How to Run the Tarrasque in Dungeons and Dragons 5e
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- Опубліковано 29 чер 2024
- MONSTERS OF DRAKKENHEIM is 300+ pages of eldritch horror inspired monsters for 5e by the Dungeon Dudes! Coming to Kickstarter March 26th, 2024: www.kickstarter.com/projects/... We look at the mighty Tarrasque in Dungeons and Dragons. We discuss roleplaying ideas, combat tactics, modifications, and getting inspired for adventures about this titan of terror.
This episode is sponsored by Fables. Check it out here. ghostfiregaming.com/DUDE_FB01...
TIME STAMPS
0:00 - Sponsor
0:59 - Intro
2:37 - Roleplaying a Tarrasque
9:35 - Combat Tactics
14:24 - Modifying the Tarrasque
22:26 - Inspiring Adventures
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With a follow up episode: How to Run Away From a Tarrasque
"quickly"
@@JameSeraphim *quickly enough to outrun the slowest player XD
Episode after that: how to manage a nation collapsing in D&D
Yes, creatures' actions aren't limited to what's on the statblock. They can improvise actions and use improvised weapons just like the PCs
Or, in some cases, they can use the PCs as improvised weapons.
@@ridiculous1328 ah yes, I should have omitted the "just" to make that even more ambiguous 🤣
Running storm kings thunder, when the giants assaulted Bryn shander the giant used the body of their dead winter wolf as a sweeping to club to control the battlefield by moving the pcs back towards the walls, to allowing more giants to melee with be said pcs. Good battle.
A lot of inexperienced people don't know how to do that unfortunately. They rigidly stick to the stat block.
For the "fly and cast Sacred Flame" build, you can make the Tarrasque jump really high and bite.
The ranged attack should be a roar, 120 feet cone, con save for half damage or take 12d8 of thunder damage
Or it just throws a big rock, both works
Like it, sonic damage, hardly anyone is immune to that.
I have seen a video about what Godzilla would sound like if it actually existed, and how loud it woud be. They concluded that it would be so loud it would actually destroy buldings in its immediate vicinity and kill nearby people outright, and destroy all windows in a huuuuge radious around it.
So yeah, give the tarrasque a roar ability.
Just look at the range on a storm giants rock throw attack and then remember that the Tarrasque is stronger and at least 2 size categories larger.
I know 5e only goes to gargantuan but it's clearly larger than that. It's 70 feet long and it's bite and horns only have a reach of 10ft, while it's tail has a reach of 20ft, leaving it a minimum 40ft by 40ft as the space the rest of it must occupy, assuming it doesn't lunge forward to bite or ram with it's horns. If it lunges forward 10ft when biting that would make it's occupied space 50ft by 50ft, this leaves it's tail hanging 20ft behind it's "controlled space".
@@vixevinweria8400 According to the Forgotten Realms wiki, it's 50 feet (15 meters) tall and 70 feet (21 meters) long.
My deaf character would be fine
I also used the tarasque as a location. Since it is so vast, in one of my game, I actually had the tarasque moving around a vast plain, with a temple attached to its back. The PCs had to approach and scale the monstrous beast to reach the temple, God of war style. However, each step taken by the beast sent tremors and shifted the path, forcing the PCs to skill check their way up, all the while battling smaller ennemies. Super fun setting, and can be adapted to pretty much any party level, since they don’t really fight the monster (yet!) . And the pure terror on their face when they realized that the mountain in the distance was actually the Tarasque… priceless 😆
This is awsome. I've thought about doing this with I giant turtle and have a town on it.
Yesss
not gonna lie the idea of a massive beast being lived on or even in, sort of like chronos from gow3, is an idea I really wanna run if I ever get the chance. it kind of fits that lesser (but still fairly strong) creatures would flock onto it for defense and food, like remora swimming under a shark
Tarasque not as an encounter but a /location/. That sounds like a really fun idea!
Few thoughts from the video.
1. Exploring Eberron has stats for a Warforged Colossus, have the PCs get one working again and you have a Jager/Kaiji fight.
2. A Lich and a Terrasque might be scary, but even scarier is if a BBEG takes over the BODY of a Terrasque so it's super smart, and maybe extra spells with everything it can do.
I have done both in my world except the group haven’t figured out the second part yet, really looking forward to when it happens.
Or, you combine the colossus with the terrasque for a mecha-terrasque.
I like these ideas. But instead of a lich taking over a tarrasque, why not an Elder brain pulling an intellect devourer move and replacing a tarrasques brain? Now you have a tarrasque with psychic powers and an army of mind flayers serving it
That first idea is the most amazing thing I've read this week
14:25
Here's an idea for this ability from the spell Earthquake:
If the Tarrasque reduces a structure to 0 hit points, the structure collapses and potentially damages nearby creatures. A creature within half the distance of a structure's height must make a Dexterity saving throw. On a failed save, the creature takes 5d6 bludgeoning damage, is knocked prone, and is buried in the rubble, requiring a DC 20 Strength (Athletics) check as an action to escape. The GM can adjust the DC higher or lower, depending on the nature of the rubble. On a successful save, the creature takes half as much damage and doesn't fall prone or become buried.
