How can 3.5 run landscape sized monsters?

BearsAreBrown · Post by **BearsAreBrown** » Tue Jan 25, 2011 3:28 pm

Things really big. I've heard of a "parts" system where the head, arms, legs, wings each get their own turn. How does this work exactly? How do you handle hitting it with a sword? Should it even do damage?

violence in the media · Tue Jan 25, 2011 3:33 pm

The people in the third and fourth images seem to be prepared to sword those creatures. You probably want to preserve that capacity at least, unless you want to take more Nice Things from fighters.

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Tue Jan 25, 2011 3:41 pm

You can't normally defeat a mountain with a sword. You need large amounts of dynamite, strip miners, etc.

Really fukkin' huge monsters (say, your second example) should be treated as 'magical' locations. You have environmental hazards like 'you could get stepped on' and 'it has a mouth bigger than your home town', but (barring high-level abilities) you're not going to run up to a leg and start hacking.

Defeating such a creature might involve tunneling into its crystalline internals and sabotaging what makes it tick.

As far as defining a creature's size, the D&D Joke Book already has Colossal+ sizes, although for the sake of humor they're designed only for dragons.

Spike · Post by **Spike** » Tue Jan 25, 2011 3:47 pm

I would say that in certain cases (the first two pictures), a creature that is so large is not a creature at all, for the purposes of fighting, but a dungeon itself.

You don't fight a hydra or a walking mountain, you climb it, seek out the sacred heartstone and shatter it with the legendary Bobby Pin of The Gods, as foretold in ancient prophecies.

Or, just, God of War, walk around its innards killing man sized shit, and fuck off ignore something so big it can't even PERCEIVE YOU in any meaningful way.

hogarth · Post by **hogarth** » Tue Jan 25, 2011 3:47 pm

Every (successful) game I've seen with super-sized creatures has pretty much treated them as puzzles. E.g. you go to the monster's eyes and solve the "destroy the eye" puzzle, then to the leg and solve the "cripple the leg" puzzle, then travel to the heart and solve the "demolish the heart" puzzle. Those puzzles can be pretty much whatever you want (dealing raw damage, finding a hidden "off switch", timing your attacks in a special way, etc.).

BearsAreBrown · Post by **BearsAreBrown** » Tue Jan 25, 2011 3:56 pm

I know how to run them as magical locations. And that's works sometimes. What about the high level adventures where you fight them straight up? Or should those just not exist?

Spike · Post by **Spike** » Tue Jan 25, 2011 3:59 pm

Again: Kratos fights INSIDE giant terrain monsters.

And what is Kratos but a ridiculously high level character?

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Tue Jan 25, 2011 4:18 pm

Fighting landscape-sized monsters is a perfectly valid and awesome story. And since the special effects inside our own heads are free, RPGs are a great place for them to happen.

But 3.5 is just not set up to do them. You would have to write most of the system for it from scratch. The cheap hack would be 'scale yourselves down to Fine, this thing is still Colossal on that scale,' but mostly that bones the swordsmen, because Finger of Death doesn't care about size differential.

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Tue Jan 25, 2011 4:23 pm

BearsAreBrown wrote:I know how to run them as magical locations. And that's works sometimes. What about the high level adventures where you fight them straight up? Or should those just not exist?

At high levels an archer can probably just shoot arrows straight through the mountain from a safe distance until one of them smashes its heart crystal or destroys enough of its ruby power veins. A high level diplomancer can probably reason with the damn' thing. A high level rogue can phase in and Disable it. A high level wizard can send a demon army to destroy it. A high level barbarian can just carve a hole straight to the center of the thing with her axe.

TheFlatline · Post by **TheFlatline** » Wed Jan 26, 2011 12:09 am

How would I fight a walking mountain as a high level character?

Miracle. Pray for a particularly powerful form of my deity's avatar to come down and start laying down the shit.

Man sized vs mountain sized there's not much you can do in a straight up fight without making it a puzzle/magical location. I guess you could shapeshift into something equally as large and have a titanic battle (no pun intended... okay yes that was an intended pun).

Easier though is to just get the fucking gods involved at that point. Otherwise, people will start worshiping the Mountain that Walks and the gods will get *really* pissed off at that point.

Krakatoa · Post by **Krakatoa** » Wed Jan 26, 2011 2:11 am

Alternatively, you could create a set piece or unique item that lets your PCs fight the terrain-sized monsters in a credible way, such as using a charm spell to lead it into a valley, then causing a land-slide or flood to bring it down. Populate the set piece with man-sized threats to keep your party busy while someone prepairs the spells or items needed to pull off the plot.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Wed Jan 26, 2011 2:38 am

You really can't. D&D is about tactical combat. Landscape-sized monsters usually are one of two things.

1. Puzzle Monster: There's a specific strategy to defeat the monster that the PCs need to take advantage of, or the PCs need to develop a plan to stop the monster. They might force it off a cliff or complete a plot device spell to banish it.

