The way I used the Steel Predator as a threat that was pursuing an NPC that the party had been hired to escort to a safe location by a faction one of them was affiliated with. It focussed on the NPC, who was a strong enough person to withstand focussed attacks for a while but not capable of defeating it single-handedly. The party had to find ways to distract it and damage the Steel Predator enough to drive it away while making sure the NPC was still standing.
Pro tip: hiding 8 or so animated swords in a large clay vessel makes an interesting body guard for an npc, just have them break the said jar and instant surprise encounter.
Would also make for a great business defense, for, say, a Weapon Smith, or a Tavern Owner that likes to decorate the place with weapons (maybe they are trophies or something). Some adventurers start shit or a Thief tries to get away? Unleash the Flying Swords.
Modron are kind of dumb, but there is something interesting about their lore that makes them a bit cooler mechanically. If one is slain or promoted, one modron one level down is instantly prompted. I like to rule "the closest one" is, so that an encounter of a modron a duo drone, a tridrone, a quadrone, and a pentadrone is interesting as slaying the pentadrone promotes all of them resetting them at full hit points
It actually goes beyond that if 5e can ever make stat blocks for these. There are several levels after the pentadrone. Even if their leader/god Primus dies, something will replace it and become the new Primus
@@esperthebard except 1 clockwork dragons do exist in 5e, in "Acquisitions Incorporated" , and 2 it is a construct, so hopefully u don't put that in such a list
@@esperthebard You absolutely should! Even if it's not a ranking-style per se due to the lack of official content, I'm sure it would be excellent, much like the 5e art critiques you just put out.
Fun fact: Golems are animated specifically by binding an elemental spirit to the chassis, this would be specifically one of the four common elementals typically. Iron Golems are animated by Fire elementals as supported by their immunity to fire damage, Flesh Golems are animated by Air Elementals (Lightning Immunity, Lightning is air aspected in D&D), Clay is done with Water Elementals (Acid Immunity, Water aspected), and Stone is simply Earth (no special immunities). This implies that they have at least the self awareness and sentience of an elemental, which is not a a lot.
@@vinx.9099 That's what I thought, but wasn't 100% sure given how each setting represents the elemental planes. I am much more well versed in the lore & minutia of Pathfinder's Golarion than, say, that of Eberron or Ravnica, and there's enough crossover in the structure of their cosmologies to have some confusion
@@gasterblaster9817 i mean it's not like D&D is ever consistent. black (acid) dragons (if i remember correctly) are connected to the elemental plane of earth, but it's water elementals that get resistance to acid
Ah yes... On the one hand there is just something wrong with rolling an artificer that isn't a gnome but on the other hand, house Cannith has the most broken dragonmark of them all. From a lore perspective anyway. "So what does your mark do?" "It allows me to command elementals, what does yours do?" "Oh, nothing as fanciful as that, it can just create souls. We have no idea how it does it, it just... Makes souls."
@@esperthebard Really quick, since it wasn't in this video, where would the Warforged Colossus go? It doesn't have any of the intelligence of a traditional Warforged, but it does have a battle map of its interior (on page 224 of the Eberron book), and a Stomp attack that can pin creatures to the ground. Also, a doom laser.
For the Helm Horror, I would take a separate approach. Make it immune to the creator's AOE attacks then light up the room instead of being so focused on the opponents. Wizard: Uses Fire Ball, Cone of Frost, and Darkness Helm Horror can then just tank it and attack
These two 5E terms are a bit confusing. Magic Resistance means it has advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects. Resistance against non-magical weapons means it takes half damage from weapons that aren't magical. From a certain perspective, this does seem kind of contradictory, but this mainly just comes from the wording. Different terms were used in 3E: Spell Resistance (SR) and Damage Resistance (DR), which looked like this for example: SR 15 (a caster level check of 15 or higher for your spell to function against the monster) DR 10/magic (if you hit the monster with a nonmagical weapon, the damage is reduced by 10)
Speaking as someone running a sci-fantasy setting, with Modrons the problem I have is that a lot of them look kind of uncanny, especially the more cube-shaped ones. It's the lips and the teeth primarily.
I just wanted to say about the hexton, their CR in 3e was 13, and they were the fifth most powerful hierarch modrons. Hope I’m not coming off as rude, I’m a big fan of your videos
“A surprising degree of sentience” Correction: Sapience. Sentience is simply the ability to experience the world through one’s senses, sapience is the ability to process the information from this experience and know something through sense and reason.
@@purplehaze2358 well ants simply follow their sense rather than interpreting them see ant death circles where as most decently sized animals show some ability to deviate from what their senses tell them.
One thing I like about the Helmed Horror is that you can tell a story just by what three spells you picked. A Helmed Horror that is wandering through a dungeon, with three spells that make it immune to scrying and other forms of detection really intrigues a party. Especially if it doesn't attack them unless they attack first.
There is the Marut from MToF the CR 25 juggernaut. Two 60 damage hits that auto hit. Magic resistance and the ability to banish you to the plane of Law on a failed DC 20 wisdom save.
The closest thing we had was the CR 22 Anaxim in 3.5 epic level handbook, while weaker than the Colossi (essentially colossal vanilla golems), Anaxims are shifting mass of machinery and weaponry that are discarded prototypes of forge gods. Think The Blob or The Thing but steampunk and full of rotating blades and electric charge and can summon an Iron Golem on a whim 4 times a day.
@@lorddevilfish5868 They are, but mechanics-wise they are just super iron golems with multi attack, rend, lightning bolts , sonic attacks, dispel abilities, plane shifting and immune or at least resistant to every-fucking-thing under the sun. CR wise mithral and adamantine golems are a tiny bit stronger. Amazing art by Wayne Reynolds: vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/forgottenrealms/images/1/1e/Anaxim-3e.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/350?cb=20190130143153
Here's another weakness for Clockwork constructs, since there made from clockwork tech and are some how immune to non-magic weapons of almost any damage (except for addamantium) you can find openings and jam the clock work system rendering them imolbile.
I love the Rug of Smothering. I always give it a unique design, a pelt rug or even as a ridiculously long cloak for a animated armor which activates as soon as a PC approaches the armor from behind. Imagine a Helmed Horror staring to float above ground, using a polearm to attack from a distance without being hit by melee attacks, wearing a bear pelt cloak which envelops the gnome rogue the barbarian will inevitably throw at their flying enemy >:D Or a rug of SMothering: originally a typo from me, the rug enveloped the rogue in my party and started whispering in his ear with a sweet, warm, motherly voice: "Shhhhh, it will be alright" and "Don't struggle, you're safe now". The rogue now has a BIIIIIG fear of any animated objects and NEVER steps on a rug. NEVER. Caused a scene at the king's throne room, it was hilarious :D
A lot of my more recent, and memorable encounters have featured one construct in some form or another. (SPOILERS) In Mad Mage, we first encountered a shield gaurdian on the first layer of Undermountian, and it wasn't until we defeated an Aboleth that we found the amulet. I attuned to it, and not long after, it managed to get down to the level we were on. In a more recent session, I reactivated a Stone Golem be mending the symbol on the back of it's head, and after I went down from two attacks, our monk kicked it out of the third story we were on. I do hope we get another official beastiary for 5e, it would help us learn, and create more thrilling adventures.
