The strongest monster you've beaten without magic?


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion


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Without the use of spellcasting classes, wands, and so on, what's the biggest threat you've manged to overcome?

Things like "+1 sword" are OK, since they're more of a math bonus than truly magical.

To start, here's some I've already heard of:

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Killed a yeth hound with a rope and a long spear once.

Through an unlikely series of Use Rope and Strength checks, I lassoed his head, pulled him in with a pillar as a fulcrum, and then tied his head to the pillar using the bind action. He couldn't make bite checks to eat the rope, so I bashed him with a long spear until dead.

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killing a Dire Tiger as a horse archer
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Using "three crits=instant death" rule, killed a minotaur


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Level 20 lich, in 3.0.

To be fair, my level 3 character wasn't supposed to be capable of killing him... In fact, I was aiming at him and I missed.

I didn't miss the alchemy lab full of explosives he had. Turns out he had his phylactery within explosion range.

After that, the DM stopped using the scatter rules for where arrows ended up.

Now, if you want to know the strongest monster I've defeated without magic and survived...


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Way back in 2E myself and my 2 companions defeated a Hill Giant while being essentially first level (I was a Fighter/Mage 1st/1st)

The giant lived in a sod and grass hut with only a front door and a chimney, no windows or other ways in and out were seen. The hut was atop a hill with a steep path winding up to his front door. We watched, plotted and learned his routine. Once he fell to sleep, we snuck up and carved the earth away from his front door and dug a deep, spiked pit at the base of the hill. Last we stuffed wet grass into the chimney, backing up the smoke from his hearth fire. Soon he emerged bellowing in anger but blinded, promptly falling down the slope (since his 'porch' was missing) and impaled himself on the spikes at the bottom of the pit. We then made like cavemen using long spears to finish the job the fall and spikes had started. My character carried his skull around for a long time and many levels.

Might not have been the strongest monster overall I've ever defeated without magic but relative to our level and capabilities he was without a doubt probably the strongest and certainly very memorable.


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A fairly good-sized, mutated spider swarm. We ran into it in a dead magic region. Couldn't lure it out; it knew instinctively where it ended. We ended up dousing a bolt of silk in oil, used stone shape to make a stone roller, wrapped the bolt around it, set it on fire, and then ran the flaming stone pillar through the swarm. A few burns for us, but the swarm died as it was crushed and burned.


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Personally in combat, a war troll in 3.5 (CR 12 melee monstrosity from MM 3), at level 10 with an instant kill (20-20-19), but he was unable to touch me for 3-4 rounds before that (I had trip specialist with spiked chain and reach of 25 ft after buffs). Still, he had +14 to my +11 on opposed trip checks. He was just getting out of reach to pepper me with his composite longbow (+10 str bonus) when the AoO pulverized him. Although he had regeneration DM thought it was too cool to ignore instant kill (we covered the remains with green slime later just to be sure).

Most recently, we are playing Savage Tide, and we killed huecuva Clr 1 with a grapple check and 50ft of rope at level 1. It helped we are playing by PF rules so the paladin was able to coup de grace/insta crit it with my warhammer, while me and the third guy were downed by channel energy. Grapple+rope tactic was also used on bloated bugbear zombie, later.


I once killed a hillgiant in AD&D with my 1st level dwarf fighter. I had some support by a group of halfling slingers.

These last days the only thing I killed without magic was the odd skeleton or the like. Things that come in groups and can be one-hit as a melee.


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I hand a party once that defeatet an iron golem with a rope. It was tasked with killing everybody that crossed a narrow bridge in a abandoned dwarf kingdom. The ranger spottet the golem before they crossed the bridge. Then they made a Lasso and pulled it in to the chasm. The golem ditent break but it was no longer a problem for the group.

Contributor

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In this story, I'm a kitsune samurai (technically Samurai 2 / Fighter 4, but whatever).

So my party is walking around an island, looking for a settlement of kitsune that is supposed to exist in the area. That's a big deal in my GM's world; the kitsune are almost unheard of.

