Tricky BBEG

[Kurtalmak]

Hi and Hello to everyone!

I've been consulting the forums for quite a while just to follow interesting discusssions, but now it is time to ask for help.

Here is the situation:
we, a party of a cleric9, fighter9, wizard10, sorcerer9, barbarian9, ranger10 and bard7/rouge3 are in search for an artifact and we finally located it inside a large bronze golem. To retrieve it, we obviously have to destroy the golem. This is not as easy as it seems, because of:

- we are in some part of a dm-generated plane :smallfrown:
- spells create the opposite effects of what they should. (a fireball generates an ice storm, invisibility lets you glow, fly instead makes you stuck on the ground, etc) :smalleek:
-there is no sun, it is pitch black all day long :smallsigh:
-there is no water (and we ran out of supplies today morning) :smallfurious:
-if we rest, we are most likely attacked by monsters that haunt the area (they attacked with 2 and we were lucky, then attacked with 3 again today and surprised us, got us almost killed). :smallfurious::smallfurious:
- location of the golem:
inside a massive stone fortress inside a dome with 50ft diameter with two wodden doors opposing each other.:smallannoyed:
- the golem attacks with some sort of force blast that knocks you prone, then pulls you to him. we managed to get out quickly enough when we first stumbled into him. he has the artifact we need want locked inside his chest :smallwink:
- we know the golem killed at least 10 of the monsters that almost killed us (but we do not know if they attacked at the same time or if it were several squads) :smallsigh::smallsigh::smallsigh:

what we thought of but doesn't / didn't work

- destroy the dome he's in to damage him and burry him beneath rubble.
-> the dome is made of at least two foot thick stone blocks that are GLUED together with some sort of polymer and coatet in stone shingles
- build some sort of ram to "drive" into the dome to damage him
-> no time, and no wheels (but we have a bit of wooden rubbish)


my questions now are:
- is there a cleric or ranger spell in one of these books that could help (mind the opposite spell effect) from the following books:

[PHB, "Complete ..." Series, Spell Compendium]

- can you think of something engineered in 1 day that would help (we know there is a way back from this plane, but we do not know atm how to get back .( all travel through the astral plane is somehow blocked)

- is there a way to create water (since "create food and water" gives us dirt for 10 people and in 2 days we die from dehydration ...)

- simplest option would be to leave and let the golem have the artifact forever, but hey, its an artifact, not just a simple magic item, must do something awesome right?

now its our turn :smallbiggrin:

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

The only place I know of that has spells dealing with water the way you need is Sandstorm. You could maybe try using Summon Monster for an earth elemental to get a water elemental instead, and get a few sips before you dismiss it.

If anyone knows Shrink Item, you could cast it on one of the blocks of the dome to make it increase to four thousand times its original volume, which is probably your best chance of toppling the dome. You could just cast Mending on several of those blocks to break them apart and hopefully topple the dome. If the monsters that attack you while you're resting don't fly, you could all stand on a big rock and cast Shrink Item on it to create a safe plateau for resting.

[Green Leviathan]

From SS.
2: Desiccate: Deals 1d6/2 levels desiccation damage and dehydrates living creature.
4:Dispel Water: Cancels water spells and effects or dismisses water creatures.
5:Desiccate, Mass: Desiccates several creatures.

that should help with dehydration if everything works backwards and they are on the general cleric spell list.

[MrLemon]

You can try and shatter the dome with silence. The sonic damage you inflict with your incredibly amplified shouts (from outside the area) should do the trick
(iirc sonic ignores hardness, right?)

If that doesn't work, your DM has no sense of humour or epicness :smalltongue:

Other tricks:
- Invisibility Purge might work to get the whole party invisible

[Karoht]

There are several spells to heal Constructs which you can cast. One of them functions like Fast Healing 5, so if you have a means of reaching the Golem, cast that on him right away. Fast Harming 5, extended, and just get out of the place. Come back later to find him hurt/dead. There is a variant of Haste that only works on Constructs, so use that to Slow him. There is a Rage effect you can cast on Constructs, so use that to leave it debuffed, assuming that it isn't flat out immune to some of those effects.

