Thoughts on the Tarrasque

[martyboy74]

Or better yet, meet my friend 'another antilife shell'. For twice the SR passing fun!

[triforcel]

Not only do I feel that the allip solution is really cheesy, but I also agree with several people that it just shouldn't work, though there is no errata for the tarrasque so either they meant to make him vulnerable to ability drain, or they still haven't realized their mistakes.

The plan to drown the tarrasque while he's asleep, or to have fighter sneak up to him and coup de grace repeatedly both fail because there's little chance of the tarrasque sleeping through either of those and once it wakes up you'll be hard pressed to escape with your characters that have been working so hard to defeat the tarrasque at the lowest level possible.

Finally the plan to trap the tarrasque within walls of force faces the issues of
1) Researching a wall of force spell that can be cast horizontally
2) Researching the tarrasque to the point that you can reasonably dig a hole large enough for him to fit into
3) Find a caster who would be willing to shell out the THOUSANDS of experience you would need to make each wall of force permanent
4) Find a way to lure the tarrasque into said hole (not much you can do if it just wants to go the other way for some reason)
5) Hope nobody you care about falls into the hole with the tarrasque
6) Casting the necessary Walls of Force to trap the tarrasque and then make them permanent while he tries to climb his way out, the tiniest obstruction to where you want the wall to go makes the spell fail)
7) Wait around for him to suffocate, which will take a while
8) Accomplish all this without attracting the attention of anyone who might say anything to anyone who might make a remark that could possibly be heard by someone who could inform somebody who has any number of reasons to want the tarrasque to be alive and free or simply alive and also has some method of destroying your walls of force (not as hard as one might think)
9) Hope that the tarrasque doesn't have a bottle of air somewhere on his body from his rampages
10) PRAY that the tarrasque isn't the material planes equivalent of Galactus

But other than that, you're fine.

[Kaelik]

I think that, at some level, I actually did remember that. That'll teach me to post without looking it up first. Still, though, 1 in 20 (or more) chance of failure is pretty significant, when a failure means the Tarrasque can jump up out of a hole in the ground and shred your d4 hit dice to ribbons.

On the Wall of Force idea, in addition to the orientation of the walls, Wall of Force and related effects (Resilient Sphere, Forcecage) explicitly can't cause suffocation.

A) It says that no where in Wall of Force.
B) Doesn't matter if they are permanencied. He's still a non-issue.

[Kaelik]

Finally the plan to trap the tarrasque within walls of force faces the issues of
1) Researching a wall of force spell that can be cast horizontally
2) Researching the tarrasque to the point that you can reasonably dig a hole large enough for him to fit into
3) Find a caster who would be willing to shell out the THOUSANDS of experience you would need to make each wall of force permanent
4) Find a way to lure the tarrasque into said hole (not much you can do if it just wants to go the other way for some reason)
5) Hope nobody you care about falls into the hole with the tarrasque
6) Casting the necessary Walls of Force to trap the tarrasque and then make them permanent while he tries to climb his way out, the tiniest obstruction to where you want the wall to go makes the spell fail)
7) Wait around for him to suffocate, which will take a while
8) Accomplish all this without attracting the attention of anyone who might say anything to anyone who might make a remark that could possibly be heard by someone who could inform somebody who has any number of reasons to want the tarrasque to be alive and free or simply alive and also has some method of destroying your walls of force (not as hard as one might think)
9) Hope that the tarrasque doesn't have a bottle of air somewhere on his body from his rampages
10) PRAY that the tarrasque isn't the material planes equivalent of Galactus

But other than that, you're fine.

Or you could just ignore 1-10 since this is just a way to seal him away to prevent him from devouring some town. And the XP for beating a CR 20 is probably enough to make up for the difference.

(Also, note that all but one of the Walls is cast before the Tarrasque shows up, the other one just takes a readied action to cast as soon as he falls through.)

[Jack Mann]

Well, I said it was kind of cheap. The main issue is that even if you fail the first time, you can fly off, rest, and come back the next day. The tarrasque doesn't heal the drain, so you just keep summoning allips until he's been hit enough times.

It can essentially be done in core, but it's likely to take longer. An evil or neutral cleric can command allips to hit the tarrasque. The only problem is that the core-only cleric takes a lot longer to get allips.

[triforcel]

Or you could just ignore 1-10 since this is just a way to seal him away to prevent him from devouring some town. And the XP for beating a CR 20 is probably enough to make up for the difference.

(Also, note that all but one of the Walls is cast before the Tarrasque shows up, the other one just takes a readied action to cast as soon as he falls through.)

