D&D Monsters: Using Massive Monsters to Mash a D&D Party

D&D Monsters: Using Massive Monsters to Mash a D&D Party
When using large creatures do they feel like the scariest D&D monsters your players have ever fought? Going through the D&D Monsters Manual when you look at a monster like a dragon, the tarrasque, a giant, or a kraken they should be awe inspiring. But when you put together 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons encounters something seems to fall apart. Here are some ideas for D&D players and Dungeon Masters to spice up these encounters.
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[@Nerdarchy]

Latest Easy Roller Dice Contest- gleam.io/APJRO/win-all-the-easy-roller-dice Help Support Nerdarchy by Shopping at YOUR Favorites Places on the Internet. Just use these links and shop as usual. Nothing changes for you- Amazon- amzn.to/2jf0boA Nerdarchy the Store- goo.gl/M4YZEQ Drive Thru RPG- goo.gl/6nf5zh Easy Roller Dice- goo.gl/1n0M1r D&D and Think Geek Gear- goo.gl/LZAV5z

[@ender8038]

Would you rather fight a Tarrasque sized goblin or a goblin sized Tarrasque?

[@Nerdarchy]

LOL finally someone is asking the hard hitting important questions. Nerdarchist Dave

[@uncleistvan3501]

Well done, you've killed a small Tarrasque. You feel the earth shake and the sun disappears.

[@playtoyx]

Huge goblin.

[@Zankaroo]

I want a tiny tarrasque as a pet.

[@brianbarfield7138]

What are the stats on the Goblin? Does it have legendary actions? Because, if you're just changing the size but keeping most of the stats the same; I'd take that Goblin any day (even if it has 4 damage die for each weapon.)

[@Decado1628]

If my players treat fighting a dragon like fighting a goblin I have totally failed as a DM.

[@Nerdarchy]

I think there might be few more factors involved before we blame ourselves as GMs. But yes it's the DMs job to set the tone and mood. I wouldn't discount the importance of player buy in. Nerdarchist Dave

[@Decado1628]

Nerdarchy Agreed, player buy in is a must.

[@Bluecho4]

Well first, if the party is fighting a dragon, and that dragon isn't using its flying ability to just keep out of range of opponents, you are running a dragon poorly. Unless the party is engaging the dragon in tight quarters, the dragon has no reason to plop himself down on the ground and remain in sword range. He's going to fight according to his strengths, and that includes the ability to fly. He's going to employ hit and run tactics, swooping in to use his attacks and then swoop out. Dragons above wyrmling age have at least one attack with range of 10 feet or more. A dragon should capitalize on that fact. You could also give them some sort of "Swooping" ability that allows them to avoid taking attacks of opportunity when they move in and out of range, if you really needed to maximize their attacks. And, of course, every time it's available, the dragon should be using his breath weapon to inundate the ground with area-of-effect death. If the dragon has spellcasting ability - some make a concerted effort to acquire magical might, above and beyond the innate spellcasting option presented on MM p. 86 - he's going to pepper his foes with spells from a distance in between breath weapons. Does this seem profoundly unfair? Maybe, but it would be entirely in character for a dragon. Dragons won't crawl on the ground to engage the glorified apes swinging swords at them. They have nothing to prove to the groundlings, and dragons generally don't want to die. Dragons will employ all their natural advantages to ensure victory. The party will need to plan and work hard to counter these advantages, hence the challenge.

[@Reapor234]

Something i have planned as the final boss to the campaign i'm running: It's a ancient dragon in the same vein as GW2 elder dragons, meaning it is MASSIVE. So massive, i'n fact, that the battle is going to be set on the creature as it travels through various planes of existence. While in flight mode, there are going to be floating debris that orbits around the dragon magically that will act as platforms if they fall off. The plan is to have this in several phases. The first phase is going to be to try and take out the wings of the dragon (of which there are the two main wings and several smaller wings.) to force it to land. For this fight, there are going to be worshippers to the dragon trying to throw them off/ kill them and every few turns the dragon will do a barrel roll. Once enough of the wings are taken out, it'll land or crash (it'll have to make a save to determine.) on one of a short rotation of said planes of existence. Once it's grounded, there will be various environmental hazards and objects the player will be able to use to damage the dragon to remove as much armor plating as possible. Most of the dragons attacks are going to require dexterity or strength saves rather than an attack roll, because how the hell can i justify rolling a nat 1 for a creature this size? Plus, given its stats, the attacks would just hit regardless except for a nat 1 essentially. The last phase, the dragon will be flightless and not as heavily armored, allowing the players to go for vital areas more easily. It's going to try and rely on its breath attacks and tail to keep melee players at bay. When the creature is on its last leg it's going to tear a rift in reality, which will reduce gravity, expose the dragon's essence, but allow it to more damage in a last ditch effort to survive. It's only going to be officially killed if it takes a certain amount of total damage in a full round rather than track a hit point pool. That's what i've got so far. But, we all know how plans go when they come into contact with players.

[@Lokiskade]

On the damage side, i tend to mitigate the damage done based on the monster part that is attacked. You strike a dragon at one of it's paws ? Cool, your 20 damage is now 5. You stabbed the dragon inside of it's mouth ? A 20 is now a 40. Stuff like that. Basically, i "force" my players to go for the weak points. And yeah, i tend to go ham on the environnemental effects. Winds, buildings crumbling, shit like that. I've never used a Tarrasque yet but would a warrior be hit by one, i'd make him flew in the air or at least go prone or something due to the sheer force the impact would have. Overall, it ups the difficulty but it makes the fight more interesting. And the weak points thing help to mitigate the added difficulty while adding even more coolness to the fights. A barbarian that is forced to make dex saves and checks while scaling a building to be able to jump on a dragons neck and stab it's head is more satisfying for everyone at the table than repeatedly stabbing a toe for x turns.

