Editing Flesh Golem (section)

====Flesh Golem PCs====
The "Book of Secrets", #3 of the [[Books of S]] netbooks for [[Ravenloft]], features an article called "Wretched Creations" which presents rules for playing a Flesh Golem PC in a game of [[Advanced Dungeons & Dragons]] 2nd edition.

Inspired by the earlier articles on [[Broken One]] and [[therianthrope]] PCs from the Book of Souls, which in turn were inspired by the rules for [[undead]] PCs from the Requiem: The Grim Harvest official [[splatbook]], they are true to AD&D [[Ravenloft]] rules: overly complex and guaranteed to fuck you over sooner rather than later.

To start with, flesh golem PCs have supernatural physical abilities, but distinctly substandard mental ones. Thus, they ignore the normal dice roll range for generating ability scores and use this one instead:
::Strength: 4d4+4
::Dexterity: 4d4+4
::Constitutiion: 4d4+4
::Intelligence: 3d6
::Wisdom: 1d4+2
::Charisma: 1d4+2

Next, race. Now, technically, your race is "Flesh Golem", but you have to consider what races your golem was built out of. This means you need to determine the ultimate origins of your golems ''Brain'', ''Head/Torso'', ''Arms'' and ''Legs''. Whilst a DM may allow you to skip this and just pick a base race if your backstory justifies it, there is, of course, the option to randomly roll on a d100 table for each component.

Brain Table:
{| class=wikitable
!Roll ||Race || Traits
|-
| 01||[[Dwarf]] || -1 Charisma, Magic Resistance, Mining Skill, Fearlessness, Magical Item Use, +10% Open Locks, +15% Find/Remove Traps, -5% Read Langauges
|-
| 02||[[Elf]] || Secret Doors, Iron Will, +5% Hide in Shadows
|-
| 03-04||[[Gnome]] || +1 Intelligence, -1 Wisdom, Magic Resistance, Mining Skill, Magical Item Use, +5% Open Locks, +10% Find/Remove Traps, +5% Hide in Shadows
|-
| 05||[[Half-Elf]] || Secret Doors, Iron Will, +10% Hide in Shadows, -5% Open Locks
|-
| 06-07||[[Halfling]] || Magic Resistance, Determination, +5% Open Locks, +5% Find/Remove Traps, +15% Hide in Shadows, -5% Read Langauges
|-
| 08-09||[[Half-Vistani]] || +1 Wisdom, +1 Intelligence, Nature Affinity, Fire Building, Tralaks, Moon Madness
|-
| 10-100||Human || None
|}

Head 'n' Torso Table:
{| class=wikitable
!Roll ||Race || Traits
|-
| 01||[[Dwarf]] || +1 Constitution, Infravision, -10% Climb Walls
|-
| 02||[[Elf]] || +1 Dexterity, -1 Constitution, Infravision
|-
| 03-04||[[Gnome]] || Infravision, +10% Detect Noise, -15% Climb Walls
|-
| 05||[[Half-Elf]] || Infravision, +5% Dectect Noise
|-
| 06-07||[[Halfling]] || +1 Dexterity, -1 Strength, Infravision, +5% Detect Noise, -15% Climb Walls
|-
| 08-100||Human || None
|}

Arms Table:
{| class=wikitable
!Roll ||Race || Traits
|-
| 01||[[Elf]] || Weapon Expertise, +10% Pick Pockets
|-
| 02||[[Half-Elf]] || +5% Pick Pockets
|-
| 03-04||[[Halfling]] || Combat Bonuses, +5% Pick Pockets
|-
| 05-100||[[Human]] || None
|}

Legs Table:
{| class=wikitable
!Roll ||Race || Traits
|-
|01 ||[[Elf]] || Surprise Bonus
|-
| 02-03||[[Gnome]] || +5% Move Silently
|-
| 04-05||[[Halfling]] || Surprise Bonus, +10% Move Silently
|-
| 06||[[Half-Elf]] || +5% Move Silently
|-
| 07-100||[[Human]] || None
|}

Additionally, there is a 1% chance your golem includes some kind of monstrous humanoid component, taken from the d8 table below:
{| class=wikitable
!Roll ||Part || Traits
|-
| 1||[[Hag|Annis]] Head+Torso || 60' infravision, -2 bonus to AC
|-
| 2||[[Doppelganger]] Brain || +1 Charisma, Disguise proficiency for free
|-
| 3||[[Ermordenung]] Arms || Unarmed strikes do +1d6 poison damage if victim fails save vs. poison
|-
| 4||[[Goblyn]] Head+Torso || 90' infravision, bite attack (1d6 damage)
|-
| 5||[[Mind Flayer]] Brain || +1 Intelligence, mentally contacting the golem causes the contacted to be stunned for 1d8 rounds
|-
| 6||[[Paka]] Brain || Summon & control 2d6 domestic cats 1/day
|-
| 7||[[Reaver]] Arms || Swim speed 12
|-
| 8||[[Vampyre]] Head+Torso || Bite attack (1d6 damage) that Charms victim if they fail a save vs. Poison with a +2 bonus
|}

Now it's time to pick your class: [[Fighter]], [[Avenger]], [[Thief]] or multiclassed Fighter/Thief. Also, because golems suffer a "spiritual battle", good golems raise their experience totals to increase in level by +20%, and neutral golems do so by +10%.