A great example of a monster that is more important to storytelling than combat. More of an event if you will
That's one of the best ways to use it. Treat it like a volcano or avalanche, something to survive, not fight.
Legit. Every talk w tarrasque is how players cheese it. But no mention on how much town/city/landscape was destroyed b4 it was killed. How many civilians and soldiers died in the rampage.
10:41 One way I got around the lack of range for the Tarrasque was by having it in a body of water, it would inhale a load of water and spit it as a ranged attack against the players. Their previous confidence got shattered
Nice
Smart
They also can’t fly out of reach!
I had a dormant Tarrasque buried under hundreds of tons of gravel in a sandtrap pit and it was used to harvest the plates that had detached from its back to grind into a magic-repellent powder, which was used to make magic items, like a cauldron that creates potions out of the water and a catalyst placed in it. The powder was used to make moulds for cast items. Magic cast into the molten metal couldn't seep out of the mould, so it became a part of the item in cast in the process.
The risk with the Tarrasque was that if the lab workers got too greedy with directly collecting the plates, they'd lighten the load on the creature enough to allow it to run free.
We went through the rules on the Tarrasque and concluded that you can pin it with enough weight when we were having an unrelated discussion.
Nice you could even add that the tarrasque was an apex predator so with it being "captured" other large predators start to fill the void and feed on local towns and city since they no longer have popular control
My favourite bit of Tarrasque stuff comes from 2nd edition's Spelljammer setting (it's d&d in spaaaace if you didn't know).
And that was Falx, the Planet of the Tarrasques.
A world entirely populated by Tarrasques, who are just big dopey rock eating lizards that only really hurt things accidentally, if at all.
But Falx has very little nitrogen in it's atmosphere, and when Tarrasques breathe nitrogen, it supercharges their metabolism and they go _crazy_
Poor thing isn't a villain, just in the wrong place.
If I remember correctly isn't there also a giant mind flayer colony on that planet?
@@agentchaos9332 i haven't read the book in a while, but that wouldn't surprise me!
So they're like Superman. Not super-powered at home, but bring them somewhere else, and it's a force of nature.
@@PaulGuy now I'm imagining the superman theme, but all the instruments sre screams
When Kelly mentioned "roleplaying options for the Tarrasque" I immediately thought of Knights of the Pen and Paper II, where the Tarrasque is just a genuinely nice guy and you can befriend him.
Imagine if you did that in dnd… oh the terrors that yet to come
I had already forgotten that, it was amazing to see it come back late game
i remember an older ability it had was an earth binding aura, where creatures with fly speeds would find themselves slowed to a crawl and would actively float downwards from the mere presence of the tarrasque. i think having both that and the passive earthquake effect might be double dipping and not fun if there's no way to get around either of them, but it is something to think about!
Came here to say this. If the tarrasque were given an aura that casts earthbind on anyone who gets within 150 feet or ends their turn there, fly would only help cast a few powerful spells from a distance.
I'm in the comments early! So, I just wanted to say thanks guys. You guys maintain exceptional qaulity in such a genuine way. I absolutely love you guys and can't thank you enough just for being yourselves (and your characters. Lol) Please keep up the, more than, great work; You are appreciated and what you do is so much more important than I'm able to put into words. Thanks again. Stay safe. 🤙
What a nice comment
Tarrasque blood was one of the components for Karsus's Avatar, the one and only 12th-level spell. And Asmodeus has a half-fiend tarrasque chained up somewhere in Nessus, the 9th layer of Baator.
Also, the tarrasque is based on an actual, mythological creature from French folklore. It's called the tarasque (with just a single "R"), and was a dragon-like creature that was tamed by Saint Martha.
Thanks I really love little history lessons like this
Asmodeus having a tarrasque doesn't surprise me, he's rumored to have everything from Nukes to Wands of Orbs of Annihilation down there..but I'm curious about the origin of a half-fiend tarrasque, and if it would be smarter then a normal tarrasque
The party wizard could boost or protect the party instead of direct damage
Only issue with this is if they went Evocation or more focused on damage spells than support as that would greatly nerf their whole build.
One word: slow
Seriously though, reducing their attacks to 4 per round is massive
Also refractive carapace doesn't protect you from disintegrate
The party wizard could focus on saving npcs if you use different win conditions. ...or...Perhaps the only way a terasque can be defeated is by conducting an ancient ritual to weaken it so it takes damage and ultimately is defeated. The wizard needs to maintain concentration and finish this ritual, maybe have them perform some type of skill challenge or if your players like this kind of thing you can hand them some sort of tactile puzzle (like a puzzle box, or block puzzle). While the fight is going on the wizard player is trying to solve the puzzle to complete the ritual and send the terqasque packing. If you have multiple casters the players can cooperate on the puzzle.