[@Nerdarchy]

A lot of great ideas in your comment. Nerdarchist Dave

[@Lokiskade]

Thanks ! I'm still a rather beginner DM but my players like the way i handle big monster fights. So i thought i'd share. Wich is lucky because on the other hand, i'm shit at handling a large number of enemies.

[@leewiens9912]

I'm the opposite haha. Large numbers of enemies is great and my players are super engaged and tense, but my single monster fights have been a bit lackluster.

[@carnivoriousleaf]

How do you handle the communication of these multiplicative factors? Do you let them just say "I attack the body"?

[@Lokiskade]

More or less yes. It goes with the way you describe the encounter. If, while describing the monster and the battlefield, they get that if they don't move, they'll only hit the giant's knees at best, they'll try to change position or do jump attacks, etc etc. If they don't specify anything, i'll assume they'll attack the body or the only part available and describe what happens so they understand why it only dealt reduced (or augmented) damage. And the DC will go up on case by case but mostly for spells and range attacks (since they don't have the reach problem a sword would have). The player get the concept quite quickly and you don't really have to remind them of it after the first fight. And this only applies on huge and gargantuan monsters. I tend to let them keep the concept of head shots on all monsters for fun (but with an harder DC) but on something like a troll or a human, they should be able to hit efficiently in all cases. So i apply normal rules on those fights. It's mostly a question of immersion and flair. Encourage them to do "cool actions" in fights and they'll go for the head by themselves without even thinking about bonus damage of shit like that. It will just come naturally. And since the bonus damage is a reward for it, they'll like to do it even more. There's no real need to communicate it. It just comes in the flow of the battle.

[@merlinmeurer5339]

3.5 had squashing rules. The terrasque steps on you for 30d6+str and kills you. Or just eats you for 10d6 bludge and 10d6 acid per round. Or throws a stone!

[@Nerdarchy]

The rules are roughly in the dmg. Rhe damage by level chart is your best friend in this case. 5e expects the dm to come with more of this stuff. Both freeing and more challenging at the same time. Nerdarchist Dave

[@jonahromero7476]

@@Nerdarchy I'm so happy I read this comment right here. I don't know how I forgot about this page over my course of dming for a few years! I'm trying to set up an encounter right now and this is a good Gauge to work around.

[@WandersNowherre]

@Nerdarchy YES. I love this video. This is definitely something that has bothered me about D&D monsters for a long time and something that I try to homebrew around in my own games. In particular, really huge beasties not having any kind of knockdown with their attacks - you can shove someone to the ground, but a dragon's tail attack doesn't even knock you prone, it's just a stack of bludgeoning damage. And don't get me started on Tyrannosaurus rex having a tail attack at all - why? It's a huge theropod dinosaur, it's a mouth with legs, the tail is just there for balance. I'd swap that out for a hind-claw kick that can knock prone and pin an opponent underfoot. I tend to homebrew in a lot of 'pushed/thrown X feet', 'knocked prone' and 'pinned/grappled' with big monsters, but for the really Godzilla ones I can definitely see everything you talked about in this video being useful. I'd maybe add "lair actions" even outside its actual lair to represent the collateral environmental damage of the rampaging beastie - rubble flying everywhere, trees falling over - maybe bring back "Trample" make anyone whose space the creature moves through take damage / be knocked prone and anyone in adjacent squares be knocked prone when it uses its Movement?

[@cunningcrawler1429]

I run a tal'dorei game and my players were in the city below the vecna fight so they had an approaching Titan. Once the Titan entered the city every step it made, they had to roll Dex save or get knocked prone. But I had a lot of environmental effects. This was last night so the video is up if you want to skip to the end and see how it went. 😁

[@Nerdarchy]

Another great example of a way to use big beasties. Nerdarchist Dave

[@RiptornRory]

I had my party be able to use an enlarge spell to fight a purple wurm. The fighter was able to grapple the wurm and made the battle really smooth but still had the wurm get away and pose a threat. Just the ideal of an oversized dude headlocking a giant purple wurm? That's what D&D is all about, making it work!

[@varietasVeritas]

No dragon could fly without magic. And bumblebees use magic too.

[@Daves-not-here]

Typically I just have them fight it and not pay to much attention to it but listening to this I think I might just start making them rather legendary fights.

[@Daves-not-here]

I mean I just started a new campaign and have a few legendary dragons floating about in the world I think I will try this out when my party gets around to them.

[@Nerdarchy]

Awesome happy to inspire some ideas. Nerdarchist Dave

[@OccultistCaveman2112]

Really glad I saw this. Cleared up something that my dad always told me from his experience with 2nd edition. He always told me that things like the Trasq and Dragons should be treated as forces of nature 1st and monsters 2nd.

[@masterjoedude]

I usually run a party of 5-8 so I HEAVILY modify these monsters. Legendary actions in between EVERYONES turn, BIG dice rolls (15d10 fire breaths for example), legendary resistances equal to the number of players. Use monster hunter as a example of a monster who doesn’t stop fighting

[@pyron5277]

I’ve started working on a campaign focusing around 7 Gargantuan monsters as the main threat. This video was SUPER helpful for giving me ideas that will make them feel like powerful titans and forces of nature without just jacking up their hp and damage numbers. Thank you so much

[@knightghaleon]

When taking on a Red Dragon, my warlock cast elemental weapon on a single ballista shot, turning the massive spear arrow into a giant ice projectile. Basically slammed the thing in the chest with an ice war hammer.

[@criticalmasterpiece6706]

Nerdarchy, I love this video. I make similar problems with creatures that have abilities that the players do not have, such as fly. (Dragon) Wind gusts, obscurement and a difficulty with holding on and trying to swing a weapon while the creature is flying at top speed. (G-forces) or a roar that defend anyone X feet in front of the creature. Great video!!!

