Jowgen
2021-08-20, 08:41 PM
The thrope of man creating machines that create more of themselves is pretty universal.
Stargate did it. Star Trek arguably did it. D&D has it's own take in the form of the Clockwork Horrors.
Sadly, you can't craft your own clockwork horror in game for the purposes of doing a tech-version of the Wight apocalypse.
I am here to present an alternative.
The Universal Replicator
This is an optimised version of the Universal Key (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/cw/20061106a) capable to creating more versions of itself.
CL: 5th; Craft Construct, knock, heat metal; Price 2,400 gp; Cost 1,200 gp + 96 XP.
Universal Key CR 2
Always N Fine Construct (Swarm)
Init +5; Senses blindsense 30 ft.
Languages None
AC 23, touch 23, flat-footed 18
(+5 Dex, +8 size)
hp 16 (4 HD)
Immune mind-affecting effects, poison, sleep, paralysis, stunning, disease, death effects, necromantic effects, critical hits, flanking, nonlethal damage, ability damage, ability drain, fatigue, exhaustion, energy drain, any effect that requires a Fort save (unless it affects objects), weapon damage, spells or effects that target creatures, cannot be tripped or grappled or bull rushed
Fort +1, Ref +6, Will +0
Weakness vulnerable to area effect spells and effects, cannot grapple
Speed 20 ft. (4 squares), climb 10 ft.
Space 5 ft.; Reach 0 ft.
Base Atk +3; Grp -
Special Actions Unbind
Abilities Str 1, Dex 20, Con --, Int --, Wis 10, Cha 2
SQ construct traits, swarm traits
Feats Combat Expertise, Dodge
Unbind (Ex) When released, a universal key immediately fills its space and proceeds to unlock, unravel, and otherwise take apart every composite object not made of masonry in the square. If there are none, it seeks such objects in adjacent squares until it finds some. Objects are rendered into piles of their separate components. Unbinding objects is a full-round action that does not provoke attacks of opportunity. A successful Reflex save (DC 12) allows creatures and their carried equipment to avoid the effect by moving immediately to an adjacent clear square (if there are no clear adjacent squares, the creature cannot avoid the effect).
Three things are needed to turn this nifty little thing into a civilisation annihilator.
1. The Rudimentary Intelligence mod from Dragon 327 p. 73
Rudimentary Intelligence
Your construct possesses intelligence.
Construct Prerequisites: Construct, no Intelligence score
Creator Prerequisites: Craft Construct, CL 12th
Cost: +8000 gp
A spellcaster applying this augmentation bestows an Intelligence score up to his creation equal to ½ his caster level. In addition to being able to make judgments and decisions as any other creature with a similar Intelligence score, the construct gains feats and skill points befitting an intelligent construct of its Hit Dice (see page 301 of the Monster Manual for information on how to determine and distribute monstrous feats and skills). This augmentation can not add additional Intelligence to a construct that normally has an Intelligence score. A golem that gains intelligence in this matter is still bound to the will of its creator as normal.
A clay golem with rudimentary intelligence costs 48,000 gp and requires a spellcaster spend 48 days, 28500 gp and 1920 XP to create. Such a golem gains an intelligence score of 6, four feats, and 14 skill points.
For the cost of 4000 gp, your crafted Universal key gains sentience with an Int equal to half your CL, as well as feats and skill points.The fact that you can pick these is what makes it all workable.
2. These Feats
For your Universal Key to be able to replicate itself, you need it to have the Craft Construct feat. That means a CL of 5 and 2 prerequesites. There are several routes to get here, depending on how restrictive readings at the table are.
First you'll have to meet the CL prerequesite. The easiest option would be the regional Celestial Scion feat from Dragon 315 p. 52, which nets you a CL of 16 no questions asked.
Region: Ablissa, North Kingdom, Solnor Compact.
Benefit: The benefits of this feat depend upon the Celestial House to which you belong. Unless your DM allows otherwise, your rank is very minor and grants no game benefits other than those listed below. Membership in your family may have intense roleplaying repercussions and benefits, at the discretion of the DM.
Naelax:You share the bloodline of Ivid the Undying, the mad undead Overking who brought the once-mighty Great Kingdom to its knees. You receive a +2 bonus on all Intimidate checks. Thanks to an unholy pact between Overking Ivid I and a fiend, you enjoy a special relationship with evil outsiders. You have a continuous true seeing ability, as the spell (caster level 16th), but the ability works only against the cloaking spells of demons and devils. This is a super-natural ability. Due to your family's ghastly reputation, NPCs in the former Great Kingdom have an initial attitude of unfriendly toward you.
