Animated armors, weapons, and so on are really, really cool. Some of the cooler high magic enemies in my opinion. A powerful person in a suit of armor, and you think you have them bested, only to pop their helmet off and find nothing… and then they get up to continue fighting you as if nothing had happened. As such, this is a player race adaptation, to try and see animated armors and whatnot as a character.

Animated

While undead are a potential sight among adventurers, perhaps one of the most rare to even see is an animated, a mass of objects, usually a suit of armor or a set of swords, animated by magic to serve their creator. Animated uniquely possess a free will, though how such creations gain sentience is unknown - most scholars observing them simply cite it as a strange magical phenomenon, not unlike what creates a marked lineage or spawns a Sorcerer. Unlike their nonsentient cousins, animated attempt to maintain a more humanoid form, with armors obviously having the easiest time, while a weapon animated may be formed from a large collective of animated weaponry, such as multiple flying daggers or animated knives coming together into a singular, unified hive mind.

Animated Traits

As an animated, you have the following traits.

Ability Score Increase. Choose one of: (a) Choose any +2; choose any other +1 (b) Choose three different +1

Age. As the animated are created via magic, akin to an undead, their lifespan is generally unknown, and usually only end when the items making up an animated are completely and utterly destroyed or completely dispelled.

Creature Type. You are a Construct. However, you can be healed normally, even by spells or effects that normally wouldn’t heal constructs. Size. As animated are all types of animated objects, they vary greatly in size. You are either Small or Medium (your choice).

Speed. Your walking speed is 30 feet, and you can hover up to 5 feet off the ground, potentially allowing you to ignore obstructions like difficult terrain on the ground, such as the area of an entangle.

Magic Sight. You have blindsight out to 90 feet, but are blind beyond this radius. When you reach 10th level, this increases to 120 feet.

If you first enter or start your turn in an area that would dispel magic, such as an antimagic field, your blindsight is reduced to 30 feet (40 if you are at or above 10th level).

Antimagic Susceptibility. You are far more affected by effects that dispel magic. Whenever you would be affected by an effect that would dispel magic, such as a dispel magic (assuming you are targeted with the intent to dispel the magic animating you rather than a spell or some other effect), your movement speed is halved until the end of your next turn. Persisting antimagic effects (such as the aforementioned antimagic field) will continuously apply this effect until you finally leave its area. This trait cannot be replaced or swapped out using custom lineage

Breakdown. Thanks to being made out of multiple objects, you can break down your body into parts, allowing you to squeeze through spaces as narrow as 6 inches wide (if you are Medium) or 4 inches wide (if you are Small). While you are squeezing, you do not suffer disadvantage on attacks, nor do attacks have advantage against you.

Constructed Resilience. Due to being a magically created construct, you have the following benefits:

• You are immune to poison damage and being poisoned.
• You are immune to disease.
• You don’t need to eat, drink, or breathe.
• You don’t need to sleep and don’t suffer the effects of exhaustion due to lack of rest, and magic can’t put you to sleep.
• When you are not wearing armor, your AC naturally equals 14 + your Constitution modifier. You may wield a shield and still gain these benefits.

Sentry’s Rest. When you take a long rest, you must spend at least six hours in an inactive, motionless state, rather than sleeping. In this state, you appear inert, but it doesn’t render you unconscious, and you can see and hear as normal.

False Appearance. As an action, you can temporarily suppress the magic holding your body together. Youre movement speed is reduced to 0 and cannot be increased, and you cannot attack, cast spells, or take any other actions beyond a bonus action to exit this state. While in this state, you are completely indistinguishable from a pile or set of whatever you are animated from - for example, a dagger animated would be indistinguishable from a normal pile of daggers while in this state.

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… Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and one other language that you and your DM agree is appropriate for your character. However, you cannot speak if your Antimagic Susceptibility trait is in effect.

Subtypes. Three subtypes of animated currently exist: armors, fliers, and statue animated. Feel free to choose one of them, or opt for none at all.

Armor

Armor animated are by far the most common of the types of animated, and are exactly as their name implies: A magically animated set of armor. Armors have the easiest time passing as a humanoid, provided they don’t “take off” their armor, and are well-rounded, being both sturdy and strong.

Hulking Build. You cannot be forcefully moved or knocked prone against your will, and when you make a melee weapon attack using Strength, you may double your Strength score for the damage roll.

Additionally, you count as one size larger when determining your carrying capacity and the weight you can push, drag, or lift.

Ripper. Once per turn when, make and unarmed strikes or weapon, you deal additional damage equal to your proficiency bonus.

Tough. Your maximum hit points increases by 3. Each time you gain a level, your hit point maximum further increases by 2.

Armored Guardian. As a bonus action, you can disassemble your “body” to guard others, granting up to 3 creatures of your choice within 10 feet of you a +2 bonus to their AC. However, your movement speed is reduced to 0, and this AC bonus only applies while those creatures are within 10 feet of you.

