Fighting Constructs with magic

[Gelondil]

I am the party support wizard, and I'm looking for suggestions on how to support my party when fighting high CR golems or other creatures with similarly high AC/SR/DR.
Specifically, single spells, because I am not particularly disposed to prepping 4 orbs per day just to fight a golem I might never see. Oh, and no necromancy sphere.
I'm looking for a variety of ideas, for different spell levels.

[BRC]

Buffs n' Summons my good man. Buffs and Summons.

A Golem, or other High-SR monster, is a tough target for a wizard, but when you see one, don't panic. Look around you, there should be a guy wearing a buick's worth of metal and carrying a big metal stick. You may have forgotten he exists, but he's there, and this is why you hang around him.
You see, he will proceed to hit the golem with his big metal stick. You can use spells like Heroism, Bull's Strength, and Haste to make him hit the golem harder.

A second tactic is to Summon things, which is good or bad. Personally, I'd like to stick with Buffing.

[MeklorIlavator]

I am the party support wizard, and I'm looking for suggestions on how to support my party when fighting high CR golems or other creatures with similarly high AC/SR/DR.
Specifically, single spells, because I am not particularly disposed to prepping 4 orbs per day just to fight a golem I might never see. Oh, and no necromancy sphere.
I'm looking for a variety of ideas, for different spell levels.

Haste is always good, as are most buff spells. Also, illusions can be killer: they won't question the illusion.

Grease and Glitterdust could also come in handy.

[Starbuck_II]

A second tactic is to Summon things, which is good or bad. Personally, I'd like to stick with Buffing.

Summons are debuffs.
Did you know spiders can "cast" single target entangling bags? They can it is an ability called web. Target can't move unless Str. (which means they use up turn they could attack you)
Oh, they can do that 7 times/summon of each one.
Only limitation is must be at most one size larger.

[BRC]

Summons are debuffs.
Did you know spiders can "cast" single target entangling bags? They can it is an ability called web. Target can't move unless Str. (which means they use up turn they could attack you)
Oh, they can do that 7 times/summon of each one.
Only limitation is must be at most one size larger.

I did not know, so that would be useful. Mostly I don't like summoning because of the paperwork involved. Unless you keep a copy of every creature you can summon handy, it can get tedius. Especially if you summon a creature from the same book the monsters your fighting are from, and the group only has one copy.

[Vortling]

I did not know, so that would be useful. Mostly I don't like summoning because of the paperwork involved. Unless you keep a copy of every creature you can summon handy, it can get tedius. Especially if you summon a creature from the same book the monsters your fighting are from, and the group only has one copy.

If you need more reference sheets, you can always print stuff off here.

[Eldariel]

Grease, Web, Orbs, etc. are also solid spells. Standard debuffs work. Just use the ones without SR. It's really trivial with a party - if a monster has magic immunity, just use the spells that affect it indirectly, or are no-SR damage such as the Orbs. Or party buffs. Or...well, you get the point. Bottomline, Wizard doesn't care much for magic immunity. Sure, you can't Fireball it, but that was a bad idea in the first place, especially since it's a solo.

[Greengiant]

Remember, he may resist your fireball or other similar spell, but spells like, grease and anything that can damage the environment are good too. Don't target him, target the ceiling above him, and suddenly the room collapses on him, or something. Also, it's always jokes to watch a golem slip-sliding around on greased stone.

Also, I don't know if this is possible by raw, but a quick level one silent image is awesome to make yourself invisible by this trick, just project the image of a wall just in front of you, and stand against the wall, making it look like nothing but a wall there. Hmm, I just realized that was a horrible explanation. How about a diagram, let "I" represent the wall, "o" is you, and "i" is the illusion wall, "-" is empty space

I--i
I--i
Io-i
I--i
I--i
I--i

Ta-da, invisibility!

[krossbow]

I know you don't want to prep nothing but orbs, but orbs work on most everything, not just golems. Don't think of the orbs as anti-golem tools, think of them as all purpose tools which work on golems as well.



That being said, Buffing your party fighter for golems or grease spells are good alternatives.

[mostlyharmful]

Solid fog is good to slow the oncoming to one at a time, Grease is good if you've got an Archer or if you've got a lot of Orbs Memed, Disintergrate on the floor under it's feet and then arrows and orbs is good too.

Also never underestimate what can be achieved through a combination of a ring of invisibilty and an overland flight. Why fight something you don't have to, this is a cheap enough tactic that the whole party can get in on the act with items.

[Myrmex]

I know you don't want to prep nothing but orbs, but orbs work on most everything, not just golems. Don't think of the orbs as anti-golem tools, think of them as all purpose tools which work on golems as well.



That being said, Buffing your party fighter for golems or grease spells are good alternatives.

Orbs miss most targets, they only do damage, and their secondary effects off saves. Orbs are ok, but nothing special, unless you really build for pew pew.

[JackMage666]

Orbs miss most targets, they only do damage, and their secondary effects off saves. Orbs are ok, but nothing special, unless you really build for pew pew.

Orbs are ranged touch attacks which, against most foes, will hit most of the time. Losing natural and manufactured armor hurts alot of foes.

[Zhalath]

A really good idea would be effects that affect an area, rather than the target, and that don't allow spell resistance. Transmute rock to mud can take down a golem. Evard's black tentacles is also good. Basically, work on terrain, rather than targets.