So I older editions it had regeneration 30hp per round a passive aura of the spell earthbind rqnge 120 feet also it has earthglide the ability to ghost through rocks and it was immune to all spells, and teleportation cutting, and immovable objects also were useless against it and they had to use wish to kill it when they got it to 0 hp
The wish only delayed its regeneration for many years, the tarresk was never actually killed. It’s perpetually regeneration was its scariest feature
Yeah..it used to be way more badass. See everyone complains about its lack of ranged weapons and mobility, but they ignore the fact that it lost all these features without gaining new ones. In older editions it didn't NEED any ranged options and it's mobility was fine because of earth glide. And the regeneration made the whole " peasants can kill it with a +1 bow" argument a fallacy. Imagine if it had all its old abilities AND a breath weapon or other ranged options? You'd be begging for it to get nerfed
@@agentchaos9332 Not really CR 30 man, do you KNOW how strong level 20 Players are let along level 20 players with boons? At that level of CR no cheese should be able to beat you, you need ALOT of work, power and smarts to beat it. Beating this should be the cullumination of a continent's efforts Rival factions/nations/unholy and holy working together to even have a chance. To put this in perspective, a group of 4 level 1's against a CR 11, thats teh level of power disparity that should be present against level 20s.
@@patrickmcathey7081 oh I'm not defending the tarrasque that exists as written in 5th edition. And I agree it's not worthy of CR30 amymore, I'm just pointing out that it used to be
I think there is a very easy and interesting way to make the Terrasque even more terrifying with minimal adjustments: have a high enemy bard/druid cast Awaken on it. The Terrasque qualifies (int of 3 or less). This would make it intelligent, which would mean it is smart enough to throw large chunks of buildings at faraway/flying targets and other "smart" tactics. Technically, if you really want to go overboard, you can teach it spells since it is a sentient creature.
Great video to show how important is the roleplaying and storytelling! :)
Tons of really good ideas! Thanks!
A plot I once imagined was that a certain arcane event in the campaign messed with the world's energy balance and that messed with the tarrasque and made it wake him up, making him angry, and somewhere, there's still some arcane source like that, which is emitting an energy signal that continues to destabilize the natural energy of the world and it goes after it, destroying everything in its path to reestablish balance and go back to sleep.
And a cool "weapon" for him, at least I imagine, would not be him "breathing fire" but the air that comes out of him is so hot that it burns whatever is in front of him.
Interesting. Never thought of the Tarrasque other than a big superboss damage sponge. But this is pretty interesting.
Love the series; hope to see Aboleth and Vampire in the future.
Have the tarrasque throw buildings
If the tarrasque starts to get hurt, have it burrow
Raise it's strength to 45.
The Xixecal yeets the Tarrasque like a football...
*Now you have a flying Terrasque about to land on your city.*
Fun fact, if you convert Moradin to 5e his strength is 46
If I'm battling a Tarrasque and it literally just burrows, I'm moving to a different plane lmao.
I love listening to these two you guys should have a podcast where you just talk about all things dnd
I love these videos, keep It Up!
i feel like just for a fight balancing, one way to make the tarrasque a bit more threatening encounter-wise, would be to add a Rock Throw move akin to Hill Giants for it to deal with flying creatures while still working with its animalistic tendancies
I once ran a campaign that had a mini-tarrasque in it. Imagine a Tarrasque, but the size of a Saint Bernard. It was a running gag that every destroyed environment was due to the machinations of "Terrence, the mini tarrasque" and his bad attitude.
I like these options. I think I'm going to homebrew my tarrasques to having a tongue attack (20 feet range bite-swallow attack) and a acid breath weapon and a regeneration of 25 hp at the beginning of its turn as long as it has 1 hp.
Also, the teeth and eyeballs of the tarrasques are tarrasque eggs that will hatch 1d4 days after the death of a tarrasque.
Your videoare always good but this one had some exceptional ideas for enhancing an iconic monster. Thanks, Dudes, for upping our games.
I think damage thresholds are maybe a mechanically/narratively better way to make a creature difficult to interact with rather than giving it flat immunity to damage, and are easy to tune up or down depending on when you bring it into a campaign. A damage threshold combined with even a modest regeneration would be enough to send the message that killing it via damage isn't going to be efficient.
I found it interesting that you brought up the concept of "climbing on" monsters like this as I recently discovered the DMG has rules for climbing on creatures that are too big to grapple.
I like all this stuff
*tier 1 hopeless boss fight
*puzzle boss
*augmentation
And a word about the force cage such. Perhaps, because the monster is SO big, the spell can only affect part of it. Like the force cage can only trap, say, its foot, and thus immbolize it. Or the banishment can only telefrag, say, a claw to reduce its multi-attack. So the spell serves a benefit, but it does not short-circuit the fight.
I remember playing a high level campaign back in 2nd Ed. The best/most horrifying quote from one of the sessions: “What do you mean a PACK of Tarrasques?!?!?!?”
Personally, I like the idea of the portal being openned and the tarrasque is heading to where the ritual is being performed but no one knows about the ritual so everyone's trying to stop it without realizing that the cities are just in its way as it's trying to save the material plane. Maybe if the party does manage to slow it down enough then some other titanic monster or even a god could be summoned and the party has to then help the tarrasque beat this new threat. Or, better still, if the party realize what the tarrasque is doing then they can start gathering equipment or artifacts to help with the coming battle.
