Golem Making (4e Variant Rule)

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Golem Making

Design Note: This rule is intended as a possible replacement for the extant rituals. It draws on crafting standards from previous editions.

Ever wanted to make a servant for yourself out of whatever was lying around? If your enemies can make Golems out of flesh, fire, mud, and the kitchen sink, why can't you? It takes a bit of money and some trial and error as well as time and material. But if you have all those things and the patience and mental fortitude, there is little else stopping you from making yourself the Golem of your dreams!

Below are two tables for Golem making. There are your normal Golems, made of the usual materials. There is also one for exotic Golems serve particular tastes or have hard-to-acquire materials. Like a typical ritual, the process of making the golems requires the key skill of Arcana (no check), but with the added need for certain specific materials instead of just gold. Some of the golems may have additional trained skills needed, and they may include variant skills. If you have the materials within parentheses, you only need to pay 100 gp to enchant the materials to create your golem. Otherwise, you pay the component price in full.

Design Note: When the Heal skill is listed as a required skill, it is less about healing and more about knowledge of anatomy and medicine.

You can find the stat blocks for the golems either on the superscript notes or on the miscellaneous golem index.

Base Golem Design

Level	Golem	Time	Component Cost	Market Price	Hit Points	Additional Skills
15	ClayMM2,134	1 hour	1,500gp (1,000 lbs of clay)	21,000 gp	368	—
8	Blood	1 hour	500 gp (the blood of 16 Medium humanoids)	1,000 gp	80	Heal
10	Brain	1 hour	3,000 gp (8 humanoid brains)	5,000 gp	96	Religion, Arcana
12	FleshMM142	1 hour	2,600 gp (6 different bodies of flesh)	3,000 gp	304	—
12	BoneMM2,133	1 hour	1,000 gp (1,000 lbs of bones treated with oil and shellac)	10,000 gp	302	Heal
17	StoneMM142	8 hours	13,000 gp (3,000 lbs of hard stone)	325,000 gp	336	Crafting
20	IronMM2,134	8 hours	10,000 gp (5,000 lbs of smelted iron)	150,000 gp	386	Crafting
13	DuneDSCC57	1 hour	3,500 gp (1,500 lbs of sand and soft earth)	10,000 gp	184	—
11	SaltDSCC56	1 hour	3,000 gp (1,000 lbs of coarse salt)	3,500 gp	278	Nature
14	Copper	8 hours	20,000 gp (18,000 lbs of copper ore)	180,000 gp	320	—
11	Mud	1 hour	300 gp	500 gp	100	Nature
5	Ice	1 hour	500 gp (1,000 lbs of ice)	18,500 gp	53	Nature
4	Soil	1 hour	100 gp (500 lbs of earth)	500gp	42	Nature
5	Rope	1 hour	200 gp (200 lbs of rope, special bindings, and powders)	14,200 gp	53	Crafting
6	Wood	1 hour	19,300 gp (blocks of fine wood and herbs)	300 gp	64	Crafting
12	CadaverOG156	1 day	1,200 gp (at least 4 Medium corpses of any kind)	100 gp	228	Religion, Heal

Base Exotic Golem Design

Level	Golem	Time	Component Cost	Market Price	Hit Points
8	Magma	30 days	20,000 gp	40,000 gp	300
14	TreasureDM164,96	10 days	10,000gp (1,000 lbs of gold, jewels, etc.)	500,000 gp	700
18	Mantrap	8 hours	15,000 gp (500 lbs of metal trap parts)	45,000 gp	354
14	CrystalDM367,43	1 day	7,000gp (2,750 lbs of cut crystal)	127,000 gp	216
19	ObsidianDSCC57	5 days	8,500gp (2,500 lbs of obsidian)	130,000 gp	358
22	ChainMM2,133	5 days	3,000 gp (1,000 lbs of iron chains)	15,000 gp	418
18	Mithral	10 days	250,000 gp (3,000 lbs of mithral)	50,000 gp	276
27	Adamantine	15 days	525,000 gp (4,000 lbs of adamantine and other precious metals)	100,000 gp	337
9	Alchemical	1 day	33,000 gp (50 lbs of alchemical items)	3,000 gp	96
8	Glass	8 hours	17,000 gp (1,000 lbs of glass)	1,000 gp	96
7	WebDQE17	20 days	1,000 gp	100 gp	272
12	Burning	3 months	60,000 gp	200,000 gp	304
9	Coral	8 hours	57,000 gp (1,000 lbs of coral)	3,500 gp	96

To create a Golem, you must spend the time shown on the table, working without interruption with the manual at hand and resting no more than 8 hours per day. You must also pay the specified cost to purchase supplies. The above table shows the base for a golem in their default size. Use the table below to calculate added costs and time needed to construct a Golem with varying size.

