8th level PC's + Iron Golem = Need a plan

[Timely Drought]

Your DM seems hell-bent on not letting you defeat the golem through cunning. That's rather unfortunate.

My guess is any plan that doesn't involve beating the crap out of it will fail arbitrarily.

 

[Tatsukun]

Well, in my Dm's defense, it's a lot higher a CR than we are levels. He probably wants us to do other things first. Also, I'd rather he told us our plan won't work than us finding out when it matters.

I'd rather say "too bad that won't work" than "Oh $%#*, that didn't work!!!"

Yeah Force-cage is great, but that's more money than all of us have, or could have if we sold all our gear and sold pencils on the corner for a week.

-Tatsu

 

[Tilla the Hun (work)]

If time is not an issue, search that tower by everyone taking 20.

Use divining spells to commune with your gm indirectly to discover clues as to what to do.

As a group, focus in on this golem... keep coming up with plan after plan after plan to defeat it, waylay it, etc.

Sooner or later, the GM will admit y'all are obsessed and change things one way or another

Or just turn your back on it, go collect a dozen rust monsters (heedless of how long/far this takes you), and chuck 'em at it. It's not going to get them all... though suddenly I'm reminded of Monty Hall...

::swipe:: dead RM and 1 armed golem
::swipe:: dead RM and no-armed golem
::stomp:: dead RM and 1 legged golem
::stomp:: ::THUD:: dead RM and prone golem.

"It's just a flesh wound!!!"

:robe:: One pile of rust and live RM.

 

[Philip]

I dunno, but Golem's are utterly uncreative and always 'stick with the program'. That's their major weakness. Just find out what the program is and play on that.

Besides, Golems are slow.

If its programmed to follow intruders until the door, then just lure it to the door and step outside. It won't follow you. Then step inside as it starts up the stairs again. When it closes, step outside. Rinse and repeat. Meanwhile, some other PCs can ransack the chamber.

See p. 134 from the MM, the golem can be given only simple commands when the master is away.

You can devise a hundred different plans that way. If it is programmed to attack any moving creature, just let loose hundred rats in the place, or even better, snails. It will dutifully chase and attack each one in a random manner.

If it is programmed to attack but ignore smaller creatures, just polymorph into a rat search the chamber. Invisibility will do wonders too, as the Golem has no way to come up with 'a plan' to sniff out invisible intruders.

If your DM blocks each of these plans, or the Golem react appropriately to each new plan, just assume that the DM doesn't want you to bypass it.

When you have time, even low-level adventurers can pass a Golem.

 

[Someone]

That´s a good suggestion, and now that I think on it, Golems also had the clause that if they are attacked they go after the creature that did that. One or two fast characters can pelt the golem with arrows (or stones, or apples for the damage they´re going to deal) and make the thing go after them. The rest of the group can then enter the guarded place.

 

[Philip]

That´s a good suggestion, and now that I think on it, Golems also had the clause that if they are attacked they go after the creature that did that. One or two fast characters can pelt the golem with arrows (or stones, or apples for the damage they´re going to deal) and make the thing go after them. The rest of the group can then enter the guarded place.

I remember we defeated our last Golem (the advanced Stone Golem from the MM) by having the cleric cast obscurement and the fighter repeatedly Spring Attack the golem. Each time his action, the golem did not see opponents and thus did not react.

A thinking person might have deduced that the fighter was hiding somewhere in the mist and might have gone after them in that general direction. Or it might even have readied an action and slammed the fighter when it appeared again, guessing it was using hit and fade tactics. But this requires thinking, a quality that a mindless golem does not possess.

 

[Timely Drought]

Or just turn your back on it, go collect a dozen rust monsters (heedless of how long/far this takes you), and chuck 'em at it. It's not going to get them all... though suddenly I'm reminded of Monty Hall...

::swipe:: dead RM and 1 armed golem
::swipe:: dead RM and no-armed golem
::stomp:: dead RM and 1 legged golem
::stomp:: ::THUD:: dead RM and prone golem.

Only the antenna do rust damage. So the golem wouldn't get rusted by smacking rust monsters. And if surrounded by them, he'd just use his breath weapon, which does con damage, which will lower the rust save DC. But that probably won't be enough to save his skin.

 

[Sejs]

Just to be a bit of a prick here, but I'd just like to point out that your DM is running the golem so wrong it hurts.


An iron golem has no intelligence score (Unless awakened. Which, granted, is an outside possibility). No intelligence score means it cannot think. It cannot make assumptions, it cannot make leaps of intuition, and it cannot improvise. A golem can only do what it is expressly told to do. If the golem's instructions include "If you have to travel to any other floor of the tower in persuit of an intruder, return to your post via the stairwell once that intruder is dead or no longer within the confines of the tower." and you lure it to the ground floor and then stoneshape the stairwell away, leaving a open shaft where it once was, guess what the golem will do. It will stand there at the bottom of where the stairwell once was, because the condition "via the stairwell" can no longer be met, and its instructions did not include 'Jackie Channing' up a shaft that at the time of instruction did not exist. Now, if you went back down to the first level the golem would once again persue you, because that's something that's in its instructions. Intruders: kill or drive off. The golem's instructions couldn't even include "return to your post by whatever means necessary" because 'whatever means necessary' means nothing to the golem. It's totally incapable of thinking what measures would be necessary, on its own.

You can at best give a golem a list of If/Then statements that it will follow, and they must be explicit in nature, because again -no interpretation, -no improvisation. Personally, were I this golem's owner, I'd include two statements in its instructions:

1) If you cannot reach an intruder to Kill Them/Drive Them Off but are able to get within 10' or less, stand as close to the intruder as local conditions allow (moving toward the intruder until such movement is impeded) and repeatedly use your poison gas ability until such time that the intruder is Killed or Driven Off.

2) If you cannot reach an intruder to Kill Them/Drive Them Off and are not able to get within 10' or less, then proceed to the Alarm Gong located on the tower level that you currently occupy. If that Alarm Gong is missing proceed down one level and repeat previous instruction: move to current level's Alarm Gong. When an Alarm Gong is successfully reached, ring it until (Name of Other, Intelligent Guardian - maybe a bound outsider of some kind?) comes to you. When (Other Guardian) appears, obey their instructions until such time that you are instructed by them to return to your primary post and resume guarding.

 

[argo]

Well, questions about the proper way to run a golem aside, the problem still remains: how to take out this golem? It sounds like you have a free run of the tower (aside from the golem) and lots of time so my suggestion is this. Have the wizard memorize a Dimension Door and as many Melf's Acid Arrow spells as he can (no SR, acid does full damage against constructs) use higher level spell slots to memorize more AA's (use metamagic too if you got it). Then have the wiz sneak into the tower, find the golem, unload the AA's from as far away as he can (with expeditious retreat he can move and cast faster than the golem can catch up with him) and DD out when he is done. The AA's should finish him off in less than a minute.

If that fails then I'd call it a clear indication that the DM just doesn't want to let you in.

 

[Planesdragon]

Forget the tower. Find the wizard's associates. One of his/her apprentices, colleauges, or rivals probably knows the trick to get around the golem.

Failing that, just wail it to death. The troll must have injured the golem; go check in a day to see if it's healed at all. If it isn't healing, take pot-shots at it until it dies. If it is healing--well, go look through your spell books for spells that don't allow spell ressitance.

(I got into quite the thread on DND-L about the template-breaking nature of golems; why "spell immunity" when "SR 50" has the same effect for non-epic play? Anyway, in 3.5 (and 3.0, IIRC), golems are only immune to those spells that provoke spell resistance. -Summon Monster- or the like would do you good.)