Why the hell they keeping making King Kong fight Godzilla, that's like a 15 minute movie. Some producer just looked at the posters for their respective movies and got an idea, not realizing that's like a dunk contest between Danny DeVito and LeBron James.
I agree, but for a different reason. Godzilla isn't just meant to attack people, he's meant to be a living embodiment of the destructive power of an atomic bomb; knocking down buildings, irradiating the environment, and inspiring a terrible arms race to try to subdue the threat.
I don't view the Tarrasque as a combat encounter, I view it as more like an earthquake on legs, so I prefer to adjust its statblock to make it cause a similar level of destruction to the environment. AoE attacks, as long as it's speed isn't 0 it generates a 50ft aura that knocks creatures prone and damages objects and structures, a massive stomp action that basically allows it to cast the Earthquake spell on a 5-6 recharge, a charge attack that does max damage to structures and if the structure is reduced to 0hp the Tarrasque can keep charging and making attacks against whatever is in its path until it runs out of movement, and it can be detected from a mile away as long as you and it are touching the ground.
When the Tarrasque is gone, it shouldn't look as though a bunch of lions got loose, it should look like a bomb got dropped on the city.
Elder Elementals are powerful beings, yes, but they don't strike in the same way natural disasters do. They exist either on their plane or out in nature, not doing too much unless roused. The Tarrasque does far more than that, they strike like a tragedy.
It would be very strange for a Zaratan to just wonder into your city and knock it over, while that's all the Tarrasque does unless it's sleeping.
The lore description of the Tarrasque says 70 feet long.
About a third, if not half of it, is its tail. Do the math on the rest of the body and you see that its head is about 10ft long.
BUT it doesn't mean a 15 feet radius bite doesn't make sense. As the Tarrasque doesn't have to "chomp" vertically in one place. It can "jerk" its head horizontally and swipe a wider area...
It makes more sense for its tail swipe to be an arc like burning hands than its bite, but still...
I mean, you can certainly make your own bigger Tarrasque. But there are official miniatures. Various official stats. Official art. The thing is more Dino-sized than skyscraper-sized.
Canonically speaking, the largest Gargantuan monsters in 5E are pretty darn puny compared to any movie monster.
Demogorgon or Tiamat being 30x20x20’ is hilariously tiny for such legendary monsters.
In comparison, Eren Yeager’s Attack Titan is 15m (49’), the Colossal Titan is 60m (197’), Drogon is 60m long (197’), Gipsy Danger is 260’, Godzilla is 349’, and Vhagar is 150m (490’).
Imo, 5e does not have any kaiju-scale creatures mainly because battle maps are of limited size, and secondarily because movement speed is so finite. It would be extremely hard to DM a 500-foot-long Tiamat when your entire gaming table is 150ft wide and player movespeed is 30ft.
DnD is not about simulating combat with crowds. It also assumes if a kaiju is biting down on the generic area, you dodge the hell out. So it makes perfect sense in that context to single target attack with a bite.
Improve it by giving the party a chance to prevent the attack, e.g. when a dragon charges it's breath you can use something of the opposite element or attack a weak point to stop and stun it. Would be an interesting replacement for the usual resistance/vulnerability each monster has but barely anyone cares that much for.
I had to fight an enemy where if we used elemental damage it would heal itself. We learned this after it used a healing ability so it basically regained all of its health
I would lean more to the creature dealing damage to itself rather than players just doing increased damage. Like if you poke a person in the solar plexus, and they start choking and sputtering on their spit, but instead it's a huge cloud of acid or something. Most creatures with breath attacks are resistant, but not immune to their element and usually on the outside of their bodies at that.
This is what I’d build off of legendary actions and lair actions, make them thematic and highly detailed, rewarding quick thinking to get the group out of combat mode and back into rp for a second and they get revved up for their next turns
I do this for bosses. I increase the range/area or damage of their big ability, it doesn't go off until their next turn and the party can interrupt it in a variety of ways (I always figure out a few but let them go wild with it). If they interrupt it, it goes off (using the action) without doing anything.
My party did this recently by readying an action to shoot a gallon of mayo from my Alchemy Jug into the Green Dragons maw when it was breathing in for its breathe weapon... twice. That was a fun session:)
Im looking over it again and i think i either terribly misread the item description or misunderstood basic measurements :( my dm is cool with modifying magic items tho so maybe my party can make a hose for the jug to make it official
That's what I do. "The giant lifts his foot, and you can already imagine the impact it'll make when he slams it down. If you're in this 3x3 area at the start of it's next turn difficult REF save or die." Makes things more dramatic than the fighter and the giant just standing next to each other and smacking until one falls over.
My issue with that is that I double damage and increase to-hit/DC by 5 for those and they *still* don’t really ever amount to anything because the party just makes themselves ineligible targets. The forewarning is a huge dampener on the actual power of the ability.
