How high-op would you classify these and would you allow them?

[RoboEmperor]

Please label these as low mid or high op, and if you would allow this :)

1. Animate Dead almost everything you kill and stick them in the bag of holding. If you reach your control limit cast command undead on your skeletons before animating more.
2. Planar Binding one outsider for free via various tactics (mainly charm monster). If not high-op, please provide a number. By the way, maximum time of service is 1day/caster level because I think "serve me for a year" is still open-ended and you can't do that :)
3. Craft Runic Guardian with a once a day simluacrum that creates a simulacrum of a greater stone golem.
4. Crafting a Runic Guardian with a once a day simulacrum that creates a Runic Guardian who has a once a day simulacrum of a greater stone golem.
5. Create a specter via create greater undead, use control undead on it. Make it fail a save for command undead, have it kill something, make the spawn listen to you forever, stick the original specter in a bag of holding and only bring it out to refresh the command undead, and use the spawned specter to create a specter army. Note that at most I'll only have a few out at a time. The rest will be stuffed into my bag of holding so essentially I'll have an at-will summon specter ability as long as I keep replenishing my stores. No wightpocalypse.
6. Using a combination of scrying, knowledge checks, and teleportation to find specific monsters mid-campaign to kill for animate dead or a specter army. Specter army would be teleporting to really weak groups of monsters and have the specters kill everything.
7. Use Polymorph Any Object to turn corpses into different corpses
8. No longer a valid question.

edit:
9. Do #3 EXCEPT limit yourself to 1 simulacrum.
10. Runic Guardian with a once a day permanency, mainly to use on animate object obtained by extra spell.

I want to try this stuff next game so I need to know what level of optimization it is to join the right group and not have problems.

[Chronos]

1: This is the standard, normal usage for Animate Dead. Doing so would probably have alignment implications, but it's not overpowered.

2: Depends on how you're getting free bindings, and what you're using the outsiders for.

3: So you'd get a free golem every single day? No way. I'm pretty sure that there's an explicit "with DM approval" somewhere in there, and I wouldn't approve it. Plus, crafting something that costs more than 16k XP at level 16 would be extremely tricky: You'd have to be in your laboratory and working right at the moment when you earned the last bunch of XP.

4: See 3, except this time you'd have to be epic to even attempt it.

5: No rules against this, but I'd make sure to find some way to make it backfire horribly, probably leaving you as a thrall of "your" own spectres.

6: Not a problem, provided you've earned the resources to be able to do this (sufficiently high Knowledges, teleport and scry as spells known, etc.). Plus, of course, you'd have to kill the monsters.

7: Depends on what houserules are in place for PAO. And there will be some, since PAO as written isn't really usable. Probably no-go.

8: All of this being a sorcerer rather than a wizard doesn't change anything.

But really, we're not the ones you need to be asking these questions. Different groups have different tolerances for cheese, sometimes in surprising ways.

[RoboEmperor]

1: This is the standard, normal usage for Animate Dead. Doing so would probably have alignment implications, but it's not overpowered.

Planar binding usage would mainly be for combat. Main method is charm monster. If charm monster fails, dismiss and retry.



3: So you'd get a free golem every single day? No way. I'm pretty sure that there's an explicit "with DM approval" somewhere in there, and I wouldn't approve it. Plus, crafting something that costs more than 16k XP at level 16 would be extremely tricky: You'd have to be in your laboratory and working right at the moment when you earned the last bunch of XP.

There is no "with DM approval". Runic Guardians are basically upgraded shield guardians as in instead of storing spells, they can cast spells once a day as a spell-like ability up to level 7 and you choose the spell permanently when creating it. They only cost 4600xp to make, but cost 200,000gp. The rest of the XP cost is from casting simulacrum (4200xp for a 42hd monster) and crafting a greater stone golem. This is all RAW-legal :)

[Hand_of_Vecna]

1. Perfectly normal.

2. Perfectly fine mid-op, unless you're using it to get a year of service from multiple creatures for free.

3. Anything that becomes a minion printing press that doesn't run off the caster's daily spell allotment is going to be high-op bordering on TO.

4. see 3

5. Wightopcalipse is boring and generally a violation of most table's gentleman's agreement.

6. This should be fine outside of very low-op where characters pretend they don't have out of combat abilities. Frankly, the idea that a high level caster needs to walk around and get in random encounters till the random encounter tables say they encounter a basilisk if they want to harvest basilisk testicles strikes me as childish.

7. It's 6, but saving time even more time. It will violate a lot of tables written rules or gentleman's agreements if you sell polymorphed stuff or use it for other components with gp costs.

8. I don't think being a niche sorceror will get you much wiggle room on what is too OP for the table. It can help when te issue is raw numbers, these are qualitative issues.

[(Un)Inspired]

basilisk testicles



Putting the Rock in Rocky Mountain Oysters since 1974.

[OldTrees1]

1)
Depends on the level and the scale. Animating everything is standard usage. However Chain Command Undead is standard only for mid level. High level switches to Animate Dread Warrior. At standard usage the Necromancer Player needs to control their usage of their controlled undead so that it does not bog down combat or end up rolling hundreds of dice for nat 20s.

2)
Planar Binding 1 with an ECL(DM calculated, not WotC calculated) of your level - 2(or 2 at -5 or 4 at -8) seems reasonable(comparing it to Leadership) if powerful. It is even more reasonable if it is used for RP and utility rather than combat. Beyond that starts scaling into high OP.

3)
Temporarily lag a level behind(due to xp is a river) to gain a cumulative +1 CR 16 monster to your party per day is scaling into high OP.

