Most cost-effective construct to mass produce for war?

[Yogibear41]

What would be the most cost effective construct to mass produce for a war? or even just the defense of one particular city? Never actually had a war encounter in a game before but I would assume 90% of the ground troops would be 1st or 2nd level warriors, maybe fighters so something with dr/10 or so would most likely be nigh indestructible, at least until magical support arrived. A dr of 10 or so would also highly reduce the damage from catapults and things of that nature.

Anyway any thoughts or ideas? Also warforged would not be possible so count them out.

[Tvtyrant]

Automatic Resetting Trap of Permanency+Animate Objects. It would cost a bunch to set up originally (about 200,000 GP) but you could have an infinite number of animated objects to fight for you, and their abilities vary by form. Push rugs through for fliers, carts for armored cars, colossal adamantine monstrosities for line breakers, chains for grapplers, etc.

They are far from the strongest constructs, but the eventual accumulation of them will give you the win.

[Yogibear41]

Hmm they keep their hardness to which is effectively DR/adamantine cool idea thanks, what exactly is the recharge time on resetting traps?

[John Longarrow]

Effigy creatures.

Trick is making high str, high natural armor, small or medium 1 or 2 HD effigies that can use some kind of weapon OR go 7-16 HD giant types. They retain the ability to use any weapons the base form can use. They also retain any feats that are combat based.

Orc effigy will run you 4,000 and would work as a basic infantry mook.

For 23,000 you get an effigy cave troll that has decent natural armor, better strength, and DR 5/adamantine.

For 29,000 you get a war troll effigy that still swings a great sword and uses a bow. It gets DR 7/adamantine.

What kind of investment is the city looking to make? Once made, these things don't really have much of a cost. Control can be kinda tricky, but if you have their creator instruct them to follow the commands of anyone holding a specific item that avoids a lot of problems.

[Rubik]

The cheapest "constructs" are undead. See, what you do is, you use Fabricate to turn a bunch of bones into construct-looking creatures, then animate as undead under your control. MUCH cheaper that way.

[Greenish]

Orc effigy will run you 4,000 and would work as a basic infantry mook.How does an orc effigy compare to level 1 Warforged Fighter? Those are about 5,000 - 6,000 gp a pop (cheaper in bulk).

[Edit]: Oh, noticed no warforged. Meh. Orc effigy is probably better anyway.

[John Longarrow]

Greenish,
The Effigy orcs gets, IIRC, 10 HP for size, one D10 for HPs, and a +4 to STR over an orc along with -2 dex. They also get +2 Natural Armor and can use the weapons they are normally encountered with.

As "Go up and HIT" infantry they work pretty well.

[Gavinfoxx]

Have you read this?

http://community.wizards.com/forum/previous-editions-character-optimization/threads/1156126

And I would make:

Magebred, Woodling, Half-Scrag, Half-Dragon Li Lung, Chameleon, Wild, Effigy, Girallons.

See:

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=12799755&postcount=4
and
https://docs.google.com/document/d/14zilT4WGOyHM0AfpG4-GmD2FkgDg1HZ9HC1cTleQHds/edit?pli=1

[Chronos]

Do we care if the constructs don't last very long? Because non-permanent constructs are a lot cheaper than permanent ones.


Quoth Yogibear41:

Hmm they keep their hardness to which is effectively DR/adamantine
Better, actually. DR only applies to weapon damage, while hardness applies against all forms of damage, including magical (or nonmagical) energy damage (with a few specific exceptions, like some psionic powers).

[Yogibear41]

Well I'm really just trying to plan ahead for this character idea I have, trying to create a dwarven kingdom in a world where dwarves are a scattered people. Problem is their is basically an evil empire that more or less conquered the known world a while back. They are generally a pretty lax ruling class mostly leaving things as they were before the invaded but they have a habit of going in and just slaughtering people if they feel like they are trying to oppose them.

My plan would mostly include hiding the actual construction of said city(thinking of building it into the side of a mountain or something using stone shape and such) would probably start from the inside and work my way out just to try to remain hidden for as long as possible, although its kinda hard to attract a scattered people without spreading rumors of hey dwarves come to this new kingdom Im building without alterting the powers that be ya know?

So more or less the constructs would just be a boon to the citys defenses and if the city was attacked it would most likely be a siege situation and since the golems don't have to eat or sleep that would help me to outlast the enemy force if at all possible.

Pretty big plans for a character I haven't even made yet. Ha Always good to prepare for the future though :smallsmile:

[Vortenger]

Shadesteel Golems. next question please. :smallcool:

[Rubik]

Go look up the lyre of building in the SRD. Pair with a warforged bard. Realize that you can build an entire city in a few weeks. Days, if you have enough of each.

[Vortenger]

The cheapest "constructs" are undead. See, what you do is, you use Fabricate to turn a bunch of bones into construct-looking creatures, then animate as undead under your control. MUCH cheaper that way.

cool idea, but how would you adjudicate the stat block for such a creature? this smacks of homebrew...

[Yogibear41]

Go look up the lyre of building in the SRD. Pair with a warforged bard. Realize that you can build an entire city in a few weeks. Days, if you have enough of each.


Yes, someone recently told me about the lyre which would be great if I can get my hands on one or make one. No warforged though they don't exist in this world, well I suppose one can make anything given the knowledge but still its not like ebberon at all.

I like the idea of making effigy dwarven fighters with 4 or so hit die, although they wouldn't be quite as unstoppable as say an iron golem vs 100 1st or 2nd level human warriors. A mixture of troops is probably the best idea anyway.