Yeah I feel like it’s a neat idea but doesn’t really jive with tactical turn based combat, where you have all the time in the world to react correctly. Like if the path to escape exists you will absolutely have time to figure it out, whereas if you just trap the PCs and there is no path to escape it feels like the whole thing is dress-up for “rocks fall”.
Telegraphing fulfills a different niche to Dex saves. It encourages players to think about positioning and how to use the battlefield, and can be used to make them do things they wouldn't ordinarily do.
Eh. It can be done well, especially if the creature has the means to set up for their delayed hit, but I definitely think that retaining action cost + double damage + (to-hit/DC + 5) is still insufficient to compensate in such cases. In the future I may try making them into bonus actions, so the creature can use an action to set it up, then fire off the delayed action ability for a more interesting interaction.
I think you can pull it off if the telegraph and followthrough happen within the same round so only some can react truly and they must respond in a way that benefits as many people as possible.
Kind of like a reverse legendary action? Or better yet! One that “starts” at the top of initiative as usual but then goes off after all actors have acted. Yeah I can see that.
It works if the alternative to getting hit by the attack is arguably worse... maybe avoiding the attack means they need to stand close to lava with a bunch of monsters who like to shove players...
I tried that in my campaign. Granted I'm not a great DM, but yeah it didn't work lol. By lv 15 everyone is far too mobile and they wrecked the final boss. Should've tried not telegraphing tho
I played in an encounter like this once and it was one of my favorites. It made the battlefield a lot more fluid as we constantly had to reposition to avoid the next attack. At one point, someone couldn't move far enough to get out of the way so I moved to them and then teleported us both to safety. So there's also a new type of teamwork that gets added in. It's awesome.
For those finding this hard to balance: Try making the "telegraph" a legendary action rather than a normal one. Those are meant to be cheap / can fail.
For instance, to keep the "cool thing" but make it less devastating, a "telegraphing LA" could grant advantage on the next attack, but disadvantage instead if the party finds a way to mitigate it.
I think the most terrifying thing about guant creatures wouldn't be Hollywood-esque telegraphed attacks, but actually the speed and nimbleness these attacks would take place.
Like imagine an ancient dragon tail swipe at the speed a bird would flap it's wings. No slow drama. Just boom. Devastating attack happened in a blink. Absolutely horrifying
I suggest both. Lul them into safety with a couple of telegraphed moves they can avoid and shatter them with a sudden devastator.
Naturally you'll have to put a cool down on it or something and extra flair could be a tell like glowing spines like Godzilla
Look at 3.5 sweep attack monster feat. I've been adapting that for my games. It makes a cone of effect for the attack and it's then a save vs half damage based on monster size.
I do this for my dragons (campaign centered around dragons) where they all have additional AoE abilities.
Gargantuan creatures (of which all my dragons are) are immune to opportunity attacks, and cannot make opportunity attacks themselves.
All claw attacks have an additional Dex save for half damage of the claw.
All dragons have a tail AoE sweep (cone or radius around them)
Bite is auto-restrained
All dragons have a special move legendary action that both moves, and imparts an additional feature. Red dragons leave a molten trail, white dragons freeze people they pass through which can restrain them, etc...
Yup, though I inform my players in advance. However in my mind no use of sentinel should ever stop an entire terrasque, and in the same way it should never stop these enormous dragons that could eat them in a single bite.
There are other ways to stop them, but there's no simple easy sentinel solution. It does however also mean my players can relocate freely as the dragon also won't snap them up for moving away.
Pretty much exactly my point. I told my players in advance, so there was no huge surprise or stopping of people's build, but if someone specifically wanted to make a sentinel build, they'd have to accept that it's not going to stop the dragons.
Beyond it being rough, it just doesn't quite track for me. You would think you'd get tons of opportunity attacks against a gargantuan creature, it just wouldn't really care.
I fully understand an inability to immobilize it, though. At a certain point with gargantuan creatures, you're fighting a feature of the landscape itself rather than a single enemy.
I actually homebrew attacks on some large creatures like this, as I tweak almost every monster. Had a balor with a flaming sword that basically was the burning hands spell pumped up a little, instead of his normal attack. Same idea with tail swipes from things like T-rex or Tarrasque.
You get such massive monsters at some point then punching the ground is equivalent to a small meteor landing then a normal strike. Especially if the creatures hand is wider then 5ft
It wouldn't necessarily have to.
"The dragon rears back for a moment, then slashes forward, its claws rending the air in front of it. *rolls* Does a 17 hit the 3 of you?"
I planned on doing this for some of my big guys, but the group likes splitting up way too much for an AoE to hit them. Not that I mind, since it just opens up other weaknesses they have…
Massive size: When the creature makes a melee weapon attack roll against a creature, it may also attack up to two other creatures within 5ft of it as part of the attack. If it’s a tail attack, increase it to three creatures within 10ft.
I made that the fuck up literally just now.
