Mirror Minion [PEACH]

[kinem]

Mirror Minion

Medium-Sized Construct
Hit Dice: 1d10 (1 hp)
Initiative: +6
Speed: 30’
Armor Class: 32 (+20 armor, +2 dex), touch 12, flat footed 30
Base Attack / Grapple: +0 / +5
Attack: Greatsword +7 melee (2d6+7) or slam +5 melee (1d6+7)
Space/Reach: 5 ft. / 5 ft.
Special Attacks / Actions: Wraithstrike, Melee Mirror, Adopt Face
Special Qualities: Evasion, construct immunities, darkvision 60’, low-light vision, fragile, damage reduction 15 / -, Ranged Reflection, Reflective Spell Resistance 30, Death Throes, Energy Resistance
Saves: Fort +0, Reflex +4, Will +0
Abilities: STR 20, DEX 14, CON -, INT -, WIS 10, CHA 10
Skills: –
Feats: Weapon Focus (greatsword)[B], Improved Initiative{B], Lightning Reflexes[B], Combat Reflexes[B]
Environment: Any
Organization: Solitary, Pair, or Hall (3-30)
Challenge Rating: 8
Treasure: Mwk Greatsword
Alignment: Neutral
Advancement: none

These are magically created humanoid constructs that appear as shiny, silvery suits of full plate armor.

They follow only extremely simple instructions from the creator. Examples are: stay, attack, adopt face (target pointed out, or whoever attacks it), or flee. All mirror minions that obey the same person will attempt to follow the order if they are close enough to hear it. The creator or controller can verbally transfer control of a mirror minion to one other individual, but the creator can always take back control.

Adopt Face (Su): It can copy with an illusion the appearance of an individual (including gear) within 30' as a swift action. This lasts until it is ordered to drop the face. A DC 20 Spot check will reveal that something is off about the illusion. Against a foe whose face it has adopted, the construct gains a +2 circumstance bonus to attack and damage rolls.

Wraithstrike (Su): Its attacks with natural or melee weapons are resolved as touch attacks.

Fragile (Ex): If it takes even 1 point of damage, it is destroyed.

Melee Mirror (Su): Whenever it is attacked in melee, it can make an Attack of Opportunity against the foe before the foe's attack is resolved, even if it's flat-footed.

Ranged Reflection (Su): Whenever it is the target of a ranged attack or a ranged touch attack, the attack is deflected back toward the attacker. Use the same attack roll. If the redirected attack hits the attacker, resolve it as normal.

Reflective Spell Resistance (Su): If a targeted spell or SLA fails to penetrate its SR, it is reflected back at the caster, as if the caster is the target.

Death Throes (Ex): If destroyed, it will explode, sending shards of force in all directions. The blast only affects creatures (not objects) and causes 10d6 piercing damage within 20' (Reflex half DC 15; this includes a +5 racial bonus). After that, no trace of it remains, other than the greatsword it bore.

Energy Resistance (Ex): It has Resistance 20 to Acid, Cold, Electricity, Fire, Sonic, and Force damage.

Construct: Immune to mind-influencing effects, poison, sleep, paralysis, stunning, disease, death effects, and necromantic effects. A construct is not subject to critical hits, subdual damage, ability damage, ability drain, or energy drain. It is immune to any effect that requires a Fortitude save (unless the effect also works on objects). A construct cannot be raised or resurrected. Constructs do not require air.

Construction:
Each costs 4000 gp to create. The creator must be 10rd level and have the Craft Construct feat, and it requires the spells wraithstrike, friendly fire, and mirror image.

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Mirror of Opposing Minions:
This item resembles a normal mirror about 4 feet long and 3 feet wide. It can be hung or placed on a surface and then activated by speaking a command word. The same command word deactivates the mirror. If a creature sees its reflection in the mirror’s surface, a Mirror Minion with Adopt Face mimicking that creature comes into being. This construct immediately attacks the original. Upon the defeat or destruction of either the Minion or the original, or after one day, the Minion and its greatsword disappear completely. The mirror functions up to four times per day and is not triggered by a Mirror Minion. A second Minion will not appear for the same creature while the first remains.
Moderate conjuration; CL 10th; Craft Wondrous Item, Craft Construct, wraithstrike, friendly fire, and mirror image; Price 22,000 gp; Weight 45 lb.

