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In the Bestiary under Clay Golem, “Harmed by Cold and Water: Any cold or water magic that targets the golem causes it to take 5d12 damage instead of the usual effect. “ So (3) Ray of Frosts to autokill ftw?
In the Bestiary under Clay Golem, “Harmed by Cold and Water: Any cold or water magic that targets the golem causes it to take 5d12 damage instead of the usual effect. “ So (3) Ray of Frosts to autokill ftw?
I just noticed all golems have this weird dynamic.
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I HATE this about Golems, and I love PF2 & a majority of the monsters and the improvements Paizo made.
But Ray of Frost = Polar Ray?
And against a type of creature notorious for resisting magic?
This needs to go, and I really dislike thinking there's something I might have to houserule-hammer out of the game.
A much more balanced mechanic would be 1d12 per spell level, w/ 1d12 for mundane sources of cold & cantrips too even though they scale.
Then a 10th level caster (an appropriate PC) would be able to get that 5d12 if they had cold.
Or actually, why not have it be a Weakness to keep it simple?
Note: I'm not even a fan of Clay Golems taking cold damage, but if casters need a niche to contribute, I understand.
How about just changing the die size?
Roll the same number as you normally would be, except they're now d12s.
Or better yet, just take 4x damage...that way the GM doesn't have to tell the PCs, "actually..." and can just multiply the resulting damage themselves.
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Didn't they invent a new version of Weakness for PF2? Why not just use that?
Give them Weakness 20 Cold/Water and call it a day, I don't see why they need to change the damage dice at all...
I imagine because golems simply aren't like other creatures. They aren't even like other constructs. They are a complex network of magics binding an elemental to what would otherwise be mundane material. They've never interacted with magic like other creatures do: they don't have spell resistance, they have spell immunity. A slime demon, like the clay golem, isn't harmed by acid and takes extra damage from certain elements.
Unlike the Slime Demon, the Clay Golem is outright HEALED BY ACID. That's a thing only golems do as far as I can tell. Even creatures made of an element (like elementals or oozes) aren't outright healed by elemental damage the way golems are.
It makes sense for them to not interact with spells and weakness the same way when you look at them through this lens. Ray of Frost isn't having it's normal effect at all + some extra damage. It is triggering a chain reaction in those complicated magics enslaving an elemental spirit to its clay.
I am unsure whether 5d12 is the best number, but overall I like the mechanic for golems. And the wizard feeling like a hero for doing massive dmg with his Ray of Frost or any of the other characters have a weapon that deals cold damage being able to shine doesn't really bother me.
Even a bunch of low-level wizards would have trouble taken it down because they would have a hard time hitting it with the ray. But in general a build in weakness seems to be reasonable to prevent golems from running amok against the wizards that created it.
I hadn't even considered the idea that the flaw would be intentional, but that makes a lot of sense. Especially when looking at clay and flesh golems that have a chance to go berserk and start attacking their creator.
Since cantrip damage scales now, the Ray of Frost doing more than the usual amount of damage is not the problem that it would have been in PF1.
But I do see a potential issue with a non-scaling 1st level spell doing that same 5d12 damage.
Since cantrip damage scales now, the Ray of Frost doing more than the usual amount of damage is not the problem that it would have been in PF1.
But I do see a potential issue with a non-scaling 1st level spell doing that same 5d12 damage.
That;s like the only situation a 1st level blast is actually useful though.