statues and golems
- Thread starter messy
- Start date
1. 40
2. 60
3. Since a human is simply animated meat, shouldn't it have the statistics of a side of beef?
I kid, but the reason golems have such high hit points compared to a comparably sized inanimate statue is because they, like humans, are moving around and defending themselves in a fight. Also magical reinforcement and all the other same reasons that your fighter has over 100 hit points when the peasant only has 1.
Up until the golem is "bloodied," it's been defending itself so well you've gotten nothing more than surface scratches and chips. At the point it's "bloodied," you knock a good sized chunk out of it, or in the case of an iron golem, breach into the alchemical cauldron within, causing all the horrible gases to leak out.
Indeed; by most measures, golems are unreasonably easy to destroy. You can hack a 4E stone golem to pieces with nonmagical swords. Try that on a real statue and watch your sword break.
*cue "But there's MAGIC in this world, so nothing has to make any sense!"*
Golems are one of the monsters I'm thinking about reworking a bit for future campaigns... make them a different kind of challenge from the usual "hack it to bits" one. Not all foes are or should be hackable. If the golem is slow but impervious to weapons and spells, the PCs have to find a different way to deal with it.
source?
the Jester
Legend
This is why 1e golems ruled- straight up, if your magic weapon isn't mighty enough, it just bounces off. Also, I really liked the way they worked in 3.0 (one of the ONLY areas where 3.0 DR worked really well imho).
DMG, p. 65. Medium objects have 20 hp. Stone doubles that, and metal triples it.
Now, the others brought up excellent points where it would make sense and be consistent if you gave them some sort of "resist all" to reduce the damage, because those hit point totals are insanely low and mean even low level characters could cleave through small statues easily. That, however, is up to you.
Edit: This is the same Fan as above. I just logged into the wrong #$@% account when I made my first post. That other account shouldn't even exist.
Also, don't forget that the hit points of the statue and the hit points of the golem represent different things. A golem will be destroyed when it can no longer move properly to attack. A statue might be considered destroyed with more superficial damage.
As I recall (don't have my books on me), the DMG also mentions that some items may be given more hit points for their size depending on things like workmanship and detailing. For example, a solid stone wall will have more hit points than a frieze of the same size, because the stone wall with lots of dents and a few chunks knocked out in it is still a stone wall, while a frieze with a lot of dents and chunks knocked out has become rubble.
Also, magic helps hold the golem together. If someone wanted to make a statue particularly hardy, they could use magic to make it more durable as well. I believe there was actually an artificer infusion that did this.
As I recall (don't have my books on me), the DMG also mentions that some items may be given more hit points for their size depending on things like workmanship and detailing. For example, a solid stone wall will have more hit points than a frieze of the same size, because the stone wall with lots of dents and a few chunks knocked out in it is still a stone wall, while a frieze with a lot of dents and chunks knocked out has become rubble.
Also, magic helps hold the golem together. If someone wanted to make a statue particularly hardy, they could use magic to make it more durable as well. I believe there was actually an artificer infusion that did this.
UltimaGabe
First Post
Hmm, you seem to be mixing editions here. In 4e, no objects (unless the DM decides it) have any sort of damage resistance- just hit points. It would take a while, but there's nothing RAW stopping a peasant from punching his way through an iron wall.
