Hi Guys
This might require some back ground.
As such I need help building a powerful golem/construct. What I have so far is listed below but I would appreciate any help, advice, pointers, or criticism you can give me.
Collosal, Metalic, Battering-ram-esque arms, 2 legs, hulking brutish thing. Relatively squat, has ladders along the back and arms for use as a siege tower. Walks kind of like a gorilla does, on all 4 limbs.
It will focus on sunder and destroying objects and buildings.
Siege Golem
Cr 25
XP 1,638,400
N Colossal construct
Init –2; Senses darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision
DEFENSE
AC 41, touch 0, flat-footed 41 (–2 Dex, +41 natural, –8 size)
hp 275 (50d10+80); fast healing 20
Fort +20, Ref +18, Will —
Defensive Abilities indestructible; DR 25/epic; Immune construct traits, magic
OFFENSE
Speed 40 ft.
Melee 2 slams +58 (6d20+16/20)
Space 30 ft.; Reach 30 ft.
Special Attacks: siege strike, ground shatter, battering ram
STATISTICS
Str 42, Dex 6, Con —, Int —, Wis —, Cha 1
Base Atk +50; CMB +74; CMD 82
SPECIAL ABILITIES
Piloted Golem (SU)
A siege golem has no autonomy on it's own. Instead it must be piloted by any creature with an Int score greater than 1.
A siege golem gains all of the of it's pilots feats. A siege golem uses it's pilots skill ranks for determining it's skills, while using it's own ability modifiers if it has, otherwise using the pilot's.
While piloting a siege golem, the pilot has no control over his own body and is treated as helpless. He instead controls the golem as if it were his own body, gaining all of it's senses. (alla Avatar)
An attunement ritual must be performed to attune the golem to it's pilot. This ritual must be overseen by a number of arcane casters whose total CL is greater than or equal to 20
This ritual typically takes an hour, but can be rushed. If the ritual is rushed a will save must be made by the pilot. If the save is failed the pilot is dazed for 1d4 +1 minutes and the golem becomes immobile.
The DC for this will save has base 10 but increases by 1 for every 2 minutes by which the attunement ritual is shortened, and the ritual can only be shortened in 2 minute intervals to no less than 2 minutes,
The pilot must always be within 1 mile of the golem otherwise the link between pilot and golem is broken.
If the link between golem and pilot is severed in any way the pilot must make a dc 39 will save or be dazed for 1d4 +1 minutes, and the golem becomes immobile.
Due to the extreme power of the magic within a Siege Golem, antimagic fields and other magic dampening effects do not sever this link.
Instead they make control significantly more difficult forcing the pilot to make a DC 25 will save to perform any action.
Siege Strike (Ex)
A siege golem deals double damage to any inanimate object it attacks on a roll of 15-20.
This applies on sunder attempts as well.
Ground Shatter (EX)
A siege golem may, as a full round action, smash the ground at it's feet. The golem makes a trip attempt against all creatures within 30ft and that area is thereafter treated as difficult terrain.
This ability may only be used on hard ground.
Battering Ram (EX)
A Siege Golem may not perform a normal charge. Instead it may perform a pseudo charge that follows all charge rules, except it may not charge anything within 80 ft but treats its speed as 100 ft for charging.
This requires two rounds to perform. The first round the golem starts running and moves 80 ft. The second round it moves the rest of the distance.
A siege golem may ground shatter at the end of a battering ram.
Performing a battering ram allows a siege golem to treat it's strength modifier as double for any action performed at the end of the pseudo-charge.
Immunity to Magic (Ex)
A siege golem is immune to any spell or spell-like ability that allows spell resistance, except as noted below.
Any Mind affecting spell that targets a seige golem, instead targets the controller of the siege golem
Heavy (EX)
Due to it's immense size and weight, a siege golem takes damage from any fall as if that fall were three times as high.
