Editing Tarrasque (section)

===(5E) How to Kill the Tarrasque at any level in one or two rounds.===
*Conscript 1,500 Wood Elf Commoners, arm them with longbows
*Conscript 1,500 Clerics of the forge.
*Have the clerics use their "''Blessing of the Forge''" feature to enchant the longbows so they are all +1 magic items and then give those longbows to the elves.
*[[Dakka|Start shooting]]
*If the Tarrasque is still alive, then move 35 feet after loosing the arrows.
*Win

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And now the math behind that statement. 
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In 5e a crit will always hit, and always do damage:25 Ac or not. So if 20 commoners shoot at the Tarrasque, mathematically 1 of them '''will''' hit and '''will''' do double damage due to the crit. The issue being that if you have 400 commoners shooting only about 20 of them will hit so you need a number of commoners high enough that even if 1/20 of them hit you will still do notable damage.

The Tarrasque has 676 hit points, While the average result of a D8 is 4.5. So you need 150 average damage rolls from a weapon that does D8 damage to kill the Tarrasque, but that's a base damage hit, not a crit. The average crit is double that at 9 damage, meaning you actually need 75 crits to do 676 damage to a Tarrasque. However the Tarrasque's "Frightful Presence", means any creature within 120 feet of it will likely be frightened and have disadvantage on the attacks. So our commoners now need to get a 20 twice on two different dice, a 0.002% chance.

To get 75 crits we first need 20 times that, for 1,500. Which all things considered is not an absurd number, there were far more longbow men at the Battle of Agincourt for example if we look to history and those were trained soldiers. But with disadvantage 1,500 commoners shooting at the Tarrasque means only about [[Fail|three]] will hit. To spare you the rest of the math to get 75 crits with disadvantage requires '''750,000 men'''. In One place. All shooting at One target. That's more people then were on fucking D-day. While the total number is better then that since about 20% of the time even a commoner will pass the Frightful Presence roll that is still beyond possible.

But "Frightful Presence" has a range of only 120 feet. If a range weapon was used that had more then 120 feet of range then we only need 75 crits, bringing us back to the reasonable 1,500 number. The longbow is the only candidate in D&D and as mentioned there is historical precedent in reality for that many trained archers being at one location so a even a strict DM would find it hard to object to this plan, and commoners are suppose  to obey their lord when a muster is called so basically any well off noble or half decent or even bad king could pull this kind of draft off (assuming the nation is so poor it can't muster 1,500 trained soldiers), again lot of historical examples of this happening in countless political systems. In 5e when you make an NPC a race it gains that races traits, including in this case the wood elf weapon proficiency with longbows. So a wood elf commoner would know how to use the longbow. The cost to arm 1,500 elves is the sticking point with this plan: it would take 75,000 gold. But one could also make a strong argument for them already having them for hunting and home defense at least depending on the culture. 

So with the army raised you approach the tarrasque to 130 feet, (we get closer then the longbow's max 150 range to allow the whole army to start shooting but it still means our ranks need to be less then 20 feet deep if we want the back ranks to be able to fire). If we get all 1,500 arrows in the air then we could get all 75 crits we need in the first volley, dropping the tarrasque in one round, but that required number of crits is of course on average and there are only ''"Lies, damned lies, and statistics"'' to quote a phrase. So there is a decent chance the Tarrasque is still alive. So now the whole army uses it's movement to take 35 feet (+5 due to being a wood elf) move back. 

The Tarrasque now has three options: First it could with it's 40 speed step forward, but this puts it more then 120 feet away so it can not use Frightful Presence to impose disadvantage (130+35=165-40=125). or it can dash to get 80 feet closer so that next turn it can be in range no matter what the army does, but Frightful Presence is an action and dash is also an action, so either way it can not use Frightful Presence, and it's going to be point blank to an army of 1,500 longbow men, and unless the rolls are truly terrible they are going to do another 75~ish crits, to it next turn, mathematically doing twice the average damage of it's hit point maximize. It's third option is to run away like a little bitch, but supplying 1,500 men in the field is not impossible as proven countless times in history so one can easily give chase and repeat until it's over a border and it's no longer your problem.

If you were feeling fancy one could pad those numbers with a second reserve force of 1,000 troops behind the first line so that if the Tarrasque did to grip with the first line, (after taking 3,000 arrows to the face and about 150 crits), the second line could fire into the large target that is the Tarrasque as it's chews through the first line finishing the job as it would be badly bloodied from taking that many crits.

So why the clerics? Because the Tarrasque has total immunity to all non-magical physical damage, including fall damage, and total immunity to fire and poison, so you need a magic weapon or magical ammo to scratch it. So why clerics instead of magical ammo? It depends really on the setting. The 5e DMG says this about magic items: ''"If your campaign allows for trade in magic items,"'' Meaning in some settings buying magical ammunition may not be possible. Conversely if your dwarves for example are as forge happy as standard dwarves then across the whole of a dwarf kingdom you could easily scout up a thousand and a half of them, (but at that point your reaching across a border so example your GM to make just that step a quest and a half to even get there support). Conversely if that's not the case you'll have to look else where to get the magical support to cut through the Tarrasque hide.

One final note is remember that the DM can bend the rules. Yes, strictly speaking the Tarrasque can only be able to turn five peasants a turn into a red mist if it get's that close, but if you think your DM is actually going to roleplay this encounter that way you have another thing coming (and that thing being a cup of commoner smoothy). 
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Of course this all goes a far beyond D&D as an RPG and starts becoming a war game but it's not impossible at all for players to pull off, nor had D&D not dabbled in doing just that. With Roleplay any player with a noble title, something a seasoned adventurer could acquire, and can be acquired at level 1 with the noble background call up, or at least have the connections to speak to somebody who could call up, the requisite levy of troops. This is also the option on this page least likely to have your DM strangle you for attempting. Indeed, attempting to execute on this option will turn your entire game for a dozen or more sessions into '''form the next Great Alliance of Man, Elves, and Dwaves''', which is a campaign hook onto it self. The only draw back is time. When the Tarrasque start's rampaging it's too late, but if you have window of time where you know it's coming, you can prepare a welcoming for it.

However be forewarned if you think to try this against any other version of the Tarrasque: you will be found wanting. The 5e incarnation is the weakest of the Tarrasque's lacking damage reduction and it's signature hyper regeneration. Compared to the 3.5 version, a damage reduction of 15 does not just mean 'you do 15 less damage' it means 'you need to do 16 damage to hurt it at all,' and in our commoner army scenario the most they can do is 16 damage (reduced to 1), and only on a max damage crit, and 3.5 had less generous crit rules to begin with. Without Damage reduction the Tarrasque, or any big beast, can be killed by a thousand bug bites. But with Damage Reduction it means that only Heroes (or siege engines) can hurt, and kill, the Tarrasque.