What are the rules regarding created creatures/sentient objects using magic items?
Could an intelligent staff wield a Ring of the Ram?
Could a Golem wear a Cloak of Resistance?
Could an Animated Desk activate a Feather Token?
The nuances and differences between the examples escape me. Any discussion or rules citation would be fantastic.
Let's start with this from the core rules concerning Intelligent magic items.
CRB wrote: Magic items sometimes have intelligence of their own. Magically imbued with sentience, these items think and feel the same way characters do and should be treated as NPCs. and
Quote: Intelligent items can actually be considered creatures because they have Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma scores. Treat them as constructs. Intelligent items often have the ability to illuminate their surroundings at will (as magic weapons do); many cannot see otherwise. That said a Staff has no fingers ... it is going to be a GM decision if the Ring could fit on the Staff as if it were a finger and function if so placed. That is one mighty big and thick finger, a 'normal' sized Staff is 2 to 3 inches in diameter. Then again Quote: When an article of magic clothing or jewelry is discovered, most of the time size shouldn't be an issue. Many magic garments are made to be easily adjustable, or they adjust themselves magically to the wearer. Size should not keep characters of various kinds from using magic items. So sure why not let the Staff 'wear' and use a Ring of the Ram.
Golem isn't really an intelligent item it's a typically mindless creature but that is a really blurry line I admit. Pretty much the only difference is most magic items have no say in who 'uses' them. A golem is pretty much a magic item only useable by its creator. But an Intelligent item has Ego, generates Will saves and all that so ... blurry :)
So can it use a Cloak of Resistance: No reason I can think of that a Golem couldn't wear one. Except most are mindless. I'd think someone else would have to put it on the Golem and perhaps check in occasionally to insure it hasn't fallen or otherwise come off. Ditto, no reason a Golem couldn't be ordered to hold and wield some sort of weapon. I've seen an adventure module where the (unique) Golem was in fact wielding differing weapons in each hand (Believe it was entitled Mordenkainen's Magnificent Adventure or something similar).
And this from the Bestiary: Quote: Iron golems sometimes carry a weapon in one hand, though they rarely use these, relying instead on their slam attacks. An Animated Desk - well this one is a no go if you mean literally under the spell Animate Object rather than an odd creature which would mean it is a Construct rather than an object and my answer is more or less "see above"
And all the above assumes our Intelligent Item can otherwise fulfill the conditions of "Using an Item" i.e. spell completion, spell trigger, command word or use activated.
I would say no, they do not have any item slots on them.
And, for balance purposes its probably better to not let them use other items in the first place. Allowing you magic sword to cast fireballs spells using a wand instead of having the magic built in to the sword itself would save a lot of money and get you a leg up on action economy. Both of these are to be avoided.
An intelligent staff can't wear a ring of the ram since it has no fingers, nor can it wield the item (if that would help) since it has no hands.
A golem can wear a cloak of resistance, since it has shoulders. It might not benefit if the GM decides that the cloak's effect is subject to spell resistance.
Feather tokens have no means of activation described, so they're most likely command word activated. If the animated desk can speak, it can speak a command word.
If you treat an intelligent item as a creature, it should be evident whether it has the physical capacity to employ an item. For items which occupy slots the answer is probably "No".
Claxon wrote: I would say no, they do not have any item slots on them.
And, for balance purposes its probably better to not let them use other items in the first place. Allowing you magic sword to cast fireballs spells using a wand instead of having the magic built in to the sword itself would save a lot of money and get you a leg up on action economy. Both of these are to be avoided.
And I agree where balance is concerned the GM would need to be careful or balance will indeed get thrown out of whack. But the counter-balance is in that first quote in my post above. Treat that Sword (or other Item) as an NPC. Adjust encounters, APL, etc. as needed as if there was an additional NPC in the party. The Sword is going to want to be treated as an equal and has the means to make its demands known and felt if so needed.
And there's that last bit in my post as well (which Starglim is pointing out). How exactly does the Sword wield (aka use) a Wand of Fireballs even assuming it can speak the trigger word i.e. "To activate a wand, a character must hold it in hand (or whatever passes for a hand, for nonhumanoid creatures) and point it in the general direction of the target or area." The spell also must be on the creatures spell list to avoid other requirements. I think the GM is perfectly reasonable with having the Sword announce it does not wish to be given that silly stick of wood as its share of the treasure even if it does go "boom boom". "Do I look like a *^&%^#$$% Wizard to you? Do I have UMD? Now that simply lovely Scabbard of Keen Edges you'll wear that just for me right, we'd look good together don't you think? And I get to choose when to get all tingly by activating the scabbard of course? Why does 'Merlin' keep muttering about disjoining things?"
