D&D 5E RE: Tarasque vs. 5th lv. Wizard scenario - how does Wizard know to use Acid Splash?!?

[Ranes]

OK, how many people have played an int 3 any race?

Sorry for the late reply; just been catching up on a few pages I'd missed. I haven't but one of my players once did. Grak of the Yeti Tribe (a 3e neanderthal). Grak was brilliant.* He often didn't get the memo when the party was facing imminent danger but once he saw his friends get hurt, he was on the case. Granted, that often led to almost as many problems as it solved but, fortunately, Grak was excellently played and the way the shortcomings of having an Int of 3 were interpreted always managed to endear the character to the other players, rather than annoy them.

Sorry. Where were we? Oh yeah, speaking of late replies…

Falx, the planet populated entirely by creatures that look exactly like the Tarrasque, is still scary despite any individual Tarrasque's wimpiness.

Sounds terrifying. What's even more terrifying is the idea that it once needed help - and got it.



* Figuratively, that is.

 

[Elderbrain]

In the hopes that this does not sound too desperate... could the Tarrasque take a short rest and Regain some of its hit points while being attacked? I know that to regain h.p. you can't do anything strenuous, but I don't see anything that says the resting person or creature can't be taking hits (the text for long rest mentions interruptions preventing healing, but short rest does not have this bit of text, so... )

 

[Paraxis]

In this white room scenario, lets assume the flying wizard spends his firt minute being frightened and second minute throwing everything else he has against the tarrasque before he realizes acid splash does something useful. So that gives the tarrasque two minutes to sun himself on the ruins of a wizard tower.

But then our flying acid splashing super hero starts to do 2d6 damage with a Dex save DC of about 14, with Tarrasque still making these saves around 7 out of 20 rounds or in minutes he is taking 26d6 acid damage every two minutes. That is 91 points of acid damage. A maximum mega hit point tarrasque has 990 hit points. So after 22 minutes the tarrasque is dead.

So sure let him take the short rest, while making dex saves every 6 seconds and acid damage, he won't finish the short rest before he is dead almost 3 times over.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

They should have given it regen I think. Never used it or really cared for it though.

 

[gambler1650]

I understand that this is a 'White Room' scenario but of course it would never be a White Room scenario. As a DM, if I were to use a Tarrasque, it would be in the context of the thing threatening something extremely important so that the players would either have to show great ingenuity in taking it down, and/or put themselves in harm's way.

Using the RAW, and the original situation, I think the Tarrasque could still easily win or at least achieve a stalemate. Have the Tarrasque ready a throw action with any nearby tree, boulder, house... The trigger is the wizard dropping to 60 feet. Problem solved.

And don't tell me a Tarrasque couldn't figure it out (per the earlier discussion). D&D has it as Intelligence 3 (lowest humanoid intelligence) and I've seen dogs and cats use problem solving at least to that level. Examples of other animals (elephants, octopus, etc) using tools or problem solving is well documented. No reason to tell the player character either. When the Tarrasque's turn comes up just have it howl menacingly but impotently as it clutches the object it later intends to throw. Maybe it misses, and then the wizard will refuse to drop to 60 feet. Stalemate until the wizard's fly spell wears off. Now what, hero?

Now if you're worried about later arguments that crowssbows or longer ranged weapons are a problem for a Tarrasque, sure they are. But that wasn't the original scenario. And in an 'actual in game' scenario I'm pretty positive a Tarrasque would still be a threat, if not to the bowmen (as long as they're flying or somewhere impervious to a charging Tarrasque) then to whomever or whatever the bowmen might want to be protecting.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I understand that this is a 'White Room' scenario but of course it would never be a White Room scenario. As a DM, if I were to use a Tarrasque, it would be in the context of the thing threatening something extremely important so that the players would either have to show great ingenuity in taking it down, and/or put themselves in harm's way...

Now if you're worried about later arguments that crowssbows or longer ranged weapons are a problem for a Tarrasque, sure they are. But that wasn't the original scenario. And in an 'actual in game' scenario I'm pretty positive a Tarrasque would still be a threat, if not to the bowmen (as long as they're flying or somewhere impervious to a charging Tarrasque) then to whomever or whatever the bowmen might want to be protecting.

Would they have greater than fifteen minutes' warning of this threat to the Very Important Thing? Fifteen minutes is plenty of time to kill the thing (as presented in RAW) if they don't have to worry about protecting anything for at least that long. I just don't see how this could work unless you stack the deck in the Tarrasque's favor, e.g. by making the Very Important Thing accessible via underground tunnels, which are big enough for the Tarrasque but twisty enough that you can't use missile weapons effectively there, and have the Tarrasque start out already in those tunnels and headed right for the Thing.

I mean, you could make it work, but wouldn't it be better to just fix the stats? A Tarrasque which is dangerous only in a perfect storm of circumstance isn't very impressive.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I understand that this is a 'White Room' scenario but of course it would never be a White Room scenario.

forget white room, 9/10 of the fully fleshed out scenerio's I posted are noticeable easier with ranged attacks in this edition... 5th level cantrip is a worst case scenero... 4 17th level character all with some form of range make even quicker work of it...

As a DM, if I were to use a Tarrasque, it would be in the context of the thing threatening something extremely important so that the players would either have to show great ingenuity in taking it down, and/or put themselves in harm's way.

yes, inless the PCs get there quick enough to pepper it at range before it gets to the target...

