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View Full Version : D&D 3.x Class Infernal Heart Golem (Template class) PEACH



fire_insideout
2017-04-30, 08:36 AM
Hi there,

Yesterday I started thinking that it was weird that constructs can't have regeneration in 3.5 (since they're missing a con score), since robots (magical or not) being self repairing is a pretty common trope. This led me into thinking about golems and how that would work and I ended up with imagining a iron golem which is filled with molten metal on the inside, which is then used to repair any damage done to the outer shell. This reminded me of the golem-thing 'The Destroyer' which Thor and his party battles in the first Thor movie, and from there came this template class thing.

It's intended to work with both a regular Iron Golem from the MM, but also with Oslecamo's monster class (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=1500.0), hence the min HD requirement.


Infernal Heart Golem

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-tV0UYV5es3s/UShmoZ-xxRI/AAAAAAAAAC4/zz5KpPbrJWE/s1600/bio_destroyer.png

Requirements:To qualify to become an infernal heart golem, a character must fullfill all the following criteria:
Type: Construct
Special:

Must be healed by fire damage.
Must have 13 HD or more.


Hit die: d10
Class skills: An infernal heart golem gains no new class skills
Skill points: 2+int mod (minimum 1)/level



Level
BAB
Fort
Ref
Wis
Special


1
+0
+0
+0
+0
Malleable exterior, +2 Str


2
+1
+0
+0
+0
Infernal Lance, +1 Str


3
+2
+1
+1
+1
Molten core, +1 Str



Class features

Weapons and armor proficiencies: An infernal heart golem gains no new proficiencies with weapons or armor.

Ability increase (Ex): At 1st level the infernal heart golem receives a +2 bonus to strength, and a +1 bonus to strength at level 2 and 3, for a total of +4 strength.

Malleable exterior (Ex): Using the raging heat within its shell, an infernal heart golem can reshape itself. Although its inflexible mind cannot comprehend anything but the most basic of changes, this is enough to give it a surprising advantage in combat.
An infernal heart golem cannot be flanked, unless the attacker has at least for more levels of rogue class than the golem has HD (other classes such as Ninja or Swordsage might be applicable too, as per the DM’s discretion.).
The infernal heart golem receives a +10 bonus to all grapple checks.

Infernal lance (Su): Focusing the terrible heat which resides within it, an infernal heart golem can produce a lance of fire from either its chest or head, scorching its opponents and melting through most materials.
As a standard action, discharge a 100 ft. long line of fire, dealing 15d6 of damage, half of which is fire, half of which is untyped. Creatures in the area can attempt a reflex save for half damage against 15+Str mod.
Objects hit by the lance have their hardness reduced by half for 1d20 turns after having been hit, as the heat of the attack lowers their structural integrity.

Molten core (Su): The magics that once powered the infernal heart golem have now completely succumbed to the heat of its infernal core. The fire spreads through the golem’s body as a nervous system, instantly repairing any damage wrought upon the constructs body by bringing forth molten metal and rapidly cooling it.

The infernal heart golem gains a special kind of regeneration equal to its Str mod. Unlike normal regeneration, damage done to a infernal heart golem is not considered non-lethal damage, instead, the golem ignores all damage that would be dealt to it as long as this ability is active. For every point of damage ignored, one point is added to the golem's ‘heat pool’. The number of points in the heat pool is reduced by the golem’s Str mod each round, down to a minimum of 0. Depending on the number of points in the heat pool different effects are triggered. Refer to the table below for details. Acid still deals damage as normal to an infernal heart golem. In all other ways this works as regular regeneration (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#regeneration).



Heat pool points
Effect


½ of total hit points or higher.
The golem adds +4d6 of fire damage to all natural attacks.


Equal to total hit points or higher.
Affected by a continuous Haste effect


2x total hit points.
Overload



Overload: Once the golem has 2x its hit point total or more in the pool its molten core overloads. The molten core, infernal lance and malleable exterior abilities are all unusable until the golem has rested for at least 8 hours.

