For the outside of Frightful Presence, you could have your players take a Heroes Feast, which makes them immune to fear. It only takes a cleric or druid of 11th level. And that Druid can also be a Moon druid and have Shapechange. A good tank if they go earth elemental.
i really like the idea of grappling ... but not a polymorphed tarrasque .... a goliath totem-barbarian with the enlarge spell on him has the same size (in carry capacity, so in my mind in strength) as a tarrasque and could arguably grapple it at full size without disadvantage
I actually have something like that in my campaign. I have a mecha terrasque with an impenetrable shield around it. To destroy the barrier they must find its opening and enter its insides, which is actually a 100 floor randomly generated mega dungeon with the barrier to drop it on the final floor.
The Tarrasque is a legendary monster comming from a small town near where i live in the south west of France. The legend was also known in the north of spain. And we celebrate a fest for the tarrasque every year.
I remember when we tried to "pick off" a tarrasque in AD&D from a spell jammer ship. It worked really well--until it threw a castle at us. No real ranged attacks--my ass...
Actually it isn't that difficult. The reason DMs don't use it is because of its CR which is logical but go check out Nerdachy and see how fairly easily a level 20 group takes out a Tarrasque.
+Chad-Solomon Dixon my suspicion is that a well-balanced, well-played party of 20th PCs can take almost any single monster. That was my first thought when I looked at the demon lords in OotA (a party of 15th level PCs will curb-stomp them!), and was my conclusion after running multiple Adult/Ancient dragons against the party in RoT. If I really wanted to make the Tarrasque a challenge I'd increase the AC to 28-30, give resistance to all damage, and immunity to 5th level and lower spells, for a start. Bring back it's regen and need for a Wish to really put it down.
Almost any monster save Tiamat. There is no party comp save a specific Anti-Tiamat force that is going to survive a minimum of 100 points, per round, of AoE elemental damage. I wouldn't touch it's AC or give it the "wish thing" because neither of those are interactive they're just blockades. I would just follow the Tiamat mold and have it's roar do massive damage and make it a Legendary Action.
20th PCs are actually too powerful for this thing. We ran a one shot against the tarrasque with kitted-out PCs and it actually made me feel bad for the tarrasque. I think to make the fight have that epic sense of desperation, the PCs may have to be 15-16th level or be in a very low magic game.
I haven't had a chance to watch your video of the fight, but your response confirms my suspicions. I went into research for the episode thinking the Tarrasque must be insanely powerful for a CR 30 monster, but after looking over the stats, I was left feeling underwhelmed. I should have known better considering my thoughts on the demon lords in OotA, but I was holding out hope for the Tarrasque. Have you seen the Epic-level monsters project over on ENWorld? A poster there is trying to beef up monsters of CR 20+ but I haven't tried any of them out yet.
I myself had a similar experience. My DM had created a one shot for the lot of us to try out 20th level builds against a flying tarrasque, and just by handling it like a ragnaros fight we ended it all pretty quickly (Well... as far as that healthpool goes anyway..)
The thing I feel about big monsters is that they're not supposed to be the first and only challenge you run into after a long rest. Like yeah, of course everything's easy when you've got all your spells, one-a-days and x-a-rests up, and you know you're not going to be fighting anything else after.
You absolutely should, just make sure to properly instruct your party that now is the time to run away and defecate loudly, in whatever order is best at the time.
What do you mean. I literally told my players they would be fighting it the second day of my campaign in an in game month while they were level 5. Unfortunately they are level 11 now but they shouldn't break lvl 13
It would be a great way to tame down a party of murder hobos. "You murdered the entire village I had a several session arc planned in, so here, try to murder Godzilla. You fucking psychopaths."
The Tarrasque, like the Kraken, should be less of a foe and more of an event. Both are almost Patron-like beings of an eternal nature. Fighting either should be like trying to hit an earthquake or tsunami with a sword. Bringing either one into "you need to kill this" creates a serious issue for a DM. How do you top it at next week's game? Such a massive and powerful creature should be either a campaign conclusion plot point, or even the start of a campaign (Tarrasque/Kraken/etc. has destroyed region/city/kingdom, beginning an age of conflict/poverty/rebuilding/etc. Characters must do X to prevent this from ever happening again). In one campaign, I used a mix of Cthulhu lore and the Kraken as a Patron for one of my players. Again, it was not used as a beast to fight - it was used as a campaign plot point. One could do the same for the Tarrasque. All we need now is a collosal moth, turtle, and gorilla and the set is complete.
If anything, I find the stats on the 5e Tarrasque to be underwhelming in that regard. It should be an eternal, nigh unkillable force of nature. As the center-piece of a campaign, I'd certainly use the Tarrasque in the manner you describe. However, by virtue of it having a stat block, the door is open to discussion of how to actually tackle the monster. It's an "issue" of the game since the first players took a look at the gods and said, "We can take 'em."
Another idea along the same longs is make the tarrasque target a building and the PCs must prevent it from reaching and destroying. So, the tarrasque is more like a moving living disaster than a monster to slay.
In my setting fluff, both the Tarrasque and the Krakens were created in an attempt to end the Age of Thunder, when the world was in chaos from outside invasions and the overdeity was just throwing things at them until they stopped. They're creatures of legend, nearly lost to time, and with God dying, waking them up is a very, very bad thing. If my players get that far, it could be the final arc that one or both got woken up, or maybe need to be to stop another Age of Thunder.
I put a Tarrasque in my campaign just as a metaphor for the end of the universe, but they thought: “well, it’s in front of us so let’s fight it!” Luckily I had it stay sleeping as they broke all there swords on its body, but that still makes me fear their naivety.
I have only ever played in one D&D campaign that went above 15th level and in that game I played a Fighter 2/Wizard (School of Abjuration) 18. That game was very sandbox-y, the setting was kinda post-apocalyptic in that the surface was cloaked in shadow (we later found out that this was due to a cult that worshipped the goddess Shar) and swarming with all sorts of devils, demons, undead etc and civilisation has escaped to floating islands that required a constant supply of arcane energy to stay afloat, the game started at 11th level just as we established ourselves as protectors and rulers of an island and from there we decided to find a way of keeping our island afloat permanently. To achieve this, we made a deal with the goddess Mystra; she told us of a prophecy where the Terrasque was responsible for removing the shadow from the surface. When we fought the Terrasque, I opened a Gate to my own personal Demiplane under it's feet, then put a Wall of Force over it to stop it coming back through. It turns out that threatening to drop the Terrasque on people's civilisations is quite the negotiation tool, especially when you have used True Polymorph on your Simulacrum to turn them into an Adult Gold Dragon and can drop them on people too.
One of the greatest moments that my players remind me constantly of is how I made the Tarrasque an insane PC level 20 fight. I homebrewed it so that the villain of my campaign had infused a Tarrasque egg with Abyssal dragon DNA. (another one I homebrewed) Needles to say, having this thing with Necrotic breath attack as well as causing it to sprout wings half way through the fight gave them a good scare.
The way I buffed these (and many other creatures) is I gave a flat damage increase to every attack based on how much larger a creature is. a large creature gets an extra die on a medium and two on a small and four on a tiny. basically, if a creature is the size a castle, it shouldn't matter how much "damage" it's claws can do because just it stepping on you should make a PC pancake.
Scale is one thing I've always had an issue with in D&D, honestly, and that's mostly because we just have a really hard time understanding it usually. Something that large swinging it's tail isn't going to hit just ol' Tom the Tank. No, he's gonna hit Tom and everything around him. And a max 34 damage isn't quite right when Tom and pals are being hit by something as big as a small inn. That's squish you like a bug size regardless of speed or strength. A building falls on you, you gon' die, at the least be in very very bad shape.
lure it into a deep canyon then have enough magic users who can one way or another turn stone to mud then mud back to stone. Avalanche it with mud to fill in the canyon up to it's neck and boom: permanent Tettasque mouth garbage dump for the surrounding towns, put up a few permanent wards to counteract it's frightful presence and there you go, a civic engineers dream.
See, now you're thinking like my players do. The Cleric got access to meld stone and their first question was "How can I use this to drown Strahd?" They eventually came up with a plan to trap Strahd in his bedroom and spam Create/Destroy Water to slowly flood it. Sadly Strahd wasn't in his bedroom. They still cheesed the boss fight like they have for every major encounter thus far though.
except the tarrasque can not take leathle damage and at leaset in 3.5 it has 40 points of regeneration and takes none leathal dam evan from death and disintigration and recovers evan if it fails a saving throw
*Transmute Rock (5th level transmutation, druid/wizard, XGtE)* Casting time: 1 action Range: 120ft. Components: V S M (clay and water) Duration: until dispelled You choose an area of stone or mud that you can see that fits within a 40-foot cube and is within range, and choose one of the following effects. _Transmute Rock to Mud._ Nonmagical rock of any sort in the area becomes an equal volume of thick, flowing mud that remains for the spell’s duration. The ground in the spell’s area becomes muddy enough that creatures can sink into it. Each foot that a creature moves through the mud costs 4 feet of movement, and any creature on the ground when you cast the spell must make a Strength saving throw. A creature must also make the saving throw when it moves into the area for the first time on a turn or ends its turn there. On a failed save, a creature sinks into the mud and is restrained, though it can use an action to end the restrained condition on itself by pulling itself free of the mud. If you cast the spell on a ceiling, the mud falls. Any creature under the mud when it falls must make a Dexterity saving throw. A creature takes 4d8 bludgeoning damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one. _Transmute Mud to Rock._ Nonmagical mud or quicksand in the area no more than 10 feet deep transforms into soft stone for the spell’s duration. Any creature in the mud when it transforms must make a Dexterity saving throw. On a successful save, a creature is shunted safely to the surface in an unoccupied space. On a failed save, a creature becomes restrained by the rock. A restrained creature, or another creature within reach, can use an action to try to break the rock by succeeding on a DC 20 Strength check or by dealing damage to it. The rock has AC 15 and 25 hit points, and it is immune to poison and psychic damage.
Just fought a Tarrasque today in a 5e oneshot. Turns out it was heavily homebrewed with things like long-ranged attacks, AC of 30, unlimited legendary attacks, hp regeneration, some kind of crown that gave it high intelligence, triple movement speed, and some kind of distortion field that made all flying things fall to the ground. Obviously, the entire fight was a DM vs Players wet dream.
"...however, there is a part of me that feels like using True Polymorph or Shape Change you could make a grappler, a dedicated grappler, big enough, say a cloud giant or a storm giant, that they could actually wrestle the Tarrasque to the ground." So here's the thing: I have a friend that loves stupidly awesome ideas. He's the kind of pc who leads to some of the most memorable stories from the few sessions we have. I know that if I were to tell him that he MIGHT be able to do something like this, he would try to set up such a scenario. At the very least he'd be extremely excited at the prospect of such a scenario. I just messaged him on Discord saying "hey _____, have you ever considered the prospect of writing a character with the sole intention of one day wrestling a Tarrasque?" I hope a have created a monster by doing this.
Perhaps the Tarrasque was the party's favourite NPC this whole time, and killing the monster also kills a friend. Yaaay drama. Also, a dire Tarrasque would be the end of all things.