As with the undead heroes from Requiem: The Grim Harvest, flesh golem PCs are saddled with the Alignment Descent system, which basically means they need to check against a complex grid system after each adventure to see whether or not they slide towards Chaotic Evil [[alignment]].

Now let's talk about the common advantages to playing a flesh golem. For starters, you're completely immune to all life-affecting spells and effects, aging, suffocation, disease, poison, mind-affecting spells and effects, and telepathy. Also, you only need to eat the equivalent of a suckling pig's worth of raw meat or carrion per week - failing to keep up with this causes you to lose 1 Constitution point per week of starvation until you catch up with the cumulative food debt, whereupon your Constitution returns at a rate of 1 point per day.

Now, the drawbacks. Firstly, that protection against mental jiggery-pokery does '''not''' apply to regular old Fear, Horror and Madness checks. In fact, because of how abysmal your Wisdom score is, these checks will largely screw you over. Secondly, obviously, you look like a monster; aside from your shit Charisma score, you suffer a whopping '''+12 penalty''' to Reaction rolls to creatures seeing your visage for the first time. Invest in concealing clothing. Thirdly, there's the uncontrollable rage; whenever you are exposed to violence, involved in any kind of hostile confrotantion (including verbal), or even surprised, you have to roll a d6. Roll a 3 or less, and you stay in control. On a 4, you flee for 1d4 rounds. On a 5, you attack the nearest NPC for 1d10 rounds. And on a six, you attack ''everything'' around you for 1d10 rounds. Oh, and because you are considered "morally responsible" for this despite literally not having the choice over whether or not to attack it, you can still fall afoul of [[Powers Check]]s provoked by this unthinking rampage. Finally, you have a ''zeitgeber'', a specific stimulus (sight, sound, odor, situation, etc) that, for whatever reason, renders you mentally insensate for 1d6 rounds, leaving you completely unable to do anything.

Now, your proficiencies. Because you're a cobbled together thing which uses a stolen brain, you have to spend half your starting nonweapon proficiency points on randomly generated proficiencies. Yay. On the plus side, you can spend the remaining half of your points however you wish, and can even use them to buy supernatural golem powers, which consist of:
* Animate Undead: Costs 4 NWP points, lets you animate twice your HD in [[zombie]]s 1/week.
* Attack Resistance: Makes you immune to mundane weapons. Every 3 NWP points spent boosts the enchantment required to hit you by +1.
* Cause Disease: Allows you to inflict diseases with your unarmed attacks. For 1 NWP point, you can cause a ''Debilitating'' disease that will steadily drop the victim to Strength 2. For 3 NWP points, you can cause a ''Fatal'' disease that will negate magical healing and cost them 1 Constitution per day until they die. Even creatures without Constitution scores are vulnerable to this one, losing 10% maximim HP per day until destroyed.
* Cause Despair: Costs 2 NWP points, lets you plunge all creatures around you into a state of near-defenseless apathy 3/day if they fail a save vs. death magic.
* Climb Walls: Costs 2 slots, gives you the ability to use the thief skill of the same name. Can't be taken if you have the Thief class.
* Damage Immunity: Costs 2 slots, grants you immunity to one elemental damage type and auto-success on saves against it.
* Damage Resistance: Costs 1 slot, grants you 50% resistance to one elemental damage type and a +4 bonus to saves against it.
* Hideous Laugh: Costs 2 slots. You can unleash a terrifying laugh 3/day; creatures must save vs. death magic (-2 penalty) or suffer a Fear check.
* Hide in Shadows: Costs 2 slots, gives you the ability to use the thief skill of the same name. Can't be taken if you have the Thief class.
* Hyper-Regeneration: Costs 6 slots. When reduced to 0 HP, you begin regenerating 10 HP per round until fully healed. You can only be killed if destroyed with fire or acid damage.
* Move Silently: Costs 2 slots, gives you the ability to use the thief skill of the same name. Can't be taken if you have the Thief class.
* Resilient Flesh: Grants you resistance to enemy magic; 2 slots per +1 to all saves vs. damage dealing magic.
* Stench of Decay: Costs 3 slots. You exude a [[ghast]]-like stench.
* Weapon Resistance: Costs 2 slots, gives you 50% resistance to either Bludgeoning, Piercing or Slashing damage.

You can also select vulnerabilities (Allergen, Allergen Ward, Animal Repulsion, Weapon Vulnerability) to gain a bonus NWP slot per vulenrability chosen.