Battle Butler!

[Sgt_Shock]

I want to make a medium sized (sexy) construct/golem that does whatever I say and is at least somewhat competent in battle, although I much prefer survivability over damage (so I can have an emotional attachment to my life sized doll).

I'm a level 13 wizard, and I'm willing to spend as much xp as possible.

Could anybody help me out?

 

[Alzrius]

Well, given the "sexy" component, it's probably going to need to be a flesh golem (ordinarily I'd recommend a pleasure golem from the Book of Erotic Fantasy, but the damn thing only has 2d10 Hit Dice and no advancement listing, so that's out). As a 13th-level spellcaster, you should be able to meet all the prerequisites for constructing a flesh golem, so we'll go with that.

The trick here is that even a standard flesh golem is Large-size, so that's going to be an issue. Here's what I recommend: Make an advanced flesh golem, creating it with as many natural Hit Dice as you can (it remains Large up to 18 Hit Dice, after that being Huge up to 27 HD, it's advancement limit).

Following that, we're going to apply two options from the Book of Templates - Deluxe Edition 3.5 to it. The first is the Miniature template, which you'll use to bring it back down to Medium-size. That'll hurt its bonus hit points, but between its advanced Hit Dice and the second option, it should be okay. Said second option is to then apply the Woundmender construct variant (pg. 90) which gives it fast healing equal to half it's HD, and the ability to reattach severed limbs.

With luck, that should give you the sexy guardian you're looking for.

 

[Sgt_Shock]

Well sown together rotting flesh would be a bit creepy, but maybe if I gave her a black dress it would work.

Anyway, thanks for the downsizing, I was originally disappointed when I saw all of the golems were large or larger.

If we could somehow modify the flesh so it's not a franken-corpse, but I'd also settle for a human looking machine.

 

[Alzrius]

Well sown together rotting flesh would be a bit creepy, but maybe if I gave her a black dress it would work.

Anyway, thanks for the downsizing, I was originally disappointed when I saw all of the golems were large or larger.

If we could somehow modify the flesh so it's not a franken-corpse, but I'd also settle for a human looking machine.

The problem with wanting a golem made of actual flesh is that golems are all made, not grown. Hence, you need to use pre-existing flesh, which pretty much limits you to existing corpses. Even the pleasure golem that I mentioned before is made of body parts, with the animating magic giving it a beautiful (and variable) appearance and warm texture.

That said, there is some room for suggesting that even a normal flesh golem would look comparatively human - that is to say, it doesn't need to have the appearance of "rotting" flesh, per se, despite what the flavor text in the Monster Manual says.

For one thing, you could say that the fact that there's a zombie golem (from the 3.5 Ravenloft supplement Denizens of Dead), which looks exactly like it sounds, could very well mean that a flesh golem, by contrast, looks more alive.

Also, the Book of Erotic Fantasy assigns a new ability score, Appearance, to each creature, noting that for Constructs the Appearance score is determined by the creator's Craft check. Hence, if you wanted, you could try and get a very high Craft result, making your golem look very beautiful (that is, have a high Appearance).

If a standard flesh golem doesn't work for you, there are some other options you can try. For example, another template from the Book of Templates - Deluxe Edition 3.5 is the Automaton, which can be applied to pretty much any creature (the template's in-game effect is that you're building from scratch a construct that replicates the form and powers of a specific creature) and lets you pick the material you make it out of. One of the material types is flesh...since it doesn't mention that it has to be dead flesh stitched together, you could say it's grown or created somehow as you make the automaton.

Given that, you could make an automaton of a succubus or erinyes, and she'd be just as sexy as the real thing - no ugly stitches or rotting. The automaton can only be advanced to as many Hit Dice as the base creature could, so make sure to build it with as many Hit Dice as a fully advanced succubus/erinyes could have (they're both limited to just doubling their Hit Dice, rather than tripling, but they do remain Medium-sized the entire time). I'd also recommend using the Woundmender variant so that it can repair itself and the magic-immune variant (found on the same page) so that it has magic immunity like a true golem, just to be safe.

Hope that helps!

 

[Sgt_Shock]

First of all, I'd like to thank you profusely for all the help you've contributed to this little project of mine.

Medium Flesh Automaton (Human)

Now that I have the templates, and a general idea of what I'm making, I return to the biggest issue. Price.

I'm digging around the interwebz and I can't find a chart or whatever it is I would need to determine how much this thing would cost. I mean, I'd prefer to make it as many hit die as possible, but without the raw numbers I'm unsure if I can afford it.

Also, I don't remember reading what to do with class levels. Can it be modeled after a class and therefore get class abilities?

Lastly, does the Woundmender Variant cost money? It says it ups the creature's CR by one. Does that mean its HD goes up by one as well? Is that used for computing price?

 

[Alzrius]

I'm glad to have been able to help. This was really fun.

That said, the question of how much this particular construct will cost you is a sticky wicket for which there really is no good answer. The problem is that the Book of Templates - Deluxe Edition 3.5, for all its great material, doesn't address this particular question, and has no construction requirements for its construct templates.

