Lesser Golems (input required)

[Yora]

I love golems. I also love E6. This obviously poses a problem.
To fix that, I've come up with a number of lesser golems.

Wood Golem
Wood golems are branches, twigs, and vines wrought together into a single tough yet flexible body and animated by an air elemental.
Bone golems are mostly identical but mostly made from bone and sinews.

Wood Golem - CR 4
Large construct
Init +0; Senses darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision; Listen +0, Spot +0
Languages -
---
AC 14, touch 9, flat-footed 14 (-1 size, +5 natural)
hp 68 (7 HD); DR 5/adamantine
Immune mind-affecting, poison, sleep effects, paralysis, stunning, disease, death effects, necromancy effects, critical hits, nonlethal damage, ability damage, ability drain, fatigue, exhaustion, energy drain, massive damage
Resist half damage from cold, electricity, and fire; SR 14
Fort +2, Ref +2, Will +2
---
Speed 30 ft.
Melee 2 slams +9 (1d8+4)
Space 5 ft.; Reach 10 ft.
Base Atk +5; Grp +13
Atk Options double damage against objects
Spell-Like Abilities (CL 3rd):
At will - warp wood (DC 12)
---
Abilities Str 19, Dex 10, Con -, Int -, Wis 11, Cha 1
Feats -
Skills -

Ice Golem
Ice Golems are carved from massive blocks of ice into a vaguely humanoid shape and magically hardened to resist damage and warmth, animated by a water elemental.

Ice Golem - CR 5
Large construct (cold)
Init +0; Senses darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision; Listen +0, Spot +0
Languages -
---
AC 15, touch 9, flat-footed 15 (-1 size, +6 natural)
hp 85 (10 HD); DR 5/adamantine
Immune cold, mind-affecting, poison, sleep effects, paralysis, stunning, disease, death effects, necromancy effects, critical hits, nonlethal damage, ability damage, ability drain, fatigue, exhaustion, energy drain, massive damage
Resist half damage from electricity; SR 16
Fort +3, Ref +3, Will +3
Weakness double damage from fire
---
Speed 30 ft.
Melee 2 slams +12 (1d8+5)
Space 5 ft.; Reach 10 ft.
Base Atk +7; Grp +18
Atk Options double damage against objects
Special Actions breath weapon
---
Abilities Str 21, Dex 10, Con -, Int -, Wis 11, Cha 1
Feats -
Skills -
---
Breath Weapon (Su) 30-ft. cone, once every 1d4 rounds, damage 4d6 cold, Reflex DC 15 half.

Clay Golem
Clay golems are massive blocks of clay roughly shaped into a humanoid shape and animated by an earth elemental.

Clay Golem - CR 6
Large construct (earth)
Init +0; Senses darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision; Listen +0, Spot +0
Languages -
---
AC 16, touch 9, flat-footed 16 (-1 size, +7 natural)
hp 101 (13 HD); DR 10/adamantine
Immune mind-affecting, poison, sleep effects, paralysis, stunning, disease, death effects, necromancy effects, critical hits, nonlethal damage, ability damage, ability drain, fatigue, exhaustion, energy drain, massive damage
Resist half damage from electricity, and fire, one quarter damage from cold; SR 17
Fort +4, Ref +4, Will +4
---
Speed 30 ft.
Melee 2 slams +15 (1d8+6)
Space 5 ft.; Reach 10 ft.
Base Atk +9; Grp +19
Atk Options double damage against objects
---
Abilities Str 23, Dex 10, Con -, Int -, Wis 11, Cha 1
Feats -
Skills -

Stone Golem
Stone golems often resemble 10 to 14 feet tall statues and are animated by an earth elemtal.

Stone Golem - CR 7
Large construct (earth)
Init +0; Senses darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision; Listen +0, Spot +0
Languages -
---
AC 17, touch 9, flat-footed 17 (-1 size, +8 natural)
hp 118 (16 HD); DR 10/adamantine
Immune mind-affecting, poison, sleep effects, paralysis, stunning, disease, death effects, necromancy effects, critical hits, nonlethal damage, ability damage, ability drain, fatigue, exhaustion, energy drain, massive damage
Resist half damage from electricity, and fire, one quarter damage from cold; SR 19
Fort +5, Ref +5, Will +5
---
Speed 30 ft.
Melee 2 slams +19 (1d8+7)
Space 5 ft.; Reach 10 ft.
Base Atk +12; Grp +23
Atk Options Awesome Blow, double damage against objects
Special Attacks Stomp
---
Abilities Str 25, Dex 10, Con -, Int -, Wis 11, Cha 1
Feats -
Skills -
---
Awesome Blow (Ex) As a standard action, a stone golem can make a single attack with a -4 penalty to the attack roll to push a medium or smaller target back by 10 feet where it falls prone. If an obstacle prevents the target from completing the move, both the target and the obstacle take 1d6 points of damage.
Stomp (Su) As a standard action, a stone golem can stomp his feet on a stone floor to cause a shock wave that deals 2d6 points of damage to all creatures and objects within a 20 ft. radius and causes affected creatures to be stunned for 1d4 rounds. A DC 18 Fortitude save negates the stun effect and reduces the damage by half.

