TarrasqueColossal Magical Beast
Hit Dice: 48d10+
528 (
888 hp)
Initiative: +7
Speed: 20 ft. (4 squares)
Armor Class: 35 (–8 size, +3 Dex, +30 natural), touch 5, flat-footed 32.
Base Attack/Grapple: +48/+81
Attack: Bite +57 melee (4d8+17/18-20/x3)
or improvised spear +53 ranged (6d6+25/20/x2)Full Attack: Bite +57 melee (4d8+17/18–20/x3), 2 horns +52 melee (1d10+8), 2 claws +52 melee (1d12+8), tail slap +52 melee (3d8+8)Space/Reach: 30 ft./20 ft.
Special Attacks: Augmented critical, frightful presence, improved grab, rush, swallow whole.Special Qualities: Carapace, continual resurrection, damage reduction 15/epic, immunity to fire, poison, disease, energy drain, and ability damage, nexus of many lives(body outside a body, fortune fate, forceward), regeneration 40, scent, spell resistance 32.Saves: Fort +38, Ref +29, Will +20.
Abilities: Str 45, Dex 16, Con 35, Int 3, Wis 14, Cha 14.
Skills: Listen
+15, Search +9, Spot
+15, Survival +14 (+16 following tracks).
Feats: Blind-Fight, Brutal Throw, Combat Reflexes, Epic Destiny(eternal hero), Improved Initiative, Improved Toughness, Iron Will, Martial Study(castigating strike, foehammer, strike of righteous vitality), Martial Stance(thicket of blades) Power Attack, Robilar's Gambit, Snatch.Environment: Any
Organization: Solitary
Challenge Rating: 20
Treasure: None
Alignment: Always neutral
Advancement: 49+ HD (Colossal)
Level Adjustment: -
The tarrasque is 70 feet long and 50 feet tall, and it weighs about 130 tons.
The tarrasque cannot speak.
CombatThe tarrasque attacks with its claws, teeth, horns, and tail.
The tarrasque’s natural weapons are treated as epic weapons for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction.
Augmented Critical (Ex): The tarrasque’s bite threatens a critical hit on a natural attack roll of 18–20, dealing triple damage on a successful critical hit.
Frightful Presence (Su): The tarrasque can inspire terror by charging or attacking. Affected creatures must succeed on a DC 36 Will save or become shaken, remaining in that condition as long as they remain with 60 feet of the tarrasque. The save DC is Charisma-based.
Improved Grab (Ex): To use this ability, the tarrasque must hit a Huge or smaller opponent with its bite attack. It can then attempt to start a grapple as a free action without provoking an attack of opportunity. If it wins the grapple check, it establishes a hold and can try to swallow the foe the following round.
Rush (Ex): Once per minute, the normally slow-moving tarrasque can move at a speed of 150 feet.
Swallow Whole (Ex): The tarrasque can try to swallow a grabbed opponent of Huge or smaller size by making a successful grapple check. Once inside, the opponent takes 2d8+8 points of crushing damage plus 2d8+6 points of acid damage per round from the tarrasque’s digestive juices. A swallowed creature can cut its way out by dealing 50 points of damage to the tarrasque’s digestive tract (AC 25). Once the creature exits, muscular action closes the hole; another swallowed opponent must cut its own way out.
The tarrasque’s gullet can hold 2 Huge, 8 Large, 32 Medium, 128 Small, or 512 Tiny or smaller creatures.
Carapace (Ex): The tarrasque’s armorlike carapace is exceptionally tough and highly reflective, deflecting all rays, lines, cones, and even magic missile spells. There is a 30% chance of reflecting any such effect back at the caster; otherwise, it is merely negated. Check for reflection before rolling to overcome the creature’s spell resistance.
Regeneration (Ex): No form of attack deals lethal damage to the tarrasque. The tarrasque regenerates even if it fails a saving throw against a disintegrate spell or a death effect. If the tarrasque fails its save against a spell or effect that would kill it instantly (such as those mentioned above), the spell or effect instead deals nonlethal damage equal to the creature’s full normal hit points +10 (or 868 hp). The tarrasque is immune to effects that produce incurable or bleeding wounds, such as mummy rot, a sword with the wounding special ability, or a clay golem’s cursed wound ability. The tarrasque can be slain only by raising its nonlethal damage total to its full normal hit points +10 (or 868 hit points) and using a wish or miracle spell to keep it dead.
If the tarrasque loses a limb or body part, the lost portion regrows in 1d6 minutes (the detached piece dies and decays normally). The creature can reattach the severed member instantly by holding it to the stump.
