Hello dnd beyond, once again I need your help. I am currently in a “prep” stage and have hit a road block with remixing stat blocks. See I had the idea of common monsters and animals becoming mechanized (magically turned into a robotic form). I only don’t know what to add or take away from any said stats to help with the reflavoring. Any ideas?
I would look to create a generalized "Robot" modification to make things easier on yourself. I would put the key things for a robot badger vs a real badger to be:
robot will be heavier than the real badger
robot will be stronger and faster than the real badger
robot will be vulnerable to water and electrical attacks
robot will be resistant to slashing or piercing, but probably not to bludgeoning
robot will be immune to poison
Key thing which a robot does badly compared to flesh & blood: Withstand injury. If a robot starts leaking fluid (oil, hydraulics, etc)its a goner. It will not heal or clot, so will run out of hydraulic fluid and stop moving.
I would therefore give the robot versions less HP, but more resistance (basically resisting everything except water and lightning), and more immunities. Alternatively, I would give them a more fancy rule (which would need to be kept track of but would give the players something to notice), where they have 10 bonus HP (as a number from nowhere) and once this is gone, they gain resistance to lots of stuff, and gain a point of exhaustion every turn. As long as you keep it to lower level stuff (or amend the frequency of the exhaustion for bigger monsters, or have boss-type robots gain 1 level of exaustion and then more temporary HP, which need to be taken down again for the next level), it could work. To kill a robot, you cut its hydraulic pipes and then leg it.
You could alternatively take a terminatoresque view of robots (first movie). Seriously hard to damage (extra HP), stronger (bump all damage dice by one magnitude?), can’t suffer exhaustion, don’t breath or eat, but they degrade as they take damage and can’t recover HP with long rests. Their attack die magnitude, movement, and/or bonuses drop as they take damage, but they never stop going. They get relentless endurance as well which also resets their stats, except for HP (last chance overload surge). Maybe allow tinkerers to heal them.
All stars fade. Some stars forever fall. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Homebrew (Mostly Outdated):Magic Items,Monsters,Spells,Subclasses ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If there was no light, people wouldn't fear the dark.
I would look to create a generalized "Robot" modification to make things easier on yourself. I would put the key things for a robot badger vs a real badger to be:
robot will be heavier than the real badger
robot will be stronger and faster than the real badger
robot will be vulnerable to water and electrical attacks
robot will be resistant to slashing or piercing, but probably not to bludgeoning
robot will be immune to poison
Key thing which a robot does badly compared to flesh & blood: Withstand injury. If a robot starts leaking fluid (oil, hydraulics, etc)its a goner. It will not heal or clot, so will run out of hydraulic fluid and stop moving.
I would therefore give the robot versions less HP, but more resistance (basically resisting everything except water and lightning), and more immunities. Alternatively, I would give them a more fancy rule (which would need to be kept track of but would give the players something to notice), where they have 10 bonus HP (as a number from nowhere) and once this is gone, they gain resistance to lots of stuff, and gain a point of exhaustion every turn. As long as you keep it to lower level stuff (or amend the frequency of the exhaustion for bigger monsters, or have boss-type robots gain 1 level of exaustion and then more temporary HP, which need to be taken down again for the next level), it could work. To kill a robot, you cut its hydraulic pipes and then leg it.
I like the idea but isn't it a bit too complicated for a simple badger? Looking at constructs, some of them have resistances to weapons that aren't adamantite and immune to most effects. i suggest keep the stats of the badger and add some constructs abilities to it.
I would say give it around a high AC between 17-19, give them resistances to all bludgeoning, piercing, slashing that are not adamntite and there you have it, your own robot badger. if it's not your thing and i suggest you just look around the list of monsters under "CONSTRUCT" and pick whatever suits best for your badger and good luck <3
So, you have a lot of options here, and I think there are many different ways to do this, but depending on what you want to do some are better than others.
If you're just looking for flavor, I would just do something akin to warforged racial bonuses- +1 AC, doesn't need to eat, drink, or sleep, poison and disease defenses (warforged get resistance to poison, but more traditionally constructs have immunity, so that's one thing I would change), etc. I would avoid changing the mechanical stats in any dramatic way- you want this to be a robot creature, not a BBEG. AC and health shouldn't increase by much, or you'll make the entire encounter next to impossible, especially if you have a lot of creatures. Psychic damage immunity is common, but not all constructs have it and depending on how they are made, they may not have it at all- if these are creatures that used to be living things turned into robots, they might not gain that benefit, whereas if they have mechanical origins they may not have any mind to attack.
