Fighting animated Stone or Metal Statues/Golems

[kent]

Imagine a low level character trying to fend off hulking tons of stone or metal reaching out to grasp him and pull his head off as easily as we pop a grape off its stem.

He has no magical weapon or ray gun, just a plain old sword or club, so he has no way to harm the automaton. He might be able to back away in a controlled manner at very slow pace say 1" or 2" a round but how will that help him?

Here's a ruling:

Our man can roll to hit and if successful he has used his weapon to bat away the grasping unnatural hands, but to what effect?

Let him roll for damage and the result of the d6 is a negative modifier to the automaton's next to hit roll.

And here's how it helps. If the automaton's modified to hit is 0 or less then it has been batted away to the extent that our man gets a free round of action so he can flee *without having to receive a free attack on his back* or do something else for a round that might aid his cause.

Its not much but I think it models what might happen and gives the lowly fighter some hope.

[crusssdaddy]

I think if you try to go toe to toe with a colossus you deserve to get beaten up, no questions asked. Best case scenario maybe is you stop a blow, but your weapon gets wrecked.

The two advantages the PC has are smarts & speed/dexterity -- any PC solution that attempts to leverage one or both of those should be considered favorably.

[Azafuse]

IMHO there could be another possible point of view: when fighting an animated creature player characters could not harm it directly, but using a bite and flee strategy they could force the creature to screw itself performing unnatural movements and thus harming its own joints.

Why joints? Because almost always animated creatures have not been made to sprint: they're usually solid mass of matter and heavy, not engineering miracles.

If they move too fast, joints bend too fast: rock/ice/crystal can crackle, screws can fly away and so on.

Doing this over and over again can make joints collapse, with the creature smashing itself against a wall or a stone for the last fatal blow.

Ok, it could make sense.. but what about damage dice?

Well, the following explanation could also work IMHO: animated creatures aren't usually smart, but they tend to act automatically or by instinct.

In both cases, a bigger menace (for example a d8) should focus an animated creature's attention more than a lesser menace (like a d4): fighting with your 4 year old brother requires less commitment than fighting an older guy.

In few words, the higher the damage the more unnatural the movement made to wipe the PC out.


Just my 2 cents.

[bluskreem]

I really dig this idea, Kent. It reminds me of a few scenes from "Dr Cyclops." I can definatly see using this. Thanks.

[kent]

Good stuff lads.

OK here's another idea. Often these stone and metal guardians remain still and indifferent until a special object is interfered with or a door, secret or otherwise, entered. How effective would it be to place a hood, or a coif back to front, over its head and tying it tight at the neck before exploring the room, *if* the automaton isn't attacking on sight of the intruders?

We grant the statue/golem superhuman strength but does it have the dexterity to unblind itself, I imagine they are less coordinated than humans? I would say in general 1d3 rounds of blind scrabbling would be required to remove hood which makes for a neat getaway tactic for players which I haven't heard being employed before.

[talysman]

Well, that's the big question: do they see?

My interpretation is that mindless magical constructions don't see, hear, or otherwise sense anything; instead, they are triggered by events in their presence. If you think a seemingly ordinary statue will come to life when you try to take the treasure, *destroy that statue first*, when it is unable to attack.

On the other hand, anything with even minor intelligence has some kind of senses, and the hood trick will work.

[ragnorakk]

I suppose I've always assumed that the senses of most magical and magically animated creatures are not the same as biological ones. However, assuming that an animated statues sight does originate at the statue's eyes, then sure - the hood trick works. Your method & reasoning on inarticulate statue fingers looks good to me too - along with the above thing about reducing the automaton's chances of hitting. Do you use OD&D d6 damage for all weapons?

[kent]

Talysman, Do they see?

I have wondered about this myself. There is something about these 'automatic' guardians which suggests their behavior is almost predetermined, without sense, but this would make them even easier to foil as they could easily be lead into existing dungeon traps, pits, deep pools and so on. Would they trip over a boulder you placed at their feet because they didn't 'see' it and it wasn't there when the dungeon was designed. I think MUs leaving the guardians would need to give them sight to make them more effective, though perhaps it might be x-ray vision to thwart being blind-folded. Best of all would be a range of competence in statue/golems to keep the players guessing and experimenting.

Ragnorakk, Do you use OD&D d6 damage for all weapons?

I use modified AD&D for my campaign though i believe I would modify any D&D sibling to the same set of rules which I am happy with. Im a campaign 90%, Rules 10% kind of DM.

I am however reading over my OD&D box and I can see myself using OD&D for one off gaming, and in that case I would use d6 for all weapons certainly.

[ragnorakk]

My initial thought when you posted about reducing the golem's chance to hit was that I would want to make it so that some weapons were less effective than others (dagger, flail, etc, though it might be too fiddly) - but variable damage dice would cover this aspect sufficiently to my taste.

[gloriousbattle]

Sept 6, 2011 10:23:59 GMT -6 kent said:

Imagine a low level character trying to fend off hulking tons of stone or metal reaching out to grasp him and pull his head off as easily as we pop a grape off its stem.

He has no magical weapon or ray gun, just a plain old sword or club, so he has no way to harm the automaton. He might be able to back away in a controlled manner at very slow pace say 1" or 2" a round but how will that help him?

Here's a ruling:

Our man can roll to hit and if successful he has used his weapon to bat away the grasping unnatural hands, but to what effect?

Let him roll for damage and the result of the d6 is a negative modifier to the automaton's next to hit roll.

And here's how it helps. If the automaton's modified to hit is 0 or less then it has been batted away to the extent that our man gets a free round of action so he can flee *without having to receive a free attack on his back* or do something else for a round that might aid his cause.

Its not much but I think it models what might happen and gives the lowly fighter some hope.

Interestingly, our group ran into this situation a week ago. They had one magic sword, but it would never have been enough (Bronze golem). The only thing that saved them was circumstance, and it wasn't easy.

The thing was guarding a room with a deep pit in the center of it. The party had two fighters parry and back up, while the thief dumped oil (not burning) behind them, and the cleric and wizard stood off to the side.

The fighters jumped over the oil slick, while the golem (being mindless) did not try to. At the right moment, everyone rushed forward and tried to shove the thing into the pit.

The rules I laid down for this were also tough. At least three of the five pcs had to succeed in strength checks, and everybody had to make a dexterity check (at a +3 bonus) to avoid following the thing into the pit. Also, since the bronze golem is burning-hot, they all took 1d10 damage from contact.

It was a near thing, with one fighter, and, oddly enough, the thief and mage being the ones to make their strength checks. They all made their dex checks rather handily, but the cleric fell to 0 hp from the burning. His player was arguing that he shouldn't try this because he was already at 3 hp, but, before it could get drawn out, I told them "Guys, whatever you're going to do, do it, because the golem is coming."

Long way of saying that I would not let the rules save them in a situation like this. When you can't fight the monster, you either retreat (the usual solution) or you find some clever way to use the circumstances available to sidestep the problem, as the group above did.

[kent]

Sept 18, 2011 8:51:17 GMT -6 gloriousbattle said:

The fighters jumped over the oil slick, while the golem (being mindless) did not try to. At the right moment, everyone rushed forward and tried to shove the thing into the pit.

Yes that was pretty cool. One of the ideas behind backing away brandishing a weapon to club away a golem's paws is to lead the golem towards a trap. The rule for using a weapon above was just to buy time and I felt it was realistic. These slow mindless killers can put pressure on players in the way (slow) zombies do in the movies and call for creative use of environment. I really like them.