[Halrax]

Stylistically somewhat similar to the Nerra from the Fiend Folio, though in terms of mechanics different in almost every respect. 7k gp for a minion that dies when it takes one point of damage seems a little harsh, I think. If a 10 gp bottle of acid can kill it on splash damage then something seems off (remember energy damage bypasses DR). Maybe give it 3-5 HD, plus the bonus construct hp. That would also help with the attack bonus somewhat (though True Strike and Wraithstrike make up for that), saves don't matter as much due to immunities, but remember Evasion isn't necessarily useful with Reflex +2. Also, CR 8 for what is essentially a disguised explosion (and the disguise can't really go that far without the Int to speak or otherwise act like a human) seems way too high, as does making the armor 2.5X as good as full plate instead of having it be natural armor (where it does make sense) and lowering both it and the explosion to be in line with hp and a lower CR.

This is clearly designed as a bodyguard, with the disguise to pretend to be normal, have it attack some people with the greatsword, and then explode once a foe manages to get past the AC and immunities. But the hp is too low for it to really get going, the price is too high to justify it as a one shot item and it has little chance of surviving to be used multiple times, the CR is too high and the AC has to be artificially raised to meet it, and the explosion damage not only has an absurdly low save DC due to low HD (which means it's going to almost certainly be half damage, or no damage w/ Evasion) the damage is only 2.5x the weapon damage (on average) so when halved is essentially an extra attack against each person in range, which probably includes the caster (who will likely be squishier than their attackers). The reflective abilities and other defensive abilities don't really matter when a single hit auto-kills it, so tone down those somewhat while increasing hp to the point where a single hit might cause the explosion, but in quick fights it can live to fight another day and the owner can repair it.

Check out the Lesser Golems article in Dragon Magazine 341 if you haven't already for guidelines for price, CR, HD, etc. I think redesigning this around, say, CR 4 and making sure that the effect of the death throes makes up for having to craft another one. I actually think the explosion damage is okay, but the save DC needs to be a bit higher, the owner needs some way of not getting caught in it (maybe a command word sets off the explosion prematurely?), and the price is way too high unless it can be used over and over again. For a point of comparison, a 3rd level Pearl of Power gives back a 3rd level spell (including Fireball, which has a larger area and a far larger range) every day, and Fireball isn't even a top-tier spell, for only 9k gp. For a one-shot explosion a Necklace of Fireballs VI has 1x10d6, 2x8d6, 2x6d6, 4x4d6, for 8.1k gp (though these options don't include the attacks, the reflective attacks, or the action economy).

Just the ability to reflect spells and ranged attacks might serve better as a spell or magic item rather than a creature. I think that a party would probably choose to just not attack the creature and go for their owner, unless you lower the CR enough that 2d6+7 damage is significant, though not necessarily more significant than whatever the CR of the owner is (apparently at least 10, though that can be reduced to 5). Also, the SLAs could probably be reworked into a special ability that just makes their attacks touch attacks, or requires a swift action to do one of a few things (touch attacks, attack bonus, bypass miss chances). Don't drag spells into it if you can avoid forcing players and GMs to have to look those spells up.

This is an original concept, both mechanically and fluffwise, but it needs some fine-tuning to not be a very expensive form of countering and reflecting certain spells a few times before exploding.

[kinem]

Halrax: Thanks for the thoughtful response. I have edited the first post to ... reflect the changes I decided to make.

For them to have 1 hp is definitely part of what I'm going for here, as part of my Minion line of constructs (see Stick Minions (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?634978-Stick-Minions-revised-PEACH)) that attempts to take the otherwise nonsensical 4th edition idea of the "minion" and turn it into something that isn't completely ridiculous for a monster to be. (I know in 4e it's supposed to be an abstract way of dealing with lower-level foes. It doesn't work as that.) For this one, I'm trying to get the CR up into the mid-levels. I'm not sure how balanced it currently is at CR 8.

I knew I was forgetting something. Energy Resistance is now included.

Good advice on reworking the SLAs to make it simpler to run. I substituted some SU abilities.

I lowered the Cost to 4k. The Price, as usual, is double the Cost. It's not really supposed to be an attractive option for PCs to use, so it kind of has to be overpriced.

Adopt Face could be used for many things. They could look like their master and draw fire, look like normal bodyguards, look like someone the master wants to frame, or even look like a stripper for entertainment. Of course it is also useful for the low-rent and non-game-breaking Mirror of Opposition.