Except that not everyone will want the tarrasque sealed away. Especially if 10 is true, then you're facing ramifications from one or more dieties if not creation itself.

[Anxe]

What's the LA for a Were-Tarrasque?

It'd have to be pretty damn high. Maybe even 20.

[Arbitrarity]

It'd have to be pretty damn high. Maybe even 20.

I'd say 3. However, 48 racial HD make it rather unfeasable

[Anxe]

THREE?!?! It's got regeneration 40! and 30 natural armor! Colossal size! Stats out the wazoo. SR, DR, immunities galore. Wicked natural weapons, a frightful presence, that reflective skin thingy, and finally a wicked stomach. It sure looked like 20 to me. Not a pitiful three.

[Enzario]

DM's solution to players trying to kill Tarrasque and being really, really arrogant about it: Pull a Godzilla

"Wait, he's pregnant?!?"

[Jack Mann]

An ECL 68 being with the tarrasque's abilities would be pretty pathetic. Honestly, an ECL 48 (no LA at all) wouldn't be that tough, compared to other epic characters. Even non-spellcasters.

[brian c]

An ECL 68 being with the tarrasque's abilities would be pretty pathetic. Honestly, an ECL 48 (no LA at all) wouldn't be that tough, compared to other epic characters. Even non-spellcasters.

And that's why Racial hit dice aren't equivalent to class level hit dice. The Tarrasque has 48 HD but is only a CR 20, whereas any PC that would count as CR 20 would have 20 HD (and those with less would have been using a LA, which is commonly agreed to be suboptimal)

[Jack Mann]

*Nods* Pretty much my point. Of course, a tarrasque with gear, better feats, and working as part of a group would be a lot tougher. Definitely worth its CR at that point, and a bit more besides.

EDIT: Actually, there's an idea. Has anyone tried rebuilding the Tarrasque from the ground up to do what it was meant to do? Sounds like a good homebrew job...

[Callos_DeTerran]

9) Hope that the tarrasque doesn't have a bottle of air somewhere on his body from his rampages

Unfortunately that doesn't really work...the tarrasque's stomach is one of, if not the most, effecient engine of destruction in the multiverse. Once your in Stomach 1 of three, you just pray to die before going to 2 or 3.

[triforcel]

Unfortunately that doesn't really work...the tarrasque's stomach is one of, if not the most, effecient engine of destruction in the multiverse. Once your in Stomach 1 of three, you just pray to die before going to 2 or 3.

It doesn't have to be in his stomach, when he smashes through a house or a castle one could have become wedged in his shell or something. I'm not saying it's likely, but if you spring this on a DM he might call it.

[sikyon]

4x Scrolls of flying + 4x Wands of Acid Arrows should do the trick. No SR or save, easy hit against touch attacks. 4x Wands will overcome fast healing. Just have to get a Scroll of Wish too.

[Callos_DeTerran]

4x Scrolls of flying + 4x Wands of Acid Arrows should do the trick. No SR or save, easy hit against touch attacks. 4x Wands will overcome fast healing. Just have to get a Scroll of Wish too.

...'cept your using only one wand at a time, two if you have dual wand wielder for a maxium of 16 damage a round, that most likely will not persist too long (if you get a store bought one which uses the lowest possible CL for the item which means...16 damage a round) and the regeneration 40 easily heals that up.

...This is ignoring the 30% chance that your arrow reflects off of it's carapace and hits you right back.

[triforcel]

I believe he means four people, each one using a wand. Though that still amounts to a maximum of 32 damage for each round's worth of casting and with the lasting effects it might take him down, you're still going to get hit with a lot of arrows yourself.

[Mojo_Rat]

Out of curiosity has anyone ever beaten one of these in a normal game where no metagaming was used?.

It seems to me that PC's without access to the MM entry in character would likely die horrible deaths to it.

But maybe im looking at it wrong. Ive never personally faught one or been in any game where it might ever come up.

[skywalker]

Out of curiosity has anyone ever beaten one of these in a normal game where no metagaming was used?.

It seems to me that PC's without access to the MM entry in character would likely die horrible deaths to it.

But maybe im looking at it wrong. Ive never personally faught one or been in any game where it might ever come up.

Higher levels are different from lower ones(skywalker, you win the obvious statement prize!). At level 20, a spellcaster who rolls a 12 or better on his caster level check gets to affect the thing. You can finger of death the tarrasque, when it wakes back up, you can realize that the thing is one tough monster, and then go home and come back prepared with a wish. That was easy and completely core.

No, you didn't just randomly encounter it and defeat it, but who does? The thing is legendary, you'd have to know something about it before you fought it, what do you define as meta-gaming?

