Traditional 3.5e methods of handling bigganumbers Kaiju?

[Gavinfoxx]

Hi there, I was wondering what the major 3.5e ways of handling 'bigger numbers than you can handle' Kaiju is. The 'Way above Colossal sized' things with near arbitrary amounts of hit points, saves, constitution, strength, very high (but not arbitrarily high) spell resistance, various sources of damage reduction/resistance and self-healing, not a literally impossible to handle number of hit dice a large list of condition immunities (but not to the point where it's immune to absolutely everything; ability damage yes, suffocation yes, ability drain no), which also have solid ranged attacks of various sorts? Anyone have any standard or typical methods and tactics? Or the 'main sets of things to try to see if they are immune to this'?

[Xervous]

If you don’t want the players to kill it with a way you disapprove of don’t give it stats. The kaiju is a walking natural disaster they have to survive, at least until they secure the McGuffin.

[Gavinfoxx]

If you don’t want the players to kill it with a way you disapprove of don’t give it stats. The kaiju is a walking natural disaster they have to survive, at least until they secure the McGuffin.

I want the players to kill it / it's for a written story / it's for a high optimization game that the players are expected to be creative to solve / I don't actually disapprove of weird stuff / there is no McGuffin unless they make one / etc., pick your poison. Please don't assume I don't want the type of help I specifically ask for.

[Xervous]

The various tarrasque pimping threads cover most of the meat here. Most important takeaways are that players will generally follow the path of least resistance.

If it can be hit with a Lose effect they’ll go for that. If they can’t do that kiting becomes the next option. If kiting is not practical or isn’t effective they’ll consider throwing bodies at it, typically expendable ones. Only after that will the party choose between a proper engagement and fleeing.

Immunities cover the first. Movement, ranged capabilities, and certain blends of damage mitigation cover the second. AoE and/or flat mitigation provide the Ride Height Check that keeps out armies and hireling swarms.

[Gavinfoxx]

I'm not asking as a GM per se, I'm asking from the player perspective. *Which spells*, *which magic items*, *which combinations of the above*, are most useful in handling kaiju with insane saves and sr and strength and constitution, assuming it has more hit points than can be reasonably dealt with?

[JNAProductions]

Is it immune to Wisdom drain?

If not, an Allip.

[Xervous]

Save or die, wail of the banshee, glass strike

Save or lose, plane shift, mind control effects

No save just die/lose, ability damage, ability drain

Save or suck, etc

Dropping shrunk items

Summons

Buffstacked ubercharger cruise missile

Flying kiting

Burrowing kiting

Ethereal kiting

Teleport kiting

Just rambling at this point

[Gavinfoxx]

Those first two are fort negates. If the fort of this thing is in the hundreds and it has Steadfast Determination, how are those going to work against a Kaiju? That's it's whole schtick. Also assume it has functionally infinite hit points, extremely high but not theoretically unbeatable SR, relatively normal dex/int/wis/cha scores (for giant monsters), immunity to ability damage, and some limited resource it can expend to negate ability drain or ability score suppression. How do you get access to SR bypassing ways of doing ability drain on those stats? How do you hold it in some area that it can't use Strength and size to get out of? How do you drop items on it that will annihilate it anyway no matter what it is made of? How do you fling it into other dimensions or space against it's will?

[Biggus]

If it can be hit with a Lose effect they’ll go for that. If they can’t do that kiting becomes the next option. If kiting is not practical or isn’t effective they’ll consider throwing bodies at it, typically expendable ones.

What does kiting mean?

I'm not asking as a GM per se, I'm asking from the player perspective. *Which spells*, *which magic items*, *which combinations of the above*, are most useful in handling kaiju with insane saves and sr and strength and constitution, assuming it has more hit points than can be reasonably dealt with?

As JNA Productions says, Summon Undead IV can get you an Allip (SU V can get you two). If it's not immune to ability drain it won't last long if you summon two per round (or four if you can cast it Quickened too).

True Casting and Assay Spell Resistance can combine to give you +20 vs SR.

Big brute monsters don't usually have very good touch AC, so touch attacks are usually good, Shivering Touch in particular can shut it down in a single spell if its Dex is low.

[King of Nowhere]

Hi there, I was wondering what the major 3.5e ways of handling 'bigger numbers than you can handle' Kaiju is. The 'Way above Colossal sized' things with near arbitrary amounts of hit points, saves, constitution, strength, spell resistance, a list of condition immunities a mile long, which also have solid ranged attacks of various sorts? Anyone have any standard or typical methods and tactics? Or the 'main sets of things to try to see if they are immune to this'?

i don't think there is a "standard" way of dealing with it. it depends on a specific case.
but the thing is, it always has weaknesses. i don't know of any monster that's immune to really everything. finding that weakness is the first step.
and i've also very rarely seen a kaju with an effective ranged attack.

so, your "standard" case is actually not standard at all.

