PF - How to Mass Produce 1 HD, Medium, Humanoid Constructs?

[unseenmage]

I have an idea. To build an entire royal court out of Constructs. Skill bonuses are a must-have. Intelligence would be really nice so they could be a true sovereign state of their own but one supposes a mockery of such would be just as impactful in-game.

I am using the info found in the old 3.5 book power of Faerun on page 22 for the numbers of Constructs I'll need. For their effective level (by which I mean how strong/versatile their respective skill bonuses will be) I intend to use their rank. Meaning, if the lowest servant or scullery maid would have 1 skill point then the next person up the chain o' command will have 2 and so on.

Am looking at the Taxidermic Creature template applied to a basic human with no class levels as a starting point. Though putting Intelligence back into the things looks prohibitively expensive.
Another idea is to use the Amalgam Creature template to combine a Taxidermic Human with a regular Human resulting in an Intelligent, controllable Construct capable of doing the job required.

My goal for the end of this project is to have a grand totaled gp and time cost for crating an entire royal court from scratch.

Spoiler: Grand Court details

Show

His (Her) Supreme Highness, Lord (Lady) Most High of Iriaebor,
Keeper of the High Tower, Watchwarden of the Flowing
Chionthar
The Lord of Iriaebor has a personal staff consisting of:
• Dexter Stave (confi dant, senior personal representative)
• Sinister Stave (envoy, junior personal representative)
• Court Herald (see Chapter 6; in turn commands two heralds- in-training known as Masters Vigilant)
• Lord’s Champion (head of the Black Blades, the dozenstrong personal bodyguard of the Lord of Iriaebor)
• Master Dresser (butler and head dresser to the lord; in turn commands six dressers)
• Lady of the Wardrobe (in charge of creating, maintaining, and storing all garments and regalia the Lord wears or presents to others, and of all uniforms and duty garb of all courtiers; in turn commands eighteen seamstresses)
• Master of Boots (in charge of all footwear—and crutches and artifi cial feet, too—for everyone in the High Tower; in turn commands six cobblers, one corviser, and two tanners)
• The High Armorer (in charge of making and maintaining the armor of the lord and all of his personal staff, as well as inspecting the work of the armorers who work for the Master of Arms)
• Bailiff Tasters (three men who sample all the lord’s food and wine to guard against taints and poisonings)
• Lord Physic (herbalist and medicine-maker to the Lord and his staff; in turn commands two assistants and gardeners, the Lads Loyal)
• Pages of the High Tower (thirty-six house servants: errand runners, item-fetchers, and clearers-away)
• Handjacks of the Tower (eighteen male servants, usually used as doorguards and furniture arrangers)
• Maids Most Loyal (forty chambermaids, who clean, arrange items, and do the linens)
Master Clerk of Iriaebor who in turn commands the Master of the Rolls or archivist, twelve scribes, and twenty Pages of the Table, who send messages to Golden Table members
Master of the Gold Rod who calls Golden Table meetings to order, and keeps order during them; in turn commands six Constables of the Table who guard the doors, escort guests to meetings, and help keep order at meetings
The Lord Hand who serves as head tax collector; in turn commands four High Bailiffs, who are moneylenders and moneychangers, and twenty-four Low Bailiffs, who are tax collectors
The Golden Table of Iriaebor, forty merchants of the city, appointed—and dismissed—by the Lord of Iriaebor; they meet in council in the High Tower to debate and vote on all major matters of policy; in many older cities and remnant realms, this role is occupied by some sort of nobles’ council, but most more recent trading centers have a governing or advisory council dominated by, or entirely consisting of, merchants
Lord Steward of Iriaebor, the most powerful courtier, in charge of the daily running of the court and of most of its courtiers
Reporting directly to the Steward are:
• Magisters of Justice (seven judges, each of whom has a personal scribe and page)
• Constables of the Streets (sixty-six offi cers of the Shield on current duty as city police)
• Keepers of the Gates (who supervise Shield gateguard details)
• Keepers of the Dungeons ( jailers)
• Master Keeper of the Purse (clerks, vault guards)
• Master of the Waters (head boatman to the High Tower; in turn commands sixteen boatmen)
• Lady Master of Conclaves (hostess for visiting VIPs; in turn commands six doorwardens, fourteen Maids Extraordinary— who are lady escorts as well as seeing to the usual cleaning and tidying—and a Master of the Closed Coach, used for conveying VIPs, who in turn commands six coachmen)
Lord Constable, who is the head of the city’s garrisons, in charge of procurement—purchasing of all goods, including food and wine—and also organizes and oversees all rituals
Reporting directly to the Lord Constable are:
• Master of the Horse (who in turn commands four equerries, two stablemasters, two masters-of-harness, two horse trainers, ten coachlars [coachmen], and forty-three grooms)
• Master of the Revels (who in turn commands a Grand Carver, fi ve Court Minstrels who are led by the Bard of Iriaebor, nine Lady Dancers, forty-four Servingjacks, sixteen Maids-of-Chambers, a Senior Cupmaster [wine taster and supervisor, who in turn commands eight Cellarers])
• Master of Arms (who in turn commands four Armorers, six Trusties [armorers’ assistants], and two Weaponsmasters [tutors of weapon-handling])
• Paymaster (who in turn commands fi ve Clerks of Coin)
• Lord Commanders of the Shield (the two equally ranked senior commanders of “The Shield,” Iriaebor’s military and police; they in turn command the Shield through various military-rank offi cers)
Lady Warden of the Tower, the head of the household functions, a role often entitled Chatelaine elsewhere, and in the case of Iriaebor also in charge of “everyone else,” the miscellaneous offi ces
Reporting to the Lady Warden are:
• Master of the Kitchens (who in turn commands six Cooks, fourteen Undercooks, and eight Knaves [who wash dishes, clean the kitchens, take away scraps and garbage, and also see to the care and feeding of all tower pets, including six “doorguard-dogs,” war-dogs trained to recognize people, strike bell-gongs rather than barking, and to slay if necessary])
• Lady Master of the Wash (the tower laundress, who in turn commands forty-eight Lady Launderers)
• Lord Falconer (who in turn commands three Mews Hands)
• Lord Coachmaster (who builds and maintains coaches and their wheels, having nothing to do with operating the coaches or seeing to their horses or harness; this courtier in turn commands four Wheelhands, his assistants)

