Praxiteles the Golem's page

I was also disappointed by this as most of the really fun options are level 3 but generally can't be achieved until you could get a level 4 except in one specific case (doubling down on your primary element). I always wished the level you could take wild talents was the level x2 and the level for infusions was (level x 2) - 1. This way you could get level 2 infusions at 3, level 3 at 5, level 5 at 9 rather than 2 levels later than this.

Ok PAX is over, took a bit to recover, trying to catch up a bit, sorry for the long break.

Hey all,

Sorry I haven't been around, after Gencon I had to set up Dragonflight and organize PAX for PFS. It is still a bit hectic but starting to calm down. will try to catch up and post.

Hey All,

I am going to be away from my computer for Gen Con this week and I haven't been as active as I have to prep 5 scenarios (2 of them specials) for running at Gen Con. I will be back but Golem likes to be in the background when he isn't dealing with his favorite subject, Art so it won't matter too much I hope.

Golem stands off to the side, a bit unsure of how to engage the new crowd of Superheroes. He looks carefully around, checking on any potential dangers that might be in route.

Once things seem clear he will turn and examine the young heroes, returning any nods sent his way.

No problem from me. I am enjoying the game.

Golem moves up to Techno Priest's side. "Waveform, do you want to keep an eye on the 'techie' or should I make sure that Ripper doesn't squash him like the proverbial tin can?"

Round 4 Init 20.
Modifiers
Hero Points: 4
Damage Condition: N/A
Status Condition: N/A
Fatigue Condition: N/A
Feats:
Powers: Array=Animate Object, Possession

Golem hears Priest calling out for protection and moves to protect him from any attack from Ripper.

Move Action to interpose myself between Technopriest and Ripper and ready to attack should ripper get loose.

Please forgive me if I am a bit confused by this combat as the time between posts, actions and flow have made this round a bit wonky.

So my apologies. I kept check backing but didn't see anything and then missed the flurry of posts.

Ok So Quark and I posted about the same time but his action occurred before mine. If he is grappled than I would hit Ripper as hard as I can. If not I will try to grapple him. Not sure if Power Attack would help with the Grapple or All-Out Attack.

Round 3 Init 20.
Modifiers
Hero Points: 4
Damage Condition: N/A
Status Condition: N/A
Fatigue Condition: N/A
Feats: All-Out Attack
Powers: Array=Animate Object, Possession

Golem moves toward Ripper and holds completely still, ready to spring on Ripper at the slightest hint of movement.

Move action to move to Ripper, Standard action ready to hit ripper as soon as he is tripped, using All-out attack to increase his chance to hit with his attacks.

Happy North of the Border to you!

Round 3 Init 20.
Modifiers
Hero Points: 5
Damage Condition: Bruised
Status Condition: Stunned
Fatigue Condition: N/A
Feats:
Powers: Array=Animate Object, Possession

Golem seems to stand perfectly still, the dent on his metallic form seems to slowly bend outward until undamaged iron metal is left behind.

Going to recover from being stunned this round and save the HP for later. Golem's regen kicks in and heals the injury.

Not ret conning but may HP to retold that save

Is it possible to retcon my turn and have Golem throw the sound ball into the bay?

Round 2 Init 20.
Modifiers
Hero Points: 4
Damage Condition: N/A
Status Condition: N/A
Fatigue Condition: N/A
Feats: All Out Attack
Powers: Array=Animate Object, Possession

Golem's hands still ring from the force of the shockwave, he attempts to finish off the last mauler and then move towards Ripper's vehicle.

Standard Action to punch the last mauler, All Out Attack
All Out Punch: 1d20 + 12 ⇒ (8) + 12 = 20 DC 26 Toughness save. Move action to leap over to the vehicle.

Golem lands with an earthshaking thud near the van carrying Ripper. I will look at it as I land to see if it has been damaged or what is going on with the vehicle.

Notice: 1d20 + 11 ⇒ (9) + 11 = 20

Improved Natural Attack and Strong jaw don't stack. Both are treat as if bigger so don't stack.

Animal Growth increases size so will stack

Vital Strike as listed.

Just have to remember with INA strong jaw will only add one effective size category.

Dang I was hoping to develop that intriguing relationship.

I am sorry to see you go. Hopefully the other games are as intriguing or potential filled as this one.

Don't worry I got this my ass is iron!

I just hope I didn't catch you or you me in the crossfire heh.

Stop giving the GM ideas!!!

Oh and TP I think your action should be incredibly entertaining.

