I recently ran a PFS scenario where some low-level players had to fight constructs. I got to thinking generally about constructs and their associated traits, hardness, damage to attacker's weapon upon successful hit, invulnerable to crits, and spell immunities. What are lower level players supposed to do against constructs? What are some effective means to defeat one of equilivant CR level?
For purposes of this discussion, lets look at these player level ranges and discuss both melee and caster:
1. Levels 1-2
2. Levels 3-4
3. Levels 5-6
4. Levesl 8-9
I don't know about that scenario's specific constructs. but in general what I have used to good effect are?
Grease (CL 1 min) and create pit (CL 3 min) are both surprisingly effective. Most constructs have terrible reflex saves.
Summon Lantern Archons (CL 5 min) pew pew goes through anything.
Depending upon whether they have DR or actual hardness, adamantine blanch or actual adamantine durable arrows actually don't cost all that much. We actually had a fight once (home game) where as a group we had a total of 6 durable adamantine arrows. So different people were in charge of leading the construct around while others would run in and pick up the shot arrows to re-shoot at the construct. Took quite a while but we actually didn't get hurt very much. Reasonable to have a few at level 2 certainly should be a staple by level 4.
Those are my main tactics that I can think of off the top of my head.
Pathfinder tiers its encounters according to how many players there are and how high of a level there is in later seasons. Having encountered a construct as a player I know that some of those features are taken away for purposes of making things winnable for the players. Are you sure you had it tiered correctly, first off?
As for advice at low levels, buff. A lot of low level casters just plain don't know the "when" of "when do I buff?" this in part comes from A) low resources and B) thinking that casters are supposed to deal the damage. These players need to learn that when PFS brings out a single lone enemy, that chances are it's the time to chew through resources
Lastly, every character, especially in PFS, should have a ranged option at level 1, and cold iron, and silver if they can manage. These are just guidelines for Pathfinder Society, end of story.
For constructs they typically have a low move-speed, so kiting and shooting them as a ranged character will eventually whittle them down (boring as sin, so why Paizo thinks this is a good strategy to encourage eludes me). Alternatively if you have a character that can cast a summon, use them to slow down the construct even further by having it stuck either provoking or spending more of its move speed to go around, or best yet, use a standard action to kill the summon that will just end after another round or two.
P.S. PFS has specific rules limitations, so I flagged this to be moved.
I mixed in some various properties I have seen with constructs that Ive either encountered in game or gm'd. These particular ones did not have all the listed items above. I wanted this discussion to be about constructs in general and not a particular encounter. I could had just as easily talked about the construct statute pillar I fought before (cant remember the name, starts with a "c" I think).
At high tier, the constructs encountered had the following traits:
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The usual answer for constructs at low levels tends to be really, really simple, Barbarian with a 2-hd weapon. If you don't have one of those then give the fighter a 2hder, it'll just take an additional round or 2.
Hardness is like DR, just push through it and you'll eventually win it just might take a little longer. As long as someone in your party can consistently do 10+ pts of damage a round your party will inevitably win though you may have to burn a few charges from your CLW wand mid-fight if the construct can hit decently hard it's not that big a deal.
Caryotid Columns are the classic construct with weapon-damaging effects.
Duncan, you did notice that stat block said vulnerability, not invulnerability, right?
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The only construct I'm aware of that breaks weapons is the caryatid column.
For that one, I'd say grapple it, pin it, tie it up, then CdG with expendable weapons. Or adamantine weapons, obviously. Although it can't be disarmed, it's sword can be sundered, in which case it has only unarmed strikes left...
If you suspect you'll be facing a lot of constructs soon, adamantine weapons become a much higher priority.
Not so off for PFS, which the OP initially referenced. I've fought them in several different scenarios.
Caryotid Columns are the classic construct with weapon-damaging effects.
Duncan, you did notice that stat block said vulnerability, not invulnerability, right?
Yes, I was talking generally about constructs in my earlier statement. Thanks for the name...it was Caryotid Columns that I had encountered previously.
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I played the scenario in question, and my hunter was quite successful using gravity bow. I could be wrong, but didn't they reduce the standard robot hardness (10) in the lowest subtier?
Also the Robut subtype follows different rules than normal constructs, different knowledge rolls are required - know: arcana 20 tells you that it is a robot and that you will have to roll know: engi.
Details are in the technology guide (already on the PRD) and in the Iron Gods players guide.
Also durable adamantine arrows (I even had adamantine weapon blanced arrows, but they do nothing against hardness).
@Sebastian yes, the Hardness is 5 in lower tier.
