How strong are Anaxims?

[danielxcutter]

An Anaxim is an Abomination, though unique among its kind as they're LN instead of some flavor of Evil and are Constructs instead of being Outsiders or Undead. They appeared in the ELH and are updated to the 3.5e ruleset for the SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/monsters/abomination.htm#anaxim) as well.

I do wonder how difficult it would be to fight one of these though. They can fly - 200 feet perfect is actually really good - which solves the problem of an annoyingly large number of monsters that pose no threat whatsoever to a flying enemy or even a ranged one. Natural attack routine is devastating, decent ranged attacks, iron golems aren't particularly threatening at a level where one could reasonably fought(even as a boss) but an anaxim can summon a decent number and they're really just mooks. At-will Greater Dispel Magic isn't super impressive but at this level almost everyone relies somewhat on buffs.(I also find it amusing that the summoned golems are actually bigger than the default anaxim.)

Defenses... on the one hand, they have horrible save bonuses. That being said, SR 34 is far from bad, and between Abomination and Construct immunities there's not a lot of save-or-X abilities they're vulnerable to. AC is about average for CR, DR 10/chaotic and epic and adamantine is quite an annoying combination to bypass, fast healing is nice.

I'm not sure how or even if magic immunity works. I guess they're kind of like golems, but are they flat out supposed to be immune to anything that allows SR? And wouldn't that make the actual SR completely redundant?

If it does, I think that prevents it from using Displacement or Greater Invisibility on itself, but of course being immune to a very large number of spells is really good.

They probably aren't quite final boss material I guess, but with some caster support they seem like they'd be formidable bruiser types? They do have 10 Int and 20 Wis, so they're not exactly stupid either.

Thoughts?

[CIDE]

Thematically they'd almost fit as either a guardian as a door or special location. As pointed out earlier, unlike all the other abominations these thing sit right in the middle and could potentially still be viewed as useful to their divine parents in some way instead of just getting locked away. I haven't seen them used in a game to really know exactly how powerful they would be in a fight. I remember them being used as a plot device in one of the dragon and/or dungeon magazine modules but I could be mistaken.

How would you use a Lawful Neutral creature as a villain? Just out of curiosity.

[danielxcutter]

Thematically they'd almost fit as either a guardian as a door or special location. As pointed out earlier, unlike all the other abominations these thing sit right in the middle and could potentially still be viewed as useful to their divine parents in some way instead of just getting locked away. I haven't seen them used in a game to really know exactly how powerful they would be in a fight. I remember them being used as a plot device in one of the dragon and/or dungeon magazine modules but I could be mistaken.

How would you use a Lawful Neutral creature as a villain? Just out of curiosity.

How does anyone manage to make non-murderhobo parties fight non-Evil creatures? It depends on the situation. Though villain may be a stretch.

[Anthrowhale]

The touch AC is 17, it has 430 hit points, fast heal 15, and DR 10.

There are many ways in the game to attack touch AC, so it doesn't seem that challenging?

[danielxcutter]

That goes for basically everything though. A lot of monsters have bad touch AC, and most touch attacks are either spells or not compatible with full attacks.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Give it some magic items that make up for its weaknesses; since it's an epic challenge, that should be a significant amount of oomph.

[Vaern]

I'm not sure how or even if magic immunity works. I guess they're kind of like golems, but are they flat out supposed to be immune to anything that allows SR? And wouldn't that make the actual SR completely redundant?

Their magic immunity does make SR redundant. It's likely that their SR is only listed because spell resistance is established as an inherent quality that comes with being an abomination. However, their magic immunity does not treat them as having infinity spell resistance. It is much worse than that.

The 3.0 to 3.5 update makes adjustments to certain mechanics that have changed between editions. Things like changing DR, since the mechanic no longer depends so heavily on how high your weapon's enhancement bonus is and DR has been reduced overall - presumably to make playing a martial character less punishing. What it tends not make adjustments to, however, is the functionality or wording of their abilities.

Creatures that have been reprinted in the 3.5 Monster Manual, such as the classic iron golem (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/golem.htm#ironGolem) have "immunity to magic," which treats them as having infinite spell resistance. If you look at the 3.0 version of the iron golem (https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/3e_SRD:Golem,_Iron), though, you'll see that they have "magic immunity," which simply makes them completely immune to all magical and supernatural effects, except as noted.

Epic golems (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/monsters/golem.htm#adamantineGolem) are 3.0 creatures that were updated to 3.5 as the Anaxim was, rather than being fully rewritten and republished like the iron golem. You'll see that they fully retain the 3.0 wording and functionality, even under the 3.5 ruleset. This is the "magic immunity" that the anaxim has: Full immunity to all magical and supernatural effects, with no listed exceptions. Their magic immunity does not allow exceptions for SR: No spells or for (Su) abilities as 3.5 golems' "immunity to magic" does.

[danielxcutter]

I think it’s probably safer to treat it as golem immunity with no alternate spell effects. I think it might get too messy otherwise.

Yes I know casters are OP but making them functionally useless without Epic Ubercheese still doesn’t feel great.

[tyckspoon]

Like most melee monsters it's fairly threatening if you are engaging it on its own terms/the lower optimization 'kick in the door, Fighter tanks the enemy while the casters roll against SR' style of play most things seem to be written for. It's not especially dangerous for high optimization or more intelligently tactical play, although its collection of special abilities, immunities, and resistances do make it less susceptible to a lot of the Standard Tricks that usually trivialize melee brawler monsters. Honestly not terrible as stock D&D monsters go, although you could do better with its feats (even just sticking within Core/the Epic Handbook, get rid of the crit feats and switch in like Improved Init - Dire Charge, give it a 400ft threat range first strike.)

[Bronk]

I do wonder how difficult it would be to fight one of these though.

I think it's like a lot of other things... if the party knows what they're up against, they'll be able to prepare just fine. but I see them as more of a surprise monster. It's a rage fueled god monster that should be bursting through walls like the Kool-Aid Man and be in the PCs faces before they can react, and be big enough to fill whatever space it's in. It might even be invisible when it does this - it does have a 20 Int and that SLA - but then you could just as well be throwing anything at the PCs. With any luck, they'd think it was an inevitable at first. I'd use the invisibility on any subsequent encounter though.

[Vaern]

I think it’s probably safer to treat it as golem immunity with no alternate spell effects. I think it might get too messy otherwise.

Yes I know casters are OP but making them functionally useless without Epic Ubercheese still doesn’t feel great.

I wouldn't say that they become functionally useless. They just have to play differently. Pass buff spells around. Use conjurations and transmutations to reshape the battlefield. And they'll still be able to deal with the summoned iron golems the same way they normally would.