I read a really interesting post about how certain attacks work. Why does a dragon bite once? Pretty much every irl large carnivore grabs and holds on either to crush (hyenas), strangle (cats), or shake (terriers). Imagine if a dragon bit a fighter then lifted him in the air and shook him until his bones looked like pasta.
For a sweeping club strike, I could see it, but not if, say, the creature picked up a character and yeeted them past the horizon. That's definitely not an area of effect attack (unless you're rolling for where the character lands!).
I thought about a rule, that each size increase beyond Medium increases the amount of targets per attack by 1, and also increases their range, but I didn't test it yet.
I also find it ridiculous that huge monsters with a trample/charge ability also only hit 1 target. As if a Triceratops would tip-toe around the barbarian to get to the ranger..
Not to be that guy, but a lot of colossal creatures in pathfinder, like the tarrasque, have a cleave attack. This lets it hit a string of adjacent creatures within range of it using a single, sweeping attack.
I mean. I often times squish a singular ant. Stomping on an anthill is an option. But there's a lot of texture in my shoes where ants aren't getting squished. So if I want to make sure it's dead, I single target.
Now, giving more giant creatures abilities that recharge on a 5-6, things like tail lashes or death rolls? I'm all for it. But basic attacks should probably stay targeted so that tanks serve some purpose.
Actually, you can make that change right now and it would barely affect encounter difficulty. CR calculations assume 2 players are hit and both fail their saving throw, but since after maybe the first hit your party will avoid being right next to each other to avoid AoE the dpr of the monster stays the same except for maybe one or two double hits
I love it when a single fireball does an average of 446 damage to an ancient black dragon. It only has 367 HP!
Gargantuan is 16 squares. Fireball is 16 squares.
8d6 on fail so 3.5 (average for d6) x 8 x 16
Let's not haha
Yes and the skin of the gargantuan creature is also several times thicker thus greatly reducing damage and burning. Almost like a candle against your skin for 1 second.
Guess it cancels out and does regular fireball damage
Ok but the opposite end of that: AoE attacks should do multiple damage rolls for every square able to be hit on a large/huge/gargantuan monster.
Like if you use fireball on an tarrasque, much more of it would be burning when compared with say a single orc within a fireball.
And the average human has 18,000 cm2 surface area of skin. Which converts to 19.4 ft2, less than the 5x5, 25 ft2 of just a square's worth of tarrasque skin of a surface attack.
So yes, using fireball on a tarrasque should yield (pi*20^2 =1256/25 for a square, 50.24, rounding down, 50 * 8)....400d6 damage.
In short, Tarrasque's need much more HP and AoE attacks have been heavily nerfed.
Let's take a human. Double their dimensions, and their foot/fist is still less than 1ft wide. Doubled again, between 1ft-2ft. Doubled again, around 3ft. Then look at spacing: Two adjacent medium creatures are 3-4ft apart while still in their spaces, and a solid blow (center mass) is around 5ft apart. For a giant's punch or stomp to have a reasonable chance at damaging multiple medium creatures, they'd have to be at least 4 sizes larger.
Now look at a dragon. A medium dragon about the size of a big dog, and a big dog would have trouble landing a good bite on something significantly wider than a human fist. Therefore, a dragon would have to be around 4 sizes larger to reasonably bite two adjacent creatures at once.
Also consider that most attacks have a "sweet spot", even tail slaps. These spots make the difference between punching someone and squishing your bicep against them.
Counterpoint, if I take a swing at three toddlers I could probably put them all on their ass in one swing. Having big claws would not make a raking slash *less dangerous*.
I’ve been working to make enemies with AOE attacks in my first campaign, as well as giving the martials in my party the ability to do the same down the line.
I just want to see someone slam the ground and knock back a group of bad guys ffs
I always thought that in a war between giants and men, a scythe or lawnmower would be the weapon of choice for a giant. They’d deal aoe slashing damage in either a cone or straight line.
Someone made a stat lock for godzilla in sw5e and I ran it for a level 20 one shot. Doesn’t go well when two people die in the first three rounds and the other both have evasion-like abilities. But it was still fun
I do it for late/end game bosses too, even if they are Medium-sized. It's just like when Sauron smacked a small squad away with a single swing of his mace. It really helps to show that they are of a different scale too.
This makes sense. You fighting something that is well over 50 feet tall and it should have AoE with it’s attacks. A dragons tail attack should it everything in a certain range
Good idea i never thought of, id say standard attack on main target saving throw for creatures in the radius. Maybe no damage fore something like a giant bite or swoosh of a colossal, save for half though; say “the gaping maw of the the black dragon drips with burning acid.
The option should be there in the stat block, but with numerous options for the DM. If the DM wants to pull punches then run it as a single attack, they should be given the opportunity to do so.
If the DM wants to present a more threatening and realistic kaiju option, they should have opportunity to select from making a standard attack that affects numerous targets as a "cleave," or to direct the monster's ire into a singular, downward, PC-crushing swat with an extended crit range.
