^3.5^ That Wasn't SO Epic...

[Deth Muncher]

So basically, the premise is that I was thinking about one of the Colossi for my campain. My characters are not Epic. "You fool!" I hear you cry, "They'll be smashed to bits!"

Well, what if it had less HP? By less, I mean minimum. Even for the Iron Colossus, that's only 176. I realize that basically the melee-rs would basically just chip away at it until it died, but the point is, does reigning in the HP (and maybe playing it a little dumber) make it a viable foe for lower levels PCs?

EDIT: And maybe, y'know getting rid of some of the ridiculous abilities, like 100ft antimagic.

[jseah]

100ft AMF: Unless they're a very specific magic user (aka. orb blaster or ini. of mystra), magic users are useless except as someone to retreat to for healing. (invoke magic only gives 4th level spells without duration, which do jack squat against something that huge)
So are magic weapons.

Stone:
Shatter -> non-magical (in AMF) weapon gone (meleers fight unarmed, spellcasters have no component pouch)

Flesh:
Lots of debuffs with insane DCs -> everyone dies since no one makes DC 60 saves without magic

Iron:
3d6 Con poison breath weapon (DC58 fort) every 1d4 rounds... Oh, if you have a ubercharger with necropolitian or something this one is beatable.
EDIT: actually this one is beatable with a ubercharger, you don't need con dmg immunity if it dies on the first round.

[Deth Muncher]

100ft AMF: Unless they're a very specific magic user (aka. orb blaster or ini. of mystra), magic users are useless except as someone to retreat to for healing. (invoke magic only gives 4th level spells without duration, which do jack squat against something that huge)
So are magic weapons.

Stone:
Shatter -> non-magical (in AMF) weapon gone (meleers fight unarmed, spellcasters have no component pouch)

Flesh:
Lots of debuffs with insane DCs -> everyone dies since no one makes DC 60 saves without magic

Iron:
3d6 Con poison breath weapon (DC58 fort) every 1d4 rounds... Oh, if you have a ubercharger with necropolitian or something this one is beatable.
EDIT: actually this one is beatable with a ubercharger, you don't need con dmg immunity if it dies on the first round.

...okay then.

So what if I just made them Colossal sized versions of the regular ones with the same HP as minimum for the Colossus version?

[jiriku]

Use a greater stone golem or an advanced iron golem instead. Conceptually, it's the same creature but it's CR-appropriate.

[Bibliomancer]

If you remove the antimagic field, then any party with the ability to cat fly can beat it, eventually.

Otherwise, there's no real way for PCs to win (short of infinite damage loops and/or charge optimization).

[Drakevarg]

You could set up the fight in such a way that it's more of a platformer-boss type thing. Kill it with the environment.

Oh, and if it seems to have too much HP for that, remember the Chunky Salsa Rule.

[Deth Muncher]

You could set up the fight in such a way that it's more of a platformer-boss type thing. Kill it with the environment.

Oh, and if it seems to have too much HP for that, remember the Chunky Salsa Rule.

That's...actually a really good point. Environmental damage = better than Fireball from a 5th level sorceror.

[KillianHawkeye]

Force the party to climb up its body and go inside, where they can fight something more appropriate, which will cause the death of the colossus because they are linked together. In other words, how you'd do it in a video game.

[Drakevarg]

Or just have the thing have some squishy magic device inside that runs this thing.

"So here's this giant enemy colossai... and you attack its weak point... for massive damage."

[awa]

it has really high hit dice and strength and loads of hit points even if your flying it can just throw stuff at you as improvised weapons which depending on the how much weaker they are may fatal long before you can pink away at his massive hit point total and healthy damage reduction. Im not totally familiar with ubercharger builds but don't they use power attack? that thing had a really high ac.

Edit also how low level are we talking 5? 10? 20? non epic is a big category

[absolmorph]

Or just have the thing have some squishy magic device inside that runs this thing.

"So here's this giant enemy colossai... and you attack its weak point... for massive damage."

They get thrown out after damaging it, so they have to climb in multiple times.
Or you could have multiple weak points, and you have to hit those and then hit the exposed major weak point after taking the others out.
THEN it dies.

it has really high hit dice and strength and loads of hit points even if your flying it can just throw stuff at you as improvised weapons which depending on the how much weaker they are may fatal long before you can pink away at his massive hit point total and healthy damage reduction. Im not totally familiar with ubercharger builds but don't they use power attack? that thing had a really high ac.