@@darkbunny9994 to be honest, it kinda isn't, ignoring casters a party of a few well min maxed fighters could shred one in a couple of rounds. Even a relatively un optimised samurai fighter build I've been toying with in my head can deal nine attacks with action surge, each of whcih (apart from one) has advantage and hits for 2d6+5+3+10 (assuming you've got a +3 sword). You are also likely to get at least one crit since you role like 17 attack dice. This is assuming no haste, no buffs from other party members (like inspiration or bless), no debuffs applied to the creatrue ect. A few of these guys (using a build I admit is kinda shit) could kill one.
I agree but I also feel like its a bit weak for its reputation, I picture it like godzilla, I dont see how 100 lvl 1 fighters could kill it. But they could just through sheer number of natural 20s. When it appears in my campaigns it is a god on earth a mad titan, nothing a lvl 20 wizard could handle. By casting poly morph 8 times while flying.... You cannot defeat it, you can send it back to sleep maybe, or a cabal of powerful wizards could control it. But flying carpets and arrows????????????????????????????? No this thing is gonna pick up a 1 ton boulder and chuck it at you 150 mph. I feel it's way to weak in the monster manual for my liking I think of it more as a 5000 hp sort of creature, that is versatile, extremely resistant to magic, and hungry very hungry, eating trees as it storms through a forest running down any meat it can spot. In my current campaign the gods have put a leash on it as they've defeated the primordials. They send an angel down let it lose every few decades, let it rampage a few weeks so It gets tired. Particularly baiting it or manipulating its dreams so it hunts a certain creature or force, an evil empire or kingdom and then it returns to rest, of course the red wizards may attempt to rein in the titan to stop this huge thorn in their side.
I've always liked the idea of the monster manual (or any reference with creature stats) to be a suggestive template. Who says you can't take the Tarrasque back to what it was in 2e? Or keep its 5e stats, but bump up its INT and give it a breath weapon (or as you mentioned, the ability to hurl large objects)...
I like how you asked Jim about how would he play the monster. That's really helpful with these rare monsters from a DM's view. I'm still kinda new so these kind of tips are much appreciated! Keep up the good work fellas!
My general rule of thumb for most monsters/NPCs is "target the threat most appropriate to the monster/NPC's Int scores, Wis score, and skills". In practice that means beasts will behave like cornered animals if not specifically trained to fight/led into battle. Humanoids will fight using tactics appropriate to their weapons/intelligence/leader's ability. If a creature is trained in Arcana then it can discern between spell casters and make appropriate judgements. Mostly though I treat combat as an extension of the Role-Playing aspect of the game and try to RP the party's opponents to the fullest.
Thanks for the tips Jim, your knowledge is crazy and i watch every week to help make my first campaign as good as it can be. That makes perfect sense that the monsters/NPC's would act in that way and having the Arcana would be able to pinpoint spellcasters. That will be used lol Love all the shows but especially these ones about weird monsters!
That one american welcome traveler. Please enjoy your stay here, drink ale, fight for glory, and ignore the goblin trying to hit you with it's stone dagger.
you should definetly try it. i would say 85% of people who try it enjoy it. watch this vid to find out more about it th-cam.com/video/Eo_oR7YO-Bw/w-d-xo.html
So this is where you actually want to get in the middle of it. Two warlocks and/or wizards that can cast true polymorph. One turns the other into a bird like small flying creature that needs to be smart enough to follow a plan, fly straight into its mouth. The swallow damage will knock it out of polymorph the second caster, now swallowed, true polymorphs himself into a young copper dragon. They're now immune to acid, and can use it's own acid inside the tarrasque to melt it from the inside out.
@@jerrybaker9855 3.5 does not equate 5e unless you as the dm alter it to be so. For 5e this is actually a viable option, though tbh honest the wizard inside better be carrying a portable hole filled with bottled air, otherwise they'll likely suffocate long before killing the tarrasque.
Great ideas, guys! Also good point about how PCs at high levels should be researching their enemies before going against them. It makes things SO much easier when you know what you're up against and don't just blunder blindly into it.
I love you guys. Seriously, thank you for everything you do. I stumbled onto your videos on Saturday and have now watched everything you've posted. Definitely reworking Coven of Razel-Sinn to fit into my campaign. More liveplays, pls?
Luddite that I am, I'm not that familiar with Twitch. I'll leave it up to our brilliant producer/editor to work out those details. And that poker face came from years of having to put up with Pruitt's shenanigans as a DM. "Oh, you did 100+ damage in one round again...okay."
No more than Josh's Highhawk downing that Adult Green in one round. Y'all's high damage scores over the years mean my bar to be impressed is set mighty high now.
How to SOLO Tarrasque...with melee.. Lvl 20 "Long Death" Monk (SCAG) Primary objective: Get swallowed (to reduce Tarrasque to a single "attack" per round, from acid) KI-EMPOWERED STRIKES Starting at 6th leveI, your unarmed strikes count as magical for the purpose of overcoming resistance and immunity to nonmagical attacks and damage. (to overcome damage resistance) + STILLNESS OF MIND Starting at 7th leveI, you can use your action to end one effect on yourself that is causing YOllto be charmed or frightened. (to negate frightful presence) + MASTERY OF DEATH Beginning at 11th level, you use your fami liarity with death to escape its grasp. When you are reduced to 0 hit points, you can expend 1 ki point (no action required) to have 1 hit point instead. (for the lulz/trollface) + PERFECT SELF At 20th leveI, when you roll for initiative and have no ki points remaining, you regain 4 ki points. (so you can tell the DM, "Let the hate flow through you...")
Not bad... Down the gullet (swallowed whole) is the key to getting past that pesky "carapace" AC level... lolz. Then it's all about how much damage you can manage before you're character either melts in acid or suffocates... regardless of class. :o)
You never lose the last hit point. Mastery of Death + Perfect Self means you cannot die. You are now a Highlander and can only die when your head comes away from your neck. This exact reason is why my Tarrasque beasts have AC 35, Regen 40hp/round and the bite in half when the bite gets a crit like previous versions did. As a DM, it is my job to adequately challenge ANY party. And if I am doing my job right, there will ALWAYS be foes so scary that the party will run the instant they see one of them appear.
I've used them for two full campaigns now, and I won't be using them moving forward. Mostly because they downplay class abilities and spells that grant advantage, but also because they cheapen the actual mechanic to the point where it becomes a given. On the other hand, if you want faster combats were melee-types dominate, then consider using them.
A lot of comments are talking about how big T isn't as powerful as they hoped it would be. One thing I could suggest is to give big T a damage threshold, much like how buildings and vehicles have. So you could say that any damage amount less than 40 (for example) will do no damage at all.
darkbunny 999 if its a magical crossbow it could peirce through fucking diamond if it has too. Not an argument, if they dont have a magical crossbow. Ha! Well good luck with that
Yeah, just like another conversation about size and damage something that big should inflict, size here would also mean that there needs to be some kind of damage reduction. An insect's massive damage compared to size means nearly jack all to someone human size. It'll bother us, but it's not going to subdue us without some other thing coming into play (ie poison's etc.).
Pruitt's openings are consistently one of my favorite things about this show. I like most everything about the show, that just happens to be near the top.
Woohoo! These are all so interesting. I've learned so much stuff about D&D, and I just want to put it all in campaigns for my players. Thank you guys so much for all these videos, they're a real inspiration.
Party of wizards casting polymorph. Turns into seahorse once it uses up legendary resistance. Put it in a jar of water. Cast wall of force in a sphere around it. Time out polymorph and let it expand into the vessel. The Tarrasque compresses, dies, and turns into a sphere of supercritical fluid. Your party evacuates the area to save yourselves from the imminent explosion.
Only trick is you need one wizard to hold concentration on polymorph and a second to cast wall of force, otherwise neither of the spells have any written limitation that would prevent this from happening.
i was going to do that on my own campaign where it revolves around chtulhu but i got bored and decided to make cthulhu and his mind flyers take control over the terrasque so it served cthulhu,
You are doing Lovecraft "wrong" though. As far as i know the original lovecraft was more about overwhelming cosmic horror than about big bad monsters. They were supposed to be so powerful than any comprehensible way of tackling it is doomed to fail and the way attempt was stopped is within itself outside of comprehension and it risks getting attention of mentioned entity.
You don't have to kill it. Surround it with wizards. The wizards continuously fire Polymorph and true Polymorph. The objective is to turn it into a humanoid. Once successful, they move in with Magic Jar to possess the body. The Tarrasque is now your ally. Edit: Also it is now an intelligent wizard Tarrasque.
Tarrasque fight against a single level 20 Spellcaster: 1. Roll initiative, you won because Tarrasque is a big slow monster 2. Cast Plane Shift, and go to some weird plane like Limbo. 3. Cast Gate and say the Tarrasque's name 4. roll initiative again if DM wants you to(doesnt matter because you're still against the big dumb monster) 5. Plane Shift back to the Material Plane.... Tarrasque has been banished to Limbo lmao'
Last campaign I was in that a terrasque was present in we didn't engage it directly, we followed it's path, gathered samples (scales, bone fragments, etc) dug up a giant lake with enchanted adamantine chains then used the samples to make illusionary clones of the creature and made it fight itself 5 times over. When it went down we used one to drop it into the new lake, the wizard bound it with the chains and left it there.
I think my favourite story thing that I've heard of for the Tarrasque, was the idea that a nation had successfully subdued it, and had built a fortress around it to keep it pinned, where life revolved around both the dangers of keeping it incapacitated (the idea used the 3.5 version where it had regen, as well as the colossal task of actually keeping it immobile and anchored to the city), and the benefits of all the magical things that could be obtained from the Tarrasque. From scales to blood, it could all be gathered up to form a highly profitable (if dangerous) business. (I went and found it: www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/2rtwn3/the_city_built_around_the_tarrasque/)
Um... have you read the comment section here? About at least a dozen posts on edge-lords taking on a Tarrasque "solo" in undera minute and other nonsense.
The Star Trek episode "The Doomsday Machine" popped into my head when you said it could be a weapon of the Gods. A creature built millions of years ago to fight an enemy no longer here, the Machine drifted through space, eating planets. What if the Tarrasque is like that? Of course, in Star Trek, we find out that it was built to fight The Borg, but what could the Tarrasque have been built to fight?
Our solution to fighting a Terrasque? Send in our Guild Leader Hagosha, a six-armed demigod Monk that carries the title "Protector of the Gods" and is quite literally the DnD 5e incarnation of One-Punch Man....
Yeah several NPCs were....violated....and this led to Hagosha getting REALLY angry and declaring a war on the guild that did so.....we wiped them all out, leaving none alive....which also progressed the story since that guild was one that supported Bhaal & Bane, the two gods that we are trying to stop from ending all the realms...
I love keith baker's idea he posted on his blog. The tarrasque could come from the mournlands, shrouded in dead gray mist. No one knows what it is until they enter the mist, which follows the beast like an aura. I'm using that for my eberron game. I need to rework the tarrasque build, and make it even more terrifying. Reaper bones even has a great mini to use. That huge beast stepping over a wall. It looks like the tarrasque, sorta. Can't wait to design this adventure in the future!
I'm actually painting the Bones version of the Tarrasque in preparation for a one shot this coming Thursday. My players have no idea what they are in for!
I was in a group as a necromancer wizard, and let me tell you, giving all your guys magical bows was amazing at taking the bloody thing down. the plan was basically "paralyse the thing while the army of undead shoot it down"
I like the idea of needing the tarrasque as the last resort to fight an archdemon/devil, but after that, it goes on a rampage and must be stoped (wich would be the second half or so of the campain). Do you kill the Tarrasque or put it back to sleep? You could need it again to fight another godlike entity in a year or two or a millenia.
