Help design the manual shutdown for my construct

[Rethmar]

Running a game this weekend in which they've encountered a Thassilonian ore digging construct. It takes the shape of a mechanical worm, 8 feet around and 30 feet long. It has 4 segments, each with 6 surfaces. Each surface is inscribed with a Thassilonian rune. The segments may or may not rotate for added mechanics.

My original thought is that to manually shut it down, they can target the specific runes with appropriate elements/schools of magic. But I'm not so sure that's as interesting as it could be and you guys are clever. If you have any ideas, let me know.

Thanks in advance.

[Sheogoroth]

I have to imagine a Thassilonian miner casting 6 spells to shut down a giant power drill and it's got me scratching my head.
It's clever, but it doesn't really make sense.

What is the context of them running into it? Has it just been burrowing through the earth for ten-thousand years? Is the thing trying to kill them? And who would design a giant earth bore to kill people in the vicinity?

[unseenmage]

IIRC the basic rule for Constructs in PF is that their creator can lay a hand on them and simply order them to deactivate.

That said if this particular Construct requires a more involved process there should probably be a good reason.


Alternatively, making it a command sequence that also happens to deactivate the thing sounds more likely to me.

The PCs can muddle through and discover the sequence but without the long lost passphrase cannot command the thing so it defaults to shutdown mode.
Still not strictly RAW but it sounds fun enough.


Hitting the runes in sequence seems a clever idea. Maybe offer up a few Know Arcana checks to ID the critter and Know History to ID the runes perhaps?