[@Nerdarchy]

Glad you enjoyed it. We had fun making it. Nerdarchist Dave

[@nes819]

Monsters wich reach such enormouse sizes, most likely also reached enormouse ages. As such I scale their living experience aswell as their efects. A colosal dragons breathweapon not onely causes enormouse amounts of damage, it also creates an elemental environment (burning ground/acidic pitt/poisonouse goo/frozen ground/static charged debree...) You can also add parasidic lifeforms to them wich threaten the players as the action of battle causes them to lose gripp. (I imagine stuff like ankegs or entire coboldtribes wich just live on the tarasqes boddy/ maby some smaler elementals on dragons boddys)

[@Varatho]

A lot of the massive monsters suffer from the same three problems: They are Relatively Slow, Ground-Bound (meaning no advanced forms of movement), and lack Ranged Attacks.

[@Nerdarchy]

Even their speeds don't seem accurate to me. I drove a truck for years. Everyone would do everything they could to not get stuck behind the slow truck. The thing is they are slow off of the line and to stop, but once they get going they aren't slow at all. Same with big monsters, because they would have huge gaits covering tons of ground with each step. Nerdarchist Dave

[@Mr911superstar]

If you guys ever want to sync something, like that kinda weak synced snap for the ad, you could try splicing the video down the middle and manually sync them in post

[@Nerdarchy]

We technical stuff is a bit of our weak spot. That is why we send our vids out. It was done in post. Or do mean shoot the sponsor ad separately? Nerdarchist Dave

[@Mr911superstar]

@@Nerdarchy I thought it was a separate shot but it must be a zoom cut, there's an edit that you can apply the video down the middle and align the video track to be synchronized together, but I suppose it's not overly useful if you send them out

[@merridiangremlin1539]

Actually this sort of thing came up for my lvl 3 rogue gnome. We had to get wyvern venom. We decided the monster was too powerful so my gnome came up with the idea to trap its head in a cage tied to the ground so it can’t fly or bite. Fighter grabbed the tail and we milkedthe venom from it, fed it, told it we were sorry for the trouble then let it go.

[@namelesshenchman9310]

Love this video and panicking commoners get hit by PC's or leaving them under rubble can make some really akward encounters later

[@jamesembry4921]

I loved some of the ideas brought up here. There was some stuff here that I have honestly never considered.

[@3769Chris]

Wow you guys totally geeked out on the large monsters. Some really good thoughts on how to incorporate huge monsters in your game.

[@Horde1Blades]

When my high level players are fighting gargantuan sized monsters i tend to describe martial attacks with anime physics. A sword slash cuts far deeper than the blade's own surface, a fist causes huge shockwaves, arrows cause sonic booms when being loosed from their bows, etc. I just think it makes sense, it is the only way i can visualize the heroes taking down a dragon or a Tarrasque without describing it as an MMO "lol you hit it's ankles so much it dropped dead"

[@Bluecho4]

Honestly, anything that big ought to have resistance to ground-based attacks (at least of bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing) that only have a range of 5 feet. Showing how you can whack at the shins all day, but it's not necessarily going to kill the creature.

[@kyleward3914]

I had a session earlier in my current campaign with two encounters: a blue dragon, and a bunch of goblin cowboys riding giant naked mole rats. I don't know if it's sad or wonderful that the ten or so goblins outperformed the dragon significantly. My players have learned not to fear the thing I throw one of at them but rather the thing I throw ten or twenty of.

[@stitchthealchemist1520]

Action economy, baby! And I am totally stealing the goblin cowboys, thank you!

[@AbrokennoseOUCH]

This gave me a pretty cool idea for a fight: The players have a wizard and a fighter are riding on the back of a magic carpet. The red dragon is flying around its volcanic lair. The players have jumped on to it's back and get in some damage, then the dragon gets an idea. While the players are on it's back blasting and stabbing away it takes a dive into the lava pool of it's volcano. And players gone. Or hella Dex saves.

[@i8u2manytimes]

A boss fight of that size should be done in a similar way to a select few of the bosses in monster hunter 4 ultimate and world. Where there are cannons littered around everywhere, your weapons don't do that much damage to it and you need an army in order to take it down. Have something esqu to a dragonator to do heaps of damage to it if you can lure the creature to where you want it, have cannons placed to draw it's agro and do a bit of poke damage, have the warrior try to jump on it's head to point it into the direction you want it to go while distracting it from the others underneath it. Make it a story, not just I roll to hit, I hope it doesn't hit me, I roll to hit

[@Bluecho4]

I can think of a few ways to make Huge or Gargantuan creatures _FEEL_ their size. Let's use Giants as an example. If a creature is tall enough, it's possible for them to step over barriers that Medium or Small folk would consider major obstacles. Like the crumbling walls of a ruined building; the giant is tall enough to step over the wall, while the PCs might need to run around it. Depending on the state of the ruins, it might take a prohibitive amount of time for them to run around, scale, or break through that wall. While we're talking about that wall, maybe allow the giant to make a Strength check, and potentially knock said wall down. Potentially on top of the PCs, acting as both an attack they have to roll to avoid, and something to bury them if they fail. The fallen and broken wall may also turn the area it fell into difficult terrain. On the flipside, that fall is also no longer a barrier. So it becomes risk-reward for the giant. If you want more mechanics, you could take a page from Dark Souls 3, and make it so _where_ the party can reach dictates how much damage they do. Make a rule that the giant has resistance to damage to melee attacks that don't have greater than 5 feet of reach. That way, the party can't just hack at the giant's shins and expect him to go down anytime soon. Whereas those with ranged attacks or magic can be more effective...so you might think of giving them magic resistance or something. Otherwise, melee fighters will either need to slog through the fight, try to achieve higher elevation (scale walls, run to upper floor, benefit from spells like Fly or Jump), use a weapon with longer reach (pikes, whips, thrown weapons), or find a way to make the giant go prone.

