Golem Swarm, CR 9? (Dragon-309)

[Yeoman]

Okay I gotta ask this, since this thing has DR 5/Adamantine, half damage from slashing and piercing, immunity to all weapon damage as part of it's swarm subtype, immunity to all magic except Transmute Rock to Mud, and Stone to Flesh, and being that it's 12 Hit Dice. is this really a CR 9 creature?

 

[AuraSeer]

Don't forget that it automatically disassembles all nonmagical items in a single round, regardless of size or hardness.

 

[Fenes 2]

In a word: No. I sometimes wonder what those designers are thinking.

 

[Yeoman]

And the distraction ability when someone begins their turn in the same space as the golem. As for the dismantling ability, well at least complex objects last for 2d4 rounds, so I guess it pays to have a swiss army knife or something.

 

[Bauglir]

Why bother with the DR and half-damage bits if it's immune to all weapon damage anyway?

 

[mmu1]

To begin with, swarm rules are complete crap.

A swarm's composed of so many tiny creatures that you can't affect them with weapons, but it has hit dice? Bull****. If it's composed of discrete creatures, it should work similar to something like Creeping Doom - a certain amount of damage (varying depending on the CR of the swarm) kills every swarm critter in the affected area automatically, affecting how much of the swarm is left and (if it was reasonably designed) how much damage it can do. The way it's written now, the swarm effectively has an infinite number of creatures, until it looses all HP, when they all die.

Or, if you're going to give something Hit Dice, do away with the "there are so many you can't possibly kill all" nonsense, and just give it an AC with appropriate size and Dex modifiers - those rules are there for a reason...

And the golem swarm is just a really bad application of a crappy template... If you don't have the right spells (And even then - oh, 5d6 damage to a 12HD creature... Yeah, that's a lot of help ), you're stuck trying to use alchemist's fire, acid and torches against it (provided it doesn't have energy resistances - can't remember now.)

 

[Grog]

Okay I gotta ask this, since this thing has DR 5/Adamantine, half damage from slashing and piercing,

I thought Wizards said the new DR rules would mean the end of some creatures only taking half damage from certain weapons?

 

[Yeoman]

And the golem swarm is just a really bad application of a crappy template... If you don't have the right spells (And even then - oh, 5d6 damage to a 12HD creature... Yeah, that's a lot of help ), you're stuck trying to use alchemist's fire, acid and torches against it (provided it doesn't have energy resistances - can't remember now.)

Nope, no energy resistances, so we figured you can take one out (slowly) that way, but my group thinks it's a pretty badly thought out creature. Yeah the template may only make it a CR 9, but sometimes, you need to test it first to verify it's CR. Just think on average it takes 4 TrRtM's to bring it down, and how many can the iconic 4 cast at 9th level....1 or so?

 

[Yeoman]

Re: Re: Golem Swarm, CR 9? (Dragon-309)

I thought Wizards said the new DR rules would mean the end of some creatures only taking half damage from certain weapons?

Yeah, I thought so myself. Very odd indeed.

 

[mmu1]

Nope, no energy resistances, so we figured you can take one out (slowly) that way, but my group thinks it's a pretty badly thought out creature. Yeah the template may only make it a CR 9, but sometimes, you need to test it first to verify it's CR. Just think on average it takes 4 TrRtM's to bring it down, and how many can the iconic 4 cast at 9th level....1 or so?

It's going to take a while to take something with 12 HD down using items that do 1d6 damage. Who carries that much Alchemist's Fire and acid, anway?

Not to mention that, as you do it, you'll be burning whoever the swarm is attacking...