[Gavinfoxx]

i don't think there is a "standard" way of dealing with it. it depends on a specific case.
but the thing is, it always has weaknesses. i don't know of any monster that's immune to really everything. finding that weakness is the first step.
and i've also very rarely seen a kaju with an effective ranged attack.

so, your "standard" case is actually not standard at all.

Uhhh... Godzilla has a powerful ranged attack capable of a variety of targeting methods and functionally infinite hit points and extreme SR and saves (and various 'succeed on a save on a 1' techniques) and such. And probably some way to resist or throw off ability drain for a while or various annihilation or disintegration effects. And a lot of immunities and resistances. Use that as a basic conceptual case, I suppose.

[Silly Name]

If "kill it dead" isn't necessary, something in the spirit of the Arrowhead of Total Destruction^[1] deals with any kaiju that can't return from the Astral Plane, and that you don't care about leaving adrift there.

I'd try to deal with the sort of monster you're describing through means like this or luring it into traps from which it can't escape (launch it into space, drop it in the Plane of Positive Energy...). Kaiju movies usually have the military throw everything at the beast only to find out it doesn't work, so at that point you either bring down absolute, utter annihilation in the hope that that's enough (see: Cloverfield), or you stop being a dum-dum and play it smart by getting the monster away and ensure it doesn't return.

_{[1]: The Arrowhead is just a clever design, in general you just need to stick a Bag of Holding inside a Portable Hole within 10 feet of the monster.}

[Vizzerdrix]

Infinite supply of eggshell grenades to blind it and some blacksand to slowly grind it down? If it can't heal, this will get it.... some day.

Maybe use the portable hole arrow to banish it or get a decanter of endless water into its lungs.

Or that spell that kills the targets most loved one. How much do you love Kaiju?

[Particle_Man]

Are TO tricks allowed? Like the “refill 1s, reroll and add if max damage, 1d2 weapon = infinite damage” cheese?

[Xeni]

I'm not asking as a GM per se, I'm asking from the player perspective. *Which spells*, *which magic items*, *which combinations of the above*, are most useful in handling kaiju with insane saves and sr and strength and constitution, assuming it has more hit points than can be reasonably dealt with?

Epic spells are really the only answer to something like that. assuming its hps/saves/immunities are really that intense then there is only so much players can do without a mcguffin to secure the win. any strategy relying on damage won't work because it has more hp than can be dealt with, most strategies that depend on conditions wont work due to immunities and/or the ability to remove/negate the condition. also high saves. for this same reason save or dies/save or lose/save or suck also wont work. If you remove from consideration all player resources that cause damage, apply conditions, or require a save then the list of things that a character can do within the constraints of RAW is really, really small.

That said, if I was a player vs this I would acquire a properly built dread witch(leadership?) to bypass the saves and immunities and inflict fear effects. then with the optional use of solid fog or similar magic you can at your discretion either steer the creature or immobilize it altogether. at least temporarily. From there, actually killing it, im not too sure since save or dies are out and HP damage is out. there is no RAW way to actually kill it outside of an epic spell. imprisonment might be the only option you have. if you can get a large enough gem and get the creature to "accept it" trap the soul might work. also if you can buff a scholar type enough to figure out the creatures name, truenamer for learning its truename even maybe? but that would require another instance of leadership probably.

At the end of the day, barring ambigous shenanigans, poorly written epic rules, or DM assistance a player will simply have NO way of dealing with something like this.

[Gavinfoxx]

Epic spells are really the only answer to something like that. assuming its hps/saves/immunities are really that intense then there is only so much players can do without a mcguffin to secure the win. any strategy relying on damage won't work because it has more hp than can be dealt with, most strategies that depend on conditions wont work due to immunities and/or the ability to remove/negate the condition. also high saves. for this same reason save or dies/save or lose/save or suck also wont work. If you remove from consideration all player resources that cause damage, apply conditions, or require a save then the list of things that a character can do within the constraints of RAW is really, really small.

That said, if I was a player vs this I would acquire a properly built dread witch(leadership?) to bypass the saves and immunities and inflict fear effects. then with the optional use of solid fog or similar magic you can at your discretion either steer the creature or immobilize it altogether. at least temporarily. From there, actually killing it, im not too sure since save or dies are out and HP damage is out. there is no RAW way to actually kill it outside of an epic spell. imprisonment might be the only option you have. if you can get a large enough gem and get the creature to "accept it" trap the soul might work. also if you can buff a scholar type enough to figure out the creatures name, truenamer for learning its truename even maybe? but that would require another instance of leadership probably.