Who would commision a shield guardian? Well, it might've started by a mage "cutting costs" (and then casting some sort or mage lock daily to make snatching it off impossible), or a wicked vizier wanting to look good by offering his shah a protection construct, but at the same time knowing what to do to completely negate that very protection. And after some time other mages just got the recipe and didn't think to root out the bugs in design (or they too wanted to look good giving protection item that can be negated fairly easily). Too bad that you won't find that in the lore - the GM has to think such explanations by himself. Assassins - are the PCs high enough level to have access to resurrections? Then send assassin that is able to kill one character easily, but you can allow that character to make enough sound to alert others (or make sure assassin only has one target, or is intended to be a gruesome warning). Otherwise it would make no sense to NOT use assassins, and the villain would look like an idiot, having perfectly reasonable way to eliminate nosy person, but not using it, because it wouldn't be fair to the victim (which is the whole point). Plus, after one or two such kills the party will probably actually do something not to be caught unguarded again. Or have the setting being so huge against assassinations, that literally noone does them, but it will not work in most of the published settings, where there are some famous assassins.
Exactly. Also, hardly anyone ever interacts with Shield Guardians. The only people who can just know what to do to disable a Shield Guardian are meta-gaming players.
@esper: maybe some of the goblins in armor, from "labyrinth"? Or a mixture of things from this movie combined? The movie would fit your description very well.
Congratulations, my love for your dedication to this universe of D&D. Living directly with you, I follow all your efforts closely. I know how much you love what you do here on youtube and as a born artist you are. I am very proud of your work and I strongly believe in your potential and I hope that your followers will see it as I see it. I’m very happy that you finally launched a product on Kickstarter and even if I don’t play D&D or even understand a lot of games, I’ve already bought your book on Kickstarter… because I know how much you’re dedicating to this project as well as how you put your heart in everything you do. I hope you are very successful in this first project and I will be here for whatever you need. Just keep going, you're on the right track. I love you! ❤️
The rug of smothering. Evil twin of Aladdin's carpet in the Disney movie. Though notably its establishing scene has it pretending to be a normal carpet, and it likes to wrap around people.
11:29 imagine 'killing' a set of high level animated armor and finding a dictionary, thesaurus, and other literary books wired up with magic runes to seem intelligent
wait... what about the heavy weapons platform that is the warforged titan and walking fortress that is the warforged coloseus? they're contstucts too. dont they deserve some time to shine on their own, or are we supposed to believe that they follow their smaller cousins in searching for meaning in a post war life?
betting someone already said this, but Rime of the Frostmaiden added the Shield Guardian Amulet, it's a wondrous item, rare, that requires attunement by a humanoid.
Really enjoy your videos. One of the main reasons i got interested in DnD. You must be a perfect DM with your voice,rich choice of word,expaining and imagination.
@@esperthebard Wish i could play. Eh i will in the near future or i hope so at least. When i say near future i mean at least a year. And i have created 17 diferent characters with their own unique backrounds some are just classes with spells i made etc. But even when i play i will go ''easy'' with one i have completely covered and i don't have to make myself balanced spells for him. Anyway, love your context.
To use assassins I would personally give the players a chance to see said assassin before they get attacked. Or at least a chance to see them by giving them some perception oppotunities/worries from nearby townsfolk. Even a machine I would say would need to stalk its pray before attacking. Either that or they wouldnt just appear at just the right time for them. Like how would it know that the pc is currently sleeping alone in the inn? He/she could just as well be out drinking with the rest of the party so ofcourse it would need to observe the pcs for a bit before attacking giving them a chance to notice and prepar... Or at least go "that is what that perception check was for! God damn it! Ofcourse I got a 1!" or something along those lines and not feel as if they were attacked out of the blue.
i'd say give your players the opportunity to learn assassins may be coming for them and prepare for it. let them buy potted schriekers, arcane locked locks for doors. dust of alarm for doors and windows. the party should also be aware when assassins can come. they need to know your location so when travelling trough the wilds you should be safe. what you can even do is try and make your players steal something/assassinate someone. give them ideas on how sneaky people are countered, so then they can steal your ideas and use them against you.
I personally LOVE modrons, but I agree their lore makes them, kind of one-note characters. That being said, I think what's really inspiring with modrons are the stories you can weave with those who no longer obey the clockwork laws of Mechanus. Sure, when one modron goes rogue, they are found and are destroyed, but what happens when, for some reason, many modrons go rogue or even better, gain sentience? What happens when more chaotic beings, such as playable races go to Mechanus and interact with modrons, tipping the delicate balance of perfection? I find the possibility of chaos in a world of untouchable order incredibly inspiring.
Think that is the issue some people are not getting. They are sentient. Modron are not one note characters either, they have this complex and weird society that seem completely bizarre to outsiders. They are not mindless constructs. Nor are they really constructs all, but living natives of Mechancus, but for some reason they were listed as constructs in 5e. They are sent out to do tasks for reasons long since forgotten in living memory, making them quirky and potentially endless amount stories or RP can be had with them.
I think one of the problems of modrons for most settings is that they have pretty low CR even the pentadrone, but at that level of play in most adventures (at a like more down to earth fantasy medieval) it's kind of unlikely that your party finds modrons especially the higher ones, unless you make it a "planes confluence" in a specific place, or innsome manner you'll have to involve plane hopping in your world. By the time that that becomes more common, characters far surpass the modrons combat prowess. Ofc, this isn't a problem if you don't plan to use them as enemies as tbh they are prrtty neutral and not hostile, but that's still a limitation.
Whenever I use Modrons’s I run them as bureaucrats doing everything exactly and if the players do anything that goes against it they try to fix it above all else and get confused easily
I was trying to make my first campaign, where the players build their own dungeon (all evil party, naturally) and this video is perfect for dungeon guards they can build in their workshop
A hexton, contrary to the hex part of the name, does not actually come after a pentadrone. In 3e the Hexton was a cr 13 creature. I believe there name comes from the fact that their population in Primus is 6^2 or 36. So the idea that a hexton can make a cr 16 construct is not unbelievable.
The hierch Modrons counted down, the lower the number the higher they were, a Septon (7-ton) is lower than a Hexton (6-ton) who is lower than a Quinton (5-ton)
BTW, Warforged not needing to breath is incredibly underrated. You don't have to worry about drowning or suffocating, and your immune to anything that smells bad or any kind of gaseous attack that needs you to breath it in. In fact, your immune to Stink Cloud outright.
The eidolon in particular sounds perfect for the mythic monster feature in the rod as it hope from one state to another after it's hit points are reduced.
When the ebberon book originaly got released the warforged had that integrated armor but wotc scrapped it later as it was too op. They also used to have subraces btw.
I've used the Modrons in my game. My players loved their quirkiness. I played them as ironically dumb simplistic robots with intelligence but not a lot. I had a dungeon, and a world shattering event that occurred involving them. (I've also made my players wary of just trying to damage down big boys because of the way Modrons work mechanically... lol)
Thanks so much for making us this one. Saw a few that I had completely over looked myself. Actually penning a new Sharmanistic Frontline Artificer. Primal energy based spells, and all summons are either elementals or constructs instead of the norm, that sort of thing. The info in this vid will help to go a long way. Cheers
anyone else notice he only ever seems to sometimes looks back to prior editions, regardless of if any new 5e lore is not conflicting and thus is just as valid as what is in the 5e book
One of my friends character was a warlock and he had an animated armor that was imbued with the soul of his dead brother. His character could at any point (if within 10ft of his brother) pull an iron man, and the armor covers the warlock. The warlock would then become a fighter, but he couldn't take off the armor until the end of the fight. It made choosing when to become a fighter and also give up spells very interesting.