Edit also how low level are we talking 5? 10? 20? non epic is a big category

Shocktrooper drops their AC for 2 damage/point.

[Raiki]

Well, I know for a fact that things out of the ELH can be used to great effect pre-epic. Given, the one I used was a wyrmling Prismatic Dragon, which is cr 16, not 24, but the point still stands. I'd say remove the AMF in exchange for a CR Appropriate level of Spell Res. That way, magic weapons are still viable, and casters have (theoretically) about a 50/50 chance of succeeding with any targetted spells. That, plus min HP, plus adjustments to AC and (possibly, depending on level) also damage.

~R~

Edit: just noticed that they're also spell-immune (like most golems, go Raiki) so the SR would really just be overkill. I'd say just drop the AMF, at that point it hurts melee more than casters anyway. (Never thought I'd say that, believe you me.)

[Runestar]

Nor can they fly, so unless the fight takes place in an enclosed room, the casters are just going to hover out of reach and summon giant rocks on top of it or something.

[Knaight]

100ft AMF: Unless they're a very specific magic user (aka. orb blaster or ini. of mystra), magic users are useless except as someone to retreat to for healing. (invoke magic only gives 4th level spells without duration, which do jack squat against something that huge)
So are magic weapons.

Stone:
Shatter -> non-magical (in AMF) weapon gone (meleers fight unarmed, spellcasters have no component pouch)

A decent charger could do this, as could an archer with sufficient strength, plus there is always the old standby of massive rock, shrink object, launch into antimagic field, etc. You aren't going to be able to just charge them once and kill them instantly, but that is fine. Odds are this will be pretty tricky for a level 20 party, but hardly impossible. A straight fight is possible if the tactics used are good enough. Go ahead and use it, after all this is only a CR 24 enemy.

[RandomNPC]

Ya know i killed one of these with fly and gate.

I targeted the gate to the bottom of the biggest pool of lava on the plane of fire. So the lava pours out on the thing, and kaspoof! we win. Just because the DM didn't want to deal with rolling all the dice to see how much pain it was in, and i could have opened another if i needed to.

come to think of it all my wins with that chatacter involved the use of gate to put things in unusual places. We cut the tarasque in half (the hard part) and gated it to the plane of water so it constantly drowned, put a gibbering orb (epic beholder) in the same pool of lava.... all kinds of fun.

[Andras]

They get thrown out after damaging it, so they have to climb in multiple times.
Or you could have multiple weak points, and you have to hit those and then hit the exposed major weak point after taking the others out.
THEN it dies.

Man, I hope they have enough Con to hang on if it thrashes around...

[absolmorph]

Man, I hope they have enough Con to hang on if it thrashes around...

That'd be a Climb check, I think, which would mean Strength.

[JaronK]

Is it just me, or would all of these be easy kills for an undead charger? Just ride a flying steed, pull out your lance, and go in for the kill. You'd need to avoid any Attacks of Opportunity (they like Combat Expertise, so have a minion provoke first), and the AC is a bit high, but otherwise you should have little trouble.

JaronK

[Tyndmyr]

I dunno why there's this common perception that scaling hp is effective at scaling difficulty level.

It's generally not that big of a deal, in my experience. First off, attacks, especially full attacks, are not terribly granular. It really doesn't matter when in the round the hp run dry, simply that they do.

Secondly, a wild number of attacks don't target hp. And once incapacitated, hp, so long as they are indeed finite, are irrelevant.

Third, scaling hp does nothing vs special abilities, action economy, etc. These are the real determiners of fights.

[bosssmiley]

Or just have the thing have some squishy magic device inside that runs this thing.

"So here's this giant enemy colossai... and you attack its weak point... for massive damage."

Aka, CM4 Earthshaker.

[Signmaker]

Am I correct in thinking that most of these guys can be more or less beat with a well-planned potion pitcher?

Anyways, if you're worried about HP, you can pull a Shadow of the Colossus, and have called shots to specific parts of the body. If they find X weak point, they ignore DR and do extra damage. This is in addition to whatever downgrading you feel necessary.