Colossal Bone Golem

[Garion Beckett]

Hey everyone.

Okay so my game master has let us be evil characters, with minions. For my minion I was going to make him and Evil necromancer with craft construct. Eventually I want him to be able to make a colossal bone Golem. For those of you who seen Gurren Lagann, I got this inspiration from daiguren. what I was hoping to accomplish was the Golem should be able to go on sea and on the ground using four legs and possibly able to swim or use by sails.

Now I have gone through all of the rules I can and it tells me to refer to monster creation, and the only thing I cannot find is how to calculate armor class. It gives suggested Armor class numbers and what I want to know what would its natural armor, hardness, and DR would be for a challenge rating 20 Golem. I can figure everything else out and with any other modifications to really blow this thing out of proportion lol. And the only reason I want to go big is because our GM is trying to let us try to take over the world.

So if someone can help me with the Natural Armor, DR, Hardness, and other special abilities a Colossal Bone Golem ship would have that I can use that would be absolutely amazing!!!!

[Pizza Lord]

This is very much a custom monster, so part of it is just guess-work on what would work out the easiest. Assuming we stick with a bone golem as a chassis, we see that they are CR 8 normally with 11 HD and are large size.

Hit Dice and size adjustments:

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Naturally, a GM can tweak and adjust and just set any parameters and statistics to suit their needs, but I think in general, if you're trying to stick with the rules for advancing a monster, we should assume that every 50% increase to HD will equal a size increase. Adding 5 HD (or 6, but 5 will make it round out better in the end) to the base bone golem's 11 HD (new total: 16 HD) will take it from large to huge. Then adding 8 HD will take that to 24 HD and gargantuan, and finally, adding 12 HD would bring it to 36 HD and colossal size. That would also add an ability increase for each four HD, so 7 additional points which will probably go into Strength (but we can also wait until all the adjustments for size and such are finished and put 2 or so in Dex to keep the statistics in a certain range).

Then we adjust for size increase. While the table is a bit confusing at times, it looks like going from large to colossal will ultimately grant +24 Str, –2 Dex, and +12 natural armor. Your colossal bone golem should theoretically have around 42 Str (+16), 13 Dex (+1), and +22 natural armor. This is without accounting for additional ability increases for each 4th HD.

After that, you need to adjust your other statistics for the new size, –8 to attack and AC for colossal size, +8 to CMB/CMD, etc. Its hit points will likely be about 278 (5.5 per HD x 36 HD + 80 for colossal construct). The bone golem's normal DR 5/adamantine and bludgeoning won't increase (by this method).
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Then you want some aquatic type alterations. Obviously it's only really limited to imagination, but to keep it as simple and easy to categorize as possible, let's assume your particular golem is based on a dragon turtle layout.

Dragon Turtle variant:

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The most important thing is that your golem would now be considered long and low, instead of tall as a colossal creature. This will make its space 30 feet (6 by 6 squares) and it will have a 20 foot natural reach. I would trade the bone golem's typical bite and two slam attack scheme to the dragon turtle's bite and two claw version (not a huge difference other than damage type), but remember that in addition to the massive Strength increase to damage, you need to adjust the bite and claw damage up to colossal size from the dragon turtle's normal huge size (it looks like two size increases basically doubles damage, so probably 6d6 for the bite and 4d6 for the claws).

Then you adjust the carrying capacity for the golem's Strength of 42 (Max heavy load of approximately 8,320 lbs), adjust it for being a colossal quadruped (x24; 199,680 lbs). Almost 100 tons max load (99.84).

It would move at a dragon turtle's 20 land speed and 30 swim speed on its own, most likely. Theoretically you might be able to rig sails, I don't know about draft and drag efficiency for such a thing, but that would give you your ship and your four-legged beast on land, which you could ride upon or inside of.

For other stuff, you could easily have it float on the surface and swim, ship-like, but you could possibly incorporate a variant of the tiny hut spell to allow you to ride inside the creature (and have it as cargo space) while it's submerged. Granted, a typical tiny hut wouldn't hold water out, but this is just a variant and a spell requisite for creating the golem, so the exact effects don't necessarily need to match up. Just assume the spell creates a thin force layer along the ribs that holds out water (and possibly has the opaque effect of the hut from outside, so riders can see out but cannot be targeted inside).