The best answer I can give you is that, for a flesh automaton, try adopting the prerequisite spells, and caster level (8th, which you already exceed), that are necessary for a flesh golem - animate dead, bull's strength, geas/quest, and limited wish.

For the actual cost, that's more difficult, since it has to be a per-Hit Die formula. Again, I'd recommend using the flesh golem as an equivalent - it has 9 Hit Dice, and has a market price of 20,000, which breaks down to 2,222 gp per Hit Die.

Since that's the market price per Hit Die, then the cost to actually build one (as laid down by the Craft Construct feat) will be 1,111 gp in materials and 89 XP (actually 88.88, but I'm rounding up) per Hit Die.

Bear in mind that, according to what's listed in the automaton template's advancement line, you can make an automaton with as many Hit Dice as the base creature could potentially have, and no more. It seems clear to me that the language there is referring only to natural Hit Dice, but I suppose you could try and interpret it to also include monsters whose advancement line indicates that they advance by character class also, though I'd call that deliberately misreading what's there; I don't think you can make an automaton with class levels - since they have no Intelligence, they'd be unable to use them anyway.

Finally, we run into that same problem with lack of pricing again when trying to include the variants at the end of that chapter. They note only what the CR increase is, which is unrelated to Hit Dice, and thus unrelated to cost. Again, there's really nothing I can suggest here that isn't just a shot in the dark. My guess would be that it adds another prerequisite spell, probably something with the healing subtype, and that it bumps up the cost per Hit Die by a fixed amount. Given how useful woundmender is, my wild guess would be +2,000 gp per Hit Dice to the market price (so your flesh automaton would cost 2,111 gp and 169 (168.88) XP per Hit Die to create).

Sorry that I couldn't be of more help here, and I hope it works out for you in your game.

EDIT: I just thought of this now, but try checking out The Practical Enchanter, a free supplement that breaks down magical effects into "spell templates," and has a section on golems and animation (pgs. 52-59) and some interesting stuff on artificial sentience (pgs. 81-87). It's not as precise as exact templates, but it's also more flexible in what you can do with it. Give it a look.

 

[Sgt_Shock]

I need the Craft Construct feat, along with the required spells, if I'm making this myself, I assume.

Also, to get someone else to make this, how much more is it? XP=gold ratio? Is it cheaper if I cast the required spells for him?

I'm sorry for asking all these questions but they all don't seem to be in one place in any of the books I have.

Edit: Nevermind. Found the flesh golem entry and did the math. ~12.179 gold per XP seems to be the price. (Price 20,000 gp; Cost 10,500 gp + 780 XP.) Does that include the price of the spells used?

 

[Alzrius]

I need the Craft Construct feat, along with the required spells, if I'm making this myself, I assume.

Correct.

Also, to get someone else to make this, how much more is it? XP=gold ratio? Is it cheaper if I cast the required spells for him?

I'm sorry for asking all these questions but they all don't seem to be in one place in any of the books I have.

Edit: Nevermind. Found the flesh golem entry and did the math. ~12.179 gold per XP seems to be the price. (Price 20,000 gp; Cost 10,500 gp + 780 XP.) Does that include the price of the spells used?

It doesn't include the price of the spells; it assumes you're casting them yourself or are otherwise providing them.

The way it works regarding the cost of making a construct is that the cost to create, and the XP you'll spend, are both determined by the market price, which is apparently arbitrarily set. Using the flesh golem entry, due to its thematic similarity to a flesh automaton, I reverse-engineered a ratio of market price per Hit Die (in other words, dividing 20,000 by 9) to get 2,222 gp per Hit Die for a flesh automaton's market price.

Since yours will also have the woundmender variant, I guessed that this will add another 2,000 gp per Hit Die on top of the existing 2,222 gp rate. It'll also add at least one more spell to the creation process, probably one with the healing subtype (e.g. cure serious wounds) or maybe something like make whole or mending.

Now, we've got a base market price of 4,222 gp per Hit Die. The Craft Construct feat says that, to build a construct yourself, you must spend half of the market price worth of gold pieces (this goes towards the materials and such) and 1/25 of the market price in XP.

So, for example, if your flesh automaton had 10 Hit Dice, it'd have a market price of 42,220 gp. It'd thus cost you 21,110 gp to build and require 1,689 XP (rounding up), presuming you had the Craft Construct feat and had all the necessary spells.

If you don't have the necessary spells, you can get them from somewhere else (e.g. casting them from a scroll). If you want, you can get someone else to cast the spells for you, but buying spells cast costs money.

Presuming you have the necessary spells, but not the Craft Construct feat, you'll need to find someone who does, and is of high enough level, and almost certainly supply all of the gold pieces for the creation - there'll absolutely be an additional cost on top of that as well, since that person and not you will be expending the XP; if I were the DM, I'd probably say he wants an amount equal to no less than 25 gp per 1 XP spent, which'd make this cost you the same as its market price.

Hope that helps!