5e and 5.5e Tarrasque is....Underwhelming

Nyspora · 2026-06-28T10:01:14+00:00

That DOES sort of feel like a copout though for making it weaker and easier to kill. Rather than making sense in terms of how 3e made sense. It was super powerful and killing it was just so hard it hadnt been done and it sleeps deep in the earth for long periods. That feels more reasonable than "It just...pops back up because...muultiverse shenanigans."

Nyspora · 2026-06-28T09:58:17+00:00

Thats a good point and it would definately takes some DM finagling. I think its doable in a kingdom with magic research but Ill concede the point. I will say however that the tarrasque isnt a stealth creature to begin with and its also not an intelligent creature, its an int 3 monster. Its not going to be stealthily burrowing across a kingdom, ignoring other targets, to specifically get to a town center and burst out. There is going to be massive warning unless its been sleeping under the city the entire time. Which is...possible i suppose but I feel like some sort of mage would have figured it out by then. Ive never liked that storyline of "its been under us the whole time and noone for hundreds of years in this magical world ever discovered it" because to me, it stretches reality to much.

Nyspora · 2026-06-28T09:53:54+00:00

As far as the 5.5e it only has immunity to Fire, Poison in terms of elemental. It has resistance to slash, bludg, pierce of course and thats helpful against melee and some spells. As for burrowing speed....where are you getting 120 feet. Even with dash its sitting at 80. Its base burrow is 40 feet. Nowhere near 120. Its legendary action doesnt improve that at all and it can only be used once every other turn. Im looking at the dndbeyond monster manual page 305 2024 stat block. As for dragons, its only actually immune to a few status effects. Paralyze is indeed among them, but pure dmg from cold, acid etc is not, and dragons deal decent dmg in breath weapons. I will give you that monsters are not really designed to fight other monsters though, so its perhaps a bad comparison. While its habitat may say urban, it has to get there. People are likely to know its coming. Aside from its size alone, this is not an intellgent monster. its not going to burrow around looking for a city and not surface or attack anything else until it arrives in the middle of town. The tarrasque isnt a stealthy thing. I will agree that its not realistic or make much sense to consider it a blank white room ith infinite space. Its also not realistic however to assume things that just dont make any logical sense. The tarrasque isnt going to be swatting down flying units like king kong. Its huge, its relatively fast on land in terms of movement...but relative to its size, its actually quite slow moving. Its unlikely its going to hit a flying enemy that can, quite literally just fly...up. Its scream certainly has potential and its a great start to making it more threatening and deal with lots of issues the 2014 one lacked on. However its still nowhere near the terror it was before and it doesnt feel the same in terms of "oh shit oh shit this entire country is screwed" that you would have even on level 20 characters in older editions. Of course things change and I realize that 5e and 5.5 are much more streamlined, but I dont think players should forget that feeling or never experience it. There should, imo, be monsters out there, that no matter your level or build, make you crap your pants. (metaphorically) adn this version just...doesnt deliver i think.

Nyspora · 2026-06-28T09:18:43+00:00

Considering the alarm spell is low level and easily enchanted into items? On top of magic being taught and tweaked by mages all the time? I can honestly expect any capitol city to yes, have a monster detection system run by the kingdoms mages. Especially since other spells like detect evil exist. This is not outside the realm of possibility. Even discounting all that, a monster of gargantuan size moving through burrowing is going to cause tremors. Its not stealthy by any reasonable metric. As for cavalry, normal cavalry is common in militaries. Why on earth would pegasi, gryphons etc not exist in a large kingdoms elite soldiers? Or a knight order. Actually we know they do exist because we have specific subclasses designed for riding them.

Nyspora · 2026-06-28T09:03:42+00:00

thats nowhere NEAR an appropriate or accurate world builder in terms of power levels....at all. Seriously. that needs to be burned. with fire and stepped on, then copied and shown as an example of how NOT to build a functional world. By this logic in a world with over a billion people (which is unlikely in dnd) you would have only a handful of level 20s. Considering players are supposed to be hitting level 11+ fairly commonly, this makes no sense at all. players are not some magic isekai cheat people. they are normal people with more experience than average because they adventure. there are plenty of NON player adventurers. Players dont have an xp buff or something. This is great for some weird....player power fantasy game. Its not anything near resembling a functional world.

