Magical Automaton Production Numbers

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ShadowLogan
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Magical Automaton Production Numbers

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Okay, not wishing to derail talismann's Golemancer topic about preventing someone from creating an army of Golem, which is OCC doesn't prevent per say if the character invests enough time, they can put out some impressive numbers, especially if they can somehow take advantage of the Time Hole spell to speed recovery (which if taking full advantage of could mean a rate x3 higher than I calculated).

Now the question does have to be considered just how many people make up an "army" in this case. Or put another way, what level of manpower organization level would one consider to be an "army" for the purposes of this thread. I am not going to directly address that but will just look at the numbers and let readers decide.

I pulled several examples of magical automatons with information related to how fast they can be built in my incomplete Palladium library and will look at each in turn. In this evaluation each caster will be assumed to be level 8 (this is for the benefit of the Warlocks who can't learn spells until a given level), will have rolled average rolls on all applicable rolls (attributes, PPE, etc), have sufficient PPE between their personal reserve and other sources to cast the spell/ritual, and is of the human race. Production will be carried out over a 1-year period, though can be extrapolated outward if so desired. Now if the applicable rolls are higher or lower can impact the results, not to mention the race, and it is possible that OCC choice can also have an impact (I am limiting myself in terms of selection).

Palladium Fantasy's Circle Magic's Animate & Control Dead Power Circle
I think this is the go-to source for magical automaton army. You can create 150 animated dead per level of the caster for each circle. Nothing prevents you either from having multiple circles of this type, and you can IINM technically link them together via a Power Matrix circle, which would mean 600 per level in this formation even at Level 1 (and assuming you can't somehow "nest" or otherwise make a network of Power Matrix Circles).

This means that given enough time, each casting can produce 1,200 Animated Dead per Circle they can create as we are assuming Level 8. And in theory they can create a lot of circles w/n a year. If one is worried about an Army of Magical Automatons this sets the bar very high.

Rifts (WB12) Nyxla's Xombie
Per the description you can cast this ritual x1 per 15 days, or x2 per month for simplicity. Each casting of the ritual can generate a random number of Xombies, with the average roll being 25 per casting. This means in one month you can have 50 Xombies on average, or 600 per year.

Quick Note: this means that Nyxla assuming the ritual can only be performed x1 per 15 days per dimension, could in theory have enough Xombies to come to Rifts Earth in about 10 years, excluding the requirement for Harvesters per the book and not losing any. The time can be faster or slower depending on the actual die roll, but on average it should take Nyxla 10 years to get the required numbers.

Wizard Invocation Mummy
A Palladium Fantasy Wizard or Rifts Ley Line Walker if they could produce 1x per day would produce 7x per week and with 52 full weeks would yield up 364 Mummies. Factor in the remaining 1-2 days of the year for a total of 365 (+1 leap year).

Now there may be related factors in the ritual that could slow production down related to preparing each body, as such take the results with a grain of salt. Oddly enough I found that Necromancers don't get any PPE reduction for the ritual, nor do they have a better version (unlike Animate & Control Dead).

Wizard Invocation Zombie
A Palladium Fantasy Wizard or Rifts Ley Line Walker can produce 1-3x per month, depending on how many nights of a full moon you consider happening each month, and does not consider a Blue Moon to occur in the year (this would add an extra lunar cycle in the year). This will assume 3x, if you prefer it only be 1x per month take 1/3 of the results. Now it should be noted there are several requirements for the ritual that could impede production. Still production of 36x Zombies per year seems possible.

It should also be noted that given the limited time window, a Mage might look to approach these windows with a lot of PPE "banked" for withdrawal to increase production. Such "banking" methods are not considered here but should be remembered.

Oddly enough I found that Necromancers don't get any PPE reduction for the ritual, nor do they have a better version (unlike Animate & Control Dead).

Wizard Invocation & Earth Warlock Golems
Regardless of if you are producing Stone or Iron golems from the ritual, the main drawback here is that you have to pay a permanent loss of SDC (I would also think HP could be used, but HP are not considered here). The loss of SDC means needing to know how much SDC a Palladium Fantasy Wizard or Rifts Ley Line Walker can have.