I mean, yeah, it's probably safer to treat is as 3.5's immunity to magic, but it also makes it less interesting. Anyone with sufficient experience with SR or who's spent enough time on the forum is probably going to pick up at least one Orb of [Energy] spell as soon as it's available as the go-to way to ignore SR, immunity to magic, and immunity to death/incapacitating effects. I'd say that being able to prepare for a "magic immunity" scenario simply by picking up a single spell that reduces the encounter to a series of ranged touch attacks is a surprisingly low level of cheese needed to trivialize a potential boss fight.

Plus abominations are created or born of deific origins, so it's entirely reasonable for this particular creature to have more powerful immunities than a common golem. If your players are expecting to encounter what is essentially the golem equivalent of a demigod, they should expect it to be more resilient than the minions it's summoning. They should expect it to be a bit more difficult than spamming energy orbs at it for a few rounds.

[danielxcutter]

Like most melee monsters it's fairly threatening if you are engaging it on its own terms/the lower optimization 'kick in the door, Fighter tanks the enemy while the casters roll against SR' style of play most things seem to be written for. It's not especially dangerous for high optimization or more intelligently tactical play, although its collection of special abilities, immunities, and resistances do make it less susceptible to a lot of the Standard Tricks that usually trivialize melee brawler monsters. Honestly not terrible as stock D&D monsters go, although you could do better with its feats (even just sticking within Core/the Epic Handbook, get rid of the crit feats and switch in like Improved Init - Dire Charge, give it a 400ft threat range first strike.)

It already does have Improved Initiative, the updaters just seem to have forgotten to calculate it.

Also frankly what isn't weak to "high optimization"?


I think it's like a lot of other things... if the party knows what they're up against, they'll be able to prepare just fine. but I see them as more of a surprise monster. It's a rage fueled god monster that should be bursting through walls like the Kool-Aid Man and be in the PCs faces before they can react, and be big enough to fill whatever space it's in. It might even be invisible when it does this - it does have a 20 Int and that SLA - but then you could just as well be throwing anything at the PCs. With any luck, they'd think it was an inevitable at first. I'd use the invisibility on any subsequent encounter though.

Yyyyyyeah optimization level aside, these probably shouldn't be just treated as high-CR mooks considering the lore. Though it's possible depending on your reading that it might not be able to use its SLAs on itself and it's actually just Wis and Cha that are 20; Int is just 10. Still, smart enough to at least utilize what it has.


I wouldn't say that they become functionally useless. They just have to play differently. Pass buff spells around. Use conjurations and transmutations to reshape the battlefield. And they'll still be able to deal with the summoned iron golems the same way they normally would.

I mean, yeah, it's probably safer to treat is as 3.5's immunity to magic, but it also makes it less interesting. Anyone with sufficient experience with SR or who's spent enough time on the forum is probably going to pick up at least one Orb of [Energy] spell as soon as it's available as the go-to way to ignore SR, immunity to magic, and immunity to death/incapacitating effects. I'd say that being able to prepare for a "magic immunity" scenario simply by picking up a single spell that reduces the encounter to a series of ranged touch attacks is a surprisingly low level of cheese needed to trivialize a potential boss fight.

Plus abominations are created or born of deific origins, so it's entirely reasonable for this particular creature to have more powerful immunities than a common golem. If your players are expecting to encounter what is essentially the golem equivalent of a demigod, they should expect it to be more resilient than the minions it's summoning. They should expect it to be a bit more difficult than spamming energy orbs at it for a few rounds.

Assuming the casters even have spells for that or known. While it's both more team-friendly and efficient to support the party rather than doing it all yourself, in practice you'll still be using spells that affect enemies directly. A lot. I'm not sure if that's how it worked, but it seems like it's flat out able to ignore things like a Wall of Force and it might also end up immune to a lot of things martials rely on... like the Greater Magic Weapon buffs everyone relies on. And "golem immunity without the weaknesses" is still a lot stronger than just SR 34; Orb of X spells don't do that much damage unless you're a Mailman build, it's immune to electricity and resistant to fire and cold, and it can't be ignored by just burning a 4th-level slot for Assay Spell Resistance.

Also, Abominations aren't quite demigod level. Demigod level starts from divine rank 1; abominations are divine rank 0(which isn't the same as lacking ranks entirely). I do think Abominations inspired the Elder Evil qualities, at the least, but by explicit RAW they really aren't on the level of demigods.

[Anthrowhale]

Some esoteric touch attacks (Master Thrower 5, Poison Ring) are available to mundanes. I made some builds around that (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?635794-Team-Mundane).

Anaxim's also lack any listen or spot. They do have True Sight and Blindsight 500', but Hide in Plain Sight + Darkstalker with a high Hide/Move Silently could surprise them 100% of the time. This could be addressed by dropping some feat for Mindsight.

[danielxcutter]

Some esoteric touch attacks (Master Thrower 5, Poison Ring) are available to mundanes. I made some builds around that (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?635794-Team-Mundane).

Anaxim's also lack any listen or spot. They do have True Sight and Blindsight 500', but Hide in Plain Sight + Darkstalker with a high Hide/Move Silently could surprise them 100% of the time. This could be addressed by dropping some feat for Mindsight.

Well, those builds are hardly standard are they? Abuse that too much and they're likely going to get Rule Zeroed before they make it off the ground. Besides, shouldn't a moderately optimized build not have too much trouble hitting AC 37 even without resorting to touch attacks at any level remotely expected to fight one of these?

Does HiPS still work after you attack them? Hmm... I was thinking of changing out Epic Toughness and Blind-Fight to Improved Toughness and Dire Charge for a hypothetical adjustment, but their ranged options are actually pretty nice. Nobody protects against sonic damage without prior information(and the "breath weapon" has no cooldown) and the ray + spikes are also reasonably damaging - it's not actively forced into either moving closer to you or waiting until the party comes to it.

Actually, just exchanging Blind-Fight to Mindsight would mean minimal changes to how it works. I honestly can't think of many threats that wouldn't still work on a bunch of other creatures at that CR anyways.

[Anthrowhale]

Well, those builds are hardly standard are they? Abuse that too much and they're likely going to get Rule Zeroed before they make it off the ground.

These are pure mundane builds. Lots of tricks, but the power level isn't actually that high.


Besides, shouldn't a moderately optimized build not have too much trouble hitting AC 37 even without resorting to touch attacks at any level remotely expected to fight one of these?

That's true if you are using magic. Without it, the ability to hit a touch AC is quite helpful since you can focus build resources on damage instead of hit.


Does HiPS still work after you attack them?

4 (standard party size) full attacks may kill it.


