Fightin' Titans

[RangerWickett]

How do you make a combat with truly titanic monsters work mechanically?

Say the party, all 30th level epic demi-gods, must retrieve the heart of the Elder Dragon in order to save the world, and that wyrm happens to be 500 feet long, with jaws wide enough to swallow a normal dragon in one go.

What sort of narrative can occur in this battle? Obviously a battle map is kind of pointless here -- unless you have an 8-foot wide mini to represent the foe. How can you run this battle and have the game mechanics be meaningful without it simply devolving into "you hit it with the strength of a thousand men; it takes 100 damage and is slowed (save ends)"?

Do you just throw normal combat rules out the window? Do you model it as a group of monsters that you can independently disable? ("I just bloodied its left knee!")

When I wrote War of the Burning Sky, we had a climactic encounter with a huge monster.

[sblock]It was a 100-ft. tall statue of the dead emperor, who was animated by a swarm of ghost-like creatures. The emperor in life had a magic torch, and was near-immortal because he shared blood with a primordial entity. So the statue had a few weak points you could target, but ultimately in order to kill it you had to first destroy the Torch (which created a defensive shield), and then pierce its chest and destroy its 'heart.' The torch, of course, could shoot blasts of fire or thwack puny humans out of the air. The statue could also stomp and trample people, or grab and crush them.

During all of this, a city-wide parade was attacked by more of the ghosts that possessed people and wrought havoc.

You could smash its knees to make it trip, which would get its torch within range. Or you could goad it into smashing you and then jump onto its arm if it missed. Or you could fly up and attack the torch up in the sky. Or you could get the aid of a magical creature that would let one PC grow to match the height of the statue so they could grapple. Or you could just climb up the thing, and engage the leader of the spirit swarm in a duel on the statue's shoulders.[/sblock]

What sorts of advice do you have for running battles with monsters that are too big to fit on a battle map?

 

[Grydan]

Obviously a battle map is kind of pointless here -- unless you have an 8-foot wide mini to represent the foe.

The monster doesn't go on the map.

The monster is the map.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

The monster is the map.

This.

The PCs can fight individual bits of monster as if they were the entire monster, needing to defeat individual sections to have an effect. The sections might be defended by minions, parasites, or the actions of the monsters' body itself.

Or treat the monster's actions like an environmental hazard for other fights. Shaking ground from the monster's steps causes uneven footing; every so many rounds a giant foot comes down and squashes sections of the map; bits of monster blood splash like lava causing injuries, and so on.

 

[Kinak]

This makes me want to unroll a huge thing of gaming paper and do two maps.

The first map would be its head, neck, and front of it's back. So about 50 hexes long and 30 wide.

The second map would be the same dimensions, but internal. So the inside of its mouth, it's windpipe, lungs, and heart. Include a "trapdoor" to the stomach, but... well, if it's in there, it'd probably have to be its own map.

I see the scales as being invulnerable terrain, but fleshy features are all valid targets.

Areas
​

So, the areas in broad strokes:

Airspace
Demigods shouldn't have any problem flying, but the dragon can use basically all of its attacks on the airspace surrounding it. It's actually less dangerous to be on the beast.

Head
The outside of the head has two eyes and nostrils. Destroying the eyes blinds it to PCs in its airspace (and might make it crash eventually). Crawling into the nostrils (ew) is an alternate way into its windpipe.

Neck
The neck doesn't have any attackable features, but is constantly moving. People should either secure themselves or prepare to be hurled off as soon as the dragon uses a bite.

Back
The dragon's wing joints can be attacked from it's back. If either is destroyed, it crashes to the ground, throwing everyone on it forward (and potentially damaging them) and moving at least a round's movement from everyone flying in its airspace. It also can't wing buffet on that side of its body any longer.

For added spice, it can fall into an active caldera or an army of its loyal servants. If falling is bad, it's probably worth making the wing buffets vicious.

Mouth
The dragon's tongue, will attack anyone in this area. It can be killed, stopping those attacks and probably some of the creature's spells.

Windpipe
This is effectively a long tunnel, forking into the lungs. A trapdoor (destroyable with damage) leads down towards the stomach from here.

Lungs
The windpipe splits into two lungs, massive chambers filled with fire. You probably don't want to be there, but sufficient damage could probably puncture a lung and prevent it's deep breath and fire breath attacks.

Heart
The goal of this whole thing: the heart is attackable from around where the windpipe splits. Kill the heart, kill the dragon.

Attacks
​

Okay, still with me? Let's talk attacks. My temptation would be to spread the attacks throughout the initiative order.