[Exirtadorri]

Instead of dispel magic try permency. It should rip apart all the magic around. And in theory...any aoe magi. Effect should cast an anti magic field

[Waker]

An unusual fight. The other have already proposed how to get food and water, so I'll focus more on the fight itself. There aren't any stats on Bronze Golems, so I'll go with the next best thing, the Brass Golem. They are affected as if by Slow when hit with electricity, so cast whatever acid spells you have on this guy. In order to counter his pull ability, cast fly on the party so they stick to the ground. You might also use Spider Climb to be repulsed from the groud, granting fly or levitation. Sadly, Protection from Energy and Resist Energy both allow SR, so he'd be immune to it, otherwise I would say to use that to magnify the damage you could deal to him.
If you had a Druid I would say take down the dome using a reversed Transmute Mud to Rock. I also doubt that your Sorcerer or Wizard have it.

[Karoht]

An unusual fight. The other have already proposed how to get food and water, so I'll focus more on the fight itself. There aren't any stats on Bronze Golems, so I'll go with the next best thing, the Brass Golem. They are affected as if by Slow when hit with electricity, so cast whatever acid spells you have on this guy. In order to counter his pull ability, cast fly on the party so they stick to the ground. You might also use Spider Climb to be repulsed from the groud, granting fly or levitation. Sadly, Protection from Energy and Resist Energy both allow SR, so he'd be immune to it, otherwise I would say to use that to magnify the damage you could deal to him.
If you had a Druid I would say take down the dome using a reversed Transmute Mud to Rock. I also doubt that your Sorcerer or Wizard have it.Flesh to Stone might be an appropriate substitute though.

[Waker]

Flesh to Stone might be an appropriate substitute though.
The wizard is still a level shy of casting it. But if they could, it would simultaneously solve the problem of the dome and the food situation...

[Randomguy]

Another possible solution to the water problem would be to cast wall of fire and drink the water from the resulting wall of ice.


If you could hit the doors with a cone of cold or another ice spell, that could set them on fire and maybe burn them down.

A reversed Acid Arrow should still have no SR, and might be able to damage the golem.

Glitterdust or faerie fire might make you invisible, which would be a decent buff. Feeblemind and ray of enfeeblement might also work.

[Invader]

Using Fabricate Sorc/Wiz 5 should completely destroy the golem. Instead of making something out of the brass it should convert into its raw form. Possibly. Plus it can be cast at range and has no SR or save.

Of course your DM could always just say no but then he's just not playing fair lol.

[Kurtalmak]

thanks for all the input

- i will manage to get the DM to give the cleric the spells from sandstorm. That should help us to survive and give us a few extra days try and error some of your tacticts

(we already tried to drink the water from the fireball/snowstorm, but the water evaporated in a few rounds and no water was left)


- i found another clreic spell that might help: Animate Objects creates one or more creatures with the "construct" type and has no SR, but unfortunately this is Cleric6, so we would need to get another 5000XP somewhere (and be allowed to levelup)


Thanks for all the other spell suggestions, but unfortunately our arcane spellcasters are somewhat "limited" :smallbiggrin: .. in their number of spells.


- "rogue wave" is cleric4 (normally creates a water wave that deals bludgeoning damage), but could be difficult to get approved since is from a dragon magazine

- isnt there a cleric spell that repairs x cubic ft of something per level?.. maybe this could damage the dome a little bit to make it easier to destroy.

[Acanous]

Notes:
Reversed Summon Monster (Earth Elemental) gives you an Air elemental, not a Water elemental. For Water, summon Fire.

Reversed Fabricate probably functions as Disintegrate.

Shrink Item trick is a good one.

If Magic Items also function in reverse, get yourself a Lyre of Building. Play music to automatically destroy stationary objects, or to deconstruct things as though you had a team of demolitionists.

If that's not possible, here's some spells that'd be pretty brutal if reversed:

Grease. (Creates a 10 foot area of.. Soverign Glue?)
True Strike (Cast on Touch, -20 to next attack roll)
Find out how Mirror Image functions. Either it will create REAL copies of you, or it will cause attacks directed at other party members to hit you. Cast it on the Tank in either case.
You're level 10, so I'll put Cloudkill up here. +1d4 bonus Con per round is nothing to sneeze at. Technically speaking, it's a poison bonus to con, and goes away at the rate of one point per day.