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I just played Tier 1-2 in one of those scenarios. We had four level one characters at the table, and those constructs were TOUGH for us. We wound up having my tiger grapple one of the constructs while the rest of us bludgeoned the darn thing. Oh, and acid splash turned out to be fairly effective, though slow. Go, cantrips!
Hmm
I recently ran a PFS scenario where some low-level players had to fight constructs. I got to thinking generally about constructs and their associated traits, hardness, damage to attacker's weapon upon successful hit, invulnerable to crits, and spell immunities. What are lower level players supposed to do against constructs? What are some effective means to defeat one of equilivant CR level?
** spoiler omitted **
For purposes of this discussion, lets look at these player level ranges and discuss both melee and caster:
1. Levels 1-2
2. Levels 3-4
3. Levels 5-6
4. Levesl 8-9
The attacker's weapon is not damaged.
The only construct I'm aware of that breaks weapons is the caryatid column.
For that one, I'd say grapple it, pin it, tie it up, then CdG with expendable weapons. Or adamantine weapons, obviously. Although it can't be disarmed, it's sword can be sundered, in which case it has only unarmed strikes left...
If you suspect you'll be facing a lot of constructs soon, adamantine weapons become a much higher priority.
That was the kicker. For levels in 4-5 tier, none of the spent money on adamantine weapons (and i dont usually). Im wonder if picking up some bullets for sling would be a good, just in case for my low level melee Str builds.
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That was the kicker. For levels in 4-5 tier, none of the spent money on adamantine weapons (and i dont usually). Im wonder if picking up some bullets for sling would be a good, just in case for my low level melee Str builds.The only construct I'm aware of that breaks weapons is the caryatid column.
For that one, I'd say grapple it, pin it, tie it up, then CdG with expendable weapons. Or adamantine weapons, obviously. Although it can't be disarmed, it's sword can be sundered, in which case it has only unarmed strikes left...
If you suspect you'll be facing a lot of constructs soon, adamantine weapons become a much higher priority.
I'd bought an adamantine nodachi at level 3 for my paladin, because the worst thing that can happen is a non-evil opponent with DR. When I went into the Technic Siege and Silver Mount Collection, it served me well.
I played low tier in Trial by Machine with a level 2 alchemist and had no particular trouble bombing the constructs. But then, we also had a barbarian, a level 4 bloodrager and a level 3 greatsword ranger, so even the one with hardness didn't stymie us. But this was a minicon, and the other party had none of those things...
Unless there's been a new ruling, their lasers don't go through Hardness. They only ignore DR, but Hardness isn't DR.
Summon Lantern Archons (CL 5 min) pew pew goes through anything.
Carpola! I didn't know about that. Thanks for the heads up.
I think many constructs have DR not hardness, but I may be remembering incorrectly.
I havent had a chance to look at all the new monsters in Season 6 but so far the robot constructs Ive encountered have had hardness and not DR. Not sure if this is a trend of just my limited exposure.
Caryotid Columns are the classic construct with weapon-damaging effects.
Gods I hate these things. I just got wrecked by them with my unarmed fighter, the GM applied the damage to my weapons to my fists...with trips and crazy attacks/AoO's I made 7 attacks, and the we remembered the damage, I took 21d6 damage (79 damage).
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Caryotid Columns are the classic construct with weapon-damaging effects.Gods I hate these things. I just got wrecked by them with my unarmed fighter, the GM applied the damage to my weapons to my fists...with trips and crazy attacks/AoO's I made 7 attacks, and the we remembered the damage, I took 21d6 damage (79 damage).
That's just unfair. You're not obligated to finish a full attack; you can at any point elect not to make further attacks. So after the first hit when you take damage, you could say "nah, I'll stop doing this". Him surprising you afterwards with the damage is unfair.
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The usual answer for constructs at low levels tends to be really, really simple, Barbarian with a 2-hd weapon. If you don't have one of those then give the fighter a 2hder, it'll just take an additional round or 2.
Hardness is like DR, just push through it and you'll eventually win it just might take a little longer. As long as someone in your party can consistently do 10+ pts of damage a round your party will inevitably win though you may have to burn a few charges from your CLW wand mid-fight if the construct can hit decently hard it's not that big a deal.
Good thing the usual party just swaps in a barbarian as the answer when needed. Oh wait....
And yeah, at low level eventually winning makes sense if the golems don't attack back. But wait they do and the answer is clearly to burn charges of clw off a wand. Despite the constant diatribe against in combat healing, I guess 1d8+1 is now viable?
Our party nearly tpk'd in a
This 'it might take a little longer' wasn't the case. It took a lot longer. Factor in the gunslingers roll of a natural 1, jamming his gun, missing out on needed damage, and eating an adamantine bullet, monsters making saves vs my spells, the samurais first few rounds of combat doing 0 Damage before we devoted every last resource to making him able to hurt the things, etc. Something about your thoughts on dealing with hardness and real gameplay don't seem to add up.
