Fun with Flesh Golems, True Polymorph, and Glyph of Warding

[Kastor]

Im crafting a mini-campaign that centers in a lich's compound. In order to guard his compounds, he wants to staff the place with Flesh Golem guards. Golems are expensive and take a long time to make, so he thinks he has a workaround.

Before I go further, I want to note that while I do not structly need to adhere to spells from sourcebooks, I want to see if I can have this BBEG use as many standard spells and rules as possible, but will use supplementaries as needed.

The lich begins with a normal flesh golem. A template flesh golem. This one is created normally, and for fun's sake, he took some liberties to make it look nicer than your average flesh golem. Plus, it has an incision in its side for a future step!

Then, he takes an object, in this case an ordinary corpse, and casts True Polymorphs to turn it into a creature under CR9. In this case, it will be a Flesh Golem (CR5), a copy of the template. That way it still looks nice-ish. The lich concentrates for an hour, and the spell is permanent. Being a golem, when the spell becomes permanent, it should still be loyal to its creator.

However, he would rather not have the secret that theyre polymorphed golems come out, rather than normally created ones. Therefore, he makes a self-destruct method: He casts Glyph of Warding upon a 1 square foot tablet, and inserts the tablet into the ribcage of the golem. The Glyph is set to Explosive Runes: Electricity, and the trigger condition is when the golem it is inserted in ceases to be a golem. This means it will either trigger when the golem reaches 0hp, and the True Polymorph spell ends, thus turning it back into a corpse, or should the True Polymorph be dispelled another way. Now, should the golem fall, it will not only self-destruct, but also heal and empower nearby flesh golems.

Now, I recognize Im skirting some technical rules with Glyph of Warding, by having it cast upon a surface and ostensibly sidestepping the cast on closeable object clause that the glyph can move no more than 10 feet. That aside...

Are there any weaknesses to this setup? Has this lich truly come up with a method using standard spells to create cheap golems that self-destruct?

[JNAProductions]

True Polymorph broken, more at eleven. :P

The issue is, as you noted, Glyph Of Warding. As soon as the golem moves more than 10' from their Warded spot... It's inactive.

[Kastor]

Thats true when cast within a closeable object. The conditions for casting on a surface do not in RAW have that condition. If the tablet counts as a surface, then we could easily break out the classic fabricate loophole and make a valid surface that can easily be removed. But that feels worse than just saying the tablet counts as a surface.

Its obeying the letter of the law, not the spirit of the law... but I'll be the DM for this, dangit! I am the law!
Glyphs aside, however... would this not work?

[JNAProductions]

Thats true when cast within a closeable object. The conditions for casting on a surface do not in RAW have that condition. If the tablet counts as a surface, then we could easily break out the classic fabricate loophole and make a valid surface that can easily be removed. But that feels worse than just saying the tablet counts as a surface.

Its obeying the letter of the law, not the spirit of the law... but I'll be the DM for this, dangit! I am the law!
Glyphs aside, however... would this not work?

No, it works, minus Glyph.

[Darth Credence]

Thats true when cast within a closeable object. The conditions for casting on a surface do not in RAW have that condition. If the tablet counts as a surface, then we could easily break out the classic fabricate loophole and make a valid surface that can easily be removed. But that feels worse than just saying the tablet counts as a surface.

Its obeying the letter of the law, not the spirit of the law... but I'll be the DM for this, dangit! I am the law!
Glyphs aside, however... would this not work?


When you cast this spell, you inscribe a glyph that later unleashes a magical effect. You inscribe it either on a surface (such as a table or a section of floor or wall) or within an object that can be closed (such as a book, a scroll, or a treasure chest) to conceal the glyph. The glyph can cover an area no larger than 10 feet in diameter. If the surface or object is moved more than 10 feet from where you cast this spell, the glyph is broken, and the spell ends without being triggered.

Glyph doesn't work, other things do. But he's a lich, who gave his life to have access to more powerful magic than a mortal (that's my headcanon for why anyone would be a lich), so he's probably worked out a similar spell without such a drawback.

[Kastor]

Huh, thats odd. The source I was using to look at Glyph of warding words it differently, and only specified objects have the movement condition, but not surfaces. Was there later errata?

