OK some context. My GM has given me a spirit of intellect that can level on its own. My character is an undead lord cleric. My GM has allowed the spirit to inhabit my skeletal companion and use the body with its levels (all fighter).
It has been adventuring with our group since the inception of the campaign and we just hit level 20. As you can imagine the spirit as a 20th level warrior has a bunch of feats etc. to leverage armor and weapons, which the skeleton has been wearing and using.
So, now I want to make him a golem. The spirit can inhabit the golem just like the skeleton, that is not the issue (i.e. similar effect to an awakened golem). I know that armor and weapons do not size when worn, but if I get him large sized weapons and armor for the body as appropriate could he use them?
Specifically:
- Would Magic armor improve the golem's armor class?
- Could the golem wear misc magic items and be able to wear them?
- Could he wear a ring and gain its effects and use it's powers (i.e. ring of elemental command)
- Can he wield a longsword as his primary weapon?
I cannot find anything in any book or post that covers this. I know that golems are immune to any spell that has SR, but armor and weapons are different effects. Misc magic items confer an effect, but it is not spell trigger or spell completion, so I think they would work (my opinion). Same with Rings.
If anyone has any rule reference on this it would be great. I just want to help my GM with some precedent either way when we discuss.
Thanks.
You're going to have to ask your GM.
I'm certain that pretty much everything your asking about here is made up by your GM.
As far as I'm aware there isn't a creature called Spirit of Intellect, necromancers have no way to create one, it couldn't inhabit a skeleton or a golem. Since it seems like we're deep in house rule territory, how these sorts of questions are answered will depend on your GM.
That said your GM appears very lenient in the first place, so it's probably a yes to all the questions.
Ignoring the homebrew parts as much as possible... a theoretical sentient golem would be a bipedal creature with hands (unless you made it some other shape) and therefore have all the same magic item slots as a person, including armor, rings, etc. An unintelligent golem wouldn't get any benefit from anything that wasn't continuously active, wouldn't be able to wield a held weapon, and would take nonproficiency penalties for wearing armor. A sentient golem with fighter levels shouldn't face any of those problems.
Many magic items affect you w/o actually casting a spell on you, e.g. a ring of energy resistance doesn't actually cast resist energy. The golem's immunity to spells shouldn't kick in for such things. But if the item's description says "can cast feather fall on the wearer 1/day" it would fail on a golem wearer, since feather fall allows spell resistance. If it just makes you fall slowly, it would work. Or so I read things. Note that for many, many items it is ambiguous which of these it's doing, so your GM will have calls to make.
Leaving aside the Spirit of Intellect thing, there is no reason in the rules that a Golem can't wear armor. Natural Armor and armor are separate bonuses to AC, so they stack just fine. Normally a golem isn't proficient with armor, so they would take the armors armor check penalty to attacks and such. This does mean that in theory all Golems should wear ceremonial silk armor or a haramaki for +1 to AC, which seems somewhat absurd but by the rules it works just fine.
In general, magical immunity is not going to prevent magic items from functioning. Unless the item used a spell or spell like ability that targeted the wearer and was subject to spell resistance it would not apply. A GM would be reasonable to assume that a magical item that functioned like one of these spells would also fail. Contruct immunities could also play a role. Typically Golems have no language (or intelligence), and so couldn't activate a command word item like a ring, whether that is a physical limitation (unable to speak because they don't have lungs, a voicebox ext.) or just a mental one (again they have no brain) or both isn't ever explored, and may not matter to your spirit anyway (if it can talk on its own regardless of what it inhabits.)
Golems typically aren't proficient with weapons, but as your spirit is it should be able to wield a weapon just fine.
At least one published AP includes a unique sentient golem that wears a cloak of elvenkind and fights with a weapon. The construct modification rules in Ult Magic give rules for adding weapons (and proficiency) to any construct. So there is some precedant in published material.
Being immune to 'magic' which turns out to be 'you have infinite SR, and you don't have a choice about activating it or not its always on' limits the magic items that you can use. Anything that directly copies a spell effect shouldn't work. I believe this includes the Ring of Energy Resistance that Fuzzy thinks should be fine.
Really, its just a difference of opinion. I don't feel either of us can really say we are 'correct' here.
Most golems with weird weapons that generate magic effects that aren't standard to a golem are explained as being part of their construction and not seperate items.
I can think of one golem that became 'awakened' and it used a cloak of elven kind and a scythe as a weapon.
Armored Golems are really unherd of. The only published example isn't really armored so much as its a flesh golem with iron plates sunk into its body. The monster has an armor bonus, but doesn't wear actual armor. Players ask all the time, Piazo has never supplied an answer. Considering that by the time you can afford to construct a golem its usually behind the curve as far as monsters go adding armor is probably fine. However, adding a bunch of class levels to one isn't going to be fine.
Lets say you make an Iron Golem. That is a CR 13 monster. Now lets say you add 10 fighter levels to said monster. That makes it a CR 22 monster, if you equip it lightly like most NPCs. If you equip it like a Player, then its going to gain 1 or 2 CRs. So in effect, you've created something that could be thrown at an entire group of level 20 players as a challenge. As your cohort. Which is never suppose to be as powerful as you. Which probably will be more powerful than your entire party.
