Utility Constructs

[Equinox90]

I'm looking to play an Artificer in an upcomming campaign and I want to focus on crafting constructs and buffing allies. However, I don't want smashy companions. I want companions with unparalleled utility. Tiny constructs that spy, steal, trip, entangle, etc...basically a pokemon master for utility constructs.

However, most guides always focus on raw damage potential and its hard to find a lot of creatures good for utility.

I know I am limited to Homunculi as Artificer but I plan to follow into Effigy master, letting me have a VERY wide array of options.

Whats your favorite utility creatures? I'm looking for out of combat potential preferably but bonus points for weird combat utility like casting grease easily or entangling multiple foes.

[sleepyphoenixx]

ECS and MoE have a few for that. Expeditious Messenger, a walking chest that can give your party members potions (Packmate?), one that can steal and the Dedicated Wright that crafts for you.
If you're taking Craft Construct there's also a really good spying construct in Forge of War.

Sorry about the lack of names, but i'm AFB.

[Coidzor]

Vanilla homunculi are fairly useful for utility, especially if advanced with more HD, given their relative intelligence and ability to have various skill ranks and take feats. You can have one with max ranks in Search and Disable Device and the Planar Touchstone feat for Catalogues of Enlightenment for the Kobold domain and you've got a trap-finder and disabler minion.

You can have another that's a master of Open Lock and Use Rope for when you really, really need to tie someone up or pick a lock. You can even make a collection of purpose-built sages to help back up the party with useful knowledge skills and to cover obscure ones entirely on their own, allowing PCs to not spend skill points on those knowledges.

Hilt and Pommel from Eberron's Lord of Blades are also examples of being able to give them more HD than their advancement entry would indicate, for whatever that's worth.


ECS and MoE have a few for that. Expeditious Messenger, a walking chest that can give your party members potions (Packmate?), one that can steal and the Dedicated Wright that crafts for you.
If you're taking Craft Construct there's also a really good spying construct in Forge of War.

Sorry about the lack of names, but i'm AFB.

Yeah, Packmate is the name of the walking treasure chest.

Furtive Filcher is good at stealing things.

Umbral Spies from Forge of War aren't homunculi as I recall, but are very nice constructs to have, although part of the fluff for them is that you need a relatively fresh corpse for at least part of the creation process.

Then again, one might be able to have one ally kill a changeling or other shapechanger, some number of people grab the necessary essence, and then another ally use something like Revivify on them so that they come back to life without costing anyone any extra gold on top of the construct's cost.


Whats your favorite utility creatures? I'm looking for out of combat potential preferably but bonus points for weird combat utility like casting grease easily or entangling multiple foes.

I can't think of any effigies which would retain that sort of ability.

There might be a way to give an Effigy Hydra the ability to have Improved Grab with each head so that they can grapple a large number of creatures, maybe? :smallconfused:

An Effigy Legendary Ape with Rudimentary Intelligence(Dragon Magazine) would have an Int score so it could make use of its HD to have feats and could be a pretty decent chassis for a minion between its HD, size, and physical ability scores.

[Darrin]

Clockwork Menders (MM4) can be built for 1250 GP, +2000 GP per HD.

[Vizzerdrix]

One of the dragon mags has cheap golems. If I remember correctly one can be built that is a worker, not a fighter.

[Grod_The_Giant]

If you can get Alter Self onto a construct friend, you can have it turn into pretty much any sort of Animated Object you can think of. (I swear I saw an armor that did that, but I can't find it now)


Vanilla homunculi are fairly useful for utility, especially if advanced with more HD, given their relative intelligence and ability to have various skill ranks and take feats. You can have one with max ranks in Search and Disable Device and the Planar Touchstone feat for Catalogues of Enlightenment for the Kobold domain and you've got a trap-finder and disabler minion.

You can have another that's a master of Open Lock and Use Rope for when you really, really need to tie someone up or pick a lock. You can even make a collection of purpose-built sages to help back up the party with useful knowledge skills and to cover obscure ones entirely on their own, allowing PCs to not spend skill points on those knowledges.
Shape Soulmeld is another great option for such things. 3HD gives you enough feats for Shape Soulmeld and a +1 essentia feat; if you push them up to 6 HD their capacity increases and you can grab two Shape Soulmeld feats and Bonus Essentia, or one Shape Soulmeld, a +1 essentia feat, and an Open Least Chakra. Disregard that, Shape Soulmeld requires a Con score

[Coidzor]

If you can get Alter Self onto a construct friend, you can have it turn into pretty much any sort of Animated Object you can think of. (I swear I saw an armor that did that, but I can't find it now)

Ooo. Definitely fun if it can be found.


Shape Soulmeld is another great option for such things. 3HD gives you enough feats for Shape Soulmeld and a +1 essentia feat; if you push them up to 6 HD their capacity increases and you can grab two Shape Soulmeld feats and Bonus Essentia, or one Shape Soulmeld, a +1 essentia feat, and an Open Least Chakra.

Somehow I thought that Constructs couldn't use Incarnum at all unless they had Constitution scores. :smallconfused: Huh. Yeah, with Incarnum on the table, you can really open up some utility options and bump them up as skillmonkeys

[Grod_The_Giant]

Somehow I thought that Constructs couldn't use Incarnum at all unless they had Constitution scores. :smallconfused: Huh. Yeah, with Incarnum on the table, you can really open up some utility options and bump them up as skillmonkeys
...<headdesk> Crap, no, you're right. It may be possible for a constuct to shape melds with class levels, if you take the lower of "X melds shaped and n/a" to be X, but the feat requires Con 13. Herp a derp.