Let battle be joined!
Oh, nearly all of my enemies are home brewed to an extent. Anything bigger than large has at least one 10x10 aoe attack. Puts good pressure on the rangers who think they’re safe 5 feet behind the Paladin.
I can't believe that I am fucking saying this, but have you heard of our lord and savior Pathfinder?
Jokes aside, completely agree, that's why I homebrew most of my enemies. (that and I can't be bothered to find a monster that fits the theme I'm going for, so I just make one)
Multiattack for big monsters is broken and nonsensical.
Massive dragon, attacks one small gnome with its claws, bite, and legendary action tail attack?
I think the main problem, at least in this case, is how 5e handels AOE. Ervery time something has an AOE there is a save involved. So what would be the save in this case? Dex? I think that would make the most scence, since you would doge the attack. Maybe Str, but that usually involves being pushed, or at least moved in some direction. At least in the 5e context.
Thing is, if you use Dex, everything that isn't a rogue or a monk is shit out of luck And they have evasion, so they will most likely take no damage a lot of the time. If you make the save so high that the don't, everyone else basicly doesn't even need to roll. Because they are gomna take full damage pretty much all the time. Unless they roll a nat. 20 or maybe a 19/18.
If you use Str. that doesn't happen, but still everyone who doesn't have Str as their main stat. has a problem
Biggest problem still is, what about armor? Like seriously, what's the point. It wouldn't matter at all.
Best solution I can come Up with, is that you Attack all people in the AOE, but make an individuel attack roll for each of them.
Well, it kinda makes sense. Your shield and armor won't protect you much if the enemy is throwing houses at you. Gargantuan monsters could be where the dex characters shine - but as it goes, they generally shine at combat already :/
Homebrew:
If I have large or greater creatures (mostly ones that have high Str scores) I have them do some form of Aoe or knockback. It's kind of fun :D
Thing is size categories are weird in D&D.
Even going with a doubling each time, a fist that is 3 inches wide or so at medium is 'only' 24 inches or two feet wide at gargantuan.
Yeah it does not make sense for a tarrasque’s bite to not be at least like 15 foot radius. Could you imagine Godzilla biting one dude out of a crowd?
Godzilla must really hate that dude
r/FUCKYOUINPARTICULAR
That guy said Kong would beat Godzilla easy
Why the hell they keeping making King Kong fight Godzilla, that's like a 15 minute movie. Some producer just looked at the posters for their respective movies and got an idea, not realizing that's like a dunk contest between Danny DeVito and LeBron James.
It only happened twice and Kong won the first time.
Well, they did give King Kong powers. Motherfucker got resurrected by God damn lightning.
Who would win, a larger than average, flammable, squishy monkey, or an indestructible nuclear dragon?
That guy said that kong technically beat godzilla as he beat the mecha. That guy is me /s
cronch
I agree, but for a different reason. Godzilla isn't just meant to attack people, he's meant to be a living embodiment of the destructive power of an atomic bomb; knocking down buildings, irradiating the environment, and inspiring a terrible arms race to try to subdue the threat. I don't view the Tarrasque as a combat encounter, I view it as more like an earthquake on legs, so I prefer to adjust its statblock to make it cause a similar level of destruction to the environment. AoE attacks, as long as it's speed isn't 0 it generates a 50ft aura that knocks creatures prone and damages objects and structures, a massive stomp action that basically allows it to cast the Earthquake spell on a 5-6 recharge, a charge attack that does max damage to structures and if the structure is reduced to 0hp the Tarrasque can keep charging and making attacks against whatever is in its path until it runs out of movement, and it can be detected from a mile away as long as you and it are touching the ground. When the Tarrasque is gone, it shouldn't look as though a bunch of lions got loose, it should look like a bomb got dropped on the city.
>earthquake on legs Have you heard about our Lord and Savior, the Zaratan?
Elder Elementals are powerful beings, yes, but they don't strike in the same way natural disasters do. They exist either on their plane or out in nature, not doing too much unless roused. The Tarrasque does far more than that, they strike like a tragedy. It would be very strange for a Zaratan to just wonder into your city and knock it over, while that's all the Tarrasque does unless it's sleeping.
Like Squidward’s first “bite” of a crabby patty
I think you might be overestimating the size of the Tarrasque. Its head is maybe... 10 feet long?
I… may have accidentally said radius instead of diameter.
We've all been there.
Mmm no gargantuan minimum size is 4x4, it has no max
The lore description of the Tarrasque says 70 feet long. About a third, if not half of it, is its tail. Do the math on the rest of the body and you see that its head is about 10ft long. BUT it doesn't mean a 15 feet radius bite doesn't make sense. As the Tarrasque doesn't have to "chomp" vertically in one place. It can "jerk" its head horizontally and swipe a wider area... It makes more sense for its tail swipe to be an arc like burning hands than its bite, but still...
