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I've looked around on the forums a bit and seen a few questions but not much in the way of answers on these. Perhaps my search skills just aren't up to par, in which case I'd greatly appreciate any links anyone does have. That said, here are my questions:
If you animate an object that is a material other than wood, say adamantine, how is it handled? Does the object become wood unless you spend the points to make it adamantine, does it remain adamantine (and thus DR penetration) but have wood's hardness, or are you required to spend the points and cannot animate it if it doesn't have enough points?
If you use Possess Object to possess a table it appears the attacks of the table would become your new natural attacks? Considering the table is a manufactured item, though, would you gain iterative attacks instead/in addition to? I assume no with the clarification that the object becomes treated as a creature and no longer an object for things like energy damage reduction. If I animate a statue can I pick up a weapon and use it? Assuming you could, if I have a statue with 4 attacks (normal statue with 2 hands) and use a 1h sword, could I still take the 4 "natural" attacks?
How do you determine the size of a "creature" you animate? If I animate a 100 foot chain what size would it be considered? It would only weigh like 20 lbs but is weight a requirement of size?
In the case of Possess Object, how does the "creature" see? According the bestiary entry it has darkvision 60' and low light vision so it obviously CAN see, but could it be blinded? What is it's vision range normally? (low light just says you can see twice as far as human in low light conditions)
Since an Animated Object is considered a construct with construct traits, do you gain that quality when using Possess Object?
The Possess Object spell does not list a material component but says it functions as Magic Jar. Does your 'soul' move to a gem and you can switch between multiple objects or do you just cast it and take over one creature? It actually doesn't show ANY components, material, somatic, verbal, or otherwise, is that intended?
(http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/ultimateMagic/spells/possessObject.html #_possess-object)
Is a corpse considered an object? Can you take over objects smaller than tiny (tiny is the smallest size listed in the bestiary entry)? If so do you just treat it as tiny? Could you animate the gem your 'soul' is in (assuming it goes into one, as in Magic Jar)?
Does damage scale with the size of the animated object or is it 1d6 no matter if it is tiny or gargantuan? If the form you animate has only 1 attack, either by choice or by point limitation, is it treated as a primary natural attack with the 1 1/2 str modifier (The bestiary seems to imply it does since it has a 14 str and gets +3 damage with 1 attack). Assuming it does, that seems to fully confirm these are just treated as normal natural attacks so what about a monk who is in possession of an object, can he flurry and use natural attacks (with appropriate feats of course)?
Sorry for the long string of questions, I just saw the Possess Familiar spell for the first time today and it has me quiet excited by the possibilities.
***edited for grammar and spelling
How are you animating the object? by the spell?
Spell Link
Most animated object are in the form of something first. I don't think you can just animate a block of adamantine and have it shape itself into arms, legs, etc... You would find a table, or huge cage with chains and then animate that. Here is a link that might help some:
This link might help some
Here, this is a good link to help explain animated objects. Its sort of a complicated subject.
animated object help
Thank you for the response!
I am animating by either Animate Objects or Posses Objects , the questions are aimed at one or the other.
As to the object having to have a form, I was thinking about say a 50' adamantine chain or stone statue.
No opinions, links, or thoughts from anyone else?
Gertak wrote:
If you animate an object that is a material other than wood, say adamantine, how is it handled? Does the object become wood unless you spend the points to make it adamantine, does it remain adamantine (and thus DR penetration) but have wood's hardness, or are you required to spend the points and cannot animate it if it doesn't have enough points?
I don't have anything to back this up, but my gut says the way to rule this is that you'd need the CP to "pay" for the object's special material. So if you run across an adamantine greatsword and want to animate it, you'd need to spend 6 CP to do so. This is, of course, problematic, since only Colossal objects get that many CP (if you could animate a colossal object, I'd probably let you choose to animate the greatsword instead). It'd probably be aligned with the spirit of the game to allow you to throw some flaws in to gain CP. The flaws might represent the difficulty of enchanting such a powerful item (brittle, whatever).
Gertak wrote:
If you use Possess Object to possess a table it appears the attacks of the table would become your new natural attacks? Considering the table is a manufactured item, though, would you gain iterative attacks instead/in addition to? I assume no with the clarification that the object becomes treated as a creature and no longer an object for things like energy damage reduction. If I animate a statue can I pick up a weapon and use it? Assuming you could, if I have a statue with 4 attacks (normal statue with 2 hands) and use a 1h sword, could I still take the 4 "natural" attacks?
