D&D 5E Clay Golem HP Drain

[Boarstorm]

Unless, of course, he's carrying a whole bag of cold iron, silver and adamantine weapons, preferably all magical. What happened to their promise that magical items are not mandatory in 5E?

If just ONE is magical, it bypasses the Immunities of all of them.

 

[Primal]

I think a better question would be, "Will you cast Magic Weapon on this?"

No, most likely it will be: "Will you cast Adamantine/Silver/Cold Iron Weapon on this? And maybe the paladin's sword as well, please?". Seriously, it's not even funny...

 

[Primal]

If just ONE is magical, it bypasses the Immunities of all of them.

Wait, doesn't clay golem have immunity to 'non-magical *and* non-adamantine weapons'? Ergo, you need a magical adamantine weapon to hurt it at all, right?

 

[Boarstorm]

Wait, doesn't clay golem have immunity to 'non-magical *and* non-adamantine weapons'? Ergo, you need a magical adamantine weapon to hurt it at all, right?

Nope. Non-magical weapons that aren't adamantine. In 3rd edition parlance, it's an "or."

 

[Primal]

I strongly disagree. There should be surprises for the pcs from time to time. They shouldn't know everything about every foe they might face. I love the return of actual resource management beyond healing surges and "how can we spend five minutes resting?".

Getting rid of "gotchas" means no more lurkers above, mimics, succubi, cloakers, doppelgangers, shapechanged oni, shapechanged dragons, shapechanged fiends, shapechanged anything, gelatinous cubes, traps and tricks.

Screw that! I mean, it may work for you, and that's fine, but let's just say that it definitely doesn't suit my playstyle.

I didn't say shapeshifters or lurking monsters shouldn't exist; I said I hate "gotcha"-type abilities that make encounters potentially lethal, unless *players* use their out-of-game knowledge to prepare and defeat these monsters. Call it "experience" or "player skillz" or whatever, but I just don't like it if players have to metagame. If my fighter hasn't ever faced golems and doesn't have any skills that would grant him knowledge of their immunities, there's no way my first comment would be: "You know, that statue looks like a clay golem, let's go back to town and get some adamantine weapons!".

 

[Remathilis]

No, most likely it will be: "Will you cast Adamantine/Silver/Cold Iron Weapon on this? And maybe the paladin's sword as well, please?". Seriously, it's not even funny...

Wait, doesn't clay golem have immunity to 'non-magical *and* non-adamantine weapons'? Ergo, you need a magical adamantine weapon to hurt it at all, right?

No no no. Re-read it.

Immune to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from nonmagical weapons that aren’t adamantine.

Lets parse this out.

A normal longsword (PHB standard) does NO damage.
A +1 longsword does FULL damage.
An adamantine longsword does FULL damage.
A +1 adamantine longsword does FULL damage.

Additionally, there is NO cold iron resistance in the Monster Manual. Just magical, silver, or adamantine.

Therefore, if you find a simple +1 weapon, you beat ALL WEAPON IMMUNITIES IN THE GAME. If you lack a magic weapon, you can try to use adamantine or silver to try to beat resistance.

 

[Primal]

Nope. Non-magical weapons that aren't adamantine. In 3rd edition parlance, it's an "or."

Okay, my bad; apologies to everyone. I may not like immunity to all damage, but it's not as bad as I first thought it would be. If magical weapons bypass the material type, it's probably a good compromise (even though I'd still prefer 'DR X/magic or adamantine weapons').

 

[Primal]

No no no. Re-read it.

Immune to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from nonmagical weapons that aren’t adamantine.

Lets parse this out.

A normal longsword (PHB standard) does NO damage.
A +1 longsword does FULL damage.
An adamantine longsword does FULL damage.
A +1 adamantine longsword does FULL damage.

Additionally, there is NO cold iron resistance in the Monster Manual. Just magical, silver, or adamantine.

Therefore, if you find a simple +1 weapon, you beat ALL WEAPON IMMUNITIES IN THE GAME. If you lack a magic weapon, you can try to use adamantine or silver to try to beat resistance.

Yeah, I get it now; English is not my native language, and it's not very elegantly phrased, is it? I mean, 'Immunity to weapons/magic or adamantine' would mean the same, right?

 

[GX.Sigma]

My only concern with this is that 5e needs to "make sure" a 9th level party can get their paws on whatever magic item gives greater restoration, ideally without the DM coming in and deux-ex-machina-ing the whole affair. Aside from buying and selling magic items (which I don't imagine they want to do), I don't rightly know how they might ensure that this is something a player can reasonably expect to be able to acquire without the DM being forced to do much of anything. Because I'm lazy and uninterested in fixing the hole myself.

I want to be able to use any (non-legendary) monster against any party and not worry overly much about unintentionally crippling characters because they happen to lack some specific resource.

If your campaign doesn't have magic items, don't use monsters that can only be hurt by magic items. If your campaign doesn't have Clerics, don't hit them with attacks that can only be healed by Clerics. (Or do. That'll teach them to mess with golems.)

I don't know why my party of 2 barbarians and a cavalier aren't allowed to use their CHARGE hammer on every nail that present itself and still be able to come back after the fight's over.

Lots of reasons. The most relevant ones are: because this is a game where there are different classes, and the assumption is that you have a variety of classes, and each class is good at different things, and not every problem is a nail. That's the baseline assumption. The RAW only needs to support the baseline assumption.

Luckily for you, it's easy to change to match your assumptions (just have it heal after a day or a month or whatever).

Is default 5e such a game as to secretly require that you play it a particular way and not state that up front?

It actually does state this up front. PHB p. 8 (Player Basic p. 5).

 

[Remathilis]

Yeah, I get it now; English is not my native language, and it's not very elegantly phrased, is it? I mean, 'Immunity to weapons/magic or adamantine' would mean the same, right?

No. It's very poorly worded.