Has your DM ever made you all fight one, how did you defeat it, or better yet, how did you survive?
You’re bound to get a lot of cheese answers here, instead of realistic responses, but I’ll bite…
Prepare: Tarrasques aren’t usually a “oh hey a Tarrasque pops up and attacks the party!”-kind of encounter, so there’s usually a lot of indicators that you’ll be fighting one.
1) Get potions of invulnerability, acid resistance
2) Spells that allow immunity or resistance to Fear effects
3) Items or Spells that allow you to escape grapples or deal with being swallowed (Freedom of Movement, Wand of Binding, Ring of Free Action)
4) Go for big damage. You gotta grind that HP down fast, buff your biggest damage dealers
5) Lock it down - Sentinel and the like if you can, or walls of force to stop him from getting to your weaker members.
The 5e Tarrasque is way easier to deal with than past editions. It has no real resistance or immunities to speak of. So if you follow rules as written All you need is at least 3 people able to cast the 7th level spell Reverse Gravity, since it has nothing to be anchored to the ground with, it flys up 100 feet and you take the 10 rounds ( 1 minute) to let loose with anything that can cause damage to it that it cant save against ( for added fun have someone go under it with an immovable rod ). after 10 rounds it falls, ( the rod will most likely rip through the creature) takes 10 D 6 falling damage, then repeat. A party of that level should have enough to kill it in 30 rounds.
The Tarrasque has three legendary resistances and magic resistance that gives it advantage on all saving throws. One does not simply apply Reverse Gravity against it and expect it to work.
Has your DM ever made you all fight one, how did you defeat it, or better yet, how did you survive?
All you need is access to being able to fly and ranged attacks - the Tarrasque can't fly, has no ranged attacks, and is Intelligence 3. Your DM might have it try to flee and hide from you, depending on how your DM wants its attitude to be, but even that will be quite difficult for it.
A Tarrasque, fought in a vacuum, is fairly easy to cheese out, as Quindraco mentioned... A level 1 Aarakocra with a +1 bow and a few hundred arrows could eventually take out a Tarrasque. One of the real dangers of massive creatures like Tarrasques is just how dangerous they are to the populous. Sure, your heroes could kill a Tarrasque you ran into in a big open field with just time and some smart spell uses, but the challenge is making sure it doesn't destroy whatever town or city it's stomping through.
Sacred Flame is the go-to spell of choice for killing the Tarrasque at first level. If I were going to actually use it in a game I'd rewrite it with multiple additional actions and traits that render it a threat that actually needs high level heroes to deal with.
Sacred Flame is the go-to spell of choice for killing the Tarrasque at first level. If I were going to actually use it in a game I'd rewrite it with multiple additional actions and traits that render it a threat that actually needs high level heroes to deal with.
Yes Dex saves is very much the weak point of a terrasque. With a +3 Amulet of the devout (or equivalent) it can't make the save even with a nat 20 so advantage doesn't help.
Different classes have different options, Disintegrate is a great option if you have itfor example.
If you need to disable it quickly you might need to burn through th4e legendary resistances to get something to stick. Even with advantage the tarrasques will probably only make int saves about half the time unfortunatly 9th level pyscic scream is the only spell that would do much more than damage (e.g. feeblemind wont affect it much)
Wis, Cha and Str saves can also be used to burn legendary resistances and disable it, though you will probably want to do things to improve your odds. The sorcerer can heighten spells the eloquance bard can use disonnent whispers, Bane is a good spell here to either burn a legendary resistance of help future attempts.
If you need to disable it quickly you might need to burn through th4e legendary resistances to get something to stick.
Hard to come up with a reason that disabling it super quickly is all that important, it's not super fast or mobile and doesn't have any particular mass destruction abilities. A reasonably placed Plant Growth will stall it for at least four rounds.
If you need to disable it quickly you might need to burn through th4e legendary resistances to get something to stick.
…doesn't have any particular mass destruction abilities.
Yes it does - Siege Monster.
If you look at the actual rules for destroying structures, siege monster is barely relevant for structures that aren't armored -- you damage structures in 10' cubes, and its regular damage is sufficient to destroy a 10' cube even without siege monster. At eight attacks per round, it takes about two rounds to destroy a single building, so you're talking about an hour to demolish a modest size town (300 buildings, population a few thousand), way more than that for a city. The first level aarakokra cleric takes about an hour to kill the tarrasque. Just tossing around a few fireballs and then sniping the people trying to put out the fire will probably destroy a city faster than a tarrasque.
Tarrasque is a threat for cities. It's only effective against PCs if they have to protect something. (unless they are low level and/or lack magic items)
So, as expected, I can't actually share a modified Tarrasque, but my casual rework added the following
Movement (burrow) 20', cannot fully submerge.