I'm pretty sure you'd need to spend CP to give the object a slashing/piercing attack, or to increase the number of attacks it can make. By default, my understanding is that any animated object gets a single slam attack, regardless of the shape of the object.
Gertak wrote:
How do you determine the size of a "creature" you animate? If I animate a 100 foot chain what size would it be considered? It would only weigh like 20 lbs but is weight a requirement of size?
In general, I'd look for a comparable creature, item or weapon for which you can determine a size (2-handed weapons are assumed to be of the same size of the wielder; 1-handed a size smaller, and light two sizes smaller, if I recall correctly). Where does that put a 100 ft chain? The Spiked Chain is a 2-handed exotic weapon. The chain is 4 ft in length and weighs 10 pounds. Let's be generous and say that some of that weight is from the spikes; we'll halve the weight, so it's 5 lbs. Multiply by 25 and we get a 100 ft chain weighing 125 lbs. I'd call this either a large object or, possibly, a huge (long) object. If the item were simply to double in all dimensions - so you'd have a thick, 8 ft chain weighing 40 lbs - it would be a large object. If you did that again, you'd have a 16 ft chain weighing 320 lbs, a huge object. As an alternative, you could consider the size of some large snake: the giant anaconda is 60 ft long and considered a Gargantuan animal. It might be a bit beefier than the chain you're imagining, but I'd stick with large or huge.
Gertak wrote:
In the case of Possess Object, how does the "creature" see? According the bestiary entry it has darkvision 60' and low light vision so it obviously CAN see, but could it be blinded? What is it's vision range normally? (low light just says you can see twice as far as human in low light conditions)
Won't even pretend to have an opinion on this one :)
Gertak wrote:
Since an Animated Object is considered a construct with construct traits, do you gain that quality when using Possess Object?
I'd assume so. An animated object would be immune to death effects, for instance. I imagine the caster would be immune to death effects cast on a possessed object.
Gertak wrote:
The Possess Object spell does not list a material component but says it functions as Magic Jar. Does your 'soul' move to a gem and you can switch between multiple objects or do you just cast it and take over one...
Good question.
One of the reasons I haven't commented much is that I'm kind of busy with other rules things, so... no links right now, but here's my initial idea...
aegrisomnia actually made several really good points. That's what my understanding of the rules is - that you're not spending points to transform, say, "wood" into "adamantine", but rather that's what it costs to animate that particular substance. Bear in mind that the animated object gains pliability and elasticity that it doesn't normally have - that seems like it would take a lot of power, the harder the object is.
That said, there are problems with that interpretation - I'm not really fond of the rules as implemented with that, though I understand them.
Gertak wrote: In the case of Possess Object, how does the "creature" see? According the bestiary entry it has darkvision 60' and low light vision so it obviously CAN see, but could it be blinded? What is it's vision range normally? (low light just says you can see twice as far as human in low light conditions) It has basic human senses. Sean K. Reynolds has gone to great length about this on his website - he notes that otherwise far too many game rules break down -, and I'm reasonably certain there's something similar about that in the Intelligent Items category and/or Polymorph any Object.
However, regardless of the RAW, the RAI is definitively that, unless noted otherwise, a given creature has perceptive ability more or less equal to a human of their wisdom score.
As far as the "how", it's the same way other Constructs do - by the animating force within them.
Gertak wrote: Since an Animated Object is considered a construct with construct traits, do you gain that quality when using Possess Object? ... sort of, -ish, maybe. There is some amount of precedent that a soul-in-a-construct does not gain all the immunities of a normal construct, though this is mostly about mind-affecting effects. I'd have to check the exact wording to be sure. In the mean time, there are a few interpretations:
1) the soul within the animated object is just as vulnerable <X> as normal, but the body is not, because, you know, it's a body
2) you're vulnerable to everything normally as if in your body
3) you're invulnerable to things a construct is invulnerable to
Gertak wrote: The Possess Object spell does not list a material component but says it functions as Magic Jar. Does your 'soul' move to a gem and you can switch between multiple objects or do you just cast it and take over one... I don't believe so, because there are several other effects that "function like magic jar" (such as a ghost's or shadow demon's possession ability) that don't require a gem, however, again, I'd have to look at the RAW again to be sure.
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