wizards with their high INT can project how far Mr. T will move, of course. And if it decides to Rush, well, they take another bag and try again, because he can't Rush again so quickly.

Stupendous_Man
2008-10-21, 07:31 PM
I beg your pardon?

I don't want to kill you! Just... destroy you a little. Geez, talk about overreacting!

Draco Dracul
2008-10-21, 07:31 PM
Probebly disqualified for chese, but this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=5149390&postcount=139).:smalltongue:
The Tarrasque shall meet a bacony doom.

Ganurath
2008-10-21, 07:32 PM
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/environment.htm#tableDamagefromFallingObjects

He would have to drop them from 1,200 feet to get the effect, plus the height of the tarrasque. Takes 8 rounds to drop, so the tarrasque is gone by then. Still, they can try as much as they want, and try to predict where the tarrasque will be. If it's moving a leisurely pace of 20 feet a round, they just have to drop the bags 160 feet ahead of the thing.Nevermind that you have three wizards worth of Silent Image in distraction form.

ShneekeyTheLost
2008-10-21, 07:32 PM
I remembered that. a heavy crossbow does 1d10, and on a crit does double that. If you roll a 8, 9 or 10, you do damage. 8*2 is 16, so 1 damage, 9*2 is 18, so 3 damage, and 10*2 is 20, so 5 damage. That averages to 3 damage when you do damage, and you do damage 3 times out of 10. The only thing I missed was that you have to confirm a crit, and I really don't care to learn the rules on that. It always seem really silly to me. (I got a natural 20! Critical hit! woot! Now let's see if I ACTUALLY got a critical!)

You would only crit 1 in 20, then confirm 1 in 20, then affect him 3 in 10. If you had 4,000 peasants firing in a round at him, they would hit him and deal damag, on average, 3 times, doing on average 3 damage, for an average of 9 damage. Big T has 858 HP, so you would need to increase this 96 times, for a total of 384,000 peasants with heavy crossbows to bring him to 0, then another 20,000 to drop him to -40 so the Wish could be cast on him.

Eldariel
2008-10-21, 07:33 PM
The only issue here is how long it would take to do this. You may wish to acquire more Commoners (maybe, 1000 total, for 2000gp worth of commoners and shovels) to make the project go faster.

-argus

The primary problem here is that it's a featureless plain. No rivers. So you'd need a high level caster to create a river for you.

Let's just make a list of what doesn't work:
-Anything using the environment (unless you can create said environment).
-Anything that can't damage it through DR 15/Epic.
-Anything that can't overcome Regeneration 40.
-Anything that doesn't work by the game rules (including any applications of physics the game doesn't model).

AgentPaper
2008-10-21, 07:34 PM
You would only crit 1 in 20, then confirm 1 in 20, then affect him 3 in 10. If you had 4,000 peasants firing in a round at him, they would hit him and deal damag, on average, 3 times, doing on average 3 damage, for an average of 9 damage. Big T has 858 HP, so you would need to increase this 96 times, for a total of 384,000 peasants with heavy crossbows to bring him to 0, then another 20,000 to drop him to -40 so the Wish could be cast on him.

You could reduce those numbers significantly if you attacked from 1,200 feet and took a couple rounds, or longer.

Dublock
2008-10-21, 07:35 PM
nah, just use the spell create water if you don't need a time limit.

streakster
2008-10-21, 07:37 PM
The primary problem here is that it's a featureless plain. No rivers. So you'd need a high level caster to create a river for you.

Sigh. We shall dig until we hit groundwater, then. Wait...phooey.

Unless you want me to slaughter a couple million commoners and use their blood, but I was trying to be nice....


Great. I guess I'm all the way up to 9002 gp, with that Decanter of Endless Water. Sigh.

arguskos
2008-10-21, 07:38 PM
The primary problem here is that it's a featureless plain. No rivers. So you'd need a high level caster to create a river for you.
No time limit, and there, logically, exists a river SOMEWHERE in this world, or some source of water somewhere. If there isn't, just cast Create Water a trillion times, then lure that punk into the hole. Ding, Tarrasque-in-a-Hole!

Also, it is VERY SILLY. :smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin:

-argus

Flickerdart
2008-10-21, 07:39 PM
Sigh. We shall dig until we hit groundwater, then. Wait...phooey.

Unless you want me to slaughter a couple million commoners and use their blood, but I was trying to be nice....


Great. I guess I'm all the way up to 9002 gp, with that Decanter of Endless Water. Sigh.
IT'S OVER NINE THOU- ah, forget it.

Eita
2008-10-21, 07:39 PM
Two words: Peasant railgun.

Get 2280 peasants. 0 GP.

Borrow one of their Quarterstaves. 0 GP.

Have the two miles worth of peasants throw the quarterstaff down the line, accelerating it to 1200 mph.

Repeat 2279 times.

So even if the force of the quarterstaff only equals 26 HP, the Tarrasque is down at somewhere around -1500 HP.

Cast wish. 0 GP.

streakster
2008-10-21, 07:40 PM
Correction - 1000 xp, and 2 gp. I shall add a level 1 cleric to the party, to cast Create Water as per these fine folks suggestions.

I believe I am in the lead.

Stupendous_Man
2008-10-21, 07:40 PM
Unless you want me to slaughter a couple million commoners and use their blood, but I was trying to be nice....



http://www.4guysfromviewpoint.com/uploadedimages/BlackMage.JPG

Draco Dracul
2008-10-21, 07:41 PM
Two words: Peasant railgun.

Get 2280 peasants. 0 GP.

Borrow one of their Quarterstaves. 0 GP.

Have the two miles worth of peasants throw the quarterstaff down the line, accelerating it to 1200 mph.

Repeat 2279 times.

So even if the force of the quarterstaff only equals 26 HP, the Tarrasque is down at somewhere around -1500 HP.

Cast wish. 0 GP.

I already did that, except with a pig. And I one shoted it.

AgentPaper
2008-10-21, 07:45 PM
Chuck a decanter into it's mouth? make sure it's at full blast when you do.

DanielX
2008-10-21, 07:45 PM
I'm not even a D&D player (what am I doing here then? :smallconfused:), but....

You need a bunch of peasants, shovels, rope, a lot of dirt moving, perhaps some bridge-building equipment, a nearby large body of water, and some sort of explosives (dynamite or its magical equivalent). Have the peasants dig a very deep chasm, deep enough that even the Tarrasque can get stuck inside for a period of time. This chasm is right next to the body of water, with only a little bit of dirt separating them. Plant the dirt with the explosives. Have some peasants construct a rope bridge or other means of crossing that the Tarrasque can't fit on. Make the trench shaped like the letter F, with the two prongs large enough to get the Tarrasque in between but not so large that it can turn itself around. Ideally, turn it into a P, except make sure there is a bridge that can just barely handle a Tarrasque's weight once, able to get the Tarrasque into the center.

Have a couple of peasants that can run very fast get near the Tarrasque and start insulting it. Tarrasque goes after peasants. Peasants run quickly onto the F/P, attracting the Tarrasque to follow. Peasants then quickly get onto the rope bridge or rope crossing (clinging to it, as a Tarrasque may sever the bridge). Tarrasque is trapped - it cannot turn around or move forward without falling into the chasm, in which case you dynamite the earthen dam and let the Tarrasque drown. If it stays there, attack it from a distance with whatever means you have, either to slay it or to drive it into the chasm.

streakster
2008-10-21, 07:45 PM
Chuck a decanter into it's mouth? make sure it's at full blast when you do.

Oh great, now the Tarrasque has a water breath attack.

Thank you so much.

Ganurath
2008-10-21, 07:45 PM
Two words: Peasant railgun.

Get 2280 peasants. 0 GP.

Borrow one of their Quarterstaves. 0 GP.

Have the two miles worth of peasants throw the quarterstaff down the line, accelerating it to 1200 mph.

Repeat 2279 times.

So even if the force of the quarterstaff only equals 26 HP, the Tarrasque is down at somewhere around -1500 HP.

Cast wish. 0 GP.Your technique depends upon the use of physics. Will the quarterstaff remain stable along the intended flight path? How fast will it get before tearing commoners apart and misfiring? What's your backstop? How long must the Tarrasque stop the OP-stated progress toward the kingdom so you can coordinate 2,000+ peasants in a straight line?

AgentPaper
2008-10-21, 07:48 PM
Your technique depends upon the use of physics. Will the quarterstaff remain stable along the intended flight path? How fast will it get before tearing commoners apart and misfiring? What's your backstop? How long must the Tarrasque stop the OP-stated progress toward the kingdom so you can coordinate 2,000+ peasants in a straight line?

Uh, not nearly as long as it would take to summon and level up a bunch of wizards?

Voshkod
2008-10-21, 07:49 PM
I find a role-playing solution. This is an RPG, right?

Ganurath
2008-10-21, 07:51 PM
Uh, not nearly as long as it would take to summon and level up a bunch of wizards?The owlbearers are receiving their training on the field?

Voshkod: Tarrasque is mindless, no reasoning.

Voshkod
2008-10-21, 07:54 PM
The owlbearers are receiving their training on the field?

Voshkod: Tarrasque is mindless, no reasoning.

Yeah, I know. No bard solutions, alas. How about poisoning tons of peasants and leaving them in the path of the beastie?

streakster
2008-10-21, 07:56 PM
Yeah, I know. No bard solutions, alas. How about poisoning tons of peasants and leaving them in the path of the beastie?

It can't be poisoned.

Voshkod
2008-10-21, 07:58 PM
It can't be poisoned.

Damn. I'll just poison the peasants for fun and call it a day, then.

Flickerdart
2008-10-21, 08:04 PM
Yeah, I know. No bard solutions, alas. How about poisoning tons of peasants and leaving them in the path of the beastie?
Bard solutions, you say? What about Fascinate? Will is its lowest save, we can have two or more high-level Bards take shifts Fascinating it while we set up the Commoner Cannon or train the owl wizards. They also get free Suggestions against him.

Mewtarthio
2008-10-21, 08:10 PM
Two words: Peasant railgun.

Get 2280 peasants. 0 GP.

Borrow one of their Quarterstaves. 0 GP.

Have the two miles worth of peasants throw the quarterstaff down the line, accelerating it to 1200 mph.

Repeat 2279 times.

So even if the force of the quarterstaff only equals 26 HP, the Tarrasque is down at somewhere around -1500 HP.

Cast wish. 0 GP.

Bear in mind, peasants cost 1 gp apeice. Besides, if you're going to abuse RAW like that, then we can abuse RAW right back at you: RAW has no rules regarding momentum save for explicitly defined actions. in which momentum only exists as part of that particular rule. There is no general law governing momentum; therefore, we can assume that it has no effect on the quarterstaff. Your commoners accelerate the quarterstaff to 1200 mph, then it instantly decelerates to 0 mph when the last peasant takes hold of it.

JaxGaret
2008-10-21, 08:10 PM
I don't want to kill you! Just... destroy you a little. Geez, talk about overreacting!

I had a good laugh at that. Thanks. :smallsmile:

Flickerdart
2008-10-21, 08:14 PM
Bear in mind, peasants cost 1 gp apeice. Besides, if you're going to abuse RAW like that, then we can abuse RAW right back at you: RAW has no rules regarding momentum save for explicitly defined actions. in which momentum only exists as part of that particular rule. There is no general law governing momentum; therefore, we can assume that it has no effect on the quarterstaff. Your commoners accelerate the quarterstaff to 1200 mph, then it instantly decelerates to 0 mph when the last peasant takes hold of it.
The backlash of kinetic energy transferred to heat required to stop that staff blows up the peasants and the Tarrasque with them. Energy can't be destroyed.

AgentPaper
2008-10-21, 08:15 PM
The backlash of kinetic energy transferred to heat required to stop that staff blows up the peasants and the Tarrasque with them. Energy can't be destroyed.

In DnD it can. :smalltongue:

At least by RAW

Actually, by RAW, that quarterstaff is traveling at a leisurely pace of 1 mph the entire way down. It just happens to take 6 seconds to move whatever that distance was.

Douglas
2008-10-21, 08:22 PM
The backlash of kinetic energy transferred to heat required to stop that staff blows up the peasants and the Tarrasque with them. Energy can't be destroyed.
In the real world, maybe. This is D&D land we're talking about, though.

