Anyone here ever used the Tarrasque succesfully?

[Sir Devria]

Hi everyone, im new to the board and decided to kick off with a question. Please forgive me if this question has already been asked.

Me and my group have been playing for about 6 years and have always thought that the Tarrasque was the most blatent party kill in the MM and so decided to test the Tarrasque and see it is really all that tough. After the entire party of five 20lv (to match the CR), custom, and decked out PCs were obliterated we decided that the Tarrasque was unbeatable for its CR.

I wanted to know if anyone has ever used the Tarrasque intentionly to confront the PCs and had them live.

 

[Breakdaddy]

Sure, my PCs stood within 15 feet of the Tarrasque and didnt sustain a scratch!!!


...because it was entombed in a solid block of ice in the Spine of the World Mountains.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Hi everyone, im new to the board and decided to kick off with a question. Please forgive me if this question has already been asked.

Me and my group have been playing for about 6 years and have always thought that the Tarrasque was the most blatent party kill in the MM and so decided to test the Tarrasque and see it is really all that tough. After the entire party of five 20lv (to match the CR), custom, and decked out PCs were obliterated we decided that the Tarrasque was unbeatable for its CR.

I wanted to know if anyone has ever used the Tarrasque intentionly to confront the PCs and had them live.

I've seen it used precisely once. We had eight 20th-level PCs, however. I was the cleric and was not even attacked once. Both barbarians were swallowed, but nobody actually died.

If we had only four PCs, we probably still would have won... however, the fight would be boring, as everything would involve spellcasters buffing and healing nonspellcasters. That creature had severe offensive weaknesses (it can't fly, it can't cast spells) and some defensive weaknesses (it can't see the invisible). Of course, you can only beat it if you happened to prepare wish or miracle that day.

 

[dvvega]

It depends on how you term successfully ...

In my old Greyhawk campaign (2nd edition), the Tarassque actually lived on Greyhawk and slept under a large mesa in the Grand Canyon (well the big chasm that is like the Grand Canyon).

The party encountered it during its hibernation (they had to travel to the top of the mesa through caverns) - it freaked them out ... for the next couple of levels they were regularly discussing Tarassque killing tactics, bringing in its stats and making notes. They spent most of their treasure on buying things to help them.

You see they thought that ... since I had let them see it, it was only a matter of time before I let it wake up and go rampaging and thus they would have to stop it.

So I would term that as a successful use of the Tarassque, however if you mean in actual physical combat - why bother? really? In fact any monster can TPK a party if the DM so desires.

D

 

[Victim]

Considering the Tarrasque doesn't fly, the 20th level party will typically be able to engage it on their terms. In an open space, our high level cleric could solo it if he'd magic'd up enough arrows that day. If the beast closes to melee, it is indeed quite fearsome because it has a huge attack bonus, several attacks, Power Attack (the T can probably dump at least 10 points into it and still hit at the same chances for +60 damage), and Imp Grab+Swallow Whole. Too bad my wizard has enchantment as a barred school, otherwise the fight would be pretty easy regardless.

On the other hand, its melee ability is worse than that of a buffed high end dragon - fitting since the top dragons have a higher CR, but they can also apply their spellcasting in other ways. Plus they have big advantages in mobility and intelligence.

Really though, it seems like it'd be theoretically possible to subdue the tarrasque by luring it below high cliffs and then dropping big boulders on it, ala Land Before Time. All you need then is a Ring of Wishes.

 

[ruleslawyer]

Yeah, the tarrasque is actually, ironically perhaps, a pretty weak CR challenge.

Which is, of course, why I slap the Paragon template on mine...

I actually did a similar thing to what dvvega did. I had my PCs called to aid the inhabitants of a town located right by a dig at which treasure hunters looking for gold and magic (this was an ancient city of the Shoon Imperium, in FR) had unearthed the sleeping form of the tarrasque. The PCs didn't know that the tarrasque wasn't due to awake for a few hundred years or so (I, er, unintentionally gave them the impression that the beast was about to rouse itself from slumber). So, they scrambled to find a way to resubmerge the monster and bind it to sleep for another thousand years. (Unbeknownst to them, the diggers who uncovered the tarrasque had come to the Shoon city guided by rumours quietly started by Elminster, who had been around for the initial hibernation of the tarrasque and thus knew where it was, and had gotten wind of some attempts by ambitious Calishite wizards to locate the hidden beast and magically awaken it and charm it to their will.)

 

[Crothian]

Ya, I've used it. My games tend to go high level but the players are not as power hungry or magic grubbing and they don't let the magic dominate the game. So, it can be a challenge. I've never seen the creature be defeated, just a lot of stale mates. And some freaking fun combats!!

I'm going to have to look into stating out a Paragon version, that could be scarey.

 

[Mark Hope]

I used it towards the end of a long-running homebrew 2e game. The world was going to pieces and in that game the tarrasque was a fallen deity cursed to roam the earth. It was wandering about the place eating the high priests of the other gods in a sort of twisted revenge so the PCs gathered together a small army and went after it.

Instead of requiring a wish spell to kill it, I ruled that they needed a McGuffin that would completely remove its last divine connections to the planes and allow them to permanently kill it (they had to venture right down to the lowest levels of my world's version of WGR1 Greyhawk Ruins to get the Mc Guffin, which I figured was a better solution than just using a 9th-level spell).

The battle raged across the countryside, finally ending up in my world's version of the ruins of Myth Drannor. The entry of a semi-divine being into the mythal caused the mythal to permanently collapse (after becoming momentarily visible as a coruscating dome of energy when the tarrasque passed through its outer edge). There were a few PC deaths but the beast was finally slain in the ruins. And there was much rejoicing.

I have plans to use it in a 3e game, but will probably keep it as a dead god in the ruined city and incorporate elements from Requiem for a God or something like that.

 

[STARP_JVP]

I take the view that there is only one Tarrasque, anywhere in the multiverse. The fact that it pops up on many different worlds indicates that it shifts around. To that end, in a campaign I ran many years ago, a cabal of civic leaders and mages in the large metropolis performed a ritual to summon the Tarrasque and use it as part of a plot to seize power - the cabal would 'rescue' the city, be hailed as heroes, and the rightful ruler would 'tragically' be killed in the beast's rampage, thus allowing the 'heroes' to take over. The PCs were never meant to fight the Tarrasque, and indeed they did not, but they did manage to reverse the ritual and send the thing back to whatever plane it started on, but not before it had eaten a lot of people and levelled some city blocks. It was a while ago so the details escape me, but the one part I do remember is one PC standing in the street when the Tarrasque was approaching. He drew his sword, he looked at his sword, he looked at the Tarrasque, he looked at his sword, he looked at the Tarrasque, he shook his head, he went "nuh-uh," he dropped his sword, and he scarpered.

It was cool.

 

[Psion]

I've never used the Tarrasque. Once. It always seemed so bland and flavorless to me, little more than a bunch of potent abilities stuffed into a package.