I created one once. Rag and Bone Men. These are medium constructs made out of assorted garbage. They are created to do specific tasks (typically cleaning). They are immune to non-magical weapons, poison, psychic, paralysis, and stun. They have an AC of 18, and 100 HP. They can produce a stinking aura (like stinking cloud but it's permanently centered on them), have a 15 foot cone attack that deals poison damage and produces the Grease spell, and a melee attack that deals 1d8+4 bludgeoning damage. They are used in my setting as custodians, but can be reprogramed for other jobs, such as guarding, exchanging messages, and attacking enemies on a short rest. They can be programed with speech up to 100 words and have enough sapience to know how to use them. Each word over 100 replaces the first word programed. These are made by the Dwarf Battle-Smith, Magda Bronzetoe when she became head custodian of Cassandra Walpole's School for Adventurer's and Mercenaries. The historical context of the name were people who would go around collecting garbage (particularly rags, bones, and scrap metal) and sell them to factories and artisans for repurposing. Here's a short about such people. th-cam.com/video/BcGCGhjHFuU/w-d-xo.html
I love Scarecrows, but as with everything printed by Wizards, I have to spruce them up. Midgard has way better books in general. The Retriever was in the new Drizzt book with terrifying abilities. It is 5e fault for not adding the beams it use to have.
I have to make Modrones, Vehicles, Guns, etc very very steampunk to make them work. If theyre going to be in a medival setting I want them clunky, inorganic, and poorly designed. Superfluous parts, coal burning engines, blank expressionless faces. These make them feel more appropriate, alien, magical, even alchemical. When done well they blend in well enough. But I def agree.
Esper, great new video! I really like watching your tier lists. In the subject of constructs, I would like to ask: have you heard of Iron Kingdoms Role-Playing Game? I love the game, and hearing some of your complains makes me think you would enjoy it's "Monsternomicon" book, especially. Great creatures with very good lore.
Notes: if there are concrete gold costs, check DC's etc about how it is made it Will Open the door for players to make those constructs and limit the imagination of the DM, it is better to just assume your NPC has whatever time and resources are nessesary 2: how powerful a construct you can make has nothing to do with how powerful you yourself are (or at least that would make sense from a lore perspective ) it just matters how skilled you are. The unnamed hexton was likely comissioned to make the first Steel predators by an higher rank modron before going rouge, and even if he was not he likely worked within the workshops of mechanus wich shurely will contain enough wonderous tools and metals to get the job done, i mean what are even those giant indestructible cogs made of? Probably not metal
i get why he said that some of the constructs didn't have concrete building requirements, but if you have stats to go from 3.5 had rules for building them. combine level with abilities for construction cost, abilities and flavor for construction requirements, and calculate construction time from construction cost. i get that you have to fudge things behind the screen to get things to work right for your game but there are good guidelines for building them established in 3.5 (try looking in building custom magic item sections or golem stat block sidebars to start), you just need to use some logic in how you apply those rules.
@@marthachampagne316 3.5e is exactly why i think giving these stats is a bad idea, they tell you EXACTLY how an player character would make every construct down to "just pick this feat, expend this many experience points and this much gold etc", it gives the player who reads it an expectation and an DM who assumes those limitations are balanced might allow it, when these things were in reality perhaps not that. And they once again limit creativity, what if i wanted an 2nd level Gnome expert making these constructs, an dude with no psi, no spells, who dies if hit even once but who has the right physical talent and secret ritual needed to make an army of golems he plans on using to take over the world. Also not everyone owns 3.5e books, especially not the especially plentiful newcommers to dnd this edition
I don't find modrones boring at all. They are so dedicated to their jobs and maintenance. I like the idea of adventurers being sent to this plane and the moment someone moves anything or steals an item the drones swarm on them for disrupting their regular functionality. Or even fighting a monster in this plane and everyone has to try to not hit or destroy any objects lest a swarm of drones nearby attack whoever causes the damage.
@@esperthebard i know and im sorry if i seem testy lol. I get defensive cuz i love these lil guys. They make for a fun side story sometimes. Once i my friends saw a bunch of monodrones flying overhead and followed them. They ended up entering an open area where multiple defective drones were battling it out with the other drones. A wizard had captured some drones and altered them to work for him. It was all quite fun. But to quote you they're only real use outside of their plane is a dysfunction with them. They really can't stand as anything else so i do agree woth your ranking
I love scarecrows, I wish that they were a playable race. Speaking of wishing about playable races, and constructs, what about gargoyles? I noticed that you didn't name them.
Gotta say I completely agree about using random tables, my first game we had a party member with wild magic surge. And our DM found every excuse he could to force the sorcerer to roll a d100 on the wild magic table. It made everything so much fun
A cool idea for the helmed horror could be the villain having them being immune to aoe spells he uses so they get into melee with the party to distract them and are then immune to the spells he casts, so his minions remain unscathed by his arcane might
My players learned a sort of obvious lesson one session. I had a combat in progress of some Drow using their Drow pseudo-adamantine weapons against a small group of clockwork constructs. The players knew they couldn't hurt the clockworks but could hurt the Drow so they immediately attacked and killed the Drow, only to be ripped to pieces by the clockworks. I don't know if they were expecting the clockworks to leave them alone because they helped them, or if they assumed I would never throw such dangerous mobs at them at their level, ergo, there must be a deus ex machina solution that would reveal itself after they dispatched the Drow. There wasn't. The ideal way to resolve that would be to let the Drow kill the clockworks, with only 1 wounded Drow surviving, (I already resolved the combat prior to the session to determine this) then they could easily kill that Drow and get all that loot for very little effort. But they jumped in swinging and asked questions later, after they all died. I often put those sort of encounters in my campaigns that punished "I attack it what is it?" play styles and it nearly always caused a party wipe or at least a few deaths. Lots of Leeroy Jenkins out there.
one clay golem will technically beat a terrasque. the terrasques attacks deal nonmagical damage and acid, the clay golem is immune to every some of damage the terrasque has
When I need to find out how much a Construct would cost to build, I look up Plane Shift: Kaladesh and look at the suggested prices near the end of the article. It organizes the various CRs of creatures into various item rarities. That gives me something to base off of on the spot when I need it
I don't think there should be a "correct" way o saying a race or monster's name. All of the different ways to pronounce should be used as a variation from character to character.
I know I'm a bit behind on this, but I just found the video. In response to your questions about the Shield Guardian, it's usually made as something to directly protect the bearer of the amulet - and is often sold to others as a way to 'imprint a golem' onto someone else without a lot of complicated worries about someone accidentally commanding the Stone Golem they just bought to kill them or something. It's also often a way for a wizard to provide a form of protection that can be passed down the family line for generations, as that Regen factor makes them extremely unlikely to just break down even if unneeded for extreme periods of time. Plus, it's easy enough to just slap some further enchantments onto the amulet to make the thing unwearable by anyone who doesn't have the right qualifications, like a certain alignment or a particular heritage, or what have you. The big attraction of them is that the amulet bypasses the fear of misaddressing the Guardian, because the Amulet lets them send their intentions, not just the by-the-word statements they make, so there's no chance of a novice having a slip of the tongue and getting someone else hurt or killed. For Scarecrows' alignment, they are usually made by specifically binding a Demon to them, and on top of that, being patient and not pissing off the people who can unmake you is reasonable, and isn't necessarily grounds to remove the chaotic alignment; especially since most Scarecrows are, well, at least mostly sapient. As for the Hellfire Engine's soul entrapping ability, I'd imagine it's meant as a threat to follow through on bargains - even the most devout of Lawful Goods will be dragged to the Infernal Pit and have their soul defiled if they've gotten in the way of some greater Archdevil ensuring the contract they wrote up gets followed through on.
