Golem Craft help

[powerdemon]

So I was looking through the various Monster Manuals looking for golems/constructs for my wizard to make. I came across the Clockwork Mender from MM IV. The swarm has a much better repair ability (1 HP per round rather than 1d8 per day). I looked up swarm rules and it takes 1000 tiny flying creatures to make a swarm. That works out to 1,250,000 GP and 68000 XP not to mention the time. Ouchies. Anyone have a better way to go about this?

[Telonius]

I can't seem to find the reference now, but in a recent thread someone mentioned a monster that can swallow something whole, then spit out several exact duplicates. It might take some time, but get yourself one of these monsters, make one of your little golem gizmos, then have him make a thousand duplicates.

[Starscream]

I would personally treat a Swarm of Clockwork Menders as an entirely separate entity than 1000 individual Menders.

According to MM4, a swarm of the things is CR3. A single one is CR 1/2. I'm not sure what the CR for a thousand CR 1/2 creatures is, but 5 or 6 of them equals a CR 3 encounter.

So I'd simply ask the DM to rule that a building a swarm of menders costs the same as making 5 or 6 individual ones, with the limitation that they must act as a swarm, i.e. you can't command them individually and they all die at once.

After all, there is a 4th level spell that can summon a clockwork mender swarm, so making one shouldn't be that expensive. Certainly there are no 4th level spells that can summon 1,250,000 gp worth of constructs.

[powerdemon]

After all, there is a 4th level spell that can summon a clockwork mender swarm, so making one shouldn't be that expensive. Certainly there are no 4th level spells that can summon 1,250,000 gp worth of constructs.

Exactly. That sounds a lot more reasonable. 4 of them equals CR 3.

[Eldariel]

Generally it's best to go with an Effigy. They're in Complete Arcana and you can get pretty much whatever you want. Greater Stone Golem from good ol' Monster Manual weighting in at ~100k gp to make is also a solid Fighter-replacement that tosses DC31 Slows around (Huge though). Many of the auxillary Golems are really of interest for a Constructor.

List of Constructs and Best Effigies may be of interest to you.

[Starscream]

Exactly. That sounds a lot more reasonable. 4 of them equals CR 3.

Yeah, four of them would also have a total of about 20 hp. A thousand of them would have 5000 hp. And yet, a swarm only had 22 hp.

Clearly there are not a thousand menders in a swarm.

[powerdemon]

Also, when it says cost in the construction area, that means how much it costs to make right? I don't 1/2 that for making it myself right?

[Alleine]

Correct. It's just the construction requirements.
I find it interesting that they're listed as never sold. I wonder why.

[powerdemon]

What if I want to craft a golem but one or more of the spells needed is a prohibited school? How can I get around this?

What is the cost reduction for making the golem body yourself?

[Alleine]

Get a buddy who has the spell on their list, or, barring that, buy a scroll of it. Having a buddy is cheaper, but a scroll works just as well.

Edit: There is no cost reduction for making the body yourself. You're supposed to do it anyway, or so the golem entries in the MM seem to suggest.

In the Eberron Campaign Setting book there are three feats to help with stuff like this. One of them reduces the XP used by 25%, another one reduces the cost by 25%, and the last one reduces the time spent by 25%.

[powerdemon]

I thought you couldn't cast spells from scrolls if they were of prohibited schools. And I don't have teh Ebberon books

[Alleine]

Oh, right. You could always get the party bard or rogue with UMD to do it, assuming your party has a bard or rogue and that they have ranks in UMD.

I find this site useful for those pesky feats you don't have books for, or those feats you can't find, or the feats that you have but don't know exist because there's just too many books to sift through.

[powerdemon]

I find this site useful for those pesky feats you don't have books for, or those feats you can't find, or the feats that you have but don't know exist because there's just too many books to sift through.

Holy niceness!

[Starscream]

Yeah, I love that site. There's nothing more annoying than pawing through my books to find some obscure feat or spell.

[powerdemon]

Yeah, four of them would also have a total of about 20 hp. A thousand of them would have 5000 hp. And yet, a swarm only had 22 hp.

Clearly there are not a thousand menders in a swarm.

DM didn't like that. He said there are way more than 4 in a swarm. I agree it is a little low number wise. But he is considering letting them use their repair ability up to a max/day equal to either 8 each or 5 each. So a "swarm" of 4 would be able to heal 1 hp/round up to a max of 32/day or 20/day depending on which one he chooses.