You guys are always going on about how necromancers are the worst thing since triple hitler rode a stalin skateboard...

>Unnatural or not, why go after the guy raising a few skeletons to help with chores when there's liches sacrificing souls to fuel their phylacteries?

Spider man stopped chasing after murder rampage Carnage to stop a carjacking. checkmate.

Demon summoning isn't a necromancy thing.

Besides that, just get lesser planar binding and keep your head low. Endless contracts are your friend, and if you are summoning a succubus putting "you can't kiss or have sex with me" in the contract is a good idea. Keep demons that are weaker then yourself.

It is also a good idea to summon more neutral creatures like dragons or genies as demons have a risk factor of going starscream on you unless your GM believes that evil people can care about things.

Modrons are excellent familiars provided you have the autism needed to direct them properly.

just summon the stronger ones

And generally devils are a smarter idea than demons.

Golems are more badass anyways, why would you want a silly skeleton when you can have an iron giant of destruction?

Alright Daddy fucking Warbucks, enjoy your Iron Golem that you had to pay the amount of gold it would take to feed an entire army for

You just assumed that giant skeletons aren't as radical.

You were wrong.

Golem's have a history of turning on and attempting to kill their creators.

No fucking thank you.

It's an investment, I can send that Iron Golem off to do jobs that earn me money in the long run.

Golems actually have a worse track record when it comes to loyalty.

Devils have to follow the contracts you bind them too, golems are bound elemental spirits.

Just hire a ridiculous lawyer

This. You're a madman to make them out of anything more dangerous than clay.

Also: fuck devoting 40+ years to Rabbinical Studies.

I could literally have a bunch of elite giant skeletons for the costs and strength of that one golem.

That's really nice.

Then you can get some vampires to run it for you.

Get a undead mother base working.

What are apprentices?

What are actual hired helpers?

What are familiars?

The fact you jumped straight to convoluted rituals with extra dimensional consequences and ethical bleakness at best is exactly why nobody likes wizards.

Out of all the schools of magic you could have chosen, you decided to chose the one that involves screwing with corpses and messing with souls.

You willingly dug your own hole quite literally, and now you gotta sit in it.

But you gotta find giants corpses first, then you gotta deal with all the pissed off paladins, and good luck getting anyone but other intelligent undead to hire you.

As for me, well step on up to Mosey Mickenley's Mercenary Megacorporation, how can my enchanted steel tanks serve you today?

>Suggesting he build a golem when OP is probably a goy.
Oy vey, don't do this OP.

How are they at washing dishes and playing the thamaturgical lute, dude?

You do realize that 2/3 of those aren't nearly as loyal as a devil bound with contract.

And familiars are pathetic.

And demons look past things like "being a skeleton" and "having skeletons"

And if you pick from the cream of the crop, you can get someone that's not going to go full starscream on you. After all it is in their best interests to get you as evil as possible to have you ascend to demon hood.

Those were the EARLY golems. Golemetry has advanced much further since those dark days, and now, provided you avoid the DANGEROUS materials (clay and human flesh), your golem should be perfectly obedient. I personally recommend wood, ice, or blood as your base material: all three are commonly available in large quantities and have their own benefits:
-Wood golems can double as air fresheners if you pick the right aromatic woods!
-Ice golems are quite useful for storing meats.
-Blood golems are like a walking reserve of ritual blood that passes inspection for all grade-3 (large nonsentient mammal) or lower blood offerings.

OF COURSE, if you're too lazy to learn the full animating rite and don't want to subcontract, just animate a couple of broomsticks or something. Everyone else does it.

Well, for washing dishes we offer our soap golems, golems that literally are made of soap. The lute golem will satisfy all your lutey needs. Perhaps you would like our pillow and blanket golems to cuddle you while you sleep after a hard days work? I've got a sexbot flesh golem if you need to take the stress off.

>what is evil giant graveyard?
>what is necrotic tumor?
>what is hell/abyss?
>what is a normal evil human to be figurehead/necrotic tumor?

The band can afford one, and it's gotta be one of the three-story tall metal golems to properly fit our image, ya know. How well do THOSE handle dishes and the t-lute?

You do realize you are still kidnapping and binding elemental spirits?

Undead are just powered by the negative energy.

Well, I'll have to charge you extra to add on some tiny delicate arms, but It'll do the job just fine.

>sexbot flesh golem
>flesh
THIS IS A SCAM. DO NOT BUY GOLEMS FROM THIS MAN, HE IS SELLING UNSTABLE GOLEMS.