I long for the day to use an eidelon, i can see them talking in the spirit form with the party, warning them not to tread further and some dialogue could follow.
it looks like one of those little pink rubber toys called muscles. they were like tiny monster wrestlers. it could be from the transformers cartoon movie. they had some robots like that on their homeworld.
Esper do you think tridrones could be reminding you of the “masters” from the Tripods series of books? They do come off looking a bit like them, from what I remember...
Ideas for helmed horror spell immunities: -force cage - timestop - wall of fire Enemy arch mage casts time stop. His entourage of helmed horrors go ham on the party. Or simply shackle and grapple them?
Fun fact: The Retreiver was originally the exact opposite. A machine created by demons to retrieve escaped souls, items, or other things from the Material Plane. It made more sense that way.
I have had many interesting character ideas involving warforged over the years. Including a warforged with abnormal proportions and size, who seemed like a completely different creature what with his size and long gangly arms and legs, but his skill was perception, and his tool was a lantern specifically. never used him, but he was meant as a sentry unit, meant to act as a living look out tower.
Nice work Eper! Maybe the Tridrone trigger me to, it reminds me on a transformers animatet series from the erly 90 the story changegd and the transformer originstory was expanded by a cyborg race named Quintessons they loocks like robotic octopuss with 5 faces and every one represense an extreme from of an agliment and switches randomly between. they occur as former slavemasters and creators of the transformers. they are realy cool badguys all with 5 different persons in a fat head fittet with have a dozend cybertentacle, give that creaturs an ancient and bizare look. GG from germany! xD
My long time favorite construct is the Elder Eidolon featured in Lords of Madness, The Book of Aberrations. Solid B tier. Phased construction, self regeneration, and dang. I can't remember other specific details. Been a long time. This has certainly given me some ideas though.
I liked the concept of the stone cursed, so I changed their lore in my homebrew game. They're no longer constructs, but elementals. Long ago, some humans tried to do something stupid (like usual). They stole from a powerful Dao, and were cursed for it. So when they claw at someone, the curse tries to take over the victim. If they fail, and they're a thief, they are instantly turned into a stone cursed. However, if they're not one, the curse does not take hold, and the petrification ends after 24 hours. I also added a mechanic that someone with Dao blood (and of course Dao themseleves) can attempt to control them. A player in my game is a stone genasi, and attempted to control them, after rolling a history check. I made it pretty hard to do, but against all odds, he rolled what he needed on a d100, twice. And a stone cursed minotaur was now under his control.
An honorable mention for constructs id like to place in at least C if not B tier is the Vampiric Jade Statue from Ghosts of Saltmarsh. This low grade legendary statue features a three part multiattack including a bite that inflicts a curse upon those unlucky enough to to suffer it. For the duration, the statue will had advantage on all attacks against the cursed target, and one of its legendary actions invoked an AoE of necrotic damage against all those who have the curse upon them, as well as a bite as a legendary action to try to spread this curse as rapidly as possible. A very fun boss fight style creature that, presuming you’re luckier than I, can make for an interesting challenge for your party to contest with
Inevitables are some of my favorite constructs. And I can't get over how dumb modrons look. I always imagined them as eldritch mechanical people, like lesser inevitables, not....mecha pixar bees. It's a crime that inevitables have been so...watered down in 5e. The inevitables used to be inevitable concepts, like death in the Marut's case. Now it's...interplanar robocop?
First off, good video. It's really nice to have a list like this. Second, (and this might fall under the Warforged) but what about the Warforged Colossus and Titan found in Eberron rising from the Last War? Just wondering where they might fall on the ranking list
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ever thought about updating the stat icons?
The way I used the Steel Predator as a threat that was pursuing an NPC that the party had been hired to escort to a safe location by a faction one of them was affiliated with. It focussed on the NPC, who was a strong enough person to withstand focussed attacks for a while but not capable of defeating it single-handedly. The party had to find ways to distract it and damage the Steel Predator enough to drive it away while making sure the NPC was still standing.
Hey it got funded, congrats dude
Good video lil dude
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Pro tip: hiding 8 or so animated swords in a large clay vessel makes an interesting body guard for an npc, just have them break the said jar and instant surprise encounter.
Brutal! I just might have to use that.
Would also make for a great business defense, for, say, a Weapon Smith, or a Tavern Owner that likes to decorate the place with weapons (maybe they are trophies or something). Some adventurers start shit or a Thief tries to get away? Unleash the Flying Swords.
@@moriskurth628 I would absolutely use that, like a retired high level artificer running a store somewhere
@@einar_476 "You wanna steal one of my swords, ye little shit?!
*WELL, YOU CAN HAVE 'EM ALL!"*
I can imagine a clay pot filled with flour and several animated swords and smashing it onto the floor for a surprise
Modron are kind of dumb, but there is something interesting about their lore that makes them a bit cooler mechanically. If one is slain or promoted, one modron one level down is instantly prompted. I like to rule "the closest one" is, so that an encounter of a modron a duo drone, a tridrone, a quadrone, and a pentadrone is interesting as slaying the pentadrone promotes all of them resetting them at full hit points
This isn’t elder scrolls what are you doing here maiq?
oh man, now that's dangerous stuff. that could wipe a party if it started as a touch encounter.
@@bluesap7318 Lying perhaps?
It actually goes beyond that if 5e can ever make stat blocks for these. There are several levels after the pentadrone. Even if their leader/god Primus dies, something will replace it and become the new Primus
yeah, there not exactly easy to incorporate into all campaighns, but when they work, they work wonderfully.
I know they don't exist in 5th edition. But I've always had a soft spot for Clockwork Dragons.
You just reminded me how I really need to make a video about more obscure kinds of dragons.
Esper the Bard please
that do though, "Acquisitions Incorporated" sourcebook
@@esperthebard except 1 clockwork dragons do exist in 5e, in "Acquisitions Incorporated" , and 2 it is a construct, so hopefully u don't put that in such a list
@@esperthebard You absolutely should! Even if it's not a ranking-style per se due to the lack of official content, I'm sure it would be excellent, much like the 5e art critiques you just put out.
Fun fact: Golems are animated specifically by binding an elemental spirit to the chassis, this would be specifically one of the four common elementals typically. Iron Golems are animated by Fire elementals as supported by their immunity to fire damage, Flesh Golems are animated by Air Elementals (Lightning Immunity, Lightning is air aspected in D&D), Clay is done with Water Elementals (Acid Immunity, Water aspected), and Stone is simply Earth (no special immunities). This implies that they have at least the self awareness and sentience of an elemental, which is not a a lot.
Isn't acid earth aspected tho?
@@gasterblaster9817 acid tends to swing, officially the acid (and i think also poison) plane is the border between water and earth.
also makes sense to give the flesh golem air as he's been given "the breath of life".
@@vinx.9099 That's what I thought, but wasn't 100% sure given how each setting represents the elemental planes. I am much more well versed in the lore & minutia of Pathfinder's Golarion than, say, that of Eberron or Ravnica, and there's enough crossover in the structure of their cosmologies to have some confusion
@@gasterblaster9817
i mean it's not like D&D is ever consistent. black (acid) dragons (if i remember correctly) are connected to the elemental plane of earth, but it's water elementals that get resistance to acid
The duergar hammerer actually got some really cool art in Rime of the Frostmaiden
The hammerer seems like the dnd equivalent to a big daddy in bioshock
OfficialC What occurred to me is it's very similar in concept to a Dreadnaught from Warhammer 40,000.
I can't imagine what the screamer looks like
Pepsi Crusader it’s probably a child or something worse in there
Maybe an arm resembling a bazooka?
Ah yes... On the one hand there is just something wrong with rolling an artificer that isn't a gnome but on the other hand, house Cannith has the most broken dragonmark of them all. From a lore perspective anyway.