4)
Now it is a quadratic escalation of #3. At this point it is high OP until you are high enough OP that Immunity to Magic is no longer a protection.

5)
Is a death wish(ever opening the bag again) or reasonable use(1 spawn) or TO(wightpocalypse)

6)
Depends on the scale of usage of the control pool. Gaining access to bodies is not high OP, usage can be.

7)
Depends on the usage. Using it to keep Animate Dead relevant at mid levels(by making 20HD skeletons) is standard usage. Using it to get higher level casting or abusive abilities is high OP. Using it to get a Zodar is TO.

8)
The Sorcerer is still useful in direct combat. If necessary relax the cutoff points by 1.

[RoboEmperor]

I only plan on using planar binding for 1day/caster level duration, no "serve me for a year" stuff because I think those tasks are open-ended and doesn't work.

It kind of gives me a good feeling I've invented a TO level thing by myself with only golems :). But is the greater stone golem simulacrum really that high op? o_o I was under the impression those golems don't last long after someone posted like a wall of text of reasons why it's a bad idea to throw away 7600xp for a greater stone golem, and if the party has very little down-time I won't have more than 1 or 2 with me at most.

Alright so everything except animate dead is considered high op T_T.
Maybe I will join a high-op game XD

Or maybe I can convince a low-op DM that the golem simulacrum thing is fine IF I limit myself to 1 golem at all times and the reason for me wanting to do this is because I don't want to lose 7600xp every time my golem dies.

Adding that the list

[OldTrees1]

I don't think the Golems are TO. They are melee without flight and thus are normally insignificant in upper High OP and TO.

Limiting yourself to 1 CR16 golem at a time would be too powerful for low OP until Epic levels. In Mid OP it would become reasonable in the upper preEpic levels.

[Aegis013]

1. Animate Dead almost everything you kill and stick them in the bag of holding. If you reach your control limit cast command undead on your skeletons before animating more.

It's not particularly high op, but I don't like the shenanigans that come with stuffing creatures into extradimensional space (unless explicitly made to hold creatures, like Rope Trick), so I may not allow a bag of holding. Smoky Confinement (Complete Mage) or similar on the other hand would be fine.



2. Planar Binding one outsider for free via various tactics (mainly charm monster). If not high-op, please provide a number. By the way, maximum time of service is 1day/caster level because I think "serve me for a year" is still open-ended and you can't do that :)

Fairly high-op, I'd allow it, but would warn you of potential ramifications. Monsters made to work against a cause which they agree with or coerced will probably seek retribution.



3. Craft Runic Guardian with a once a day simluacrum that creates a greater stone golem. Total cost to pull this off is 305,000gp and 16440XP. So effectively, at level 16, I'm sacrificing going to level 17 for this.

Depends on the type of campaign, but generally, at level 16, this would be fine.



4. Crafting a Runic Guardian with a once a day simulacrum that creates a Runic Guardian who has a once a day simulacrum that creates a greater stone golem. Total cost to pull this off is 505,000gp and 22740XP

As above.



5. Create a specter via create greater undead, use control undead on it. Make it fail a save for command undead, have it kill something, make the spawn listen to you forever, stick the original specter in a bag of holding and only bring it out to refresh the command undead, and use the spawned specter to create a specter army.

Another issue with creatures in extradimensional space. I might rule that the spawn becomes independent due to planar separation from its creator, or some such, but really, at the level you could naturally cast these spells, not a big deal if you weren't looking to create a free army using Bags of Tricks or something.



6. Using a combination of scrying, knowledge checks, and teleportation to find specific monsters mid-campaign to kill for animate dead or a specter army. Specter army would be teleporting to really weak groups of monsters and have the specters kill everything.


I'd probably allow this, but have problematic drawbacks, perhaps the spectre chain of command doesn't play telephone very well, so you have a lot of Spectres getting no orders and doing as they please, replacing lots of groups of weak monsters with, maybe fewer in number, but more dangerous groups of loose Spectres.


7. Use Polymorph Any Object to turn corpses into different corpses

That's fine as long as you're not saying like "This one is a corpse of Boccob!" or other specific beings.


8. A sorcerer who does the above. The sorcerer memorizes all the spells required to craft a greater stone golem and a runic guardian personally and for the shield other spell, uses domain access: protection to get it. Main difference between a wizard is, this sorcerer is gonna spend all its feats on crafting feats (3 feats) and undead boosting (4 feats), and with so many spells required, the sorcerer won't be much use directly in combat. It would spend all its spells either animating dead or trying to bind additional outsiders during the dungeon crawl, and if he fails, releases them. Sorcerer would need a high craft sculpting and metalworking to make this work.

A legitimate playstyle, though it carries some risk. Outsiders may have other Outsiders come to attempt to rescue them or attempt to exact revenge after the fact.

Golems are expensive and at the level you're talking, golems probably aren't going to be that big of a deal.

Biggest problem was that if your playstyle significantly slowed down gameplay, I might ask you to try something else unless every other player was happy with it. That however, has nothing to do with OP level.



9. Do #3 EXCEPT limit yourself to 1 simulacrum. Main purpose of this is to ensure a death of a golem does not result in a waste of 7600 and I can happily be a golem crafter without worrying about that kind of stuff.

Basically paying out that big money for a constant Golem Simalcrum buddy who can't reproduce himself would be totally fine.

[RoboEmperor]

Bag of holding stuff is specifically to NOT slow down gameplay :P
By only letting a few out at a time I won't have 1000 actions per round.

There won't be telephone issues with the specters. I order the top one to make everyone listen to me directly, and stick him in the bag.

