Caryatid Columns

[AbyssLord]

Just had a party that ran into a room with four of these and an open pit in the center of the room. The initial discussion around the table was that these things weight 1,500 pounds, they only have a Strength of 18, and their CMD is 16.

I didn't want to punish players for ingenuity, so the fact that an 18 Strength means that the caryatid columns cannot even lift their own weight off of the ground (they can technically only just barely drag their own weight across the ground) was ruled that if they were tripped, they were prone and could only crawl 5 feet per round thereafter.

So...once they were all tripped, the players came up with the plan to all run around to the other side of the pit.

With no intelligence scores, and the fact that there were no instructions for the caryatid columns to avoid the pit written into this pre-published adventure, all four caryatid columns took a tumble down the pit after a slow crawl in a straight line toward the player characters. The fall didn't exactly destroy the columns since it was only 50 feet to the bottom with a feather fall effect in the pit (and they do have a bit of DR), but once at the bottom, the caryatid columns were no longer under any kind of magical compunction to attack the player characters, since they were no longer "attacking anyone that comes into the room" with "the room" being the one that they started out within.

My question is whether or not I should have allowed the players to get away with this according to any RAW?

[Charlie Bell]

Your own weight doesn't count toward encumbrance, only the weight of your gear.

[BillyGoat]

As GM, I'd rule that a creature can always leverage its own weight. Therefore, they could stand back up (the "stand up from prone" action does not require a Strength check). At the same time, if you want to leverage the caryatid's weight against it, it should leverage against the player's. Ever try to knock over something weighing 3/4 of a ton? You aren't going to do that very easy.

Moving onto the "too stupid to avoid a pit", the mage that set them is presumably "smart enough to tell them to avoid a pit". I never consider it the Dev's job to pre-plan all possible aspects of an NPC's need for common sense.

That being said, I'm fine with player's bull rushing caryatid columns into the pit. Even if you're worried about the weight, now you're just pushing them off-balance. Much easier.

[AbyssLord]

Multiple trips were performed with a set of masterwork bolas (I failed to remind myself during the combat that the bolas should have had to take damage as part of the trip routine with such large creatures), so really the weight of the caryatid columns were being used against themselves during the trip attacks.

I suppose it does make sense that personal weight doesn't count against an attempt to stand up from prone otherwise there would be a whole lot more dragons that couldn't get their behinds off of their treasure mounds.

They likely would've found some other way to get the same outcome, but it would've just taken them more rounds to do it (lure column near pit, and then do something to topple it into the pit, wash rinse, repeat). I suppose that the fact that they are so slow are one of their few weaknesses.

[Artanthos]

AbyssLord wrote:

Just had a party that ran into a room with four of these and an open pit in the center of the room. The initial discussion around the table was that these things weight 1,500 pounds, they only have a Strength of 18, and their CMD is 16.

I didn't want to punish players for ingenuity, so the fact that an 18 Strength means that the caryatid columns cannot even lift their own weight off of the ground (they can technically only just barely drag their own weight across the ground) was ruled that if they were tripped, they were prone and could only crawl 5 feet per round thereafter.

By your ruling, the average human male (STR 10) would be in the same position. (150 - 200 lbs naked, heavy load = 100 lbs)

Are you counting the characters weight into their encumbrance?

Want an easy way to beat caryatid columns? Grease.