Psychic Construct (3.5e Creature Overview)

This material is published under the OGL

Psychic Construct

Psychic constructs are artificial creatures made of psychic energy. They are invisible, intangible collections of preprogrammed psychic abilities capable of carrying out certain independent tasks.

Creating a Psychic Construct

Creating a psychic construct requires the Craft Psychic Construct feat, along with time, effort, and XP. The creator must work for one day per 100 XP of the construct’s final cost. Any significant interruption spoils the process although no XP is lost. The creator spends the time in deep meditation and trance, gathering psychic energy and impressing upon it the shape he desires.

Example: Psychic Alodus the Wise wishes to create a psychic construct to gather information for him. He chooses to give the construct the following abilities: 6d8 HD; Str —, Dex 12, Con —, Int 6, Wis 14, Cha 14; Mental Contact (7 ranks), Mind Reading (7 ranks), Psychic Sense (7 ranks), and Suggestion (7 ranks). This costs 600 XP for the construct’s Hit Dice, 80 XP for its Dexterity, 720 XP for its Intelligence, and 320 XP each for its Wisdom and Charisma. Its four psychic skills cost 49 XP each for a total of 196 XP. This brings the construct’s total cost to 2,236 XP. Alodus decides to reduce that by giving the construct a onemonth lifespan, halving cost to 1,118 XP. It takes Alodus eleven days of intense meditation to bring the construct into being, whereupon he spends the necessary XP to bring it fully into existence and sends it off to pry into the hidden secrets of his enemies and return to him.

A psychic construct has certain qualities, and costs the creator XP based on the qualities it is given.

Table: Psychic Construct XP Cost

Ability	XP Cost
Hit Dice (d8)	Hit Dice × 100
Ability Score Increase	Increase squared × 20
Skill (including psychic skills)	Skill rank squared
Feat	100 XP
Modifiers	Base Cost Adjustment
Permanent lifespan	Base Cost × 2
One year lifespan	Base Cost × 1
One month lifespan	Base Cost × 1/2
One week lifespan	Base Cost × 1/4
One day lifespan	Base Cost × 1/10
Eight hour lifespan	Base Cost × 1/25

Challenge Rating: Equal to the construct’s HD.

Alignment: Always neutral. Intelligent constructs have the same alignment as their creator.

Size: A psychic construct’s size is Medium.

Type: A psychic construct’s type is construct. All psychic constructs have the incorporeal subtype.

Senses: A psychic construct has low-light vision, darkvision out to 60 feet, blindsense out to 5 feet, and an innate sense of direction. A psychic construct hiding inside a solid object gets a +2 circumstance bonus on Listen checks.

AC: Psychic constructs have a base AC of 10 with a deflection bonus to AC equal to their Charisma bonus (always at least +1, even if its Charisma score does not normally provide a bonus). Since they are largely immune to physical attacks, they have little need of a high Armor Class.

Miss Chance: A psychic construct has invisibility, and benefits from total concealment (50% miss chance). It also has a 50% chance to ignore any damage from a corporeal magic source (except for positive energy, negative energy, force effects, or attacks made with ghost touch weapons).

Hit Points: A psychic construct uses d8 for its Hit Dice. A psychic construct can have Hit Dice up to its creator’s total Hit Dice. It gains 20 bonus hit points for being a Medium construct.

Immune: A psychic construct has immunity to all mind-affecting effects (charms, compulsions, phantasms, patterns, and morale effects), poison, sleep effects, paralysis, stunning, disease, death effects, necromancy effects, critical hits, nonlethal damage, ability damage, ability drain, fatigue, exhaustion, energy drain, any effect that requires a Fortitude save (unless the effect also works on objects, or is harmless), death from massive damage, damage from nonmagical attack forms, and extra damage from being favored enemies.

Saves: The same as its creator’s base saving throws, modified by the construct’s ability modifiers.

Speed: Psychic constructs can fly at a speed of 30 feet with perfect maneuverability, and due to their innate sense of direction can move at full speed even when they cannot see.

Attacks: Psychic constructs cannot make physical attacks and cannot deal physical damage except through the use of psychic skills. They have an attack bonus equal to their creator’s for cases where an attack roll is called for.

Psychic Skill Use: Psychic constructs can use any psychic skills they possess. They have a pool of “strain points” equal to their hit points, which recover at a rate equal to the construct’s HD per hour of inactivity. Once a psychic construct has exhausted its pool of strain points, it cannot use psychic skills until they recover.

Abilities: Psychic constructs have no Strength, Constitution, or Intelligence scores. Their Dexterity, Wisdom, and Charisma start out at 10 and can be increased by their creator. The creator can also grant the construct an Intelligence score by buying it up from 0. The construct’s ability scores cannot exceed those of its creator.

Special Qualities: A psychic construct is incoporeal and invisible. A psychic construct cannot heal damage its own.

Feats: Psychic constructs start out with no feats, but the construct’s creator can grant it various feats. Psychic constructs do not require psychic talent feats to acquire psychic skills because of their nature, but they can have other psychic and metapsychic feats. The creator can only grant the construct feats that he possesses.

Skills: Psychic constructs start out with no skills, but the construct’s creator can grant it various skills. The creator can only grant the construct skills that he possesses and only up to his own rank in the skill. This includes any psychic skills that the creator possesses.

Altering a Psychic Construct

Psychics can alter existing psychic constructs of their own making. The difference in XP cost between the desired result and the existing construct determines both the XP cost and time for making the alterations. So increasing a psychic construct’s Wisdom from 12 (80 XP) to 18 (1,280 XP) costs 1,200 XP and takes 12 days time. Characters still cannot grant psychic constructs ability scores, feats, or skill ranks they do no possess. It takes only a day (and no XP) to reduce a psychic construct’s abilities or to “disassemble” it, but the creator does not regain any XP from doing so.

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