And also let me make an argument against making a golem. Golems being immune to magic makes them great guardians. It also makes them lousy traveling companions. You want to teleport to the next town? Golem is immune. Use Summon Golem just for him. Want to Magic Mansion for the night? Golem can't enter. Want to Plane Shift? Golem is immune. Going to mass fly to get past this obstacle? Golem is immune.
Maybe, just maybe consider Phantom Armor instead?
Spell resistance doesn't stop a ring of energy resistance, so I'm not sure how to get from "infinite SR" to "that ring doesn't work". Golems are creatures, and they can benefit from any magic item they can (a) wear and/or (b) activate.
As for monsters as cohorts, that's something the GM has to figure out. A bog-standard iron golem is already likely to be out of bounds even if you have a maxed-out Leadership score considering a stone giant is already impossible (effective cohort level 18, but cohorts can't advance past 17).
Meirril wrote: Really, its just a difference of opinion. I don't feel either of us can really say we are 'correct' here. No, we can safely say Fuzzy is correct. Most Golems contain the line "[Specific golem] is immune to any spell or spell-like abilities that allow for spell resistance..." with exceptions at the end. Magic items are neither spells nor spell-like abilities, though some of them cast (a) spell(s) when used. Magic items are also not subject to spell resistance (again, unless they're used to cast spells). Having failed all criteria, a golem's Immunity to Magic (EX) does not apply to magic items (though it may apply to spells cast by/with them, subject to the specifics of each golem type).
Meirril wrote: Anything that directly copies a spell effect shouldn't work. This may or may not be true in the meta sense, but it's unarguably incorrect from the standpoint of the rules. Magic items don't cast spells unless they specifically say they do.
Meirril wrote: You want to teleport to the next town? Golem is immune. Teleport wrote: Only objects held or in use (attended) by another person receive saving throws and Spell Resistance. This is up to the GM. Someone COULD argue that the golem body is an object attended by the Spirit, and thus is subject to SR and thus can't be teleported, but unless that person is the GM I can't see why they would, and even then they could just say no by fiat. This may be a loophole, as you can't even attempt to teleport the unwilling, so why bother with saving throws or SR entries? I don't think the devs considered someone teleporting a golem.
Meirril wrote: Want to Magic Mansion for the night? Golem can't enter. Mage's Magic Mansion doesn't allow for spell resistance, so the golem should have no problems entering.
You are entirely correct about Plane Shift and Mass Fly.
Look, maybe Golems shouldn't be allowed to use magic items or teleport or enter a MMM, but they can, because general rules suggest they can, and the specific ones don't say they can't. Whether that's balanced or not is off-topic.
Thanks all for this info and opinions. It really helps.
I agree that my cohort is OP. In addition to everything else we are Mythic as well.
At one point we fought a mage who could summon one ancient red dragon each round. "Slim" (my skelly) and our fighter/rogue fought 5 dragons for two rounds until our sorcerer could maximize mythic magic missile the bad guy down, which caused them to disappear. Fun times.
The game is reaching its finale. Let's just say that our group is all super tough and leave it at that. :)
My character is also a item crafter and I get around the golem movement problem by using a custom made portable hole that has a 10' opening. I paid through the nose for it along with a sub quest, but it was worth it to plan to move him around.
blahpers wrote: Spell resistance doesn't stop a ring of energy resistance, so I'm not sure how to get from "infinite SR" to "that ring doesn't work". Golems are creatures, and they can benefit from any magic item they can (a) wear and/or (b) activate.
As for monsters as cohorts, that's something the GM has to figure out. A bog-standard iron golem is already likely to be out of bounds even if you have a maxed-out Leadership score considering a stone giant is already impossible (effective cohort level 18, but cohorts can't advance past 17).
My reasoning is that the item directly copies the effect of the spell it is based on. The spell itself is SR: Yes (harmless). Also the effect is unbalancing for the creature.
Trying to cover for the creature's only magical weakness makes it significantly tougher than it should be. If a GM was doing this it would rate a several CR boost and in a campaign I was running I would seriously have to consider how to adjust the expense of the golem, not just if the golem could use items, which is probably why you don't see golems using items because it can basically invalidate their weaknesses turning it from an interesting melee focused encounter into a "who gave an iron golem a Crown of Brillance?!?" kind of thing.
Dallium wrote:
Meirril wrote: You want to teleport to the next town? Golem is immune. Teleport wrote: Only objects held or in use (attended) by another person receive saving throws and Spell Resistance. This is up to the GM. Someone COULD argue that the golem body is an object attended by the Spirit, and thus is subject to SR and thus can't be teleported, but unless that person is the GM I can't see why they would, and even then they could just say no by fiat. This may be a loophole, as you can't even attempt to teleport the unwilling, so why bother with saving throws or SR entries? I don't think the devs considered someone teleporting a golem.
Any Golem is never going to be considered an 'object'. It is 100% a creature, or it has ceased to be a golem permanently, spirit or no possessing spirit.
There is also a specific spell to summon golems to the controller.
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