For Your Consideration: a 3rd Edition (3.0) Epic Golem that has a very nasty power :)

[Tellerian Hawke]

This is something I have been thinking about adding to my epic game.

I wanted you guys to look at it, with an eye toward balance and lethality. Is it too deadly? Not deadly enough? Could it be streamlined or improved in any way?

Remember, this is an epic monster, meant for an epic party whose average level is 42. It is an improved version of the normal Mithral Golem found in the ELH.

This is not for the faint of heart!

Mithral Lava Golem [24 feet tall, 16,000 lbs.]
Huge Construct
[Base Attack = 48 x .75 = 36, +Str Bonus [14] = 50, -2 size = 48]


Hit Dice: 48d10 (264 Hit Pts)
Initiative: +4 (Dex)
Speed: 40 ft.
AC: 46 (Base 10, +4 Dex, +30 Natural, +4 Haste, -2 Size)
Attacks: 1 Slam +48 Melee or 1 Grab +40 Melee
Damage: Slam 4d10+14 Grab (Lava, see below)
Face/Reach: 10 ft. by 10 ft. / 10 ft.
Special Attacks: Lava Compartment (see below)
Special Qualities: Construct traits, magic immunity, DR 40/+6, alacrity
Saves: Fort +12, Ref +16, Will +12
Abilities: Str 39, Dex 19, Con --, Int --, Wis 11, Cha 1
Climate/Terrain: Any land
Organization: Solitary
Challenge rating: 30
Treasure: None
Alignment: Always neutral
Advancement: None


Alacrity (Su): Once per round, the mithral lava golem may take an extra partial action (either before or


after its other actions in the round.) During the first round of combat, the golem will always use its extra


partial action to open its lava compartment.




Magic Immunity (Ex): A mithral lava golem is immune to all magical and supernatural effects, except as


follows. A Slow spell negates its alacrity for 1d4 rounds, while a Haste spell restores 1d6 hit pts per level of


the caster (maximum 10d6) or restores its alacrity, if previously negated by a Slow spell. Multiple Slow


spells simply extend the duration of the effect. Fire-based spells heal an amount of hit points equal to the


amount of fire damage they would normally inflict.




Improved Grab (Ex): If the golem hits with its grab attack, and its lava compartment is already open, it


can place the victim within it (see below.)




Lava Compartment (Ex): The mithral lava golem has a large, square trapdoor in the middle of its chest.


Most of the time, the trapdoor is closed. If the golem chooses to, he can take a partial action to open it.


Inside the compartment, there is boiling, roiling lava. The lava is held in place magically, and does not


ooze out. The lava produces an extreme amount of heat, and those who remain within melee range (2


squares) of the golem suffer 2d4 points of heat damage per round they remain so. But there is a more


deadly use for the compartment: if the compartment is open, and the golem succeeds in a grab attack, the


victim can automatically be placed inside. The compartment can hold up to 2 creatures of large size, or 3


creatures of medium size.




When the victim is first placed into the compartment, on the golem's turn, it suffers 20d10 points of fire


damage, Fort save DC 40 for half. If the victim gets a turn before the golem can close the compartment, he


can make a Reflex save DC 25 to escape. Victims who escape fall to the ground in the square next to the


golem, and take 2d4 points of heat damage. If the victim does not move away from the golem, he will


continue to suffer the heat damage each round, as normal.




If the golem is able to close the compartment, the victim is trapped. Trapped victims will take an


additional 20d10 points of damage at the beginning of the next round (save allowed for half as described


above) and must make a Break Door check DC 36 on his turn each round to force the compartment open


from the inside. Failure indicates that the victim remains trapped, and will suffer the damage again at the


start of the next round.




Also, the DM must keep track of the number of rounds spent inside the compartment, because even if the


fire damage can somehow be resisted, the victim is still immersed in lava, which is many times more


dense and viscous than water, and therefore, the victim could still suffocate / drown from lack of air.




If the victim manages to force the door open, then at the beginning of the next round, the victim is


allowed a reflex save (see above) to escape. Success means that he immediately falls to the ground in the


square next to the golem, and suffers 2d4 points of heat damage. Failure indicates that he is still in the


compartment, and suffers another round of fire (20d10) damage. (And another round of submersion as


well.)




