ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Golems are kind of weak and useless. especially at mid and higher levels. I have some ideas for additional golem related talents that might help. Feel free to add your own ideas or make the add on please please please?


1. donate talents to the golem sacrifice some of your own talent points at a one to one, two to one or three to one exchange rate so your poor golem can learn more stuff.
2. let your golem go to the mage's academy.
3. do it indirectly by creating a golemancy talent where by investing your own talent points you alter your golem's rate of progression, stat, talent and category points.
5. create a golemancy talent that allows your golem more equipment slots or more gem slots.
6. Create a golemancy talent that allows your golem to gain a prodigy or two (each about 5 levels after you gain one.) each additional talent point (limited to five or 2 per prodigy) lowers the level penalty for gaining the prodigy.
7. create a talent that allows you to steal a talent from yourself, an enemy or NPC and give it to your golem.
8. become a trainer.
9. variety. make some of the other summoned critters permanent with golem like resurrection and capabilities plus the summoned critter ability if it has any.
10. your golem is actuallyan advanced android like the androids in alien or replicants like in blade runner or Data from TNG or Xizor's assassin droid Guri from the starwars novels.

First off, I've never won the game with an alchemist, nor even made it to the East with one, so I confess that my knowledge used here is empirical rather than firsthand.

However, from what I've gleaned from guides, build tips, and everything else, it seems that while golem use as a damage dealer falls off long before the end game, it still retains a good deal of use as a "meat" shield. The golem is there to help you get out of the early game intact, but by the time it stops being a killer, you've got your massive radius, massive damage alchemist bombs that one shot everything except bosses or rares.

In my personal opinion, there's nothing really wrong with golems at the moment except for the Taunt skill, which starts at radius 0 instead of radius 1. They may not be able to win the game on their own, but that's not the point. They're there to give you a wall between you and foes while you burn them to death, cackling with glee as you smell roasting flesh and hear the cries of pain and despair.

One last thing, could you elaborate on some of your suggestions? "Go to the mage's academy", for instance, seems like a serious suggestion but I have no idea what you mean by it.

Red wrote:"Go to the mage's academy", for instance, seems like a serious suggestion but I have no idea what you mean by it.

It's some wanky addon.

Enzan wrote:

Red wrote:"Go to the mage's academy", for instance, seems like a serious suggestion but I have no idea what you mean by it.

It's some wanky addon.

Enzan wrote: It's some cool, but in need of balancing addon.

Fixed that for you, Enzan.

actually the academy add on has been balanced to the point it is no more useful than getting a couple of escort missions. there are things that could be done such as if you find certain randarts like the "lost staff of tarelion" you could get a mission (which you could decline without penalty [No failed mission record in your journal] if you want to keep the staff) to return the staff to it's owner for a token. secondly; whats wrong with buying a token? you could make it cost as much as real life college courses at ivy league schools. 5000 or 7000 or 10K gold. i dunno about you but it takes me forever to make my first thousands because i keep a lot of items and i turn a lot of items into gems. a couple of fetch missions for each major NPC in the hidden city, and for establishing the portals to the far east or for exterminating Tannen.

you almost cannot over power the academy because you can unlock adventurer. and that does not count add ons that do away with cat point requirements or that let you pull a Rogue (X man reference) on every thing from slimes to demigods. but regardless; compared to that academy is entirely underpowered.

Red wrote:First off, I've never won the game with an alchemist, nor even made it to the East with one, so I confess that my knowledge used here is empirical rather than firsthand.

However, from what I've gleaned from guides, build tips, and everything else, it seems that while golem use as a damage dealer falls off long before the end game, it still retains a good deal of use as a "meat" shield. The golem is there to help you get out of the early game intact, but by the time it stops being a killer, you've got your massive radius, massive damage alchemist bombs that one shot everything except bosses or rares.

In my personal opinion, there's nothing really wrong with golems at the moment except for the Taunt skill, which starts at radius 0 instead of radius 1. They may not be able to win the game on their own, but that's not the point. They're there to give you a wall between you and foes while you burn them to death, cackling with glee as you smell roasting flesh and hear the cries of pain and despair.