If you're going to apply real world physics to this, be consistent. If you go by real world physics for the whole thing, the initial acceleration doesn't work. If you go by D&D rules for the whole thing, D&D rules make no provision whatsoever for any of the peasants before the very last one having any effect besides moving the quarterstaff from one end to the other. Both before and after the move, it is stationary, and when the final peasant throws it he does no more damage and has no more range increment than he would for simply throwing a quarterstaff that he had all along. Either way, your railgun is no such thing.

quick_comment
2008-10-21, 08:35 PM
Ill say it again:

The tarrasque has no climb speed, and cannot breathe water.


Round 1: Wizard casts polymorph any object via scroll on the ground beneath the Tarrasque. Ground---->Water (or lava).

Tarrasque sinks, and drowns (or takes 20d6 damage every turn)

Ganurath
2008-10-21, 08:40 PM
Ill say it again:

The tarrasque has no climb speed, and cannot breathe water.


Round 1: Wizard casts polymorph any object via scroll on the ground beneath the Tarrasque. Ground---->Water (or lava).

Tarrasque sinks, and drowns (or takes 20d6 damage every turn)Climb can be used untrained, Mr. T has high Strength, and can hold it's breath long enough to Climb out. Oh, and swimming. Swim skill is untrained too, right?

Flickerdart
2008-10-21, 08:44 PM
I still don't see why we can't just Fascinate + Suggestion it to turn around and do something else. Like take another thousand-year nap. You only need Bard 6 to use Suggestion with Fascinate, and a Bard 15 can easily rack up the DC40 necessary for Big T. to fail save except for a nat. 20. Suggestion can be used every round after that, which means it's likely to succeed. The bard can Speak with Animals or whatever from a scroll to talk to it. Optimal? No. But it works. Someone count how much Bard 15 (Or even 10 with enough optimization) and Scroll of Speak with Animals costs.

Hm. At 10, that's 13 skill points, plus +5 CHA at least, plus +3 Skill Focus. That's 21, 19 more to go. Item Familiar can easily let us hit that, but that counts as cheese, I assume. Taking 10 would be the average (is there a multicalss or feat that lets us take 10 on Bardsong in a stressful situation? That essentially adds a certain 10, +9 left.) A Masterwork instrument is another point. How do you add +8 to a check? Adding some Bard levels would make this a lot easier, but I want to take care of it with 10. Raising level and pumping CHA would also make the Suggestion succeed...Eagle's Splendour adds +2 to both checks. +6 left, so close! We already have a more than average chance of Fascinating it (we can send another guy if one dies, I guess), and 10 rounds of it means 10 Suggestion attempts, a good chance to make that work.

streakster
2008-10-21, 08:56 PM
Climb can be used untrained, Mr. T has high Strength, and can hold it's breath long enough to Climb out. Oh, and swimming. Swim skill is untrained too, right?

That's why you make your holes 4 miles deep...

JeminiZero
2008-10-21, 09:03 PM
Example solution 1

For this initial attempt, I will send an army of level 1 commoners with elemental arrows at the Tarrasque.

A single arrow of shock will do on average 3.5 damage to the Tarrasque. As such, if we want to deal 858 damage to it all at once, that will require:

858/3.5 = 246 successful hits

Only 5% of our commoners will actually hit the Tarrasque with their arrow of shock, so we will need:

246*20 = 4920 commoners

All armed with (at least) 1 shortbow and 1 arrow of shock.

50 arrows of shock cost 8302 gp and 5 sp. Which means each arrow costs approximately 166 gp. Each commoner will also need a 30 gp bow, which makes the cost per commoner 196 gp. This results in a total cost of:

(196.041 gp)*(4920) = 964521.72 gp

All the commoners fire their arrows in the surprise round, dealing 861 damage, at which point wish is cast and the Tarrasque is defeated!

Total cost: 964521.72

P.S. This is actually a terribly expensive strategy and is only for demonstrative purposes.


Rather than buy so many arrows of shock, just buy normal arrows, and get an item of Command Word Flame Arrow (cost 3 SL * 5 CL * 1800) = 27000. Once cast, it gives 50 arrows 1d6 fire damage lasting 50 mins. In one minute it can enchant 500 arrows, and in 10 mins, all 5000 needed.

Normal arrows cost 1 gp for 20, so individually its 0.05 gp each. So each commoner (1 gp) + short bow (30 gp) + 1 arrow (0.05 gp) gives 31.05 gp per commoner.

Total cost: (31.05 * 4920) + 27000 = 179766

Still quite expensive. Most of the cost is now incurred by the shortbows. We can instead use a cheaper weapon. Slings are apparently free, and can use normal stone picked up off the ground as ammo (also free). That incurs an attack penalty, but against the tarrasque that doesnt matter. The cost then drops to 1 gp per commoner with free sling and stone ammo.

Total cost: (1 * 4920) + 27000 = 31920 gp

Still quite expensive but definitely doable.

For good measure, you can spend 20 mins spamming flame arrow. Then each commoner will have 2 burning stones to launch, in case the tarrasque survives the first volley, at no additional cost.

Edit: whoops, Tarrsque are immune to flame arrow. You have to use an item of command word energy substituted flame arrow, which fortunately has the same SL and CL.

quick_comment
2008-10-21, 09:17 PM
So the tarrasque can climb.

Cast PAO twice. First earth--->lava. Then top layer of lava--->steel.


Or actually, the spell has no restrictions on what creatures it can creates. It can turn a pebble into a human. It can just as easily turn a pebble into some sort of horrible templated mind flayer, which then proceeds to grapple and brain-extract the tarrasque.

If ELH is allowed, I PAO the pebble into a psudonatural paragaon Shadow of the Void. It can actually kill the tarrasque without the wish. (PERMANENT constitution drain, followed by the tarrasque rising as a winterweight until the control of the Shadow. Then everyone else dies.)

The Deej
2008-10-21, 09:29 PM
I need about 2 dozen commoners and an Azurin rogue 1/cleric 1/marshal 1. The azurin has magical aptitude, skill focus (UMD), and shape soulmeld (Mage's Spectacles), 6 ranks in UMD, 5 ranks in Spellcraft, and 5 ranks in Decipher script. His total UMD modifier is 23 (27 with scrolls). On an average roll of 10, he can use any wand or scroll.

He uses a wand of Assay Spell Resistance with only one charge left and a scroll of Polymorph any Object.

Surprise round: commoners swarm tarrasque and prevent it from going anywhere the next round. Azurin uses wand.

Next round: Doesn't matter who goes first, the tarrasque gets permanently turned into a common lizard. Easy to kill from then on. Free wish just makes it effortless.

Costs:
3rd level PC - 6000XP
Wand - 420gp
Scroll - 3000gp
commoners - 0gp
Total: 9420gp

ShneekeyTheLost
2008-10-21, 09:34 PM
I need about 2 dozen commoners and an Azurin rogue 1/cleric 1/marshal 1. The azurin has magical aptitude, skill focus (UMD), and shape soulmeld (Mage's Spectacles), 6 ranks in UMD, 5 ranks in Spellcraft, and 5 ranks in Decipher script. His total UMD modifier is 23 (27 with scrolls). On an average roll of 10, he can use any wand or scroll.

He uses a wand of Assay Spell Resistance with only one charge left and a scroll of Polymorph any Object.

Surprise round: commoners swarm tarrasque and prevent it from going anywhere the next round. Azurin uses wand.

Next round: Doesn't matter who goes first, the tarrasque gets permanently turned into a common lizard. Easy to kill from then on. Free wish just makes it effortless.

Costs:
3rd level PC - 6000XP
Wand - 420gp
Scroll - 3000gp
commoners - 0gp
Total: 9420gp

Big T is immune to polymorph effects.

Big T, by being Mindless, is also immune to Bard Diplomancer cheeze (facinate + suggestion). It also speaks no languages, and suggestion is a language-dependent effect.

Flickerdart
2008-10-21, 09:37 PM
Big T is immune to polymorph effects.

Big T, by being Mindless, is also immune to Bard Diplomancer cheeze (facinate + suggestion). It also speaks no languages, and suggestion is a language-dependent effect.
That's why Speak with Animals. Where does it say it's Mindless? I can't find it: the Tarrasque is a Magical Beast with an INT of 3, that's not Mindless.

The Deej
2008-10-21, 09:37 PM
Check again. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/tarrasque.htm)

Polymorph is not listed among his immunities. And he has int 3, so he isn't mindless.

Recaiden
2008-10-21, 09:44 PM
Sorry, core only. No assay resistance, no azurin, no marshall.
Make it 50 or so wands of polymorph.

Fax Celestis
2008-10-21, 09:46 PM
I bid Pauper of Smack. Forget the Dex damage: in this instance we're going for stunning. If he can't move, I can kill him

Flickerdart
2008-10-21, 09:49 PM
I bid Pauper of Smack. Forget the Dex damage: in this instance we're going for stunning. If he can't move, I can kill him
That's level 20, way too high to be optimal for this challenge.

The Deej
2008-10-21, 10:25 PM
Sorry, core only. No assay resistance, no azurin, no marshall.
Make it 50 or so wands of polymorph.

Well, shoot. I must've overlooked the core only part.

So let's make it:

Human Expert 6
UMD:
+9 ranks
+3 charisma
+2 magical aptitude
+3 skill focus (UMD)
+2 Masterwork tool
+2 5 ranks in Spellcraft
+2 5 ranks in Decipher script
Total UMD modifier: 23 (27 with scrolls).
On an average roll of 10, he can use any wand or scroll.

Surprise round: Scroll of Gate, opens beneath the tarrasque, tarrasque gets sent to either negative or positive energy plane. End of problem.

Costs:
6th level Expert - 21200XP
Scroll - 8825gp
Total: 30025gp - I bet with more work, I can get this lower.

Breaw
2008-10-21, 10:25 PM
1) Tarrasque is immune to fire damage. Flaming arrows are out.

2) Tarrasque is being played optimally. So unless you drop so many objects that he can't possibly get out of the way, he is going to step out of the way. Counting on the Tarrasque to jump into a giant hole, or stand there while you drop an acorn on him from outer space is a sure sign that the Tarrasque is not being played optimally.

3) We are running this by RAW. Which means that after the 2 billion commoners have passed a quarter staff to their neighbor... there is now 1 commoner standing beside the Tarrasque with a quarterstaff (feeling rather silly)

4) Gate creates a portal that is at most 20 feet in diameter. The Tarrasque is about 70 feet long. This would be like opening a teacup sized portal beneath a housecat. No dice.

For the record, I've yet to see a strategy that actually works here. The ones with the Allips come closest, but they all depend on finding an allip.

I've given you limitless mobility with positioning your forces and given you the surprise round. Don't take more than that.

-B

streakster
2008-10-21, 10:28 PM
2) Tarrasque is being played optimally. So unless you drop so many objects that he can't possibly get out of the way, he is going to step out of the way. Counting on the Tarrasque to jump into a giant hole, or stand there while you drop an acorn on him from outer space is a sure sign that the Tarrasque is not being played optimally.



I have bait that's been instructed to annoy the Tarrasque! There were tactics involved!

dspeyer
2008-10-21, 10:39 PM
Could you kill a tarrasque by going ethereal, finding its lungs, and overturning a a flask of everflowing water there? They should be big enough for a medium creature to stand in.

Now, what's the lowest-level way to get ethereal for a significant amount of time and change back? Surely not wiz/clrc 13 etherealness.

Cuddly
2008-10-21, 10:52 PM
Is psionics allowed? A level 13 telepath (maybe lower!) can dominate him forever.


So yea, I buy a Lawful Evil Candle of Invocation (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#candleofInvocation) for 8400gp...

Play a commoner one, and get two free wishes from Pazuzu. If you want to do your cheese right.

Helgraf
2008-10-21, 11:09 PM
In killing the Tarrasaque yes, However it can still deal lots of nonlethal damage to Big T, until he is unconcious and therefore can be Wished away.

Umm, unconscious != reduced to 0 or less hit points. Trick fails.

chiasaur11
2008-10-21, 11:11 PM
Is psionics allowed? A level 13 telepath (maybe lower!) can dominate him forever.



Play a commoner one, and get two free wishes from Pazuzu. If you want to do your cheese right.

