I have always seen animated objects as a tough fight at low levels for me and when I have Gmed and used animated objects. The fights seem to slow way down with the hardness at low levels and take a lot of time. Is power attack really the best way to stop this from degrading into long fights at low levels. Does anyone else have expirences like this?
I have always seen animated objects as a tough fight at low levels for me and when I have Gmed and used animated objects. The fights seem to slow way down with the hardness at low levels and take a lot of time. Is power attack really the best way to stop this from degrading into long fights at low levels. Does anyone else have expirences like this?
Please edit for grammar and clarity.
I agree that fights with animated objects (with hardness) are pretty tedious, in my experience. But they never seemed like tough fights, per se; just a lot of rolling, hoping to beat that threshold.
And mobile enemies are easier to kill with ranged attacks, monsters with low will are open to save of die spells, and undead really don't like to be turned by clerics.
Most monsters have weaknesses to particular tactics, and for constructs its big swords. If nobody on your party if using one, its your DM's fault for putting it in the game.
I think he is saying that.. if no one in the group has specialized in something (such as being a big 2-handed bruiser) then the DM should be aware of that and modify encounters accordingly.
It isn't a challenge if you have no way to over come it, and the group shouldn't be forced to have some special type of person in it just to proceeed.
-S
Otherwise I might as well just chat with you about pie once a week and then level up your dude.
Can I sign up for this campaign? I love pie! But in all seriousness, I agree 100% In my opinion, the game is supposed to be challenging! A good DM knows to exploit a party weakness every once in a while. Not all the time, mind you, but every 9th encounter or so.
To be clearer I do not think the problem is they are tough but they are annoying to fight. I just had trouble doing damage to all of that. I do not think this encounter is really fun. I still won the fight but it just takes too long. I do not like how the challenges with animated objects usually turn into wars of attrition lets roll dice to see if we do damage.
I like tough fights but wars of attrition tend not to be fun for most players I know.
Ah I forgot the constructs lost immunity to precision damage dang it. Argh I was thinking of oozes during the game time so did not do sneak attack damage and first time this GM was Gming pathfinder but he had 3.5 before. I usually GM and had not used constructs in PF.
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To be clearer I do not think the problem is they are tough but they are annoying to fight.
Sometimes, against a foe in which applying straight damage is proving problematic, combat maneuvers like grapple / pin or bull rush (down a staircase or off a ledge), etc. might be more useful, if the encounter area includes handy terrain features like that.
The rules for Hardness, on p 173-175, include some options for attack forms against which a particular object might be more vulnerable (taking double damage), or energy attacks that are more effective (fire vs. parchment, sonic vs. crystal). Depending on what the animated object is, you might get more mileage by switching weapon type (to slashing vs. an animated bearskin rug, to bludgeoning vs. a terra cotta warrior, etc.), but that's entirely in the hands of the GM to adjudicate (and he might choose to allow you to ignore half of the hardness, instead of doing double damage, or something).
Note that animated objects remain immune to critical hits, so don't count on that keen rapier to save your bacon.
Please edit for grammar and clarity.
He was clear.
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Actually, based on the SRD, I see nothing that grants them immune to crits. They're classified as constructs, which are vulnerable to crits/sneak attack now.
Note that animated objects remain immune to critical hits, so don't count on that keen rapier to save your bacon.
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Check page 174, under Immunities. Animated objects are called out as immune to nonlethal damage and critical hits, despite being otherwise treated as creatures.
Hmmmm I dunno. As a DM, I could go either way with this one. An animated boulder, for instance, could be considered to be comprised of homogenous material, which could be argued to be immune to crits. Same with, again as an example, an animated rug. Please discuss this more, I am interested.
goofy place to put said question =/