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Construct (20 16 RP)
A construct race is a group of animated objects or artificially created creatures.
A construct race has the following features:
Constructs have no Constitution score. Any DCs or other statistics that rely on a Constitution score treat a construct as having a score of 10 (no bonus or penalty).
- Constructs have the low-light vision racial trait.
- Constructs have the darkvision 60 feet racial trait.
- Constructs are immune to all mind-affecting effects (charms, compulsions, morale effects, patterns, and phantasms).
- Constructs cannot heal damage on their own, but can often be repaired via exposure to a certain kind of effect (depending on the construct's racial abilities) or through the use of the Craft Construct feat. Constructs can also be healed through spells such as make whole. A construct with the fast healing special quality still benefits from that quality.
- Constructs are not subject to ability damage, ability drain, fatigue, exhaustion, energy drain,
or nonlethal damage.
- Constructs are immune to any effect that requires a Fortitude save (unless the effect also works on objects or is harmless).
- Constructs do not risk death due to massive damage, but they are immediately destroyed when reduced to 0 hit points or fewer.
- Constructs cannot be raised or resurrected.
- Constructs are hard to destroy, and gain bonus hit points based on their size, (Tiny—Small: +10 hp; Medium: +20 hp; Large: +30 hp).
- Constructs do not breathe, eat, or sleep, unless they want to gain some beneficial effect from one of these activities. This means that a construct can drink potions to benefit from their effects and can sleep in order to regain spells, but neither of these activities is required to survive or stay in good health.
- +Constructs with nonlethal damage in excess of their remaining hitpoints are paralyzed.
Constructs DO have constitution and CAN gain non-lethal damage, but all other rules apply.
Reasoning; Most constructs in my game have a DR/Adamantine, which I take as meaning that they are impervious to non-lethal attacks to begin with. Constructs that don't have a Damage Reduction rating do suffer non-lethal damage from non-lethal attacks in the form of scrapes and dents which can hamper their movements.
More importantly, however, when a construct tries to push itself past the limits of it's constitution(the ability to withstand the elements, overheating, metalfatigue), it suffers non-lethal damage and unlike other party members, constructs don't heal naturally. Constructs therefore gain a backlog of nonlethal damage as the story progresses until a specialist can repair them.
If the construct ends up being too much of a damage-sponge, I will make most healing attempts convert lethal damage to non-lethal damage instead of being healed outright. That way, a construct cannot benefit from having rediculous amounts of hit points, damage reduction and a supposedly high constitution, if that were to happen theoretically.
For me, a construct that doesn't have to take into account it's own maintenance almost isn't a construct to me. Unless they were specifically built to be self-healing, constructs are defined by the fact that like all artificial things, entropy will get them in the end. If anything, in my campaigns, the prospect of a race of constructs that can heal naturally would have apocalyptic implications.
Okay, but undead too.
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Okay, but undead too.
I have no experience with those, to be honest. Constructs in my games are important, because they are, per definition, a very valuable commodity, so it's important to keep track of their maintenance.
Undead in my games are so expendable that I don't even stat zombies anymore. Any significantly powerful undead are either attached or are necromancers who can heal themselves through one means or another.