Paladin one.

Then you get guaranteed audience.

We know where to go from there...

Rei_Jin
2008-10-21, 11:14 PM
Umm, unconscious != reduced to 0 or less hit points. Trick fails.


Okay, in order to kill the Tarrasque, you must get it to -10hp by dealing non-lethal damage to it (As it has Regen 40/-) and then wish it dead. It specifically says this under the Tarrasque entry in the Monster Manual and in the SRD.

Using these rules, it is reasonable to assume that a successful Coup de Grace attack would knock it to -10hp, in the same way that a death attack would. Once this is done, you can wish it dead.

Cuddly
2008-10-21, 11:15 PM
Paladin one.

Then you get guaranteed audience.

We know where to go from there...

Actually, if commoners are only 1 gp each... that's a lot of wishes.

Knaight
2008-10-21, 11:16 PM
I'm not going to run the numbers for this, because its late here, but here is the concept, in a step by step format.
Step 1. Procure one of those spoons that always makes food, or bowl of endless gruel, or whatever it is.
Step 2. Put it in the hands of a peasant.
Step 3. Have the peasant get eaten.
Step 4. The tarrasque is no longer hungry, complements of infinite food, and goes into sleep stage. Since it is now forever asleep, you could consider it won right now, and the thing over.
Step 5a. Scroll the tarrasque to make it impossible to wake up.
Step 5b. Get a wizard able to cast stone to mud, and mud to stone(or whatever they are called).
Step 6. The tarrasque is asleep forever anyways(this was won the instant the bowl/spoon was ingested, but we have to kill it), so create a mud pit, and sink it in it, leaving the snout above ground for breathing purposes. Turn the mud back to stone around the sleeping tarrasque.
Step 7. The tarrasuque is now immobile, and helpless. Get a scythe, coup de gras over and over and over. On its face(although the mouth is embedded in stone, so eyes probably).
Step 8. King uses scroll to make it stay dead.

Basically the critical part is getting the tarrasque fed infinitely.

quick_comment
2008-10-21, 11:18 PM
For the record, I've yet to see a strategy that actually works here. The ones with the Allips come closest, but they all depend on finding an allip.


You can polymorph a rock into an allip.

Breaw
2008-10-21, 11:44 PM
Well, I'm giving up on this thread. I'm not sure why I tried. Almost all responses fell into one of three categories:

1) Known cheese little better than summoning Pun-Pun.

2) Solutions that showed the author did not understand
(A) Damage reduction
(B) Regeneration
(C) Basic game mechanics or
(D) All of the above

3) Pre-existing Tarrasque kill strategies, some even from previous versions, none of which involve cost analysis.

As such, I am allowing this thread to slowly die and be forgotten. I probably should have expected this.

For the record:3 level 9 Wizards can kill the Tarrasque with meta-magicked Acid Arrow with plenty of damage to spare. I believe 2 level 9 Wizards and 1 level 6 Sorcerer can also do the trick; this solution is cheaper than either of the ones I listed, and actually accomplishes the task while following RAW (which is more than can be said about any other solution I've read here).

Worira
2008-10-21, 11:50 PM
Really? Care to mention how?

Rei_Jin
2008-10-21, 11:53 PM
Well, I'm giving up on this thread. I'm not sure why I tried. Almost all responses fell into one of three categories:

1) Known cheese little better than summoning Pun-Pun.

2) Solutions that showed the author did not understand
(A) Damage reduction
(B) Regeneration
(C) Basic game mechanics or
(D) All of the above

3) Pre-existing Tarrasque kill strategies, some even from previous versions, none of which involve cost analysis.

As such, I am allowing this thread to slowly die and be forgotten. I probably should have expected this.

For the record:3 level 9 Wizards can kill the Tarrasque with meta-magicked Acid Arrow with plenty of damage to spare. I believe 2 level 9 Wizards and 1 level 6 Sorcerer can also do the trick; this solution is cheaper than either of the ones I listed, and actually accomplishes the task while following RAW (which is more than can be said about any other solution I've read here).

You know, considering the way that you dealt with those who tried to give reasonable answers, I'm not surprised that you'd poo poo everyones efforts and say that you were the only one who knew what you were doing.

Using RAW, I cannot see why my technique would not work. I understand how regeneration works, and I also understand how the Tarrasque works in terms of its Damage Reduction, Regeneration, and senses. It is perfectly reasonable to use a death attack to knock it down to -10hp and then use Wish to kill it permanently.

Ozymandias
2008-10-21, 11:54 PM
Well, I'm giving up on this thread. I'm not sure why I tried. Almost all responses fell into one of three categories:

1) Known cheese little better than summoning Pun-Pun.

2) Solutions that showed the author did not understand
(A) Damage reduction
(B) Regeneration
(C) Basic game mechanics or
(D) All of the above

3) Pre-existing Tarrasque kill strategies, some even from previous versions, none of which involve cost analysis.

As such, I am allowing this thread to slowly die and be forgotten. I probably should have expected this.

For the record:3 level 9 Wizards can kill the Tarrasque with meta-magicked Acid Arrow with plenty of damage to spare. I believe 2 level 9 Wizards and 1 level 6 Sorcerer can also do the trick; this solution is cheaper than either of the ones I listed, and actually accomplishes the task while following RAW (which is more than can be said about any other solution I've read here).

Well, don't get in a huff just because people preferred creative puzzle-like strategies to "most efficient use of acid arrows."

Worira
2008-10-22, 12:07 AM
Seriously though, I'm curious how 3 level nine wizards are taking out the tarrasque with acid arrow. The math seems like it'll be... interesting. I'm also curious how this works better than the pixie archer and orc barbarian, which uses far fewer character levels.

chiasaur11
2008-10-22, 12:17 AM
Well, I'm giving up on this thread. I'm not sure why I tried. Almost all responses fell into one of three categories:

1) Known cheese little better than summoning Pun-Pun.


I object to this remark very strongly.

My method was summoning Pun-Pun!

And before you edited it, there was nothing on the use of cheese.

Cheese tends to be both best and cheapest.

Kris Strife
2008-10-22, 12:24 AM
I'd use the pig-commoner rail gun: 10000 1st level commoners and a 230lb pig (assuming each commoner has a strength score of 16)

cost: 10k gp, plus current market value of one pig.

The Glyphstone
2008-10-22, 12:25 AM
Seriously though, I'm curious how 3 level nine wizards are taking out the tarrasque with acid arrow. The math seems like it'll be... interesting. I'm also curious how this works better than the pixie archer and orc barbarian, which uses far fewer character levels.

Because it was his idea, and thus superior.

never mind the fact that this Exact Same Thread pops up every 2 months or so, with the Exact Same Solutions supplied - though this one had more amusingly creative answers than usual.

BobVosh
2008-10-22, 01:00 AM
In DnD it can. :smalltongue:

At least by RAW

Actually, by RAW, that quarterstaff is traveling at a leisurely pace of 1 mph the entire way down. It just happens to take 6 seconds to move whatever that distance was.

I really want to know where that 1 mph thing is, as it humors me greatly.


I'd use the pig-commoner rail gun: 10000 1st level commoners and a 230lb pig (assuming each commoner has a strength score of 16)

cost: 10k gp, plus current market value of one pig.

I'm so tired of this railgun. It only does damage as if a str 10 commoner threw a 100lb pig at Mr. T. So more than likely, none. Both from DR and AoOs for getting close.

The pixe + orc is one of the coolest solutions I've heard here yet.

Although the four mile hole could work. Get a wizard of whatever level is high enough to cast stone to mud to dig the 4 mile hole. (I am at work so I can't look it up...I believe it is a fifth level spell. So I will just use that for cost. So he is level 11. So 50,000) Make the bottom of the chasm significantly closer to the town than top (overhanging cliff).

Now, he makes this 4 mile deep 4 mile wide chasm a moat around the town at 6 miles from the walls. Pile all the dirt/mud/etc to later turn into giant rocks. When Mr. T comes acoming cast stone to mud on the cliff. Rocks fall he dies. Cast wish. Note this also allows for extra spells from Mr. level 11 wizard. Who is now like level 17.

Even if this doesn't work Mr. T only has +17 to climb. He can't get up. Not at that angle. Espically with a flying wizard going around casting stone to mud under his feet. And summoning Celestrial monkies to curse Mr. T like crabs from a pros...nevermind.

Breaw
2008-10-22, 01:35 AM
It's not a matter of my ideas being superior, it's just a matter of people constantly (And I mean constantly) cheating. I actually really like the Allip idea... However:

1) Where do you find an Allip? How do you create one?

2) How do you tell it what to do? Can it actually chase down the Tarrasque and kill it in the amount of time you have control over it?

Spells cast from scrolls that are on your spell list are NOT guaranteed success. From here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/scrolls.htm) you can find that there is a caster level check if your caster level is below that of scroll. So, in an attempt to explain why I was a bit frustrated with the approaches being taken, let me look at cost analysis for the allip strategy:

1) Killing a peasant. (call it 1 gp)

2) 2nd level Wizard casts animate dead from scroll (CL 9). 2 scrolls at 1050 gp each guarantees (statistically) that he will make the DC 10 caster level check.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/animateDead.htm

3) 2nd level Wizard casts polymorph any object and turns the zombie into an Allip. 3 scrolls (CL 15) at 3000 gp a piece guarantees (statistically) that he will make the DC 16 caster level check. The Zombie has been turned into an Allip for a week

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/polymorphAnyObject.htm
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/allip.htm

4) 1 level 1 wizard and our level 2 Wizard casts Command Undead (CR3) from scrolls (150 gp a piece) to ensure that the caster roll of 3 is made, and that the allip fails his will save. Suggest to the Allip that he pursue and attack the Tarrasque until it has no Wisdom left at all. He will do this for 3 days (As it isn't an unreasonable request and puts the Allip in no danger)

5) If you compare maximum run speed of Tarrasque and Allip (including maximum used of 'Rush', as well as full run on both creatures, as well as forced rest (after an average of 47 rounds) for the Tarrasque), the Allip will hit the Tarrasque at least once every 6 minutes or so. Each attack deals 1d4 wisdom drain (Tarrasque is immune to stat damage, not drain). The Tarrasque will be incapacitated long before the 3 days of controlling the Allip ends.

6) The Tarrasque has now been vanquished.

Total cost?

Peasant 1 gp
Level 1 Wizard 1000 XP
Level 2 Wizard 2000 XP
Scrolls 2100 gp + 9000 gp + 300 gp = 11400 gp

Total = 14401 gp/XP

Now I'm not saying that what I wrote was perfect... but it followed raw, had the Tarrasque act optimally (run away from a fight it can't win) and actually addressed things like spell failure, and how one goes about producing/controlling an Allip.

And I'm sorry if my initial post wasn't strict enough at first, but somehow I didn't expect a thread full of "Pun-Pun could kill him" and "Why don't you just wish for more wishes?"

Edit: On the topic of the pixie/orc strategy, I agree. I like it probably best of all that I've read. However, here's how I see it happening by RAW.

1) Pixie eventually knocks the Tarrasque out.

2) Orc runs up and hits it for 76 subdual damage

3) This wakes the Tarrasque up, and he eats the orc.

If you read here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#regeneration) you'll find that you can't do a coup de gras with a type of damage that automatically gets converted to subdual damage. So no coup de gras is actually performed unless the weapons is doing lethal damage to the Tarrasque.

If I'm missing something on this one I appologize, but I just don't think RAW says it will kill big T

JeminiZero
2008-10-22, 01:43 AM
1) Tarrasque is immune to fire damage. Flaming arrows are out.


After doing a bit more research, I figured out a way to make it feasible. as per RAW:



With the right item creation feat, you can store a metamagic version of a spell in a scroll, potion, or wand. Level limits for potions and wands apply to the spell’s higher spell level (after the application of the metamagic feat). A character doesn’t need the metamagic feat to activate an item storing a metamagic version of a spell.


So during enchantment, you can apply energy substitution (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Energy_Substitution) to the flame arrow and put that in a wand, without changing the spell level (and hence the crafting cost).

