I'm running Iron Gods for my players, and we just hit the Collector Robot.
I'm not going to lie, I think the encounters in this book are written pretty badly, and I'm seriously concerned for the later books, but this collector robot really takes the cake.
What Level 2 (maybe 3) adventuring party can fight something that can deal up to 14 damage per turn, fly to keep out of melee range, and has 10 HARDNESS!?
The robot can not only wreck my party, but they can barely hurt it. Only the Battle Oracle in the group can really damage it - only dealing 2 damage max on a near perfect roll.
Yes, it's weak against electricity and crits, but critical hits aren't exactly something you can rely on, and even if you *DO* get a critical hit, it's still shaving off 10 points of damage. it's possible to crit this thing and have it shrug off all of the damage. And electricity isn't something every group is going to have ready availability to - my group's only caster is a summoner.
Most adventures will have something that you can find to soften up a tough encounter like this, but there's nothing of real use in the dungeon so far, and all of the useful magic items (specifically the adamantine ones) are FAR too expensive for my group to buy.
Me and my players are both super frustrated with this adventure.
Edit:
Its Electricity weakness doesn't even seem to make much of a difference, because hardness only takes half damage from elemental damage, as far as I understand?
So, even it's weaknesses don't make it any better to deal with.
Hardness usually does take half from elemental damage(before the reduction from hardness) but it's up to you if that hardness even applies.
Maybe drop a +1 Shocking weapon somewhere?
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Hardness usually does take half from elemental damage(before the reduction from hardness) but it's up to you if that hardness even applies.
Maybe drop a +1 Shocking weapon somewhere?
I'm always wary of giving the players something extra. I subtly pushed one of my players to grab a wand of technomancy, and it ended up making one of the NPCs that's supposed to be important completely pointless.
What's the thing supposed to be doing? Standing guard, patrolling, just something you meet?
Because as a player? When I'm faced with something that seems nigh invulnerable I start looking for alt ways to deal with it other than just damage.
For ex:
Can I get this thing to chase me down a hall & then lock it in another room?
What if we just jump it, grapple it, & tie it up?
@Swoosh:
I admittedly don't understand how hardness is supposed to apply to creatures and not objects, since it's VERY RARE that creatures have hardness, and not DR, so I've been using the Hardness rules right out of the book, since I've not been given anything else to work with, even after searching through the PRD and PFSRD
@Saldiven:
Where is the height of the rooms mentioned? I scoured the adventure back and forth looking for some mention of room height and I couldn't find it. I expected it to be in the information panel on walls, cielings and floors, but it wasn't.
My party only has one fighter type - it's a battle oracle with power attack and the tengu trait of being able to wield any "sword". He has a 16 strength and has power attack, and he can just barely chip the paint on a good roll.
The rest of the group is a Vigilante, a Slayer and a Summoner. The Summoner's eidolon is broken OP and I hate it, but it does 3 separate attacks, so it rarely even penetrates the hardness, and on the off chance that it does, I think it can do 1 or 2 damage max?
@CCS
The thing stands in one room, where the main objective of part 3 is, and stands guard. It will only leave the room if harassed from outside of the room by ranged attacks, and it likely shouldn't stray far from the room because it's guarding something that it considers very important and worth protecting.
The issue is that most of the players can't even chip the paint, much less penetrate the armor. Only the Battle Oracle and MAYBE the summoner's Eidolon can deal the kind of damage that they need to regularly do a couple points of damage, meanwhile it can hit them pretty hard.
I'll give them kudos, this is the first enemy encounter that's managed to actually be a real threat. All of the other 'boss' encounters (that consisted of a single tough enemy that they mobbed on top of like a hoard of angry bees) only lasted 2 rounds at most.
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@Demonskunk: I feel you on hardness for monsters vs. hardness for objects. This was a poorly understood concept, at least for me, up until the release of Iron Gods. It's a bit of a gray area, but fairly easy to understand once you wrap your head around it.