The elementals that power the average golem are about as smart as a newt: why else do you think you have to have so many command circles in their inscriptions? And they're only "kidnapped" if you consider grabbing a toad out of a pond for its toadspawn "kidnapping". Necromancer with a bleeding heart! What a joke.

I wouldn't even have to do anything to get a dishwashing skeleton.

Kill a monkey, then animate it. Or a goblin, or a orc, or a kobold, etc, etc, etc. Or just find a dead body.

Yeah, well when that monkey starts to rip your friends face off, don't come crying to me.

Seriously though, the arbitrary distinction between necromancy and golem making seems arbitrary.

>Golems = bound elemental spirit
>Necromancy = negative elemental plane powered corpse
>Outsider = bound planar creature.

One involves enslaving someone's soul to defy the cycle of life and death, contrary to what SOME claim about "negative energy". A golem, however, is simply animated by a primitive elemental used as the motive force for a complex interlocking set of sigils. By the by, bone golems are FAR more useful than skeletons, without requiring blasphemy against the gods! Just remember to preserve some sinew and ligament to give the final product some structure.

Creatures that die literally lose their soul.

A king can die and go to the afterlife, than a necromancer can animate his corpse. The kings soul will still be in the afterlife.

Now a necromancer can actually steal his soul and that = bad. But if you animate his corpse he's fine.

>>Golems = depends on the setting
>>Necromancy = depends on the setting
>>Outsider = depends on the setting

remember the law of Veeky Forums, "if no setting is specified, assume d&d"

What's preventing me from bounding an elemental spirit to a corpse? Or a negative elemental plane to a golem? A corpse without a soul is just a fleshy object, like any other, ready to accept a spirit, not necessarily of a negative nature.

>a negative elemental plane to a golem
Shit guys, we got a real over-achiever here.

Well typically lack of research in those areas and the fact that the negative energy plane is death-related.

So corpses = most ethical because of the neutral nature of the plane.

Some gods are good with undead.

Like evening glory

>I want my character to have some extra hands around the tower.

Any decent Wizard has access to a dozen different, perfectly unaligned, minions they could possible summon or create; you could even just animate or awaken some fucking furniture to do your bidding if you so desired.

>Can I at least summon one (1) demon without getting every paladin's panties in a twist?

If you want something that'll work and look good (because that's literally what this is all about), just shell out the fucking time and money to make some Homunculi. Then you can just make as many anime girls (or boys) as you want to do your cooking, cleaning, penis inspection, etc.

>What's preventing me from bounding an elemental spirit to a corpse
Nothing, beyond the fact that the corpse will probably burn up from the concentrated elemental force. You need MASS to contain that power: that's why flesh golems (which are a BAD IDEA due to their tendency to VIOLENTLY RAMPAGE WHEN PROVOKED) are made of several dead bodies stitched together!

I mean if you are evil a devil is a nice bet because it is in their best interest to help you be evil.

Devils aren't supposed to starscream because your soul is valuable.

But if you are anything else bind some neutral or good creatures.

And bound creatures are really nice compared to hoemculuses because they are cheaper and smarter.

And after that entire rant, you're still wondering why "the mean bully paladins" take offense with your skeletons and demons. At no point along that line of thought did it occur to you that maybe, just maybe, you were actually the one creating trouble here and not the people around you who just want to not have their farms consumed by hellfire?

Fucking wizards, I swear...

Not all of us are immoral scofflaws who think heresy is a fun pastime- need I remind you that golemetry forms the basis for most of your magically-animating divine guardian statues?

The reason why paladins have to fight wizards is because they are agents of "good" and some wizards are agents of "evil".

Two cosmic forces that always have to fight will always fight.

The only wining move is not to play, which is why I use the oracle injury that removes my alignment, making it so that I can cast any spell without paladins busting my door.

But mainly demons and skeletons are generally a good and affordable way for a wizard to get disposable/or loyal, help.

>Any decent Wizard has access to a dozen different, perfectly unaligned, minions they could possible summon or create; you could even just animate or awaken some fucking furniture to do your bidding if you so desired.
That's how you get Mimics, user.

>Implying Clay, Metal, or Stone Golems are any less prone to violence.

Stop shilling for debunked minion types, it's getting embarassing.

>the worst thing since triple hitler rode a stalin skateboard through the apartheid
Stealing this

>Making Golems for anything other than combat or heavy industry
What a great idea! Because when I think of a golem - a living prison for an enslaved elemental spirit that will one day escape its bindings and go on an enraged rampage - I think of using them as domestic servants!