Or the tarrasque could be killed by a group of Metallic dragons from the sky, who would then go to meet the kings and tell them: ''You summoned the Tarrasque? Are you insane!?! We will rules over you from now on: you need our order...''
I remember one published adventure during the switch from 2e -> 3e featured the Tarrasque as the bringer of the apocalypse. I can see the people of a given D&D world keeping the Tarrasque in a pocket dimension and only bringing it out to fight the big, big baddies.
+James Davis If the Tarrasque is the Bringer of Apocalypse, I could see a campaign in which the antagonists are a group of powerfull archmages trying to summon the Tarrasque to cast the Imprisonnement spell on it and keep it in a gemstone (probably made from the wish spell, because it would need to cost more than 15,000 GP). If they are successfull, they would then use it to become a circle of tyranical rulers.
No... You feed it poor homeless people until it gets full and goes into a food coma. This has the secondary beneficial effect of removing all the derelicts from town.
So, our 5th edition group (level 15) went head to head with a Tarrasque. We weren't able to use your strategy because the Tarrasque was in a huge cave (so we couldn't pick it off with arrows and spells from far away). But, we did massive damage continuously against it by flanking constantly and hitting it with huge blocks of damage. Thanks for the tips - great monster video!
I would like to see a video dealing with the Pathfinder/3.5 version of the Tarrasque discussing the different ways to deal with its regen, super high AC, and needing a wish/miracle spell in order to truly defeat it. 5e really neuters the Tarrasque in terms of stats and necessary tactics.
It's going good so far, had to put a small hiatus on it due to me moving, but lots of twist and turns that have kept my players on their toes. I'll be ending it in a few months to start either a modern/secret world campaign or an outer planes campaign! Thanks for asking!
We've thought about it. Pruitt has used UA classes for a couple of his characters and I've had other players use the demon summoning spells from Black Magic. I'm sure if we digger deeper we could find something to talk about.
My quick take - Fell-handed: I like the rider effects on adv/dis, curious to see how often they come into play. Blade Mastery: meh, this one leaves me cold, I feel like characters who would take this have better uses for their reaction. Spear Mastery: I'm loving this one! I'm imagining the fight between Hector and Achilles in Troy when I read this feat. Overall, I'd drop the +1 to hit for all of them though and either leave them as is or replace it with something else. I really dig the Tool feats, but think they should go further in their effects.
Fell-handed is brilliant design. Looking at Spear Mastery though, I don't know why I'd get that instead of a polearm and Polearm Mastery. I guess the advantage of Spear Mastery is you could use a shield.
Shield use would be the mechanical reason. Style is another: spear and shield is classic. Don't care for set versus charge using your bonus action and reaction though, I'd probably say you can use a spear to make opportunity attacks against anyone entering your reach. Personally, I'd also rule that spears could be used with Polearm Master.
I've long thought that a low magic campaign based on the Tarrasque would be cool. The original story goes back to Tarascon, a city in Southern France. St Martha tamed it. So the campaign would be that the Tarrasque was sleeping under Tarascon. It was claimed to be defeated, but it was really only sleeping. The city was built on top of it. However, there are cultists whose goal is to wake up the Tarrasque to destroy the city. So the PCs would be tangling with the Cultists for most of the time, but eventually the climax would lead it to a confrontation with the Tarrasque. But having it be something there to kill off a big bad like Demogorgon would be good, too.
The 5e half dragon is a template that you can place on any beast, humanoid, giant, or monstrosity, and this template becomes more powerful on larger creatures. Fear the wrath of a Tarrasque that's resistant to a new damage type (Preferably acid, cold, or lightning), and can breathe that damage onto other players!
I was playing a level 30 druid in a group which fought a terrasque. What we ended up doing was my character turned himself into a Terrasque through the shapechange spell, thanks to his level 28 ability from legendary druid he can turn himself into monstrosities. So it ended up being my character just up in the terrasque face distracting it, while the rest of them just stood back picking some pot shots at it.
+James Davis Trademark that shit right now, Jim Davis! Though I think it should be a spiced cider. If there's a dragon on the label there should be some burn to it.
Honestly, I think just giving it the ability to move via underground would fix most problems that it has. I mean, it's lair is deep beneath the surface and it has to get out of there somehow. Even just a dig speed of 10 feet a round would be enough to make the Tarrasque prefer movement via land but will use the dig speed to escape a situation where it literally can't do anything. Also, should your players try to cheese a Tarrasque you could give the Tarrasque a new legendary action attack that lets the Tarrasque let out a shrieking roar that does 2d6 thunder damage to all creatures within 120 feet of it. Not super effective, but it should get the point across that this Tarrasque may or may not have some special features to it that they may have to look out for. As for you players who are going to fight the Tarrasque here are some ideas that could work. 1. Grease a 1st level spell that would be extremely useful as the Tarrasque would continually fall prone unless it could pass the casters spell dc with a dexterity save(which it has a +0 in). However, the area it affects is smaller than the space the Tarrasque takes up so some DM's may see this as an issue. 2. Web a 2nd level spell that effectively does the same thing, but takes up the same space as the Tarrasque and it makes it restrained. However, the Tarrasque can also spend its action to make a strength check on its turn to break free. If you ask me a 2nd level spell to burn a Tarrasque's action is preeeeetty good. 3. Okay, so this one isn't necessarily as useful... but the idea is hilarious. Just cast Otto's Irresistable dance on it and for probably around a turn or two you'll have a dancing Tarrasque unable to do anything. 4. This one is probably as close to cheesing as you can get while not actually cheesing it... Just cast Reverse Gravity on it. The idea now is why attack the Tarrasque on the ground from the air... when you can attack the Tarrasque in the air from the ground! Of course it's not as effective as shooting from magic carpets, but hey. At least it'll feel more realistic and fun.
ilovethelegend I have to re read the guy's entry, but why can you make the Terasque just a climbing machine with great ass jumps. The only way you are out of his range is if he is out of your range too. That and a living trebuche.
*makin' me look up the stats for these god damned things* Climbing wouldn't work great because the tarrasque doesn't have a climb speed. As far as jumping goes, by standard jumping rules it can only jump 13 feet. Now, theoretically you *could* have it do some crazy, Sonic-spin and be able to hit something that's like 110 feet in the air with its tail (personally I would call for an acrobatics check on that to not land prone afterwards but that's just me). If it took the time to climb up a convenient pillar, it might be able to reach an extra 5 feet but Tiamat's longest range attacks are still longer, and since it can't normally reach that high she could strafe the thing all day, even to hit with her shorter ranged attacks. Also, no, reflective carapace does not apply since dragon breath isn't a spell and isn't magical. Even if it did, Tiamat's immune to all of those damage types. If we could include followers, she could get a bunch of cultists with +1 longbows to ride her back and ping the thing to death from 300 feet in the air which would take forever but be doable since the tarrasque doesn't regen anymore in this edition. However, if we do that, there's no reason why the tarrasque couldn't have a wizard with acid immunity sitting in its stomach casting fly and feather fall if applicable. Not that any of that matters, though. The Tarrasque's attacks don't deal magic damage, which means Tiamat is immune to them.
I'm kind of curious: how far back do these Tarrasques go in D&D? I played D&D from the early 80's to the early 90's and I don't recall of even hearing of them until recently and we certainly never fought one, or if we did the DM never named it to us.
Great content guys keep it up! I ask my new players to watch a few videos from you guys. Have you guys thought of doing Tut videos for 5e? Like a 15 minute tut for a player that hasn't played anything related to roleplaying and want to wrap their heads around what they are starting up.
Looks like you might have already found some of the earlier videos we made! Those were made when our understanding of 5e was less developed compared to now, so the specifics of our recommendations for each class might have changed, but the broad player advice remains the same.
It's on our List, but right now we've got dozens of show ideas and not a lot of time to get them all out. I'd love to revisit some older topics in greater detail though.
We had a game a few years ago where well known adventurers (i.e. High Level) were invited to a series of trials and games. If you survived through it all, there was one final optional challenge. You could leave, or take the final challenge. It was Me, one of the other PCs and a couple NPCs that decided to stay. We had survived what they could through at us, it couldn't be that bad....or could it. Yeah, it was a Tarrasque. Not only that, we were playing home brewed Pathfinder and it was a 2nd edition Tarrasque. I managed to be the last man standing, only buy pushing my own party member into it's open, waiting mouth. Then I jumped in, there was no way I was gonna make it. We were never really dead after it was all said and done, but I was the one that could say when in a fight with a Tarrasque, I was the last man standing. As to the comment "once you stat it, the players will find a way to kill it". It's a Manual of information about known Monsters. Not the law book of Monsters or the Book of every known monster. Change it up...you gotta surprise the PCs every so often.
600hp and 25ac just doesn't seem like enough to me. I haven't played 5th edition, but in 3.5 those stats just don't sound all that impressive to me. a 10th level barbarian with a str score of 20 with rage going has better than a 50% chance of hitting it for 8-19 points of damage per attack and there will be two attacks for 16-38 points. combined with 4 or 5 other PCs I can see it going down pretty quickly. All the more quickly if that barbarian has a +1 or +2 weapon, or some sort of magical enchantment, or belt of giant strength, or boots of haste, or some way of doing more damage or attacking more often. Also, I wouldn't say that having an intelligence of 3 means it is too dumb to attack properly. Almost any and all animals have an intelligence of 2 or 3, yet all predators have hunting and killing behaviors they have learned or that they do from instinct. cheetahs and other big cats will use their paws to trip their game before going for the kill, lions will pile on and pull down large game before suffocating it by biting over their muzzles. Wolves will bite at ankles and hind quarter to wear down and trip game, etc. I wouldn't put it past a Tarrasque at all to use its tail to knock things prone before going in for other attacks. It doesn't need to be particularly intelligent to know how to best use its own body for attacks.
Kur Norock I don't mean to sound like a dick but your numbers are slightly wrong. a 10th level barbarian with 20 strength in 5e only has a +9 to attack. So he needs to role a 16 or higher. so about a 25 percent change to hit at all. Plus I believe the tarrasque has resistance to nonmagical weapons. so if using a great sword he'll do 5-10 damage. Which is a bug bite if it manages to hit.
Alex York Oh right, i forgot that 5e did away with the base attack bonus in favor of the proficiency bonus. One of the things i did not like about 5e. But, a level 10 Barbarian would still likely have an even higher Str score due to ability increases with level and probably items or potions which increase str. Not to mention frenzied rage give advantage on attack rolls. Also, if you don't have a magical weapon by level 10, especially if you are going up against terrasque, you aren't playing right.
Not through ASI you can't. Only through magic items. And even if your DM was stupid enough to give the Barbarian a belt of storm giants strength, your attack bonus is still only +13 at 10th level, still 2 below what you need to hit on average. Oh, you want to Reckless attack to make up for it? Now the Tarrasque has advantage on every attack made against you, _with a +19_ . I hope your 1-3 x 1d12+9's was worth absolutely taking 1x4d12+10, 2x4d8+10, 1x4d10+10 and 1x4d6+10 for an average of 148, halved to 74.