I mean, I can't be the only one who wants to mount magical balistae on the shoulders of a tarrasque and ride that thing into battle against a god. Enlarge the zealot barbarian and load them into a trebuchet to be launched off the back of a tarrasque? Yes please.
This is such a great video! It’s a great campaign hook and iconic BBEG. No 3 page, DBZ level monologue. I love that it is a fantastic creature akin to a natural disaster like you guys discussed. Great post, gentlemen 🔥🦖
Hope you continue this series because I absolutely love it. Helps a lot as a new DM. 😢 Maybe how to run a Lich or how to run evil spellcasters up next? 👀
Best take on the Tarrasque I've heard!
I've designed a Tarrasque that covers cheese solutions like flight, polymorphing it, and banishing it, but also has some interesting abilities in the form of several unique roars.
1. Instead of Frightful Presence, an extremely potent fear-causing aoe
2. A straight-up cone of thunder damage that deals double damage to structures and the like. (Look up "what would Godzilla really sound like?")
3. A huge aoe Earthbind effect, but without the safety net
4. An aoe Dispel Magic that will come as a big surprise
5. A fiery aoe that sticks with the Tarrasque much like an ancient red dragon's heated scales.
Each of these are flavored a particular element, as my version of the Tarrasque is a horrifying blend of elementals and dragons. It wouldn't be entirely inaccurate to call it a Material elemental. As such, it is equally suited to the role of world ender as it is to world defender, if the need arises. Godzilla is rather territorial, and so is my Tarrasque.
I've had this idea for a while now to run the Tarrasque like Zorah Magdaros from Monster Hunter World, and you are basically diverting it with siege weapons, and getting up on it to damage weak spots. Would make for a very memorable encounter, if you beefed it up a bit.
Some great ideas as always! I was sad when I saw no ranged options in the 5e statblock and your ideas work well, or using the Pathfinder 1e version that has a ranged spike volley if you want to go non-magical. Love the lair effect idea about earthquakes, and you could go as far as to make the Terrasque's presence have a lair effect that dimension anchors everything, making it an even more apocalyptic force of destruction you can't magically escape.
Definitely should shout out 'The Tarrasque Task of Moreen Trask', the fan module where you fight through the insides of a Tarrasque! I've wanted to run that for years.
I've only run the Terrasque once, almost entirely as written in PF1e and against a level 14 party, it was essentially just a big monster they had to play keep-away with in a dungeon while they retrieved something important - the party downed it very quickly, even after pulling out some stops earlier in the dungeon, but the mythic regeneration abilities kept it a threat. The party still enjoyed the brief run-in, though at 14th level they were much more scared of a mythic levelled ancient dragon. They will never forgive me though: as a wall of the dungeon fell away, revealing that the temple was atop a massive web of chains and rock imprisoning Rovagug, I described a red t-rex-looking creature bellowing from across the massive cavern, placing the T-rex model far away on the battle map, and starting to run towards them; as it got close I said "Oops, sorry, did I say T-Rex? I mean Tarrasque." and swapped the model out as it got so close they could see its scale against the closer terrain. XD
This gave me some great ideas... For my 4th most climatic battle of the campaign.
what I have introduced into my games for any creature above huge. is weapon immunity or resistance (depending on size or armor) except for siege weapons. I added siege properties to a few weapons like the maul or large scale spells like fire ball. this adds in some great flavor to these colossal monsters and adds in fun without making the monsters untouchable. the tougher monsters might need adamantine or magic siege weapons. siege weapons also have other cool abilities against inanimate objects like stone, wood walls allowing cool scenes of breaching the door with a giant hammer.
also I love the idea of the players making a portable base with a wagon and a ballista trying to slay the giant creature. npc helps load the weapon as one player runs the ballista and the other players either have portable siege weapons or spells (they might even be just helping get stuff out of the way ie rubble or smaller monsters)
The first quest I bought with my new-to-DnD friends was inside of a tarrasque that had swallowed them whole. They travelled through the entirety of its internal organs. Pretty great short quest.
Fantastic!!
yeah, i look into Godzilla for ideas about Tarrasque, especially the creative ideas in video games and newer anime series. i like the idea of introducing PCs to Tarraque or hints right away at level 1, then making a whole campaign about the PCs learning what is happening, who is responsible, and what they can do
I think a really good inspiration for the tarrasque is scp682. Mainly because of the lord blackwood tale. I'm thinking you could give it a weakness to acid damage (since it's being contained by acid in the scp universe) that prevents it from healing
*Dungeon Masterpiece* did a collab video about improving the Tarrasque.
They made it into *Bowser* 👌
Going with the kaiju route is probably the way to go, so thanks for that guide, Dudes :D
I had a campaign pre pandemic,in a rod of seven parts style mcguffin quests. The rod in question would have summoned and controlled multiple Tarasque across the multi verse each with diffrent appearances and abilities. The campaign barely got off the ground before the vid wrecked it.