So the steps are now as follows:

1) Take a level 5 Wizard, with 900 xp buffer, Sonic Energy substitution metamagic, and craft wand (taken as level 5 wizard bonus feat).
2) Take 5000 commoners with slings, and stones picked up from the roadside. Slings and rocks are free, but under the modified rules you pay 1 gp per commoner.
3) We need to enchant 5000 stones. Each casting of Sonic Arrow can enchant 50 stones. We need 100 castings. Each wands can cast 50x, so we need 2 wands.
4) Have the Wizard crank out Sonic energy substituted Flame Arrow wands. Because he makes the wands himself, he pays XP cost, which is more economical than gold cost. A 11250 gp wands, now costs 5625 gp & 450 xp per wand. So for 2 wands, we burn his 900 xp buffer.
5) When T-day comes, have the wizard spam Wands of Sonic arrow on the stones.
6) Each commoner then takes 1 stones, and on the signal, they fire it at the tarrasque, who drops dead (well, drops unconscious).
7) Cast Wish

final cost:

Level 5 wizard with 900 xp buffer = 11900 xp/gp
Crafting cost for wands: 5625 gp x 2 = 11250 gp
5000 commoners = 5000 gp

Total cost: 11900 + 11250 + 5000 = 28150 gp

Edit: Wow, what are the odds I'd take the 1st post on 2 consecutive pages.

Breaw
2008-10-22, 01:52 AM
After doing a bit more research, I figured out a way to make it feasible. as per RAW:



So during enchantment, you can apply energy substitution (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Energy_Substitution) to the flame arrow and put that in a wand, without changing the spell level (and hence the crafting cost).

I'm going to start by thanking you for actually doing a cost analysis that didn't involve infinite loops.

Secondly I'm going to say that your solution is just a hair outside of the bounds of the initially presented problem, as Energy Substitution is not found in PHB, MM or DMG. That said, it's sort of arbitrary that the Tarrasque is immune to fire but not most other forms of element damage.

*hats off*

JeminiZero
2008-10-22, 01:56 AM
Secondly I'm going to say that your solution is just a hair outside of the bounds of the initially presented problem, as Energy Substitution is not found in PHB, MM or DMG.


Its not? It's listed under the SRD (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Metamagic_Feats), so I assumed that it was.

Breaw
2008-10-22, 01:59 AM
I'm afraid not. It's listed under the 'Divine' section. If I'm not mistaken that means that you need at least Divine rank 0 (demi-god) to have access to the listed spells and abilities.

MeklorIlavator
2008-10-22, 02:44 AM
Well, its also in the Complete Arcane, but that's obviously out of the question for this challenge.

Sstoopidtallkid
2008-10-22, 02:45 AM
Could you kill a tarrasque by going ethereal, finding its lungs, and overturning a a flask of everflowing water there? They should be big enough for a medium creature to stand in.

Now, what's the lowest-level way to get ethereal for a significant amount of time and change back? Surely not wiz/clrc 13 etherealness.Easiest way of going Ethreal? Spellscale(or other race with +2 Cha) Warlock 4. 20 Cha, 7 skill ranks in UMD, Skill Focus UMD. Total +15 to UMD. You make the DC 25 automatically. Use the Heartstone of a Night hag (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/nightHag.htm)(3,600 GP). Ethrealness at-will, as well as a few minor benefits. As a core-only alternative to the Warlock, an Expert can go with that, the Magical Aptitude Feat, and an Item of +7 to UMD to do it on a 1 at the same level.Now, for killing the Tarrasque. Massive HP, massive Saves, massive SR, immunity to ranged touch attacks. There is only one solution. Well, there's two. Maybe 3. Okay, there's a bunch. I'll list the fun ones. http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m126/stoopidtallkid/Internet/01-1.jpg
Anti-Osmium. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=2010735&highlight=anti-osmium#post2010735) Cheap, but it works. And only requires a level one Wizard/Sorcerer/Adept and a scroll of Major Creation at CL 9. And wasn't the point of this thread to be cheap and inventive?Warlock 12. With an item of Greater Invisibility(continuous)[or Pixie, which is unfortunately +4 LA], Fell Flight, Vitriolic Blast, and Eldritch Glaive. Not quite core-only, but I'm killing the Tarrasque, solo, through HP damage, without a pit. It deals 6d6 per hit, each hit adding 4d6 acid over the following rounds, missing only on a 1. Average of 70 damage. Alternatively, if there's a way of overcoming SR sooner(I know there's a feat that makes an SLA Su, I just can't find it), 7th level with a Greater Chasuble deals the required damage with EG, as long as you have a method of Greater Invisibility.4 Raging Orc Fighter 4/Barb 1/Warblade 1's, with Flying mounts. Damage of [6(PA)x2(LA)+1d8(Lance)+7(str)+1d6(Punishing Stance)+10(Battle Leader's Charge)+(1d6+3)(Burning Blade)]x3 or , per hit. 2 hits. Diving charge, no AoOs. Requires a Scroll of Chained Brilliant Energy(3,825), a 1st level Middle-Aged Gray Elf Wizard, and 4 Lances. Somewhat risky, if any of you roll a 1 it all fails. But it's still 4 level 6 mostly-Fighters and a first level Wizard doing it. There's probably ways to reduce that with more Warblade levels, but this is quick and dirty. Again, not core, but I really hate core-only, and I'm killing it with FIGHTERS.20 level-1 Wizards. 20 Scrolls of Baleful Polymorph. Make it fail a save. Turn it into a Toad(which has no attacks). The Tarrasque's statblock becomes:Size/Type: Diminutive Magical Beast
Hit Dice: 48d10+58
Initiative: +5
Speed: 5 ft. (1 square)
Armor Class: 15 (+4 size, +1 Dex), touch 15, flat-footed 14
Base Attack/Grapple: +0/-17
Attack: -
Full Attack: -
Space/Reach: 1 ft./0 ft.
Special Attacks: -
Special Qualities: -
Saves: Fort +2, Ref +3, Will +5
Abilities: Str 1, Dex 12, Con 11, Int 1, Wis 14, Cha 4
Skills:
Feats: Alertness, Awesome Blow, Blind-Fight, Cleave, Combat Reflexes, Dodge, Great Cleave, Improved Bull Rush, Improved Initiative, Iron Will, Power Attack, Toughness (6)Then step on it. A lot. It even lost Regen, so killing it is easy.Okay, 4 methods, 1 of them SRD-only, one of them core only, and 2 with very little splatbook reliance. My work here is done.

Talic
2008-10-22, 03:00 AM
So, let me get this straight.

You want unique, discrete, statted out answers, with cost-analysis, feasibility at the lowest possible level? Core Only? And we get only criticism for not meeting your expectations?

And you in return have... asked a question that may have well been cut and pasted from a half dozen other forums or threads?

You ask a rehash question, and expect a non-rehash answer, and don't realize how much this question has been munchkinned. There's not that many ways left. Adding "in core" pretty much removes them all.

So I'll pass, thanks.

golentan
2008-10-22, 03:25 AM
My argument is that if you can import 1exp worth of monsters for 1 gold at any and all levels, simply declare you are importing a challenge for a hypothetical epic chaotic evil character. This hypothetical character has a ECL of 30, so a level appropriate single monster has a CR of 30, costs 9000 gold to import (I assume, I'm extrapolating from table 2-6 DMG since I don't have the ELH myself and the SRD doesn't mention experience), and is presumably lawful good. Explain your plight. Sit back and watch as CR 30 epic monster pwns tarrasque, a creature so much weaker that it no longer receives experience for the victory. Cast wish. ????. Profit.

I'm sorry this thread appears to be dying, though.

Bayar
2008-10-22, 03:49 AM
Cant you just get a couple of peasants riding flying carpets and having bags of holding/handy haversacks full of alchemists fire/acid flasks/other more obscure alchemical stuff and dumping them over the Bit T ?

I mean, carpet bombing makes sense...

Ricky S
2008-10-22, 04:23 AM
HI i have a plan which i think might work... You use the commoners to dig a giant pit and then fill the pit with a decanter of endless water (make sure it is on bedrock or something which the tarrasque cant glide through, is there actually anything of the sort?). Once this giant pit is full cast some illusion spell to make it look like land and get commoners on the other side as bait to it. Once it is in the water it drowns cast wish problem solved... I think.

Eldariel
2008-10-22, 04:24 AM
Is psionics allowed? A level 13 telepath (maybe lower!) can dominate him forever.



Play a commoner one, and get two free wishes from Pazuzu. If you want to do your cheese right.

PHB, MM and DMG. There's no Pazuzu in these books (and very limited Psionics). And Candle of Invocation falls within the challenge parameters and is the second-cheapest method after PAO into Allip.

Rei_Jin
2008-10-22, 04:40 AM
If you read here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#regeneration) you'll find that you can't do a coup de gras with a type of damage that automatically gets converted to subdual damage. So no coup de gras is actually performed unless the weapons is doing lethal damage to the Tarrasque.

If I'm missing something on this one I appologize, but I just don't think RAW says it will kill big T

The trick is, that whilst a Coup De Grace won't kill him, it will knock him to -10hp (Subdual). It has been ruled, when the question has come up on the WotC FAQs that if you make a troll helpless in some way (sleep, paralysis, etc) that you can Coup De Grace him to take him to -10 subdual. From there, you only need to deal 1 point of damage with fire or acid, and he dies.

Same thing for the Tarrasque. Coup De Grace it to -10, then Wish it dead.

I understand your statement, that it won't kill him. But I'm not looking to kill him, merely to make him severely unconscious.

Heck, if I can hit him for 76 damage, then if its so much of an issue I can get 12 of them to do the same thing, thus dealing enough damage in one round to kill him.

And that still gets in a lower XP value than the wizards would have on them with their acid arrow method.

Bayar
2008-10-22, 04:43 AM
There is something that everybody is missing...

The Tarrasque cannot die. Whatever damage he takes becomes non-lethal damage. At -10 he just goes back to slumber.

Although the wish thing might work, depending on your DM.

Rei_Jin
2008-10-22, 04:49 AM
The Tarrasque can't...

I'm sorry, did you read the Monster Manual? If not, please go and read it, then let me know what it says this time.

The Tarrasque CAN be killed. I've seen it done many, many times, and I run it as per the RAW in the Monster Manual. Version 3.0 and 3.5 both state that he can be killed by being reduced to a negative amount of hitpoints (-40 for 3.0, and -10 for 3.5) and then, before he is able to regenerate the damage, you must Wish him dead.

Sstoopidtallkid
2008-10-22, 04:52 AM
There is something that everybody is missing...

The Tarrasque cannot die. Whatever damage he takes becomes non-lethal damage. At -10 he just goes back to slumber.

Although the wish thing might work, depending on your DM.Um...
Regeneration (Ex)

No form of attack deals lethal damage to the tarrasque. The tarrasque regenerates even if it fails a saving throw against a disintegrate spell or a death effect. If the tarrasque fails its save against a spell or effect that would kill it instantly (such as those mentioned above), the spell or effect instead deals nonlethal damage equal to the creature’s full normal hit points +10 (or 868 hp). The tarrasque is immune to effects that produce incurable or bleeding wounds, such as mummy rot, a sword with the wounding special ability, or a clay golem’s cursed wound ability.

The tarrasque can be slain only by raising its nonlethal damage total to its full normal hit points +10 (or 868 hit points) and using a wish or miracle spell to keep it dead.

If the tarrasque loses a limb or body part, the lost portion regrows in 1d6 minutes (the detached piece dies and decays normally). The creature can reattach the severed member instantly by holding it to the stump. This challenge assumes the Kingdom has a high-level caster(or a low-level one with a scroll) standing by with a readied action to Miracle.

JeminiZero
2008-10-22, 05:05 AM
Improving on the Mass Sorcerer idea:

1) Buy a partial charged wand of Phantom Steed, CL 14. This gives the summoned steeds 240 ft speed, and flight, more than enough to keep up with Big T, and keep out of his bite range. Each charge wand would cost (3 SL * 14 CL * 750)/50 = 630 gp
2) Buy partial charged wands of acid arrow (30 charges). Each wand would cost (2 SL * 3 CL * 750) * 30/50 = 2700 gp
3) Hire 8x level 1 wizards (or Sorcs), who would be able to cast from the wands of acid arrow and phantom steed.
4) Assuming a Dex of 16, each wizard with a wand of acid arrow can deliver a RTT with a +3 attack roll vs Big T's touch AC of 5. Assuming he misses on a 2, the wizard should be able to hit 9/10 times.
5) Each wands shoots 2d4 damage + 2d4 damage next round, for a total of 4d4 ~10 points of damage. Assuming each wizard hits 9/10 times, thats an average of 9 damage per round
7) 8 wizards shooting Acid Arrow wands would deal an average of 9*8 = 72 damage each round. 40 is regenerated, so net damage per round is 32
8) A Tarrasque has to be brought down by 868 hp to before we can wish it away. At 32 net damage per round, that would require 868 / 32 = 27 rounds. Which the wand 30 charges should cover.