I guess "specter army" is misleading. I just want to have a bag of specters and let out a few at a time, so basically as long as I keep replenishing its stores I'll have an at-will summon specter. No wightpocalypse :P otherwise I'll have to deal with the 1000 moves per round thing, and I'm lazy! Adding this note to 1st post...

edit: removed planar binding vengeance stuff. I've raised this topic up too many times in too many threads...

[ryu]

Putting the Rock in Rocky Mountain Oysters since 1974.

Aaaaaaaaaaaand five points and a cookie for you.

[RoboEmperor]

I noticed people saying greater stone golem simulacrum is CR16. That's not true since his HD is halved, along with his attack, so he becomes only slightly better than a regular stone golem. But I guess I can simulacrum some stupidly crazy monster for abuse so I guess it wouldn't matter.

[OldTrees1]

I noticed people saying greater stone golem simulacrum is CR16. That's not true since his HD is halved, along with his attack, so he becomes only slightly better than a regular stone golem. But I guess I can simulacrum some stupidly crazy monster for abuse so I guess it wouldn't matter.

Doh. Thanks for catching that. That makes multiple Stone Golem simulacrum reasonable. (many would still be pushing it)

[Troacctid]

1. Animate Dead almost everything you kill and stick them in the bag of holding. If you reach your control limit cast command undead on your skeletons before animating more.
I wouldn't appreciate having to do extra legwork to figure out how much the zombies weigh, but if you have bags of holding big enough, okay. Keep track of their weight and volume; I imagine you wouldn't want that bag to break. Oh, and you should probably also make sure none of them have any access to any form of slashing or piercing damage. Just saying.


2. Planar Binding one outsider for free via various tactics (mainly charm monster). If not high-op, please provide a number. By the way, maximum time of service is 1day/caster level because I think "serve me for a year" is still open-ended and you can't do that :)
You're basically describing the normal function of the Planar Binding Spell. You'd be subject to all the normal rules and limitations. Note that just because a fiend is friendly doesn't mean they'll work for you for free.


3. Craft Runic Guardian with a once a day simluacrum that creates a greater stone golem. Total cost to pull this off is 305,000gp and 16440XP. So effectively, at level 16, I'm sacrificing going to level 17 for this.
4. Crafting a Runic Guardian with a once a day simulacrum that creates a Runic Guardian who has a once a day simulacrum that creates a greater stone golem. Total cost to pull this off is 505,000gp and 22740XP
There are three main reasons why I wouldn't normally allow these. First, you aren't likely to have enough money for it, especially not after buying all those bags of holding. Second, that's un-updated 3.0 material, isn't it? I don't normally use that in my games. Third, you can't create a simulacrum of a creature whose hit dice exceed twice your caster level. A greater stone golem has 42 HD, which is more than twice the runic guardian's caster level.

If you had enough money somehow, the book were allowed, and you used a legal simulacrum target, I would allow it. If game-breaking shenanigans result, it's my own fault for letting you have that much gold.


5. Create a specter via create greater undead, use control undead on it. Make it fail a save for command undead, have it kill something, make the spawn listen to you forever, stick the original specter in a bag of holding and only bring it out to refresh the command undead, and use the spawned specter to create a specter army.
This is extremely evil, but if I were allowing evil, I'd allow it. You have 8th level spells at this point; I'm expecting you to do powerful things like this. Note that once the original spectre is gone, its spawn won't be bound to follow its commands anymore, and if the original spectre is still around, who knows what it might order them to do once your control over it wears off. This plan could easily backfire in some very nasty ways.


6. Using a combination of scrying, knowledge checks, and teleportation to find specific monsters mid-campaign to kill for animate dead or a specter army. Specter army would be teleporting to really weak groups of monsters and have the specters kill everything.
Again, by the time you have scrying spells strong enough to do this and the muscle to kill your targets reliably, this is not going to be overpowered. You'll presumably need to convince the rest of the party to go along with it, but you can do it.


7. Use Polymorph Any Object to turn corpses into different corpses
News flash, game-breaking spells are game-breaking. Again, if you have 8th level spells, I'm expecting this sort of thing to happen. This is what high-level spellcasters do. If I weren't okay with them doing it, I wouldn't have let you get to this level.


8. A sorcerer who does the above. The sorcerer memorizes all the spells required to craft a greater stone golem and a runic guardian personally and for the shield other spell, uses domain access: protection to get it. Main difference between a wizard is, this sorcerer is gonna spend all its feats on crafting feats (3 feats) and undead boosting (4 feats), and with so many spells required, the sorcerer won't be much use directly in combat. It would spend all its spells either animating dead or trying to bind additional outsiders during the dungeon crawl, and if he fails, releases them. Sorcerer would need a high craft sculpting and metalworking to make this work.
Yeah, sure, better a sorcerer than a wizard.


edit:
9. Do #3 EXCEPT limit yourself to 1 simulacrum. Main purpose of this is to ensure a death of a golem does not result in a waste of 7600 and I can happily be a golem crafter without worrying about that kind of stuff.
It's not any more broken than an ordinary Simulacrum. If you have that kind of money, knock yourself out.

[jedipotter]

#3 I doubt this would work. The Runic Guardian has no Intelligence. So you could make a Runic Guardian that has Simulacrum as a spell like ability....but that won't get you much. You could command the Runic Guardian to cast simulacrum no problem. But then for you to say ''Runic Guardian make a greater stone golem'', it would fail. The Runic Guardians Intelligence is -, it does not know what a stone golem is.

