Designing a Race made up of Souls and Empty Bodies

[Yvhv Weide]

So im trying to design a race for my pathfinder game. the basis for this race is something of a construct but not a construct. They contain the soul of a living being, have full range of emotion and sentience. They are made when a being is forcefully pulled from their body and placed into the new construct body or they voluntarily agree to be moved into the new body. If they have spell or psi like racial abilities id like for them to keep these, or maybe weaken them a bit. a big draw back of all this is that they have a good chance of going insane from being put into a new body and having to deal with such, and having to learn how ot move and adapt to this new form.

[PhantasyPen]

I'm not sure what the question is? And it sounds like you're trying to combine the ghost template with a reincarnate spell for cheese.

[Yvhv Weide]

sorry. the question is this: how would i go about designing a playable race that is both a construct and sentient with minor spell like abilities that would be not too powerful. also, i am not aiming for any sort of cheese. i kinda take offense to that. this is being designed for my players, whom have expressed an interest in playing their characters after death but not as undead or paragon or spirit or something. So, i thought "what if, after death, they were somehow able to inhabit an empty constructed body, and keep their personality and stuff but be a little changed and twisted?" they'd lose certain things, here and there, and gain a few things as well. maybe they could continue to advance in class, or maybe theyd have to start all over again, from square one. maybe they stay the same class, or maybe they choose a new class and try to avoid what happened the last time they died. in my campaign, death, is permanent, but only if your soul/consciousness is destroyed. there is a cycle of reincarnation (although when you reincarnate is based upon the rolling of a few dice and the shortest reincarnation time is 10 years) but, with this option, my players could try something new and not have to reincarnate....which, would add a bit to the story, because that's breaking the balance of the world a little bit, and there would be eventual rippling consequences.

[BananaNomNom]

why not try to kinda bring over the warforged from 3.5 ebberon? they are pretty much what you are looking for and you can just refluff that they have he souls of the dead peeps.

[Yvhv Weide]

.................-facepalm X10000000........i cant believe i forgot about the warforged.

[Psyren]

Androids from both PF and Starfinder have very similar fluff to what you describe:


Though android bodies are assembled using tiny machines called nanites, their complex nervous systems attract and integrate souls in the same way organic creatures do. Most androids are fully grown at the time of their birth, and can technically live forever through constant repair, though most androids voluntarily release their bodies after a century or so to allow new souls to inhabit them—a process called renewal that’s viewed more as procreation than as suicide.

[Red Fel]

What about the Quori, Inspired, and Kalashtar?

The Quori are a race of extraplanar spirit-beings from the realm of dreams. The Kalashtar are a hybrid of Quori and humanoid hosts - humans who have willingly accepted a Quori passenger. Kalashtar are also naturally Psionic. The Inspired came later - as opposed to the willing fusion of Quori and humanoid that become Kalashtar, the Inspired are a genetically engineered race designed to be empty vessels for the Quori. Inspired are also Psionic.

Even if this isn't what you had in mind, you can pretty easily adapt it, I'd think.

[zlefin]

in terms of balancing your creation, the pathfinder rules for designing custom races are reasonably good (it's unclear from your post whether you're already familiar with them or not, you probably are, but just in cas eyou aren't i'll link it).
http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/advancedRaceGuide/raceBuilder.html