|
Well, it is sunday afternoon during Paizocon, so the traffic is a bit light...
I don't see why Arcane Crafing wouldn't apply to golem crafting, so long as you meet the other prereqs of the ability.
Wizard is really the way to go. I'd probably do universalist. It seems pretty straightforward if you have the money necessary to craft golems.
|
|
I would (pretty much always for a wizard) max out INT.
And just get plenty of crafting skills. Every Golem's description says what kind of crafting you need, and nowadays there are so many between the various bestiaries and things like Tome of Horrors, that you'll just need to figure out what crafting skills you should focus on.
After getting your crafting skills covered, I would take the standard spellcraft and a couple of knowledges, especially arcana.
Well everybody has to start somewhere, right? Since you are already looking at a fairly cost prohibitive thing, you may want to consider how best to save cash. Wizard (of one flavor or another) is definitely your best bet to start. Since you have to pick up craft wondrous and craft magical arms and armor regardless, you may be able to levy them against the party (be wary of this) in order to try and build up more gold. As a bonus, since you are a wizard, self optimization is relatively easy (and cheaper since you can craft for yourself).
Next, I’d suggest picking up the trait hedge magician. 5% doesn’t sound like much, and honestly I could see you skipping it, but I’d likely try and squeeze every penny out I can on golem costs (not to mention the items you’re crafting otherwise).
You are starting at level 5, meaning you could start the game with craft construct in your repertoire. Thing is, you could even start out with a golem (depending on your GM’s allowances concerning starting cash and what % you are allowed to allocate to a single thing). A wood golem, to be exact. It’d eat up almost all of your cash, but woo boy would it be a mean sonofagun for a while. Hell you could even do an ice golem. It is a little weaker, but it has its own perks. Then again, does it have to be a golem? Craft construct can make more than golems, after all. Necrophidius, though weaker, are cheaper and can still be plenty useful for a little while.
Here’s my thought, though. Don’t build any of those to start. Honestly, at 5, I’d be concerned with the flavor, and I’d save my gold for an angrier customer down the line. Maybe a glass golem (if you thought golems were a spell-slinger’s nightmare before), or a clay (with dr/adamantine and bludgeoning, there are a lot less things getting through this guy). Hell, maybe I’d even angle for a stone or iron golem, but here we start reaching the “is it worth it” levels. Honestly, they may have even started a little earlier, so I’d likely stick with looking at the clay/glass golems as my go to guys and I would modify them from there.
Now before I continue on, let me address the dangers inherent in the clay golem. With a cumulative 1% chance of going berserk, these things can leave you having a very bad day if the dice gods are fickle. While I am perfectly comfortable with this weakness (I call it a plot twist), other may be less so (including your party). Keep this in mind when ultimately choosing what you want for your thug squad.
Now then, I did, in fact, say modify. Looking through Ultimate Magic we are told that golems can be upgraded in various ways. Considering that, we find that we can pump up the hit die of the clay golem for a measly ~1660 gold (apparently the cost divided by hit die for those that don’t come with prewritten rules), an iron golem just doesn’t look as pretty (not to mention you could honestly have two clays for one iron). Consider then, that you could add the 6 hit die (max since their sizes can’t increase I guess) for almost 10k, and still have almost 20k left to pump up its strength 4 times (+2 per time), leaving it only a little weaker than the Iron, but with much more health, and a much higher chance to hit. This same idea can be applied to any golem really, and honestly, you could have spent the money much more wisely on other, more cost effective enhancements.
Considering this, then. I’d likely start my character off with a homunculus. If I was feeling frisky, maybe I’d add a hit die just so he was a little sturdier. When I hit 7 I’d snag improved familiar to make him mine in a more personal sense. Just start saving and crafting from there.
Now, this all being said, you can pretty much ignore everything I’ve said up to now. None of it is helpful or important if you don’t do one major thing first. Namely, talk to your GM about what you want and if it is feasible. Honestly, with the downtime necessary, and the costs being what they are, you could easily set your eyes on goalposts that just don’t exist on your field.
I went with a Universalist Human wizard, creating a 7th level golem crafter. My feat progression was as follows:
1st: Arcane Strike, Point Blank Shot, Scribe Scroll
3rd: Craft Wondrous Item, Improved Familiar
5th: Craft Magic Arms & Armor
6th: Craft Construct
Flavor-wise though, I made this guy a storyteller who uses his animates and constructs as his living puppets to act out his stories and entertain children of all ages.
If you want to see the full build post it is in this thread. If you go to the build thread, let me know what you think I should craft with WBL for 7th level.
Umm...cause I wanted to?
No seriously - I wanted to be able to get Craft Construct by 6th level and ALSO have an improved familiar. Universalist gave me the feat slot for that.
For skills I focused on Craft: Sculpture and Spellcraft for my creations.
Also if have a copy of Inner Sea Magic, you could read up on the rules for joining a magic school. I believe the Academe gives special bonuses to make golem crafting easier.
Also, you can craft something even if you don't have the spells required by increasing the craft DC. Although I forget the exact amount. And also if you get a construct that can be affected bymagic iI'd definitely make sure you have mending prepared, that can help a TON with repair costs.