Edit: For my purposes all.Constructs are priced by CR, Clockworks lose the Difficult to Create ability, and Constructs lose bonus hp by size instead gaining bonus hp for higher Str.

[thecrimsondawn]

I just got finished playing a Crafter wizard who utterly shattered any idea of a balance in our game with constructs, so I can give a few ideas for you to play with as far as types.

First off, take a look at the War Machine template. If you are gunning for 1HD powerful constructs, these things are a beast, if not a little pricey.

My go to recommendation however would be medium animated objects - the crafted kind of course. All you need is to craft the object you plan to use yourself to allow you to spend as many CP as you like. The downside is however, these are not 1HD monsters as medium animated objects have a few more HD then that.

The 1HD rule is going to be your limitation here as most constructs have more then 1HD. There may be a couple templates if you look around, but War Machine is most likely one of your best bets.

If your question is HOW to mass produce them, you can craft a homunculus and give it a crap ton of HD so it has a crap ton of skills and feats to spend. Use this homunculus to do your crafting for the bodies that you make, and just calculate from there after making one super homunculus exactly how many HD you need to 100% success craft said construct bodies you need. Once they are made, animating them is far faster, but you are still limited to 1/day as per crafting rules. You CAN however take feats to allow your homunculus to attempt to animate them as well, but that may end up being pricey too.

[Âmesang]

Query: Will they be 600 count at 1 ft. tall, or 100 count at 6 ft. tall?

[unseenmage]

...

First off, take a look at the War Machine template. If you are gunning for 1HD powerful constructs, these things are a beast, if not a little pricey.

...

War Machine is WAAY too strong for my needs. Our group shelved thst one early on in my shenanigans.

Query: Will they be 600 count at 1 ft. tall, or 100 count at 6 ft. tall?

I do not know what you are asking...

[Coidzor]

Interesting question. Which flawed form of manufacture would you favor for this lot if you end up going with taxidermy?

[Gnaeus]

Is the goal specifically constructs, or would created people work? Because buying livestock and PAOing into people is much cheaper

[Gallowglass]

Is the goal specifically constructs, or would created people work? Because buying livestock and PAOing into people is much cheaper

worst.
disney movie.
ever.

[unseenmage]

Interesting question. Which flawed form of manufacture would you favor for this lot if you end up going with taxidermy?

Understuffed as their hp is largely irrelevant to the task.
Also, our table plays with Constructs getting bonus hp from high Strength.

