I've been wanting to play a construct for a bit now, Using the race rules I've started building a culture of them and want opinions. To a degree what I'm looking at is a flesh golem mixed with a clockwork. My idea is more machine than man which is meant to make a more cohesive society than a bunch of crackpots who cyberized themselves.
At first that's exactly how they started. Various kooks took advantage of emerging tech. They were shunned causing many to band together. Given the relative classes such people would have they made constructs for physical protection. Thanks to low birth rates, (few women capable of bearing children thanks to the mish mash of races, romantic compatibility, and machines being too close to, or replacing their reproductive organs) they started building more advanced constructs, thanks to their knowledge of flesh-crafting and lack of proper materials thanks to their shunning, they started recycling their (and ours) dead.
This wasn't enough so they continued refining their techniques until they succeeded in hybridizing the flesh and clockwork into a sustainable race. They and their society advanced until they were mostly constructs building constructs with a smattering of true organics and crackpots from the outside world who grafted mechanisms into themselves.
This is the sketch of how their society evolved. I'm looking for logical aspects to their society and an answer to whether they're too much construct for the half construct subtype. Oh, and what would you use for racial traits?
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That sounds reasonable thematically, yeah. They wouldn't even have to have the Construct Creature Type unless you want them to. I'd probably go with Half Construct.
If going full-on Construct, I'd go with bonuses to Str and Int and a Charisma penalty. Medium Sized, standard 30 foot movement speed (maybe even only 20 foot, if you feel like it), and that's all I'd go with for racial traits due to how powerful the subtype is. You get Darkvision and Low-Light Vision free with the subtype, though.
If going Half-Construct (which works), I'd go with the same stat bonuses, but toss on Skilled and Envoy, which seems appropriate to their flair for creation and magic. Maybe toss on Darkvision, too (that's make it 13 points all told).
In either case, you could toss on a Slam Natural Attack if you wanted.
Skilled Iagree with, but I consider them more techy than magic, also thanks for the maths. First race I've been building and it's late night, even basic math is beyond me at this point, any thoughts on their culture? I can consider them going down one of several paths grave robbers for parts, using pieces of animals and dead adventuring parties (and their foes) They could be xenophobic due to their origins, technologically advanced, friendl, militaristic. What do you think?
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They sound like they'd be technologically (or magically) advanced and interested in progress. They clearly wouldn't have any taboo about doing useful stuff with dead bodies, so 'cannibalism' and grave-robbing for parts both seem reasonable.
Xenophobic, militaristic, and friendly are all possibilities depending on what route you want to take (and can even be combined in interesting ways). I'd probably go with somewhat xenophobic, but really friendly once you prove you're not prejudiced against them.
The problem being that social mores would have them as monsters for the defilement of other races bretheren. Perhaps less xenophobia and more Isolationist? I'm also thinking a mountainous area as their kingdom, due to their nature they don't need farmland and do need mines, but they would prefer drier climates. And what would you think of life not being completely sacred?
We could give them a whole festival around renewal, turn off the ones who have malfunctioned horribly at the same time as their new "children" roll off the assembly line.Also due to their lqck of living materials in such a region, send out scouting (adventurers) parties. What kind of classes would you think the most likely?
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The problem being that social mores would have them as monsters for the defilement of other races bretheren. Perhaps less xenophobia and more Isolationist?
Isolationist sounds likely in that case, yeah.
I'm also thinking a mountainous area as their kingdom, due to their nature they don't need farmland and do need mines, but they would prefer drier climates.
Sounds reasonable.
And what would you think of life not being completely sacred?
Depends on what you mean by life. I'd actually imagine they'd be, if anything, slightly more concerned with the preservation of their existence than humans, given that they can't be Raised from the dead.
They might be more tolerant of things like undead though, given not being precisely alive themselves. Or they might think undead are horrible abominations who give the likes of them a bad name. could go either way.
We could give them a whole festival around renewal, turn off the ones who have malfunctioned horribly at the same time as their new "children" roll off the assembly line.
Sounds very reasonable.
Also due to their lqck of living materials in such a region, send out scouting (adventurers) parties. What kind of classes would you think the most likely?
That also sounds good.
As for Classes, with high Int and Str, martial classes like Barbarian, Slayer, and Ranger might well be common, as might Alchemists and Investigators due to the scientific focus. They'd make excellent Wizards, Witches, and Arcanists, too, but might be less inclined to go in that direction, depending on their attitude toward magic (though, mechanically, you need those with caster levels to make new Constructs).
Divine magic wouldn't be horribly rare, but wouldn't be amazingly common either, and more Dex-based classes like Rogues or Swashbucklers would be pretty rare, as would Cha based classes like Sorcerers or Bards.
I like your breakdown but I think a few changes are in order, Due to their origins I'd say a god of the artifice domain would be fairly common among the originals and those who follow, and that the society would have a relatively high standard of education thus suggesting barbarians and sorcerers would be extremely rare. I think a new archetype for Bards would be likely, Maybe moving more towards the rogue away from caster while keeping their musical bent? Is there a bard rogue hybrid?
