The Artificer Edge (see Pathfinder for Savage Worlds) allows a spellcaster to create all manner of permanent constructs. Each construct has a purchase price and a crafting cost. Additionally, some constructs have a Materials cost listed. This is an additional amount required to craft and repair the construct.
Crafting a construct takes one day per 1,000 gp in the item’s price, excluding material costs. Once the character completes the time necessary to craft the construct he makes a Repair roll. With success, the construct is created. Failure does not lose progress but ruins the materials and they must be purchased again before the next roll can be made.
Not all constructs are built to last. Just like with any other arcane device, a caster can create a temporary construct in the form of an animated object. These constructs are in many ways weaker than manufactured constructs, as they are susceptible to dispel.
A caster using the Artificer Edge can invest Power Points into an object equal to its Construction Points, animating it.
Requirements: Artificer, Occult d4+, Repair d4+
Small and Very Small animated objects can be taken as familiars.
Constructs typically have an animal Smarts but can only follow simple commands; they do not think on their own.
Anyone wishing to create an animated construct servant will need three things. A workshop, materials, and money. The craftable constructs in the Bestiary and Bestiary 2 are listed in a table on the following page. It shows the price to purchase, the cost to craft, and any additional cost in materials.
Even with the best of care, most constructs will eventually become damaged. Unless a construct suffers some sort of structural damage that radically alters its physical form, the construct continues to function at its full efficiency, and only falls apart once Incapacitated. Ideally, however, a construct should see some repair before it reaches that point.
A crafter can repair a construct with the Repair skill. When repairing a construct, its master spends 200 gp times the construct's maximum Wounds (including those from Size), and makes the Repair check. With success, the construct heals one Wound. Completing a repair takes one day per Wound healed.
Repair in this way can only be performed while the construct is inanimate or nonfunctioning. At any time, a construct’s creator can deactivate a construct under his control with a touch and a limited action.
A construct that has been completely destroyed cannot be repaired, though at the GM’s option some of the materials may be usable in the construction of a new construct.
Additionally, make whole can be used to repair the golem in the same way healing can cure a living creature. The material cost to repair the construct must still be paid.
Standard constructs can be modified to enhance their base abilities, alter their appearance or function, or perform a variety of tasks beyond the intentions of their basic designs. Performing a modification provides a construct’s creator with a simple way to create a unique construct. A modification can only be performed while the construct is inanimate or nonfunctioning.
Performing modifications on one’s own construct requires the Artificer Edge, and the creator must pay any additional crafting requirements and/or costs associated with the modification. Completing a modification requires one day per 1,000 gp of the modification’s base price (minimum one day).
Bestiary and Bestiary 2 Constructs
NAME MATERIALS PRICE COST BOOK
Animated object, Very Small - 250 gp 125 gp Bestiary; 2 Construction Points
Animated object, Small - 2,000 gp 1,000 gp Bestiary; 3 Construction Points
Soulbound doll 300 4,300 gp 2,300 gp Bestiary 2
Animated object, Normal - 4,500 gp 2,250 gp Bestiary; 4 Construction Points
Necrophidius 1,000 7,500 gp 4,425 gp Bestiary 2
Carrion golem 500 10,500 gp 5,500 gp Bestiary 2
Scarecrow 500 15,500 gp 8,000 gp Bestiary 2
Animated object, Large - 12,500 gp 6,250 gp Bestiary; 5 Construction Points
Ice golem 500 18,500 gp 9,500 gp Bestiary
Animated object, Huge - 25,000 gp 12,500 gp Bestiary; 6 Construction Points
Flesh golem 500 20,500 gp 10,500 gp Bestiary
Animated object, Gargantuan - 40,000 gp 20,000 gp Bestiary; 7 Construction Points
Clay golem 1,500 41,500 gp 21,500 gp Bestiary
Stone golem 5,000 105,000 gp 55,000 gp Bestiary
Clockwork golem 10,000 120,000 gp 65,000 gp Bestiary 2
Iron golem 10,000 150,000 gp 80,000 gp Bestiary
These modifications are used to alter a construct’s basic properties: Toughness, attributes, and weaponry.
Armor Modification: This modification adds a bonus to the construct’s natural armor. Apply any armor enchantments to the golem. The time and cost are equal to enchanting a normal piece of armor with the quality.
Weapon Modification: This modification enhances a construct’s physical weaponry. This process includes adding actual weapons to the physical structure of the construct or enhancing existing weapons with additional magical properties. Structural changes alter the construct’s damage only.
The cost for adding a weapon is determined by the cost of the weapon or weapon enhancement added. The cost for magical enhancements to these weapons is the same as the cost for creating magic weapons.
Attribute Modification: Using this modification, a crafter permanently increases one of the construct’s attributes one die type per modification. He cannot increase Smarts. The cost for permanently increasing an attribute is 5,000 gp.
These modifications represent complex changes to a construct's structure and function.
Requirement: Healing.
Cost: 22,750 gp
Merging transmutation and necromancy, powerful spellcasters work living organs into a golem. These organs are placed in canopic jars of specially prepared arcane fluids that are then sealed into the golem’s body.
Organs produce specific effects. Each organ is a separate upgrade, and the costs of multiple bioconstruct organs are cumulative.
Bioconstruct upgrades only work with golems. Bioconstruct upgrades are susceptible to Called Shots. A Called Shot deals damage to the construct and destroys one bioconstruct upgrade. The upgrade ceases to function and the construct loses abilities associated with it. If a construct has more than one bioconstruct upgrade, only one is damaged.
