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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Reynard" data-source="post: 8749940" data-attributes="member: 467">I want to talk about Big Guns -- specifically, the Biggest of Guns, the Tarrasque. The MM Tarrasque is a CR 30 monster, intended to serve as a challenge to the highest level characters. it carries with it the whole game's history and should instill fear in the hearts of players at the very mention. But, does it? You can find its stats <a href="https://www.5esrd.com/database/creature/tarrasque/" target="_blank">here</a>.The Tarrasque has a decent AC -- high enough to make the creature largely impregnable to low and mid level characters but not to the high level characters that are supposed to fight it. It has a metric tonne of hit points and damage immunity to nonmagical attacks (plus fire and poison), but at the levels a party will be encountering it those immunities are non issues. It has legendary resistance, of course, as well as magic resistance, which makes spells slightly less effective against it, but overall it is a giant bag of hit points that does a lot of damage. It's most interesting ability is its swallow ability, which isn't saying much. It gives up 4 attacks and a frightful presence in order to swallow an opponent, who is "released" if they do 60 points of damage to the tarrasque from the inside. It is a pretty boring creature, overall, with few effective strategies beyond bite/claw/claw/horn/tail.<a href="https://a5e.tools/node/1799" target="_blank">The LevelUp version</a> is an even bigger bag of hit points, being an Elite (aka Mythic) creature. This version keeps the underperforming swallow action but does add a Godzilla style breath weapon with a big area, high DC and big damage potential. It also moves the frightful presence (roar) ability to a legendary action, which I think is a good use of legendary action for the creature. In addition it can shake off an effect or cause flying enemies to fall as a legendary action. These actions that aren't just an extra attack make the LU tarrasque more dynamic but by extending the life of the battle --doubling hit points and adding a big regeneration while bloodied -- that dynamism is undermined.So what to do with Big Gun monsters? What is the goal of such a creature, and how do we use design to achieve that goal?The goal, I think, is to create a scenario in which the inexorable nature of the monster is at center stage. You don't fight the tarrasque in an open field -- you fight the tarrasque in a city as it is stomping buildings and threatening to undo civilization itself. Therefore the goal isn't simply to kill it, but to stop it before it does irreperable harm on a massive scale. The tarrasque is the apocalypse personified and it should mechanically reflect that.One way to do this is to incentivize the tarrasque to attack civilization -- fortresses, temples, and armies -- rather than just beat on the PCs. I would redirect the LevelUp "bloodied regeneration" to something else. When the tarrasque damages a building, for example, it heals the amount of damage it does (remember, it is a siege monster). Now it has a reason to split up that multiattack a little bit. The PCs, seeing this, will want to force it to attack them, not infrastructure. Another thing I would do is to give it a damage threshold -- it is so big, so overwhelming that that attacks under a certain amount (I think 30 points is good for the tarrasque) don't even phase it. This is instead of its immunities, by the way, and isn't  "DR" -- 29 points of damage does nothing but 31 points does 31 points. Force the PCs to use their biggest attacks against this biggest of foes and avoid letting them nickel and dime a mythic enemy to death.What are your thoughts on Big Gun monsters in general and the tarrasque in particular?</blockquote>

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