Basically, there's two different hardness rules - object hardness and monster hardness. The object hardness is the one you reference above. All damage taken by the object is reduced by the object's hardness, and if it is elemental damage, then the hardness is doubled. So, if I try to sunder your sword with mine, and I do 16 points of damage, the hardness absorbs 10, and your sword takes 6 points of damage. If I try to melt it with a scorching ray, and roll max damage of 24, then the hardness is doubled and reduces the damage by 20, and I only melt your sword for 4 points of damage.
Monster hardness is exactly the same, except the hardness is not doubled with regards to elemental damage. So, if I hit the robot with my sword for 16 damage, it only takes 6. If I melt it with a scorching ray and do 24 damage again, then it takes 14 damage.
With all that said, even the designers have gone on record as saying the collector robot's hardness is a bit high for this early on in the AP. There's a thread here somewhere where they said "yeah, in retrospect, this probably should have been hardness 5, with the gearsman later on being the party's first foray against hardness 10." So, if you need official approval to modify the adventure, there you go!
I've been using the Hardness rules right out of the book, since I've not been given anything else to work with, even after searching through the PRD and PFSRD [...] Its Electricity weakness doesn't even seem to make much of a difference, because hardness only takes half damage from elemental damage, as far as I understand?
If you're halving electricity damage, then you're misreading the object rules as the hardness rules.
Taken from the PRD:
Hardness: Each object has hardness—a number that represents how well it resists damage. When an object is damaged, subtract its hardness from the damage. Only damage in excess of its hardness is deducted from the object's hit points
Energy Attacks: Energy attacks deal half damage to most objects. Divide the damage by 2 before applying the object's hardness.
1. Objects have hardness. Hardness means you take some number of points of damage less than you otherwise would.
2. Objects are also typically resistant to energy attacks; energy attacks are halved against objects.Those are two separate rules, and they're both about objects, not directly about hardness. Robots are not objects, so you only need to apply the hardness rules, not the object rules. 'Hardness' means you take some number of damage less than you otherwise would, from any type of damage (unlike DR or energy resistance, which are conditional on types of damage).
There's an official clarification from Paizo, too, that goes into some detail about when to double and when to reduce damage:
How does hardness work for creatures? Does energy damage such as cold deal half damage to creatures with hardness (Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook 173-174) even before applying the flat numerical reduction?
When a creature with hardness sustains damage, subtract its hardness from the damage dealt. The rules for halving damage, doubling damage, dealing damage with ineffective tools, immunities, and the like only apply to damaging inanimate objects.
This is definitely a confusing point, because the object rules and the hardness rules were both originally written without creatures-with-hardness in mind.
The robot can not only wreck my party, but they can barely hurt it. Only the Battle Oracle in the group can really damage it - only dealing 2 damage max on a near perfect roll.
Yes, it's weak against electricity and crits, but critical hits aren't exactly something you can rely on, and even if you *DO* get a critical hit, it's still shaving off 10 points of damage. it's possible to crit this thing and have it shrug off all of the damage. And electricity isn't something every group is going to have ready availability to - my group's only caster is a summoner.
A battle oracle is also a caster and ought to have some buff spells to increase damage.
The collector robot seems to have been designed to deal its damage slowly, which means that the party has more opportunity to roll a critical hit. And that critical hit will slice through the hardness and deal significant damage. The robot's critical hit weakness makes a difference.
It is not an easy battle, but it is not impossible, either.
The party in my campaign used teamwork. The party lured to robot into a side hallway so that two party members could head into the sick bay for their true objective. The gunslinger grappled the robot with her grappling hook to impair it and reduce the damage to the party. They were prepared to run once their mission was accomplished, but the buffed fighter made a critical hit with a two-handed weapon and destroyed the robot first.
Before they encountered the next collector robot, the party borrowed an adamantine heavy pick from the Otterbie family. The wealthy Otterbies were grateful to the party due to room A6, and the Local Ties campaign trait let them trust the party.
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Basically, there's two different hardness rules - object hardness and monster hardness. The object hardness is the one you reference above. All damage taken by the object is reduced by the object's hardness, and if it is elemental damage, then the hardness is doubled. So, if I try to sunder your sword with mine, and I do 16 points of damage, the hardness absorbs 10, and your sword takes 6 points of damage. If I try to melt it with a scorching ray, and roll max damage of 24, then the hardness is doubled and reduces the damage by 20, and I only melt your sword for 4 points of damage.
