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

[GMforPowergamers]

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...

I could not find cross bow or bow stats on guards... I found knight and vetrian both have heavy cross bow...

vet:
H X-bow Ranged Attack: +3 to hit, range 100/400 ft.(1d10) piercing damage.
and
Knight and thug both
H X-bow Ranged Attack: +2 to hit, range 100/400 ft (1d10) piercing damage.

(((I can't belive there aren't Archer stats....but anyway)))

Big T :
AC 25 Hit Points 676 Speed 40ft.
can double move 80... so covering 400ft in 5 rounds...

now DPR isn't really my thing, but I will try. need a 20 to hit but 20 will crit... so 1/20 by 2d10 (11) is .55 so how many shots at .55 does it take to kill the most powerful monster in the MM, 676/.55= 1,227.2727272727 well I will just round that up to 1,230 attack rolls... how long does it take the Bit moveing 80ft (witch it shouldn't be shouldn't it be tearing things up) to go from 400ft to melee...5 rounds... so 1230/5=246 archers over 5 rounds...

If we add any PC help in here at all... or you know anything over a CR of 3 (and one of those stats is at CR 1/2) you will notice a problem...

now the longbow (((really no archer stats))) is less damage 1d8 vs 1d10 but 1.5x the range...

the idea of a 5th level mage doing anything to THE MOST POWERFUL MONSTER IN THE MM is crazy... and they are obviously some oversights...

why don't you need magic to hit the only CR30 in the book?
Why did they take away the regen?
Why did they take away needing to wish it dead...

 

[Cernor]

Guards are on the MM pg. 347: after Gladiator and before Knight. And they only have spears, but for the semblance of fairness we'll say they have light crossbows because they're little more than point-and-shoot weapons. If you're looking for a dedicated archer, the Scout fits the bill (MM 349), making two longbow attacks per turn.

Due to the immunity of the tarrasque, the guards' DPR is 0 no matter what (and using the mob combat rules in my previous post makes more sense if there are hundreds of archers firing at once, where criticals are negated for the sake of saving hundreds of d20 rolls per turn). If you're really concerned about verisimilitude and are using the mob combat rules, for each point the requisite to-hit increases after 18, the number of attacks needed to hit doubles. Extrapolating for a requisite roll of 22 (ignoring its impossibility using a d20), they'd need 80 attacks to hit once. If you're going to roll out the 250 attacks from disadvantage range, there'd be a 1 in 400 chance for each attack to hit... With 250 iterations, that means there'd be a 46.5% chance that one attack would hit each round. Even if you wanted to roll out that many attacks, after the first few volleys being shown to do nothing, I imagine that the soldiers would break rank and flee.

As far as your questions are concerned:
You don't need magic to hit the most powerful creature in the book, but you do need magic to damage it. A minor distinction to make, but an important one (and the reason the infinitely large army of guards is useless).
They took away the regen because it's powerful enough as is. "But optimized party X can defeat it in a white-room scenario!" you cry. Yes, but a good DM will never let you fight it in a white room where your only objective is to kill it and where you have infinite mobility. Ignoring that, giving it regen would serve the same purpose as hiking its AC to ridiculous levels: fighting it would become a game of attrition that would be no fun to play.
Why did they take away needing to wish it dead? Because it adds nothing to the monster. you may as well add a feature saying "this creature can only be killed by an attack made with a war pick". It's an extremely specific way to kill a monster that makes the whole fight an exercise in futility if you lack the single obscure element to kill it. And in any case, how would the characters know to use Wish?

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Guards are on the MM pg. 347: after Gladiator and before Knight. And they only have spears, but for the semblance of fairness we'll say they have light crossbows because they're little more than point-and-shoot weapons. If you're looking for a dedicated archer, the Scout fits the bill (MM 349), making two longbow attacks per turn.

I was looking for ranged attacks so I skiped the guard who only does melee...no idea how I missed the scout...