"So what does your mark do?"
"It allows me to command elementals, what does yours do?"
"Oh, nothing as fanciful as that, it can just create souls. We have no idea how it does it, it just... Makes souls."
"No A-tier constructs," he says, challenging himself to design an A-tier construct for the Emporium of Esoterica, whether he knows it now or not...
Perhaps the adamantine golem will be in there ;)
@@esperthebard Really quick, since it wasn't in this video, where would the Warforged Colossus go? It doesn't have any of the intelligence of a traditional Warforged, but it does have a battle map of its interior (on page 224 of the Eberron book), and a Stomp attack that can pin creatures to the ground. Also, a doom laser.
@@sagecolvard9644 low A tier via pure badassery
@@esperthebard Did I miss something because why are inevitables not on this list?
@@Yndratdnable there's only one in 5e so far.
In older editions, Rogue Modrons were a playable race, and could take on classes like anyone else
so no, this is not a plot hole
I mean.... my setting isn’t medieval at all. I like to go for a Roaring 20s/late industrial revolution world. So the Modron are fun for me.
Do you have a tapdancing bard? If not, why?
the new Eberron book would be fantastic for you then if you don't already have it.
For the Helm Horror, I would take a separate approach. Make it immune to the creator's AOE attacks then light up the room instead of being so focused on the opponents.
Wizard: Uses Fire Ball, Cone of Frost, and Darkness
Helm Horror can then just tank it and attack
immune to darkness or other sight obscuring spells is just crual. i love it. definitely stealing those ideas.
@@vinx.9099 What's mine is yours (:
Vinx .909 what’s yours is mine.
Doesn't it have blind sight that means Darkness wouldn't do much of anything anyway
@@puppetmaster1420 it's bad enough as is...give the players that
“Magic resistance, resistance to non-magical attacks”
Wait, it’s resistant to magic and non-magic? What’s it not resistant to???
Feels
Magic resistance means it has advantage on spell saving throws
These two 5E terms are a bit confusing. Magic Resistance means it has advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects. Resistance against non-magical weapons means it takes half damage from weapons that aren't magical. From a certain perspective, this does seem kind of contradictory, but this mainly just comes from the wording. Different terms were used in 3E: Spell Resistance (SR) and Damage Resistance (DR), which looked like this for example:
SR 15 (a caster level check of 15 or higher for your spell to function against the monster)
DR 10/magic (if you hit the monster with a nonmagical weapon, the damage is reduced by 10)
memes
Gravity
Speaking as someone running a sci-fantasy setting, with Modrons the problem I have is that a lot of them look kind of uncanny, especially the more cube-shaped ones. It's the lips and the teeth primarily.
I just wanted to say about the hexton, their CR in 3e was 13, and they were the fifth most powerful hierarch modrons. Hope I’m not coming off as rude, I’m a big fan of your videos
Good find Valien!
I just want an updated Planescape sourcebook. The last official one was 2nd edition 😢
I want to see Celestials next,though there's not many of them.
“A surprising degree of sentience”
Correction: Sapience. Sentience is simply the ability to experience the world through one’s senses, sapience is the ability to process the information from this experience and know something through sense and reason.
Examples
No sentience: Virus
Sentient: Koala
Sapient: Humans and other apes
Mr. Bubbles I’m pretty sure even an ant is sentient since it does have senses.
@@purplehaze2358 well ants simply follow their sense rather than interpreting them see ant death circles where as most decently sized animals show some ability to deviate from what their senses tell them.
Kracken Crusader That’s still by definition sentience, it’s just not sapience.
@@purplehaze2358 true I just feel that the definition of sentience should be slightly different.
One thing I like about the Helmed Horror is that you can tell a story just by what three spells you picked. A Helmed Horror that is wandering through a dungeon, with three spells that make it immune to scrying and other forms of detection really intrigues a party. Especially if it doesn't attack them unless they attack first.
D&D needs a Mechagodzilla or a Mecha-Tarrasque as an ultimate construct
I'm converting Battletech mechs to d&d out of bordem during the covid 19 outbreak.
There is the Marut from MToF the CR 25 juggernaut. Two 60 damage hits that auto hit. Magic resistance and the ability to banish you to the plane of Law on a failed DC 20 wisdom save.
The closest thing we had was the CR 22 Anaxim in 3.5 epic level handbook, while weaker than the Colossi (essentially colossal vanilla golems), Anaxims are shifting mass of machinery and weaponry that are discarded prototypes of forge gods.
Think The Blob or The Thing but steampunk and full of rotating blades and electric charge and can summon an Iron Golem on a whim 4 times a day.
skuarf that sounds pretty awesome actually
@@lorddevilfish5868 They are, but mechanics-wise they are just super iron golems with multi attack, rend, lightning bolts , sonic attacks, dispel abilities, plane shifting and immune or at least resistant to every-fucking-thing under the sun.
CR wise mithral and adamantine golems are a tiny bit stronger.
Amazing art by Wayne Reynolds: vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/forgottenrealms/images/1/1e/Anaxim-3e.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/350?cb=20190130143153
Here's another weakness for
Clockwork constructs, since there made from clockwork tech and are some how immune to non-magic weapons of almost any damage (except for addamantium) you can find openings and jam the clock work system rendering them imolbile.
I love the Rug of Smothering. I always give it a unique design, a pelt rug or even as a ridiculously long cloak for a animated armor which activates as soon as a PC approaches the armor from behind. Imagine a Helmed Horror staring to float above ground, using a polearm to attack from a distance without being hit by melee attacks, wearing a bear pelt cloak which envelops the gnome rogue the barbarian will inevitably throw at their flying enemy >:D Or a rug of SMothering: originally a typo from me, the rug enveloped the rogue in my party and started whispering in his ear with a sweet, warm, motherly voice: "Shhhhh, it will be alright" and "Don't struggle, you're safe now". The rogue now has a BIIIIIG fear of any animated objects and NEVER steps on a rug. NEVER. Caused a scene at the king's throne room, it was hilarious :D
I'm stealing the rug of SMothering for my game now to traumatize my players. 😂
A lot of my more recent, and memorable encounters have featured one construct in some form or another.
(SPOILERS)
In Mad Mage, we first encountered a shield gaurdian on the first layer of Undermountian, and it wasn't until we defeated an Aboleth that we found the amulet. I attuned to it, and not long after, it managed to get down to the level we were on.
In a more recent session, I reactivated a Stone Golem be mending the symbol on the back of it's head, and after I went down from two attacks, our monk kicked it out of the third story we were on.
I do hope we get another official beastiary for 5e, it would help us learn, and create more thrilling adventures.
11:12 I'm suprised he didn't reference "full metal alchemists" in some way.
th-cam.com/video/ne99o5wVkBU/w-d-xo.html
I was not expecting the "TRIAL BY STOOOONE!".
Regarding Shield Guardians Amulet:
This is why you have to practice good cyber-security. Tsk Tsk.
Last time I was this early warforged were still being built
so three years ago?
Who would commision a shield guardian? Well, it might've started by a mage "cutting costs" (and then casting some sort or mage lock daily to make snatching it off impossible), or a wicked vizier wanting to look good by offering his shah a protection construct, but at the same time knowing what to do to completely negate that very protection. And after some time other mages just got the recipe and didn't think to root out the bugs in design (or they too wanted to look good giving protection item that can be negated fairly easily). Too bad that you won't find that in the lore - the GM has to think such explanations by himself.