That's wrong. Objects don't double hardness against elemental damage, they half the damage before applying the normal hardness. Your scorching ray is halved to 12, then reduced to 2 by the hardness.
Hardness on creatures is always weird, but the text about energy damage always references objects. Objects take half damage from energy damage barring specific exceptions. The rules only really reference that with hardness insofar as telling you which to apply first.But there's no reason to believe a creature would take half damage from energy just because they have hardness. All hardness essentially is is DR/- that applies to all damage rather than just weapon damage.
If hardness is basically DR/- then why hardness at all? I checked on Golems, which are basically fantasyrobots, and they just have DR/Adamantine, so I don't understand why someone thought it was a good idea to introduce a completely new creature mechanic on this.
I assumed that since it had hardness it was some kind of weird object/creature hybrid, so I interpreted it to the best of my ability after reading hardness from multiple sources.
They should have left it as DR because using terminology normally reserved for objects on a creature and not explaining it is BAD.
Why would DR only apply to weapon damage? As I understand it, any source of damage that isn't explicitly listed as the thing that overcomes DR should be reduced by DR.
What kind of sword is he wielding? Even with a vanilla longsword, power attacking with it in two hands should break hardness on an average roll.
The character is using a Falcata, and the party as a whole managed to do something like 6 damage to it in 3 turns, meanwhile the character using the sword got rekt because he was the first one to engage it, so the robot deemed him the primary threat and beat the s%&$ out of him, then with his grab threw the dog out of the room at the Summoner.
I mostly had him thrown to encourage the party to leave the room, since they were clearly not ready for this threat, but the thing did enough damage consistently to destroy him without any real trouble, and no one else in the group could do enough damage to actually be a threat to it.
The difference between hardness and DR is that hardness also applies to energy damage, whether magic or not.
The difference between hardness and DR is that hardness also applies to energy damage, whether magic or not.
I just read DR and it reads stupidly too.
It explicitly cites DR/Magic as an example, saying that if it's DR/- then any type of damage is reduced, unless it explicitly states that it ignores DR.
Then goes on to say that Spells, Spell like abilities and Energy attacks (even non magical) ignore DR.
Ugh.
Hardness is pretty unique in that since it protects against all damage it works against weird stuff like negative energy damage (from the Iron Priest cleric archetype) and force damage that don't have traditional resistances available.
It also means that an iron golem is damaged by walking through a bonfire, but a robot probably isn't.
If hardness is basically DR/- then why hardness at all? I checked on Golems, which are basically fantasyrobots, and they just have DR/Adamantine, ...
Hardness more resembles DR/Adamantine than DR/-, since adamantine weapons get through hardness less than 20 just fine.
The modules do save some space by saying, "Hardness 10" instead of "DR 10/adamantine, Resist acid 10, cold 10, electricity 10, fire 10, sonic 10."
... so I don't understand why someone thought it was a good idea to introduce a completely new creature mechanic on this.
I assumed that since it had hardness it was some kind of weird object/creature hybrid, so I interpreted it to the best of my ability after reading hardness from multiple sources.
They should have left it as DR because using terminology normally reserved for objects on a creature and not explaining it is BAD.
I think introducing hardness as a creature mechanic was to emphasize that robots are much more like objects than most creatures, even more than undead and other constructs. Unfortunately, the introduction was badly managed, for neither the Technology Guide nor the Iron Gods modules provide an explanation of how hardness works on creatures. It is not obvious.
Why would DR only apply to weapon damage? As I understand it, any source of damage that isn't explicitly listed as the thing that overcomes DR should be reduced by DR.
Legacy reasons. Back in Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition, there was a vast divide between martial damage and spell damage. DR worked against the kind of damage that fighters dealt ("Arrows are useless against that skeleton. Time for the warhammer!"), and energy resistance was against wizards ("That red dragon is immune to fire. I shall use Cone of Cold!"). Golems resist spells directly, so they did not need any additional resistance to spell damage.