Round 1 Init 20.
Modifiers
Hero Points: 4
Damage Condition: N/A
Status Condition: N/A
Fatigue Condition: N/A
Feats:
Powers: Array=Animate Object, Possession

I am going to assume I stopped close by, created a golem and then leaped into the action.

Golem is going to leap near a group of the heavy weapon wielders and attempt to distract them. He lands with a huge impact, the cement under his feet craters and cracks. Golem then slams his iron hands together with a loud clang as metal on metal creates a massive shockwave over the Viper agents.

Standard Action Shockwave attempting to avoid catching the Aegis in the 110' Cone, targets take damage = str mod (11), DC 21 Reflex save to have the damage.

Friday night proved uneventful for Golem. He spent several hours patrolling the streets, and managed to break up a few attempted assaults and thefts by the simple expedience of popping up out of nowhere and making an appearance. While the beneficiaries were thankful for his interference it did not leave him feeling accomplished.

Is this the right role for me. I spent years hiding who and what I was. Years as an artist, a sculptor a teacher and even an adviser and once a knight. Now I am supposed to be a hero, a character out of the stories I once attempted to honor... Is this me?

The rest of the night is uneventful and Saturday begins discusses his project with a delighted Tessa, whose own work was part of the initial design and her hopes of getting her name as an assistant on this project leaves her giddy. Soon she returns to her own space and begins working on some preliminary paperwork for the project when the call comes.

"This is Golem, heading to the impound immediately." Standing up he calls out, "I am going out to think about a new idea for the park. Be back in a few." With that he slams the door shut and dissolves the flesh body he was wearing.

He flies out to the vehicle storage facility.

Switching array from animate object to flight, heading out at 10,000 mph, luckily I can go through solid objects.

The game sounds like fun but I will be glad to sit that one out Techno Priest, I am at a good place gamewise. Running an Emerald Spire and about to start playing Rise of the Runelords in Pathfinder. Plus Gencon coming up in a little while.

Haha he is a pain in the ass. He was fixated on our team and spent many nights camping outside one of our Secret ID apartments cause he traced us to that area.

Its going well. I think I need to figure out more of my character's role outside the combat arena as so far every effort to be useful in that regard has been well useless.

Golem steps forward but no questions are directed his way. He seems to move from utter stillness to short motion to walk forward, as the nearby reporters step back as if forgetting the statue could move. Golem turns slightly to the side, a small smile creasing his iron mouth. The reporters seem quickly to turn to the other heroes unsure of how to address the statue of iron.

Golem steps out alongside Ares, a bit less impressive but his steps sound much louder then his smaller size would indicate. He then stops moving, holding perfectly still, a living statue.

Keep in mind that it was 3 PL and being outnumbered.

Action Economy is one of the most important balancing factors in a game and why 5 PL 5 characters with 5 actions have an advantage over 1 PL 8 guy. However, because our abilities are forced to certain limits by the Power Level, certain powers become more useful because you don't have to save points to build up to that level. In the case of phalanx he isn't 1 bad guys pushing out 1 PL 12 attack and having PL 12 defense he is 10 PL 12 guys attacking 10 times with 10 PL 12 defenses.

So when you are designing encounters with higher level PL targets, you have to consider how the players can beat them. If you its 8 on 2, then you can potentially justify the higher power level because we have 4 actions to their 1. When its 8 on 11 plus agents then not only are we down PL we are down actions.

Another idea for encounter design is to start easy and work up. This does several things:

1. We learn how are characters work in a situation and ways to improve and coordinate.

2. You learn how the characters work in a situation and how to make encounters more challenging.

3. We develop a bond of shared success (rather than feeling like we weren't contributing) and try to find ways to bolster potential problems in the future.

4. We all get more comfortable with the combat system.

5. You can identify areas where the heroes excel and has villians get to watch the tapes and learn. This way there is an in game reason for why the fights might get more difficult other than just more powerful foes.

6. If the fight goes to easy, you can pull some fun shenanigans. One of my favorites is to make one of the agents equipped with gear to look like the big bad, we focus on him while the big bad is really behind us ready to strike (or oops that was too easy, here is the um real big bad yah, the real one...)

