I love weirdo monster-like races, especially things akin to constructs, undead, oozes, aberrations and swarms. Eldritch stuff.
Wyrwood are super-neat. Weird little magical wooden puppet people. Creepy and cool. But, obviously, with their construct immunities they seem absolutely broken. I know constructs have weaknesses and drawbacks as well, as a creature type, but these don't seem in any way, shape or form to be properly balanced against the boons.
Is there some class or...thing or something, some means by which one could include a wyrwood PC in a campaign with other, normal PCs without wrecking utter havoc? Has anyone ever had any good experiences with wyrwood PCs?
Pinocchio!
I find the drawbacks of not benefiting from Cure X Wounds spells and dying at 0 HP a big balance against all the construct boons.
Yes, Pinocchio! But the roleplaying half of being a little wooden boy has never been anything I've had trouble with. It comes naturally to me because I'm actually an animated pupp- I mean I'm a fully fleshed living human.
I agree the tiny hp pool and dying at 0 hit points is a very considerable drawback, but it seems kind of lopsided, balance-wise, against the construct immunities. Like, basically, you will be overpowered and trivialize a vast range of encounter types, and then you will just...die and not be able to be resurrected. Doesn't really seem like a set-up that spells fun for either the GM, the wyrwood player or any of the other players.
Maybe my imagination is just failing me here. I do really badly want to come up with a way of playing a wyrwood that's workable.
I'm not seeing how you're trivializing most encounter types. Yeah, your immune to a number of nasty debuffs, but pretty much any combat encounter you face is going to have the ability to do straight hit point damage, and you aren't getting any bonuses in social encounters. I guess you're pretty much immune to haunts, but that's not exactly the majority of encounters during an adventuring career, in my experiance.
If anything, the sheer difficulty of healing a wyrwood, especially at lower levels, seems to make them rather underpowered, if anything.
I find the drawbacks of not benefiting from Cure X Wounds spells and dying at 0 HP a big balance against all the construct boons.
Well, infernal healing still works, although it is still a fact that they have to be exceeedingly careful since they are just destroyed, rather than the normal dying/dead states seen with other races.
And really, with their defenses, hp loss is pretty much the only thing they fear, whether it is from attacks or damaging spells.
I agree the tiny hp pool
You do know they get bonus hp based on size right? [+10 for small]
Secondly as lemeres points out, fast healing works fine. Buy Boots of the Earth.
Third, Wyrwood have an alternate racial trait that allows them to make whole as a spell-like ability once per day.
Forth, constructs have options when killed. The spell Memory of Function: "When this spell is cast upon a destroyed construct, it is restored to full functionality and full hit."
Fifth, the impossible Bloodline Arcana allows "Constructs are treated as living creatures for the purposes of determining which spells affect them." So a Razmiran Priest or a multiclass Sorcerer/healer type could cast healing freely on them.
I agree the tiny hp poolYou do know they get bonus hp based on size right? [+10 for small]
Secondly as lemeres points out, fast healing works fine. Buy Boots of the Earth.
Third, Wyrwood have an alternate racial trait that allows them to make whole as a spell-like ability once per day.
Forth, constructs have options when killed. The spell Memory of Function: "When this spell is cast upon a destroyed construct, it is restored to full functionality and full hit."
Fifth, the impossible Bloodline Arcana allows "Constructs are treated as living creatures for the purposes of determining which spells affect them." So a Razmiran Priest or a multiclass Sorcerer/healer type could cast healing freely on them.
So overall, "there are options, but you do not only have to get your GM to ok it, you have to get your party to take rather specific builds just to get you up to system standards".
Tricky, but if you can pull it off, then it is exceedingly valuable. All you need is a good reflex save and AC, and you can do rather well.
And personally, I would regard the extra hp from size as the same buffer as other races with negative HP. Just pretend you are someone with ferocity. You still end up with a relatively hp pool though, since you can't get con bonuses. And unfortuantely, the best option for these downside, barbarian (due to DR and high class hitdice), doesn't really work on golems
Promethean Alchemist works well for them. They can heal through Craft Construct, discoveries and extracts, their Homunculus Companion can prepare and use your extracts and can pick up spells through Spell Knowledge to help out too [like make whole and greater make whole]
Wizard, of course, can already cast all the good construct spells. Make whole [both], Rapid Repair, Memory of Function, ect. If the wyrwood isn't a wizard, it'd pay for him to buy the spells to put in the wizards spellbook. Having a Contingency in place to heal wouldn't be a bad idea either.
EDIT: Or just buy the party cleric a Construct Channel Brick...
Wizard, of course, can already cast all the good construct spells. Make whole [both], Rapid Repair, Memory of Function, ect. If the wyrwood isn't a wizard, it'd pay for him to buy the spells to put in the wizards spellbook. Having a Contingency in place to heal wouldn't be a bad idea either.
Well, I always make the assumption that you should have a healer (even if it is just the wizard with an emergency scroll) that isn't yourself, since when things go bad, you can't fix it yourself sometimes.
Like with a rez spell. Most people can't pull that off very well.
Point is, even if you are the wizard yourself and can handle general care, you probably want someone else to have options. And that can be hard as a construct.
Oh, I totally agree. That's what makes the Construct Channel Brick, wands/potions of infernal healing, ect a good idea to gift to other party members. You can also snag an improved familiar that can use wands and such to help out.
Constructs DO have some benefits with healing. Both cleric and wizards lists have healing/raising on their lists for them and the healing spell make whole is ranged close, not touch, so it's easier in that way. This means that the other players don't really have to build around you too much. At worst a wand of make infernal healing/Make whole/greater make whole and Use Magic Device can fill in for emergency healing.
Thanks for all the input, guys.
Well, it seems I overestimated wyrwoods' core drawback a bit, which makes me more inclined than originally to think they might be broken as a PC option in most instances. I wasn't actually aware of all those healing/revival options for constructs.
It was probably a bad word choice to claim a wyrwood "trivializes" encounters. More accurately, it will be a lot of extra work for the GM in certain instances to plan around a wyrwood in order to challenge it. Things like poisons, mind-affecting effects, a lot of things undead (especially incorporeal ones) tend to do are useless against them. Not needing to breathe, eat or sleep can probably also cause unexpected problems, especially at low levels.
I suppose a wyrwood unchained rogue could be kind of neat though, especially if the rest of the party is rather high-powered (tier 3 and above).
Oh, I totally agree. That's what makes the Construct Channel Brick, wands/potions of infernal healing, ect a good idea to gift to other party members. You can also snag an improved familiar that can use wands and such to help out.
Constructs DO have some benefits with healing. Both cleric and wizards lists have healing/raising on their lists for them and the healing spell make whole is ranged close, not touch, so it's easier in that way. This means that the other players don't really have to build around you too much. At worst a wand of make infernal healing/Make whole/greater make whole and Use Magic Device can fill in for emergency healing.
Make whole and greater make whole areis really ruled out for emergency healing (or even quickish healing) since they have a casting time of ten minutes.
Casting greater make whole is a standard action.