Talk:Golems
Helen, I left the section numbers in for easy reference back to the original rules. I was going to add more as headings for the talent, spell, and ritual sections.
Is there a particular reason why you took them out?
Stephen 15:26, 24 Aug 2005 (NZST)
2.113.3 Definitions 2.213.4 Attuning and so on in the table of contents looked... wrong. If you recall I suggested altering the order away from that in the rules book. The book's illogical. We can always put the section numbers back in but I'd like to see if there is a another way of referencing back first.
Where did the weights come from? They seem based on squares rather than cubes at a glance.
Andrew Withy.
Golem Weights
Apart from R&S, they are based on squares times a constant for the golem type. Initially I tried a complex formula based on height, width, depth, material weight, density of construction, etc. It got horribly complicated and didn't produce numbers that seemed reasonable for DQ.
The square implies that their width * their depth = height (mostly accurate). The constant is a combination of material weight and construction density and a bit of experimentation to find a reasonable range of numbers.
R&S are simply height * 2, their depth and width are fairly irrelevant.
The current constants are:
R&S 2 Clay 8 Wood 6 Iron 15 Stone 13
Helen has suggested that Iron and R&S are too heavy. R&S because they are dolls made of rags and string and should be lighter. Stone because they are stated to be the heaviest in the text descriptions and it is implied that Iron are mostly hollow.
I tend to agree and we are looking at halving R&S and changing Iron to have a constant of 10 or 11.
Other thoughts & opinions would be appreciated.
Stephen 08:01, 24 Nov 2005 (NZDT)
Yes. I checked out how much a 1.87 metre tall Virgin Mary carved from white marble weighed, and it turns out to be 160Kgs. Because stone statues (and golems) are made entirely of stone, then weight increases will vary at a cubic rate.
A bronze statue of a 1.82 m man weighs 128 kgs, and the difference in specific gravity between bronze (on average, because it can vary) and iron is about 0.9 (i.e. iron/bronze = 0.9), so the weight of a life-sized iron golem is likely to be around 123 kgs. It seems clear to me that it would vary at a cubic rate as well, even though it is hollow.
The reason that I think this is that the dimensions would need to be preserved. So, the thickness of the iron skin would maintain its proportionality. The advantage of the iron golem over the stone golem is the power to weight ratio.
Velcanthus
1 Kg = 2.2046 lbs and 1 m = 3.2808 feet.
- White Marble Virgin Mary
- 1.87 m => 6.14 feet (approx 6'1.7"), 160 kg => 352.7 lbs. If she were a golem and the height squared times a constant formula was used then her constant would be 9.4 implying that the constant for Stone Golems is too high.
- According to Average Specific Gravity of Various Rock Types Marble weighs 150-169 lbs per cubic foot.
- This implies that the Virgin Mary is made from 2.2 cubic feet of (average) Marble which didn't seem like much until I worked out that my volume (6'3" 200 lbs) is 2.7 to 3.1 cubic feet (depending on method of calculation).
- And a 6' Stone Golem which weighs 468 lbs is made from 2.9 cubic feet of (average) Marble. Somewhat more than the Virgin Mary but then I think of golems as big and masculine not curvaceous females.
Marble is neither the heaviest nor lightest of rocks, depending on the type and the specific sample they vary between 137 and 187 lbs per cubic foot, so assuming a 6' golem is made of 3 cubic feet of rock their weight should be 411 - 561 lbs. So 468lbs for a 6' stone golem seems a good enough average with +/- 50 lbs based on the type of rock. And -100 lbs and presumably less EN/FT/PS if you like to make curvaceous feminine golems.
- Iron Golems and Bronze Statues
- Iron ore is 281 - 331 lbs per cubic foot, so a solid 6' iron golem would be about 917 lbs.
- With a weight factor of 15 we're implying that Iron Golems require 59% of the material (1.8 cu') that Stone Golems do.
- With a weight factor of 10 we imply that they use 39% of the material (1.2 cu').
- The bronze statue mentioned above uses about 0.9 cubic feet of material which would match up with a weight factor of about 8.
- Clay Golems
- Clay is about 75% of the weight of rock, so if they were solid the weight factor for Clay Golems should be 11ish.
The weight of the Golems is a limiting factor for being able to make and transport them. Clay golems are fairly weak and Iron golems are very tough, I think the weights should reflect that.
I would prefer to keep the weight factor of Iron golems over 10 - Binders must use more materials than sculptors do. And I don't want Clay Golems weighing as much as a solid one should so I guess they must be mostly hollow too.
Stephen 16:59, 25 Nov 2005 (NZDT)
more on weights
A 1.8 m 123kg Iron statue means nothing to me. In DQ we deal in ft and lbs, a 6 ft statue that weights 270lbs please.
See I told you stephen that Iron about the same weight as clay felt right. Go with the factor of 10
The Stone golems weights that Stephen has calculated with his height squared time 13, for human sized golems are within the varibles for human PCs x3. The x3 comes from the rules, petrified things are turned to stone and weigh 3 times as much. The wood weights are close to the weights of PCs of that size. So I feel happy with the factors and formular used for those.
The whole point of defining weights is to define how much Iron clay Stone etc is required to make a golem of that size, currently we have nothing. So Players and GMs have nothing to base how big an iron golem can be made from those 10 suits of looted chainmail for example. Nor for purposes of transport how many 2 ft R&S golems a PC can carry.
If you find the figures here a little heavy eg the 6 ft virgin mary is only 282lbs compaired to our 468lbs, its mainly because we have our GMs hats on, and we would rather not see Binders running around with small armies of R&S golems in packs or creating Giant Stone or Iron golems out of a stone bench or a pile of old horse shoes.
Helen
Oh, please.
Golem AG vs EN
It looks like Stone golems get an extra +1 MD and AG / Rank, giving MD & AG > 30 at high ranks. PS goes up too, but not EN and FT. I would have thought that EN and FT were more likely to increase. Is it possible that some table conversion lost the extra column breaks (e.g. &) for Stone (and maybe Clay) Golems? If it is a typo, we can fix it in the new rulebook today / tomorrow, but then not for many years. Or is it intentional, in which case (1) WTF? and (2) OK, not my problem. Andreww 02:07, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
- R&S might be out too --Errol 03:03, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
- I don't think it is a typo as it seems to be consistent in every document I have to hand. But I agree that it's a bit bizarre.
- Changing Stone Golems from +1/Rk to AG & MD to +1/2Rk to AG,MD,EN,FT would seem more reasonable.
- R&S look fine. It is intentional that they always have crap FT.
- -- Stephen 03:29, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
Agreed. Done Andreww 10:09, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
