I don't see why players wouldn't get the full 50,000 worth of materials--unless they did something stupid, like disintegrate the remains.
There is no reason to believe that materials used in creating a construct are salvageable (although a GM can certainly decide that they are).
The closest thing we have to rules on this is the guidelines as to treasure per encounter, which for a CR 16 creature would be from 16,500 gp to 38,000 gp depending on XP track. Of course, one encounter could be lower and another higher, but typically constructs are 'low treasure' encounters (a GM could of course make an exception here as well.)
Obviously if you get 50,000 for one CR 16 encounter, you should expect less treasure in future encounters.
Constructs typically call for X gold worth of raw materials. In the case of precious metals the value is calculated per pound. So if all of the pounds of metal are there, all of tbe value is. Given sufficient scavenging effort/time, why would a party not be able to recover the full value?
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Constructs typically call for X gold worth of raw materials. In the case of precious metals the value is calculated per pound. So if all of the pounds of metal are there, all of tbe value is. Given sufficient scavenging effort/time, why would a party not be able to recover the full value?
Off the top of my head I can think of two reasons:
1.) The actual process of creating a construct is handwaved in the game. It's entirely possible that the raw materials that go into creating the construct, particularly a construct powered by magic, do not make it through the process in their original, unaltered, and equally valuable form.
For example, a Mithral golem's body requires 3,000 pounds of mithral and other precious metals worth a total of 50,000gp to manufacture. But that doesn't necessarily mean that the final product is just a 3,000 pound walking block of mithral and other precious metals. Presumably the crafter is taking those valuable materials and doing stuff to them to create the actual golem (soaking the metal in arcane unguents, carving magical glyphs into it, sacrificing some of it in rituals, etc.)
So by the time you destroy the mithral golem you may not be left with a 3,000lb pile of precious metal that still has the same value it did going into the final product.
2.) You'd probably need to account for the actual damage caused to the material in the process of destroying the construct. A Caryatid Column is a marble statue carved from a single 2,000 lb block of stone costing 2,000gp. But by the time you're done hacking, crushing, and zapping the resulting construct you're going to be left with < 2,000 lbs of stone that is now in really bad condition and probably not entirely salvageable.
The short of it is that treasure from encounters is as much a game mechanic as it is a simulation of actual value. A CR X encounter should be worth treasure in Y range, or that value should be added elsewhere.
There's no reason a DM couldn't incorporate salvaged material as part of the treasure drop. I know I've done it. Instead of finding 1,000gp in the hoard you take the time to cut 1.000gp worth of valuable stuff out of the corpse of the golem that was defending it.
But ultimately you have to divorce the material cost of making a construct from the treasure value of defeating it, or you need to find a way to account for the value elsewhere, or else you can easily give out way more treasure than a PC should have at their level.
1. This is plausible.
2. This is less plausible. Metal can be melted down and reformed, while marble generally cannot. Hacking a mithral golem to bits doesn't actually destroy the metal, nor do the few spells that affect it.
I can divorce the material cost from the treasure value, but given that this particular callout is separate from the actual material cost (which is far in excess of 50,000 gp), I'm comfortable with the callout being the raw material value of the metals in question, and I have no qualms about allowing such to be salvaged. (Of course one takes this into account when making treasure available--that's no different from any other creature.)
Can they carry 3,000lbs? Limit it to how much they can carry, up to a maximum value of 38,000gp as that is the high end of loot from that CR enemy.
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1. This is plausible.
2. This is less plausible. Metal can be melted down and reformed, while marble generally cannot. Hacking a mithral golem to bits doesn't actually destroy the metal, nor do the few spells that affect it.I can divorce the material cost from the treasure value, but given that this particular callout is separate from the actual material cost (which is far in excess of 50,000 gp), I'm comfortable with the callout being the raw material value of the metals in question, and I have no qualms about allowing such to be salvaged. (Of course one takes this into account when making treasure available--that's no different from any other creature.)
BTW, make whole exist and it has no weight limit; it has a large volume limit or 1 construct.
So you can rebuild the physical form of a construct from its remains without problems (unless it has been disintegrated, transmuted or warped [whatever that mean in terms of damage. Personally I think it is relevant only when you use a spell that specifically warp something, like warp wood]).Note that make whole will nor return the magic to a construct, as it is a creature, not a magic item.
At the level in which mithral golems are likely to be encountered, moving a few tons of metal is child's play.
Metal can be melted down and reformed
This is true only in a very basic fashion.
There are lots of things in our world that can damage metals and make them much less valuable. You won't pay as much for scrap iron as you will for an equal weight of newly smelted iron for example.
Alloys are especially not going to maintain their properties after certain types of damage, and in many cases it is cheaper to start from raw materials than to try and salvage them.
And we don't know anything about the how the magical metals of the game function, since they are just fantasy. Marvel's Adamantium can't readily be reforged is one example of a fictional metal that functions this way.
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From the crafting rules 50,000 gp of crafted materials are worth 16,666,67 as raw materials. Unless you are going to make a golem with exactly the same shape you have to smelt the remains to recover the special materials.
If you are making a construct in exactly the same shape you can use make whole to restore the structure.
@Dave Justus: the price items made of iron, in our world, depend from plenty of factors, where the raw material is one of the less relevant. Transport affects it a lot.