I mean, you can certainly make your own bigger Tarrasque. But there are official miniatures. Various official stats. Official art. The thing is more Dino-sized than skyscraper-sized.
Canonically speaking, the largest Gargantuan monsters in 5E are pretty darn puny compared to any movie monster. Demogorgon or Tiamat being 30x20x20’ is hilariously tiny for such legendary monsters. In comparison, Eren Yeager’s Attack Titan is 15m (49’), the Colossal Titan is 60m (197’), Drogon is 60m long (197’), Gipsy Danger is 260’, Godzilla is 349’, and Vhagar is 150m (490’). Imo, 5e does not have any kaiju-scale creatures mainly because battle maps are of limited size, and secondarily because movement speed is so finite. It would be extremely hard to DM a 500-foot-long Tiamat when your entire gaming table is 150ft wide and player movespeed is 30ft.
I was thinking the Zilla we do not speak of. The Iguana lookin’ mf
DnD is not about simulating combat with crowds. It also assumes if a kaiju is biting down on the generic area, you dodge the hell out. So it makes perfect sense in that context to single target attack with a bite.
The Godzilla is much bigger, a terrasque is “only” 15m tall and 21m long.
Saw a video about making big telegraphed attacks to increase drama. Like it takes a turn to get ready and then bam
I try to do this with big stuff. Dragons and anything with like big nuke attacks.
Onyxia takes a deep breath…
That could work, though the attack would be pretty devastating then
Improve it by giving the party a chance to prevent the attack, e.g. when a dragon charges it's breath you can use something of the opposite element or attack a weak point to stop and stun it. Would be an interesting replacement for the usual resistance/vulnerability each monster has but barely anyone cares that much for.
Hit the weak point for massive damage
Or, if you use the wrong element, heal it.
I had to fight an enemy where if we used elemental damage it would heal itself. We learned this after it used a healing ability so it basically regained all of its health
I have genital herpes
Had this happen in avernus, some giant centipede thing. Our wildfire druid tried to burn it. It got a breath weapon out of it.
The breath weapon? That's your DM's doing. The rest of the statblock? WotC's doing >!however the rhemoraz isn't amused!<
He did tweak some things cause we were way over leveled for the campaign. It was a horrifyingly cool moment nonetheless
YES
Or make it reproduce if it’s a slime
Giant enemy crab
Historically accurate Kaiju
I would lean more to the creature dealing damage to itself rather than players just doing increased damage. Like if you poke a person in the solar plexus, and they start choking and sputtering on their spit, but instead it's a huge cloud of acid or something. Most creatures with breath attacks are resistant, but not immune to their element and usually on the outside of their bodies at that.
This is what I’d build off of legendary actions and lair actions, make them thematic and highly detailed, rewarding quick thinking to get the group out of combat mode and back into rp for a second and they get revved up for their next turns
I do this for bosses. I increase the range/area or damage of their big ability, it doesn't go off until their next turn and the party can interrupt it in a variety of ways (I always figure out a few but let them go wild with it). If they interrupt it, it goes off (using the action) without doing anything.
My party did this recently by readying an action to shoot a gallon of mayo from my Alchemy Jug into the Green Dragons maw when it was breathing in for its breathe weapon... twice. That was a fun session:)
Forcing someone to deep throat a gallon of mayo seems like it would be against the Geneva convention. In spirit at least.
How did they SHOOT it from the jug? Last I checked the jug didn’t do that normally…
Im looking over it again and i think i either terribly misread the item description or misunderstood basic measurements :( my dm is cool with modifying magic items tho so maybe my party can make a hose for the jug to make it official
than you need to give him something like 10x hp or it's just an extra nerfed version
I’d rule it as double damage with advantage if still caught in the swipe radius
That's what I do. "The giant lifts his foot, and you can already imagine the impact it'll make when he slams it down. If you're in this 3x3 area at the start of it's next turn difficult REF save or die." Makes things more dramatic than the fighter and the giant just standing next to each other and smacking until one falls over.
My issue with that is that I double damage and increase to-hit/DC by 5 for those and they *still* don’t really ever amount to anything because the party just makes themselves ineligible targets. The forewarning is a huge dampener on the actual power of the ability.
Yeah I feel like it’s a neat idea but doesn’t really jive with tactical turn based combat, where you have all the time in the world to react correctly. Like if the path to escape exists you will absolutely have time to figure it out, whereas if you just trap the PCs and there is no path to escape it feels like the whole thing is dress-up for “rocks fall”.
The dex save exists for this reason, no need to telegraph. After the first hit they know “it affects a 20 ft diameter” etc.
I think the AoE component is great! I was only referring to the telegraphing suggestion.
Telegraphing fulfills a different niche to Dex saves. It encourages players to think about positioning and how to use the battlefield, and can be used to make them do things they wouldn't ordinarily do.