But even if you say the Runic Guardian knows ''every single creature in the Multiverse'', for no reason.....you have another problem. How do you control the Simulacrum? The Runic Guardian can't do it...it can't speak or even really communicate. So the best you might get is the wizard can order the Runic Guardian to point at something and make a fist and the simulacrum could be told that means ''attack what it points at'', but that is a really round about way of indirect control.

#4 Well, assuming the mindless Rune Guardian can make a Simulacrum rune guardian, it would be a 9HD rune guardian with half the originals abilities. I think that it's safe to say a 9HD rune guardian does not get a 7th level spell like ability....

#5 This sort of works. Sure you can command your specter to tell a spawn specter to follow your orders....but, er, that is a gray area. The spawn specters would not be directly controlled and could act as they wished. So they are free to ''interpret'' commands as much as they like and can do the fun things like do things unless you don't tell them not too(like killing anyone that is your ally).

[Kelb_Panthera]

Please label these as low mid or high op, and if you would allow this :)

Okay.


1. Animate Dead almost everything you kill and stick them in the bag of holding. If you reach your control limit cast command undead on your skeletons before animating more.

Meh. The bag of holding makes it a little more op than baseline but minionmaster necromancers aren't terribly impressive. Dread necro is only T3 after all.


2. Planar Binding one outsider for free via various tactics (mainly charm monster). If not high-op, please provide a number. By the way, maximum time of service is 1day/caster level because I think "serve me for a year" is still open-ended and you can't do that :)

Non-functional. You only get an outsider to work for free if your DM lets you get away with it. I'm comfortable presuming that most DM's won't let you get away with it. In particular the "impossible or unreasonable requests are never agreed to" clause in the planar binding spells shoots this idea squarely in the foot.


3. Craft Runic Guardian with a once a day simluacrum that creates a greater stone golem. Total cost to pull this off is 305,000gp and 16440XP. So effectively, at level 16, I'm sacrificing going to level 17 for this. Note that at 1/2HD, the greater stone golem simulacrum will only have 21 HD and 21 AB so he should be lower than CR 16.

You shouldn't have that much cash at that level. WBL for 16 is only 270k. If your DM gives you so much treasure that you can spend 113% of your normal WBL and still have gear, he deserves what he gets.

That said, a minion that can produce minions once per day is dicey at best and definitely high-op. A necromancer at least has to find or make corpses first.


4. Crafting a Runic Guardian with a once a day simulacrum that creates a Runic Guardian who has a once a day simulacrum that creates a greater stone golem. Total cost to pull this off is 505,000gp and 22740XP

Second verse; same as the first.


5. Create a specter via create greater undead, use control undead on it. Make it fail a save for command undead, have it kill something, make the spawn listen to you forever, stick the original specter in a bag of holding and only bring it out to refresh the command undead, and use the spawned specter to create a specter army. Note that at most I'll only have a few out at a time. The rest will be stuffed into my bag of holding so essentially I'll have an at-will summon specter ability as long as I keep replenishing my stores. No wightpocalypse.

Low-op. The control issues at work here make it -very- unlikely that this won't turn you into the BBEG for some other party of adventurers. You simply don't have enough control in this setup to guarantee "no wightocolypse."


6. Using a combination of scrying, knowledge checks, and teleportation to find specific monsters mid-campaign to kill for animate dead or a specter army. Specter army would be teleporting to really weak groups of monsters and have the specters kill everything.

The limits on control undead spells and abilities make "army" a gross exageration. You're simply talking a basic minionmaster here. The scry and fry tactics gets you to lower mid-op but color me unimpressed.


7. Use Polymorph Any Object to turn corpses into different corpses

Depends on DM ruling. If he, like I would, rules that PAO'd corpses use the creature it was as the baseline for the spell's effect, then you're generally getting stuff on about the same CR so it's no problem unless you accept a limited duration. Then comes the question of what the heck happens when the PAO wears off. For that matter, what happens if the creature is subjected to dispel magic? This probably warrants its own thread.


8. A sorcerer who does the above. The sorcerer memorizes all the spells required to craft a greater stone golem and a runic guardian personally and for the shield other spell, uses domain access: protection to get it. Main difference between a wizard is, this sorcerer is gonna spend all its feats on crafting feats (3 feats) and undead boosting (4 feats), and with so many spells required, the sorcerer won't be much use directly in combat. It would spend all its spells either animating dead or trying to bind additional outsiders during the dungeon crawl, and if he fails, releases them. Sorcerer would need a high craft sculpting and metalworking to make this work.

Why are you using up all your spells known on the prerequisites for making a stone golemn if you're just going to have your runic guardian make simulacrums of stone golemns?


edit:
9. Do #3 EXCEPT limit yourself to 1 simulacrum. Main purpose of this is to ensure a death of a golem does not result in a waste of 7600 and I can happily be a golem crafter without worrying about that kind of stuff.

Using it this way doesn't mitigate the fact you can abuse it at will. Just because you don't use a nuke doesn't mean you can't destroy a city. I will point out that jedipotter brings up a couple of perfectly valid points in the control issue and the HD cap on simulacrum exceeding your runic guardian's caster level. You -can- set up the runic guardian to be able to produce an unlimited number of minions of a single type since the material component of the spell, which you must provide 50 of during the creation of any magic item, sets the resultant simulated creature. 50 chips of stone golemn (not greater; too many HD) makes infinite stone golemn simulacrums.


I want to try this stuff next game so I need to know what level of optimization it is to join the right group and not have problems.

There are much more pertinent details than the op level of these tricks, though on the overall you're shooting at mid to the lower end of high-op. Minionmastering is a very book-keeping and game-time intensive route to take. To avoid being a real nuisance to your group you have to be -very- well organized and able to direct your minions actions quickly during combat. If you drag when making your decisions or take too long referencing the various stat-blocks for your creatures you're going to have people giving you unpleasant looks before terribly long. Proceed with caution.