Without the proper tools to deal with what we faced, the encounter was brutal. We won through sheer luck (samurai rolled natural 20's pretty much all night-even on non-combat checks). There are tanks who deal no damage (and are extremely viable) and there are martial controllers who deal average to low damage. There are casters dedicated to debuffing or healing or blasting or summoning. In this case, these very viable builds would have all proved (and did) useless liabilities.
My whole point is that the answer, once you start adventuring, is not nearly as simple as you make it sound when you are low level. Some groups will just happen to have the right answers and others will have to create the answers and still others will have no answer at all and have to think of something else to do (like run, trap the enemy, trick them or tpk).
That's just unfair. You're not obligated to finish a full attack; you can at any point elect not to make further attacks. So after the first hit when you take damage, you could say "nah, I'll stop doing this". Him surprising you afterwards with the damage is unfair.Caryotid Columns are the classic construct with weapon-damaging effects.Gods I hate these things. I just got wrecked by them with my unarmed fighter, the GM applied the damage to my weapons to my fists...with trips and crazy attacks/AoO's I made 7 attacks, and the we remembered the damage, I took 21d6 damage (79 damage).
We made the knowledge check to learn of the ability before I attacked, but we all forgot until I'd finished my full attack and AoO's (crazy trip build). And since we forgot about it all during my attack, we just rolled it all at once, I lost 79 of 128 (was raging, normally 106hp)
I hate having to spend 3k+ gold at low levels for an adamantine weapon when I have so many other daily needs that havent been addressed. If new monsters will require it then might not be so bad.
Golems are immune to spells
Actually they are immune to spells with SR:YES and do not fall into certain vunerabilities (each golem has certain weaknesses)...
that and, while a golem may be immune to the effect of a spell, they are not immune to gravity xD
Not PFS-specific, but relevant to constructs/robots:
I have a team of six players in my Iron Gods campaign who reliably optimize, so I'm in the habit of buffing the enemies or sending a few extra monsters at the party to maintain the challenge.
However, they were level 3–4 when they started coming up against hardness 10 robots, and I quickly found that two of my PCs were completely useless in the fights. After the first such encounter, I decided that the next robots would have cracked armor or exposed wires or something, effectively reducing its hardness to 5 until the party could re-equip.
Even then, though, they couldn't afford adamantine at that level, and I didn't want to nerf the later bots, and I still added another robot to one of the later encounters to account for the extra PCs. The result was a long, grindy combat encounter (Probably 10+ rounds) wherein many of the PCs' actions were absorbed attacking robots they had little chance of damaging.
One of the PCs died in that encounter, and the others barely emerged victorious, which to me means that the challenge level was just about right. The encounter itself, though, wasn't much fun. I think if I could do it again, I would either lower hardness overall for low levels or give them an adamantine weapon, so that at least one PC could reliably smash through the DR-on-steroids that is hardness.
At level 1-2, Adamantine Blanche with arrows, hope to take most of the hit points off that way. Then go in with Power Attack and a two-handed weapon, hoping that you can kill it fast.
This is more appropriate for groups with a level 2 character in them just because of cost.
Where do durable arrows come from, and what are they?
At level 1-2, Adamantine Blanche with arrows, hope to take most of the hit points off that way. ...
Works with DR, but not with hardness.
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Adamantine ignores up to hardness of 20, so adamantine weapons should work just fine I think. Adamantine Blanch is different though. It merely treats the weapon as adamantine for the purposes of ignoring DR.
Robot constructs in general are cool, but they should have lower Hardness. I am sure that some people even forget that ranged attacks deal reduced damage, so arrow would need 22 damage per hit to deal 1 damage to a robot with hardness of 10. It's impossible basically to pierce it with ranged attacks, so only option is to wield 2h weapon as people suggested.
Create Pit
Throw Acid Flasks
Win
Robot constructs in general are cool, but they should have lower Hardness. I am sure that some people even forget that ranged attacks deal reduced damage, so arrow would need 22 damage per hit to deal 1 damage to a robot with hardness of 10. It's impossible basically to pierce it with ranged attacks, so only option is to wield 2h weapon as people suggested.
Unless you make the reasonable investment into adamantine ammunition.
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I am sure that some people even forget that ranged attacks deal reduced damage, so arrow would need 22 damage per hit to deal 1 damage to a robot with hardness of 10. It's impossible basically to pierce it with ranged attacks, so only option is to wield 2h weapon as people suggested.
Where are you getting this from?
