PF - Player Advice - War Machine Template way too OP?

[unseenmage]

Level 13 Promethean Alchemist playing through the Iron Gods AP. We have about average WBL and the Bard is the closest thing we have to a Wizard. 2x Monks and a Rogue beyond that. Plus some Construct minions and I have Leadership funneled into a Downtime (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/other-rules/downtime#TOC-Managers) Business.

Houserule in place where we price/build all Constructs by CR alone. Still can't build robots without the Tech Lab.

Was going to use this Advanced Bestiary clockwork template (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/templates/clockwork-creature-cr-2). Decided against and switched to this Clockwork template (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/templates/clockwork-creature-template-cr-1-tohc) instead.

How does this War Machine template (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/templates/war-machine-cr-3) stack up? It is too strong? Or is it too strong by far?

I'm not much judge of these things as I got most of the way through applying the Advanced Bestiary Clockwork template before realizing it didn't modify Special Attacks nor did it really prevent the CE, high Intelligence base monster from killing its creator on a whim.

Thanks.

EDIT: Oh yeah, am looking to Construct-ize a Young (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/templates/simple-template-young-cr-1) Chthonic (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/templates/simple-template-chthonic-creature-cr-0-or-1) Lusca (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/magical-beasts/lusca) and a (probably also templated) variant Gelatinous Cube (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/oozes/gelatinous-cube). All with DM permission of course. The DM would be using advice gleaned from this post as well.

[unseenmage]

I also wonder if there's a monster with a lower CR than the Lusca but still is a good candidate for having the Clockwork or War Machine template applied.

[noob]

You can do a pc build and put that template on top of that.
Cleric works especially well thanks to casting(which is not lost with this template).
For pure awesomeness use creature swarm and apocalypse swarm and war machine to create a slave dividing in two slaves at each attack it takes and with fast healing.
Summoner creature swarm apocalypse swarm war machine is a fairly good choice if you believe the spells class feature is not guarded by the war machine template.

[Jack_Simth]

Hmm. Let's see... a War Machine Tarrasque would theoretically be CR 28, and thus, cost 134,400 gp to purchase, or 67,200 gp to craft. Go ahead and add the +500 to give it a saddle. Assuming you don't have caster level 33, you're missing one prerequisite, so the spellcraft check to make it is going to be DC 43 (CL 33 + 5 base, +5 for missing a requirement). Creation cost is 50% or less of PC WBL at 13th (140k), so that's the level I'm going to check spellcraft optimization at. 13 ranks, +3 class, +6 Skill Focus, +2 Trait (Theoretical Magician, perhaps), use an Arcane Family Workbook for +4 circumstance, an Armillary Amulet for +5 Competence, and that gets us to +33. Take 10, and you make the DC 43. Note that this is before Int optimization - so that's, say, a Cleric, Druid, or Oracle making this (Int 10). A Wizard is going to have a much higher Int at that level, and can safely drop one or more of the skill boosting items.

So someone investing modestly into Spellcraft who takes Craft Construct can relatively reasonably make a War Machine Tarrasque at 13th.

Anything that lets you make a CR 28 minion at level 13 is probably broken.

[noob]

A level 19 Summoner creature swarm apocalypse swarm war machine who splits into two level 19 Summoner creature swarm apocalypse swarm war machine each time it is hit costs the same price and is way more broken than a war machine tarrasque(imagine the poly-valance of gates when you have as many summoners as you want summoning whatever you want.)

[unseenmage]

Ah. Forgot they retain spellcasting. Broken verdict it is then.

Those builds look disgustingly tempting as BBEGs though. :smallamused: