I could sure eat one

Time for crab

love how these crabs showed up in our Decent into Avernus campaign - HA

Time for crab

Do you need special medicine and a giant comb to combat these?

Quote from uahawke >>

Having my party 3 level 4 characters fight 20 of these guys hahaha 

You want to throw 260 hp worth of ac 15 at them that would output around 45 damage a turn if half of them can hit, which will also lock your characters in place. These things are CR 1/8 because they're a smidge too weak to be 1/4 and have worse damage than defense. With only a few, their damage is too low for their toughness to matter. But when you have tons of weak tanks that makes their defense more valuable, each crab is now tanking for the swarm, buying time for them to do damage and the SWARM has damage. Suddenly it matters that they're hard to kill and no one has fireball. They can also surround, dash, and use opportunity attacks to grapple and prevent escape or positioning. 
If anyone wants to throw that at 3 level 4s, don't do it as a "you must kill them all to proceed" encounter. Because 20 of these is more like a deadly hazard to be survived (before you get fireball... frickin fireball)

Here's This Giant Enemy Crab:

Attack its weak-point for massive damage.

I had no idea that D&D was based on Japanese historical events.

Quote from TheMadToban >>

20 crabs would only be a CR of 2, would that even be a challenge for your party?

DMRS

 Hmmm.  20 entities would be a massive XP multiplier.  Calculate that again.  

Quote from ShaydyCharacter >>

Quote from uahawke >>

Having my party 3 level 4 characters fight 20 of these guys hahaha 

You want to throw 260 hp worth of ac 15 at them that would output around 45 damage a turn if half of them can hit, which will also lock your characters in place. These things are CR 1/8 because they're a smidge too weak to be 1/4 and have worse damage than defense. With only a few, their damage is too low for their toughness to matter. But when you have tons of weak tanks that makes their defense more valuable, each crab is now tanking for the swarm, buying time for them to do damage and the SWARM has damage. Suddenly it matters that they're hard to kill and no one has fireball. They can also surround, dash, and use opportunity attacks to grapple and prevent escape or positioning. 
If anyone wants to throw that at 3 level 4s, don't do it as a "you must kill them all to proceed" encounter. Because 20 of these is more like a deadly hazard to be survived (before you get fireball... frickin fireball)

 Forgot about the help action.  A few of the crabs in the swarm could take the help action.  

Quote from CryssieOS >>

Not my party discussing how to cook these giant freaks up while I, the dm, watch in horror-

Could be worse - my party just met the talking Giant Crab in the Dragon of Icespire Peak adventure. It uses this statblock but he has an Int of 10. He's friendly and is there to be a helper to the party. He doesn't have a name so they named him Sir Rupert. And still, one of my players is trying to eat him. He suggested that he should come back to Phandalin for a warm bath in a big pot in the tavern.

He rolled a 6 Deception so Sir Rupert saw through his lies and was horrified.

At least your party is discussing how to eat what is just a large version of a normal animal. For a while mine was wondering which of their allies would be missed the least.

I cast conjure animals and get 8 of these guys and make them go ahead of the group so they trigger all the traps in the dungeon for us

Quote from BioticHamster >>

 

Quote from CryssieOS >>

Not my party discussing how to cook these giant freaks up while I, the dm, watch in horror-

 

Could be worse - my party just met the talking Giant Crab in the Dragon of Icespire Peak adventure. It uses this statblock but he has an Int of 10. He's friendly and is there to be a helper to the party. He doesn't have a name so they named him Sir Rupert. And still, one of my players is trying to eat him. He suggested that he should come back to Phandalin for a warm bath in a big pot in the tavern.

He rolled a 6 Deception so Sir Rupert saw through his lies and was horrified.

 Wow. I feel bad for the Crab. Why not be the Crab boss from Gorn as a small character(dwarf, halfling, or gnome) and ride into glorious battle...the battle of trying to keep your allies from eating this when they are hungry. :)

🦀

Time to make crab calvary

Quote from ArtemisCaresTooMuch >>

Well Tamatoa hasn’t always been this glam;

 That is the best song ever!

yes sir

wtf zoophile

Canonically NOT hot

True!