Using the RAW, and the original situation, I think the Tarrasque could still easily win or at least achieve a stalemate. Have the Tarrasque ready a throw action with any nearby tree, boulder, house... The trigger is the wizard dropping to 60 feet. Problem solved.

using RAW the big T gives up all it's attacks to throw 1 item at 1 target within 60ft for +0 to hit and 1dx+0 damage...

Maybe it misses, and then the wizard will refuse to drop to 60 feet. Stalemate until the wizard's fly spell wears off. Now what, hero?

great... a 5th level wizard can in theory be stalemated... wow that sounds like a cr 30... or maybe 1/5 it's CR

Now if you're worried about later arguments that crowssbows or longer ranged weapons are a problem for a Tarrasque, sure they are. But that wasn't the original scenario. And in an 'actual in game' scenario I'm pretty positive a Tarrasque would still be a threat, if not to the bowmen (as long as they're flying or somewhere impervious to a charging Tarrasque) then to whomever or whatever the bowmen might want to be protecting.

The worst part is I cam into this thread saying "It isn't that bad" but I keep having to defend because people are claiming "It isn't a problem at all"

It is a problem... it isn't a huge one, it is a disappointing one... in reality the Big T is much closer to a CR15 with way too many hp.... it is boreing and not worthy of it's flavor text.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Would they have greater than fifteen minutes' warning of this threat to the Very Important Thing? Fifteen minutes is plenty of time to kill the thing (as presented in RAW) if they don't have to worry about protecting anything for at least that long. I just don't see how this could work unless you stack the deck in the Tarrasque's favor, e.g. by making the Very Important Thing accessible via underground tunnels, which are big enough for the Tarrasque but twisty enough that you can't use missile weapons effectively there, and have the Tarrasque start out already in those tunnels and headed right for the Thing.

I mean, you could make it work, but wouldn't it be better to just fix the stats? A Tarrasque which is dangerous only in a perfect storm of circumstance isn't very impressive.

yea, the Big T is coming for the capitol... line the wall with archers and they all open fire as soon as they see it... someone find a staples button... "Wow that was easy"

 

[Cernor]

yea, the Big T is coming for the capitol... line the wall with archers and they all open fire as soon as they see it... someone find a staples button... "Wow that was easy"

I dont have my books with me atm, but I think my point stands without it. Bearing that in mind:

Let's say the city guards are, in fact, using the Guard template. Assuming 1% of the people in a city of 25,000 are guards (which is a lot), and the rest are commoners, that's a force of 250 troops. Give them whatever bows they can find (assume light crossbows with range 320 for ease of calculations), and they'll have +3 to hit (+1 Dex + prof), against the Tarrasque's AC 25. Using the group combat rules from the DMG, each individual would require a 22 to hit... Since a mob requiring 19 to hit only hits once every 10 attacks, and a mob requiring a 20 to hit only hits once every 20 attacks, let's extrapolate that so that a 21 would require 30 enemies, and a 22 would require 40 attacks to hit once.

That gives us, of this force of 250 guards, 6 hits per round against big T. Factoring in their disadvantage for long range, and we can assume that, with their odds of 1 in 400 to hit, that outside of the 80ft range, nothing would hit accurately enough to damage the Tarrasque. Within the 80ft range, they'd have 1 turn to damage big T before it reaches the walls. Once it reaches the walls, it's game over for the city: the gates would be demolished, the walls obliterated, and soon the rest of the city would follow.

So how much damage would those archers do? Saying they get 2 turns of attacks, one before and one after big T gets into the walls. Hell, let's even be nice and say that they manage to avoid being killed by the wall being taken out from under them and all succeed on their saves, so the full contingent of 250 is firing. The guards would manage 12 attacks for 1d8+1 each, for a total of 66 damage. But wait! The Tarrasque resists damage from non-magic weapons, so they only do half that! Altogether, the Tarrasque takes 33 points of damage, the city is destroyed, and everybody dies. Good job guards, you sure showed him who's boss...

EDIT: Turns out the tarrasque is immune to damage from non-magical weapons. So even if the whole population of 25,000 were all soldiers, they'd be demolished without it taking a scratch.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

So how much damage would those archers do? Saying they get 2 turns of attacks, one before and one after big T gets into the walls. Hell, let's even be nice and say that they manage to avoid being killed by the wall being taken out from under them and all succeed on their saves, so the full contingent of 250 is firing. The guards would manage 12 attacks for 1d8+1 each, for a total of 66 damage. But wait! The Tarrasque resists damage from non-magic weapons, so they only do half that! Altogether, the Tarrasque takes 33 points of damage, the city is destroyed, and everybody dies. Good job guards, you sure showed him who's boss...

There's a couple of things wrong with this analysis:

1.) The Tarrasque is immune to non-magical attacks, not resistant. That means,
2.) The right way to fight the Tarrasque is not with mobs of guardmen, but with small groups of special forces. In short, adventurers.
3.) You're granting them "2 turns of attacks", but the whole point of getting fifteen minutes warning is so that you can ride out there on your horses and get lots and lots of rounds of attacks. There are 90 rounds in fifteen minutes.

In short, the battle would be straightforwardly easy, but the tactic you're analyzing here is a bad tactic for fighting Tarrasques.