Making the Golem - WIP

Making the Golem

Here is my WIP for the Forbidden Lands Golem

So for the Golem I am going to start with the stats for the classic Clay Golem and convert everything over to a Forbidden Lands format.

To do this conversion I will rely heavily on my conversion guidelines found here - 5E to Fbl conversion guide

So let’s start with the 5E stats, found here - Clay Golem - 5E SRD

STEP 1: STRENGTH - Is it a monster or kin? (This helps us to decide how we determine the Strength attribute). Easy answer, it’s a frickin Golem, so monster.

To convert STRENGTH first find the monsters HD, in this case the Golems hit dice are 14D10+56. Ignore the +56 for now. Using the guidelines fine the conversion formula......don’t worry I will wait......

Ok, if the monster has a hit dice measured in D10s, you normally take the number of dice and multiply by 1.25, but as this creature has DAMAGE IMMUNITY to non-magical weapons and MAGIC RESISTANCE you decrease this Multiplier by .75 (to .5 for anyone not wanting to do the math). 14*.5= 7 (with monsters always round up), plus their 5E CONSTITUTION modifier (+4) which gives a final STRENGTH of 11.

This seems ok as its between a Minotaur and a Troll but it also can't be harmed by normal attacks and Magic gets reduced.

STEP 2: AGILITY - This is pretty straight forward, find the 5E DEXTERITY score on the Attribute table and move left to the Fbl attribute column. This number is the creatures AGILITY. The Golems DEXTERITY of 9 becomes a Fbl AGILITY of 3.

STEP 3: WITS and EMPATHY - If the monster is intelligent we would use an average of 5E INTELLIGENCE and WISDOM for Fbl WITS and an average of 5E WISDOM and CHARISMA for Fbl EMPATHY. But as it’s a Golem we skip this step.

STEP 4: SKILLS - This one is easy as the Golem has no skills listed, so nothing to convert here. If as part of its senses it had a Perception of over 10 I would consider adding this as its Scout skill. But in this case it has low Perception, so let's move on.

STEP 5: MOVEMENT - This is a quick bit of math, Fbl MOVEMENT = 5E SPEED / 30 (rounded up). If it had several SPEED scores listed I would convert all of these and list the mode (for instance fly or swim).

STEP 6: ARMOR RATING - I'm UK based so a little part of me dies inside everytime I type Armour in US English, but that's how it is in the book. Anyway, working out how ARMOR CLASS in 5E is calculated is a little tricky, as sometimes in includes the DEX bonus and sometimes it doesn't, and for monsters I think the AC is pretty much made up. For the Golem it is straight forward. It's AC is 14 but I am assuming this has been reduced by its -1 DEX MODIFIER. To get its Fbl ARMOR RATING, take the AC - DEX Modifier - 10. Which gives an ARMOR RATING of 5.

STEP 7: TYPICAL GEAR - The Golem doesn't have any, simples.

STEP 8: IMNUNITIES, RESISTANCE AND VULNERABILITIES - We have already checked for DAMAGE or MAGIC IMMUNITIES/RESISTANCE but we also need to check for CONDITION IMMUNITIES/RESISTANCE or VULNERABILITIES. The Golem has IMMUNITY to non-magical attacks (Fbl doesn't have adamantine so I skip that part), this has already reduced its STRENGTH score to compensate but we need to write it next to its ARMOR RATING. 

The CONDITION IMMUNITIES are pretty standard for a Fbl Monster so don't need to be called out.

STEP 9: SPECIAL ABILITIES - In this step I have a look at the 5E stat block for any cool things that are listed, that would not convert to an attack. I can immediately see ACID ABSORBTION, BERSERK, IMMUTABLE FORM, MAGIC RESITANCE and MAGIC WEAPONS. List these separately for now, either keep the name as-is for fan stuff or rewrite to avoid using 5E terms. This where we have to start to get creative to keep the essence of the ability but translate to Fbl terms.

• Lets start with ACID ABSORBTION - This is quite straight forward as it converts damage to health, which is easy to mimic with Fbl mechanics.
• Next up is BERSERK - This is a fun thing, I would say it can activate after the Golem looses over half its Strength. The effects can also become an attack, wording to be written later.has a similar trigger to the Gray Bear's FERAL RAGE
• IMMUTABLE FORM - Easy to copy as-is.
• MAGIC RESISTANCE - This is something that appears for a number of 5E monsters, but thankfully Fbl already has something similar with the Ogre's MAGIC RESILIENCE ability (pg 61 Gamemaster Guide), consider it stolen. WARNING - It is powerful, so use sparingly.
• MAGIC WEAPONS: Another straight forward one, just change weapon attack to physical attacks.