Orbs are excellent anti-golem, as well as good on anything. Basically, anything that requires a ranged touch attack without spell resistance will do good on a construct, as they have lame Dex and are generally big.

[Myrmex]

Orbs are ranged touch attacks which, against most foes, will hit most of the time. Losing natural and manufactured armor hurts alot of foes.

A poor BAB and no precise shot feat makes it so you're missing your target 30 to 60% of the time. Orbs can be great for some fights with big huge easy to hit targets that no one wants to be in melee with, but most of the time, orbs aren't as good as say, improved invis, haste, solid fog, enervate, black tentacles, ray of stupidity, feeblemind, etc.

[olentu]

A poor BAB and no precise shot feat makes it so you're missing your target 30 to 60% of the time. Orbs can be great for some fights with big huge easy to hit targets that no one wants to be in melee with, but most of the time, orbs aren't as good as say, improved invis, haste, solid fog, enervate, black tentacles, ray of stupidity, feeblemind, etc.

Ray of stupidity and enervation are ranged touch attacks just like the orbs are.

[Myrmex]

Ray of stupidity and enervation are ranged touch attacks just like the orbs are.

Right, but they offer no save and do something a lot better than damage. And the orbs with good secondary effects are elemental damage which a lot of things resist.

[sonofzeal]

A poor BAB and no precise shot feat makes it so you're missing your target 30 to 60% of the time. Orbs can be great for some fights with big huge easy to hit targets that no one wants to be in melee with, but most of the time, orbs aren't as good as say, improved invis, haste, solid fog, enervate, black tentacles, ray of stupidity, feeblemind, etc.

A Wiz10 has poor BAB, yes, but should still be getting at least a +8 to hit without any special effort at all. Average touch AC for monsters of that level is about 10. The Wiz10 needs to roll a 1 to miss an average opponent, and shouldn't expect more than a 25% miss chance even against high-dex enemies.

A Wiz20, with no special effort, should be getting at least a +15 to hit. Average touch AC for monsters of that level is about 9. There's not going to be many enemies this Wizard will miss.

[Chronos]

A poor BAB and no precise shot feat makes it so you're missing your target 30 to 60% of the time.

Golems all have a touch AC of 8, except for the greater stone golem, which has a touch AC of 6. The least of them, the flesh golem, is CR 7, so let's say we've got a 7th-level wizard. He'll have a BAB of +3, and probably a Dex of 12-14 (considering that Dex is a wizard's second or third most important stat, and several good wizard races have a Dex bonus). He might also be small. That gives the wizard +4 to +6 to his attack roll, even without any feats, magic items, or other effects to improve it. At a +6 to attack, he'll only miss on a natural 1, and at +4, he only misses on 1-3. So he'll be missing 5-15% of the time, not 30-60%.

At higher levels, the wizard's attack bonus just keeps on increasing, but average touch AC doesn't. There are a few things like air elementals that have good touch AC, but that just means that you use something other than rays versus them, and meanwhile you also start seeing a lot of very big things, which usually have touch ACs in the cellar.

[Myrmex]

A Wiz10 has poor BAB, yes, but should still be getting at least a +8 to hit without any special effort at all. Average touch AC for monsters of that level is about 10. The Wiz10 needs to roll a 1 to miss an average opponent, and shouldn't expect more than a 25% miss chance even against high-dex enemies.

A Wiz20, with no special effort, should be getting at least a +15 to hit. Average touch AC for monsters of that level is about 9. There's not going to be many enemies this Wizard will miss.

1. Shooting into melee will halve that +8 to +4.
2. Average monster touch AC is misleading. The average wizard prepares both fireball and lightning bolt. Arguing that you will only fight monsters exactly as they are in the books is largely a strawman.
3. Not every wizard is a gray elf, or even an elf, and not every game is 36 pb. This means getting 16 dex by level 10 doesn't always happen.
4. You've still prepared an orb spell, that, against most opponents that would actually challenge a Batman wizard, is about as effective as the fighter full power attacking it.

Golems all have a touch AC of 8, except for the greater stone golem, which has a touch AC of 6. The least of them, the flesh golem, is CR 7, so let's say we've got a 7th-level wizard. He'll have a BAB of +3, and probably a Dex of 12-14 (considering that Dex is a wizard's second or third most important stat, and several good wizard races have a Dex bonus). He might also be small. That gives the wizard +4 to +6 to his attack roll, even without any feats, magic items, or other effects to improve it. At a +6 to attack, he'll only miss on a natural 1, and at +4, he only misses on 1-3. So he'll be missing 5-15% of the time, not 30-60%.

If everyone else in your party is content sitting on the sidelines, golem included, until you run out of orbs to fling at it, otherwise you're at +0 to +2 to hit.

At higher levels, the wizard's attack bonus just keeps on increasing, but average touch AC doesn't. There are a few things like air elementals that have good touch AC, but that just means that you use something other than rays versus them, and meanwhile you also start seeing a lot of very big things, which usually have touch ACs in the cellar.

And preparing touch attacks against low touch AC monstrosities is smart. Preparing an orb to fight Balors? Waste of time (unless you're abusing metamagic). Better to use that spell slot to do something useful, not pretend you're a beatstick.

If you are playing cookie-cutter batman wizards at high levels, though, you should probably expect the opponents to not be stock fodder with great cleave and toughness as feats, 10 10 10 11 11 11 as their stat array, no gear, and no class levels.