[RoboEmperor]

Thanks for catching the max HD of simulacrum thing >.<

All of my materials are 3.5. Runic Guardian is from 3.5 MMII


Why are you using up all your spells known on the prerequisites for making a stone golemn if you're just going to have your runic guardian make simulacrums of stone golemns?

I gotta make a stone golem before I can simulacrum it right? :D


You -can- set up the runic guardian to be able to produce an unlimited number of minions of a single type since the material component of the spell, which you must provide 50 of during the creation of any magic item, sets the resultant simulated creature. 50 chips of stone golemn (not greater; too many HD) makes infinite stone golemn simulacrums.

Actually I only need 1 chip. Constructing constructs specifically state you cast that spell personally right before completion, via scrolls or whatnot, but you have to cast it and only once.


Alright, so general consensus is, everything except animate dead is high-op, the golem thing is too expensive and free simulacrum is too OP. Since greater stone golem is not viable because of HD cap on simulacrum, the cost to pull off that combo would drop to 200,000g because I'll be simulacrum-ing the strongest monster I can find via scry-n-fry and the total XP cost of that combo would be 4600+ HD x 100 of the target creature.

I am minion mastering in my current game and thanks to bag of holding it's not a big deal. I just have 1 large+ skeleton with me and in battle I let out a lot more and put them back in after. No different than a summoner. Haven't reached level 16 yet but I figured specters wouldn't be different than that.

I guess I'll give up on golems >.<. I guess I should just be happy with skeletons... Maybe I'll go summoner/animate dead combo. Thanks for your inputs everyone.

edited first post with updated information

[Kelb_Panthera]

Thanks for catching the max HD of simulacrum thing >.<

All of my materials are 3.5. Runic Guardian is from 3.5 MMII

Nope. MM2 is a 3.0 supplement. It's not a big deal, since 3.0 and 3.5 are the same game. I really don't get why people try to treat them like different games when 3.0 is closer to 3.5 than pathfinder is to either of them and people don't seem to mind making that conversion.


I gotta make a stone golem before I can simulacrum it right? :D

Nah, you just gotta get 50 chips out of an existing stone golemn. It doesn't have to be one you made yourself.


Actually I only need 1 chip. Constructing constructs specifically state you cast that spell personally right before completion, via scrolls or whatnot, but you have to cast it and only once.

Even you use scrolls, they'd all have to be scrolls of simulacrum producing stone golemns and they'd all require a single chip from a stone golemn in their creation. In fact, you'd need -more- stone golemn pieces this way since you'd need one for each day; 305 of them. Much better to simply prepare the spell each day, burn the slot, and provide the 50 units of material component required by the creation of any magic item.



Alright, so general consensus is, everything except animate dead is high-op, the golem thing is too expensive and free simulacrum is too OP. Since greater stone golem is not viable because of HD cap on simulacrum, the cost to pull off that combo would drop to 200,000g because I'll be simulacrum-ing the strongest monster I can find via scry-n-fry and the total XP cost of that combo would be 4600+ HD x 100 of the target creature.

I am minion mastering in my current game and thanks to bag of holding it's not a big deal. I just have 1 large+ skeleton with me and in battle I let out a lot more and put them back in after. No different than a summoner. Haven't reached level 16 yet but I figured specters wouldn't be different than that.

I guess I'll give up on golems >.<. I guess I should just be happy with skeletons... Maybe I'll go summoner/animate dead combo. Thanks for your inputs everyone.

edited first post with updated information

Sounds about right to me. Good luck with your new group.

[RoboEmperor]

Even you use scrolls, they'd all have to be scrolls of simulacrum producing stone golemns and they'd all require a single chip from a stone golemn in their creation. In fact, you'd need -more- stone golemn pieces this way since you'd need one for each day; 305 of them. Much better to simply prepare the spell each day, burn the slot, and provide the 50 units of material component required by the creation of any magic item.

You only need ONE SCROLL cast at the END.


Completing the golem’s creation drains the appropriate XP from the creator and requires casting any spells on the final day.

The creator must cast the spells personally, but they can come from outside sources, such as scrolls.

From the golem page in the srd. So only 1 chip and XP cost of casting 1 simulacrum.

[Kelb_Panthera]

You only need ONE SCROLL cast at the END.



From the golem page in the srd. So only 1 chip and XP cost of casting 1 simulacrum.

Construct crafting references the item creation rules in chapter seven of the DMG. Crafting a construct only differs from creating any other magic item in the actual item yielded; a creature of the construct type.

When crafting any permanent magic item you spend 1 day for every 1000gp of the item's base price, one spell slot for each of the item's requisite spells (either filled with those spells if you prepare or of the appropriate level to cast them if you're spontaneous) on each of those days, and 50 units of the item's material and xp components. The spell slots sacrificed are not castings of the spell, you only do that on the final day as you read, they are simply slots sacrificed to no effect.

In most cases those last two, the components, amount to nothing because most material components have no cost and most spells lack an xp component. In the case of simulacrum, however, you need to provide 50,000xp, minimum, and 5000gp worth of rubies for each of the created creature's HD. Next to that, the 50 chips of stone golemn "flesh" seems pretty trivial.

[RoboEmperor]

I quote again

Completing the golem’s creation drains the appropriate XP from the creator and requires casting any spells on the final day.

The creator must cast the spells personally, but they can come from outside sources, such as scrolls.

Why have that last part if you have to prepare the spells every day on construction?