Size Variable

Size	Added Cost	Added Time	Added Hit Points
Tiny	1/2 cost	1/4 time spent	1/4 hitpoints
Small	1x cost	1/2 time spent	1/2 hitpoints
Medium	1x cost	1x time spent	1x hitpoints
Large	2.5x cost	2.5x time spent	3x hitpoints

Creating Bigger Golems

If you want to make a golem larger than Large size, you instead make a juggernaut, which uses the iron golem juggernaut stat block on page 135 of Monster Manual 2.

Repairing a Golem

As a Golem is not a living thing, it is strictly interpreted with the construct keyword and therefore cannot benefit from healing spells or effects that heal living things. You therefore must spend time repairing them mundanely, or use the make whole ritual. For every 20 hit points you repair mundanely, you must spend an uninterrupted hour fixing the Golem, and you must have at least 1/8th of the component cost on hand when doing so, which is consumed once you are done repairing. The cost of components and time increases as you make heftier repairs. If you are somehow trained in the shaping of the relevant material, such as a blacksmith for simple metals, or a potter for clay-shaping, the time is reduced by half. The cost is unchanged.

Outfitting a Golem

Sometimes you want to invest more than just creation into these minions. Golems are very difficult to outfit due to their body types. However, by making them, you do have the option of enhancing them like you would a magic item. Golems have only one enhancement slot, which can be outfitted with an accessory from the table below. These accessories are limited in some cases to certain golem types, and they become part of the golem once equipped, meaning you cannot remove them to swap enhancements. As with enhancements, you will be needing to expend money. However, you will also be crafting a good deal of these add-ons, which means they will take time as well, as shown on the table below. Most add-ons to golems are also stackable.

Golem Accessories

Item	Time	Component Cost	Prerequisites	Effect
Spiderstone Arms	3 days	1,200 gp (spiderstone ore)	Obsidian Golem	The Golem's level becomes 18 and they gain an extra pair of arms, allowing them to make an additional slam attack on their turn.
Blade Arm	1 day	100 gp	No	This blade becomes an arm of the Golem it attaches to and can be used to make attacks, dealing +1 damage for every two levels the golem is above 0.
Demonflesh	1 day	131,000 gp (fiendish body parts: arm, leg, tail, wings)	Flesh Golem	The golem gains an additional speed of flight 6 (altitude limit 3) and fire resist 15.
Dragonbone	1 day	10,000 gp (dragon bones: skull, arm, tail, wings)	Bone Golem	The golem gains resistance equal to the dragon's whose bones are used, as well as the type.
Equine	8 hours	100 gp	Wood Golem	The golem's speed increases by 1 square.
Fang	1 day	1,000 gp (teeth from various beasts)	Bone Golem	The body of the golem gains the barbed armor property.
Incarnum	3 days	10,000 gp (metal scrap from cages and torture tools)	Any metal or glass golem	The golem's Golem Rampage action gains an additional effect: If the golem's Slam hits a creature, the creature becomes restrained and the golem can end its turn in that creature's space. The restrained condition ends once the golem leaves that space.
Juggernaut	3 days	1,000 gp (iron of any kind)	Iron Golem	Your iron golem changes into a iron golem juggernaut.MM2,114
Brass	1 day	2,000 gp (20lbs of zinc)	Copper Golem	Whenever your golem takes damage, it can shift 1 square as an immediate reaction.
Hextor's Armor and Flail		4,465 gp	Blood Golem
Rimefire	days	gp (essence from the Plane of Ice)	Ice Golem	You change the ice golem into a rimefire golem.DM367,45

In addition to outfitting a golem, you can give them effect items in the form of consumables. Same as with accessories, some consumables only had effects on specific golem types.

Golem Consumables

Consumable	Time	Component Cost	Prerequisites	Effect
Desert Wrath	1 hour		Sand Golem
Dragonflesh		10 pounds of dragon flesh	Flesh Golem
Serpentflesh	1 hour	300 gp (serum that causes reptilian-ization, usually used by yuan-ti)	Flesh Golem
Decrepit			Flesh Golem	The flesh golem starts rotting and becomes a decrepit flesh golemDM167,19
Drakestone			Stone Golem
Hellfire		120,000 gp (clay from the plane of Gehenna)	Burning or Magma Golem
Puzzle			Stone or Wood Golem
Shadesteel			Any metal golem
Gemstones			Stone Golem
Grave			Soil or Stone Golem	You temporarily infuse necrotic energy into the golem. The golem's attacks deal necrotic damage instead of their usual type.
Sand	Instantaneous	5,000 gp (vial of coarse grained sand)	Dune Golem	Your golem has its level raised by 2 and it becomes a sand golem.DM367,43

Sources

MM2 = Monster Manual 2

MM = Monster Manual

DSCC = Dark Sun Creature Catalogue

DM = Dragon Magazine

DQE = Demon Queen's Enclave

OG = Open Grave

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