Tarrasque vs another gargantuan monster as a kaiju battle event is what immediately came to mind when Godzilla was brought up
I read somewhere that the terrasque was a alchemical or magical creation that was birthed to destroy dragons in their layer. So I could see myself giving it burrowing, some knock down skill (that would negate all flying or hovering effects). I also like the idea of it being a tank that wouldn't be hurt or at least as much hurt by effects simmiliar and same as breath weapons.
Within my personal dnd universe, the Terrasque is an avatar of the the planet itself. It wakes up in order to combat something that threatens the planet in some way. As an avatar of a planet, it has the ability to manipulate gravity around it. This allows it to force any flying creature within a certain radius of it down to a height of 40 ft. It also never dies permanently. I did reincorporate the rule that only a wish spell can defeat it, but it only puts it back to sleep. The only way to kill the Terrasque would be to kill the planet its birthed from. In this way, it's similar to the Weapons from FF7.
I've got a heavily modded tarrasque on the go in my homebrew world right now. The main difference is that I've made it an aquatic creature, known locally as "The Smasher of Ships", and it's been blocking a key shipping route for a while now. It's main job is narrative, as a source of both direct and indirect adventure hooks.
One party has established it's origins; it was accidentally summoned by a mage who thought she was a scholar but was playing with forces way beyond her comprehension and she doesn't know how to put it back. But other adventures have included sending parties off to scout land routes to re-establish trade, and a mid-level party whose job was to go and poke the thing to try to find out and report back on it's strengths and weaknesses.
I always loved the idea of the "City of salt in wounds"...
great ideas !
I started my campaign 3 years ago with the city being attacked by a tarrasque =D The town guards did their best to lead it away from the city. The players were helping civilians escape as lizardfolk came through the wall the tarrasque destroyed as the city burned from all of the spells that had been bounced off of its shell as it attacked.
Giving it a "Predatorial Leap" ability to allow it (only when it truly "feels threatened" as in a bunch of flying creatures are firing loud scary magic at it) that lets it jump using its movement towards a target in the air to make a horn or bite attack works as well. sometimes just simple tweaking works.
Another ability is since the terrasque lets it fire spells back with its carapace. change the ruling to "When it rolls a 1-5 its unaffected by the spell and it stores a use of Disentegrate/Prismatic Spray/Lightning bolt or something magical of your choosing" and then it can fire it back as a ranged spell attack that deals devastating damage and makes those members who think flying out in the open to kite the beast is now suddenly a poor idea.
My watching this video TODAY was uncannily timely. We JUST started using the One D&D rules, have had a "teaser" first level, and it happens that I had stated that their town was under attack, but I didn't say what by. I could easily make it be a Tarrasque and drive them away from their hometown with only what they have.
Fun idea for a campaign; have two cults trying to summons/awaken ancient beasts at the same time, onetaking the Tarrasque and the other, a different monster of similar CR rating, like the Primordial Hydra or Astral Juggernaut. Have the party try to thwart them, only to realize that they're fighting against at least two seperate cults. This can culminate in a grand Kaiju vs Jeager style battle, with the party piloting a Collossus to slug it out with their monster of choice, or they can trick the two cults into summoning their respective monsters in the same place, and the party can watch a Kaiju v Kaiju grudge match, or they can do both ideas and have a 3-way Kaiju v Jeager v Kaiju free-for-all.
I actually missed the chance to do this myself, because I forgot to A) leave enough clues to let the party know they were fighting two seperate monster cults, and B) I never let the party know that the Stone Collossi guarding the cities in this setting were controllable (and in my defense, this was a more slapped together campaign than I was used to running, so my brain wasn't quite all there at the time, so smaller lore snippets like this kinda got lost along the way). Ultimately, the party still fought the Tarrasque, but when they realized they thwarted the other cult from summoning the Primordial Hydra and getting front row seats to a monster mash, they were bummed because they didn'tnotice sooner, and I was like 'damn, why didn't I think of that.'
Using the home field advantage thing, the tarassque has great regional and lair action effects that solves its negatives in the stat block. One for example is a 6 mile regional effect that requires a strength saving throw just to fly, because the gravity is increased around the monster
I ran a mini-campaign where, to fight the threat of an imminent Tarrasque attack, the players had to visit a shrouded isle to seek the aid of an ancient gold dragon, but when they arrived, they found the dragon had been slain by a party of greedy adventurers. A lone fairy guarded its egg, but the players had to embark on an epic quest to rescue the fairy's sisters who could help her hatch the egg and accelerate the young dragon's growth. Basically, it was Tarrasque vs. Mothra.
I used the Tarrasque against my 18th level party on Sunday. This is what I did -
Earthbind Aura from 4th edition to deal with flying creatures
Augmented Critical from 3rd edition to crit on 18,19, or 20
Vorpal Teeth (bite head off on crit) and Sword of Sharpness claws (chop limbs off on crit) from AD&D to put the fear of God in my players
The Wizard lost an arm; the Cleric lost an arm and a head; I rolled in the open and the players were terrified of being critted by the claws or bite. It was hands down the most epic fight we have ever had.