Cost per wizard:
level 1 wizard: 1000 gp
Wand of Acid Arrows (30 charges): 2700 gp
Phantom steed (CL 14) 1 wand charge: 630 gp
=4330

For 8 wizards thats: 4330 * 8 = 34640

So you get each wizard to summon a flying phantom steed. Get him to ride around the Tarrasque bombarding it it with Acid Arrow, until its HP drops below -10, then finish it with Wish.

Following this particular tactic, the above number of wizard has been optimized for cost. Below is a cost comparison for varing number of wizards and wand charges:

9 wizards (~25 charge wands to kill Tarrasque):
level 1 wizard: 1000 gp
1 charge of phantom steed: 630 gp
Wand of Acid Arrows: 2250 gp
=3880 * 9 = 34920

7 wizards (~40 charge wands to kill Tarrasque):
level 1 wizard: 1000 gp
1 charge of phantom steed: 630 gp
Wand of Acid Arrows: 3600 gp
=5230 * 7 = 36610

Knaight
2008-10-22, 07:40 AM
It's not a matter of my ideas being superior, it's just a matter of people constantly (And I mean constantly) cheating.

D&D is a roleplaying game the DM is expected to come up with stuff. Sure my infinite feeding spoon strategy doesn't have rules for it, but the fluff of the Tarrasque pretty much says that it gets up, rampages the countryside, then falls back to sleep when full, so fufilling that last criteria is reasonable, and something I would much prefer my players doing to triple meta magicked acid arrow. The DM is expected to make stuff up for unusual situations, and actual creativity is going to need that.

Ganurath
2008-10-22, 07:47 AM
Here's one for you, folks:

L1 Cleric of Ehlonna (1,000)
Bead of Summoning on a stripped greater strand of prayer beads (20,000)

Cleric goes up, uses the bead to summon an angel, who realizes that this plight is beyond what should be expected of mortals, and then proceeds to spam Holy Word at will until Mr. T drops. If that doesn't work, planeshift the bugger to where it can be a fiend's problem. Perhaps toss it into the middle of the latest battle of the Blood War?

Breaw
2008-10-22, 11:30 AM
So, let me get this straight.

You want unique, discrete, statted out answers, with cost-analysis, feasibility at the lowest possible level? Core Only? And we get only criticism for not meeting your expectations?

And you in return have... asked a question that may have well been cut and pasted from a half dozen other forums or threads?

You ask a rehash question, and expect a non-rehash answer, and don't realize how much this question has been munchkinned. There's not that many ways left. Adding "in core" pretty much removes them all.

So I'll pass, thanks.


1) I never said unique. If it's core and it follows raw then I feel it's a valid response. The only thing I'm interested in is making this an optimization problem without it immediately degenerating into well estasblished cheese that is the solution to ALL problems.

2) I posted this in one and only one forum.

3) I'll admit that I got frustrated after 3 pages of people of telling me they drown the Tarrasque in infinite peasants... perhaps that's what I should have expected. For the most part I've simply tried to point out where the solution (as I see it) doesn't fit raw; and have accepted others criticism when they pointed out similar flaws in my logic.

4) If an optimization problem following raw doesn't interest you then feel free not to contribute. I'll admit that this has very little to do with DnD as it's meant to be played, as killing the unkillable with heavy used of specific game mechanics has almost nothing to do with roleplaying.



Same thing for the Tarrasque. Coup De Grace it to -10, then Wish it dead.

I understand your statement, that it won't kill him. But I'm not looking to kill him, merely to make him severely unconscious.

Heck, if I can hit him for 76 damage, then if its so much of an issue I can get 12 of them to do the same thing, thus dealing enough damage in one round to kill him.

And that still gets in a lower XP value than the wizards would have on them with their acid arrow method.

Perfect. I'm not (entirely) sure that you're allowed the coup de gras damage at all when you aren't technically allowed to be doing a coup de gras... But I would definitely say that RAW is at best ambiguous on that. 12 level 1 guys smucking the sleeping baby is great.

When I point out something isn't RAW I'm not trying to insult your mother, I'm just saying you aren't following the rules...

On the topic of hollowed out terrain: Sure I guess the way the problem is presented then with near infinite time and a bunch of peasants they could just create a dike 4 miles deep all around the kingdom so the Tarrasque can't get there, or heck! Dig 4 miles down on every square in the universe except the one the Tarrasque is standing on, that way he has to fall. In general when I said 'Tarrasque is played optimally' I meant to say that you can't count on him jumping off a cliff for you.

That's not to say it wouldn't work in a game. And I'm not wholly discounting the solutions here, I'd just love it if you actually 'forced' Big T off the cliff. For the record I have no interest acclaiming a 'winner' I was more curious if people had novel approaches to the problem(which some have)

Anyway, I appologize if I've offended some. It was not my intent.

-B

DrizztFan24
2008-10-22, 11:31 AM
I'm curious as to why the whole hollo terrain thing is cheesy...Legit spell, legit use. Many of these plans work just fine...they jsut require large and coordinated efforts...when people are defending thier home I think they might choose to work together instead of all die....

Besides

11) Solution with the lowest cost (sum of XP and gold) wins!


You asked if we could avoid obvious cheese. Many did. You did not state that such plans were illegitimate and thus void from the contest.

hermankyn
2008-10-22, 02:56 PM
This needs alchemical frost to be in the PHB, I think it is, but I’m not 100% sure.

If memory serves alchemical frost has range increments of 10' and costs 20gp. And does 2d6 damage, with 1d6 secondary damage.

If we get a surprise round, and can position our commoners however we want we can surround Mr. T. I think we can get 44 commoners within 1 range increment

They hit 95% of the time (+3 dex +1 PBS ranged touch attack ac 5)
44 * 7 * .95 = 293
5% miss and do 1d6 damage (8) 301 damage - cost 924

Obviously not enough damage. So we need a bunch of commoners 10-20' away. We can get up to 66 commoners 10-20 feet away they take a -2 to hit penalty.

66 * 7 * .85 = 393
15% miss and do 1d6 damage (35) 428 damage - cost 1386

Total damage 728 total cost 2310

Secondary damage will be in the 300’s. Mr. T can reflex save for one of those d6's but that will not help him. To save costs you could not have a full second tier. 50 commoners will do the job. (879 damage after regeneration)
Total new cost 94 *21 = 1974

If they throw simultaneously splash damage will kill some of them, but not more than 12 or so. Mr. T has the option of killing a bunch more on his turn.

To avoid casualties the commoners can start another 5' back from Mr. T
(Remove 20 of the 95% hits),
And add a third tier of 44. The 134 commoners do 861 on the first volley.
They all survive unharmed. The total cost will be 2814 and no one is killed.

Cuddly
2008-10-22, 03:23 PM
2) 2nd level Wizard casts animate dead from scroll (CL 9). 2 scrolls at 1050 gp each guarantees (statistically) that he will make the DC 10 caster level check.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/animateDead.htm

3) 2nd level Wizard casts polymorph any object and turns the zombie into an Allip. 3 scrolls (CL 15) at 3000 gp a piece guarantees (statistically) that he will make the DC 16 caster level check. The Zombie has been turned into an Allip for a week

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/polymorphAnyObject.htm
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/allip.htm

4) 1 level 1 wizard and our level 2 Wizard casts Command Undead (CR3) from scrolls (150 gp a piece) to ensure that the caster roll of 3 is made, and that the allip fails his will save. Suggest to the Allip that he pursue and attack the Tarrasque until it has no Wisdom left at all. He will do this for 3 days (As it isn't an unreasonable request and puts the Allip in no danger)

Several points:
1) As far as I understand, you don't need multiple scrolls if you fail your level check. You just make another level check in the next round. Keep doing this until your spell works, or you roll a natural one (0.05) followed by rolling another one to avoid the mishap (assuming 16 wis) for a 1 in 400 chance of fubaring that scroll.

2) If failing your level check, for some reason, means you can't try to activate the scroll again in the next round, it looks to be cheaper to buy more wizards, rather than scrolls.

3) None of this matters, since you need 18 intelligence to cast PAO, and only have 16. You need to spend 4k to buy a headband of int +2.

4) Standard deviations should really be included. The chance that the above strategy works is only statistically probable over a rather large number of trials. There is also a very good chance that it WON'T work. A level 2 wizard making three rolls for a CL 15 check still has a very solid chance of failing to activate even one. Of course, that doesn't matter in this particular case, given that he only needs one scroll and needs not roll two consecutive ones.

ShneekeyTheLost
2008-10-22, 03:55 PM
If you're going to use Polycheeze, why bother with PAO when you can use Baleful Polymorph (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/balefulPolymorph.htm) instead? It's only a 5th level spell, requiring an Int of 15, rather than an 8th level spell with a required int of 18.

However, I believe the Tarrasque is IMMUNE TO POLYMORPH EFFECTS, so you can't turn him into a fuzzy bunny.

Ravens_cry
2008-10-22, 04:02 PM
If you're going to use Polycheeze, why bother with PAO when you can use Baleful Polymorph (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/balefulPolymorph.htm) instead? It's only a 5th level spell, requiring an Int of 15, rather than an 8th level spell with a required int of 18.

However, I believe the Tarrasque is IMMUNE TO POLYMORPH EFFECTS, so you can't turn him into a fuzzy bunny.
Would it be possible to wish he wasn't immune to Polymorph Effects? In the spell sense, that is. Then just fuzzy-wabbitify him and release the hounds.

Cuddly
2008-10-22, 04:08 PM
If you're going to use Polycheeze, why bother with PAO when you can use Baleful Polymorph (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/balefulPolymorph.htm) instead? It's only a 5th level spell, requiring an Int of 15, rather than an 8th level spell with a required int of 18.

However, I believe the Tarrasque is IMMUNE TO POLYMORPH EFFECTS, so you can't turn him into a fuzzy bunny.

Because we're trying to get an Allip for wisdom drain?

ShneekeyTheLost
2008-10-22, 04:22 PM
Because we're trying to get an Allip for wisdom drain?

Hmmm... if splatbooks were allowed, you could be a Necropolitan and pull it off with Alter Self (since it's the same type)...

I know! Ghost template. It's a +5 LA, bringing you up to ECL 6, but then you can Alter Self into an Allip, which is only a 2nd level spell.

Heck, screw altering into Allip, Ghosts can Drain any ability and is also incorporeal. One hit on his Int should do the trick to bring him down to Int 0, which makes him unable to perform any actions, so it should be easy to CDG him into oblivion.

Zen Master
2008-10-22, 05:28 PM
It (seems) that 1 evil cleric with an allip would (eventually) destroy the Terrasque. Interesting.

Tarrasque eats cleric. Allip loses interest. This solution fails before it even started.

Fax Celestis
2008-10-22, 05:51 PM
However, I believe the Tarrasque is IMMUNE TO POLYMORPH EFFECTS, so you can't turn him into a fuzzy bunny.

LIES!


Special Qualities: Carapace, damage reduction 15/epic, immunity to fire, poison, disease, energy drain, and ability damage, regeneration 40, scent, spell resistance 32

I see no immunity to polymorph on there.


I'm afraid not. It's listed under the 'Divine' section. If I'm not mistaken that means that you need at least Divine rank 0 (demi-god) to have access to the listed spells and abilities.

Incorrect. It is listed in that section since that is where it appeared. It is not a [Divine] feat, so you don't need to have a Divine Rank to take it.

Ravens_cry
2008-10-22, 05:53 PM
How close to the allip would the cleric have to be? If they can be far enough away, allip can do it's thing without cleric being Tarrasque appetizer.