[@patsutherland6853]

I usually give my giant monsters unique abilities and high stakes apperances such as a tarrasque with a blue dragons lightning breath weapon attacking the players favorite city or a death knight who followed the path of lichdom and has spells from both the wizard and paladin class lists. (Basically Arthas from Warcraft 3) Whenever I use a large monster I make sure it fights as effectively as possible and if I didn't down at least one player, either I did something wrong or the players came up with an amazing plan with the dice on their side. Either way, you always have a satisfying battle.

[@retractedhack]

These are some great ideas. I've been trying to plan an epic encounter for a while now and I wanted it to me a bit more narrative than combat focuses as I thought confining to combat rules would lessen the impact of fighting an epic monster.

[@dananiswonger4794]

One of my favorite gaming memories is when my party (3 paladins and a druid) fought an adult white dragon as a favor to an ancient copper dragon friend of ours. My oath of ancients paladin grabbed it by the tail and the druid melded my feet into stone so the dragon couldn't fly away. The other 2 paladins closed in and just went crazy with the smites against the dragon's chest and belly.

[@Hidden_Egg]

Nice, totally better video quality this time. I am loving it fellas.

[@Nerdarchy]

Glad you are digging it. We continue to hone our craft. Nerdarchist Dave

[@mattbriddell9246]

For modeling damage for monsters stepping on players, creatures like Bulettes and Giants essentially have Crush-type abilities. I'd model something like that and scale up based on size.

[@shallendor]

In one game at Wargames West, a halfling thief was taken into the mouth of a dragon, and the next turn he started using his daggers to climb down the dragon's throat while the rest of the party kept attacking the dragon!

[@ardinhelme687]

*Opens video* *Sees giant dragon mini* *squints* Is that Thordak?

[@natethenerdarch3916]

Haha. Before there was Thordak there was colossal red Dragon "minis".

[@BlackJar72]

"Earthshaker!" by David "Zeb" Cook -- that's rare time really BIG was made to work!

[@carlosvillanueva8530]

I tend to use Mcfarlan'es dragons, as miniatures for my dragons because I think to scale that is what your character would perceive. You are 1 inch-1.5 inches tall well the dragon is six inches tall and 22 inches long and has a wingspan a foot and a half. The dragon snaps stalagmites like it's a twig, when a dragon decides it wants to land in a forest, it lands trees be damned. And most importantly use their magic, they're dragons give them first edition spells, like stone skin, invisibility, polymorph other. You wasted your best spells to kill that cow, the dragon is now between you and the door, you can tell because it's the cow breathing a cone of fire, surprise! When they encounter a dragon the players should pee themselves.

[@BLynn]

Of course size matters, you biggens always miss us Halflings.

[@Nerdarchy]

Right? Where's the halfling love? Nerdarchist Dave

[@AzraelThanatos]

For a lot of the really massive monsters, don't treat them as a monster for combat. Treat them as more terrain than creature unless it's involving some massive spellwork or the like to take it down. Going inside the monster could be an adventure in and of itself as you go...

[@dogs-game-too]

I might use that idea, thanks!

[@honkeykong4049]

"Surely my party is too smart to throw an eldritch blast at a T-Rex who is minding its own business and hasn't even noticed them there." There were not.

[@UnclePeter]

Love throwing Large creatures into my combats, makes things more interesting!

[@gwwolf4475]

Monsters, especially big ones, should definitely have a lot of impact.

[@Cxdfc]

I give monsters of huge/gigantic the same ability as the “hellfire engine” That thing enters your space... save or get squashed, losing precious turn economy as people need to free you or you need to use your acion to get out... and then give bosses LEGENDARY TRAMPLE Also, in general they don’t care about building HP. The 30 STR titan dragon can and will throw a castle spire at the party if he wants to

[@SkullDixon]

The First thing that any new DM/Gm should be told is that you can think outside the monster stats box. I mean, think about the Attacks that are available to a monster. Most doesn't have Grapples listed as an action and so a newbie or less experienced DM might think that the monster is unable to take that kind of action.

[@Bluecho4]

Exactly. The Monster Manual often has monsters who can grapple as a part of another attack (like tentacles), but doesn't cover the fact that the general DnD rules cover grappling. So it never occurs to many DMs that a giant should be able to just _pick up_ a PC. Followed a turn later by crushing the PC in his hand, or throwing them against a wall.

[@ggwalker89]

Lots of good ideas in this video! Going to share it with my DM.

[@Zankaroo]

To make things a little more epic for gargantuan and colossal creatures you could do what several video games have done for decades and make different parts of the creature target-able to weaken it. Say a party is fighting a powerful storm giant king. Instead of attacking it as one thing the melee have to focus on one of its leg to make it bend a knee and then they are able to attack the body and main HP pool. No matter how big a guy is smash their knee and they will fall. Of coarse this would require tweaking to the creature to keep the encounter fairish.

[@Nerdarchy]

While true a smash to the will make anyone bend it, but imagine a mouse smashing your knee. How much bending do you imagine happening? Grant we are talking about fantasy games and epic heroes. So it's a good mechanic to implement. Nerdarchist Dave

[@muffledpsyche8127]

a rat bite to the Achilles tendon would put me on a knee for sure.

[@Zankaroo]

Realistically you would have to think of the giant's leg like a tree trunk. Each swing of the barbarians axe chips away at it and digs deeper making a much bigger and more serious wound. Eventually the pain would be to much and they would either be hobbling around on one leg with a high chance of tripping and falling prone or just take a knee and maintain a better fighting posture. A team of mice with +3 weapons will still chew threw your ankles, lol.