An alternative to the Wish spell if you want to lean into the idea of this being a primordial being is Imprisonment. It’s got 32 HD, so you’d basically need to have a campaign arc just for the party to get the appropriate focus, and gives a cool vibe of it never truly being over.
i'm planning a tarrasque encounter as the end game battle for my campaign, though in my world the tarrasque has actually been altered by the illithid empire and so it has a psychic beam attack too. the idea is to have it attack an important city after another important boss fight so the party has to choose what to do with so many resources probably already spent, and then before it attacks the next city they have to figure out how to strategize against it. that way they get their big evacuation scene with the fear of the tarrasque first, and then they get to fight it refreshed and reinforced later
I made my tarrasque combat under the ancient cursed city made of an black obsidian. There were underground lake in which the tarrasque entered in the battle. It was end of the campaign and the party were solving puzzle and tried to close ancient portal, and then the beast came under the water, with great waves, roared in the underground chamber and the battle begun. There was signs and warnings in the ruined city before, marks that something has destroyed the ancient culture. They found warnigs that destroyer of civilzations is bound nearby and that should not be awake.
This is perfect! I'm running a D&D campaign called "Oh Shit! The Final Boss is a Tarrasque" or TaraSuku or short. The party is currently level 3 and the tarrasque hasn't been mentioned yet but I'm secretly plotting behind the screen haha.
One way I like to alter the Tarrasque is to give it a supped up version of the roar action that Androsphinxes have. Makes for a powerful ranged effect. I do like the beam attack though, definitely gonna add that!
I'm surprised the DDs didn't go into the origin of the Tarrasque. It's a legendary monster which attacked the town of Tarascon in France. It was part dragon, part fish, part horse and with the face of a lion. The creature was subdued by St Martha who led it to the town and the locals stoned and speared it to death.
If ever I run a Tarrasque, it would have the shell of a tortoise, the body of a dragon, the head of a lion, the feet of a bear, and the tail of a wyvern.
The Tarrasque is 50 feet tall, that is about 5 stories high. If it goes up on hind feet it is even taller. It could knock some out of the air, and they die from the combined hit and fall damage.
I mean... 70ft long but thats not much of an add on for its range considering if you can fly... I wouldn't even get that close. bows have 80-150 close range and a 320 or 600 long range.
@@Taven03 true that could work. Nothing like walking/flying 600' behind the creature spamming arrows and taking down a ledgenary monster. At that distance I would be rule the arrows to be ineffective. I would probably rule all range weapons inefficient, unless they are siege weapons or have some kind of dragonslayer/monster slayer property.
I was just talking about this with my group last week and it wouldn't take many levels before I'd modify it heavily to give it solid long range attacks. And given how often I see the sharpshooter feat, I mean long range.
As for its reach, ranged attacks and flying enemies, I'd say not to forget to include the vertical reach it has. It's gargantuan and has 15 ft reach so add those two together and I'd also say it could stand on its hind legs and double that. Also I would say it has a leaping speed equal to its movement speed which would also include the legendary movement action it has and add the reach to that as well. Any character that is flying would probably be unlikely to be able to make attacks without also being in the terrasque's reach.
I have not used the tarrasque in my campaign yet, but I have created lore about it. For lore related reasons, I gave it a burrowing speed, tremorsense, the earth glide ability, and the ability to understand telepathy (though not use it or reply telepathically), despite it not knowing any languages. I already gave it a personality, it is the loyal pet of the avatar of the world, Gaia. It is actually quite playful and friendly to creatures it does not consider to be enemies or food. It attacks less often out of hunger, than that Gaia likes destroying puny mortals and it is more fun to send a creature at a city than a massive hurricane. Gaia is also always amused when heroes manage to defeat it, as, like in previous editions, the tarrasque can come back from death. This video has given me ideas on how to make it even better; the ability to ignore teleportation is a great idea, considering it also can make perfect sense with lore reasons. It probably will not get a ranged attack, since its burrowing speed protects it from flying archers.
I have now added extra abilities. I changed my mind about not adding a ranged attack, as I realized it was pretty lame for the tarrasque to just have to leave underground when it is annoyed by flying archers. Though it is smart enough to do so anyway, possible just reappearing in a different part of a city it is attacking.
Imagine the look of horror on the player’s face when you describe wings sprouting from this thing’s back 😂😂😂
I enjoy using the Tarrasque as almost the soul of the world. Something the world itself brings about every x amount of years to defend itself or whatever. Sometimes wizards summon it and it goes horribly awry. You definitely need to give it ranged attacks that knock people prone, helps with the flying people. Additionally I found if you do modify it tremendously allow the wizards to research it. Make a Charlie Day character from Pacific Rim who is obsessed with Tarrasque lore (Look to the Rime of the Frostmaiden adventure at the Professor for more actual in game uses) and that way the players aren't completely blindsided when fighting it. If it turns out most control spells are worthless for your wizard now he can prepare summoning spells and buffing spells to help out the rest of the party.