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I like your breakdown but I think a few changes are in order, Due to their origins I'd say a god of the artifice domain would be fairly common among the originals and those who follow, and that the society would have a relatively high standard of education thus suggesting barbarians and sorcerers would be extremely rare.
Oh, I'd imagine almost all their Divine casters would be Clerics of such a God, I'd just expect alchemists, Slayers, and Wizards to be more common than Clerics.
And Barbarian can also be used just to represent people who go berserk, which is common among Golems, so it might not be too rare among these guys either. They'd be smarter Barbarians than some other races, but I feel like they'd exist.
I think a new archetype for Bards would be likely, Maybe moving more towards the rogue away from caster while keeping their musical bent? Is there a bard rogue hybrid?
The issue Bards have is that they're Charisma based, while these guys have a Charisma penalty, so I'd expect them to be rare. That said, Archaeologist is the Bard Archetype that's basically a Rogue hybrid. Additionally, Sensei Monk and Exemplar Brawler both have Bardic Performance sans spells, and might be better choices for members of this race going into the inspiration trade.
The issue Bards have is that they're Charisma based
Only up to a point - a 13 starting Charisma is an issue only for a debuf-casting Bard. Constructs themselves being (as a rule) immune to much of a Bard's powers would be a bigger problem.
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The issue Bards have is that they're Charisma basedOnly up to a point - a 13 starting Charisma is an issue only for a debuf-casting Bard. Constructs themselves being (as a rule) immune to much of a Bard's powers would be a bigger problem.
The Half-Construct traits don't include that immunity, though. And I just said they'd be rare, not nonexistent.
D&D had the Green Star Adept that would slowly turn into a construct by eating starmetal as they leveled up. Following the class to just below its zenith, and you'd have all the bonuses of being a construct without being one, i.e. still able to be healed by cure spells, and construct enough to also be healed by repair spells. Might also be a good base for how the race originates.
All interesting points,but I need help with who they are as a culture. I'm thinking warpriests would be their main divine casters and are heavily involved with the process of creation, to the point might be the leaders of a theocracy
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All interesting points,but I need help with who they are as a culture. I'm thinking warpriests would be their main divine casters and are heavily involved with the process of creation, to the point might be the leaders of a theocracy
That'd work. Especially if they particularly respect battle prowess. So...probably decently warlike, or having to deal with a lot of threats, anyway.
I think due to their early history it's just ingrained as opposed to actually war-like. I think I definitely need to include racial proficiencies to show a degree of martial training in their early life. Any more ideas?
Considering building it like the Android race, but reskin for the flavor you want.
I believe Claxon just meant use them as a stat model.
I believe Claxon just meant use them as a stat model.
That, and the fact that Androids have this as an option:
Empathy
You have learned to experience emotion.
Prerequisite(s): Cha 13, android.
Benefit: You lose the emotionless racial trait. You can gain morale bonuses, and can be affected by emotion-based effects and fear effects. You lack the +4 racial bonus on saving throws against mind-affecting effects.
You could always just turn it into an optional racial trait. Or whatever.
I think there is enough with Androids you could do just a bit of reskinning and accomplish what you want.
I'd probably remove emotionless all together, doesn't fit with what I want
So any more thoughts on their culture? I'd like to have a few more interesting things about them than that?
See I would include the emotionless part as a factor, but have it be tied to their connection to their biological parts. The more robot they become, the less "human" they remain.
You could have the race be dimorphic between highly mechanized and only partially mechanized.
Or maybe it could be tied to race. Maybe the older they get the harder it is for them to maintain "human" thought. Maybe their mind gets integrated into a greater collective consciousness in the form of a giant computer.
Or maybe you could do something like the Geth from Mass Effect. I really like how the geth are rather emotionless and unable to speak, accept for Legion which required ~1200 collective consciousness to achieve this, versus the normal 100-200 for the regular geth combatants.
I DO like the Geth. But I think you've lost the trail of thought somewhere. While they do have partially mechanized and non mechanized people there, the bulk of the society is so integrated with the machine as to be effectively a different race. Thanks like hearts, stomachs, and brains are harvested to provide self powering and self aware creatures. The mind is one whole, with all the available functions of said brain except for the memories of the original person, however you did just give me an excellent idea for a major breakdown.
The pieces of the brain stop talking to each other properly, the machine like the other clockworks in pathfinder is run by a memory core that uses unobtainium tape that records instructions, leaving the machine half highly suggestive, while the flesh part is running independently, If I make it the center of the personality, it may have no control of it's body anymore, leaving it as little more than the power station for it.
Hell maybe even a rogue faction of the populace is doing it on purpose, making illegal slaves, or worse, selling the resulting product as a machine of war.
So any other ideas for their overarching culture?