As a personal note, I would probably remove the golem's normal bone cage ability and alter the dragon turtle's breath weapon to have it spray a blast of bone slivers or something that deal piercing/slashing damage (DR applies; Reflex save should be about DC 28 for HD alone). Probably keep the dragon turtle's normal +8 racial bonus to Stealth in water (basically counters the -8 Stealth penalty for being colossal size while in water only) and allow it to keep the capsize ability.
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So, ultimately, to answer your question using the monster advancement stuff: no change to the DR amount and type and no hardness, since it shouldn't have any. The natural armor will likely be about +22 unless you GM wants to add a +5 to account for a dragon turtle's reinforced shell (assuming you go with a dragon turtle-styled golem.

This was all just one potential build out, based on your desire for a colossal bone golem that functions amphibiously. I haven't taken time to compare it to the CR 20 metric that you also mentioned combat or damage-wise if you plan to use it as a siege engine.

[Garion Beckett]

Now I was hoping it could hold a crew. Now here is my question. Do I still go with monster so it can act independently, and carry people at the same time, or do I go with a magical seige engine/vehicle, that can just be controlled? What do you think would be easier. I am looking for amphibiousnous so that an army can be inside this Golem/vehicle and rain down arrows,bolts or spells down on the people below.

What do you guys think?

[LordKailas]

I'm not sure what all you've looked at so I apologize if I'm retreading ground you've already covered.

I see three different approaches to this and they have their pros and cons.

Method 1 - Monster Creation Rules:

You could use the monster creation rules to treat it as a brand new construct. Since you want a CR 20 construct this tells you it has roughly 31 HD. Since it's Colossal we can see that it's base physical stats will be

Base Str: 42
Base Dex: 6
Base Con: 26

Since we know it's a construct we can then look at the construct traits to figure out more details, such as it will use d10s for HD and it will get +80 hp for it's size.

This will give you a basic framework to use, but some details you'll just have to guess at, or assign based on the monster stats by CR table.

It might be useful to try and build the normal large bone golem using these rules to figure out what kind of bonuses it's gotten over the base stats in order to get an idea of what to give it.

another option is

Method 2 - Super-size a Bone Golem:

Just take the stats and abilities for a normal bone golem and increase them as per HD and size increase rules.

First we will increase it's size.

Large -> Huge +8 Str –2 Dex +4 Con +3 Nat Armor
Huge -> Gargantuan +8 Str -0 Dex +4 Con +4 Nat Armor
Garg -> Colossal +8 Str -0 Dex +4 Con +5 Nat Armor

Total Adjustment is +24 Str -2 Dex +12 Con +12 Nat Armor

Since the golem is a construct it won't get Con mod, but everything else applies

We can see from Animated Objects that for constructs in general going from a large construct to a colossal construct results in a CR adjustment of about +6.

A bone golem normally has 11 HD and is a CR 8. However, due to the size change our new bone golem is now roughly a CR 14. Looking at the creature HD vs challenge rating we can see that for a construct going from a CR 14 to a CR 20 is approximately 12 HD. So now our bone golem is 23 HD. So adjustments need to be made for this HD increase.

Looking at the monster advancement rules we can see that a creature gets +1 to a stat for every 4 HD it gains. So, this gives us a +3 which can be added to any stat based on what makes sense. Optimally we would give +1 to dex and +2 to str.

The rest of it's stats and abilities would be adjusted by the size and HD adjustments specified above.

Then there's the last method

Method 3 - Animated Object:

You can treat it like an animated object. Start with a Colossol Animated object which is a CR 11 with 6 construction points.

Add abilities like a normal bone golem would have
+1 slam attack (1 CP)
+1 natural attacks (1 CP)
+1.5 Improved attack x 2 (1d6 slam to 2d6 comparing large to large) (3 CP)
+1 Adamantine material (6 CP)
+1 Immune to magic (assuming resistance cost x5) (10 CP)

Total CP = 21
CR adjustment = (21-6)/2 -> +7 CR

Using the monster creation rules a construct going from a CR 18 to a CR 20 is about a 6 HD adjustment.

so, the CR 20 golem would have 18HD with the stats of a colossal animated object modified by the above adjustments.

Any of the methods work but they will give you slightly different creatures. IMO method 2 probably makes the most sense statwise since it will carry over all of the special abilities directly.