Constructs are different from item crafting. It doesn't say anywhere that it uses those rules. It says:
1. Hire a builder, or build the body yourself. Builder doesn't need to know any spells.
2. You perform a ritual that drains your XP upon finishing the ritual. Ritual takes 1day per 1000gp.
3. You personal cast the spells on the final day.

I can't find anywhere that says craft construct utilizes item creation rules. It has its own rules which is similar to item creation rules.

Also, from MMII for Runic Guardians

After the body and jewelry are constructed, the creature must be animated through magical rites that
require one month to complete. The creator must be at least 16th level and have the Craft Wondrous Item feat.
The creator must cast any spells he or she wishes to place on the runic guardian personally at this time, though they may come from an outside source such as a scroll.

So again, only one casting, although this quote only specifies the spell-to-be-placed not spells required.

You seem absolutely sure crafting constructs utilize item creation rules, can you give me a source on this? The only times I see 50 units used is when crafting staffs and wands.

But it all doesn't matter, I have been neglecting the "1day per 1000gp" duration of the ritual, so 200days of crafting is unacceptable in a normal campaign.

If I really, really want to have golems, I'll just use polymorph any object on a skeleton. I'm sure I can get some decent skeletons with decent BAB to turn into constructs, but then at that point what's the point? XD. I'm gonna crunch some numbers to see how they compare.

edit: Yeah, skeletons are better. Compared a young adult dragon skeleton (strongest monster I can animate with scry-n-fry with animate dead with only knowledge: arcane, I think), at least without draconomicon, and golems have weaker damage and lower attack, especially with feats from Libris Mortis. The exception is greater stone golem (not his simulacrums).

I'm gonna go try to convince my DM of allowing polymorph any object >.<
Been avoiding that spell like the plague but, it's the only way of keeping me happy fluff wise because there aren't infinite good corpses, and with PaO they are, and it makes me independent of the environment. Wish me luck XD.

[Kelb_Panthera]

The source of confusion here is a side effect of the 3.0-3.5 conversion. In 3.5 they added the craft construct feat which behaves as any other crafting feat. The rules for golemns further emphasize the correlation between construct building and item crafting. Runic guardian's entry is out of date. The new (for a certain value of new) rules changed things.

Not that it matters with the time constraints of a "typical" campaign.

[RoboEmperor]

My quotes are from the d20srd, specifically the golem page, which I believe is 3.5. So everything except the runic guardian quote is 3.5.

Anyways, I just learned effigies can be crafted by anyone with craft construct so... looking stuff up about that XD, But that's off-topic.

[Kelb_Panthera]

My quotes are from the d20srd, specifically the golem page, which I believe is 3.5. So everything except the runic guardian quote is 3.5.

Anyways, I just learned effigies can be crafted by anyone with craft construct so... looking stuff up about that XD, But that's off-topic.

The SRD isn't the full text for the entry. It's a handy resource for many things but if you want the full, unabridged minutia then you have to look at the original source; the monster manual.

[RoboEmperor]

Monster manual says, on the Golem section


Creating a golem is essentially similar to creating any sort of magic item... Completing a golem's creation drains the appropriate XP from the creator and requires casting any spells on the final day. The creator must cast the spells personally, but they can come from outside souces, such as scrolls.

Anyways, effigies suck. Bleh, it's a trap! Their XP cost is on par with normal constructs.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Read the next paragraph.


... The characteristics of a golemn that come from its nature as a magic item (...) are given in summary form at the end of each golemn's description, in the same format used in chapter 7 of the dungeon master's guide.

Emphasis mine.

Don't be scared of xp costs. Xp is a river. Incidentally, the standard 1/25 of the market cost for xp costs is universal across all magic items.

[RoboEmperor]

A HA! PRAISE MY GOOGLE FU!


Construct; 10 ft./10 ft.; 10/adamantine; LA —;
Gains 30 bonus hit points (change to Construct type); HD become
17d10+30 (123 hp). Change attacks to 2 slams +18 melee (2d8+78 plus
stunning strike). Caster Level: 16th; Prerequisites: Craft Construct;
Market Price: 175,000 gp; Cost to Create: 97,500 gp (including 10,000
gp for the body) + 6,600 XP

3.5 UPDATE BOOKLET FOR RUNIC GUARDIAN!

Notice the +78 slam damage (probably a typo of +7 or +8)! And no spells required!

Anyways, I forgot to add another question

10. Runic Guardian with a once a day permanency, mainly to use on animate object casted by some outside source. Unlike simulacrum, this one is dispellable.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Huh. After a bit of research for myself, runic guardian's prerequisites, post-conversion, are way less restrictive than they should be.

The real problem remains. The ability to create permanent minions essentially at will is -very- high op. High enough that most DM's will have a problem with it. Exactly how you get there is irrelevant to this fundamental fact. Permanency 1/day is also pretty high powered in its own right though. Excepting animate objects, it's not too bad, depending on how much XP is pumped into it.

[RoboEmperor]

I think I'm set. Revive Undead + lord of the utterdark should allow me to not go dragon hunting after every battle. I'll create runic guardians only if the DM allows simulacrums, otherwise skip constructs entirely.

Quick off-topic question, does Eschew Materials allow you to cast simulacrum without having a piece of the base creature?

[Kelb_Panthera]

Quick off-topic question, does Eschew Materials allow you to cast simulacrum without having a piece of the base creature?

Technically, yes. Don't expect it to fly at a table though.

[RoboEmperor]

I just want to be clear on one thing.
No one seems to thing scrying, teleporting, and killing is high-op, and is in fact, acceptable in low-op.

