I want to show you the biggest, toughest monster in the Advanced 5E Monstrous Menagerie: the tarrasque.
The original 5E (O5E) tarrasque is – maybe not a pushover – but vulnerable against fairly low-level parties, especially compared to the tarrasque of earlier editions. For instance, since it has no regeneration and no ranged attack, it can be soloed by a level 1 aarakocra cleric with Sacred Flame. Silly exploits aside, I just don’t think it has a chance of standing up to an optimized level 20 party… and if the tarrasque can’t, no one can.
Enter the Monstrous Menagerie tarrasque.
I’m hoping this is the definitive 5e tarrasque.
The MoMe tarrasque is elite, which is a mythic-like class of monster in the MoMe which is as hard to defeat as two monsters of its Challenge Rating – in other words, as tough as two standard O5e tarrasques. According to my much more ambitious encounter calculations (which are also in the Monstrous Menagerie), this is just at the edge of what a level 20 party can accomplish. If you can trivially beat this tarrasque at lower level, I’d like to hear about it!
This tarrasque is designed to be a two-stage fight – where the second stage is optional.
Stage one is fairly similar to fighting the original tarrasque. It’s a bit tougher than the original – for instance, it has a recharge 5-6 Godzilla-like breath weapon that can drop many characters in one hit (though that’s not usually a problem at level 20), and it has an ability that allows it to knock flying creatures in a 300-foot radius out of the sky, including that pesky level 1 aarakocra cleric.
Once you’ve dealt around 600 points of damage – around the same as the O5E tarrasque’s hit points – the tarrasque has had enough. It turns around and retreats. You’ve saved the city and won the day!
Here’s where you can choose to make things harder on yourself. If you try to finish off the tarrasque while it’s wounded, you enter Stage 2 of the battle. And remember, you brought this on yourself.
In stage 2:
-It has another 600 hit points.
-It regenerates 50 points a round.
-That breath weapon that the tarrasque could use instead of its regular attacks, if it rolled a 5-6? It can now do every turn, along with its other attacks.
-It can only be killed by the use of a wish spell while it’s at 0 hit points.
In other words, defeating a tarrasque is still within the realm of possibility for, say, a well-equipped group of 16th level characters. Killing the beast is very much a stretch goal.
Speaking of stretch goals: You can get the Monstrous Menagerie via the A5e Kickstarter! Sign up for it now.
I’m scared…
This Tarrasque actually deserves the name, and I like the neat way you dealt with the flying problem of the 5e version.
I’m going to take this opportunity to go somewhat OT and object to the aarakocra race as a player character entirely. Partly for reasons stated above – any monster without a ranged attack or their own flight is helpless against them – but mostly because flying is FAR too powerful to be a racial bonus.
“Fly” is a 3rd level spell, costs an action to cast, requires concentration, and only lasts ten minutes. Having an innate flying speed means you can, at no cost at all, simply do so. Every round, all rounds, as many times as you want, without even needing an action.
It’s like having a race that can just spontaneously emit “Fireball”s (another 3rd level spell) once a round without using any slots, skills, or even a bonus action – they just pop out and go, whenever they want.
There are other ways for player characters to gain flying speeds – magic items, mostly – and a 20th level paladin of a certain oath – and things like that, but they’re supposed to be rare and powerful bonuses. Just handing it out to a 1st level character is just ridiculous.
Incidentally, as a private DM I forbid it, but I mostly play Adventurer’s League, and if it’s allowed there, I don’t have much choice.
I actually think that’s a good point about aarakocra… they require DMs/module writers to throw away a lot of assumptions about low-level adventures in order to accommodate a potentially breaking case.
That said, many monsters (including high level ones like the tarrasque!) are unaccountably designed without considering the possibility of flying characters.