Hmm... I was thinking of changing out Epic Toughness and Blind-Fight to Improved Toughness and Dire Charge for a hypothetical adjustment, but their ranged options are actually pretty nice. Nobody protects against sonic damage without prior information(and the "breath weapon" has no cooldown) and the ray + spikes are also reasonably damaging - it's not actively forced into either moving closer to you or waiting until the party comes to it.

Yeah, shifting devastating critical to the spikes would be a win. The DC is 41 and 6 ranged attacks have much better odds of triggering than 2 melee attacks. It also combos well with fly 200'(perfect). Maybe pick up Brutal Throw to use strength to hit with the spikes? Improved Sunder and Improved Bull Rush both look sacrificial to me.


Actually, just exchanging Blind-Fight to Mindsight would mean minimal changes to how it works. I honestly can't think of many threats that wouldn't still work on a bunch of other creatures at that CR anyways.
That makes great sense. The value of Blind-Fight on a creature with Blindsight is pretty suspect anyways.

[danielxcutter]

These are pure mundane builds. Lots of tricks, but the power level isn't actually that high.

That's true if you are using magic. Without it, the ability to hit a touch AC is quite helpful since you can focus build resources on damage instead of hit.

...How many parties don't buff out the wazoo and also completely lack magic?


4 (standard party size) full attacks may kill it.

Well yeah, but how many monsters aren't dead or almost dead at that point?


Yeah, shifting devastating critical to the spikes would be a win. The DC is 41 and 6 ranged attacks have much better odds of triggering than 2 melee attacks. It also combos well with fly 200'(perfect). Maybe pick up Brutal Throw to use strength to hit with the spikes? Improved Sunder and Improved Bull Rush both look sacrificial to me.

That makes great sense. The value of Blind-Fight on a creature with Blindsight is pretty suspect anyways.

Honestly, I think they'd perform at least adequately even right out the box? The only serious weaknesses I can think of are "not a spellcaster" and "lack of immunity to BFC".

[Anthrowhale]

...How many parties don't buff out the wazoo and also completely lack magic?
Evidence so far suggests 1 :smile:


Well yeah, but how many monsters aren't dead or almost dead at that point?

Right---mindsight addresses the most straightforward surprise case, at least.


Honestly, I think they'd perform at least adequately even right out the box? The only serious weaknesses I can think of are "not a spellcaster" and "lack of immunity to BFC".
It seems like a question of party optimization level. There are some parties where the Anaxim will be lucky to hit with just a +30 bonus and the hp damage of the ranged attacks is a minor inconvenience. In that context, Brutal Throw and Devastating Critical(Spike) may make a more appropriate epic challenge.

A few other thoughts in case it's helpful:

The Iron Golems are potentially good bait for a ranged Anaxim. It gets the party to reveal their capabilities and may distract the party.
I'd personally use the downgraded 3.5 magic immunity. I believe that's the correct interpretation of the ability in a 3.5 context. It also allows the Anaxim to self-buff.
If the Anaxim stays beyond True Sight range (120'), then Displacement will work, halving ranged attacks. That's worth a -2 penalty to hit. Furthermore, Greater Invisibility is only vulnerable to See Invisibility, which has unlimited range. Greater Dispel Magic works from beyond True Seeing range, so that can counter See Invisibility. If the party is relying on an item or scroll for See Invisibility, it's likely to work.
Range also helps reduce party attacks, since lots of nasty spell (like most orbs) have only 'close' range.
You may want to consider Quicken Spell-Like Ability[Greater Dispel Magic]. Being able to (at least) turn off items seems quite helpful.
Ethereal Jaunt is a solid 'time out' option. You can hide in the material-plane underground while Fast Heal activates, and it combos with magic immunity to make you invulnerable to basically everything except abjurations.

[danielxcutter]

Evidence so far suggests 1 :smile:

Well those are rare, honestly. Not every table does a laundry list of buffs but they're probably going to have some up and running.


Right---mindsight addresses the most straightforward surprise case, at least.

Interestingly, they also have at-will True Seeing! So Darkstalking HiPS is basically the only way you'd be capable of doing that anyways. And simply replacing Blind-Fight with Mindsight removes even that possibility.


It seems like a question of party optimization level. There are some parties where the Anaxim will be lucky to hit with just a +30 bonus and the hp damage of the ranged attacks is a minor inconvenience. In that context, Brutal Throw and Devastating Critical(Spike) may make a more appropriate epic challenge.

A few other thoughts in case it's helpful:

The Iron Golems are potentially good bait for a ranged Anaxim. It gets the party to reveal their capabilities and may distract the party.
I'd personally use the downgraded 3.5 magic immunity. I believe that's the correct interpretation of the ability in a 3.5 context. It also allows the Anaxim to self-buff.
If the Anaxim stays beyond True Sight range (120'), then Displacement will work, halving ranged attacks. That's worth a -2 penalty to hit. Furthermore, Greater Invisibility is only vulnerable to See Invisibility, which has unlimited range. Greater Dispel Magic works from beyond True Seeing range, so that can counter See Invisibility. If the party is relying on an item or scroll for See Invisibility, it's likely to work.
Range also helps reduce party attacks, since lots of nasty spell (like most orbs) have only 'close' range.
You may want to consider Quicken Spell-Like Ability[Greater Dispel Magic]. Being able to (at least) turn off items seems quite helpful.
Ethereal Jaunt is a solid 'time out' option. You can hide in the material-plane underground while Fast Heal activates, and it combos with magic immunity to make you invulnerable to basically everything except abjurations.


Unsurprisingly, most parties that can trivialize an Anaxim are likely capable of pulling that off on other monsters in that ballpark as well.

I was under the impression that iron golems aren't a huge threat to a lot of parties at that level - and I still do, actually - but they're still a prime example of the classical bruiser monster. Good at hitting hard, good at taking hits, terrible at everything that isn't solvable with those. So unless they're all constantly flying(admittedly common from what I hear, but at the same time I don't think people fly a lot if they don't have to) they should at least be enough of a nuisance for the party to react to them, and an Anaxim could probably get a vague idea of what the party does from that.

One of the nice things about these monsters is that while they're still more of a bruiser type enemy, they've still got enough abilities to prevent them from being completely irrelevant. A fly speed of 200 ft. with perfect maneuverability, as well as the decent ranged capabilities and the good defenses means the Warlock with Fell Flight and Vitrolic Burst is not going to be cheesing the entire fight. About the only real thing that shuts them down entirely is Forcecage, and that still leaves it to Fast Heal.

[Biggus]

Forcecage is the most straightforward way to trivialise an Anaxim encounter, by the time you're likely to fight one 1500GP is quite affordable. Advanced Anaxims eventually get too big for this tactic though.

[danielxcutter]

Forcecage is the most straightforward way to trivialise an Anaxim encounter, by the time you're likely to fight one 1500GP is quite affordable. Advanced Anaxims eventually get too big for this tactic though.