Due to the immunity of the tarrasque,

I did miss the non magic weapon immunity... that helsp

As far as your questions are concerned:
You don't need magic to hit the most powerful creature in the book,

yup... as the guy who disagrees with the whole idea of an 5th level wizard, I did miss that...

They took away the regen because it's powerful enough as is. "But optimized party X can defeat it in a white-room scenario!" you cry. Yes, but a good DM will never let you fight it in a white room where your only objective is to kill it and where you have infinite mobility. Ignoring that, giving it regen would serve the same purpose as hiking its AC to ridiculous levels: fighting it would become a game of attrition that would be no fun to play.

I disagree with almost everything you say here... especially the part where you pretend I do anything in a white room... but I'm used to being grouped by now so fine... the regen stopped tons of damage, meaning you needed to deal tons, no nickel and dimeing... and I certainly never used an optimized group vs anything... the actual white room scenreo (the one neaither of us like) does point out how un optimized you could be...

Why did they take away needing to wish it dead? Because it adds nothing to the monster. you may as well add a feature saying "this creature can only be killed by an attack made with a war pick". It's an extremely specific way to kill a monster that makes the whole fight an exercise in futility if you lack the single obscure element to kill it. And in any case, how would the characters know to use Wish?

It made it so no none 17th level caster could perminetly put it down...

heck you could just say "WHe defeated it goes back to sleep and melts into the ground...unless a PC with a wish spell is there."

 

[EthanSental]

If you think a monster can only do what's explicitly defined in a stat block? That's not poor design. That's lack of imagination and/or creative thinking on the DM's part.

Seriously, it doesn't take rocket science to figure out that it might up root trees, boulders, wagons, or whatever to launch at that pesky wizard. Do you really need a rule telling you can do that before you think of it yourself? And one can easily infer what appropriate levels of damage/range would be for those projectiles. I'll tell you what I tell my kid when he says he can't figure out a solution to something. Where do you think you might find it? What other similar rules might apply?

Siege weapons? There you go. Look at the siege weapons and you'll get a great idea of what kind of damage a thrown wagon or building might be.

And while I'm at it, it's getting really old to keep seeing your name pop up in literally every single thread complaining about how the rules are broken, the designers were lazy, etc. If it's so bad, play the game you like and stop crapping on every other discussion.

Well said! Tired of it already as well.

 

[EthanSental]

yup some of my favorite stories are ones where a PC hit WAY out of his league and killed something with a smart move... my problem is it isn't "intelligence" it's "Use a very basic strategy"




I don't think there is anything metagaming about it... IF I made a complete refluff of the monster, but it was still animal intellect, had no ranged attack, and was a supposed to be a threat in the open, then my party would most likely still pepper it with ranged attacks...if not to kill it (although they might) at least to weaken it.

I'm not even talking about a 5th level wizard spaming a cantrip... I mean a full on hit hard with lots of stuff but from X feet away where X is greater then it's move+ reach and/or throw distance....


It does require some thought... and the fact that it requires more to counter a massive whole is annoying...especially when said whole was smaller or non issue in other editions.


past uses in my game of Big T

2e, I had one wake up in the middle of my party (at the time just having hit 17th level) sleeping in an inn, and it attacked the city (1st time I ever used)
2e, I had a BBEG force port them to flax... then ran no less then 7 encounters... only 1 of witch was a full fight instead of trying to outsmart/get away.
3.0, party just hit 5th level I had one wake up in the far south and rampage through mostly empty woods falling back to sleep within sight of the southern boarder of the kingdom the PCs knew... The PCs where shortly there after told that in 14 months it would wake up for it's longest rampage yet, and destroy the kingdom. This was added to 3 other things going on at same time.
3.0 same party at level 14 had to fight and slay that tarrasque but with the yearish to prep first.
3.0 in a game where the PCs where all demi humans (divine rank 0) I used them when ever one of the big gods got pissed... I think the party fought 4 or 5 over a 10 level spread from level 5-15.
3.5 had one sleeping in a kobold cave that my party had to clean out to claim some land... it wasn't due to wake up for over a decade. (Kobolds worshiped the sleeping dragon god)
3.5 used stats scaled down to medium for my "Armageddon Beast" that used my Doomsday mini
4e had a 1 off game with 9 players where they hunted and killed it at gen con
homebrew mish mash system had one slain and pieces pulled off and magicaly bound to soldiers making them unkillable.(with out a wish spell) then invaded the PCs country...

wow... so 9 times over almost 20 years... I guess I have used it a lot.