Westhart
2017-04-30, 04:44 PM
Hi there,

Yesterday I started thinking that it was weird that constructs can't have regeneration in 3.5 (since they're missing a con score), since robots (magical or not) being self repairing is a pretty common trope. This led me into thinking about golems and how that would work and I ended up with imagining a iron golem which is filled with molten metal on the inside, which is then used to repair any damage done to the outer shell. This reminded me of the golem-thing 'The Destroyer' which Thor and his party battles in the first Thor movie, and from there came this template class thing.

It's intended to work with both a regular Iron Golem from the MM, but also with Oslecamo's monster class, hence the min HD requirement.


Infernal Heart Golem

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-tV0UYV5es3s/UShmoZ-xxRI/AAAAAAAAAC4/zz5KpPbrJWE/s1600/bio_destroyer.png

Requirements:To qualify to become an infernal heart golem, a character must fullfill all the following criteria:
Type: Construct
Special:

Must be healed by fire damage.
Must have 13 HD or more.


Hit die: d10
Class skills: An infernal heart golem gains no new class skills
Skill points: 2+int mod (minimum 1)/level



Level
BAB
Fort
Ref
Wis
Special


1
+0
+0
+0
+0
Malleable exterior, +2 Str


2
+1
+0
+0
+0
Infernal Lance, +1 Str


3
+2
+1
+1
+1
Molten core, +1 Str



Class features

Weapons and armor proficiencies: An infernal heart golem gains no new proficiencies with weapons or armor.

Ability increase: At 1st level the infernal heart golem receives a +2 bonus to strength, and a +1 bonus to strength at level 2 and 3, for a total of +4 strength.

Malleable exterior: Using the raging heat within its shell, an infernal heart golem can reshape itself. Although its inflexible mind cannot comprehend anything but the most basic of changes, this is enough to give it a surprising advantage in combat.

An infernal heart golem cannot be flanked, unless the attacker has at least for more levels of rogue class than the golem has HD (other classes such as Ninja or Swordsage might be applicable too, as per the DM’s discretion.).

The infernal heart golem receives a +10 bonus to all grapple checks.


Infernal lance: Focusing the terrible heat which resides within it, an infernal heart golem can produce a lance of fire from either its chest or head, scorching its opponents and melting through most materials.

As a standard action, discharge a 100 ft. long line of fire, dealing 15d6 of damage, half of which is fire, half of which is untyped. Creatures in the area can attempt a reflex save for half damage against 15+Str mod.

Objects hit by the lance have their hardness reduced by half for 1d20 turns after having been hit, as the heat of the attack lowers their structural integrity.


Molten core: The magics that once powered the infernal heart golem have now completely succumbed to the heat of its infernal core. The fire spreads through the golem’s body as a nervous system, instantly repairing any damage wrought upon the constructs body by bringing forth molten metal and rapidly cooling it.

The infernal heart golem gains a special kind of regeneration equal to its Str mod. Unlike normal regeneration, damage done to a infernal heart golem is not considered non-lethal damage. Instead, damage done to the golem is added to a ‘heat pool’. The heat pool is reduced by the golem’s Str mod each round. Depending on the number of points in the heat pool different effects are triggered. Refer to the table below for details. Acid still deals damage as normal to an infernal heart golem.



Heat pool points
Effect


½ of total hit points or higher.
The golem adds +4d6 of fire damage to all natural attacks.


Equal to total hit points or higher.
Affected by a continuous Haste effect


2x total hit points.
Overload



Overload: Once the golem has 2x its hit point total or more in the pool its molten core overloads. The molten core, infernal lance and malleable exterior abilities are all unusable until the golem has rested for at least 8 hours.