The island is mostly jungle, but there's a large mountainous region in the center, and when we explore it we get ambushed by two Cyclopes who are using camouflage to pose as small hills. Our party is myself, a Life Oracle, and a Blade Bound Kensai Magus. Plus we have one of my 1st Level followers along with us because he's our ticket into the village. (He was from the village but kidnapped into slavery by pirates, where we rescued him about two months before in-game).

So anyway, we're fighting these Cyclopes and of the three of us, I'm the only one with any semblance of an AC. After a round or two of unlucky misses from both myself and our Magus, the Magus manages to take down the first Cyclopes, but both monsters have been Cleaving their brains out and both the healer and the magus go down. (Luckily, they stabilize.)

This does mean that its me at 3/4s health and a 1st-Level NPC against a CR 5 Cyclopes, however.

Immediately I call upon every nasty Fighter trick I have in order to fight this Cyclopes. I use Improved Feint to catch him off-guard, then topple him over with a trip maneuver. I have Greater Trip, so I smack him in the face as he's going down. When he gets back up again, I smack him in the face some more. This repeats for about two rounds until I miss. The Cyclopes stands up and Power Attacks me right in the chest. I'm hurt. He's hurt. Things are looking grim.

I want to take this time to talk about our NPC. He's a bard. A squishy, somewhat cowardly (at the time) bard. So we took a whole bunch of armor and slapped it on him, then gave him a tower shield so he'd feel safe. Apparently he felt too safe, because at this point he rushes in and tries to come to my rescue. He rolls a natural 1 and gets his spear lodged in the Cyclope's belt instead of doing any real damage. The Cylcopes, while unarmed, is MAD and he turns to send our NPC, the only other kitsune my character has ever known, to the Boneyard.

My samurai was having none of that. I quickly feinted and tripped again, critically hitting on my attack of opportunity. It was the exact amount of damage I needed to end him.


You know magical weaponry and armor ARE magical right?..

They may seem like "math bonuses" but that is because you are looking at it from a meta-game standpoint. In game they are actually magical. A +1 sword would be enchanted such that the weapon would strike just a bit more true and bit a bite deeper. It would slightly guide the swordsman to slightly improve his aim and when it does hit, it hits with a small bit of magical power...

Grand Lodge

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We just recently killed that "Lizard-Boar" (With Devastating Wake?) critter (CR 16+/-) from the back of Beastiary 4. Our Cleric/Musket Master shot it a couple of times and my Sword Saint damn near took 80% of his total HP. It was a Critmas miracle for both sides. We we're level 12 Mythic 2 at the time. Our other character took shots at it but missed.


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Dumb luck deathblow on a 3.5 Cloud Giant. Though this is on a character that had a record of crit or miss that had stretched the whole lengthy campaign. we started at 1 and ended it at 18 IIRC. 1 in 5 rolls were a crit with that character. :D Thank goodness the DM hated slimes. I would have hated fighting them.


In Pathfinder... I'm not sure, off the top of my head. I can't think of any notable occasions from the last 5 levels of our 15th level game where no spells were involved in an encounter in any way, although that has as much to do with the party of six having had four spellcasters as anything.

Dark Archive

A red great wyrm.


In various rebuilds and editions from 2e-PF, my war priest Ulfgrim has been a fan of using antimagic field to bully and pummel archmages and phaerimm.
There's nothing more fun than taking a nigh-godlike caster from their sky to your ground n pound, especially with a terminal velocity fall to start it off.


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A barbarian. Man is the real monster!

The Exchange

I dulled a minotaur's horns on my bones once! Does that count???


The Beard wrote:
A red great wyrm.

I would be very interested to hear this mighty tale.

Dark Archive

bigrig107 wrote:
The Beard wrote:
A red great wyrm.
I would be very interested to hear this mighty tale.

Two scythe crits back to back.


A nonmagical scythe? Nowhere near enough. A Medium scythe deals 2d4 damage, x4 crit. 8d4 damage is 32, tops, not even enough to trigger massive damage, and two of those aren't even a fifth of a great wyrm red dragon's HP. Sure, strength bonus applies, but without magic that's +5, tops, for a total of 52 damage, which still isn't enough to trigger massive damage on 449 total HP, and 104 damage is still less than a quarter of said wyrm's HP.


