Guessing Crystals undead type thread. E-peen for the winner.

[Keltest]

I may be mistaken, but I believe all illusions we have seen so far (save for the phantasm in the pyramid) have been translucent.

To my knowledge, every transparent illusion so far has been cast by the Order, or by someone who is acting as the focus character for that particular page and thus would know it is an illusion automatically.

[Quild]

This is a VERY good point. 99% of the undead we have seen have black speech bubbles, but 100% of the golems we have seen have frankenstein bolts. I think that's a pretty good argument against Golem.

I love to nitpick but you mean "Flesh golems", not "golems". The "bone golem" doesn't have these things.

[littlebum2002]

I love to nitpick but you mean "Flesh golems", not "golems". The "bone golem" doesn't have these things.

What are you talking about? I totally said that.

This is a VERY good point. 99% of the undead we have seen have black speech bubbles, but 100% of the golems flesh golems we have seen have frankenstein bolts. I think that's a pretty good argument against Golem.

[Crusher]

I may be mistaken, but I believe all illusions we have seen so far (save for the phantasm in the pyramid) have been translucent.

Tarquin's armor isn't translucent.

Edit - For the record, I'm keeping my guess as Revanant as I'm not entirely serious about it being Yor, but the concept turned out to be more plausible than I expected.

[Dwy]

My bet:
Crystal is a lich now.

What? She doesn't look like that other lich we've seen in the comic and attacks by melee? Well, you see, it's Crystal...

She is really bad at it.

[riaierb]

vampire, in diguise controlled by trigaks soul.

[littlebum2002]

Mad props to those that said flesh golem. Totally didn't see THAT coming!

[martianmister]

Where is our E-peens?

[Jaxzan Proditor]

Well, no e-peen for me. Kudos to those who made the right guess.

[Darth Paul]

The stitched-together appearance argues for either Flesh Golem (perhaps Awakened, as suggested above) or else a Zombie, sewn back up so the (eww) inside bits won't spill out; again, either Awakened or else with some residual vestige of Crystal to recognize Haley.

Mad props to those that said flesh golem. Totally didn't see THAT coming!

Thanks for the mad props. I have never had those before. Although I'm not sure if my above quote qualifies as an official "guess" since it contained an either/or?

Now we move on to the next thread: "Guessing Crystal's Golem Type"! (Although that's probably going to be the subtitle of the discussion thread.)

[Quild]

Yay, I called golem! First! On this thread. Also I called other things and totally called golem just to say they're not undead. Which is relevant, but still.

Percentage of fleshy golems with Frankenstein's monster bolt-things suddenly dropped :p

[Crusher]

Doubtful she's a fighter illusioned to look like Crystal, either. :(

[Bitzer]

Congratulations to the correct guessers!

[Quild]

Doubtful she's a fighter illusioned to look like Crystal, either. :(

Maybe someone cast an illusion on Thog and it was him 2 strips ago :o

Maybe not.

[Psyren]

Not sure if the above is being silly or not, but that's definitely Crystal. Nobody else in the comic would know the meaning behind "Nice boots" besides the two of them.

Her memories (and possibly even her brain?) are definitely inside that thing. Certainly her class levels are - Bandana capitalized "Sneak Attack," ergo it is the class feature and not simply her ambush, and she used it with her slam to basically one-shot Elan in the surprise round.

[Zmeoaice]

Mad props to those that said flesh golem. Totally didn't see THAT coming!

But did they guess "Weird New Kind of Flesh Golem"? They don't get any points unless they use that phrase.

[Edhelras]

But did they guess "Weird New Kind of Flesh Golem"? They don't get any points unless they use that phrase.

I STILL cannot reconcile myself with Crystal being a "weird kind of flesh golem" - at least not yet. Too many problems - not least that she would then usually be composed by parts from several bodies, making it questionable whether she actually was "Crystal" anymore.