Hi, me and my mates have been playing d&d 3.5 for a while now. Is there any reason or should there be any point where we switch to a newer version of D&D?
Captain Gigglez You guys should try 5th edition. Everything,or almost everything was balanced in so many ways.Every class can shine at any moment.And you won't feel like you're useless in some situations. The rules are pretty simple and easy to understand,you can modify so many items in a matter of seconds,and you can make up some pretty dank combos during battle,like Reckless attack with Great Weapon master from the barbarian. Just do it! You won't regret it.
NinjaMuffinLTD No that's good: you have to break the crystals first, all the while the Tarrasque is attacking you, or the fights nearly impossible. Maybe some cult of destruction is behind it all
What exactly do you mean by Divining everything? How powerful is high level divination? What spells would be necessary for this? Wouldn't this only work in a party with a diviner wizard?
Had two experiences with the Big T. We were 3.5 lvl 15ish fighting the end game with the BBEG, part way through the fight BBEG was loosing. So he releases Big T as a distraction to get away, deal with it or our beloved city was going to get trounced. Another DM had a ciry/fort/containment cell that held one chained up. Story went is a couple centuries ago they managed to chain it up with immovable rods and adamantium chains but didnt have the ability the finish it off. After a couple centuries an entire economy had grown up around its regenerating body parts. Complete with corrupted nobles drinking its blood.
I like the idea of the Tarrasque 1) having a burrow speed if it doesn't already, and 2) giving it back its regeneration. Hell give it back a ton of regeneration that can be bypassed by: Doing 100HP of damage in a round or something (possibly too high), which forces it to roll a Dex save DC 20. If it fails then it falls to the ground (and can't get back up with Legendary Actions) and its fear aura shuts down, but it sortof turtles up and has resistance to ranged damage. (Andy spell that trips it could also do this) Melee damage deals normal damage against it but it still regenerates, unless it takes damage from a Vorporal/wish blade, or maybe some special material applied to a weapon. After it takes damage from such a thing it can no longer regenerate those Hit Points. At the start of its next turn it uses half its movement speed to stand again and the cycle has to repeat. Of course once its at 0 HP I'm fine with a Wish no longer being cast to kill it, but something like using a powerful item, casting a 9th level spell, or a fighter applying his very spirit (instantly fatiguing himself as he pours his will into some magical spirit blade style attack) into slaying the beast should be referenced. The whole concept is that it makes fighting it more about getting it to the ground to stab its vitals with something of intense power than just easily taking advantage of its bestial nature. The thing really should be a cataclysmic behemoth that it takes demi-god like characters to even trip up. Regular mortals might be able to try but it should take armies and siege weapons to break its stride, if they could even muster the guts to face it.
I ran a campaign that had one as its center plot. i was in 2nd edition and a lich was trying to make it its new body using several artifacts that would lower the beasts defenses.
In 5e you can True Polymorph a mud golem out of an object and it'll beat the Tarrasque on its own. It's immune to all of the Tarrasque's damage, and its attacks are magical so it can harm the Tarrasque. It'll have to hit on a 20, so it'll take a while, but in a battle of attrition the golem wins.
My big in inspiration for the Tarrasque is the fight between Homura and Walpurgisnacht in episode 11 of Madoka Magica. Just the way she had to use everything available to damage it at all, including hitting it with anti air missiles, a gas tanker, dropping buildings on it, or flinging it into a giant pit full of high explosives. Tactics like that (but with less technology) would make for an interesting fight.
+Fabian Morf I don't own Princes of the Apocalypse, as we were still hip-deep in HotDQ when it came out. I'd love to look at it as I've heard many great things, but gone are the days when I buy anything D&D related. Maybe I'll find it on the cheap somewhere and review it.
As a DM how do what's the best way to decide Monsters aggro ? RP it , which can make the tank useless as he may not always be the biggest threat when the 20 hp wizard throws a fireball , maybe nearest to that monster if its not intelligent ?
The biggest weakness of the Terrasque in 5e is actually Disintergrate. I've faced one as a support bard in a party that had a sorcerer and a wizard. They burnt through over half it's HP easily (of course you throw some good dex save spells before to burn legendary resist). That's just 2 casters, a party of 6 with 3 high level casters can be flying Disintergrate machine guns and melt it in a few rounds. It's really not that scary, we killed ours without anyone even going unconscious... and I even got swallowed.
My one and only time I put the Tarrasque in a dungeon, it was a trial dungeon for a friends character that was so OP that there was nothing that could challenge him. So, I locked him in what I called the dungeon to end all dungeons. He had to succeed or be stuck in the dungeon for eternity. The last room at the end of the dungeon held the Tarrasque. When he finished soloing it, the beast had bitten him in half EIGHT times. The character, Zweifel, had sat in the Throne of the Gods which gave him 7 resurrections per week, and he had another two "backup" instant resurrection powers. While this battle was going on, every time the beast got a crit, I would say "THAT'S ONE! TWO!, THREE!" etc... with the most ominous voice I could muster. When he was bitten in half the eighth time, my friend was sure that he would be beaten. Yet, he was able to get the beast down below zero HP enough (This was during 3.5 days) to cast a wish spell to make it stay dead. After the victory, the god Set (his deity) appeared and said "So you ARE worthy!" --- "Worthy of what?" Zweifel said... "Worthy to be my avatar. For there is nothing on the material planes that can defeat you!" When Zweifel thought about it, he agreed, and so it came to pass that Zweifel became the Avatar of Set for a time.
In my homebrew campaign, we finished it off at level 18 with a party of four. Throughout the journey the party had gathered massive wealth, fame and power eventually becoming the rulers of what would be considered our hub nation of Belleheim, The Holy Lands. Well, after a campaign of intrigue and intense militaristic powers the Tarrasque had awoken in the wake of the war so vast it threatened to bring about the End of Times. We finished off the campaign with the Tarrasque nearly destroying all of Belleheim, ending with an intense multi-session battle of this nationwide rampage
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For the outside of Frightful Presence, you could have your players take a Heroes Feast, which makes them immune to fear. It only takes a cleric or druid of 11th level. And that Druid can also be a Moon druid and have Shapechange. A good tank if they go earth elemental.
i really like the idea of grappling ... but not a polymorphed tarrasque .... a goliath totem-barbarian with the enlarge spell on him has the same size (in carry capacity, so in my mind in strength) as a tarrasque and could arguably grapple it at full size without disadvantage
Can't a mystic order of the immortal grow that big with a lot of strength grapple a terrasque
,.,
Freedom Fighter max ,,,,.,,,,,
Get an army of artificers and make a Mechatarrasque.
Pacific Rim much?
I actually have something like that in my campaign. I have a mecha terrasque with an impenetrable shield around it. To destroy the barrier they must find its opening and enter its insides, which is actually a 100 floor randomly generated mega dungeon with the barrier to drop it on the final floor.
Dakka intesifies
Tjitze de Boer 5 artificers with constructs that join together to make a bigger construct.
FORM TARRASTRON!!!!
We hired an ogre and grew it with potions and spells to wrestle the tarasque down, poor ogre got ripped in half
Turtle Overlord savage
Cameron Clark
HWAHAHAHSHSAJAHAHAH!
I had an idea that I would just have multiple mages cast enlarge on me until I'm considered gargantuan and then grapple the tarrasque
the normal enlarge spell can not stack. there are methods by which a creature can grow multiple times but that's not one.
awh that's disappointing, as a dm I'd definitely let my players do that because its creative as hell
The Tarrasque is a legendary monster comming from a small town near where i live in the south west of France. The legend was also known in the north of spain. And we celebrate a fest for the tarrasque every year.
Mac Donald's whaaaaat
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarasque
The more you know.
Awesome
Huh, I known the legend but I didn't know that it was Spanish. Also, there's a feast for the tarrasque! I did not know that
I remember when we tried to "pick off" a tarrasque in AD&D from a spell jammer ship. It worked really well--until it threw a castle at us.
No real ranged attacks--my ass...
Well the man did say, don't group up. Spread that shit out son.
Well, big animal gets hurt, sees enemy far away. Sees big rock, throws rock.
Hulk Smash.
@@bishop31656 *TARRASQUE IS STRONGEST ONE THERE IS!*
In pathfinder, my idea was to trap the beast in your own demi plane. Then you can hold entire kingdoms hostage under threat of releasing the critter
Will Perdew shit that's good
Mad Scientist Death Ray Threat, nice!
S Toy that always goes well in the stories.
I believe in 5e other people can get to your demiplane if they have knowledge of it.
yes. i second this
The 5e Tarrasque needs to be buffed. Look at the Tiamat stat block from Rise of Tiamat and you will see what a CR 30 monster is supposed to be.
No doubt. Now there's a monster to strike terror in the hearts of a high level party!
Actually it isn't that difficult. The reason DMs don't use it is because of its CR which is logical but go check out Nerdachy and see how fairly easily a level 20 group takes out a Tarrasque.
+Chad-Solomon Dixon my suspicion is that a well-balanced, well-played party of 20th PCs can take almost any single monster. That was my first thought when I looked at the demon lords in OotA (a party of 15th level PCs will curb-stomp them!), and was my conclusion after running multiple Adult/Ancient dragons against the party in RoT. If I really wanted to make the Tarrasque a challenge I'd increase the AC to 28-30, give resistance to all damage, and immunity to 5th level and lower spells, for a start. Bring back it's regen and need for a Wish to really put it down.
Almost any monster save Tiamat. There is no party comp save a specific Anti-Tiamat force that is going to survive a minimum of 100 points, per round, of AoE elemental damage.
I wouldn't touch it's AC or give it the "wish thing" because neither of those are interactive they're just blockades. I would just follow the Tiamat mold and have it's roar do massive damage and make it a Legendary Action.
Oh yeah and increase its movement speed to 60.
20th PCs are actually too powerful for this thing. We ran a one shot against the tarrasque with kitted-out PCs and it actually made me feel bad for the tarrasque. I think to make the fight have that epic sense of desperation, the PCs may have to be 15-16th level or be in a very low magic game.
I haven't had a chance to watch your video of the fight, but your response confirms my suspicions. I went into research for the episode thinking the Tarrasque must be insanely powerful for a CR 30 monster, but after looking over the stats, I was left feeling underwhelmed. I should have known better considering my thoughts on the demon lords in OotA, but I was holding out hope for the Tarrasque. Have you seen the Epic-level monsters project over on ENWorld? A poster there is trying to beef up monsters of CR 20+ but I haven't tried any of them out yet.
I myself had a similar experience. My DM had created a one shot for the lot of us to try out 20th level builds against a flying tarrasque, and just by handling it like a ragnaros fight we ended it all pretty quickly (Well... as far as that healthpool goes anyway..)
Nerdarchy
Our 5-player 16th level group took out a Tarrasque not too bad.
We had griffons and I played the Ranger with sharpshooter though... so....
The thing I feel about big monsters is that they're not supposed to be the first and only challenge you run into after a long rest. Like yeah, of course everything's easy when you've got all your spells, one-a-days and x-a-rests up, and you know you're not going to be fighting anything else after.
so i SHOULDN'T have a Tarrasque as a random lvl 10 encounter?
You absolutely should, just make sure to properly instruct your party that now is the time to run away and defecate loudly, in whatever order is best at the time.
