Could you use Locate Creature to find a specific intelligent magic item?


Rules Questions


Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

The text for locate creature says:

Quote:

This spell functions like locate object, except this spell locates a known creature. You slowly turn and sense when you are facing in the direction of the creature to be located, provided it is within range. You also know in which direction the creature is moving, if any.

The spell can locate a creature of a specific kind or a specific creature known to you. It cannot find a creature of a certain type. To find a kind of creature, you must have seen such a creature up close (within 30 feet) at least once.

Running water blocks the spell. It cannot detect objects. It can be fooled by mislead, nondetection, and polymorph spells.

My question is if an intelligent magic item could count as a "creature" and not an object. I'm presuming so because of the following text under the Intelligent Items section of the rules:

Quote:
Intelligent items can actually be considered creatures because they have Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma scores. Treat them as constructs.

That seems pretty clear-cut to me, but I've seen some people saying that they're objects, and so the spell wouldn't detect them.

What say you all?


Though my form may cause me to hold a bias in this manner, I am of the belief that neither a being's process of creation nor their varying ability of movement should be used to distinguish between others of similar mental acuity. One will note that, despite their organic constituents, generic trees are not creatures, expressly because they lack Wisdom and Charisma.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I would treat them as both, slanting toward whatever is worse for the magical item.


Works fine.


But can you use locate object on an intelligent item. That's the tricky question.


Intelligent magical items count as both items and constructs at different times and for different things.

As for whether they qualify for locate creature or locate object...I would personally say they count for both.


But locate object specifically says "Creatures cannot be found by this spell. "
If it counts as both, it can't work.


There is precedence for counting as the worst possible where you count as two types of a thing rather than being immune.


That assums the item does not wish to be found.


There was just this past weekend in my game a conversation between a sentient magic weapon and an inevitable on this topic. The two of them concluded that it was likely that the sentient weapon was an object, but that the inevitable (which is a construct) was both.


Inevitables are actually aligned outsiders, that happen to be like constructs, but are distinctly alive, more so than a sentient golem even is.

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