LA for construct creature type?

[Yogibear41]

What LA should a template that only granted the construct creature type be?

What LA should a construct base race creature with no bonus's or penalties other than the traits gained by the construct type be worth, say medium base speed of 30?

How would allowing the creature to keep/gain a constitution score affect the above to options?

[Kuulvheysoon]

I'd say as a pure template, at least a +1.

As for the others... the Warforged Race exists, and is pretty widely regarded as balanced (in addition, it provides the [living construct] subtype, which lets them have a Constitution score).

[Yorrin]

Well, I hate LA in general, as it is a very flawed system. That being said: the Incarnate Construct template would be a quick and easy way to rule this. It takes the Construct type AWAY from an existing construct and reduces its LA by 2. So by reversing the template you get Construct at a +2LA.

But, as has been mentioned, Warforged are a +0LA construct race. So, as will all things DnD, it's not consistently or universally applied.

[Kamin_Majere]

Probably +1LA if a pure construct.

While it has a bunch of really nice bonuses you also have some MAJOR draw back (especially the destroyed at 0 and no coming back) And even if you are going to outclass most in HP in the lower levels that is soon eclipsed by those nice CON scores (and the fact they can go negative and still be saved takes away 9HP of your advantage)

If you let them have a CON score... probably a +3LA or so because that's a lot of immunities for, at that point, no negatives

[nyjastul69]

Well, I hate LA in general, as it is a very flawed system. That being said: the Incarnate Construct template would be a quick and easy way to rule this. It takes the Construct type AWAY from an existing construct and reduces its LA by 2. So by reversing the template you get Construct at a +2LA.

But, as has been mentioned, Warforged are a +0LA construct race. So, as will all things DnD, it's not consistently or universally applied.

I agree it should be about +2. I don't agree with the Warfororged analysis. Warforged are living creatures and constructs are not. Quite a few spells use living creatures as an element of targeting. Warforged are balanced at +0 LA, most constructs would not be.

[Yogibear41]

Just looked it up in Savage Species and it says that the construct type is worth a +1, but being 3.0 they didn't have bonus hit points, although I'm not really sure +20 hit points is really worth another +1 to LA.

[lunar2]

just straight up construct, no bonuses, no penalties? it's a slightly strong +0, or a very weak +1. kind of like a hobgoblin. i'd say either give it enough bonuses to actually be worth +1, or just run it at +0. you get a lot of immunities, yes, but immunities don't actually do anything, they just keep things from being done to you. in a tank type build, it's powerful because it shuts down most forms of bonus damage. otherwise, it's nothing special. and tank builds tend to be weak anyway.

[Kuulvheysoon]

just straight up construct, no bonuses, no penalties? it's a slightly strong +0, or a very weak +1. kind of like a hobgoblin. i'd say either give it enough bonuses to actually be worth +1, or just run it at +0. you get a lot of immunities, yes, but immunities don't actually do anything, they just keep things from being done to you. in a tank type build, it's powerful because it shuts down most forms of bonus damage. otherwise, it's nothing special. and tank builds tend to be weak anyway.

Dude, you're aware of what the Construct type gives you, right?
Traits
A construct possesses the following traits (unless otherwise noted in a creature’s entry).

Construct Size Bonus
Hit Points
Fine —
Diminutive —
Tiny —
Small 10
Medium 20
Large 30
Huge 40
Gargantuan 60
Colossal 80We've been over this, worth a not-terrible feat (Improved Toughness)

No Constitution scoreThis, on the other hand, sucks. But then again, see farther down.

Low-light vision.
Darkvision out to 60 feet.Nobody cares about the vision, so let's call this a wash, hmmm?

Immunity to all mind-affecting effects (charms, compulsions, phantasms, patterns, and morale effects).
Immunity to poison, sleep effects, paralysis, stunning, disease, death effects, and necromancy effects.Now this is pretty nice - see that list of condiitons? You're flat out immune to those, no questions asked. Tasty.

Cannot heal damage on their own, but often can be repaired by exposing them to a certain kind of effect (see the creature’s description for details) or through the use of the Craft Construct feat. A construct with the fast healing special quality still benefits from that quality.Okay, this is annoying. Definitly a con for the Type.

Not subject to critical hits, nonlethal damage, ability damage, ability drain, fatigue, exhaustion, or energy drain.More immunities. Yay!

