In the course of the upcoming Volume VI: Clean Slate of my ongoing Monster Hunters game set in the Dresden Files universe, a couple of the characters are going to get involved in “Blood Sugar,” which was originally a d20 Modern Adventure using the Urban Arcana campaign setting and written by Stan!
The initial part of this adventure is mostly investigative with a zombie-like “sugar slave” that can be encountered early on, but later, the characters encounter some candy golems that “appear to be composed entirely of candy. Their bodies consist of chocolate bars, lollipops, lemon drops, and other sweets held together through unknown means. ” The d20 stats for the small ones are annotated thus:
Small Candy Golems (10 or more):CR 4; Small construct; HD 4d10; hp 27; Mas —; Init +1; Spd 10 ft.; Defense 12 (size +1, Dex +1), touch 12, flat-footed 11; BAB +3; Grap –2; Atk +3 melee (1d4–1, slam); Full Atk +3 melee (1d4–1, 2 slams); FS 5 ft. by 5 ft.; Reach 5 ft.; SQ construct, damage reduction 4/bludgeoning, darkvision 60 ft.; AL Children of Chaos; SV Fort +1, Ref +2, Will +1; AP 0; Rep 0; Str 8, Dex 12, Con —, Int —, Wis 11, Cha 1.
Skills: None.
Feats: None.
There is a later “Huge” golem whose stats are thus:
Huge Candy Golem: CR 14; Huge construct; HD 14d10; hp 105; Init –2; Spd 40 ft. (can’t run); Defense 6, touch 6, flat-footed 6; BAB +10; Grap +27; Atk +17 melee (2d6+9, slam); Full Atk +17 melee (2d6+9, 2 slams); FS 15 ft. by 15 ft.; Reach 10 ft.; SQ construct, damage reduction 14/bludgeoning, darkvision 60 ft.; AL Children of Chaos; SV Fort +4, Ref +2, Will +4; AP 0; Rep +0; Str 28, Dex 7, Con —, Int —, Wis 11, Cha 1.
The adventure presumes four PCs of 10th-level so to someone familiar with d20 mechanics, it’s clear that the small golems aren’t going to be a real threat while that huge one could be. The terms Small and Huge actually mean something in d20 (which is actually problematic from a GM perspective as you can’t describe a hulking brute of 6’6″ as “huge” because … he’s still Medium-sized! Specifically in this case:
- Small Creatures have a height of 2 to 4 feet and a weight of 8 to 60 lbs.
- Huge Creatures have a height of 16 to 32 feet (!) and a weight of 2 to 16 tons (!).
GURPS: Magic p59 has both the Golem spell and the stats for an example Clay Golem., which the place to start. And then, I found this Pyramid appendix by Steven Ehrbar on a Golem Constuction System that provides some alternate construction materials. That said, though, a clay golem strikes me as pretty much the way to go with the argument that clay and chocolate (in this capacity) really aren’t that much different, so I’m going to stick with that as the basis. Interestingly, the stats for the Clay Golem in GURPS: Magic is 0 points but presumes SM +0 … and Small is going to be -15 (if I just apply the Dwarfism disad) which seems the easiest solution.
So. Small Candy Golems. Let’s go with the following as their stats.
- ST 10; DX 11; IQ 8; HT 14.
Damage 1d+1/2d+1; BL 45 lbs.; HP 15; Will 8; Per 8; FP 14.
Basic Speed 6.25; Basic Move 5; Dodge 9.
SM -1
Advantages/Disadvantages: Doesn’t Breathe; Doesn’t Eat or Drink; Doesn’t Sleep; High Pain Threshold; Immunity to Metabolic Hazards; Injury Tolerance (Homogenous, No Blood); Single-Minded; Unaging; Unfazeable; Vacuum Support; Automaton; Cannot Learn; Disturbing Voice; Dwarfism; No Sense of Smell/Taste; Reprogrammable; Social Stigma (Valuable Property); Unhealing (Total); Unnatural; Wealth (Dead Broke).
Skills: Brawling-12; Climbing-11; Running-13; Throwing-10; Wrestling-12
That’s not bad at all. Certainly aren’t a major threat for two bad asses of the 300 to 400 point variety, which is the point really. There’s enough of them present to be irritating and that’s about it. The ST might need to be reduced somewhat to more accurately reflect the original d20 stats, but for the moment, I think this is okay. The Injury Tolerance (Homogenous) is going to be the real “kick in the teeth” thing for these PCs as it means their firearms will only do 1/3 to 1/5 normal damage (depending on what they carry; I think both will have .40 so that’s going to be 1/3 normal) which is … ouch.
Moving onto the Huge version … yeah. He’s problematic. Replacing the Dwarfism with Gigantism pushes him to SM +1, but consulting the Size Modifier chart on GURPS: Basic p 19, it looks like a Huge creature is SM +3 to the very low end of SM +4. Let’s go with +3. Also, the creatures ST needs to go way up to reflect the original d20 stats. If I use the existing clay golem stats and just jack up the ST to 30, add Gigantism and then increase SM to +3, I have a potentially lethal bad guy but one who is frighteningly fast (due to those long legs.) Since the original d20 stats state that the Huge golem can’t run, let’s tack on 3 levels of Reduce Basic Move to slow him down. I’m tempted to throw in some Damage Reduction, but that might actually be overkill – the two PCs who are going to be facing him are likely to be armed with pistols (2d+2 pi+) which means average inflicted damage would only be around 2 points per shot … yeah. I think this will work for now, although I reserve the right for said golem to randomly become tougher during the actual fight…
- ST 30; DX 11; IQ 8; HT 14.
Damage 3d/5d+2; BL 180 lbs.; HP 30; Will 8; Per 8; FP 14.
Basic Speed 6.25; Basic Move 4; Dodge 9.
SM +3 (25′ tall)
Advantages/Disadvantages: Doesn’t Breathe; Doesn’t Eat or Drink; Doesn’t Sleep; High Pain Threshold; Immunity to Metabolic Hazards; Injury Tolerance (Homogenous, No Blood); Single-Minded; Unaging; Unfazeable; Vacuum Support; Automaton; Cannot Learn; Disturbing Voice; Gigantism; No Sense of Smell/Taste; Reduced Basic Move 3; Reprogrammable; Social Stigma (Valuable Property); Unhealing (Total); Unnatural; Wealth (Dead Broke).
Skills: Brawling-12; Climbing-11; Running-13; Throwing-10; Wrestling-12
An interesting thought occurred to me: in the original d20 adventure, it declares that the cult leader (who has created the golem) isn’t a threat once it is created. I’m currently thinking of changing that to “he becomes the golem” in some fashion. Hmm. Need to muse on that…