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[MrCompassionate]

So after I eagerly remove the cotton candy sword having never found a seam of it before (I don't spoil anything for myself or use these forums until now) and having lots of Fun I looked up clowns and how to defend against them in my new fort. So I learned a lot but one thing people keep rattling on about is their beyond magma temperatures and how most defenses just melt. If so, what is their temperature and what materials exceed that in melting point? I am carving an absurdly huge defensive line and need some advice on what materials to make doors/spikes/hatches out of.

Furthermore do massive cave ins kill them? I have 3z level high monoliths being constructed will they kill em?
Any advice on would be very helpful. (also yes I know clowns hide in piles of cotton candy it was only the sword I didn't know about, that was a pretty big surprise). 

[itg]

It's usually only the fire-based clowns which have high temperatures, so if you don't see any of them you probably don't need to worry. If you do, I've had pretty good luck with normal magma-safe materials like steel and gabbro, but I think nether-cap is the only sure bet. It has a fixed temperature, so it should be immune to heat no matter how how.

Cave-ins work. Your monoliths should do fine provided you can get enough clowns under them.

As for other advice, it's really useful to know that clowns can't destroy forbidden hatches from below. It's an idiot-proof dwarf-proof alternative to retracting bridges. It's kinda exploity, though.

[TheDarkStar]

Clowns are immune to trap buildings (except if webbed), so don't bother with those. However, cave-ins kill anything instantly, so those will work. They are recommended if you are unlucky enough to get an otherwise invincible clown with a blob body and made of a hard material. Another thing that works is to use archers behind fortifications, to take out the clowns that explode when they die. Marksdwarves outrange clowns, but you need to keep your dwarves back. Once you kill most of them, clean them up with your best melee dwarves.

[Oaktree]

Lever or repeater operated spike traps work fairly well on clowns.  Tend to rip the fire and weak material ones apart in a few hits, and will wound or seriously hurt most other ones.  Using steel and other magma-proof materials is recommended as I have seen bronze spikes melt from being close to fire-based clowns as they tarry in a place (or explode).

So making them run a gauntlet of spike traps will reduce their numbers.  An alternative is to place "bait" doors or grates for the clowns to destroy and place the spikes near those to hit the clowns that stop to attack the bait object.  And if you plant an artifact grate they will stop there and pound indefinitely until you interrupt them with a physical attack.

[Button]

Regarding clown-safe spike traps, I have two words:

Sphalerite. Mechanisms.

It's a win/win. If the clown is too hot for the trap, the trap explodes!