Pathfinder crosses that divide more than Dungeons & Dragons did. A Numerian laser pistol does fire damage with a ranged touch attack just like a Scorching Ray spell. The rules did not keep pace with the flexibility of Paizo's writers.
The modules do save some space by saying, "Hardness 10" instead of "DR 10/adamantine, Resist acid 10, cold 10, electricity 10, fire 10, sonic 10."
...force 10, any other weird sources we invent later 10, etc.
Another key difference between DR/adamantine and Hardness is that adamantine weapon blanch and +4 weapons overcome the former, but I think the most straightforward interpretation is that they don't overcome hardness. Only actual adamantine can do that.
Also, monster hardness predates robots by a long shot. Bestiary 1 had the animated object, which grants the hardness ability. The ability is rarely given out, though, so it is poorly understood.
It's a point in the rules that needs clean up in Pathfinder II and Starfinder.
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If hardness is basically DR/- then why hardness at all? I checked on Golems, which are basically fantasyrobots, and they just have DR/Adamantine, so I don't understand why someone thought it was a good idea to introduce a completely new creature mechanic on this.
That's a fair question. My answer is that DR/adamantine as originally used on golems doesn't work as well as expected, and the "magic immunity" theme of golems wouldn't be appropriate for the decidedly not-at-all-magical robots.
I assumed that since it had hardness it was some kind of weird object/creature hybrid, so I interpreted it to the best of my ability after reading hardness from multiple sources.
They should have left it as DR because using terminology normally reserved for objects on a creature and not explaining it is BAD.
Yes, it was implemented messily. However,
Why would DR only apply to weapon damage? As I understand it, any source of damage that isn't explicitly listed as the thing that overcomes DR should be reduced by DR.
Let's look at the definition of DR;
Damage Reduction (Ex or Su) A creature with this special quality ignores damage from most weapons and natural attacks. Wounds heal immediately, or the weapon bounces off harmlessly (in either case, the opponent knows the attack was ineffective). The creature takes normal damage from energy attacks (even nonmagical ones), spells, spell-like abilities, and supernatural abilities. A certain kind of weapon can sometimes damage the creature normally, as noted below.
Now let's consider a typical golem. It has DR X/Adamantine and Magic Immunity, meaning it ignores any spell that allows spell resistance. You can still injure it with acid flasks and alchemists fire.
It's magic immunity protects it from the more heavy-handed energy attacks such as fireballs and lightning bolts. And this immunity is due to whatever weird magical process was used to create it. Golems are very much [i]magical[i] robots.
Now, there are already problems with that. When Pathfinder was first released, this model worked well enough. But then came the alchemist, with the Supernatural ability to throw energy bombs;
Bomb (Su): In addition to magical extracts, alchemists are adept at swiftly mixing various volatile chemicals and infusing them with their magical reserves to create powerful bombs that they can hurl at their enemies.
And that suddenly makes fighting golems a lot easier because
Supernatural Abilities (Su): Supernatural abilities are magical but not spell-like. Supernatural abilities are not subject to spell resistance and do not function in areas where magic is suppressed or negated (such as an antimagic field).
So a golem's DR and magic immunity do nothing to protect it against energy damage.
Now we also get robots, who are 1) not magical and not meant to quite as immune to magic, because they were created by people who had no idea magic even existed, 2) the old rules didn't work so well anyway.
This makes it a reasonable idea to use Hardness instead of DR/Adamantine.
Hardness: Each object has hardness—a number that represents how well it resists damage. When an object is damaged, subtract its hardness from the damage. Only damage in excess of its hardness is deducted from the object's hit points (see Table: Common Armor, Weapon, and Shield Hardness and Hit Points, Table: Substance Hardness and Hit Points, and Table: Object Hardness and Hit Points).
Hardness (Ex) When a creature with hardness takes damage, subtract its hardness from the damage. Only damage in excess of its hardness is subtracted from its hit points. A creature with hardness doesn't further reduce damage from energy attacks, ranged attacks, or other types of attacks as objects typically do. Adamantine weapons bypass hardness of 20 or less.
*emphasis mine
Hardness works the same for objects and creatures, as you can see by the nearly identical segments from both entries. Objects have other special rules for damaging them, besides hardness, that only apply to objects. Creatures, even creatures with hardness, do not use object rules.
