whats up people. I'm playing a level 7 Wizard Construct Crafter. I just had the best session i've ever played, and it all revolved around a Custom Construct that got finished in time to use during a climax fight of the story arch we are in. Keep in mind this is the only construct i have when it comes to combat, so it was a blast to finally have my PC reach this point.
Base Construct=Souldbound Mannequin cr 7, removed most specials/cept spellcasting
HD mod +50% = 15d10 + 30
Monster special abilities - Flying(perfect), Poison on melee attacks
SLA - mud ball/unlimited, Stone shield/3times
Now it looks really basic, and honestly it is. But in game, it played out flawlessly. Here's the short version of what happened.
We needed to kill this dragon that was hiding out in a big ass cave that was filled to the brim with poisonous/toxic gas. I suggested it wouldnt be smart due to our comp to fight in the cave, and since i have flying, air bubble, and a robot that doesnt breath and can fly with me i should go in and draw it out. They agreed and parked on the shore of the lake that leads into the cave, about 300 ft away from the mouth.
I go in, and about 500ft into the cave(big ass place) theres the dragon sleeping. I successfully get into position right above this thing with my construct. It uses a full round attack on the beast, starting the poison and doing respectable damage on its own, and i use dimension door to port about 100ft away from it. My reasoning was i wanted it to see me, and chase me out, but i didnt want to start the chase in melee range with a fricken dragon. It wakes up, and we proceed to have a ridiculously cinematic and awesome chase through the cave.
I was using my construct as a shield/AoO soak, while always using as much as i could to try to keep my distance. Being a dragon, it was pretty good at keeping up, and pretty much every turn i found either myself or the construct in melee with the dragon. But using my kit, aswell as the construct i was able to avoid provoking AoO from it, and keep flying out the cave. The construct was absolutely amazing. It kept landing hits, using its mudball to blind it for half a turn, used AoO to try and slow it down as it chased me(all the while the poison was ticking/having to get re-applied but was doing work). We were careening through this cave, and about 4-5 turns later i found myself blasting through the mouth of the cave with a dragon in hot pursuit.
It one last ditch to catch me, the dragon was able to land an attack(just a claw, no full round) on me ripping me to half health. I used the constructs move action to catch up, then used mudball to blind it once more. Then flew the Wizard over to construct and cast dimension door on both of us to blink over to my crew.
Thats the short version! ha ha, it was sick as hell, so fun and cinematic-ally awesome. It wasn't like, i move, i attack, rinse repeat. I havnt had a fight that varied and strategic while on the run ever, mainly due to the fact that our party is jam packed with martials so i never get a chance to utilize my slipperiness as a character.
tl:dr - Got in a foot race with a dragon using my flight and my new shiny construct i unvailed that session with amazing results.
Now onto the reason for the post. I wanted to share my experience, but also ask some advice. I built that construct with a vision of how i wanted my PC to be played during combat, and it filled its role better than i coulda dreamed. I have some ideas for other "bots" i want to make, and i wanna see what cool stuff you guys can come up with!
Think of this as a theory crafting/thought experiment. My GM has ruled that the rules around making custom constructs are fair game for me to use to make my own versatile dudes. Building Custom Constructs has the formulae of making customizable constructs. Basically, needs a base construct, adding monster abilities increase CR, and everything should stick fairly close to the CR of my level (7-8).
THANKS FOR READING