I want to be fair, and one of the PCs has built himself an Iron Golem, and wants to use it to help him build a castle outside of town.
How does this sound as a house rule for this kind of thing?
Using Constructs to perform labor or produce goods:
Unlike Followers, Constructs are unaffected by Leadership scores and typically just do what they are told with no particular inspiration or initiative. On the plus side, they are capable of working without rest all day and night if necessary.
The Downtime system assumes that the player character is the one trading or working for goods, influence, Labor, or magic. If the player character has access to a construct or other source of “Free” labor that can work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, each such construct can produce 5 points of labor or goods per day, provided they have a skill or talent appropriate to that labor or good. If the construct has no skill but instead simply does what it is told, it can only produce 3 points of goods or labor per day, and should be given careful instructions on what to do when a task is completed in order to avoid the “Sorcerer's Apprentice” effect, where the construct continues with a task long after it ceases to be beneficial and perhaps even becomes dangerous or harmful.
This is the equivalent of taking a 10 on a skill check 3 times per day for the unskilled construct and rolling and assuming an average roll of 15-20 for the skilled construct, adjusting for the skilled construct's extra skill. Constructs cannot produce Influence or Magic capital. Also, Constructs perform the actual labor or produce the actual goods themselves, instead of bargaining with other NPCs. Unless instructed to do so, constructs will not take the initiative to perform repairs or maintenance if some event occurs that impedes their work.
For example, a construct ordered to dig a moat around a castle won't stop to repair or replace its shovel or other digging tools if it is broken unless it was instructed to do so, and will continue to attempt to dig the moat without tools, reducing its labor output significantly, it will also continue to work if it rains, possibly becoming mired in mud and risking collapse of the moat, and if it completes the moat and receives no further instructions, it will continue to make the moat deeper and (unless it has engineering skill and has been instructed to reinforce the sides of the moat) the moat may collapse by being made too deep, possibly burying the construct in the process.
Using a construct for large construction projects may cause some resentment among local workers who may see it as stealing their rightful wages, and may retaliate by raising the price of influence capital, or even sabotaging the work.
For example, a bunch of ditch diggers may sneak in at night and fill in parts of the moat while the construct is busy working in another area, possibly un-doing days worth of the construct's efforts, or even hire a gang of thugs to attack and damage or destroy the construct. The PC may find himself being snubbed by local merchants, or worse, charged excessive prices for everything they purchase.
Players should consider carefully what sorts of tasks to have a construct perform, perhaps limiting it to particularly dirty or dangerous tasks that the locals wouldn't want to do anyway, or limit it to working out of sight of the locals, doing interior and underground work for example. (Then again, The PC could find himself confronted by some surly dwarf miners, informing them that they know the sound of mining operations when they hear it and why not hire some REAL miners instead of “handing a pick to some rusty tin can of a golem.”)
I quite like this post, I had never really thought of using golems as free labor, just as a shield.
Mostly good stuff. The only thing I'd change would be the skilled labour benefit. As written it looks good for something like an iron golem, but what about a tiny animated object?
I'd let the construct or mindless undead creature act as a team, granting a bonus to its earning check of CR x 3. That should account for most things.
Mostly good stuff. The only thing I'd change would be the skilled labour benefit. As written it looks good for something like an iron golem, but what about a tiny animated object?
I'd let the construct or mindless undead creature act as a team, granting a bonus to its earning check of CR x 3. That should account for most things.
So, perhaps, add a paragraph or two like this?
"The 5/3 rule assumes a medium sized construct. It gets a bit more complicated with constructs that are smaller and larger. For each size class above medium, a construct can produce 1 more Labor per day, but 1 less Goods (minimum of 1 per day) due to its greater strength and lower dexterity. For each size class below medium, the construct can produce 1 less labor (minimum 1 per day), or 1 more goods due to its lower strength but higher dexterity. Also, the GM should make a ruling on whether a construct could perform a particular type of task at all. For example, a Tiny animated object would be completely unable to build a castle wall, while a Huge variant of an Iron Golem would be unable to install the interior doors of a building with medium sized door openings after the walls are finished, because it couldn't get inside to do so."
and
"Large groups of constructs (or mindless undead like skeletons) start to get in each other's way beyond 2 or 3 working at the same task. Treat the extras as assisting (Assuming the person giving them commands told them to do so by, for example, instructing specific individuals to help the others by moving raw materials, holding items in place where needed while they are worked on, giving the others a boost to reach high places, operating block-and-tackle systems for truly high work, and so on.) For the first "Assistant" construct or mindless undead, add 5 to the effective roll on the Earned Capital checks, and add another +5 for each doubling of the assistants on that particular task (+10 for 2 assistants, +15 for 4 assistants, +20 for 8 assistants, and so on. Assistant constructs/undead give this bonus to each of the primary workers (1 to 3) working at that particular task.)"
And, finally, after the "consequences of using constructs" bit
"Mindless undead performing such tasks in a populated area are likely to cause even more extreme reactions due to the almost universal dislike for undead. It doesn't take an oracle to predict the advent of pitchforks and torches in the future if a horde of undead are apparently infesting a building under construction."