Why flesh golem are Large?

[Conradine]

If a flesh golem is made by six parts ( limbs, head, torso ) taken from Medium-sized creatures shouldn't the golem be Medium sized as well?

And, by the way, why not simply use a single body, which already has limbs, torso and head?

[Batcathat]

Maybe it's a holistic golem? :smallwink:

[noob]

If a flesh golem is made by six parts ( limbs, head, torso ) taken from Medium-sized creatures shouldn't the golem be Medium sized as well?

And, by the way, why not simply use a single body, which already has limbs, torso and head?

You do not know which parts are used.



The pieces of a flesh golem must come from normal human corpses that have not decayed significantly. Assembly requires a minimum of six different bodies—one for each limb, the torso (including head), and the brain. In some cases, more bodies may be necessary. Special unguents and bindings worth 500 gp are also required. Note that creating a flesh golem requires casting a spell with the evil descriptor.

So maybe each arm is an entire corpse.
Images not fitting the real creature are a nearly systematic thing: the artist probably did think "Frankenstein's monster" while it was supposed to be a pile of corpses that looks like an human shaped human pyramid.




A flesh golem is a ghoulish collection of stolen humanoid body parts, stitched together into a single composite form. No natural animal willingly tracks a flesh golem. The golem wears whatever clothing its creator desires, usually just a ragged pair of trousers. It has no possessions and no weapons. It stands 8 feet tall and weighs almost 500 pounds.
nowhere does it say that for example its arms are arms of former living creatures so each arm could take all the materials of a corpse for example.

So it is a case of "the picture does not fits the description".

[awa]

If a flesh golem is made by six parts ( limbs, head, torso ) taken from Medium-sized creatures shouldn't the golem be Medium sized as well?

And, by the way, why not simply use a single body, which already has limbs, torso and head?

because Frankenstein, its the only real reason.

Now if you want a possible in game reason you could say that the corpse swells with the power channeled through it. Or that in order to contain the power your taking more than just a limb and the extra mass adds up to size large.

[SimonMoon6]

because Frankenstein, its the only real reason.

A better question is "Why is Frankenstein's monster so large?" but that question is never really answered in the book. It's not exactly stated how Dr. Frankenstein created the body of the monster, iirc, leaving it somewhat vague.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Given the expected use of a golem, why wouldn't you use the largest bodies you can find? It's not so uncommon for the largest medium humanoids to be just under the line for large so picking from the biggest of them for each part could easily push just over the line. Bit of frame to hold things together could get you a few inches here and there too.

[Psyren]

If a flesh golem is made by six parts ( limbs, head, torso ) taken from Medium-sized creatures shouldn't the golem be Medium sized as well?

And, by the way, why not simply use a single body, which already has limbs, torso and head?

You need 6 bodies, not merely 6 parts. 6 bodies of medium creatures definitely will be bigger than Medium once you fuse them all.

[Batcathat]

A better question is "Why is Frankenstein's monster so large?" but that question is never really answered in the book. It's not exactly stated how Dr. Frankenstein created the body of the monster, iirc, leaving it somewhat vague.

Would the original monster even qualify as large by D&D standards? It's been a while since I read the book but I envisioned the monster as pretty much normal human size (if a bit on the tall side, since Frankenstein tried to make it as magnificent as possible).

[Lvl 2 Expert]

A better question is "Why is Frankenstein's monster so large?" but that question is never really answered in the book. It's not exactly stated how Dr. Frankenstein created the body of the monster, iirc, leaving it somewhat vague.

He had built it as the most magnificent, perfect example of a man, and to the good Dr. this apparently meant it being a Schwarzeneggerian giant bulking with muscles from all angles. (Or it was a kind of big muscled guy anyway. I can't imagine there is too much room to be picky on the dead body parts market.) I can only imagine what kind of private parts the Dr. attached going by that philosophy. As soon as the monster came to life all the beauty departed the creature, it was clear to Dr. Frankenstein that this was an unholy abomination (or well, you know, just not what he had wanted it to be), but its size and strength remained.

Adaptations in visual media are probably to blame for blowing the monster up further to "Okay, how do you make that from human parts?" sizes.

As a D&D explanation I'm fine with either "there is a lot of overlap and extra parts and limbs being stitched together from multiple base creature limbs" or "the process makes the creature grow and bloat and mutate and stuff". Maybe both.

I am kind of intrigued now though. If you really wanted to, could you use six medium sized creatures to make a golem of medium or even small size? And are there upper limits to the size enhancing effects? Like, if there were somehow six tarrasques, and you cought them all...

[liquidformat]

If a flesh golem is made by six parts ( limbs, head, torso ) taken from Medium-sized creatures shouldn't the golem be Medium sized as well?

And, by the way, why not simply use a single body, which already has limbs, torso and head?

Please refer to Human Centipede, and your welcome for the nightmares...

[ShurikVch]

FWIW, monstrous class for Flesh Golem (Savage Species) didn't give Large size until 14th level
Also, Verran’s Flesh Golems (http://archive.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=dnd/mm/mm20010511a)

[awa]

Would the original monster even qualify as large by D&D standards? It's been a while since I read the book but I envisioned the monster as pretty much normal human size (if a bit on the tall side, since Frankenstein tried to make it as magnificent as possible).

Its been a long time since I read the original but Wikipedia indicates it was 8ft tall which is on the small end of large but an 8ft tall muscular man would easily weigh more then a gorilla which are also size large.

[unseenmage]

It's because that extra size category is where they hide all the evil, evil necromancy required for animating corpse-flesh.

[StSword]

He had built it as the most magnificent, perfect example of a man, and to the good Dr. this apparently meant it being a Schwarzeneggerian giant bulking with muscles from all angles. (Or it was a kind of big muscled guy anyway. I can't imagine there is too much room to be picky on the dead body parts market.) I can only imagine what kind of private parts the Dr. attached going by that philosophy. As soon as the monster came to life all the beauty departed the creature, it was clear to Dr. Frankenstein that this was an unholy abomination, but its size and strength remained.

No, a human sized body had parts that were too minute for his hand eye coordination.

"As the minuteness of the parts formed a great hindrance to my speed, I resolved, contrary to my first intention, to make the being of the gigantic stature; that is to say, about eight feet in height, and proportionaly large"

Frankenstein also harvested from the "dissecting room and slaughterhouse."

So, despite how all the movies portray it, I suspect the book Frankenstein basically crafted his giant not out of parts, but out of biomass he then chemically/alchemically shaped into the image of man.

[KillianHawkeye]

I am kind of intrigued now though. If you really wanted to, could you use six medium sized creatures to make a golem of medium or even small size? And are there upper limits to the size enhancing effects? Like, if there were somehow six tarrasques, and you cought them all...

Well now you've done it. Now I want a tarrasque Voltron. :smallcool:

[unseenmage]

Well now you've done it. Now I want a tarrasque Voltron. :smallcool:

Then DragonMech has literal undead mechs, Pathfinder has Necrocrafts (https://aonprd.com/MonsterDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Necrocraft), and Spheres of Power has a CP ability (http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/enhancement#toc108) for animated objects (just animate the dead stuff) that let's you wear them as armor and/or limbs.