Kayerloth wrote:
And there's that last bit in my post as well (which Starglim is pointing out). How exactly does the Sword wield (aka use) a Wand of Fireballs even assuming it can speak the trigger word...
The real elephant in the room is that most magic items are just that: items. Forget whether they can wield a wand, most can't stand, move, or otherwise act on their own in the first place. Even if you could get the sword to "hold" the wand (maybe by Scotch-taping the two of them together?), the sword would then just fall on the ground and lay there, unable to sit up, turn around, or otherwise walk to a position where it could see what it was firing at.
A golem or construct is different. A construct can be given a magic sword. There is precedence for this in every incarnation of the rules since the 1970s, including Pathfinder. For instance, the clockwork soldier comes standard with a +1 halberd. You can awaken a construct to allow it to use other magic items. Once it acquires an Intelligence score and gets a new Charisma score, it becomes an NPC (or PC, GM willing), and can use any item used by a regular character.
Well an intelligent magic item is a Construct according to the CRB, to reiterate:
Quote: Intelligent items can actually be considered creatures because they have Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma scores. Treat them as constructs. Intelligent items often have the ability to illuminate their surroundings at will (as magic weapons do); many cannot see otherwise. They are creatures of the type construct that one should treat as NPCs. They are creatures with no Str, no Dex and no Con scores. It would seem they do have Hardness and HP. And it would seem they have either AC or CMD as well.
Note that some can Fly (30ft listed speed), others can sprout limbs (10ft listed speed) and others can "change shape into one other form of the same size" a rather vague polymorph ability (all apparently at will). And those are all without getting into the lists for "Special Purpose Item Dedicated Powers" which can include up to 7th level spells at will which certainly opens the door to balance issues, rules questions and all sorts of potential movement abilities while in pursuit of their special purpose. Both Form of the Dragon II and Elemental Body IV, for example, are 7th level spells.
Given the tables in the CRB it's quite possible our hypothetical Sword could grow a limb, grab the wand, use its 10 ranks of UMD, and Fly around the room launching Fireballs. Is that potentially unbalancing? Yes I think Claxon is right to be concerned but the rules most definitely present it as a possibility and give rules advice on how to handle such an item as well. The whole darn magic item creation rules are a minefield of potential campaign troubles for a GM to navigate, why should intelligent items be any less troubling :p. I'm personally inclined to think having an intelligent chatty magical Top Hat of Disguise or a grumpy Sustaining Spoon could make for a fun, unique and interesting "NPC"/magic item for a PC and might be worth the risk.
What Keyerloth said. Intelligent magic items are about as close to regular magic items as humans are to human corpses.
If I wanted to have a intelligent sword cast from a wand I would just have the wand in a hollow pommel and have it cast Weaponwand on itself, then it just casts the spell normally (though as a note the sword would need to be able to speak a command word to activate a wand).
PCs shouldn't ever be the ones designing intelligent magic items and DMs include them at their campaign's risk.
A flying top hat with Major Image and Snow Shape at will. I call him "Frosty".
Quote: PCs shouldn't ever be the ones designing intelligent magic items Eh? Why not? If the answer is "because PCs can design broken items", they don't need the intelligent item rules for that.
So it mostly comes down to item slots/ability to manipulate an object.
If a magic staff could cast, say, Telekinesis, could it use that to do something like activate an Instant Fortress?
As for not having suitable Item Slots, I'm not sure I agree. By that logic, Merfolk PCs don't get Boots slots. I can see the logic in it, but it seems like a serious unwritten disadvantage to characters without human physiology.
What about magic items that don't use slots?
An intelligent wayfinder?
How we run, passive items can benefit anything that could benefit from it. Drape your potions in a cloak of resistance and they'll get the cloaks bonus to saves.
We run it pretty loosely though, generally going for "would this make sense?". My group knows that if they'll try to game it to weird or broken effects I might disallow it, so they keep it reasonable.
I'd allow an intelligent sword to use non-slotted items that don't require holding, physical aiming or other phyiscal manipulation - thus, it could use ioun stones, but not a wand, rod or similar. I might give it a tiny area of influence of a few centimeters, so it can activate a feather token next to it - but not anything that requires aiming.
All of these are outside the rules as written, of course - it doesn't deal with so specific things. In fact, it doesn't even really deal in what parts you have to have to use an item ("shoulder" isn't really a defined game-term, and neither is "hand").
blahpers wrote: Quote: PCs shouldn't ever be the ones designing intelligent magic items Eh? Why not? If the answer is "because PCs can design broken items", they don't need the intelligent item rules for that. I'd say one should be pretty careful with custom items in general, but when it comes to creating what's basically both a custom item and a custom creature, even more so. It's kind of like a player designing a new breed of demon to call with Planar Binding using the monster creation guidelines - while possible, one should be very careful with that kind of things.
