Living Mannequin (3.5e Monster)

''It's a jointed wooden doll the size of a man. It doesn't have any facial features, but does possess fine articulation and fingers. Robes are draped over its frozen form.''

Living mannequins are animated humanoid dolls made as simple and cheap servitors for aspiring mages. While not terribly strong, able, or durable living mannequins prove to be a good stand in for mundane or dangerous work normally performed by commoners.

Living mannequins are carved from wood with an iron wire skeleton inside. They are man sized, no more than 6 ft tall, and weigh 40 lbs. They usually come in "male" and "female" models. Small living mannequins also exist. These living mannequins reduce their speed by 10 feet and gain -2 Strength and +2 Dexterity. Rumors continue to spread that over a long time living mannequins obtain personality quirks, a voice, or even intelligence and charisma as a human, but such tales are simply nonsense. If one did exist, it would likely have an LA of +1.

Combat
A living mannequin does not typically engage in combat unless attacked, or ordered to. As warriors they are underwhelming, being proficient in nothing more than their slam attack and simple weapons, and do so devoid of tactics. However their hit points and hardness make them more hardy than a commoner, and clever users have employed Mimicry to give them "tactics", ablit a pre-programmed set of tactics. Such "combat mannequins" keep to a strict program such as "charge, disarm, attack, trip, attack, repeat".

Weapons that are effective against trees, such as many axes and fire, completely ignore the living mannequin's hardness.

Mimicry : While a living mannequin is mindless and can only understand simple commands like most constructs, the living mannequin can be commanded to "watch and mimic". The living mannequin will proceed to watch a creature ordered for up to 10 minutes. After it is done watching it can be commanded to mimic, and it will repeat the actions of the watched creature whenever the situation calls for it using the skill of the creature it is mimicking and allowing it to use even trained only skills. For example, it can watch a clockmaker making a clock and all the steps therein, and then copy said actions indefinately. Because it is not actually aware of what it is doing, once it runs out of clock parts or if the clock parts are too far misplaced, it will continue to run through the motions but not have the tools to complete the task. It is only capable of small adjustments to the motions, such as reaching a few inches to the right for a part, or making up to a single move action to the nearest opponent to complete its disarm-attack-trip routine.

When mimicking a skill check it rolls its skill check once, and uses that result until commanded to stop. It can only hold one mimicry at a time.

Pose : A living mannequin gets a +20 on Disguise checks to appear as an inanimate mannequin. They can retain their poses indefinately.

Construction
A living mannequin’s body is carved from 40 pounds of wood with and iron wires. The construct costs 3000 gold pieces to create, which includes 1000 gp for the body. Assembling the body requires a successful Craft (woodworking) check (DC 20).

Additional HD may be added for 1000g and 80xp per HD.

CL 4th; Craft Construct, unseen servant'', caster must be at least 4th level; Price 3,000 gp; Cost 2,000 gp + 80 XP.