Dungeons & Dragons: Celebrating 30 years of very stupid monsters.

http://www.headinjurytheater.com/article73.htm


Sadly, beholders, owlbears, and gelatinous cubes totally made it into the list. I laughed when I saw the flail snail. And please tell me the inspiration for oliphaunts (oliphants? damn it's been too long) were not owlephants.

If only they had one of these for 3rd edition, the tarrasque would make it on the list.

Wow, I never knew how ridiculous it was. It was always just this ultralisk from Starcraft.

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dkb1/dnd/tarrasque.txt


Method 4: Flying One-Man Army

...But wait. Using Method 3, you're going to kill Tarrasque with FIFTY
OTHER PEOPLE? Sure, they'll bring down the average level of the party
somewhat - but do you really want to end up splitting the experience for
this kill fifty ways? The most you can say for that method is that you
rid the country of a threat. Unless you're a government, a much better
way is to kill Tarrasque by yourself. Assuming, of course, that you
happen to be a thirteenth-level cleric.

We've only got one person, so we need rather a lot of damage output.
Fortunately, we've only got one person, so buff spells are cheap. Our
cleric will use the following:

- The Magic domain allows our cleric to cast arcane spells off scrolls.
- The tried-and-true mighty composite +4 longbow, enchanted to +5 with
Greater Magic Weapon.
- Fifty +5 arrows, similarly enchanted.
- Our cleric will be polymorphed (from a scroll) into a Girallon, which
has 26 strength and 17 dexterity. (And four arms!)
- Our cleric will also read a scroll of Maximized Cat's-Grace; this will
boost his dexterity to 22.
- Our cleric will wear a mithril chain shirt with the "of Speed"
enchantment from Defenders of the Faith. This makes him permanently
hasted. It's a little pricey, but he really should have one anyway.
- The Fly spell, from a scroll, and the Expeditious Retreat spell, from
another scroll, gives him a base flying movement of 180.
- The Improved Invisibility spell doesn't provide protection since the
Tarrasque can spot invisible creatures, but it does grant +2 to-hit.
- Divine Power is a fourth-level cleric spell that grants the caster a
base attack bonus equal to their total character level - in this case, 13.
It lasts one round per level.
- Divine Favor is a first-level cleric spell that grants the caster a +1
luck bonus to attack and damage per three caster levels. It lasts one
minute.
- Righteous Might is a fifth-level cleric spell that doubles the caster's
size, granting -1 to-hit and increasing his weapon's damage die by one.
It lasts one round per level.
- Bless is a first-level cleric spell that grants a +1 morale bonus
to-hit. It lasts one minute per level.
- The Weapon Focus (composite longbow) feat grants +1 to-hit.
- The magic item "Bracers of Archery" grants the wearer +2 to-hit. It
also grants +1 to damage, but only at close range.
- The Rapid Shot feat grants our cleric an extra attack at his highest
bonus, but inflicts -2 to all attacks made that round.

Previously, we've needed to get Greater Magic Weapon on scrolls in order
to reach caster level 15. Here, that won't be needed. There's a magic
item called a Necklace of Karma Bead that, when activated, grants a cleric
a +4 boost to caster level for ten minutes. That will increase our
cleric to caster level 17, which is plenty for our purposes.

We'll try to kill the Tarrasque in two minutes or less, which poses a
small problem since most of our spells don't last quite that long. To
solve this we'll use the Extend Spell feat, which makes a spell one level
higher and doubles its duration.

This gives us values of:

Code:

				To-hit			Damage
Base attack bonus		+13			1d8
Rapid Shot			-2
Divine Power			-1			+2d6-1d8
Strength						+4
Bow enhancement			+5			+5
Arrow enhancement		+5			+5
Divine Favor			+5			+5
Dexterity			+6
Invisible			+2
Bracers of Archery		+2
Weapon Focus			+2
Bless				+1
			     ---------		     ---------
				+38			26 (average)

Our cleric gets a total of five attacks, at +38/+38/+38/+33/+28. Of
course, the Tarrasque will probably be moving, so he'll need to use his
Haste partial action to give chase; this means he usually gets four arrows
per round, at +38/+38/+33/+28. The third arrow has a 95% chance to hit
the Tarrasque's 35 AC, and the fourth one has a 70% chance to hit, for an
average of 3.65 hits per round. At 26 damage per shot, that's an expected
yield of 94 damage per round; the Tarrasque heals 40 damage, so we get 54
damage per round of firing. That kills the Tarrasque in under two
minutes, during which time our cleric fires about 80 arrows. As usual, he
uses a Miracle finisher. He can cast the spell off a scroll since he's
caster level 17 anyway (though that doesn't save much money).


Summary.
Cost:
17250gp - +1 mithril chain shirt of speed
6000gp - necklace of karma bead
5100gp - bracers of archery
500gp - mighty composite +4 longbow
1125gp - scroll of maximized cats-grace
700gp - scroll of polymorph
700gp - scroll of improved invisibility
325gp - scroll of fly
100gp - scroll of expeditious retreat (caster level 4)
various cleric spells - free
28825gp - Miracle finisher scroll

28850gp for equipment we should have anyway, 2950gp for scrolls, and
28825gp for the Miracle finisher. B.

Level: Everything works with caster level 13. A.

Time: You'd need to prepare spells specifically for this, so figure about
a day. A.

Experience: 46800 experience, all to one person. Perfect. A+.

Sensibility: Everything more-or-less works. A.

Legality: This method is entirely legal. A.

Summary: If you're going to build your D&D character into a one-man army,
this is the way to go.