Way to reduce the cost of crafting construct

[Adamarh]

Hi, one of my player want to craft some golem,its not for using them in every battle/dungeon its just for the flavor of having a golem like servant/mount etc... And i was wondering if there were some way to reduce the cost of crafting construct.

For the golem i know there is the Golem manuel for the golem, and i dont know if golem are magic item for the purpose of trait like spark of creation or hedge magician
And i wonder if there is other way to reduce it

[Mysterious Stranger]

Considering Craft Construct is an item creation feat with a caster level prerequisite they should count as magic items. The harvest parts feat can be used to harvest raw material for creating magic items, but only if the material is suitable. It would not work for most golems but would probably work for flesh golems or maybe a few others depending on the monster.

[Mark Hoover 330]

Following Mysterious Stranger's point that Craft Construct is an Item Creation feat, there are some optional rules GM's might use to help reduce the costs. First would be the Downtime rules from Ultimate Campaign.

A PC using a skill can generate Capital, specifically Magic capital. After generating Capital, a PC then needs to pay for it in order to use it. For 1 Magic capital, after generating it themselves, PCs pay 50 GP. One of the uses of Magic capital though is to help pay the costs for Magic Item creation. 1 Magic capital can pay up to 100 GP worth of magic item creation costs.

So... by generating their own Magic capital the PCs are extending the amount of time spent working on the golem but they could potentially cut the item creation costs in half.

A second optional rule would be Trophies. These are unique pieces, harvested from monsters, that can be added to the raw materials for certain magic item creations.

Normally a harvested trophy has a specific value based on the CR of the creature it was taken from. For example, a dragon's head might be taken from a True Dragon, preserved, and mounted on the wall as a trophy; a CR 11 dragon's head would be worth 1,400 GP.

True dragons however have a magical affinity associated with the organs involved in their breath weapons. Harvesting THOSE as a trophy means that a successfully harvested and preserved organ is worth 20% more in paying the costs of magic item creation. In other words, a CR 11 dragon's breath weapon organ could be used to pay for 1,680 GP worth of the cost of a magic item that involves a spell that deals damage of the same energy type as the original creature's breath weapon.

Trophies are left open ended with multiple places in the text of the rules suggesting GM's can come up with other magical affinities for unique trophies the PCs can harvest. For example, an Iron Golem requires a Cloudkill spell as part of its construction.

Ok, well, an Old Cloud Dragon can cast Cloudkill 3/day as a Spell Like Ability. The also have the ability to assume a cloud form like Gasseous Form, have an electrically charged cloud breath weapon and have many other cloud or mist based abilities. A GM could rule that harvesting the breath weapon organ of an Old Cloud Dragon, PCs could preserve and use that organ to pay for 6,000 GP worth of the Iron Golem's construction costs.

[Azothath]

there are alternatives to crafting a regular construct and those might be better.

A Familiar and specifically an improved familiar {scroll down the list} which will require the Impv'd Famil feat. Options are; Clockwork Familiar, Familiar Automaton, Homunculus, Ioun Wyrd, (Poppet), Soul Bound Doll. Some outsiders may seem like constructs. A dip into Wizard isn't THAT bad... alas the improved familiars require a higher CL.

Feat: [!]Craft Poppet(not bad), [!]Lifecrafting(wyrwood)

Next are items like; Migrus $10000, Homunculus Clay(Alchemist) $4100, Brass Spider $2500, Golem Manuals $3000+(really 6000+).

Spell: Blood Sentinel:T3(very practical).

Template: Soulbound Construct buy a creature with the above template but it is expensive ($1000*(10 +HD)), Soulbound Heavy warhorse $12000. Craft Construct would halve that for the crafter and it does involve killing a creature who provides mental ability scores. Some later canon ameliorated that but may be Org Play specific.

lastly you could home rule something like a weakened animated object or a stone homunculus(no bite or flight but gains better nat'l AC and 2 fist(nat'l atk) (1d2), +4 CM, some(3-4) simple wpn use{staff, club, dagger}).

[OmniMage]

I would let those traits mentioned in the original post to affect craft construct. Craft construct is a lot like any other magic item crafting feat, so I don't have a problem with treating it the same.

However, it is my understanding that you can only get 1 trait from each trait category. Both spark of creation and hedge magician are magic traits, so you would only be allowed one or the other. Also, trait bonuses don't stack so I don't think the cost reduction would stack either.

[Diego Rossi]

The main cost of Crafting Constructs is that it requires a specific construction feat after you have taken Craft arms and armor and Craft wondrous items.

Personally, I have allowed my players to craft constructs with the two prerequisite feats, without the need to take craft construct, and converted Craft construct into a cost-reducing feat, but those are houserules. If the player wants to craft constructs for roleplaying reasons and not as a power play, you can consider doing something similar to what I did.

[Temperans]

Technically if you craft faster you are spending less money since less money is being spent on living and not adventuring.

There are a few says to save more but I don't remember right now.