This isn't Eberron, you fucking idiot.

I'm this mage And last I checked, Stone and Iron were nice, stable elements, not to mention the more exotic metals. It's the malleability of clay and the innate sentience of human (and related breeds) flesh that make them unsuitable materials, in accordance with the Principle of Morphic Resonance: elemental quintessence acquires qualities related to the substance it inhabits. CLEARLY, you're misinformed on the latest literature.

>UNSTABLE GOLEMS.
Redundant.

>Stone and Iron were nice, stable elements, not to mention the more exotic metals.
Unless they start getting wet. Then you have a rusted homicidal automaton running about the docks collecting torsos. And don't even get me STARTED on the merry hell Magnets play.

Not nearly cost effective enough to be worth the expenditure.

Stone and iron are tough materials to get and that's just the body, you have to sculpt, and pay large amounts of money to get a spirit bound in there.

A Skeleton costed at clay golem cost will beat the clay golem, and never break EVER.

And all it took is some onyx(or nothing if you are cool enough to have a spell-like, something you can't do if you are a golem dude)

>And last I checked, Stone and Iron were nice, stable elements, not to mention the more exotic metals.
Erosion and corrosion plays absolute merry hell with a Golem's ability to operate. Skeletons and Zombies can still operate while it's raining without raising a fuss.
Do it with a Golem and you'll be putting lives at risk.

Oh but please, tell me more about your extensively censored latest literature.

Just for laughs a skeleton that costs as much as a clay golem has 1660 hit dice, compared to the golems 13

Tell me again how golems are superior?

>Unless they get wet
Well, OBVIOUSLY Iron is best for security or military deployment. If you want a household golem, wood, ice, or glass are the way to go, although I hear there are some promising experiments with cloth golems...
And if you're working in a seaside property, why not experiment with coral golems? They might get tempermental if not allowed to periodically soak, but its an abundant natural material.

>Stone
>Tough to get
Maybe if you've spent all your life learning how to kill people with bolts of unlife and disturb the eternal rest of decent folk, but SOME of us had the sense to study a WHOLESOME form of magic, like transmutation. All you need is a few days of healthy mountain air and Woddley's Fabulous Chisel, and you'll have the corpus for a stone golem for practically nothing!

>a living prison for an enslaved elemental spirit
You mean the elementally aligned detritus cast off of souls that have passed through the Elemental Planes which is used as components in the artificial intelligence used to program the golem. Spirits are not elementals. They are unthinking bits of what may eventually become an elemental, if enough of it gathers in a spot, congealing together and eventually animating and giving a sort of sapience to a clump of matter.

Besides, only two types go berserk and that is clay and flesh due to clay's malleability slowly eroding the sigils used in its construction, and flesh for having too high of a chance of contamination by unwanted spirit energies corrupting the AI sigils.

Please explain to me how it's easy to get the materials for a stone golem when all I have to do is get a corpse and some onyx.

A clay golem costs 41500 gold pieces

A skeleton with the same hit points costs 325 gold pieces.

Please have fun bargaining for your unloyal unethical expensive man toy as I go find some battleground and throw some mildly expensive jewels around.

>but SOME of us had the sense to study a WHOLESOME form of magic, like transmutation.
Yeah, because nothing says wholesome like the school that brought us Owlbears and Mimics. Or turning living people into lawn ornaments.

Oh and clay golems are caster level 11 and skeletons are caster level 3(but 7 for an evenly matched skeleton)

Actually it's 5 for the skeleton

I'll accept my mistake.

Firstly, demon summoning isn't necromancy, it's more that the blood rites used to summon demons happen to leave a lot of skeletons lying around, so the two associate.

Secondly, demon summoning is illegal because it practically requires murder to work. Necromancy, on the other hand, is only illegal if you have not properly filled out the proper agreements with the church of the Pale Lady, including your statements of duration of reanimation, purpose of reanimation, and your signature and oath to not break the sacred contract, on penalty of damnation.

>Skeletons and Zombies can still operate while it's raining without raising a fuss.
As can many, MANY kinds of golems, such as my faithful Wood Golem, "Loggy": he's out fetching my spare coat down from my field tower right now, in fact. And UNLIKE your skeletons and zombies, he neither involves unnatural and immoral magics, nor rattles about the place, stinking of putrefaction! Never mind the fact that golems can set foot on consecrated ground without literally falling to pieces. But never-mind that: I'm certain you're busy reading about the latest breakthroughs in child torture and which kinds of virgin blood to pair with your dinner in YOUR (rightfully) outlawed periodicals.

