Who wants to create a tarrasque?

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pblackcrow
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Who wants to create a tarrasque?

Unread post by pblackcrow »

Who wants to create a real tarrasque based on french lore/myth?? https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/dungeo ... -tarrasque
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Kraynic
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Re: Who wants to create a tarrasque?

Unread post by Kraynic »

I did a web search for that thing, and there are some interesting variations. I may end up springing something like this on my players sometime:

I still use the 1E rule set, so some of this might not be quite accurate in 2E, but should mostly carry over.

1. HP/SDC and AR: This thing sounds like it may be similar size to the Beast Dragon out of the Monsters & Animals book. That particular monster has quite a lot of vitality, so I would leave that alone, but would probably boost the AR a bit to account for the carapace, scales, and spikes (AR 12 boosted to 16 maybe).
2. Breath: Some descriptions have the poison breath coming from the nostrils. I think I would go with that. Instead of a focused breath weapon, maybe this would be more of an area of effect covering a 15 ft hemisphere around the front of the Tarasque. This would require a standard save vs magic fumes or suffer the affects of the Daze fume from the magic item listings (penalties to speed, initiative, and combat rolls). Maybe have the affects wear off in a couple melees if someone flees the area of affect.
3. Ranged attack: There is a description of the thing with a scorpion tail and another with it flinging excrement, so why not blend the 2? Once per melee it can excrete a bit and fling it up to 75ft. On a hit, a save vs poison would need to be made to avoid the affects of a Stink Bomb (until washed off). This is not truly a poison, just a P.E. based save to avoid the gag reflex of the incredibly horrible odor. On a crit, the target is struck in the head, bypassing the save (automatically failed save by the target) and having a 50% chance of also blinding the target (although fully enclosed helms would probably defeat this, or at least make it easier to get back to being able to see).
4. Claws: With 6 legs, that should make it easier to attack with the front pair. Add a couple attacks per melee for claws.
5. Bite: Might just stick with the damage from the lion head of the Beast Dragon. Could bump it up a die, but the descriptions of it mention it swallowing people whole, so I imagine that would be the main danger from its maw. After it has nauseated you and dazed you, it mauls you with its claws until you are moving slow enough to swallow whole. It isn't like you are being swallowed by something incredibly huge, so I would say it would take maybe 2-3 melees to swallow someone. During that time, it would only be able to utilize the breath and poo flinging, so it might not try that until it thinks it has enough time to get someone down undisturbed.
6. Optional weakness to having a collar made from the girdle of a priestess hung around its neck (becoming docile, even allowing itself to be killed).

I probably missed how smart these things are supposed to be, but probably not very... I would be tempted to make it slower than the Beast Dragon due to the weight of the carapace.

Definitely something out of nightmare. At least you can probably smell it coming....
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