[@Bluecho4]

I would make it so that, if the PC manages to score a critical hit, they manage to disrupt the giant enough to make the giant roll to avoid being knocked prone.

[@pootieheadroflmao]

That's what she said.... "Does size matter?" Pffffft XD

[@HowtoRPG]

I dial everything up and modify the monster.

[@arcturuslight_]

I was not really impressed by the size of the Tarrasque in the monsters manual. Yes, it has hight of 4-5 tyrannosaurus, but it seemed to me not enough for a monster walking through the trunks of ancient trees and the walls of buildings without noticing them.

[@Nerdarchy]

One of might greatest disappointments with 5th edition is the shrinking of monsters. :( Nerdarchist Dave

[@Zankaroo]

Dinosaurs in general to me seem lack luster. T-rex is still a T-rex a guy in a tin suit is still lunch.

[@justinharris7181]

Though it's off subject i finally figured it out I'm now a second level nerdarchist!!! Whoot!

[@NobodyDungeons]

So one game I played was a kind of D&D shadow of the colossus where we were tasked with killing the massive legendary creatures that have been slumbering for centuries and are just now waking up and reeking havoc across are home brewed D&D setting the GM called the campaign hunt of the leviathans because every massive creature was a home brewed leviathan sized creature bigger than a tarrasque some by were even several times larger than a tarrasque and most were originally normal creatures that just grew in power and size dramatically as time went on

[@howdareyouexist]

wow, very cool

[@justinharris7181]

Oh Dave and Ted I have a question?! So I was thinking of making a character who fights these huge monsters and turns them into armor right? What would you make the armor made from the terasque carapace be like? Type of armor, abilities, and all that?

[@Nerdarchy]

Some sick ass magic plate that grants magic resistance. Nerdarchist Dave

[@justinharris7181]

@@Nerdarchy think it would cast the spells back like the actual carapace? Give it a roll or chance?

[@varietasVeritas]

The ancient dragons claw attack is the same 2 d6 as a brown bear? I don't think so!

[@Bluecho4]

Yeah, but it also gets 2 of them (and a bite, AND a frightful presence), and those claw attacks are have 10 foot range. That last bit might seem minor, until you remember that dragons can fly, and indeed should be doing so as a matter of course. The ideal holding pattern a dragon should maintain is to be constantly swooping into and out of range, at a height of 15 feet, so the dragon is out of range of most melee PCs but IN range of his attacks. And he's only using those attacks while he waits for his breath weapon to recharge, the REAL source of his damage.

[@yourdadsotherfamily3530]

Lmfao this is like sports center for DND that’s badass

[@kyleellis9177]

The Tarrasque is so big every step should knock armies off their feet

[@lestervinghail5654]

Along with all the hazardous effects mentioned, I’ve started multiplying h.p. by size category.

[@Lastofthesigilites]

A wizard can use magic jar on a hill giant! They are humanoids and are weak to hold persons. Imagine an 11th level War Mage concentrating on Haste grants +4 AC on top of the 13 natural armor.

[@Nerdarchy]

As fun as that idea is hill giants type giant. Humanoid is a creature type. Nerdarchist Dave

[@joriandrake]

I have a question regarding 5e: If a Cleric can cast the Eldritch Blast as a clerical spell and it also multiclasses into Warlock would the cantrip benefit from things like the Warlock's invocations and a cleric's Potent Spellcasting? It's supposed to be treated as a cleric spell in this case but I'm not sure the invocations would affect it or change it that way.

[@Nerdarchy]

I'm not sure how a cleric would get eldritch blast on their spell list. It would be up to the dm or depend on the wording of each individual ability. Nerdarchist Dave

[@joriandrake]

Thanks for noticing the question Dave. It's a custom Domain that is giving it (or rather, allows player to pick 2 Warlock cantrips as lvl1 Divine Domain feature), so the cleric is sure to get it (similar to how other Domains or archetypes like for bard or wizard allow choices from other spell lists) thus the question remains how the spell which now is considered a Cleric spell would interact with Warlock invocations if multiclassed and have Potent Spellcasting affect it? Perhaps a similar scenario would occur if a bard of the College of Lore would get Eldritch Blast as Bard spell then multiclass into warlock for the Invocations? The difference is that both Bard/Warlock are CHA casters while a Cleric/Warlock would use both WIS and CHA, which might allow a character to combine the cleric's Potent Spellcasting WIS-to-damage bonus and the Warlock's Agonizing Blast CHA-to-damage bonus. This is what concerns me most atm.

[@doomdoot6731]

