Golem antimagic and magical attack modifiers

[Saens_Danse]

Question about Golem antimagic.

I would have assumed that abilities that add elemental damage to strikes wouldn't affect the golem antimagic ability.

However, I can see the argument for it in some cases.

What are people's thoughts on whether these 2 cases apply?

1. Property runes. I wouldn't have considered this, but since the wording of golem antimagic says spells or magical abilities, I can see the argument that since the property rune is magical, it triggers the effect.

2. Ki Strike with elemental fist. Since Ki Strike is a Focus Spell, I would think that this definitively counts as a magical effect that targets the golem.

[The Gleeful Grognard]

This came up recently and the result was "no conclusive answer".

I stand with "runes aren't inherently magical abilities". Ability doesn't have a game term associated with it other than ability scores and modifiers though so it does make it muddy.

Abilities however seem tied to actions if you search the PDF. So my reasoning is that it is likely meant to be immune to spells, and what would be spell like abilities and supernatural abilities / abilities with the magic tag and their effects. (yes I know that sp and su don't exist anymore, but I am using it for illustrative purposes).

[thenobledrake]

I think the issue people have is that the immunity and the other traits caused by the Golem Antimagic ability aren't worded the same way but are treated as thought they are - because people tend toward consistency, while the text actually doesn't.

So piece by piece we have the following:
Immune to spells and magical abilities other than its own. That means unless it's something the golem did, or something covered by one of the following categories, it doesn't affect the golem in any way.

Harmed By "Any magic of this type..." That means it doesn't matter if it's a spell or whatever; if it's magic and fits whatever the specific golem is listed as harmed by, it does the listed untyped damage instead of it's normal effect.

So if you hit a flesh golem with a weapon with a flaming rune, instead of 1d6 fire damage it takes 5d8 untyped damage because its stat block says "harmed by fire (5d8, 3d4 from areas or persistent damage);"

And the Healed By and Slowed By sections also use the "Any magic of this type..." language, so it doesn't matter if it's a spell, ability of a creature, or an item that is the cause of the effect - just that it's marked as magic.

And for the sake of completeness, the Vulnerable To section lists one or more spells which the golem is affected by despite general immunity, and also any special effects which are added to or replace those of the spell itself.

[The Gleeful Grognard]

thenobledrake wrote:

I think the issue people have is that the immunity and the other traits caused by the Golem Antimagic ability aren't worded the same way but are treated as thought they are - because people tend toward consistency, while the text actually doesn't.

That is certainly an element, but there was also a contingent of people who ruled that golems were immune to striking rune damage.

Which is where the debate of "what is an ability" comes up.

Which then has a further effect on other types of property runes, as if you rule that an electricity rune doesn't effect a clay golem then the same rule that makes it not effect the clay golem then makes striking runes not effect it.

Not having striking runes work and barring anything and everything with the "magic" trait makes golems extremely difficult for parties that don't specifically have the harmed by options prepared.

---

So in the case of say a clay golem and two fighters, one with a striking flame rune weapon and another with a striking frost rune weapon I would rule the following.

Flame: 2 weapon damage dice + flame rune dice

Frost: 2 weapon damage dice + 5d10 cold damage (from triggering the "harmed by" element of the golem, since it it specifically states any magic, vs any spell or magical ability)

[thenobledrake]

The Gleeful Grognard wrote:

...there was also a contingent of people who ruled that golems were immune to striking rune damage.

Which is where the debate of "what is an ability" comes up.

There is a difference between "someone argued this" and "there's a reasonable argument for this"

And there's evidence to back that up, too: In the monster design guidelines for the game significant means of reducing damage are always accompanied by lowered HP totals that are proportionate to the reduction - so if golems were actually assumed to not be taking the added damage from striking runes and then also applying their resistance their HP totals would be significantly lower than they currently are.

Or there resistance value wouldn't be so high, since for example an iron golem has 1 less point of resistance than the monster building guideliness lists as "maximum" for its level, and being 13th level and thus likely to see greater striking runes used against it would be significantly over that limit.