Doomed Hero wrote: So it mostly comes down to item slots/ability to manipulate an object.
If a magic staff could cast, say, Telekinesis, could it use that to do something like activate an Instant Fortress?
As for not having suitable Item Slots, I'm not sure I agree. By that logic, Merfolk PCs don't get Boots slots. I can see the logic in it, but it seems like a serious unwritten disadvantage to characters without human physiology.
The ARG mentions having equivalent items for inhuman PCs, like boot-slot flippers for Merfolk or horseshoes for centaurs.
Sure, TK would work. Hopefully the item can't use it at will.
Actually, it'd be more amusing if it was limited times per day. It's strategies when doing so could cause the most mayhem.
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I'm now picturing two intelligent ioun stones equipping each other.
blahpers wrote: I'm now picturing two intelligent ioun stones equipping each other. Kinky
Ioun Stones wrote: When a character first acquires a [ioun] stone, she must hold it and then release it, whereupon it takes up a circling orbit 1d3 feet from her head.
I'm not sure how they'd accomplish this though.
blahpers wrote: I'm now picturing two intelligent ioun stones equipping each other. A perpetual motion device!
Now to make an Ioun Cloud as an NPC for my characters to meet. It'll be like a cross between the Geth and the Blob.
There is also a list in the Animal Archive companion that lists the body slots on non-humanoid creatures. It doesn't cover the body slots for, say, an animated candelabra, or an intelligent bag of holding, but it provides a starting out point to show what body types can be adapted. The list can also be found on this page http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items a little less than halfway down.
blahpers wrote: Eh? Why not? If the answer is "because PCs can design broken items", they don't need the intelligent item rules for that. In my opinion it is for the same reason that PCs shouldn't be taking leadership and designing their own cohorts, the temptation to do something cheesy or something that doesn't fit in the game world is too great. That said obviously there are groups where the players can be trusted with that responsibility, I'm just saying that that should be the exception not the rule.
I wonder if an intelligent item can gain class levels... I want a singing sword with levels in Bard.
+1 for the sentient Ioun Swarm
And now that I think about it, this reminds me of a question which I am not sure I have seen answered:
Intelligent items can do things like activating items. They can use their special powers. Can they activate themselves?
CRB wrote: Unlike most magic items, intelligent items can activate their own powers without waiting for a command word from their owner. Intelligent items act during their owner's turn in the initiative order. There you go :)
There's also this later on in the section about 'Dedicated Powers'
Quote: Unlike its other powers, an intelligent item can refuse to use its dedicated powers even if the owner is dominant (see Items Against Characters).
Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
The question, I think, is whether the claim about "activate their own powers" refers specifically only to their intelligent item powers, or to whatever normal properties they have.
Say you make a staff, and make it intelligent, giving it the power of "use a 0-level spell 3x/day". Can it use only that spell on its turn, or can it use any of the spells contained in it? ... Of course, it might need a UMD check to do that, but you can give it stats and skill bonuses allowing it to do so.
I believe that intellegent items are in controll of all aspects of themselves.
It's the little leverage they have with there wielders.
seebs wrote: The question, I think, is whether the claim about "activate their own powers" refers specifically only to their intelligent item powers, or to whatever normal properties they have.
Say you make a staff, and make it intelligent, giving it the power of "use a 0-level spell 3x/day". Can it use only that spell on its turn, or can it use any of the spells contained in it? ... Of course, it might need a UMD check to do that, but you can give it stats and skill bonuses allowing it to do so.
Count me in agreement with Zotpox. I think it is intended that they can use things as an intelligent construct NPC. Therefore if your Staff was an intelligent Staff of Journeys it could elect to use either 1 of its 3 uses of Ray of Frost or cast (or attempt to cast) any of the spells a Staff of Journeys normally contains (provided it could properly target etc.).
Timebomb Jan 3, 2014, 09:56 AM
"A flying top hat with Major Image and Snow Shape at will. I call him "Frosty"."
BRILLIANT!
There are examples of magic items that have allowances for other magic items to be placed on it. For instance a Wayfinder has a spot for an Ioun Stone. A Hand of Glory lets you use your neck slot for Magic Rings. The idea of an intelligent magic weapon with Weaponwand seems perfectly legal and well-described in the rules. And it shouldn't be too hard to describe within rules how to put magic item slots in other magic items.
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