Want an intelligent Construct companion for 750 gp?

[Jowgen]

So, I stumbled upon this little thing at the WotC archives: http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/cw/20061009a

Spider Thief CR 2
Always N Diminutive Construct
Init +5; Senses darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision; Listen +1, Spot +1
Languages Common (cannot speak)

AC 19, touch 19, flat-footed 14
(+5 Dex, +4 size)
hp 16 (3 HD)
Immune mind-affecting effects, poison, sleep, paralysis, stunning, disease, death effects, necromantic effects, critical hits, nonlethal damage, ability damage, ability drain, fatigue, exhaustion, energy drain, any effect that requires a Fort save (unless it affects objects)
Fort +1, Ref +6, Will +0

Speed 20 ft. (4 squares), climb 20 ft.
Melee claw +11 (1 + poison)
Ranged claw +11 (1 + poison); 5 ft. no range increment
Space 2 1/2 ft.; Reach 0 ft.
Base Atk +2; Grp -15
Atk Options poison

Abilities Str 1, Dex 21, Con --, Int 10, Wis 8, Cha 8
SQ construct traits
Feats Alertness, Deft Hands, Weapon Finesse(B)
Skills Appraise +4, Climb +13, Hide +17, Listen +1, Move Silently +6, Open Lock +6, Ride +6, Sleight of Hand +7, Spot +1, Use Rope +7
Advancement 4– 6 HD (Tiny)

For a measily 750 gp you can get a completely loyal Diminuitive construct that is designed to steal things for you. It's stats and skills aren't much to write home about. It can only carry 1 lb of material, it's combat ability is limited to a reservoir of max 36 doses of DC 11 Unconsciousness poison, and it can't talk. It's stated that "It knows really just two commands: “Bring me (X)” and “Give this to (Y)”.

But...!

It can understand common, has the intelligence of an average human (10), and it is stated that "Spider thieves sent as observers usually return with reports of what treasures they saw at a location (from buttons to gemstones), what interesting garbage they found on their journey to and from a location, and so on."

Other than the fact that having a cheap little spider-robot friend is immensely cool, there has got to be some way to cheese the hell out of this thing. They can obviously communicate somehow (my money is on writing , since its not illiterate, just mute), and since it can be given the order to scout (with admitedly bad results) one should be able to get it to do at least some simple things. Like...

- Wear certain magic items
- Activate a manipulation item
- Be given orders to bring/use said items in a certain way
- ... ?

What I'm basically looking for are ways to get some proper use out of this little metal critter. I'm hoping that with some ingenuity, it can be something akin to a cheap animal companion or familiar, with the bonus of affordability and construct traits. Obviously, the not-speaking, spider-like anatomy and general inability to do a lot of stuff is a hefty limiter, but there's got to be a way around that.

Any ideas be much welcome :smallsmile:

[Jowgen]

Anyone? :smallfrown:

[Irk]

I don't know why this is being ignored, I think ideas from a question like this could yield some potentially interesting tools for builds in the future. My immediate thought is using them to to sleight of hand. Boost them with a 2500 GP +5 sleight of hand item and let them go to town stripping opponents of all useful materials with that +12 modifier. Get a few and you can make multiple (unprepared) casters useless in a single round. Just in general, they can screw with someone's equipment load out if you let them go at it.

[Jowgen]

Thank you for the interest Irk :smallsmile:

I've been playing a sleight of hand focused build, and stealing material compotents from enemy casters can work serious wonders. The main problem with using the Spider Thief for this purpose is that it would need the masterpickpocket feat (City of Stormreach) to avoid attacks of opportunity and be unquestionably allowed to go for a wider range of gear. I suppose one could resort to Chaos-shuffle, but I personally find that somewhat cheesy.

My main hope in this was that someone might have known a way to re-program the thing to make it follow more orders. Also, I'm not entirely clear on what body slots I'd be working with for equipment (which would have to weigh effectively nothing).

[Bad Wolf]

Create it with 6 Hit Die, boost its strength up with the fourth die ability boost to two. It has a higher strength modifier and can carry more stuff.

[ranagrande]

I'm sure there are some fun things you could do with Artificer infusions.