The important thing to remember is all hardness does is reduce damage taken. Stuff like half damage from energy attacks or ranged attacks are separate object rules that don't have anything to do with hardness.
As for the robots in book 1, I have to agree that their hardness is a little out of control for low-level parties. I'm running it now, and I'm having electric damage ignore hardness, even though it shouldn't. Electricity is pretty much the only way to damage them, but even a CL1 Shocking Grasp can do decent damage.
I also made the Vegepygmy's hammer Shocking. So between that, magic, and Two-Handed Power Attack, it's been tough, but doable.
Yeah, it won't be as tough if you misunderstood Hardness and let Magic Missile do damage.
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And don't forget this (in my opinion, extremely important) section:
Some energy types might be particularly effective against certain objects, subject to GM discretion. For example, fire might do full damage against parchment, cloth, and other objects that burn easily. Sonic might do full damage against glass and crystal objects.
As robots are vulnerable to electricity damage, our group has ruled that the above applies and electricity bypasses the robot's hardness completely (same with crits.)
That has meant that our martials have been able to rely on adamantine and our casters have been able to rely on electricity to deal full damage.
And don't forget this (in my opinion, extremely important) section:
Some energy types might be particularly effective against certain objects, subject to GM discretion. For example, fire might do full damage against parchment, cloth, and other objects that burn easily. Sonic might do full damage against glass and crystal objects.As robots are vulnerable to electricity damage, our group has ruled that the above applies and electricity bypasses the robot's hardness completely (same with crits.)
That has meant that our martials have been able to rely on adamantine and our casters have been able to rely on electricity to deal full damage.
It's a good house-rule, but that section is technically only for objects. I use it in my home game, but in a Society game, for example, it couldn't be used.
What concerns me even more is the collector in the reactor room together with Meyanda. I really don't see a reason, why the epic "end fight" should take place in any other location that that cool reactor room. But the players will be level 3, maybe 4, facing Meyanda (CR 5) AND a collector (CR 3) in the same room
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What concerns me even more is the collector in the reactor room together with Meyanda. I really don't see a reason, why the epic "end fight" should take place in any other location that that cool reactor room. But the players will be level 3, maybe 4, facing Meyanda (CR 5) AND a collector (CR 3) in the same room
Away from books presently, but there is a way to shutdown her collector remotely prior to the fight.
The term "there is a way" is substitute to "my players will never find it" :D
So my PCs rescued Khonnir for the sick bay and retreated to Torch to recover and took a couple days before returning (they dealt with Sanvil and following his information, raided Garmen's warehouse, turned off the thing).
The next day when the PCs ventured again to the dungeon. They fought the gargoyle in that room, but not her or the collector and vented off the excess energy - the Torch was lit again. When they returned triumphantly, they discovered that the Foundry had been ransacked and Val had been taken - "you must deliver the transmitter at the Torch by midnight" was on a note.
During the night Meyanda had left the ship, taken over the scrapyard from the gnome and stashed some orc and ratfolk minions there. Then she gathered information about the happenings of the previous day and learned Garmen had been arrested by the PCs and his belongings apprehended. The PCs had ventured again into the caves. She drove the gnome's wagon to the Foundry, ransacked the place but didn't find the transmitter and kidnapped Val instead. They hid in the scrapyard during the day and climbed the hill in the night.
So the last fight was actually in this massive workshop complete with hanging chains, anvils, carts on rails, giant adamantine cauldrons and lots of scattered tools. In the center the massive, flared, Torch - simply ending your turn near it would deal you fire damage. The PCs faced Meyanda, the Collector robot and a smattering of orcs and ratfolks, but they had the help of Khonnir and Val (who almost got disintegrated by the torch but was saved).
The robots are really hard to face without spells and preparation, and on this you will find a great deal of table variation. My party had salvaged the repair drone's net and used it to entangle the Collector Robot. Then the party's sorcerer shocking grasped it for a couple rounds and finished it with a lightning bolt scroll that I had added anticipating just this problem. They knew from previous experiences that the robots were vulnerable to lightning and resistant to physical damage.