Assassins - are the PCs high enough level to have access to resurrections? Then send assassin that is able to kill one character easily, but you can allow that character to make enough sound to alert others (or make sure assassin only has one target, or is intended to be a gruesome warning). Otherwise it would make no sense to NOT use assassins, and the villain would look like an idiot, having perfectly reasonable way to eliminate nosy person, but not using it, because it wouldn't be fair to the victim (which is the whole point). Plus, after one or two such kills the party will probably actually do something not to be caught unguarded again. Or have the setting being so huge against assassinations, that literally noone does them, but it will not work in most of the published settings, where there are some famous assassins.
Exactly. Also, hardly anyone ever interacts with Shield Guardians. The only people who can just know what to do to disable a Shield Guardian are meta-gaming players.
Send it after the wizard who has a clone prepared.
@esper: maybe some of the goblins in armor, from "labyrinth"? Or a mixture of things from this movie combined?
The movie would fit your description very well.
Congratulations, my love for your dedication to this universe of D&D. Living directly with you, I follow all your efforts closely. I know how much you love what you do here on youtube and as a born artist you are. I am very proud of your work and I strongly believe in your potential and I hope that your followers will see it as I see it. I’m very happy that you finally launched a product on Kickstarter and even if I don’t play D&D or even understand a lot of games, I’ve already bought your book on Kickstarter… because I know how much you’re dedicating to this project as well as how you put your heart in everything you do. I hope you are very successful in this first project and I will be here for whatever you need. Just keep going, you're on the right track. I love you! ❤️
The rug of smothering. Evil twin of Aladdin's carpet in the Disney movie. Though notably its establishing scene has it pretending to be a normal carpet, and it likes to wrap around people.
the Rug of Smothering is the evil one because it kills people when it wraps them, when the carpet is just really into hugs
@@lucaslorena2372 Yeah, that's what I meant by "evil twin of the Disney carpet".
@@lucaslorena2372 reformed carpet
11:29 imagine 'killing' a set of high level animated armor and finding a dictionary, thesaurus, and other literary books wired up with magic runes to seem intelligent
wait... what about the heavy weapons platform that is the warforged titan and walking fortress that is the warforged coloseus? they're contstucts too. dont they deserve some time to shine on their own, or are we supposed to believe that they follow their smaller cousins in searching for meaning in a post war life?
One could argue those Warforged Colosi are Dungeons as well.
*and then there's me, who's warforged characters are almost always purely mechanical but with humanoid brains, like Alita Battle Angel*
But warforged already act like humanoids, they have emotions and free will...
@@حَسن-م3ه9ظ I mean in the sense that they're not really magical robots but mechanical cyborgs with actual people brains in them
Yes more rankings
i will second that, can't get enough of these
His rankings are awsome
Idk what hell he was talking about when he said modrons look they belong in a kids movie they are straight up nightmares
I can attest that having a shield guardian, especially at low levels, is insanely powerful.
betting someone already said this, but Rime of the Frostmaiden added the Shield Guardian Amulet, it's a wondrous item, rare, that requires attunement by a humanoid.
The fact that the clay golem can go Berzerk is also a reference to the original myth
"Multi-grade anti-oil! If it moves, it doesn't."- The Doctor vs a Clockwork droid.
Duct tape?
@@amiablereaper Duct tape is good stuff. Just be sure to get the silver stuff. That's the good stuff 😜
You winding me up
Really enjoy your videos. One of the main reasons i got interested in DnD. You must be a perfect DM with your voice,rich choice of word,expaining and imagination.
Thanks a million! Something must be going right because I'm DMing so much right now.
@@esperthebard Wish i could play. Eh i will in the near future or i hope so at least. When i say near future i mean at least a year. And i have created 17 diferent characters with their own unique backrounds some are just classes with spells i made etc. But even when i play i will go ''easy'' with one i have completely covered and i don't have to make myself balanced spells for him. Anyway, love your context.
Just a point. May be you should credit the artist on the shapeway minies. Most are MZ4250. He does an amazing job for the dnd miniatures community.
The Modrone and its upgrades remind me of the Dodecahedron from Phantom Tollbooth
The magic carpet in Aladdin is just a strong, independent Rug of Smothering breaking the glass ceiling and helping an adventurer in a dungeon.
To use assassins I would personally give the players a chance to see said assassin before they get attacked.
Or at least a chance to see them by giving them some perception oppotunities/worries from nearby townsfolk.
Even a machine I would say would need to stalk its pray before attacking.
Either that or they wouldnt just appear at just the right time for them.
Like how would it know that the pc is currently sleeping alone in the inn? He/she could just as well be out drinking with the rest of the party so ofcourse it would need to observe the pcs for a bit before attacking giving them a chance to notice and prepar... Or at least go "that is what that perception check was for! God damn it! Ofcourse I got a 1!" or something along those lines and not feel as if they were attacked out of the blue.
i'd say give your players the opportunity to learn assassins may be coming for them and prepare for it. let them buy potted schriekers, arcane locked locks for doors. dust of alarm for doors and windows. the party should also be aware when assassins can come. they need to know your location so when travelling trough the wilds you should be safe. what you can even do is try and make your players steal something/assassinate someone. give them ideas on how sneaky people are countered, so then they can steal your ideas and use them against you.
I personally LOVE modrons, but I agree their lore makes them, kind of one-note characters. That being said, I think what's really inspiring with modrons are the stories you can weave with those who no longer obey the clockwork laws of Mechanus. Sure, when one modron goes rogue, they are found and are destroyed, but what happens when, for some reason, many modrons go rogue or even better, gain sentience? What happens when more chaotic beings, such as playable races go to Mechanus and interact with modrons, tipping the delicate balance of perfection?
I find the possibility of chaos in a world of untouchable order incredibly inspiring.
Think that is the issue some people are not getting. They are sentient. Modron are not one note characters either, they have this complex and weird society that seem completely bizarre to outsiders. They are not mindless constructs. Nor are they really constructs all, but living natives of Mechancus, but for some reason they were listed as constructs in 5e. They are sent out to do tasks for reasons long since forgotten in living memory, making them quirky and potentially endless amount stories or RP can be had with them.
I think one of the problems of modrons for most settings is that they have pretty low CR even the pentadrone, but at that level of play in most adventures (at a like more down to earth fantasy medieval) it's kind of unlikely that your party finds modrons especially the higher ones, unless you make it a "planes confluence" in a specific place, or innsome manner you'll have to involve plane hopping in your world. By the time that that becomes more common, characters far surpass the modrons combat prowess. Ofc, this isn't a problem if you don't plan to use them as enemies as tbh they are prrtty neutral and not hostile, but that's still a limitation.
Whenever I use Modrons’s I run them as bureaucrats doing everything exactly and if the players do anything that goes against it they try to fix it above all else and get confused easily
I was trying to make my first campaign, where the players build their own dungeon (all evil party, naturally) and this video is perfect for dungeon guards they can build in their workshop
A hexton, contrary to the hex part of the name, does not actually come after a pentadrone. In 3e the Hexton was a cr 13 creature. I believe there name comes from the fact that their population in Primus is 6^2 or 36. So the idea that a hexton can make a cr 16 construct is not unbelievable.
The hierch Modrons counted down, the lower the number the higher they were, a Septon (7-ton) is lower than a Hexton (6-ton) who is lower than a Quinton (5-ton)
BTW, Warforged not needing to breath is incredibly underrated. You don't have to worry about drowning or suffocating, and your immune to anything that smells bad or any kind of gaseous attack that needs you to breath it in. In fact, your immune to Stink Cloud outright.
I hate to be that guy, just kidding I love being that guy - You used the wrong your.
The eidolon in particular sounds perfect for the mythic monster feature in the rod as it hope from one state to another after it's hit points are reduced.