Ipslore the Red wrote:
A nonmagical scythe? Nowhere near enough. A Medium scythe deals 2d4 damage, x4 crit. 8d4 damage is 32, tops, not even enough to trigger massive damage, and two of those aren't even a fifth of a great wyrm red dragon's HP. Sure, strength bonus applies, but without magic that's +5, tops, for a total of 52 damage, which still isn't enough to trigger massive damage on 449 total HP, and 104 damage is still less than a quarter of said wyrm's HP.

First level scythe wielder, 18str, power attack.

8d4+24+12= 56 damage on average for each swing. Still not a high percentage, though if they were coups de grace they would force a dc66 fort save. Again, on average.


K177Y C47 wrote:
You know magical weaponry and armor ARE magical right?..

Yes, but I've asked this to other people before, and there will always be folks that answer "this might be cheating but I had a Keen Greataxe and.."

Animal companions are also alright. I'll count Griffons as fair game because they don't shoot seizure rainbows from their eyes.


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I had to kill a Hydra the old fashioned way (Duel-wielding a longsword and torch.) . My 8th fighter was stripped of gear and thrown into an arena with stuff scattered around.

They released a Hydra and what followed was one the most nerve-wracking, down to the wire fights I've ever been in. Good times.

I also one-shot a 15th level vampire wizard at 10th level. Vampire gives opening speech and was probably going to let us escape, MY ranger shouts "You talk too much!" called shot to the heart. Nat 20, x3 damage, 3d8+39 put it just above critical damage, staking him mid sentence. That was a +2 keen bow but i suppose it would count because I didn't even get to use the keen ability.


Rapthorn2ndform wrote:


They released a Hydra and what followed was one the most nerve-wracking, down to the wire fights I've ever been in. Good times.

How many rounds did it take and what kind of tactics did you and the hydra use? Was terrain involved?


whats magic? does bane or smite count?


Anything that does not function in an anti-magic field is magical. Supernatural, spell-like, and magic items. Extraordinary abilities are nonmagical.


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OgreBattle wrote:
Rapthorn2ndform wrote:


They released a Hydra and what followed was one the most nerve-wracking, down to the wire fights I've ever been in. Good times.
How many rounds did it take and what kind of tactics did you and the hydra use? Was terrain involved?

It started with either 8 or nine heads and took about 20ish rounds but the hydra was chained down for the first 5 rounds giving me time to scramble for gear. The arena had a few traps that was able to cut the hydra's mobility. First few rounds were spring attack, cut off a head followed by spring attack & hope for enough fire damage. I only had an ac of 15, a torch, and a rusted long sword (-2 to hit, -2 to damage. I hoped that +4 ac from mobility and avoiding full attacks would keep me up for a while. eventually I got caught in a bear trap when it had 4 heads left and had to duke it out with 2wf full attacks. I cut off the head while at -4 hp (die hard) and won.

Dark Archive

Ipslore the Red wrote:
A nonmagical scythe? Nowhere near enough. A Medium scythe deals 2d4 damage, x4 crit. 8d4 damage is 32, tops, not even enough to trigger massive damage, and two of those aren't even a fifth of a great wyrm red dragon's HP. Sure, strength bonus applies, but without magic that's +5, tops, for a total of 52 damage, which still isn't enough to trigger massive damage on 449 total HP, and 104 damage is still less than a quarter of said wyrm's HP.

A +5 scythe in the possession of an optimized two-handed fighter attacking in tandem with a crit fishing barbarian and a ninja, all of whom managed to land multiple attacks on their turns. We had the dragon inside its cave so it wasn't going to be taking to the air. In any case, the OP has stated that numerical enhancements on weapons are allowed.

Lantern Lodge

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Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

Back in AD&D 2nd Edition, I got to play under a novice DM that was little too flexible and accepting of player ideas. . .

We were trapped in a system of ancient tunnels, being pursued by a Death Knight. I happened to have a magical bag that produced caltrops on demand. So, in a fit of desperation, I dumped tons of them into the only hallway between us and the approaching death knight. Plain old iron caltrops; not magical at all.

He died trying to reach us.

I even told the DM that it shouldn't work, and I was just grasping at straws, but he allowed it.

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