Sure, but it's also basically the only one. And like with every martial-inclined opponent, even the bare minimum of caster support can make one far more intimidating.

[Anthrowhale]

Interestingly, they also have at-will True Seeing! So Darkstalking HiPS is basically the only way you'd be capable of doing that anyways.

An optimized party might just Time Stop / approach / Maw of Chaos / Forcecage / eat popcorn.

[danielxcutter]

An optimized party might just Time Stop / approach / Maw of Chaos / Forcecage / eat popcorn.

Maw of Chaos is actually SR: Yes.

[Anthrowhale]

Maw of Chaos is actually SR: Yes.

Oh, very good. I think that means you have to use the barred version of Forcecage and trade attacks to finish it permanently. Of course, just plain bypassing is an option.

[Soranar]

If you're intent on fighting it the sheer amount of immunities could prove to be challenging to the wrong party assuming they don't know what they're walking into.

But if you have a proper ubercharger it'd be in trouble.

I hear a typical ubercharger barb can deal 1000 damage a round but even a less optimized build like a factotum.

Say a level 20 mounted charger killoren factotum

Wild cohort for a mount who is specked out with flying horseshoes in case it's flying.

lance + spirited charge + rhino's rush (cost your swift action, through a wand) + valorous lance

x5 damage

a killoren smite works against constructs, that +20 damage

throw in cunning insight to add your INT to hit and damage
combine that with Control Body (used through a dorje) to add your INT to hit and damage again
cunning breach lets you ignore SR and DR
cunning surge gives you extra standard actions to buff
two weapon pounce or the like to have an extra attack (you can wield a lance in both hands)

with a +12 bonus to INT you do

4.5 (lance) + 5 (collision enchantment) + 24 (INT x2) + 20 (killoren smite) = 53.5 damage
multiplied by 2 because you have 2 attacks (107) multiplied by 5 because it's a mounted charge (535 damage)

you have +24 to hit from INT, + 15 from BAB and you're trying to hit 37 AC so just don't roll a 1 or a 2 and you'll be fine

But not all groups have an ubercharger. I don't see a monk or an archer doing much to that thing, not sure what a beguiler could do to it either and I don't know if a mailman could harm it since magic immunity is not SR.

[danielxcutter]

Literally none of those are what actually makes it past most DMs in actual games, I'm not even sure if half of that works by RAW, and also you're forgetting the DR 15/epic and chaotic and adamantine it has.

[JNAProductions]

Literally none of those are what actually makes it past most DMs in actual games, I'm not even sure if half of that works by RAW, and also you're forgetting the DR 15/epic and chaotic and adamantine it has.

When you deal 500+ damage per hit, I don’t think taking 15 off matters much. :P

[danielxcutter]

When you deal 500+ damage per hit, I don’t think taking 15 off matters much. :P

Maybe, but how many tables actually have that happen? Not many. 500 damage per round across the entire party is honestly more than good enough, I imagine.

[Biggus]

Sure, but it's also basically the only one.

Well, there's also "all be able to reliably beat its initiative" which is far from uncommon by level 20ish; for less than 40,000GP you can get +12 initiative and the ability to roll it twice and take the better result. Add on bonuses from Dex, feats, spells etc. and its +11 starts to look pretty weak.

If a PC of that level is routinely doing 500+ damage per round, that's fairly high-op by the standards of actual games I've played in (as opposed for what passes for normal on these boards) but an entire team being able to do that much certainly isn't. So if it goes last, there's a fair chance it won't get to go at all.

[danielxcutter]

Well, there's also "all be able to reliably beat its initiative" which is far from uncommon by level 20ish; for less than 40,000GP you can get +12 initiative and the ability to roll it twice and take the better result. Add on bonuses from Dex, feats, spells etc. and its +11 starts to look pretty weak.

If a PC of that level is routinely doing 500+ damage per round, that's fairly high-op by the standards of actual games I've played in (as opposed for what passes for normal on these boards) but an entire team being able to do that much certainly isn't. So if it goes last, there's a fair chance it won't get to go at all.

For starters, I'm pretty sure that hypothetical build doesn't actually work because you can't two-hand two lances at once with only two arms, not to mention that 34~35 Int is really high even with inherent bonuses and its biggest flaw is that it's a build that is designed for a specific encounter.

As for a party... honestly, I dunno? Remember, even the most conservative interpretation of Magic Immunity gives it effectively infinite SR, so most of the damage is going to be from the martials/gishes. And well... DR 15/epic and chaotic and adamantine is honestly a bit hard to get around. Awesome Smite doesn't work on epic DR. Sense Weakness only ignores 5 points. And lawful/chaotic aligned weapons are going to be a lot less commonly prepared than good/evil. I can see a 4-member level 20 party easily tearing chunks out of its hit points, even without specific preparations. But before it does anything...? I dunno.

I can't help but think that any party that would instantly demolish one of these... wouldn't be capable of pulling that off against a variety of other low~mid-Epic CR creatures. Really, having flight and ranged attacks alone prevents a Warlock with Vitrolic Blast cheesing the entire fight.

[Mechalich]

Well, there's also "all be able to reliably beat its initiative" which is far from uncommon by level 20ish; for less than 40,000GP you can get +12 initiative and the ability to roll it twice and take the better result. Add on bonuses from Dex, feats, spells etc. and its +11 starts to look pretty weak.

If a PC of that level is routinely doing 500+ damage per round, that's fairly high-op by the standards of actual games I've played in (as opposed for what passes for normal on these boards) but an entire team being able to do that much certainly isn't. So if it goes last, there's a fair chance it won't get to go at all.

You do have to do all that damage using attacks capable of overcoming magic immunity, which is a bit tricky, and the unlikely to be overcome DR 10 (yes its 10, not 15) and Fast Healing 15 do make it difficult to do so using a large number of small attacks rather than a few big ones. However, forcing the Anaxim into melee is still probably the go to strategy, as its melee damage is high (averages 109 damage counting rend on a 100% successful full attack) but not overwhelming, and significantly below its ranged damage potential.

A 200' perfect fly speed is extremely fast - beating almost everything else in the game excepting a small number of other epic level monsters (mostly other abominations, intriguingly) and high-powered dragons (which it outmaneuvers massively). Since it can effectively ignore most spell assaults - and even those that it can't might struggle to reach it, as Orb of X is a Close Range spell - it has a significant capacity to simply rain death from above upon a party while kiting away ever higher (presumably, being a construct, it can fly into space if it wants).

I think it's quite arguable that the Anaxim's combination of traits - speed, high levels of ranged damage, and magic immunity - make it significantly more dangerous than a number of similar epic monsters, but that's not exactly saying much considering the madness of Epic generally.