Arbitrarity
2008-10-22, 06:15 PM
Hmmm... if splatbooks were allowed, you could be a Necropolitan and pull it off with Alter Self (since it's the same type)...

I know! Ghost template. It's a +5 LA, bringing you up to ECL 6, but then you can Alter Self into an Allip, which is only a 2nd level spell.

Heck, screw altering into Allip, Ghosts can Drain any ability and is also incorporeal. One hit on his Int should do the trick to bring him down to Int 0, which makes him unable to perform any actions, so it should be easy to CDG him into oblivion.


15001 then? 15000 xp, 1 commoner HD, and

Draining Touch (Su)
A ghost that hits a living target with its incorporeal touch attack drains 1d4 points from any one ability score it selects. On each such successful attack, the ghost heals 5 points of damage to itself. Against ethereal opponents, it adds its Strength modifier to attack rolls only. Against nonethereal opponents, it adds its Dexterity modifier to attack rolls only.


Tasty.

Douglas
2008-10-22, 06:18 PM
I'm afraid not. It's listed under the 'Divine' section. If I'm not mistaken that means that you need at least Divine rank 0 (demi-god) to have access to the listed spells and abilities.
All that means is that it's in the Deities and Demigods rulebook, which heads the feats section with this:

In addition to the feats in the Player ’s Handbook, deities can also obtain the feats described here, all of which were originally published in other D&D game products. Because these feats (as well as those in the Player’s Handbook) were originally designed for use by player characters, many of them have prerequisites that any deity automatically meets, such as a base attack bonus of +2 for Hold the Line. Nevertheless, those prerequisites are retained in these feat descriptions so that the descriptions will be consistent with the way they were originally published.
All of those feats can be taken by non-deific characters that satisfy the listed prerequisites - even the [Divine] ones. That tag actually means it's a turn undead related feat, not that it's a deity-only feat.

GWLlosa
2008-10-22, 06:52 PM
If the goal is to fulfill the King's contract, wouldn't it be easier to simply Fascinate/Suggestion the king, and then run away with money ? Why fight Tarrasque at all?


:smallfurious:

kopout
2008-10-22, 07:00 PM
I'd use the pig-commoner rail gun: 10000 1st level commoners and a 230lb pig (assuming each commoner has a strength score of 16)

cost: 10k gp, plus current market value of one pig.

already been done

Darkmatter
2008-10-22, 08:33 PM
I've got a solution that's been kicking around in my head for a year or two now, just never been optimized. It's similar to the owls and whetstones (a novel approach to this idea, I thought), but much less prone to error (whetstones falling 1400 feet are going to experience wind sheer, if nothing else) and a good deal "cheaper" in terms of xp. First off, I'll use 1 xp = 5 gp as per the NPC casting rules in the DMG, which I feal is fair. Thus, I'll be trying not to use any PC classes, as they're too expensive.

The benefits of this method:

1) No terrain dependence. A featureless plain is in fact perfect.
2) No items requiring above a level 5 spellcaster, for low magic campaigns (though why Big T is charging around in one of those I have no idea.)
3) Can be performed in a matter of hours.

The plan:

Get two heavy warhorses and two trained riders. Since ride and handle animal are both class skills for commoners, I'll assume these are both level 1 commoners. Create twenty 140 pound iron balls. These will be a bit under a foot in diameter - heavy, but not overly large. Make a customized harness for each horse, so that the iron balls hang between their legs (pardon the image) and so that each will be dropped simultaneously with a relatively minor motion on the part of the rider. This can be achieved easily with a simple pin-pull based apparatus. Feed potions of bull's strength to the horses and load them up with the balls. Have their riders mount up and feed potions of flight to each of the horses. The riders then quite simply fly above the beast to a height of 400 feet and drop their payloads. Once Big T hits the dirt, cast our free wish.

The crunch:

Warhorses have a strength of 18 and are large quadrupeds. With bull's strength, their heavy load limit is 1560 lbs apiece, which is the amount that they are allowed to carry in flight. I assume that a warhorse trained in a land of magic and with a skilled rider will not have trouble being directed into flight. Items with a weight range between 200 and 101 lbs deal 1d6 damage for every 20 feet fallen, so from 400 feet will deal the maximum 20d6 damage. This is an average of 70 points, of which 15 will be absorbed by Big T's DR. This leaves us with 20 objects dealing 55 points of damage apiece, yielding 1100 damage total, easily enough to send the tarrasque into the negatives, even if a couple miss or roll low. Missing is unlikely at this height (400 ft is only a bit longer than a football field) since the dense weights will fall straight down and the tarrasque's area is 30'x30', literally the broad side of a barn. Additionally, as we are granted a surprise round, the missiles will arrive before Big T has a chance to move, since they will fall 150 ft during the first round and up to 300 in the second, normal round.

The cost:

Warhorse: 400 gp (x2)
Exotic Warharness: 60 gp (x2)
Potion of Flight: 750 gp (x2)
Potion of Bull's Strength: 300 gp (x2)
Commoner: 1gp (x2)
20 iron balls: 56 gp (estimated from the cost and weight of a sling bullet)

Total cost: 3078 gp

I believe this is the lowest cost I have seen of a workable solution (one that does not violate the laws of physics without the use of magic, require longer than the lifetime of a human, or involve the mass sacrifice of the people the king is presumably trying to save.) The allip solution is an old but good one - however, making it workable requires at least some sort of spellcaster, the cost of which exceeds the above.

Optimization:

If we have access to elephants, the cost might be lowered to 867 gp (potion of flight, balls, harness, and commoner) plus the cost of the elephant. This cost might be more than 2200 gp, however.

To ensure that the tarrasque goes where we want it to go, we can stake out two oxen for it (at a total cost of 30 gp). Since it has only one bite attack a round, it'll have to spend two rounds in the same place to eat them, and according to its description, the tarrasque will indeed eat them.

Can anyone beat this costpoint without resorting to the aforementioned violations of physics or morality?

Knaight
2008-10-22, 08:44 PM
I think you can only fly with a light load. So use elephants.

Ravens_cry
2008-10-22, 08:45 PM
I am fairly sure you can fly with a medium load, just at a reduced speed.

Darkmatter
2008-10-22, 08:50 PM
From the SRD, the text for the fly spell:


The subject can fly at a speed of 60 feet (or 40 feet if it wears medium or heavy armor, or if it carries a medium or heavy load). It can ascend at half speed and descend at double speed, and its maneuverability is good. Using a fly spell requires only as much concentration as walking, so the subject can attack or cast spells normally. The subject of a fly spell can charge but not run, and it cannot carry aloft more weight than its maximum load, plus any armor it wears.

This is magical flight, not natural flight.

Knaight
2008-10-22, 08:54 PM
Oh yeah. That makes it possible then.

JeminiZero
2008-10-22, 09:37 PM
20 iron balls: 56 gp (estimated from the cost and weight of a sling bullet)


Lets see, extrapolating from Sling bullet size, every size increment doubles weight and price. We can probably assume that weight is directly proportional to price.

A medium size bullet costs 0.1 sp (0.01 gp) and weighs 0.1 lb. Pushing its weight to 140 lb, would push the price to 14 gp each. 20 of these would cost 280 gp.

Also, I am probably doing something wrong somewhere, but what if big T wins initiative and runs away in the first round, won't the bullets miss him. E.g.

Surprise round:
-Horses drop iron balls
-Iron balls fall 150 ft

1st round
-Tarrasque wins initiative and runs 80 ft away.
-Iron balls fall 300 ft and fall harmlessly into the ground

Darkmatter
2008-10-22, 10:18 PM
Jemini, I'm going to stand by my math on the bullets. According to the SRD 10 bullets cost 1 sp and weigh 5 pounds, making one bullet weigh 0.5 pounds - I believe this is where you get your higher cost, not that 200 gp matters a great deal.

The liklihood that the tarrasque could a) notice the riders b) somehow decide that they are a threat and not a potential meal, and c) decide that fleeing is the option its hyperagressive and fearless pea-brain is going to take is certainly not large, but any chance of failure is worrisome. This is why the 30 gp of bait would be a smart investment. (The cost, incidentally, is from the "Wealth Other Than Coins" table.) Staking two oxen in its path ensures that it will stop to eat them, as its desire to eat things is one of Big T's defining characteristics. This will take the two rounds required for the missiles to arrive. Also, the oxen could serve as beasts of burden to help carry the missiles until the group arrives where the tarrasque is currently marauding.

Flickerdart
2008-10-22, 10:28 PM
The OP's definition of "Tarrasque is played optimally" means he is aware of everything going on always, and will use his Rush to make it out. Sorry, them's the breaks.

JeminiZero
2008-10-22, 10:46 PM
Jemini, I'm going to stand by my math on the bullets. According to the SRD 10 bullets cost 1 sp and weigh 5 pounds, making one bullet weigh 0.5 pounds - I believe this is where you get your higher cost, not that 200 gp matters a great deal.


Your weight:cost ratio is off. The SRD (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Sling_Bullets) actually states that 10 medium sling bullets weigh 1 pound, making each bullet 0.1 pounds.

Ravens_cry
2008-10-22, 11:10 PM
The OP's definition of "Tarrasque is played optimally" means he is aware of everything going on always, and will use his Rush to make it out. Sorry, them's the breaks.
Often times a Monster is played too stupid, not living up to its full potential.
I think however, a DM doing that for the Tarrasque, is a case of it being too smart. Can it smell the flying horses/elephents? Can it here them? Can it see them? It has two luchious targets right in front of it, filling its pea sized brain, and from what we know of this creatures psychology, it isn't going to pass up free food.
Optimal is one thing, DM dickery is another.

chiasaur11
2008-10-22, 11:14 PM
The OP's definition of "Tarrasque is played optimally" means he is aware of everything going on always, and will use his Rush to make it out. Sorry, them's the breaks.

Don't forget, it's also somehow too dumb for mind affecting abilities.

It's a very specific level of smart.

Darkmatter
2008-10-22, 11:21 PM
Flickerdart, I assumed that played optimally meant played as the beast is meant to be played - an unstoppable eating machine that doesn't think too much. However, if the hypothetical DM wants to play mean, I would be forced to point out that the spot check to notice the attackers is at -40 for the 400 feet of distance, and the tarrasque's spot check is only +17. When you add in the hide check result of the two riders, Big T cannot notice them. Minimum hide check = -2 for large size, (horse rolls a 1, +1 DEX, -4 size), so the DC is 38. Big T cannot make this even with a 20, and you can't auto-succeed at skills. The concealment for the hide check can easily be provided by flying at night. The riders just need to stay more than 400 feet away from the easily observable tarrasque. The oxen are still a good idea, though... I'm going to have to up the total price to 3108.

Jemini - it seems we're citing different sources. I'm sorry for the confusion. My source is the hypertext SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/weapons.htm). I just checked the player's handbook, and found that it agrees with my source. A completely understandable misunderstanding. If that's possible.

JeminiZero
2008-10-23, 03:41 AM
Based on those assumptions, I think I can manage one better. Take a commoner, assuming he starts with the average commoner strength of 10 (we might hold out trial selections weed out those with below average strength). After Bull strength + enlarge person, his strength is 16. At large size, he has 2x normal carrying capacity, so his heavy load is 460 lb. Thats anough to carry 4x 101 lb Iron balls

Assuming the commoners drop their Iron Balls from 400 ft up (for 20d6 damage), to kill Big T, we need 16x 20d6 damage, or 4 such commoners, each carrying their 4 iron balls. To cast the spells described above, we will use partially charged wands, and a level 1 wizard. Of course, we also need the 2 oxen for distraction.

Total Cost:

4 Commoners: 4 gp
1 Wizard: 1000 gp
Partially charged Wands (15 gp per charge)
-Flight 3 SL * 5 CL * 4 charges * 15 = 900 gp
-Bull Strength 2 SL * 3 CL * 4 charges * 15 = 360 gp
-Enlarge Person 1 SL * 1 CL * 4 charges * 15 = 60 gp
16x 101 lb Iron Balls (assuming 0.01 GP per 0.5 lb) = 33 gp
2 Oxen: 30 gp

Total: 2387

Of course, with just a 1 min duration on enlarge person, timing is a bit tight. We can increase enlarge person timing to 4 min easily enough. Then we can cast spells in the order: Flight -> Enlarge Person -> Bull Strength. And immediately after casting, they have ~2.6 minutes of time to act.