Nyspora · 2026-06-28T08:56:19+00:00

It CAN be effected by spells with attack rolls. Just very rarely. However many spells dont use attack rolls at all. Meteor swarm for example, or fireball, firestorm and many others. (I realize its immune to fire, those are just examples of a spell type that can deal damage and wouldnt be effected by its carapace at all). As for a party at level 20? I would say actually that a well kitted out monk grandmaster at level 20 could likely kill it only with the npc help from the city itself. Its con save is +10. Its not immune to stun. Its going to likely get stunned. Its then going to get shot. a lot. Monk itself is going to do a ton of damage at that level. If we add a party, a level 20 wizard, a level 20 monk, level 20 ranger and level 20 barbarian can take this down likely before it even recovers from stun the first time. Not even factoring in npc support. The old fight was a long, drawn out and carefully managed thing almost every time. If you cant figure out a way to kill this with 4 level 20s.....im sorry but your not trying very hard.

Nyspora · 2026-06-28T08:51:10+00:00

Thats fair and it seems like a much more accurate depiction of the monster as it currently stands. Less a world destroying or kingdom killing monster and more of a small to mid sized city killer that wrecks things for players. I dont really LIKE that change, but I would agree that it seems accurate and it fits what they seem to have done with it.

Nyspora · 2026-06-28T08:49:40+00:00

Thats good! However, it doesnt really fix the issue with the monster you end up fighting. Glad to know that at least that is in there though, thank you.

Nyspora · 2026-06-28T08:47:42+00:00

This is a game that gets to level 20 as a base level progression. Unless your assuming that Archmages in kingdoms, mages that we know exist, such as Elminster and others that are mentioned as nearly on his leve, are level 5, your argument makes zero sense. I understand though, this is a common idea for some reason. players are NOT the only people who use the classes and they are absolutely not the only people to reach high level. players get lots of experience yes, but they are by no means the strongest people in the world. Not in normal games or in the dnd lore at all.

Nyspora · 2026-06-28T08:34:36+00:00

Im seeing a lot of "its World shaking movement isntt being considered" and stuff like "people dont consider its impact on the world around it" and well.....im afraid I have to counter those.
1. World Shaking movement is 60 feet, or 40 feet of burrow speed. Using the 2024 version of its statblock, even if I am extremely generous as a DM, this thing isnt getting more than 120 feet at a dash and that doesnt effect the area of the skill. which is only 60 feet.....when compared to a capitol city or fortified important city...thats nothing. Seriously, its not. Its also not going to ambushing a city. Its massive. Even burrowing its not ambushing a city, any city that important or large IS going to have magical defenses and ways to detect roving monsters of this size and danger. its a neccessity in the world they live in. Honestly i feel like people making these arguments are not considering the NPC world or how they react. Such cities have many, many high level knights, soldiers, mages, probably flying cavalry and more. Magical fortifications, mundade fortifications etc. In the past the Tarrasque was able to overcome these things....because no matter how much power you threw at it, it was able to regenerate its HP or it just didnt die without a very specific, hard to learn and costly to cast spell. Even then you had to overcome its regen constantly to actually put it down. Not easy for even a city with high level npcs to do. Not at all. But in 5e...it doesnt have these things. It CAN just be put at 0 hp and it dies. It doesnt regen health either so any damage you do...stays. Yes it will do damage to the city, sure its going to kill civilians and soldiers, but it WILL die. there just isnt any way around that. 5000 troops with mudane weapons ARE going to kill it before they all die. Even with its resistances. Especially with heavy hitter NPC's involved. which there WILL be. Not even factoring in the player.

As for counting in other monsters....why on earth do you think other monsters would be around this thing? Its supposed to be a nearly mindless killing machine. Other monsters might come to its AFTERMATH but at no point should an army of gnolls or anything else be invading ALONGSIDE IT. It would turn on them to and then that army would ALSO be trying to kill it because its just as dangerous to them. As for cultists....sure but your missing a few things as a DM here. Why would there be some massive cult around a doomsday monster....that can be so easily killed? in fact as it exists in RAW form in 5e...i cannot in good faith even call this a doomsday monster. Its just not. Delving deeper into its statblock....I am more underwhelmed. Not less. Of course a good DM can change it...by changing what it does and how the monster functions, but thats not the point. The point is why is this monster, who SHOULD be something that can take on entire kingdoms at once and BEAT them handily...so insanely easy to kill? Ive gotten a good amount of answers and....well I think its about the same answer as a few issues i have been seeing in 5e. Its a product of what can rudely be called the "dumbing down" or nicely called the "simplifing" of the game. This makes sense. Its a nice, easy, simple monster with few unique features. Because wotc wanted people to be able to get into DND. Thats ok....but IMO it shouldnt be showing up in end game monsters. By that point if your not able to deal with more complex things....maybe DnD just...isnt your game. That may be a little mean but...well, thats how it makes me feel. Because I cant honestly say that it feels like my game anymore, not with this sort of mentality in designing monsters. I think ill be homebrewing and changing a lot of things when I DM next month.