A Palladium Fantasy Wizard starts with 1d6 SDC, plus they can acquire more from their 12 skills they can select at level 1 (additional levels add to this, but do not need to be considered since it doesn't really matter when the skill is acquired for this), and there are 8 physical skills available to them but only 3 give an SDC bonus. This means on average the Wizard would have 21 SDC if they took them. It also means they can only produce 3x Golems of either type before exhausting their SDC.

A Rifts Ley Line Walker (Ultimate Edition) starts with 2d6+12 SDC, plus they can acquire more from the 13 skills at level 1, There are a total of 12 physical skills available to them, but only 7 have SDC bonuses. This means an average Ley Line Walker would have 68 SDC if they took them, allowing them to produce 11x Golems of either type before exhausting the SDC.

Now it should be noted that beings with 100s or 1000s of SDC, if they wanted could sacrifice 100SDC for 16x Golems (and have 4SDC left of that 100). How the SDC cost is paid for by MDC beings is also in question (can the SDC cost be paid 1:1 or cost can be paid @ratio or ignored, or ritual can't be done).

Pure Earth Warlocks (PF or Rifts) can also produce Golems, the only real difference for them is they have a cheaper PPE cost. Production doesn't really change for the Warlock as compared to the caster for either setting considered.

Earth-Air Elemental Chains
The Earth-Air Elemental Chain of "Sculpt & Animate Clay Animals" combined with "Breath of Life", and "Clay to Stone or Iron" and optionally "Stone to Flesh" can be used to create either a Golem-like Creature or Zombie-Like Creature. The advantage here is the Golem-like creature does not incur an SDC cost, though a literal reading also means neither form (Golem or Zombie) can regenerate. At 8th Level they have sufficient PPE to create x1 construct per day or 364x per 52 weeks (365 per year, +1 leap year).

Note: depending on how you see the combination working, they may not belong here if you do not see the construct as permanent.

Federation of Magic Automatons
These might not belong here, but they are the only other magical automaton I have production information for. The Ritual for all of them takes 48hrs, but there is months of prep time (which is being ignored here, but the description mentions a backlog of ready to go). This means you can produce 15x per month or 180 per year (technically 182, +1 leap year) with an assortment assuming you have the prep done ahead of time. The actual rate is likely lower due to other requirements for the caster (like eating, sleeping, etc).

I do not think though these are comparable as they require a "partner" to be useable. Still, it is interesting to note the production rate.

Techno-Wizardry
Techno-Wizardy (and I'll lump Ecto-Wizard here) does not have any known examples of TW Automatons of the type looking at above (PA, and pilot bots yes) AFAIK, and while it is possible to construct devices for this end, the rules are a bit open to interpretation and abuse. This means a TW device is possible in this area, but I am not going to consider a "home brew" by the rules because of this.

Assortment of other Magic
Rune Magic, Bio-Wizardry, and a few others do have examples of automatons, but nothing about production rates. And so cannot be considered here. Diabolisim is also suggested (per text in RCB1r) to be connected to the creation of the Scarecrows and might be an example of magical automaton, though again no information is provided.

Defic magic does include creation of Minions BUT is highly subjective to the being using the magic due to the complications of body investment and recovery so was not considered here.

Conclusion
At least in terms of production numbers, an "army" of Golems isn't something to be necessarily worried about per say given just about everyone else can out produce a Golem creator, even one with thousands of SDC to spare. A potential option also exists of a mixed force since some options do include downtime.

Now an obvious point to bring up at this point is to consider the capabilities of each magical automaton which can favor the Golem being the superior product as:
-the high SDC, AR,
-regeneration
-APM
-HF

But Golems do have the negatives in terms of:
-raw size which could limit where they go, the more human-sized products can also use regular equipment (while I do not doubt you could find/make equipment for a Golem, it won't be as cost effective)
-intelligence and speed attributes have better options, like the Zombie
-hand to hand bonuses actually favor the Zombie or E-chain products
-resistance to regular attacks is out classed by the Zombie
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