Casual Knowledge Golem is a relatively new hero in Freedom City. He has been active for less than 2 years, but appears more often helping disaster victims and first responders then catching criminals. He is believed to be some kind of living statue of Iron, capable of feats of superhuman strength and resilience with a knack of disappearing when followed, despite his weight and distinctive appearance.
Informed Knowledge Golem was first seen during an epic battle with Black Paladin in England 2 years ago. Golem appears to have the power to animate and control statues in the video, but after becoming active and moving to Freedom city, he primarily uses only a single, Iron Statue, rather than several of them, leading to speculation that he must have a statue to animate or is limited and therefore carts around his own statue to animate.
Detailed Knowledge (Known by Malador) Golem is not a living person but rather an immortal spirit capable of creating and animating objects out of the aether. This includes bodies of both stone and iron, but flesh as well. He uses these Flesh bodies to maintain an identity of Dr. Praxis, Art Professor and Historian.
Golem’s power lets him animate only one of these bodies at a time but certain Magic can be used to manipulate his power to create multiple statues and animate and control all of them at once. Such effort is not possible for Golem alone, but it is possible that by controlling Golem you can control the army.
This happened when Malador gained control of Golem and used him to unleash a platoon of statues onto Freedom City. The Freedom League dealt with the constructs that resembled Gargoyles, Demons and other mythical monsters, while Daedalus, suspecting who might be involved, rescued Golem, who was then able to turn the constructs onto Malador. Of the league, only Daedalus knew of Golem’s involvement though speculation between the hero and the incident does exist.
Hidden Knowledge (Known by Dadelus, Muses, Certain members of the Greek Pantheon, not including Ares) Golem is in fact Praxiteles from ancient Greek history, a famous sculptor granted immortality and abilities by the Muses (disguised as witches to Prax at the time) to foster Art and Creativity throughout the centuries. Golem is not limited in the materials he can create, meaning he can create bodies of other materials, if he learns about them.

Golem briefly looks through is file, he stands silently in the back, looking curiously at the file and occasionally at the drink in front of him, Well they don't know everything about me, that is good, but what they do know, hmm conjecture about identity and powers, close there not bad there, ooo that picture, that is a good shot!

Golem draws out one of the photographs and begins admiring the work closely. Then returns it and looks at the next page.
Connection to Daedalus, yes, that makes sense I have talked to him several times. They Know, THEY Know, THEY KNOW... but no, they think, possible connection..., ideas, possibilities...yes that connection to the sorcerer and his 'Stone Army', yes that makes sense. Ok, Invictus might know, should I tell them, the team?? Is it, am I part of one now. Hmm Daedalus does seem to work well and it is Ares...ARES, dammit calm down ok...

"Forgive my silence up til now. My attention was obviously drawn by the thoroughness of your work. Not quite right I must say but an excellent draft.

Invictus is right. We are here to help. We have access to abilities and resources that, well in some cases, might surprise you. As my friends can probably tell you better than I, how fast you accumulate information depends on your connection, the stronger the connection, the more data you can collect. he turns to Techno Priest." "I believe that is correct? So you can see, the more you provide us the better we can assist you."

I am back now, so posts will be coming in. Took me a day or so to unwind from the time change and daughter getting sick after the flight.

First off to catch up:

New Guard works.

TIGHTS - Sorry to see you go, loved that your character was definitely a fun roleplay personality.

I have played Champions and run it as well. In one game the worst enemy the heroes had wasn't a supervillain or government agency but the press. If superheroes really did exist then there would be teams of reporters who would make it their life's work to find your Identity. They would track down all potential targets, use computers to determine height/weight any obvious physical characteristics and compare them to anyone that could be the hero. Then take the time to track each one of those to figure out the real Secret ID. Taking pains to cover that trail became one of the more intriguing aspects of that game, including one character who always disappeared into a sewer, just to make the reporters stink, and make them think he had a base down there.

The problem is this is a massive project that demands resources. When you consider budgets and justification of spending it makes less sense that new heroes would be the target of investigations of substance but more one of convenience. Can we find something out cheap and quick? good. Nothing there? Focus on threats and potential threats and collect information from other sources.

My apologies I will catch as soon as I can. Been on vacation with familial commitment and flying home all day today.

Golem will follow him up to his room and see what he is up too.

Dr. Praxis turns to Ares, "I will follow him see if it leads anywhere, if you would be so kind as to take care of this body?"

Golem will walk over to Ares and "faint" then follow the photographer as a spirit.

Dr. Praxis will proach the photographer.

"How are you? I can see you are an admirer of ancient Egyptian artwork. I am as well. What do you admire most about their techniques?"

Dr. Praxis also dressed in civilian attire glances over. "Yes I noticed him as well seems suspicious. Might he be casing the joint as they say?"