[Jack Mann]

Well, that's part of the poor design of the tarrasque. Either you know about it--and it's an easy fight--or you don't. If you don't know about it, you can't defeat it. This is bad monster design, since there aren't any real clues of the monster itself to help players figure out how to beat it. The only way to find the information is either through DM fiat ("An old man walks up, leaning heavily with terrible age. 'I know of that beast,' he says. 'I hunted it in my vanished youth. It can only be defeated if you deal over nine hundred points of nonlethal damage to it and then use the Wish or Miracle spells. It cannot be hurt by the following things..."), a DC 58 knowledge check (and if they're easily making DC 58 knowledge checks, they're high enough that the tarrasque is no longer a great threat), or divinations. And the divinations pretty much reveal what the DM decides is applicable (Are the tarrasque's vulnerabilities part of the legends surrounding it? If so, how did people learn about them? How did they find out how to kill it if no one's ever managed to kill it? Do the gods know how to defeat it, and are they willing to tell you?). You can't even try to beat it the "hard way." Without knowing that wish or miracle is involved, you can't keep it dead.

Now, granted, you can go on a quest to learn how to defeat the tarrasque, and that can be a worthy challenge, but once you know the trick, the tarrasque just isn't that big a deal. At least, not at the levels where you're meant to be fighting it.

And then there's the problem that, frankly, everyone knows about the tarrasque, out of game. Sure, you don't want to metagame, but going on a long quest to learn something that you already know just feels pointless.

If I were to redesign the tarrasque, I'd have the weakness unspecified. I'd have a few different possible weaknesses that a DM could choose from, with suggested ways to hint to the players what they are, so they could build quests up around defeating the tarrasque. And then I'd make it difficult to fight even after learning the weaknesses. If they aren't risking life and limb, then it doesn't deserve the reputation the tarrasque enjoys. In my eyes, the tarrasque should be the last step you take before you go to truly epic levels. It should be the last real challenge of non-epic D&D.

[ASCIISkull]

On the Wall of Force idea, in addition to the orientation of the walls, Wall of Force and related effects (Resilient Sphere, Forcecage) explicitly can't cause suffocation.

Not on their own, but once those walls of force are in place it's pretty easy to submerge/bury/cover with a thin layer of cement to stop air from circulating.

[Khanderas]

Good point about the travelling distance.
1-3 days of eating is good. But after that it should vanish, unscryable, undetectable (just blinking out is cheap, but more of a horror movie bit, youknow axemurderer is surrounded, backs behind a corner and is gone. Yes I know the size of Mr T).
Then after the few months randomly appear somewhere (DM choice) randomly and ravage the countryside. Or City. I am told that one of the theories about this beast is that it is a punishment by some god, possibly slain/forgotten.
Even if killed it would appear again after those few months. Winning a fight (wish and all) would give good loots but only reset its respawn timer.

And yes, some ranged attack is needed, defenses aside.
Edit: Oooh ohh. Give him at will ability to telekinisis you to eating range (if you manage to distract him enough from eating things in range)

[Thrawn183]

I think the real problem is people are forgetting its a CR 20. Its not THAT easy to take on 4 per day. So yeah, if its a one time encounter out of the blue, it totally fails its CR for all the above mentioned reasons, but if its the 3rd encounter of the day, where the party has had a lot of their all day buffs dispelled by say... a CR 20 dragon or Balor for instance, than it would be a more interesting fight.

Sadly, I think the designers didn't realize just how important all day flight etc. are and how pretty much every 20th level party can't be touched by the tarrasque (if you're 20th level and you can't fly, you're gonna die).

[Dausuul]

Out of curiosity has anyone ever beaten one of these in a normal game where no metagaming was used?.

It seems to me that PC's without access to the MM entry in character would likely die horrible deaths to it.

Not likely. PCs at anywhere near that level have both flight and teleportation in spades. A melee type might try going toe-to-toe and getting slaughtered, but the casters would take to the sky because that's what 20th-level casters do.

[tainsouvra]

It seems to me that PC's without access to the MM entry in character would likely die horrible deaths to it.

Looking at it from the other side, with the amount of divination and such available to a 20th-level party, the only way the PC's wouldn't know how to kill it is if the DM simply decides that the party shouldn't know...which is kind of a metagaming situation of its own.