[danielxcutter]

You do have to do all that damage using attacks capable of overcoming magic immunity, which is a bit tricky, and the unlikely to be overcome DR 10 (yes its 10, not 15) and Fast Healing 15 do make it difficult to do so using a large number of small attacks rather than a few big ones. However, forcing the Anaxim into melee is still probably the go to strategy, as its melee damage is high (averages 109 damage counting rend on a 100% successful full attack) but not overwhelming, and significantly below its ranged damage potential.

Care to break the math down for me? I was under the impression it was more dangerous in melee than ranged combat. It does have Power Attack after all. The spikes don’t have a great to-hit or damage and it’s possible to use resistances to damp much of the damage from the ray, touch, or “breath weapon”. And yes these things are tricky to hurt for an unprepared party - far from impossible, for sure, but it’s still got some rather atypical defenses.


A 200' perfect fly speed is extremely fast - beating almost everything else in the game excepting a small number of other epic level monsters (mostly other abominations, intriguingly) and high-powered dragons (which it outmaneuvers massively). Since it can effectively ignore most spell assaults - and even those that it can't might struggle to reach it, as Orb of X is a Close Range spell - it has a significant capacity to simply rain death from above upon a party while kiting away ever higher (presumably, being a construct, it can fly into space if it wants).

It’s still limited to needing to stay still for full attacks, and the ray and blast being energy attacks makes them easier to protect against. Plus, it lacks tactical teleportation or counters to it. But aside from that, if it wants to play the attrition game it absolutely can. Which is in its favor due to the Fast Healing. About the only thing that prevents this thing from running literal circles around the party is Forcecage - it can literally waltz through a Prismatic Sphere, one of the most overkill BFC spells in the game. (Or at least, it could if it had Perform ranks.)


I think it's quite arguable that the Anaxim's combination of traits - speed, high levels of ranged damage, and magic immunity - make it significantly more dangerous than a number of similar epic monsters, but that's not exactly saying much considering the madness of Epic generally.

This seems fair, yes - and it’s noteworthy that an Anaxim is low Epic enough for a (high level) non-Epic party to fight one as a boss encounter. Creatures that are objectively more threatening tend to either have spellcasting, or at least enough SLAs and supernatural abilities that they’re practically a fixed-list caster anyways; this thing is about as scary as it can get while still being primarily a beatstick.

Honestly it’s way better designed than a lot of high-CR creatures. A lot suffer from “designed as tier 4 types with inflated numbers” syndrome or go the other way and look more like the DM throwing a hissy fit(looking at you, Atropals).

[Anthrowhale]

The ranged damage potential is 6x 2d6+12 (spikes) + 10d6 (electricity) = 6x 19(spikes) + 35 (electricity) = 149.

The melee damage potential is 2x 2d6+12(spinning blade) +4d6+18(rend) + 2x 2d6+6 (slams) + 2d6+6 (electricity)
= 2x 19(spinning blade) +32(rend) + 2x 13 (slams) + 19 (electricity)
= 115.

You might try using power attack in melee combat, but power attack reduces expected damage if the damage/attack is >20 and you lose a 5% chance of hitting per point of power attack. So, if people are running around with AC 20 like a level 4 party, there is quite a bit of room for power attack to come into play. But if they are armored up at AC 40 (not that hard by level 20), then power attack has little role to play.

W.r.t. ranged attack bonus, spikes function as a thrown weapon so Brutal Throw should apply. If Brutal Throw applies, the spikes plausibly become the primary weapon so shifting feats over to focus on spikes should leave you with an attack routine of +43/+43/+43/+43/+43/+43 ranged and +30 ranged touch. And, if you want Power Attack potential, you can take Power Throw.

W.r.t. getting a full attack off, it seems like delay (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/specialInitiativeActions.htm#delay) may be helpful. Range however is the real winner. Ironically, you might actually want blind-fight, since mindsight could allow targeting the square of an opponent at a 1000' distance. On the other hand, 500' of distance is much like 1000'. So, maybe Mindsight, Brutal Throw, and possibly Power Throw instead of Improved Bull Rush, Improved Sunder, and possibly Epic Toughness or Blind-fight?

[danielxcutter]

The ranged damage potential is 6x 2d6+12 (spikes) + 10d6 (electricity) = 6x 19(spikes) + 35 (electricity) = 149.

The melee damage potential is 2x 2d6+12(spinning blade) +4d6+18(rend) + 2x 2d6+6 (slams) + 2d6+6 (electricity)
= 2x 19(spinning blade) +32(rend) + 2x 13 (slams) + 19 (electricity)
= 115.

You might try using power attack in melee combat, but power attack reduces expected damage if the damage/attack is >20 and you lose a 5% chance of hitting per point of power attack. So, if people are running around with AC 20 like a level 4 party, there is quite a bit of room for power attack to come into play. But if they are armored up at AC 40 (not that hard by level 20), then power attack has little role to play.

W.r.t. ranged attack bonus, spikes function as a thrown weapon so Brutal Throw should apply. If Brutal Throw applies, the spikes plausibly become the primary weapon so shifting feats over to focus on spikes should leave you with an attack routine of +43/+43/+43/+43/+43/+43 ranged and +30 ranged touch. And, if you want Power Attack potential, you can take Power Throw.

W.r.t. getting a full attack off, it seems like delay (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/specialInitiativeActions.htm#delay) may be helpful. Range however is the real winner. Ironically, you might actually want blind-fight, since mindsight could allow targeting the square of an opponent at a 1000' distance. On the other hand, 500' of distance is much like 1000'. So, maybe Mindsight, Brutal Throw, and possibly Power Throw instead of Improved Bull Rush, Improved Sunder, and possibly Epic Toughness or Blind-fight?

You're missing a crucial factor in that the spikes don't actually have great attack bonuses without Brutal Throw, and there's absolutely nothing to suggest that taking it would shift them to the primary attacks(it's not like taking Weapon Focus(claw) on a wolf makes them the primary attacks either).

If the target has 37 AC or less, all of its melee attacks will hit except on a nat 1, but the spikes need to roll a 7 or higher.

A more accurate calculation - using 37 AC, which is roughly "average" for the CR - would be something like:


Melee: 19*0.95*2*1.1+13*3*0.95*1.05+0.95*0.95*32+0.95*3.5 *2=114.1425
Ranged: 35*0.95*1.05+6*19*0.7*1.05=118.7025


Assuming that the spike damage isn't a typo - because if they're secondary attacks they should do get half Str to damage - , against an AC of 37 or less it does do a bit more damage with its ranged attacks, though not a lot. However, the shocking touch and the ray are both electricity damage, which can easily be reduced with low-level spells, and higher AC hurts the ranged damage a bit more than melee because it makes more ranged attacks. Also, technically I did add the Overwhelming Critical damage, but if it gets a lucky crit with its blades it's effectively an instant kill anyways due to the ridiculous DC.