Items placed within the compartment (including magic items, but excluding artifacts/relics) must make a


Fort save Dc 30 each round they remain so, or be permanently destroyed.







Thanks in advance for the advice!

 

[Greenfield]

The chest compartment seems to act a lot like "Swallow Whole". I'd use those mechanics for it.

And if the lava is more dense and viscous than water, then drowning is less likely. The denser the liquid, the more likely a human being is to naturally float to the top.

Want to make it nasty? Have Anti-Magic inside the chest compartment, or at least a Dimensional Lock effect, to keep people from escaping via d-door, Abundant step, Shadow Step, t-port, etc. If the monster is Epic, the party is likely to be as well, and that means a lot of people who can blip around the field via class feature, spell or item.

Large/huge Grapple monsters are scary, on paper. In play, at that level, far too many will have some form of Freedom of Action available, and as soon as that happens things like the Kraken become plush toys.

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

It has 264 hit points, an AC of 46, cannot fly, and an initiative modifier of +4 against level 42 3E characters?

That's not even a speed bump.

I've only run up to level 24 in 3E but one dire charge and they will be collecting its parts for their next mithral magic weapon....

 

[Tellerian Hawke]

Well, these are the base stats, I wanted to work out the processes and mechanics before advancing it. (I know it says "Advancement: None," but that's only a placeholder, because I haven't decided how to figure out the advancement yet.)

Another possibility would be keeping the golem at his base level, and then having the party run into a squad of 10 of them. That would present a problem, since the whole "grab and trap" mechanic could allow them to scoop up the whole party in a single round.

But you're right, I think that epic golems, at least the way they are presented in the ELH, look a bit weak. The base mithral golem has +5 DR, which is basically useless, since the first thing most epic characters get is +6 weaponry, as soon as they are able to get the crafting feats.

I thought about giving it max hit points, instead of average. I also considered ramping up its natural armor. A 16,000 lb. hunk of mithral should have Natural Armor out the wazoo, so to speak.

One last thing I thought about was adding the paragon template, although that template has a lot of bonuses (Insight, and Luck) that seem geared for thinking, sentient beings, rather than for constructs.

 

[Tellerian Hawke]

The chest compartment seems to act a lot like "Swallow Whole". I'd use those mechanics for it.

And if the lava is more dense and viscous than water, then drowning is less likely. The denser the liquid, the more likely a human being is to naturally float to the top.

Want to make it nasty? Have Anti-Magic inside the chest compartment, or at least a Dimensional Lock effect, to keep people from escaping via d-door, Abundant step, Shadow Step, t-port, etc. If the monster is Epic, the party is likely to be as well, and that means a lot of people who can blip around the field via class feature, spell or item.

Large/huge Grapple monsters are scary, on paper. In play, at that level, far too many will have some form of Freedom of Action available, and as soon as that happens things like the Kraken become plush toys.

1) They are in a confined space, which is completely filled with lava. There is no "top" to float up to. Hence, no air.

2) I thought that since the golem is unaffected by almost all magical effects, that this would already be the case, i.e., trapped characters could not teleport or phase out, because the magic would fail to penetrate the golem's internals. The magic that makes the golem immune would also have the effect of nullifying any magical effects which attempt to manifest inside of it.

Do you disagree? If so, I would like to hear your thoughts, please. I am not trying to prove myself correct. I am merely trying to ensure that I have considered all possibilities.

 

[Greenfield]

Item 1: If the tank is completely full then what difference does the density/viscosity of the lava have to do with suffocation/drowning? And if there is no spare space in the tank, what happens to the lava that the medium-sized victim displaces when tossed in?

Item 2:
Unless there's an active AntiMagic effect in place, characters can Dimension Door, Teleport, Plane Shift etc from inside a lot of spells and effects that are immune to spells.

Wall of Force and its various cube, bubble and pokemon shaped cousins are said to block all spells. Same for the Prismatic Wall and sphere spells. All forms of T-Port carry the caster right past them. They bypass the barrier, be it physical or metaphysical, by bouncing off the Astral Plane, essentially doing an end-run around the barrier.

The Golem is immune to spells. This usually infers that all attended items are equally immune. Living creatures don't count as "attended items", however, and wouldn't normally be hampered by it.