By RAW, it is a perfectly legal pick, but if for fluff reasons you can't get it, the alternative is one of the no-prerequesite feats that grant you an SLA at CL = HD, such as the Birth Feats from Dragon 340 and then just advancing the base Universal key to 5 HD.
If there is a no-feat-investment option for getting a CL of 5+ on this, I'd love to hear it.
Next you're going to need 3 feats to spend on Crafting feats. The base Universal Key only gets a first and 2nd level feat, as well as 2 racial bonus feats (Combat Expertise and Dodge) which are utterly dysfunctional on the statblock as they're mindless constructs. So your options are to either.
A). Successfully argue you can assign 2 flaws to this newly conscious construct
B). Get the 5+ CL without spending a feat and advance to 6 HD to take Craft Construct
C). Chaos Shuffle the 2 dysfunctional bonus feats
If any of the above works, you will have at least one (1) Universal Key that can make more of itself.
3. Access to the non-feat crafting prerequesites
Your Universal Replicator needs the gold value raw materials, the XP and access to the spells Knock and Heat Metal whilst crafting. In classic replicator fashion, raw materials are gotten by using Unbind on civilisation. The XP can be gotten by investing ranks in Craft (Alchemy) and using it to mundane-craft Liquid pain. The spells are likely most easily gotten by using Craft Wonderous item to create items that produce those effects at will or on the daily (e.g. Lockpicking Ring from MIC does it for Knock).
The End Result
One way or another, you end up with a Universal Replicator that is capable of crafting more of its own kind whenever it has accumulated the material resources to do so. It will have an Int of half your CL and all those it and its kind make will have an Int equal to half the CL you managed to give it via your chosen method.
These things can not hurt creatures, as they have no means of dealing damage (unless they advance to 6 HD and you have a spare feat to give them a damage dealing option). They will spread like a metalic plague across civilisation and disassemble everything to gather the material to make more of itself.
The Universal Replicator arguably is the best friend of Druids everywhere, although there is a possibility that once they run out of civilisation to consume, they'll move on to strip-mine the planet for metal much like their Clockwork Horror cousins do. The bright side, they don't as written get a singular hive mind that controls the whole thing, so your initial (presumably smarter) one doesn't run the show.
Of course, as is with these kinds of robot/AI take-overs, unforseen repercussions are kind of the norm, so things might go from uncivilised to extinct real fast if you're not careful.
Thoughts?
Stargate did it. Star Trek arguably did it. D&D has it's own take in the form of the Clockwork Horrors.
Sadly, you can't craft your own clockwork horror in game for the purposes of doing a tech-version of the Wight apocalypse.
I am here to present an alternative.
The Universal Replicator
This is an optimised version of the Universal Key (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/cw/20061106a) capable to creating more versions of itself.
CL: 5th; Craft Construct, knock, heat metal; Price 2,400 gp; Cost 1,200 gp + 96 XP.
Universal Key CR 2
Always N Fine Construct (Swarm)
Init +5; Senses blindsense 30 ft.
Languages None
AC 23, touch 23, flat-footed 18
(+5 Dex, +8 size)
hp 16 (4 HD)
Immune mind-affecting effects, poison, sleep, paralysis, stunning, disease, death effects, necromantic effects, critical hits, flanking, nonlethal damage, ability damage, ability drain, fatigue, exhaustion, energy drain, any effect that requires a Fort save (unless it affects objects), weapon damage, spells or effects that target creatures, cannot be tripped or grappled or bull rushed
Fort +1, Ref +6, Will +0
Weakness vulnerable to area effect spells and effects, cannot grapple
Speed 20 ft. (4 squares), climb 10 ft.
Space 5 ft.; Reach 0 ft.
Base Atk +3; Grp -
Special Actions Unbind
Abilities Str 1, Dex 20, Con --, Int --, Wis 10, Cha 2
SQ construct traits, swarm traits
Feats Combat Expertise, Dodge
Unbind (Ex) When released, a universal key immediately fills its space and proceeds to unlock, unravel, and otherwise take apart every composite object not made of masonry in the square. If there are none, it seeks such objects in adjacent squares until it finds some. Objects are rendered into piles of their separate components. Unbinding objects is a full-round action that does not provoke attacks of opportunity. A successful Reflex save (DC 12) allows creatures and their carried equipment to avoid the effect by moving immediately to an adjacent clear square (if there are no clear adjacent squares, the creature cannot avoid the effect).
Three things are needed to turn this nifty little thing into a civilisation annihilator.
1. The Rudimentary Intelligence mod from Dragon 327 p. 73
Rudimentary Intelligence
Your construct possesses intelligence.