It's funny how a broken construct is the opposite of a broken construct.
???
@@konstantinemarkelia759 Broken in the traditional sense: useless.
Broken in a game balancing sense: overpowered.
oh man where is the picture of the parade of constructs from? thats a really cool image. the one ewith the guardian giving a flower
Yessss, I just finished binging these yesterday
Hextons are part of the modron ruling class, there’s a pretty big jump in CR when you get to them
Was about to ask what Post metal you have chugging in the back, and there it is, in the description. What a legend.
your multiple faced creature idea, perhaps it's from the movie The Labyrinth
When the ebberon book originaly got released the warforged had that integrated armor but wotc scrapped it later as it was too op. They also used to have subraces btw.
It’s been a while since an upload of yours made it’s way into my recommended. Welcome back Esper.
I've used the Modrons in my game. My players loved their quirkiness. I played them as ironically dumb simplistic robots with intelligence but not a lot. I had a dungeon, and a world shattering event that occurred involving them. (I've also made my players wary of just trying to damage down big boys because of the way Modrons work mechanically... lol)
Thanks so much for making us this one. Saw a few that I had completely over looked myself.
Actually penning a new Sharmanistic Frontline Artificer. Primal energy based spells, and all summons are either elementals or constructs instead of the norm, that sort of thing.
The info in this vid will help to go a long way. Cheers
That 1E DM guide takes me back. Started thinking about how long it's been since I saw one but I gave up after I started feeling old..😉
anyone else notice he only ever seems to sometimes looks back to prior editions, regardless of if any new 5e lore is not conflicting and thus is just as valid as what is in the 5e book
One of my friends character was a warlock and he had an animated armor that was imbued with the soul of his dead brother.
His character could at any point (if within 10ft of his brother) pull an iron man, and the armor covers the warlock. The warlock would then become a fighter, but he couldn't take off the armor until the end of the fight. It made choosing when to become a fighter and also give up spells very interesting.
Esper, the Modrons aren’t reminding you of characters from the original ReBoot, are they?
I created one once.
Rag and Bone Men.
These are medium constructs made out of assorted garbage. They are created to do specific tasks (typically cleaning). They are immune to non-magical weapons, poison, psychic, paralysis, and stun. They have an AC of 18, and 100 HP. They can produce a stinking aura (like stinking cloud but it's permanently centered on them), have a 15 foot cone attack that deals poison damage and produces the Grease spell, and a melee attack that deals 1d8+4 bludgeoning damage.
They are used in my setting as custodians, but can be reprogramed for other jobs, such as guarding, exchanging messages, and attacking enemies on a short rest. They can be programed with speech up to 100 words and have enough sapience to know how to use them. Each word over 100 replaces the first word programed.
These are made by the Dwarf Battle-Smith, Magda Bronzetoe when she became head custodian of Cassandra Walpole's School for Adventurer's and Mercenaries.
The historical context of the name were people who would go around collecting garbage (particularly rags, bones, and scrap metal) and sell them to factories and artisans for repurposing. Here's a short about such people. th-cam.com/video/BcGCGhjHFuU/w-d-xo.html
I love Scarecrows, but as with everything printed by Wizards, I have to spruce them up. Midgard has way better books in general. The Retriever was in the new Drizzt book with terrifying abilities. It is 5e fault for not adding the beams it use to have.
39:42 Chaotic constructs.
Spoilers: They're all Rick and Morty tie-ins
Okay, the Steel Predator and the Cadaver Collector are METAL AS HELL!!! ...No pun intended.
I have to make Modrones, Vehicles, Guns, etc very very steampunk to make them work. If theyre going to be in a medival setting I want them clunky, inorganic, and poorly designed. Superfluous parts, coal burning engines, blank expressionless faces. These make them feel more appropriate, alien, magical, even alchemical. When done well they blend in well enough. But I def agree.
Esper, great new video! I really like watching your tier lists.
In the subject of constructs, I would like to ask: have you heard of Iron Kingdoms Role-Playing Game? I love the game, and hearing some of your complains makes me think you would enjoy it's "Monsternomicon" book, especially. Great creatures with very good lore.
Notes: if there are concrete gold costs, check DC's etc about how it is made it Will Open the door for players to make those constructs and limit the imagination of the DM, it is better to just assume your NPC has whatever time and resources are nessesary
2: how powerful a construct you can make has nothing to do with how powerful you yourself are (or at least that would make sense from a lore perspective ) it just matters how skilled you are. The unnamed hexton was likely comissioned to make the first Steel predators by an higher rank modron before going rouge, and even if he was not he likely worked within the workshops of mechanus wich shurely will contain enough wonderous tools and metals to get the job done, i mean what are even those giant indestructible cogs made of? Probably not metal
i get why he said that some of the constructs didn't have concrete building requirements, but if you have stats to go from 3.5 had rules for building them. combine level with abilities for construction cost, abilities and flavor for construction requirements, and calculate construction time from construction cost. i get that you have to fudge things behind the screen to get things to work right for your game but there are good guidelines for building them established in 3.5 (try looking in building custom magic item sections or golem stat block sidebars to start), you just need to use some logic in how you apply those rules.
@@marthachampagne316 3.5e is exactly why i think giving these stats is a bad idea, they tell you EXACTLY how an player character would make every construct down to "just pick this feat, expend this many experience points and this much gold etc", it gives the player who reads it an expectation and an DM who assumes those limitations are balanced might allow it, when these things were in reality perhaps not that. And they once again limit creativity, what if i wanted an 2nd level Gnome expert making these constructs, an dude with no psi, no spells, who dies if hit even once but who has the right physical talent and secret ritual needed to make an army of golems he plans on using to take over the world. Also not everyone owns 3.5e books, especially not the especially plentiful newcommers to dnd this edition
Now the fun begins
Love how steel predator is basically a xenomorph.
I don't find modrones boring at all. They are so dedicated to their jobs and maintenance. I like the idea of adventurers being sent to this plane and the moment someone moves anything or steals an item the drones swarm on them for disrupting their regular functionality. Or even fighting a monster in this plane and everyone has to try to not hit or destroy any objects lest a swarm of drones nearby attack whoever causes the damage.
I'm trying to be open to them. Throughout creating this ranking, I came to see how they could be utilized well in the right campaign.
@@esperthebard i know and im sorry if i seem testy lol. I get defensive cuz i love these lil guys. They make for a fun side story sometimes. Once i my friends saw a bunch of monodrones flying overhead and followed them. They ended up entering an open area where multiple defective drones were battling it out with the other drones. A wizard had captured some drones and altered them to work for him. It was all quite fun. But to quote you they're only real use outside of their plane is a dysfunction with them. They really can't stand as anything else so i do agree woth your ranking
Also i suppose i use a lot of homebrew as well. Going off of the monster manual they are far to basic.
I love scarecrows, I wish that they were a playable race. Speaking of wishing about playable races, and constructs, what about gargoyles? I noticed that you didn't name them.
Gargoyles are elementals, not constructs
@@حَسن-م3ه9ظThey can be either or
Gotta say I completely agree about using random tables, my first game we had a party member with wild magic surge. And our DM found every excuse he could to force the sorcerer to roll a d100 on the wild magic table. It made everything so much fun
New sub cause I miss my old days of D & D! Love this monster series you do. Been binge watching for a while now. Keep up the great work!