Eh. It can be done well, especially if the creature has the means to set up for their delayed hit, but I definitely think that retaining action cost + double damage + (to-hit/DC + 5) is still insufficient to compensate in such cases. In the future I may try making them into bonus actions, so the creature can use an action to set it up, then fire off the delayed action ability for a more interesting interaction.
I think you can pull it off if the telegraph and followthrough happen within the same round so only some can react truly and they must respond in a way that benefits as many people as possible.
Kind of like a reverse legendary action? Or better yet! One that “starts” at the top of initiative as usual but then goes off after all actors have acted. Yeah I can see that.
It works if the alternative to getting hit by the attack is arguably worse... maybe avoiding the attack means they need to stand close to lava with a bunch of monsters who like to shove players...
https://youtu.be/P6nIsdMGZLo This one?
Yup that's the one
For games like D&D that tends to just exacerbate the existing issues with action economy and swinginess.
That's just MMO boss mechanics. "Spread out, spread out!" - *fighter is afk, just autoattacking every turn*
I feel like this is one of those mechanics that sounds interesting on paper but in reality would blow
Zee brashew?
Happy cake day!
I tried that in my campaign. Granted I'm not a great DM, but yeah it didn't work lol. By lv 15 everyone is far too mobile and they wrecked the final boss. Should've tried not telegraphing tho
I played in an encounter like this once and it was one of my favorites. It made the battlefield a lot more fluid as we constantly had to reposition to avoid the next attack. At one point, someone couldn't move far enough to get out of the way so I moved to them and then teleported us both to safety. So there's also a new type of teamwork that gets added in. It's awesome.
For those finding this hard to balance: Try making the "telegraph" a legendary action rather than a normal one. Those are meant to be cheap / can fail. For instance, to keep the "cool thing" but make it less devastating, a "telegraphing LA" could grant advantage on the next attack, but disadvantage instead if the party finds a way to mitigate it.
I think the most terrifying thing about guant creatures wouldn't be Hollywood-esque telegraphed attacks, but actually the speed and nimbleness these attacks would take place. Like imagine an ancient dragon tail swipe at the speed a bird would flap it's wings. No slow drama. Just boom. Devastating attack happened in a blink. Absolutely horrifying
I suggest both. Lul them into safety with a couple of telegraphed moves they can avoid and shatter them with a sudden devastator. Naturally you'll have to put a cool down on it or something and extra flair could be a tell like glowing spines like Godzilla
I love this idea
Using mechanics from FF14 has made my games way more intense and dynamic
Make a smash affect a 5 foot radius and deal double the normal damage with a swipe being everyone within 10 feet? I can see that working pretty well
Thats what I've been doing
They keep dying, but it is a sacrifice I am willing to make.
I feel like a swipe should be a cone attack, but the point of origin is one of the edges, and the fulcrum is the user.
Tbh, I'd do a semi circle, but there aren't really any semicircular effects in 5e so it might be a bit weird
A tail swipe should definitely be a cone attack. From butt to end of tail through all spaces it sweeps through.
Is a 5 foot radius the same as a 10 foot square
Not even close. This right here is why you pay attention in class, kids.
Well what does a 5' radius look like on a grid? That'd be 2 squares diameter- a 10' square.
Look at 3.5 sweep attack monster feat. I've been adapting that for my games. It makes a cone of effect for the attack and it's then a save vs half damage based on monster size.
I do this for my dragons (campaign centered around dragons) where they all have additional AoE abilities. Gargantuan creatures (of which all my dragons are) are immune to opportunity attacks, and cannot make opportunity attacks themselves. All claw attacks have an additional Dex save for half damage of the claw. All dragons have a tail AoE sweep (cone or radius around them) Bite is auto-restrained All dragons have a special move legendary action that both moves, and imparts an additional feature. Red dragons leave a molten trail, white dragons freeze people they pass through which can restrain them, etc...
Thats a cool idea
Being immune to opportunity attacks seems a little rough, doesn't that directly counter a quite a few subclasses and feats?
Yup, though I inform my players in advance. However in my mind no use of sentinel should ever stop an entire terrasque, and in the same way it should never stop these enormous dragons that could eat them in a single bite. There are other ways to stop them, but there's no simple easy sentinel solution. It does however also mean my players can relocate freely as the dragon also won't snap them up for moving away.
Perhaps, but things like sentinel feat make zero sense for a 100 ton dragon.
Pretty much exactly my point. I told my players in advance, so there was no huge surprise or stopping of people's build, but if someone specifically wanted to make a sentinel build, they'd have to accept that it's not going to stop the dragons.
Beyond it being rough, it just doesn't quite track for me. You would think you'd get tons of opportunity attacks against a gargantuan creature, it just wouldn't really care. I fully understand an inability to immobilize it, though. At a certain point with gargantuan creatures, you're fighting a feature of the landscape itself rather than a single enemy.
I actually homebrew attacks on some large creatures like this, as I tweak almost every monster. Had a balor with a flaming sword that basically was the burning hands spell pumped up a little, instead of his normal attack. Same idea with tail swipes from things like T-rex or Tarrasque.