So if you want an AntiMagic effect, you'd better be explicit. And be aware that even such a precaution may be of questionable value, since Epic spells and items work in such areas.

Also note that Damage Reduction isn't always what people think it is.

DAMAGE REDUCTION
Some magic creatures have the supernatural ability to instantly heal damage from weapons or to ignore blows altogether as though they were invulnerable.
The numerical part of a creature’s damage reduction is the amount of hit points the creature ignores from normal attacks.
Usually, a certain type of weapon can overcome this reduction. This information is separated from the damage reduction number by a slash. Damage reduction may be overcome by special materials, by magic weapons (any weapon with a +1 or higher enhancement bonus, not counting the enhancement from masterwork quality), certain types of weapons (such as slashing or bludgeoning), and weapons imbued with an alignment. If a dash follows the slash then the damage reduction is effective against any attack that does not ignore damage reduction.
Ammunition fired from a projectile weapon with an enhancement bonus of +1 or higher is treated as a magic weapon for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction. Similarly, ammunition fired from a projectile weapon with an alignment gains the alignment of that projectile weapon (in addition to any alignment it may already have).
Whenever damage reduction completely negates the damage from an attack, it also negates most special effects that accompany the attack, such as injury type poison, a monk’s stunning, and injury type disease. Damage reduction does not negate touch attacks, energy damage dealt along with an attack, or energy drains. Nor does it affect poisons or diseases delivered by inhalation, ingestion, or contact.
Attacks that deal no damage because of the target’s damage reduction do not disrupt spells.
Spells, spell-like abilities, and energy attacks (even nonmagical fire) ignore damage reduction.
Sometimes damage reduction is instant healing. Sometimes damage reduction represents the creature’s tough hide or body,.
In either case, characters can see that conventional attacks don’t work.
If a creature has damage reduction from more than one source, the two forms of damage reduction do not stack. Instead, the creature gets the benefit of the best damage reduction in a given situation.

Note the highlighted text: Good old 1st level Alchemical Fire is a non-magical energy attack that bypasses Damage Reduction. Alchemical Acid ignores the Damage Reduction *and* the material hardness.

Arguably, Instantaneous Conjuration spells that deal energy damage would still affect it, since the spell conjures a real, non-magical dose of whichever energy it deals with, be it Fire, Cold, Electrical, Acid or Sonic. Like dropping a Wall of Stone on the thing, the "weapon" may be the product of a spell, but is not a spell or magical attack in and of itself.

The cure? Include energy resistances.

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

Yeah, I would add the paragon template. It's the fastest way to make this a threat. Anything else is just going to cost you time and the PCs will still destroy it in the first round.

 

[pemerton]

I don't know 3E very well, but I've been running quite a bit of epic 4e recently. And my first thought was that 246 hit points is nothing.
[MENTION=87576]Scrivener of Doom[/MENTION] seems to have some reasonable ideas on how to toughen this thing up within the 3E framework.

 

[Greenfield]

It's the combination of AC and hit points that matters.

In 4e there are a lot of "Do damage on a miss" attacks. Those pretty much don't exist in 3e. A brawler has to actually hit the AC and overcome DR to damage the thing.

That being said, if the party pumps one of their tough melee machines, he'll hit that AC pretty regularly, and dish a hundred points of damage a round. And I'm being conservative.

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

It's the combination of AC and hit points that matters. (snip)

Yes. That's why I specifically mentioned both. Neither are high in the case of this monster, especially for one which is rated as CR 30 (which it clearly is not).

(snip) In 4e there are a lot of "Do damage on a miss" attacks. Those pretty much don't exist in 3e. A brawler has to actually hit the AC and overcome DR to damage the thing.

That being said, if the party pumps one of their tough melee machines, he'll hit that AC pretty regularly, and dish a hundred points of damage a round. And I'm being conservative.

Try 200 or more points on average. Polymorph a barbarian with the dire charge feat (full attack on a charge) into something that is Gargantuan and watch him hit with all for attacks for an average of 250 points of damage or so based on my quick calculations from memory.

Damage on a miss is not that big a deal.

That said, the paragon template is supremely effective at turning almost any monster into a genuine Epic-level threat. I had to stop using it in my Epic 3E games for that reason: it was too effective.