Furthermore: How reliable is Haley's guess at this creature, anyway? To properly identify it as a flesh golem (and particularly a form of golem that she hasn't encountered before, a "weird new kind"), she would have to make a Knowledge:arcana check. Which would be cross-class for her. And even though she made an untrained check (an Intelligence check), she would, according to the SRD, only be able to make easy checks with DC10 or less. Thus unable to identify the monster.
As for the theory of an undead monster - she would have to make a similar (untrained) Knowledge:religion check to identify it.

I think it's quite conceivable that Haley is actually clueless as to what this monster is. She believes it is a Construct, but she isn't skilled enough to identify it with certainty.

Actually - this might just be Rich' way of making fun of the speculations on the forum - "what is that thing?". I still want to believe it can be an undead monstrosity.

[rodneyAnonymous]

It's not undead.

It's not a revenant. It's a flesh golem. Give it up already.

[Edhelras]

It's not undead.

Hah. Don't I feel silly...

I'm left with "I would've liked it to be undead".

[Necrus Philius]

<===========3

That e-peen is for all of you that guessed right. I hope it's enough.

[Orcus The Vile]

She is flesh golem reanimated through electricity and alchemy.

Like a doctor frankenstein meet doctor Herbert West creature.

[Crusher]

Now wait a second, we still don't know what *kind* of flesh golem she is (Cadaver vs awakened vs house-ruled regular flesh golem vs whatever else), so there shouldn't be any epeen handed out yet.

[Psyren]

I know Rich already cleared this up but I still wanted to reply to two points here:

I STILL cannot reconcile myself with Crystal being a "weird kind of flesh golem" - at least not yet. Too many problems - not least that she would then usually be composed by parts from several bodies, making it questionable whether she actually was "Crystal" anymore.

If her brain is driving - and given that Grubby creates golems "Frankenstein-style," and that whatever this thing she has become is, it has retained her class levels and memories, this could easily be the case - then it won't matter what other parts are bolted on or from who. The brain would trump everything else as far as setting direction, personality etc. unless proven otherwise.

Furthermore: How reliable is Haley's guess at this creature, anyway? To properly identify it as a flesh golem (and particularly a form of golem that she hasn't encountered before, a "weird new kind"), she would have to make a Knowledge:arcana check. Which would be cross-class for her. And even though she made an untrained check (an Intelligence check), she would, according to the SRD, only be able to make easy checks with DC10 or less. Thus unable to identify the monster.

OotS tends to fudge Knowledge checks, if they are present at all. We have things like Roy knowing a lot about planar travel and illusions, Haley knowing that flesh golems are healed by electricity and immune to sneak attacks, Haley further knowing that summoned creatures have to follow orders literally, Belkar knowing that greater invisibility still allows you to attack and so on. She might ultimately be wrong, of course, but until we have reason to believe she is wrong she is "innocent until proven guilty" based on what we've seen. (And now we know for sure it is a FG anyway.)

[Necrus Philius]

OotS tends to fudge Knowledge checks, if they are present at all. We have things like Roy knowing a lot about planar travel and illusions, Haley knowing that flesh golems are healed by electricity and immune to sneak attacks, Haley further knowing that summoned creatures have to follow orders literally, Belkar knowing that greater invisibility still allows you to attack and so on. She might ultimately be wrong, of course, but until we have reason to believe she is wrong she is "innocent until proven guilty" based on what we've seen. (And now we know for sure it is a FG anyway.)

To extrapolate on the knowledge checks, oots makes more sense with theirs. Of course Roy would know more about magic than the average fighter, his father and sister are wizards.

Haley knowing about golems makes sense because she grew up around them thanks to Grubwriggler operating in the same town she lived in. The giant takes into account both circumstance and class when determining what a character should and shouldn't know.

[Psyren]

To extrapolate on the knowledge checks, oots makes more sense with theirs. Of course Roy would know more about magic than the average fighter, his father and sister are wizards.

Haley knowing about golems makes sense because she grew up around them thanks to Grubwriggler operating in the same town she lived in. The giant takes into account both circumstance and class when determining what a character should and shouldn't know.