Increase Charisma to 20, increasing frightful presence DC to 22.
Proficient with Athletics (+19), increasing grapple and tail DC to 29.
Indestructible. The Tarrasque has damage threshold 30 (like an object). A creature with multiple attacks may combine them to overcome this threshold.
Juggernaut. The Tarrasque may use its burrow speed to pass through stone, and through objects and terrain (buildings, trees, etc) that are no tougher than stone (AC 17), ignoring all terrain modifiers when it does so, and demolishing everything in its path.
Earthshaker (Recharge 6): as an action, the Tarrasque strikes the earth, creating an Earthquake (DC 27) in a 120' cone for one round, and up to two 100' deep fissures within the cone.
Mighty Roar (Recharge 6): as an action, the Tarrasque roars, and all creatures with 120' must make a Constitution save (DC 27) or suffer 14 (4d6) thunder damage and be Stunned until the start of the beast's next turn. A successful save halves damage and negates stun.
Earth Control. As a bonus action, the beast can do any or all of the following
Clouds of Dust: dust rises in a 120' radius, reducing vision distance to 30'. This does not affect the Tarrasque.
Earthbinding: all creatures within 120' are affected by Earthbind (DC 27) for one round.
Ramparts of Earth: the beast gains 3/4 cover until the the end of its next turn, or it uses a movement type other than burrow, whichever comes first.
I was in a party that took one on at 16th level. It was a tough fight, but we mostly just beat it down via attrition and that was with a party that's severely not optimized (underwhelming gear for 16th level and a selection of underpowered subclasses).
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Offering answers that appear to exploit gaps in the rules are a kind of thought experiment (or an attempt to seem witty) but I very much doubt that they are of interest to the OP. A Tarrasque is likely to feature in a climactic battle where it smashes through a city, destroying buildings and devouring the populace. Ideas about taking an hour to kill it should be considered likely to be a failure, even if a bad DM allowed things to go that way rather than just have the Tarrasque tear out a chunk of the ground and hurl it. I find pedantry is the bane of D&D and these things have no bearing on real games, which devolves an honestly intentioned request like this thread into worthless rules lawyering. For instance, imagining that the Tarrasque isn't going to hurl a tree at a flying opponent is like saying that you can't give a Noble a potion of healing because they don't have 'drink potion' as an ability on their stat block.
The real answer is that you prepare to face the Tarrasque with spells and abilities that will allow you to survive its onslaught, then hit it with everything you've got - excluding things that will bounce back at you. Potions of Resistance or spells that will reduce the Tarrasque's damage output are a good idea, and it's mostly weapon damage that is going to take it down.
My current players are level 9, and a couple of levels back they researched 3 possible definitions of a particular acronym. One of them featured the Tarrasque, and further research indicated that the Tarrasque had destroyed a nation seven hundred years ago and had never been heard of since. I'm saving it in case they ever get high enough in level to venture to the destroyed kingdom. My players will probably need to find a quest based way of defeating it, such as banishing it to another plane of existence.
Offering answers that appear to exploit gaps in the rules are a kind of thought experiment (or an attempt to seem witty) but I very much doubt that they are of interest to the OP.
It's not a rules gap that the Tarrasque has no way of dealing with flying enemy, it's just bad monster design.
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Has your DM ever made you all fight one, how did you defeat it, or better yet, how did you survive?
You make a clay golem and send it out.
ggez
You’re bound to get a lot of cheese answers here, instead of realistic responses, but I’ll bite…
Prepare: Tarrasques aren’t usually a “oh hey a Tarrasque pops up and attacks the party!”-kind of encounter, so there’s usually a lot of indicators that you’ll be fighting one.
1) Get potions of invulnerability, acid resistance
2) Spells that allow immunity or resistance to Fear effects
3) Items or Spells that allow you to escape grapples or deal with being swallowed (Freedom of Movement, Wand of Binding, Ring of Free Action)
4) Go for big damage. You gotta grind that HP down fast, buff your biggest damage dealers
5) Lock it down - Sentinel and the like if you can, or walls of force to stop him from getting to your weaker members.
The 5e Tarrasque is way easier to deal with than past editions. It has no real resistance or immunities to speak of. So if you follow rules as written All you need is at least 3 people able to cast the 7th level spell Reverse Gravity, since it has nothing to be anchored to the ground with, it flys up 100 feet and you take the 10 rounds ( 1 minute) to let loose with anything that can cause damage to it that it cant save against ( for added fun have someone go under it with an immovable rod ). after 10 rounds it falls, ( the rod will most likely rip through the creature) takes 10 D 6 falling damage, then repeat. A party of that level should have enough to kill it in 30 rounds.
The Tarrasque has three legendary resistances and magic resistance that gives it advantage on all saving throws. One does not simply apply Reverse Gravity against it and expect it to work.