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I am sure that some people even forget that ranged attacks deal reduced damage, so arrow would need 22 damage per hit to deal 1 damage to a robot with hardness of 10. It's impossible basically to pierce it with ranged attacks, so only option is to wield 2h weapon as people suggested.Where are you getting this from?
It's under hardness rules (ranged weapons): "Objects take half damage from ranged weapons (unless the weapon is a siege engine or something similar). Divide the damage dealt by 2 before applying the object's hardness."
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It's under hardness rules (ranged weapons): "Objects take half damage from ranged weapons (unless the weapon is a siege engine or something similar). Divide the damage dealt by 2 before applying the object's hardness."I am sure that some people even forget that ranged attacks deal reduced damage, so arrow would need 22 damage per hit to deal 1 damage to a robot with hardness of 10. It's impossible basically to pierce it with ranged attacks, so only option is to wield 2h weapon as people suggested.Where are you getting this from?
Actually, that's under "attacking objects" - it's a rule that applies to objects, not to creatures. Not even creatures who happen to have Hardness.
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 apparently a question the Design Team has received a few times during the development of Iron Gods, so they were ready to go with an answer!)
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Addendum: if you read the full section in the PRD, it becomes quite clear that those rules were intended for objects;
Smashing an Object
Smashing a weapon or shield with a slashing or bludgeoning weapon is accomplished with the sunder combat maneuver (see Combat). Smashing an object is like sundering a weapon or shield, except that your combat maneuver check is opposed by the object's AC. Generally, you can smash an object only with a bludgeoning or slashing weapon.
Armor Class: Objects are easier to hit than creatures because they don't usually move, but many are tough enough to shrug off some damage from each blow. An object's Armor Class is equal to 10 + its size modifier (see Table: Size and Armor Class of Objects) + its Dexterity modifier. An inanimate object has not only a Dexterity of 0 (–5 penalty to AC), but also an additional –2 penalty to its AC. Furthermore, if you take a full-round action to line up a shot, you get an automatic hit with a melee weapon and a +5 bonus on attack rolls with a ranged weapon.
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).
Hit Points: An object's hit point total depends on what it is made of and how big it is (see Table: Common Armor, Weapon, and Shield Hardness and Hit Points, Table: Substance Hardness and Hit Points, and Table: Object Hardness and Hit Points). Objects that take damage equal to or greater than half their total hit points gain the broken condition (see Conditions). When an object's hit points reach 0, it's ruined.
Very large objects have separate hit point totals for different sections.
Energy Attacks: Energy attacks deal half damage to most objects. Divide the damage by 2 before applying the object's hardness. 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.
Ranged Weapon Damage: Objects take half damage from ranged weapons (unless the weapon is a siege engine or something similar). Divide the damage dealt by 2 before applying the object's hardness.
Ineffective Weapons: Certain weapons just can't effectively deal damage to certain objects. For example, a bludgeoning weapon cannot be used to damage a rope. Likewise, most melee weapons have little effect on stone walls and doors, unless they are designed for breaking up stone, such as a pick or hammer.
Immunities: Objects are immune to nonlethal damage and to critical hits.
Magic Armor, Shields, and Weapons: Each +1 of enhancement bonus adds 2 to the hardness of armor, a weapon, or a shield, and +10 to the item's hit points.
Vulnerability to Certain Attacks: Certain attacks are especially successful against some objects. In such cases, attacks deal double their normal damage and may ignore the object's hardness.
Damaged Objects: A damaged object remains functional with the broken condition until the item's hit points are reduced to 0, at which point it is destroyed.
Damaged (but not destroyed) objects can be repaired with the Craft skill and a number of spells.
Saving Throws: Nonmagical, unattended items never make saving throws. They are considered to have failed their saving throws, so they are always fully affected by spells and other attacks that allow saving throws to resist or negate. An item attended by a character (being grasped, touched, or worn) makes saving throws as the character (that is, using the character's saving throw bonus).
Magic items always get saving throws. A magic item's Fortitude, Reflex, and Will save bonuses are equal to 2 + half its caster level. An attended magic item either makes saving throws as its owner or uses its own saving throw bonus, whichever is better.
Animated Objects: Animated objects count as creatures for purposes of determining their Armor Class (do not treat them as inanimate objects).
As you can see here, an object has hardness, and an object halves damage from ranged and most energy attacks. But those are separate properties. The only reason they're mentioned in the same paragraph is to clarify in what order those properties should be handled.
Having hardness does not make something an object; otherwise a Foo Creature using it's Stony Defense ability would be an object while it's doing so. Which would be rather strange for an Outsider.
Nor are Construct-type creatures Objects, not even the construct called Animated Object, as clarified by the last paragraph in the section I quoted.