Another thing I've seen for ranged attacks is giving it a 120ft cone Thunder breath that recharges on a 5-6, and deals about as much as an Ancient Dragons Breath attack does if its going to be a high level party. Really cool to add Spell breath instead
It is said in the lore that the Tarrasque has three stomachs, one of which is full of extremely corrosive acid that strips magic from and destroys magic items including artifacts. You could have the Tarrasque vomit out that acid like a dragons breath attack and deal damage to to magic weapons and armour and reduce their enchantment effectiveness until they are destroyed. Also it needs to have regeneration.
Adding some sort of Giant Lice that infest the Tarrasque could make getting close to the creature dangerous; especially if these parasite can fly or leap and are partial to human blood.
My solution to the flying thing was making the tarrasque bigger. I know it’s supposed to be only 50ft tall which is pretty damn big, but the lore says it can walk through mountains to destroy them and 50ft just doesn’t seem right. So I made it about 350ft tall, very much like Godzilla, and if a player can only fly up 60ft from the fly spell that’s still 6 full turns they would have to take to get above it to just rain fire (assuming they’re attacking on each of those turns) or 3 full turns of using dash, all of which is plenty of time for the tarrasque to deal extensive amounts of damage and possibly even swat them down to the floor
The guys mentioned the Cloverfield monster a couple times. I’m liking the idea of smaller parasitic monsters dropping off to engage lower level parties. 🤔
This is my exact inspiration. Just run with the "what kind of kaiju is this" idea and have a massive scorpion/ spider/ shark combo that utterly freaks everyone out.
Hordes of mini kaiju and nests full of egg sacs will complete the image.
I have been working on a grappling character and figured out that if I use Giant's Might and drink a Potion of Growth, I could quite possibly grapple the Terrasque. Especially if someone uses the Hex spell to give it Disadvantage on its Strength Checks.
Gravity powers are fun too. Negative energy flowing from it to steal life to increase regen is fun. I had one in a spelljammer game that had been made to kill a planet by a dragon king of athas. It was filled with defiler magic to become a battery. After it kills a planet or demiplane it would be brought back to the Dragon King and feed him.
the best creature that reminds me of how epic and destructive a Tarrasque could be, is Lavos from the gae Chrono Trigger, it cameas an asteroid and has been sleeping inside the earth for billions of years, feeding on the planet energy, to just one day when fully grown, emerge in a wave of destruction causing a cataclysm
One of my dm's use a damage reduction system. If you are medium you deal 1/2 damage to large creatures, 1/4 to huge, 1/8 to gargantuan etc while the inverse when attacking creatures that are smaller.
Fourth edition Tarrasque has a great ability of forcing flying creatures to plummet to the ground. That could be a great way to counter flying creatures. You can even signal this when the players are tracking/following it by showing birds that have cleared been crushed by this anti-flying aura
I'd say that instead of being immune to banishment, they can only be banished at 0HP or when incapacitated, and with a powerful spell such as imprisonment. A special variant of imprisonment that creates a Scroll of Tarrask Summoning
Regarding the idea of a well meaning wizard creating the tarrasque before realizing it needs to be stopped if anyone wants to run it that way I would recommend taking inspiration from some interpretations of the Golem of Prague story, incorporating aspects of real folklore into your campaigns is fun!
You know, a friend of mine and I figured something out, the tarrasque, isn’t an apex predator, it’s got too many prey animal traits. It’s just a matter of scaling. And I mean both size and power. Like Dragon Ball Z Ginyu arc Goku in preshippuden Naruto
inb4 "A cLaY GoLeM cAn BeAt a tArRaSqUe"
RAW they can tho
I thought this would be a boring or even terrible video. Instead it was really cool. I love the idea of session 1 terrasque, thanks dudes
My Tarrasque is hidden inside of a mountain in a newly settled land. They just started a mine because the ores there are super valuable for some reason, we will see how that goes in time.
"As the Tarrasque ambles through the city, swiping at buildings in it's way, moving towards some unknown goal, what is your character doing?"
*Me as a CN rogue* Looting... "Emptying every shop I come across."
You have touched on themes from some classic monster movies reminding me of Gammera, Ultraman, some beasts from deep StarWars lore, and maybe even that certain elusive creature from Ice Pirates. 🤓 Oh, the ideas!
Love that there was a Voltron mention
In my game setting an entire civilization of Dwarves were driven out of their ancestral mountain range kingdom by a fabled cataclysm. The subterranean mountain kingdom is now a lonely, foreboding and haunted place. Of course as the DM I am fully aware that it was the Terasque that caused the problem those generations ago. It demolished the heart of the deepest dwarven mines due to disturbance by the dwarves. It was directly responsible for the death of their king when they tried to fight for their domain. The queen had taken her people to another mountain range that directly bordered the largest elvish forest kingdom. The king and those that went to battle with him never were seen again and eventually the Terasque fell back into a slumber under the stone mountains. It never saw the surface and if my players ever encounter it the monster will be slumbering deep under those mountains. Flying won't be very useful down there in tight quarters, except for escaping possibly but then if the mountain caverns and tunnels are all collapsing around them then even flying will be quite deadly. It would literally be like fighting the monster under a mountain while an earthquake is happening.