Immunity to any effect that requires a Fortitude save (unless the effect also works on objects, or is harmless).Now this is pretty huge. Immune to 95% of the Fortitude saves that you'd have to make? Sweet.

Not at risk of death from massive damage. Immediately destroyed when reduced to 0 hit points or less.
Since it was never alive, a construct cannot be raised or resurrected.Another thing that very much sucks.

Because its body is a mass of unliving matter, a construct is hard to destroy. It gains bonus hit points based on size, as shown on the table.
Proficient with its natural weapons only, unless generally humanoid in form, in which case proficient with any weapon mentioned in its entry.
Proficient with no armor.Already covered earlier, or covered by Class

Constructs do not eat, sleep, or breathe.Bonus!

[Immabozo]

Well, I hate LA in general, as it is a very flawed system. That being said: the Incarnate Construct template would be a quick and easy way to rule this. It takes the Construct type AWAY from an existing construct and reduces its LA by 2. So by reversing the template you get Construct at a +2LA.

But, as has been mentioned, Warforged are a +0LA construct race. So, as will all things DnD, it's not consistently or universally applied.

There is SO much more to the incarnate construct template than that. the construct looses a lot through this template.

[Rubik]

The nice thing about warforged is that they retain all of those construct traits, except those that aren't overwritten by the Living Construct subtype.

Food for thought.

[TuggyNE]

Well, I hate LA in general, as it is a very flawed system. That being said: the Incarnate Construct template would be a quick and easy way to rule this. It takes the Construct type AWAY from an existing construct and reduces its LA by 2. So by reversing the template you get Construct at a +2LA.

That's not all it does, though; taking away special abilities is a pretty substantial thing, and arguably the largest part of the template. So that would leave Construct by itself at around +1 LA, in theory.

That said, Construct all by itself is kind of rough on the game; there's a lot of quirks and strange features, HP at low levels is wonky, and so on. Switching to Living Construct is vastly easier to deal with and much easier to give a reasonable LA for.

[Jack_Simth]

Well, I hate LA in general, as it is a very flawed system.The numbers are usually wrong, but (to pick an extreme example) you really don't want to have a Young Gold Dragon Wizard-1 and a human Wizard-1 as PC's in the same party. There needs to be some cost or other to those 14 reasonably nice racial hit dice (full BAB, all good saves, 6+Int skill points/hit die), the +14 Strength, +6 Con/Int/Wis/Cha, the breath weapon, the immunities, the extra natural attacks, the flight and swim speed, the increased land speed, the natural armour, and so on.

Are the numbers "right"? Usually not. But if you're going to permit monsters as PC's there needs to be some form of opportunity cost, so you'll usually end up with something very much like LA if you try to brew it.

[Zanos]

You could compare it to Necropolitian, which costs a level, a bit of gold, and I think 1000 additional experience points. Undead and constructs share many immunities.

Whether or not you consider necropolitian balanced, on the other hand...

[Gemini476]

The numbers are usually wrong, but (to pick an extreme example) you really don't want to have a Young Gold Dragon Wizard-1 and a human Wizard-1 as PC's in the same party. There needs to be some cost or other to those 14 reasonably nice racial hit dice (full BAB, all good saves, 6+Int skill points/hit die), the +14 Strength, +6 Con/Int/Wis/Cha, the breath weapon, the immunities, the extra natural attacks, the flight and swim speed, the increased land speed, the natural armour, and so on.

Are the numbers "right"? Usually not. But if you're going to permit monsters as PC's there needs to be some form of opportunity cost, so you'll usually end up with something very much like LA if you try to brew it.

Personally I think that the answer is closer to Savage Progressions - or some better version of them, at least. Have each race give some basic LA+0 bonuses (Dragon being very much like Dragonborn, perhaps), and then have some optional class that advances them in abilities and generally makes them more similar to their Monster Manual versions. Some combination of Savage Progression and Racial Paragon Classes, in other words.


As for the LA cost of the Construct type, I'll echo the sentiment that it's LA+1. It's like a Necropolitan with Improved Toughness, less weakness to Turning and more weakness to death.
Alternatively, rather than seeing it as Improved Toughness you could see it as giving 12 Constitution's worth of HP for a Medium creature. You might also notice that while Warforged lose the +20HP, they get that back over 20 levels with their +2 Con. Hmmm. (Even a Colossal Construct would only have as much HP as a critter with 18 Constitution. It's worth thinking about.)

[Yogibear41]

So I think I agree with the its better than +0 LA, but just the creature type by itself is probably not good enough for a +1 by its self, so looking at a few other strong +0 LA races and the rules in savage species I am thinking of something like this for a +1 LA.

Medium Sized
30ft base speed
construct traits
+2 Natural Armor
Powerful build
Bonus Feat: Improved Unarmed Strike
+2 Racial Bonus on an appropriate craft or profession check*

* Having the ability to repair the damage to themselves in the same way warforged can make craft checks to repair damage on themselves, with them receiving the +2 bonus on the skill used to repair them, (such as stone masonry for a stone construct, carpentry for a wooden construct, or smithing/metallurgy for a metal based construct.

As well as having weaknesses based on what kinda of construct they are similar to a warforged's such as wooden constructs taking damage from warp wood, stone constructs taking damage or being healed by spells such as stone shape, transmute rock to mud, and other examples.

[Jack_Simth]

Personally I think that the answer is closer to Savage Progressions - or some better version of them, at least. Have each race give some basic LA+0 bonuses (Dragon being very much like Dragonborn, perhaps), and then have some optional class that advances them in abilities and generally makes them more similar to their Monster Manual versions. Some combination of Savage Progression and Racial Paragon Classes, in other words.The Savage Progressions do the exact same thing as LA (and even use the same numbers), they just spread it out a bit.

[Gemini476]

The Savage Progressions do the exact same thing as LA (and even use the same numbers), they just spread it out a bit.

Hence why I said like them. Being able to stop taking levels in the Savage Progression is a big one - the online ones have that rule - but also rebuilding them to just give full HD or something rather than LA because if you're replacing the entire LA system then you don't need that. And making some Savage Progressions for stuff like the Dwarf and Human so you could be even dorfier or human - hence the reference to Paragon Classes.

Then again, you'll want to make your own Savage Progressions. WotC and Paizo's are pretty weak. I looked up the Gold Dragon in Dragon #320 and it actually starts out as the weakest of the dragons. Well, unless the Fire Subtype, 30ft Swim speed, 1d8 bite and Water Affinity (can breathe and cast spells underwater) make a +1RHD class. They don't get ability score bonuses until later.

[lunar2]

Dude, you're aware of what the Construct type gives you, right?We've been over this, worth a not-terrible feat (Improved Toughness)
This, on the other hand, sucks. But then again, see farther down.
Nobody cares about the vision, so let's call this a wash, hmmm?
Now this is pretty nice - see that list of condiitons? You're flat out immune to those, no questions asked. Tasty.
Okay, this is annoying. Definitly a con for the Type.
More immunities. Yay!
Now this is pretty huge. Immune to 95% of the Fortitude saves that you'd have to make? Sweet.
Another thing that very much sucks.
Already covered earlier, or covered by Class
Bonus!

the problem is, everything you just named doesn't help you do anything. it just prevents other people from doing things to you. congratulations, you've upgraded yourself from a door to a wall. instead of going through you, they have to go around you. you still have absolutely no increased ability to stop them from going around you. this is the fundamental weakness of any tank type bonuses. the enemies can just ignore you, and kill your markedly more dangerous party members instead.

give it something like a +4 bonus to strength (to make it actually somewhat dangerous), and DR 5/- (to compensate for the lower HP later on), and then it would be worth an LA +1, because then it gets a bonus that actually does something.

[Chronos]

Ordinary constructs are something that, for the most part, you just shouldn't be playing, because they mess up too many other things about the game. They got it right with Warforged. If you want to be a construct, be one of them.

[Jack_Simth]

the problem is, everything you just named doesn't help you do anything. it just prevents other people from doing things to you. congratulations, you've upgraded yourself from a door to a wall. instead of going through you, they have to go around you. you still have absolutely no increased ability to stop them from going around you. this is the fundamental weakness of any tank type bonuses. the enemies can just ignore you, and kill your markedly more dangerous party members instead.Note that survivability is still a factor in D&D. And +1 LA (or +0 LA) while it impacts your build, is not going to be the primary factor in your build past maybe level 3. Really, it's just the difference between Sorcerer and Wizard spell access.