The Order of the Stick

Disjunction maybe would have worked but V doesn't have it (it was from the splices)

edited 20th Mar '15 10:00:59 AM by Adannor

I think he'd have to hit the phylactery with it, wouldn't he?

I'm pretty sure Disjunction can kill a phylactery, but like antimagic, I don't think it would cause Critical Existence Failure if he just hit the lich with it.

I meant on the golem. They're kinda more items than magical creatures.

Aren't they powered by having an elemental spirit fused into them or something along those lines? It's still alive...ish.

Oh.

I don't think you can kill a golem with disjunction. It counts as a creature.

edited 20th Mar '15 10:45:25 AM by TobiasDrake

Do they have any particular weak points?

Not really, other than the "specific element slows them" thing. They're pretty much your standard meat shields. Some third-party supplements (Eberron springs to mind) have spells specifically for fighting constructs, though. There's the repair/damage line of spells, mirroring the cure/inflict line, and a destroy construct spell that works similar to slay living. I think it was stated outright to bypass golem spell immunity, though I'm too lazy to check right now.

Well, adamantite bypasses their Damage Resistance, magic that doesn't allow Spell Resistance still works, and spells that would cause cold and fire damage inflict them with a Slow effect for 2d6 rounds with no saving throw allowed.

There is also a cumulative 1% chance every round that the elemental spirit animating them will break free, causing the golem to go berserk and rendering it a mindless, uncontrollable force of destruction instead of a controlled minion.

Also, its STR score is high, but its other scores such as DEX or WIS are shit.

edited 20th Mar '15 11:02:28 AM by TobiasDrake

Except that Crystal isn't an elemental spirit, so that's probably not applicable here. One imagines that she might break free of whatever controls Bozzok has on her, though.

edited 20th Mar '15 11:02:55 AM by Fighteer

She's not, but she might still be animated by one. Kind of like how Xykon may be Xykon and not just mindless negative energy, but he's still animated by negative energy.

The main weakness of golems is being hit repeatedly with powerful physical attacks. They're one of the reasons you keep Fighters or similar classes around, particularly when said classes are buffed with things like Haste and Enlarge Person.

What if Crystal gets loose? Isn't she already?

You mean, what if Crystal escapes the built-in compulsions that are part of the golem's creation, in the same way as an elemental spirit can break free? Well, anything really. Turned Against Their Masters is a possibility, but we have no way to know if Rich will play that particular gambit, given that it would come across as a Deus ex Machina without some kind of setup. I don't know how many OOTS readers are familiar enough with the core game mechanics of golems to understand why that could happen.

It could be played as an "I Know You Are in There Somewhere" Fight, but the thing is that this is Crystal, and she is not being compelled to fight Haley; she's doing it entirely of her own will.

Yes, this.

edited 20th Mar '15 11:39:09 AM by Fighteer

I still say that Crystal breaking free of her compulsions isn't a solution anyway. Whether or not she would turn on Bozzok is irrelevant because she would finish murdering Haley before doing any of that. At no point would she be all, "Wow, I'm free. Hey, Haley, you're awesome, we're bestest buds, I'm gonna go kill Bozzok now, continue being my best friend ever!"

Breaking someone free of mind control is only relevant if what they are doing now is something they would not normally do.

edited 20th Mar '15 11:39:06 AM by TobiasDrake

I think Roy's starmetal sword would bypass Crystal's DR. Starmetal has the properties of adamantine IIRC.

V could also lock her down with force effects.

Roy wouldn't even need to bypass her DR. 5 might mean a lot to a Rogue who can't inflict crits or Sneak Attacks, but it's chump change to a Fighter.

Greatswords do 2d6 damage, it's a +5 weapon, and he probably has a Strength bonus of something like +5 to +7, depending on how high his Strength is before you count the Belt of Giant Strength. He'd do an average of about 11-13 damage per hit, assuming it doesn't count as adamantine. Compare Haley, who has a dagger (1d4 damage), and almost certainly no Strength bonus. Without adamantine, she is doing zero damage, while with it she's doing an average of 2.

Short version: The Crystal Golem is basically built to fight Haley, and nearly anyone else in the party would be a better choice than her. But especially Roy.

Even Belkar?

That's a good question. Would Belkar be able to reliably overcome the Crystal Golem's DR? On the one hand, he's a Sexy Shoeless God of War. On the other hand, he uses daggers.

V breaks the polymorph on his dinosaur, dinosaur eats Crystal.

A wise ranger would keep daggers of various materials to counteract DR, since that's one of the big weaknesses of a dual-wielding ranger (though there are quite a few more; it's not a great build).

Belkar is not a wise ranger. So he'd be screwed too.

The whole order is not equipped in this fashion. Haley was the first to start on it.

But yeah for all his stabby prowess, Belkster is just as screwed against the golem as Haley is.

Does the Barbarian multi-class alleviate things somewhat or does the fact that it does not combine well with Halfling nor Ranger make it useless?

But Belkar is the one who needs to worry about DR the most. His weapons are small enough that he can't just overpower DR, he has no sneak attacks (which Haley could normally use to overpower DR), and no spells like Elan, V, or Durkula. If they encounter basically any DR besides the most basic /magic, he's useless.

That does give him some extra Strength to overpower DR, but it's still not going to be a lot.

edited 20th Mar '15 2:44:53 PM by Discar

Annd they're still not so freely shopping adventurers as the normal party is presumed to be.