At the end of the day, barring ambigous shenanigans, poorly written epic rules, or DM assistance a player will simply have NO way of dealing with something like this.

I'm not necessarily saying all conditions are impossible to inflict on it. Sending it to another plane, or wis/dex/int/cha drain, or level drain, or various curse effects, especially things that don't target fortitude saves, or JUST targets SR and not saves at all to use with combos of True Casting and Assay Spell Resistance... the really high end stuff. Is 'Summon an Allip' really the main go to?

[ixrisor]

Avasculate halves the current hp of a target, with no fortitude save allowed, a few castings of that could bring it into a range where it can be killed by more normal means (ubercharging with wraithstrike to hit touch ac, for example)

[Silly Name]

At the end of the day, barring ambigous shenanigans, poorly written epic rules, or DM assistance a player will simply have NO way of dealing with something like this.

I don't think this is true at all. The Positive Energy Plane is a deathtrap for anything that doesn't have a way to get back, so even non-Epic characters not relying on ambiguous shenanigans only need to find a way to send the kaiju there with no way to go back. Sooner or later it'll roll a 1 on its Fortitude save and explode.

[Particle_Man]

I don't think this is true at all. The Positive Energy Plane is a deathtrap for anything that doesn't have a way to get back, so even non-Epic characters not relying on ambiguous shenanigans only need to find a way to send the kaiju there with no way to go back. Sooner or later it'll roll a 1 on its Fortitude save and explode.

There is a feat that has one treat natural 1's on a fort save as no longer being automatic failures.

[Gavinfoxx]

There is a feat that has one treat natural 1's on a fort save as no longer being automatic failures.

It's still not easily getting back! What are the various ways to send something that can't fail fort saves 'away' in general?

[Silly Name]

It's still not easily getting back! What are the various ways to send something that can't fail fort saves 'away' in general?

As mentioned above, the Bag of Holding/Portable Hole trick is one such method.

Trick it into a one-way Portal, or one you disable immediately after it passed through. Pick a plane/location that has some chance of killing the beast, if there is.

A very costly (and theoretically difficult to use) option, but which spells irreparable death, is using a Sphere of Annihilation. Isn't there a prestige class that lets a character control a Sphere of Annihilation easily?

[Xeni]

I'm not necessarily saying all conditions are impossible to inflict on it. Sending it to another plane, or wis/dex/int/cha drain, or level drain, or various curse effects, especially things that don't target fortitude saves, or JUST targets SR and not saves at all to use with combos of True Casting and Assay Spell Resistance... the really high end stuff. Is 'Summon an Allip' really the main go to?

every really really big creature that I can think of has immunity to energy drain. and even if its not then an arbitrary amount of HP means that there is also an arbitrary amount of HD. therefore it could no more easily be killed by energy drain than by HP damage. sending it to another plane requires a save, and anything requiring a save is out the window seeing as its saves are arbitrarily high and it has been built to avoid a fail on nat 1s. that is, unless you use the bag of holding/portable hole thing which doesn't allow a save. but given the 10ft radius limitation I suspect most dms would rule that supermassive creatures that cant fit through the gate do not in fact get sucked through the gate. ability drain/damage is another thing that most super massive monsters are immune to, or barring that require a save (see above for why thats useless). however if you have a method of no-save ability drain and your super massive monster is not immune, then beating it becomes trivially easy for any character thats able to round up a few allips or similar method of no-save drain. Also, if its SR is low enough to be overcome with true casting and assay resistance then its SR is nowhere near arbitrary and ceases to become a major preventative factor for strategies to deal with it. so its kind of starting to sound like this thing isn't as arbitrarily tough/resistant as you made it sound with the first post. which opens up a ton more options for dealing with it.

I don't think this is true at all. The Positive Energy Plane is a deathtrap for anything that doesn't have a way to get back, so even non-Epic characters not relying on ambiguous shenanigans only need to find a way to send the kaiju there with no way to go back. Sooner or later it'll roll a 1 on its Fortitude save and explode.

op mentioned that the feat to not count nat 1s as an auto fail is on this thing.