The weight also makes a siege golem more difficult to bull rush, reposition etc, and makes it better at these same maneuvers, adding +8 to it's CMD and CMB for these checks.
So yeah, it is a bit of a strange concept I think, but I hope you guys can all help me.
Thanks in advance
OK, so it hits the pally on a 2+ with 2 attacks a round. There's a lot of variance in the damage so a single hit might kill him or just leave him conscious to be killed by the second attack; unconscious but alive on the first hit is possible but not especially likely. If that is its intended power level then a less variable damage tailored to knock him out without killing him (enough d6s have quite low variance) might be better. The paladin likely won't hit it at all.
So much for its role in the duel. There should also probably be some sort of kryptonite that can be used against it; a spell it's vulnerable to (no, antimagic fields don't count, especially since it's really especially resistant to them), a material, something.
OK, so it hits the pally on a 2+ with 2 attacks a round. There's a lot of variance in the damage so a single hit might kill him or just leave him conscious to be killed by the second attack; unconscious but alive on the first hit is possible but not especially likely. If that is its intended power level then a less variable damage tailored to knock him out without killing him (enough d6s have quite low variance) might be better. The paladin likely won't hit it at all.
So much for its role in the duel. There should also probably be some sort of kryptonite that can be used against it; a spell it's vulnerable to (no, antimagic fields don't count, especially since it's really especially resistant to them), a material, something.
The paladin will be made aware that if he tries to fight this thing now, he will be slaughtered. It isn't designed for dueling, it is designed to destroy castles.
When I was looking at other golems most had total magic immunity and a single spell slowed them down and adjusted the DR.
I have also seen lots of people mention pits to counter golems. This golem is especially vulnerable to pits, and is actually susceptable to mind affecting spells due to the piloted nature.
I was thinking that is designed to counter boulders being flung at it and such so would not have much in the way of physical weaknesses.
If you could suggest any other weaknesses specifically I would be grateful.
I am thinking of editing the Battering Ram (EX) ability so that the location is picked on the first turn and the golem must continue to that location even if the creature moves.
[EDIT] I was thinking about the large damage range. For me that is a good and bad thing. For a cr25 it is already under the high avg damage for a monster of its cr. But it has massive to hit bonuses. I was thinking that the large variance makes sense for hitting character size creatures as it might not be able to hit them "well" but if it does it will hit very hard.
Can the pilot be targeted with mind-affecting spells despite not being physically present? If so that counts, yeah.
Pits don't. It has a +18 Reflex save! Its climb skill to get out is +16 before adding the pilot's ranks and with DR 25/epic and fast healing 20 the damage is not significant.
That is just wrong on so many levels :P
First off that pally is crazy if he considers fighting a 30 foot cubed monstrum made of metal. Or is it stone? Who cares.
Then the golem itself. Looks like a mech warrior. Cool idea. But if you take a look at the attack and Damage values I'd say that's quite a bit above the CR 25 which would be a Tarrasque. Meaning with two of them you don't do a siege. You just plow through the city wall and all other defence they have like a tractor pulled plow through soil.
As you designed it as a construct it shouldn't have fast healing. It should not be able to be healed at all. It should have to be repaired.
If I had to design such a thing I would start with an iron golem (or adamant golem or something) and rewrite the special abilities to match your theme. And a CR of 13 to 19 should be high enough for what you want to achieve.
Or is your king trying to fight the gods with his golems?
At second thought I wouldn't design that thing at all. If the pally wants to fight it and can't be pursuaded that this is plain stupid I would have the pilot give him a non lethal backhand slap knocking him out without rolling dice.
You've seen Star Trek Next Gen where that Klingon wants to do that 'who is stronger' game with Data? It's a game like arm wrestling only with both arms and without taking the hands. Data doesn't want to and as the guy won't let him he simply places himself in position and without hesitation and any further ado presses the klingons arms down and continues with what he did before.
The damage values are actually under what the average is at cr25 from the Monster Statistics by CR
The to hit is a lot higher yes.