Claws
Each round it can use two claw attacks, targeting areas on its head, neck, back, or airspace.

Bite
Each round it can bite targeting an area on it's back or in its airspace. Anyone surviving the bite ends up in its mouth.

Anyone on its neck or head when it bites must save or be thrown off. If it doesn't have a bite target but people are on its neck/head, it shakes its head instead of biting, to the same effect.

If any unlucky soul is already near its teeth when it bites, it probably deals bite damage again.

Wing Buffet
The wing on each side creates a huge wind storm. Anyone on that side of it's airspace is effected.

Only hits one side if a wing joint is disabled. Stops working at all if both are.

Swallow
Moves everyone in its mouth (and windpipe above the trap door) down into its stomach. Escaping the stomach requires saves or skill use, made easier if the trap door has been destroyed.

Alternately, it's its own map... a room filled with acid and parasitic monsters.

Deep Breath
The dragon takes a deep breath, preparing to breath fire next round. Characters in its mouth or windpipe have to save or be pulled into a lung (which is conveniently filled with fire).

Optionally, gates to the plane of fire open in its lungs, potentially releasing fire elementals.

Fire Breath
The round after it breathes, expels the flame... burning everyone in its lungs, windpipe, mouth, and target area (potentially including its back or airspace).

Anyone that gets struck by the flame might also be expelled outside of the dragon.

Tail Strike
It can sweep a large area on the "outside" map with its tail, dealing damage and knocking people around.

Tongue
The tongue can melee with characters in the mouth. Knocking people into the teeth is probably a fine option, but dragons with poison-dripping tongues are kind of classic as I recall.

Spells
It has a selection of spells that it can use, most of which require verbal components. If it's tongue has been cut out, its list is far more limited.

There are all sorts of options here. Summoning, self-heals, dispelling magic, non-fire attacks, flesh to stone, whatever you want.

Overview
​

So, basically the characters are trying to get to its heart. They start from near the dragon, exposed to all sorts of attacks (claws, bite, fire breath, wing buffet).

They can slip through its nostrils (hard and gross) or convince it to bite them (easy enough, but deals a ton of damage).

That gets them inside where they have to cope with being swallowed (into the stomach) or breathed (into the lungs), the tongue, fire breath, and spells.

Cheers!
Kinak

 

[Upper_Krust]

The two things you need to consider are Monster Scale and PC Power.

If the monster is Huge-Gargantuan (regular scale) and the PCs are non-epic tier, then you can probably allow interaction via Skill Checks (Climbing and Staying on Your feet while its footfalls shake the ground).

Allow those that succeed at skill checks to get into an advantageous position (attack a weakspot that is Vulnerable All 20* per tier)

*While the rest of the monster is Resist 10 All per tier)

If you fail the skill check then the monster gets a free attack upon the character (if the character is climbing up the monster then it is knocked off).

The big change comes when you scale up the monster to (as I like to call it) Mega-sizes:

Mega-size = x10 (As big as a Castle)
Giga-size = x1000 (As big as a Mountain)
Tera-size = x1,000,000 (As big as a Planet)
etc.

Firstly I would only suggest this for Epic Tier (or better) characters.

For PCs, what you need to do is give them some epic style fast movement. Ever watch any (high powered) anime and see the characters make amazing leaps, hundreds of feet into the air, or cross distances of hundreds of metres in a blink (a lot like a dimension door). Well to span the distances A. To get to the big monster and B. to traverse the big monster once you get there, our epic PCs need some innate method of fast travel. Again, I'd probably make this skill based.

The Second change revolves around the Giant Monsters themselves. Each time you up the scale from the regular sizes, add an extra encounter/stat-block to the monster.

For instance with Godzilla or Talos (both Mega-size) they would comprise 2 encounters (or stat-blocks). For something as big as a Mountain it takes 3, for something as big as a planet it takes 4.

So for Godzilla, you might have one stat-block to drop him (attacking his legs or tail) and another to attack his head and finish him off. It may also be possible to use Super-jump and climb up Godzilla to attack his head before finishing his legs.

For a Mountain-sized opponent you may have to get past the earthquakes and hurricanes accompanying it even before you get within striking distance.

Similarly for the planet sized monster, there might be a weird magnetic field at a distance of a few thousand miles, some unnatural atmospheric conditions at a few miles and some ridiculous gravitic shenanigans on the surface and you still need to get to the core of the planet-sized monster to actually kill it.

You could treat these as skill checks alone, but I'd see that as a bit boring. better to anthropomorphise these things so that the magnetic field dragons, atmospheric avatars and gravitic golems that are extensions of the beast itself.