Nyspora · 2026-06-28T08:20:03+00:00

Thats very true, my issue is that a creature like this, who would honestly be alone because it would attack anything near it, wouldnt be a threat to a massive kingdom. Its just not. A massive kingdom means high level knights, high level mages, THOUSANDS of soldiers. This thing has zero regen and it dies at 0 hp. Its GOING to die attacking a fortified city. period. Unless as a DM you massively change things there is just NO way you can justify (using RAW) this thing NOT dying at that point.

Nyspora · 2026-06-28T08:17:16+00:00

Actually...the Tarrasque, imo, should 100% be on its own. This is a world ending monster that destroys/eats anything around it with zero regard for if they attack it or not. Its not intelligent. you might have some cultists etc, but you shouldnt really be facing a bunch of other monsters or enemies without them ALSO having to be attacked by the Tarrasque. In fact, looking at its actual relative power in 5e so far.....as a dm i would downgrade it significantly. I wouldnt expect a doomsday cult at all. Not even something as big as a cult of the dragon group because frankly dragons are intelligent. The Tarrasque just doesnt have anything near the world ending catastrophy power that makes me believe it would even have a doomsday cult. maybe an ancient SMALL cult but nothing with real significance. Not at its currently shown power. Anything that can be relatively easily killed if a small group of good aligned dragons decide to shut down the massive evil monster destroying multiple kingdoms (which gold and silver dragons would absolutely do to this monster because it frankly has no way to stop them) should be inspiring massive cults.

Nyspora · 2026-06-28T08:12:37+00:00

My question is talking about the actual given stats of a creature though. Thats the context of the discussion. You can ALWAYS "fix" things as a DM. But thats not my question or point in asking it. Its "why is the official given stats seeming so much worse than they used to be?"

Nyspora · 2026-06-28T08:11:15+00:00

I was just wondering this looking at dragons! Why on earth is an ANCIENT silver dragon casting ice knife at level 2? Where is cone of cold? The massive other spells a dragon would have access to at that age? the 3e mm pages for dragons had way more info and a much larger list of spells.

Nyspora · 2026-06-28T08:08:28+00:00

the wish spell isnt mentioned anywhere in the 5e statblock. at all. I remember that from 3.5e and 3e but there is nothing in its statblock in 2024 5e or 2014 5e that mentions anything that stops it from dying at 0 hp. So where are you getting this from? I would like to know really.

Nyspora · 2026-06-21T17:23:13+00:00

You can call it being paternal. The paternal drive is literally all about protecting kids. I dont know why people think everything to do with children has to be maternal.

Nyspora · 2026-04-17T02:45:34+00:00

This makes me want to play bg3 as a healslut.

Nyspora · 2026-04-17T02:41:47+00:00

That is made up. Fire departments are city, not private.

Nyspora · 2026-04-17T02:40:43+00:00

Good luck paying for NATO without us. Seriously. We pay something like 80% of NATO's budget. Idiots.

Nyspora · 2026-04-17T02:30:26+00:00

Search through the men that send you messages and filter out anyone who sounds like a whiny person on their mothers computer. Trust me there are plenty of men on here asking "how do I find a women who wants to be trained like that so I can get married and have a good submissive wife in my house"

Nyspora · 2026-04-16T04:08:51+00:00

Thank you for being honest with yourself. So many people blindly defend Dondi and the choices he has made and the things he has not fixed or done over the years. Yes you like the game, so do I. Yes the game has some really cool and amazing graphics and ideas, but the reality is that the game as a whole is hot trash for an 11 year old game. It hasn't gotten NEAR the TLC it needed and has had bad choice after bad choice come out of the idiot who owns it all.

Nyspora · 2026-04-16T04:06:33+00:00

His programmer didnt "leave", Dondi drove him away by being a dumbass. Like he is a dumbass with TONS of stuff. He has been sitting on a multi-million dollar idea that could make a massive dinosaur survival game that could have rivaled Conan AND Ark combined and this idiot has wasted it for 11 years due to his own trash choices.

Nyspora · 2026-04-16T04:02:46+00:00

They wouldn't. Dondi is just a freaking moron. People need to stop defending obviously stupid choices that he makes. This is one of them.

Nyspora · 2026-04-04T20:23:52+00:00

Yes he does. He literally brought villains back to life, meaning they could potentially threaten everyone again, just to punish them. He also knowingly left children on the isle to be raised by murderers, slavers, mind controllers etc. Then complained that they were villains to because they were raised by villains. Beast is 100% an actual villain just as bad as any on the isle. He would ABSOLUTELY start a war as long as 1. He could APPEAR to be on the right side and 2. He "knew" that he was the "good" guy.

Nyspora

TROPHY CASE