2. Descriptive Combat: The PCs are Exalted-like powerful creatures, and combat positioning doesn't factor into their strategy. It's assumed they are constantly leaping, dodging, counterattacking, etc., and keeping track of their movement would be tiresome and a task best left relegated to a computer program.

Ganbare Gincun · Post by **Ganbare Gincun** » Wed Jan 26, 2011 2:40 am

Aerial attack? Climb it Shadow of the Colossus style?

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Wed Jan 26, 2011 2:41 am

If you want truly high-level PCs, make them actually capable of fighting these threats...

Enlarge to comparable size
To-scale tornadoes of fire
Kameha-meha energy blasts the size of mountains
Earthquake causing strength so you just walk up and punch it

However, a huge problem with this is statting them so they can't be killed by 5th level characters. Bog-standard HP and DR just don't cut it, but you need some way to scale them in so that storm of vengeance actually scratches them. The same goes for single-target spells.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Wed Jan 26, 2011 2:43 am

I would just use Finger of Death. But that's because I'm smart like that.

Vebyast · Post by **Vebyast** » Wed Jan 26, 2011 2:52 am

If I wanted to fight the Mountain that Walks without using a SoD, I'd either remember to bring my own Magic Mountain to the party, or I'd pull the moon down on it Majora-style.

I agree that there isn't really a way to deal with landscape-size monsters natively. I might try representing the thing in question as a collection of smaller monsters that follow special movement and initiative rules, but I'm not sure how well that would work. Another try might be to model its circulatory system, nervous system, and skeletal system (or equivalents, depending on the mountain) and let the party find a way.

Krakatoa · Post by **Krakatoa** » Wed Jan 26, 2011 2:54 am

Kaelik wrote:I would just use Finger of Death. But that's because I'm smart like that.

I think the general question was about making the encounter... you know, fun.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Wed Jan 26, 2011 3:02 am

Krakatoa wrote:
Kaelik wrote:I would just use Finger of Death. But that's because I'm smart like that.
I think the general question was about making the encounter... you know, fun.

I think that the encounter would be more fun with Finger of Death than with a bullshit pile of ad hoc shit slapped together that the players could not possibly know in advance or plan for, because it's being made up as it goes.

Ice9 · Post by **Ice9** » Wed Jan 26, 2011 3:07 am

Finger of Death? I'm pretty sure something that big would have a damn good Fortitude save. Not to mention that a walking mountain could easily be immune to [Death] effects, by type or specifically.

Krakatoa · Post by **Krakatoa** » Wed Jan 26, 2011 3:08 am

Even if it worked, it might be fun for the player with Finger of Death. Not fun for the rest of the party.

Plus if you're designing the encounter and the entire session in advance, you could set the entire thing-up well before the landscape-size monster appeared. It's obviously a contrived solution, but it would be more fun than letting one player solve everyone's problems with a magic death spell.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Wed Jan 26, 2011 3:11 am

You guys are taking Kaelik's posts too literally. His complaint is that dealing with the landscape-sized monster without using something like finger of death is Magic Tea Party and thus less fun (for him) than using something within the rules.

At least, that's my interpretation of the situation.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Wed Jan 26, 2011 3:14 am

Ice9 wrote:Finger of Death? I'm pretty sure something that big would have a damn good Fortitude save. Not to mention that a walking mountain could easily be immune to [Death] effects, by type or specifically.

It was an example. Polymorph/Finger of Death/Final Rebuke, the point is obvious.

Krakatoa wrote:Even if it worked, it might be fun for the player with Finger of Death. Not fun for the rest of the party.

Plus if you're designing the encounter and the entire session in advance, you could set the entire thing-up well before the landscape-size monster appeared. It's obviously a contrived solution, but it would be more fun than letting one player solve everyone's problems with a magic death spell.

Are you going to explain to all the players the entire session in advance and all the rules you just made up?

No? Well then I guess it's exactly the same as if you make it up at the table, because it's still just a game of "Read the DMs mind."

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Wed Jan 26, 2011 12:36 pm

I seem to remember Koumei creating rules for running a titanically-sized monster as different parts, but I don't remember where she posted that. Does anyone remember?

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Wed Jan 26, 2011 5:24 pm

Kaelik wrote:Are you going to explain to all the players the entire session in advance and all the rules you just made up?

Part of the value of having this all figured out in advance is that you can do that.

Kaelik wrote:No? Well then I guess it's exactly the same as if you make it up at the table, because it's still just a game of "Read the DMs mind."

Even of you don't, it can still be a lot of fun. You're running a dungeon in which players know, in general, what the resolution mechanics are and how their abilities work. That's pretty much how any dungeon crawl ever works.

BearsAreBrown · Post by **BearsAreBrown** » Wed Jan 26, 2011 6:09 pm

I agree with you Kaelik. That's why I'm asking to figure out a system the players can agree on before the game is played. If I wanted to wing it and be a shitty DM I'd just wing it and be a shitty DM.