A player wants to play a construct. Help needed.

[Zeikstraal]

Hello Playground,

I have a player in my upcoming Pathfinder campaign, who wants to play some sort of construct.
A bit of Background here. the Brother here, is another player BTW: He was a young boy when his father died, he and his brother wanted him back. The brother was was a bit practiced in magic, so he studied people who ressurected other people. He finds runes for an ressurection ritual, they decide to try it. Turns out it wasnt a ressurection spell, but you would trade a life for a life or something. So the player gets sucked to the after life, but the brother knew spell to bind someones soul to an object. He puts it an a full plate that they have in the basement. The player wakes up in a full plate without a body.
They also fail in bringing the father back.

I'm normally very open for ideas, but i tend to find this a bit too much. They really want to do it, so im willing to make this work, but I have absolutely no idea how. I suggested the Warforged from 3.5, but I dont think that is what they want.

what would you do with this? And if you need more infrormation, just let me know.

Sorry for my grammar, English is not my native language

[Answerer]

What's wrong with the Warforged? Eliminating one of its two ability score penalties would probably bring it in line with the slight upgrades to most Pathfinder races, and the Warforged does a very good job of toning down the Construct type to make it playable without RHD or LA (I realize Pathfinder did away with LA, but I don't know what they've replaced it with). The feat Adamantine Body (found in Eberron Campaign Setting, the same book as the Warforged) would cover making him into full-plate (and adamantine full-plate, no less).

If nothing else, knowing what's wrong with the Warforged will help us to make suggestions of other things.

[Santra]

So are you aware this idea is an almost direct rip from the anime Full Metal Alchemist?

[Fable Wright]

...Well. That is probably the most blatant ripoff of the Elric brothers I have ever seen.

But yeah, refluffed Warforged is really the best way to go, minus the ability score penalties. You could offer a slightly homebrewed Warforged body feat to simulate being an empty shell of full plate (including no ASF for Armor and always being in full plate, perhaps with attached penalties) and you're good to go.

[Zeikstraal]

I don't think there is anything wrong with the warforged. But it doesnt match their background to well I think. He wakes up in a Full plate, without a body. Warforged do have a body, so they have to change their background. Or i have to change the Warforged, so that he has no body, which means he has no Constitution etc.

Is the Warforged from Monster Manual 3 any different from the one in Eberron?

Edit: No i didnt know that, I dont watch anime:P

[Answerer]

Yeah, I don't watch anime either and I still recognized it. As long as they're just copying the idea and don't intend on playing as those characters, I'd have no problem with it personally.

Anyway, point is, having a Constitution score does not really have anything to do with whether or not you have a body. After all, Warforged are not some creature in a suit of armor; they are that armor (or rather, the metal and wood and stone that makes up the armor and body). That he's hollow in the middle is a matter of description.

Rather, having a Constitution score means that he is still alive, and therefore can be affected as a living creature can. He still gains quite a few immunities and defenses similar to what Constructs get, but not all of them. That's important for balance.

Alternatives would require more knowledge of how Pathfinder handles extra-powerful races. Generally speaking, I consider this a poor idea.

[Zeikstraal]

Thank you for the replies so far.
You are right about constitution, I was thinking like, a full plate has no constitution. Kinda confused me I guess.
I will ask them about the anime:p but will roll along with warforged. They need to tweak their background a little bit, for knowing a soulbinding spell at level 1 haha.

Thanks for the help guys :)

[Fable Wright]

Thank you for the replies so far.
You are right about constitution, I was thinking like, a full plate has no constitution. Kinda confused me I guess.
I will ask them about the anime:p but will roll along with warforged. They need to tweak their background a little bit, for knowing a soulbinding spell at level 1 haha.

Thanks for the help guys :)

Actually, you wouldn't need to tweak it too much; import Incantations (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/magic/incantations.htm) from D&D 3.5, and you the story of them trying the ritual and, despite a high Int and ranks in the appropriate skills, failingthe Incantation, which backfires and kills the brother. When the surviving one sees Truth from the failed Incantation (long story from the Anime/Manga; if you're interested, watch the first couple episodes of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood), he learns another Incantation that would bind his brother's soul to a suit of armor. The DC was made doable only because of the backlash cost, which cost the surviving brother his arm.

[Jack_Simth]

Thank you for the replies so far.
You are right about constitution, I was thinking like, a full plate has no constitution. Kinda confused me I guess.
I will ask them about the anime:p but will roll along with warforged. They need to tweak their background a little bit, for knowing a soulbinding spell at level 1 haha.

Thanks for the help guys :)Well, you could pretty much do it straight up in Pathfinder. You've got Monsters as PC's (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/monsters/monstersAsPCs.html), Animated Objects (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/monsters/animatedObject.html#_animated-object), and the Lifespark Construct (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/templates/lifespark-construct-template) template, which doesn't seem to alter the CR. So... you're basically looking at level 3 to do it straight up. Otherwise, yeah, a refluffed Warforged.

[awa]

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/arg-creating-new-races
this has rules for creating new pathfinder races including constructs