Converting Forgotten Realms monsters

I agree with nearly all of that.

The construction cost its too high, though. The mithral golem from the Epic-Level Handbook only costs 250,000 gp, and it is CR 21. Note that it gets around the "price of mithral" problem as follows:

A mithral golem's body is sculpted from 8 1/2 tons of pure iron and is then polymorphed into mithral (using polymorph any object).

Click to expand...

How about the following?

A mithral guardian's body is sculpted from 8,000 pounds of pure silver and 100 pounds of mithral, smelted with rare tinctures and admixtures costing at least 10,000 gp. Assembling the body requires a DC 23 Craft (armorsmithing) check or a DC 23 Craft (weaponsmithing) check.

CL 20th; Craft Construct, geas/quest, limited wish, permanency, sunburst, caster must be at least 20th level; Price 190,000 gp; Cost 100,000 gp + 7,600 XP.

Sure thing!

Shade said:

I agree with nearly all of that.

The construction cost its too high, though. The mithral golem from the Epic-Level Handbook only costs 250,000 gp, and it is CR 21. Note that it gets around the "price of mithral" problem as follows:

A mithral golem's body is sculpted from 8 1/2 tons of pure iron and is then polymorphed into mithral (using polymorph any object).

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

That last bit made me burst out laughing. When I was drafting the mithral golem's writeup I was going to use that very "polymorph to mithral" trick, but then I looked up the spell in question and discovered:

This spell cannot create material of great intrinsic value, such as copper, silver, gems, silk, gold, platinum, mithral, or adamantine.

Click to expand...

So the rules say you can't do that trick with polymorph any object!

However, you can do that with a wish, although it's dangerous because it exceeds the standard limit of effects.

So why don't we make it a wish spell - not unreasonable with a CL of 20.

Shade said:

How about the following?

A mithral guardian's body is sculpted from 8,000 pounds of pure silver and 100 pounds of mithral, smelted with rare tinctures and admixtures costing at least 10,000 gp. Assembling the body requires a DC 23 Craft (armorsmithing) check or a DC 23 Craft (weaponsmithing) check.

CL 20th; Craft Construct, geas/quest, limited wish, permanency, sunburst, caster must be at least 20th level; Price 190,000 gp; Cost 100,000 gp + 7,600 XP.

Click to expand...

The problem with that proposal is, as previously stated, that 4 tons of pure silver costs 40,000 gp (silver = 5 gp/pound) and 100 pounds of mithral costs 50,000 gp (mithral = 500 gp/pound), so the materials still cost 100k.

It's easy enough to fix - just use about a tenth the quantity of silver and mithral and have the main bulk made out of pure iron like an Iron golem.

Something like:

A mithral golem's body is sculpted from 8,000 pounds of pure iron veined and plated with 500 pounds of pure silver, then inset with runes formed from 10 pounds of mithral. A wish spell is used to transform the entire body into mithral during the enchantment process. The total cost of the materials is 20,000 gp, including rare tinctures and admixtures smelted into the metals. Assembling the body requires a DC 23 Craft (armorsmithing) check or a DC 23 Craft (weaponsmithing) check.

CL 20th; Craft Construct, geas/quest, permanency, sunburst, wish, caster must be at least 20th level; Price 200,000 gp; Cost 110,000 gp + 7,200 XP.

Incidentally, we had better include a note that it's not "real" mithral, so the PCs can't chop it up and sell it for the 4.2 million gp a 8500 pound block of mithral would be worth!

That looks fantastic!

Updated.

Ready for the greater version?

Dumathoin’s main statue dominates the room at the western end. It has a 30’ wide base, and stands 54’ tall. Smaller representations, only 18’ tall, flank the temple entrance area and the two exits at the western end; each pair exhibits Dumathoin in his glorified aspects of mining and underground exploration, while the main statue glorifies his pure mountain dwarf aspects.

Click to expand...

Gargantuan and say, 48 HD?