>"hit dice"
Not only are you describing a logical impossibility (no human corpse could EVER contain the arcane energies golems do, even if that energy was negatively-charged), but what the HELLS are Hit Dice?

The humanoids don't need to have that many hit dice

I'm just pointing out the fact that I could footslog 1660 skeletons for the cost of one golem, and they possess many advantages(such as not wanting to eat my face)

Also animate dead actually says nothing about only having humanoid targets. Mine just says "corpses"

And 1660 skeletons only hitting on 20's with clubs(which are free) deals 290.5 damage.

A clay golem has 101 hp.

Ands that's assuming that they only attack once.

You honestly think this guy knows how proper Necromancy works. I mean, shit listen to him talk about "child torture" and "virgin blood."

He's a rube. A university stooge who believes whatever the academics above him tell him to believe. Guy probably doesn't even know how many healing spells are Necromantic in nature.

>Costs
Any golem, even one as dysfunctional and unstable as a CLAY one, is worth its weight in gold, if not MITHRIL. The cost of creation is worth it. Besides, that's just over 4,000 platinum: an easy enough sum to make if you can afford your own laboratory! Just tighten the belt for a couple months after, perhaps take a sabbatical for field study.

>unloyal
Perfectly loyal if you aren't an AMATEUR or working with the wrong substance (unlike the undead, who are imbued with an innate hatred for all life).
>Unethical
Really? The NECROMANCER wants to paint himself the master of ethics? How about you stop violating corpses and pinning people's souls to the wall because you want to know where some idiot peasant buried a sack of gold?

>Owlbears
A regrettable mistake from the early days of the trade, but I WILL remind you that the Guild of Transmuters pays a bounty on them.
>Petrification
I have a right to defend my tower. If those thieves didn't want to be used as supports for my "NO SOLICITORS" sign, they wouldn't have tried to rob me while I was sleeping. Besides, in a couple years I'll probably reverse the spell, and they'll be completely unaware of the time passed: more humane than throwing them into a dungeon, no?

>Mimics
THOSE ARE NATURAL ANIMALS BLAST IT YOU'LL BE HEARING FROM THE GUILD'S LAWYERS IF YOU KEEP UP THIS SLANDER! Who's paying you to spread this lie? I bet its those slimy Illusionists, the limp-wristed ponces...

Need a few extra hands around the tower? Why not give Enchantment an old college try?

You know mortals rarely ascend and they try for maximum evil to improve the flavor of their next meal, right?

You think that's a raw deal? I can't play a thrallherd without having to also stop other people from thinking it's slavery and somehow worse than necromancy.

I don't make literal or metaphorical trips to the bone zone, holy shit, get off my back.

>tfw you make an army of golems to defend your keep but they re jewish and the enemy attacks on the sabbath so they refuse to fight

>THOSE ARE NATURAL ANIMALS BLAST IT
If they were, I would be able to reanimate them the same way I can people, dogs, bears, Owlbears and so forth. I cannot. Because you cannot reanimate what was never alive.
Like, say, an animated object, gone rogue. The longer the Guild shouts down these factual complaints, the more people are going to die, and at some point, people are going to start looking at Transmutation the way they look at Necromancy.

And believe me, you don't want that.

>hoemculuses
>homunculi

more to the point how do homunculi differ from golems?

Actually I take this back.

As clay golems have DR/10 admantium and bludgeoning.

I could raise and kit out 3 skeletons who could individually deal with the golem on their own.

I could probably get better numbers than that if I try hard enough.

You do realize that skeletons are perfect followers of the creator right? The hunting only happens because of the nature of the negative plane.

It's almost like if how the spirits get free in a golem it attacks everything. But my skeletons will never break when I'm alive( or as long as they have orders-forever) whereas your golems have a 1% chance of breaking unless you shell out for the even less cost effective ones.

And getting skeletons is stupid ethical if you do it right.
>invite goblins to a village you make
>have them farm for themselves
>have them give up corpses for your protection.

And it would cost less than a golem to do that too.

Someone didn't study their Rabinical rule-lawyering.

>For an activity to be considered as work forbidden on the Sabbath, the violation must be intentional. Therefore moving a chair from one place to another is permissible, even though it may produce an impression on the ground. Similarly, walking on the grass is allowed, even though this may result in some of it being crushed underfoot and thus technically constitute the prohibited activity mentioned above or the forbidden cutting of blades of grass.