So the following is acceptable in your low-op games?
1. Reach level 9 wizard
2. Scry a Juvenile Gold Dragon
3. Teleport and kill said dragon
4. Animate Dead the 17hd large dragon
5. Repeat 2-4, resulting in a total of 10,800xp, 7,500gp x 3 x 2 = 45000gp and two skeleton dragons
6. Repeat 2-5 whenever your dragons die (which shouldn't be often with the lord of the uttercold build) and you don't have revive undead, or when you want to upgrade your dragons to a higher HD.

And this is totally fine? :D

[Kelb_Panthera]

Scry and fry as a tactic for finding some random body you want to corpsify isn't particularly high-op but it only works on named foes if the DM doesn't know how to handle strategically relevant information. If you know enough about your foe to scry him at all he's already doing a poor job of protecting himself, regardless of class, and he's a fool if he doesn't have some sort of anti-divination protocol to protect himself in his base of operations.

I suppose that in the grand scheme of things, scry and fry probably falls in a mid to lower high-op position.

[OldTrees1]

I just want to be clear on one thing.
No one seems to thing scrying, teleporting, and killing is high-op, and is in fact, acceptable in low-op.

So the following is acceptable in your low-op games?
1. Reach level 9 wizard
2. Scry a Juvenile Gold Dragon
3. Teleport and kill said dragon
4. Animate Dead the 17hd large dragon
5. Repeat 2-4, resulting in a total of 10,800xp, 7,500gp x 3 x 2 = 45000gp and two skeleton dragons
6. Repeat 2-5 whenever your dragons die (which shouldn't be often with the lord of the uttercold build) and you don't have revive undead, or when you want to upgrade your dragons to a higher HD.

And this is totally fine? :D

Step 3 is dicey since it is 1 9th level PC against 1 CR 11 dragon. I would go for a 11 HD CR 7 one myself or hire the party with my share of the dragon hoard. In the end you are getting a minion with a CR of about half your level.

Seems fine to me.

[Troacctid]

It's also contingent on the existence of such a dragon, and your ability to defeat it. What if the only gold dragon in teleport range is an ancient wyrm who stomps your level 9 ass into the dirt?

[RoboEmperor]

It's also contingent on the existence of such a dragon, and your ability to defeat it. What if the only gold dragon in teleport range is an ancient wyrm who stomps your level 9 ass into the dirt?

I wouldn't engage an ancient wyrm. Duh. Especially not one that can kill me via ability score damage! Not until I can cast level 18 spells at least, unless of course, I decide to do what another person recommended me in my other thread (telekinesis a dust of choking and sneezing at the dragon and have 4-20 rounds of free maximized orb blasting)

My plan is to use my knowledge:arcana to know where dragons reside, use scry location to study that place, teleport there, and use legend lore to know where the dragons are. Then proceed to scrying, and then an assassination or two. If this is flawed or wrong, please give me a better way of locating some juvenile or young adult gold or red dragons :). Arguably though, every dragon has its own legend due to its treasure horde and whatnot.

I wouldn't go solo dragon hunting because you know, other players are with me and they don't like waiting around, and especially don't like me getting levels ahead of them. Not that I care. I just want to use deadly chill + skeletal dragon's full attack + wall of fire energy substitution cold lord of uttercold to keep it alive. :)

Using legend lore to find a dragon boneyard seems kind of cheesy and not reliable, or even a buried corpse. If someone here could convince me finding a dragon corpse is reliable and to-do-able in almost every game, then I'd be really happy :). Otherwise I'll stick to making my own corpses XD.

[Phelix-Mu]

Any dragon that isn't somehow foiling scrying on its hoard is doing it wrong. You can't honestly expect monomaniacal creatures of immense intelligence and age to be vulnerable to such basic tactics (unless your DM runs them with extreme simplicity).

Frankly, most of my dragons also have custom items or Craft Contingent Spells of scintillating scales, some form of energy immunity (usually fire or cold), contingent heals, traps to wish them back to life upon their death, summon traps or items to fix their action economy disadvantage (or standing pacts with fiends/celestials for assistance), and plans to allow them to teleport away in a pinch (in addition to more mundane escape plans). Oh, and the Draconomicon version of burning blood.

Cause, even if the dragon can't provide this stuff themselves, all but the poorest of them can muster the gold and intimidation necessary to pimp out their defenses in a way that few other creatures can.

[RoboEmperor]

Even if you guys are right about craft contingent and stuff, we're talking juvenile and young adult! Caster levels 3 and 5! Can't shield from scrying at those levels, let alone craft contingent stuff. Also, red and gold dragon have CLERIC spells. No levels 1-3 cleric spells do what you suggest :P

My DM doesn't allow draconomicon yet because he doesn't own it, so strongest dragon is a young adult gold dragon (20hd, highest STR), so that's my goal! But juveniles are soooooo much easier at the cost of 3 HD and 2 str.

So no one has any objections to my method of knowledge:arcana + Scry Location + teleport + legend lore + scrying to at least FIND those young adult and juvenile dragons?

[Troacctid]

Scrying targets a specific individual. You can't just use it to look for the nearest juvenile gold dragon. Maybe you can legend lore a bunch to find out about various legendary dragons, but it'll take ages, and even if the setting is one where dragons are plentiful and you can isolate and defeat a young adult, it's a good bet that Mama Wyrm won't take kindly to evil necromancers going all scry-and-die on their babies. Nor will the dragon's friends. Nor will Bahamut and his Clerics and Paladins.

And without Draconomicon, the strongest dragon (without templates or advancement) would be a Great Wyrm Gold Dragon (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/dragonTrue.htm#goldDragon), at CR 27 with 38 HD. The Monster Manual includes all age categories from wyrmling to great wyrm.

