D&D (2024) Undersized Performance from Gargantuan Monsters?

[Cadence]

Continuing through the 2024 MM, it brings up some things that haven't changed much. One of them is that the reach and damage of the Gargantuan creatures seems woefully small compared to their descriptions.

I get the desire for game balance and fun, the big hp totals and defenses some of them have, the legendary attacks giving them extra chances to deal damage, not wanting too many party members to be one shot, and that the Swallow attack is pretty cool.

But why is something that is 70' tall and can destroy buildings and boats and might even be "the most devastating creatures in existence" only able to reach 15 feet away and take two or three hits with the tails or claws to finish off a run of the mill Polar Bear, Knight, or Ogre?

(I assume the second paragraph answers the third, but I still find it unsatisfying).

For reference, here is the damage and reach of the much, much smaller T-rex

Tyrannosaurus Rex (Huge; 20 feet tall/40 feet length by google)
Bite, reach 10 ft. 33 damage
Tail, reach 15 ft. 25 damage.

and the hit points of some creatures to see how many hits it would take these legendary creatures to get rid of:

Tyrannosaurus Rex - 136 hit points
Elephant - 76 hit points
Ogre - 68 hit points
Knight - 52 hit points
Hunter Shark (Large) or Rhinoceros - 45 hit points
Polar Bear - 42 hit points
Tiger - 30 hit points

-----
Tarrasque



"Among the most devastating creatures in existence, the tarrasque is an engine of catastrophe and a ruiner of nations. A terror of massive size and overwhelming might, this primeval destroyer survives from the earliest epochs of the Material Plane, when it served as a weapon of immortal forces.

The tarrasque is a bipedal, prehistoric Monstrosity that stands over seventy feet tall."

Bite, reach 15 ft. 36 damage.
Claws, reach 15 ft. 28 damage.
Tail, reach 30 ft. 23 damage.

--------
Dragon Turtle



"Dragon turtles are mighty creatures with shells large enough to be mistaken for islands and jaws capable of snapping ships like twigs."

Bite, reach 15 ft. 23 damage.
Tail, reach 15 ft. 18 damage.

--------
Roc



"Birds of prey of fantastic scale, rocs hunt over vast territories and can snatch whole elephants, whales, or wagons in their talons.

Beak, reach 10 ft. 28 damage.
Talons, reach 5 ft. 23 damage.

--------
Kraken



"Ancient weapons of the gods, krakens slumber in the deepest oceanic abysses, awaiting their time to rise and dominate the world. These massive, many-tentacled horrors combine overwhelming physical might with formidable cunning. Their powerful limbs shatter ships and topple spires, and they use their control over storms to rain down lightning on their foes."

Tentacle, reach 30 ft., 24 damage.

 

[Chaltab]

Why do you think siege monsters deal extra damage to structures and objects?

Elephants and polar bears are animate creatures. They don't stand still and let the tarrasque eat them. Even then a Critical Hit will drop them in one.

 

[dave2008]

Continuing through the 2024 MM, it brings up some things that haven't changed much. One of them is that the reach and damage of the Gargantuan creatures seems woefully small compared to their descriptions.

I get the desire for game balance and fun, the big hp totals and defenses some of them have, the legendary attacks giving them extra chances to deal damage, not wanting too many party members to be one shot, and that the Swallow attack is pretty cool.

But why is something that is 70' tall and can destroy buildings and boats and might even be "the most devastating creatures in existence" only able to reach 15 feet away and take two or three hits with the tails or claws to finish of a run of the mill Polar Bear, Knight, or Ogre?

(I assume the second paragraph answers the third, but I still find it unsatisfying).

For reference, here is the damage and reach of the much, much smaller T-rex

Tyrannosaurus Rex (Huge; 20 feet tall/40 feet length by google)
Bite, reach 10 ft. 33 damage
Tail, reach 15 ft. 25 damage.

and the hit points of some creatures to see how many hits it would take these legendary creatures to get rid of:

Tyrannosaurus Rex - 136 hit points
Elephant - 76 hit points
Ogre - 68 hit points
Knight - 52 hit points
Hunter Shark (Large) or Rhinoceros - 45 hit points
Polar Bear - 42 hit points
Tiger - 30 hit points

-----
Tarrasque

View attachment 398761

"Among the most devastating creatures in existence, the tarrasque is an engine of catastrophe and a ruiner of nations. A terror of massive size and overwhelming might, this primeval destroyer survives from the earliest epochs of the Material Plane, when it served as a weapon of immortal forces.

The tarrasque is a bipedal, prehistoric Monstrosity that stands over seventy feet tall."

Bite, reach 15 ft. 36 damage.
Claws, reach 15 ft. 28 damage.
Tail, reach 30 ft. 23 damage.

--------
Dragon Turtle

View attachment 398762

"Dragon turtles are mighty creatures with shells large enough to be mistaken for islands and jaws capable of snapping ships like twigs."

Bite, reach 15 ft. 23 damage.
Tail, reach 15 ft. 18 damage.

--------
Roc

View attachment 398766

"Birds of prey of fantastic scale, rocs hunt over vast territories and can snatch whole elephants, whales, or wagons in their talons.

Beak, reach 10 ft. 28 damage.
Talons, reach 5 ft. 23 damage.

--------
Kraken

View attachment 398767

"Ancient weapons of the gods, krakens slumber in the deepest oceanic abysses, awaiting their time to rise and dominate the world. These massive, many-tentacled horrors combine overwhelming physical might with formidable cunning. Their powerful limbs shatter ships and topple spires, and they use their control over storms to rain down lightning on their foes."

Tentacle, reach 30 ft., 24 damage.