Indeed - but both of those situations would, if you were to go by the game rules, be represented by a circumstance bonus to the knowledge or spellcraft check in question. They would not on their own allow you to overcome the specific limitation mentioned in this thread, i.e. that they can't make the check at all for a DC higher than 10 unless they are trained.

Now you could say that Haley, in her time as a crook, has encountered Meteor Swarm runes before and thus knows what they look like on sight - despite having previously admitted she doesn't know any 9th-level spellcasters. Perhaps she did sink the necessary points into Knowledge (Arcana) to succeed at that check during combat (and thus unable to take 10 or 20.) Or, you could go with the simpler expedient that skill checks, while present in this world, are a bit fuzzier than the RAW calls for, for the sake of plot and humor.

[littlebum2002]

Indeed - but both of those situations would, if you were to go by the game rules, be represented by a circumstance bonus to the knowledge or spellcraft check in question. They would not on their own allow you to overcome the specific limitation mentioned in this thread, i.e. that they can't make the check at all for a DC higher than 10 unless they are trained.

Let's think about this for a second.

Roy's dad teaches him about planar travel.
10 seconds later, someone asks Roy how planar travel works, but he doesn't know because the DC is over 10, despite his father JUST teaching him about it.

That is not how Knowledge checks work.

[Crusher]

So, I don't have Savage Species. How does the Incarnate Flesh Golem template work out here?

[hamishspence]

So, I don't have Savage Species. How does the Incarnate Flesh Golem template work out here?

It removes the construct type and replaces it with Humanoid (if the base construct was Medium).

In this context I figure Awakened Construct works better.

Since Bozzok stresses that she's not a normal flesh golem - but retains her "murder skills" and self-awareness.

Maybe uses Crystal's statline - but with golem traits (and maybe hit dice as well?) added on top of the "base Crystal"?

[goto124]

Who did all the maths to figure out the best way to rez Crystal?

[JDL]

Got it.

Soulfused Construct, Magic of Incarnum, p. 196:

CREATING A SOULFUSED CONSTRUCT

“Soulfused” is an acquired template that can be added to any construct that has neither an Intelligence score nor the living construct subtype (referred to hereafter as the base creature). A soulfused construct uses all the base creature’s statistics and abilities except as noted here.

Size and Type: A soulfused construct’s type does not change, but it gains the living construct subtype (see Living Construct sidebar). Size is unchanged.

Hit Dice: The soulfused construct retains the base creature’s Hit Dice and hit points (but see Advancing a Soulspark, page 198).

Special Qualities: A soulfused construct has all the special qualities of the base creature except its construct traits, which it loses. It gains the living construct traits detailed in the sidebar, as well as the following special qualities.

Essentia Pool: The incarnum possessing the soulfused construct’s form gives it an essentia pool equal to 1 + 1 per 6 HD it possesses.

Soulbound Resistance: A soulfused construct can invest its essentia in this special quality as if it were a soulmeld. Every point of invested essentia grants it a +1 resistance bonus on all saving throws. The maximum essentia capacity of this quality is as normal for a character of the construct’s character level.

Abilities: Increase from the base creature as follows: Dex +2, Cha +4. The soulfused construct also gains an Intelligence score of 3 and a Constitution score of 10.

Skills: The soulfused construct gains skill ranks equal to its HD + 3. All skills except Speak Language are considered cross-class. Most soulfused constructs spend the majority of their skill points on Listen or Spot, and any odd point that might be left over to learn Common or some other language.

Feats: The soulfused construct gains feats at the rate of 1 + 1/ 3 HD, just as a normal creature does. Common feats selected by such creatures include Improved Initiative, Improved Natural Attack, Iron Will, and Power Attack.

Organization: Solitary.

Challenge Rating: Same as the base creature +1.

Alignment: Usually chaotic (any). The fusion of incarnum and construct rarely produces a disciplined or orderly mindset.

Advancement: By character class.

Level Adjustment: Same as the base creature +1.

Check the Soulfused Flesh Golem example on the preceeding page. It's Crystal.