As long as the golems crush enemies beneath their giant feet unintentionally, it's perfectly kosher for Shabbat!

>Really? The NECROMANCER wants to paint himself the master of ethics? How about you stop violating corpses and pinning people's souls to the wall because you want to know where some idiot peasant buried a sack of gold?
How about you do something about all these FUCKING MIMICS you keep pretending aren't your fault?

Planar Binding is an abjuration spell. Ethically pure, supreme school of magic coming through!

Wasn't she more of an automaton and Astaroth, who she was sent to hunt down, was the golem?

>more to the point how do homunculi differ from golems?

Golems are constructed (typically) out of inorganic materials such as clay, wood, stone, metal, and then embodied by some kind of spirit or even by the word of god itself if it's a ye olde jewish Golem. Golems can also be made out of flesh, but that's kind of getting into Frankenstein's monster territory and isn't really what you're asking.

Homunculi on the other hand aren't 'crafted' so much as they're germinated or artificially gestated: they're clones, they're the original test tube babies. The original folklore dictates you're supposed to get sperm, a pig or horses womb, and immerse it all in humans blood in a jar/glass container while keeping it warm so it'll mature and develop. The end product is an adult man or woman (appearance, gender, etc, you can all edit) who's basically completely and absolutely loyal to the owner of it's genetic material, so whatever man offered it the original semen.
Islamic/Middle eastern alchemy original saw the creation of Homunculi as the end-game of alchemy as opposed to immortality or transmuting gold since to make a Homunculi was to basically make LIFE.

A Golem is more 'clean' in it's construction, but rough in it's appearance, while a Homunculi is much more visceral and graphic in it's creation, but much more appealing or idealized in it's looks, both are ultimately just artificial servants.

I have absolutely no fucking clue why modern tabletop games portray Homunculi as some weird flying goblin made of playdoh.

>>Petrification
>I have a right to defend my tower. If those thieves didn't want to be used as supports for my "NO SOLICITORS" sign, they wouldn't have tried to rob me while I was sleeping
Weak, what are you, a Medusa?

Well, for negative energy, it tends to revolve around entropy in the first place. It is also pretty plainly tied to life, as every effect involving negative energy, including the plane itself, revolves around affecting living or formerly living tissue. That implies it is intrinsically tied to things that live and die. From there, given the existence of ghosts, it may be that you can expand that to negative energy being related to the soul, or ethereal realm, in some fashion, nor does the energy seem to manifest as entities composed solely of negative energy as much as it seems to hijack angry souls and drag them into madness and hate as denizens. This is good evidence to two things, the first is that the negative energy plane lacks elementals or "natural" denizens, the second that there is weird ass bullshit concerning souls and negative energy that could use more delving into than just assuming making a zombie does not fuck with someone's afterlife.

Why not make your tower your assistant in the first place? You're going to spend a shitload of money and magic making and enchanting the place anyway, might as well spend a bit more of both to make it as useful as possible.

>Owlbears were made by Wizards.

I want this meme to end.

Seriously, the fuck who claimed to make them was a charlatan who had imported a few specimens of a species of flightless griffin.

]
Because again, that's how you get mimics.

>Why not make your tower your assistant in the first place?
Preach!

golemsmith > elementalist > diabolist > necromancer

What about enchanter? Enchantment solves all problems easily and without moral compu- well, mind-raping a few commoners and knights and lords and animals into unquestionable service isn't nearly as evil as raising a zombie.

>being so shit that you get mimics instead of what you intended

Look, if you're a shit wizard you're gonna die eventually, consider the creation of a successful tower assistant your test of whether or not you're worthy of being a wizard.

Where is the staircase?

Now, why bother with the high magical energies and artifice required to maintain a golem, or the troubles of keeping your undead slaves bound and unsmited, or the everyday pains of preventing your devil from screwing you on the contract?

Why not instead go with the good doctor's formulae for fully customized homonculi? They're cheaper to buy than golem-makings and more legal than the other common servants!

They can eat anything you want them to, look however you want them to, have whatever amount of intellect you desire, are perfectly loyal, are capable of expressing compassion if you want them to... All the benefits of enchantment and transmutation in one, and maybe some of the other categories too! Servants! Spouses! The good doctor does everything*! We'll even implant false memories, free of charge, to increase loyalty beyond 100%! Send a message by preferred method** to the attached address!

*Strictly no canines, nor anything resembling them.
**No dream messaging. The good doctor doesn't sleep.

There's one on the inside I'm sure. Just gotta start somewhere near the foot.