My DM gave us a homebrew one shot after our Decent into Avernus campaign. We leveled up to 20, and saved a town from a Tarasque. Did the ol’ portable hole in a bag of holding trick. Brilliant. Two long time D&D firsts for me to check off the list.
But then….then my friends a rift between worlds opened, and we found ourselves atop a ziggurat of such immense scale that it could not have been made by humanoid hands. We gazed from on high, leagues in the air almost touching the very clouds. We gazed upon a ruined world. A wasteland. And dotting the horizon…Tarasque. Scores of them below. We thought ourselves safe for a moment, unnoticed by the behemoths below, endlessly trodding through their depleted world…until the great Tarasque overlord defended upon us, gargantuan wings buffeting us with such force of wind we almost toppled over the ledge to our doom. With a great cry, it began to battle us, and it’s bellow alerted the others…
TLDR…we barely lived, but we defeated two Tarasque. The first one we cheesed, the second one had wings and we scraped by in an all out slug fest before the lesser Tarasque swarm could make it up the ziggurat. We had like a 5 turn timer lol…sweatiest.epilogue.EVER.
I have been thinking about ways to improve the Tarrasque, and I had several ideas. I had a different breath weapon for it, but I kind of like the prismatic spray more than what I came up with. A roar for thunder damage, I really like the earthquake aura (probably limit that to any round where it moves 10 or more in that round), would make it immune to difficult terrain, I like the "immune to damage unless it comes from certain artifacts or rare materials" (like previously shed teeth or claws from that very monster, and would allow a magical focus to be crafted from the same to allow the spell caster to benefit from the material as well), and it absolutely needs it's regeneration and "reduce to zero HP then Wish for it to stay dead." I am also considering giving it a cloud breath weapon in addition to the line, leaning towards petrification, and the ability to breathe on itself to create a burst effect from it's hide that deals less damage but to an area all around it.
My home brewed tarrasque has 100ft earth-glide
It is constantly burrowing and unburrowing
if it bites someone they are grappled and the next turn it can take them underground and leave them there
it also casts levitate in a 300ft radius around its self so the debris are constantly floating around it making people make dex saves and occasionally levitating the players stopping them from flying and walking around
I recommend all these changes
I reflavored the breath of an ancient blue, switched the damage type to force, but I'm totally using the rock throw and earthquake next time! thnx!
Everytime I see a Tarrasque or a Dragon Turtle in a campaign, my inner ranger always wants to try and tame the darn thing.
The Pied Piper reference made me remember Mothra was controlled by two tiny women singing.
A den of flying monsters (dragons?) have nested on the tarrasque's head, living together in a symbiotic relationship.
In return for a safe nesting area, the flying critters provide food & will protect the tarrasque from PCs with flying abilities.
I've been meaning to do this one for a while but I think it would be cool to take inspiration from Shin Godzilla, having a creature build up to being the monster but with every transformation you can tell that it is in pain, that its lonely and hurt, it doesn't want to be a walking God of death but it is. because it has to be. Because it can't be anything else. And when it is stopped it isn't the sweet victory you'd want it to be, because yes, you stopped so many more people from dying... But for the first time, after dealing with the cries of pain, its moments of desperation, maybe even the party catching it mid transformation at one point... It looks at peace. idk, just something that's always stuck with me.
I plan to throw the Tarrasque at my players in early Tier 3. They'll be crossing the desert when they come across a huge mesa-like barrier with periodic entrances into ravines that cross in multilayered caves and cliffs across countless chasms (think sort of like the Vast Poni Canyon from Pokemon Sun and Moon, or that one tunnel system in The Croods). They *could* try to go around it, but they have no idea how far the cliffs go in either direction so it could put them days or even weeks off-schedule if they get lost. They could try climbing over it, but might find that, too, is extremely difficult, as they'd first have to climb it, then make their way across the spiderwebs of ravines and uneven plateaus on top. Regardless, unless they take the time to go around it, they'll feel an earthquake halfway through as the Tarrasque emerges seamlessly from the ground, unbridled power right before them. My party is very intelligent (the current party as it is at level 8 has very high INT across the board: a blood hunter, a bard with a headband of intellect, an artificer, a wizard, and a rogue), so I have no doubt they'll recognize the creature. The Tarrasque doesn't notice them as it begins munchin' and crunchin' on the mesa walls. They'll then have to navigate the remainder of the dungeon stealthily and out of the way of the Tarrasque. It won't be too hard as it has a 10 Passive Perception, it's distracted and loudly crumbling rocks so -5, and the Stealth DC scales down with their distance/cover from the Tarrasque, so they'll probably survive unless they actively try to provoke it but it'll be extremely tense and fun if I play my cards right. Realistically the Tarrasque will serve to foreshadow the sheer power of creatures they'll face later (after they cross the desert they'll be going to each of the elemental planes, then finally at the highest levels go around the nation fighting the Elder Elementals that materialized on the Material Plane for plot reasons).