The Tarrasque is a favourite high level encounter forDungeons & Dragons, serving as a victory lap for level 20 parties that have beaten their campaigns or as a fun punching bag for testing experimental builds in a one-shot game. Since it awakens and attacks randomly you can conceivably run this encounter at any point, although doing so without preparation will come back to bite you.
Related:Dungeons & Dragons: How To Run Large-Scale Combat
With a challenge rating capable of matching Aspects of the deities Tiamat and Bahamut, this encounter can serve as a test of the player’s mastery of their characters and the DM’s understanding of the system.
Find A Way To Incorporate The Tarrasque Into The Story
On its own, a hard to destroy reptile doesn’t offer too much as an antagonist:The monster has four intelligence and 11 charisma, so it isn’t going to be giving grand monologs or developing hidden agendas by itself. Sinceit’s hostile to all other creaturesit isn’t going to have allies, rivals, supply lines or strategic objectives that players can leverage either.
Having the Tarrasque be subjugated by a more personable antagonist can allow for more elaborate storytellingand provide alternative solutions the players can pursue. If your main villain is flaunting theScroll of Tarrasque Summoningas a weapon of mass destruction, the players might be able to ‘defeat’ the Tarrasque by stealing or destroying the scroll.
The other way of incorporating the Tarrasque into a narrative is tomake it analogous to a natural disaster.If it has been out of dormancy for some time or itsawakening has been anticipated by divination magic, you may construct political encounters out ofbuilding defensive alliances and mustering armies to help defeat it.
A partybelow level 20 might take on supporting rolesin fighting the Tarrasque, serving as diplomatic envoys or searching out magical relics that can help defeat it. It may be that rather than aspiring to defeat it,a Tarrasque centered campaign could focus on how to rebuild from its destruction,lure it away from population centers and predict where it will reappear.
Any battle capable of challenging a level 20 party shouldoffer that party a chance to consider their options.Set aside some time to discuss how the players want to approach an encounter with the Tarrasque.
Research
Legend Lore, history skill checks, library research
As the GM you shoulddecide what information will be provided for differing levels of success.
Buffing before the fight
Foresight, Death Ward, Freedom of Movement, potions of haste and strength.
Players will need to pay careful attention to which buffing abilities can be usedwithout breaking concentration.
Transformation and polymorph forms
Shapechange spell and Druid’s Wildshape
Shapechange provides amassive number of optionsthat can slow down the game severely if the player is not familiar with them.
Players will need toprepare for which forms they want to shape into and have the character sheets for those on hand.
Choose where to fight
Track the Tarrasque’s movement and determine where to interrupt it.
To save yourself from having to prepare maps for all possible scenarios you canhave this planning occur in a session ahead of the actual combat.
Determine how different maps might influence the fight, givingsituational bonuses.
Find a magical item that can help with the fight
While not present in the Fifth Edition Monster Manual, many tables carry forward the rule thatthe Tarrasque can only be permanently killed if a Wish spell is cast on the defeated Tarrasque. Securing a scroll or item able to achieve this may be part of the preparations your players choose to do.
Have side quests available that allow the players togather tools and allies.
Set an in game time limitto force them to choose between the different options.
You will have foreknowledgeof how the players plan to handle the encounter but shouldbe careful to not abuse this knowledge. TheTarrasque is not an intelligent creatureand if the players outsmart it, that should be a well-earned victory.
However, you can consider how it might react to scenarios the players put forward. For example, If the players plan tosnare one of its legsin a trap to prevent it from escaping you might considerwhether the Tarrasque is more likely to bite its way through the trap or continue fightingwhile bound.
Familiarise Yourself With The Tarrasque’s Abilities
The Tarrasque has a simpler toolkitthan most encounters at CR30, but that’s largely because the other two are both deities.Each turn it uses its fear aura and then makes five attacks.
With the amount of text those attacks take up it can be easy to forget that thefear aura cannot affect a creature that has passed its save once, that thebite attack forces a grapple checkand that it also takesthree legendary actions per round.
Another important feature to remember is the uniqueReflective Carapaceit has.Advantage on all saving throws against magicand the ability toreflect spells using attack rollsmake the Tarrasque incredibly resilient against spellcasters, but they require you to know how these features work andremember to roll for themwhenever a spell is cast.
