Make Any Construct a Robot?

[Unseenmage]

The Robot subtype has language (in the first sentence even) that implies any Construct can be made a Robot and the Craft Robot feat gives us a price for such.

It is assumed that the Robot Subtype's language is intended for DM use only, but does it unbalance anything to allow players to pay the 20,000gpxCR cost to upgrade their Golems, Homunculi, and Animated Objects with root parts to give them the Robot Subtype as though it were more of a template?

Should this just be a rules interpretation or should a character have to burn a feat/discovery/archetype for this to be allowed?

Also, if the above were allowed, how would one go about pricing the addition of force fields and integrated weaponry?

My group and I have discussed and the force fields seem weak enough to just add in for free. There's even a suggested amount for the temporary hp they grant.

The Integrated Weaponry we figure one would just have to buy. The question is should there be a markup in price for combining the Integrated Weaponry into the construct itself. That they become natural weapons is kinda powerful, then again tech items are on the whole overcosted so that might be enough of a balancing factor.

Thoughts, advice, and criticisms welcome. Thanks in advance.

[Acolyte of Mushu]

I believe the intention was that you (as the GM) could create robotic analogues for common normally-magical constructs, not that PCs could further augment their already constructed magical constructs into robots. Definitely not that.

However, if you were to allow this transformation of magic- to science-based constructs as a homebrewwed rule, you'd have to contend with whether the now robotically-outfitted golems and homunculi still have their magical abilities, whether they're actually robots or just have robotic prosthetics, etc. Once you get past figuring out how you wanna go with that, I would most definitely require the Craft Robot feat, which has the prerequisites of Craft Technological Arms and Armor and Craft Technological Item. And if they were creating the constructs themselves they would have to have Craft Construct and other required Item Creation feats. Recognizing that this is a bit much, you could have an NPC have the appropriate technological feats to help them out. I'm unsure whether this would be unbalancing.

Best wishes! Let me know what route you take and how it turns out, if you can

[Myrryr]

If you wanted robots, build a robot. If you want a construct, build a construct. If you want a technological construct, or a magical robot, well, then you should require all subsets of feats and their prereqs, and I as a DM would require spellcraft and craft mechanical and kn: engineering and kn: arcana checks to merge the two properly and not create something that blows up in your face/is cursed/is a malevolent AI bent on world domination.

So it'd take some serious work, but I'd allow it. You just need to spend a lot of time and effort. And someone who invested in all of those feats, not to mention the WBL behind it, should get some good power from their new magic robot buddy considering all of the character power they gave up for 6-7 feats and tens of thousands of gold.