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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Philip Benz" data-source="post: 8645020" data-attributes="member: 6975782">After a delay of some 6 weeks, I was finally able to organize the golem fight.On paper, it didn't seem like it should have been that difficult. 4 PCs, level 12, wizard, druid, cleric and rogue, entered a ruined temple and found 3 golems (2 stone, level 12 and 1 iron, level 13). According to the "<a href="https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=497" target="_blank">Building Encounters</a>" guidelines, that should be 140xp, just above severe and well below extreme.But that's on paper.In the first session, the 4 PCs got slaughtered. None of them were heavy damage dealers (to get through the damage resistance of 10 and 15), none of them made the all-important RK checks (Recall Knowledge) to identify the golems' vulnerabilities and it would've been a TPK if they hadn't managed to run like hell with their tails tucked between their legs at the opportune moment. They did manage to discover some of the golems vulnerabilities the old-fashioned way - through trial and error - but it was too little, too late.However, in last night's session, they finally understood the importance of preparation and teamwork. The cleric player was unable to join us, but I'd recruited a new player who made an awesome champion, specialist in the shield and protecting his party members. This was just what they'd been missing, and frankly they'd been suffering for a while, since the fighter player got a new job and could no longer join our sessions.With the protection of the champion, and no small thanks to his use of trip with assurance to steal actions from the golems, they managed to slog through the fight after scarcely two hours of slugfest. The golems got to use their special abilities (poison breath for the iron golem, slowing and paralysis for the stone golems) but the PCs managed to mitigate those powers and came out on top.[ATTACH=full]249138[/ATTACH](Special thanks to <a href="https://twitter.com/uthoroc" target="_blank">Ralph Schemmann </a>who made the beautiful base map in 2015 that I used for this encounter)True, they had a secret weapon, a homebrew anti-golem staff they'd acquired some 15 or so sessions earlier and promptly forgotten about, but that's a classic of fantasy literature - a nearly invulnerable monster with a hidden weakness to some item used in its construction.It was a great session, but my big takeaway is that however useful the "<a href="https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=497" target="_blank">Building Encounters</a>" table is for PF2 encounter design, you always have to take it with a grain of salt since so much depends on the details, not just the composition of the group of PCs, but also such vagaries as terrain, gear and tactics.</blockquote>

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