Quick Tarrasque Question.

[Samloyal23]

Trapping a tarrasque underwater with something like a Wall of Force could make it an easy target. No the damage is not lethal, but the immobilisation would be a solid tactical advantage.

 

[Nezkrul]

Trapping a tarrasque underwater with something like a Wall of Force could make it an easy target. No the damage is not lethal, but the immobilisation would be a solid tactical advantage.

how does one go about trapping godzilla in a forcecage?

 

[Samloyal23]

how does one go about trapping godzilla in a forcecage?

Well, first you have to be able to cast on big enough to surround a Colossal size target, not sure what level that would at, not good at crunching numbers, I am just the idea guy...

 

[Greenfield]

I was just looking at the SRD and noticed something interesting, on the drowning issue.

Regeneration (Ex): No form of attack deals lethal damage to the tarrasque. The tarrasque regenerates even if it fails a saving throw against a disintegrate spell or a death effect. If the tarrasque fails its save against a spell or effect that would kill it instantly (such as those mentioned above), the spell or effect instead deals nonlethal damage equal to the creature’s full normal hit points +10 (or 868 hp). The tarrasque is immune to effects that produce incurable or bleeding wounds, such as mummy rot, a sword with the wounding special ability, or a clay golem’s cursed wound ability.
The tarrasque can be slain only by raising its nonlethal damage total to its full normal hit points +10 (or 868 hit points) and using a wish or miracle spell to keep it dead.
If the tarrasque loses a limb or body part, the lost portion regrows in 1d6 minutes (the detached piece dies and decays normally). The creature can reattach the severed member instantly by holding it to the stump.
Skills: The tarrasque has a +8 racial bonus on Listen and Spot checks.

Look at the first sentence.

The key to using drowning as a way to bypass Regen is that, while most attack forms normally deal only non-lethal damage, drowning damage hits the actual hit points directly. Like fire or acid for a Troll, drowning is real damage.

The problem with using this technique is that, according to the SRD, *NOTHING* does real damage to the Tarrasque. So Drown him for 13 minutes and he goes to zero hit points, then immediately Regens back to +40.

You can't kill him this way.

<Edit>Whoops. Sekmet beat me to this. I need to read the entire thread before I smart-mouth. </EDIT>

 

[James the Newbie]

I think people are taking the wrong approach here.

Is it possible to refute that drowning can do lethal damage to the tarrasque? No defiantly not, that would utterly ignore the rules.

However the rules do say

'If the tarrasque fails its save against a spell or effect that would kill it instantly (such as those mentioned above), the spell or effect instead deals nonlethal damage equal to the creature’s full normal hit points +10 (or 868 hp).'

Effect: I would defiantly class drowning as an effect. And while it could be argued that drowning wouldn't kill it instantly, it would certainly kill it in three rounds, logically drowning it should work the same way.

then we have

'The tarrasque can be slain only by raising its nonlethal damage total to its full normal hit points +10 (or 868 hit points) and using a wish or miracle spell to keep it dead.'

So you still need mirical or wish, but drowning almost definatly pushes the tarrasque down to its -10 hit points. This means that drowning is a very viable option.

---
Edit: Also as you haven't killed the tarrasque, and each sucessive round it should be suffering the same effect the 40 health it heals should be outweighed by the full normal hit points it has.

'If the tarrasque fails its save against a spell or effect that would kill it instantly (such as those mentioned above), the spell or effect instead deals nonlethal damage equal to the creature’s full normal hit points +10 (or 868 hp).'

As it fails its saving throw against drowning every round. this means every 6 seconds it is under water is 868 more health it needs to heal. While not dead, it is quite surly trapped for two muinits and 6 seconds, every six seconds. By trapping it for say an hour you have in fact made it take another 21 hours to regenerate. So by trapping it for a day you make it take 504 hours to regen or roughly 24 days. I could go on, but you can be pretty certain that if you manage this, you have doomed it.

 

[Samloyal23]

Drowning is not going to permanently dispose of a tarrasque, it is a strategy to incapacitate it so you can make other attacks with less resistance...

 

[Greenfield]

The "effect" of drowning becomes non-lethal damage. You can't kill anything with non-lethal damage. Says so right on the label.

Your basic problem isn
t the math of how long to hold his head in a bucket. It's how to get his head in the bucket in the first place.

The better solution is to note that there are no actual drowning rules. There are *suffocation* rules, which include drowning.

So what you need to do is knock him down/out, then wrap a chain around his throat and torque it tight. Once in place, you just lock it up and walk away. He'll never get up until someone undoes the chain.

 

[Samloyal23]

I think drowning would be easier than strangulation if you had time to prepare a trap. A forcewalled pit trap that sealed and filled up with water would halt a tarrasque in its tracks. If need be, you could even move the force box away to another area, even take it into Wildspace on a spelljammer and dump it out a hatch...

 

[Greenfield]

I'm curious: How would you go about moving a Force Cage or Force Wall, with or without a Spelljammer? They're immovable (which is what allows you to use them block or trap the Tarrasque).

 

[the Jester]

Sure, drowning is an effect, but it's one that bypasses hit points completely. Not only that, the tarrasque never fails a saving throw against such an effect, because drowning doesn't offer a save- it offers a Con check.

Drowning: Any character can hold her breath for a number of rounds equal to twice her Constitution score. After this period of time, the character must make a DC 10 Constitution check every round in order to continue holding her breath. Each round, the DC increases by 1.

When the character finally fails her Constitution check, she begins to drown. In the first round, she falls unconscious (0 hit points). In the following round, she drops to -1 hit points and is dying. In the third round, she drowns.

Nothing there indicates that drowning does damage, merely that your hit points drop to 0, then -1, then dead (and it doesn't even specify that you ever hit -10!).

Damage is measured in hit points. Drowning is a simple "You're screwed now". But you can't just screw the tarrasque; the only way to slay it is with tons of damage and a wish/miracle.

This might seem like splitting hairs- if you want the tarrasque to be an easy kill for epic pcs.