Question about the effigy template

[Alden]

I tried a search, but didn't find anything relevant, and I know this will come as a rather newbish question but.

Can someone give me a proper example, perhaps just explaining to me with an example, what is lost when turning a creature into a effigy?. Like, I know it will lose spell like abilities, and stuff that rely on it's constitution stat, but what else changes?.

[No brains]

Something made into an effigy also loses its INT score. That's pretty important.

...

A little off topic, but what if someone spam-applied the (awakened) Effigy and Incarnate Construct templates!?:smallbiggrin:

[LOTRfan]

If I remember correctly, Incarnate Construct gives the creature intelligence, so don't waste your time with awaken.

[No brains]

Well I looked, and if you spam-on effigy (which is an acquired, not inherited template) and incarnate construct, you actually can trade away dex for str at a ratio of 2:4. You can also spam up you natural armor to +9. Most stupid of all, you don't lose your extra construct hp in the transition, so you can just keep pumping it up! Bad news is you will lose all your SA and SQ your wis will be 11 and your cha will be 1.

If you end the applications as an effigy and get an awaken construct spell on you, you get some nice DR and one or more slams, and possibly better mental stats.

It is also worth noting this will only work on a human-shaped construct and will cost some stupid sorcerer around 5k XP each time a template goes on.

So... yeah... I'm sorry I broke your game. :smallfrown:

[Alden]

I am curious about what changes. Yes, I know int leave, but I mean to build the effigy to follow me, not to expect it to make decisions :). I am curious about what changes are besides no constitution, no int. And such, like, what abilities, special attacks and such are lost, or not when doing the transition?.

[Urpriest]

I am curious about what changes. Yes, I know int leave, but I mean to build the effigy to follow me, not to expect it to make decisions :). I am curious about what changes are besides no constitution, no int. And such, like, what abilities, special attacks and such are lost, or not when doing the transition?.

It loses its type and subtypes, and everything it got from them. All its racial hit dice become construct hit dice and behave as construct hit dice do. It loses all class levels. It loses all supernatural and spell-like special attacks. It loses all extraordinary special attacks that have a Con-based saving throw, but keeps those that don't. It loses all special qualities. It loses its Int and Con scores. It loses all skill points, and all feats except for those which improve its attacks (DM's judgment). But all of that is in the text, so that's probably not what you were confused about, right?

[Alden]

Actually, it was, just making sure since the example listed in the book was a lion that kindof lacked most of those stuff.


For some background, I am playing a class from a book called 'magic' from AEG called Tinkerer, did some adaptation with the GM, and stuff, they use a template for creatures called 'mechanical' that is basically the same XD, from what the text says, except some small differences.

At the moment I am doing some RP where I might learn to apply that template to stuff beyond animals, while keeping the limits on what I can build/control (2 dg of mechanical creatures per level of the class), or just learn a different kind of construct template, like effigy. Also pondering to show my DM the 'advanced bestiary' from green ronin, for a couple of templates that might work.

Oh, my gm allowed me to make my main construct my familiar via using a feat, so it gets familiar bonuses haha, it is not that bad. Especially improved evasion, sometimes that comes in handy.

[Urpriest]

Actually, it was, just making sure since the example listed in the book was a lion that kindof lacked most of those stuff.



The example lion still has pounce, rake, and improved grab. Which stuff do you think it's lacking?

[Alden]

Since the lion didn't have anything special, (and no, pounce/rake don't really count as anything special for me, it's just basic stuff an animal of the same shape might be able to do.) it didn't really clear up much of my doubts of exactly what was kept, and what was removed when you turned something into a effigy.


Thank you all for your help everyone. On a slightly related topic, can someone give me a sugestion of what might be an interesting animal (dire or regular, including dinos I think) would be? the function is likely to be giving and taking punches mostly. Suggestions of other creature types would be appreciated to.

For now, my building limit is something of up to 13 HD, but might be 15 if my GM decides to award me a level or not after some quest I finished.

[kiryoku]

http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=177.0

this has almost all constructs by the level you can make them.

[Alden]

Thanks for the link, but the question was, what to make as a effigy, or mechanical animal, (mechanical is a bit weaker than effigy but also, much easier to build, in the case of animals, the limit for building is 2 HD of the animal per caster level. So at level 7 I can build a 14 hd one.

[Yora]

Well I looked, and if you spam-on effigy (which is an acquired, not inherited template)
That's odd. I thought effigy creatures are robots? At what point was a regular lion turned into a robo-lion?
Unless I got it completely wrong, effigy creatures must be inherited templates.

[AtomicKitKat]

For once, WotC picked a suitable example. You'd want something with Pounce/Rake for basica melee stuff. Avoid anything that relies on Poison and other Constitution-based Special Attacks. Probably Fleshraker dinosaur, that one's usually popular, but requires Protection from DM magic.

[No brains]

That's odd. I thought effigy creatures are robots? At what point was a regular lion turned into a robo-lion?
Unless I got it completely wrong, effigy creatures must be inherited templates.

I looked and looked, and it would make more sense if it were 'inherited' rather than acquired because the Effigy Master makes them unliving material. Still, who doesn't love to mob a typo and play it for its for its broken power?

[Alden]

I always assumed effigies to be machines you built from scratch to look like X creature, not that you take a creature and convert it into a construct.

Regardless, I want to thank everyone for their help, i didn't expect this many replies :).

[tyckspoon]

I always assumed effigies to be machines you built from scratch to look like X creature, not that you take a creature and convert it into a construct.

That is the intent, yes; it's written as a template so you can avoid having to fill an entire book of "Effigy X" monsters just to make the idea work. You're not cyborging your Effigy, you're looking at a creature, saying "You know, a robot one of those things would be really awesome!" and building that robot.