What do you mean. I literally told my players they would be fighting it the second day of my campaign in an in game month while they were level 5. Unfortunately they are level 11 now but they shouldn't break lvl 13
Definitely have this thing come by the 1st level dungeon. It's always good to spice things up.
It would be a great way to tame down a party of murder hobos.
"You murdered the entire village I had a several session arc planned in, so here, try to murder Godzilla. You fucking psychopaths."
Raptormann0205 All they need to beat it is a Clay Golem
The Tarrasque, like the Kraken, should be less of a foe and more of an event. Both are almost Patron-like beings of an eternal nature. Fighting either should be like trying to hit an earthquake or tsunami with a sword. Bringing either one into "you need to kill this" creates a serious issue for a DM. How do you top it at next week's game? Such a massive and powerful creature should be either a campaign conclusion plot point, or even the start of a campaign (Tarrasque/Kraken/etc. has destroyed region/city/kingdom, beginning an age of conflict/poverty/rebuilding/etc. Characters must do X to prevent this from ever happening again).
In one campaign, I used a mix of Cthulhu lore and the Kraken as a Patron for one of my players. Again, it was not used as a beast to fight - it was used as a campaign plot point. One could do the same for the Tarrasque.
All we need now is a collosal moth, turtle, and gorilla and the set is complete.
If anything, I find the stats on the 5e Tarrasque to be underwhelming in that regard. It should be an eternal, nigh unkillable force of nature. As the center-piece of a campaign, I'd certainly use the Tarrasque in the manner you describe. However, by virtue of it having a stat block, the door is open to discussion of how to actually tackle the monster. It's an "issue" of the game since the first players took a look at the gods and said, "We can take 'em."
James Davis You can thank AD&D's "Dieties & Demigods" for that.
Another idea along the same longs is make the tarrasque target a building and the PCs must prevent it from reaching and destroying. So, the tarrasque is more like a moving living disaster than a monster to slay.
In my setting fluff, both the Tarrasque and the Krakens were created in an attempt to end the Age of Thunder, when the world was in chaos from outside invasions and the overdeity was just throwing things at them until they stopped. They're creatures of legend, nearly lost to time, and with God dying, waking them up is a very, very bad thing. If my players get that far, it could be the final arc that one or both got woken up, or maybe need to be to stop another Age of Thunder.
TARRASIC PARK
ah my favourite monster by far, nothing is better than saying "Fuck you, you're fighting a tarrasque"
soswww ufunny joke maaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnn/
donn sayy da f werddd
Fuck you.
no the tarrasque
"Fuck you, I can fly."
I can see the Tarrasque fight a giant colossus golem. Pacific Rim LET'S GO!
Kardel acquisition incorporated is a dnd game you csn watch on TH-cam they actually fight against the tarrasque in a giant stone golem
flying tarrasque with an innate teleporting ability
My god man.....You're the monster!
Aaawww shucks...you're just saying that..(blush)
Hah, like that great image of the tarrasque tied to a blimp!
I gave my Tarrasque a breath attack as a legendary action.
Split Force/Fire.
oh god. with legs that can go as fast as 900 horses
Imagine if you did do a Kaiju game and you had a Roc, Purple Worm, Turtle Dragon all fight a Tarrasque.
Nice. Rodan, Gamera, and.... worm Mothra? fighting Godzilla.
The tarrasque would still win.
-yoink
I put a Tarrasque in my campaign just as a metaphor for the end of the universe, but they thought: “well, it’s in front of us so let’s fight it!” Luckily I had it stay sleeping as they broke all there swords on its body, but that still makes me fear their naivety.
I have only ever played in one D&D campaign that went above 15th level and in that game I played a Fighter 2/Wizard (School of Abjuration) 18. That game was very sandbox-y, the setting was kinda post-apocalyptic in that the surface was cloaked in shadow (we later found out that this was due to a cult that worshipped the goddess Shar) and swarming with all sorts of devils, demons, undead etc and civilisation has escaped to floating islands that required a constant supply of arcane energy to stay afloat, the game started at 11th level just as we established ourselves as protectors and rulers of an island and from there we decided to find a way of keeping our island afloat permanently. To achieve this, we made a deal with the goddess Mystra; she told us of a prophecy where the Terrasque was responsible for removing the shadow from the surface. When we fought the Terrasque, I opened a Gate to my own personal Demiplane under it's feet, then put a Wall of Force over it to stop it coming back through. It turns out that threatening to drop the Terrasque on people's civilisations is quite the negotiation tool, especially when you have used True Polymorph on your Simulacrum to turn them into an Adult Gold Dragon and can drop them on people too.
One of the greatest moments that my players remind me constantly of is how I made the Tarrasque an insane PC level 20 fight. I homebrewed it so that the villain of my campaign had infused a Tarrasque egg with Abyssal dragon DNA. (another one I homebrewed) Needles to say, having this thing with Necrotic breath attack as well as causing it to sprout wings half way through the fight gave them a good scare.
The way I buffed these (and many other creatures) is I gave a flat damage increase to every attack based on how much larger a creature is. a large creature gets an extra die on a medium and two on a small and four on a tiny. basically, if a creature is the size a castle, it shouldn't matter how much "damage" it's claws can do because just it stepping on you should make a PC pancake.
Interesting idea. I like it :) Your comment is correct about PC pancakes
Pressure = Force × Area. Smaller bodies can only handle so much
Actually Pressure = Force / Area, which is equivalent to Force = Pressure x Area.
neo bear make since
Scale is one thing I've always had an issue with in D&D, honestly, and that's mostly because we just have a really hard time understanding it usually. Something that large swinging it's tail isn't going to hit just ol' Tom the Tank. No, he's gonna hit Tom and everything around him. And a max 34 damage isn't quite right when Tom and pals are being hit by something as big as a small inn. That's squish you like a bug size regardless of speed or strength. A building falls on you, you gon' die, at the least be in very very bad shape.
lure it into a deep canyon then have enough magic users who can one way or another turn stone to mud then mud back to stone. Avalanche it with mud to fill in the canyon up to it's neck and boom: permanent Tettasque mouth garbage dump for the surrounding towns, put up a few permanent wards to counteract it's frightful presence and there you go, a civic engineers dream.
Barjack521 10/10 druid approved.
See, now you're thinking like my players do. The Cleric got access to meld stone and their first question was "How can I use this to drown Strahd?" They eventually came up with a plan to trap Strahd in his bedroom and spam Create/Destroy Water to slowly flood it. Sadly Strahd wasn't in his bedroom. They still cheesed the boss fight like they have for every major encounter thus far though.
except the tarrasque can not take leathle damage and at leaset in 3.5 it has 40 points of regeneration and takes none leathal dam evan from death and disintigration and recovers evan if it fails a saving throw
@@jerrybaker9855 this was specifically the 5e tarrasque, which has been severely neutered
*Transmute Rock (5th level transmutation, druid/wizard, XGtE)*
Casting time: 1 action
Range: 120ft.
Components: V S M (clay and water)
Duration: until dispelled
You choose an area of stone or mud that you can see that fits within a 40-foot cube and is within range, and choose one of the following effects.
_Transmute Rock to Mud._ Nonmagical rock of any sort in the area becomes an equal volume of thick, flowing mud that remains for the spell’s duration.
The ground in the spell’s area becomes muddy enough that creatures can sink into it. Each foot that a creature moves through the mud costs 4 feet of movement, and any creature on the ground when you cast the spell must make a Strength saving throw. A creature must also make the saving throw when it moves into the area for the first time on a turn or ends its turn there. On a failed save, a creature sinks into the mud and is restrained, though it can use an action to end the restrained condition on itself by pulling itself free of the mud.
If you cast the spell on a ceiling, the mud falls. Any creature under the mud when it falls must make a Dexterity saving throw. A creature takes 4d8 bludgeoning damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.
_Transmute Mud to Rock._ Nonmagical mud or quicksand in the area no more than 10 feet deep transforms into soft stone for the spell’s duration. Any creature in the mud when it transforms must make a Dexterity saving throw. On a successful save, a creature is shunted safely to the surface in an unoccupied space. On a failed save, a creature becomes restrained by the rock. A restrained creature, or another creature within reach, can use an action to try to break the rock by succeeding on a DC 20 Strength check or by dealing damage to it. The rock has AC 15 and 25 hit points, and it is immune to poison and psychic damage.
Just fought a Tarrasque today in a 5e oneshot. Turns out it was heavily homebrewed with things like long-ranged attacks, AC of 30, unlimited legendary attacks, hp regeneration, some kind of crown that gave it high intelligence, triple movement speed, and some kind of distortion field that made all flying things fall to the ground. Obviously, the entire fight was a DM vs Players wet dream.
"...however, there is a part of me that feels like using True Polymorph or Shape Change you could make a grappler, a dedicated grappler, big enough, say a cloud giant or a storm giant, that they could actually wrestle the Tarrasque to the ground."
So here's the thing: I have a friend that loves stupidly awesome ideas. He's the kind of pc who leads to some of the most memorable stories from the few sessions we have. I know that if I were to tell him that he MIGHT be able to do something like this, he would try to set up such a scenario. At the very least he'd be extremely excited at the prospect of such a scenario. I just messaged him on Discord saying "hey _____, have you ever considered the prospect of writing a character with the sole intention of one day wrestling a Tarrasque?"
I hope a have created a monster by doing this.
But what about vampire tarrasque or a dire tarrasque, what a bout a weretarrasque character
pprandomnpz That last one would be a crazy reveal, it dies and changes back into a person. Love it
Perhaps the Tarrasque was the party's favourite NPC this whole time, and killing the monster also kills a friend. Yaaay drama. Also, a dire Tarrasque would be the end of all things.
pprandomnpz ninja pirate zombie robot
"I found this player race on dndwiki, the wereterrasque. Totally cool yeah?"
Well, then à weretarrasque would speak with some ugly french accent i guess...
Party chomps on a heroes feast before battle, immune to fright for 24 hrs.
If they know it's coming with enough time in advance.
ilovethelegend Sure, a gargantuan monster is hard to miss. Each step should be audible within dozens of miles...
I doubt a dm would send in a tarrasque without giving days of preparation. The tarrasque is too strong to send against them in a surprising fashion.
ilovethelegend once your party is ready to fight the tarrasque you should be eating hero's feasts every day if you are in a high magic campaign
@@darkbunny9994 to be honest, it kinda isn't, ignoring casters a party of a few well min maxed fighters could shred one in a couple of rounds. Even a relatively un optimised samurai fighter build I've been toying with in my head can deal nine attacks with action surge, each of whcih (apart from one) has advantage and hits for 2d6+5+3+10 (assuming you've got a +3 sword). You are also likely to get at least one crit since you role like 17 attack dice. This is assuming no haste, no buffs from other party members (like inspiration or bless), no debuffs applied to the creatrue ect. A few of these guys (using a build I admit is kinda shit) could kill one.
If the Tarrasque is designed by the gods, then it probably instictivly strategic, like it just knows, seeing how its made to fight Gods.
I like that idea. Despite its low Int, it just knows how to fight because that's what it's made for.