[Gavinfoxx]

every really really big creature that I can think of has immunity to energy drain. and even if its not then an arbitrary amount of HP means that there is also an arbitrary amount of HD. therefore it could no more easily be killed by energy drain than by HP damage. sending it to another plane requires a save, and anything requiring a save is out the window seeing as its saves are arbitrarily high and it has been built to avoid a fail on nat 1s. that is, unless you use the bag of holding/portable hole thing which doesn't allow a save. but given the 10ft radius limitation I suspect most dms would rule that supermassive creatures that cant fit through the gate do not in fact get sucked through the gate. ability drain/damage is another thing that most super massive monsters are immune to, or barring that require a save (see above for why thats useless). however if you have a method of no-save ability drain and your super massive monster is not immune, then beating it becomes trivially easy for any character thats able to round up a few allips or similar method of no-save drain. Also, if its SR is low enough to be overcome with true casting and assay resistance then its SR is nowhere near arbitrary and ceases to become a major preventative factor for strategies to deal with it. so its kind of starting to sound like this thing isn't as arbitrarily tough/resistant as you made it sound with the first post. which opens up a ton more options for dealing with it.



op mentioned that the feat to not count nat 1s as an auto fail is on this thing.

Generally, a lot of GMs miss spell resistance or touch AC or level drain or ability drain. The high hit points might be a mix of damage caps on a per attack basis in the setting, plus strong fast healing and regeneration, plus damage reduction, plus various energy resistances. I'm asking for 'obscure' things that go beyond hit point damage and things which require saves, primarily, as a means of dealing with it. Edited the original post for clarity.

[Misery Esquire]

It's our dear old friend, Stuffydoll!

Or maybe you prefer The Adaptive Evolution Challenge, where it eventually gained "Logical immunity, applies even when the rules don't" and became truly indestructible.

[Anthrowhale]

A Dweomerkeeper delivering 4 supernatural Twin Avasculates will reduce the hit points by a factor of 256. It's not super-clear how many hit points Godzilla should have, but dividing by 256 is usually enough to matter.

[Xeni]

Generally, a lot of GMs miss spell resistance or touch AC or level drain or ability drain. The high hit points might be a mix of damage caps on a per attack basis in the setting, plus strong fast healing and regeneration, plus damage reduction, plus various energy resistances. I'm asking for 'obscure' things that go beyond hit point damage and things which require saves, primarily, as a means of dealing with it. Edited the original post for clarity.

fair enough. in that case id start out with testing energy and physical resistances from extreme range. determining that these are ineffectual the next thing on the list would be to test ability score damage and energy drain using massed undead(preferably incorporeal). assuming that this fails(high deflection ac? aura based attack that kills em too quick?) then the next thing to check would be solid fog or the like to see if it has freedom of movement. if it does not then containment is possible and will be noted for after we finish figuring out if we can kill it. the next thing would be trying save or lose spells of various kinds in conjunction with kinds of save reducers and DC enhancers to see if any of those work. i think the next thing would be contain it.

[rel]

big numbers are beaten by absolute effects which simply state x happens. 3.x has lot's of those unless you happen to be a muggle.
Find a weakness in the monsters stat line and apply an appropriate absolute effect.

This can be as simple as picking a spell that targets <not fort> and casting repeatedly until you get lucky and breach SR and saves or as complex as carefully surrounding the creature with indestructible force effects then dropping a mountain on it.

[Xeni]

It's not super-clear how many hit points Godzilla should have, but dividing by 256 is usually enough to matter.

thats sig worthy lol

[Xervous]

Assuming it needs to breathe you could pile Drowned on it until it suffocates. Are there other lethal auras we can work with here?

[Silly Name]

[...]that is, unless you use the bag of holding/portable hole thing which doesn't allow a save. but given the 10ft radius limitation I suspect most dms would rule that supermassive creatures that cant fit through the gate do not in fact get sucked through the gate.[...]

Not to say that this is necessarily wrong, but I've always interpreted the "warp" created by the "Portable Hole into Bag of Holding" interaction to behave like a small, brief-duration black hole. Everything that's in its "pull" (in this case, the 10ft radius) gets sucked in and distorted if necessary, so that being big doesn't save you.

That said, if this Astral black hole doesn't work, we can use the "actual" D&D black hole: Sphere of Annihilation. This is harder since we need to locate the Sphere and then have the kaiju get in contact with it, but it's also actual death rather than just sending it away.

Another Artifact-level option is to give the kaiju a Staff of the Magi, overload it and hope the monster "fails" the d100 roll. Not exactly reliable, but even if it succeeds it gets sent to another plane, and I'm assuming the beast doesn't know how to travel between planes.

If we assume the creature to be a Godzilla-expy, we know that it's vulnerable to asphyxiation (original method of defeat), so anything that stops it from breathing is a legitimate strategy (but if we assume it to be a Godzilla-expy, it should also be amphibious, so no drowning).