Assuming a Dragon is capable of flight without using magic (disregarding the discrepency between depicted and realistically required wingspan), I would estimate that a 7m tall, 20m long dragon (~20ft and 60ft) would be somewhere in multiple metric tons of weight. If that thing just gently shakes it's hide, it likely shakes at roughly 3 "shakes" a second, assuming it moves roughly as fast as we humans do (angular velocity). For me, I'd estimate that shaking my upper body - or rather, twisting my torso - rotates me around 30°ish in total. Let's halve that for the dragon. So you have 6x7.5° in turns that the adventurers have to deal with in one second while holding on. Assuming that the dragon is roughly 20ft across at its shoulder area - using the "gargantuan" token as an estimate - , the adventurer should be roughly 10ft away from the dragon's core/spine. That means the adventurers are being moved 8.3% of the dragon's height each rotation (Maths in Add1), which would equal out to roughly 2ft per "shaking". The motion itself would take roughly a third of the time, with a rough estimate of a a tenth of that time being spent changing directions (no guarantee on numbers here). So a single motion would move the adventurer at 2ft in roughly .3 seconds with .03 seconds reserved for changing directions. The speed they move at would be 6ft/s (not that impressive) and their turn-acceleration would be somewhere around 400ft/s² (Add2). So they'd experience roughly 13-14G of stress on their system, which should in theory be enough to throw any person off - the adventurer would have to be able to hold on to ~3900-4200 pounds in order to support this force. For the question of how far the adventurers would be flung, I'd propose this (very much no guarantee of the maths here): The adventurer is accelerated to 400ft/s at the point they can't hold on anymore. In free fall, they are decelerated by ~30ft/s². So I would *assume* the adventurer would fly up for roughly 13 seconds, before their flight comes to an abrupt end, and they fall back down for 13 seconds. Quick maths (Add3) shows that the adventurer would be flung up roughly 2535 feet into the air. Now, if we go back to my original point of the 20m long, 7m tall dragon, there's a realistic chance your adventurers are just chunky salsa, if they fail their save. A T-Rex is estimated to have been somewhere between 6 and 15 tons of mass, and while they're a good 50% shorter than our estimated dragon (sidenote A), dragons would need a lighter physiology than "bulk of muscles" to be able to fly. So let's just go with the 15 tons of mass. So yeah, if you can somehow justify a 15 ton monster landing straight on top of your adventurers, you're probably DMing wrong, because that adventurer is dead. The only way I see to mitigate that problem would be to just say "you failed the save, so you don't manage to avoid the move entirely, but you manage to reduce the brunt of the impact", so your player is not instant chunky salsa. If we're taking a realistic approach on this, we could estimate the force which the mass of the dragon exerts on the human. Again, we have to assume some numbers to make this work, but bear with me: A player in full equipment should be somewhere around the 200-300 pounds of mass, considering they are wearing armor, weapons, useless junk, more weapons, more junk, loads of metal coins, etc.. A dragon was estimated by us to be in the 15000kg range. Quick conversions to have both be in the same system: 300 pounds vs ~33000 pounds. The dragon is literally 110x more massive than the human. So if the dragon would actually lay down on top of the human, placing all their weight on them, the human would experience stress equal to 111G on their system. For reference: An astronaut during a rocket launch experiences 3G. A plane crash puts the same stress on the human body *without* placing another 15 tons somewhat permanently on top of the person. So, *TL;DR for this comment: The adventurer would most likely not be able to hold on to a dragon shaking at all, and be flung over the limit for maximum fall damage if they tried. If the dragon instead decided to belly-flop onto the adventurers, they would be very much mushed as well. Both is calculated taking "realistic" estimates of how stuff would work in our world.* Add1: Dragon is 20ft tall. 7.5°/90° ~ 0.083 ~ 8.3%. 90° used as a benchmark for 20ft, because I am really lazy and spent way too much time on this comment already. The accurate number would probably we somewhat larger, considering a dragon is not a "square" block, that you just move up and down along. Add2: Acceleration is velocity/time (change of velocity over some time). The velocity changes from +6ft/s to -6ft/s in 0.03 seconds. So we have a change of 12ft/s over 0.03s, which would make it a 400ft/s² acceleration. Add3: d = (a/2)*t² with d = distance flung, a = downwards acceleration due to gravity (~30ft/s²) and t = time spent falling. punch in the numbers and you get a lovely 15*13² = 2535 ft falldistance. Sidenote A: A T-rex would be only half the length of our estimated dragon, but roughly 86% of the height of our dragon. Just thought that was interesting.

[@Nerdarchy]

Wow. I asked for it. That was amazing. Thanks for all the maths. Nerdarchist Dave

[@docartemis2878]

Overlord IV Thank you for running the math to confirm that yes, a fully grown dragon would pulp a small army of humans with no issue, even without breathing fire. Seriously though, that is an impressive amount of math, thank you for sharing.

[@Nerdarchy]

@@docartemis2878 right he totally killed it. Nerdarchist Dave

[@robertpeterson9871]

+Overlord IV: Great write up on the maths and I agree with the overall conclusion. Dragon wins but I have a few disagreements on the specifics. particularly with the fall/throwing calcs. I'm not sure I agree with your contention that the acceleration used to calculate the force needed to withstand the shake should be based on the +6ft/s to -6ft/s especially. The acceleration needed move from a fixed position to 2 ft away in .33 sec is 44.4ft/s2 (a=2d/t2 where d =2 ft and t =.30) this would provide a velocity of 13.3 ft/s. Using your contention that it would take .03 sec to begin the reverse shake the acceleration would be from +13.3ft/s to 0 ft/sec over a time of .03 sec which would lead to an Acceleration of 444 ft/s2 and your mentioned 3900-4200 lbs of force. but their velocity would only be at most the 13.3 ft/s since the acc would be in the opposite direction of their movement and would act to slow them down and would only be acting on the adventure for .03 sec. This would lead to a height of (13.33/30.2)*13.33 = 5.8 Ft thrown if thrown straight up from the dragon. Although I am not sure that acceleration from the turn around shouldn’t be based on half of the .33 sec assuming as much time to accelerate as decelerate. This would lead to an acc only 71 ft/s2 and a maximum velocity of 21.6 ft/s which in the OP example would lead to 600-700 lb of force to hold on something that is potentially possible for short periods. At a minimum I think this gives an upper and lower bound to the example presented.