Let's also jazz 'em up a bit.

Dumathoin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

How about including a multifaceted gem in the center of its chest?

Maybe give it a "two-handed mattock made from solidified magma" (treat as a Colossal warhammer that deals additional fire damage)?

Perhaps an ability to trigger a cave-in or collapse?

Shade said:

That looks fantastic!

Updated.

Ready for the greater version?

Gargantuan and say, 48 HD?

Click to expand...

If it's 54 feet tall that's three times taller than the standard 18-foot Mithral Golem, so 48 HD seems suitable. I'd also be tempted to give it a "size and a half" +12 boost to its strength (to Str 53!), since it's in-between a basic Gargantuan (2*height) and Colossal (4*height), although the normal +8 is probably ample.

Shade said:

Let's also jazz 'em up a bit.

Dumathoin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

How about including a multifaceted gem in the center of its chest?

Maybe give it a "two-handed mattock made from solidified magma" (treat as a Colossal warhammer that deals additional fire damage)?

Perhaps an ability to trigger a cave-in or collapse?

Click to expand...

Let's see, 4d6 for a Gargantuan warhammer.

+28 damage for wielding a two-handed weapon with Strength 49. (or +31 for wielding a two-handed weapon with Strength 53!)

Iterative attacks with a +36 BAB.

Is this going to be flaming or flaming burst?

Might also want to give it a few SLAs tied to the god's portfolio.

earthquake?

soul bind OR trap the soul ? (those "soul gems" may have a darker equivalent used for punishing evildoers)

guards and wards?

48 HD and +12 Str sounds good.

Flaming burst...sure!

Added to Homebrews.

Great idea for guards and wards! In fact, I can't recall ever seeing another creature have that spell. I'm also fond of earthquake, but not so much soul bind/trap the soul.

For the SLAs, we should boost the Cha at the very least. It may need to be at least slightly sentient (Int 3-4?) as well, or perhaps we should change them to Su abilities like the stone golem's slow ability or the clay golem's haste.

The lesser one looks good, and the greater version is shaping up well. One thought: since these are associated with Dumathoin and might be created by clerics, we should at least allow miracle as well as wish.

We might want to increase the effective CL for the dispel darkness ability, given the likely CR of these. Also agreed to earthquake as well as guards and wards (I think there is a template maybe in the AB that grants this, but, yeah, definitely not common!). As for mental stats, I think the greater versions are likely to be reasonable; they seem like they should be more directly connected to a deity. So let's boost to at least Int 8, Wis 17, Cha 19 or something like that. Maybe even more to get the SLA DCs up.

Shade said:

Great idea for guards and wards! In fact, I can't recall ever seeing another creature have that spell. I'm also fond of earthquake, but not so much soul bind/trap the soul.

Click to expand...

As you like, we can try to come up with something else for the "chest gem" - maybe steal something from a helm of brilliance?

Like prismatic spray...

Shade said:

For the SLAs, we should boost the Cha at the very least. It may need to be at least slightly sentient (Int 3-4?) as well, or perhaps we should change them to Su abilities like the stone golem's slow ability or the clay golem's haste.

Click to expand...

Definitely need to boost the Charisma, maybe to somewhere around 18-24, since we're dealing with such high-level powers?

As for the question of an Intelligence score: on the one hand making them mindless would fit in better with the standard golems, on the other hand it means we could give it Skills and Feats (including Epic Feats, since it has more than 20 HD).

I think I'm going to have to vote for sentience. It'll help it guard those poor, innocent gemstones.

OK, sentience it is! Updated with freyar's suggested scores, plus raised Cha a bit higher like Cleon suggested.

Effective caster level 40th for the dispel darkness?

Switch silent aura to Cha-based?

I'm OK with prismatic spray from the gem. Freyar?

Do we want construction for these, or note that they are only created via divine intervention?

I'm ok with all that, and I think I'll go for divine intervention only.