Minutes: Action
0.0-0.4: Cast Flight lasting 5 mins
0.9-0.8: Cast Enlarge person lasting 4 mins
0.9-1.2: Cast Bull strength lasting 3 mins
1.3-3.9: Enact Plan

Total Cost:

4 Commoners: 4 gp
1 Wizard: 1000 gp
Partially charged Wands (15 gp per charge)
-Flight 3 SL * 5 CL * 4 charges * 15 = 900 gp
-Enlarge Person 1 SL * 4 CL * 4 charges * 15 = 240 gp
-Bull Strength 2 SL * 3 CL * 4 charges * 15 = 360 gp
16x 101 lb Iron Balls (assuming 0.01 GP per 0.5 lb) = ~33 gp
2 Oxen: 30 GP

Total: 2567

For reference, assuming DM trickery, and the Tarrasque acting way too smart outside the surprise round, we have to ensure the stones hit in 1 round. That would require dropping 200 lb balls from a height of 150 ft for 15d6 damage (ave ~52.5, After DR ~37.5). We need 24 such balls to kill a Tarrasque. Each enlarged/bullstrength commoner can then carry 2x 200 lb balls while flying, so we need 12 commoners.

Buffing will take longer, with 12 commoners, so casting all 36 spells will need ~3.6 minutes. We give them ~2.4 minutes to enact their plan. So the order is as follows:

Minutes: Action
0.0-1.2: Cast Enlarge person lasting 6 mins
1.3-2.4: Cast Flight lasting 5 mins
2.5-3.6: Cast Bull strength lasting 4 mins
3.7-6.0: Enact Plan

12 Commoners: 12 gp
1 Wizard: 1000 gp
Partially charged Wands (15 gp per charge)
-Enlarge Person 1 SL * 6 CL * 12 charges * 15 = 1080 gp
-Flight 3 SL * 5 CL * 12 charges * 15 = 2700 gp
-Bull Strength 2 SL * 4 CL * 12 charges * 15 = 1440 gp
24x 200 lb Iron Balls (assuming 0.01 GP per 0.5 lb) = 96 gp

Total: 6328 gp

BobVosh
2008-10-23, 04:19 AM
I can't be the only one to find that 4800 lbs of iron is only 96 gp to be silly, right?

Man I wonder what the xp for that wizard and couple of commoners is.

only1doug
2008-10-23, 04:43 AM
I've got a solution that's been kicking around in my head for a year or two now, just never been optimized. <snip>

20 iron balls: 56 gp (estimated from the cost and weight of a sling bullet)

Total cost: 3078 gp

I believe this is the lowest cost I have seen of a workable solution (one that does not violate the laws of physics without the use of magic, require longer than the lifetime of a human, or involve the mass sacrifice of the people the king is presumably trying to save.) The allip solution is an old but good one - however, making it workable requires at least some sort of spellcaster, the cost of which exceeds the above.

Optimization:
<snip>

Hmm, I can't resist modifying your plan slightly; instead of Iron Balls, use rocks. Rocks are cheaper and plentiful.

Rocks have one other insubstantial benefit:

It lets us say:

Rocks fall Tarrasque Dies!

BobVosh
2008-10-23, 05:12 AM
Hmm, I can't resist modifying your plan slightly; instead of Iron Balls, use rocks. Rocks are cheaper and plentiful.

Rocks have one other insubstantial benefit:

It lets us say:

Rocks fall Tarrasque Dies!



Totally already said that in my very sad wizard post.

Worira
2008-10-23, 01:09 PM
Nitpick: technically, the above prices are for lead balls.

Ravens_cry
2008-10-23, 01:27 PM
Also, since most rock is less dense then lead, it would conceivably do less damage. A less dense rock of the same weight would have a slower terminal velocity, also meaning less damage. If rocks did do less damage, it would mean more trips, or more flying creatures, and therefore would require a greater expense that way.

hamishspence
2008-10-23, 01:33 PM
Cheap way: 1 pound rocks, high altitude. It specifies only 1 pound or heavier items can inflict Falling damge, to 20d6 max.

I think there is suggestion monsters always get Reflex save against dropped rocks.

Darkmatter
2008-10-23, 01:34 PM
Jemini, that's a nice bit of optimization. The timing is tight, but just doable - your peasant flight has a respectable effective range of around a quarter of a mile. (The horses have a slightly larger range, due to their higher land speed and the capability for simultaneous buffing.) I decided not to use a wizard and wands in my solution, just because calculating costs using partial charges always seemed a little cheap to me, and since I'm using the 1 xp = 5 gp conversion. Though I guess you're using a level 1 wizard, so your cost analysis stands. I thought that making 101 lb iron balls was pretty cheap as well, and decided to add a few extras in case some miss by DM fiat, but you're right, it does give a more optimum number. Well done, sir.

A couple of comments - your second idea will indeed be a little tight on time, but it's still workable, just with a bit less margin for error. However, it's not needed: due to the fact that a single horse has a larger carrying capacity, it's more cost effective to use them in that instance (those flight spells add up). We can carry the requisite 4800 lbs. of missiles using 3 horses with bulls strength (with 7 missiles apiece, allowing 160 lbs. for harness and rider) and one horse with no strength buff (capable of carrying 4 missiles, harness, and one very brave child / halfling.) The total cost here is 5840 gp, and allows for no super-perceptive tarrasque, since as you mentioned, they're falling the full distance in the surprise round.

Incidentally, we can pull off the 150 ft drop of 200 lb balls with a single, normal strength elephant with its carrying capacity of 9600 lbs at heavy load (and it's still overkill)... It's just most campaigns don't have a ready source of pachyderms. I think this makes the elephant the optimal solution, and that cost still stands at 867 gp + 1 elephant.

Addressing BobVosh, iron isn't that pricey compared to gold. By today's prices, one ounce of gold will indeed buy two tons of scrap iron (gold being ~700 USD / oz and iron running less than 325 USD / tonne). We're looking at spending two pounds of gold (32 oz) so I don't find it that unbelievable, even if iron is relatively scarce.

Doug, while rocks killing the tarrasque is certainly pleasing in a visceral sense, practially I'd say the fact that iron is 3x denser than granite (and thus more manageable) and that it's more easily made into a suitable shape make it better as a missile material... Granite would likely be more costly once it's processed.

Worria, I didn't notice that. It doesn't matter according to the rules, but it does make the balls a bit denser and more manageable.

Aahz
2008-10-23, 02:18 PM
I like this thread, and I like the solution you guys have worked on here. I've seen a lot of Tarrasque-killing threads, but I enjoy the angle of doing it for the minimum XP/gold, and strictly by RAW.

Darkmatter
2008-10-23, 03:42 PM
An update: The Arms and Equipment Guide lists the price of a trained elephant at 540 gp (500 gp for an elephant, 40 gp for training), a steal. (The price is listed in a non-core source, but since the elephant is solidly core, I'm going to say this still flies. Forgive the pun.)

So our new, optimum plan:

1 trained elephant (African): 540 gp
1 exotic harness: 60 gp
1 elephant herding commoner (handle animal +4, ride +4, prof. elephant herder +4): 1 gp
1 potion of flight: 750 gp
24 200 lb metal balls: 96 gp

Total: 1447 gp

Recapitulating Jemini's math, this gives us on average ([15*3.5 - 15] * 24) = 900 points of damage, enough to down Big T. It all happens in the surprise round, so the tarrasque can't be allowed a reflex save, nor step out of the way. We also have a range of a good deal more than a mile, since our elephant can fly for 5 minutes at a speed of 40 and only needs to ascend 150 feet.

Just for fun, I would stick 45 200 lb metal balls up there, since the elephant has the free carrying capacity. This gives brings the cost to 1531 gp, but makes the odds against Big T avoiding his smack down astronomical.

I also like this particular method because, being the only intelligent creature in the encounter, Bob the Elephant Man gets instantly promoted to (at a minimum) Bob the 5th Level Elephant Master.

chiasaur11
2008-10-23, 03:53 PM
An update: The Arms and Equipment Guide lists the price of a trained elephant at 540 gp (500 gp for an elephant, 40 gp for training), a steal. (The price is listed in a non-core source, but since the elephant is solidly core, I'm going to say this still flies. Forgive the pun.)

So our new, optimum plan:

1 trained elephant (African): 540 gp
1 exotic harness: 60 gp
1 elephant herding commoner (handle animal +4, ride +4, prof. elephant herder +4): 1 gp
1 potion of flight: 750 gp
24 200 lb metal balls: 96 gp

Total: 1447 gp

Recapitulating Jemini's math, this gives us on average ([15*3.5 - 15] * 24) = 900 points of damage, enough to down Big T. It all happens in the surprise round, so the tarrasque can't be allowed a reflex save, nor step out of the way. We also have a range of a good deal more than a mile, since our elephant can fly for 5 minutes at a speed of 40 and only needs to ascend 150 feet.

Just for fun, I would stick 45 200 lb metal balls up there, since the elephant has the free carrying capacity. This gives brings the cost to 1531 gp, but makes the odds against Big T avoiding his smack down astronomical.

I also like this particular method because, being the only intelligent creature in the encounter, Bob the Elephant Man gets instantly promoted to (at a minimum) Bob the 5th Level Elephant Master.

Man, Bob is going to have a really good story to tell his friends in the pub.

Good plan.

Ravens_cry
2008-10-23, 08:03 PM
Don't forget though, someone has to cast the wish to make the Tarrasque STAY down. Therefore, Commoner Bob can't be the 'the only intelligent creature in the encounter'.

JeminiZero
2008-10-23, 08:05 PM
due to the fact that a single horse has a larger carrying capacity, it's more cost effective to use them in that instance (those flight spells add up).


While I like the idea, the reason I abstained from using horses (or elephants for that matter), is there is an element of DM intepretation involved. Specifically, does asking the animals to fly count as pushing them:



To push an animal means to get it to perform a task or trick that it doesn’t know but is physically capable of performing.


So in this case, while they are physically capable of flight (after casting/drinking the pot), they may not 'know' the trick of flying. If it counts as pushing them, the DC would jump to 25, which would then require a PC-type character focused on animal handling to perform it.

That said, the DM could also intepret getting panicky land-bound mammals to take to the sky as merely 'Handling' them, which puts the DC at a more manageable 10, in which case commoners might suffice (get a human commoner, and you have 2 feats at level 1, so you can grab Animal Affinity (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Animal_Affinity) on top of Skill Focus-handle animal, for a total Handle Animal of 4+3+2 = 9, so he can make the DC 10 Handle Animal checks even on a 1).

It all depends on whether the DM lets it fly (yes I know you made that pun already, but I couldn't think of any better expression).

Cuddly
2008-10-23, 08:10 PM
Don't forget though, someone has to cast the wish to make the Tarrasque STAY down. Therefore, Commoner Bob can't be the 'the only intelligent creature in the encounter'.

Don't forget to read the first post thoroughly, with the intent to comprehend its content!

Darkmatter
2008-10-23, 09:25 PM
Raven - I was assuming the wish would come in the form of a ring of wishes or the like that anyone could use.

Jemini, handling the animals would indeed be a problem if they aren't trained. However, (as I mentioned in my first post) I would assume that any animal trained for war in a land of magic would be trained to be sanguine about flight. The elephant has an intelligence of 2, and is capable of 6 tricks, one (or two, or three) of which could be "can maneuver while flying." Since we're allowed to presuppose the existence of our materials, I feel that an elephant trained for magical combat isn't too much of a stretch.

If the DM wants to be really annoying about it, we can be guaranteed to meet the DC of 25 by having 9 commoners with Animal Affinity, Skill Focus Handle Animal, and +4 to handle animal riding on the elephant. The elephant takes up 9 squares, so we can just fit this many people. At 140 lbs a person, we can still easily get a payload of 40 200 lb missiles. Eight commoners use aid another (crooning gently, all urging the beast in the right direction, etc.) to help the 9th commoner guide the beast. The minimum each commoner can roll is 10, so every one succeeds at the aid another. The minimum the navigator can roll is (1 + 9 + [8 * 2]) = 26, just making our DC. We don't even need a masterwork elephant goad, and the whole process adds a whopping 8 gp to our projected cost (though Bob the Elephant Man now has to share his glory.) Once again, the applicability of the aid another is subject to DM fiat, but for that matter, the DM could just decree that the tarrasque is immune to damage inflicted from above and call it a day.

