To answer a few questions:
The battle ended favorably for the Elven character. He is a master of two-weapon fighting, and uses shortswords, so he didn’t have much of a problem dealing damage even after he was swallowed by the Terrasque. (killed it in 3 rounds) However, after he did kill the beast from the inside and exited via means described in the MM he found himself almost a mile below the surface of the sea, under a ton of pressure.
The lair of the beast was in a (magical?) pocket of air in this cave far below the surface. It had easy access to the sea, where the water met the edge of one section of the cave.
He didn’t get much of a chance to follow up with the Terrasque… as in separate tiny fragments of its body one from another so it couldn’t quickly reform (deal enough damage as too keep it so far below 0 that it wouldn’t be up any time in the near future). That would allow him time to find means to permanently dispose of the beast…which could have been done with a ring of wishes- a very thing we came upon earlier in the dungeon of the wizard (the mysterious figure mentioned in first post), had we identified it earlier.
Anyway, after my character swam back to the cave he waited for some time to see if the beast would re-emerge. It did not. He then flew quickly back up to the surface to make sure that the beast hadn’t made its way to the land and waited there also for some hours, patrolling across the shore of the sea.
Oh, what were the other two doing this whole time? They left the dungeon and decided to take all the treasure found and sort through it, then … played chess…. Which they continued to do for those hours I was on the shore. They also made it a point to ask the DM how long a fight like that would take- how long their characters would figure before they “knew Aerendor (my character) was probably not coming back out alive.”
As to finding another means of dealing with the beast- I am sure a pocket dimension would work great… until another evil wizard came upon information about the creature and decided to use it for his own means. Not to mention the fact that a Ranger/Fighter doesn’t have access to ANY of those other types of magical control mentioned above. If there was any good way to deal with the creature other than killing it, the wizard had the means to do it, but she did never even hinted at offering another suggestion other than leaving it be to ravage and kill at its whim…
Philip: “Their promise of not helping you was their way of saying: 'This means a lot to us, if you are our friend, don't do this'.”
That is assuming that argument is even valid, because it could just as easily be turned around (which is closer to the actuality of the argument) to be : “It means a lot to me and to the world to prevent this creature from continued rampages of great destruction. If you are my friends, help me.”
Furthermore, if what you stated was their meaning, that is what they would have said. By their attitude and implications they showed no amount of concern for my character’s well being. It seemed to me petty spitefulness toward not being agreed with. The assumption was “we know he can’t permanently kill it without us, so we are not going to help. That way he will be forced to go along with our idea about this.”
Philip: “Two Chaotic Neutral friends leaving another 30th lvl character facing off against a CR 20 Tarrasque because they disagree on principles....
That's like your girlfriend asking you to get the hornet you discovered in your home outside alive, and you deciding you want to kill it instead (because it might sting someone).”
This is an extreme case of meta-game thinking. There is not “CR” in game. It is known that this is an extremely powerful beast with the power to destroy nearly anything in its path. My character is both confident and courageous however, which is part of the reason he remained to deal with the creature after being abandoned and betrayed by his long time friends. On top of that, he has a concern for the welfare of human/elven, etc. life. Most humans are Neutral (which is as true in real life as it is clearly stated in the Core books) and would share that same concern. It does not take a good alignment to care about people. Being good is much more than just feeling.
The comparison to a wasp I find ridiculous. There is a HUGE difference between “stinging someone” and “destroying everything and everyone in its path, killing thousands.” Assuming that that absurd humanistic response is even somewhat relative to the situation- I would say that it would be perfectly reasonable to kill the wasp as to have it avoid it possibly stinging someone- it is in your house, and hornets are an aggressive insect- that is a very likely thing to happen. Add to that you are putting yourself at a much higher risk of being stung while trying to put the thing outside (where it could quite possibly make its way back inside in the near future and sting someone) than by just killing it… Not to mention that some people (who’s lives are unquestionably more valuable that that of an insects) are extremely allergic to such stings and may die as a result of one.
DonaldRumsfeldsTofu : “I say that any PC who tries to kill the Tarrasque instead of somehow getting it to do his bidding is an idiot.
My bard and druid have a Charm Monster and an animal empathy check respectively with the Tarrasque's name on them…”
As much as I appreciate the blatant insult… I must say that you should think about that which you say before making such bold statements.
Nice that a Bard would have the ability to Charm Monster, I did not have that option. Of course, you are making the assumption that such a spell would actually work- I don’t have the MM on me, but I know that the Terrasque has a healthy amount of resistances and immunities concerning magical effects.
Oh… you would try to use Wild empathy on the Magical Beast? Have fun being eaten. Even if it was just an animal (making wild empathy even plausible) it would require you to wake the beast, and then take 1 minute of attempting to change its attitude… even then you are assuming that the change in attitude would stop it from eating your, or that you even had a chance to succeed at the check- which you wouldn’t as you would be summarily attacked and digested in that amount of time. And then there would be the issue of having to keep the creature fed… which we know requires entire villages of people in volume to do. Unless of course you believe that starving the creature to death is somehow better or less cruel (also assuming that these characters should even be in the mind frame of modernistic moral ideology)
That is the most pretentious post I have seen in some time… and I suppose you are the enlightened one
A salute to you Zappo, for addressing some of the other issues clearly and efficiently.