Still, both do enough damage that I don't think that you'll need to change up their feats that much, honestly? At a table where Anaxims would work at all, just switching Blind-Fight to Mindsight seems like it'd be enough.

[Biggus]

For starters, I'm pretty sure that hypothetical build doesn't actually work because you can't two-hand two lances at once with only two arms, not to mention that 34~35 Int is really high even with inherent bonuses and its biggest flaw is that it's a build that is designed for a specific encounter.

I don't know if that specific build is actually legal, but I've seen several others on these boards which do that much damage or more. They're all extremely cheesy and wouldn't see actual play under any DM I know though, I was agreeing with you that we shouldn't use those as a benchmark.



As for a party... honestly, I dunno? Remember, even the most conservative interpretation of Magic Immunity gives it effectively infinite SR, so most of the damage is going to be from the martials/gishes. And well... DR 15/epic and chaotic and adamantine is honestly a bit hard to get around. Awesome Smite doesn't work on epic DR. Sense Weakness only ignores 5 points. And lawful/chaotic aligned weapons are going to be a lot less commonly prepared than good/evil. I can see a 4-member level 20 party easily tearing chunks out of its hit points, even without specific preparations. But before it does anything...? I dunno.


I'm currently DMing for an 18th-level party. They're somewhat optimised but not high-op by any means. The Barbarian typically does 200-ish damage per round with his axe and the Ranger-Rogue about 100 with his force bow (MIC) which ignores all damage reduction. They also have two animal companions which do less but non-trivial damage, so the spellcasters don't have to do that much to be able to bring it down in a single round.

Obviously how the encounter starts is going to make a big difference, if it's in the open air at a long distance it can use its movement powers and ranged attacks to full effect for example.

I'm not trying to say that the Anaxim is ridiculously easy for its CR, it isn't. But like many epic monsters it has some vulnerabilities which a competent party can use to defeat it without resorting to high-op cheese.

[danielxcutter]

Frankly, I’m not sure if there even are monsters that would last much longer in that ballpark. Maybe a Master or the Hunt?

[Anthrowhale]

At a table where Anaxims would work at all, just switching Blind-Fight to Mindsight seems like it'd be enough.
Regardless of difficulty, melee bruisers are pretty common, so I'd think a ranged bruiser would naturally be more interesting. I suspect it would be more challenging in practice, simply because detection and range are additional obstacles not as evident when used as a melee bruiser. I agree it's not a significant increase in challenge for a well-prepared high level party.

As far as the primary weapon, the rules (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#naturalWeapons) say:

A creature’s primary natural weapon is its most effective natural attack... It's not super-clear that any change to the given feats is RAW, but if feats shift to favor a different natural weapon, this claim can only be satisfied if the primary weapon shifts. Anyways, there is (improved) multiattack should you have further doubt.

As far as whether you add the full strength bonus to spike damage when the spike is used as a secondary weapon, it seems hard to tell if this was meant to be an exception or it's a mistake. "Spike" isn't a common (i.e. listed) natural attack, so exceptions are easy to imagine. On the other hand, there are many things in statblocks that are almost surely mistakes.

[DarkSoul]

Regarding touch AC, giving it scintillating scales as an ability would help. Also, in the Divine Ranks and Abilities section of the SRD there's a line in the Armor Class section that says all deities gain a deflection bonus to AC equal to their Charisma bonus. Considering a few lines above that it says deities have maximum hp, and this has been applied to the Anaxim, I think it's an oversight in the stat block that it doesn't have +5 deflection to AC. This would give it 22 touch AC, or 37 if you add scintillating scales.

I've always held the opinion that stat blocks need to be adjusted based on how much content is available in the campaign, and that printed stat blocks should be compared to core-only parties. Using Core + Completes, I might put Shock Trooper on the anaxim, or possibly Karmic Strike or Robilar's depending on if I want to make it an offensive brute or defensive. Adding Improved Combat Reflexes allows it to trade hits with any and all melee attackers 1-for-1.

[danielxcutter]

Scintillating Scales basically makes touch attacks useless though, and it’s honestly still got better touch AC than a lot of things.

[DarkSoul]

Scintillating Scales basically makes touch attacks useless though, and it’s honestly still got better touch AC than a lot of things.So? Make them work for their victory. High-level characters, and especially epic level ones, have the resources to solve nearly any encounter. Sometimes, that means just buffing up the melee. Sometimes, that means spending more resources than you think you should have to as a player. I'm a firm believer that no one PC should be able to solve every encounter every time. It's a cooperative game.

If the wizard wants to use his orbs on the anaxim, make them quicken a true strike first. You're fighting a literal god. It's not going to just be chain-casting a spell until the mob dies; go play an MMO for that.

[Soranar]

Few comments about the factotum build:

That's my typical factotum build, I usually play them as pseudo paladins since their Int based "smite" works against anything. A flying mounted ubercharger with tons of skillpoints and access to every skill is pretty versatile. It's not specific to fight this guy, killoren smite is really useful.

I don't typically wield 2 lances unless I play a specific DM but you can wield them in 1 hand, it's in the description.

34 INT is high, it means 18 base+ 5 from levels +6 from items +1 from aging, +1 from a tome and +1 from a wish. But you're a factotum so you only care about INT.

I even forgot knowledge devotion, you should only miss on a 1.

Mounted flying chargers are pretty good vs high level monsters since they rely on DR and fast healing to stay alive but massive 1 hits do the trick most of the time.

I have a mounted ranger that works on the same principal and a mounted barbarian too. I'm sure someone can link a typical barbarian ubercharger. If I were DMing a game with that thing I'd assume magic immunity is the same thing as the golems so SR:no spells would work.

Meaning a mailman build should ruin your day too.

But 430 damage in one round for a high level party should be no problem even with 10 DR. 37 AC is low at that CR.

[Anthrowhale]

The use of Killoren Smite is very specific to the opponent, which is somewhat implausible in a non-custom-built PC. The use of Control Body on yourself is sketchy in combination with other things, since it requires concentration and

You can’t cast a spell while concentrating on another one.

Nevertheless, the flying melee style can be very effective. I personally like it in combo with Great Flyby Attack where you want a single hit that does as much damage as possible.

[danielxcutter]

So? Make them work for their victory. High-level characters, and especially epic level ones, have the resources to solve nearly any encounter. Sometimes, that means just buffing up the melee. Sometimes, that means spending more resources than you think you should have to as a player. I'm a firm believer that no one PC should be able to solve every encounter every time. It's a cooperative game.