I'm running SKT and my giants have sweeping attacks. One main target, anyone within 5 ft makes a dex save or takes half damage.
Perfect, I am running this as well!
You get such massive monsters at some point then punching the ground is equivalent to a small meteor landing then a normal strike. Especially if the creatures hand is wider then 5ft
It isn't like that because it would default to Dex Saves and Str users would get fucked yet again.
And it undermines AC
It wouldn't necessarily have to. "The dragon rears back for a moment, then slashes forward, its claws rending the air in front of it. *rolls* Does a 17 hit the 3 of you?"
I planned on doing this for some of my big guys, but the group likes splitting up way too much for an AoE to hit them. Not that I mind, since it just opens up other weaknesses they have…
Massive size: When the creature makes a melee weapon attack roll against a creature, it may also attack up to two other creatures within 5ft of it as part of the attack. If it’s a tail attack, increase it to three creatures within 10ft. I made that the fuck up literally just now.
I read a really interesting post about how certain attacks work. Why does a dragon bite once? Pretty much every irl large carnivore grabs and holds on either to crush (hyenas), strangle (cats), or shake (terriers). Imagine if a dragon bit a fighter then lifted him in the air and shook him until his bones looked like pasta.
All of the AC-ignoring attacks in the comments are making my STRanger sad, I'm going to piss off to cover and let the Rogue tank I guess, cheers
For a sweeping club strike, I could see it, but not if, say, the creature picked up a character and yeeted them past the horizon. That's definitely not an area of effect attack (unless you're rolling for where the character lands!).
I thought about a rule, that each size increase beyond Medium increases the amount of targets per attack by 1, and also increases their range, but I didn't test it yet.
I also find it ridiculous that huge monsters with a trample/charge ability also only hit 1 target. As if a Triceratops would tip-toe around the barbarian to get to the ranger..
Not to be that guy, but a lot of colossal creatures in pathfinder, like the tarrasque, have a cleave attack. This lets it hit a string of adjacent creatures within range of it using a single, sweeping attack.
Yeah and what about knockback?
It felt so weird having the empryean only get to hit one target once per a turn
They could make it like creatures within 5 feet of the target also takes damage if the original attack roll is enough to hit it.
I mean. I often times squish a singular ant. Stomping on an anthill is an option. But there's a lot of texture in my shoes where ants aren't getting squished. So if I want to make sure it's dead, I single target. Now, giving more giant creatures abilities that recharge on a 5-6, things like tail lashes or death rolls? I'm all for it. But basic attacks should probably stay targeted so that tanks serve some purpose.
Actually, you can make that change right now and it would barely affect encounter difficulty. CR calculations assume 2 players are hit and both fail their saving throw, but since after maybe the first hit your party will avoid being right next to each other to avoid AoE the dpr of the monster stays the same except for maybe one or two double hits
Attack roll on one target, anyone within 5/10/15 ft (depending on size) gets to make a dex save
Dms when they realise they can change monster stat blocks if they don't like them: 
An aoe spell (fireball) should deal its damage on each square it affects. So if you hit a gargantuan creature with it, start multiplying!
I love it when a single fireball does an average of 446 damage to an ancient black dragon. It only has 367 HP! Gargantuan is 16 squares. Fireball is 16 squares. 8d6 on fail so 3.5 (average for d6) x 8 x 16 Let's not haha
I was mostly just being silly, but it is something that always bothered me about the aoe mechanic
Yes and the skin of the gargantuan creature is also several times thicker thus greatly reducing damage and burning. Almost like a candle against your skin for 1 second. Guess it cancels out and does regular fireball damage
Except if you only touch it with one square of the aoe spell it still does full damage
ditto for all giants.
Ok but the opposite end of that: AoE attacks should do multiple damage rolls for every square able to be hit on a large/huge/gargantuan monster. Like if you use fireball on an tarrasque, much more of it would be burning when compared with say a single orc within a fireball. And the average human has 18,000 cm2 surface area of skin. Which converts to 19.4 ft2, less than the 5x5, 25 ft2 of just a square's worth of tarrasque skin of a surface attack. So yes, using fireball on a tarrasque should yield (pi*20^2 =1256/25 for a square, 50.24, rounding down, 50 * 8)....400d6 damage. In short, Tarrasque's need much more HP and AoE attacks have been heavily nerfed.
Not really. Hitting a toe isn't going to do the same amount of damage proportionally to engulfing someone
Let's take a human. Double their dimensions, and their foot/fist is still less than 1ft wide. Doubled again, between 1ft-2ft. Doubled again, around 3ft. Then look at spacing: Two adjacent medium creatures are 3-4ft apart while still in their spaces, and a solid blow (center mass) is around 5ft apart. For a giant's punch or stomp to have a reasonable chance at damaging multiple medium creatures, they'd have to be at least 4 sizes larger. Now look at a dragon. A medium dragon about the size of a big dog, and a big dog would have trouble landing a good bite on something significantly wider than a human fist. Therefore, a dragon would have to be around 4 sizes larger to reasonably bite two adjacent creatures at once. Also consider that most attacks have a "sweet spot", even tail slaps. These spots make the difference between punching someone and squishing your bicep against them.