[Irk]

I've been playing a sleight of hand focused build, and stealing material compotents from enemy casters can work serious wonders. The main problem with using the Spider Thief for this purpose is that it would need the masterpickpocket feat (City of Stormreach) to avoid attacks of opportunity and be unquestionably allowed to go for a wider range of gear. I suppose one could resort to Chaos-shuffle, but I personally find that somewhat cheesy.
Easy solution: have them crafted by someone with the Rudimentaryhttp://www.realmshelps.net/cgi-bin/featbox.pl?feat=Rudimentary_Intelligence Intelligence feat. They now have an INT score and can gain feats. They can even put ranks into Sleight of Hand to boost it up.

My main hope in this was that someone might have known a way to re-program the thing to make it follow more orders. Also, I'm not entirely clear on what body slots I'd be working with for equipment (which would have to weigh effectively nothing).
The skill item can be anything, so I wouldn't worry about it. Even a set of little spider boots. As for the orders, I don't know enough about constructs, but I figure a daily casting of humanoid essence with a wand of quickened (Easy Metamagic, Arcane Thesis, Sanctum Spell, Metamagic School Focus) command ought to do the trick, as it removes the mind affecting tag.

[Jowgen]

Easy solution: have them crafted by someone with the Rudimentaryhttp://www.realmshelps.net/cgi-bin/f...y_Intelligence Intelligence feat. They now have an INT score and can gain feats. They can even put ranks into Sleight of Hand to boost it up.

Luckily, Rudimentary intelligence isn't nessecary, since it already is an intelligent consturct (Int 10); which is part of the reason why I like this thing so much. So it can understand whatever you're telling it or asking it (it's ability to reply being somewhat limited though...), but its actions are limited by the its "animating spirits always seem entirely uninterested" clause from the spying example. Overcoming that seems like the main hurdle to making this thing supremely useful.


The skill item can be anything, so I wouldn't worry about it. Even a set of little spider boots. As for the orders, I don't know enough about constructs, but I figure a daily casting of humanoid essence with a wand of quickened (Easy Metamagic, Arcane Thesis, Sanctum Spell, Metamagic School Focus) command ought to do the trick, as it removes the mind affecting tag.

From the animal companion item slot rules, I suppose that it should be able to wear rings, boots and bracers at least, probably also a face item and maaaaaybe a head and/or neck slot item. I've looked at humanoid essence, and I'd need the greater version (artificer 6) to cast; which seems like a rather hefty investment to get rid off mostly beneficial construct traits.

[Jowgen]

I re-named the thread in hopes of attracting more contributers.

I mean, seriously, this thing could be so very useful if just a little tweaking could be done :smallfrown:

[danzibr]

Huh. I wonder what the thread title used to be. The new one got my attention ;)

This is seriously cool. I'll be buying one of these in the future.

I am curious about the prices of altered versions alluded to earlier in the thread.

[Jowgen]

Okay, I've been looking into ways to control intelligent constructs, as doing so would allow one to over-ride the Spider Thief's lack of interest in doing things like scouting. The Warforged Domain gives the ability to rebuke Constructs, but this is far from an ideal solution. The Rod of Construct

The Rod of Construct control (A&E), on the other hand, seems like it might work. As an intelligent construct, the Spider Thief would get a save it could only make on a Natural 20, and on a failure, the wielder of the Rod would gain control of the construct. The problem is, the way it is written, it only appears to give the wielder as much control as the Construct's creator would have, which does not include making the construct act beyond its set parameters in the case of the Spider Thief. :smallannoyed:

Isn't there a monster somewhere out there (probably around Mechanus) that can take command of lesser constructs somehow? Or some dragon magazine trinket that you can attach to a construct to make it do stuff? Come on, this is bloody 3rd edition, there is bound to be something in that ocean of material :smallfurious:

[ILM]

Bit expensive at 5,000 xp a pop, but how does Awaken Construct from SpC interact with an already intelligent construct? Can't see anything that would make the Spider Thief an invalid target, and "humanlike sentience" would surely allow it to be a proper scout/spy. On the other hand it's no longer under your control but merely friendly... (unless you Dominate Living Construct it? The description does say the Spider Thief is a living construct)

edit: damn, it's immune to mind-affecting effects. No Domination. Is diplomancy a mind-affecting effect?

