How do you deal with Hardness 20? (Spoilers for The Infernal Syndrome)

[MerricB]

Aha! A simple Dispel Magic.

Heh. I really like that idea!

Mind you, it seems that a Caster Level is lacking for the object in question... (and, indeed, have you ever seen an encounter with an animated object sans caster which has one?)

Cheers!

 

[RithTheAwakener]

I've only encountered an animated object once. I ran Curse of the Crimson Throne, which has an animated object in one of the modules. It didn't have a stat sheet for it (oddly enough it made you build your own object), but it did say who made it, and it had his CL in the maker's stat block a few pages away.

 

[billd91]

Actually, it's in the core book. Find the description of hardness there, and go down a paragraph or two. By core rules, animated objects (though not constructs in general) are immune to critical hits.

That's pretty much the same exact text from 3.5. I wonder if it was missed in Pathfinder's crit expansion.

 

[MerricB]

That's pretty much the same exact text from 3.5. I wonder if it was missed in Pathfinder's crit expansion.

It has been edited to remove the "because they're constructs" line, so it's something they knew they were doing... well, sort of.

 

[N'raac]

In this case, the best plan is to hit it HARDER!

Absolutely - but you can take a lot of different steps to be able to hit it harder with the right preparation, and you can plan for characters whose expertise isn't hitting harder to better contribute in support roles.

(Mind you, 'things going wrong' probably involve grab attacks...)

Which may well change the initial encounter from "destroy the foe" to "extract teammates, retreat, regroup and plan". That would be the point, at least in our group, where the whole Cleric spell list gets a once over ("oh, look - freedom of movement will prevent the Grab!") for helpful spells.

An old 3rd Ed war story. Our party had developed some decent tactical synergies that worked well for us into the mid levels (probably about 7 or 8, coincidentally). We then went up against a scenario with a lot of incorporeal opponents. We were getting our heads handed to us.

We were able to back out to a safer location and regroup, whereupon we started reviewing options. First point of recognition, the reverse of your group's, was that we need to hit BETTER, not HARDER. I think the Cleric's entire spell list changed. The Sorcerer used up much of his L1 firepower on Mage Armor. A number of other, small and large, tactical changes went through the discussion process.

We then sliced through the opposition using the new battle plans. Very satisfying - in fact, much more satisfying than having the same old tactics keep working would have been, since we could see the improvement our planning resulted in.

 

[jefgorbach]

AFB but presuming the Dispel Magic is ineffective because the Creator either exceeds your maximum effective point or Crafted it, would it not be possible/wise to Transmute the base material to something with less than Hardness 20?, like Metal->Stone, Stone-> Flesh; THEN commence whacking?? If all else fails, Limited Wish(substance to sponge cake).

 

[rkarnes]

Just a quick question; was the adventure designed with the specific requirement that this cage should die? If there's something in it, can't they pick the lock?

 

[MerricB]

Just a quick question; was the adventure designed with the specific requirement that this cage should die? If there's something in it, can't they pick the lock?

Yes, it's a specific requirement that the cage be destroyed. There is no lock (it's a magical construct).

 

[coyote6]

Looking through the adventure, loot from earlier on includes a wand of invisibility and a wand of spiritual weapon. Combine the two -- an invisible wizard and an invisible cleric enter the room, the wizard readies to turn the cleric invisible as soon as he appears, and the (buffed with every attack boost available) cleric attacks with a spiritual weapon until the wand gives out. Preferably, the wizard has see invisibility active, so the cleric can move after every use of the wand, but the wizard can still see him to follow and ready again.

The cage has no Int score, so it can't ready a charge, and there will never be a PC visible during the cage's turn. It just gets beat down for 35* attacks 1d8+1 attacks. Spiritual weapon doesn't deal energy damage, so it's not subject to the hardness or half damage those have to deal with.

A quick mental calculation gives me an estimate of on average 13 of those attacks hitting (50% chance for the 1st attack, 25% for the iterative -- +6 base attack, +4 or +5 Wis, vs a flatfooted AC of 21); that's 71 pts of damage. The cage has 52.

*(each weapon gets 1 attack the first round, and 2 attacks for the remaining two rounds of the duration; 5 attacks per usage, times the 7 charges in the wand.)

Note that you don't actually need specifically a wizard or cleric; you just need someone who can use the wands. For the wand of invisibility, you don't want to depend on UMD -- too much chance of missing a roll and leaving the other guy open to attack. But it doesn't have to be a wizard per se, and the other wand could be used via UMD, if needed.

Also, the cage has a -1 Perception, so greater invisibility, Stealth, and some mobility would be an awesome combo.

 

[MerricB]

Spiritual weapon doesn't deal energy damage, so it's not subject to the hardness or half damage those have to deal with.

What gives you that idea? Hardness applies to all damage.

"When an object is damaged, subtract its hardness from the damage."