How would you defeat this?

[Mercury]

In an adventure I am working on for my players, I have the final encounter, before the reach the end of the dungeon, with two Iron Golems. The kicker is that the room is protected with an antimagic field. My group is approx 14-15th level.

So far the only way i can see them surviving the encounter is if the fighter types work on the golems while the theif tries to unlock the door to the next room.

I don't want to kill them, but the perspective I am taking this from is that the book being guarded by the Iron Golems was not meant to be taken, or at least not easily taken. Am I just setting them up for death?

Mercury

 

[Xarlen]

Uh... How are the golems working in an anti-magic field?

 

[DM with a vengence]

Mordenkainen's Disjunction (scroll) the room and proceed to destroy the golems, or just stand back, outside the antimagic field, and used ranged weapons. Since DR is a supernatural ability, the party can just plink the golems away. If the golems try to leave and attack, then they can be engaged normally.

http://www.opengamingfoundation.org/srd/srdspecialabilities.html

 

[JDragon]

Stupid ?.......Will the Iron Golems be affected by the Anti-Magic? What of the abilities are Spell Like? How high is the DR? Can the fighters beat this without magic?

Also remember this will more than likely make any spell casters in the group useless, and very nervus. (in one game I'm in we are trying to reclaim an area cotrolled by giants that is also a dead magic area & my halfling wizard thinks it really sucks.)

As for your idea of fighters playing distraction......

What instructions were the golems given, would they leave combat with the fighters if the rogue was actually closer to door they are protecting?

The antimagic also means no one will be able to do any healing either.

one idea (still hoses spell casters) is to make the anti-magic area only part of the room, so people can retreat to heal and such, but the golems are programed to stay in the protection of the anti-magic.

JDragon

 

[Teflon Billy]

Am I missing something, or wouldn't Golems fail to work in an anti-magic field?

 

[Heap Thaumaturgist]

Remember you'll have to up the CR or change the stats of the iron golems ... they're not normal golems. They're golems that function in an area of anti-magic.

I'm not totally up on my Golem Lore (I seldom use them) but I would imagine that they wouldn't "work" in an anti-magic area because they are, by nature, Magical Constructs. No magic, no cohesive or animative force. Also there used to be an idea that golems are animated by trapped spirits or elementals that can break free and rampage about ... the only rule my mind can remember had to do with rampaging flesh golems, tho.

At any rate, putting a magical construct who can only be damaged by magic within an Anti Magic zone (and allowing them to function) makes the golems alot tougher than if they were in a "neutral" setting. I'd adjust the XP for the fight accordingly.

--HT

 

[Mercury]

Xarlen, Heap Thaumaturgist & Teflon- Golems still function normally in an anitmagic field, except the Supernatural and Spell-like abilities are suppressed. It states this in the description in the PHB of Antimagic Field.

DM with a vengence- The way the dungeon is designed, they would be uable to have LOS to attack them from outside the antimagic field. You are right about the DR bing negated by the antomagic field though, which should allow them an easy enough time, although, I must say, I thought it was alot cooler when they still had DR in the Antimagic field.

JDragon- The DR is +3/50 which would be VERY difficult to beat, except as was pointed out by DM with a vengence, DR is suppressed by this field. Otherwise I was just going to have the Iron Golems just attack whomever was engaging it in combat, basically with the instructions not to allow anyone to leave with the book.

 

[Lord Ben]

If the golems are iron I'd still give them a hardness though.

 

[Lord Ben]

If the golems are iron I'd still give them a hardness though.

 

[Heap Thaumaturgist]

Random, yes, but:

Does anybody ELSE think it's sort of silly that all of a golem's "Magical" abilities would be suppressed but it's magical ability to get up and walk around wouldn't?

But I didn't design the spell.

At any rate, In Character, if I knew how bad fighting an iron golem could be, and then found that magic wouldn't work on them -at all-, I'd probably run away entirely, seeing as I wouldn't "realize" that it's "Damage Reduction" would be suppressed by the field. I would think logically and say to myself: "Well, MY magic doesn't work, but HIS obviously does. He's still walking around. I will retreat before I get ground into a smooth paste." If I HAD to get past it, I'd probably attack the dungeon instead of the monster ... tunnel around it, find a way to bring down some walls and trap it, find a way to dispell the field, etc etc.

In one game I put my players against an iron golem. When the first (and only) one without a weapon powerful enough to hit heard me say: "Your mighty swing goes 'ping' harmlessly off the thing's armored plating." they retreated entirely. One of them remembered me randomly describing a balista somewhere back at a battle and they mounted up a ballista to magically enhance and hit it with ... I liked the idea. "My sword won't hurt it, we'll just get a much much bigger gun." I ruled that it moved sufficiently slow enough and was big enough that they could successfully attack it with a seige weapon like that.

--HT

--HT