How Do Golems Work?

[Sleep-Walker]

Hello,

I had a situation in a recent game where we were in a throne room and the defender statues were designed to detect evil characters and non-dwarves to kill them. I am playing a non-evil, gnome rogue. I didn't want to kill the statues [they were carved as effigies of ancestor heroes] so I wanted the golems to ignore me or even better to stop attacking everyone. I went defensive, went into the golems square past their reach and rolled a 20 on my UMD. Now I am a 12th level rogue with a decent Charisma so the check was around the 38 mark, all I was trying to do was fool the magical item into thinking I was a dwarf so it wouldn't attack me.

Now I really wanted it to work. Mainly because I was into avoiding combat at that moment and the DM obviously thought the idea was cool but said it couldn't work. His main problem was precedent as I am already a slicer and dicer and giving me a way around golems was too dangerous. [Which I agree with]

I was wondering whether other people think it should work RAI/RAW?

Whether you would have allowed it?

My biggest thing is that a grudgehammer for example won't work for evil non-dwarves, but I can fool that and wield it. I can even fool a sentient magical item. Why can't I fool the golem's sensors??? The bestiary says the golem is mindless which means it is basically a magical item?

[Dosgamer]

Trying to use UMD to fool a golem's senses? Brilliant! I applaud you.

Would I let it fly? No. Why? Golems (or constructs in general) aren't magic items. Constructs do have visual senses, though, so perhaps a disguise roll would be in order? Not sure how they would know what alignment everyone was. Perhaps a special addition during creation?

I do wonder how you knew what exactly caused the golem defenders to animate and attack you, though (in order to emulate those qualities)? Was that metagaming or was it character knowledge? Just curious is all.

[hgsolo]

Interesting idea, but I wouldn't go for that as a DM either. As Dosgamer said, they aren't magic items. If they have some sort of detect magic (detect evil and some sort of detect dwarves) built into them, there are other ways to fool them. If it is purely visual, then disguise gets you around the dwarf requirement, and there is always undetectable alignment (1st or 2nd level spell, I forget) to get around someone seeing you are evil (or good or lawful or chaotic).

[TombRobber]

Sleep-Walker wrote:

I was wondering whether other people think it should work RAI/RAW?

Whether you would have allowed it?

My biggest thing is that a grudgehammer for example won't work for evil non-dwarves, but I can fool that and wield it. I can even fool a sentient magical item. Why can't I fool the golem's sensors??? The bestiary says the golem is mindless which means it is basically a magical item?

I think your DM made the right call. UMD allows you to emulate the features necessary to use a magic item. Even if a golem can be treated as a magic item, it wasn't an item in your possession, and you weren't trying to use it, so it's outside the scope of what can be done with UMD.

[Sleep-Walker]

First of all, note that I am debating not arguing. I appreciate your responses.

Dosgamer wrote:

I do wonder how you knew what exactly caused the golem defenders to animate and attack you, though (in order to emulate those qualities)? Was that metagaming or was it character knowledge? Just curious is all.

One of the other characters is a dwarven princess. She rolled her Knowledge History to know about the golems. She told the party. I reacted accordingly.

Would I let it fly? In this specific circumstance sure, but only because the Golem had attack loopholes written in. Normally definitely not.

Golems do not have any sentience. Therefore their only senses come from spells which have been imbued into their object form.

UMD isn't UMI [use magical item] it is use magic device and I think you could [with effort] shoe-horn constructs into that window.

[Sleep-Walker]

Followup question:

Can you Use Magic Device to turn off an unattended Magical item?

[Liz Courts]

Golems work on caffeine and/or alcohol. At least the varieties around here do. :)

[skrahen]

MAGNETS!