[@doomdoot6731]

+Robert Peterson Looking through my own post, I agree that the acceleration part was somewhat butchered there. The adventurer would indeed be flung up with a speed of 13.3ft/s, not my assumed 400ft/s; somewhat of a brainfart on my part I guess - especially since the adventurer would only be accelerated for .03 seconds even IF we somehow took the 400ft/s into account. The falldamage as such would be way lower, but then again that is assuming we only portray a dragon's "basic" shaking move, not actually going into "what if the dragon actually applied force". I still stand by my original point that if the dragon tried, it could easily fling an adventurer further up than the falldamage limit would allow for dice to be rolled, just not as "effortless" as I portrayed it. I chose the .03 seconds instead of 0.15 seconds, because I assume it doesn't take as much time to change direction on a 7° turn, as it would take time to actually execute that turn. Looking at...well, a human's turn-speed while shaking ourselves, I found that it is not actually really measurable. The acceleration and deceleration when switching the direction while shaking is actually pretty high, since you are basically decelerating on the spot. Of course, I am assuming here that a dragon could translate a motion a human can do 1:1, which in itself is something *very* much up for debate, and as I said, I'm assuming numbers that seem right. And again, somewhat leaning onto my sidenote A, even the size of the dragon is somewhat a "random" number taken from the rough estimate we could get from character tokens - disregarding the fact that "gargantuan" is the game telling you to choose any token size larger than 25x25 (or 20x20?). Adding to that, the distance moved itself would probably be larger as well, considering that the maximum movement at 360° wouldn't be "Dragon's height x2", but actually somewhat closer to an eliptical shape. And I really felt too lazy to actually go into the eliptical shape of a dragon's body, so I just chose the 20ft as a "placeholder" benchmark. The actual distance moved in that 7.5° turn might very well be closer to 5 or even 6ft - again, very much dependant on the dragon. The 7.5° themselves were another "reasonable estimate" I used, considering that I myself estimated a rough 30° turn when shaking, and I assume that dragons do not have the capability to turn along their spine-axis as we do. So the degrees themselves might be larger or smaller as well. TL;DR: A lot in my comment was based on somewhat reasonable guesses and assumptions, and I think the core conclusion I draw from the "rough outline" maths still holds true. I did mess up on the acceleration vs velocity part though, no excuses there.

[@nestorskip9410]

Awesome video, guys! 😊

[@Nerdarchy]

Thanks it was a ton of fun to shoot. Nerdarchist Dave

[@ptrlyonawesome]

5E doesn't handle size very well. I have considered giving resistance to creatures that are two categories larger unless they are at equal height.

[@millerjames908]

Well as DM (pathfinder) I had my barbarian drink a potion of acid resistance and try to get the Dragon to swallow him

[@Nerdarchy]

Sound tactic for a barbarian. Nerdarchist Dave

[@millerjames908]

@@Nerdarchy It worked for 3 rounds until the Dragon threw him up like a cat.

[@spaz_taz4910]

So i have a encounter intended for the end of a campaign, its supposed to be the size of large mountains, my question is how does a party fight such a creature?.

[@uncleistvan3501]

The question is do they sound squishy or more on the crunchy side?

[@draxthemsklonst]

"Kray-kin" like crayfish (nearly amphibious aquatic monster and whatnot)? That makes considerably more since now...not being sarcastic.

[@Error-eb9gv]

The ancient dragon tail whips you into the air, roll a dex save. You save and don't die immediately your turn, you find yourself 200 feet in the air how do you respond.

[@Nerdarchy]

Feather fall from the wizard. Nerdarchist Dave

[@Error-eb9gv]

@@Nerdarchy if you free fall your round letting the wizard cast feather fall you spend 2 rounds airborne and if you cast it on your self it would take 3 round falling 60 feet a round to the ground with no damage but only able to make range attacks for that time. For a wizard or ranger not to shabby but it would make since to give disadvantage to dex saves while airborne.

[@uncleistvan3501]

14.15 I see the Easy Roller Dice (Affiliate Link), not the Gleam contest link.

[@Nerdarchy]

Sorry about that I goofed up. Here is the link- gleam.io/APJRO/win-all-the-easy-roller-dice -Nerdarchist Dave

[@BenEdge2010]

Great tips for an aspiring dm.

[@waynebirch4427]

Single based will always be slaughtered easily as players get more actions per round unless u take that edge away. Like 100ft shaft with cave fisher just in range of someone looking over the edge. Suddenly saving pc while dealing with terrain gives the monster a chance, remember to place water at the bottom on the shaft heroic rescue will see someone high drive.

[@nicholascastellano5909]

Just want to say that Ted has a great shirt.

[@michaelwinter742]

Can you make a video on how to include crazy or incompetent players? In my adventure’s league we sometimes get ..ahem, “special” players. I don’t think we do a very good job welcoming them and making the game accessible. Honestly, I feel these players could benefit most from D&D. Nothing extreme, but how to be a DN or player with high functioning autism players, emotionally misfiring, poor choice makers, and/or those with poor comprehension.

[@Nerdarchy]

Calling people with mental health issues is a bit insensitive to say the least. We aren't qualified to speak on specifics of this topic. I'd look up Dr. Megan Connell on Twitter- Check out Dr. Megan Connell (@MeganPsyD): twitter.com/MeganPsyD?s=09 We've done some videos but not specifics. Nerdarchist Dave

[@Seelenverheizer]

siegeweapons are the only suited weapon to kill old dragons

[@Faradars1]

In 5e exist oportunity attacks for reach ? For enter a monster with 3 squares reach for example

[@shadowblade3587]

I had a DM where attack an area once did 0 HP damage bur hide damage so you had to attack areas more then once but attack anything that was not head neck or chest areas only slowed or made it harder for the thing to hit you

[@BBP081]

Does anyone know what the mini with the horns is on the right at 2:49 ?

[@NobodyDungeons]

personally I would just crank the difficulty level up to 11 and make the creature act in a some what intelligent manner in other words if it can kill you by sitting on you it will

[@Goobhr]

A giant riding a tarrasque

[@graveyardshift2100]

Powerful Build, Bear Totem Barbarian, Brawny feat, have two separate casters Enlarge you, Tavern Brawler. You may now use a building as a weapon. On that note. Can you do a video where you look into the effects of bigger than average improvised weapons? Like, how much damage would a wagon do if you threw it at someone, and would they be knocked over?

[@twilightgardenspresentatio6384]

Awesome shirt there

[@mitchcowan1446]

What's a Kray-kin? ;)

[@draxthemsklonst]

Try using a T'd-Off-Matt.

