D&D 5E Clay Golem HP Drain

[The Hitcher]

As it is, the clay golem is a "if you don't have a cleric or druid (or a certain kind of bard or particular magic items) be prepared to have less HP for the entire rest of the game." My guess is that magic items are meant to help that, but...if magic items are optional...

Maybe we're looking at a "magic items are assumed, so level 9 characters have access to potions of restoration, and if you remove magic items, here's a module to make sure you maintain the same level of resource access, if you want"?

Or how about: if the DM is putting you up against Stone Golems, they're also giving you opportunities to access the spells required to recover. Even (especially?) if that involves a small role-playing or combat mission to find an NPC who can cast them.

Do people actually play D&D where the DM is trying to screw over the players to the point where they're not having fun? Because that seems to be an underlying assumption with a lot of rules complaints I see on this forum. If so, stop - what a terrible idea.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Or how about: if the DM is putting you up against Stone Golems, they're also giving you opportunities to access the spells required to recover. Even (especially?) if that involves a small role-playing or combat mission to find an NPC who can cast them.

Do people actually play D&D where the DM is trying to screw over the players to the point where they're not having fun? Because that seems to be an underlying assumption with a lot of rules complaints I see on this forum. If so, stop - what a terrible idea.

"You need nigh-encyclopedic knowledge of the special effects of this specific monster before using it in play or you need to bring your game's narrative to a screeching halt until you "fix" this status effect" doesn't sound like fun to me.

Given also the preponderance of "only hit by magic" abilities, I think we're instead seeing a game that presumes the use of magic items (which, at 9th level, likely includes potions of restoration), so that in a game run by-the-book, any party should be able to undo this.

The alternative would be that only clerics, druids, and "DM specials" could undo this, which does not seem like the kind of "you don't need a cleric!" play I was looking for ("you can also use a druid! or a kind of bard!" isn't a good answer, because then, a la 4e, someone still needs to play "the healer," and not every group always has someone who wants to do that).

 

[The Hitcher]

"You need nigh-encyclopedic knowledge of the special effects of this specific monster before using it in play or you need to bring your game's narrative to a screeching halt until you "fix" this status effect" doesn't sound like fun to me.

I guess we do things differently. In my world reading a half-page statblock before using a monster doesn't really compare to memorising an encyclopaedia. When I bring a creature into the game, that's exactly the kind of stuff I'm looking for as interesting hooks to feed into my storytelling. To me it's a narrative opportunity. YMMV.

Edit: The more I think about it, the stranger your complaint seems. Do you often bring a very specific-use creature like this into your game without reading and considering its two unique combat powers? I could maybe understand in older editions where some creatures had paragraph upon paragraph of abilities, but this one seems really easy to parse. I'm genuinely a little baffled.

 

[Remathilis]

Personally, I love it.

One of my pet peeves about 4e monster design was that monsters were all the same defensively. You're weapons, spells, and status ailments were always effective because it "wasn't fair!" to let a pc waste an attack against an immune creature. This lead to ooze tripping and similar nonsense.

Thankfully, if you don't want to give out a lot of +1 items, you can give a nonmagical adamantine weapon and it works just as good as a +1. Or use magic spells; they are far more susceptible to magic than 3e ones were. Or if you don't want to "golf bag" it, a +1 weapon beats all weapon resistance/immunity in the game. It's all a fighter needs level 1-20.

Gods, next you'll be whining a red dragon is immune to fire.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I guess we do things differently. In my world reading a half-page statblock before using a monster doesn't really compare to memorising an encyclopaedia. When I bring a creature into the game, that's exactly the kind of stuff I'm looking for as interesting hooks to feed into my storytelling. To me it's a narrative opportunity. YMMV.

Edit: The more I think about it, the stranger your complaint seems. Do you often bring a very specific-use creature like this into your game without reading and considering its two unique combat powers? I could maybe understand in older editions where some creatures had paragraph upon paragraph of abilities, but this one seems really easy to parse. I'm genuinely a little baffled.

I'm a pretty improv-heavy DM. What I know about a clay golem -- or any monster -- before using it is limited to its direct narrative hooks ("made by priests, goes berserk"), and those give me a reason to potentially include the creature. Everything else needs to run smoothly from that. I am not going to study statblocks and analyze abilities during play, I am going to decide if the critter appears for story reasons and let the cards fall as they may.

Which means I'm not interested in seeing my "level 9 cleric's bodyguard" suddenly turn into "and now the fighter has less HP than the wizard forever unless I fix it because my party doesn't have a greater restoration available to it and now I have to fix this and this is not the story I was interested in telling, I just wanted my evil cleric to have a bodyguard, uuuuuuuugh."

