How do you deal with Hardness 20? (Spoilers for The Infernal Syndrome)

[GSHamster]

I would exploit the leash. Have a tank engage it, have the strikers take out a cooling chamber, then retreat. Repeat until all cooling chambers are dead. Then whittle it down from range.

 

[Salthorae]

still like what [MENTION=95517]Varthol[/MENTION] said... the thing has a Fort save of +1, buy a couple of scrolls of disintegrate and be done with it.

Avg damage on a minimum level (CL9) disintegrate is (22d6) 77 pts. If you say that Hardness applies (which I'm not sure), you're still at 38.5 avg damage. 2 of those scrolls and the thing is gone.

Minimum save DC on a scroll of Disintegrate is 19 (10+6+3 (min Int of 16)) ... which the cage will fail 85% of the time. If the caster is higher Int, then you're only increasing your odds to 95% max (assuming your group plays with "20 is auto success", not all do).

Cost per scroll 1650gp for basically an auto win.

 

[rkarnes]

This seems like a blatant design flaw, even though there are a number of work-around tricks. I think that instead of designing and running an adventure that requires system mastery from your players, this should be contributed to an oversight in the design process and a prime example for the DM caveat.

 

[Varthol]

I don't think disintigrate dmg should be halved or have hardness applied to it, its dmg is... well... not that physical so I hardly think that hardness at least can apply there.

As for spiritual weapon (read it some posts before) it did ignore hardness and deal full dmg to objects in 3.5 because that was the general rule in 3.5 about force damage (even though it can't be used against inanimate objects ). Since that rule is not a part of the PF system spiritual weapon is also halved and subject to hardness i guess (unless the DM says otherwise ofc).

I guess that dealing with hardness is all about argumentation
You could say "come on Mr.DM, Spiritual Weapon punches through DR/Adamantine like paper, but not through hardness?" or something like that. An example i think in the core rulebook is that piercing dmg is ineffective against stone BUT wiht the EXCEPTION of a pick. So try to argue your exception.

 

[Crothian]

One thing I've been fascinated to see in Pathfinder is how it forces you into having certain characters in the group.

A 2-handed wielding fighter or barbarian
A single class Wizard or Sorcerer
A single class Cleric
Possibly a Rogue

If you don't have the first three, you will NOT be able to deal with the threats in a typical adventure.

We don't have any of those three and so far the group is doing just fine.

 

[James Jacobs]

Check the additional rules:
"Immunities: Objects are immune to nonlethal damage and to critical hits. Even animated objects, which are otherwise considered creatures, have these immunities."

That's in fact an error. One that's been frustratingly hard to expunge from the rules.

If animated objects were intended to be immune to critical hits, that information really REALLY needs to be on the monster's actual stat block page, and not squirreled away in the core rulebook on a section about objects taking damage. I'll try again to have that rule errataed in the next printing of the Core Rules... (and in fact I just talked to Jason Bulmahn about this as he wandered by my office while I was writing this post and he confirms that should go into the errata for the Core Rulebook).

Being the one who wrote the bulk of that adventure (and the final encounter in question), I can confirm that the intent is that the animated cage should be treated as a normal construct, and as such things like sneak attacks and critical hits should work on it. Furthermore... it's a CR 8 creature. According to Table 1–1 in the Bestiary, a CR 8 creature should have 100 hit points. The cage has half that amount. The reason I made it adamantine is to address the fact that without hardness 20, it truly is a glass cannon.

The way to destroy it is to hit it as hard as you can, basically. Sneak attack works REALLY well here, as do critical hits, but so do high-damage spells. The fact that it's a lone monster in the encounter means that the PCs should be able to gang up on it pretty well—it's a tough fight, but against a party of four 8th or 9th level characters... hardly an unstoppable one.

(And as for the comment that Pathfinder adventures are designed to require a fighter/cleric/wizard/rogue... that's correct. We assume that a typical party has a typical/"classical" spread of classes between these four iconic roles, and as such, we build our adventures to that assumption and try to make sure that there's places in every adventure where those four roles have a moment to shine. That said... I've seen plenty of parties not follow this precise balance of power and still do fine.)

 

[MerricB]

That's in fact an error. One that's been frustratingly hard to expunge from the rules.

See also riding dog for Monster Summoning I.

However, getting rid of *any* use of hardness from creatures would be a very good idea.

(And as for the comment that Pathfinder adventures are designed to require a fighter/cleric/wizard/rogue... that's correct. We assume that a typical party has a typical/"classical" spread of classes between these four iconic roles, and as such, we build our adventures to that assumption and try to make sure that there's places in every adventure where those four roles have a moment to shine. That said... I've seen plenty of parties not follow this precise balance of power and still do fine.)

It's more a comment on the 3E rules that Pathfinder inherited (although I tend to run up against it more when running Paizo adventures, that could also be due to running more Paizo adventures for 3E/PF than anything else) and is due to the set up of key spells only being available to the cleric and wizard. Restoration, I'm looking at you!

(A Celtic-themed setting, with druids instead of clerics, is absolutely destroyed by undead: energy drain and ability drain...)

When I set up this particular game - which is Core Book only - I made a list of roles to be covered as follows:

Warrior: Barbarian, Fighter, Paladin, Ranger
Caster: Sorcerer, Wizard
Healer: Cleric
Trickster: Rogue, Bard, Monk

Extra classes help with that. (and such now exist).

 

[Salthorae]

I'd have to chime in that I played a Paladin in the Second Darkness AP and he was an awesome healer, so you should put him in both lists. We had a Cleric to shoulder most of the responsibility so we hardly ever touched my Lay on Hands, but that is a powerful ability in Pathfinder.

Every time I cured hit points, I also Removed Curses, Diseases, Neutralized Poisons, and removed the Shaken condition... and I could do that 13 times a day!

Glad to know that the Animated Creatures and Immune to Crit/Sneak Attack is an errata. Thanks for chiming in James.

 

[MerricB]

I'd have to chime in that I played a Paladin in the Second Darkness AP and he was an awesome healer, so you should put him in both lists. We had a Cleric to shoulder most of the responsibility so we hardly ever touched my Lay on Hands, but that is a powerful ability in Pathfinder.

Every time I cured hit points, I also Removed Curses, Diseases, Neutralized Poisons, and removed the Shaken condition... and I could do that 13 times a day!

I energy drain the wizard to 1st level and ability drain the rogue to 3 Con, what is your paladin doing?

General healing is easy in PF (wands of cure light wounds are amazing). However, ability drain and energy drain are very hard to remove.

Glad to know that the Animated Creatures and Immune to Crit/Sneak Attack is an errata. Thanks for chiming in James.

It isn't errata. It's an error that hasn't yet been corrected.

 

[Salthorae]

I energy drain the wizard to 1st level and ability drain the rogue to 3 Con, what is your paladin doing?

General healing is easy in PF (wands of cure light wounds are amazing). However, ability drain and energy drain are very hard to remove.

It isn't errata. It's an error that hasn't yet been corrected.

I'm casting Restoration and Lesser Restoration to cure them up just like the cleric would...

And then smiting your energy draining, ability damaging undead into smitherines.

And they are indeed errata as the primary definition is of errors in general, secondary meaning is the published list of corrections.