Actually, 10 rounds of +1d4 Con (minimum 1 on a save) means your entire party has +10 con, or +50 HP. Minimum. It's a really good idea. Given that you may choose to fail a save, you're averaging +25 Con. That's over 100 bonus HP.

Solid Fog should give you a movement bonus, and dispel any miss chance an opponent has. Things falling into it will also take extra falling damage, if that's useful in any way.
Silence should function as Creaking Cacaphony. If you can figure out how to get sonic damage, it's automatically doubled.
Sonic does not have an opposite energy type. (fire-Ice, Acid-Electrical, Positive-Negative energy.) Closest thing Sonic has might be Force. In which case, Silence+Magic Missile would deal a lot of damage cheap.

Find out how Illusions function. Phantasmal Killer might function as Ressurrection, it might function as Heroism.

[Voidling]

Hi and Hello to everyone!
-if we rest, we are most likely attacked by monsters that haunt the area (they attacked with 2 and we were lucky, then attacked with 3 again today and surprised us, got us almost killed). :smallfurious::smallfurious:


what type of creatures are they, did get a look at the bodies of the ones you kills ?

can you eat them ?


Hi and Hello to everyone!
- location of the golem:
inside a massive stone fortress inside a dome with 50ft diameter with two wodden doors opposing each other.:smallannoyed:


could your group use part of the massive stone fortress to protect you while you rest ?

you could use some of the fortess's stone
what tools do you have ladders, rope and the like ?

[Kurtalmak]

the monsters function like the ghosts in super mario but with the following differences:

- if you look at them (and can perceive them (remember it's pitch black all the time)), they are in a "massive statue" form - stonelike, undestroyable by any of our fighters or mages. We even encountered some of them standing around but didn't know at first that they could even move.

- if they cannot be perceived, they change form (maybe as an immediate action) and can move very fast. They attack with very long claws that deal damage and make you blind (fort save). in addition they cast something like obscuring mist or other spell that creates fog, so even when you have theoretically the option to "see" them, you cannot, which enables their move and attack mode

- they are, on the other hand, attackable and more or less easily destroyable when in attack form. Our fighters managed to kill them by fighting blind with a 50% miss chance and high listen and spot checks

- we never saw them actually move, we asume they somehow teleport short distances, maybe dimension door at will or so ...

all in all -> not eatable and even a locked room did not make a save place to rest :smallsigh:

our surroundings:

- the fortress is inside a giant city completely made of massive stone. Everything in this city is completely made of stone and the creatures that lived here were completely extinct by exactly the same monsters that attacked us. by "everything is made of stone" i mean "EVERYTHING". houses, doors, furniture, items of daily use, even the newspaper. the population of the city must be extinct several hundred years, because we found some evidence of former live (bones, etc) and was adapt to the "no light" thing. they had some sort of thermal vision.

-> all in all we have a few ropes (40ft, 60ft, 200ft), lead mugs (which they used to drink out of, stone tables, stone boards, and very few wooden girders that were used to barricade the doors of the fortress)

[Voidling]

the monsters function like the ghosts in super mario but with the following differences:

- if you look at them (and can perceive them (remember it's pitch black all the time)), they are in a "massive statue" form - stonelike, undestroyable by any of our fighters or mages. We even encountered some of them standing around but didn't know at first that they could even move.

- if they cannot be perceived, they change form (maybe as an immediate action) and can move very fast. They attack with very long claws that deal damage and make you blind (fort save). in addition they cast something like obscuring mist or other spell that creates fog, so even when you have theoretically the option to "see" them, you cannot, which enables their move and attack mode

does you DM watch much Dr who ?

you could try boxing them in with stone wall - I mean wall of air.

- "destroy the dome he's in to damage him and burry him beneath rubble." -this might make it very hard to dig out. Digging a pit then luring it into it, golems are very heavy, then find a way to rust it.