[Mojo_Rat]

Well, that's part of the poor design of the tarrasque. Either you know about it--and it's an easy fight--or you don't. If you don't know about it, you can't defeat it. This is bad monster design, since there aren't any real clues of the monster itself to help players figure out how to beat it. The only way to find the information is either through DM fiat ("An old man walks up, leaning heavily with terrible age. 'I know of that beast,' he says. 'I hunted it in my vanished youth. It can only be defeated if you deal over nine hundred points of nonlethal damage to it and then use the Wish or Miracle spells. It cannot be hurt by the following things..."), a DC 58 knowledge check (and if they're easily making DC 58 knowledge checks, they're high enough that the tarrasque is no longer a great threat), or divinations. And the divinations pretty much reveal what the DM decides is applicable (Are the tarrasque's vulnerabilities part of the legends surrounding it? If so, how did people learn about them? How did they find out how to kill it if no one's ever managed to kill it? Do the gods know how to defeat it, and are they willing to tell you?). You can't even try to beat it the "hard way." Without knowing that wish or miracle is involved, you can't keep it dead.

Now, granted, you can go on a quest to learn how to defeat the tarrasque, and that can be a worthy challenge, but once you know the trick, the tarrasque just isn't that big a deal. At least, not at the levels where you're meant to be fighting it.

And then there's the problem that, frankly, everyone knows about the tarrasque, out of game. Sure, you don't want to metagame, but going on a long quest to learn something that you already know just feels pointless.

If I were to redesign the tarrasque, I'd have the weakness unspecified. I'd have a few different possible weaknesses that a DM could choose from, with suggested ways to hint to the players what they are, so they could build quests up around defeating the tarrasque. And then I'd make it difficult to fight even after learning the weaknesses. If they aren't risking life and limb, then it doesn't deserve the reputation the tarrasque enjoys. In my eyes, the tarrasque should be the last step you take before you go to truly epic levels. It should be the last real challenge of non-epic D&D.

To be honest the going on a quest to learnhow to slay it bit sounds like it would be a Fun adventure. At that point when its finished the Dm can even adjust the thing based on the quest.

As i said im my post ive never had characters that high so its kind of a mystery zone for me despite playing the game since 1st edition. But I do agree the 6 toughness feats are a bit of a useless.

[Lord Zentei]

Tarrasque is only the strongest monster in the Monster Manual because Dragons have their own table. Otherwise he's a joke.

Though shivering touch can turn dragons into a joke as well.

To be fair, Shivering Touch is one of those things no DM in their right minds should allow in their campaigns (especially if combined with metamagic abuse ).

I honestly cannot fathom what WotC were thinking when they cleared that through playtesting (assuming they did playtest it at all).

[....]

Not only do I feel that the allip solution is really cheesy, but I also agree with several people that it just shouldn't work, though there is no errata for the tarrasque so either they meant to make him vulnerable to ability drain, or they still haven't realized their mistakes.

The plan to drown the tarrasque while he's asleep, or to have fighter sneak up to him and coup de grace repeatedly both fail because there's little chance of the tarrasque sleeping through either of those and once it wakes up you'll be hard pressed to escape with your characters that have been working so hard to defeat the tarrasque at the lowest level possible.

Finally the plan to trap the tarrasque within walls of force faces the issues of
1) Researching a wall of force spell that can be cast horizontally
2) Researching the tarrasque to the point that you can reasonably dig a hole large enough for him to fit into
3) Find a caster who would be willing to shell out the THOUSANDS of experience you would need to make each wall of force permanent
4) Find a way to lure the tarrasque into said hole (not much you can do if it just wants to go the other way for some reason)
5) Hope nobody you care about falls into the hole with the tarrasque
6) Casting the necessary Walls of Force to trap the tarrasque and then make them permanent while he tries to climb his way out, the tiniest obstruction to where you want the wall to go makes the spell fail)
7) Wait around for him to suffocate, which will take a while
8) Accomplish all this without attracting the attention of anyone who might say anything to anyone who might make a remark that could possibly be heard by someone who could inform somebody who has any number of reasons to want the tarrasque to be alive and free or simply alive and also has some method of destroying your walls of force (not as hard as one might think)
9) Hope that the tarrasque doesn't have a bottle of air somewhere on his body from his rampages
10) PRAY that the tarrasque isn't the material planes equivalent of Galactus

But other than that, you're fine.

I loled irl.

[blacksabre]

For al those "sufficate" "drown" plans out there.. I personally rule this won't work..not in any real time anyway.

-The Tarrasque has no lair. When it's done eating it finds a suitably large amount of earth and melts into it. Doesn't dig or make a hole or anything, just melts down far enough that it doesn't think it'll be disturbed and goes to sleep....

IMO, if the T can sleep deep in the ground "with no air to breathe" for months on end, then he either requires none, or metabolizes oxygen so slowly, he can last weeks on a single breath when active, and months when hibernating (which then requirs him to come to the surface..