Incidentally, overland flight + an elephant => a mobile, airborne battle platform capable of bombing, charging, trampling, and carrying up to nine people (with proper harness.) If I were a general, I'd be all over that like white on rice.

[Edit] If we wanted to be absolutely sure we can have our commoner put 2 skill points in use magic device, give him an 11 Wisdom, and buy a 25 gp scroll of Speak with Animals. He'll succeed at activating the scroll 10% of the time, so after 5 minutes of trying he'll have a [1 - (0.9^50)] * 100 = 99.5% chance of activating it. He can then talk to the elephant for one minute, easily enough to tell it what to expect and how to apply its war training (for which we paid 40 gp). Then he can feed it the potion and fly off. This solution is slightly more costly, but more elegant than having an elephantload of handlers.

chiasaur11
2008-10-23, 09:48 PM
Hmm...

Could this be done with flying monkeys?

Ravens_cry
2008-10-23, 11:22 PM
Don't forget to read the first post thoroughly, with the intent to comprehend its content!
Hmm, your right, my bad.

Asbestos
2008-10-24, 12:16 AM
@Darkmatter
Fantastic, for just slightly more than the cost of a suit of full plate armor you have developed a bomber capable of putting down the legendary Tarrasque. How insane looking must large scale battles in a D&D world be? I mean... a cannon ball dropping, flying elephant is potentially as common as a full suit of armor.

Sstoopidtallkid
2008-10-24, 07:54 AM
@Darkmatter
Fantastic, for just slightly more than the cost of a suit of full plate armor you have developed a bomber capable of putting down the legendary Tarrasque. How insane looking must large scale battles in a D&D world be? I mean... a cannon ball dropping, flying elephant is potentially as common as a full suit of armor.C. War had a whole chapter on War in D&D, where it essentially said that while large-scale medieval battles are awesome and generally fit the settings, battles realistically would look like modern day, with flying casters as an air force, warriors on the front lines calling in artillery in the form of Fireballs, and the like. I think the high-altitude elephant assault would be reasonable in that sort of a fight.

BigPapaSmurf
2008-10-24, 01:26 PM
Easy, make it watch 2 minutes of the TV show Cop Rock, that ought to do it. The extra 30 seconds accounting for the time it takes for the tarrasque to kill itself. Check youtube....if you dare.

Seriously though, way to many 'get 100 of these guys doing this ideas' any good DM would just throw some large trees at them or something.

chiasaur11
2008-10-24, 01:47 PM
Easy, make it watch 2 minutes of the TV show Cop Rock, that ought to do it. The extra 30 seconds accounting for the time it takes for the tarrasque to kill itself. Check youtube....if you dare.

Seriously though, way to many 'get 100 of these guys doing this ideas' any good DM would just throw some large trees at them or something.

What part of "featureless infinite plain" don't you understand?

Breaw
2008-10-24, 04:16 PM
Most interesting. If I may, it seems that most of the strategies here fall into 1 of 7 categories. If I missed any please let me know.

1) Wishing for more wishes. (Boo... hiss)

2) Dropping objects on the Tarrasque.

3) Having the Tarrasque fall. (Which would be hard to pull off imo, simple baiting isn't enough to convince me he'd take the plunge)

4) Controlling incorporeal Undead that can drain ability scores. I'm sure we could get some strategy to work along this vein, although the one I wrote up wouldn't quite work I don't think. (Pretty sure the drain attack is a supernatural ability, which you don't get from the polymorph spells...)

5) Sleep big T with a Pixie, then whallop him with the necessary force to keep him down.

6) Much Melfs acid arrow, as it avoids both SR and DR.

7) Hoards and Hoards of civilians shooting magical arrow.


And it (seems) at the moment, that the various "Drop ridiculous amounts of heavy objects on him" strategies are currently the cheapest. I'll have to double check... but especially if the objects are being dropped from 150 feet or less so that they hit during the surprise round, I can't see anything wrong with it.

On the topic of 'played optimally'. The reason I stipulated that wasn't because I feel that is how the Tarrasque 'should' be played, but because if you don't anticipate the optimal response then you are trusting in it's stupidity for the plan to work. The plan may very well work, but you can't guarantee it.

-B

Sstoopidtallkid
2008-10-24, 04:30 PM
On the topic of 'played optimally'. The reason I stipulated that wasn't because I feel that is how the Tarrasque 'should' be played, but because if you don't anticipate the optimal response then you are trusting in it's stupidity for the plan to work. The plan may very well work, but you can't guarantee it.3 Int. Counting on stupidity seems reasonable.

Breaw
2008-10-24, 04:38 PM
3 Int. Counting on stupidity seems reasonable.

Let's just say you were presenting this idea to the king.

-King: So you're going to drop a rock on him from orbit?
-You: Yes my lord.
-King: What if he... like... takes a step forward?
-You: He won't though sir, cause it's stupid!
-King: Yeah, fine... but what if he does? What is your plan if he happens to take a step forward?
-You: Well then I suppose we try again my lord.
-King: And how long do you think this will take?
-You: Pardon?
-King: For you to get lucky and land enough rocks on him (which will undoubtedly be destroyed upon impact after each attempt). Look, why don't you think about this a bit more and get back to me.
-You: Wait my lord, I've got another plan! We dig a giant hole, and he jumps into it!
-King: Guards!

Having a plan means you have something that might work if everything turns out like you hope. Having a good plan means that to the best of your abilities, you can account for almost any response your enemy might have.

-B

quick_comment
2008-10-24, 05:09 PM
Having a plan means you have something that might work if everything turns out like you hope. Having a good plan means that to the best of your abilities, you can account for almost any response your enemy might have.

-B

Good, cheap, fast. Pick any 2.

Darkmatter
2008-10-24, 06:30 PM
Good, cheap, fast. Pick any 2.

I'd say that Bob the Elephant Man and Dumbo fill all three roles, since the limiting time here would be the creation of the iron balls and modifying a howdah to hold them, which should take all of a few hours. Our elephant travels twice as fast as Big T, so there's not too much difficulty in getting to the beast (and in fact, when it comes to the tarrasque, you've usually got the opposite problem.)

With regards to being "played optimally," counting on Big T's stupidity I think is very valid, but we don't want margin for error. So, for example, I would say that dropping rocks from 400 ft is probably OK, since the tarrasque should move in the same direction he's moving, and won't be able to move far enough with his 20 ft. movement that his 30 ft. x 30 ft. space clears the impact zone. However, dropping from farther than that is dicey, because if Big T gets more than one action, it's easy for him to randomly wander in the wrong direction (or right direction as far as he's concerned) for no particular reason. Additionally, I think luring the tarrasque over a cliff and throwing rocks at him is a great idea - (it worked for buffalo), just making it workable is going to require, at a minimum, a scroll of Hallucinatory Terrain and someone to use it, which is more expensive at 1700 gp, plus a cliff.

Does anyone have any more cost-effective ideas? It seems that the cheapest way of quickly generating the requisite damage is falling objects, but it'd be interesting to see another plan of attack (like the allip. but less expensive.)

poxjedi
2008-10-24, 11:27 PM
Falling objects seem like a good idea, but I think the DM could call you out on that one and require an attack roll.

Armor class represents not just a creature's ability to avoid being hit at all, but also their ability to take no real damage from the hit. That's why a giant thick suit of plate mail gives you an AC bonus- you still get stabbed, but getting stabbed in the thick sheet of metal doesn't hurt nearly as much as getting stabbed in the gut. Similarly, dropping a whetstone/chunk of iron/random falling object on a Tarrasque's heavily armored hide wouldn't harm it; the falling object could only deal damage by hitting a tiny weak spot, like the eye or a crack in the creature's scales, etc. So if I were DMing for a 3rd level wizard who wanted his familiar to drop rocks on the Tarrasque to deal damage, I would require ranged attack rolls, not to see if the falling rocks actually hit the T, but to see if they damaged it in any meaningful way.

But my personal method of dealing with a Tarrasque...

Well. I have a few ideas but no practical way to implement them. In the PHB 2 (which is still sort of core...) there is a class called the Dragon Shaman. Like the Bard, the Dragon Shaman can provide bonuses to his allies within 30 feet, not by singing but by continually projecting 'Auras'. At first level, a Dragon Shaman has a +1 aura bonus and can learn to project the Power aura, which provides all allies within 30 feet with a "Bonus on melee damage rolls equal to your aura bonus". Note that this bonus is never classified; it isn't an enhancement bonus, or a magical bonus, or anything like that- and nowhere in the dragon shaman entry does it say that bonuses from auras do not stack.
So, the plan is something like this: get a bunch of half-orc dragon shamans, with 18 STR+2 racial. Have them all use their feat to gain proficiency with a greatsword. Give them each a +1 Brilliant Energy greatsword (there may be a spell somewhere that can give this effect, I'm not sure) and tell them to charge. Each shaman will attack thus:
ATTACK ROLL
+0 (BAB)
+5 (Strength)
+1 (Enhancement)
+2 (Charging)
=+8 attack. The attack roll also ignores the T's natural armor bonus, meaning it will hit on any roll higher than a natural 1.
DAMAGE ROLL
2d6 (weapon damage, assume average of 7)
+10 (strength bonus times two, the shamans are using both hands)
+1 (enhancement)
+n (where 'n' is the number of dragon shamans. A dragon shaman benefits from his own aura)
=18+n, or 36+n on a critical (I don't think the aura will be multiplied on a critical hit)

So, this will do a considerable amount of damage, enough to penetrate the T's 15 DR. We can line up 7 Drag Shams like this:

OOOOOOO

So that none of them will be more than 30 feet away from the others. so for 7 dragon shamans, we will be dealing 25-15=10 damage on a regular hit or 43-15=28 on a critical. If we can just keep the dragon Shamans alive, their average damage in one turn will be:
7 attacks times .95 chance to hit times 25 damage plus (.10 chance to critical threat times .95 chance to confirm crit times 43 damage) minus 40 regeneration minus (15 damage reduction times 7 attacks)
Or a total of 25.335 damage per turn.
858 HP divided by 25.335, or 33.8662 combat rounds.
Erm, keeping them alive that long isn't quite easy... oh well.

This is how I would do it, but it's probably not at all very cost effective.
The other plan was to use a single 20th level Beguiler- they gain an ability that allows them to totally ignore a creature's Spell Resistance as long as they cast the spell on an unaware target. A spell from PHB 2, called Overwhelm, deals nonlethal damage to a touched creature equal to it's current HP. The Beguiler started at level 1 with 18 strength and 18 intelligence. He is a Human. He's dedicated his 4th level stat increases toward intelligence, as well, so he has 23 INT. His feats are as follows: Spell Focus (Enchantments), Quicken Spell (although the PHB says this feat cannot benefit a spontaneous caster like a Beguiler, it does not say that they cannot take the feat, and it fulfills a Prerequisite for several other feats), Sudden Empower, Sudden Extend, Sudden Maximize, Sudden Silent, Sudden Still, and Sudden Quicken. (this is not at all core, I know)

The Beguiler casts Fox's Cunning on himself (increase INT to 30, with a +10 modifier) and then Etherealness on Himself and goes underground and directly beneath the T, then send the Beguiler up first- he leaves the ethereal plane, tickles the surprised Tarrasque on the chin to cast Overwhelm, and T immediately takes 858 damage and collapses (Tarrasque has a +20 Will save, and the save DC is 10+10 ability+1 Spell Focus=21, more on this later). The beguiler then casts a sudden quickened "Mass Whelm", which will do 10d6 nonlethal damage to the T, but he uses Sudden Empower and Sudden Maximize with this spell, for increasing the 10d6 (average 35) to 60+5d6 (average 77.5) damage. This reduces the T to -62 damage (after T's DR). Cast Wish and you win.

Now there is one major flaw with this plan- there is no way the T could fail his save unless he rolled a natural 1- which is exactly what he will do. Our Beguiler will go out and assault the T every day. It will take on average three weeks of daily attacks to kill T. If that is too long, then he can try to distract T with other spells illusions, etc.