Dear Ask Paizo,
We're starting the last module of our AP this week, and the DM gave us a cinematic vision which included giant statues being built in a city. Our party may soon include an NPC who can cast Animate Objects, and for fun I'm thinking of this NPC using Animate Objects outside the city in question to create a statue bigger than those within the city as a riposte or a 'nanny-nanny boo-boo' to the AP's antagonist.
I picture our NPC standing on some karst outside the city and casting Animate Objects on the stone adjacent to her, rising it out of the ground before shifting the spell to another volume each round to maximize the net amount of stone moved, stacking these pieces on top of one another and fusing them by casting Wall of Stone within the pieces. Then this NPC uses Stone Shape to rough out the statue.
My questions are:
When casting Animate Objects, can the objects in question be a contiguous part of a larger object, like part of a solid stone hill or a section of karst, or would the objects being animated have to be loose scree, rocks, boulders, etc. in this example?
Does the 15' x 15' square area of a huge object imply a 15' height in the case of a solid piece of stone?
Animate Objects:
Min caster is 11th level.
You can make 1 small object per caster level max.
You can make fewer larger objects.
You can make a minimum of a Huge object.
At 16th level, you can make a Gargantuan object.
I doubt the AP lets you get the 32nd level caster needed for a Colossal object. :-)
How big are the city's statues?
I suggest changing your plan.
Possess Object:
Min caster is 9th level.
No size limitation.
Take over one of those statues.
Add Fabricate, and make your own statue from convenient material.
Min caster 9th level.
10 cu ft per level.
Standard human is 2 cu ft.
Using the doubling in Animate Objects, we get a Colossal object as 32 cubic feet, well within the minimum cast of 90 cubic feet. Using the cube law instead, a Gargantuan statue is 128 cubic feet, needing a 13th level caster.
Plan: Fabricate a Colossal statue outside the city, then possess it and walk in while the possessor's body is hidden in a bag of holding or something.
/cevah