Urban Druid trickery

[Jiruharudo]

Hello fellow playgrounders,

Not long ago I came across the Urban Druid.

I was in love. An animated object as an animal companion? CHA for casting?
Bard like spells included? Sign me up. I love the bard flavor.

But compared to a Druid, it seems underpowered. Its armor is worse, and I dont think a huge table will do more damage nor will it have more abilities than say a Rhino.

However, riding around in an animated wagon (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/equipment---final/vehicles/land-vehicles/wagon-heavy) alla Beauty & the Beast (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-znpo9bJGU#t=115) is something I cannot give up on.

So I googled some constructs and found Grandfather Plaque (page 207) in the same book as the Urban Druid.

Now I ask you: What is keeping me from getting an Grandfather Plaque and mounting it on the door of my wagon?

Well there is one thing ..Im unable to see the costs or creation options for such an item as Grandfather Plaque. Its a small construct, but im pretty sure its more powerful than say ..a chair. Dont supose anyone knows the rules of it?

(Sidenote: "Urban druids are proficient with the following weapons: crossbow (any)" Does that mean i can get a Heavy Repeater for no feat costs?)

[Jiruharudo]

Dang, noone?

[Darrin]

Now I ask you: What is keeping me from getting an Grandfather Plaque and mounting it on the door of my wagon?

Well there is one thing ..Im unable to see the costs or creation options for such an item as Grandfather Plaque. Its a small construct, but im pretty sure its more powerful than say ..a chair. Dont supose anyone knows the rules of it?


A Clockwork Steed/Pony is 6 HD, same as the plaque, although I imagine the plaque doesn't involve quite so many moving parts. The price of the clockwork steed is 2150 GP. In the same book, there's a Clockwork Minder, a tiny flying construct, but the description says you can buy additional HD for 2000 GP each, so that would put the price around 10400 GP. Considering the plaque is immobile, I'd say your price is somewhere in the middle, maybe in the 6-8K range.

However, the real issue with the price is the at-will SLAs and Su abilities. To create a wondrous item that can cast magic missile, shout, and tongues at will, it would cost at least 66K GP (assuming a bard supplies the tongues). This doesn't include the Ward of Weakness (presumably an at-will ray of enfeeblement), Door Guardian (at-will arcane lock and maybe mending or repair light damage), and Telepathic Link (Rary's telepathic bond, possibly with permanency). All of that is probably another 12-15K.



(Sidenote: "Urban druids are proficient with the following weapons: crossbow (any)" Does that mean i can get a Heavy Repeater for no feat costs?)

I would assume the text is referring to only the simple crossbows in the PHB, but by strict RAW, it would apply to all the exotics as well. (And possibly ballistae, although that's a bit of a stretch.) Based on the description that urban druids prefer small and light weapons, I'd say light, heavy, and hand crossbow would make the most sense.

[Jiruharudo]

Hey Darrin,

And thanks for cooking up this solution for me!

That price seems fair, since Shout and MM are pretty good spells to have as SLA's, and it's getting some nice extra's on the side. But what you're saying is that I should take this into acount and let my DM decide the finer details of the cost?

Also, Im in agreement with the crossbow ..though I think a repeater crossbow isnt much bigger than a normal crossbow.