Edit: On a side note, golems are a mixed blessing. Their immunity to magic makes them quite effective on the battlefield. However, it makes travelling with them a pain since you can't just teleport them. You either have to "walk" everywhere or use gate spells to get to your destination via another plane (ideally one you created via create demi-plane).

[Garion Beckett]

Thank you soo much! That helped alot! Keep the ideas coming! Maybe wanting add some other cool ideas from a monster called the Bone Ship. Looking at Bone cannon:
Bone Cannon (Su)
The bone ship can create four cannons fashioned from bone anywhere along its body as a swift action. These cannons deal 6d6 points of damage and have a ×4 critical multiplier. The bone cannons have a range increment of 100 feet and deal both bludgeoning and piercing damage. At a range up of up to 100 feet, the bone ship’s cannons are treated as touch attacks. The bone ship can fire all four cannons as a standard action. The ammunition is a combination of bones and debris. Because the ammunition is ejected from the bone ship’s body, bone cannons add the bone ship’s Strength modifier on damage rolls. The cannons are considered to be part of the bone ship and not separate objects.

[Garion Beckett]

All I need to know is how much would that add to the CR?

[Dave Justus]

I'd look at the rules for Necrocraft as a starting point.

[LordKailas]

Garion Beckett wrote:

All I need to know is how much would that add to the CR?

Looking at it from an animated object perspective.

+4 attack (4 CP) 2d8 slam
+2.5 improved attack (2.5 CP) 6d6 slam
+1 all ranged attacks (4 CP) 20 feet
+1 improved threat (1 CP) x3 crit

CP= 11.5

This isnt quite what you're looking for but its partially because the rules don't directly support it.

A colossal creature has a reach of 30 feet so you could probably argue that the ranged attack should be atleast 50 feet. Also, this assumes the cannons are being added instead of replacing the single slam attack it gets for free. Converting the slam saves you one CP.

The constructs cr goes up by 1 for every 2 cp. So this would be a +6 to the CR.

[Garion Beckett]

Bone Cannon (Su)
The bone ship can create four cannons fashioned from bone anywhere along its body as a swift action. These cannons deal 6d6 points of damage and have a ×4 critical multiplier. The bone cannons have a range increment of 100 feet and deal both bludgeoning and piercing damage. At a range up of up to 100 feet, the bone ship’s cannons are treated as touch attacks. The bone ship can fire all four cannons as a standard action. The ammunition is a combination of bones and debris. Because the ammunition is ejected from the bone ship’s body, bone cannons add the bone ship’s Strength modifier on damage rolls. The cannons are considered to be part of the bone ship and not separate objects.

How much do you think that will add to the CR of the monster? Especially if I replace the bone cage ability of the bone Golem.

[Pizza Lord]

Garion Beckett wrote:

How much do you think [bone cannon] will add to the CR of the monster? Especially if I replace the bone cage ability of the bone Golem.

It's hard to say, since I don't know what iteration of bone golem or starting point you are using, ie. the base CR 8 normal one or the upgraded dragon turtle version (which I never calculated the starting CR of) or the CR 20ish version the others have made.

It's definitely an increase, you're adding four attacks that deal more damage individually than any of the bone golem's normal attacks even at colossal size. That and you're adding range abilities to a creature that normally has none (other than bone cage). The abilities have a 1,000 foot range, and within 100 feet are just a touch attack. Not only that, it's a ranged attack that takes advantage of the hefty Strength bonus of the creature. It's pretty beefy.
I would say it's easily a +2 to +3 CR increase (I would probably say at least +3) if placed on the dragon-turtle variant or colossal sized bone golem. Even without the bone cage ability, it's adding more than twice the attacks, 10x the range, and a huge increase to DPS. That's just my guess, I am sure someone else here could actually quantify the increase to DPS and combat effectiveness with the ability to now deal with ranged threats and compare it to expected statistics for each CR level.

[Garion Beckett]

I was thinking the CR 20 version. Like I mentioned before I would like to turn this thing into Di Gunza from Gurren Lagann. So it would have cannons, walk on land and be able go either under or on land and hold multiple people, which would be raining down arrows, bolts, and spells from on top of the construct or with in it.

[Garion Beckett]

Anyone know how to scale abilities for monsters?