[JackPhoenix]

Wouldn't work anyway unless you rule the golem isn't destroyed at 0 HP. Healing doesn't work if you're already dead.

[Chronos]

Re-read the OP. He's not trying to heal the dead golem. He's trying to completely destroy the corpse of the former-golem, while also healing any other golems that happen to be around (the lich plans to have many of them).

[Theodoxus]

I agree with JNA that true polymorph is busted af. I do not agree with them on your interpretation of glyph of warding. You're the AO of your little universe, the lich gets to follow whatever non-conventional spell decisions you make. So, unless this is AL where you're pretty locked into the current errata and RAW, you're free to modify whatever you want.

I like the idea. I would hate to fight some unknown number of flesh golems that explode in lightning... And if I were a Wizard in that campaign, and survived, I would be scouring all over the place for this special glyph spell that skirted the normal rules.

As an aside, I'd place a GoW spell that didn't have a movement restriction probably at 5th, maybe 6th level. Still completely fine for a lich :)

[tokek]

The bit I don't get is why not just stitch a load of dead body parts into an object - TP that object into a Flesh Golem and then if TP ends it turns back into exactly what you expected a dead Flesh Golem to look like anyway.

It would take serious magical investigation to spot that the destroyed golem was never a proper golem because it looks exactly like you expect - a bunch of body parts sewn together that are now hacked apart and de-animated.

The same generally goes for TP that you don't want to be obvious. In-game we did one with a dead body into a humanoid once - when it was killed the killers had a dead body which was exactly what they were expecting after stabbing it to death so they never stopped to study it in detail.

[Kastor]

The bit I don't get is why not just stitch a load of dead body parts into an object - TP that object into a Flesh Golem and then if TP ends it turns back into exactly what you expected a dead Flesh Golem to look like anyway.

It would take serious magical investigation to spot that the destroyed golem was never a proper golem because it looks exactly like you expect - a bunch of body parts sewn together that are now hacked apart and de-animated.

The same generally goes for TP that you don't want to be obvious. In-game we did one with a dead body into a humanoid once - when it was killed the killers had a dead body which was exactly what they were expecting after stabbing it to death so they never stopped to study it in detail.

Several things to note here. Firstly, the template would look nicer than just "a bunch of body parts sewn together", and the lich in question wants them to look nice. Nice enough that, at a distance, their nature wouldn't be obvious.

Secondly, if one template works, why not several? That would be the idea, but I omitted that from the original premise since if it works for one template, it could work for any template. Several models with different cosmetic variations.

Thirdly, the topic of stitching several things together to make another object sounds like extra work. Why not just take a random corpse, irrespective of any other qualities? Much easier. So long as its meat and blood, it'll explode the same. And what point does connecting several smaller things truly become a single object? I don't know, and I'd rather avoid the issue altogether. Kaboom.

Fourthly, it wouldnt take "serious magical investigation" if there was no self-destruct. It would take someone noticing the discrepancy between how it appeared before and after. And dont say its "all hacked up flesh"- I think you'd notice if the golem you were fighting had a mix of fair and dark skin, only to see a corpse with one or the other. Or a golem with adult arms, but a corpse with one childs arm. And trying to match those qualities up is, again, extra effort. Better and easier to just have a single corpse. And one that explodes, to boot.

Fifthly, theres going to be a lot of these. It would be strange if they all looked uniform in combat, but left very different corpses once the TP ends upon death. It would only be a matter of time until someone notices. Given the long lives liches lead, predicting predicaments and preparing properly is their prerogative.

Sixthly, it punishes the possibility of an problematic Dispel Magic. Its unlikely, but this is an issue of scale. Accounting for contingencies consistently creates fewer problems. This way, casting dispel magic isnt simply a "kill the golem" dice roll- its a chance to turn it into a bomb that empowers all its allies in a 20-foot radius.

And finally, if someone was able to produce a bit under 400 golems in a year, for goodness knows how many years, i think some magical experts (and the politcal leaders who fund them) would be keenly interested in learning how thats possible. As someone else noted, they'd be scouring the place for the GoW variant used to make the self-destruct possible. Why wouldn't that curiosity exist for a mass-production method? Autopsies are an obvious method to learning more, so any action that deprives them of knowledge is advantageous to the lich.