I agree but I also feel like its a bit weak for its reputation, I picture it like godzilla, I dont see how 100 lvl 1 fighters could kill it. But they could just through sheer number of natural 20s. When it appears in my campaigns it is a god on earth a mad titan, nothing a lvl 20 wizard could handle. By casting poly morph 8 times while flying.... You cannot defeat it, you can send it back to sleep maybe, or a cabal of powerful wizards could control it. But flying carpets and arrows????????????????????????????? No this thing is gonna pick up a 1 ton boulder and chuck it at you 150 mph. I feel it's way to weak in the monster manual for my liking I think of it more as a 5000 hp sort of creature, that is versatile, extremely resistant to magic, and hungry very hungry, eating trees as it storms through a forest running down any meat it can spot. In my current campaign the gods have put a leash on it as they've defeated the primordials. They send an angel down let it lose every few decades, let it rampage a few weeks so It gets tired. Particularly baiting it or manipulating its dreams so it hunts a certain creature or force, an evil empire or kingdom and then it returns to rest, of course the red wizards may attempt to rein in the titan to stop this huge thorn in their side.
I've always liked the idea of the monster manual (or any reference with creature stats) to be a suggestive template. Who says you can't take the Tarrasque back to what it was in 2e? Or keep its 5e stats, but bump up its INT and give it a breath weapon (or as you mentioned, the ability to hurl large objects)...
SomeTenRandom thats kinda silly
It's like the Kraken. Not really smart, just there to wreck shit when it's needed.
11:54
Fighting in the woods might be a good idea at first, until the Tarrasque EATS THE WOODS!!! :P
I like how you asked Jim about how would he play the monster. That's really helpful with these rare monsters from a DM's view. I'm still kinda new so these kind of tips are much appreciated! Keep up the good work fellas!
My general rule of thumb for most monsters/NPCs is "target the threat most appropriate to the monster/NPC's Int scores, Wis score, and skills". In practice that means beasts will behave like cornered animals if not specifically trained to fight/led into battle. Humanoids will fight using tactics appropriate to their weapons/intelligence/leader's ability. If a creature is trained in Arcana then it can discern between spell casters and make appropriate judgements. Mostly though I treat combat as an extension of the Role-Playing aspect of the game and try to RP the party's opponents to the fullest.
Thanks for the tips Jim, your knowledge is crazy and i watch every week to help make my first campaign as good as it can be. That makes perfect sense that the monsters/NPC's would act in that way and having the Arcana would be able to pinpoint spellcasters. That will be used lol
Love all the shows but especially these ones about weird monsters!
why am I watching this I don't know what a dnd is but it looks fun
It's great fun man, get stuck in. Even better with visual aids like Roll20
That one american welcome traveler. Please enjoy your stay here, drink ale, fight for glory, and ignore the goblin trying to hit you with it's stone dagger.
dude you missed a lot (remember don't split the party)
you should definetly try it. i would say 85% of people who try it enjoy it. watch this vid to find out more about it th-cam.com/video/Eo_oR7YO-Bw/w-d-xo.html
Congratulations, you just joined dungeons and dragons in the most common way possible.
No doubt one of the Greatest channels on TH-cam. You guys have really helped me learn how to make my 5e campaign as much fun as it is.
We really appreciate the love!
So this is where you actually want to get in the middle of it. Two warlocks and/or wizards that can cast true polymorph. One turns the other into a bird like small flying creature that needs to be smart enough to follow a plan, fly straight into its mouth. The swallow damage will knock it out of polymorph the second caster, now swallowed, true polymorphs himself into a young copper dragon. They're now immune to acid, and can use it's own acid inside the tarrasque to melt it from the inside out.
would not work the tarraque is immune to poison fire disease energy drain ability damage and has a spell resistance of 32 and regen of 40
@@jerrybaker9855 3.5 does not equate 5e unless you as the dm alter it to be so. For 5e this is actually a viable option, though tbh honest the wizard inside better be carrying a portable hole filled with bottled air, otherwise they'll likely suffocate long before killing the tarrasque.
Great ideas, guys! Also good point about how PCs at high levels should be researching their enemies before going against them. It makes things SO much easier when you know what you're up against and don't just blunder blindly into it.
You know a monster is on the next level when its greatest weakness is that "It has stats"
I love you guys. Seriously, thank you for everything you do. I stumbled onto your videos on Saturday and have now watched everything you've posted.
Definitely reworking Coven of Razel-Sinn to fit into my campaign.
More liveplays, pls?
We're happy to please! Glad you liked the live play.
Have y'all considered streaming your games on twitch? I would pay money for that.
Also, love your DM style. Your poker face is on point.
Luddite that I am, I'm not that familiar with Twitch. I'll leave it up to our brilliant producer/editor to work out those details. And that poker face came from years of having to put up with Pruitt's shenanigans as a DM. "Oh, you did 100+ damage in one round again...okay."
+James Davis You still not sore about that dragon that Theron destroyed in 1.5 rounds, are you?
No more than Josh's Highhawk downing that Adult Green in one round. Y'all's high damage scores over the years mean my bar to be impressed is set mighty high now.
How to SOLO Tarrasque...with melee..
Lvl 20 "Long Death" Monk (SCAG)
Primary objective: Get swallowed (to reduce Tarrasque to a single "attack" per round, from acid)
KI-EMPOWERED STRIKES
Starting at 6th leveI, your unarmed strikes count as
magical for the purpose of overcoming resistance and
immunity to nonmagical attacks and damage.
(to overcome damage resistance)
+
STILLNESS OF MIND
Starting at 7th leveI, you can use your action to end one
effect on yourself that is causing YOllto be charmed
or frightened.
(to negate frightful presence)
+
MASTERY OF DEATH
Beginning at 11th level, you use your fami liarity with
death to escape its grasp. When you are reduced to 0 hit
points, you can expend 1 ki point (no action required) to
have 1 hit point instead.
(for the lulz/trollface)
+
PERFECT SELF
At 20th leveI, when you roll for initiative and have no ki
points remaining, you regain 4 ki points.
(so you can tell the DM, "Let the hate flow through you...")
Welcome to why the monk is op
WRRRRYYYYYYYYY
Not bad... Down the gullet (swallowed whole) is the key to getting past that pesky "carapace" AC level... lolz.
Then it's all about how much damage you can manage before you're character either melts in acid or suffocates... regardless of class. :o)
You never lose the last hit point. Mastery of Death + Perfect Self means you cannot die. You are now a Highlander and can only die when your head comes away from your neck.
This exact reason is why my Tarrasque beasts have AC 35, Regen 40hp/round and the bite in half when the bite gets a crit like previous versions did.
As a DM, it is my job to adequately challenge ANY party. And if I am doing my job right, there will ALWAYS be foes so scary that the party will run the instant they see one of them appear.
*Omae Wa Mou Shindeiru*
What's the verdict on the flanking rules mentioned at 1:50? i'm not sure whether to use them or not, especially with one of my party being a rogue.
I've used them for two full campaigns now, and I won't be using them moving forward. Mostly because they downplay class abilities and spells that grant advantage, but also because they cheapen the actual mechanic to the point where it becomes a given. On the other hand, if you want faster combats were melee-types dominate, then consider using them.
A lot of comments are talking about how big T isn't as powerful as they hoped it would be. One thing I could suggest is to give big T a damage threshold, much like how buildings and vehicles have. So you could say that any damage amount less than 40 (for example) will do no damage at all.
You might have a point, but then again that one guy with his 11 hand-crossbow attacks stuffed into one turn might feel a bit left out
Well a hand crossbow is hardly going to pierce the hide of a Kaiju.
darkbunny 999 if its a magical crossbow it could peirce through fucking diamond if it has too. Not an argument, if they dont have a magical crossbow. Ha! Well good luck with that
Yeah, just like another conversation about size and damage something that big should inflict, size here would also mean that there needs to be some kind of damage reduction. An insect's massive damage compared to size means nearly jack all to someone human size. It'll bother us, but it's not going to subdue us without some other thing coming into play (ie poison's etc.).
How does this channel not have more traffic? This is great production and you guys are really personable!
Spread the word! Thanks for the support.
+JPruInc you faker
Ay! another amazing video guys! keep this stuff up!
Thanks!
Pruitt's openings are consistently one of my favorite things about this show. I like most everything about the show, that just happens to be near the top.
Woohoo! These are all so interesting. I've learned so much stuff about D&D, and I just want to put it all in campaigns for my players. Thank you guys so much for all these videos, they're a real inspiration.
Party of wizards casting polymorph. Turns into seahorse once it uses up legendary resistance. Put it in a jar of water. Cast wall of force in a sphere around it. Time out polymorph and let it expand into the vessel.
The Tarrasque compresses, dies, and turns into a sphere of supercritical fluid. Your party evacuates the area to save yourselves from the imminent explosion.
Bill Kong is... Is that even possible?
king bloxxor I have run the numbers and I can give you a confident shrug.
Yep.
It's definitely possible.
Don't underestimate wizards, lol
Only trick is you need one wizard to hold concentration on polymorph and a second to cast wall of force, otherwise neither of the spells have any written limitation that would prevent this from happening.
Don’t forget the magic resistance lol... makes it pretty dam hard to make the spells stick
My DM recently had our party use the tarrasque to prevent the arrival of Cthulhu on our plane of existence.
i was going to do that on my own campaign where it revolves around chtulhu but i got bored and decided to make cthulhu and his mind flyers take control over the terrasque so it served cthulhu,
I don't think a tarrasque is strong enough to stop Cthulhu
You are doing Lovecraft "wrong" though. As far as i know the original lovecraft was more about overwhelming cosmic horror than about big bad monsters. They were supposed to be so powerful than any comprehensible way of tackling it is doomed to fail and the way attempt was stopped is within itself outside of comprehension and it risks getting attention of mentioned entity.
If I was a Demon Prince and some jackarses sent a Terrasque into my backyard; you are damned sure I'll be paying those adventurers a visit.
You don't have to kill it. Surround it with wizards. The wizards continuously fire Polymorph and true Polymorph. The objective is to turn it into a humanoid. Once successful, they move in with Magic Jar to possess the body. The Tarrasque is now your ally.
Edit: Also it is now an intelligent wizard Tarrasque.
Tarrasque fight against a single level 20 Spellcaster:
1. Roll initiative, you won because Tarrasque is a big slow monster
2. Cast Plane Shift, and go to some weird plane like Limbo.
3. Cast Gate and say the Tarrasque's name
4. roll initiative again if DM wants you to(doesnt matter because you're still against the big dumb monster)
5. Plane Shift back to the Material Plane....
Tarrasque has been banished to Limbo lmao'
What's The Tarrasque's name?
Last campaign I was in that a terrasque was present in we didn't engage it directly, we followed it's path, gathered samples (scales, bone fragments, etc) dug up a giant lake with enchanted adamantine chains then used the samples to make illusionary clones of the creature and made it fight itself 5 times over. When it went down we used one to drop it into the new lake, the wizard bound it with the chains and left it there.
3:27 Like how he said shadow monks can just GTFO. That's exactly my character: Monk 11 (Way of Shadow)
I think my favourite story thing that I've heard of for the Tarrasque, was the idea that a nation had successfully subdued it, and had built a fortress around it to keep it pinned, where life revolved around both the dangers of keeping it incapacitated (the idea used the 3.5 version where it had regen, as well as the colossal task of actually keeping it immobile and anchored to the city), and the benefits of all the magical things that could be obtained from the Tarrasque. From scales to blood, it could all be gathered up to form a highly profitable (if dangerous) business.
(I went and found it: www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/2rtwn3/the_city_built_around_the_tarrasque/)
It's just a Tarrasque... Said no one ever.