I imagine that the designers understand that not everyone does extensive monster research before deploying their beast and so the design of the game will allow this to be removed by any party "naturally" (a party that faces it will have the resources to deal with it, much like petrification or instant death or whatnot), it's just not clear from the PHB and the MM where that removal is coming from (which leads me to guess it's in magic items that are "on by default").

The alternative is that the designers believe that every monster will be used with full consciousness and awareness of all its abilities, which doesn't seem realistic. I know the MM was written as much to read as to play, but that level of awareness seems like a high barrier to entry to just use a monster.

 

[Grazzt]

Gods, next you'll be whining a red dragon is immune to fire.

WAIT!!!! WHAT???? SINCE WHEN???

 

[Grazzt]

The alternative would be that only clerics, druids, and "DM specials" could undo this, which does not seem like the kind of "you don't need a cleric!" play I was looking for ("you can also use a druid! or a kind of bard!" isn't a good answer, because then, a la 4e, someone still needs to play "the healer," and not every group always has someone who wants to do that).

No cleric or healer (in the party) needed. Do it old school style. Travel back to town, pay the resident cleric/healer to cast the spell.

 

[The Hitcher]

I'm a pretty improv-heavy DM. What I know about a clay golem -- or any monster -- before using it is limited to its direct narrative hooks ("made by priests, goes berserk"), and those give me a reason to potentially include the creature. Everything else needs to run smoothly from that. I am not going to study statblocks and analyze abilities during play, I am going to decide if the critter appears for story reasons and let the cards fall as they may.

Well I suppose if that's the way you do things you could be surprised by all kinds of problems with monster abilities. My guess is that the DMG solution to this problem will actually be "if it's not working for you, change it". Just cut the power (or replace it, if you can think of anything on the spur of the moment), and then award 10-20% less XP.

Edit: Or else just allow the reduced max HP to heal on a rest *shrug*.

 

[Remathilis]

Which means I'm not interested in seeing my "level 9 cleric's bodyguard" suddenly turn into "and now the fighter has less HP than the wizard forever unless I fix it because my party doesn't have a greater restoration available to it and now I have to fix this and this is not the story I was interested in telling, I just wanted my evil cleric to have a bodyguard, uuuuuuuugh.".

Have you considered using a different monster then? I hear the MM has 330 some pages of them.

 

[I'm A Banana]

No cleric or healer (in the party) needed. Do it old school style. Travel back to town, pay the resident cleric/healer to cast the spell.

Dunno 'bout you, but 9th-level clerics aren't exactly sitting around in temples waiting for fool adventurers to come stumbling in. Plus, the PHB's info mentions that high-level magical effects are basically "DM puts a quest here" material, which still has the effect of interjecting into whatever other plot I had going on.

Well I suppose if that's the way you do things you could be surprised by all kinds of problems with monster abilities. My guess is that the DMG solution to this problem will actually be "if it's not working for you, change it". Just cut the power (or replace it, if you can think of anything on the spur of the moment), and then award 10-20% less XP.

Edit: Or else just allow the reduced max HP to heal on a rest *shrug*.

Why isn't "magic items could mean any party can basically fix this" a potential already-made solution that you're willing to entertain?

I mean, I could put everyone on mars and have them riding warmechs and farting out atomic bombs if I wanted. This ain't about what I intend to do. It's about what might happen in the moment of play when I (or some other player) doesn't realize that this one monster's attack is going to dominate the rest of your gaming for the next few weeks. Which still hinges on the game designers not realizing that a party might not have access to greater restoration.

Have you considered using a different monster then? I hear the MM has 330 some pages of them.

I mean, I'm paying for 330 pages of monsters I can use, ain't I? If I want monsters I can't use to play D&D, I've got a lot better options than buying the MM. Who knows how prominent these "surprise, you can't heal from this effect because your party doesn't have a cleric/druid/healybard" kinds of results are?

'course, my first guess is that the designers know what they're doing, that they know a party might not have a cleric/druid/healybard, and that they have some other solution in mind. My bet is on magic items being "default on", since 5e clearly presumes their use elsewhere what with the things that can only be hit by magic weapons and folks' attacks counting as magic, with an option to turn them "off", and magic items including potions of greater restoration or somesuch. It would be a reasonable design choice that allowed the designers to presume the party at a given CR has access to a given magical effect regardless of any class's spell list or character's spell choice.

But since we haven't seen anything about treasure distribution in 5e, that can only be a guess, and it's always possible that they just felt for some reason like it was OK to FUBAR your game for a few weeks because you used a golem and no one had a greater restoration on them. Can't say I follow their logic if that's the case...