[@andrewclelland8809]

The bigger they are the harder they fall...right?

[@Arkanoid1212]

At a certain level they should not fall, i think. They have stats, sure, still they are rather a force integral to the gameworld. To destroy these, especially the uniques is a loss to the gameworld as such. They do work much better as mobile plot elements than a combat encounter.

[@drakkonusfrostburn4038]

😏 *That thumb nail* *YES!*

[@Arkanoid1212]

Well, in the old CRPGs you had a certain level of abstraction. This is pretty similar. It works mechanically, sure, but visualizing it there are questions. Oh boy. Stabbing around the feet of a Tarrasque may be mechanically sound, but... it really dosn't work that way immersively. I'd rather consider them plot elements that have to be defeated creatively outside of standard mechanics. On design ideas, i am a bit a biology buff and i like dragons so i came up with the Dragon Leaf. Its actually a plant resembling a dragon, taking inspiration from elysia chlorotica, a photosynthetic slug - kinda the other way around, treants and of course dragons. Vital spots - difficult for plants. Fire, sure. There are plants which reproduce in fire, of course, a trait more than fitting in this case. Spore breath weapon, naturally. Of course the creation of an insane warlock, maybe tied to its benefactor?

[@palexanderrice]

like everything in d&d, everything is written as a guide, same go for stat blocks. they’re just there so that the dm doesn’t have to come up with everything. if you’re using stat blocks solely as is, you’re doing it wrong. low lvl players always seem to have trouble with the lower lvl monsters while high lvls, most characters can do one hit kills. as a dm, you’re suppose to balance the game yourself and not use everything wotc or others create to aid you.

[@NerdEagle90]

This is something I am still working on as a newbie DM. I always find myself just using the statblocks solely as is, with some reskinning (e.g. reskinning a Remorhaz as a Desert Worm Creature). But I am slowly easing my way into creating totally original creatures and just using the stat blocks of other monsters as a starting base.

[@Nerdarchy]

All your points are valid. But newer dms struggle with this kind of stuff. That is why we do these videos. Or others interpret the rules to literally. Nerdarchist Dave

[@sinitassu]

I am utterly bored with parts of our D&D campaign just because of this. Fights feel like nothing as we are approaching lvl18 and it is just always a bigger monster with bigger pile of hit points. Every time a fight starts I am instantly just going through routines with my sorceror. Our DM does not make any interesting enemies or fights. They are mostly just random encounter level shit.

[@Nerdarchy]

Have you talked to your DM about it? Sometimes people don't know there is a problem. Nerdarchist Dave

[@sinitassu]

We have. I think the problem is that the game is basically a secondary game for the DM. Our Shadowrun campaign (same gm) does not have the same lackluster effort.

[@greenlanternray]

you guys rock!

[@bernardotorres7166]

way of the open hand and probe a colosal!

[@claytonchaney2961]

Custom make attacks and enviro changes all the time and on the fly

[@JC-rp1lc]

nice vid

[@dragonmaster613]

the Sterling Vermin Adventuring Guild has a supplement for fighting huge creatures. sterlingvermin.com/2018/04/05/golema-unit-1/ It is called Bakemono Sentai Dunger and is in the style of Power Rangers

[@majesticgothitelle1802]

What about earthquakes every time the monster take a step it's make it hard for the player to move. Do to the rapid shaking of the Earth

[@Rajaat99]

Yes, you can kill a huge creature by striking its legs. It'll bleed out, or if you slice through a tendon, it may not be able to walk.

[@josiahhagen4194]

Love it

[@dananderson5516]

Yes, it does...

[@mymy4717]

Yes.

[@Warrivftw]

Big monsters

[@kitsunehokkyoko2920]

response to 11:42 The rules have no explicit guidance on falling kinematics. Mostly,( thankfully? would suck to have to do trig everytime you fell in D&D ) so we can chuck most of that out the window. You take 1d6 bludgeoning damage per 10ft fallen, up to a max of 20d6 (PHB p.183). You fall at a rate of 500ft/round (XGtE p.77) as Dave suggests, what kind of falling damage would you take if it just shook you off? at 50ft high ( assuming you were standing on the terrasques' head ), you'd take 5d6 but that's no fun. i did the number crunching, if the terrasque threw a player full power they'd take 63d6 falling damage upon impact with the ground. i ignored the rule about improvised weapons having a max range of 60 ft ( would player characters count as improvised projectiles ? ) i rolled it out and got 221 bludgeoning damage. you'd also spend more than a full turn in the air, so a barbarian's rage wouldn't even help cushion the blow, although a fetherfall, levitate or fly would make it trivial. if you wanted to ignore kinematics, and just do a quick physics number crunch: starting from rest: d1 round=576 ft starting from rest: dn rounds=576×nsquared ft Falling speed: your average velocity during the fall would be √16d, in feet per second. (Your final velocity is twice that. )

[@twilightgardenspresentatio6384]

Facing a legendary creature should require a check for each score to approach for combat. Each failure should hold its own penalty to actions, movement, items, or skills. one particular score check should be made each round or it should cost an action, reaction or movement. Similar to lair effects, some monsters should affect the entire world in their presence. I love the idea of rolling str or dex each round to climb out of a giant foot print or losing your party’s reactions because you all have to dodge that tail each round or take 1d4 from debris flying around.

[@rickeymariu1]

I disagree. You guys as DMs aren't giving these creatures the special abilities and portraying them as the big scary things they are. I bring out a Large, not huge, not collosal, sized creature and my players get Scared. My players fear my big beasties for good reason.

[@Nerdarchy]

That's kind of our point. DMs need to home brew more into over sized monsters in order for them to get the respect they deserve. Or your players or just giving you total buy in. Which is a good thing. Nerdarchist Dave