[RoboEmperor]

Strongest corpse you can animate with animate dead is 20HD without draconomicon, hence the young adult gold dragon.

I think arguably knowledge:arcana would give me a detailed information about the PLACE where dragons live, allowing me a scry location to study it for a teleport and using legend lore in that place is 10-40minutes. Juvenile Gold Dragons make the cut of "legendary" because they're CR11 :)

Scrying is just my way of making sure I encounter only one of them not a mob, although dust of choking and sneezing would totally allow me to take out mobs of at least juvenile and lower.

[OldTrees1]

And without Draconomicon, the strongest dragon (without templates or advancement) would be a Great Wyrm Gold Dragon (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/dragonTrue.htm#goldDragon), at CR 27 with 38 HD. The Monster Manual includes all age categories from wyrmling to great wyrm.

Interesting note: Such a dragon cannot be animated with Animate Dead unless including Draconomicon. With Draconomicon it ends up being a CR 13 skeletal Dragon.

Highest CR Skeleton without Draconomicon is 20HD CR 8.

[Troacctid]

Knowledge (Arcana) would tell you that gold dragons typically live in a warm plains environment, but it couldn't tell you if there's a gold dragon lair in Goldmeadow. It only gives you general information about dragons as a race, not about individual dragons. You'd need something more like Knowledge (Local), and even then it's only a maybe. Knowledge (History) or bardic knowledge could also work if the dragon is old enough and historically significant, but again, it's not guaranteed. Something like commune or contact other plane could help too.

[RoboEmperor]

Alright then
Contact other plane or
Long chains of legend lore since anything level 11 characters do and what they fight (CR11 monsters) are legendary, or..
Maybe access to a map? That way I know where the "warm mountains" are and legend lore the place to see if any legends of dragons are there. That's going to take ages >.< (2-6 weeks)

I know! Knowledge Geography! I'll know details about the region and that should be enough for a 1-10day legend lore.

Knowledge Arcana + Knowledge Geography + Legend Lore + Scry Location + Teleport + Legend Lore + Scrying

[RoboEmperor]

I've decided. I'm gonna go a summoner wizard. Probably generalist since I need enchantment to craft a greater stone golem, and I love greater heroism too much to throw it away.

At level 13 with an Ioun stone or just level 14 (depending on my wealth) I will create a greater stone golem. Whether it dies or not I won't care, but I will try to keep it alive.

If the greater stone golem dies, at level 15 I will use Ioun Stone Orange, ring of arcane might and Bead of karma to get my CL to 21 and craft a runic guardian with the greater stone golem simulacrum unless I don't have enough money. In that case I'll craft the runic guardian whenever I get the money.

At that level, getting a free 21HD golem a day is hardly OP in my opinion. As other members of the board said at those levels he who goes first always wins, and for this particular wizard I am dumping dex so in that sense I will lose all of my straight up fights v.s. a proper wizard who focuses on initiative, and the only way I can win is wearing him down with golems before engaging, but that is countered by him killing a couple golems and teleporting away since because I can only make 1 a day, he'll eventually get rid of my numbers.

Also, both mechanically and roleplay-wise, it's impractical to bring along an army of golems with you when you adventure. At most it's like 1-4. Not to mention because they can't fly they'll just get in each other's way. The reasons I go this route is
1. I want to be original
2. I love golems, unlike all the other games where you can only make undead
3. I want my 1st greater stone golem to be expendable
4. I like having minions. When i watch a hero kill hordes of monsters, I want to be the guy throwing the monsters at the hero.
5. I really, really like the fluff. I send a couple golems to do ___, another couple to do ___, keep a few as my personal body guard, I get to be my own organization sending support to kings or armies, etc.

Even a 1000 simulacrums can't take down a proper dragon, whose breath attacks are not subject to magic immunity, is AoE, does ridiculous damage to creatures who only have 115.5 hp, simulacrums can't hit a flying dragon, and dragon has infinite breath attacks

So to summarize
1. Having infinite 21hd golems won't do jack against a properly built mid-op wizard
2. Having infinite 21hd golems won't do jack against high CR monsters (dragons and the like)
3. Properly built mid-op wizard will accomplish more in an encounter with his spells.
4. Properly built mid-op fighter should easily annihilate the golems in a turn or two as they only have 26AC and 115.5hp.

Also, I am not power-gaming and simulacrum-ing planetars, pit fiends, etc. I am simulacrum-ing greater stone golems because I love golems. I would agree this tactic is Theoretical Optimization if I simulacrum solars, but I'm not. I'm just making beatsticks. Mundane beatsticks.

So all in all, it's not high op and is without a doubt suboptimal. I'd put it between low-mid op.

Only advantage I have by using all of my money and a lot of experience is I can start an organization and turn this game into a strategy game. A normal wizard can enter a beholders nest or a drow city and kill everyone with spells. My wizard however, can start a war and win through attrition. It's less effective and much more time consuming, but you get the point on what makes me happy :)

For those who have further doubt, picture a wizard casting 10 summon golems a day. Do you care? Cause these guys are going to be around the strength of those golems. I'm sure all of you will say that's a waste of level 9 spells, or in my case, waste of money and XP.

Unless of course, someone here tells me off that I am wrong and 21hd golems at level 16 is super game breaking.

note: I consider high-op as overpowered prestige class spamming (incantatrix), mid-op as a solid wizard player with no imbalanced expoilts (those who use nerveskitter + craft contingency celerity fall under mid-op), and low-op as a theme player, like a non-mailman blaster.