Heart: This upgrade grants the golem an etxra Wound and allows it to be healed via healing.
Brain: This upgrade doesn’t permit the golem to think independently, but instead works as a storage device, permitting the golem to acquire skills and Edges. Enchantment or mind-affecting powers can affect the brain, causing it to cease functioning for the duration of the spell. While the brain is suppressed in this fashion, the construct temporarily loses access to its skills and Edges. Implanting a Skill is 5.000 per die type and Edges are 10,000 each.
Requirement: The construct modified must be the same Size as the creator.
Cost: 35,000 gp
This modification allows the construct to be worn like armor. While the creator wears it, the construct performs no independent actions, and any attacks that hit the wearer damage the construct instead.
If the construct is still active, the creator can order the removal of the armor with a free action, at which point the construct removes itself from the creator and stands next to him. Donning construct armor takes a character's full turn. The creator cannot don a construct with this modification if the construct has been destroyed.
Construct armor counts as breastplate armor for modifying Toughness, and determining Armor Restriction and Armor Interference.
Requirement: Small or Very Small construct.
Cost: 27,000 gp
The creator modifies Small or Very Small construct such that she can slip it over her arm and control its actions as part of her own. The construct limb retains any melee attacks that the construct has.
The limb provides the wearer with limited protection in combat. A construct limb counts as a medium shield for purposes of determining Parry, weight, and Armor Restriction and Armor Interference.
Requirement: Scrying.
Cost: 8,000 gp
The crafter gives her construct crystalline eyes that permit her to use minor scrying to see from the perspective of her creation. This modification requires the crafter prepare a special crystalline orb magically bonded to the eyes, which serves as her focus for scrying. The cost of creating that focus is included in the cost of modifying the construct.
Unlike normal scrying, there is no opposed roll for viewing creatures through the sensor; the creator simply sees what the construct sees for the Duration of the spell.
Requirement: See the individual runes.
Cost: See the individual runes.
This subcategory of complex modifications allows a construct’s creator to carve a runic spell trigger into her creation. Choose one of the following runes. The cost of the rune and any requirements are detailed in the rune’s description.
Once per day, the first time the rune is triggered, its effect occurs. The creator can attempt to delay the effect until the next time it is triggered with a Spirit check. Doing so requires that the construct be within line of sight of the creator (or be using the crafter’s eyes construct modification).
A construct can have more than one runecarved modification, and even multiple runes of the same type. If it has multiple applications of the same rune, the first one goes off when it is first triggered, the second one goes off when the trigger happens next, and so on. Multiple runes of different types go off when first triggered, even if the different runes share similar triggers.
RUNE OF AGONY
Requirement: Damage field.
Cost: 18,000 gp
This modification triggers the first time the modified construct is Shaken or Wounded. Minor damage field with a Medium Blast Template immediately activates.
RUNE OF IMPRISONMENT
Requirement: Magic jar.
Cost: A gem worth 20,000 gp to serve as the focus; 57,600 gp
This rune triggers when the construct is hit with a spell. The caster makes a Spirit check at -2 or is captured, both body and soul, within a gem embedded in the construct’s body. The gem holds the caster until the gem or construct is destroyed. A gem holds one creature at a time; once it captures a creature the rune does not trigger again until the gem is replaced.
If an attacker lands a Called Shot on the gem, and the golem is Shaken or Wounded, the gem is destroyed, releasing the creature next to the construct. The broken gem must then be replaced before the rune can function again.
RUNE OF LIGHTNING
Requirement: Blast (electricity Trapping).
Cost: 2,000 gp
This rune is triggered when the construct is hit by a melee attack. The rune releases a burst of electricity dealing 2d6 electrical damage to all creatures within a Small Blast Template.
RUNE OF SHIELDING
Requirement: Protection.
Cost: 1,200 gp
This rune triggers the first time the construct is attacked with an attack or bolt. The construct gains +2 Toughness for three minutes.
RUNE OF TERROR
Requirement: Fear.
Cost: 11,200 gp
This rune triggers the first time a creature moves adjacent to the modified construct. The rune activates minor fear (LBT).
Requirement: See the individual stash.
Cost: See the individual stash.
For this subcategory of complex modifications, parts of the golem are made with hollowed sections carved from deliberately weaker materials, designed to shatter when struck. An attack that hits with a raise shatters the hollowed section, releasing whatever substance the creator placed inside.
Once the shatter stash is damaged, this modification is destroyed (it cannot be repaired). A construct can only have one shatter stash at a time. After the modification is destroyed, the construct can be modified with shatter stash again at the normal cost.
ELEMENTAL JET STASH
Requirement: Blast (elemental Trapping).
Cost: 1,200 gp
A Medium Blast Template centered on the construct and liquid sprays out of the construct’s stash. Creatures within the burst make an Evasion roll or suffer 2d6 (elemental) damage and are Vulnerable.
LIGHTNING LASH TRAP
Requirement: Blast (electricity Trapping).
Cost: 2,000 gp
A Stream Template of electricity bursts out of the modified construct’s stash. Those within the burst take 2d6 electrical damage.
WILLSAP GAS STASH
Requirement: Contagion.
Cost: 2,000 gp
A Medium Blast Template centered on the construct, full of gas, sprays out of the modified construct’s stash. Creatures within the template make a Spirit check or are Distracted.