Wednesday, March 17, 2021

Tarrasque vs. Clay Golem

 The Tarrasque grabbed me when I first picked up the Monster Manual. It's the highest-CR creature in the game (aside from Tiamat, found in Rise of Tiamat) at CR 30. The Tarrasque has more health than any other monster in 5th edition, and has an AC of 25, which I believe is the highest AC of any monster in the edition (though there are others that share that.)

That being said, the Tarrasque is actually fairly simple, mechanically. Most of what it does is just a bunch of melee attacks, and some defensive features that seriously limit the kind of magic you can throw at it. (Spell attacks and "line" spells like a Lightning Bolt just glance off its armor, and have a 1-in-6 chance of getting reflected back at you.) But its threat is just a bunch of, notably non-magical, melee attacks with its bite, horns, claws, and tail.

Its only source of non-physical (well, non-BPS) damage is the acid in its stomach, which anyone swallowed by the Tarrasque is subject to.

It's enough to make it genuinely difficult for level 20 adventurers to stand toe-to-toe with it. Your best bet is to try to attack from range and use magic to hinder it in various ways. (Dex saves are a serious weakness for it, as it's got a whole +0.)

Or, you could just throw a Clay Golem at it.

A Clay Golem is a lowly CR 9 Construct. But it happens to have just the right immunities to defeat a Tarrasque single-handed, as it will, in a pure toe-to-toe match, take precisely zero damage from the Tarrasque.

Like all Golems, a Clay Golem (arguably the most "classic" Golem from Jewish folklore) is immune to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage from weapons that are not magical or made of adamantine (hey, does this mean my Fighter's Adamantine Plate isn't magical, so in theory he could get it enchanted to be +3 plate...?) A Tarrasque's horns alone deal 32 damage on average, but they ain't made of adamantine (unless the DM wills it so) and as such do nada to the golem.

Clay Golems, then, are also immune to acid damage, which they absorb and get healed by, similar to how Flesh Golems are healed by lightning and iron golems are healed by fire.

Therefore, all the damage that the Tarrasque does is stuff that can't touch the Clay Golem.

Meanwhile, the Tarrasque has a similar immunity (minus the adamantine option,) but a Golem's attacks are, in fact, magical.

As such, I think the most likely scenario is that the Golem is immediately swallowed with the Tarrasque's bite attack, which actually protects it from any other serious threats, and the golem now gets to attack twice per round, hitting only if it rolls a 17 or higher on the attack, very slowly whittling the Tarrasque down by 2d10+5 damage at a time. But the Golem wins every time.

A Caveat:

While creatures that have immunity to physical damage can do quite well in combat against foes that don't have magic weapons, it's not a blanket immunity. For example, a Golem will still take falling damage because the ground isn't making an "attack." I'd probably rule the Tarrasque can't just step on the Golem because I'd count that as a sort of unlisted "Stomp" attack, but I'd probably allow the Tarrasque to grapple and then fling the Golem hundreds of feet in the air (note: the Tarrasque is Gargantuan, which is usually just 4x4 on a grid, or 20x20 feet, but its description says it's 70 feet long, so I'd actually make that a 14x14 square on a grid map - we're talking really freaking big.)

Still, the Tarrasque isn't a genius, and might swallow a Clay Golem it's fighting before thinking through the hazards of doing so.

I also think that you could have some crazed archmage in ages past who decided that the best thing to spend their life on would be creating a massive legion of clay golems in case the Tarrasque ever threatens the world. You could even make it look like the Terra Cotta Army of Qin Shi Huang...

Oh, crap. Did the first Emperor of China know something we don't?

No comments:

Post a Comment