Skills: The tarrasque has a +8 racial bonus on Listen and Spot checks.
Continual Resurrection: At 21st level, you gain the ability to return from the dead. At dawn each day, if you are dead, you are restored to life (as true resurrection). You can set a place where you want to be resurrected. (You must be standing in that place when you make the choice.) When you are resurrected, you can choose to be resurrected in the place you choose or in the place you died. You can choose a new location for your place of resurrection once per level.
Death Denied: At 21st level, you become resistant to attacks that would instantly kill you. You gain a +5 luck bonus on saving throws against necromancy effects. If you succeed on a save against a necromancy spell, you suffer no effect, even if you would normally suffer a partial effect. You gain a +10 luck bonus on saving throws against death attacks and saving throws against massive damage. If you roll a 1 on one of these types of saving throws, you can re-roll the die.
Quickening: At 24th level, your body begins to heal at an amazing rate. At the start of your turn, you gain a number of temporary hit points equal to your level. If you already have any temporary hit points when you gain these temporary hit points, they do not stack -- use only the higher value.
Eternal Renewal (Su): At 27th level, you gain the ability to immediately come back from death's door. When you take damage that reduces you to below 0 hit points (even if you go below -10 hit points), you can use this ability as an immediate action. You go to 0 hit points, then regain a number of hit points equal to half your maximum hit points. You can use this ability twice per day, increasing to four times per day at 30th level.
Nexus of Many Lives: At 30th level, you can tap into the power of one of your past incarnations. You can use this ability once per day. When you do, choose which incarnation to activate and use the effect listed. Upon gaining this class feature, you must choose a weapon type for the warrior incarnation, the arcane spell for the arcanist incarnation, the divine spell for the disciple incarnation, and up to three options for the traitor incarnation.
The Traitor (Sp): Duplicate the effect of any 8th-level evil spell from any class list. This can include spells that can attain the evil descriptor if used in certain ways, such as summon monster spells, but must be cast as the evil version if used in this way. When you use the traitor manifestation, you might become evil if you are not already. Make a Charisma check (DC 20) after you use the manifestation. If you fail and are good, change the good axis of your alignment to neutral. If you are not good or evil, change neutral to evil. Your caster level is equal to your character level for this spell. While casting this spell, you automatically succeed on Concentration checks and you gain a +10 bonus on caster level checks to overcome spell resistance.
The Terrasqua's chosen spells are
* Body Outside A Body (spell compendium): creates 8 clones but they have 222hp and their death causes the caster to lose 10hp.
* Fortune Fate (spell compendium): if killed or reduced to -10 or lower, immediate heal effect happens, buff works once and lasts 8 hours.
* Forceward (spell compendium): the Terrasqua becomes immune to force-effects for 40 minutes.
This version of the Big T replaced Toughtnessx6 with Improved Toughness for +30hp, four of the recovered Feats were recycled into it's Epic Destiny giving it some very fitting returning abilities. Another one was spent on Brutal Throw so thrown trees can be used as a ranged option. In addition Awesome Blow, Cleave, Great Cleave, Improved Bullrush, for it's Martial Maneuvers granting it another way to heal Ability Drain (one of it's primary weaknesses). I also traded Dodge for Snatch and Alertness for Robilar's Gambit which works with it's Thicket of Blades Stance to try to attack, damage, and Grapple up to three people without Freedom of Movement.
As the DM running this monster it's important to assess your party's capabilities and Schrodinger's that 1/day SLA. Like on the first fight if the party thinks they can Forcecage it and didn't bring enough Ability Drain use Forceward, if they plan to spam Ability Drain let them wear it down a bit before using the Strike forcing them to start over and if you can't time it right Fortune Fate can bring it back to it's feet. And if you just don't think the Big T can handle them, Body Outside a Body and start throwing Trees, on average it's 46/hit or 414/rnd.
New Feat Progression
1. Blind-Fight
3. Brutal Throw
6. Combat Reflexes
9. Improved Initiative
12. Improved Toughness
15. Iron Will
18. Power Attack
21. Epic Destiny
24. Epic Destiny
27. Epic Destiny
30. Epic Destiny
33. Snatch
36. Robilar's Gambit
39. Martial Study(foehammer) // needed for prerequisites
42. Martial Stance(thicket of blades)
45. Martial Study(castigating strike)
48. Martial Study(strike of righteous vitality)
Like the idea? Help me create a Retrained Monster guide for challenging optimized characters. All you have to do is submit your own in either this thread or your own. Use blue text to mark additions and red to mark losses. Keep things limited to Feats or Spell Lists please. Eventually I'll compile them up into a new guide.