Try 1000 sided one and learn more about the whole thing. When one dies, they repulate instantly. Even the god. They all get lvl ups
A cool idea for the helmed horror could be the villain having them being immune to aoe spells he uses so they get into melee with the party to distract them and are then immune to the spells he casts, so his minions remain unscathed by his arcane might
My players learned a sort of obvious lesson one session. I had a combat in progress of some Drow using their Drow pseudo-adamantine weapons against a small group of clockwork constructs. The players knew they couldn't hurt the clockworks but could hurt the Drow so they immediately attacked and killed the Drow, only to be ripped to pieces by the clockworks. I don't know if they were expecting the clockworks to leave them alone because they helped them, or if they assumed I would never throw such dangerous mobs at them at their level, ergo, there must be a deus ex machina solution that would reveal itself after they dispatched the Drow. There wasn't. The ideal way to resolve that would be to let the Drow kill the clockworks, with only 1 wounded Drow surviving, (I already resolved the combat prior to the session to determine this) then they could easily kill that Drow and get all that loot for very little effort. But they jumped in swinging and asked questions later, after they all died. I often put those sort of encounters in my campaigns that punished "I attack it what is it?" play styles and it nearly always caused a party wipe or at least a few deaths. Lots of Leeroy Jenkins out there.
Who would win 1 terraaque or a couple clay golem bois that stop healing
one clay golem will technically beat a terrasque. the terrasques attacks deal nonmagical damage and acid, the clay golem is immune to every some of damage the terrasque has
*tarrasque
When I need to find out how much a Construct would cost to build, I look up Plane Shift: Kaladesh and look at the suggested prices near the end of the article. It organizes the various CRs of creatures into various item rarities. That gives me something to base off of on the spot when I need it
I don't think there should be a "correct" way o saying a race or monster's name. All of the different ways to pronounce should be used as a variation from character to character.
steel predator looks like a xenomorph, also I had a flesh golem adventurer NPC named Cody in my last campaign.
I was thinking the same thing.
I know I'm a bit behind on this, but I just found the video.
In response to your questions about the Shield Guardian, it's usually made as something to directly protect the bearer of the amulet - and is often sold to others as a way to 'imprint a golem' onto someone else without a lot of complicated worries about someone accidentally commanding the Stone Golem they just bought to kill them or something. It's also often a way for a wizard to provide a form of protection that can be passed down the family line for generations, as that Regen factor makes them extremely unlikely to just break down even if unneeded for extreme periods of time. Plus, it's easy enough to just slap some further enchantments onto the amulet to make the thing unwearable by anyone who doesn't have the right qualifications, like a certain alignment or a particular heritage, or what have you. The big attraction of them is that the amulet bypasses the fear of misaddressing the Guardian, because the Amulet lets them send their intentions, not just the by-the-word statements they make, so there's no chance of a novice having a slip of the tongue and getting someone else hurt or killed.
For Scarecrows' alignment, they are usually made by specifically binding a Demon to them, and on top of that, being patient and not pissing off the people who can unmake you is reasonable, and isn't necessarily grounds to remove the chaotic alignment; especially since most Scarecrows are, well, at least mostly sapient.
As for the Hellfire Engine's soul entrapping ability, I'd imagine it's meant as a threat to follow through on bargains - even the most devout of Lawful Goods will be dragged to the Infernal Pit and have their soul defiled if they've gotten in the way of some greater Archdevil ensuring the contract they wrote up gets followed through on.
I long for the day to use an eidelon, i can see them talking in the spirit form with the party, warning them not to tread further and some dialogue could follow.
I think that tridrone thing was from neverending story 2, there's a character with many faces who flips through them for different personalities.
it looks like one of those little pink rubber toys called muscles. they were like tiny monster wrestlers. it could be from the transformers cartoon movie. they had some robots like that on their homeworld.
Constructs? Good. Im running a campaign that will be using a lot of constructs at a point
Esper do you think tridrones could be reminding you of the “masters” from the Tripods series of books? They do come off looking a bit like them, from what I remember...
It's not them, thanks though!
@@esperthebard was it a little rubber toy like the muscles?
0:33 I will not lie good bard. That scene gave me nightmares as a little kid when I watched it on DvD.
Hopefully nightmares that fueled some adventures as well ...
@@esperthebard Perhaps, my friend. Just perhaps.
Ideas for helmed horror spell immunities:
-force cage
- timestop
- wall of fire
Enemy arch mage casts time stop. His entourage of helmed horrors go ham on the party. Or simply shackle and grapple them?
Fun fact: The Retreiver was originally the exact opposite. A machine created by demons to retrieve escaped souls, items, or other things from the Material Plane. It made more sense that way.
The Helmed Horror, one of my most favorite monsters ever!
I have had many interesting character ideas involving warforged over the years. Including a warforged with abnormal proportions and size, who seemed like a completely different creature what with his size and long gangly arms and legs, but his skill was perception, and his tool was a lantern specifically. never used him, but he was meant as a sentry unit, meant to act as a living look out tower.
Nice work Eper! Maybe the Tridrone trigger me to, it reminds me on a transformers animatet series from the erly 90 the story changegd and the transformer originstory was expanded by a cyborg race named Quintessons they loocks like robotic octopuss with 5 faces and every one represense an extreme from of an agliment and switches randomly between. they occur as former slavemasters and creators of the transformers. they are realy cool badguys all with 5 different persons in a fat head fittet with have a dozend cybertentacle, give that creaturs an ancient and bizare look. GG from germany! xD
My long time favorite construct is the Elder Eidolon featured in Lords of Madness, The Book of Aberrations. Solid B tier.
Phased construction, self regeneration, and dang. I can't remember other specific details. Been a long time.
This has certainly given me some ideas though.
Warforged are for sure my favorite race, next would be tieflings
Oh mood.
I liked the concept of the stone cursed, so I changed their lore in my homebrew game. They're no longer constructs, but elementals. Long ago, some humans tried to do something stupid (like usual). They stole from a powerful Dao, and were cursed for it. So when they claw at someone, the curse tries to take over the victim. If they fail, and they're a thief, they are instantly turned into a stone cursed. However, if they're not one, the curse does not take hold, and the petrification ends after 24 hours.
I also added a mechanic that someone with Dao blood (and of course Dao themseleves) can attempt to control them. A player in my game is a stone genasi, and attempted to control them, after rolling a history check. I made it pretty hard to do, but against all odds, he rolled what he needed on a d100, twice. And a stone cursed minotaur was now under his control.
An honorable mention for constructs id like to place in at least C if not B tier is the Vampiric Jade Statue from Ghosts of Saltmarsh. This low grade legendary statue features a three part multiattack including a bite that inflicts a curse upon those unlucky enough to to suffer it. For the duration, the statue will had advantage on all attacks against the cursed target, and one of its legendary actions invoked an AoE of necrotic damage against all those who have the curse upon them, as well as a bite as a legendary action to try to spread this curse as rapidly as possible. A very fun boss fight style creature that, presuming you’re luckier than I, can make for an interesting challenge for your party to contest with
Inevitables are some of my favorite constructs. And I can't get over how dumb modrons look. I always imagined them as eldritch mechanical people, like lesser inevitables, not....mecha pixar bees. It's a crime that inevitables have been so...watered down in 5e. The inevitables used to be inevitable concepts, like death in the Marut's case. Now it's...interplanar robocop?
Hear, hear! That's what I'm talking about man!
I have an idea: A three faced version of mother brain from captain nintendo
First off, good video. It's really nice to have a list like this.
Second, (and this might fall under the Warforged) but what about the Warforged Colossus and Titan found in Eberron rising from the Last War?
Just wondering where they might fall on the ranking list
Thank you! I'm planning to make videos about individual setting books later. For now just the actual bestiaries.
@@esperthebard Ah, that makes sense.
Wish you good luck on the work ahead.