Optimizing Animate Object

[Larkas]

So, I've been imagining a wizard that carries a suit of full plate around to animate when needed, basically a kind of minionmancy on the go. Animate Object, however, is... Weak. Do you guys know of any way to buff it up and make it useful as a character's main schtick?

[noob]

The trick with animated objects is to craft them with 20 attacks(linear price) then add them a lot of strength(linear price) and make it a arm replacement(constant price)
If you want to cast the spell you need to haul the hugest item you can animate with a lot of properties and manage to find a way to cast many times the spell in a short time-span(on different targets).
Then ABUSE explosive rune and alchemist fires and those greater spell glyph on the object you carry.(With blood money glyph is free!)
Also while you are there try to get 25 str and you can make permanent symbols of healing and pack them up inside your armor for healing yourself.

[Dondasch]

Not a buff, but something to note about the spell: you can change the target as a move action. In other words, if your minion gets bet up, start animating something else.

Unfortunately, PF changed the animated object rules (you don't get abilites automatically for having certain features), so I don't think you can just lug around a Huge bedsheet to have a grappler on demand. This means it's hard to get better objects, the easy way to buff the spell.

Try getting a Talisman of the Disk from 3.5 (or a bunch) to carry around your objects. If you can't get that, just prepare the spell normally.

[Harmelyo]

One trick I always wanted to pull out.

- build or get built a set of statues, with the following specs:

multi-limbed so you can add more slams. Bonus: get some blade like limbs to justify changing the type of damage if you need it in a pinch.
materials : wood and stone at least to get a bit of variation on the hardness. Bonus if you can get a third made out of metal. Bonus bonus if it is uncommon metal but it is expansive as hell...
Size: depends on the general environment and your own level/money but I would not go bigger than Huge if you are medium sized (I'll explain later why), if you are Large well knock yourself out and go for Gargantuan. Note: I would recommend getting smaller ones as well for cramped situations, you won't get a Wyrm sized statue to fit in a 5*5 corridor.


What do I animate?
It is always a pain to have this spell and nothing to animate better than a spork (the bastard child of... I am digressing, lets just say it won't even tickle the angry Ogre in front of you...).
So as you probably figured the statues are the solution to always have something relevant to animate. Now the issue is...

How do I go around with a cart sized multi-limbed statue???? or Why do I hard-set a size limit?
Well it is all fun to have nice statues so you are ready in every situation, but well... a Huge stone statue does not fit in your bag and you may end up even encumbering the mule... I mean figther with such a huge collection.

That is where magic save the day...again... Say hello to your new friend (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/s/shrink-item) !
Shrink item will let you downsize your statues to a more credible size: Huge => Tiny, Gargantuan => Small.

It last day/level so it should not take you too much ressources. you stil may want to invest in a few scrolls or a wand just to not have to abandonnate your statue after it has been upsized.

Now that your statues are manageable, you can just throw/drop/nicely ask the Rogue to throw them at the beginning of the fight (even funnier if you have quick-draw) and then all you have to do is cast animate on it and rejoice in your statue of doom being there at the right time.

Note: You don't want to permancy Shrink Item as it costs a lot of money and you are the only one able to unshrink the statue instead of just throwing it to the ground. Bonus: You won't cry as much if someone break the statue, make whole will suffice, you won't have to re-permanencied it (and pay the huge price tag again).

Important Notes:
You may want to devise a way to protect your statues from AMF and targetted dispell while you are transporting them. My best idea up to now was to keep them in closed lead-lined bags. This should protect them from both effect as there is no line of sight or effect on the statues while they are in the bags.

the bags won't be an issue in a time constrained/combat situation as throwing the bag hard enough should suffice to un-shrink the statue which should proceed to shred the bag.
Note: Keep a few spare bags just in case :smallbiggrin: you don't want to die burried under 3 of YOURS statues!