Are creatures created by items really alive?

[Sandwich8080]

A week or two ago, our party came across a robe of useful things. One of the patches was for a mule. This brought up the discussion on whether or not that mule would have a soul.

The horn of valhalla summons barbarians that are constructs, though they appear to be humans. Is this the same with the robe? Assuming you played a character that saw all life, including animals, as equal, would they be opposed to using that mule to spring a trap?

[Renen]

It depends... If the item just "makes" the creatures, then I dont think they should be considered "alive" (or alive but w/o a soul, which is pretty much the same thing in my book). But if an item summons them from somewhere, then they are definitely alive.

[Sandwich8080]

It depends... If the item just "makes" the creatures, then I dont think they should be considered "alive" (or alive but w/o a soul, which is pretty much the same thing in my book). But if an item summons them from somewhere, then they are definitely alive.

That was my stance on it. Summon monster calls a creature with a soul, robe of useful things makes a "representation" of a living creature.

[Jack_Simth]

That was my stance on it. Summon monster calls a creature with a soul, robe of useful things makes a "representation" of a living creature.
Raw states that it is a mule. It is the "actual item", to as much RAW as we have.

[Phelix-Mu]

If the item requires a specific spell to create, I usually try to extend the RAW for the item in the direction of that spell. Not always applicable, because the required spells are often not very representative of the various powers of the item.

Generally speaking, summoned stuff comes from somewhere and probably has a soul. Conjuration (creation), on the other hand, tends to craft stuff from scratch, and should probably not also craft a soul.

[unseenmage]

For me it comes down to whether the spell or effect has a duration of Instantaneous or Permanent.

If a "living" conjuration/summons is dispellable then it's probably not a "real" thing. It's just arcane might given form.

if the "living" thing isn't dispellable then it was well and truly created and could go on to have a life after the players are done with it.


Another, albeit unconnected, way to look at it is, do you really want to roll to determine if every potentially summonable/conjurable creature was made of magic at some undetermined point in time before the players arrived on the scene?

Just my 2 cents.

[Phelix-Mu]

I believe it is RAW that summoned creatures do come from somewhere, and have souls if the base creature is considered to have one. After the summoning ends, they go back to where they are from.

I imagine it wouldn't be hard for the item creator to create a variant of robe of useful items that went either way, as the overall difference in the resulting effect is quite minor. One creates/summons a donkey, the other creates a creature with the same MM entry as a donkey.

Oh, wait. It was a mule, wasn't it.