Obsidian Golem
Obsidian golems resemble stone golems made from black glass.

Obsidian Golem - CR 8
Large construct
Init +0; Senses darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision; Listen +0, Spot +0
Languages -
---
AC 18, touch 9, flat-footed 18 (-1 size, +9 natural)
hp 134 (19 HD); DR 10/adamantine
Immune mind-affecting, poison, sleep effects, paralysis, stunning, disease, death effects, necromancy effects, critical hits, nonlethal damage, ability damage, ability drain, fatigue, exhaustion, energy drain, massive damage
Resist half damage from electricity, and fire, one quarter damage from cold; SR 20
Fort +6, Ref +6, Will +6
---
Speed 30 ft.
Melee 2 slams +22 (1d8+8)
Space 5 ft.; Reach 10 ft.
Base Atk +14; Grp +26
Atk Options Awesome Blow, double damage against objects
---
Abilities Str 27, Dex 10, Con -, Int -, Wis 11, Cha 1
Feats -
Skills -
---
Awesome Blow (Ex) As a standard action, an obsidian golem can make a single attack with a -4 penalty to the attack roll to push a medium or smaller target back by 10 feet where it falls prone. If an obstacle prevents the target from completing the move, both the target and the obstacle take 1d6 points of damage.

What I did was taking the Large Animated Object, pushing Wisdom to 11, making it 2 slam attacks, and adding Spell Resistance, Damage Reduction, and object resistances against energy damage.
Usually Constructs advance +1 CR for every four additional HD, but with those special abilities, I made it +1 for every 3 HD.
Then a few special abilities added, and you get the result you can see here.

However as someone who almost exclusively ran games at very low levels, I'm unsure about the balance.
For one thing, Spell Resistance inproves dramatically as HD and CR increase. CR 18 for a 4th level spellcaster is doable, but even with feats and some other shenanigans, an E6 spellcasters will never overcome the SR 30 of a mere CR 8 obsidian golem. And I think the CRs are actually a bit low. CR 8 is a fight that requires the players attention with a 6th level group, and then it's no problem, but I'd like Stone and Obsidian golems to really roughen such parties up and possibly even killing some of the characters. When these monstrocities show up, it's business. A CR of 10 and 11 would be more in the range I want, but I think just adding 9 more HD will not result in a very interesting end result. Without adamantine weapons, 134 hp means a lot of chipping.
The lack of ranged attack and spells does not seem like a problem to me since the SR and DR should make it neccessary to engage them in meele and hit them hard. In the open, you can just go around them, but that's why a gm should place them in front of a doorway or blocking a corridor. If the players find any creative ways to defeat the golem with melee combat, it should take them some time, and to me this means "mission accomlished", we got ourself a memorable encounter.

But please take a look at them yourself and tell me what you think so far and what I can do to improve them.

[arguskos]

To kick it off, there's two sources I want to bring your attention to that you may not be aware of and may find of use here.

First, Vaynor's miniature golems (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=118537). Far "lesser" than these, but still, worth taking a glance at for ideas and whatnot.

Second, the lesser golems found in Dragon Magazine #341, including the Wood, Wax, Tin, Paper, Junk, and Fungus Golems, if I remember correctly.

Now, to the work at hand. I feel that you've achieved some pretty formidable melee brutes. However, they are boring. Like, really really boring. The SR is unbeatable in E6 on the Stone/Obsidian, and beyond the Stone Golem's Stomp (which is awesome, btws), I don't feel like these are all that interesting overall. These fights would devolve rapidly into "can the party out DPS it?" That's not very fun.

My suggestion would be the creation of some unique and flavorful abilities for each golem (I think Stone is good though, Stomp is pretty neato) to spice up the combats, and to tone down the SRs a good deal. They're already scary, they don't need to be big "screw you"'s to the spellcasters.

[Yora]

Yeah, that pretty much nails it. :smallbiggrin:

I changed the SR to 11 + 1/2 HD. Now it's a huge inconvenience, but if a spellcaster really wants to, he still can give it a shot and try to get through. If it has to with multiple castings. With all those construct immunities a big chunk of spells won't have any effect anyway.