STEP 10: CONVERT ATTACKS - Monsters in Fbl have either six or three attacks. My general rule is that if the monster has less than 8 Strength then its a nuisance, and not worth working up six full attacks, but I do make exceptions if my imagination comes up with more attacks.

The Golem has the following actions listed in the 5E stat block - 

• MULTIATTACK: this is just two slam attacks. This doesn't have its own attack bonus or damage so lets move on. we will come back to this in a bit.
• SLAM, which I always hate from 5E as a GM I do want to know what the actual attack is, so we will make something up later. The SLAM attack has a +8 attack bonus, this includes the golem's +5 STRENGTH bonus. To work out what this means for a Fbl attack we need to go back to the conversion spreadsheet and find the golem's strength attribute score in the relevent column then scroll along to find the BASE DICE INCREASE column, in this case a 5E strength of 20 gives a Base Dice increase of 1, add this to the +8 to give us nine Base Dice (notice the Fbl number formatting). As the Golem has multiattack as a standard action, this means its attack bonus is based on two attacks each round, to make this into a single attack increase the Base Dice by one to ten. The nine Base Dice can be used for the multiattack. For damage look at the HIT: average and refer to the document again. Anything that does 20 or less damage converts to Fbl Weapon Damage 1 (and clearly its blunt force). 5ft range gives us ARM'S LENGTH in fbl, standard monster attack range. The SLAM attack does have a bit about reducing hit point maximum but I think its a tough enough opponent as it is.
• HASTE: The recharge rules from 5E mean this fits really well as one of the six monster attacks. But it does sacrifice an action the turn it is used. I need to work on the mechanics for this in Fbl and then the description. It needs a better name. This one needs a bit of thought.
• BERSERK: This fits as an attack smoothly with just a few word edits. and changing the name to UNCONTROLLABLE, which might change again before I'm done.

STEP 11: ATTACK DESCRIPTIONS - This is the semi creative bit. I have to come up with descriptions for the monster attacks, and rename SLAM and MULTIATTACK to something cooler (if I can think of something that is).

STEP 12: NEW ATTACKS - This is sometimes the hardest bit as I need to think what other things the golem might do, either a direct attack or some other action. Most monsters in Fbl also have some sort of Fear attack, so I need to think about that. What I might do is have a look at other version of the golem from 4E or earlier to see if there is anything interesting.

• Some interesting things from 4E version - CLAY SMASH (standard; at-will) The clay golem makes two slam attacks, each against a different target. BERSERK ATTACK (immediate reaction, when the clay golem is damaged by an attack while bloodied; at-will) The golem makes a slam attack against a creature adjacent to it. Hasty Reaction A clay golem rolls initiative twice, taking the higher of the two results. Unstoppable (move; encounter) The clay golem moves 8 squares and can move through enemies’ spaces. Opportunity attacks against the golem triggered by this movement take a –10 penalty to damage rolls
• The Stone Golem has GOLEM RAMPAGE attack, which seems a fun title to borrow, instead of unstoppable.
• The 2E version mentions "lifting, throwing or smashing"

So lets change some names and see how this goes.

STEP 13: FINISHING TOUCHES - I need to tidy up a few things, and see how this version of the Golem fits with the Summon Golem spell, and then add a note about that.

From comparing both Summon Golem and Summon Elemental I think that to summon this specific Golem build needs a Power Level of at least six?

Also, I need to think about the issue of how to heal a Golem wound as most version say only magic can heal the damage - This is from the 3.5E and makes more sense than how its written in 5E - 

• CURSED WOUND (Ex): The damage a clay golem deals doesn’t heal naturally and resists healing spells. A character attempting to cast a conjuration (healing) spell on a creature damaged by a clay golem must succeed on a DC 26 caster level check, or the spell has no effect on the injured character.
• Similar thing from 3E - Wound (Ex): The damage a clay golem deals doesn’t heal naturally. Only a heal spell or a Healing spell of 6th level or higher can heal it.

STEP 14: TOO LONG - This is my longest ever post originally put on facebook, and I have realised that the blog I was thinking of doing is a much better place for a WIP like this, and here we are....