I would advice you to get a Vallet familiar. You now got two golem crafters.
Hedge Magician is also super quite awesome, since it is the only possibility to theoretically earn some money with crafting items. If you outgrow your little constructs you could try to sell them to wealthy NPCs. If your GM allows this, you can rebuild your Minions as you wish(unless some get smashed.)
A clever wizard could try using the Fabricate spell to get the needed materials for free, before you get to the crafting cost.
Also look at the Construct modifications. This can allow you to tune your constructs a bit.
At high levels also consider the Stone Golem. You can fully heal any damage on the dude with a Transmute Mud to Rock spell, which is kinda awesome. Iron Golems are also nice, since they can be healed with fire spells.
The Make Whole spell should also be your friend. Heal your little helpers for d6/lvl!
Last but not least: If you ever manage to get enough money for a Adamantit Golem you have a really broken servant. Those things don't die at 0 HP and have Fast Healing.
Wizard makes the easier build because of the bonus feats.
Don't discount cleric. One of the mods available is Construct Armor which I think is really cool. Unfortunately it isn't clear to me what you get and what you don't with it. If you wanted to do that you would need to go the cleric route to be able to cast in armor.
A Dwarven Cleric of Toreg (sp?) with craft construct would be very believable. I think there are a couple of ways to make channel energy work on constructs (one feat and 1 item).
I want to echo something said above. There is more to constructs than golems. I remember gridning through some math and found that Terracotta Warriors were very cost effective. Unsurprisingly you pay a premium for infinite spell resistance.
Feats:
1 -
3 - Wonderous Item
5 - Magic Arms and Armor
7 - Craft Construct
9 -
Variant Channeling:
Forge: Heal—Creatures in metal armor gain a channel bonus to Armor Class until the end of your next turn. Alternatively, you may repair damage to metal objects and metal constructs as if they were creatures, and this healing is enhanced (see Variant Channeling above). Harm—The damage effect is enhanced (see Variant Channeling above) against metal constructs and unattended metal objects.
You can pile on by taking SF-Conjuration at level 1 and Augment Summons at level 9 to bring a lot of bodies to each conflict.
If you go the wizard route, don't go universal. What do you get out of that? You are going to want the extra spells.
The Vallet familiar is from the Animal Companion Guide not 3rd Party. You cann find out yourself by scrolling down in the wiki.
If you want the bonus feat go Universalist maybe with the Creation subschool. If not go Conjuration, since it is awesome, no matter, what you do.
For your race: If you still want more feats for your build go human. If not take elf due to the awesome racial abilities for casters. You might also think about being a dwarf, since dwarven wizards can get faster crafting time as a favored class bonus.
How to add powers to a homunculus? I know about adding HD; this is well documented in other threads. But say I want to add a spell effect to a homunculus, like giving it the ability to turn invisible or assume the shape of a Dire Bear (Beast Shape II), what is the cost? Also is there a limit to what I can have the little sucker do?
|
http://www.archivesofnethys.com/PrestigeClassesDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Arclor d of Nex
Paths of Prestige.
The downside is that you need the feat Eye of the Arclord, which has a prereq of Know (Arcana) 4 ranks... which means it is a lvl 5 feat. So the earliest you can enter the prestige class is at lvl 8 (taking craft construct at level 7)
The Arclord has 2 abilities that make him tempting...
Mystic Pedagogue (Ex): An Arclord of Nex adds a bonus equal to 1/2 his class level on Spellcraft checks to learn a wizard spell or craft a magical item.
Arcane Architect (Ex): At 4th level, an Arclord of Nex can create constructs with the Craft Construct feat in only half the time it would normally take.
So your build might look like:
Trait - Hedge Magician
Wiz 1 - Arcane Builder (Ultimate Magic)
Wiz 3 - Craft Wondrous Item
Wiz 5 - Eye of the Archlord + Craft Arms & Armor
Wiz 7 - Craft Construct
lvl 8 - AoN 1 (1/2 AoN to spellcraft for constructing magic items)
lvl 9 - AoN 2 - Skill Focus (Spellcraft ~ because you want a superhigh spellcraft for when you enchant the golem ~ failure is NOT an option!)
lvl 10 - AoN 3
lvl 11 - AoN 4 -feat + arcane architect
so you are saving 5%, building in 1/2 the time and you should be able to either do a higher DC check with your spellcraft (to speed up the process or to cover off those spells that you don't have).
To help with crafting, if using the craft skill, perhaps the item Amazing Tools of Manufacture might be of some help. Gives a +4 circumstance bonus, and can craft up to 2,000 gp of progress in 1 hour.
Which the item? If so, no, it's from Advanced race guide, found in the Gnome section. even though it isn't exclusive to gnomes, they just use it because they are tinkerers.
What would it cost to have a homunculus breathe smoke A La Obscuring Mist 1/day?
Fabricate is your friend for actually crafting the golem's body/parts. Learn it ASAP on reaching 9th level.
Both the prestige class and the feat have been renamed (along with several other ones). The Arclord of Nex is now the Mage of the Third Eye, and the Eye of the Arclord feat is now Eldritch Eye. Pretty neat stuff, though.