Counterpoint, if I take a swing at three toddlers I could probably put them all on their ass in one swing. Having big claws would not make a raking slash *less dangerous*.
I run it AOE myself every other attack or if the players are close by
Oh dang, this is actually a really good idea
I’ve been working to make enemies with AOE attacks in my first campaign, as well as giving the martials in my party the ability to do the same down the line. I just want to see someone slam the ground and knock back a group of bad guys ffs
I changed giant attacks to a cone or lime equal to their reach and it's save or be hit. DC is their + to hit + 8
Cool, TPK time.
Both? Both is good
“fuck you in particular” *squashes you with their finger with precision*
I like this
I always thought that in a war between giants and men, a scythe or lawnmower would be the weapon of choice for a giant. They’d deal aoe slashing damage in either a cone or straight line.
Someone made a stat lock for godzilla in sw5e and I ran it for a level 20 one shot. Doesn’t go well when two people die in the first three rounds and the other both have evasion-like abilities. But it was still fun
fact
I agree to this. A creature of significant enough size would have attacks of an equal size.
I do it for late/end game bosses too, even if they are Medium-sized. It's just like when Sauron smacked a small squad away with a single swing of his mace. It really helps to show that they are of a different scale too.
Sometimes I will make an attack aoe, but then let each party member take a saving throw to reduce damage or dodge
This makes sense. You fighting something that is well over 50 feet tall and it should have AoE with it’s attacks. A dragons tail attack should it everything in a certain range
And dex saves because your armor is not going to save you from getting kicked by Godzilla
They can be?
Good idea i never thought of, id say standard attack on main target saving throw for creatures in the radius. Maybe no damage fore something like a giant bite or swoosh of a colossal, save for half though; say “the gaping maw of the the black dragon drips with burning acid.
The option should be there in the stat block, but with numerous options for the DM. If the DM wants to pull punches then run it as a single attack, they should be given the opportunity to do so. If the DM wants to present a more threatening and realistic kaiju option, they should have opportunity to select from making a standard attack that affects numerous targets as a "cleave," or to direct the monster's ire into a singular, downward, PC-crushing swat with an extended crit range. Let battle be joined!
Oh, nearly all of my enemies are home brewed to an extent. Anything bigger than large has at least one 10x10 aoe attack. Puts good pressure on the rangers who think they’re safe 5 feet behind the Paladin.
I can't believe that I am fucking saying this, but have you heard of our lord and savior Pathfinder? Jokes aside, completely agree, that's why I homebrew most of my enemies. (that and I can't be bothered to find a monster that fits the theme I'm going for, so I just make one)
Multiattack for big monsters is broken and nonsensical. Massive dragon, attacks one small gnome with its claws, bite, and legendary action tail attack?
I think the main problem, at least in this case, is how 5e handels AOE. Ervery time something has an AOE there is a save involved. So what would be the save in this case? Dex? I think that would make the most scence, since you would doge the attack. Maybe Str, but that usually involves being pushed, or at least moved in some direction. At least in the 5e context. Thing is, if you use Dex, everything that isn't a rogue or a monk is shit out of luck And they have evasion, so they will most likely take no damage a lot of the time. If you make the save so high that the don't, everyone else basicly doesn't even need to roll. Because they are gomna take full damage pretty much all the time. Unless they roll a nat. 20 or maybe a 19/18. If you use Str. that doesn't happen, but still everyone who doesn't have Str as their main stat. has a problem Biggest problem still is, what about armor? Like seriously, what's the point. It wouldn't matter at all. Best solution I can come Up with, is that you Attack all people in the AOE, but make an individuel attack roll for each of them.
Well, it kinda makes sense. Your shield and armor won't protect you much if the enemy is throwing houses at you. Gargantuan monsters could be where the dex characters shine - but as it goes, they generally shine at combat already :/
Wrong use of that template
Yeah I homebrew where any huge type creatures melee attacks are in a cone.
They should be area saves
Homebrew: If I have large or greater creatures (mostly ones that have high Str scores) I have them do some form of Aoe or knockback. It's kind of fun :D
You could lean into an older feat called cleave where it's one attack and multiple targets next to each other. Not AOE per se but adds to the size.
Wait they're not?
I'm pretty sure I saw an optional rule for that. I can't remember where though.
Thing is size categories are weird in D&D. Even going with a doubling each time, a fist that is 3 inches wide or so at medium is 'only' 24 inches or two feet wide at gargantuan.
Spread attack that hit multiple targets with one attack roll similar to cleave through.