I still believe that pure fighters can be fun if you use the terrain and take some of the special attack options that exist. Even though golems can't have feats, that doesn't mean they can't have special abilities that do something similar.
My idea is to have them as juggernauts of awesome strength. Which means sending people flying. Performing a bull rush without needing to move with the target for example. But it would probably more existing if each type has it's own special attacks that somehow seem fitting to the material they are made off.

[arguskos]

Standard disclaimer: I am mildly caustic, but it's because I like the work, not because I dislike you or anything (actually, I quite like your posting to be honest). Please, don't take offense.


I changed the SR to 11 + 1/2 HD. Now it's a huge inconvenience, but if a spellcaster really wants to, he still can give it a shot and try to get through. If it has to with multiple castings. With all those construct immunities a big chunk of spells won't have any effect anyway.
Better. No need to be all "hey casters, time to be useless". :smallwink:


I still believe that pure fighters can be fun if you use the terrain and take some of the special attack options that exist. Even though golems can't have feats, that doesn't mean they can't have special abilities that do something similar.
I never said anything about pure fighters, since I agree with you for lower-optimization games. I said fighting these things was boring, and my point stands.

They have high HP, DR, and SR. They're defensively oriented, like golems tend towards (though that annoys me, but that's a different, less relevant, discussion). This makes them boring to fight. Now, in standard 3.5, it's less of an issue, due to SR being easily broken with higher-end effects or SR: No spells, and DR being defeated at higher levels by materials that are easily acquirable. In E6, these caveats do not hold, and these are just annoying to deal with. Of course, if they have special abilities, and/or the casters can help, and/or they have specialized weaknesses/quirks (I like looking at the Gem Golems, from Monsters of Faerun, for inspiration here), this is far less of an issue, since now they're at least interesting.


My idea is to have them as juggernauts of awesome strength. Which means sending people flying. Performing a bull rush without needing to move with the target for example. But it would probably more existing if each type has it's own special attacks that somehow seem fitting to the material they are made off.
See, that all sounds awesome... but where is it all? :smallconfused: That's a great idea, but it's not present here. The only special features here are the Ice Golem's breath weapon (ok, fine) and the Stone Golem's Stomp (cool, if kinda good, since stunlocks are nice, but still cool; by the by, I'd recommend a 1d4 or 1d6 round cooldown on the ability, to prevent stunlocking).

Add a special attack or ability to them all (what if the Ice Golem could, instead of having a breath weapon, slide around like Iceman and shoot ice blasts at people, suddenly we have a unique and challenging monster that players are going to remember, not just another mook), and perhaps give the Stone and Obsidian special quirks or weaknesses, to make them both memorable and defeatable. What if the Obsidian Golem liked grappling? Suddenly, the dynamic changes drastically. That's memorable, that's interesting, that's fun to fight ("We've gotta save Jim from that golem's grasp before he gets broken in half!!"). Just having a block of numbers is snore-worthy, no matter how sexy they might be to the designer (and I'll admit, I like a stream-lined and smooth stat block as much or more than the next guy).

Also, why are they 1/4 resistant to cold? :smallconfused: That has zero precedent in all of 3.5, and doesn't make any thematic sense. Make them half resistant, like everything else.

[Mayhem]

Interesting.

The monster manual has the feat awesome blow which is exactly what you described. You could give it to them as an extraordinary ability.

[DracoDei]

I think you can still give them bonus feats... no need to re-invent the wheel by making them special abilities.

[Yora]

Okay, added awesome blow to stone and obsidian golems. Any other ides for magical effects that would fit well with the material of the golems?

[Mulletmanalive]

Also, why are they 1/4 resistant to cold? :smallconfused: That has zero precedent in all of 3.5, and doesn't make any thematic sense. Make them half resistant, like everything else.

Actually, it does have precident: anything and everything with a Hardness value takes 1/4 damage from Cold. [and 1/2 from Fire and Lightning]

[Yora]

That's also where half damage from fire and electricity comes from. Only acid and sonic deal full damage to objects.
I thought this is more interesting than just applying energy resistance 10.

[Debihuman]

Actually, it does have precident: anything and everything with a Hardness value takes 1/4 damage from Cold. [and 1/2 from Fire and Lightning]

True, however, creatures (golems and other creature Constructs) don't usually have a Hardness value, only objects have a hardness.

Debby

[Mulletmanalive]

True, however, creatures (golems and other creature Constructs) don't usually have a Hardness value, only objects have a hardness.

Debby

The Wickerman has it, as to Animated Objects in at least one version. As these things are based on Animated Objects, the logic is fairly simple...

Making them count as objects has a few perks, simply because it stops a bunch spells from affecting them without effort [those that can't affect objects] and comes with some blanket resistances including DR/Adamantine equivalent. [shrug] Never was clear why that route wasn't used in the first place...