Unfortunately I will not have time to PEACH until tomorrow my first though from a quick look over is:
If they are taking damage from the attacks that go in the heat pool then they die at total HP=0... Unless they do not take damage at all? after all it is not nonlethal...

aimlessPolymath
2017-04-30, 05:25 PM
The word you are looking at for Molten Core is Fast Healing, not regeneration, because that's essentially what you're doing mechanically (other than the acid damage not getting healed, which will be a bitch to track, because it's all regular damage). Constructs normally don't get regeneration because they don't have a Constitution score. Bizarrely, technically, if there were a construct with a Constitution score, it would still have immunity to nonlethal damage, and so would ignore all damage taken.
(Note to self: abuse this later)

However, they can get Fast Healing normally, which is not restricted.

Given how difficult this class is to qualify normally, you might want to consider simply making it a template. Specifically, it's virtually impossible to gain healing from fire damage normally while simultaneously being able to take class levels (being intelligent is a prerequisite to taking levels). Awaken Construct on an appropriate golem is the only way I can think of other than Ryklar Madclaws with class levels. Given your mentions of "limited intelligence" in the class, I feel pretty sure that you intend for golems, even those not awakened, to take the class- in order for them to do this, it needs to be a regular template.

Edit: It's possible that I just totally misunderstood the system of heat. Is it that damage reduced, instead of being dealt as normal damage, is dealt to the Heat pool? If so, this is an absurdly good class, because it essentially doubles the construct's hit points (on an already bulky monster), plus boosts its damage by a lot halfway through the fight.

fire_insideout
2017-05-01, 07:44 AM
Unfortunately I will not have time to PEACH until tomorrow my first though from a quick look over is:
If they are taking damage from the attacks that go in the heat pool then they die at total HP=0... Unless they do not take damage at all? after all it is not nonlethal...

Clarified how Molten Core works. Damage is ignored until the pool is filled and the golem overloads.


The word you are looking at for Molten Core is Fast Healing, not regeneration, because that's essentially what you're doing mechanically (other than the acid damage not getting healed, which will be a bitch to track, because it's all regular damage). Constructs normally don't get regeneration because they don't have a Constitution score. Bizarrely, technically, if there were a construct with a Constitution score, it would still have immunity to nonlethal damage, and so would ignore all damage taken.

Thanks, but what I was going for was not fast healing, but regeneration. The acid damage doing normal damage will be as much of a bitch in this case as it is for all other creatures with regeneration which is bypassed by something, so I'm not too worried of that. I noted some of this already in the 'Background' spoiler at the start of the OP.


(Note to self: abuse this later)

For abuse, what you are looking for is a Warforged w. regeneration and then taking levels in the warforged juggernaut class.


However, they can get Fast Healing normally, which is not restricted.
But also much less powerful, which is the main reason behind the class.


Given how difficult this class is to qualify normally, you might want to consider simply making it a template. Specifically, it's virtually impossible to gain healing from fire damage normally while simultaneously being able to take class levels (being intelligent is a prerequisite to taking levels). Awaken Construct on an appropriate golem is the only way I can think of other than Ryklar Madclaws with class levels. Given your mentions of "limited intelligence" in the class, I feel pretty sure that you intend for golems, even those not awakened, to take the class- in order for them to do this, it needs to be a regular template.

The class is indeed intended for golems, iron golems specifically. However, I did not want to make a template, as I find those restrictive and clumsy, and harder to balance since they don't give HD as a class does. With a class you can, as a DM (or player if you're playing an iron golem) choose exactly how many levels you want, which abilities you want etc. for a given creature.


Edit: It's possible that I just totally misunderstood the system of heat. Is it that damage reduced, instead of being dealt as normal damage, is dealt to the Heat pool? If so, this is an absurdly good class, because it essentially doubles the construct's hit points (on an already bulky monster), plus boosts its damage by a lot halfway through the fight.

Clarified how Molten Core works. Damage is ignored until the pool is filled and the golem overloads.

Actually it triples the HP while molten core is active, while giving it a significant healing ability. However, if you apply this to a standard iron golem, you should probably raise its CR by 3, and a CR 16 creature with powerful regeneration and a significant damage increase isn't unreasonable IMO.


Thanks for the feedback! :smallbiggrin: