What's the purpose of PCs making Intelligent Items ?

[JiCi]

For some reasons, I always thought that Intelligent Items should be reserved as special loot because you're essentially adding an NPC to the party whether they come by one.

But here's something I don't quite grasp: why would a PC make an Intelligent Item ?
- to feel less lonely and have someone to talk to ?
- to have slightly new special abilities ? (Any special power from an Intelligent Item can be reproduced on a standard item.)
- to abuse an item's special purpose power ? (A dragonslayer creates an Intelligent dragon-slaying weapon that fires a spell at will.)

What's the reason, or your reason, to create an Intelligent Item ?

[Muja]

In my home game I have a puppeteer (brood master with doll/puppet eidolons) who has an intelligent item. She made a Handy Haversack that can change shape (doll/puppet) and can move on it's own. Her doll/puppet is also has some knowledge ranks so it will pull out scrolls that will help in combat for me on its own. It also can cast Telekinetic Charge (attaches strings to an ally and moves them) three times per day.

This item is one of my characters finest creations and fits the overall theme of my character. It also gives her someone to talk to outside of the party as she isn't the most social of people. It's not that she is socially awkward but rather that she wants to focus on her work to create the master puppet/doll!

Edit: Here she is http://paizo.com/forums/dmtz5ers?The-Master-of-Threads-Alice-Margatroid#1

[DreamAtelier]

One party I played in made intelligent items out of any party member who fell in combat. The personality was that of the fallen PC (played by the former player), and the special purpose and special purpose powers were always tied to things that PC had left 'unfinished'.

They ended up doing that because they'd all sworn an oath that prevented their souls from ever resting before the BBEG of the campaign was destroyed permanently. What they hadn't thought about when making the oath was that the BBEG was a necromancer, and their souls not being able to rest meant they became ghosts, which he could easily grab and compel/torment after their creation; this was particularly a risk if he got his hands on a part of the bodies of the fallen. Because of that, they had taken to cremating themselves, but that had the side effect of making it so that all but the most potent resurrection spells wouldn't work for them.

As there was no going back on the oath, the group crafters realized they could bind the ghosts into magic items, granting the item greater powers and protecting the souls of their fallen comrades from being scooped up by the necromancer or one of his minions. It made for some pretty cool scenes, since the pyre was also the forging fire they would use, and the continuity it gave the group in game was a pleasant side effect. Even when the original group that swore the oath all fell, the newcomers had a legitimate reason to continue the original mission and recruit new members (the weapons would force them to).

It also let the party surrender with a lot more comfort when out numbered, because the weapons would use their ego scores to dominate minions and break them out. In the final battle of the game, they used the highest ego weapons and a bunch of minions that had failed their contest of wills with them as needed back up forces to kill the necromancer.

That represents the only time I've been part of a group of PCs that ever deliberately made an intelligent item. A few times I've seen crafters make cursed intelligent items because of failed rolls and the DM feeling it would make things interesting.

[Ashiel]

JiCi wrote:

For some reasons, I always thought that Intelligent Items should be reserved as special loot because you're essentially adding an NPC to the party whether they come by one.

But here's something I don't quite grasp: why would a PC make an Intelligent Item ?
- to feel less lonely and have someone to talk to ?
- to have slightly new special abilities ? (Any special power from an Intelligent Item can be reproduced on a standard item.)
- to abuse an item's special purpose power ? (A dragonslayer creates an Intelligent dragon-slaying weapon that fires a spell at will.)

What's the reason, or your reason, to create an Intelligent Item ?

Because sentient items are cool and because sentient items are useful. Having magic items that share a will as you do has obvious uses. For example, the Lich Sauron from Lord of the Rings made his Ring phylactery Intelligent. Why? Because it always tries to get back to him. It makes tests of Ego to command mortals to do Sauron's will. Halflings having bonuses to saving throws (which were more impressive in 1E and 2E, where halflings got Con/3 as a bonus to all saves) made them exceptionally resistant (and yes, I realize LotR is not based on D&D, but I'm giving a parallel for purposes of example).

There's also the roleplaying aspect. Having a sentient weapon, armor, trinket, and so forth is pretty cool. It's like having a cohort, and yes it is tons of fun to have them interject during conversations or to come up with little personalities for them. Some people can enjoy this sort of thing because of talking familiers, psicrystals, and so forth, but sentient items offer a good bit of fun without actually bringing in a whole new character. The statistics you have to keep track of on a sentient item are pretty minimal. HP, Hardness, Ego, Int, Wis, Cha, everything else is as whatever the magic item is. It's especially cool for a wizard's bonded object (which any wizard can make into an Intelligent item even without the requisite feat).

Finally, Intelligent items are just plain useful. Since they can activate their own abilities in your stead, they are pretty much required to chain-buff in a timely manner, which can be important at high levels where a warrior spending a round drinking a potion means he's already a dead man. For example, if you have a belt that will cast enlarge person on you, cloak that casts fly on you, and armor that casts death ward on you, and boots that use freedom of movement on you, all during your turn as their own actions, you can focus on more prudent things like whacking demons with your sword. Really quite useful.

Finally, any permanent magical item can be made Intelligent. Since golems are magical items made with an item creation feat, you could create a sentient golem that has both intelligence and an Ego score. In essence, a free-willed (or mostly) golem or other construct. That might be particularly useful when you need a guardian who can think, reason, or be a companion to someone. A wizard who creates a shield guardian golem who takes care of his daughter and functions as both a nanny and friend is very appealing.

Quote:

What's the reason, or your reason, to create an Intelligent Item?

The reason my own characters make Intelligent items are a combination of the above reasons. Creating an intelligent item makes the item more personal (at least to me), and lets you create a mini persona. Having played Tales of Destiny I also have a fondness for intelligent magic items (though the D&D intelligent items don't gain levels, at least without GM permission). Then of course there's the benefits of being able to activate their own powers during your turn (obvious reason). Finally, I kinda dig the idea of having a full set of intelligent goodies (head, armor, body, waist, hands, feet, necklace, bracers, gloves, etc) who all are connected to you.

[Alitan]

Ashiel,

I like you, generally; seeing your name on a thread I haven't read is one of the ways I find new threads to read.

But, however, comma...

Sauron isn't a lich, and the One Ring is not a phylactry.

Sauron is a fallen spirit (much closer to an outsider than anything undead) and his Ring is an artifact. A major one. Semi-sentient, granted. But not a phylactry.

The King of the Nazgul, the former lord of Angmar -- HE's a lich, you betcha (though with an odd, incorporeal template thrown on him) and HIS ring (of the 'nine rings for mortal men') FUNCTIONS AS a phylactry. Though even the nazgul/lich analogy is stretching things. 'Lich'='undead caster" allows a general cachet for the chief ringwraith to be so dubbed, however dubiously.

But Sauron isn't undead.

[JiCi]

Alitan wrote:

Ashiel,

I like you, generally; seeing your name on a thread I haven't read is one of the ways I find new threads to read.

But, however, comma...

Sauron isn't a lich, and the One Ring is not a phylactry.

Sauron is a fallen spirit (much closer to an outsider than anything undead) and his Ring is an artifact. A major one. Semi-sentient, granted. But not a phylactry.

The King of the Nazgul, the former lord of Angmar -- HE's a lich, you betcha (though with an odd, incorporeal template thrown on him) and HIS ring (of the 'nine rings for mortal men') FUNCTIONS AS a phylactry. Though even the nazgul/lich analogy is stretching things. 'Lich'='undead caster" allows a general cachet for the chief ringwraith to be so dubbed, however dubiously.

But Sauron isn't undead.

Huh... I think he, or she (??), was suggesting an alternate way to use Intelligent Items using Lord of the Rings as an example.

[Ashiel]

JiCi wrote:

Alitan wrote:

Ashiel,

I like you, generally; seeing your name on a thread I haven't read is one of the ways I find new threads to read.

But, however, comma...

Sauron isn't a lich, and the One Ring is not a phylactry.

Sauron is a fallen spirit (much closer to an outsider than anything undead) and his Ring is an artifact. A major one. Semi-sentient, granted. But not a phylactry.

The King of the Nazgul, the former lord of Angmar -- HE's a lich, you betcha (though with an odd, incorporeal template thrown on him) and HIS ring (of the 'nine rings for mortal men') FUNCTIONS AS a phylactry. Though even the nazgul/lich analogy is stretching things. 'Lich'='undead caster" allows a general cachet for the chief ringwraith to be so dubbed, however dubiously.

But Sauron isn't undead.

Huh... I think he, or she (??), was suggesting an alternate way to use Intelligent Items using Lord of the Rings as an example.

That is correct. I was just drawing an example. Obviously not everything is going to match up 100% since Lord of the Rings was not based on D&D (quite the opposite, really).

However, if you look at what Sauron is capable of doing, a lot of it seriously matches the idea of a cleric lich. For example...

In the Hobbit, he is described as "The Necromancer" during a conversation between Bilbo and I think Gandalf (it's been a while since I read it), and his lands noted as being extraordinarily dangerous. In D&D, clerics have always been the best Necromancers.

In the LotR film, Sauron is depicted as being twice the size of the humans in the film, wearing head to toe plate armor, swinging around a wicked giant mace. All of which fits a cleric of about 11th level.

Incidentally, a cleric of that caliber would have the capability of both becoming a lich, and forging a magic ring.

In D&D terms, the ring isn't that impressive in terms of being an artifact. Destroying a magical phylactery would be pretty darn hard in a Lord of the Rings setting. It would be difficult to find anyone or anything man-made that could overcome its hardness alone. What we actually see the ring do is be sentient, turn people invisible, have a few other mild magical abilities.

Sauron can basically be summed up as an 11th level lich-cleric who worships himself/ideal (fills the spiritual entity closer to an outsider bit); at least insofar as his capabilities and depictions in the Hobbit and the Film Trilogy are concerned.

[Jackissocool]

And the ring is definitely a sort of phylactery. When he died it brought him back to life. There's no reason an outsider (which he clearly was) couldn't also become a lich.

[Alitan]

First, let me say I'm now arguing because the argument needs to be made, in my opinion: the Ring is more than an 'intelligent magic item,' and Sauron is FAR more than a lich.

@Jisc: He didn't DIE. Read your source material, d@mmit...

@Ashiel: I am one of the book purists who loathe the film, btw, so what he looked like in it is (to me) irrelevant...
/rant

We don't see the Ring being sentient, actually; the Wise discuss its pervasive influence over its wearers, but there isn't actually anything described in the work which can be ruled sentience. Nitpicking.

And Sauron's scrying capacity alone is far higher than any mere 11th level cleric can swing.

And 9 Nazgul servants are WAY more than 40 HD, so he outstrips 20th level (if you're trying to rank him as a cleric).

As far as the durability of phylactries... I'm pretty sure dragon-fire would melt one, which not even Ancalagon the Black could do to the Ring. I would imagine any blade of Westernesse, or elf-wrought blades, could defeat a phylactry's hardness. The Ring may be undone by a SINGLE FIRE, the one in which it was forged: rather classic artifact disposal problem.

The Ring has the ability to subvert anyone who so much as sees it, let alone wears it, causing them to desire it above all other things. Even Galadriel and Gandalf are tempted by it, Isildur and Boromir are completely overthrown by it; Saruman never laid eyes on it yet turned from the path of wisdom to betray all Middle-Earth in the hunt for it.

>sigh<

Sting, Bilbo's knife, is a sterling example of an intelligent magic item that communicates via empathy and can detect goblinoids...

But the Ring is more, and less, than an intelligent magic item: more, because it really, truly is a major artifact. Less, because its only sentience is an echo of its maker's mind. And Sauron, if he must be categorized in D&D/PF terms, is an entity on the order of a fallen Solar, twisted by his own greed and arrogance into a fiend, fled from heaven and bound into Middle-Earth (much to the dismay of the neighbors.

In my opinion, natch.

[Alitan]

PS: Ashiel, all your points about why one would make intelligent items in PF are absolutely spot-on, btw.

:)

[Ashiel]

Alitan wrote:

PS: Ashiel, all your points about why one would make intelligent items in PF are absolutely spot-on, btw.

:)

Much thanks. Also, sorry if I offended regarding the book stuff. I was just going off my source material. I've only read the Hobbit (I bought a collection that included the Hobbit + LotR but the whole collection vanished mysteriously before I got to read LotR) and seen the films (loved the films, but that's probably 'cause I wasn't attached to original material; as in a similar vein I think Spiderman 3 needs to burn in the 9th layer).

Truthfully, I find the intelligent item constructs to be the most amusing idea most of all. I may make an intelligent construct using the magic item creation rules to use as an NPC in the near future. I'll just need a nice chassis to put it on. Giving it the ability to shapechange into a humanoid (alter self) could make for fun times. Like an android of some sort.

[Humphrey Boggard]

Alitan wrote:

First, let me say I'm now arguing because the argument needs to be made, in my opinion: the Ring is more than an 'intelligent magic item,' and Sauron is FAR more than a lich.

the rest of what he said:

@Jisc: He didn't DIE. Read your source material, d@mmit...

@Ashiel: I am one of the book purists who loathe the film, btw, so what he looked like in it is (to me) irrelevant...
/rant

We don't see the Ring being sentient, actually; the Wise discuss its pervasive influence over its wearers, but there isn't actually anything described in the work which can be ruled sentience. Nitpicking.

And Sauron's scrying capacity alone is far higher than any mere 11th level cleric can swing.

And 9 Nazgul servants are WAY more than 40 HD, so he outstrips 20th level (if you're trying to rank him as a cleric).

As far as the durability of phylactries... I'm pretty sure dragon-fire would melt one, which not even Ancalagon the Black could do to the Ring. I would imagine any blade of Westernesse, or elf-wrought blades, could defeat a phylactry's hardness. The Ring may be undone by a SINGLE FIRE, the one in which it was forged: rather classic artifact disposal problem.

The Ring has the ability to subvert anyone who so much as sees it, let alone wears it, causing them to desire it above all other things. Even Galadriel and Gandalf are tempted by it, Isildur and Boromir are completely overthrown by it; Saruman never laid eyes on it yet turned from the path of wisdom to betray all Middle-Earth in the hunt for it.

>sigh<

Sting, Bilbo's knife, is a sterling example of an intelligent magic item that communicates via empathy and can detect goblinoids...

But the Ring is more, and less, than an intelligent magic item: more, because it really, truly is a major artifact. Less, because its only sentience is an echo of its maker's mind. And Sauron, if he must be categorized in D&D/PF terms, is an entity on the order of a fallen Solar, twisted by his own greed and arrogance into a fiend, fled from heaven and bound into Middle-Earth (much to...

So your saying Sauron was closer to a Sith Lord and we can think of the ring as being kind of like his light saber...

@Everyone else - In our party we have a crazy barbarian who believes that his axe can talk to him. He follows the axe's 'directions' at all times. We've decided that once we can afford it we're going to secretly enchant his axe up to intelligent weapon status. So there's one more reason for crafting an intelligent item right there.

[Ope]

I think Sauron's ring was more like a Horcrux (yes, Harry Potter reference). He in essence split his soul so he could not be permanently killed unless the ring was destroyed. The portion of his soul within the ring influenced the greed and desires within those who came into contact with it.

[Jackissocool]

Hey now, I know my source material. Sauron never really died, no. And now that I think about it, his regeneration, for lack of a better word, may not have been dependent on the ring. When numenor fell, iirc, the rings had not yet been forged. Certainly not the one. But he escaped that, described as a pale shadow of what he was. When he regenerated from this, he could no longer appear as the beautiful divine being he'd been going around as to poison the hearts of men. This, I think, is his transformation to lichdom, or at least some state of undeath. I think the ring was probably, though not necessarily, a phylactery because it held his essence. A long as the ring existed, he could regenerate himself. That's the whole point of the books. It really fits a lot the qualifications of a phylactery: it held the soul of an undead being that it could regenerate, and it was extremely hard to destroy. It's also an artifact. Since (I think) the ring was created after he escaped numenor, this would mean he was already undead before creating his phylactery. So, stretching the rules, certainly. He could be something other than a lich. But whatever the case, I think it's clear he was undead and had an artifact served a phylactery-like purpose.

[Jackissocool]

I think he was probably a lesser angel than a solar, considering middle earth is a low-powered setting. Some type of deva. The greater gods (manwe, melkor, etc.) would be solars. The valar, as they were. Sauron was a maia. Maias were lesser angelic beings.

[Dogbladewarrior]

Actually carrying multiple intelligent items can be a really bad idea. Because 1. If you roll badly an item that doesn't like what you are doing can seize control of you and 2. Intelligent items are jealous creatures that can sense each others presence and are antipathetic to each other, which can create some truly hilarious cluster #$%^s as they all try to get you to ignore or destroy each other. With role playing and good alignment items your DM might ignore this but don't count on it right out of the gate.

[Morain]

I do it to get more actions per round (item cast spells on it's own)

[Kthulhu]

Yeah, neither Morgoth nor Sauron actually DIED, they just lost enough power to become rather ineffectual.

[Munkir]

I made one in my HC to add a bit of flavor to the game and to neatly wrap up my characters back story.

I also like that my item can heal me when needed.