Is the goal specifically constructs, or would created people work? Because buying livestock and PAOing into people is much cheaper

The goal is specifically Constructs.

[Coidzor]

Did you have any particular ideas about how to amalgamate the taxidermic creatures with humanoids for their intellect?

What limitations on your ability to generate wealth are there? Blood Money plus Permanency can net a permanent animated object, for instance, essentially at no cost other than opportunity cost with the right setup, while RAW Create Armaments has a net profit if you make the right weapons or armor or tower shields out of solid gold, more if you use Blood Money with it. Fabricate plus Blood Money is also a hack to create wealth.

Edit: For my purposes all.Constructs are priced by CR, Clockworks lose the Difficult to Create ability, and Constructs lose bonus hp by size instead gaining bonus hp for higher Str.

It sounds like all you need in this case is the lowest CR constructs you can make for each number of HD you need in order to have the necessary number of skill ranks, either that have intelligence natively or that can have intelligence added to them.

[Tels]

Are you the GM or player in this idea? Because you might see about using the intelligent magic item rules to suit your needs. Making an animated object into an intelligent item would be a reasonable method of giving intelligence. Though, I will admit, this would require probably more than a bit GM approval, and for the skill ranks, you would need reverse engineer the math behind giving intelligent items skill ranks.

[unseenmage]

Did you have any particular ideas about how to amalgamate the taxidermic creatures with humanoids for their intellect?

Am not entirely sure what you're asking here. I intend to just apply the Amalgam template, linked in the OP, to both creatures. Figure I'll use an Expert from the NPC Codex or a base Human with no class levels, design the the Taxidermic version, then design the Taxidermic Amalgam-ed to a Human. The resultant 'Human Amalgam Taxidermic Human' will be it's own unique creature that can be created from scratch.

What limitations on your ability to generate wealth are there? Blood Money plus Permanency can net a permanent animated object, for instance, essentially at no cost other than opportunity cost with the right setup, while RAW Create Armaments has a net profit if you make the right weapons or armor or tower shields out of solid gold, more if you use Blood Money with it. Fabricate plus Blood Money is also a hack to create wealth.

In the game this is for the game is being played at a galactic scale. We're Mythic and high level AND traipsing about the galaxy. We've a gentleman's agreement not to use infini-wealth but the DM is pretty permissive so money will not be a problem.

It sounds like all you need in this case is the lowest CR constructs you can make for each number of HD you need in order to have the necessary number of skill ranks, either that have intelligence natively or that can have intelligence added to them.

Yeah, lower HD means lower investment of gp at the cost of skill points.
I was considering using Animated Object statues as the base construct but their preset HD makes that an annoyance. A castle of statues of royalty going about the actual business of being royalty just amuses me.

Taxidermic looks like the cheapest Construct I can use without giving the end result random superpowers. Clockwork Spys are the lowest CR, and so cheapest, Construct (IIRC) but using them gives all of my artificial royals the Clockwork Spy's special abilities.

Are you the GM or player in this idea? Because you might see about using the intelligent magic item rules to suit your needs. Making an animated object into an intelligent item would be a reasonable method of giving intelligence. Though, I will admit, this would require probably more than a bit GM approval, and for the skill ranks, you would need reverse engineer the math behind giving intelligent items skill ranks.

Player but at this high level of play those distinctions mean less and less.

Intelligent Magic Items are definitely too expensive. That and they have a lot more superpowers than I was aiming to give these things.

(As an amusing aside, back in 3.5 there was a weapon enhancement called the Flying enhancement. Basically it turned your weapon into an Animated Object that flew on command. Putting it on a quarterstaff that was also a magic staff with the appropriate spell in it to make more of itself then making the whole thing an Intelligent Magic Weapon meant these things could potentially fly around making more and more of themselves.
Using the Book of Vile Darkness' evil swarm rules to turn a cloud of these things into an evil Sorcerer with a hive mind is even scarier.)


Edit: Intended to just post the templated Construct but parenting kept me from it. We'll see if I can get to it either this evening or in the next few days.

[The Random NPC]

Guardian Dolls and a few others have native intelligence, mostly because they're powered by souls fragmented off of the dead.

[Doc_Maynot]

Quick question, and this could help me, help you better. What class is the character making these constructs?

[unseenmage]

Quick question, and this could help me, help you better. What class is the character making these constructs?

Alchemist though as of this post my Constructs make all my Constructs for me.