[Jowgen]

Bit expensive at 5,000 xp a pop, but how does Awaken Construct from SpC interact with an already intelligent construct? Can't see anything that would make the Spider Thief an invalid target, and "humanlike sentience" would surely allow it to be a proper scout/spy. On the other hand it's no longer under your control but merely friendly... (unless you Dominate Living Construct it? The description does say the Spider Thief is a living construct)

edit: damn, it's immune to mind-affecting effects. No Domination. Is diplomancy a mind-affecting effect?

Wow, that is expensive, especially if you don't happen to be a high level caster yourself. How much would a casting of that spell even cost, provided you can find someone to cast it for cash? :smallconfused:

It does seem like it would get rid of the Spider Thief's annoying disinterest in doing more useful stuff though. Loosing the complete and utter loyalty of the thing is also a pretty hefty bump, but then again, Diplomacy (unlike Intimidate) is not something that mind-affecting immunity protects you from, so you could get it to helpfull (maybe even fanatic if a DM is crazy enough to allow that) with a skillcheck.

[ZamielVanWeber]

Huh. I wonder what the thread title used to be. The new one got my attention ;)

Ditto to the attention part. I love me some constructs. This seems like a great tool to scout out a dungeon. "Yea, down this hallway and to the left there is just a big ol' pile of mug and across the way was a treasure chest, but it tried to bite me."

[Coidzor]

The Int is nice, but the non-Int limitation on its interests seems to be the real killer here. :/

[Renen]

Give it a slotless item of +6 STR.
Or, turn it into a living spider and infect with lycantropy :D

[Jowgen]

Yea, down this hallway and to the left there is just a big ol' pile of mug and across the way was a treasure chest, but it tried to bite me.

Excellent point. Even it its only ever interested in loot (which really, isn't that bad of a quality to have even in excess), one should still be able to get some scouting utility out of it by having it do recon on potential treasures. It ought to be intelligent enough to understand that it'll have more cool things to mull over if it provides you with info on where said stuff is. With sufficiently good wording of instructions, tales about useless stuff with no significance should also be avoidable.


Give it a slotless item of +6 STR.

Hmmm, how silly would it be to give it a diminutive bag of holding? :smalltongue:


Or, turn it into a living spider and infect with lycantropy :D

What is this. I don't even. :smalltongue:

[ZamielVanWeber]

Useless stuff with no significance could indicate the refuse of enemies. Get creative and this little guy could do a lot.

[Phelix-Mu]

Wait, it's only interested in stealing stuff? Well, that pretty much gives it much in common with adventurers, now doesn't it? :smallbiggrin:

More seriously, you could probably Bluff it into doing whatever you want, since much of what you want will lead to treasure (or personal gain, which leads to treasure), or can plausibly be said to do so (with slight fudging of the truth).

Furthermore, couldn't you just give it a command that implied treasure, but actually doesn't? If you are in a goblin-filled dungeon, command it to go down the hall, into the room on the right, and steal from the dragon, then return whether it succeeds or not. [There is no dragon.] When the creature can't steal from the dragon, it returns. Then command it to tell you what it saw in the room.

Also, can we pearl of speech this? I've always been unclear if that item gets around actually being mute or not.

[Jowgen]

Hmmm... bluff could certainly get around some of it's disinterested-ness. Its sense motive modifiers should be -1, so not much challange there. In the general context of making it do stuff based on good wording, I don't think the general promise of loot will do much to make it engage in certain activies, but then again...

"Bring me (X)" is a rather broad statement, ripe for raw-wise abuse and further specifications it should understand. "Bring me information on the enemy's location". "Bring me the end of that (very light) rope after it is tied to that post up there". "Bring me that blesse bandage, when I go down, but don't just hand it to me, put it atop whatever the biggest wound I have". "Bring me a piece of solid material from every square in the room that is trapped". "Find me somebody to love :smalltongue:"

Really, it should be possible to sepcify the method and process by which it brings you something to a rather sophisticated degree, provided it all has something to do with handling objects.

EDIT: I suppose a pearl of Speech would get around the mute-ness, but how would you go about administering the thing? It's anatomy doesn't really include much of a mouth or tongue.

2nd EDIT: Also, on a little side note, this thing could make an excellent office assistant: "Bring me file 34XQL out of that room with 1000 files". On a more practical note, there ought to be no problem to command it to retrieve stored items for you in combat via a readied action.