Upon reading, it feels like you... apply the base creature's mental abilities, feats, skills and class features onto a host construct. However, the sample creature's entry (Soulbound Annihilator Robot) and the template's description don't match...
A soulbound construct is a once-living creature that has had its soul bound to a construct host that serves as its new body. The creatures involved in this example are a Technic League captain and an annihilator robot; any abilities not explained here are described in those entries.
The issue is that the Annihilator Robot... doesn't have any of the Technic Captain's features, when a reading of the template should grant them, and they just didn't write them down. It should have the Captain's spells and any of the Technomancer's features as well.
So yeah... how does it work again?
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Nothing in the template says anything about the construct inheriting the features and abilities of the creature that is soul bound to it. A soul bound construct has ALL of the base statistics and features of the base CONSTRUCT except mental scores and alignment (those come from the soul bound creature). It also inherits the mental ability score-based skills of the soul bound creature, as well as their feats, and a deflection bonus to AC equal to their charisma mod.
Everything else that is gained is from the template itself and not based on either creature.
Simple step by step breakdown:
Step1: start with the full stat block for the construct.
Step2: apply the soulbound creatures mental ability scores and alignment
Step3: apply feats and menta ability score-based skills from the soulbound creature (take highest bonus for any overlapping skills)
Step4: apply deflection bonus equal to charisma mod to saves
Step5: add spell-like ability and special qualities according to the instructions in the template as well as the modified weakness.
Complete - there is nothing else added or changed at this point.
That's what I thought at first... but then the sample creature's entry states that "any abilities not explained here are described in those entries."
So logically speaking, if the Soulbound Annihilator Robot doesn't have the Technic Captain's spells in its entry, it's because they didn't write them down and are asking you to check the base creature's entry for those.
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That is not what that line means. It means if the creature has any listed features that are not given descriptions you are to refer to the base creatures for those descriptions. It doesn’t gain anything that is not listed.
In the case of the example creature, it gets everything listed on the Annihilator Robot (because the template says it does) but nothing else from the technic league captain(because the template sais it only gets those few things)
That is not what that line means. It means if the creature has any listed features that are not given descriptions you are to refer to the base creatures for those descriptions. It doesn’t gain anything that is not listed.
In the case of the example creature, it gets everything listed on the Annihilator Robot (because the template says it does) but nothing else from the technic league captain(because the template sais it only gets those few things)
Then what's the purpose of that line?
It's like they initially wanted for the soundbound construct to inherit the base creature's class features (if any), but cut that out after revision... and they forgot to double-check the sample creature.
What's confusing is that they point to "those entries"... yet only the Robot's abilities are missing from the sample creature's entry.
They point to both entires so that you have a full frame of reference for reverse engineering the creature to help you better understand how to build one yourself. It is possible that the template may have origininally been intended to take something extra from the soulbound creature, but as it stands now it only takes a few attributes, alignment, and a few skills from them.
I see... although I don't see how you would "reverse-engineer" a sample creature... when the template is sitting right next to it.
That kinda deflates the template TBH. I was initially thinking it was like casting Reincarnate, but as a Construct.
Think of it as a point of reference guide tool. They list both creatures so that you can actually see what their starting point was, and you can reference them to the Sample Creature and the Template rules to get a better understanding of how it works. It would have been a mistake on their part to only reference the Construct that was used to make the sample creature, as then readers would look at the template rules and then look at the sample creature and only know one of the two creatures that went into making it leaving people questioning what got soulbound to it. Confusion over how the template works would be so much worse if they didn't reference both creatures.