All you need is access to being able to fly and ranged attacks - the Tarrasque can't fly, has no ranged attacks, and is Intelligence 3. Your DM might have it try to flee and hide from you, depending on how your DM wants its attitude to be, but even that will be quite difficult for it.
A Tarrasque, fought in a vacuum, is fairly easy to cheese out, as Quindraco mentioned... A level 1 Aarakocra with a +1 bow and a few hundred arrows could eventually take out a Tarrasque. One of the real dangers of massive creatures like Tarrasques is just how dangerous they are to the populous. Sure, your heroes could kill a Tarrasque you ran into in a big open field with just time and some smart spell uses, but the challenge is making sure it doesn't destroy whatever town or city it's stomping through.
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Sacred Flame is the go-to spell of choice for killing the Tarrasque at first level. If I were going to actually use it in a game I'd rewrite it with multiple additional actions and traits that render it a threat that actually needs high level heroes to deal with.
Yes Dex saves is very much the weak point of a terrasque. With a +3 Amulet of the devout (or equivalent) it can't make the save even with a nat 20 so advantage doesn't help.
Different classes have different options, Disintegrate is a great option if you have itfor example.
If you need to disable it quickly you might need to burn through th4e legendary resistances to get something to stick. Even with advantage the tarrasques will probably only make int saves about half the time unfortunatly 9th level pyscic scream is the only spell that would do much more than damage (e.g. feeblemind wont affect it much)
Wis, Cha and Str saves can also be used to burn legendary resistances and disable it, though you will probably want to do things to improve your odds. The sorcerer can heighten spells the eloquance bard can use disonnent whispers, Bane is a good spell here to either burn a legendary resistance of help future attempts.
Hard to come up with a reason that disabling it super quickly is all that important, it's not super fast or mobile and doesn't have any particular mass destruction abilities. A reasonably placed Plant Growth will stall it for at least four rounds.
Yes it does - Siege Monster. The tarrasque can wreck a town or city very quickly (and will do so, unless the PCs are smart about controlling it).
True Polymorph into a Clay Golem. Tell your other party members to step back, then just walk up to it and kill it.
If you look at the actual rules for destroying structures, siege monster is barely relevant for structures that aren't armored -- you damage structures in 10' cubes, and its regular damage is sufficient to destroy a 10' cube even without siege monster. At eight attacks per round, it takes about two rounds to destroy a single building, so you're talking about an hour to demolish a modest size town (300 buildings, population a few thousand), way more than that for a city. The first level aarakokra cleric takes about an hour to kill the tarrasque. Just tossing around a few fireballs and then sniping the people trying to put out the fire will probably destroy a city faster than a tarrasque.
Tarrasque is a threat for cities. It's only effective against PCs if they have to protect something. (unless they are low level and/or lack magic items)
So, as expected, I can't actually share a modified Tarrasque, but my casual rework added the following
I was in a party that took one on at 16th level. It was a tough fight, but we mostly just beat it down via attrition and that was with a party that's severely not optimized (underwhelming gear for 16th level and a selection of underpowered subclasses).
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Fear lasts 1 minute maximum and can't be reapplied. You can lower the level requirement significantly with the fly and a repeating shot ranged weapon.
Offering answers that appear to exploit gaps in the rules are a kind of thought experiment (or an attempt to seem witty) but I very much doubt that they are of interest to the OP. A Tarrasque is likely to feature in a climactic battle where it smashes through a city, destroying buildings and devouring the populace. Ideas about taking an hour to kill it should be considered likely to be a failure, even if a bad DM allowed things to go that way rather than just have the Tarrasque tear out a chunk of the ground and hurl it. I find pedantry is the bane of D&D and these things have no bearing on real games, which devolves an honestly intentioned request like this thread into worthless rules lawyering. For instance, imagining that the Tarrasque isn't going to hurl a tree at a flying opponent is like saying that you can't give a Noble a potion of healing because they don't have 'drink potion' as an ability on their stat block.
The real answer is that you prepare to face the Tarrasque with spells and abilities that will allow you to survive its onslaught, then hit it with everything you've got - excluding things that will bounce back at you. Potions of Resistance or spells that will reduce the Tarrasque's damage output are a good idea, and it's mostly weapon damage that is going to take it down.
My current players are level 9, and a couple of levels back they researched 3 possible definitions of a particular acronym. One of them featured the Tarrasque, and further research indicated that the Tarrasque had destroyed a nation seven hundred years ago and had never been heard of since. I'm saving it in case they ever get high enough in level to venture to the destroyed kingdom. My players will probably need to find a quest based way of defeating it, such as banishing it to another plane of existence.
It's not a rules gap that the Tarrasque has no way of dealing with flying enemy, it's just bad monster design.