Um... have you read the comment section here? About at least a dozen posts on edge-lords taking on a Tarrasque "solo" in undera minute and other nonsense.
The Star Trek episode "The Doomsday Machine" popped into my head when you said it could be a weapon of the Gods. A creature built millions of years ago to fight an enemy no longer here, the Machine drifted through space, eating planets. What if the Tarrasque is like that? Of course, in Star Trek, we find out that it was built to fight The Borg, but what could the Tarrasque have been built to fight?
Tharizud
Our solution to fighting a Terrasque? Send in our Guild Leader Hagosha, a six-armed demigod Monk that carries the title "Protector of the Gods" and is quite literally the DnD 5e incarnation of One-Punch Man....
DrakeMarvell
remind me of Azuras Wrath.
More or less actually.....though he only goes into a rage (in-character of course since he's a Monk) when something extremely bad happens.
DrakeMarvell well azura is angry because he got betrayed and his family murdered.
Pretty solid reason to go berzerk.
Yeah several NPCs were....violated....and this led to Hagosha getting REALLY angry and declaring a war on the guild that did so.....we wiped them all out, leaving none alive....which also progressed the story since that guild was one that supported Bhaal & Bane, the two gods that we are trying to stop from ending all the realms...
DrakeMarvell
thats a custom background story?
If so that sound nice!
I love keith baker's idea he posted on his blog. The tarrasque could come from the mournlands, shrouded in dead gray mist. No one knows what it is until they enter the mist, which follows the beast like an aura. I'm using that for my eberron game. I need to rework the tarrasque build, and make it even more terrifying. Reaper bones even has a great mini to use. That huge beast stepping over a wall. It looks like the tarrasque, sorta. Can't wait to design this adventure in the future!
I want WoTC to make tarrasque plushies.
So now we know: Jim will cheese the Tarrasque to death.
I'm actually painting the Bones version of the Tarrasque in preparation for a one shot this coming Thursday. My players have no idea what they are in for!
I was in a group as a necromancer wizard, and let me tell you, giving all your guys magical bows was amazing at taking the bloody thing down. the plan was basically "paralyse the thing while the army of undead shoot it down"
I like the idea of needing the tarrasque as the last resort to fight an archdemon/devil, but after that, it goes on a rampage and must be stoped (wich would be the second half or so of the campain). Do you kill the Tarrasque or put it back to sleep? You could need it again to fight another godlike entity in a year or two or a millenia.
Or the tarrasque could be killed by a group of Metallic dragons from the sky, who would then go to meet the kings and tell them: ''You summoned the Tarrasque? Are you insane!?! We will rules over you from now on: you need our order...''
That would be a dilemma for sure.
I remember one published adventure during the switch from 2e -> 3e featured the Tarrasque as the bringer of the apocalypse. I can see the people of a given D&D world keeping the Tarrasque in a pocket dimension and only bringing it out to fight the big, big baddies.
+James Davis If the Tarrasque is the Bringer of Apocalypse, I could see a campaign in which the antagonists are a group of powerfull archmages trying to summon the Tarrasque to cast the Imprisonnement spell on it and keep it in a gemstone (probably made from the wish spell, because it would need to cost more than 15,000 GP). If they are successfull, they would then use it to become a circle of tyranical rulers.
No... You feed it poor homeless people until it gets full and goes into a food coma.
This has the secondary beneficial effect of removing all the derelicts from town.
Watching this now makes me realize how op my party would have been if my DM chose the Tarrasque to be my friend's pet due to grog flask effects.
Great intro. thanks for the video.
Your welcome! Thanks for the support.
So, our 5th edition group (level 15) went head to head with a Tarrasque. We weren't able to use your strategy because the Tarrasque was in a huge cave (so we couldn't pick it off with arrows and spells from far away). But, we did massive damage continuously against it by flanking constantly and hitting it with huge blocks of damage.
Thanks for the tips - great monster video!
What is the monster shown in the background at 7:27?
The xenomorph (right) or efreet (left)?
I meant the efreet thanks.
I would like to see a video dealing with the Pathfinder/3.5 version of the Tarrasque discussing the different ways to deal with its regen, super high AC, and needing a wish/miracle spell in order to truly defeat it. 5e really neuters the Tarrasque in terms of stats and necessary tactics.
another great episode as always!
How's your campaign coming along? If I recall you're running an Eberron game, right?
It's going good so far, had to put a small hiatus on it due to me moving, but lots of twist and turns that have kept my players on their toes. I'll be ending it in a few months to start either a modern/secret world campaign or an outer planes campaign!
Thanks for asking!
Good content and production values. :)
Keep the videos coming, guys.
Can't stop. Won't stop!
you guys are the best D and D channel on TH-cam -- can you dedicate episodes to WOTC's Unearthed Arcana and related articles? Thanks!
We've thought about it. Pruitt has used UA classes for a couple of his characters and I've had other players use the demon summoning spells from Black Magic. I'm sure if we digger deeper we could find something to talk about.
Thanks for your response. I am particularly interested to hear your opinion on the new feats.
media.wizards.com/2016/downloads/DND/UA-Feats-V1.pdf
My quick take - Fell-handed: I like the rider effects on adv/dis, curious to see how often they come into play. Blade Mastery: meh, this one leaves me cold, I feel like characters who would take this have better uses for their reaction. Spear Mastery: I'm loving this one! I'm imagining the fight between Hector and Achilles in Troy when I read this feat. Overall, I'd drop the +1 to hit for all of them though and either leave them as is or replace it with something else.
I really dig the Tool feats, but think they should go further in their effects.
Fell-handed is brilliant design. Looking at Spear Mastery though, I don't know why I'd get that instead of a polearm and Polearm Mastery. I guess the advantage of Spear Mastery is you could use a shield.
Shield use would be the mechanical reason. Style is another: spear and shield is classic. Don't care for set versus charge using your bonus action and reaction though, I'd probably say you can use a spear to make opportunity attacks against anyone entering your reach. Personally, I'd also rule that spears could be used with Polearm Master.
I've long thought that a low magic campaign based on the Tarrasque would be cool. The original story goes back to Tarascon, a city in Southern France. St Martha tamed it. So the campaign would be that the Tarrasque was sleeping under Tarascon. It was claimed to be defeated, but it was really only sleeping. The city was built on top of it. However, there are cultists whose goal is to wake up the Tarrasque to destroy the city. So the PCs would be tangling with the Cultists for most of the time, but eventually the climax would lead it to a confrontation with the Tarrasque. But having it be something there to kill off a big bad like Demogorgon would be good, too.
Do an episode on the nine hells
That subject is on the list!
I read that as 'go to the nine hells' initially
I cracked up with that opening line 😂😃 awesome
Never been consistent at anything in my life... Except liking every new webdm video 😉
It was too perfect a F-up to not use. It's a small peak behind the scenes and into the "intro process".
The 5e half dragon is a template that you can place on any beast, humanoid, giant, or monstrosity, and this template becomes more powerful on larger creatures.
Fear the wrath of a Tarrasque that's resistant to a new damage type (Preferably acid, cold, or lightning), and can breathe that damage onto other players!
you, sir, are evil. i like it.
-vampirehalfdragontarrasquelich-
Goddamn, this channel's content rules. Jim is my spirit animal.
Lol flying carpets=conventional
I was playing a level 30 druid in a group which fought a terrasque. What we ended up doing was my character turned himself into a Terrasque through the shapechange spell, thanks to his level 28 ability from legendary druid he can turn himself into monstrosities. So it ended up being my character just up in the terrasque face distracting it, while the rest of them just stood back picking some pot shots at it.
me and a party fought it in 2e, we won, but to be fair we had an ancient red dragon on our side
Always bring an Ancient Red!
Ancient Red should be the name of our craft-brew cider
+James Davis Trademark that shit right now, Jim Davis! Though I think it should be a spiced cider. If there's a dragon on the label there should be some burn to it.
Honestly, I think just giving it the ability to move via underground would fix most problems that it has. I mean, it's lair is deep beneath the surface and it has to get out of there somehow. Even just a dig speed of 10 feet a round would be enough to make the Tarrasque prefer movement via land but will use the dig speed to escape a situation where it literally can't do anything.
Also, should your players try to cheese a Tarrasque you could give the Tarrasque a new legendary action attack that lets the Tarrasque let out a shrieking roar that does 2d6 thunder damage to all creatures within 120 feet of it. Not super effective, but it should get the point across that this Tarrasque may or may not have some special features to it that they may have to look out for.
As for you players who are going to fight the Tarrasque here are some ideas that could work.
1. Grease a 1st level spell that would be extremely useful as the Tarrasque would continually fall prone unless it could pass the casters spell dc with a dexterity save(which it has a +0 in). However, the area it affects is smaller than the space the Tarrasque takes up so some DM's may see this as an issue.
2. Web a 2nd level spell that effectively does the same thing, but takes up the same space as the Tarrasque and it makes it restrained. However, the Tarrasque can also spend its action to make a strength check on its turn to break free. If you ask me a 2nd level spell to burn a Tarrasque's action is preeeeetty good.
3. Okay, so this one isn't necessarily as useful... but the idea is hilarious. Just cast Otto's Irresistable dance on it and for probably around a turn or two you'll have a dancing Tarrasque unable to do anything.
4. This one is probably as close to cheesing as you can get while not actually cheesing it... Just cast Reverse Gravity on it. The idea now is why attack the Tarrasque on the ground from the air... when you can attack the Tarrasque in the air from the ground! Of course it's not as effective as shooting from magic carpets, but hey. At least it'll feel more realistic and fun.
I once has a tarrasque vs the dragon queen. The tarrasque one as it was able to outbeat the dragon queen. Now I did give it magic to inflict damage
...Why didn't Tiamat just fly up out of where it could hit her easily? She might be a dragon goddess, but she's not stupid.
ilovethelegend I have to re read the guy's entry, but why can you make the Terasque just a climbing machine with great ass jumps. The only way you are out of his range is if he is out of your range too.
That and a living trebuche.
*makin' me look up the stats for these god damned things* Climbing wouldn't work great because the tarrasque doesn't have a climb speed. As far as jumping goes, by standard jumping rules it can only jump 13 feet. Now, theoretically you *could* have it do some crazy, Sonic-spin and be able to hit something that's like 110 feet in the air with its tail (personally I would call for an acrobatics check on that to not land prone afterwards but that's just me). If it took the time to climb up a convenient pillar, it might be able to reach an extra 5 feet but Tiamat's longest range attacks are still longer, and since it can't normally reach that high she could strafe the thing all day, even to hit with her shorter ranged attacks. Also, no, reflective carapace does not apply since dragon breath isn't a spell and isn't magical. Even if it did, Tiamat's immune to all of those damage types. If we could include followers, she could get a bunch of cultists with +1 longbows to ride her back and ping the thing to death from 300 feet in the air which would take forever but be doable since the tarrasque doesn't regen anymore in this edition. However, if we do that, there's no reason why the tarrasque couldn't have a wizard with acid immunity sitting in its stomach casting fly and feather fall if applicable.
Not that any of that matters, though. The Tarrasque's attacks don't deal magic damage, which means Tiamat is immune to them.
I'm kind of curious: how far back do these Tarrasques go in D&D? I played D&D from the early 80's to the early 90's and I don't recall of even hearing of them until recently and we certainly never fought one, or if we did the DM never named it to us.