If the wizard wants to use his orbs on the anaxim, make them quicken a true strike first. You're fighting a literal god. It's not going to just be chain-casting a spell until the mob dies; go play an MMO for that.

No, you’re not fighting a literal god, that’s not how it works, and no just having a low touch AC does not mean a spellcaster will be able to solo one of these.

[DarkSoul]

No, you’re not fighting a literal god, that’s not how it works, and no just having a low touch AC does not mean a spellcaster will be able to solo one of these.DR 0 still means deity, though only barely enough to qualify as such.

I would be interested to see how a group of level 18-20 characters fares against one, though. Might have to grab the iconics from Enemies and Allies(?) and see how they do.

[danielxcutter]

Most official statblocks are poorly optimized, so I'm not convinced that'd yield much.

Anyways, Forcecage would neutralize one, but not do much for killing it. It can easily punch through Walls of Stone or Iron, more or less ignores Prismatic Walls and Spheres, and what few other things left probably won't do much in the face of its extensive defenses and immunities.

It lacks the ability to move + full attack or anything like that, but kiting this thing is basically impossible due to the 200 ft. perfect maneuverability flight and the ranged attacks.

SR: No spells would work on it, if the caster gets close enough and it's a type that isn't neutered by the electricity immunity or fire or cold resistances. And being close enough to hit it with those spells means being close enough to be hit with its ray and spikes.

DR 10/chaotic and epic and adamantine is out of there enough for it to be incredibly unlikely for a party to bypass it without prior foreknowledge, and it also has Fast Healing 15. If it uses Ethereal Jaunt then it flies underground or something then it's going to be very hard to chase after without beating it to the punch and blocking that off with some kind of force effect - if the Anaxim doesn't just fly away with the aforementioned 200 ft. flight speed.

The offensive capabilities are not exactly "kill 1d4 PCs per round" level, fortunately, but they are significant enough both in melee and in ranged combat that it poses a viable threat. I guess turning incorporeal or something would prevent it from hitting you, but that's the same for a very large number of other monsters at comparative CRs and frankly that's not a terribly common PC ability anyways. Remember it's got at-will True Seeing, so just turning invisible or using Displacement won't help against it.

It's far from unkillable of course even without significant cheese; AC 37 is just about standard for CR 22, and a party with access to buffs and SR: No blasting spells that isn't able to do at least a hundred damage or so to it at that level is probably either underpowered or underprepared. It's just that most general-purpose parties that can cheese this thing(without Forcecage) can probably do so to a variety of other encounters as well, possibly even easier.

[Soranar]

Even a tiny ranger could take that thing

Race: muckdweller
alternate class features

STATS (you need 11 STR so you can take power attack by level 9)

-wildshape ranger
-urban companion
-shooting star ranger (just don't trade your animal companion)

Level 1 Mounted Combat
Level 3 Ride-by attack
Level 6 Spirited Charge
Level 9 Power Attack
Level 12 Improved bullrush
Level 15 Shock trooper
Level 18 Knowledge devotion

Being tiny, your urban companion can be your mount. It has 3/4 of your hitpoints, your BAB and it lets you share spells with it.

Wildshape lets you turn into a legendary ape to attain 30 STR, + 6 from a magic item.
Wildrunner lets you morph your mount into a centaur, which can wear magical hooves to fly and use a lance for double damage on a charge too. Or you can turn it into a bulette with aspect of the earth hunter instead. Both last 10 minutes per caster level so that's plenty of time.

With knowledge devotion you can get knowledge religion and a shooting star ranger gets arcana/dungeoneering/nature. Even with just 1 rank you can still get +1 vs things you don't have ranks for.

your charge deals:

4.5 (medium lance) + 19 (36 STR 2 handed) + 40 (power attack)+ 5 (collision enchant) +5 (knowledge devotion = 73.5 damage which you multiply by 5 (valorous lance + spirited charge + rhino's rush) = 367.5 damage

since you only have 1 swift action, then you should trade rhino's rush for lion's charge

so you deal

73.5 x 4 (valorous lance + spirited charge) = 294 damage per hit but you have 4 iteratives

but say you don't even wildshape, you're just a muckdweller on an albatross

you still deal

2.5 (tiny lance) + 6 (13 STR base +6 magic item, 2 handed) + 40 (power attack) + 5 (collision) + 5 (knowledge devotion) = 58.5 per hit x 4 (234) so if you hit twice it's dead.

your to hit bonus would be

20 BAB + 4 (STR) + 5 (knowledge devotion) + 4 (size bonus to hit) + 2 (charge)

+35 +30+ 25 +20

So without any buffs or prep while casting 1 swift action spell, you're very likely to kill it in the first round. Even if you roll a 1 on one of your damage rolls it doesn't matter (you'd still deal 436 damage past it's DR). And if your companions buff you even a little (say a +7 to hit) then you can't miss unless you roll a 1 in the first 2 iteratives.

[danielxcutter]

You’re specifically building for this encounter and most characters don’t function that way.

[Mechalich]

You’re specifically building for this encounter and most characters don’t function that way.

There's nothing encounter-specific about that build, it's just an ubercharger. Variations on the ubercharger model, and there are a number of them though they mostly rely on the same core tricks (Shock Trooper being a big one). Uberchargers are on of the primary optimize-for-damage approaches in 3.5, and the one most available to 'mundane' classes. There's a fair amount of optimization involved in building an ubercharger, certainly, but the actual playstyle is quite simple - charge the enemy and it functions more or less the same in basically all encounters.

Now, the fact that an Anaxim dies to a properly built ubercharger doesn't really say much, because basically everything else that is subject to both conventional hits and conventional damage does to, and that covers pretty much all monsters that don't have incorporeality, a long list of SLAs, or spellcasting. The one real demonstrable weakness the ubercharger exposes is that the Anaxim lacks any sort of SoD or overwhelming attack combo of its own, meaning that even if it does go first, it's ability to seriously hinder a high-level party is quite limited in a high-level 'rocket tag' environment.

[danielxcutter]

How far apart they are at the start does probably influence it of course, since as we established earlier it’s good at kiting and countering kiting.

Don’t a lot of monsters still have that problem though? Even most dragons won’t have the magical power to shut down an Ubercharger with basic caster support.

[DarkSoul]

How far apart they are at the start does probably influence it of course, since as we established earlier it’s good at kiting and countering kiting.

Don’t a lot of monsters still have that problem though? Even most dragons won’t have the magical power to shut down an Ubercharger with basic caster support.That's why you build monsters up from their base stats according to what's available to the players. If you're DMing for an ubercharger, the basic monsters need upgraded too.

[danielxcutter]

I think ubercharger in general is a bit higher optimization than what most people play though.