You can exit this state as an action or bonus action, causing the creatures chosen to lose their bonus AC, but allowing you to move normally once again.

Flier

A “flier” refers to any kind of animated formed from a collective mass of animated weapons, having less of a shape than any of the other types of animated. These types of animated tend to have the hardest time passing off as humanoid, since there’s only so much you can do to make a large flying mass of knives, blades, arrows, etc. that is in a vaguely humanoid shape appear like, say, a dwarf or elf.

Despite all of this, fliers have their own benefits - their more swarm-y nature means that they have a far better time at moving around, and are generally faster, more agile, and can disperse far more easily.

Advanced Breakdown. Your Breakdown trait improves, allowing you to now squeeze through spaces as narrow as 4 inches wide (if you are Medium) or 1 inch wide (if you are Small).

As a bonus action, you can alter your size, shrinking to the size of a Small creature or growing back to the size of a Medium one, provided you chose Medium for your size. If you chose Small for your size, you instead shrink to the size of a Tiny creature or grow back to the size of a small one. Your equipment does not shrink with you (unless magical), but you may still continue to use said equipment without issue.

Flowing Movements. Your movement speed increases by 10 feet, and attacks of opportunity against you have a -4 penalty to their attack rolls. You may take the Dash action as a bonus action.

Reflecting Body. As your body is made up of numerous weapon, you can easily retaliate. As a reaction when you take damage, you can divide the damage taken between you and the attacker - you take half the original daamge, while the attacker takes the other half.

Piercing Blades. Whenever you make a weapon attack or unarmed strike, you can replace the attack by a launched blade or similar weapon from your body. Make a ranged weapon attack against a creature within 90 feet of you, which does not suffer disadvantage if your target is within 5 feet of you. On hit, the blade deals 1d10 + your Dexterity modifier magical piercing damage.

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Statue

Statues are simple, and very true to their name: Magically animated statues. Nothing more than that. While they have a harder time passing off as a humanoid than an armor animated, they usually do fine, and are often seen as very helpful to any sort of party, mainly due to their incredibly high endurance and resilience. If the armor is well-rounded, and the flier the attacker, then the statue is the defender.

Statue’s Stature. You are incredibly durable, far more than other animated: While you are not wearing armor, you have a +2 bonus to your AC. You may wield a shield and still gain this benefit.

Stone’s Brace. As a reaction when you are targeted by an attack that deals bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing damage, you can grant yourself resistance to nonmagical bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage until the start of your next turn.

You can use this trait a number of times equal to your Constitution modifier (minimum of once), and you regain all expended uses upon finishing a short or long rest.

Immovable. You cannot be forcefully moved or knocked prone against your will.

Juggernaut. You have advantage on saving throws against being charmed, frightened, paralyzed, or stunned. Once per encounter when you would be inflicted with one of these conditions, you can choose to instead not be affected.

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Miscellaneous

A variety of feats and items for use with the game as a whole, though mainly tailored for animated use. :)

Disjoint - Feat

Prerequisite: Animated

Your Breakdown trait gains a variety of improvements:

• You can now squeeze through spaces as narrow as 4 inches wide (if you are Medium) or 1 inch wide (if you are Small). If you are a flier animated, this instead becomes 2 inches wide (if you are Medium) or 1/2 inches wide (if you are small).
• While you are squeezing via your Breakdown trait, attacks against you have a -2 penalty to hit.
• Your reach with melee weapons and unarmed strikes increases by 5 feet.

Durable Armor - Feat

Prerequisite: 5th level, animated (armor)

As an animated armor, you gain various general improvements.

• Your Hulking Build trait now also allows you to double your Strength score for the attack roll with a melee weapon.
• Your Ripper trait now also adds a +2 bonus to your damage roll.
• Your Tough trait now increases your hit point maximum by 3 each time you gain a level instead of 2.
• The bonus AC from your Armored Guardian trait increases to +3.

Sting Like A Bee - Feat

Prerequisite: Animated (flier)

You can bite back at foes who strike at you.

• Your Reflecting Body trait also further halves the damage you take from the provoking attack. This is calculated after the damage has already been dealt back to the attacker.
• The damage dice of your Piercing Blades trait increases to 1d12.

Statue’s Brace - Feat

Prerequisite: 8th level, animated (statue)

You may use your Stone’s Brace trait for any damaging effect of any damage type, granting you resistance to the provoking damage type until the start of your next turn.

Antimage’s Pendant

Wondorous item, rare (requires attunement by an animated)

Major Tier

While an animated is attuned to this pendant, it does not suffer any drawbacks from its Antimagic Susceptibility Trait, and its Magic Sight trait is also not reduced as a result of areas that would dispel magic.

The pendant itself is immune to the effects of antimagic field and other effects that would dispel magic.

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