Copyright 2008 Wizards of the Coast

This article is part of a series! Click here to see the other entries.

Golems have been in the game since the beginning. They became so popular that they ended up giving rise to the whole construct taxonomy as more things that were like them were published to capitalize on the hype.

The word itself comes from the myth of the Golem of Prague. Here, golems are present in both books.

The Lore

Like in pretty much every edition of D&D, golems are humanoid constructs created by powerful spellcasters or masters of secret lore. They faithfully obey their creator’s orders and tirelessly follow the last commnand they received if the creator is not around.

The process of creating a golem is quite involved and expensive. The body must be crafted to exacting specifications, a process that often involves hired artisans if the creator doesn’t have the skill themselves. The creator them performs a complex ritual upon the finished body, opening a small rift to the Elemental Chaos and pulling a bit of the same spark used by the gods and primordials to craft the world. This animating spark gives the golem motion and a desire to obey its creator, and nothing else in the way of personality.

There are several versions of the animating ritual. All require a sacrifice of treasure plus one of blood or spirit. The more evil the ritual, the less of the former and more of the latter it requires. The resulting golem itself, however, is always Unaligned.

While golems are not actually mindless, they’re not really people. A golem has the ability to understand its master’s orders perfectly, but it can’t speak or understand anyone else. It also employs very direct and physical approaches to fulfilling those orders. If a golem is given an order it can’t fulfill, it will either just stand there or rampage until told to stop. Never try to make your golem work as an accountant!

Golems really excel when used for their intended purpose, though. They never tire, never complain, never disobey, and last pretty much forever. They’re hard enough to make that their creators tend to be people who value those traits above all else. Maybe it’s a dwarf kingdom who needs eternal guardians for their treasure vaults. Maybe it’s a tyrannical wizard who wants absolutely loyal bodyguards who won’t flinch when ordered to dismember someone as an example. And so on.

The Numbers

The full Golem Lineup got quite large over the editions, but here we get a limited slice of it to start with. The MM contains flesh and stone golems; the MV has those two plus iron golems.

I imagine clay golems were left out of the MM because the Eidolons already filled the “divine construct” niche, and out of the MV because the Frankenstein-inspired Flesh Golem became more popular.

Most golems are Large Natural Animates with the Construct keyword. Constructs don’t need to breathe, eat or sleep and don’t count as living creatures, making them immune to effects that only target the living. All golems also have darkvision and though they move with Speed 6 they cannot shift. They tend to be Paragon-tier elite brutes. Everything else varies with the type of golem.

Flesh Golem (Both)

Flesh golems are inspired by Frankenstein’s monster, and built from corpse parts. This makes them look like large angry zombies, but they’re explicitly not undead. I don’t believe they decompose either.

They’re Level 12 Elite Brutes with 304 HP. Unlike all other golems, they are not immune to disease and poison. They fight with their fists and can perform two slams per action. When bloodied, they also make additional slam attacks against a random adjacent target as a reaction to being hit by an attack.

The golem’s other special attack is Golem Rampage, which allows it to move its Speed+2, pass through enemy squares, and make a slam attack against any enemy whose square they pass through. This provokes opportunity attacks as normal, and recharges on a 5-6.

The MV version has all of the same abilties with improved damage, and leans even harder on the Frankenstein story with two new passive traits. I suppose they’re also a callback to the extensive list of immunities and weird spell effects every golem had in previous editions.

Primal Fear causes it to run away from anyone who deals fire damage to it, moving up to its speed as a free action. If it can’t move at least half that distance it grants combat advantage for a turn instead. Life-Giving Jolt allows it to make a free basic attack when it takes lightning damage.

Use the MV version for its numbers, and feel free to remove the new passive traits if they don’t fit your needs.

Stone Golem (Both)

While flesh golems are the weaker variety, you can say stone golems are the most basic. They’re Level 17 Elite Brutes with 336 HP, and are immune to disease and poison.

They fight with slams, and can also make one or two of those per turn. They have the same Golem Rampage power as the flesh golem, and a Death Burst that triggers when they die. This explosion is a Close Burst 1 vs. AC doing physical damage from stone shrapnel, and causing the area to become difficult terrain “until cleared”.

Aside from fixing the damage bug, the versions in the two books are identical.

Iron Golem (MV)

Iron golems were the top of the golem ladder until the 3e Epic Level Handbook came along. It appears in 4e for the first time on the MM2. The iron golem is a Level 20 Elite Soldier with 386 HP. Like other non-flesh golems it’s immune to disease and poison.

Iron golems are filled with a self-replenishing reservoir of chemical weapons! While they’re bloodied, these leak and work like an Aura 2 that deals poison damage to any creature that enters it or starts their turn inside.

Other elemental magic also has strange effects on them: they can shift 2 squares when they take fire damage for the first time in a turn (even though they can’t otherwise shift). When they’re hit with lightning, they’re also slowed for a turn.

An iron golem’s basic attack is an Iron Blade that does some pretty good damage and marks on a hit. It can Cleave to make this basic attack against two different targets. Its other main weapon is a breath weapon that uses those chemical weapons I mentioned. It’s a Close Blast 3 vs. Fortitude that deals a big chunk of poison damage and some quite respectable ongoing poison damage (save ends). It recharges on a 5-6.

When a creature marked by the golem and within 2 squares of it moves, the creature can use a Dazing Fist as a reaction (Melee 2 vs. Fortitude), which does no damage but dazes (save ends). And when the golem dies it detonates is poison gas reservoir, dealing immediate and ongoing poison damage in a Close Burst 3.

The MM2 iron golem is pretty much identical, though it suffers from the damage bug and lacks the special fire and lightning effects.

Sample Encounters and Final Impressions

There’s a single sample encounter here: Level 14, 2 flesh golems and a lamia. Lamias are one of those people who would have trouble hiring sapient bodyguards, but no shortage of raw material for flesh golems.

I don’t think I ever ran a fight against a golem but I like that they’re in the game. I also like that their description here doesn’t even pretend that someone could confuse a golem with a statue. They look pretty distinctive and are not subtle enough to stay still when an intruder enters the space they’re guarding.

A 4e golem is much less of a puzzle monster than it used to be in previous editions, where they had a blanket immunity to magic except for those exotic effects. 3e already poked some holes into that by making them only immune to spells that were affected by spell resistance, and 4e did away with it entirely. It’s understandable - pretty much anything an arcane or divine character can do against a monster is technically “magic”, so you don’t want to make half the party completely useless against golems. Also, spell resistance is not a thing in this edition.