Dr. Praxis will move over towards and try to get an idea of what he is focusing on.

Notice: 1d20 + 11 ⇒ (6) + 11 = 17

Fire Seeds Holly Bombs plus resist energy fire. When you really want to blow up those Stone Golems

Sorry for the lack of posts, spend yesterday on a plane to Tennessee. Will be available more once we get settled in the cabin near Knoxvlle.

Golem glances down at the plans, examining them closely. He then holds out his hand and material begins to form, each piece seeming to form over midair. Following the schematics, the piece begins to take shape, however, as soon as the last component is assembled the device twists slightly and crystals and small bits of silvery metal appear around. Finally, it resembles a twisted two head snake of exquisite craftsmanship that Dr. Praxis slips into his a hole in his ear.

"Beautiful design. Please excuse me for modifying it a bit to make it look a bit more...modern." He walks across the room, hearing in his ear, {b}"Testing, Testing, One two, three"[/b]. Turning slowly, her turns to the group. "Excellent I am sure this will be most useful in our future endeavors.

He turns to Ares, "As soon as you are ready, we may have a task before us. Let us see what lessons the Egyptians learned from us. I did enjoy their sarcophagi, really revolutionized the entire art of death scene. Christianity always took it too simply I thought..."

@Watcher - would it be possible for my character to buy the one point communicator with the idea I create one whenever I create a golem? Wasn't sure if that would work or not.

@Techno Priest I don't know if my Create Objects ability will work like that but if it does, that would work great!

"I am not sure if you heard but recently Aegis was the victim of an elaborate theft. According to the news only some files were stolen. It might be useful to find out exactly what those files were. They may be related to the Invictus's earlier point of why so few Aegis agents were at the trial, if for example, they stole personnel files. I have the ability to enter undetected and look around but Technopriest you and TIGHTS seem to have skill with electronic devices. We may want to enter and see if we can find out what was taken."

Golem looks over to the two other heroes, an obvious question in his eye.

I agree the name can wait. It should come to us over time. I am still playing around with some ideas for my character so I will try to get them done today.

Thoth looks like a great addition to the team. It covers some areas I felt we were lacking.

"One thing comes to mind with the possibility of using the name is are we saying this is something we have? This is clearly not the case. However, if this is something we are working to earn, and it is couched in that kind of language, then we may have an idea that will work. If so, we should present it in those terms."

Golem seems a bit more relaxed now. Taking a seat at a nearby table, he continues.

"On the other hand if we want a name like Courageous Company or Stalwart Society or Fearless Force, then it is just a question of activating our awesome alliterative analysis. We could also pick something simple like the Guard or the Coterie. It all depends on what kind of image we want to project."

"Truly we are a group that has embraced the wide diversity that humanity and superhumanity encompasses. The Muses would be proud of their arts and sciences don't you think Lo...um Ares?"

Golem seems to stutter for a bit, as he turns to Ares. He then walks over and sniffs the sandwiches, selecting a small one and one of the cans of soda.

Golem leans carefully against a kitchen wall, careful to not put too much weight on it. He seems uncomfortable in the environment watching the rest of the heroes relaxing. He keeps subtly glancing over at Ares then turning away. After his statement he seems even more agitated.

He then turns looks at the relaxing group of heroes and seems to get an idea.

"Oh, we are relaxing, I am sorry I was unsure the overall intent of our meeting and was prepared for well, um action. I am somewhat knew to this hero thing and well...I am still learning. Give me a moment to um put on something more comfortable."

The creature of iron slowly dissolves into nothingness and several seconds later a man, just over five and a half feet tall, appears wearing jeans and a sporting an orange soda t-shirt and sneakers.

"That is better." He walks over and looks himself carefully in the mirror. "Yes much more appropriate to our current venue, it is also so much like my original vocation making life-like sculptures."

Well being a level 9 blight druid makes you immune to sickness and nausea...

Dr. Tom Praxis takes his leave of the Art Director's office offering her calm assurances that he will not hold the day's events against them and that she should look over the paperwork and get back to him. He again offers his apologies, "I am so sorry about my attack, I am afraid my artistic sensibilities make me more vulnerable to the aetheric disturbances that accompany such momentous events."

He will then quickly return to his office, having left the model with her to study in detail. Golem then leaves his flesh behind and flies out to riverside park to join Invictus, and then onto the Cathode Cathedral.

As soon as he floats into the cathedral, the group sees a Golem shape of iron out of thin air, again additional time is spent getting the details just right.

Monk Wis bonus to AC also applies.