The attacks it deals are less complicated than the passive abilities, but you will still want to note the special effects on the bite and tail:
Using thetail attack firstto knock an enemy prone will togive the Tarrasque disadvantage on follow-up attacks,unless it moves within five feet. Some GMs may decide this rule makes no sense and ignore it.
Thelegendary actions you will want to usein response to specific strategies the players bring out.
Be Willing To Go Off Book
Some groups will derive great satisfaction fromdeveloping an esoteric strategy from detailed in-character research. Other groups will have one player type “Tarrasque strategies” into google and discover thata clay golem is immune to all damage types the Tarrasque can deal. If this is something you’re worried about you can ask your players politely to not metagame the encounter you planned out and researched carefully, or you canshake up its ability setuntil they can’t just look up the correct kryptonite to use.
Another reason to go off book is that the Tarrasque can suffer as an endgame encounter because it is in its purest forma stack of hitpoints and a big attack modifier that hits you five times per round.Most legendary enemies haveinnate spellcasting, lair actions and status effectswhere the Tarrasque instead gets a bigger attack modifier. Running the fight purely as the Monster Manual is writtencan end up being a let-down if the players are used to more dynamic boss fights.
Here are some changes you can make to the Tarrasque and lore explanations for how it could come to be:
Allow its melee attacks to be considered magical.
The Tarrasque’sattacks bypass non-magical damage resistance and immunity.
The Tarrasque is alreadya deeply magical creature by naturewith the way it resists almost all magics and can reflect spells back upon the casters. It doesn’t require any significant explanation to say that its own attacks are also magically augmented.
Allow it to maneuver more easily in a range of environments
The tarrasque can swim or burrow at its full movement speed, forcing the players to fight it on terrains they weren’t prepared for.
The original French mythology of the Tarrasque describes an amalgam of creatures including a large tortoiseshell and a mermaid like tail. Discrepancies between the Tarrasque players expect and the one they find can be attributed toconvoluted mythologies and contradicting testimonies.
Give it a ranged attack or some way of dealing with flying enemies.
You have options for homebrew modifications you can make here, such as letting itbelch its stomach acid as a cone attack,throw or kick rocksinto the air, or shoot blood from its eyes like a horned lizard.
The most terrifying creature in Faerun’s mythologyshould not be so easily bested by an aarakocra with a crossbow. If it could be, somebody would have done it already.
Give it back the healing factor it had in previous editions
The Tarrasqueregains 40 hitpoints at the start of its turn.For a level 20 party facing down the campaign ending threat, this much healing is within manageable levels, but the healing factor willdisable most strategies for defeating it at earlier levels.
One of the most infamous traits of the Tarrasque in older editions of Dungeons & Dragons is that it doesn’t stay dead. In 3.5 edition this was represented by the creature regenerating hitpoints and havingimmunity to instant kill effects such as disintegrate.
Change its creature type from monstrosity to beast
By making it a beastit becomes eligible for a druid to cast Awaken on it, giving it sentience.A Tarrasque with humanoid level intellect is able to leverage its powers in very different ways. Teach it strategy. Enroll it at Strixhaven andteach it to cast spells as a level 30 creature with near complete immunity to enemy spellcasters.
The Monster Manual does not contain an explicit origin story.As DM you’re able to decide it is a naturally occurring creature(beast) and not a wizard’s creation (monstrosity).
Include minions in the fight
Players are unable to penetrate the magic resistance or AC are still able to contribute. This can also reinforce the feeling of threat by demonstrating the impact on the world.
The Tarrasque might befollowed in its rampage by opportunistic lootersor heralded by a stampede of creatures trying to flee from it.
Abilities to interact with the environment
Give it some attacks that leverage itsdouble damage versus buildings.
Allowing the Tarrasque to interact with the environment creates new options for the players in turn.An archer can use a tall building to extend their firing rangeand avoid direct attacks but risks harm if the Tarrasque knocks down the building beneath them.
Increase the movement speed by 20ft or more
Weakens strategies that boil down to “ride a horse at 40ft per turn while shooting it repeatedly”. Increasing the speed can also emphasize the threat it poses in other ways, such asby allowing it to retreat if wounded or even to ignore attackers entirely and focus on demolishing buildings.
The gargantuan sized creature should be able to outrun a horsethe same way a human can outpace an ant.
You might also decide toweaken the Tarrasque in certain ways to tailor the fight to your group:
