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<blockquote data-quote="Cleon" data-source="post: 7017450" data-attributes="member: 57383"><p>I'd suggested including different sorts of chocolate when we were doing the Variant Chocolate Golems but freyar preferred restricting the variants to fillings. I'm game for adding such variants if he's OK with it.</p><p></p><p>As for being slowed by damage, as you said that wasn't part of the original. The Lesser Chocolate Golems are already really wimpy. There doesn't seem much point in adding a weakness that wasn't in their <em>Dragon #228</em> article to make them even wimpier.</p><p></p><p>The Challenge Rating is rather tricky. The closest comparison in the SRD is likely a Small Animated Object, which has the same HD and hp, but has significantly better speed (30-70 ft. vs 20 ft.), AC (14 vs 10), attacks (+1 (1d4) vs -5 (1d2-1)), saves (Ref +1 vs Ref -1) and abilities (Str 10, Dex 12 vs Str 8, Dex 8).</p><p></p><p>The question is how many Lesser Chocolate Golems is one Small Animated Object worth in a melee with a typical PC party? That's hard to figure out due to the wild variables in what a "typical PC party" is.</p><p></p><p>It's pretty easy to calculate how they'd compare in a fight with each other, though.</p><p></p><p>A Small Animated Object averages 1.5 hit points of damage per round to a Lesser Chocolate Golem (60% chance for 2.5 damage), so it takes an average of 10 rounds to destroy a single Lesser Chocolate Golem.</p><p></p><p>Contrariwise, a Lesser Chocolate Golem averages 0.1 hit points of damage per round to a Small Animated Object (10% chance for 1 damage), so it takes an average of 150 rounds to destroy a single Small Animated Object.</p><p></p><p>That's a quarter of an hour! Ouch!</p><p></p><p>So for a bunch of Lesser Chocolate Golems to destroy a Small Animated object in the same average time as it takes said object to destroy one of them, you have to have 15 of them doing damage to it simultaneously - which is impossible, since the spacing rules only allow 8 of them to be within melee range of the target.</p><p></p><p>Hmm… that rather suggests we should reduce the Challenge Rating.</p><p></p><p>We could rebalance it a bit by making the Lesser Chocolate Golem's slam attack a standard attack (so +0 melee instead of -5) or giving it the same Strength 10 as an animated Object, but these are supposed to be effectively useless in combat in the first place.</p><p></p><p>Maybe it's a quirk of the Animated Objects stats though. How would it compare to, say, a standard Kobold Warrior.</p><p></p><p>The Kobold averages 1.5 hit points of damage per round to a Lesser Chocolate Golem (60% chance for 2.5), so it takes an average of roughly 9.5 rounds to destroy a single Lesser Chocolate Golem.</p><p></p><p>Contrariwise, a Lesser Chocolate Golem averages 0.0525 hit points of damage per round to a Small Animated Object (4.75% chance for a 1 damage regular hit, 0.25% chance for a 2 damage critical), so it takes an average of 19 rounds to kill a single Kobold.</p><p></p><p>That means that on average two Lesser Chocolate Golems can kill a Kobold in the same time that the Kobold can kill one of the golems, which suggests a Lesser Chocolate Golem ought to have a fractional CR one-half of a Kobold's if we consider them purely on a damage-per-round basis.</p><p></p><p>A Kobold Warrior is CR 1/2, so if the Lesser Chocolate Golem is half that it ought to be 1/4.</p><p></p><p>That's ignoring other factors like the Golem having useful resistances and immunities compared to the Kobold having a ranged weapon and faster speed, but overall I think we'd better reduce the Lesser Chocolate Golem's Challenge Rating to 1/4.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Cleon, post: 7017450, member: 57383"] I'd suggested including different sorts of chocolate when we were doing the Variant Chocolate Golems but freyar preferred restricting the variants to fillings. I'm game for adding such variants if he's OK with it. As for being slowed by damage, as you said that wasn't part of the original. The Lesser Chocolate Golems are already really wimpy. There doesn't seem much point in adding a weakness that wasn't in their [I]Dragon #228[/I] article to make them even wimpier. The Challenge Rating is rather tricky. The closest comparison in the SRD is likely a Small Animated Object, which has the same HD and hp, but has significantly better speed (30-70 ft. vs 20 ft.), AC (14 vs 10), attacks (+1 (1d4) vs -5 (1d2-1)), saves (Ref +1 vs Ref -1) and abilities (Str 10, Dex 12 vs Str 8, Dex 8). The question is how many Lesser Chocolate Golems is one Small Animated Object worth in a melee with a typical PC party? That's hard to figure out due to the wild variables in what a "typical PC party" is. It's pretty easy to calculate how they'd compare in a fight with each other, though. A Small Animated Object averages 1.5 hit points of damage per round to a Lesser Chocolate Golem (60% chance for 2.5 damage), so it takes an average of 10 rounds to destroy a single Lesser Chocolate Golem. Contrariwise, a Lesser Chocolate Golem averages 0.1 hit points of damage per round to a Small Animated Object (10% chance for 1 damage), so it takes an average of 150 rounds to destroy a single Small Animated Object. That's a quarter of an hour! Ouch! So for a bunch of Lesser Chocolate Golems to destroy a Small Animated object in the same average time as it takes said object to destroy one of them, you have to have 15 of them doing damage to it simultaneously - which is impossible, since the spacing rules only allow 8 of them to be within melee range of the target. Hmm… that rather suggests we should reduce the Challenge Rating. We could rebalance it a bit by making the Lesser Chocolate Golem's slam attack a standard attack (so +0 melee instead of -5) or giving it the same Strength 10 as an animated Object, but these are supposed to be effectively useless in combat in the first place. Maybe it's a quirk of the Animated Objects stats though. How would it compare to, say, a standard Kobold Warrior. The Kobold averages 1.5 hit points of damage per round to a Lesser Chocolate Golem (60% chance for 2.5), so it takes an average of roughly 9.5 rounds to destroy a single Lesser Chocolate Golem. Contrariwise, a Lesser Chocolate Golem averages 0.0525 hit points of damage per round to a Small Animated Object (4.75% chance for a 1 damage regular hit, 0.25% chance for a 2 damage critical), so it takes an average of 19 rounds to kill a single Kobold. That means that on average two Lesser Chocolate Golems can kill a Kobold in the same time that the Kobold can kill one of the golems, which suggests a Lesser Chocolate Golem ought to have a fractional CR one-half of a Kobold's if we consider them purely on a damage-per-round basis. A Kobold Warrior is CR 1/2, so if the Lesser Chocolate Golem is half that it ought to be 1/4. That's ignoring other factors like the Golem having useful resistances and immunities compared to the Kobold having a ranged weapon and faster speed, but overall I think we'd better reduce the Lesser Chocolate Golem's Challenge Rating to 1/4. [/QUOTE]
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