[Anthrowhale]

The conventional shocktrooper version of ubercharger actually seems kind of 'meh' to me from an optimization viewpoint. The 'tank your AC' plan only really works if you eliminate your opponent. If another opponent is out of reach and ubercharges you on their turn the shocktrooper is going down, and they don't even need Shocktrooper to do it.

[danielxcutter]

I mean, swift action move in + max penalty Power Attack would probably do the trick anyways, or at least come close. The average Warblade could probably manage it.

[King of Nowhere]

Like most monsters from the manual, it's low on offensive capacity. its full attack, assuming everything hits, deals 14d6+60. A fighter tanking and a cleric casting heal can hold the line almost forever. takes more to threaten a high level party

[Mechalich]

Like most monsters from the manual, it's low on offensive capacity. its full attack, assuming everything hits, deals 14d6+60. A fighter tanking and a cleric casting heal can hold the line almost forever. takes more to threaten a high level party

There's no real way for a fighter to 'tank' an Anaxim. It has 200 ft of perfect movement, it can easily move around opponents (or just take attacks of opportunity by moving through people, since an AoO is unlikely to harm it in any serious way), and smash spellcasters. That assumes physically present casters who don't have incorporeality or miss chance or various other defensive measures in place, though the Anaxim's magic immunity does help it there since it can simply plow through certain kinds of defenses like Prismatic Sphere.


The conventional shocktrooper version of ubercharger actually seems kind of 'meh' to me from an optimization viewpoint. The 'tank your AC' plan only really works if you eliminate your opponent. If another opponent is out of reach and ubercharges you on their turn the shocktrooper is going down, and they don't even need Shocktrooper to do it.

The standard ubercharger setup is based on the generalized understanding that high level play + moderate to high optimization = rocket tag. It is expected that, in such scenarios, every character needs to be able to annihilate a level appropriate opponent once per round at a minimum, and that battles are often decided simply by who goes first (which is why optimization-based builds stress initiative so heavily). The ubercharger is one of a relatively small number of builds by which martial characters can remain relevant in such an environment.

The Anaxim is interesting as a high-level enemy because it's combination of extremely rapid movement and magic immunity means that a large number of typical 'rocket tag' strategies fail against it and also that the common backup strategy: minionomancy is also unlikely to work because of its high speed, DR, and Fast Healing. It's the rare high-level non-spellcasting monster that you actually have to fight - in large part because most other magic immune monsters are slow and lumbering. The Anaxim is clearly much more dangerous than an Admantine Golem, for example, despite supposedly having a lower CR. The Anaxim's speed also makes it one of the few high level monsters capable of attempting the 'run away until the buffs run out' strategy (especially in a low-visibility environment that might inhibit tactical teleportation, like the Paraelemental Plane of Smoke or something).


On a different tack, thinking outside the box a little, I think there's a lot of potential in the Anaxim's ability to use iron golems as a projectile weapon. After all, it can fly to essentially any height it wants and then summon an iron golem there, allowing it to drop 5000 lbs of solid iron on essentially any object it wishes at extremely high velocity. Since it can do this four times a day, it's functionally a tactical bomber.

[danielxcutter]

Don’t the falling object rules kinda suck?

Also about the ubercharger thing… I don’t think a lot of people play those? I dunno how I feel about them, martials need something to do but rocket tag that bad kinda feels… eh.

I think initiators are more than fair game though. A Warblade 20 seems good for baseline competence. Actually, initiators do have some useful tools against this thing - the Mountain Hammer line probably won’t work since it’s almost certainly going to be flying(even in a dungeon it’s probably hovering 10 feet off the ground), but high damage single strikes do suffer much less from DR.

[Anthrowhale]

The standard ubercharger setup ...

Yeah, I understand the reasoning. I just find it kind of meh since it comes with it's own built in counter. You need to work a bit harder to have the ability to deal damage which keeps up through force of arms without Shocktrooper, but it can certainly be done and leads to a character that doesn't die so often across a career. Obviously, there are ways to get better if you die, but they are difficult/inconvenient/expensive at lower levels and introduce uncertainty at higher levels.

[hamishspence]

On a different tack, thinking outside the box a little, I think there's a lot of potential in the Anaxim's ability to use iron golems as a projectile weapon. After all, it can fly to essentially any height it wants and then summon an iron golem there, allowing it to drop 5000 lbs of solid iron on essentially any object it wishes at extremely high velocity. Since it can do this four times a day, it's functionally a tactical bomber.

Isn't there a rule saying Summoned land creatures cannot be summoned unless there is a surface that can support them - so cannot be summoned in mid-air?

[Mechalich]

Isn't there a rule saying Summoned land creatures cannot be summoned unless there is a surface that can support them - so cannot be summoned in mid-air?

The base rules say a creature cannot be summoned into an environment that cannot support them, and the PHB example is that you can't summon an aquatic creature on land. I can certainly see ruling that you couldn't summon a land-based creature in midair, since it's native to a terrestrial environment, but an iron golem doesn't have a native environment and can 'survive' anywhere. So it's kind of a weird case. Actually, I'm not familiar with anything else that can use a summon ability to produce a golem.

[danielxcutter]

I was under the impression that dodging falling objects only forces a relatively trivial Reflex save?

[hamishspence]

There's a Summon Golem spell in Player's Handbook II.

[King of Nowhere]

There's no real way for a fighter to 'tank' an Anaxim. It has 200 ft of perfect movement, it can easily move around opponents (or just take attacks of opportunity by moving through people, since an AoO is unlikely to harm it in any serious way), and smash spellcasters. That assumes physically present casters who don't have incorporeality or miss chance or various other defensive measures in place, though the Anaxim's magic immunity does help it there since it can simply plow through certain kinds of defenses like Prismatic Sphere.



but to move and reach the casters, the monster has to move, and loses full attack. which impairs a lot its offensive potential. A wizard will eat a single attack, then in his turn will move away, eating an attack of opportunity. he'll take less than 50 damage from the whole business.

Actually, spamming sonic blasts seem a way better strategy. the anaxim can keep the distance and spam that. won't work against an ubercharger, but it's effective to reduce damage against most melee builds. and magic immunity protects it from the casters. it can make for a protracted fight

[danielxcutter]

It doesn't *have* to get into the party's face; it's already got some very good ranged attacks as well as the quasi-breath weapon. Actually, the ranged attack damage isn't that further off from the melee damage - at 37 AC, it actually does slightly more damage in fact.

Look, I get that the very large helicopter rotor buzzsaws look very intimidating, and they kinda are, but it's a bit more than the ground-bound melee-only loses-to-basic-spells bruiser an obnoxiously large number of high-level monsters - and non-caster PCs without the right items or caster support really - happen to be.