Great content guys keep it up! I ask my new players to watch a few videos from you guys. Have you guys thought of doing Tut videos for 5e? Like a 15 minute tut for a player that hasn't played anything related to roleplaying and want to wrap their heads around what they are starting up.
Ignore me on my question, I needed to dig deeper into your channel's history!
Looks like you might have already found some of the earlier videos we made! Those were made when our understanding of 5e was less developed compared to now, so the specifics of our recommendations for each class might have changed, but the broad player advice remains the same.
Do you guys expect to make more nitty-gritty focused videos? Thanks.
It's on our List, but right now we've got dozens of show ideas and not a lot of time to get them all out. I'd love to revisit some older topics in greater detail though.
We had a game a few years ago where well known adventurers (i.e. High Level) were invited to a series of trials and games. If you survived through it all, there was one final optional challenge. You could leave, or take the final challenge. It was Me, one of the other PCs and a couple NPCs that decided to stay. We had survived what they could through at us, it couldn't be that bad....or could it. Yeah, it was a Tarrasque. Not only that, we were playing home brewed Pathfinder and it was a 2nd edition Tarrasque. I managed to be the last man standing, only buy pushing my own party member into it's open, waiting mouth. Then I jumped in, there was no way I was gonna make it. We were never really dead after it was all said and done, but I was the one that could say when in a fight with a Tarrasque, I was the last man standing.
As to the comment "once you stat it, the players will find a way to kill it". It's a Manual of information about known Monsters. Not the law book of Monsters or the Book of every known monster. Change it up...you gotta surprise the PCs every so often.
600hp and 25ac just doesn't seem like enough to me. I haven't played 5th edition, but in 3.5 those stats just don't sound all that impressive to me.
a 10th level barbarian with a str score of 20 with rage going has better than a 50% chance of hitting it for 8-19 points of damage per attack and there will be two attacks for 16-38 points. combined with 4 or 5 other PCs I can see it going down pretty quickly. All the more quickly if that barbarian has a +1 or +2 weapon, or some sort of magical enchantment, or belt of giant strength, or boots of haste, or some way of doing more damage or attacking more often.
Also, I wouldn't say that having an intelligence of 3 means it is too dumb to attack properly. Almost any and all animals have an intelligence of 2 or 3, yet all predators have hunting and killing behaviors they have learned or that they do from instinct. cheetahs and other big cats will use their paws to trip their game before going for the kill, lions will pile on and pull down large game before suffocating it by biting over their muzzles. Wolves will bite at ankles and hind quarter to wear down and trip game, etc. I wouldn't put it past a Tarrasque at all to use its tail to knock things prone before going in for other attacks. It doesn't need to be particularly intelligent to know how to best use its own body for attacks.
Kur Norock I don't mean to sound like a dick but your numbers are slightly wrong. a 10th level barbarian with 20 strength in 5e only has a +9 to attack. So he needs to role a 16 or higher. so about a 25 percent change to hit at all. Plus I believe the tarrasque has resistance to nonmagical weapons. so if using a great sword he'll do 5-10 damage. Which is a bug bite if it manages to hit.
Alex York Oh right, i forgot that 5e did away with the base attack bonus in favor of the proficiency bonus. One of the things i did not like about 5e. But, a level 10 Barbarian would still likely have an even higher Str score due to ability increases with level and probably items or potions which increase str. Not to mention frenzied rage give advantage on attack rolls.
Also, if you don't have a magical weapon by level 10, especially if you are going up against terrasque, you aren't playing right.
you cant go above 20 in 5e for stats
Olaf Olaf Yes you can
Not through ASI you can't. Only through magic items. And even if your DM was stupid enough to give the Barbarian a belt of storm giants strength, your attack bonus is still only +13 at 10th level, still 2 below what you need to hit on average.
Oh, you want to Reckless attack to make up for it? Now the Tarrasque has advantage on every attack made against you, _with a +19_ . I hope your 1-3 x 1d12+9's was worth absolutely taking 1x4d12+10, 2x4d8+10, 1x4d10+10 and 1x4d6+10 for an average of 148, halved to 74.
Hi, me and my mates have been playing d&d 3.5 for a while now. Is there any reason or should there be any point where we switch to a newer version of D&D?
Captain Gigglez You guys should try 5th edition. Everything,or almost everything was balanced in so many ways.Every class can shine at any moment.And you won't feel like you're useless in some situations.
The rules are pretty simple and easy to understand,you can modify so many items in a matter of seconds,and you can make up some pretty dank combos during battle,like Reckless attack with Great Weapon master from the barbarian.
Just do it! You won't regret it.
Another WebDM video at last!
The week seems so long.
Ha-ha-ha! Yeah, that's the joke ;) You guys are uploading so much faster now
Do gates always have to be vertical, couldn't you open the gate as a horizontal hole along the ground under it, and it just falls in because gravity?
i must really be a poor soul to immediately picture this beast in a minecraft setting as an enderdragon, giving it regeneration through crystals
NinjaMuffinLTD No that's good: you have to break the crystals first, all the while the Tarrasque is attacking you, or the fights nearly impossible. Maybe some cult of destruction is behind it all
Going to steal this OMG I must convert ender dragon to 5e
What exactly do you mean by Divining everything? How powerful is high level divination? What spells would be necessary for this? Wouldn't this only work in a party with a diviner wizard?
I still refuse to pronounce it as anything other than Terra-Skew
Flawless P me too 🖒
I usually say it terr-AW-skwey
You are all horrible people
Had two experiences with the Big T. We were 3.5 lvl 15ish fighting the end game with the BBEG, part way through the fight BBEG was loosing. So he releases Big T as a distraction to get away, deal with it or our beloved city was going to get trounced.
Another DM had a ciry/fort/containment cell that held one chained up. Story went is a couple centuries ago they managed to chain it up with immovable rods and adamantium chains but didnt have the ability the finish it off. After a couple centuries an entire economy had grown up around its regenerating body parts. Complete with corrupted nobles drinking its blood.
are jim s nbeard real >???? we want no now! xddd
I like the idea of the Tarrasque 1) having a burrow speed if it doesn't already, and 2) giving it back its regeneration. Hell give it back a ton of regeneration that can be bypassed by:
Doing 100HP of damage in a round or something (possibly too high), which forces it to roll a Dex save DC 20. If it fails then it falls to the ground (and can't get back up with Legendary Actions) and its fear aura shuts down, but it sortof turtles up and has resistance to ranged damage. (Andy spell that trips it could also do this) Melee damage deals normal damage against it but it still regenerates, unless it takes damage from a Vorporal/wish blade, or maybe some special material applied to a weapon. After it takes damage from such a thing it can no longer regenerate those Hit Points. At the start of its next turn it uses half its movement speed to stand again and the cycle has to repeat.
Of course once its at 0 HP I'm fine with a Wish no longer being cast to kill it, but something like using a powerful item, casting a 9th level spell, or a fighter applying his very spirit (instantly fatiguing himself as he pours his will into some magical spirit blade style attack) into slaying the beast should be referenced.
The whole concept is that it makes fighting it more about getting it to the ground to stab its vitals with something of intense power than just easily taking advantage of its bestial nature. The thing really should be a cataclysmic behemoth that it takes demi-god like characters to even trip up. Regular mortals might be able to try but it should take armies and siege weapons to break its stride, if they could even muster the guts to face it.
Only 600 hit points? LOL
Gina Lekasdottir right? Oh, you is terrasque? I am level 20 barbarian. All of my rage!!!
yea i guess they nerfed it in 5 e cause in 3.5 it has 858 health
Jerry Baker really? So it takes 3 rounds to kill instead of 2? Doesnt seem like much of a nerf to me lol
I plan on giving mine around 1,200-1,500 and they have no idea that it's going to be in the campaign. Lol
I ran a campaign that had one as its center plot. i was in 2nd edition and a lich was trying to make it its new body using several artifacts that would lower the beasts defenses.
NEEEERRRRDDDDSSSS!
go away NOW!!!!!
... yes...
lol
JJJAAAAKKKEEE
Whoopsie Daisy
Yes? Did you want something?
In 5e you can True Polymorph a mud golem out of an object and it'll beat the Tarrasque on its own. It's immune to all of the Tarrasque's damage, and its attacks are magical so it can harm the Tarrasque. It'll have to hit on a 20, so it'll take a while, but in a battle of attrition the golem wins.
My big in inspiration for the Tarrasque is the fight between Homura and Walpurgisnacht in episode 11 of Madoka Magica. Just the way she had to use everything available to damage it at all, including hitting it with anti air missiles, a gas tanker, dropping buildings on it, or flinging it into a giant pit full of high explosives. Tactics like that (but with less technology) would make for an interesting fight.
+Fabian Morf I don't own Princes of the Apocalypse, as we were still hip-deep in HotDQ when it came out. I'd love to look at it as I've heard many great things, but gone are the days when I buy anything D&D related. Maybe I'll find it on the cheap somewhere and review it.
As a DM how do what's the best way to decide Monsters aggro ? RP it , which can make the tank useless as he may not always be the biggest threat when the 20 hp wizard throws a fireball , maybe nearest to that monster if its not intelligent ?
should the tarrasque have parasitic insects //:ie flees what would you recommend self design or pre existing monster
The biggest weakness of the Terrasque in 5e is actually Disintergrate. I've faced one as a support bard in a party that had a sorcerer and a wizard. They burnt through over half it's HP easily (of course you throw some good dex save spells before to burn legendary resist). That's just 2 casters, a party of 6 with 3 high level casters can be flying Disintergrate machine guns and melt it in a few rounds. It's really not that scary, we killed ours without anyone even going unconscious... and I even got swallowed.
My one and only time I put the Tarrasque in a dungeon, it was a trial dungeon for a friends character that was so OP that there was nothing that could challenge him.
So, I locked him in what I called the dungeon to end all dungeons. He had to succeed or be stuck in the dungeon for eternity.
The last room at the end of the dungeon held the Tarrasque. When he finished soloing it, the beast had bitten him in half EIGHT times. The character, Zweifel, had sat in the Throne of the Gods which gave him 7 resurrections per week, and he had another two "backup" instant resurrection powers.
While this battle was going on, every time the beast got a crit, I would say "THAT'S ONE! TWO!, THREE!" etc... with the most ominous voice I could muster. When he was bitten in half the eighth time, my friend was sure that he would be beaten. Yet, he was able to get the beast down below zero HP enough (This was during 3.5 days) to cast a wish spell to make it stay dead.
After the victory, the god Set (his deity) appeared and said "So you ARE worthy!" --- "Worthy of what?" Zweifel said... "Worthy to be my avatar. For there is nothing on the material planes that can defeat you!"
When Zweifel thought about it, he agreed, and so it came to pass that Zweifel became the Avatar of Set for a time.
In my homebrew campaign, we finished it off at level 18 with a party of four. Throughout the journey the party had gathered massive wealth, fame and power eventually becoming the rulers of what would be considered our hub nation of Belleheim, The Holy Lands.
Well, after a campaign of intrigue and intense militaristic powers the Tarrasque had awoken in the wake of the war so vast it threatened to bring about the End of Times. We finished off the campaign with the Tarrasque nearly destroying all of Belleheim, ending with an intense multi-session battle of this nationwide rampage
Hey, those are some awesome drawings in the background. Where can I find things like that?