Most standard golem are programed with simple rules if you can work out the rules you can find a way to hack it. Will it all way go back to the same spot if it can not see a empty? If so lure it with one party member then hide, way for it to get half way back then a different part member it get its attention and use that to make it follow you out of the city (that might be little hard of course). Or lead the golem to the shadow statues creates and let it kill them for you.

if the golem will not leave the dome the party could use the two sets of wood doors some how. does it all way go back into the middle ? if so lure it form one side then run in from the other side and put a trap/pit.

[Slipperychicken]

Have you tried closing your eyes while interacting with the city? Since the monsters are interactable when everyone closes their eyes, and unbreakable, unmoving stone when you open them, maybe the nonliving parts of the city function by the same rules.

For example, try picking up the newspaper with your everyone's eyes closed, or, if the stone which makes up the city is also unbreakable, break something like a table with closed eyes, and see if it didn't feel like stone. Then try to eat the food and open the doors.


Another idea: you could try "kiting" the golem into the open, and you and the monsters can wear it down gradually. If it won't leave the dome, you have an easy weakness to exploit. If it will leave the dome, then you can find a non-vision sense and act like urban guerrilla fighters (stand up from behind low cover, fire, drop back down. If it gets too close, have another piece of cover to dash to) until it's dead.

[Voidling]

our surroundings:

- the fortress is inside a giant city completely made of massive stone. Everything in this city is completely made of stone and the creatures that lived here were completely extinct by exactly the same monsters that attacked us. by "everything is made of stone" i mean "EVERYTHING". houses, doors, furniture, items of daily use, even the newspaper. the population of the city must be extinct several hundred years, because we found some evidence of former live (bones, etc) and was adapt to the "no light" thing. they had some sort of thermal vision.

EVERYTHING... but the set of doors on the dome are wood :smallcool:


Hi and Hello to everyone!
in search for an artifact and we finally located it inside a large bronze golem. To retrieve it, we obviously have to destroy the golem. This is not as easy as it seems, because of:

you have a thief so do you need to destroy it ? or could you disable it (for a while) while the thief steals the artifact from it's chest.

[Kurtalmak]

the city does not work like the monsters that haunt it. as i said everything is made of stone except some doors i think. but the population that lived here has been extinct several hundred years ago.

- kiteing the golem is a good idea. we will find out next week when we meet at the game table if he moves at all ( didn't see him do that whenn we first met him)

- thank you for all your input. i will bring this thread up again when we destroyed the golem (or got killed trying) and tell you how it went..:smallcool:

[Kurtalmak]

Hi everyone,

sorry for the late reply, we couldn't play a long time ecause of work differences.

Here is how it went:

- we survived because "Stonewall" turned out to give us huge piles of raw meat (since "stone to flesh" was the opposite of "petrify", you can see the analogy):smallbiggrin:

- the fight with the golem turned out pretty standard:
-> "airpassage" (or how it is called) gave us "spiderclimb so we couldn't get knocked prone so easily
-> the golem did not move at all from its position, so we put the fighter and the barbarian in the front row, behind them were the cleric and the bard and it was attack/heal for 10 rounds until the golem collapsed


it fell to the side and inside was a massive golden sarcophagus and inside the sarcophagus was a mummy wrapped in silver-something cloth.:smalltongue::smalltongue:

we celebrated our victory for about 20 minutes and then got suddenly "sucked away" from this plane and were teleported to our homeplane

(by an elf we never met before, into a natural cave of 18 sqm. the elf died from the exhausting planeshift spell, the entrance of the cave is filled with rubble (it must have collapsed some time ago) and from the other side of the rubble we can hear "large claws burrowing, which belong to some sort of unpleasent undead):smallfurious:

first thing i thought ( i'm playing the bard, specialised in mind control spells) : GREAT first it was all golems and statues and now it's undead, can i retrain my character ? .. :smallsigh:

no, in fact i love it how our DM always knows how to exactly control our movement without getting to cheesy..

so, now we sit and wait for the zombies ..

[Gavinfoxx]

Any spell that creates earth would work to create water...

just look for something that changes something to rocks or summons rocks or something. There are some rockfall type spells, right?

Edit: Oh, never mind.