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How do you deal with Hardness 20? (Spoilers for The Infernal Syndrome)
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<blockquote data-quote="James Jacobs" data-source="post: 5951771" data-attributes="member: 23937"><p>That's in fact an error. One that's been frustratingly hard to expunge from the rules.</p><p></p><p>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).</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>(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.)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="James Jacobs, post: 5951771, member: 23937"] 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.) [/QUOTE]
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How do you deal with Hardness 20? (Spoilers for The Infernal Syndrome)
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