Be careful with condition immunity- it can make the encounter frustrating for your control casters, so unless you want to invalidate spells that charm or frighten, you can really make a mess of it. Constructs often have a lot of immunity options- but they're also not always the only thing you encounter in a session, so if you turn everything in the session into robots/constructs, you'll end up possibly frustrating your players.
I will say, some of these will be different on how you want do make it work. If it's just "fluff" and you want enemies to look like robots, you don't even really need to change much- just make judgement calls on whether certain types of damage and effects work given the different nature and leave stats more or less the same. Just remember that it will significantly impact difficulty the more you change statblocks, especially if your players don't know the changes and try to use options that won't work.
Hello dnd beyond, once again I need your help. I am currently in a “prep” stage and have hit a road block with remixing stat blocks. See I had the idea of common monsters and animals becoming mechanized (magically turned into a robotic form). I only don’t know what to add or take away from any said stats to help with the reflavoring. Any ideas?
I would look to create a generalized "Robot" modification to make things easier on yourself. I would put the key things for a robot badger vs a real badger to be:
Key thing which a robot does badly compared to flesh & blood: Withstand injury. If a robot starts leaking fluid (oil, hydraulics, etc)its a goner. It will not heal or clot, so will run out of hydraulic fluid and stop moving.
I would therefore give the robot versions less HP, but more resistance (basically resisting everything except water and lightning), and more immunities. Alternatively, I would give them a more fancy rule (which would need to be kept track of but would give the players something to notice), where they have 10 bonus HP (as a number from nowhere) and once this is gone, they gain resistance to lots of stuff, and gain a point of exhaustion every turn. As long as you keep it to lower level stuff (or amend the frequency of the exhaustion for bigger monsters, or have boss-type robots gain 1 level of exaustion and then more temporary HP, which need to be taken down again for the next level), it could work. To kill a robot, you cut its hydraulic pipes and then leg it.
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You could alternatively take a terminatoresque view of robots (first movie). Seriously hard to damage (extra HP), stronger (bump all damage dice by one magnitude?), can’t suffer exhaustion, don’t breath or eat, but they degrade as they take damage and can’t recover HP with long rests. Their attack die magnitude, movement, and/or bonuses drop as they take damage, but they never stop going. They get relentless endurance as well which also resets their stats, except for HP (last chance overload surge). Maybe allow tinkerers to heal them.
You also need to change their type to Construct.
All stars fade. Some stars forever fall.
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Homebrew (Mostly Outdated): Magic Items, Monsters, Spells, Subclasses
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If there was no light, people wouldn't fear the dark.
I like the idea but isn't it a bit too complicated for a simple badger? Looking at constructs, some of them have resistances to weapons that aren't adamantite and immune to most effects. i suggest keep the stats of the badger and add some constructs abilities to it.
So combined Giant Badger with a Animated Armor and making it into Machinal Badger
I would say give it around a high AC between 17-19, give them resistances to all bludgeoning, piercing, slashing that are not adamntite and there you have it, your own robot badger. if it's not your thing and i suggest you just look around the list of monsters under "CONSTRUCT" and pick whatever suits best for your badger and good luck <3
for a simple translation, I'd recommend the following:
Optional changes;
So, you have a lot of options here, and I think there are many different ways to do this, but depending on what you want to do some are better than others.
If you're just looking for flavor, I would just do something akin to warforged racial bonuses- +1 AC, doesn't need to eat, drink, or sleep, poison and disease defenses (warforged get resistance to poison, but more traditionally constructs have immunity, so that's one thing I would change), etc. I would avoid changing the mechanical stats in any dramatic way- you want this to be a robot creature, not a BBEG. AC and health shouldn't increase by much, or you'll make the entire encounter next to impossible, especially if you have a lot of creatures. Psychic damage immunity is common, but not all constructs have it and depending on how they are made, they may not have it at all- if these are creatures that used to be living things turned into robots, they might not gain that benefit, whereas if they have mechanical origins they may not have any mind to attack.
Be careful with condition immunity- it can make the encounter frustrating for your control casters, so unless you want to invalidate spells that charm or frighten, you can really make a mess of it. Constructs often have a lot of immunity options- but they're also not always the only thing you encounter in a session, so if you turn everything in the session into robots/constructs, you'll end up possibly frustrating your players.
I will say, some of these will be different on how you want do make it work. If it's just "fluff" and you want enemies to look like robots, you don't even really need to change much- just make judgement calls on whether certain types of damage and effects work given the different nature and leave stats more or less the same. Just remember that it will significantly impact difficulty the more you change statblocks, especially if your players don't know the changes and try to use options that won't work.
Thank you everyone, this is what I needed but count figure out