Construct Prerequisites: Construct, no Intelligence score
Creator Prerequisites: Craft Construct, CL 12th
Cost: +8000 gp
A spellcaster applying this augmentation bestows an Intelligence score up to his creation equal to ½ his caster level. In addition to being able to make judgments and decisions as any other creature with a similar Intelligence score, the construct gains feats and skill points befitting an intelligent construct of its Hit Dice (see page 301 of the Monster Manual for information on how to determine and distribute monstrous feats and skills). This augmentation can not add additional Intelligence to a construct that normally has an Intelligence score. A golem that gains intelligence in this matter is still bound to the will of its creator as normal.
A clay golem with rudimentary intelligence costs 48,000 gp and requires a spellcaster spend 48 days, 28500 gp and 1920 XP to create. Such a golem gains an intelligence score of 6, four feats, and 14 skill points.
For the cost of 4000 gp, your crafted Universal key gains sentience with an Int equal to half your CL, as well as feats and skill points.The fact that you can pick these is what makes it all workable.
2. These Feats
For your Universal Key to be able to replicate itself, you need it to have the Craft Construct feat. That means a CL of 5 and 2 prerequesites. There are several routes to get here, depending on how restrictive readings at the table are.
First you'll have to meet the CL prerequesite. The easiest option would be the regional Celestial Scion feat from Dragon 315 p. 52, which nets you a CL of 16 no questions asked.
Region: Ablissa, North Kingdom, Solnor Compact.
Benefit: The benefits of this feat depend upon the Celestial House to which you belong. Unless your DM allows otherwise, your rank is very minor and grants no game benefits other than those listed below. Membership in your family may have intense roleplaying repercussions and benefits, at the discretion of the DM.
Naelax:You share the bloodline of Ivid the Undying, the mad undead Overking who brought the once-mighty Great Kingdom to its knees. You receive a +2 bonus on all Intimidate checks. Thanks to an unholy pact between Overking Ivid I and a fiend, you enjoy a special relationship with evil outsiders. You have a continuous true seeing ability, as the spell (caster level 16th), but the ability works only against the cloaking spells of demons and devils. This is a super-natural ability. Due to your family's ghastly reputation, NPCs in the former Great Kingdom have an initial attitude of unfriendly toward you.
By RAW, it is a perfectly legal pick, but if for fluff reasons you can't get it, the alternative is one of the no-prerequesite feats that grant you an SLA at CL = HD, such as the Birth Feats from Dragon 340 and then just advancing the base Universal key to 5 HD.
If there is a no-feat-investment option for getting a CL of 5+ on this, I'd love to hear it.
Next you're going to need 3 feats to spend on Crafting feats. The base Universal Key only gets a first and 2nd level feat, as well as 2 racial bonus feats (Combat Expertise and Dodge) which are utterly dysfunctional on the statblock as they're mindless constructs. So your options are to either.
A). Successfully argue you can assign 2 flaws to this newly conscious construct
B). Get the 5+ CL without spending a feat and advance to 6 HD to take Craft Construct
C). Chaos Shuffle the 2 dysfunctional bonus feats
If any of the above works, you will have at least one (1) Universal Key that can make more of itself.
3. Access to the non-feat crafting prerequesites
Your Universal Replicator needs the gold value raw materials, the XP and access to the spells Knock and Heat Metal whilst crafting. In classic replicator fashion, raw materials are gotten by using Unbind on civilisation. The XP can be gotten by investing ranks in Craft (Alchemy) and using it to mundane-craft Liquid pain. The spells are likely most easily gotten by using Craft Wonderous item to create items that produce those effects at will or on the daily (e.g. Lockpicking Ring from MIC does it for Knock).
The End Result
One way or another, you end up with a Universal Replicator that is capable of crafting more of its own kind whenever it has accumulated the material resources to do so. It will have an Int of half your CL and all those it and its kind make will have an Int equal to half the CL you managed to give it via your chosen method.
These things can not hurt creatures, as they have no means of dealing damage (unless they advance to 6 HD and you have a spare feat to give them a damage dealing option). They will spread like a metalic plague across civilisation and disassemble everything to gather the material to make more of itself.
The Universal Replicator arguably is the best friend of Druids everywhere, although there is a possibility that once they run out of civilisation to consume, they'll move on to strip-mine the planet for metal much like their Clockwork Horror cousins do. The bright side, they don't as written get a singular hive mind that controls the whole thing, so your initial (presumably smarter) one doesn't run the show.
Of course, as is with these kinds of robot/AI take-overs, unforseen repercussions are kind of the norm, so things might go from uncivilised to extinct real fast if you're not careful.
Thoughts?