[Rubik]

cool idea, but how would you adjudicate the stat block for such a creature? this smacks of homebrew...If you just changed the shape of the bones but had all the right bones for a skeleton, it'd be a skeleton. Otherwise, just find various types of undead that would fit for the size and abilities you want. So long as you expend the right resources for what you get in the end, the only difference is that the undead is disguised as a construct.

[Gavinfoxx]

You can build a city in a few days with a lyre of building, an at-will wondrous item of wall of stone, an at-will wondrous item of greater stone shape, an at-will wondrous item of stone metamorphosis, and a homunculus with maxxed perform, skill focus perform string, and artist feats.

[Deadline]

Dread Guards, from MM2? I don't recall their price, but they are medium sized with only a couple of hit dice. That's got to be about the cheapest you can get (and still keep them viable as soldiers) without branching off into cheese or shenanigans.

[Morgarion]

Well I'm really just trying to plan ahead for this character idea I have, trying to create a dwarven kingdom in a world where dwarves are a scattered people. Problem is their is basically an evil empire that more or less conquered the known world a while back. They are generally a pretty lax ruling class mostly leaving things as they were before the invaded but they have a habit of going in and just slaughtering people if they feel like they are trying to oppose them.

My plan would mostly include hiding the actual construction of said city(thinking of building it into the side of a mountain or something using stone shape and such) would probably start from the inside and work my way out just to try to remain hidden for as long as possible, although its kinda hard to attract a scattered people without spreading rumors of hey dwarves come to this new kingdom Im building without alterting the powers that be ya know?

So more or less the constructs would just be a boon to the citys defenses and if the city was attacked it would most likely be a siege situation and since the golems don't have to eat or sleep that would help me to outlast the enemy force if at all possible.

Pretty big plans for a character I haven't even made yet. Ha Always good to prepare for the future though :smallsmile:

You realize you're just playing Minecraft at this point, right?

[unseenmage]

The Pathfinder Modifying Constructs page has a couple lines of text that allow you to create any Construct based on it's CR. At our table though we ruled that normally free-willed Constructs (Warforged, Inevitables, Ragamoffyns) are still free-willed. Just because you can amke them doesn't mean they'll obey, y'know.

Barring that there are some creative things you can do with Effigys of 1HD Humanoids and the Sacred Guardian Template from the Dragonlance Bestiary of Krynn book. Sacred Guardian makes almost any Construct into a badass via Fast Healing, 3 languages, sentience, and an array of special powers based on the deity they serve.

It ups the DM-begging factor a bit but there's precedent for treating Constructs as Magic Items for the purpose of applying the Custom Magic Item Rules in the DMG and the Combining Magic Item Rules in the MIC.
This gets especially useful when you combine it with the Feats in Magic Items sidebar in the Arms and Equipment Guide and any skill boosting magic items.
With this method the only thing you can't give your Constructs is Class Levels, and there are Magic Items that duplicate several class abilities.

There's also a spell in Savage Species called Minor Servitor that's a permanent Animate Objects that also grants sentience. I like using it on Special Materials like Aurorum, Living Metal, Livewood, and Thinuan Steel as the Animated Object's attacks should retain the material properties.
Quintessence is also a possible fun target for Animate Objects/Minor Servitor, as are Alchemical Items. The last two will depend greatly on where your DM draws the line on 'non-magic items or materials' but neither should be any more magical than a Wall of Stone after the spell is done making it.

Another avenue is Magic Weapons with the Flying weapon enhancement from Magic of Faerun. The Flying enhancement causes the weapon to be 'treated as though it were an Animated Object'. Apply the Sizing weapon enhancement and use it on some Gauntlets and you're good to go for recreating that annoying hand from the Legend of Zelda games.

Last but not least are the Construct creating spells, Beget Bogun, Create Crawling Claw, and others. Of them I like Create Crawling Claw the best. For the low, low cost of some severed hands you get (IIRC) diminutive Constructs equal to your (IIRC) CL.


Things to watch out for, the Rod of Construct Control from the Arms and Equipment Guide. There's no way around it other than to have Rods of same of your own.
The Warforged Domain from Eberron allows someone to Turn/Rebuke/Command Constructs as though they were Undead. Not terribly effective against higher HD Constructs but if you go for cheapest possible builds your dudes are gonna be low HD and susceptible to this one. (There's also a Domain Drought magic item in MIC that can give this Domain to anyone who wants it temporarily for cheap, so beware.)
There's also a feat or something in Dragon that lets it's user fake out a Construct and pretend to be it's master breifly but it's not permanent and the thing gets like 2 saves against it.

For countering the above I suggest Constructs with Control Amulets, like Shield Guardians and Clockroaches. The Clockroach text specifically calls out that noone but the Amulet's owner can command them. Clockroaches are nice because they Burrow and don't have that pesky 'the amulet must be worn in the neck slot' restriction that the Shield Guardians have.


In any case, sorry for the wall of text, I hope there's something in there you can use. Enjoy building your construct army.
(Can you tell I was allowed to play an Artificer with nigh infinite funds and access to all the books recently?)

[Yogibear41]

You realize you're just playing Minecraft at this point, right?

I have never played minecraft before.

[vendur]

I have never played minecraft before.

That's fine because the comment itself was pointless and made no sense.

[Chronos]

Yeah, it's really more like Dwarf Fortress, anyway.