One last thing, could you elaborate on some of your suggestions? "Go to the mage's academy", for instance, seems like a serious suggestion but I have no idea what you mean by it.

necroing to reply.

re elaborating on golem ideas:

From another thread on Goelms:

Also; my outline of an idea is to add extra golemancy trees which do things like extend the golem control range, allow the golem's master or mistress to deactivate the golem peacefully, grant equipment slots, educate the golem for a broader but still restricted list of talents, give the golem supplemental AI routines (some useful and others just for immersion.) There are some talents that don't harm friendlies that the golem's limited ai could not mess up. like the illusion, distortion and explosives talent groups.

immersion would mean stuff like the golem commenting about things you are doing or seeing or doing or having happen to you or it. commenting on upgrades. for example asking for an upgrade, saying it would be useful if i could ________, or "oh hey! i just thought about how i could equip an extra gem!" or maybe idle behaviors when not in combat, in town, while the main character rests, or in the fortress.

i do not yet know whether these can just be bought using the players talent points or if golem/alchemy lore must be uncovered by quests or incidental to the regular quests.

i think expanded golems could include closer anthropomorphic conformation of the regular golem to speciation into homononculi, similacrums, tulpas and possibly tulku.

those are some of the things i have thought of since this thread's inception as well as some of the old ideas.

A golem is a FRPG adaption of the legend of the Golem of Praque. Usually rendered as a vivified statue of clay via prayer, concentrating one's will and application of the magical Kaballah. The story has it that A jewish mystic in Prague created the golem to defend the persecuted and endangered jews. the legend says the golem eventually went amok and had to be destroyed by reversing the mystical creation of it.

similar things from lore and literature are homonoculi and similacrum. Homonoculi are more achemy-ey in origin than golems. Similacrums are a more magical fantasy derivative.

another similar thing is an artificial elementary from western ceremonial magic literature. basically a image of the desired creature is thought up and projected onto the astral plane following the adepts own choice of magical symbolic framework. concentration will and belief are employed to make the astral image more real over time. artificial elementaries usually manifest in the astral and only rarely take on material form. actual physical manifestation requires enormous amounts of gathered energy and focus of will and real mastery of the mystical system the user follows even if that system is completely made up. Like the golem of praque; they tend to eventually get out of control. artificial elementaries have rudimentary intelligence (at least at first) and no free will and cannot survive without a spiritual power source. the ones that run amok eventually work out sources of sustaining energy such as vulnerable people in the material world, or sources in the astral such as the recently deceased's discarded spiritual residue. And artificial elementary may be made in any form imaginable to the adept providing he can hold it in his or her mind.

Meanwhile in tibet; the equivalant of an artificial elementary is known as a tulpa. they are very similar though the mystic underpinning is somewhat different.

a related eastern concept is a tulku though the tulku is the putative mystical preparation for highly adept mystics to choose their vessel of reincarnation. the mystic's astral working or mystical preparation creates a channel to an upcoming pregnancy and birth at the desired location, time and circumstances of genetics and birth. any thought form work is incidental to this work. the tulku child will inexplicably have much of the adept's knowledge, memories and personality. at least that's what the lore says.

The history is interesting (and I love mythology), but when I think golem master, I think a mage who can customize and specialize his golem to suit his needs. Want a walking spell tower? Want a knight with mad melee skills? Want a robot ninja assassin maid (ok, the maid part is an anime reference)? Want a healer? A buffer? A debuffer? You can't be everything at once, or at least not GOOD at everything at once, but you can pick and choose as you want.

I'd love to see the golem be more like that. Maybe you can't re-fit it at will to re-customize it, maybe once a modification decision is made it's permanent, but customization should be a lot more than it is now.

why should a golem customization be permanent? i get that with the main character they can't just reprogram their brains, but why shouldn't a golem be allowed to do so? its artificial to begin with.

golem abilities should be like attachments that you can pick and chose at any time, but ofc depending on the masters proficiency, you would be only able to fit so many attachments at once.

there are already 8 strictly golem related abilities, and 3 passives that can trigger a reaction in a golem.
why not give the golem some categories, when you select some of these trees? their mastery would be 1.0 +0.1*Etl?
-golem power
there is already a weapon related category.

-life tap
could unlock some support ability?

-Gem golem
right here you attach 2 gems to a golem... and they do absolutely nothing, besides a minor buff.
DO SOMETHING WITH THEM.
arcanum has a rune strike which does bonus damage based on the gem (or rune?) in your weapon
"verdant class pack" has a gem prism that deals x damage of the chosen gem in a beam.
the vanilla golem has "eye beam", how do gems not affect it?

-runic gollem
same here, do something?
that may be a bit complicated, but how about using the runes as some sort of sustainable catalyst, rather than just something you trigger.

another thing is, the golem has its on mag will and cun stats. how does that work?

once you encounter tannen's drolem you might be able to find lore that gives you the ability to make drolems or other non humanoid golems.