Hi Folks,
my players found the abovementioned Scarab of Golembane, see here: http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/magicItems/wondrousItems.html#scarab-gol embane
I looked it over and thought: Wow, for a measly 2500 GM, they can ignore *every* Damage Reduction? Even the epic DR from the adamantine golems? And this is really the only golem I am concerned with. They have powerful weapons (3 Lvl 15 and 2 Lvl 16), so they can pretty much ignore the DR of every golem except the two adamantine golem bodyguards of a pretty dangerous wizard.
Could you help me out? Is that really the right price or do I miss something?
Yes, Golems aren't meant to be that bad.
Yes, that is the correct price.
What you might be missing:
Only the character with the scarab can ignore that DR, and he or she has to use up the neck slot to do so (meaning characters wearing it can't use amulet of natural armor or mighty fists, or necklace of adaptation, or a periapt of health or proof against poison, etc).
And it is only the DR of golems that is bypassed, meaning that it is not likely to come up all that often and thus it is not all that valuable (although it might certainly be well worth it when it does come up).
even if a couple of your characters can by-pass the DR 15/epic an adamantine golem is still a heck of an opponent, and two of them plus a high level caster should be more than enough to challenge a group of five 15th and 16th level characters (in fact DR or not a group of all 15th-16th level characters would probably be over matched by 2 adamantine golems and a wizard capable of creating them [20th level]... we are talking a between CR 22 and CR 23 encounter here XP wise).
I would say only golems, seems pretty specific to me.
it is untrue to think that 1e did not have much in the way of constructs besides golems (although they were not called constructs), carytid columns, stone guardians, scare crows, iron cobra, necrophedius, retrievers, and more all existed back then and the scarab vs. golems provided no benefits against them, nor did its detection extend to them (and note it did not appear until the 1e Unearthed Arcana, so it post dates all of the 1e monster books).
That said there has been more than ample time for the designers first of 2e, then of 3e then of pathfinder to change it to include all constructs if they wanted to, and none has chosen to do so, ergo, the use of golems is specific and intentional.