The adamantine golem has fast healing 10 :P
Tarrasque's attack routine on a full attack
Melee bite +37 (4d8+15/15–20/×3 plus grab), 2 claws +37 (1d12+15), 2 gores +37 (1d10+15), tail slap +32 (3d8+7)
Avg damage for that calculated as the book wants:(4*4.5)+15+2*(6.5+15)+2*(5.5+15)+(3*4.5)+7
Total=137.5
Min=4+15+2*(1+15)+2*(1+15)+3+7
=93
Max=4*8+15+2*(12+15)+2*(10+15)+3*8+7
=182
My golem
Melee 2 slams +58 (6d20+16/20)
Avg= (6*10.5+16)*2
=158
Min=2*(6+16)
=44
Max=2*(120+16)
=272
Now let's look at how these things deal with a wall.
The stone curtain wall there was 44 feet high, while Knareborough Castle's was 40 feet high. The width varied, but most were very thick. They ranged from 7 feet thick at Conisbrough Castle to 20 feet thick at Chepstow Castle. Dover Castle walls were 20 feet thick, while Duffield Castle walls were 18 feet thick.
Stone walls have hardness 8 and 15 hp per inch.
With castle walls anything from 84 inches to 240 inches thick, Castle walls can range in health from 1260 HP for a 7 foot wall to 3600 HP for a 20 foot wall.At my maximum damage (272-16 for hardness) that means anything from 5 to 15 FULL ATTACK ACTIONS to destroy a section of wall.
With Avg damage it is 158-16 damage per full attack = 142 per round.
So 9 or 26 FULL ATTACK ACTIONS.
So My damage could do with fiddling with. As with the higher to hit I will be doing my damage more often than the tarrasque. However the tarrasque also has a ranged option of avg damage = 6*(2*5.5+15) =156 as a standard action with range increment 120 ft. As this is a siege machine I could perhaps lower to 8d10+15 and allow all attacks against inanimate objects to do double on a 10-20 roll or some such.
Again I am statting this thing up now for a fight when the paladin gets closer to lvl 20. And I am also looking at using one of these things as a bodyguard for the final boss of the entire campaign.
Can the pilot be targeted with mind-affecting spells despite not being physically present? If so that counts, yeah.
Pits don't. It has a +18 Reflex save! Its climb skill to get out is +16 before adding the pilot's ranks and with DR 25/epic and fast healing 20 the damage is not significant.
Lets just say for arguments sake we can generate a 100ft deep pit, through use of expeditious excavation or such, and place an illusion or something on top of it and lure this contraption above the pit. A similar suggestion to how people suggest beating the tarrasque actually.
If you make the pit 50 by 50 feet and bait the golem into the centre of the pit there is a 10ft gap on each side.The Siege golem treats that as a 300ft drop due to the heavy ability.
You take 1d6 per 10 ft which makes this 30d6 damage for minimum 30 reduced to 5, or max 180 reduced to 155, which is over half it's health for falling into a hole.
The only issue is generating the hole as non of the create pit esque spells can make a wide enough hole. So fighting this thing with a pit would require planning and baiting it to an existing hole. Now, even if the hole doesn't kill it, it has no ranged attacks so while it is in the 100ft hole, and the quickest 5 turns it takes to climb out you get to spam mind affecting abilities that affect the pilot.
[EDIT] Perhaps I should adjust the Heavy property to also apply a penalty to avoiding pits and add something along the lines of, "If a pit,smaller than the size of the golem, is created underneath the golem, the golem must make a reflex save or get a limb stuck in the hole. It does not fall into the pit but instead may not move until it spends a move action to remove its limb from the hole. Roll 1d4 to determine which limb is stuck. 1 & 2 being arms, with 3 & 4 being legs. If an arm is stuck it may not use it to attack until removed. If a leg is stuck the golem takes a -4 to ac, attack rolls, reflex saves, any skill involving movement, initiative, etc.