And none sound interesting to me that I would want to be in the party, guess it's the dm's fault much like the 5e game designers fault for crappy monsters.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

And none sound interesting to me that I would want to be in the party, guess it's the dm's fault much like the 5e game designers fault for crappy monsters.

out of 9 uses, admittedly 2 of witch where 'random encounter' you couldn't find 1 interesting hook? I find this a little hard to believe... how would you use it?

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

out of 9 uses, admittedly 2 of witch where 'random encounter' you couldn't find 1 interesting hook? I find this a little hard to believe... how would you use it?

It's hard to make an interesting hook around an uninteresting monster. I guess if I were going to be interested in a Tarrasque, it would have to tell me something interesting about the game world. For example, maybe it turns out that a Tarrasque is found on about 1/4 of all game worlds (Oerth but not Toril, none in Eberron, but it turns out there is one on Athas!) and when there is one, it's always exactly just one. And then it turns out that all the "missing" Tarrasques are on Falx! Who put the Torilian Tarrasque on Falx, and why did they move it? (Was it the Precursors?) Were they just trying to get rid of it, and if so, why didn't they simply kill it? Why does every world have a Tarrasque in the first place?

Alternately, maybe Falx is their homeworld and Tarrasques once used to be an intelligent, spacefaring species. The Tarrasques you see nowadays are their degenerate descendants after some kind of crazy disaster/curse/whatnot shattered their minds. Or maybe it's just the larval stage, and a grownup Tarrasque has a full human-style intellect...

That's about what it would take to make the Tarrasque interesting to me.

 

[EthanSental]

3.0, party just hit 5th level I had one wake up in the far south and rampage through mostly empty woods falling back to sleep within sight of the southern boarder of the kingdom the PCs knew... The PCs where shortly there after told that in 14 months it would wake up for it's longest rampage yet, and destroy the kingdom. This was added to 3 other things going on at same time.

- this one sound promising actually as its part of an overall story arc and not a "let's powergame and and create Heros to go fight all the high CR stuff," which the divine rank story line sounds like from the limited info given.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

3.0, party just hit 5th level I had one wake up in the far south and rampage through mostly empty woods falling back to sleep within sight of the southern boarder of the kingdom the PCs knew... The PCs where shortly there after told that in 14 months it would wake up for it's longest rampage yet, and destroy the kingdom. This was added to 3 other things going on at same time.

- this one sound promising actually as its part of an overall story arc and not a "let's powergame and and create Heros to go fight all the high CR stuff," which the divine rank story line sounds like from the limited info given.

well first of all my stories are always stories first and foremost... the god game was near the end of 3.5 and someone (Maybe jon) was reading the percy Jackson serese and pitch the idea of camp half blood. I came up with a mix of that and the matrix.... the PCs were born on a small island, the last rement of the reblian. they all chose a god to be decendent from... the illithad god had eaten pelor's brain, and put the world into a dark age (literally sun was dying) about 100 years ago. they were the last chance to over throw the evil vampire things that ruled the main land with the drow worshiping the DARK 6... (illythid god, orc god, tiamat, lolth, vecna, and someone else) but they were all starting at 1st level and had to get better to be able to fight it... the truth when they got to the dark tower was where my matrix twist came in... they aren't destiny heroes, but small portions of the illuthid god's power broken off and given form every few years to raise a reblian and get up the hopes of the people just to be crushed and then 'restarted' it had really been thousands of years since the dark empire rose to power... however last time through the last group of heroes left clues... and the PCs had to follow the clues and figure out the trap ahead of time, then find away to reverse it. the Tarrasques (yes plural) where used as big stumbling blocks for the PCs thrown by the dark 6.