D&D has never modeled massive creatures well. Nothing new to 5e here. The only wat to solve this is to stray quite a bit from the norm. You also need to accept that HP and damage are not physical things.

 

[Cadence]

Why do you think siege monsters deal extra damage to structures and objects?

Elephants and polar bears are animate creatures. They don't stand still and let the tarrasque eat them. Even then a Critical Hit will drop them in one.

Hadn't looked up the hit points of objects in it for 5e before...

In the free rules, anyway, a resilient cart or dining room table (Large) has 27 hit points, so the siege monster lets a Tarrasque or Kraken break them with one hit... but the Dragon Turtle and Roc don't get siege monster.

For things like a stone buildings wall, "To track Hit Points for a Huge or Gargantuan object, divide it into Large or smaller sections, and track each section’s Hit Points separately. The DM determines whether destroying part of an object causes the whole thing to collapse." But it feels odd that a section of stone wall is just as strong as a resilient table or cart. Are there more rules elsewhere?

For the Kraken and Dragon Turtle (using Saltmarsh) the easily transportable 100 pound rowboat has 50 hit points and a keelboat has 100. In those cases the new rules about dividing into parts feels like it makes more sense, I guess.

In any case, it still feels odd to me that whether the polar bear decides to resist would really matter to the 70' tall most destructive creature in the universe.

Even if it was agreed that the damage is good. Why is the reach of Tarrasque tail, for example, so short?

 

[Cadence]

D&D has never modeled massive creatures well. Nothing new to 5e here. The only wat to solve this is to stray quite a bit from the norm. You also need to accept that HP and damage are not physical things.

Was surprised the the PF 1e Tarrasque damage also wasn't great (although the bite had a much expanded crit range). The reach was a lot bigger though (30 ft, with 60ft for tail).

 

[Ruin Explorer]

D&D has never modeled massive creatures well.

Yeah this was like the first criticism I had of AD&D back in 1989, before the internet, before I knew what people were mad about and so on. I was fascinated by how large the creatures in D&D were, like 14' tall giants, as tall as a double-decker bus. Very easy to envision how dangerous such a being would be, but in AD&D they were not all that threatening. Realistically a human could barely injure such a being, it'd be like a toddler (not a chimp, note - a toddler) coming at you with a bread knife. Maybe slightly dangerous if you were unarmed and wearing shorts, but if had any kind of "weapon" at all, even a broom or a dustpan and brush, trivial to defend against, and trivial to deal with the toddler.

But in D&D, you could absolutely waltz up to giant armed only with a longsword, and if you were a high enough level Fighter, you'd be kicking its ass. I guess we can sort of say "Oh well it's simulating how badass a Fighter was, you've got to assume he's doing leaping strikes and maybe clambering on the giant", but like, AD&D is a bit simulationist and none of that was being simulated. When 3E got drastically more simulationist, the problem only got bigger (no pun intended).

 

[pukunui]

I think part of the problem with something like the tarrasque is that, if you give it a longer reach and more damage, that’s only going to encourage the whole “stay far away and plink it to death with cantrips” behavior.

Some reach and damage is sacrificed in order to allow melee PCs to survive getting up close and personal.

Maybe.

 

[Cadence]

I think part of the problem with something like the tarrasque is that, if you give it a longer reach and more damage, that’s only going to encourage the whole “stay far away and plink it to death with cantrips” behavior.

Some reach and damage is sacrificed in order to allow melee PCs to survive getting up close and personal.

Maybe.

For the Tarrasque, what is the best distance besides magical missile weapons (magic long bow or whatnot)?

 

[Kobold Avenger]

Yeah this was like the first criticism I had of AD&D back in 1989, before the internet, before I knew what people were mad about and so on. I was fascinated by how large the creatures in D&D were, like 14' tall giants, as tall as a double-decker bus. Very easy to envision how dangerous such a being would be, but in AD&D they were not all that threatening. Realistically a human could barely injure such a being, it'd be like a toddler (not a chimp, note - a toddler) coming at you with a bread knife. Maybe slightly dangerous if you were unarmed and wearing shorts, but if had any kind of "weapon" at all, even a broom or a dustpan and brush, trivial to defend against, and trivial to deal with the toddler.

Remember that Two-Handed Swords did 3d6 damage to large creatures, somehow they became more vulnerable to such weapons.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

Continuing through the 2024 MM, it brings up some things that haven't changed much. One of them is that the reach and damage of the Gargantuan creatures seems woefully small compared to their descriptions.

I get the desire for game balance and fun, the big hp totals and defenses some of them have, the legendary attacks giving them extra chances to deal damage, not wanting too many party members to be one shot, and that the Swallow attack is pretty cool.

But why is something that is 70' tall and can destroy buildings and boats and might even be "the most devastating creatures in existence" only able to reach 15 feet away and take two or three hits with the tails or claws to finish of a run of the mill Polar Bear, Knight, or Ogre?

Remember that the area of a creature isn't the space that it fills, just the space that it fights in. The Tarrasque is often depicted with a hunched posture if not actually using its front limbs to walk on, so it is unsurprising that it doesn't have a particularly long reach with them. 15 ft is only just shorter that the area it occupies -
equivalent to a human with a longsword that occupies 5 ft and can reach 5 ft.

A Tarrasque can kill three T-rexes in little over 10 seconds. That seems plenty dangerous.

Remember that Two-Handed Swords did 3d6 damage to large creatures, somehow they became more vulnerable to such weapons.

IIRC all swords did increased damage to larger creatures, and I think bludgeoning weapons like clubs and staves did less. I believe the justification was that the blade of a sword could be driven deeper into a larger creature.[/i]