The Tarrasque: An indepth analysis

[Surgoshan]

So, Mal, Incen... you're looking to play Final Fantasy X as an actual role-playing game is what you're saying?

 

[Surgoshan]

Okay, here's a question. The tarrasque is a Gargantuan (minimum 4x4) creature. One of its powers is Trample; it can move its speed through enemy spaces, must end in an unoccupied space. When it moves through enemy space it makes an attack and knocks the guy prone. Fine. Here's the question.

It says that the movement of trampling provokes opportunity attacks as normal; when exactly does it do so?

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***X**  Poor little AFGNCAAP.

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*TTXT* Tarrasque makes trample attack, does AFGNCAAP get an OA here?

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*TTXT*  Assuming he wasn't knocked prone, what about now?
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See, every step it takes, the tarrasque, portions of it are entering the character's immediate vicinity, so it could be triggering OAs. But, the creature itself hasn't actually left the vicinity, so it could be not triggering OAs.

 

[Forrester]

It has 1400 HP, what more do you want? Five characters hitting it with their most awesome powers and expending their action points won't even bloody it!

1400hp is nothin. Shees, a little baby white dragon has 200hp. This is 4E, for pete's sake -- baby tadpoles have a good 15hp each.

Creating a Tarrasque without regeneration, with a lousy 1400hp, with a lousy d12+16 damage/attack is a crime against D&Danity! And such.

 

[Surgoshan]

Yeah, but it's got resist all damage 10. Plus it's immune to charm and fear effects. It gets all its saving throws at +5. It has blindsight 20. It has reach three, and it's a 4x4 creature (could be bigger if you wanted).

The resist all should be obvious. Immune to charm and fear? You're not going to be swaying or distracting this guy any time soon. Fear... are star pact warlocks nerfed? Sounds like.

Saving throws at plus five... good luck getting any effect to stick more than the one turn! He laughs at your ongoing damage! Dazed? Stunned? Not for long!

Blindsight 20 means that the tarrasque can see invisible and concealed creatures at a distance of 20 squares. Well, that nerfs the warlock, the rogue, and a significant chunk of the wizard, now doesn't it? Oh, and the drow's magical darkness that blinds creatures? Doesn't matter.

This is a creature that, at a minimum, totally dominates a 10x10 square. It can move, then, as a standard action, move again and trample people for an average of 20 damage. Every third turn, it'll doing 20 damage (ongoing fifteen) and either doing 35 damage and ruining your AC or doing 35 damage and knocking you prone!

The PCs are plinking away at him for 50 damage apiece when they get lucky, meanwhile he's doing 50 damage a turn. It'll take them 15 attacks to bloody it, at which point it'll knock it up a notch and start doing 20 damage, ongoing 15, to everyone it can reach. It'll take another 15 attacks to kill it, and it'll be able to kill a PC in roughly 6 turns.

Rogues can't get CA, warlocks and wizards can't get effects to stick, and fighters are just asking for the privilege of dying first.

 

[Nightchilde-2]

Not all *that* metagamey. You might have just looked at the tarrasque entry, which means you could have missed that half the abominations were created by gods to fight the primordials, and half created by primordials to fight the gods. The tarrasque is one of the latter - spawned from Elemental Chaos as a weapon against the gods. It's particular element is earth. That's why it has its own gravity. Certainly intended to keep flying creatures from whacking it at distance, but done with a bit of style!

That's definitely the vibe I got from ol' Mr. T, that it was some sort of primal earth-critter (I mean, it sleeps in the planet's core, and once you kill it sinks back into it..sounds "earthy" to me). So a gravity well around the critter doesn't bother me in the slightest.

 

[Sitara]

Hmm it really should have had regeneration. But anyhow,

What happens when Mr. Tarrasque comes face to face with RZILLA with his kensai, warpriest and warlord buddies in tow?

RZILLA opens up with armor cascade, burns and action point and then launches into the poor tarrasque with Blade Crescendo! Many many dice rolls later you have a dead tarrasque (in game who died in under 6 seconds).

Note; RZILLA and his cronies are all lvl 15 each.

 

[Xzylvador]

At level 15, hitting the thing with the armor-splinter will be hard, if it misses, blade cascade will miss pretty fast and be wasted. The damage of each attack made with blade cascade is reduced by 10 each hit, so the attacks won't even do that much damage. Yeah, if you manage to hit 140 times in a row without missing, you might just kill it in a round, chances are though, you'll miss long before that, and have an angry tarrasque just ready to eat you.

 

[DeusExMachina]

Even if you do 30 damage per attack (reduced to 20 because of resistance) and get enough bonuses to hit on a 2+ (pretty hard I think at level 15 against a 30 level monster), you have a 2,6% chance of killing it before you roll a 1...

I'm not liking RZilla's chances personally...

 

[Sitara]

Hard but certainly not immpossible. Give the charop people time. They are people too after all

ALso, what if you have 2 RZILLA's in the party eh?

 

[Zogmo]

It's gonna be awesome when the Tarrasque shows up in the PHBII as a playable race.