30d6 averages 105 (without much variability), less 25 is 80; 4 rounds worth of fast healing exactly. Saves for mechanical pit traps all have reflex DC 20 avoids (i.e. 5% chance of falling in), as you note the create pit line won't help. Unless you bypass the save by fiat.
To dig 100' down you'll need disintegrate rather than expeditious excavation once you get below the soil level and into bedrock. Given the volume either a team of casters or one guy for anywhere from a few days to months depending on level. Probably also fabricate; shoring up the walls manually will leave hard to hide traces at the surface I think.
The real weakness there is being able to target the pilot and that's fine as the weakness. An easier way to arrange it is to fly 100' above it due to the lack of ranged attacks. A pit trap is a Rube Goldberg way of dealing with the golem.
30d6 averages 105 (without much variability), less 25 is 80; 4 rounds worth of fast healing exactly. Saves for mechanical pit traps all have reflex DC 20 avoids (i.e. 5% chance of falling in), as you note the create pit line won't help. Unless you bypass the save by fiat.
To dig 100' down you'll need disintegrate rather than expeditious excavation once you get below the soil level and into bedrock. Given the volume either a team of casters or one guy for anywhere from a few days to months depending on level. Probably also fabricate; shoring up the walls manually will leave hard to hide traces at the surface I think.
The real weakness there is being able to target the pilot and that's fine as the weakness. An easier way to arrange it is to fly 100' above it due to the lack of ranged attacks. A pit trap is a Rube Goldberg way of dealing with the golem.
That it is. However it is something that, given enough time, a group of non casting characters could possibly achieve, if you give them some way to hide a 50 by 50 ft hole in the ground. Also a geokineticist could dig the hole
I Also know that at high levels optimized damage builds are doing upwards of 300 a round so this thing does die to a lvl 20 full attack.
Ok, I admit: Everything that is epic is ridiculous if you look at the stats. So let it have fast healing.
Also from wikipedia: A siege is a military blockade of a city or fortress with the intent of conquering by attrition or assault. The term derives from sedere, Latin for "to sit". Siege warfare is a form of constant, low-intensity conflict characterized by one party holding a strong, static defensive position.
Even if you half the damage you're through the wall in less than ten minutes. That's not what I call a siege.
But I also must admit that I have zero experience with high level games. Everything above level 12 is unknown to me.
Well battering rams are siege weapons too, as are catapults and trebuchets, and depending on what you use those to do, they do the job quite quickly. So I might need a better name for this thing.
What do you think of the concept of the thing though?
I don't know the world you play that in. Such a mechwarrior would fit quite well into Numeria like it is shown in the Iron Gods AP. With that I would actually build it as technology and the connection to the pilot as some kind of body interface. If it is the standard medieval setting with castles, kings and knights I have a hard time to see how that fits in.
As for the story background it would be very interesting how the king came to possess these golems. Because if he had them constructed he is now bancrupt or he could simply build more of them in different sizes and the services of the adventurers would be nice but unnecessary.
You bring these mighty overpowered golems into the game pretty early. Usually such things rise at the end of the last book of an AP and the Adventurers have to hurry to prevent the end of the world. Now they just walk around at level 7 and that king of yours could easily go for world domination without breaking a sweat. Take these things and an army of 10.000 man and nothing will stop you. Maybe a dominate monster on the pilot would help if the pilot is accessible as the weakness.
If I got hands on that thing I would put in a pilot with either power attack for an additional +26 damage. Or whirlwind attack which would mean everyone within 30feet of the golem would be dead in one round. This thing has so much possibilities for abuse. Muhahahah....
Who says the king isn't going for world domination? And who says that the king is the only person who has these things? :P
Now I get it. You're doing a Pacific Rim re-enactment.
Actually It came about as I hadn't quite developed a plot line and the players pushed that line before I had a chance to. I had to improvise and came up with these and they actually fit very well into my kingdom's story.